labfs39 wanders the world of words pt. 6

Currently Reading


The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride


The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikötter

Books Read in 2024

January
1. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (F, 3.5*)
2. The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata, translated from the Japanese by J. Martin Holman (TF, 3*)
3. The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo (TF, 3.5*)
4. All Systems Red by Martha Wells (SF, 4*)
5. Chekhov by Henri Troyat, translated from the French by Michael Henry Heim (TNF, 4.5*)
6. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (F, 5*)
7. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (SF, 3*)
8. Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker (NF, 4*)
9. Minor Detail by Shibli Adania, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (TF, 3.5*)

February
10. Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome (F, 3*)
11. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated from the Japanese by Eric Ozawa (TF, 3*)
12. Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells (SF, 3.5*)
13. Mãn by Kim Thúy, translated from the French by Sheila Fischman (TF, 3.5*)
14. River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile by Candice Millard (NF, 3*)
15. The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov, translated from the Russian by John French (TF, 4*)
16. Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (SF, 3.5*)

March
17. My Vietnam, Your Vietnam: A Dual Memoir by Christina Vo & Nghia M. Vo (NF, 3*)
18. Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang, translated from the Chinese by Martha Avery (TNF, 4*)
19. Tinkers by Paul Harding (F, 3.5*)
20. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang (YANF, 3.5*)
21. Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in China by Emily Wu and Larry Engelmann (NF, 4*)
22. Network Effect by Martha Wells (SF, 4.5*)
23. Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker (NF, 3.5*)

April
24. Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (SF, 3.5*)
25. Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter (NF, 4*)
26. Apeirogon by Colum McCann (F, 4.5*)
27. System Collapse by Martha Wells (SF, 4*)
28. A Faraway Island by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (TYA, 4*)

May
29. Half of Man is Woman by Zhang Xianliang, translated from the Chinese by Martha Avery (TF, 3.5*)
30. When We Were Colored by Clifton L. Taulbert (NF, 3*)
31. The Lily Pond by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (TF, 3*)
32. Eastbound by Maylis De Kerangal, translated from the French by Jessica Moore (TF, 4*)
33. Bitter Herbs by Marga Minco, translated from the Dutch by Jeannette K. Ringold (TYA, 4*)
34. Village School by Miss Read (F, 2.5*)
35. The Book Censor's Library by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain (TF, 4.5*)
36. The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison (F, 1.5*)
37. Deep Sea by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (TF, 3.5*)

June
38. Mooncop by Tom Gauld (GN, 3*)
39. Open Sea by Annika Thor, translated from the Swedish by Linda Schenck (TF, 3*)
40. The Door by Magda Szabó, translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix (TF, 4*)
41. The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede (NF, 4.5*)
42. The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear (F, 4*)
43. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (NF, 4.5*)
44. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid (F, 3.5*)
45. The Assault by Harry Mulisch, translated from the Dutch by Claire Nicholas White (TF, 4.5*)

July
46. Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourne (F, 3.5*)
47. The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear (F, 3*)
48. A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva (F, 3.5*)
49. Prince of Fire by Daniel Silva (F, 3*)
50. Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin (F, 2.5*)
51. They Were Good Germans Once by Evelyn Toynton (F, 3*)
52. Salt to the Sea by Ruth Sepetys (YA, 4*)
53. Letting it Go by Miriam Katin (GN, 3*)

August
54. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (F, 4*)
55. 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei (TNF, 4*)
56. God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam (F, 4*)
57. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (YA, )
58. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (F, 3.5*)

September
59. The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien (F, 3*)
60. Laura Wilder of Mansfield by William Anderson (NF, 3*)
61. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola, translated from the French by Brian Nelson (TF, 3.5*)
62. Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka (F, 4*)
63. The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (F, 3.5*)
64. Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain by Carlos Giménez, translated from the Spanish by Sonya Jones (GNF, 4*)

October
65. Broken April by Ismaïl Kadaré, translated from the Albanian (TF, 4*)
66. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese (F, audio, 4.5*)

Short Stories

See the previous thread for list of Chekhov stories read in January.

1. The Victim by Junichirō Tanizaki, translated by Ivan Morris
2. Rome 16 October 1943 a visual adaptation by Sarah Laing of a short story by Giacomo Debenedetti
3. Li Fan by Alexandra Chang
4. The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman

Anton Chekhov, translated by Constance Garnett
3. The Trousseau
4. An Inquiry
5. Fat and Thin
6. A Tragic Actor
7. A Slander
8. The Bird Market
9. Choristers
10. The Album

Book Club
✔January: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
✔February: This Other Eden by Paul Harding
March: The Lone Winter by Anne Bosworth Greene
✔April: Apeirogon by Colum McCann
✔May: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
June: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
✔July: The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin
✔August: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
✔September: Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
October: Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
November: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
December: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

Holocaust Literature
1. Rome 16 October 1943 adaptation by Sarah Laing, original story by Giacomo Debenedetti
2. A Faraway Island, The Lily Pond, and Deep Sea by Annika Thor
3. Bitter Herbs by Marga Minco
4. They Were Good Germans Once by Evelyn Toynton
5. Letting it Go by Miriam Katin

Nobel Laureates
1. The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata

Graphic Works
1. Rome 16 October 1943 adaptation by Sarah Laing, original story by Giacomo Debenedetti
2. Mooncop by Tom Gauld
3. Letting it Go by Miriam Katin
4. Paracuellos by Carlos Giménez

Children's Literature
Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke
Pi in the Sky by Wendy Mass
Hooray for Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke
Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales
Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Reading Globally

Books I've read in 2024 by nationality of author (a tricky business):

Albanian: 1
American: 27 (7 in Murderbot series, 2 in Gabriel Allon series)
Antiguan: 1
Canadian: 1
Chinese: 6
Dutch: 3
English: 5
French: 2
German: 1
Hungarian: 2
Indian American: 1
Irish: 2
Japanese: 2
Kuwaiti: 1
Kyrgyz: 1
Palestinian: 1
Russian French: 1
Scottish: 1
Spanish: 1
Swedish: 4
Vietnamese American: 1
Vietnamese Canadian: 1

Check out my Global Challenge thread, labfs39 reads around the world, for a look at a cumulative list since around 2010. And I've broken out the US by state in my labfs39 tackles the states thread.

Book stats for 2024
I am trying to promote diversity in my reading and, for the lack of a more refined method, am tracking the following:

books:
total: 66 (13 in 3 series)
countries: 20
translations: 22 (34%)
in French:
nonfiction: 17 (26%)

Authors:
women: 38 (60%)
men: 26 (40%)
both: 2
nonbinary:

nonwhite and/or non-European/US/British Commonwealth: 16 (23%)
new to me authors: 29 (45%)

Genres:
literary fiction: 36
contemporary fiction: 2
science fiction: 7
biography/memoir: 12
history: 4
medical history: 1
suspense: 2

graphic work: 3

children's fiction: 1
young adult: 9

TIOLI Challenges

July
Challenge #1: Read a biography or autobiography about a person of multi-racial identity
They were Good Germans Once
Challenge #3: Read a book that has a present European capital city in its main title
A Death in Vienna
Challenge #6: Read a book by an author any of whose names begin or end with either J, U, L, or Y
The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear
Challenge #10: The first word of the book's title is longer than the second word
Killers of a Certain Age
Prince of Fire
Challenge #11: Read a book whose title could be the name of a pub
Lioness of Boston
Salt to the Sea

August
Challenge #4: Read a book whose author has the same first name initial or last name initial as you do
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Challenge #5: Read a book whose title contradicts something you assumed or were told was untrue
The Bean Trees
Challenge #11: Read a book with the letters "au" or the words "August" or "Gold" in the title or author's name
Lincoln in the Bardo - Saunders

October
Challenge #3: Read a book about a measure of time
Broken April
Challenge #6: Read a book that has an LT rating of 3.5 or more
Covenant of Water (4.36)
Chapter #12: Complete the sentence "I wouldn't want to be..."
Anne of Green Gables

Unread E-Books

2022
North to Paradise: A Memoir by Ousman Umar
Where the Desert Meets the Sea by Werner Sonne
American Seoul: A Memoir by Helena Rho
Light to the Hills by Bonnie Blaylock
Local: A Memoir by Jessica Machado
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
The Singing Trees by Boo Walker (accidental purchase)

2023
Bird of Paradise by Ada Leverson (public domain)
The Limit by Ada Leverson (public domain)
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Kamusari Tales Told at Night (Forest Book 2) by Shion Miura
Where Waters Meet by Zhang Ling (First Reads)
The Wren and the Swordfish Pilot by Stella Hutchinson (First Reads)
Elizabeth's Star by Rhonda Forrest (First Reads)
The Lost Girl from Belzec: A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor by Ravit Raufman
Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace by Masha Gessen
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré (First Reads)
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Guernsey Saga: The moving story of one English family under Nazi occupation by Diana Bachmann (First Reads)
Journey To The Heartland by Xiaolong Huang (First Reads)
Don't Forget to Write by Sara Goodman Confino (First Reads)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Scorpio by Marko Kloos (First Reads)
Freydis by Gunhild Haugnes (First Reads)

2024
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. Wells
The Lone Winter by Anne Bosworth Greene (book club selection, public domain)
The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World by Kati Marton
Operation Columba—The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe by Gordon Corera
The Tiger in the Attic by Edith Milton
Lovers at the Museum by Isabel Allende (short story)
Cut and Thirst by Margaret Atwood (short story)
A Light through the Cracks: A Climber's Story by Beth Rodden (First Reads)
The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear
To Keep the Sun Alive by Rabeah Ghaffari (First Reads)
The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Curious Secrets of Yesterday by Namrata Patel (First Reads)
Thirteenth Child by Mark DeMeza (First Reads)
Open Sea by Annika Thor
Songdogs by Colum McCann
Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourne
North of Normal: A Memoir by Cea Sunrise Person (First Reads)
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (First Reads)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Best Girls by Min Jin Lee (short story)
White Mulberry by Rosa Kwon Easton (First Reads)
The Answer Is No by Fredrik Backman (short story)

Books to read on Chinese history:

general
The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution, 1895-1980 by Jonathan Spence
The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence
Leaden Wings by Jie Zhang (rec by Eliz_M)
Zhou Enlai : the last perfect revolutionary by Wenqian Gao (rec by SassyLassy)
Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell (rec by wandering_star)
Quotations of Chairman Mao aka Little Red Book

dynasties
Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang (on shelves, rec by mabith)
Two Years in the Forbidden City by Princess Der Ling (rec by lilisin)

WWII and Communist Revolution
The rape of Nanking : the forgotten holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara W. Tuchman
The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth by Sun Shuyun
The Women of the Long March by Lily Xiao Hong Lee
Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter
Red Star Over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism by Edgar Snow (rec by dchaikin)

famine (1958-1962)
Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter (rec by mabith and Sassy)
Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker (rec by mabith)
Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962 by Yang Jisheng (rec by SassyLassy)
The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up by Liao Yiwu (rec by SassyLassy)

Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
The Cultural Revolution by Frank Dikötter (on shelves)

memoirs/bios
In search of my homeland : a memoir of a Chinese labor camp by Ertai Gao
Grass Soup by Zhang Xianliang
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (rec by mabith, rec by cindydavid4)
Big Sister, Red Sister, Little Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China by Jung Chang (rec by mabith)
No Wall Too High: One Man's Daring Escape from Mao's Darkest Prison by Xu Hongci (rec by lilisin)
Bullets and Opium: Real-Life Stories of China After the Tiananmen Square Massacre by Yiwu Liao (rec by lilisin)
A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu (graphic novel) (rec by avatiakh)
Feather in the storm : a childhood lost in chaos by Emily Wu (on shelves)
No tears for Mao : growing up in the Cultural Revolution by Niu-niu (on shelves)
Colors of the mountain by Da Chen (on shelves)
Chinese Lives: An Oral History of Contemporary China by Zhang XinXin (on shelves)
Red Scarf Girl : A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang (on shelves)
The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Zhisui Li (on shelves, rec by wandering_star)
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei (on shelves, rec by rocketj)
A Gang of One by Fan Shen (rec by BLBera)
Red Azalea by Anchee Min (rec by RidgewayGirl)
Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng (rec by Dikotter)

historical fiction
A Dictionary of Maqiao by Shaogong Han (on shelves)
Half of Man is Woman by Xianliang Zhang (on shelves, rec by Eliz_M)
Naked Earth by Eileen Chang (rec by SassyLassy)
Raise the red lantern : three novellas by Tong Su (on shelves, rec by steven03tx)
Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin (on shelves)
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck (on shelves)
The Concert by Ismail Kadare (rec by SassyLassy)
Cocoon by Zhang Yueran

Peripheral
Prison Diary by Hồ Chí Minh (rec by LolaWalser)

Thank you all for your continued presence on my thread. We have had some interesting conversations. I look forward to continuing the book talk into the fall!

Speaking of autumn, I have always associated the season with crisp weather, apples, and going back to school. Long past my own school days, I still mark time this way. Now that I'm homeschooling my nieces, I get to enjoy the gear-up for a new academic year once again. I usually find that my reading increases in the colder months, so I look forward to that as well. What do you enjoy about the next season in your calendar? Do the changing seasons (assuming you live where you have seasons) effect your reading?

I am shocked, but not surprised if I can be both at the same time!

An incredible definition of what an excellent book reading summary can be like. I learn so much about what really interests readers from this type of listing. Books not of my persuasion but intriguing enough for me to look at some of them.

I realize just putting this list and formatting details takes a lot of time. Can't imagine where you found that time and energy!

Lisa, what do the strikeouts mean - as in
Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikötter (rec by mabith and Sassy) - which I can’t repoduce

>12 JoeB1934: Thanks, Joe!

