Jackie has her reading badge - the 2020 Hey Duggee category challenge

Hello everyone! I'm Jackie, from the UK (English but living in Scotland). I'm back for my 5th (I think) category challenge, and this year decided to go with a theme that is only very very tenuously linked to my book themes, but which makes me smile every time I think about it. Hey Duggee is a wonderful pre-school animated TV programme, which having a young child I've seen a lot over the past couple of years. The animation is very obviously 2D computer generated, but what it lacks in high art, it more than makes up with in surreality. Taking as its starting point the idea of the scouts, Duggee (the dog) is the leader of a group of kids (actually 5 different animals, known collectively as 'the squirrels'), and each episode they learn or travel or discover stuff to earn a badge for that episode's theme. As well as Duggee and the squirrels (none of which are actual squirrels, of course), there is a large supporting cast of minor characters. Each episode is just a few minutes long, and the first few you see you'll be scratching your head and wondering what on earth the writers were smoking. But the more you watch it, the more you realise what a work of genius it is!

I'm more or less keeping my same categories as before, with the exception of the 12th. My first 11 categories all relate to books in my TBR pile, and previously I have used an extra category to record my CATs and other reading challenges. However, as there are so many CATs and challenges I want to do, that category always ends up with way more books than any of the others (in 2019, my other categories had between 1-10 books each, and the CAT category was well over 40). So instead, I am starting a new category, which is books by people I know, because when people I know publish books I want to try and support them. With the CATs, I'll record the books I read for them in the category they relate to rather than a separate CATs category. I'm aiming for at least 1 book in each category.

This is my list of categories, along with category title for 2020:

1. (Stick) Central/Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. This could be travel writing or academic stuff, but equally could be Bosnian war fiction or a book on Soviet propaganda posters.
2. (Henny) Non-fiction (general). Non-fiction that doesn't fall easily into any of my other categories.
3. (Tag) Contemporary fiction (1969-present). Contemporary with me, so fiction from the year of my birth onwards.
4. (Duggee) Sexual/reproductive health/rights; parenting; children; gender. This reflects my academic interests and experience, and also my work. This will mainly be academic, but also includes some popular non-fiction and maybe the odd bit of fiction. There is quite a lot of crossover here with my academic and central/eastern Europe categories.
5. (Mole) Celtic. Fiction and non-fiction relating to the Celtic lands (primarily Scotland, but also potentially including Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Breton-related books).
6. (Enid) Vintage fiction (1900-1968). Fiction from the 20th century BJ (Before Jackie).
7. (Norrie) Academic. Some of the academic books that I've acquired over the years - text books, research methodology, stuff that I've just thought looks interesting.
8. (Chew Chew) Biography/autobiography/memoir/true events. Occasional overlap with other categories, but otherwise pretty self-explanatory.
9. (Frog) Ancient fiction (pre-1900). Lots courtesy of Project Gutenberg, plus other bits and bobs I've picked up over the years.
10. (Betty) Travel. Anywhere in the world - mainly but not exclusively non-fiction.
11. (Happy) Religious. Mainly related to Christianity, but not exclusively. Primarily non-fiction.
12. (Roly) Books by authors I know.

Note to self so I don't have to look everywhere - code for inserting a picture (surrounded by less than and greater than signs): img src="URL" width=200 length=150

Stick (Central/Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union)

If any of you are on the lookout for a really insidious earworm, just google "Hey Duggee stick song" and thank me later. I promise it's better than B*by Sh*rk!

This category is for all of my CEE/FSU-related books.

1. Mihai Eminescu - Poezii. Finished 13.3.20. 3/5.
2. Vladimir Lorchenkov - The Good Life Elsewhere. Finished 15.4.20. 4.5/5.
3. Petre Ispirescu - Romanian Fairy Tales. Finished 14.7.20. 3/5.
4. Thomas Harding - The House by the Lake. Finished 17.11.20. 4.5/5.

Henny (Non-fiction: general)

Henny is a giant hen with a plummy accent and a nerdy interest in trains. Obviously.

This category is for my non-fiction books that don't obviously fit in any of the other more specific categories.

1. Rachel Clarke - Your Life in My Hands. Finished 7.1.20. 4.5/5.
2. Matthew Beaumont - Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London. Finished 11.1.20. 3.5/5.
3. Debbie Gilbert - The Successful Mumpreneur. Finished 11.1.20. 3/5.
4. James O'Brien - How to be Right. Finished 16.1.20. 4.5/5.
5. Gabriella Coleman - Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Finished 1.2.20. 4/5.
6. Mark Thomas - 100 Acts of Minor Dissent. Finished 8.4.20. 4.5/5.
7. Ed. Nikesh Shukla - The Good Immigrant. Finished 9.4.20. 4/5.
8. Various, curated by Kit Jewett - Red Sixty Seven. Finished 9.5.20. 4.5/5.
9. Brigit Strawbridge Howard - Dancing with Bees. Finished 11.5.20. 4.5/5.
10. Jen Campbell - Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops. Finished 13.5.20. 3/5.
11. Sam Kean - Caesar's Last Breath. Finished 24.5.20. 4.5/5.
12. Margaret Simons - Six Square Metres: Reflections from a Small Garden. Finished 3.6.20. 4/5.
13. Richard King - The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape. Finished 4.6.20. 4.5/5.
14. Reni Eddo-Lodge - Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. Finished 7.6.20. 5/5.
15. Joanna Penn - How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge Into Words. Finished 8.6.20. 4/5.
16. Afua Hirsch - Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging. Finished 15.6.20. 5/5.
17. Mark Thomas - Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto. Finished 15.6.20. 4/5.
18. Lauret Savoy - Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape. Finished 20.6.20. 5/5.
19. Angela Saini - Superior: The Return of Race Science. Finished 29.6.20. 5/5.
20. Lee Alan Dugatkin - Mr Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America. Finished 7.7.20. 3.5/5.
21. Elizabeth-Jane Burnettt - The Grassling. Finished 16.7.20. 5/5.
22. ed. Marina Benjamin - Garden Among Fires: A Lockdown Anthology. Finished 30.7.20. 3.5/5.
23. Peter Frankopan - The Silk Roads. Finished 14.8.20. 4.5/5.
24. ed. Meredith Maran - Why We Write About Ourselves. Finished 14.8.20. 4/5.
25. J. Drew Lanham - The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature. Finished 26.8.20. 4.5/5.
26. Guy Deutscher - Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. Finished 30.8.20. 3.5/5.
27. Tom Cox - Ring the Hill. Finished 20.10.20. 5/5.
28. Peter Gill - Famine & Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid. Finished 28.11.20. 4/5.
29. Joshua Hammer - The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Finished 15.12.20. 4/5.
30. ed. Phillip Lopate - The Art of the Personal Essay. Finished 18.12.20. 3.5/5.
31. Ivan Rogers - 9 Lessons in Brexit. Finished 24.12.20. 4/5.
32. Jamaica Kincaid - My Garden (Book). Finished 31.12.20. 4/5.

Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)

Tag is one of the squirrels - he's a friendly rhino who's always in a good mood.

This category is for fiction published from the year I was born till the present day.

1. Joanna Cannon - Three Things About Elsie. Finished 17.2.20. 4/5.
2. Cliff Jones - Water Runs Slow Through Flat Land. Finished 21.2.20. 3/5.
3. Kathryn Stockett - The Help. Abandoned 11.4.20. 2/5.
4. Benjamin Myers - A Stone Statue in the Future. Finished 20.4.20. 4.5/5.
5. Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie - A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Finished 7.5.20. 3.5/5.
6. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix and the Cauldron. Finished 15.5.20. 3/5.
7. Jackie Morris - The Unwinding. Finished 2.7.20. 4.5/5.
8. Bandi - The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea. Finished 15.8.20. 4/5.
9. Raphael Jerusalmy - Saving Mozart. Finished 10.9.20. 4/5.
10. Amor Towles - A Gentleman in Moscow. Finished 8.11.20. 5/5.
11. Alexander McCall Smith - The Kalahari Typing School for Men. Finished 23.11.20. 3.5/5.

Duggee (Sexual/reproductive health/rights; parenting; children; gender)

Duggee leads the Squirrel Club and helps the squirrels earn their different badges. He also has the patience of a saint, frankly.

This category is for my books that are related to my specific academic interests in sexual & reproductive health, parenting, children and gender (although they're not all academic books).

1. The Unmumsy Mum - The Unmumsy Mum. Finished 24.2.20. 4.5/5.
2. Suzanne Barston - Bottled Up: How the way we feed babies has come to define motherhood, and why it shouldn't. Finished 29.4.20. 4/5.
3. Juno Dawson - The Gender Games. Finished 18.10.20. 4/5.
4. Roxane Gay - Bad Feminist. Finished 29.12.20. 4.5/5.

Mole (Celtic)

Mole is the star of a brilliant episode, called "The Glasses Badge". He desperately wants to be a stunt mole, but can't because his glasses keep falling off his head and without them he can't see properly. Duggee and the squirrels come to the rescue and give him some glasses that stay firm on his head, so his dream can come true. This is one where there is a tenuous link to my category - Mole has a very very strong Welsh accent, making him ideal for the Celtic category.

This category is for my books about the Celtic lands (primarily Scotland, but also Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, etc).

1. Helen & Paul Webster - Scottish Island Bagging. Finished 5.2.20. 3/5.
2. Nan Shepherd - The Living Mountain. Finished 1.4.20. 4.5/5.
3. Alex Boyd - St Kilda: The Silent Islands. Finished 27.6.20. 4/5.
4. Norman MacCaig - The Poems of Norman MacCaig. Finished 28.9.20. 4/5.
5. Dr Malcolm Alexander - Close to Where the Heart Gives Out. Finished 21.10.20. 5/5.
6. JM Synge - The Aran Islands. Finished 5.12.20. 3/5.
7. Alastair McIntosh - Poacher's Pilgrimage: An Island Journey. Finished 28.12.20.

Enid (Vintage fiction: 1900-1968)

Enid is Duggee's cat, so is often hanging around while the squirrels are up to their antics.

This category is for my 20th century fiction prior to 1969 (20th century fiction from 1969 onwards is covered by Tag).

1. Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea. Finished 14.2.20. 4.5/5.
2. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix and the Roman agent. Finished 21.3.20. 3.5/5.
3. Yevgeny Zamyatin - We. Finished 21.9.20. 3.5/5.

Norrie (Academic)

Norrie is the most sensible of the squirrels, and the one I think who'd be most likely to end up at university.

So she's ideal to represent my academic category, which is for all the academic books I've gathered over many years of student-hood and beyond.

1. Joanne Warner - The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection. Finished 13.4.20. 4/5.
2. Philomena de Lima - International Migration: The Wellbeing of Migrants. Finished 25.4.20. 4/5.
3. Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot - The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers. Finished 21.11.20. 3.5/5.

Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true events)

Chew Chew the panda is my favourite character of all. She's loud, brassy, all woman, and her favourite thing of all is BISCUITS.

I've chosen her to represent my biog/autobiog/memoir category. Probably because if I ever wrote an autobiography I secretly hope that I'll come across like Chew Chew. And because it would probably feature biscuits quite a lot.

1. Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy - I'm Only In It for the Parking: Life and Laughter from the Priority Seats. Finished 13.2.20. 3.5/5.
2. Peter Mayle - A Year in Provence. Finished 16.2.20. 4.5/5.
3. Raynor Wynn - The Salt Path. Finished 7.3.20. 4.5/5.
4. Dorothy Al Khafaji - Between Two Rivers. Finished 30.3.20. 4/5.
5. Lindsey Hilsum - In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin. Finished 27.5.20. 4.5/5.
6. Henry Marsh - Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. Finished 23.7.20. 4/5.
7. Jackie Kay - The Adoption Papers. Finished 24.7.20. 4/5.
8. Seth Lerer - Prospero's Son: Life, Books, Love and Theater. Finished 1.10.20. 3.5/5.
9. William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Finished 7.10.20. 4.5/5.
10. Lytton Strachey - Florence Nightingale (Penguin 60s). Finished 31.10.20. 3/5.
11. Barbara Kingsolver - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Finished 16.11.20. 4.5/5.
12. Tessa Dunlop - The Bletchley Girls. Finished 29.11.20. 3.5/5.

Frog (Ancient fiction: pre-1900)

Duggee built a nature pond near the Squirrel clubhouse, and frog is often seen hanging around during the squirrels' adventures. There's also a wonderful episode where the squirrels break the news to a bunch of tadpoles that they are going to turn into frogs - they don't take the news well at all.

This category is for my classic fiction - published pre-1900. I must admit I struggle a bit reading classics, so as long as I have one book here by the end of the year I'll be happy.

1. Christoph von Schmid - The Basket of Flowers. Finished 26.9.20. 2.5/5.
2. Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Finished 12.10.20. 2.5/5.

Betty (Travel)

Betty the purple octopus is the most talkative of the squirrels, and thus is the squirrel who reminds me most of my daughter.

This is my category for travel writing. Hopefully with the TravelKIT and GeoCAT this one will have quite a few entries.

1. Jan Morris - Venice. Finished 21.3.20. 4/5.
2. Peter Mayle - Bon Appetit!. Finished 28.3.20. 3.5/5.
3. Paul Theroux - Deep South. Finished 10.5.20. 4.5/5.
4. Richard Fidler & Kari Gislason - Saga Land. Finished 29.5.20. 4.5/5.
5. Adam Nicolson - Atlantic Britain. Finished 15.6.20. 3/5.
6. Marie Browne - Narrow Margins. Finished 11.7.20. 3/5.
7. Brian Keenan & John McCarthy - Between Extremes. Finished 28.7.20. 4.5/5.
8. Malachy Tallack - 60 Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home. Finished 22.8.20. 4.5/5.
9. Barry Lopez - Arctic Dreams. Finished 9.9.20. 5/5.
10. Patrick Barkham - Islander: A Journey Around Our Archipelago. Finished 10.10.20. 4.5/5.
11. Clare Balding - Walking Home. Finished 31.12.20. 4/5.

