Charlotte's garden of reading in 2024 #5

Hi, I'm Charlotte, based in the north of England. I like to read (like all of us here, I'm sure) and enjoy using the categories to try and nudge my reading along a bit.



I'm recycling categories from last year:
Familiar Faces
New to me
Prizewinners
Women in translation
Graphic novels / manga
African Writers
History / Memoirs
Reading my own books
Plus books bought / books given away Given up on this one, as I've lost track.

Familiar Faces (Authors I've read before)

October
80. Artistic License (Lucy Parker)
81. The Fiancé Dilemma
82. Tell Me Everything
83. Death at the Sanatorium
84. No Words
85. Small Bomb at Dimperley

November
86. Death of a Lesser God
87. Ten Things I Hate About the Duke
88. One Secret Thing
89. Ne'er Duke Well
90. Creation Lake

91. Snow
92. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

December
93. The Triumph of it All
94. Tremor
95. The Hunter
96. The Party

Here's a collage of my recent holiday, which already feels like a million years ago.

New to me (authors I've not read before)

I do like it when the first bulbs come up.
---
October
51. Good night Tokyo
52. The Coast Road
53. All the places by Musawenkosi Khanyile
54. Martyr!
55. Green Frog
56. The Chinese Gold Murders
57. Good Reasons to Die

November
58. State of Emergency
59. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
60. The Lover
61. The Distance Between Us

December
62. Driftnet
63. Whale Fall
64. A Simple Intervention
65. The Women of Llanrumney
66. The Material

Prizewinners (and nominees)

If I was going to give a prize to anything in my garden, I think it might be this miniature apple tree. If anyone has any unusual apple recipes, I'd love to hear them.

---

August
16. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024 (includes nominees and winners)
17. Long Island (Toibin previous Booker winner)
18. Mater 2- 10 International Booker longlist
19. Wild Houses Booker longlist
20. All Souls Day (Nooteboom prizes include Pegasus prize)
21. Enlightenment Booker longlist
22. Wandering Stars ditto
23. My Friends ditto

September
24. Death at the Sign of the Rook (Atkinson has won prizes incl Whitbread / Costa)

November
25. Creation Lake (nominated for the Booker)
26. Snow (Banville nominated for all sorts of things)

Graphic novels / manga
I love the vivid colour of these geranium


1. Hungry Ghost (YA)
2. Monica (horror?)
3. Insomniacs After School 2 (manga, YA)
4. Asadora 6 (manga)
5. Aya: Claws Come Out (GN)
6. Tsubaki Chou: Lonely Planet 6
7. Disaster Dates and Lucky Escapes
8. A Side Character's Love Story 17
9. The Russian Detective
10. A Side Character's Love Story 18

11. Young Hag
12. My Love Story with Yamada Kun
13. Lore Olympus 3
14. Under the Oak Tree
15. Something City

African Writers
This kniphofia did not last long in the garden. I think too damp. But maybe this year?
Nope. I think this one is gone. Maybe time to try again with a new plant in a new spot.



1. So Distant from my Life (Burkina Faso)
2. Season of Migration to the North (Sudan)
3. House of Stone (Zimbabwe)
4. Fire pool (South Africa) - essays
5. Random Violence (South Africa)
6. Portrait with Keys (South Africa) - memoir
7. Paperless (South Africa)
8. 1986 (South Africa) NF
9. Bird Monk Seding (South Africa)
10. Call and Response (Botswana)

11. Breasts, etc (South Africa)
12. Little Suns (South Africa)

To read from my shelves in this category:
The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera
The First Woman
Palace Walk
The Cry of Winnie Mandela
Three Strong Women
Going Down River Road
Beyond The Rice Fields
Season of Crimson Blossoms
Segu
Tales of the Metric System
This Mournable Body

History / Memoirs / Politics
I love these sweet peas. They smell amazing.

1. Still Pictures (essays / memoir / photography)
2. Shakespeare's Book (books about books)
3. Black Spartacus Biography
4. Some People Need Killing Memoir
5. Death in the Blood (Journalism / politics / history of medicine/ memoir)
6. The Years (Memoir / French history)
7. Wifedom (Memoir / feminism / literary history)
8. Diary of an Invasion (Journalism/ politics)
9. A Flat Place (Travel / memoir)
10. Human Rights, Robot Wrongs (AI/ Ethics)

11. In Search of Berlin (history)
12. Monsters (Lit Crit)
13. The Restless Republic (history)
14. 1986 (history)
15. This Dark Country (history)
16. Ellis Island (history)

Women in translation


---
11. Brothers and Ghosts (fiction, German)
12. Confrontations (fiction, Dutch)
13. The Communist's Daughter (fiction, Spanish)
14. The Bleeding (fiction, French)
15. I Remain in Darkness (memoir, French)
16. A Strange Woman (fiction, Turkish)
17. Body Kintsugi (fiction, Bosnian)
18. Vladivostok Circus (fiction, French)
19. Ellis Island (NF, Polish)
20. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (fiction, Farsi

21. The Lover (fiction? French)
22. A Simple Intervention (fiction, German)

Reading my own (paper) books



July

1. A Young Doctor's Notebook
2. The Virginity of Famous Men
3. Lily
4. Monsters
5. Lucky Red
6. House of Stone
7. Mayflies
8. Look We Have Coming to Dover

August
1. The Forward Book of Poetry 2024
2. All Souls Day
3. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes
4. Now You See Us

September
1. Stella

October
1. Goodnight Tokyo
2. All the places
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God
4. Vladivostok Circus
5. Small Bomb at Dimperley

November
1. This Dark Country
2. Ellis Island
3. State of Emergency
4. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
5. Creation Lake
6. The Distance Between Us
7. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

December
1. A Simple Intervention
2. Tremor

Books read by month

September 17 (210)
1. Death at the Sign of the Rook
2. Earls Trip
3. Eye of the Tsar
4. Headshot
5. Fire pool
6. Random Violence
7. Portrait with Keys
8. Paperless
9. 1986
10. Bird Monk Seding

11. Call and Response
12. Business Casual
13. Stella
14. Hockey Wife
15. Lore Olympus
16. The God of the Woods
17. The Alternatives

Library Books read this month: 3

October 19 (229)
1. Goodnight Tokyo
2. Artistic License (Lucy Parker)
3. The Fiancé Dilemma
4. The Coast Road
5. All the places by Musawenkosi Khanyile
6. Martyr!
7. Green Frog
8. Tell Me Everything
9. Breasts Etc
10. Body Kintsugi

11. Death at the Sanatorium
12. The Chinese Gold Murders
13. No Words
14. Their Eyes Were Watching God
15. The Third Gilmore Girl
16. Vladivostok Circus
17. Little Suns
18. Small Bomb at Dimperley
19. Deep Harbour

Library books read this month: 6

November 18 (247)