>13 kjuliff: It means I have read it. To create that formatting you put the word strike in angle brackets before the text and /strike in angle brackets after.

Happy new thread, Lisa. I look forward to many good discussions and more books piled onto the wishlist.

>14 labfs39:
On that front, could you also explain how you get the tick symbol please?

>11 labfs39: hahahahaha! well, we have two seasons in phx, summer and not summer. the later and has two subsets:not fall and not spring In september we can still expect seasonal thunderstorms, very humid days, with temperatures in the morning still in the 90s. Our fall really starts after Halloween one of my fav holidays, and leaves here turn color in january sigh, do miss seasons

up thread we were tallking about Little Women. I want to recommend an excellent and well reached bio marmee and Louisa Lots about their lives, the books, and how they survived as women with pressure all around them how to be. Loved the relationships between the sisters Saddened by how much poverty they suffered through thanks to Mr March. Highly Recommended

Hi Lisa - Happy new thread. I always enjoy skimming through your summaries at the top. You have inspired me to read more globally.

>13 kjuliff: I realized, Kate, that I was being inconsistent. I was using checkmarks to indicate books I have read and strikeouts for books that I didn't read in >5 labfs39:, but then used strikeouts to indicate books I had read in >10 labfs39:. Comes from having created the posts at different times and carrying them forward. I'll fix them to be consistent.

>15 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay. I hated to interrupt the last thread's conversations, but it was getting a bit unwieldy.

>16 Willoyd: If you mean the check marks in >5 labfs39:, I just copied and pasted one. Then I can keep copying it as needed.

>17 cindydavid4: I lived in Seattle for almost twenty years, and there it sometimes felt as though we had two seasons: the grey season and the not so grey, lol. But I loved living there. That said, it was nice coming back to New England with it's clearly defined seasons. Even with the wacky extreme weather, fall is nice here.

>18 cindydavid4: I was going to ask if anyone had read a good bio of Alcott. You beat me to the punch. I wonder if me library has it.

>19 BLBera: Thanks, Beth. You've had a rough couple of months. Thanks for popping over. We have a nice community of readers around us. I think we encourage each other to keep exploring and growing as readers. I have learned so much both from other readers here and by reading books they have recommended.

This seems to be the week for revisiting childhood favorites. My youngest niece loves "Laura" stories (i.e. Laura Ingalls Wilder), and we have read several picture books based on the originals. This week she has had a cold and wanted more book time, so we snuggled in with Little House on the Prairie. Goodness, I find that I have to be vigilant and skip certain racist passages as she is too young at age 4 for me to get into why Ma hated "Indians". If I were reading it with my 7 year old niece, it could lead to a conversation, but with the little one, I'm editing it out for now. Ma's complete subservience to Pa is also very unsettling, although I do feel sorry for her being uprooted and taken from her family when it is clear, even from these juvenile books, that she did not want to move west. The Pa in the books is not the teary softie that Michael Landon portrayed.

Happy new thread. I was so behind that I decided to wait for you to start a new one to resume following it, but I am sure I've missed great books and great conversations.
I was surprised to see your list for China: a new topic for you, isn't it? (And now I know what you were referring to when mentionning you won't include Life and Death are Wearing Me Out in your China list!).

I've read loud Little Women with my then 13 or 14 years-old daughter. I think it's the last book I've read to her (in my childhood edition), so fond memories are attached to it.

>21 labfs39: And I enjoyed Little House on the Prairie a lot when younger (I own and I've read all 8 books). I do mean to revisit it, but fear to be disappointed. Your adult and 21st century look at it is interesting re. racism and gender. Not that surprising though.

>22 raton-liseur: I started my China reading earlier this year, and lots of folks suggested books that I shouldn't miss. I compiled a list of recommendations plus books I already owned and have been trying to pick away at it. When I started a new thread, I decided to bring the list forward so I wouldn't forget it.

So many of these children's books have fond memories attached to them. I sometimes hesitate to revisit with an adult lens. One thing that strikes me as I think about it: despite having read books as a kid where traditional roles for women are promoted and -isms abound, I don't seem to have absorbed them into my life view. Somehow I managed to read books as a kid and not be brainwashed by them. Why are people so afraid of what kids read? Do they really believe kids will become what they read? It certainly doesn't seem to be my experience.

>21 labfs39: My son and I read all of the Little House books out loud from when he was about 7-9 and, yes, it led to so many great discussions about Indigenous people and how white settlers displaced them and the prejudices rampant in the books. But it would be hard with a 4 year old!
There are also great lessons in there about hard work and generosity. I always want to get to Louise Erdrich's Birchbark series which is supposed to be a companion to Little House books from an Indigenous point of view, but we never got to it.

>24 japaul22: Ooh, yes, I should get copies of the Birchbark House series for the girls as well. I listened to them on audio with my daughter many times. I did like them a lot, but had never thought of them as a counter to the Little House books, interesting. My 7 year old niece read Farmer Boy this year, but refused to read the others, preferring books with boy protagonists.

>23 labfs39: “Somehow I managed to read books as a kid and not be brainwashed by them.”

That’s such a great comment, and very true! I think children are much more influenced by the people around them, especially parents, than by books.

Happy New Thread, Lisa. I loved The Bean Trees and the other "Turtle" book. Kingsolver rocks. I need to make room for The Covenant of Water. Hopefully by the end of the year.

>23 labfs39: I guess we do believe kids will become what they read, at least to some extend. I guess if we are here, talking about books, it's because we think reading enriches us, and to a certain extend shapes us (ok, thanksfully, there is a difference between being shaped by our reading and becoming what we read, especially if you love murder and thriller lit!).
But maybe we do not trust enough kids to be able to understand what is ok to take from books and what is outdated, even offensive?

>28 raton-liseur: I think kids may be unconsciously influenced by their reading. I know my reading was selected for me as a child and I was not given books that were considered racist by my parents. I remember being given books especially picture books, that showed it was ok to be different than other kids. ( I grew up when Australia had the official “White Australia” policy).

Then when my parents separated , and back then all children’s books had the socially-acceptable nuclear family, and woman were not shown in professional roles, I remember my mother explaining to me the discrepancies between books and TV shows (such as Leave it to Beaver) and real life.

So it’s not just about books, but about what books are presented to children, and how they are read to them in the case of very young children.

I can imagine some extremist families now, selecting “appropriate “ books only for their children at home. Certainly it is not only school libraries that censor books.

Another factor to consider regarding kids and books is those children who aren’t exposed to books at home at all. Not all children are given the opportunity to read or be read to before elementary school.

TV and books tended in the west to teach children that there was one normal - white, middle class, working dad. This of course is not the case now in every socio-economic group.

Let us take time to remember in all our conversations on this, that there are children in Afghanistan .

>27 msf59: Thanks, Mark. Kingsolver really seems to hit the mark with the women's voices in Bean Trees. I read the sequel, Pigs in Heaven, some years ago, but didn't like it as much.

>26 FlorenceArt: >28 raton-liseur: I guess I believe that reading opens minds, but I'm not sure kids become what they read or influenced to believe all that they read. Did reading Harry Potter make my daughter believe in witchcraft? Does reading And Tango Makes Three make my niece gay? Does reading Forever by Judy Blume cause teens to have run out and have sex? Does reading the Bible make kids believe in God? Personally, I don't think so. And if I was afraid of what my kids were reading, I would encourage them to read more, not less, and discuss it with them. Not to go too far down this road, I guess I was just thinking about all the books I read as a kid that had subtle (or not so subtle) racism and misogyny and the like, but it didn't take. That said, I do think that restricting kids' reading to only white, straight, etc. characters will make non-white, queer kids very lonely, but I don't think it will cause them to become different than who they are. And the same restricted reading will make the white, straight kids think their way is the only way. I don't know. I guess I'm just feeling bitter about censorship in this country and feeling like free-range reading is not the cause of problems in youth.

I read valley of the dolls at 12 and did not become a druggie or an alcholic. ...tho chances are i didn't understand most of what was happening anyway.

>29 kjuliff: Conversely, if your parent had not selected your books for you, and you had read books containing racism, do you think you would have grown up to be a racist? I would hazard a guess not, because of your parents, not because of the books.

I do think kids are influenced by the books they read, but I believe it's a power for good, not evil. >28 raton-liseur: as raton said, we don't all become serial murderers if we read crime books. So many of us on LT were avid, voracious, unfettered readers as children and yet we don't seem to be any more depraved than your run of the mill human. And I may be biased, but I think we're a pretty humane bunch! But I could be wrong. Perhaps death-row is full of rightfully convicted rampant readers who were led astray by the wrong books as children, lol.

My daughter loved the "Little House" books and had to have the conversations with her daughter when she read them. Erdrich's series is a good counterpoint.

>32 labfs39: No, I don’t think if I had read books containing racism that I would have grown up a racist. But it’s hard to isolate the effects of books alone. My parents told me why they didn’t like certain books so I was aware of racism. If I’d read racist books I would have been aware of racism. If I had not been educated by my parents I might have assumed it was normal given that I grew up in an almost total white society. But I very much doubt I would have grown up racist.

Let me give you an example. When I was very little a teacher read a book about a poor little boy who met a prince. He was embarrassed be cause he was wearing shoddy shoes and what would the prince think? I vividly remember not understanding the book and saying to myself that it was the prince that should have felt bad, for allowing such poverty. Clearly this was because of my parents’ values as well as because of a natural sense of justice that all children are born with. But I was really confused because I couldn’t understand why the little boy was ashamed.

I think children are influenced by their parents beliefs more than they are of books, but books can have an influence.

Certainly it would have helped me had I been able to read books that featured single-parent families. I remember feeling I was different than other kids because there was nothing like that available at that time.

>34 kjuliff: I think you’re right and books may play a part in what is perceived as normal, and that in turn can shape low-key racism, what we call racisme ordinaire in French.

>35 FlorenceArt: Good to see there’s a term for it in French. I suspect there are many cases of racisme ordinaire in most countries I’ve been to.

Interesting discussion! As I see it, in broad brush terms, a reader will come to a book with a framework of views, beliefs etc, and that book will do one of two things - either confirm them or challenge them. If challenged, the reader will then react on a scale from instant rejection, through questioning, to instant acceptance; within this range there's also a state of 'this is a different viewpoint, not one I accept, but one which makes me more aware of what other's think', and other nuances. But fundamentally, it's all through a framework of what has gone before. So. a racist book will challenge a non-racist, and ask them questions of themselves, but how they react will depend on on what's gone before. By banning books, the censors are, IMO, simply showing they don't trust their own beliefs and processes - it's a sign of insecurity and weakness, not strength.

On the balance between parental influence and book influence, then the former will almost inevitably be more powerful as it's ongoing, consistently there (assuming the parents are), whilst a book is relatively ephemeral. Of course, if a reader consistently reads books with a different viewpoint, then the books might have more influence, but they're up against it (unless the child's own education has been to read to learn/question etc!)! I think that's the scary thing to me about so much of what's going on with screen-time - the sheer amount of time and thus increased influence on the children being brought to bear, and the widespread decline in family conversation, meals etc.

>33 BLBera: Now I'm looking forward to reading the Birchbark House books with my nieces. I'll look for paper copies as my daughter and I always listened to the audiobooks.

>34 kjuliff: >35 FlorenceArt: >36 kjuliff: >37 Willoyd: Such an interesting discussion on the influence of books on children. Thank you to everyone for sharing your opinions in a respectful way. I feel like this can be a topic that can get heated, as we all want what is best for kids, but may approach it differently.

My nieces are fortunate to live in a time and place where there are so many books from which to choose. When I was growing up, I was rather limited in choices by finances and the tiny rural library in my town. My nieces on the other hand not only visit a couple of different libraries on a regular basis and own a plethora of books, but have been able to participate in several programs that provide kids with books: Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, PJ Library, and Maine's Raising Readers program. And there are so many free audiobooks and videobooks for children now too.

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In other news, I am loving my reread of Kingsolver's The Bean Trees. I love the voices of the women in her book. So well done.

I am rereading this now because it's my book club's pick for tomorrow night's discussion. Unfortunately I doubt I will be able to attend, because I have caught my niece's cold.



The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Published 1988, 232 p.

Taylor Greer grew up poor but feisty in rural Kentucky. As a young adult, she decided to get out of Dodge and headed west in a rattletrap Volkswagen. One night in the parking lot of a bar she is bequeathed a young child she names Turtle. Where her car breaks down outside Tucson, Arizona, she decides to remain, settling down with a pregnant doomsayer and a modern day Underground Railroad conductor named Mattie, who provides a safe house for illegal Guatemalan refugees. Together they create an extended family that navigates the doozies that life throws at them.

This was Barbara Kingsolver's first book, and she did such an amazing job with the voices of these women, that I have been a fan ever since. Although her writing has become more polished, and I have enjoyed some of her later novels more, the characters in Bean Trees remain my favorites. With just the right amount of humor to offset the truly horrific backstories of some of the characters, it's a story of created family and the village it takes to survive in this world.

>38 labfs39: Oh yes, access is so much better now! Growing up, I had access to a decent-ish public library and my parents had an account at the local bookshop (they paid for all our purchases at the end of each month) and yet, I was forever frustrated at the lack of choice in both places... Though it has to be said the kids' shelves were a) very short; b) at times very bare; and c) infrequently renewed. I can imagine how much worse things would have been in a small rural town.

>39 labfs39: I hope this is a mild cold and you get well soon!

>39 labfs39:
Although her writing has become more polished, and I have enjoyed some of her later novels more, the characters in Bean Trees remain my favorites.
I find that really interesting that you should say that. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my most curate's egg authors, having done everything from 'love the book' to 'can't stand it', and everything in between! In fact, apart from perhaps Kate Atkinson, she's the most wide ranging author in terms of rating that I think I've read. And The Bean Trees is one of the ones I rated most highly (originally reading it as my book for Arizona), maybe just behind The Poisonwood Bible. Sad thing is that they were also the first two I read, and nothing has come close since, particularly Demon Copperhead and The Lacuna - I found Copperhead pretty much unfinshable, although I know I'm in a tiny minority on that one!