Happy (Religious)

Happy is a perpetually cheerful crocodile, who loves water! It also took me a long time to notice, but at the end of each episode when the squirrels return to their parents, most of them return to a bigger version of themselves. Happy's parent though is an elephant - of course my friend who has adopted kids said that her son had picked up on that straight away! It's never mentioned, just a normal part of the proceedings.

This category is for my books on religion.

1. Rachel Held Evans - Inspired. Finished 4.4.20. 4/5.
2. Michael Lloyd - Cafe Theology. Finished 18.9.20. 4.5/5.
3. Kester Brewin - The Complex Christ: Signs of emergence in the urban church. Finished 24.10.20. 3.5/5.

Roly (Books by authors I know)

Roly the hippopotamus is the squirrel with the most energy and enthusiasm, and the loudest volume.

This is for the books written by people I know (I'm sure they'll be delighted to know they're being represented by a bouncy hippopotamus).

1. Matt Kirkham - Thirty-Seven Theorems of Incompleteness. Finished 18.1.20. 4/5.
2. Stephen Tomkins - A Short History of Christianity. Finished 19.2.20. 4/5.
3. Tom Cooney - The Unwitchy Witch. Finished 7.3.20. 3/5.
4. Julian Barr - Tooth and Blade. Finished 30.9.20. 4/5.
5. T E Olivant - The First Poet Laureate of Mars. Finished 17.10.29. 4/5.
6. Sage Gordon-Davis - The Heart Whispers. Finished 4.12.20. 4.5/5.
7. Rhoda S. Baxter - Getting Published is Just the Beginning. Finished 9.12.20. 4.5/5.

I have not heard of Hey Duggee, but that is a creative way to plan your reading! Go on!

Very creative! Happy reading in 2020!

I had not heard of Hey Duggee either, so I did look it up. You weren't kidding about the earworm! "Sticky, sticky, stick, stick." Wishing you a happy year of reading, Jackie.

Ah, I've got all the pictures up now! Thank you >14 LadyoftheLodge: >15 Tess_W: and >16 This-n-That: and my apologies for the earworm!

I remember in my 20s when I shared a house in London, one of my housemates got a video of episodes of "Magic Roundabout". We put it on and were all excited because we all remembered loving it when we were little, and then found ourselves looking at each other and saying "I don't remember it being this mad!" I'm pretty sure that for my daughter's generation, Hey Duggee will have the same effect if they go back to it as an adult.

Love the images, so clear and colourful. Happy reading and good luck with your classics!

>17 Jackie_K: No worries about the earworm. After all, you did give us fair warning. ;-) I agree some programs or characters that were cute for us during childhood, ends up being viewed in a different light as adults. "Tickle Me Elmo" still drives me a bit batty.

>19 This-n-That: The tune to the TV show "Mr. Ed" (about the talking horse) is one of those for me. "A horse is a horse, of course, of course. . . " Also the Who song from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

I love how bright, cheerful and colourful your thread is. Happy reading!

This show looks awesome and I need to watch some of it. Another excellent choice of theme! Looking forward to following along in 2020.

We get Hey Duggee in Australia - love it! I also grew up watching The Magic Roundabout. It was one of my favourites. When I was young, Australia got mainly British shows so I also loved Basil Brush, Rupert Bear, Andy Pandy and as I got older, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, The Famous Five and Worzel Gummidge. Aahh, memories!

Anyway, look forward to following along in 2020!

I've not seen much of Hey Duggee but I've seen the stick song. So thanks for that.
I know what you mean about the surreal elements of kids TV though, watching some of them as an adult it can appear entirely different.
Looking forward to following your reading for another year.

Thank you everyone! It's just such a silly show, and makes me laugh - every time I look at this thread the pictures make me smile again. Interesting discussion about kids TV of our youth, and how our memories distort/airbrush them over time! I have to say, amongst all the inane stuff there are some really clever and funny kids TV shows out there at the moment.

Talking of theme tunes, I think my favourite theme tune of all is from Roobarb and Custard.

Love LT because I'm always learning something new - this time about Hey Duggee. Will definitely have to go check them out. Happy 2020 reading!

Duggee is new to me too and I think Chew Chew and I have a lot in common...mostly a love of biscuits though! I always enjoy your thread and look forward to following along again in the new year.

I guess Hey Duggee hasn't crossed the pond yet but I'm happy to see your colourful happy theme!

>23 JayneCM: I remember all those shows too. Did you get Bill and Ben Flowerpot Men? That's my earworm, it starts up just by typing the words.

>28 VivienneR: Oh yes - and know it is in my head for the rest of the day! Hello, little weeeeeeeeeed!!

Haha, next year I will have to find something more intellectual to introduce everyone to! I wouldn't want everyone thinking I'm an airhead :D >26 LittleTaiko: >27 clue: >28 VivienneR: Thank you for your comments! >29 JayneCM: Flobadob!

>30 Jackie_K: We have all loved it - so maybe we are all airheads at heart!!

>31 JayneCM: I couldn't possibly comment ;)

Hope you have a great 2020 of reads!

Those are some really cute characters. They make me think the show must be fun. I wonder if they're available on CD. I'll have to check.

Did you see that Hey Duggee has an election badge for today? I have earnt my election badge, where do I apply? >;-)

>35 Helenliz: Yes I did, I watched it with my daughter earlier this evening! I have my election badge too (although whether the country has passed its collective IQ test this time remains to be seen - I'm not holding my breath). I think I'm going to stay up for the exit polls, and then go to bed. I've been encouraged by reports of higher turnout than usual at many polling stations, but I'm worried that that's giving me false hope. *sigh*

I've never heard of Hey Duggee before, but it sounds like an adorable show for children. Enjoy your reading!

Love your categories! Best wishes for your 2020 reading!

I've never heard of Hey Duggee either, but the drawings are adorable, and it sounds like something you could actually watch with kids without going insane. (I'm looking at you, Caillou.)
Good luck with your 2020 reading goals!

Never heard of Duggee, but I'm all about Paw Patrol and Peppa the Pig!

P.S. I just started Vanity Fair on Serial Reader today, only 116 more issues to go!

>39 madhatter22: I've never had the, er, pleasure of watching Caillou, but I have a US-based friend who rails against it, so I suspect I've dodged a bullet there! The first few times I watched Duggee I thought the world had gone to hell in a handcart, but actually it's very funny and really endearing.

>40 Tess_W: I'm not a fan of Paw Patrol (my daughter went through a bit of a phase with it, but it was mercifully short), and Peppa is one of those Marmite things I think, you either love or hate her! My daughter is a bit old to watch Peppa now, but she does still read some of the stories and has a couple of Peppa toys she'll still play with. Good luck with Vanity Fair - I suspect if I'd read it via Serial Reader it wouldn't have been as much of a slog. I'll be interested to see your thoughts on it when you've finished it - I struggled to like any of the characters (apart from Dobbin, and even he's a bit wet some of the time!).

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
January Non-FictionCAT (journalism and news)



An excellent way to start the year - Rachel Clarke, a doctor in the UK's NHS, and formerly a journalist, wrote this memoir, Your Life in My Hands, both about becoming a doctor and also the period a few years ago when junior doctors were in conflict with the imposition of a new contract by the Department of Health. This outlines the campaign, and the reason for it (including the strikes), and above all shows a huge love and respect for her patients, her colleagues, her job and the NHS. I thought it was a searing indictment of the way that successive governments have ground down the NHS. It also made me proud to be part of the NHS workforce. It is fair to say that she is not a fan of Jeremy Hunt (the UK Health Secretary at the time). Presumably because of her background in journalism her writing is terrific. Also because of that background this counts for the Non-Fiction CAT this month (news/journalism). 4.5/5.

>42 Jackie_K: I don't know, January's barely a week old and I'm winged by a book bullet. Hopefully that it is about the NHS means that I'm not going to catch some awful infeciton from the wound. >;-)

My admiration for the NHS was set in stone when my husband ended up in ITU after having toothache (yup, it was quite some escalation!). He went from GP surgery to ambulance to hospital to operation in about 3 hours. He is fine, btw.

>43 Helenliz: This book is really excellent, she has a new one out too which I'm keen to get hold of. Her writing is really very powerful.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
January TravelKIT: City vs countryside



Matthew Beaumont's Nightwalking: A Nocturnal History of London was an interesting but also frustrating read. It is a literary history charting nightwalking as written by Chaucer, Shakespeare, through to Dickens and Poe, and other less well-known authors too. It took a while to get going, the first three chapters are more about the definitions and history of nightwalking, and some of the chapters (especially the one on William Blake's Jerusalem) seemed only very tenuously linked to London at all. But then other chapters were excellent, and I very much enjoyed the two chapters on Dickens (one looking at his non-fiction essays about his own nightwalking, and the other looking at his portrayal of nightwalking in his fiction). I also found the social aspects he highlighted very interesting - it hadn't really occurred to me to think about the impact of moving from oil/candle street lighting to gas lighting, for example, and the move from night watchmen to the Metropolitan Police service was also interesting. The foreword and epilogue are provided by Will Self - the foreword was pretty incomprehensible, in all honesty, although the epilogue, detailing a night walk by Self, Beaumont and another author through south London to watch the sun rise over London from 16 miles away was a nice way to end it. 3.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Debbie Gilbert's The Successful Mumpreneur is subtitled "How to work flexibly round your family doing what you love", and it's basically a guide to starting your own business. Actually the majority of it would be just as applicable to anyone thinking about freelancing or becoming self-employed, not just mums - it has sensible advice from someone who's not only done it herself but now works to help other people navigating the move to self-employment. There are also examples throughout the book where women who have successfully made the move in order to work more flexibly with their family commitments talk about what they did. Sensible and down to earth, although I must admit I do find the term 'mumpreneur' a bit cheesy. 3/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
January Non-FictionCAT (Journalism and News)



How to be Right: ... in a World Gone Wrong by James O'Brien is a quick but fantastic read. O'Brien hosts a daily phone-in show on the radio station LBC, and whilst some of his fellow LBC presenters are, let's say, a bit more to the right of centre politically than he is (understatement: Nigel Farage used to be an LBC presenter), right-wing is the last thing you can accuse O'Brien of being. He has become famous for clips of conversations he has on his show where he examines and takes apart the arguments of his callers going viral, particularly on issues such as immigration and Brexit. Each of the eight chapters here focuses on a particular issue (the two aforementioned, plus LGBT rights, feminism, Islam, Trump, and others), going over the typical right-wing arguments that are presented on these topics and how he tries to explore them with his listeners. What I liked about this was that, contrary to the impression that you might have of him just wanting to lampoon and mock his callers, he seemed to genuinely want to understand why it was they believe what they do, and his realisation that you don't actually have to mock or insult, just ask a couple of questions about why they are saying whatever it is, for the holes in their argument to be obvious. He seems to genuinely like many of his callers, and tries to respect them, even as he's clearly angry about the politicians and media who are feeding them trite stories, soundbites and lies in order to fuel their outrage. Although a lot of what he wrote I basically agree with already, his chapter on the generation gap and the different expectations of different generations regarding things like income and home ownership was something that I hadn't thought about before, so I feel like I learnt something as well as having my opinions agreed with by somebody else. Ultimately this book left me simultaneously both hopeful and profoundly depressed. As he wrote several times during the Brexit chapter (horribly paraphrased, sorry!), "I still don't know what it is they think they've won". 4.5/5.

>45 Jackie_K: This sounds good as I must admit to being hopelessly confused by what the point of Brexit actually is.

>46 JayneCM: Me too, Jayne, me too :(

Category: Roly (Books by authors I know)



First a disclaimer: Thirty-Seven Theorems of Incompleteness is the latest collection of poetry by my brother-in-law, Matt Kirkham. Who is a most excellent person. So I make no guarantee of objectivity here!

The blurb on the back of the book says: "This collection of poetry follows the marriage of logician Kurt Godel and his wife Adele through the tumult of the twentieth century". I did look up Godel on wikipedia before I started reading this, because he's not someone I was familiar with, and I think knowing a bit about his story (albeit not understanding the mathematical/philosophical theories he wrote about at all) did help with the poems. Like much poetry, I'm sure a lot of this passed me by, but the language is lovely and I'm happy that there are people out there painting with words and creating beauty. I'm giving this 4/5, but giving someone I know any score at all feels a bit weird! (not 5 because of my ongoing feelings of inadequacy when reading poetry!).

>48 Jackie_K: I totally agree with you feelings of inadequacy when reading poetry. I certainly feel I have no basis to discuss poetry, other than knowing how it makes me feel.
I love that you know enough authors in real life to have a whole category for them!

I'm another person who's never heard of Hey Duggee - it sounds cute - and the pictures are sweet.

And I'll take a book bullet for How to Be Right: … in a World Gone Wrong.

>49 JayneCM: It's the advantage of being in an online writing group! That's where most of my 'authors I know' come from, although as well as reading Matt's poetry in January, I'll be reading a book in February by one of my friends from when I lived in London, who is a fine writer. He has a new book just out, but I already have 3 of his on the shelves I've not yet read, so I'm going to try and read at least 2 of them this year.

>50 LisaMorr: Duggee is a work of genius, I recommend it to everyone! Enjoy How to be Right when you get to it!

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: General)
February Non-Fiction Challenge (Heroes and Villains)



Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman is a non-academic account, by an academic anthropologist, of the hacktivist group Anonymous. In the early 2010s, through really till the publication of this book in 2014, she spent a lot of time online getting to understand and know some of the people behind Anonymous and their campaigns. I found this really fascinating, even as a world that I could only ever minimally understand. It looked at how they moved from straight up trolling to activist campaigns such as the anti-Scientology work, supporting the hacking of anti-WikiLeaks companies, and the Arab Spring (particularly supporting activists in Tunisia), and also at the various dynamics within the group. Really interesting and well-written. 4/5.

>51 Jackie_K: That's a BB for me, sounds indeed very interesting.

>52 Chrischi_HH: It was very interesting, and in a lot of depth. It's a whole world out there I had no idea about!