1. Death of a Lesser God
2. This Dark Country
3. Ten Things I Hate About the Duke
4. Good Reasons to Die
5. Ellis Island
6. One Secret Thing
7. Cruel Winter With You/ All By My Elf / Merriment and Mayhem/ Only Santas in the Building /Merry Ever After (Under the Mistletoe Collection)
8. State of Emergency
9. Intimacies
10. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

11. Ne'er Duke Well
12. The Lover
13. How to end a love story
14. Creation Lake
15. The Distance Between Us
16. Snow
17. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
18. No Justice

Library books read this month: 4

December 20 (267)
1. Under the Oak Tree Vol 1
2. Driftnet
3. Whale Fall
4. The Triumph of it All
5. A Simple Intervention
6. The Women of Llanrumney
7. Tremor
8. The Hunter
9. The Party
10. The Material

11. Killers of a Certain Age
12. Around the World in 80 Books
13. Where they lie
14. The Burning Stones
15. Something City
16. Bookshop Woman
17. These Women
18. To the River
19. The Women
20. My Love Story with Yamada Kun v2

Library books read this month: 9

I went to a book event yesterday, but didn't take any pictures. The seating was school bench style and my back couldn't cope. I left after the main talk (they were also having a Q&A). Here's a photo from Liverpool's Xmas light exhibit instead.

ETA The event was for Babylon Burning, a study of anti-fascist protests by musicians in the UK.

Happy new thread, Charlotte.

Love the Liverpool photo.

I always enjoy reading through your categories.

Happy new thread

Happy new thread, Charlotte!

The Christmas light exhibit looks like a lot of fun :)

Happy new thread! Where did you go on holiday? It looks absolutely beautiful there!

Happy new thread, Charlotte!

>11 charl08: Yikes, nothing like uncomfortable seating to ruin one's enjoyment.

Happy New Thread, Charlotte! Gorgeous pictures of South Africa and fascinating picture of Liverpool's Christmas Decorations.

>12 BLBera: Thanks Beth. It was quite a surprise to see them as I had missed the news there was a festival taking place.

>13 lowelibrary: Thank you.

>14 bell7: Thanks.

>15 shimmermarie: Deborah answered this for me! It is beautiful.

>16 MissWatson: Thanks Birgit.

>17 RidgewayGirl: It was a bit basic. It was a nice idea to host a music book event in a music venue, but ouch.

>18 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. They did surprise me, as I wasn't expecting any kind of street art.

I hate bench seating Charlotte. It's why I rarely go to the Almeida theatre, despite the thin padded cushions.

>20 Caroline_McElwee: I wondered if it was my height that made it worse: no idea, really.

Vladivostok Circus
Enjoyed this slight novel about a young woman who travels to Russia to design costumes for a circus act. I do like the strangeness Dupin creates in her novels. The characters are based in an empty circus venue when everyone else has gone home, trying to perfect an act in the cold and unwelcoming echoey spaces. The small cast of characters is intriguing but there wasn't a lot of plot here.
(Women in translation / reading my own books)

I'm not sure how to respond. After a few moments I confess that seeing all of them every day is already more intimacy than I'm used to. I've always lived alone, apart from when I lived with my father when I was little. Even when I was away at school, I had my own room.
'And you don't mind leaving your fiancé?' he says. And taking off halfway across the world?'
'Thomas is not my fiancé.'
'I knew an Italian who always referred to his boyfriend as his fiancé, even when they'd only been out once. But I get it,' he adds, seeing my embarrassment, 'you've run away, all the way to Vladivostok.'

Little Suns
Historical novel set in Sourh Africa before it was South Africa. This one took a bit to get into, as it jumps between a period of tenuous alliances between the British and African communities, and the aftermath decades later of "pacification" of "rebellions". Mda in the afterword talks about his own family history and the connections to these changes. In the book, his anti-hero, the half brother of the king, reflects on his own role in the end of political and economic independence, as well as the "modern" changes as he travels around his former homelands.

'When we started Ibandla-likaNtu we had a big war of words,' says the aged one. 'Some of us left the church of the white man whether the Methodists or the Romans or the Anglicans or even the French for those of you who are Basotho - to return to our God, uQamata. We wanted to leave everything behind. Others said let us bring the Book along with us for it says some beautiful things that we will find comforting and liberating. Others said no, it is a bad book, a book of lies and slavery. They said it is a book of hellfire, a book that is against amasiko nezithethe - customs and traditions - of our ancestors. I have been thinking and thinking and thinking about this. Now that our anger has dissipated I think we should talk about this again. I think there is no contradiction between the Bible and our amasiko. The Bible is a good book for it says what you want it to say.'

Malangana can no longer hear what others are saying. But from what he has seen in the past few days there will be vigorous debates. He is surprised that no physical fights have ensued as some devotees do seem to take matters personally.

Small Bombs at Dimperley
I love Lissa Evans.
Tried to space this out to make it last longer, without much success.

>24 charl08: Good to know that you enjoyed Small Bombs At Dimperley, Charlotte. I have a hold on it at my library. I do love Lissa Evan too.

I am also a Lissa Evans fan. I didn't know she had a new one out. I will check it out.

Little Suns and Vladivostok Circus also sound good.

>25 vancouverdeb: Hope it comes through soon for you Deborah.

>26 BLBera: Hope that you can get hold of it on your side of the pond, Beth.

Deep Harbour
Swedish crime fiction in translation, a bit unusual (for me) as it's set in a small post-industrial coastal community rather than a city. Eira is pregnant and trying to work out what she wants in the future for her home and family. A skeleton is pulled from the river after a chance discovery by divers. A historical investigation follows, trying to pull together the traces of a group US deserters from Vietnam who were based in Sweden in the 70s. An interesting context, if not the most immediately thrilling crime novel.

This is the third in the series and I did think there was a lot of water under the bridge here, and it might have been a better read in order.

I want to go to New York.
I'm guessing this isn't going to tour.
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/mexican-prints

>29 charl08: - I think you should definitely go to New York :)

>29 charl08: I'll meet you there. :)

>30 katiekrug: >31 BLBera: Heads out to buy lottery ticket...

Happy new thread.
Love the holiday pictures.
>11 charl08: They look a bit like a chess set. Not sure about moving them, they look huge!

>33 Helenliz: Thanks Helen.

Yes, that's right - it's called Checkmate.
https://www.visitliverpool.com/riveroflight/checkmate/

>28 charl08: I've read the first two and they were fantastic. I still have that one to read. Yup, it definitely makes sense to read them in order.

>35 Ameise1: I'm not sure why I picked this one up, as my library has the earlier books too.

Speaking of the library, I picked up some more crime fiction for the weekend. Work is pretty grim (it feels like the redundancies in other faculties might be heading to us). Crime set somewhere else is proving helpfully distracting.
Good reasons to die
The silver bone
A bad, bad thing

Happy new thread. I hope it remains a happy place for you despite work grimness (which many of us will relate to, I'm sure).

Well, I hope any redundancies don't reach you, Charlotte, Enjoy your crime reads. We all need an escape with reading.