Hoe you feel better soon.

>40 Dilara86: My town library growing up was open four hours a week (Wed afternoons and Saturday mornings), was a single room, and was heated by a wood stove in winter. So my choices were limited and quite dated. On the other hand, no one told me which books to read, so I read most of them. In particular I remember Peg Leg Pete (about a one-legged duck) and The White Cliffs of Dover. Strange what our minds remember.

I'm feeling worse today, but hopefully will be on the mend by tomorrow.

>41 Willoyd: I had never heard of a "curate's egg" before and had to look it up. How funny!

I have read four books by Kingsolver, and my appreciation ranged a bit too:
4.5* Poisonwood Bible
4* Prodigal Summer
3.5* The Bean Trees
3* Pigs in Heaven
I have, but have not read, Lacuna, Flight Behavior, and Animal Dreams.

>42 labfs39:
I had never heard of a "curate's egg" before and had to look it up. How funny!
It's a common phrase here - obviously a Britishism!

My LT scores for Kingsolvers:
4* Poisonwood Bible
3.5* The Bean Trees
3* Unsheltered
2* The Lacuna
2* Demon Copperhead (unfinished)
So not dissimilar where we cross over!

I gave the last 2 2* because I rated the actual writing, but in terms simply of liking them alone, they would have both rated 1* for me.

I loved The Bean Trees as well, Lisa, and have been wanting to reread it for a while now. It has one of the best first lines ever!

I hope you are feeling better.

>39 labfs39: I hope you feel better soon! I saw The Bean Trees recommended somewhere else today as well - the universe is telling me I should read it.

Feel better soon.

>43 Willoyd: It's interesting how our ratings aligned for the books we both had read. Doesn't make me want to run over and pull Lacuna from my shelves, lol.

>44 BLBera: I'm glad to find another Bean Trees fan. It's hard to believe it's a debut novel. The voices are pitch perfect, I thought.

>45 rv1988: I'll look forward to your thoughts, if you do read it. It seems so... small town America. I wonder how non-Americans perceive it.

>46 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. This bug is kicking me while I'm down. I did test negative for Covid, at least on the first test. Even though Covid is less dangerous these days, I have a fear of long covid, so I get nervous whenever I can't shake a virus.

>39 labfs39: I thought I had a copy of The Bean Trees in the house, but I must have confused it with something else. I'm interested in reading it. Appreciate your 2nd take comments and knowing what the book meant to you.

>48 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I wish I had been able to make the discussion. I think it could have been a good one.

I’ve read 6 of Kingsolver’s books:
The poisonwood Bible - 4.5 stars
The Bean Trees - 4 stars
The Lacuna - 4 stars
Unsheltered - 3 stars
Flight Behavior - 4 stars
Demon Copperhead - 3.5 stars

I really enjoyed Flight Behavior.

>50 japaul22: I'm glad you liked Flight Behavior, as it's one of the ones I have on my shelf ready to be read. I also have Lacuna, but the reviews have been all over the place, so I don't know what to expect. Someday I'll loop back around to her books.

My mom gave me The Bean Trees and Animal Dreams when they first came out. She was such a great source of new books for me in pre-internet days, such an inquisitive reader. I just had a long dream about her last night so she's on my mind.

>52 lisapeet: Although both my mom and sister are readers, they read different things than I do. It's handy when we go to summer library book sales, because we gravitate toward different sections, lol. We do overlap a bit, with my sister also reading about the Holocaust, and my mom reading some history. How wonderful that your mom was such a source of reading inspiration for you. A lovely memory.

>51 labfs39: I loved Flight Behavior, but you are right, opinions on that one vary quite a bit. My least favorite Kingsolver was The Lacuna and Prodigal Summer wasn't as good as some of her others. I think maybe because it suffered in comparison to THe Bean Trees and Animal Dreams?

About to start my first Kingsolver tomorrow, Demon Copperhead, for my September book club. It's disappointing to see that it ranks on the lower end for all you Kingsolver readers. I was looking forward to it, but I guess we'll see.

How strange. I posted last night, and this morning it isn't here. Did I forget to hit "post"? I'm must be losing it!

>54 BLBera: I'm looking forward to reading Flight Behavior, it's Lacuna that has such mixed reviews. As does DC. Yet both have been loved by the awards committees.

>55 SassyLassy: I look forward to your impressions, Sassy. DC hasn't received a lot of love from Club Read, but has done well on the awards circuit.

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I'm slowly making my way through Little Red Chairs. My lack of progress could be due to the stress of the past week, or it could be that I expected to like it more than I am. I wish I could wipe my mind clean of preconceived expectations before beginning reading. I sometimes damage the reading experience by expecting something different, not necessarily better, but different than what it is.

>37 Willoyd: "By banning books, the censors are, IMO, simply showing they don't trust their own beliefs and processes - it's a sign of insecurity and weakness, not strength."

Well, I've read through this "new" thread and particularly enjoyed the conversations around children's books and what children do or don't take from the point of views/perspectives/prejudices they contain. I think Willoyd's point, here, is very well taken. It reminds me of the people who can only "win" arguments by shouting down or interrupting the person they're talking to to ensure that that person never gets to fully articulate his/her/their point of view. It's a tactic borne of fear. Speaking as a U.S. native, this to me is obviously displayed by the folks so anxious to ban books in schools that highlight historical/cultural realities that the banners find embarrassing or that will stand in the way of their own cultural/racial dominance.

I agree with those who have said here that what kids assimilate from the books they read is filtered through the context of the lives they are living and the people who are helping guide their growth, parents hopefully foremost. For me, the dual importance of reading for children is to help them learn about the world, yes, but even more, to help them learn to use their imaginations. So for example, as you said above, I believe, Lisa, if I had read books with gay protagonists when I was an adolescent, that would have helped me imagine what it might be like to be gay. I would have been much better off learning something about what it meant to be gay as a teenager in middle-class America.

It never would have occurred to my parents to censor what I read at home. My mother was an English major who thought broad reading and education in general were the key to success. I will say that there were one or two philosophies that I did internalize from my very early reading, and they came from Dr. Seuss. For one thing, there was good old Horton and his mantra, "I meant was I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, 100 percent." I still try to live up to that. But for another, there was the now more obscure On Beyond Zebra, which tells the tale of all the letters that come after Z:

+ "I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends, but my alphabet starts where your alphabet ends."
+ "When you stop at the Z, you're stuck in a rut. But on beyond Zebra, you're anything but."
+ "And that's something that most people don't see, because most people stop at the Z. But not me."

Subvert the dominant paradigm!

What can I say? These thing do happen after all, I guess. :)

I sometimes damage the reading experience by expecting something different, not necessarily better, but different than what it is.

I know what you mean, Lisa. That happens to me with overhyped books as well as books by authors I love.

>57 rocketjk: I think I may have represented my own childhood incorrectly regarding books selection. I was referring to young children whose books are of necessity selected by their parents(s). As a child I couldn’t go to a bookstore until I was about 11 as there was none nearby and I didn’t get enough pocket money in any case. Many children are in that position and so their parents do “select” books. I don’t see this as parents “banning” the books that they didn’t buy.

Once at school I was free to borrow any books from the school library. There were a few books my parents didn’t like and many they encouraged. But none were forbidden.

As for my own children I didn’t stop them reading anything. I’ve always thought it’s better for kids to read rubbish than not to read at all.

But certainly before they were five I selected the books they read as they, like I was 35 years before) unable to buy or borrow books.

I hope that clarifies what I meant by parents selecting books for children.

I apologize if I gave the wrong impression. I do not believe in censorship except in the case of pornography for most children. Then of course there’s the argument of what is pornography…. For me it includes books showing images of people harming humans and/or animals for sexual pleasure. I’m sure views on this may vary.

I totally agree with you; When I was having trouble with a book that I didn't understand Id usually ask my dad for help. If it was really hard, Id let it go, but he never told me I couldnt read something. if I had kids, Id figured once there were old enough to point at something they wanted to read it was time to let them. Still would buy books for them from time to time, books we could read and discuss together. but there would be no censorship

>21 labfs39: I can't find it now, but a couple of years ago I read a long review of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. The review emphasized that, rather than being flinty individualists, the Wilders were greatly dependent on government aid for their ventures, and that the Little House story was heavily shaped by Wilder's daughter Rose Wilder Lane.

While I can't find the one I read, I see this book seems to draw a lot of long reviews.

>59 kjuliff: Well, I apologize, too, if I gave you the impression that I referring to your comments directly in my post. After reviewing Lisa's entire new thread, which I was coming to for the first time, I was really only speaking generally about the theme being discussed, other than Willoyd's post, which happened to resonate with me particularly. Otherwise I only meant to reiterate the point that I others had made that in the best of all possible worlds, whatever kids understand from the books they read will be enhanced by interactions and discussions with their parents (or parent) and/or teachers. Certainly, my parents, and especially my mother, chose the books I was exposed to until I was 5 or 6 or so. It wasn't until I was old enough to have my own library card that the doors were flung open wide.

I did have an 8th grade English teacher who, when she saw me reading Catcher in the Rye during a free reading period, told me that I couldn't read "that book!" in her classroom. Of course, Catcher in the Rye was assigned reading in 10th grade. Take that, Mrs. Merrill!

>62 rocketjk: Coming from a country that had censorship for many years I’m acutely aware of its dangers. I remember at school trying to get black-market copies of Lady Chaterly’s Lover and Portnoy’s Complaint. Fortunately Australian censorship laws were repealed in the late sixties.

I’m assuming the current general public debates are over trans books. Seems some people get all riled up about sex but don’t seem concerned about the effect of violence in video games.

>62 rocketjk: Haha - I got scolded (rightly I think) for attempting Mrs Dalloway in the eight grade. I didn't know what the book was about! My English teacher made me read Far From the Madding Crowd instead.

>47 labfs39: The only other Kingsolver I've read is Prodigal Summer. I'm looking forward to this one.

>57 rocketjk: Thanks for chiming in on this issue, Jerry. I love your takeaways from Dr. Seuss. One of my favorite Seuss stories was The Sneetches. From "Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars." to "That day they decided that Sneetches were Sneetches. And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.”

>58 BLBera: And I must say that Little Red Chairs was definitely not what I expected. I'm not sure how my preconception was formed, but my mind's eye was not expecting such an edgy, weird book.

>59 kjuliff: It's true that with very young children, they are often limited to what adults give them. When I take my nieces to storytime, they are each allowed to choose some books on their own, and my youngest niece invariably picks princesses, unicorns, or Paw Patrol, none of which I would select. I have to bite my tongue and allow a few books with gender stereotypes and advertising to creep into the house. I have to remind myself that all reading is good reading and the object is love of books. I would rather read her dinosaur books 100x over (I'm only up to 87, lol) than read a single more Pinkalicious book. That said, I did take her to see a play based on Pinkalicious when she was 2 or 3 and she was spellbound. A nice introduction to live theater.

>60 cindydavid4: I'm envious of you and others whose parents were so involved in their children's' reading. Although my parents never prohibited a book, nor do I remember them recommending a book. I did discuss ee cummings with my dad, but that's the only thing I remember from my childhood. We discuss books more now that I am an adult, perhaps because they have the leisure to read more now.

Looking back I think part of the enjoyment I now get from owning books stems from feeling book-deprived as a kid. Sort of like a kid who grows up hungry hoarding food. I had to rely on the town and school libraries. My most memorable holiday gift was the year I got a big box full of used mass market paperbacks. But where there is a will, there's a way. When I went to my college interview as a senior, I had to bring a list of the books I had read in the last year. I was proud when the interviewer said it was the most he had ever seen. It helped that school was so boring that I had lots of free time for reading. :-)

>61 dukedom_enough: Thanks for bringing Prairie Fires to my attention. I read several reviews, and they all mention LIW's daughter Rose's influence during the editing process. That said, IMO the books penned by LIW are very different from those by Rose/Roger MacBride. I heartily disliked the latter. Although it is clear from the books that LIW loved her "Pa", it's also clear that he was autocratic and impulsive, to the detriment of his family. As for the mythos surrounding the individualistic, self-reliant pioneer, I think the tv series had a lot to do with that. Michael Landon had more influence than even Rose Wilder Lane, IMO. He creates a much softer and heroic Pa than ever existed in the books. As an avid devourer of both the books and the series, it was one of my first introductions to adaptations and how they can both enhance and sully the original. You have made me interested in finally reading the nonfiction works I have collected about and by LIW:

Laura Wilder of Mansfield by William Anderson
Little House in the Ozarks: A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler : The Rediscovered Writings
On the way home : the diary of a trip from South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894
West from home : letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder to Almanzo Wilder, San Francisco, 1915

Since I am reading the Little House books to my niece, now would be a good time.

>62 rocketjk: >64 rv1988: I love these stories of getting in trouble for reading books in school. My example is getting sent to the principal's office for reading Anna Karenina in history class. Although to be fair, the issue was when I was reading, not what I was reading. That and my attitude, because when I was discovered, I told the teacher that when I stopped having 104 grade average in the class, he could tell me what to do. (I was not the most respectful student ever, alas.) I also got in hot water for positing that Lady Macbeth was the protagonist of Macbeth, because without her, Macbeth was nothing.

>63 kjuliff: I think the main targets of current American book banning are not limited to trans, but anything other than straight cisgender, and race. Books by nonwhite authors that mention sex are almost guaranteed to be targeted it seems.