Category: Mole (Celtic)
Challenge: February Non-Fiction CAT (Travel)



Scottish Island Bagging by Helen & Paul Webster does what it says on the tin - a quick guide to all the main islands of Scotland. I absolutely love the Scottish islands (there are a number of them I think I'd move to in a heartbeat, given half a chance). For each island the book details how to get there/get around, and the main things to see and do. There are also plenty of photos - that was the only point where I wished I had a paper copy rather than an ebook, the little B&W photos don't show how gorgeous these islands are. 3/5.

>53 Jackie_K: I'll add that one to a wish list to read. I think I would prefer big photos though. I'll try to find a print copy.

>54 thornton37814: This is one of those books where print would definitely be better.

Category: Chew Chew (biography / autobiography / memoir / true story)



I'm Only In It For The Parking: Life and Laughter from the Priority Seats is the first book by comedian Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy. Ridley has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak, using a voice app he calls his talker to communicate his words for him. He is also very funny. He won Britain's Got Talent in 2018, although he had already been making a name for himself on the stand-up comedy circuit for a few years before then. This book takes the form partly of a memoir of how he ended up in comedy, and his experiences as a disabled comic, but each chapter also ends with a different TFAQ (Too Frequently Asked Question) that he has faced over the years, and what he thinks about them and how he deals with them. Examples of such questions include "Are you as clever as Stephen Hawking?" and "How does it feel to be an inspiration?" I enjoyed this a lot. 3.5/5.

Category: Enid (Vintage fiction: 1900-1968)



I've wanted to get to Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea for a long time. A couple of years back I reread Jane Eyre and found it really difficult getting beyond how cruelly Bertha, the 'mad wife in the attic', was treated. Wide Sargasso Sea is an imagining of her story. It's a short book, the first section Antoinette (the Bertha of Jane Eyre) narrates the story of her childhood, the second section both Antoinette and Rochester narrate the early days of their marriage, and the short third section is Antoinette's experience of living in the attic at Thornfield Hall. The writing is exquisite - this is not an enjoyable book, it is full of unhappy and not particularly likeable people, but Rhys captures the feeling of stark oppression and bleakness, as well as the flawed and oppressive paradise of the Caribbean islands, perfectly. 4.5/5.

>56 Jackie_K: I've read Jane Eyre several times and want to read this so badly! I need to sneak it in between some others I have lined up!

>56 Jackie_K: I read that one several years back and enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

>56 Jackie_K: I read that last year, for the first time, and it was engrossing. Not comfortable, and it was a case of knowing the ending how did they all get there.

>57 Tess_W: >58 thornton37814: >59 Helenliz: It really is very good, but Helen's right, it's not comfortable reading at all! I loved her evocation of place, I felt like I could almost smell it!

Category: Chew Chew (biography / autobiography / memoir / true events)
February GeoCAT: Europe



Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence is one of those books that I've known about for years and meant to read for years, and now that I've read it I can't believe I left it so long. What an absolute delight from start to finish! Mayle and his wife relocate to Provence from the UK, and this book is a month by month account of their first year. Unsurprisingly, food and drink (and builders) feature very heavily. It sounded amazing, although as a vegetarian I think I might struggle with the extremely meat-based gastronomy! His writing is very easy and not forced, and I also appreciated the complete lack of patronising the locals (unlike some other Brit abroad memoirs I've read). 4.5/5.

>60 Jackie_K: I read that one back in the 1990s. I enjoyed it at the time.

>61 thornton37814: Sometimes all I want is a nice undemanding read, and this one was perfect for a few hours of simple pleasure!

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)



Joanna Cannon's novel Three Things About Elsie is part mystery, part discussion on elderly care and dementia, and like her The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, an exploration of a number of ordinary lives who happen to be living in close proximity to each other. Florence and Elsie are childhood friends who are now in the same residential home. Florence is being 'threatened' with being transferred to another home for patients with dementia, which she is fiercely resisting. Then a new resident in the home arrives, someone who Florence and Elsie knew from the 1950s, and who they thought had drowned in 1953. Things start happening in Florence's room that she can't explain - an iron being left on, a cupboard full of hoarded food - is the new resident trying to intimidate her all over again, or is it all in fact a symptom of the dementia she is certain she doesn't have? With a twist at the end that I didn't see coming at all, we finally perceive the truth. Very enjoyable, I thoroughly recommend it. 4/5.

>62 Jackie_K: Definitely going on my wishlist!

>63 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it! I like her books a lot.

Category: Roly (Books by authors I know)



A Short History of Christianity, by my friend Stephen Tomkins, is possibly better titled A Short History of the Institutional Western Church. This is a whistle-stop tour of the past two millennia, introducing all the major players and politics, some of which are more edifying than others, it has to be said. He's a great communicator. 4/5.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)
January GeoCAT: Asia I



Water Runs Slow Through Flat Land by Cliff Jones is a novel telling the story of a cynical deskbound journalist who on being made redundant sets himself up as a freelance foreign correspondent and heads off to Afghanistan. The book took quite a long time to get into its stride - the first third is really the back story of how he loses his job, around the time that he also starts a relationship with a colleague. Once in Afghanistan things go pear-shaped for him and his fixer rather quickly, and the story flits between his own predicament near Kandahar, and his friends, former colleagues, and Foreign Office wonks, trying to figure out how to help him. The first third could have been more ruthlessly edited, I thought, but the second 2/3 of the book was mostly much quicker-moving, and a random reference to British comedy character Alan Partridge did make me smile. 3/5.

Category: Duggee (sexual & reproductive health & rights; parenting; children; gender)



The Unmumsy Mum is one of the current crop of parent bloggers who tell it like it really is - how sometimes you feel inadequate as a parent, how sometimes (often) you'll feel guilty at not doing enough, how sometimes it isn't like all the perfect Instagram posts proclaiming #soblessed, how sometimes your children are just idiots. And also how sometimes they're awesome, and hilarious, and gorgeous. What I like about these blogs, and the Unmumsy Mum in particular, is that she provides a space where harassed parents can feel less alone, and realise that it's not just them that are feeling these things. She has faced some criticism, having been accused of moaning and being ungrateful, but I think that's rubbish - anything which tells parents 'you've got this' when you've got sick in your bra and snot on your leggings and the last thing you feel is that you've got anything is good by me. Actually I think this book (and the blog and facebook page etc that it comes from) is really affirming and positive, and totally pro-parents. It's also funny, and a bit sweary, but let's face it, so's parenting. 4.5/5.

>60 Jackie_K: A Year in Provence is one of those books that I too have been meaning to read for a long time. Your review is inspiring me to get to it sooner rather than later. I love books in which food plays a big role!

>67 mathgirl40: Yes, me too. I thought it was delightful, and have his Bon Appetit lined up for another challenge this month!

Category: Chew Chew (autobiography / biography / memoir / true story)
January Non-Fiction Challenge: Prizewinners & Nominees



I've said many times before that I'm yet to meet a Wainwright Prize-nominated book that I haven't loved, and Raynor Winn's The Salt Path is no exception to that. This is the account of her and her husband Moth's loss of everything - home, income, possessions - after a dodgy investment came back to haunt them in the courts, followed within the same week by Moth's diagnosis of a terminal illness called CBD, and their decision to drop everything and hike the South-West Path in England (630 miles of coast path through Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall). It is not a straightforward 'nature as redemption' story - the realities of homelessness, failing bodies, reliance on their wits and £48 a week benefits mean that this is sometimes a very distressing read, although ultimately the book ends with a note of hope. The author's follow up book is out later this year, and I for one will definitely be reading it. 4.5/5.

Category: Roly (Books by authors I know)



The Unwitchy Witch is by Tom Cooney, who is a member of the online writing group I'm part of. It's a Halloween story aimed at age 5-10 year olds. Arabelle and her younger sister Luna are being trained by their witch mum to follow in her footsteps. Her dad can't be a witch, but that's not to say that he's not a wizard in other ways. However, unlike Luna, who's a natural, Arabelle isn't that good at spells, and resists becoming a witch. An argument between their parents mean that mum and Luna move out for a few days. Will the family come back together again? Will their Halloween party mean that they are accepted at last by families at school? And will Arabelle ever learn how to cast spells? A sweet story, that probably could have done with a bit more editing, but I think the story ideas and level of language works well for the age group. 3/5.

>68 Jackie_K: I purchased a copy of The Salt Path the other day when it was a Kindle Daily Deal so I am happy to see your writeup was positive. I don't know when I will get to it, but I am looking forward to it.

>70 DeltaQueen50: I hope you enjoy it! It took me a little while to get into, because their situation seemed so hopeless to start with, but she does write beautifully and I was rooting for them every step of the way.

Category: Stick (Central/Eastern Europe & former Soviet Union)
January RandomCAT: A New Year's Resolution



Being a glutton for punishment, every so often I read a book which really really stre-e-e-e-e-tches me! Since the start of this year I've been reading Poezii, aka the complete poetry of Mihai Eminescu, in the original Romanian, which I downloaded in one of those it-was-a-good-idea-at-the-time moments from Project Gutenberg. I'll be honest, I skimmed quite a lot of this (I'd probably have skimmed them in translation too, especially the long poems!), but I did get through it and am glad I can say I've read at least some of it! Eminescu is held in similar esteem in Romania as Shakespeare is in England and Burns is in Scotland, and is often similarly invoked by nationalist politicians. I can't say I understood loads of the poems (I did do better with the very extensive introduction), but I can say that he draws on an impressive amount of sources - along with the pastoral and love poems featuring flowers, clouds, rivers, forests, stars, meadows etc, he also regularly draws on philosophers, literature (including Shakespeare), Christianity, Islam, Greek and Roman mythology, even Darwin more than once. He was pretty prolific, and I'll say this for him, he really has a way with rhyming words! I think I'll have a look on YouTube and see if I can find any of his poems being recited - Romanian is a very musical and poetic language, and I bet these poems sound beautiful when they're not read with an English accent! 3/5 (but 10/10 for me for effort!).

>60 Jackie_K: I remember I bought Mayle's book when I was visiting family in Ipswich, England and the book had just come out. Your review brought back happy memories.

>62 Jackie_K: Joanna Cannon's book goes on the wishlist. I've already recommended it at the library.

>72 Jackie_K: Well done on getting through it! I'll happily award you a gold star for effort.

>73 VivienneR: A Year in Provence was a delight from start to finish, I hope the other books are as good!

>74 Helenliz: Thank you! I will confess to increased skimming the further I got, and I'm looking for a light short read now! Maybe another Asterix :)

>62 Jackie_K: and >68 Jackie_K: Two more books for my growing wishlist...

I saw a quick clip of the Lost Voice Guy and thought he was great - I hadn't realized he had won! I'll take a BB for that one and also for Three Things About Elsie.

And congrats on reading Romanian poetry in the original language!

>76 Chrischi_HH: >77 LisaMorr: I hope you like them if/when you get to them! I always feel a bit nervous when people take BBs from me, I kind of feel responsible if they don't like them!

Category: Betty (Travel)
March TravelKIT: Tourist Meccas



Venice by Jan Morris is a classic of travel writing. Originally published in the early 60s, and regularly updated since then (my version, which has been on my shelves since 2003, was published in 1993), it's not a guide, so much as an immersive history. I visited Venice in 2010 (I even took this book with me, although I didn't get round to reading it!), so it was nice to be able to picture some of the places being talked about. I really enjoyed this (though it did feel very Radio 4, 'highbrow for the masses'). 4/5.

Category: Enid (Vintage fiction: 1900-1966)



I needed something light and silly in these worrying times, to take my mind off it for a few minutes. Cue Asterix and the Roman agent, I can always rely on Asterix and his merry band of Gauls to provide some much-needed levity. In this one, Caesar resorts to psychological warfare to try to break the unity of the indomitable Gauls, using the treacherous agent Tortuous Convolvulus to sow discord and enmity. The usual silliness ensues. 3.5/5.

>78 Jackie_K: Feel no pressure! :)

>79 LisaMorr: I'll do my best!

Category: Betty (Travel)
March Non-Fiction Challenge: Food, Glorious Food!



Peter Mayle's Bon Appetit! Travels through France with knife, fork and corkscrew was a nice, entertaining read and a very pleasant diversion from the current stress of covid-19 lockdown. Here he attends food festivals and events around France, discussing both the food and the events, and very enjoyable it was too. I think I prefer A Year in Provence to this, but it was still fun and made me smile. 3.5/5.

Category: Chew Chew (auto/biography; memoir; true stories)
March GEOCat: North Africa and the Middle East



Between Two Rivers is a memoir by Dorothy Al Khafaji, an English woman who met and married an Iraqi student and then lived with him and their children in Baghdad for nearly 20 years, returning to the UK only a few weeks before the start of the Iran-Iraq War in the mid-1980s. She details everyday life in Baghdad, partly from the perspective of a foreigner learning to settle in a new country, with all those challenges, but also (and to be honest, more interestingly to me), life in Iraq before Saddam and then as he came to power and increased his grip on the country. She probably could have missed out a few of the family arguments, but otherwise I thought this was a really interesting read, and a good antidote to the prevailing view of Iraq today as a barely-recovering war zone. 4/5.

>81 Jackie_K: I'll take a BB for that one!

>81 Jackie_K: I'll take one too!

>82 LisaMorr: >83 JayneCM: I hope you enjoy it!

Category: Mole (Celtic)



The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd is a remarkable little book. Written in the 1940s but not published till the 1970s, it is a deep immersion into a particular landscape, the Cairngorms in Scotland. Really this book kickstarted the current renaissance in nature writing, and is a sensual evocation of place and lives, animals, plants, water and rock. With a substantial Foreword by Robert Macfarlane and an Afterword by Jeanette Winterson, this was a stunning read which will take me a good while to process. 4.5/5.

>84 Jackie_K: Another BB!