>37 Jackie_K: Thanks Jackie. The books definitely help. Reading about post-Soviet Chernobyl at the moment, properly distracting.

>38 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. It's a weird time.

I finished some books.

1. Death of a Lesser God
Part of a series set in postcolonial India I have been following. Here Persis is asked to re-investigate the case of a rich white man accused of the murder of an Indian lawyer. Of course, the underlying details prove murky, involving the aftermath of partition violence and state corruption.

This Dark Country

The significance of the tight crop, and the erasure of all detail beyond the table is partly about solitude, but it is also a comment on bar culture. The bars Nina frequented, most famously the Domino Room at the Café Royal, were lined with mirrors, making them an ideal space for surveillance and observation. Yet here that whole network of looking is foreclosed, with Nina insisting upon an experience of the bar that was not just about the promise of sex or hollow social display. The experience she wanted to preserve was that of sitting with a pile of newspapers in a corner alone, her sketchbook open, sipping her cocktail of choice, a crème de menthe frappé. The space can be contemplative, this painting suggests, wholly disconnected from economies of desire.

This one is a book I have been reading for Quite Some Time, so glad to move it to the "read" pile. The author explores the lives of women artists in the early 20th century, from those who were recognisably part of the Bloomsbury set (Vanessa Bell) to women whose art and archive has almost been completely erased (Mary Constance Lloyd, whose name is so similar to another artist they often get confused with each other).

Still Life Nina Hamnett (1890–1956) via Art UK

It's based (from what I can gather) on a PhD thesis. So interesting to read about these women's lives and their choices of paintings (despite the title, in many cases portraits as well as still lives). Where the women had wealth she makes clear how that gave them freedom (if not happiness). Their biographies stand in contrast to the (sometimes bitter) battles those women who had to support themselves as artists fought. In places her discussion gets a bit "woo woo" for me, as she tries to deal with all the things the surviving materials don't (won't) clarify.* All the images here are black and white but with art.uk and so much more online now I found most of the pictures she refers to viewable online. It made me want to go to all the Bloomsbury places, especially Charleston.

The Cook Vanessa Bell (1879–1961)Via Art UK

I'll put some links here to the artists I wanted to find / see more of.
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/lloyd-mary-constance-18731968
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/john-gwen-18761939
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/hamnett-nina-18901956

There seems to be an expanding area of journalism linked to this too:
https://artuk.org/discover/stories/facing-the-new-century-women-artists-19001909

*Aware this probably says more about me than the writer.

Ten things I hate about the Duke
Katie reviewed this romance over on her 75ers thread, and it wasn't hideously expensive on kindle. I enjoyed the humour, and the wider cast of characters as well as the main romance plot.

>42 charl08: - Glad it wasn't a dud!

>41 charl08: hmm, tempted. Is it readable? Theses not always being the chattiest of things.

Good luck with the Job, Charlotte. I hope the redundancies don't affect you.

The crime spree seems to be a good idea. I find them comforting when I am stressed as well.

>41 charl08: I have this one in the pile Charlotte, need to nudge it up.

>43 katiekrug: I liked it a lot Katie, thank you for highlighting it.

>44 Helenliz: It read better than mine, I'm sure, Helen!! There was a lot to think about, so I did read it in small chunks.

>45 BLBera: Thanks Beth. The crime is definitely helping. Something about the promise of resolution at the end of the book is very appealing right now.

>46 Caroline_McElwee: I'd love to hear what you think about it Caroline.

I went to see some art yesterday.

Perhaps luckily (for my groaning shelves), they didn't have a catalogue on sale.

https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/whatson/walker-art-gallery/exhibition/conver...

I finished another crime novel, Good Reasons to Die, set in Ukraine before the latest war (but written by a French author and translated). Chernobyl haunts this book, as two sets of investigators try and work out who killed the oligarch's son - and why they killed him in such a macabre way in the zone evacuated after the Chernobyl explosion. Lots of stuff here about the 'lost' nuclear town of Pripyat, where most of the nuclear workers lived. Now it's almost entirely abandoned. The investigations take place amidst the weird post-fallout environment of a technically closed 'zone'. Whereas none of the officials want to be there and are all desperate to leave, 'stalkers' evade the police to spend time there, elderly people return 'home' and refuse to leave, western tourists join organised tours of the abandoned town and smugglers take advantage of all the abandoned goods. Both lead investigators remember the Soviet era, and are unimpressed by the younger generation's take on it (as in 'sovok' "loosely translated as old-fashioned Soviet crap.")


I thought I'd guessed the twist at the end, but it turns out not. Given everything that's happened in Ukraine since the book was published in 2020, it already reads like a period piece. Possibly an interesting pairing with Svetlana Alexievich?

>49 charl08: - That one sounds really intriguing. I'll have to see if it's available over here. You know, while we're still allowed to read books in the good ol' USofA... :-/

Interesting art , Charlotte. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

>50 katiekrug: Yikes. I did wonder if it was published in Russia.

>51 vancouverdeb: I enjoy the gallery. I was a bit sad that my favourite picture wasn't on show. The gallery attendants told me it's part of a plan to move it though, so hopefully it gets a better position.

https://annielouisaswynnerton.com/2018/05/31/no-38-the-sense-of-sight-1895/

I'm reading Ellis Island, an account of migrants' experiences at the island. This comment by an early 20th century commissioner struck me as all too accurate.
And funny.

But even among the immigrants Howe tries his best to meet half- way, there are some he can't stand. These are the arrogant, self-assured, demanding British.

The British gave the most trouble. When a British subject was detained, he rushed to the telephone to communicate with the consul general in New York or the ambassador at Washington, protesting against the outrage. When ordered deported, he sizzled in his wrath over the indignities he was subjected to. All this was in effect a resentment that any nation should have the arrogance to interfere with a British subject in his movements. All Englishmen seemed to assume they had a right to go anywhere they liked, and that any interference with this right was an affront to the whole of the British Empire.

Ellis Island: a people's history
I love oral histories and I've read very few books about migration that weren't fascinating. This book, unsurprisingly then, was an easy win for me.

Szejnert discusses the changing political of Ellis island, those appointed to run it (the Commissioners) as well as the men and women who held "ordinary" jobs (some of whom were immigrants themselves). Thanks to ships' manifests she can highlight individuals who made it (and those who were turned back). The book opens with a collection of 19th century letters from migrants to families at home that never made it. Russian censorship meant any letters with tickets weren't sent on. Following the establishment of the rescue project for the history of the island, a massive oral history project was undertaken, interviewing those who had come through the island. There are also photos taken by one of the workers at the island, some of which are now held in the NYPL.

Sometimes they don't bother with camouflage, instead writing a whole word in chalk, usually on the immigrant's chest or back: arms, legs, skin, nails.

Next, another doctor will examine the people marked with chalk, standing them in a well-lit place near a large window.....