I was reading a little about Australia's past censorship laws. It's funny how Lady Chatterley's Lover is such a trigger for censors. When I read it as a teen, I was struck not by the sex, which didn't ever register, but by the fact that a male author could write from a female perspective.

And yes, America is much more preoccupied by sex than our God-given right to violence.

>64 rv1988: You rebel you, lol. I hope you enjoy Bean Trees when/if you get to it.

I had picked up this one at a library sale recently, and last week when Dan/dchaikin reviewed it, I decided to read it as well.



The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien
Published 2015, 297 p.

This novel is inspired by the longtime evasion of capture by Radovan Karadžić, the Serbian president during the Bosnian war who was later convicted of genocide and war crimes. Posing as a metaphysical psychologist and poet, the fugitive Karadžić lived in Vienna and Belgrade for a decade before capture. In the novel, the author has "Vlad" living in a small village in Ireland and imagines his life there as a Rasputin-like figure. He has an affair with Fidelma, who will pay dearly for being misled by him. The second half of the book has Fidelma living in London as a sort of refugee. As she learns of the struggles of others who have suffered violence in their home countries, she attempts to overcome her own trauma.

Although I knew the context of the book prior to reading it, I was surprised by the novel's grittiness, violence, and focus on the refugee experience. Character after character shares their story of escape from violence only to suffer homelessness, poverty, and humiliation in their new country. Karadžić's experience of living a successful life while on the run contrasts sharply with his victims' experiences, and this is depicted through these fictional characters. This difference is made more stark when considering evidence that Karadžić received help from the US in evading capture for as long as he did. In the novel this is hinted at when his guards threaten Fidelma when she visits Vlad in prison.

Despite the creative historical reworking and vivid writing, I found this a hard book to like. The two story lines, Vlad's and the London refugees', were not integrated well into a single whole, instead it felt like two books mashed into one. In addition I felt the pacing to be uneven, with some parts lagging while others raced along. Verdict: A for intent and C for execution.

>65 labfs39: when my kids were very little - 3 and 4 I noticed them rearranging their books on their bookshelves. When I asked why, they said that the books on the end were all “grandma books”. Meaning they were a bit silly in their opinion. The “grandma books” included sweet books like Jemima Puddleduck and other Beatrix Potter books and their like.

Unlike your childhood experience, mine was flooded with books. No TV was allowed in the house. I was also told around the age of 8, that when I visited a new friend’s house to check there were books in the house. My parents were obsessed with books, I suspect this was because they were both brought up in book-less homes.

>67 labfs39: " I love these stories of getting in trouble for reading books in school."

I should have added when telling my tale that I had gotten the copy of Catcher in the Rye that I was reading from the school library! In the event, I simply took the book back and selected something else (I have no memory of what), but in my fanciful replaying of the episode in my mind over the years, instead of going back to the school library, I marched myself to the junior high school principal's office and declared, "Mrs. Merrill says I can't read this book in her class. I got it from the school library. Can I read it or not?" That would have been fun.

After Michael/dukedom_enough's post in 61, I decided to read the small biography I owned of Laura Ingalls Wilder's years in the Ozarks.



Laura Wilder of Mansfield by William Anderson
Published 1968, 37 p.

This small biography is part of a series the museum curator and librarian, William Anderson, wrote on Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family. This volume, no. 3, is about her years in the Ozark Mountains, Missouri. The work outlines her life with Almanzo on Rocky Ridge Farm and her success as an author. It includes excerpts from her letters and diary, as well as exchanges with school children. Although pleasant reading, it is not scholarly, but rather a tribute piece. I particularly enjoyed the few pages of photographs.

I read The Little Red Chairs in 2016 and didn't remember much beyond the broad plot outline. I looked back at my comments, and I liked it a lot more than you did. I gave it 4 stars. It's one that I would like to read again.

>65 labfs39: One of my favorite memories from the book distributions I helped with as part of Books for Keeps was the Dad who accompanied his first grade daughter (parents were invited to join us but rarely did so) and kept trying to interest her in other books while she steadfastly filled her bag with pink princess books. He probably also read Pinkalicious far too many times.

But picking their own books is a big part of making a child into a reader. A book chosen for them is likely to be ignored, while one they chose themselves will be read over and over, which solidifies their reading skills. It's hard to not want to interfere when a child chooses books that look terrible or below/above their reading level or that you can see no redeeming value in, and those are the books that do the most to create readers. Captain Underpants has created more readers than most Newbury award books -- those books are for once they are hooked.

>67 labfs39: I moved from Canada to the US at the start of my junior year of high school. The guidance counselor was absolutely certain that although I had been the highest level English class there, the American classes would be too hard for me and put me in all basic level classes. I was fortunate enough that the teachers I had quickly moved me to different classes. In English, Mrs. Gunkle caught me reading The Name of the Rose in class and immediately got me moved back to the honors level.

>73 RidgewayGirl: RG, yes exactly

>68 labfs39: no E for exhaustion? That book, The Little Red Chairs, messes with our heads. It looks like it got to you too. ?? It’s funny, the it’s downright horrifying and awful. And what is Fidelma accomplishing near the end? I was sour on it. Now i have a more admiring sourness.

>71 labfs39: this sounds terrific

>73 RidgewayGirl: what planet did that guidance counselor grow up on?

>73 RidgewayGirl: You were so fortunate to have such a background. I only discovered The Name of the Rose when I was in my 80's.

>69 kjuliff: I like that—grandma books. I wonder if they are ones that were published in your grandparent's generation, given by your grandparents, or liked by your grandparents.

We were allowed to watch tv, but it was rationed and usually we watched as a family. Of course at that time we had no other screens. One funny story: when I had my first apartment, my parents asked what I would like as a housewarming gift. I said microscope, I got a small tv. Lol.

>70 rocketjk: Would probably end up being banned as a "challenged" book if you did that today!

>78 labfs39: The grandma books were those books given to my children that my mother thought they’d like. This was when they were under seven years old. I remember she was forever buying Beatrix Potter and A A Milne books. She never had books as child so compensated by giving them books whenever she saw them.

The term “Grandma Books” was derogatory but said kindly. I remember once going with them to a secondhand bookshop. The kids’ section was upstairs so I sent them upstairs while I browsed downstairs. In no time they were down again saying there were no books for them - only Grandma books.

>66 labfs39: May I add to your LIW reading list? Several years ago I read The ghost in the little house: a life of Rose Wilder Lane by William Holtz My recollection is that the book was well written and made a convincing argument that Rose did serious editing/shaping of the stories, while letting her mother Laura claim authorship and income. Rose herself is an interesting character.

Edited to fix spelling.

>72 BLBera: I can see Little Red Chairs appealing to some readers. It is cleverly done and very apropos with current attitudes toward refugees. As I said when I started the novel, it wasn't what I was expecting and perhaps that negatively effected my reading experience. I'll look for your review.

>73 RidgewayGirl: I agree wholeheartedly, Kay, with allowing kids to choose what they want for pleasure reading. I have had long discussions with librarians over the years about graphic novels in particular. Many librarians are biased against them, and my daughter's school librarian wouldn't allow kids to check them out until they had read a "real" book. I think the goal is the story, learning to use words and imagination, to appreciate others and the world around us. The number of words on the page is not the goal, a love for reading is. My two cents anywho!

Your experience with your guidance counselor is ridiculous and shows such wrong-headed chauvinism. I'm glad is was quickly sorted.

>75 dchaikin: I was glad to finish too, Dan. I'm not sure what the presence of Fidelma in the conjugal visitation room was all about, especially since they had already met. I didn't feel like she got any closure, only more trauma.

>79 kjuliff: I see what you mean now, Kate. It's wonderful that both you and your children grew up in such intellectually rich environments.

>80 markon: All this talk of Rose Lane's editing of the Little House books makes me wish I could compare the original handwritten manuscripts, writing by Laura, and the final products. That would be an interesting project. Did you ever read MacBride's books about Rose? I felt they were a pale imitation of the originals.

Now I feel like I should look for my review because it isn't that easy to find, from 2016, I think. I will find it for you.

Lisa: I found it:

On the 6th of April 2012, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the start of the siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces, 11,541 rd chairs were laid out in rows along the eight hundred meters of the Sarajevo high street. One empty chair for every Sarajevo killed during the 1,425 days of siege. Six hundred and forty-three small chairs represented the children killed by snipers and the heavy artillery fired from the surrounding mountains.

The above is the prologue for O'Brien's latest novel. The Little Red Chairs starts in a small Irish town and from there travels to London and the Hague. O'Brien addresses big questions: How do we find forgiveness and what do we do in the presence of evil?

The novel begins with O'Brien's beautiful descriptions of the Irish countryside: "They left the town and after a few miles came on the woods, beech trees, that met and mashed overhead, an oases of green. Further on ash trees grew in little clumps, and the sun slanted through the window creating different moments of light and shadow, the same sunlight that sent dimples of gold into the pools of rainwater that had lodged int he fields from a downpour the previous evening." There is a sense of peace and timelessness. When a stranger arrives, he becomes the center of attention. He is magnetic and attracts the women of the town, especially Fidelma, who desperately wants a child. She becomes involved him him and when he's revealed as a war criminal, her world falls apart. She leaves Ireland for London.

In London, the focus changes to people's stories. As Fidelma searches for a place, she finds that everyone has at least one little red chair in their life. There is no closure here. Fidelma asks one of the Mothers of Srebrenica what would give them peace. One woman answers, "A bone...TO find the smallest piece of bone of one of her children, or better yet to find bones of each of her three children."

Fidelma is a wonderful character, and I'm sure I'll think about her for a long time, as well as the questions that O'Brien asks us to think about.

Sorry to post so much on your thread, but I have been thinking of you as I read Morgan Talty's new novel Fire Exit, which is set in Maine. I love it so far. I think about the characters even after I put down the book.

>82 BLBera: Sorry, I thought it was on the work page, but it wasn't.

>83 BLBera: Lovely review. I especially like the idea that "everyone has at least one little red chair in their life". Unlike you, I found Fidelma a hard character with whom to connect. I was a good way into the book before I even realized she was the protagonist. For a while, every chapter seemed to be about a different person. You bring up forgiveness as a theme. Who do you think was seeking forgiveness? Certainly Vlad never seemed interested in forgiveness or even admitting he had done something wrong. Do you think Fidelma was seeking to forgive him? We could have a good discussion about this one!

>84 BLBera: You are always welcome to post here! Thanks for letting me know about this one. I still can't believe I haven't read his first book, Night of the Living Rez. Did you?

>83 BLBera: How do we find forgiveness and what do we do in the presence of evil?

there are some things that can not be forgiven. what was during that war was one of them

I did read Night of the Living Rez and loved it. That was a collection of linked stories. I was looking forward to his first novel, and I am loving it so far.

I would love to discuss this with you but I think I would first have to reread it.

>80 markon: I did read the stories Roger McBride wrote about Rose. I have a vague recollection of them. I think her adult life was more interesting than the stories he wrote about her childhood. She designated McBride as her heir (she had informally adopted and supported him when he was 14.)

>87 BLBera: Night of the living rez is still on my to read list. Someday!

>86 cindydavid4: Although there are other possibilities for forgiveness in the book as well. Forgiving oneself, forgiveness between spouses. I'm not sure who Beth was referring to in her comment.

>87 BLBera: Good to know that both books are good. I must get to them.

>88 markon: I don't know much at all about her life other than reading the first couple of McBride books at some point.

>68 labfs39: I had similar feelings.

Just a quick note: My laptop died, so I’m limited to my phone for the moment, severely curtailing my time on LT. I’m continuing to read and enjoy Fortune of the Rougons. Hope to catch up on threads soon!

>91 labfs39: I'm sorry about your machine. (But enjoy Zola)

Thanks, Dan. I ran some diagnostics then reset my BIOS settings and I was able to boot up. I'm backing everything up (again) and hoping to limp along a bit.

>91 labfs39: Oh Lisa, I'm sorry that your laptop is no longer working. That is so troublesome. It's only at times like this that you realise how dependent we are on these electronic gadgets.
I hope you find a good solution soon.

>93 labfs39: How old is your laptop? Is it booting up normally again?

>94 Ameise1: >95 kjuliff: I am indeed dependent on it. It's four years old and has had an intensely lived life. It's booting up normally since I reset the BIOS, but I know it's on its last legs. I have had so many expenses this month between root canal, dog's surgery and treatments, sealcoating the driveway, buying season tickets to the theatre, etc etc. I'm hoping to put off buying a new laptop for a bit.

>96 labfs39: As long as you keep backing it up. Do you have a recovery disc?

Good luck with the laptop, Lisa!

Fingers crossed that your laptop continues to work.

Homeschool update: We have been studying human evolution and the paleolithic era. Ask the four year old to tell you the difference between homo habilis and homo erectus! This week I've planned some fun science tie-ins:

-making and using fire
-knapping
-making a stone ax
-making and throwing spears
-finding and grinding seeds with stones
-exploring the wedge, humans' first tool

Last week we had an archaeology dig. First they made and painted pinch pots and coil pots and handprints in clay (trace fossils). Then I buried them along with coins, bones, and other fun stuff. They set up a grid over the site and unburied things using shovels and brushes. Before removing, they drew each object onto their paper grids to show the location, then bagged them to take back to their "lab".

Great that's lot of fun

>100 labfs39: oh I wish you were my teacher! Youd make a very good one; have you thought about it? Lucky girls.

>102 cindydavid4: I was thinking the same thing! I want to join that class.

>100 labfs39: Doesn't every child daydream about being an intrepid archeologist or paleontologist at some point in their childhood? You're giving them so much breadth to their educations.

>100 labfs39: I bet they loved that. Lucky girls.

>100 labfs39: I agree, I wish you were my teacher. This looks like so much fun. Hope the laptop is holding strong.