>85 JayneCM: It's well worth a read, I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Category: Happy (Religious)



Inspired by Rachel Held Evans is the book I chose to read this year for Lent. It's subtitled "Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again", and is a mix of short story, and popular theology. It had an extra twinge of poignancy because Rachel died suddenly, in her late 30s, leaving a husband and two very young children, not long after the book was published, and knowing that made her words, which are so full of life, all the more powerful. It did take me a while to get used to the format, and I was less grabbed by the short story/creative writing aspect of the book, but this was a good time to read this, and I will definitely read more of her work. 4/5.

>86 Jackie_K: Odd Biblical coincidence, too. Rachel of the Bible died leaving 2 young sons and a husband.

>87 Tess_W: It's so sad that such a talented and wise writer died so young.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
April Non-Fiction CAT: Law and Order



100 Acts of Minor Dissent by comedian and activist Mark Thomas marks a year of performing acts designed to challenge and provoke authority, whether they be tax-dodging multinational corporations, ridiculous Royal Park bye-laws, to challenging the Metropolitan Police over their classification of him as a 'domestic extremist' (this is a case he took to court, and won - some of the surveillance reports on him were ridiculous, my favourite was one which read "Mark Thomas (TV presenter and activist) stops to stand in the way of the camera, has quantity of cress on rear of his cycle"). All the while he was doing this he was also touring the 100 Acts of Minor Dissent standup show throughout the UK, and I was lucky enough to see him in Stirling towards the start of the tour. He hadn't finished his challenge at that point, so quite a lot of the acts were new to me, although some I remember from the live show, which was absolutely hilarious - he's one of my absolute favourite live performers. 4.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-Fiction: General)
April Non-Fiction Challenge: Migration, Nationalism and Identity



The Good Immigrant, edited by Nikesh Shukla, is an anthology of 21 essays by British writers of colour, exploring issues of belonging, being 'other', and of not being accepted however long they've been in the country (including being born here) and however hard they work. Funny, angry, important, vital. 4/5.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)



And so we come to my first abandoned book of the year. I really did try, but Kathryn Stockett's The Help ultimately just troubled me too much, and right now there's enough troubling stuff going on in the world without being troubled in my reading time too. I was aware when I started the book that there had been some controversy about it, with the author accused of appropriating and profiting from black stories (in this case, black maids working for white American families in the 1960s civil rights era). I wanted to keep an open mind, so haven't read into those criticisms, but I think being aware of them did affect my reading experience. I do feel uncomfortable with the thought of the 'imagination police' telling anybody who they can and can't write about, so persevered for 1/4 of the book, but then came to the chapter where the white character, Skeeter, tells the black maid Aibileen that she wants to interview her and other maids about their experiences of working for white families. Aibileen's reluctance (and initial refusal) was really well written, but so was the fact that Skeeter perseveres with asking her to participate despite thinking through the consequences. Given that it's presumably Skeeter's writing career which will benefit most, and the consequences for any black maid participating was not something she'd particularly thought about, this felt too close to the controversy about Stockett writing this story and I just didn't feel right continuing it. I'll not delete it from my ereader, and maybe I'll come back to it in the future, but right now I just can't do it. I know that this story has been described as the successor to To Kill a Mockingbird, and a friend of mine's teenage daughter has read The Help recently and apparently it completely grabbed her and opened her eyes to issues of justice and race (which is very similar to the reaction I had as a teenage first-time reader of To Kill a Mockingbird), so that's brilliant. But I'm just not in the right place to read this book now, and maybe won't ever be. From the chapters that I did read I can say that Stockett really can tell a good story, she is clearly a very talented writer. But I can't separate that from the wider context, so at least for now I'm done with this particular book. 2/5.

I hope your family has a blessed Easter, Jackie! Sorry you didn't like The Help. I think that was the first book I ever read on an E-reader and I really liked it.

>91 Tess_W: Thank you so much, Tess - a blessed Easter to you and yours too! I think I'm just not in a good headspace for The Help - I might try it again some time.

Category: Norrie (Academic)



The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection by Joanne Warner is an accessible academic book for social workers and others involved in the child protection system. Its main argument is that the media and political scrutiny faced by social work and the child protection system is fundamentally constituted by, and creates, collective emotion, which then constructs arguments about risk and blame. Although I am not a social worker, as a health visitor I do have involvement in the child protection system and a lot of the discussion here had me nodding my head in agreement. I think our managers and politicians would do well to read this as well, and reflect on its insights. I also think that it would be a useful case study for media studies students too. 4/5.

Category: Stick (Central/eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union).
February TravelKIT: In translation



The Good Life Elsewhere by Vladimir Lorchenkov, translated by Ross Ufberg, is one of the few Molodvan fiction books I've been able to find in translation. And what a gem it is! It follows a bunch of citizens from the village of Larga, who are dreaming of emigrating from Moldova to the land of milk and honey, aka Italy. Tragicomedy and absurdity ensue. This was really funny, but also surprisingly poignant. I also enjoyed the cameos of some of Moldova's national politicians. Highly recommended. 4.5*

>94 Jackie_K: Moldova doesn't show up in books much, does it? The only book I've ever encountered it in is Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project.

>95 RidgewayGirl: The other one that is probably best known in the UK is Playing the Moldovans at Tennis by Tony Hawks. I haven't read any of Hemon's work, but he's on my radar.

>95 RidgewayGirl: I read The Lazarus Project and it was a stinker, for me! 2.5 stars

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present) (I think!)



A Stone Statue in the Future by Benjamin Myers is a short story produced specifically for these weird Covid-19 times, as a collaboration between the author and two independent publishers, Little Toller and Bluemoose Books. It's only 8 pages long, but packs so much in it! I'm not actually sure if it's fiction or non-fiction - it seems to blur the boundaries. It reflects on how language and landscape change over time, how what we value in the natural world changes likewise over time, whilst meditating on the author's (in)experience of fishing and the help he receives from an experienced warden, Old Ted. The writing is really beautiful. 4.5/5.

It can be bought from here: https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/a-stone-statue-in-the-fu... (ebook, £3).

I'm in the middle of a bit of a reading slump at the moment, and struggling to engage with anything that requires much of an emotional response (there's enough of that going on in the world right now!). But I have found quite academic non-fiction is more readable for me right now - it's engaging my brain without winding me up!

Category: Norrie (Academic)
April Non-Fiction Category: Migration, Nationalism and Identity



Philomena de Lima's International Migration: The Wellbeing of Migrants is an academic book which looks at the issue of migration from a more human perspective than many social policy texts, which largely foreground economic arguments for and against. The book discusses the difficulties arising from different definitions of migration, different policy priorities and hostile media and political rhetoric, and considers in particular the issue of wellbeing, not only in the receiving society but across the 'migration trajectory'. She ends with a call for more interdisciplinary work on the issue, as it is too big for a single discipline such as social policy to be able to address all the important issues arising from the phenomenon of international migration. I'd say this is mainly aimed at undergraduate social policy and health/social care management students, and is a good primer and pointer for further study. 4/5.

Category: Duggee (Sexual & reproductive health/rights; parenting; children; gender



Bottled Up: How the way we feed babies has come to define motherhood, and why it shouldn't by Suzanne Barston is a rigorously researched discussion of bottle feeding babies, and importantly, what that means culturally. What I particularly liked about this was her no-nonsense approach to the unthinking cultural assumptions about the supremacy of breastfeeding, and also how this can fail mothers who breastfeed as well as those who don't (for example, by focusing on workplace policies around expressing milk, rather than policies that would extend maternity leave). This is a very valuable (and readable) addition to a very contentious debate. 4/5.

>100 Jackie_K: Sounds like a winner, Jackie. I had to bottle feed both of my sons (only 18 months apart) because I had a breast infection for which I had to take antibiotics. This was in the late 70's and early 80's. Most of the comments were "that's too bad, what a shame, oh it must be awful for the babies." Actually my babies were always in the 100th percentile on the height charts and 50th percentile in the weight charts. I don't think infant formula hurt them. They also both were in honors classes in school so it did not stymie their brains, either. They were also never sick. The only time they went to the doctor was for their yearly check ups and I quit those once all their vaccinations were complete. But there were many people who tried to infer that I was somehow a failure. Pfffttt!

>101 Tess_W: Thanks Tess, yes I had issues with breastfeeding too - because of a medical condition and medication I was on, my milk supply was affected. I did manage to mixed-feed my daughter for several months, breast and formula, and I'm glad I had that experience, although I was really disappointed I couldn't exclusively breastfeed. The decisions that people make about feeding (or like in my case that were made for them due to external factors not in our control) are so complex that nobody should judge, but people are very quick to judge, particularly around infant feeding.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)
May RandomCAT: Believe in Your Shelf



This book, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, has been on my shelf a LONG time! It was a birthday present from my sister in the early 90s, I think. I was never actually that into Fry & Laurie (although I loved the later things they were in, especially Blackadder), which is probably why I never picked this up to read until now. The book contains the complete scripts for their very first series (which I think was broadcast in 1988, so now I feel very old!), and I think I found it much funnier now than I would have done in my early 20s, when I'm pretty sure I wouldn't really have got the humour. Mostly though I'm amazed at just how young and fresh-faced they look on the cover! 3.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Red Sixty Seven is a beautiful coffee table book which details the 67 birds on the most recent 'red list' of British birds - ie the birds at highest risk of population decline. Each bird has a single page of prose (or in a couple of cases poetry) from a different writer, and a single page illustration by a different artist, all of whom gave their services for free. The book is sold in aid of the British Trust for Ornithology and the RSPB. 4.5/5.

>103 Jackie_K: Sounds lovely. Am going in search of one focused on North America!

>104 Tess_W: I hope you find something! This one was pretty much crowd-sourced on twitter, I think - one person had the idea, and then everybody else chipped in until they had enough contributors.

Category: Betty (Travel)
April TravelKIT (Related to a place where you do not live)



Paul Theroux's Deep South was the last book I got out of the local library before lockdown. Although I'm a big fan of good travel writing, and Paul Theroux is one of the most renowned travel writers of the last several decades, I hadn't actually ever read any of his work before. I have to say, I really enjoyed this, and am keen to read more of his books now. In this one, he spends four different seasons driving around the back roads of the American Deep South, hanging out, meeting people, attending churches and gun shows, exploring the literature and culture and politics of the southern states. I gather he has a bit of a 'grumpy old man' reputation, but here I found him very interested in the people he met, and very respectful of them, keen to understand their perspectives. 4.5/5.

>103 Jackie_K: no such book per say, but I did find a pamphlet from the Audubon Society about birds in North America on the "list." Actually, here in the midwest, there are only about a half a dozen birds currently in the "being depleted" stage. There are others in America, such as Alaska, Mexico, California, etc., but don't pertain to my area. An interesting read.

>105 Jackie_K: I'm glad you enjoyed Mr. Theroux. I read one of his works of fiction, Hotel Honolulu and it was just awful! So bad that I don't think I can give him another chance!

>105 Jackie_K: I've never read him, but I've caught some of his TV programmes. He seems to try to go into every situation with an open mind, and explore his own prejudices at the same time.

>106 Tess_W: I'm not particularly feeling any urge to read any of Paul Theroux's fiction, but after reading Deep South I'm definitely enthusiastic to read more of his travel writing. If you're ever short of a book (hahaha!) maybe that would be the genre of his to pick up.

>107 Helenliz: That's a really good way of putting it - that's certainly the impression I got of his approach from this book.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
May Non-Fiction Challenge: Comfort reading



Dancing with Bees by Brigit Strawbridge Howard is a lovely nature book which focuses not only on bees, but also other insects, plants and birds that she learns about in the course of reconnecting with nature. I really liked that it's not an expert writing, nor is it a formal reference book, but someone learning as she goes along, like we all are. This is a lovely read, and has already changed something I was thinking about for the future, namely keeping a couple of beehives. Through reading this I realise that I will be a lot more helpful to the environment and the local bee populations if instead I focus on planting flowers for the wild pollinators rather than introducing potentially non-native honeybees. And this book has made me feel very enthusiastic about doing that. 4.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops by Jen Campbell was the first ebook I successfully checked out of the library - lockdown is finally bringing me into the 21st century! (at least for the library - I'm a big ebook fan already, I just never got round to signing up for e-library books). It does what it says on the tin - it turns out that bookshop customers, just like people everywhere, can be really really weird. 3/5.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)



I wanted a short read so as usual went to Asterix (I've only got one unread one left, so will need to augment my collection!). This time it was Asterix and the Cauldron - Asterix is entrusted with guarding a cauldron full of money by dodgy Gaulish chief Whosemoralsarelastix, but they are stolen and Asterix is banished from the village. Cue Asterix and Obelix trying all sorts of means and adventures to refill the cauldron to restore the honour of the village. It wasn't my favourite of the Asterix stories, but it was a nice diversion. 3/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: General)
May NonFictionCAT: Science



Sam Kean's Caesar's Last Breath is a popular science book looking at the science and history behind the various gases that make up the air we breathe. This is the first of his books I've tried and on the basis of this one I'll definitely be looking out for the others - this guy knows how to tell a tale and keep the reader hooked, even if the subject matter is ostensibly quite dry. I don't have a particularly scientific background, but was able to follow the science whilst enjoying the tales of the (often quite hapless) scientists discovering all these different gases. The endnotes were also entertaining and well worth a read - it was worth it just for the incidental anecdote about notorious Scottish poet William Macgonagall's short-lived acting career. Highly recommended for all interested in science without the jargon. 4.5/5.

Category: Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true events)
March Non-Fiction CAT: Biography



In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum is a meticulously researched biography which was deservedly shortlisted for the Costa Biography award. Marie Colvin was for many years the foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, and she was killed while reporting in Syria in 2012. A couple of years ago I read her collected writings which revealed a passionate and exceptional reporter, and this biography, written by her friend and fellow foreign correspondent and drawing extensively on Marie's diaries and interviews with friends, family and colleagues, fills in the life behind the reports. Marie was a very complex woman, with many failed relationships and an increasing dependence on alcohol, but shining through it all is a portrait of a woman who lived life at 150% and never gave anything but her all. 4.5/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
May GeoCAT: Any place you would like to visit



Saga Land by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason is a fascinating account of Iceland and its famous family sagas. Part travel book, part memoir, part history, the two authors (the first, an Australian broadcaster, the second a half-Australian half-Icelandic academic) introduce the reader to some of the most famous of the sagas and travel to the places where the main events of those sagas took place. At the same time though, this is the story of Kari rediscovering his own family saga (he was the result of an affair between an Australian expat and a married Icelandic man with a family of his own already), and regaining his place as a son of Iceland. I was hooked from start to finish. 4.5/5.