Until 1998, there was no known case in the history of the island of someone escaping the clutches of the chalk symbols. But that was the year an 84-year-old Spanish woman named Espuga Manuela Carnero returned to Ellis Island. She had emigrated to America in 1920 with her mother and brother. She was six, but could remember the inspector marking her brother's jacket with chalk. Her mother pulled the jacket off him so quickly and dexterously that no one noticed a thing. Somehow, the boy wasn't pulled out of line, nor separated from his family. Espuga Manuela Carnero came to Ellis Island to tell that story and record it, because it is never too late to tell others how you must fight to the end, even when resistance seems hopeless.

The book was originally in Polish so also counts for my women in translation category. Also pleased to read history from outside anglocentric bubble.

>54 charl08: That sounds interesting and maybe good for this present moment when so much energy is put into dehumanizing immigrants.

Thanks for your comments about the new Sally Rooney. I'm reading it now, and it's been a welcome distraction.

>55 RidgewayGirl: I was struck by how much of an overlap there is with today. From those who bend over backwards to help migrants to those who take the opportunity to exploit people. Which makes the book sound worthy and grim, it's not at all.

In Booker news: I did have a copy of Orbital, and had read the first few pages, but it seems to have gone for a walk, so I won't be picking it up today...

And of course, Congratulations to Samantha Harvey.

I finished some books

One Secret Thing
Trying to read Olds' poetry about the death of her mother (and their difficult relationship) was a bit too hard for me. I didn't linger on these poems, although I suspect in a different time I would have appreciated them more. Going to pass this one on in the hope the next owner appreciates them more.
Did like this description of beautiful wild swimming.

I was a little postindustrial
water rat in a one-piece suit with the
Blue Willow pattern from a dinner plate on it, the man on the left nipple going
away forever, the woman on the right
forever waiting. I would dive into the lake - immediate, its cobalt reach and
silence - slide down, into the rich,
closed, icy book, blue lipped
in a white rubber cabbage-roses
headdress, and a coral rubber nose-clip,
slow-flitting like an agate-eating
swallow, floating sideways in
the indigo pressure...

Cruel Winter With You
Kindle have a new set of "quick" romance reads themed around winter. I do love the way the genre uses the Xmas theme, feels very festive. Ali Hazelwood is in the algorithm for me so I got a notification to buy this one, but will probably get and read the rest too in the lead up to the 25th.

State of Emergency
This had been sat on my shelf since the pandemic, when I heard Tiang speak with his "translator" hat on as part of the Borderless Book club. This is his first novel, an ambitious multi-voice account of attempts to fight for independence and equality in Singapore. A colonial era (the "Emergency" of the title) war crime reverberates through the book, affecting characters who gradually reveal their connections. But Tiang also accompanies the political with the personal, families divided by migration, homophobia and even just a failure to really see each other.
Here Stella is imprisoned by the secret police after joining a church group to support migrant domestic workers.

"I don't know. They imply that if tell them everything about the conspiracy, they'll let me go. But I was never a part of the conspiracy. I'm not even convinced it exists."

"Does it matter? Do you know what the papers are saying about you?"

"I'm only allowed a newspaper very occasionally. They go through them first and cut out some of the articles.”

"You're dangerous, carried away by poisonous ideology. People like you infiltrate these organisations and then use them to carry out your own ends."

"Janet, you don't believe that, do you?"

"It doesn't matter what I believe. It's in the Straits Times. All these Marxist Conspiracy people, everyone detained under Operation Spectrum. They've been running these stories for months. Everyone knows about you now. All the leftists have to be weeded out. Same in Malaysia, they just had their Operation Lalang. Copying us, as usual."

"I don't know how to prove that I'm innocent. How do you prove a negative?"

"You don't prove it. You confess....

>59 charl08: Hello Charlotte. My local library has hot a vopy of it. I put it on my never ending list 🫣

I snapped up those 5 holiday short stories yesterday, as soon as I heard about them :)

The Ellis Island book sounds like one I would like, Charlotte. Great comments.

I really like Sharon Olds, but I can see that this might not be the right time to dive into a collection by her.

I loved Orbital, but it's the only book from the Booker list that I've read, so... Was it a surprise? It seemed like most people expected James to win.

>59 charl08: I really liked State of Emergency. Tiang is a fantastic translator, but I'd love for him to write another novel.

>60 Ameise1: Hope you like it Barbara if/when you read it. Glad to hear it's been translated, too.

>61 katiekrug: I was going to wait a bit but since they're on a "free" loan deal...

>62 BLBera: I tracked down my copy of Orbital but I've not read it yet. The Lancaster reading group, that I sometimes dip into, are reading Marguerite Duras this month, and she's been on my wishlist for a while, so I thought this would be a good nudge to actually pick it up. I've not been great at going along, they are quite early meetings (starting at 6) so I'm not always home in time. But at least I've picked up The Lover and I'm finding it really compelling. I've still got about 70% to go on the Kushner (kindle advises) and I returned The SafeKeep to the library as someone else requested it. Maybe I'll pick it up again when it comes out in paperback (not until May next year!). I guess Everett has had quite a bit of coverage recently with the various other nominations and the film adaptation, so hopefully lots of readers still will find James.

>63 RidgewayGirl: He came across really well at the bookgroup meeting I went to: smart and funny, and clearly got on very well with the other speakers. From his reflections in the session, I'd love to hear something more contemporary from him, but I'm not sure how easy that would be personally. Sometimes historical novels are safer options, and I can understand that.

I had Orbital out from the library, and it didn't grab me. I'm not sure if I even did more than flip through a few pages. I think the idea of people of being in outer space did not appeal to me.

>66 vancouverdeb: They can't win for everyone, Deborah, glad you felt you could just continue with the ones you wanted to.

Intimacies
I didn't realise I'd read this before until I was embarrassingly far along into this book. I think this is more about the lack of plot than anything about the novel: she creates a mood. Nonetheless, I am hoping that the library gets hold of her new book, but I've just checked the UK publication date, and I'll have to wait six months. Harumph.

Not sure whether to put it in my 'familiar faces' category or not, given that it took me so long to work out I had read it...

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
This was lovely, a Farsi translation of an author now living in Australia. Azar explores a family's experiences after the Iranian revolution with magical realism. They escape Tehran but not the family ghosts, bewitchings and curses. The unbearable executions, conscriptions and abuses of power become part of a wildly colourful picture of a family saga.
With mermaids.

He thought Tehran was also like an addict. A city addicted to smoke, to humiliation, to poverty and torpor whose slightest effort to sober up gave rise to panic. Tehran was an addict that wanted to get clean but lacked the will, and after several days of sobriety would begin using again with even greater intensity. It was an addiction to oppression, an addiction to poverty, and an addiction to inhibition and nostalgia...

Ne'er Duke Well
This one was recommended 'for fans of Tessa Dare' and I would say that was a good tip. Also, I do like a novel where the heroine runs a circulating library.