Thanks everyone. I'm lucky to have this opportunity to homeschool my nieces. And so far they are both enjoying it and learning lots. My almost eight year old niece did her first NWEA Map Growth standardized test this spring and scored 95% in language arts and 99% in both math and science. That reassured everyone that despite the hands-on and project-based approach, they are learning.

>102 cindydavid4: I do have a K-8 teaching certificate, Cindy, but I only taught in public schools for a brief time. I am too much of a maverick to do well in such a structured setting. After a brief stint I went back to grad school in completely different fields.

Today my older niece and I will start reading Maroo of the Winter Caves. Has anyone read it?

no but it looks very interesting!

I was astonished when looking at the record for Maroo of the Winter Caves that many people had tagged it as Native American. The book takes place in Europe (Southern France and the Maritime Alps) during the last ice age. One teacher mentioned using the book to teach about Native American shelters. I guess in their minds "primitive" equals "Native American"?!

I had bought this a year and a half ago after following a discussion with raton-liseur and SassyLassy regarding the Rougon-Macquart cycle. The Oxford editions and Brian Nelson translations were there touted. I was inspired to read it now because Tess is leading a group read of the cycle. It is the first in the reading order recommended by Zola as well as the first published.



The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola, translated from the French by Brian Nelson
Originally published 1871, this translation 2012, 301 p.

Les Rougon-Macquart cycle of twenty novels by Émile Zola is a portrayal of the Second Empire and a study in heredity through the lens of a single family. In this, the first book in the cycle, Zola lays out the origins of the family and its branches, with the main action taking place during the coup d'état in which Napoléon III overthrows the Second Republic.

The Revolution of 1848 found all the Rougons on the lookout, frustrated by their bad luck, and ready to use any means necessary to advance their cause. The were a family of bandits lying in wait, read to plunder and steal.

Pierre Rougon is the legitimate son of Adélaïde Fouque and the progenitor of one side of the family. A greedy schemer, Pierre and his equally avaricious wife plot to win wealth and a better position in life, by taking advantage of the confusion in the provinces after the coup. Pierre's illegitimate half-brother, Antoine Macquart, is a lazy do-nothing who sides with the doomed Republicans because he believes they will take from the rich and allow the poor like him to live a life of un-worked-for luxury. Silvère Macquart, son of Antoine's sister, is a young idealistic boy of seventeen, in love with an even younger local girl, Miette. Silvère and Miette are innocents, caught up in their dreams of a Republican Utopia and a life together.

The first part of the book contains the origin story of the Rougon-Macquart family, with all the key players sketched, and I found this part of the book quite interesting, more so than the story of Silvère and Miette, which takes up the middle portion. Most of the action takes place in the last third of the book, when Pierre and Félicité are scheming during the coup. Because so much of this book is the setup for what is to follow, it's hard to comment on the themes of heredity and social history. What is striking is Zola's detailed descriptions of nature, doing for a field what Balzac did with a teapot. This focus on nature is both descriptive and a foil for the social commentary that Zola wishes to convey.

The sleeping countryside awoke with a start, quivering like a beaten drum; it resounded in its very depths, repeating with each echo the stirring notes of the national anthem. Then the singing seemed to come from everywhere. From the horizon, from the distant rocks, the ploughed land, the fields, the copses, the smallest bits of brushwood, human voices seemed to be rising up. The great amphitheatre, stretching up from the river to Plassans, the gigantic torrent over which the bluish moonlight flowed, seemed filled with a huge, invisible crowd cheering on the insurgents; and in the depths of the Viorne, along the water streaked with mysterious metallic reflections, every dark spot seemed to conceal people taking up the refrain with increasing passion. The air and earth seemed alive; it was as if the whole countryside was crying out for vengeance and liberty. As the little army descended the slope, the roar rolled on in sonorous waves broken only by sudden outbursts which shook the very stones in their path.

Note that I read the Brian Wilson translation, the first new translation in over 100 years. It read smoothly and is reputed to be a much truer translation that the bowdlerized version by H. Vizetelly. The introduction in the Oxford World's Classic edition was extremely helpful in laying out the history of the time period, Zola's influences and themes, and a family tree.

>110 labfs39: ...doing for a field what Balzac did with a teapot

Loved this and absolutely spot on!

The Garden of Eden in The Sin of Abbé Mouret is amazing for its descriptions of the garden, and at the other end, there's Earth.

>111 SassyLassy: I forget, did you finish the Rougon-Macquart cycle? I think you started with the ones in new translation?

I used to be in love with 19th century literature: French, Russian, English. If I had read this when I was a teen or in my twenties, I would have enjoyed it more than I do now. Somewhere along the line, my tastes changed, and I get a bit impatient with the older, slower style now. I'm not sure if I will continue with the group read or not. I'll order the next book to have on hand at least.

>112 labfs39:
Fortune is one of the 'lesser' books in the series, but useful as a the first to put the families and some characters in context. I enjoyed it, but not as much as others. I'm reading the Zola order in the new translations, but only 2-3 per year. (But then I love that slower style, finding too much modern writing far too frantic!).

As you may recall, I also recently read The Fortune of the Rougons and enjoyed it quite a lot. I didn't find the style to be slow at all, but then again you have to consider the context. I've also recently been reading Proust. Compared to In Search of Lost Time, The Fortune of the Rougons reads like a Reacher novel! :)

>112 labfs39: I did indeed finish it! I used the new Oxford translations throughout, except for The Dream, which hadn't been translated by Oxford yet, but still had a new translation (2013) by Andrew Brown.

Don't let The Fortune of the Rougons dissuade you from reading more. Zola needed to set out the "ancient history" of the families and their context in order to take it all forward. If you're going in recommended reading order, after the second one, it really gets going with The Kill. The only one that was just so-so for me after that was Au Bonheur des Dames. Shopping is an ordeal for me, although some of the descriptions were wonderful.

As you know, I love nineteenth century literature. That doesn't mean it's all I read, but sinking back into that style relaxes me, and slows down the world. It might be interesting to revisit one of those ones you read in your teens or twenties to see if there is some of that impatience you experience now, or whether it stands up.

>113 Willoyd: I actually liked the family history part the best in Fortune of the Rougons. It was the middle section about Silvère and Miette's trysts that dragged for me.

>114 rocketjk: The Fortune of the Rougons reads like a Reacher novel! :)

Lol, true, I guess it's all relative. The last third, with Pierre and Félicité and their schemes, was quite thrilling despite the minute by minute playback. The mayor's mirror!

>115 SassyLassy: My impatience with Fortune may stem more from where I am at the moment than any real dislike for the style. I am quite distracted, so the faster paced novels are the only things holding my attention. Ace has had surgery and his first electrochemo treatment, and he's not doing well. Frustration with his oncology team has me on edge, and I even find myself being less patient with the girls. I will call the Bookworm (our nearest Indie bookstore) and order the next couple Oxford translations. I'm sure I'll get to them sooner or later.

Once again my book club has taken me out of my comfort zone in an entirely good way. Unlike Killers of the Flower Moon which was more history than serial killer, this one is about a serial killer on death row. Definitely not a book I would have chosen, but I'm glad it was chosen for me.



Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
Published 2021, 306 p.

Ansel Packer is on Death Row and is due to be executed in 12 hours. The novel is structured in alternating chapters between second-person narration as the hours tick down in Ansel's cell and chapters by various women in his life: his mother, his sister-in-law, and the female detective who tracked him down. Their stories take place over decades and are told in the third person.

In an afterward, the author writes about the enduring fascination with the serial killer and the myth of the savage yet charming man-next-door, who is the last person you would ever expect. She writes:

I'm baffled by this myth, a uniquely American fiction we have glorified for decades. Average men become interesting when they start hurting women.

Notes on an Execution was born from a desire to dissect this exhausted narrative...

There is a universe out there, made up of girls and women, stranded by a fiction we insist upon repeating. I wrote this book to give them a chance to exist beyond the men who steal the narrative. The story of the serial killer is bigger than the bodies he leaves behind—it encompasses an infinite web, an elaborate tangle of predominantly female trauma and endurance. There is a question lurking in the dark corners of that weary tale. I wrote this novel because I needed to ask. I needed to look. I am tired of seeing Ted Bundy's face. This is a book for the women who survive.

The stories of the women who are murdered are not told, it's the stories of the women who survive, but are nonetheless traumatized by their contact with the murderer.

The use of the second person narrative in the chapters dealing with Ansel was at first baffling, but ultimately brilliant. It moves the reader from the particular to the ubiquitous and also involves the reader in an uncomfortable way. I also liked how the author layer by layer removes the power and attraction from Ansel and reveals him to be mundane, boring, and ultimately irrelevant to the story. It is the lives of the survivors which are important, and the memory of the murdered women, who cannot be reduced to merely The Girls he killed, and who they might have become five, ten, fifty years later. This is a book which surprised me, and I'm glad I will have the chance to discuss it with my book group, for there is a lot here that begs reflection.

>116 labfs39: sorry to hear that , hoping things get easier for you

>116 labfs39: Lisa, so sad to hear of Ace’s problems.

While you are undergoing this sad experience I recommend Creation Lake if you haven’t read it. It’s very distracting, light and not dark or sorrowful. I think you’d like it. It’s also easy to read in short bursts. You don’t have heaps of names to remember.

The audio version is read by Rachel Kushner and she does it so well.

Just a thought.

>117 labfs39: Great comments, Lisa. You have sold me on this one. It sounds like it was a great book club choice as well, so I will try to sell it to my group.

>118 cindydavid4: and >119 kjuliff: Thanks for your well wishes. And for the recommendation, Kate. I don't have a lot of uplifting books currently on my read-next shelves.

>120 BLBera: I think it's going to be a good one for discussion, but two people have already said they are not coming to book club, one because the book is "too harrowing" and the other is busy, although I wonder if she also was put off by the book.

Another compelling story from the queen of crossover literature (young adult/adult).



The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
Published 2019, 494 p.

Daniel is the son of a rich Texan oil magnate visiting his mother's native Madrid in the summer of 1957. The family is staying at the Castellana Hilton, hotbed of American society abroad, and while his father woos Franco for drilling rights in Spain, Daniel takes photos for the portfolio he hopes will win the Magnum photography prize. Ana is the daughter of schoolteachers murdered during the Spanish Civil War for wanting to start a Montessori (non-Catholic) school. She works as a maid at the Castella Hilton to help support her family: older sister Julia, her husband Antonio, and their infant daughter; and her brother Rafa, who spent years being tortured in a Anuxilio Social home for boys before escaping. She is assigned to take care of Daniel's family during their stay. As the two teens become friends, they realize the gulf that exists between them, but are drawn together in ways that won't become apparent for years.

This historical novel attempts to shed light on numerous social issues during the "war after war," Franco's 39 year long dictatorship: the estimated 300,000 infants stolen from Republicans and sympathizers and adopted by Catholic families; the notorious Auxilio Social homes for children of "enemy" parents; and the institutionalized silence that buried these issues for decades. It also attempts to depict the complexity of US-Spanish relations during this time. Numerous official documents and transcripts of former US diplomats are interspersed throughout the novel, and these, along with the photo section at the end of the book, lend an air of historical veracity. The author writes:

During my study and examination, the fragile tensions between history and memory emerged. Some were desperate to remember and other were desperate to forget. I was haunted by the descriptions of war—and also war after war. Hunger, isolation, fear, and the socialization of silence. Suffering emerged the victor in Spain, touching all sides...

The Spanish Civil War and its aftermath is less visible in the US than WWII and the Holocaust. This novel and it's extensive bibliography will hopefully inspire young people to learn more about it.

The novel is written in very short chapters which keeps the action tight and allows for frequent changes of setting. After covering a few weeks in great detail, I was surprised to find an 18 year gap before a surprising denouement. Although I didn't find the novel as compelling as Salt to the Sea, it did provoke a latent interest in learning more about this time period. I will follow up with Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain by Carlos Giménez.

>117 labfs39: fascinating about Notes on an Execution

>100 labfs39: I'm so happy to see this. Looks fun!

>117 labfs39: I'm tempted to suggest this to my book club when we decide next year's books.

>121 labfs39: y suggestion wasn’t meant to be uplifting, rather distracting

>123 dchaikin: Notes on an Execution is the second book (after Killers of the Flower Moon) that my book club has suggested that I didn't expect to like but did. I am looking forward to tonight's discussion.

My nieces are loving history. We made dioramas on Friday. The spear chucking was also very popular. :-)

>124 RidgewayGirl: I think there is lots there, but a couple of people have bowed out of the meeting. I'm anxious to see what others think tonight.

>125 kjuliff: Gotcha, Kate. I haven't read much about Creation Lake yet, so I misinterpreted light as uplifting. After finishing Fountains of Silence, I moved right into Paracuellos as it covers similar terrain, I had it on my shelves, and the Sepetys mentions it in her afterward. Tough reading about the abuse Giménez and other children suffered. I definitely need something different after this.

Edited to fix typo

Hi, Lisa. In regards to your comments about Kingsolver up there- She is the perfect fit for me and has delivered consistently for me. Since you have Flight Behavior on shelf, I suggest that one. I loved it. Looks like we had similar feelings about The Fountains of Silence. Notes on an Execution sounds really good too. That could make a solid audio.

>122 labfs39: Wow, great review of what looks like a very interesting book.

I've done a lot of non-fiction reading abut the Spanish Civil War, including Antony Beevor's comprehensive The Battle for Spain, which is long but excellent. I remember reading somewhere (probably in the Beevor book) that the anti-Franco Spaniards thought that after dealing with Hitler and Japan, the Allies would be coming for Franco. After all, they were fighting a war against Fascism, were they not? It was a naive presumption, however, for whoever had made it. One can certainly understand why there was no appetite for an invasion of Spain in 1945, especially since Franco had cannily stayed out of the war, much to Hitler and Mussolini's frustration.