>113 Jackie_K: Sounds lovely! Goes on my wish list.

>113 Jackie_K: I bought this when it came out as I knew I would love it. But I still haven't read it! I will have to move it up the list but I have so many library books to read before I will need to return them.

>114 Tess_W: I really liked it, so I'm confident it's a good one to take as a BB!

>115 JayneCM: It's definitely worth getting to, Jayne! The only thing for me, reading it as an ebook, was that the photos weren't very clear, so it would be better in a paper version to fully appreciate the amazing scenery.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Six Square Metres: Reflections from a Small Garden by Australian journalist Margaret Simons is a short, thoughtful book detailing her efforts to grow things in her tiny inner city Melbourne garden. She orders it by season, and also includes reflections on life and death along with her accounts of spindly veg and homemade compost. A lovely read. 4/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
May Non-Fiction Challenge: Comfort Reading



Richard King's The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape is a fascinating look at the connection between music and landscape in 20th century Britain (admittedly mainly England, although Wales and Scotland aren't entirely neglected). Starting with reflections on the music of Vaughan Williams (whose haunting composition gives the book its title) and ending with accounts of rural raves in the 1990s, this is a really interesting social as well as cultural history. 4.5/5.

>117 Jackie_K:

I'm not a fan of non-fiction for pleasure reading, but your reviews were so great that I put them on my wish list. When I retire, I promise, I'm going to read more non-fiction. At this time I read a lot of non-fiction for work: history, geography, and educational psychology. But when I retire............

>118 Tess_W: Thanks Tess, I know NF isn't to everybody's taste, and I'm in the minority in reading NF for pleasure, but my experience has generally been that even in NF that isn't amazing, it's very unlikely to be awful. That's not been my experience with quite a lot of fiction! In particular, I'm finding myself craving nature writing and that's very much my sweet spot for reading right now - there's so much really excellent nature writing around.

Category: Henny (Non-Fiction: General)
June NonFiction CAT: Society
June NonFiction Challenge: Books by Journalists



Reni Eddo-Lodge's Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is a must-read book about race and racism in the UK. She highlights how much of 'race history' that people are taught in the UK is actually US history (Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, etc), and how ignorant we are of our own race history here. So the first chapter rectifies that, before she goes on to look at issues such as feminism, class, opportunity, and white privilege. It's not a comfortable read, but it's a vital one, and it's very powerfully and persuasively written. For anyone, especially white people, wanting to listen, learn, and act to combat racism, this should be compulsory reading. 5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



I've been listening to author Joanna Penn's podcast, The Creative Penn, for a couple of years - she's an amazing and very generous resource to the writing community, particularly those who are interested in indie publishing. How to Write Non-Fiction: Turn Your Knowledge Into Words is one of her many books for authors, and is a systematic look at the stages involved in writing non-fiction. The book is largely relevant for 'how-to' non-fiction and probably less so for the more creative, long-form non-fiction that I write, but even still it is a useful handbook. Nothing in the book is a surprise for anyone who listens to her podcast, but it's handy to have it all in one place. 4/5 (3.5 for the book, and an extra half star for the fab podcast!).

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
June Non-FictionCAT: Society
June Non-Fiction Challenge: Books by Journalists)



Afua Hirsch's Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging is a must-read book. Using her own search for identity, as a mixed-race Brit with Ghanaian and German Jewish heritage, she discusses the reality of race and identity in Britain today. Wonderfully and beautifully written. 5/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
June RandomCAT: Take to the Sea!



Adam Nicolson wrote one of my all-time favourite books, Sea Room, about the Shiant Islands in the Outer Hebrides. I was therefore looking forward to Atlantic Britain which is the account of a year-long voyage in a sailing ship from Cornwall, up the Irish Atlantic coast, over to the Hebrides, Orkney and finally the Faroe Islands, which was also the subject of a Channel 4 TV series. I did enjoy reading this, but it is a much shorter book with quite a lot of the voyage left out, and so I didn't feel as immersed in the world of the book, or as sympathetic to the author. If you're a fan of sailing though there will be lots here to love. 3/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto is a short book to accompany the tour he did (which appeared on Radio 4) of the same name. In each venue, he asked people to suggest and vote on alternative policies, and this book presents the winning policies with a brief explanation. Mark Thomas is one of my favourite comedians, and this was a good reminder of a fun show. 4/5.

>120 Jackie_K: - Sounds interesting. Hopefully I can get to it soon.

I heard that a new episode of Hey Duggee premiered today, and thought of you! It looks hilarious :D

>120 Jackie_K: Sounds interesting. On to the wishlist it goes.

>122 Jackie_K: I've had my eye on Afua Hirsch's book. It's not at the library yet but I hope it will be soon.

>124 LittleTaiko: It's definitely worth a read!
>125 rabbitprincess: Yes, I haven't seen the episode yet, but even seeing the publicity for it made me smile!
>126 VivienneR: I bought Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging a while ago, when I read something else she had written and really liked her writing. It's fantastic.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Lauret Savoy's Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape is an extraordinary book that I loved from start to finish. The author explores the parts of America with connections to her own heritage (African American, European American and Native American), to try to find traces of her ancestors. Amongst this exploration she also considers the legacy of slavery, and also which histories are foregrounded in national memory and teaching of history, and which ones are left to be forgotten. Her writing is absolutely beautiful - a lot of this sort of book (part memoir, part nature, part history) veers towards purple prose, but her writing was so light touch, there wasn't a word out of place, and there were a few places where I literally gasped at the juxtaposition of ideas. I really want to give this 6 stars, it was so good. 6/5.

>127 Jackie_K: I don't read non-fiction for enjoyment, as it seems too much like work (my job). However, your glowing review has forced me to put this on my wish list. In future CATegory years, I plan on reading a minimum of 5 non-fiction books per year, outside of work.

>128 Tess_W: I hope you manage to get to it, Tess - I loved it! I hope you're keeping well in these strange times.

Category: Mole (Celtic)
July RandomCAT: Picture This!



Alex Boyd's St Kilda: The Silent Islands is a small coffee table book featuring pictures of the remote archipelago of St Kilda. There has been lots written about the previous inhabitants, and the voluntary evacuation of the remaining islanders in 1930 to the mainland, which has contributed to something of a mythological and romanticised view of the place. Actually the main island is inhabited all year round as it is a Ministry of Defence monitoring station, and there are also volunteers from the National Trust of Scotland living there for around 6 months of every year too. Usually when you see photos of St Kilda now they are angled in such a way that the Cold War/MoD buildings are left out, so visitors are often disappointed with how obvious and present the defence structures are. These photos sought to portray the islands as they are today, including the radar stations and staff quarters etc, as well as the scenery and ruined/part-preserved buildings in Village Bay and surrounds. There is a foreword by a former NTS worker who makes the point that it is probably because of the MoD continuous presence that St Kilda has been preserved as well as it has, which is not a viewpoint I'd heard before but which I think is worthy of consideration. The photos are only minimally captioned, which is great, although I think I would have enjoyed some more text within the pictures. 4/5.

>131 Jackie_K: I love reads like this!

>132 Tess_W: So do I - it was nice to just wallow in the lovely photographs, and I did feel like I learnt something too!

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: General)
June Non-FictionCAT: Society
June Non-Fiction Challenge: Books by Journalists



Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini is an excellent and very readable (the author is a journalist) debunking of the history of and current fascination with eugenics and race science. It's very well researched and really interesting. 5/5.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)



The Unwinding by Jackie Morris is a real thing of beauty - more a work of art than a book. She is the illustrator of The Lost Words, written with Robert Macfarlane, which is the most beautiful book, and The Unwinding is her latest offering; she's written the words as well as illustrated it. Although it's not designed to be read from cover to cover, but dipped into, read it from cover to cover is exactly what I did because it's so sumptuous and gorgeous. I'd say the writing is mostly poetic prose, although I might be going a bit Pseud's Corner with that categorisation - but that's how it struck me. The whole thing is dreamlike and ethereal. And her illustrations are so beautiful. It's one of those books you just want to gaze at and stroke. Gorgeous. 4.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
July Non-Fiction Challenge: The Long Eighteenth Century



Mr Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America by Lee Alan Dugatkin is a short but interesting book looking at Thomas Jefferson's attempts to refute what was popularly known in eighteenth century natural history circles as the degeneracy theory, namely that all natural development in the New World (specifically North America) was degenerate in comparison to the Old World (Eurasia, essentially). The theory essentially stated that there were fewer species of animals overall in the New World, that those animals in common in both places were physically smaller and weaker in the New World, that the indigenous humans of the New World were inferior, and that Europeans who migrated over to the New World themselves degenerated. This theory held a huge amount of traction for around a century, and Jefferson saw the implications of the theory for the newly emerging country of the USA in terms of attracting immigrants and economic investment. It covers the key players on both sides of the Atlantic, and finishes with a chapter detailing what happened after Jefferson's death, when the theory gradually fell out of favour. 3.5/5.

>135 Jackie_K: sounds like a fascinating read for a historian! I am surprised at this theory, but shouldn't be surprised of any rumor. Surprised because I know that the moose, the snapping turtle, and the American bison are the largest of their species and native only to North America. but probably not known at this time?! BB for me!

>136 Tess_W: Yes, the theory was based primarily on traveller accounts, none of the main theorists (Buffon, de Lauw, and Abbe Layal) had ever been to America! Part of Jefferson's plan was to ship a huge moose skeleton to Buffon from America in an attempt to get him to admit he was wrong - this is where the book title came from. It became quite an obsession for Jefferson. While reading I was amazed at how such an obviously flawed theory could have so much traction, but then looking at so much in the news today, I guess nothing changes!

>137 Jackie_K: The more I age, I can truly say: there is nothing new under the sun!

>138 Tess_W: Ain't that the truth!

>135 Jackie_K: I've known about this theory but have only read short pieces about it so I look forward to reading this. Although it's nuts, the US was much smaller then and there was still much to learn about the natural world west of the Mississippi particularly. The Louisiana Purchase had just taken place 16 years prior to Jefferson's presidency.

>140 clue: Yes, it was really interesting reading of a time when the US wasn't the global superpower it is now!

Category: Betty (Travel)
May TravelKIT: Modes of Transportation



Narrow Margins by Marie Browne is the first in a series of memoirs detailing the author and her family's adventures living on a narrowboat. The family lose their home and business in the mid 2000s, and end up buying and doing up a 70ft barge (which they sell at the end of the book, with the dream of buying a boat that can be seagoing as well). That's pretty much it for this first book - you get the usual hapless beginner scrapes, family members learning about themselves and what's important, and an insight into this particular way of life. It was well written, but I don't feel invested enough in the family to particularly want to read more of the series. I think it would be worth reading if moving to a narrowboat is your dream. 3/5.

Category: Stick (Central/Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union)
July TravelKIT: Myths and Legends



Romanian Fairy Tales by Petre Ispirescu is an English and Romanian edition of three Romanian fairy tales, with English on the left hand page and the equivalent Romanian on the right. So I was able to read a half page at a time in English so I knew what was happening, and then follow the Romanian. These tales were all pretty similar - much-loved sons of emperors on quests, basically. If I was wanting more language practice, these would be good for me to figure out pronouns, which were always my nemesis in Romanian! 3/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Check out that gorgeous cover!! The Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett is an astonishing book, not always easy to read and it did take me a while to gel with it, but it's really beautiful. The author is primarily a poet, this is her first foray into non-fiction, and the language is so poetic that the boundaries between the two are pretty blurred - in a few places the poetic prose even reminded me of fictional magical realism. The book is a 'geological memoir' - she returns to the village in Devon where she was born and brought up as she comes to terms with the rapidly deteriorating health of her father, and explores the flowers, fields and earth that he himself had farmed and written about, and his father and grandfather had farmed before him. I saw echoes of the questions raised in Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy which I read last month - what traces do our ancestors, and we, leave in the land and the soil, to what extent do any of us truly belong in a place, and what is the significance of this for those that come after us? I think I'm going to have to read it again, more slowly next time, to do more than scrape the surface of all that's here. An extraordinary book. 5/5.

I agree... that cover is beautiful!

>144 lkernagh: It really is. One thing about nature writing is that so often the covers really are stunning!

Category: Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true events)
July Non-Fiction CAT: Human Science



Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery is a memoir by retired neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. It discusses both particular conditions, and his more personal reflections on life as a neurosurgeon and the responsibilities, mistakes, joys, and experiences that it entails. He doesn't shy away from cases where surgery made things worse (in some cases, much worse) for patients - this isn't an 'I'm so wonderful, and these are all the lives I miraculously transformed' type memoir. He's also open about personal failings which led to the breakdown of his first marriage, and philosophical about matters of life and death. 4/5.

>145 Jackie_K: ha! Can't get me with that book bullet, already read it. I thought it needed something to round it off at the end. I felt it didn't end so much as stop, if that makes sense.

>146 Helenliz: Yes, that's fair, I think. Because the final chapter was titled 'Coda' rather than 'Chapter 26' I expected a bit more of a summing up, but it was mostly another case presentation like all the other chapters.

Category: Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true events)



This is July's library book - I'm still enjoying exploring the library's ebook catalogue, although I have to say that the RBDigital interface is really clunky, so it always takes me ages to find anything!