The Lover
Mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, the descriptions of (then) French Vietnam are beautifully atmospheric, and reminded me of The Painted Veil. On the other hand, the repeated references to how the narrator was like her lover's child gave me a major case of the icks. I did wonder if this was due to the book's age, or something that doesn't work in translation (originally in French).
I was surprised to see it was only published in the 1980s though. The edition I have includes Duras' wartime notes and some other writings, so perhaps if I read these the novel(la) will make more sense to me.

My mother only has photos taken of her children. Never anything else. I haven't got any photographs of Vinh Long, not one, of the garden, the river, the straight tamarind-lined avenues of the French conquest, not of the house, nor of our institutional whitewashed bedrooms with the big black and gilt iron beds, lit up like classrooms by the red street lights, the green metal lamp-shades, not a single image of those incredible places, always temporary, ugly beyond expression, places to flee from, in which my mother would camp until, as she said, she really settled down, but in France, in the regions she's spoken of all her life and that vary, according to her mood, her age, her sadness, between Pas-de-Calais and Entre-Deux- Mers. But when she does halt for good, when she settles down in the Loire, her room will be a terrible replica of the one in Sadec. She'll have forgotten.

Making note of Ne'er Duke Well - thanks!

How to Enjoy Poetry
A very short book by comedian (and one time English teacher) Frank Skinner. Here he explores Stevie Smith's Pad Pad. Skinner also has a poetry podcast.

Poetry lovers are viewed with suspicion. Many years later, when a popular tabloid was trying to convince its readers that they had identified a sexually motivated murderer, their character-assassination Exhibit A was 'He owns over a thousand books, many of them poetry'. So, if you are into poetry or, better still, if this book gets you into poetry, best keep quiet about it.

>69 katiekrug: Surprised you weren't there ahead of me, Katie!

I've not been finishing much, but I have been reading.

Still trying to finish the Booker list - about a third left of Creation Lake.
About half way through this one Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

Books I should probably admit I've put down for good:

Writing for busy readers : communicate more effectively in the real world
The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great

Books I can't admit I've put down for good:

Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands
American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota
Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death
Around the World in 80 Books: A Literary Journey

Books I picked up when I should have been finishing the ones above

Tremor: A Novel (Love his writing. Got interrupted though)
And wrote my story anyway : black south african women's novels as feminism Academic book that discusses lots of of fiction that I haven't read. But now, of course, want to.
The Distance Between Us This has been on my shelf for ages, from Charco, one of the 'fiction in translation' publishers. Reads like autofiction, about the author trying to find out more about his dad's life after a fractious relationship in his lifetime.

Stopping by to say hi, Charlotte, and I hope you are having an enjoyable weekend. I hope you've decided which books to ditch and which to continue.

I did finish Creation Lake, although I didnt like it as much as this reviewer. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/10/nx-s1-5104725/creation-lake-review-rachel-kushner
It took me ages to get into this novel, I kept picking it up on my phone and reading a couple of % at a time, usually only when I didn't have anything else to hand. I agree with other readers who have said that it felt like there was a lot going on here: ecoterrorism, fractious politics within a commune, a spy worrying about past jobs, and large chunks of emails from an influential philosopher arguing everyone should acknowledge neanderthal contributions and (maybe) we should renounce tech and return to the caves. I think I wanted this novel to turn into something by Le Carré: some kind of terrible wound that the main character was carrying, or a reflection on modern politics through broken personal relationships. Instead, a very small twist as the meathead turns out not to be willing to turn assassin just to please the narrator, and no resolution on several of the plot strands, from what actually happens to the politicians' plans for redevelopment to quite where Bruno and the cult/ community ended up.

People might claim to believe in this or that, but in the four a.m. version of themselves, most possess no fixed idea on how society should be organized. When people face themselves, alone, the passions they have been busy performing all day, and that they rely on to reassure themselves that they are who they claim to be, to reassure their milieu of the same, those things fall away.

What is it people encounter in their stark and solitary four a.m. self?

What is inside them?

Not politics. There are no politics inside of people.

The truth of a person, under all the layers and guises, the significations of group and type, the quiet truth, underneath the noise of opinions and "beliefs," is a substance that is pure and stubborn and consistent. It is a hard, white salt.

>72 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. I've not been around as much on LT - my boss was made redundant out of the blue so things have felt quite unpredictable and uncertain at work. Trying to keep my head down but (it feels like) not very successfully.

>73 charl08: Oh, that sounds like a very upsetting situation at work. I hope all goes smoothly for you.

>73 charl08: I got half through and gave up with this one Charlotte, I rarely give up so far in.

>73 charl08: That book sounds like it's not for me at all, yet I really like the quote you shared! Also, sorry about your work situation -- it's always so stressful when things are uncertain at work.

>74 MissWatson: Thanks Birgit, it's appreciated.

>75 Caroline_McElwee: I think if it had been a library book, but I had bought a kindle copy, and I just got in the habit of calling it up when I was waiting for coffee etc.

>76 christina_reads: There were lots of 'quotable quotes' but for me there wasn't enough pace or plot!

The Distance Between Us

This was (is) a book I picked up thanks indirectly to the fiction in translation book group. The websites tended to do a deal, so I ended up with a couple of extras which mysteriously jumped into my cart before I paid... I don't think I've read a Peruvian author before, and this was an interesting start!

Cisneros the author is the son of a Peruvian general who was heavily involved in the senior leadership of military rule in Peru in the 70s and 80s. The book is about the son of a Peruvian general (with the same name) trying to track down more about his family, as his dad died when he was still in school.

But the book is tagged as a 'novel', and I'm not really sure how this fits into autofiction (or not). Reading it as memoir for most of the book, I was quite annoyed with the author, as the book almost felt like an apology for his dad, who (I felt) deserved legal consequences rather than valorisation.

Despite acknowledging that his dad remained in close contact with the men he trained with in Argentina (who read like a roll call for war crime trials), and the 'disappearance' of activists, students and journalists whilst he was in government in Peru, Cisneros (the narrator) never seems to be able to step back enough to acknowledge the gap between his professed (and subconscious) love and admiration for his dad. The family had a charmed life, receiving gift baskets from political elites whilst others struggled to make ends meet in a tanking economy, and lived with daily violence from the Shining Path. He reproduces some of his dad's speeches and articles (justifying military rule and extreme violence against protestors), and as a narrator appears to view these as somehow worthwhile, even as C-t-N seems embarrassed about previous public statements to this effect.

By the end I'd almost decided that this was deliberate, and Cisneros (the author) was trying to say something about how difficult it is for Peru to step back (and away) from military rule. I'm not sure how else to read a life of a man who politically was awful (to use a technical term!), but at home seems to have been little better, behaving like a dictator to his children too, from determining their friends to enforcing impossible educational standards, and forcing one of his daughters to feel like she had to move to Europe to get away from him. The only point at which I felt any sympathy or insight into the experience of Cisneros-the-narrator and his family was near the end of his political rule when someone throws dynamite in his garden, and there is a large explosion. Did this really happen? I don't know, and I feel like I've spent enough time in the company of the Peruvian military junta to be unwilling to find out.