>122 labfs39: Good to know this Sepetys is worth reading. Over the years I've read quite a lot of fiction & nonfiction on the Spanish Civil War including Beevor's The Battle for Spain too. C. J. Sansom's Winter in Madrid is set in the aftermath of the war.

My library has Paracuellos so I've put in a request.

I've enjoyed reading about your homeschooling adventures. In the past I was deeply involved in Playcentre which has parent/family led education as its core philosophy. While children participated in learning through play, parents were also trained in early childhood education. It was a truly stimulating journey that inspired me to continue to study education at university level. I graduated with a strong dislike of state education.

One of my fav parts of my job as a preschol teacher was home visits, during my time the parents asked questions, but then wed sit with the child and play; modeling the responses, the language and motor skills to help them learn how to play with their child, how to interact and get their child to intereact. I never realized until I got this job how many parents dont know how to do this. These interactions are the beginings of conversations, taking turns and learning vocabular. was so much fun watching them interact together

>127 msf59: I was reading in SOTT today that Barbara Kingsolver was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation. Another accolade for her. I will put Flight Behavior on my read-soon shelf.

>128 rocketjk: Not only were the Allies tired of war by that point, but the focus had already shifted to the "communist threat," and from what little I've read, the Republicans were too red, for many Americans at least. I'm not sure I will start with the Beevor book, but I will note it for the future. I still want to get back to China before I completely lose that thread.

>129 avatiakh: I didn't think Fountains of Silence was as well-written as Salt to the Sea, but it covers some interesting ground, and the story is interesting. Winter in Madrid might be a softer way to ease into Spain than the Beevor, and one I'm likely to get to sooner. I have never read C.J. Sansom, do you like him?

The English translation that I have contains books one and two (out of six) of the Paracuellos graphic books. I've finished the first, and am now reading more of the included supplementary material before I start the second. It's shocking how many children were placed in these prison-like facilities.

Thanks for commenting on the homeschooling posts. Despite doing activities with a homeschooling group, it's sometimes an adult-less journey. I've learned that there are a lot of different ways of homeschooling, and to some I'm too project-based, to others I'm too formal and school-like. It's fun to talk about some of our adventures though, and so if it bleeds out here, I beg everyone's indulgence.

>129 avatiakh: >130 cindydavid4: The Play Centre and home visits both sound like interesting and much needed concepts. One of the jobs I had in college was working in the college daycare center. It was my first time seeing what good early childhood education could resemble. My daughter's experiences as The Evergreen School amplified my understanding of the power of play and project-based and child-led experiences. I was fortunate to have these models to improve my parenting. We assume that people are born with the knowledge of how to parent. I talked to one newly-single father who was amazed when I told him that I had to learn how to be a good parent. He assumed that I was born that way being female.

I loved Spain in our Hearts, mainly about the International Corps during the Spanish Civil War.

>100 labfs39: I have been wanting to comment on this post for a long time but just haven't had the opportunity to do so. Your teaching method is fantastic with all of that hands-on work.

I realize that you are teaching girls, but it reminded me of a story my daughter, Carey talks about teaching boys to play the piano. The first time she teaches a young boy to start piano she knows ahead of time when the boy enters her home, he will immediately go around all rooms available to him to inspect, and touch everything reachable! This appears to be universal to the new boys, but not the girls.

Lastly, I got started in the paleontology and archaeology very early in life from my father who started me in the hobby of scouring the high desert of Wyoming searching for 'indian' camp sites and artifacts,

>131 labfs39: "Not only were the Allies tired of war by that point, but the focus had already shifted to the "communist threat," and from what little I've read, the Republicans were too red, for many Americans at least. "

Yes, excellent points. In fact, as of course you know (but I've always been amazed and infuriated by this development), the survivors among the Americans who went over to Spain to fight on the Republican side in organizations like the Lincoln Brigade were later harassed by Joe McCarthy and his henchmen for this loyalty to democracy, being accused of Socialist/Communist sympathies and labeled "premature anti-fascists."

>131 labfs39: Sansom wrote the immensely popular Matthew Shardlake mystery series set in 16th century Tudor England. I've only read one or two of these and enjoyed them but never got round to continuing. I've read and liked both his stand alone novels, Winter in Madrid & Dominion. I'm planning on reading Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War for the War Room challenge later in the year, it gets mixed reviews but I've had it on the shelves for a long time now.

>132 labfs39: I was excited by parent led education in the early years especially, educators such as Vivian Gussin Paley who wrote extensively about dramatic play & children's stories and education philosophy such as Vygotsky's scaffolding and the Reggio Emilia approach just made vital sense. We also had many of our own text books and ran lots of workshops on creativity, leadership, working in groups etc for the parents. One aspect about families learning together rather than children being grouped by age is the youngest learn from their older peers and those older ones gain confidence and leadership skills from helping. I remember my youngest son, when he started school, putting as one of his goals the need to be able to colour-in within the lines, as he had been brought up to start his artwork with a blank page.


Fyi, there is a delightful picturebook, Ottoline at the British Museum about a cat coming across the various cat statues and mummies when visiting the museum.

>133 BLBera: Spain in Our Hearts looks very good too. Thanks, Beth!

>134 JoeB1934: It's wonderful that you had the opportunity to explore and search for real artifacts, Joe. My mother and middle sister were in Hot Springs, South Dakota a few days ago and were able to see a live dig at the Mammoth Center. The Center has travelling education kits. I'm going to see if they will send one to our homeschool group.

>135 rocketjk: The whole McCarthy era is a dark chapter in US history, yet one that I feel is not often addressed in schools or even our popular consciousness.

>136 avatiakh: Parent-led education is sort of the reverse of what we are currently doing in the US. Here we are focusing on replicating in schools the skills that used to be learned at home. Many daycares and preschools are teaching everything from hygiene to simple chores to socialization, never mind ABCs and how to use scissors. I think it's driven by lack of support for working parents, the rise in the use of electronics, and a misplaced conception that school teachers are responsible for everything, yet the profession remains underpaid, ill-respected, and legislated to death.

Your comment about coloring in the lines made me laugh. I remember the Anti-Coloring books of the 1980s. Despite loving to color myself as a child, I was a blank-paper, -slate, -whiteboard parent.

Thanks for the recommendation for Ottoline at the British Museum. I'll add it to my reading list for Egypt.

Breaking news! The first shipment of interlibrary loan books has arrived after the fiasco of the delivery lawsuit and change in vendors. Here's what's waiting for me. Note that we were restricted to three requests per week when service resumed Sept 3.

Incredible archaeology : inspiring places from our human past
Every bone tells a story : hominin discoveries, deductions, and debate
When we became humans : our incredible evolutionary journey
Our family tree : an evolution story
Grandmother fish : a child's first book of evolution
Boy
Ancestory : The Mystery and Majesty of Ancient Cave Art

>138 labfs39: That list is fantastic, and I will be pursuing some of them when I get time to read. You are a real book 'archaeologist'!

>139 JoeB1934: Please note that most are children's books :-) for the girls.

>140 labfs39: That's OK, it is always interesting to see how the somewhat controversial subjects are introduced.

>141 JoeB1934: Incredible archaeology : inspiring places from our human past is an adult book with beautiful photographs. I'm tempted to purchase this one, because we could use it all through many civilizations. Every Bone Tells a Story is about four famous skeletons, including Otzi and Kennewick man. It's labelled young adult, but looks detailed and dense.

>142 labfs39: I will definitely look into them in next year's reading. I have a special interest in the Kennewick man as he is very important to the story of Paleo Indians. My father found a Paleo Indian site that was excavated by Wyoming archaeologists. I will be making those stories part of my life history when I get to my father's story in my life.

>143 JoeB1934: Very cool, Joe. I look forward to reading about it someday.

---

Thanks to chlorine for recommending this one. I took it off the shelf now after reading Fountains of Silence, a novel about the Spanish Civil War.



Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain by Carlos Giménez, translated from the Spanish by Sonya Jones
Originally published 1977 (book 1), 1982 (book 2), English translation 2016, 135 p.

At the age of six, Carlos Giménez entered one of the many Social Aid homes sponsored by Franco's fascist government and run by the Catholic Church. He would spend the next eight years in various of these "homes" surviving hunger, thirst, physical and sexual abuse, and indoctrination. This is his story, and the stories of other survivors whom he interviewed in the years after the death of Franco.

Modelled on the Winter Aid organizations formed by the Nazis, the Auxilio Social was created in 1936 to not only care for children orphaned by the war, abandoned, or without resources, but also for those whose parents were deemed morally unfit, i.e. had been Republicans during the Civil War or non-Catholics. In 1941 a Falangist official said:

You understand... these children aren't responsible. And they represent the Spain of the future. We want them to say one day: 'Falangist Spain certainly executed our parents, but it was because they deserved it. In exchange, Spain has enveloped our childhood with comforts and care.' The ones that, in spite of everything, still hate us when they're twenty will be the ones who aren't worth anything. The trash.

Giménez uses 16-20 small panels per page and usually two pages per episode. He said that big spreads lend themselves to beautiful art, and his work did not depict anything beautiful. Instead, using only black ink, Giménez zooms in on faces, slapping hands, pointing fingers, and then zooms out to show a solitary figure in an empty courtyard framed by a gate or barred windows. Adults are usually depicted from below, making them loom over the children, who are depicted in a downward perspective. Everything about the art emphasizes the vulnerability of the children, and yet the violence is not restricted to the adults. Internalizing the brutality around them, many of the children prey on those weaker than them, even as they are preyed upon by the stronger.

Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain is the English translation of the first two of six Paracuellos books. Also included in this book is supplemental material, placing both the content and the graphic works in historical context. There are introductions and afterwards by Giménez, as well as photos he took of the homes when he was writing the books. Although emotionally difficult reading, I felt it was important to bear witness to the stories Giménez relates. I know little about the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, but this piece of the picture is heartbreaking.

>144 labfs39: Although emotionally difficult reading, I felt it was important to bear witness to the stories Giménez relates
This is how I felt, too.

>117 labfs39: I'm interested in this one, which wasn't on my radar before. Thanks for pointing it out—it does sound harrowing, but interesting.

I also enjoy hearing about your home schooling... those are some very lucky kids.

And I do hope things can go a bit smoother for Ace.

Thanks for the reminder, Lisa. I own Paracuellos. Now I have to find it.

>144 labfs39: This sounds like a very difficult but important read. I appreciate what you said about the importance of bearing witness to what Giménez has to say.

>145 Dilara86: >148 rv1988: Both Fountains of Silence and Paracuellos attempts to give voice to children and the "war after war." An interesting pairing.

>146 lisapeet: Notes on an Execution was a good choice for our book club. Everyone who read it and came was surprised at how much they liked it, and it inspired an interesting discussion.

>147 BLBera: I think you will appreciate it, Beth.

I purchased this book last year at the Toadstool Bookshop on my way home from visiting Lois and Michael. Thanks to SassyLassy for another outstanding recommendation.



Broken April by Ismaïl Kadaré, translated from the Albanian
Originally published 1978, English translation 1990, 180 p.

Nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature fifteen times, Ismaïl Kadaré was Albania's foremost author for decades. In order to evade censorship (three of his books were banned and many works were censored), Kadaré became adept at using history and folklore to disguise his commentary upon the present. In 1967 Kadaré was exiled to the countryside for two years. In 1990 he defected to France, but returned to Tirana prior to his death earlier this year.

Broken April is the story of Gjorg, a 26-year-old man living on the High Plateau of northern Albania in the 1930s. His family and the Kryeqyqes family have been trapped in a blood feud for generations. Twenty-two members of each family has been murdered in turn. Now it is Gjorg's turn to avenge the death of his brother. Bessian, a writer from Tirana, is honeymooning in the High Plateau with his wife Diana. He is enamored with the tragedy and beauty of the Kanun, the Albanian code that controls all aspects of mountain life and tries to enlighten his bride. Mark Ukacierra is the steward of the blood, the man responsible for the economics of the blood feud. He collects the blood tax and monitors the "health" of the system. Together they present different aspects of the responsibilities of hospitality and the business of revenge killing.

Written in an almost bardic style, Broken April is both a historical novel and a commentary on capitalism, the conflict of tradition with modernity, and the limits of free will in a society that is sharply controlled. It is hauntingly beautiful, and I was swept up in the depictions of both the landscape and the fates of the characters. I have read two other novels by Kadaré (Doruntine and Chronicles in Stone), but this is my favorite.

Edited to fix touchstone

Reading update:

Finished Broken April and am still chugging away at Covenant of Water, which is great but sprawling. 20 hrs down, 10 to go. I think I may restart reading The Cultural Revolution next.

Recent acquisitions:



Demon Copperhead is an ebook. Eleven Months to Freedom was a Little Free Library find. I already owned Doctor Zhivago, both this is the P&V translation. I don't care for this cover though. I thought 1421 would be a nice addition to my China reading, but once I got the book home and read some reviews, it seems like the scholarship is dodgy. Has anyone read it?

>151 labfs39: I must re-read Tin Drum. I read it many years ago when it was considered a must, but I think I was too young to appreciate it. Thank you for making me aware of this book.

>150 labfs39: Broken April is also my favourite so far :-) That might change as Kadaré was a prolific author and I haven't read a third of his output. Chronicles in Stone looks promising. (Although you didn't like it as much as Broken April?)

>151 labfs39: The woman portrayed on that Doctor Zhivago cover doesn't look how I picture any of the novel's characters. It probably because I can't unsee the film, though...

Edited to correct a touchstone

>153 Dilara86: chronicles in stone has the wrong touchstone :)

chronicles in stonehere you go

>154 cindydavid4: Oops. I've corrected it in my post, thanks :-)

de nada. I do it all the time. its sometimes funny what comes up instead!