I'm not the world's biggest fan of poetry, but I'm always happy to make an exception for Jackie Kay, Scotland's makar. The Adoption Papers is, I think, her very first collection, from the early '90s, and covers aspects of her experience as a Scottish-Nigerian baby adopted into a white Scottish family, which she explores in more detail in her autobiography Red Dust Road (which is brilliant) and later poetry collection Fiere (also excellent). The Adoption Papers also has poems exploring emerging sexuality, and actually it is those poems which I thought were most powerful and beautiful here. What I liked about the adoption poems was that she wrote in three voices - her own, her birth mother's, and her adoptive mother's, and it gave a moving glimpse into the complicated emotions that all three would have experienced. 4/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
July GeoCAT: Mexico, Central America, South America, Caribbean



I've had Between Extremes by Brian Keenan & John McCarthy on my bookshelves for the best part of 20 years, and am so glad I got to it at last! Keenan & McCarthy were two journalists who were kidnapped in Beirut in the mid-1980s and held hostage for 4 and 5 years respectively. During the long years of incarceration they filled the time dreaming about a road trip in South America, which eventually morphed into a crazy dream to farm yak in Patagonia. Nearly a decade after their release, the two friends take on the road trip from the northern tip of Chile right down through Patagonia to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip.

I loved reading this book, I can't believe I had it on the shelves so long unread! They write alternating passages throughout the book, sometimes a few pages, sometimes just a paragraph or two, and it was so interesting to see their different interpretations and experiences of the same place. Brian Keenan is much more poetic - he kept a couple of volumes of Pablo Neruda's poetry as his constant companion, and referred to them quite a lot - whereas John McCarthy is more organised and kept trying to plan each next step (it was very obvious which one was Irish and which was English!). I found it very moving how they would check their irritation with the other's quirks and gave each other enormous amounts of grace; a legacy of their coping mechanisms and mutual support when they were hostages together. They didn't milk their Lebanon experience, but mentioned it when it was relevant. They were very open about their disappointments and fears as well as exhilarations of the journey. And through it all their mutual love and respect for each other, and deep friendship, shone through. 4.5/5.

>149 Jackie_K: That book has been on my wish list for some time! Thanks for the great review. Making a note to try to locate said book somewhere..........

>150 Tess_W: It's a really good read, Tess, I hope you can find it!

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Garden Among Fires: A Lockdown Anthology presents a collection of writing based on submissions to writer Marina Benjamin's blog of the same name following the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in March 2020. Essays and poetry from various writers explores their experiences of life under lockdown, not just in the UK but also Sweden, Italy, USA, India among others. Some of the writers I had heard of before (including favourites Katherine May and Amy Liptrot), others were new to me. All proceeds from this anthology go to the UK domestic abuse charity, Refuge. 3.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
August Non-Fiction CAT: History



The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan is an epic chunkster of a book which seeks to recentre the focus of world history from a US/Euro-centric orientation further east, to the Middle East, central Asia and over to China. What it isn't is a specific history of "the Silk Roads", instead he details the growth of trade routes, the growing influence of various religions, trade in minerals, fabrics and slaves, the impact of invasions of people and plagues, and how these events impacted on world history. The book was published in 2015, and follows events right up till then, so finishes with the aftermath of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. What struck me was firstly that from the beginning of human life moving around the region, the factors which influenced life were remarkably similar to today: movement of capital and goods, and relative inequalities amongst others. Secondly, that events happening anywhere in the world have repercussions around the world that can't be foreseen. And thirdly, that Europe and the US are spectacularly rubbish at learning the lessons of history and endlessly repeat and perpetuate their previous mistakes. The focus on safeguarding and dominating oil supply has a much longer history than I'd realised, and was thoroughly depressing. I did enjoy reading this very thorough and well-researched book, learnt loads, and at some point would like to read its follow up. 4.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty memoirists on why they expose themselves (and others) in the name of literature, edited by Meredith Maran, is one of the suggested reads for a short course I am going to start soon. It does what it says on the tin: 20 published memoirists (including Cheryl Strayed, Dani Shapiro, Edwidge Danticat, Anne Lamott, and Sue Monk Kidd, amongst others) discuss their motivation, process, and considerations in writing memoir, concluding with top tips for aspiring memoirists. As with any collection, some resonated with me more than others, but all were interesting and gave me plenty to think about. 4/5.

>152 Jackie_K: Is your course a writing course, Jackie?

>153 Tess_W: hi Tess, yes it is - a short (6 week) creative non-fiction course designed and led by an excellent author, Katherine May. I have no intention of writing a memoir (I'm not very interesting!) but I want to improve my writing, including writing more personal material, so I'm looking forward to it.

>154 Jackie_K: I hope you enjoy the course and it's informative as well!

>152 Jackie_K: A great review of the Silk Roads, I really need to get to this. And good luck with your course!

>155 Tess_W: Thank you - I'm looking forward to it!
>156 MissWatson: It's definitely worth a read, I really enjoyed it, and (unlike a lot of world history books) it wasn't at all stuffy and dry!

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)
August GeoCAT: East and South-East Asia



The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea by Bandi (a pseudonym) is a collection of seven short stories about life in North Korea in the early-mid-90s, the time of Kim Il-Sung (they were written between 1989-1995). Although some poetry and fiction about the regime has been published by North Korean writers, these have mainly been published once the authors had successfully defected from the country. Bandi continues to live and work in North Korea, and these stories were smuggled out from inside the country. What struck me about all of them is that it is clear that many of the characters in the story are aware of the sham of Party/Leader loyalty, but fear is so over-riding that they continue to go along with the charade. Well worth a read. 4/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
August TravelKIT: Travel Narratives



60 Degrees North: Around the World in Search of Home is by Scottish writer and singer/songwriter Malachy Tallack. 'Home' for him is Shetland, where he moved when he was 5, although he's always had a complicated relationship with the place. In this book he visits other places around the world on the same latitude, 60 degrees north, exploring 'northness', similarities between the places, and what about them speak to him of home and belonging. So he starts in Shetland, then southern Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Siberia, St Petersburg, Finland/Aland, Sweden and Norway before returning to Shetland. I really liked this - he included history of the places, observations about them and about home. He's a very generous writer, and I'd like to read some more non-fiction by him (he has since published a well-received novel, The Valley at the Centre of the World). 4.5/5.

>158 Jackie_K: Just requested this from the library! Looks great.

Also signed up to attend Virtual Bloody Scotland! I still have some Stirling Gin left over so will have to have a wee cocktail while attending the events :D

Hope you are all doing well!

>158 Jackie_K: That's an interesting concept. I'll have to see if I can find it.

>159 rabbitprincess: >160 thornton37814: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

RP, a friend of mine has submitted to the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect this year, so I'm keeping everything crossed for her. I've just taken a look at the website - they've got a stellar list of contributors, as usual!

>161 Jackie_K: My fingers are crossed for your friend as well!

>158 Jackie_K: Sounds like a great book--on my wish list it goes! I hope all goes well with your friend!

>162 rabbitprincess: >163 Tess_W: I hope it goes well for her and she gets some good feedback. Crime really isn't my genre, but she loves it and has worked really hard.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature by J Drew Lanham is a selection of essays about the author's childhood growing up in rural South Carolina, his subsequent academic career, hunting, education, nature, race (the essay "Birding While Black" was particularly important), family, etc. Like so many nature memoirs, he has managed to gently weave the personal and the universal to make a powerful and absorbing book. 4.5./5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
August Non-Fiction Challenge: Books about books (and words, and languages, and libraries)



Guy Deutscher's Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages is a popular science book looking at the current state of knowledge around language and perception. He argues that, contrary to the majority scholarly view, language (specifically issues such as colour perception, gendered language, and language around spatial organisation) does affect how those things are perceived by individual speakers. I'll be honest, I think I was stretched to my intellectual limits by this book - it's very readable, and I think I basically followed it, but (unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible!) it felt to me like he was taking quite a long time to make a small number of points. 3.5/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
September GeoCAT: Polar and Tundra regions



For the second month in a row I've started the month with a chunkster of a book which has taken some reading! Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams was published in 1986 and is still - rightly - considered a classic of place/travel/nature writing. From extensive stays in the North American and Greenland Arctic, he writes about the place and its inhabitants, with chapters about individual species (eg narwhal, muskoxen, polar bear), and also chapters about snow and ice, light, and the explorers who dreamed of opening the Arctic up. It's a stunning book, really worth a read. 5/5.

>166 Jackie_K: And a nice cover, too!

I saw the Wainwright Prize announced Diary of a Young Naturalist as this year's winner. Impressed that the author is so young (and slightly "what have I done with my life", haha).

>167 rabbitprincess: I have Diary of a Young Naturalist on my TBR, a signed copy no less, and hope to get to it sooner rather than later. I have followed Dara on Twitter for a while, he really is quite remarkable (actually there are several teenage environmentalists who are so inspiring, you're right they put us to shame a bit!). His book has also just been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize this year (so has Rachel Clarke's Dear Life).

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)
August RandomCAT: Get Your Groove On



This short book, Raphael Jerusalmy's Saving Mozart, packs quite a punch. It is written mostly in journal format, with the occasional longer letter. Otto Steiner is a man of Jewish descent who is dying in a TB sanatorium in Salzburg just before the start of World War 2. He is a music critic, and is horrified to find that the Nazis are planning on using an annual Mozart festival as an occasion for Nazi propaganda. He is given the opportunity to contribute to the programming of the festival, and uses it to subvert the Nazi tubthumping of the festival. I read this pretty much in one go, and although by the end I had guessed already what his final act of rebellion at the festival was going to be, that didn't matter, I was still cheering him on. Although the book doesn't flinch from the stark reality of life in a sanatorium, it wasn't excessively grim, and there were still patches of humour and pathos that brought the story to life. 4/5.

Just catching up here. Wow, you've done an amazing job of keeping up with the Non-fiction Cat reading and then some. Good for you! I enjoy non-fiction but realize I couldn't read that many books in one year.

>169 This-n-That: Thank you! I realise I'm in a minority of pretty close to 1 here, but I feel exactly the same about fiction!

>168 Jackie_K: definitely a BB for me. I'm reading a lot more non-fiction now that I'm retired.

>172 Tess_W: Tess, believe it or not, this one was a rare fiction book for me!! I'm sure you'll like it though, I know that that's a period and subject that you're interested in.

Category: Happy (Religious)
September Non-FictionCAT: Religion and Philosophy



Michael Lloyd's Cafe Theology is a book that's been on my shelf since spring 2005 - I remember the date as he was the speaker at a church weekend away, the last one I went on while I still lived in London. This is an introduction to theology, the basic tenets of Christianity, and I really liked it as it went into some depth and looked at some awkward questions, but was never trite or simplistic - which is how I remember him as a speaker, he was very engaging. I think it would be ideal both for people new to Christianity or people like me who are a bit more long in the tooth. There were a few questions I have which weren't addressed, but I'd love to see if he's written about them elsewhere, because I really liked his approach, and agreed with a lot of what he wrote here, so suspect he'd talk a lot of sense about the other issues I'm wondering about. 4.5/5.

>173 Jackie_K: Oh wow, since it was you, I thought it must be non-fiction! Either way, it's on my list.

>174 Tess_W: Haha, I know it's a rare occasion! And here's another, a BB from LT from a long time ago:

Category: Enid (Vintage fiction: 1900-1968)
September RandomCAT: Reccies



Yevgeny Zamyatin published We in 1921, and it has the distinction of apparently being the first novel to be banned by the Soviet Union. It is a short dystopian novel set in an entirely closed glass city where the individual is completely subsumed within the collective 'we', citizens wear identical clothing and are distinguishable only by the letter and number they are assigned at birth. Every aspect of social and civic life is controlled and monitored by the state. The narrator is a man called D-503, who is initially entirely accepting of the state of affairs until he meets a woman, I-330, who defies the rules. He becomes more and more obsessed with her, and ends up part of a plot to overthrow the state and destroy the city. This book has been hailed as the forerunner of such books as 1984 and Brave New World.

By the end of the book I must admit I was getting quite confused, so I'm not entirely sure what was happening all the way through! The allegory of life under Communism was pretty blatant (even I got that!) and I'm not surprised that the Soviet authorities banned it. I thought the world-building was extremely sophisticated for a book written pretty much a century ago, and is certainly a step up from books I've read by authors such as HG Wells in that regard. The book was narrated in the first person by D-503, and it was a good portrayal of a descent into obsession and growing realisation that all is not as it seems. I must admit though that I found another character, O-90 (a female character with whom he has state-sanctioned relations) more interesting and I would have loved to have seen what was happening from her point of view as well. 3.5/5.

>175 Jackie_K: I read We earlier this year and had pretty much the same reaction as you. It was interesting, I'm glad I read it, but I doubt if this book will be one that I remember.

>175 Jackie_K: Now that I do have on my shelf to read. At one time (2014-2016) it was free on Amazon Kindle.

>176 DeltaQueen50: I think I might read it again some time, to see if I can figure out more of what was going on! I'd still like to know O-90's story more though!

>177 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it when you get to it - or at least find it interesting!

Category: Frog (Ancient fiction: pre-1900)



With this book I met this year's ROOT goal, and also my Category Challenge goal of at least one book in every one of my categories.

The Basket of Flowers by Christoph von Schmid has been on my shelves since (gulp) 1988! It was a gift from a lovely elderly lady in my then home church, and I'll be keeping the book because of the beautiful message she wrote in the front. The author lived from the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries, and wrote a number of books for children, of which this is the most well-known. It is a Christian morality tale for the young, and is pretty didactic, as such books tended to be. Virtuous Mary is wrongly accused of a crime, and she and her widower father Jacob are banished from the kingdom. They keep their trust in God, and their needs are met. Jacob dies before Mary's innocence is finally established and her reputation and place restored. Those who wronged her are given the opportunity to repent. Every scene is an opportunity for a truth about God to be learnt and proclaimed.

This book is hard to rate. It's not really my cup of tea, it's far too didactic, but seeing the message written in the front of the book brought back such lovely memories of a wonderful soul. I've given it 2.5* eventually for the story, but the book won't be leaving the house. 2.5/5.