The blurb on the book describes it as a bestseller in Peru, and he has gone on to write two more books based on his own family history.

Sorry to hear about the situation at work, Charlotte. I hope all goes well for you. I hope you enjoy Snow when you have a chance to read it. I got April in Spain out from the library yesterday and I hope to read it in September. The library has both in audiobook and so I listened to part of Snow on audiobook, and really enjoyed the narrator. I'll probably do that with April in Spain. Do you listen to audio books ? I always have to the physical book as well, but they are good while I do jigsaw puzzles.

>79 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. So sorry to read about Dave's car accident. Hope you are OK.

I loved the Banville, (Ed Snow) thank you for mentioning it on your thread. Like you I am already wanting to read the next in the series. I loved the atmosphere of the creepy Irish stately home and the dysfunctional family threw me completely, I had no idea who did it.

Harry Hall took in the bookshelves, the marble fireplace, the mock-medieval furniture.

'It's a library,' he muttered incredulously to Hendricks. 'It's an actual fucking library, and there's a body in it!'

Your description of The Lover made me smile. I also got the "icks" when I read it.

LOVE the quote from How to Enjoy Poetry...I think I will have to pick up that one.

I hope the job settles soon. Good luck!

>80 charl08: Is that a quote from April in Spain? If so, I think I need to read this.

>81 BLBera: Apparently it split the bookgroup (which I think I should probably resign from, as I just don't get home in time).

>82 MissWatson: I've fixed the review - this was Snow. I'm in the queue to read April in Spain though!

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

I've been reading these Zora Neale Hurston stories on and off for a while, and had the book on my shelves for longer. That the book was published is the result of work by scholars to identify and edit Hurston's short stories which had been "lost"*. It's a lovely small hardback, and the stories are wide ranging and as the intro points out, give a wider picture of the author's interest from the southern/ rural dominated stories, to the impact of Harlem on new arrivals. There's a lot of marital discord, difficult lives and vividly painted communities.

* i.e. you'd have to go digging for them in archival collections of the original journals, if you even knew to look for them).

>83 charl08: Thanks! My library has Snow, but not April in Spain, so I can get this.

No Justice
I can't remember how I came across this one - a series set in the Yorkshire town of Scarborough. Rather brilliantly, both of the two narrators are women in their 50s, romance isn't needed as a plot line and and there's open discussion of everything from the power of cold water swimming to dealing with perimenopausal flooding.

>85 MissWatson: It does deal with some pretty grim themes (I guess as most books written now that are set around the Catholic church in Ireland in this period). Not "cosy" by any means. So descriptions of the effects of abuse and of abusers' attitudes and self-justification.

>87 charl08: Thanks for the heads-up. I think I can handle one grim book per month, but I will make sure the rest are lighter. :-)

>86 charl08: I have a Netgalley copy tbr of the first in this series, A Wake of Crows.

>88 MissWatson: That sounds like a workable solution.

>89 elkiedee: But are you persuaded to pick it up?

>90 charl08: Yes, your review has made me more interested in reading A Wake of Crows, if I remember when picking a next book - there are a few I'm really looking forward to.

It's been difficult with the car accident, and our dog , Poppy dying in the accident, but we were able to adopt an 11 month old Havanese puppy from the Vancouver SPCA on Sunday. We are really loving her, Muffin. She came with her name. I'm about 15 pages into April in Spain, but my concentration and time are short at the moment. I hope things are going okay in your neck of the woods, Charlotte.

>91 elkiedee: I never remember (or very rarely) so in no position to comment!

>92 vancouverdeb: I am so sorry for all you and Dave have been through lately Deborah. I hope your time with Muffin is a lovely distraction for you both.

Catching up on some reviews.

Under the Oak Tree Vol 1
Comic version of a Japanese novel, apparently set in a magical world but not a lot of that beyond several attacks by various creatures that gave the hero a chance to show off his hero-ing. Romance plot read like a 30 year old M&B (not a lot of agency here beyond learning to manage the household) but hopefully it develops a bit moving through the series: there are hints it might. I don't think I'll carry on with it though.

Driftnet
This one is the start of a crime series set in Glasgow, published in 2003. The focus is initially the murder of a young man and then quickly becomes about a computer based paedophile ring. As its 20 years old the context seems in marked contrast to today when various surveys suggest the majority of children will have seen some kind of explicit images. At one point a police expert comments that children have to wait until their parents are asleep to access material on the family computer...

I will continue with this one (but hope for a different kind of crime in the next book) - also hoping the library still have the next one.

Whale Fall
Absolutely loved this book, short enough to almost read on one evening from work. I was completely absorbed in the story from picking it up. The author creates a fictional island off the coast of Wales in the 1930s. The island is isolated, life is hard, and the community is shrinking as young people go to the mainland to find easier lives. Manod looks after her dad and her young sister ad her mum has died. She's 18 and is trying to work out what to do next, now that she's finished school. Other girls her age are already married, pregnant. She wants to leave but her sister doesn't want to go anywhere. A whale has washed up on the beach. Some of the islanders think it's a bad omen.

Following the whale, two young academic researchers arrive to document community life. Manon becomes their translator.

I loved everything about the way this was written, sparse but with beautiful descriptions of the landscape and wildlife. Manon's sister is a sparkling, mucky, believable child, and her father's inability to communicate with anyone but the family dog was both funny and awful at the same time.

The tide was high. Tad's tide calendar, the one he would new leave behind for us, did not say that it would be. The calen dar was typed out on pink paper, and he was given a one every season when he visited the mainland. He said he did not need it, judged the tide by sight like his own father had. I did not like to remind him of the times he had been incorrect, when he had come home with damp trousers and shoes filled with sand.

I walked down to the beach to see the whale for myself.

When I walked alone I liked to daydream, sometimes about working for a wealthy family on the mainland as a seamstress, or being a nun somewhere in Europe, living in a tall white tower in a city square. In my head I recited Bible verses in an English accent, and made the shape of each word with my tongue.

>95 charl08: - I saw this one at the library last month and made a note of it. I would have brought it home then and there, but I already had a stack :)

Giving myself permission to abandon Madwoman which despite being based on Nelly Bly (an early female journalist), just seems super-clunky.

>96 katiekrug: Missed you there Katie. Hope it's still there for you when you go back again!

I've been having the best weekend away , catching some culture. I saw All We Imagine as Light at the BFI Southbank (not the NFT anymore.) I love that they still give out programme notes. I had a lovely meal at Wahaca, a chain I miss in Liverpool (and added a cheeky gin to my hibiscus soft drink, a lovely mix that reminds me of travelling).