>153 Dilara86: I didn't rate Chronicles in Stone as highly, but I read it a loonnngggg time ago and didn't write a review. I would need to reread it with my current mindset to give it a firm yea or nay. Broken April was excellent though, so it might still be my favorite.

Yeah, that cover doesn't do it for me.

>154 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. I corrected the touchstone in my review as well.

>152 kjuliff: I have been intending to read The Tin Drum for years, but never seemed to have a copy to hand when I got the urge. Now I don't have that excuse.

>151 labfs39: I didn't read 1421 but it does sound like a pseudo scientific theory. Wikipedia has a whole page on Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories, and most of them seem extremely dubious. This one gets a paragraph and 4 references of rebuttals.

>159 FlorenceArt: Sigh. Oh well, at least I helped support an Indie bookstore with its purchase. I was fooled by the sticker touting the PBS tie-in.

I also read The Tin Drum too young—early teens, maybe? In my Vonnegut phase. And I have a feeling I missed most of the subtext there. Maybe I'll reread, maybe let it go, but it's a thought.

>150 labfs39: Great review of Broken April. It's the first Kadare that I read.

I haven't read 1421 myself: from what I understand, Menzies' claims are a bit dodgy, and unreliable. I have heard good things about When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433 by Louise Levathes which deals with the same time period, but is better researched. Levathes is also not a historian, though.

>161 lisapeet: For what it may be worth to you, I read The Tin Drum in my 30s and loved it.

Broken April sounds really good, Lisa. I must give Kadaré a try. I don't have any Albanian authors yet!

>160 labfs39: I just found a fascinating article, not describing Zheng He's expeditions but replacing them in their historical context: before the Ming dynasty, there was a prosperous trade between China and the rest of the World, thinly veiled behind the rituals of tribute. The first Ming emperor decided to apply the Confucian doctrine strictly, and forbid this trade, creating an economic disaster for coastal regions. Of course the old, now banned, semi-official trade was immediately replaced by smuggling. The next emperor, Yongle, sent these expedition, led by a Muslim eunuch and not a Confucian administrator, in an attempt to establish imperial control on maritime trade.

Functioning as a state trading commission, the voyages of Zheng He encompassed both private commerce and tribute trade. In the grandest manner, Yongle aimed at eradicating the roots of coastal criminality, providing employment for mariners and entrepreneurs, reaching overseas markets with Chinese products, securing desired goods for Chinese consumers, enlarging the sphere of tribute states, and displaying imperial majesty in the southern seas. In the course of seven expeditions, the Ming emperor established tribute relations with forty-eight states, many of them for the first time. Yongle extended imperial power to foreign lands while also ensuring the supremacy of his own policies against the protests of Confucian officials, who were opposed to the emperor peddling Chinese commodities as well as seeking foreign ones.

Link to the article (PDF):
The Voyages of Zheng He: Ideology, State Power, and Maritime Trade in Ming China

(Sorry for imposing on your thread, would you prefer I post this on my own? But I thought you might be interested.)

>161 lisapeet: I have not read Gunter Grass before—is his style similar to Vonnegut's?

>162 rv1988: Yes, the more I learn about 1421, the more dismayed I am at buying it. Oh well. Now the question is what to do with it. Do I put it in my Little Free Library and dupe some other innocent reader? Or do I toss it in the recycle?

>164 BLBera: I think you might like it, Beth. Broken April, although fictitious, introduced me to the Albanian code, the Kanun. It sent me scurrying down some rabbit holes on the internet.

>165 FlorenceArt: This is fantastic. Thank you, Florence! I will check out the link too.

>166 labfs39: Thanks! I recommend the article, it's rather short and very readable.

>167 FlorenceArt: I am getting an Error 404 message when I click on the link :-(

>168 Dilara86: Sorry about that! I updated my post but here is the link to Google Scholar just in case. (Link to PDF is in the right sidebar.)

https://scholar.google.fr/scholar?q=The+Voyages+of+Zheng+He:+Ideology,+State+Pow...

Happy Wednesday, Lisa. Nice little book haul up there. I hope you like Demon Copperhead as much as I did. I still NEED to get to The Covenant of Water. Maybe, I can bookhorn it in, by the end of the year. 🤞

>169 FlorenceArt: This link works, thanks!

>170 msf59: I highly recommend Covenant of Water, Mark. I'm listening to it on audio, and although it is LONG, I'm enjoying it a lot. Verghese himself is the narrator, and he does a good job, I think. Not all authors do.

You read a lot about China, these days.

>172 edwinbcn: I would love to get your suggestions for good books about the history of China, Edwin.

>150 labfs39: Once again, so happy (and relieved) you enjoyed a recommendation. Broken April is a tie for me with The Concert which you might enjoy as it features Zhou Enlai in the sort of magical realism only Kadare can create.

Another Albanian writer writing on the Kanun is Elvira Dones, in Sworn Virgin.

>151 labfs39: An interesting mix. I just read Demon Copperhead for my book club, and definitely enjoyed it, especially as I had reread David Copperfield in the last year or so for the umpteenth time.

I'm another one not convinced by Gavin Menzies, but then the people who wrote about Vikings in Minnesota now seem to have some support, although. I'm not sure how strong.
Now the question is what to do with it. Do I put it in my Little Free Library and dupe some other innocent reader? Or do I toss it in the recycle? Too funny, but I understand the dilemma.

Definitely an odd cover for Doctor Zhivago. Mine had Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, which I didn't like as I don't like film covers on my books, but it now seems better than yours, although the P&V translation would make it worthwhile.

How are you doing with the Zola?

Just waved to you twice on my way through Maine, once going and once coming home.

>174 SassyLassy:
My book group read Demon Copperhead earlier this year, and we found, in very broad brush terms, that those who had read and enjoyed David Copperfield were the ones who liked the Kingsolver iteration the least. That included me. Modelling her book so closely on Dickens made it too predictable for me, and it lacked the light and shade of Dickens, being so unremittingly grim. Kingsolver is one of those few authors whose books cover the full range of gradings on my list, with the likes of Poisonwood Bible at one end, Lacuna and Copperhead at the other, and various others in between!

>174 SassyLassy: Your recommendations always hit the mark with me, Sassy. I have The Concert on my list and will add Sworn Virgin. When I think of Albania, I am reminded of an interesting experience I had in Kosovo when I was 19. I was hiking with a friend in the mountains, dressed in hiking gear most inappropriately for a Muslim area, and I was chased by rock-throwing little boys. Luckily two French-speaking teens intervened and took us to their home. It was a two-story structure with the livestock living in the ground floor room and the family in the room above (the heat from the livestock rose and helped warm the family). We were served Turkish coffee by a very shy and disapproving young girl, while the boys regaled us with stories of travelling down the mountain for school and their dreams of owning a Skoda. I have a photo of them somewhere. If I find it, I will post it.

People seem to either love or hate Demon Copperhead. I'm looking forward to seeing where I land. But first I need to read Heaven and Earth Grocery Store for my book club's October meeting.

I read and enjoyed the first Zola book, with the exception of a very long chapter on Silvere and Miette and their innocent encounters prior to the uprising. I purchased the Oxford translation of the second book, but the group isn't reading it until November.

Next time you pass through New England, I would love to meet up. Did you see Lois and Michael this time?

>175 Willoyd: I'm with you, Will. Kingsolver is uneven in my affections.

And now for an update:

I am nearing the finish line in Covenant of Water with only 7 hrs of listening to go (out of almost 32). Covering the years 1900-1970 through several generations of a family, it is sprawling, yet compelling.

I've returned to Dikötter's history of the Cultural Revolution this week. I'm taking notes which slows me down, but aids in retention.

My daughter and I watched the 1995 BBC production of Persuasion last night. Austen is our fallback when we need comfort tv time.

The girls and I wrapped up the Neolithic Age and will begin studying Mesopotamia next week.

Ace's cancer has spread despite surgery and chemo, so we are at palliative care now.

And finally, I was able to see the Northern Lights this week, which was a treat after a difficult day:

Fabulous photos. Thanks so much for sharing them. Have a wonderful weekend.

The northern lights are outstanding!

Sorry to hear about Ace.

I am so sorry to hear the update on Ace's condition. Our pets are complete family members to us all and my complete sympathy for you and Ace.

Very sad news about Ace, Lisa. I’m so sorry.

Thanks Barbara, Beth, Joe, and Kate.

Fab pics of the Northern Lights - we had them here in Yorkshire too for my first ever sighting, if not quite as spectacular!
Sorry to hear about Ace. Hope you can keep it relatively painless.
Whilst I didnt like Demon Copperhead it is definitely one I've encouraged people to try for themselves, and the majority are 'pro'! I think I've just reached a point where I need/want at least a modicum ofjoy in my reading, although it doesn't have to be unadulterated! Having said that, my reading can occasionally be 'grim', but it tends to be in rather smaller doses than a book the size of this one! Am currently reading Tristram Shandy, no shortage of joy there!

we are having northern lights in phx!

>183 Willoyd: I have seen the Northern Lights before, both in Maine and in Washington, but not recently. It was a great display that night, and I was glad to share them with my daughter, who had never seen them.

I tend to gravitate to the grim in my reading, but I do have some books/authors that I keep around for those times when I need comfort. I used to have a shelf dedicated to them, but they are interfiled now.

>184 cindydavid4: I am astonished, Cindy, that you are having Northern Lights in Arizona. Have you seen them there before, or is this new?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ4vDMTc_-U

I am astonished too, happened back in May , but its very rare

I have a terrible cold, thanks to my youngest niece, and spent the weekend on the couch. Mostly I watched tv mindlessly, but I did read several more chapters in The Cultural Revolution. This is my second book by Frank Dikötter, and I find him eminently readable, yet incredibly well-researched. His "select" bibliography runs to 18 pages. I'm no longer feeling completely adrift, as threads from the different books I've read are coming together. I'm even starting to remember who is who in the vast working of the party. Jung Chang's Wild Swans was a great text for me to read early on, as it covers such a long historical period.

Feel better soon 🍯🫖

feel better soon and tell your neice when you tell her she has to share, germs werent quite what you mean :)

Feel better soon.

>187 labfs39: It's great when things start to come together, isn't it?

>177 labfs39: Beautiful photos. Apparently the Northern Lights displayed here as well, but I was expecting them much later in the night, and missed their 20:15 lightshow.

>176 labfs39: A meetup would be fun. I didn't get far enough south in NH to check in with Lois and Michael. I usually take the dreaded airline route (9) through Maine from Calais to Bangor, and then head west on 2 through the rest of Maine, NH, VT, and then upper eastern NY state to Ogdensburg and the bridge.

I had my eyes open for political signs all the way. There weren't many, and the only storefront I saw was a Democratic one in Skowhegan. I was expecting a lot more, but wondered if people are afraid to express themselves. There's a café where I stop there, and was happy to see other out of state people doing the same thing: Québec and North Carolina people were parking and heading for it too.

Re: Silvere and Miette. That seemed like a story out of time to me, almost like it had been inserted from elsewhere, but it does make sense in the long run and was actually maybe my favourite part of the book in retrospect. The Sin of Abbé Mouret reminded me of their story a bit.

Absolutely gorgeous northern lights photos!

What stunning photos you managed to take! I'm disappointed I missed them in my neck of the wood.

>191 SassyLassy: I usually take the dreaded airline route (9) through Maine from Calais to Bangor
I did a double take reading this, wondering how going from Calais (Northern French coast) to Bangor (North Wales) through Maine (Western France) was in any way practical, and since when those places had airports. And then I realised my mistake :-D

Thanks all for the well wishes. This virus has kept me down all week.

>190 BLBera: It is fun when names, places, and events begin to come together, rather than being adrift. It's also been helpful to have such great recommendations from you all. Dikötter referenced Jasper Becker, author of Hungry Ghosts, in his first book I read, Mao's Great Famine, and is referencing Wild Swans frequently in his book I'm currently reading, The Cultural Revolution. All were books I've read thanks to Club Readers.

>191 SassyLassy: I have been missing the Northern Lights all fall. It was nice to finally get to see them. I was also astonished at how little I could see with the naked eye. It makes sense given how our eyes and brains prioritizes light/rods over color/cones at night. I remember seeing more with the naked eye in the past. I wonder if that is a difference in intensity of the aurora or a decline in my eyesight due to age?

I haven't been on the Airline Route since we went to Prince Edward Island to feed my daughter's obsession with Anne of Green Gables 19 years ago! My big fear was running out of gas since there is a dearth of stations for a big stretch, or at least there was at the time. When you went through Biddeford, you were about 40 minutes from me. :-)

>192 Julie_in_the_Library: >193 Dilara86: Thanks, Julie and Dilara. The photos were taken with my phone camera.

I did a double take reading this, wondering how going from Calais (Northern French coast) to Bangor (North Wales) through Maine (Western France) was in any way practical, and since when those places had airports.

That's too funny!

>193 Dilara86: Well that would be a trip indeed!
North American place names are often reference places of origin. In Maine, Peru and Mexico are very close together, just outside Rumford.
Even when the names are all from the same country, they can be confusing. Imagine Kincardine, Wemyss, Glammis, Greenock, Lovat, Cargill, Paisley, Malcolm, Langside, Dunblane, Oliphant, Tobermory, and others all in Bruce County Ontario. Very confusing for tourists from Scotland, who find starting in Paisley say, that they are quite close to Glammis.

>194 labfs39: Route 9 has definitely been upgraded since then, at least in terms of roadbed, but there is still a definite dearth of fuel or habitation for its 95.5 miles apart from Brewer. Add to that the fear of moose, car breakdowns, long haul truckers and anything else that appears on the road out of nowhere, and it is just not fun.

Biddeford is not far!

Have you seen that Maine author Jason Brown has a new book, this one is a novel (Outermark). I have enjoyed his previous work. Hoping to get to it soon...