Category: Mole (Celtic)



September's library book was another volume of Scottish poetry, this time by the wonderful poet Norman MacCaig. The Poems of Norman MacCaig features all of the poems published before his death, plus a decent selection of others found in his papers after his death by his son Ewen, who was his literary executor. What I like about MacCaig's poems are a) most of them are short (!); b) they're pretty accessible and don't leave me feeling bamboozled; and c) they're dripping with love of Scotland and the landscape. I must admit to some skimming - there are nearly 800 poems in total here - but I will be looking out for this book to keep as a hard cover book, it's the type of book that every house in Scotland should have on the shelves. One poem which particularly tickled me was called "Waiting to notice", and included this wonderful description of a seagull:

and a gull, as usual
tuning his bagpipe
and not going on to the tune

Isn't that brilliant? 4/5.

Category: Roly (authors I know)



Tooth and Blade is a collection of 3 Norse fantasy-inspired YA novellas by Julian Barr. Dota is girl brought up by trolls in their subterranean cave, who discovers she is in fact human. She enters the human realm and is soon drawn into clan and kingdom battles there, whilst also seeking to protect them against Grethor, her bloodthirsty troll brother. There is a sense of menace in the book, but the violence is never graphically described, and the themes of identity, loyalty and family predominate. There is also a queer subtext which is never laboured but is an integral part of the story. I found this a gripping story grounded in research (I enjoyed spotting nods to the Icelandic sagas which I'd read about earlier in the year in Saga Land), which kept my interest until the end. The ending of the third novella is satisfyingly complete, but leaves the door open to further installments. 4/5.

Category: Chew Chew (Autobiography/biography/memoir/true story)
October Non-FictionCAT: The Arts



Seth Lerer's Prospero's Son: Life, Books, Love and Theater was a book that I got as part of the University of Chicago Press's monthly free ebook programme a few years ago. It is a memoir of his family, and some of the books and plays that are important to him. His father is the predominant character - a closeted gay man during his marriage to Seth's mother, very much out after their divorce, he was one of those people who seems to draw in the energy of the entire room to themselves and everyone else's lives orbits round them, so it was no wonder he was such a prominent character throughout. This was really beautifully written, I thought - the author is not someone I'd have any interest in, particularly, but he managed to hold my interest throughout through his sympathetic portrayals of all the other important people in his life. I thought the interspersing of quotes from books and plays was less successful, but it didn't stop me enjoying the book and appreciating his writing skill and warmth as a person. 3.5/5.

>166 Jackie_K: Taking a BB for Arctic Dreams. Sounds like a very informative book!

>182 mathgirl40: It's hefty but very worth the read, I hope you enjoy it!

Category: Chew Chew (biography; autobiography; memoir; true story)
September Non-Fiction Challenge: Books about Science and Technology



The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, is the extraordinary and inspiring true story of William, a young lad in Malawi, who despite having to drop out of secondary school after the first year, due to poverty and famine, starts hanging out in the local library (a room with 3 shelves of books), pretty much teaches himself physics and electronics from a couple of text books, and builds a windmill out of an old bicycle and scraps salvaged from a scrap yard near his old school, so that for the first time his family can have electricity. The bulk of the book actually gives the background to his life and growing up, and gives a wonderful account of growing up in rural Malawi, and a harrowing account of living through a country-wide famine; it's probably 2/3 of the way through the book before the windmill even appears. The windmill brings attention first from visitors, and eventually from further afield, and he is given a scholarship to attend a TEDx conference in Tanzania, finish his schooling, and attend the African Leaders Academy in South Africa. Through his success he has been able to provide schooling and better conditions for his village, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next. 4.5/5.

>183 Jackie_K: You did a great job on the review---I'm putting it on my wish list.

>183 Jackie_K: I loved that book! Such a positive message.

>184 Tess_W: I'm sure you'll enjoy it if you get to it, Tess!

>185 DeltaQueen50: Yes, it really is. He really is a remarkable young man.

Category: Betty (Travel)
October GeoCAT: UK, US, Canada



Patrick Barkham's Islander: A Journey Around Our Archipelago is right up my street - islands, travel, history, nature, what's not to like? He visits 11 small islands around Britain - Isle of Man, 4 Scottish islands (well, 5, but South Ronaldsay and Mainland Orkney are included in the same chapter; he also visits Barra, Eigg and St Kilda), Alderney (Channel Islands), Rathlin (Northern Ireland), St Martin's (Scilly Isles), Ynys Enlli (also known as Bardsey, Wales), and two islands off the Essex coast, Osea and Ray. As well as tracing the stories of the individual islands, throughout the book he also weaves the story of well-known island-phile Compton Mackenzie (author of Whisky Galore), and each chapter starts with a quote from a DH Lawrence short story, The Man Who Loved Islands, which was thought to be a not-very-veiled dig at Compton Mackenzie, his one-time friend. I wasn't sure about the emphasis on Monty (Compton Mackenzie) to start with, but as the book went on I realised that if there wasn't a unified theme of place (because he went to all those different, separate islands), then having another theme weaving its way throughout the book was actually a good thing, and helped draw the threads of each individual island into a larger whole. I very much enjoyed his insights, laughed out loud at his description of the (extremely vomitous) crossing from the mainland to the Scilly Isles, and definitely recommend this book. 4.5/5.

Category: Frog (Ancient fiction: pre-1900)
October GeoCAT (Britain, USA, Canada)



It's taken me, on and off (mostly off, to be honest) a good 2 or 3 years to finish, but I have finally read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'd never read any Twain before, and I'm glad I can now say I have, but I must say I found it a bit of a slog! I warmed to Huck, and Jim, but really wasn't mad on any of the other characters - they were either out to deceive, or way too easily deceivable, and I just got frustrated with them all. I also thought Tom Sawyer was pretty insufferable (although repairing the rat holes at the end did redeem him slightly in my view), and I've deleted the Project Gutenberg copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer unread from my ereader as I really couldn't face a whole book of him! It's written in the vernacular, which I know some people don't like, but that didn't bother me particularly - I really think it was the unlikeable characters that did it for me. For those that don't know, it's basically the story of Huck Finn helping an escaped slave, Jim, to stay free and hidden, and the various people they come across along the way. It just wasn't my kind of thing - I suspect if I'd studied it at school and really got into the deep and meaningfuls of it then I'd probably have enjoyed it more, but at this stage of my life, I'm glad I can say I've read it, but won't be rushing to read any more of his stories. 2.5/5.

Category: Roly (Books by Authors I Know)
June GeoCAT: Space, the Final Frontier



The First Poet Laureate of Mars by T E Olivant might not look like my kind of thing from the cover, but because I know the author and the story behind her writing and self-publishing this book I was glad to give it a try. I actually really enjoyed it!

Set in the 24th century, Earth is destroyed, and most of the surviving human population live in satellite communities orbiting Earth. Hester, desperate to get off the failing Sat 3, applies for the job of First Poet Laureate of Mars, and despite never having written a poem in her life and having absolutely no talent for poetry, she gets appointed after (badly) plagiarising a poem by WB Yeats in her application. Mars is controlled by a small council of humans who have been augmented with technology (the Augments) and who have built a sophisticated colony there. Meanwhile, an Augment called Tolly, something of a renegade, discovers the Augment Council have gone beyond their expressed commitment to the humans and risk starting a horrific new war. Hester, Tolly, plus a more brawn than brain movie actor called Derek, join forces to figure out what is going on and try to stop the Augments before humanity is destroyed.

I'm sure I was favourably disposed to this book because I know the author, and probably wouldn't have bought it otherwise, but it does deserve the good score! There were some typos which I had to get past, but apart from that, this was a fast-paced, fun story, which I enjoyed a lot. 4/5.

Category: Duggee (sexual & reproductive health/rights; parenting; children; gender)



Juno Dawson's The Gender Games is subtitled: "The problem with men and women, from someone who has been both". It is part transition memoir, part discussion of cultural/social aspects of gender and feminism. Juno is a journalist and children's author, so is already a really good writer, and it shows here. She discusses extensively issues of identity, mysogyny, and transphobia, and doesn't hold back - for people who are sensitive about this sort of thing, she is pretty sweary, and occasionally explicit. This gave me lots to think about, and more insight and commitment to try and be a better ally. 4/5.

>183 Jackie_K: A thoughtful review. I saw the movie version this year and thought it was actually fairly well done. Having said that, I read the book years ago and have forgotten many of the details in the meantime.

Btw, I know you haven't created your 2021 topic yet. (I intended to wait but kinda got caught up in all the enthusiasm!) I do hope you bring back your Jar of Fate next year. I always admire you for being willing to read based on whatever slip you pull out.

>190 This-n-That: I have still been using the Jar of Fate, for most of my non-challenge reads. It's just that I took on so many challenges that I didn't have a huge amount of time left for other reads, so probably only managed one or two a month from the Jar.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
October GeoCAT (UK, USA, Canada)



Ring the Hill by Tom Cox is an absolutely brilliant book - the second book this year that I've wanted to give 6 stars to! It's another book that I got through crowdfunding through unbound.com (which I highly recommend, they've produced some brilliant books these last few years). This book is a series of non-fiction essays, based around the landscapes of the various places he has lived in the UK (primarily Devon, Somerset and the Peak District), but basically vehicles for his wonderfully quirky views on life and place, and reminiscences of random encounters with random oddballs and animals. It also features his cats quite a lot (one thing I hadn't realised, but it absolutely figures, is that he is the guy behind the immensely popular "Why My Cat Is Sad" twitter account). I thoroughly recommend following him on twitter and instagram for more quirkiness and exquisite writing - honestly, I can't praise this book enough. I actually tweeted him a few days ago to say thank you for writing it - as I said there, it makes me simultaneously want to write my heart out, and never write again because I'd never get anywhere near this good. Just drop everything and read this book! 6/5.

Category: Mole (Celtic)
October RandomCAT: Healthcare Heroes



Close to Where the Heart Gives Out by Dr Malcolm Alexander is a lovely book - the memoir of a year as the island GP for Eday, which is one of the outlying Orkney Islands (population: 125). Although he was there 30 years ago, he still writes so sympathetically and with so much affection for his patients, and for the place and its impact on him and his family. A really wonderful read. 5/5.

>189 Jackie_K: Sounds worthwhile. The UK has some unique issues with transphobia.

>191 Jackie_K: Tom Cox's twitter feed is a delight, and I miss his posts on Sad Cat and Sweary Cat.

>192 Jackie_K: Sounds like a great read-a BB for me!

P.S. You know I just realized...the jar of fate is missing this year!

>191 Jackie_K: This won't be published in the US until next month (although it's available on Kindle now) and you're already the second person to recommend it! The other person recommended it to me becasue of the tie to the hills. It's an oddity, but I've lived in a valley most of my life with hills all around and I have a sense of uneasiness when I travel in a flat terrain because I feel so exposed the first few days. How people live on the Plains I don't know!

>193 RidgewayGirl: Indeed it does. I have a trans friend (F2M) and knowing him has really opened my eyes to the reality of how troubled our society is about trans issues. Having a certain well-known author throw her hat in the ring so decisively really is not helping. Much better to read Tom Cox's twitter feed than hers, I feel. Both Sad Cat (The Bear) and Sweary Cat (Shipley) make appearances in Ring the Hill, particularly the last chapter. Shipley had me hooting with laughter.

>194 Tess_W: I'm sure you'll enjoy it Tess, it's a lovely read. And never fear, the Jar of Fate is still here! Because I have taken part in more challenges this year than I usually do, it's had a less prominent role, but apart from a few shiny and brand new reads that I had to read right there and then, all my other non-challenge reads are still coming from the Jar of Fate - probably one or two a month. I think next year I will be more selective about my challenges, and use the Jar more actively!

>195 clue: I really hope you enjoy it if you get to it! He does have his own brand of quirkiness, which I love, and I think his writing about place is fantastic. He really seems to get under the skin of a place. Incidentally, 'Ring the Hill' is an old English name for a hare.

>192 Jackie_K: That sounds like an interesting read.

>197 thornton37814: Thank you, it was - it was very gentle too, which felt ideal for these troubled times.

Category: Happy (Religious)



The Complex Christ: Signs of emergence in the urban church by Kester Brewin is a book I've had on the shelf since the mid-2000s. For a while the author attended the same church as me in London, although I didn't really know him beyond a nod hello, but it was enough to make me feel I ought to buy the book!

The premise of the book is basically that the Church has become increasingly irrelevant to the lives of the people it supposedly serves, and it is in the city that new forms of church, welcoming rather than excluding, using new forms of expression, will emerge. The first half of the book he is laying out his main thesis, drawing heavily on Fowler's Stages of Faith, and the second half he looks at the life of Christ to illustrate and expand upon his points. I must say, I found the first half a bit heavy-going, and also as someone who is moving away from city life towards the less built-up I found myself often thinking that I'd love to read something about faith and rurality. The second half of the book was much better, and he puts forward some really interesting interpretations. 3.5/5.

Category: Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true stories)
October RandomCAT: Healthcare Heroes



A short book to end the month - Lytton Strachey's Florence Nightingale (Penguin 60s). In the mid-90s Penguin celebrated its then-60th year by producing these miniature books, about 4x6 inches and up to around 100 pages, of short stories, or selections from larger books. This is one of the latter - Strachey, who was one of the Bloomsbury Set, wrote a book called Eminent Victorians in which he presented the lives of four famous Victorians, of whom Florence Nightingale was the only woman (and who, from what I gather, emerged with her reputation the least unscathed of the four). The book outlines Nightingale's life - the first half is concerned with her work in the hospital in Scutari during the Crimean War, but then it looks at what came next - reform of the War Office, sanitary and hospital reform, and the establishment of modern nurse training. It also looks at the woman behind the myth - indefatigable, sarcastic, single-minded and admired. 3/5.

>199 Jackie_K: As I teach about the Crimean War and our text only has 2 sentences about Ms. Nightingale, I think this is something I want to read!

>200 Tess_W: Wow, 2 sentences can't ever do her justice!