I went to Tate Modern and caught the amazing Zanele Muholi exhibit. Somehow I managed to leave without buying all the exhibition stuff. 6 postcards seems quite restrained, right? I did add several books to my wishlist though.
(Of course)

I made it to the main branch of Foyles, found plenty but a bit sad they don't seem to be doing their Xmas bookmarks anymore.

Last night I saw Waiting for Godot, which I think is the first time I've been back to the theatre since the pandemic. (Not that I went a lot before then!) The cast had the audience completely gripped (except for the four people in front of me, who left at the interval. Which was good luck for me, because one guy was blocking my view.)

I think I've asked this before, and appreciate I can google...but If anyone has read and can recommend a good bio of Samuel Beckett. I'm going to reread A Country Road, A Tree.
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/waiting-for-godot-3-review

A Simple Intervention

People would try anything if the prospects were bad enough. They'd throw all reason and rationality to the wind. They'd believe charlatans, turn to the stars, take up prayer, and hurriedly switch gods if theirs didn't come to their aid.

Sooner or later, they'd give up. But if they were holding books in their hands, if they were telling stories they believed would bring people back to life, you just had to let them.

A novel from Peirene, by a Swiss author now based in Berlin. A young nurse, Meret, has been selected to work closely with a doctor as he administers electric shock therapy. I'm not sure the date is ever explicitly stated, but there are no mobile phones and the nurses live in a basic hostel, sharing rooms. The treatment is new and the doctor ambitious, although the nurse thinks he is different from other, more arrogant members of staff. A new patient comes to the ward, the daughter of a wealthy family, and her treatment acts as a catalyst for Meret's beliefs about what she is doing, and her role as a nurse. Like (most) of Peirene's books, this one is short so leaves many questions unanswered, but I liked the way Inokai made clear how difficult it was for Meret to question her role, even if the ending felt more fantasy than the realistic tone of the rest of the book.

SO many good books! Stop tempting me with new series!

>99 charl08: Your weekend sounds great.

I almost brought home Whale Fall from the library. I will look for it on my next visit.

Sounds like an excellent weekend.

>101 BLBera: It was so nice to get away for a bit. There were a couple of meetings last week that made me miss everything being all-online.

>102 Helenliz: After all the enthusiasm on here, I also went to the Medieval Women exhibit at the British Library. I'm so glad I did - what a beautiful exhibit. As it was a Sunday, it was pretty busy, but I got the book so I could look at the pictures in peace!

>193 I'm going on Thursday. I'm hoping it lives up to expectation.

I went into the National Theatre to avoid the rain and had a wander round the shop. They had an amazing collection of plays (as you would expect) and a much nicer shop than the one I remember from my last visit.

The Women of Llanrumney
I'd not come across the publisher, or this play, but it was put on in Cardiff a couple of years ago. Set on a plantation house in the Carribean, it asks lots of questions about complicity, responsibility and dealing with trauma. It was a relatively quick read, but I'd like to see it staged.

ETA To add the title!

>104 Helenliz: I ended up jumping to the end and then coming back to the start, as it isn't really linear and I was getting annoyed with the bottleneck at the start. Hope your visit is quieter!

>99 charl08: That sounds like an amazing weekend! Must remember to keep the National Theatre bookshop in mind if I make it back to London.

>107 rabbitprincess: It was lovely, very tempting space!

Some of the books in the exhibition shop after the exhibition (adding to the wishlist).

God's Own Gentlewoman
The Medieval Scriptorium
Women of Power: formidable females of the Medieval World
Medieval Bodies
A Distant Mirror
Poet Mystic Widow Wife

>109 charl08: Definitely add to the wishlist!

>109 charl08: forewarned is forearmed for when I go on Thursday...

>110 BLBera: Fortunately I had the limit of what I could carry!

>111 Helenliz: I guess it's a tribute to how interesting the content is that people want to linger. If I lived a bit closer I'd be tempted to revisit.

Tremor
Love Teju Cole. His books feel to me like when you meet someone really smart and have a conversation which just opens your eyes to things.

Other people's lives. They are not subsidiaries, they are not symbols, they are not to be collected. Do the white soldiers at the hotels know this? Could it have occurred to them to believe any of the life they see around them, do they even see any of it? But to talk about them and their greed, their sorcery, seems to him a bad use of his time here. Think instead, he says to himself, of all the people in the Medina Koura, think of them in their homes, in their beds, think of their quotidian worries about their children's schooling. Think about their secret savings, and their delightful subterfuges, their religion and transgressions, their necessary severity, the warmth of their families, and the untranslatable consolations of their lives.

I'm glad you had a weekend away that was so enjoyable, Charlotte! Dave is slowly feeling better and Muffin has healed our hearts.

>114 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah. That's good to hear about Dave. Hope Muffin is behaving better than my sister's dog (I'm sure she is).

I'm reading The Hunter now, really gripping stuff. How does Tana French do it every book?

Just adding another list here so I can come back and add some books to my wishlist...

100 Notable African Books of 2024 from #BrittlePaper
https://brittlepaper.com/100-notable-african-books-of-2024/

>116 charl08: Thanks for this link! One of my personal categories for next year is African authors, so this will come in handy.

>117 Charon07: I found so many on the list I want to read!

Lt is SOOOO bad for my reading lists. :)

Muffin is really well behaved, Charlotte. She likes people and dogs and is very easy going. She is not fully house trained, so we are up twice in the night getting her out . She is very active, but she just turning a year old at the end of December, so it is to be expected. She does a little puppy nipping, but I think we are getting a handle on that. What negative behaviour(s) is your sister's dog showing ?

>119 dudes22: Yes, always!

>120 vancouverdeb: That sounds like she is keeping you busy, Deborah. My sister's dog is lovely except when she suddenly decides to bark for no reason, and won't stop.

The Hunter
The sequel to The Searcher, a brick of a book I read superquick because I wanted to know what happened. Cal is still in the small Irish town, looking out for Theresa (as no one calls her), dating Lena. The dad no one wanted to come back, comes back, and the peaceful appearance of the community is shown as a bit of an illusion. Trey's father is accompanied by a man who claims to be rich, to have ancestors from the town, to have heard tales of gold. Soon there's a group trying to con the visitor into buying mining rights.

But to make things even more complicated, Trey wants revenge on the town, because they killed her brother. So she won't leave things alone.

Laugh out loud funny in places, tricksy, gripping and overall a book I was sorry to put down.

'I was expecting a nice bitta crack to while away the summer, and now look at the state of us.'

You said it was gonna be interesting times,' Cal reminds him.

'I didn't bargain for this fuckin' level of interesting. 'Tis like ordering a nice curry and getting one of them ghost pepper yokes that'd blow the head clean off you.'

>95 charl08: I have this to hand and will get to it soon.

>99 charl08: Not yet read the more recent Beckett biog I have, but Deirdre Bair's tome is very good Charlotte.

>113 charl08: I'm almost half through this at the moment, started yesterday and broke my reading drought.

>123 Caroline_McElwee: Glad you've beaten the slump Caroline. Horrible when that happens!