>196 avaland: I haven't read any of his books. Which was your favorite?

>195 SassyLassy: Thanks. I’ve often wondered at American place names. I remember when I first came to America asking to be driven to Paris, TX; I’d sen the movie. Now it all makes sense. Especially the clustering of towns that were named after particular areas of Europe.

I also traveled to Juliff TX which was named after my great great great(?) grandfather. His brother went to Australia. It was a depressing place full of tumble-down houses displaying Confederate flags.

>195 SassyLassy: >198 kjuliff: Yes, Maine has quite a few towns named after European countries and cities. Just in south-central Maine we have (from South to North beginning in my hometown): Limerick, Naples, Norway, Paris, Mexico, Peru, Carthage, Livermore, Belgrade, and Athens. Lisbon, South China, Belfast along the coast. I would guess that settlers named them after places they left in the motherland, but Maine didn't have many settlers from Peru, Athens, or China. The native names make more sense historically: towns like Ogunquit and Kokadjo, lakes like Mooselookmeguntic and Umbagog, and rivers like Penobscot and Piscataquis.

>195 SassyLassy: Yes, it's an easy drive over to 95 from here. :-)

And California (the whole West Coast, actually) has a lot of town names from the East Coast...which, many of them, were originally European. Lots of fun. Portland, Oregon; Pittsburg, Dublin, Windsor, and Healdsburg in Northern California...Some may have been names of people, but I bet a lot of them were named after the settlers' hometowns.

I loved Verghese's novel Cutting for Stone, so was excited to read his most recent tome. I ended up listening to it on audio, a good choice, because Verghese does an excellent job reading it. Unfortunately though I have no way to retrieve the wonderful passages I wish I could quote in my review.



The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, read by the author
Published 2023, 31 hours, 16 minutes

Verghese's most recent novel, The Covenant of Water is a sprawling family epic spanning the years 1900 to 1977. Set in Kerala, a region of southern India inundated by water, the novel depicts a family beset by drownings caused by what the family refers to as "The Condition." It begins with a twelve-year-old girl traveling to Parambil to meet her forty-year-old husband in an arranged marriage. This young girl gradually becomes Big Ammachi (Big Mother) to the entire estate. The novel ends with the story of her granddaughter and namesake, Mariamma, who discovers the medical basis for The Condition.

Verghese's characters are marvelous. Even when it seemed as though the plot was going off on tangents, I never tired of spending time with the characters. In addition, the author includes tremendous detail, both of life in India at the time and of medical conditions and advances. Verghese is one of those physician-authors who marries the two professions brilliantly.

Although I had to go online to see the illustrations and listen to the notes all at once at the end, I very much enjoyed the audiobook version. The author does a tremendous job reading it, and having lived in both India and Scotland, he handles the accents deftly. I would recommend the book to those who have patience for long, meandering books, love well-drawn characters, and enjoy learning about the history of medicine.

>201 labfs39: Yay. This will be the first novel I read after—or if—I finish the Booker Prize shortlist.

>202 kidzdoc: I think you will love it, Darryl. It is long, but excellent. One reviewer says you shouldn't read it if you are squeamish about medical detail. I don't think that will bother you, lol. And I'm one who made popcorn and watched the video of my hip replacement, so...

Verghese attended Madras Medical College, which figures in the book, and his parents were Christians from Kerala (although Abraham was born in Ethiopia). In the acknowledgements, Verghese talks about the influences his mother's stories about growing up in the region had on the book.

>203 labfs39: I think I'll love The Covenant of Water as well, Lisa, especially since I gave 5 stars to the previous books of his I've read My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, which is mainly an account of his early years working in, I think, a VA hospital and clinic in hardscrabble eastern Tennessee when HIV/AIDS came to that Bible Belt community, and his novel Cutting for Stone. I see my copy of The Covenant of Water essentially every day, as it sits atop a half bookcase that is between our living and dining rooms, and even though I've eagerly wanted to read it for well over a year when I purchased it I haven't gotten around to it. Next month, for sure!

I, um, love LibraryThing's method of recommending books to me; for this book it predicts with high certainty that I probably will like this book, i.e. for those who like this sort of book this book will be one that they like. Probably. 🙄

>201 labfs39: Cutting for Stone is a huge favorite of my in-laws. My nephew pushed it on everyone after reading it and the amount of ribbing I received for having not yet read it was considerable. I will have to start with that one, but will have to wait until I've forgotten my MIL's description of the book, which was detailed and contained spoilers.

>204 kidzdoc: Lol, I never both with the LT recommendations, I get so many from CR members that I am never at a loss for a book to read.

I hope to read My Own Country, in fact, LT is showing that I even own a copy. He has another nonfiction book as well, one about his physician friend and tennis partner who dies of AIDS.

>205 RidgewayGirl: Too bad you had spoilers for a book you wanted to read. It's worth it, I think, even with spoilers.

My sister bought a collection of books about the Holocaust from a woman online this weekend. Five of the books were duplicates, so she gave them to me.



The Auschwitz photographer : the forgotten story of the WWII prisoner who documented thousands of lost souls by Luca Crippa

My Mother's War: The Incredible True Story of How a Resistance Fighter Survived Three Concentration Camps by Eva Taylor

The Polish girl by Malka Adler

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

The sisters of Auschwitz : the true story of two Jewish sisters' resistance in the heart of Nazi territory by Roxane van Iperen

Nice book haul. I wish you a lovely week.

>207 labfs39: The Sisters of Auschwitz is available in the Talking Books library. I’ve borrowed it and hope I’ll be able to read it. I’ve tried several books lately and so I hope I’m more successful with this.

I have to start the group read next - The Family Moskat. But I should be able to finish this in time.

>209 kjuliff: FYI we will have the thread in the Monthly Author thread. just need to pick a day and a time to start

Hi, Lisa. Good review of The Covenant of Water. I can't believe I haven't got to this one yet. Maybe I can bookhorn it in, in December. 🤞🤞

>208 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara

>209 kjuliff: I'm a little leery of the flood of The __________ of Auschwitz books that have flooded the market lately. Especially those claiming to be "based on" true events. But this one appeals because the two sisters were in the Dutch Resistance, and I'm interested in resistance movements. You'll get to it before me, so I'll look for your impressions.

>211 msf59: I think you will like CoW, Mark. It is long though, making it less easy to shoehorn in. If you still listen to audio, I really enjoyed hearing Verghese read it.

I have not been including children's literature on my Club Read thread, in fact I moved all my children's books out of my account and into a new account, labfs39kids. But as I finished Anne of Green Gables yesterday, I wondered if I should, at least for the novels and maybe picture books from international authors. To help me decide, please take the following poll:

>212 labfs39: I don’t normally read The … of Auschwitz books either, but when I saw it in your >207 labfs39: list and saw it was free (Talking Books Library), I gave it a go.

So far it doesn’t seem too bad, but I am in a reading slump. Or as @baswod puts it, I’ve lost my reading mojo.

>214 kjuliff: I haven't been reading much lately either, Kate, and I have no excuse. Perhaps my mojo is on the fritz as well.

My poll in >213 labfs39: was a surprise. A fair number of my visitors (8 out of 26) have spoken up in favor of the occasional update on children's literature. So here's some highlights since July, and I'll try to intersperse more in future as I go along.


The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales picture book by Jon Scieszka

This summer we read a fair number of fairy tales and retellings. This was a very funny collection by the author of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. It was also on Anita's list of favorites, so I included it in her memoriam reads.


Vincent's Starry Night: A Children's History of Art by Michael Bird

This is a spine book for our history curriculum this year. We have only started it, reading the sections on the Lion Man carved on a mammoth tusk and cave painters, but it is very well done. Each chapter is told as a story, so for instance the chapter on cave painting talked about the process of turning dreams and thoughts of things that exist elsewhere into a picture that others can recognize and how that might have felt for these early artists. Includes child friendly illustrations as well as photos of the artwork.


A Child's Introduction to Jazz: The Musicians, Culture, and Roots of the World's Coolest Music by Jabari Abim

This one is a good reference book, but not a great book to read straight through, at least not for the kids. I'm using it as a supplement to the SQUILT (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Listening Time) listening calendars. We listen to music by Miles Davis, for instance, then read the page or two in Child's Introduction to Jazz that correspond.


Usborne Encyclopedia of World History

This is surprisingly interesting and fun to read. We started our history curriculum with human evolution and are now up to Sumer. We read the accompanying pages from this as we go along. Even the four and a half year old is fascinated. It's one of our spine texts.


Our family tree : an evolution story by Lisa Westberg Peters

I have to give this one a shoutout from all the evolution books we read because it is one of the most banned children's books. An excellent introduction for elementary students that is accessible yet doesn't avoid complex ideas.

Thanks for listing those; not being in the field anymore I lose track of whats out there. and the vincent one looks like a fav

>216 labfs39: Thanks Lisa. Jon Scieszka is a favorite in our household as well.

A quick overview of our history curriculum this year: As mentioned above, we started with human evolution, then studied Paleolithic and Neolithic Ages, Mesopotamia, and the unification of Egypt. Next up is Sumer, the Indus River Valley, and then back to Egypt for the dynasties. Eventually we will get to China, the Andes, Greece, and Rome, etc. I'm incorporating literature, art, and science in as well. For instance, we studied the wedge, have planted some lavender (agriculture), and will make paper. Eventually we will build an Archimedes screw, a sundial, a water clock, and lots of other fun things.

So back to the books. I am combining Curiosity Chronicles and History Quest: Early Times. CC is great with it's audio files of the textbook chapters, workbook, and fun timeline, map work, Minecraft projects, and hands-on activities. Yesterday we unfurled our 48' long timeline and marked the invention of cuneiform at one end and their birthdays on the other. We will keep adding to it all year. Today we made the double crown of united Egypt.

For literature, we started with a novel study of


Maroo of the Winter Caves by Ann Turnbull

Maroo is a girl of the Madeleine people during the late Ice Age. She must lead her siblings, mother, and grandmother safely to the winter caves after her father is killed. The eight year old is reading it aloud to me and grumbles when we have to stop and talk about personification or take comprehension or vocab quizzes.

And then


The Golden Bull: A Mesopotamian Adventure by Marjorie Cowley

During a time of drought, Jomar and Zefa are sent by their parents to Ur to escape starvation. Jomar is apprenticed to a goldsmith, and Zefa plays the lyre at the temple. Much is made of the hardship the farmers suffer in order to keep the temple and the cities well supplied.

Neon Squid has come out with an interesting series. Tales of Ancient Worlds by Stefan Milosavljevich has short 4 page chapters about different archaeological sites around the world. Tale of Ancient Egypt is a mix of Egyptian mythological stories and factual 2-page spreads about things like hieroglyphics, astronomy, boatbuilding, and mummification. They are fantastic.

>217 cindydavid4: Thanks, Cindy. Vincent's Starry Night is a book we will continue working our way through over time. We are supplementing with a lot of picture books too. Both general ones, like The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons to topic specific ones like The First Drawing and Ancestory: The Mystery and Majesty of Ancient Cave Art.

>218 BLBera: Fairy tale retellings are fun and an easy way into creating out own. Another fav was Baabwaa and Wooliam: A Tale of Literacy, Dental Hygiene, and Friendship, a revision of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

>219 labfs39: my former young self would totally understand 8 year old grumbling. Used to drive me crazy in a class read that I couldnt read ahead, had to follow along with the rest.

youve chosen some great books for them! Can I join your class too? we could do a zoom....:)

>222 cindydavid4: I try to mix it up. After lunch, while I am getting her sister down for a nap, she is allowed to read anything she wants, for as long as she wants. We also usually have a novel that she is reading to me as part of a novel study, and another that I am reading to her. Then there are the books that I read to both girls. Oh, and an audiobook in the car (right now it's Anne of Avonlea).

The four year old is reading the first box of Bob Books to me.

I would love to have you as a fly on the wall, but it gets pretty crazy at times. You would quickly remember why you retired!

>223 labfs39: yup! went to the program that works with preschoolers who are deaf, thinking I might want to volunteer . ummm maybe not :) I do miss them, but I like my retirement

>215 labfs39: I decided against that Holocaust novel. The title was a real put-off. A good writer would never choose that title.

But I got my mojo back courtesy of Jennifer japaul22 with The Husbands . It’s an antedote for election anxiety and while you are reading it Trump is forgotten. If only the forgetting stayed.

>224 cindydavid4: haha, I'm looking forward to being retired someday.

>225 kjuliff: The Husbands sounds much more fun and diverting than a Holocaust novel. I might need something like that next week.

I picked up this short story by one of my favorite authors today as a freebie on Kindle.



The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman
To be published Dec. 2024, 68 pages

Lucas is happy. This is a very provoking thing to the world. Because people aren't supposed to be happy, they're only supposed to want to be happy, because how otherwise are you supposed to be able to sell things to them? More than anything people are supposed to pretend to be happy on the internet so that other people are reminded of how unhappy they themselves are in comparison. Humanity has a system. But Lucas? He's just happy. It wasn't even particularly difficult. All he did was to remove the one thing that makes almost all people unhappy: other people.

Lucas works from home, belongs to no groups, has no friends or relations to bug him, and has pad thai with peanuts delivered to his door via an app. Life is good. Then the thing with the frying pan happens.

Ever since reading A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman has been a favorite author. I love his humor, because he is funny without being snarky, and I love the gentle warmth with which he writes about his quirky characters. The only books that didn't resonate with me were the Beartown trilogy. Although this short story doesn't hold up to his longer works, the first few pages in particular were very funny. An enjoyable read.

>226 labfs39: Yes I hope you don’t but I’m worried that Trump will be divisive if he (hopefully) loses.

>228 kjuliff: Me too, Kate, me too.

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I should have started a new thread on the 1st, but better late than never!