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)



I don't think I've read a single less-than-stellar review of Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow, so I had high hopes, but was a bit worried it wouldn't live up to the hype. I needn't have worried - this novel is wonderful! From the prologue, which made me laugh out loud, right the way through, the writing was pitch perfect and every character beautifully and richly drawn. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced by the Bolsheviks to indefinite house arrest in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. Over the next 3+ decades, he watches over the comings and goings in the hotel, eventually becoming its head waiter, as they mirror the tumultuous changes going on in the Soviet Union. If you haven't already - read this book! 5/5.

Category: Chew Chew (biography; autobiography; memoir; true story)
November Non-FictionCAT: Food, Home and Recreation



This month's library book was Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating, and it was a wonderful read. The author and her family (husband and two daughters) moved to the family farmstead in Virginia, from Arizona, and aimed to spend an entire year eating only what they produced themselves, or that they knew was produced locally (which they defined as within a 100 mile radius), rather than food imported from abroad or from thousands of miles away even if still American. I found this book inspiring, without ever being preachy, although even if she was preaching she'd be preaching to the converted, since this is pretty much living my dream. Midway through she and her husband had a 2 week holiday in Italy, and she describes beautifully the local food and farmers they meet - that was possibly my favourite chapter, because it was just so full of joy. The whole book is a meditation on living and subsisting locally and sustainably, and was a joy to read from beginning to end. There 's lots about eating seasonal food, but also canning and preserving for the winter months when they're unable to grow fresh food. Inspirational. 4.5/5.

>201 Jackie_K: possibly one of my favorite books of all time

>203 Tess_W: I loved it too! I did have to suspend disbelief a bit (I'm pretty sure that Stalin would have circumvented the lifetime house arrest and just had the Count shot or sent to a gulag), but it was so beautifully and expansively written that I could forgive that and just enjoy it.

Category: Stick (Central/Eastern Europe; former Soviet Union)



Thomas Harding's The House by the Lake is a terrific book which I highly recommend. The house in question was built by the author's great-great-grandfather in the 1920s on the shore of a lake just west of Berlin, and through chronicling the residents of the house from then until the early 2000s when it was finally abandoned, he also chronicles the history of Germany throughout that time. His family are Jewish, so the book details the increasing restrictions they faced during the 1930s (the family left for England in the 1930s), and as the village fell into the new country of East Germany it also details life under the communist regime - indeed the Berlin Wall literally ran through the bottom of the house's garden. This is a really well-written, well-researched and fascinating account, highlighting how complicated land and home ownership claims are for properties such as this one which were seized by the Nazis and then appropriated by the DDR, whilst also chronicling the human story of persecution, living under communism, and then reunification. 4.5/5.

>205 Jackie_K: Making note of that one.

>206 RidgewayGirl: As a Germany-phile I think you'll like it! I found it fascinating, and the family connection gave it a unique angle to frame the historical story.

Category: Norrie (Academic)



The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers is by the creator and original presenter of Radio 4's "More or Less" programme, Michael Blastland & Andrew Dilnot, and, as suggested by the subtitle, it's a popular exploration of how numbers are presented, misrepresented, interpreted, and misinterpreted. It covers common statistical concepts such as risk, average, correlation, chance, and sampling, and as well as explaining what they are, also explains the sort of questions that need to be asked when statistics are reported (such as, is that really a big/small number, is that an outlier, is this a likely or an extreme possibility?). It was an accessible read and I feel a bit more equipped to tackle a more academic explanation of stats now (something I want to do as stats have always been a bit of a mystery to me, and I'd like to have a better understanding of the studies I read which use them). 3.5/5.

Category: Tag (Contemporary fiction: 1969-present)
November GeoCAT: Africa Part II



I can always rely on Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency when I need an hour or two of not particularly demanding reading to distract me from whatever's going on in real life. The Kalahari Typing School for Men is the 4th in Alexander McCall Smith's long-running series, and features more of the same - gentle humour and people, observations on everyday life in Botswana, and a couple of cases to solve in her unique way. This one features an errant husband, and a repentant man desperate to make amends, plus a new business and fledgeling romance for Mma Makutsi. 3.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
November GeoCAT: Africa II



Peter Gill's Famine & Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid is a very interesting account by one of the journalists who broke the story of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia and who continued to return to the country over the subsequent 25 years to chart the country's progress and ongoing challenges. He speaks at length with politicians, aid workers, donors, and locals throughout the country, and discusses issues such as the conditionality of aid/development funding, the growing influence of China in Ethiopia, press freedom, human rights, population growth, and the politicisation of hunger and famine. This book gets under the image of Ethiopia as developmental basket case full of starving people, to reveal a complex and nuanced and difficult place where the future is far from certain. 4/5.

Category: Chew Chew (biography/autobiography/memoir/true events)
November Non-Fiction Challenge (group biography)
November RandomCAT (Lest We Forget)



The Bletchley Girls by Tessa Dunlop is a first person account, from 15 of the women working at, or associated with, the Bletchley Park codebreaking centre in WW2. The women, from different backgrounds and mostly working at different times and places (only a handful knew each other), are introduced and their journey from recruitment to (mostly very dull) work to demob is charted. The book is ordered thematically rather than going through each individual story from start to finish - I liked this as it avoided repetition and gave a good sense of the secrecy and camaraderie and boredom and achievements of working at BP, although it was sometimes hard to remember which woman was which. The women will all be in their 90s by now, so it's great that this story could be told using their own voices - the BP history thus far has been very male. 3.5/5.

You're probably heard it, but there's a Hey Duggee version of jingle bells. Catchy doesn't even come close!

>212 Helenliz: I hadn't, so I looked it up - awesome! A-woof!

(here it is, for the still-uninitiated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQ-IV6l3ns )

>213 Jackie_K: AWESOME!
I heard it on 6music, the video is even better.
Although it does make you wonder what mind altering substances they're on to make those!

>214 Helenliz: I imagine it must be hilarious working on that show! Although I suspect all kids' TV programming has an element of 'what are they on?' about them - I remember watching Magic Roundabout as an adult and being shocked at how mad it was! (I still think it's brilliant though!)

Oh dear, I think I am going to have "Jingle Bells" playing in my head all day!

>213 Jackie_K: Ahahaha that is brilliant! :D

>209 Jackie_K: Your review has reminded me that I have had the 5th book of this series buried at the back of my shelves for years. It's definitely time to bring it out and read it! I agree that this series is terrific for times when you need a break from the stresses of real life.

>216 DeltaQueen50: Whoops! Hope you managed to get a more palatable earworm later!
>217 rabbitprincess: Isn't it? I love it!
>218 mathgirl40: I've got the 5th book lined up for GeoKit next year. I have the first 8 books in the series, and am vaguely thinking of reading them all, at some point, but like Mma Ramotswe, I'm not in a hurry!

Category: Roly (Authors I know)



The Heart Whispers is a new collection of poetry, exploring love and longing, by my friend Sage Gordon-Davis. As with their previous collection, Silk Flower Goodbye, what I love about these poems are how accessible and relatable they are. No scratching my head wondering what on earth the poet means (my default reaction to a lot of poetry). 4.5/5.

(touchstones don't seem to be working this morning)

Category: Mole (Celtic)
December TravelKIT (Related to somewhere you would like to visit)



The Aran Islands by JM Synge is an old book - late 19th/early 20th century - detailing the author and playwright's numerous visits to the three Aran Islands off the coast of western Ireland in order to immerse himself in Irish culture and language. He stays with locals, gets to know them, hears their stories, and explores the land and sea. It's a hard life, mostly unromanticised, and an interesting snapshot of a time long gone. I saw the islands from the mainland when we had a holiday in Co. Clare in 2011, but we didn't have time (or weather) to make it over to explore the islands. I'd love to visit them sometime. 3/5.

>220 Jackie_K: I just downloaded the free Kindle version. At 108 pages, it's worth checking out.

>221 thornton37814: I didn't plan it this way, but having a short book at the end of the year did come in handy for boosting my final numbers! Unlike a lot of books written at that time, it was not a difficult read.

Category: Roly (Books by authors I know)



Getting Published is Just the Beginning by Rhoda S. Baxter is a guide - primarily UK-focused, although the general principles apply to most jurisdictions - to Intellectual Property (IP) rights for authors and students. It's a very clear and readable overview of the main aspects and stumbling blocks in publishing contracts, and guides the reader to the important questions to think about, and ask. 4.5/5.

Category: Henny (Non-Fiction: general)
December GeoCAT: Catching up/Choose your own adventure



Joshua Hammer's The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is the true story of a group of librarians who were custodians of the historical manuscripts going back centuries that were kept in private and public libraries in Timbuktu, primarily thanks to the efforts of one librarian, Abdel Kader Haidara. The book starts with how Haidara got into that work, and his efforts over the years to track down tens of thousands of manuscripts in order to preserve this incredible cultural legacy. Then it starts to detail the increasing influence and activity of Al Qaeda in Mali, and Haidara and others' growing realisation that, as Al Qaeda started to take over northern Mali, the manuscripts were going to need to be moved and hidden in order not to be destroyed. They smuggle the manuscripts out and managed to save many many thousands of them prior to Al Qaeda's eventual defeat after the French military intervention. It's a fascinating story, well told. 4/5.

>224 Jackie_K: On my wish list, glad you enjoyed it.

>225 Tess_W: I hope you enjoy it when you get to it! There were parts where it read like a heist story.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Oh my goodness, this book is HUGE! (I even weighed it, it was just over 1kg - no wonder my arms ache!). The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, selectd by Phillip Lopate, is a book recommended for the essay-writing course I'm taking early in the new year. It is in 5 sections, covering classical forerunners, Montaigne (the father of the essay), British essayists, non-British/US essayists, and finally American essayists. I'll be honest, the first three sections I did quite a lot of skimming - I'm really not very good, I'm discovering, with pre-20th century writing. But the last two sections were largely excellent, and I discovered a number of essayists whose wider work I'd be keen to read (there was a piece by Japanese essayist Junichiro Tanizaki which I thought was astonishing). There were a number of writers I knew a bit, but this has definitely widened my horizons. 3.5/5.

Wishing all my LT friends a very merry Christmas! Thank you all for the visits to my thread and the stimulating book chat, and here's to more of the same in 2021!

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)



Ivan Rogers' (former British ambassador to the EU) 9 Lessons in Brexit is a short but substantial essay, based on a lecture he gave at Liverpool University, of lessons that he felt, with his insider knowledge, needed to be acknowledged by politicians of all stripes regarding Brexit. I guess it's apt that I finished it on the day that the Brexit trade deal was finally announced as agreed, at the 11th hour. This book was published in mid-2019, so in the way of these things is already a bit out of date (Theresa May is still the Prime Minister here, Boris Johnson is the former Foreign Secretary, and there's a working assumption that there will be an election in 2020, 5 years after the 2015 election that set the whole Brexit nightmare in motion). But for all that, there was still a lot of sobering analysis that I'm sure is still very relevant. It's worth saying, although he's clearly not a fan of Brexit, he goes out of his way to be even-handed, and is equally critical of those calling for a second referendum where remaining in the EU was an option. 4/5.

Merry Christmas and happy Hogmanay when it comes! :)

Merry Christmas, Jackie, to you and yours.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Jackie, and I wish you success for your writing!

>230 rabbitprincess: >231 Helenliz: >232 MissWatson: Thank you all so much! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas (I did, and am now basically made up of 90% cheese. The other 10% is port).

Category: Mole (Celtic)
December Non-Fiction CAT (Adventures by Land, Air or Sea)



Poacher's Pilgrimage: An Island Journey is a book by one of my favourite writers, the Quaker environmentalist/broadcaster/pacifist/activist Alastair McIntosh. The book is an account of his 12 day walk from the southern tip of Harris to the northern tip of Lewis, together the largest island in the Outer Hebrides. But it is so much more than that too. He's also working through his thoughts on violence and nonviolence, and the meanings and spirituality of land, place, and people. He says himself early on in the book that he is often considered 'too Christian for the pagans, and too pagan for the Christians', and either way this book might be a bit 'woo' for some readers, but I thought it was fascinating, considering the juxtaposition of folk beliefs alongside the strong strands of conservative Calvinist religion in the islands. I'm sure I'll read and reread this many times. 4.5/5.

Category: Duggee (sexual & reproductive health/rights; gender; parenting; children)



Bad Feminist is a set of essays on gender, race, and popular culture, by Roxane Gay. I really enjoyed this collection, and even found myself laughing out loud at her essay on competitive Scrabble. Very readable and important. 4.5/5.

Category: Betty (Travel)
December Non-FictionCAT (Adventures by Land, Sea and Air)
December RandomCAT (Goodbye 2020)



Walking Home by Clare Balding is a lovely book, part memoir and part celebration of walking in the UK. Amongst many other things, she is the long-time presenter of the "Ramblings" programme on BBC Radio 4, where she joins a person or group of people walking somewhere in the UK, and much of this book is an account of some of those walks (and the behind the scenes stories that go with them). Interspersed throughout are chapters where she walks different parts of the Wayfarer's Way (a 70 mile walk which passes near to where she grew up and where much of her family still live) with various members of her family. The final two chapters are her experience of the 2012 Olympics (it was her coverage of these Games which cemented her 'national treasure' status), including her shortest walk, carrying the Olympic torch as part of the build up to the Games. A very lovely, pleasant read. 4/5.

Category: Henny (Non-fiction: general)
December Non-Fiction Challenge (As You Like It)



Jamaica Kincaid's My Garden (Book) is a lovely and strange book - in it she talks about all that she loves about gardening and plants, as well as the things she dislikes, both of which are talked about passionately and urgently. My favourite chapter was where she was talking about the garden in Antigua where she grew up (most of the book is based on her garden in Vermont), and she weaves in discussion of slavery and colonialism and their impact, on the country and on her. Her writing style takes a bit of getting used to - lots of brackets and really long sentences. I should really love that, as that's what I tend to do too when I write, but I see it so rarely in published books that I still felt like I had to adjust my expectations. I think I'd like to read it again in the reasonably near future, because there's a lot here that I think I probably missed. 4/5.