I am intrigued by Beckett's life, hoping the library book turns up in time to read over the break.

>116 charl08: Thanks for the list. I need to get back to Africa. 😁

Great quotes from The Hunter. I enjoyed that one as well. Do you know if there are going to be more in the series?

>125 BLBera: Hope you can find some of them: I wondered how many were widely published.

No idea re the Tana French: hope so though!
ETA I have requested one of her previous books, The Wych Elm from the library.

Finished two more over the weekend.

The Party is a novella, and didn't really capture the imagination. A bit odd, sisters exploring Bristol nightlife, and encountering a group from a different class. Post-WW2, so full of sidenotes about death and other losses, which the young people just kind of skate over.

The Material
Very funny campus novel set in a small group completing a (fictional?) MFA in stand up. Sharply written thoughts about cancel culture, the longevity of comedy, teaching, university politics, creativity and the more universal relationship and people-related angsts.

Glad I picked it up, will look for other books by this author.

He hadn't mentioned the postmortem oblivion, though. He assumed they knew about that, how comedians almost never reached posterity, how quickly the material aged, and the delivery, how a comedian dead twenty years might as well have lived in the Middle Ages, might as well have been one of those court jesters about whom the only thing we remembered was the funny hats....

I haven't read anything yet by Tana French, if you can imagine, Charlotte, and I own a couple of her books. My reading has really slowed this month so maybe next year.

>128 vancouverdeb: I've only read a few of hers, Deborah. The library queues are long!

I've got 14 days until the end of the month, and wondering if I can wrap up some of the books on my LT "currently reading" list that have been there a good long while.

The Burning Stones
And wrote my story anyway : black south african women's novels as feminism
The Persian Boy: A Novel of Alexander the Great
American Indians and the American Dream: Policies, Place, and Property in Minnesota
Around the World in 80 Books: A Literary Journey
Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death
Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands
To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface

I've remembered the dangers of reading Around the World in 80 Books, as I've added another book, Love in a Fallen City, to the wishlist.

Finished Killers of a Certain Age, a funny crime / caper novel in the company of four female former assassins, who find their "retirement" cruise is designed to make sure they are retired permanently. I wondered if there would be another, and it seems from the book page that the next one is on the way.

>125 BLBera: & >126 charl08:, I listened to an interview with French about The Hunter and she said there will be one more book in the series.

>129 charl08: Good luck, Charlotte.

The Material sounds like fun.

>131 RidgewayGirl: Ooh, good to hear. Thanks Kay.

>132 BLBera: Thanks Beth. I'm trying to finish Around the World in 80 Books and a bit puzzled by his choices: we're supposedly in Latin America, but he's talking about Thomas More and Voltaire. It feels to me like if he wanted to write about books about better worlds, that's a different book! (Picky?)

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

Nadolig Llawen, Happy Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Adorable.

>134 Ameise1: >135 SandDune: Thank you!

Its the Xmas break and I've been reading past my bedtime.

Finally finished Around the World in 80 Books. Found this a bit annoying to be honest, it's an academic writing for the "general" market but he gets a bit carried away in the Latin American section and brings in European writers and their ideas of Orinoco / gold-soaked lands. He kind of beings it back together to talk about how all reading invents places (Margaret Atwood) but honestly I'd have preferred to learn more about contemporary authors from the continent. I did add a lot of books to the wishlist though.

Where they lie
First in an Irish set series, where a young woman journalist in the 1960s tries to investigate when the body of a woman missing since the 1940s body turns up in the local bigwig's garden. A former midwife died in prison before she could be convicted, and there are rumours of links to (illegal) abortions. Atmospheric, and with all the recent discoveries about the Irish laundries, all too credible.

The Burning Stones
This was kind of surreal, a crime novel set in a Finnish sauna manufacturer. Lots of random details about saunas (did you know you can get personalised towels to sit on in your sauna to ensure hygiene?) plus a convoluted plot meant I had no idea who did it, but enjoyed the rich mix of characters.

Something City
A graphic novel of interconnected short stories, reflecting on different fictional communities imagined to exist in the same town. I particilarly enjoyed the inner monologue of the woman on a nudist retreat who really isn't finding anything relaxing!

Bookshop Woman
Slight (fictionalised?) memoir of a Bookseller who decides to try something new when her company moves away from "quirky" and she finds herself hating her job. Full of recommendations for reading, although sadly many of the Japanese authors mentioned don't seem to be translated (yet?)

I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and the holidays, Charlotte!

Thanks Deborah. I am always amazed at how quickly it goes!

Happy Holidays, Charlotte!! Hopelessly behind, but I'll see you over in the 2025 group! : )

These Women
An Ivy Pichoda novel which I picked up in a charity shop and just didn't get around to reading. Very quick (and satisfying) thriller from the perspective of women affected by a criminal attacking women, alongside an unconventional (female) cop who isn't afraid to look for connections. Very dark, set primarily amongst women seemingly inorexarably drawn into sex work, largely ignored by the police force.

>143 Berly: Thanks Kim!

To the River

I was reading this one in small chunks at work, I really love Olivia Laing's nature writing. I saw someone commenting about how little Woolf there is in it, but I think this is more about the way the publishers have marketed the book. Laing walks the river Ouse trying to get over a relationship that has just ended. This is the river where Woolf drowned, but Laing's book shows it is much more than this. Apparently "natural" features around the water are actually the product of 100s of years of attempts to control flooding. She describes the life along the water now, humans and animals, and the small histories of the small (mostly) rural places where she stays. A quiet book, but beautifully written I thought.

Here she is reflecting on the tendency of Woolf's biographers to interpret all her life backwards from the facts of her death.

But there's a larger problem here. The tendency to wring prophecy from the tide of material that Woolf left behind seems to sit uneasily with what she herself thought of the past. As she experimented with memoir, biography, and novels that contained elements of each, she noticed that the process by which events are converted into history is inevitably distorting, for the past acquires in the telling a shape and coherence that is absent from the present. It's an observation that she expressed sharply when she came to write of her brother's death, describing it, as I have already noted, as 'one of the falsifications - that knell I always find myself hearing and transmitting that one cannot guard against, save by noting it'.

The Women
I admired what the book was doing here, highlighting the role of women nurses in Vietnam. However I felt emotionally manipulated: in a weird way I think it's almost a flip of a kind of male novel where the women only exist as plot devices. The soldiers she encountered were little more than clichés, the gruff mentor, the playboy etc. Although a lot of the book is about after the war, and she's writing about the impact of trauma, I never felt I got more of an insight beyond a ticklist of symptoms. The ending as the one who got away miraculously reappeared just made me roll my eyes.

>146 charl08: Bizarrely this was the first Laing I bought, but is so far unread Charlotte. If you haven't yet read it, her latest The Garden Against Time is very enjoyable, gobbled up speadily and will certainly be revisited.

>148 Caroline_McElwee: It's on my list Caroline.