Chatterbox's 2013 Adventures in Bibliomania -- The Final Episode (Nine)

Le Testament: Les Regrets De La Belle Heaulmière
by Jacques Villon

(not sure who did the translation; it's OK, but not great.)

By chance, I heard the belle complain,
The one we called the Armouress,
Longing to be a girl again,
Talking like this, more or less:
‘Oh, old age, proud in wickedness,
You’ve battered me so, and why?
Who cares, who, for my distress,
Or whether at all your blows I die?

You’ve stolen away that great power
My beauty ordained for me
Over priests and clerks, my hour,
When never a man I’d see
Would fail to offer his all in fee,
Whatever remorse he’d later show,
But what was abandoned readily,
Beggars now scorn to know.

Many a man I then refused –
Which wasn’t wise of me, no jest –
For love of a boy, cunning too,
To whom I gave all my largesse.
I feigned to him unwillingness,
But, by my soul, I loved him bad.
What he showed was his roughness,
Loving me only for what I had.

He could drag me through the dirt,
Trample me underfoot, I’d love him,
Break my back, whatever’s worse,
If only he’d ask for a kiss again,
I’d soon forget then every pain.
A glutton, full of what he could win,
He’d embrace me – with him I’ve lain.
What’s he left me? Shame and sin.

Now he’s dead, these thirty years:
And I live on, old, and grey.
When I think of those times, with tears,
What I was, what I am today,
View myself naked: turn at bay,
Seeing what I am no longer,
Poor, dry, meagre, worn away,
I almost forget myself in anger.

Where’s my smooth brow gone:
My arching lashes, yellow hair,
Wide-eyed glances, pretty ones,
That took in the cleverest there:
Nose not too big or small: a pair
Of delicate little ears, the chin
Dimpled: a face oval and fair,
Lovely lips with crimson skin?

The fine slender shoulder-blades:
The long arms, with tapering hands:
My small breasts: the hips well made
Full and firm, and sweetly planned,
All Love’s tournaments to withstand:
The broad flanks: the nest of hair,
With plump thighs firmly spanned,
Inside its little garden there?

Now wrinkled forehead, hair gone grey:
Sparse eyelashes: eyes so dim,
That laughed and flashed once every way,
And reeled their roaming victims in:
Nose bent from beauty, ears thin,
Hanging down like moss, a face,
Pallid, dead and bleak, the chin
Furrowed, a skinny-lipped disgrace.

This is the end of human beauty:
Shrivelled arms, hands warped like feet:
The shoulders hunched up utterly:
Breasts….what? In full retreat,
Same with the hips, as with the teats:
Little nest, hah! See the thighs,
Not thighs, thighbones, poor man’s meat,
Blotched like sausages, and dried.

That’s how the bon temps we regret
Among us, poor old idiots,
Squatting on our haunches, set
All in a heap like woollen lots
Round a hemp fire men forgot,
Soon kindled, and soon dust,
Once so lovely, that cocotte…
So it goes for all of us.

A guide to the ratings, which are highly subjective:
1.5 or less: A tree gave its life so that this book could be printed and distributed?
1.5 to 2.7: Are you really prepared to give up hours of your life for this?? I wouldn't recommend doing so...
2.8 to 3.3: Do you need something to fill in some time waiting to see the dentist? Either reasonably good within a ho-hum genre (chick lit or thrillers), something that's OK to read when you've nothing else with you, or that you'll find adequate to pass the time and forget later on.
3.4 to 3.8: Want to know what a thumping good read is like, or a book that has a fascinating premise, but doesn't quite deliver? This is where you'll find 'em.
3.9 to 4.4: So, you want a hearty endorsement? These books have what it takes to make me happy I read them.
4.5 to 5: The books that I wish I hadn't read yet, so I could experience the joy of discovering them again for the first time. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes sentimental faves, sometimes dramatic -- they are a highly personal/subjective collection!

Stars/scores are given in brackets after the book details.

Asterisks (*) mark books that I have re-read. I'll be trying to keep re-reads to 5% of the total this year. Audiobooks will be marked as such. I'm going to try to increase my non-fiction reading in the final months of the year.

This is the running tally of my total 2013 reading, which includes the books I have read for the 2013 Categories challenge:




And this is the tally of my fifth batch of 75 books for the year. Clearly, I won't finish it, and I'm just as far behind with my 2013 Categories Challenge, with about two dozen books requiring reading in order to complete that. Ain't happening...




1. The War That Ended Peace by Margaret MacMillan (5), STARTED 11/23/13, FINISHED 11/30/13 (non-fiction)
2. This Shining Land by Rosalind Laker (3.2), STARTED 11/18/13, FINISHED 11/20/13 (fiction)
3. A Christmas Hope by Anne Perry (3.3) STARTED 12/2/13, FINISHED 12/3/13 (fiction)
4. The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart (4.2), STARTED 12/4/13, FINISHED 12/7/13 (fiction)
5. Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City by Russell Shorto (4.7), STARTED 12/6/13, FINISHED 12/10/13 (non-fiction)
6. The Hope Factory by Lavanya Sankaran (3.5), STARTED 12/1/13, FINISHED 12/11/13 (fiction)
7. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (4.2), STARTED 11/11/13, FINISHED 12/11/13 (fiction) (audiobook)
8. Behind a Shattered Glass by Tasha Alexander (3.5), STARTED 12/11/13, FINISHED 12/12/13 (fiction)
9. The Prince of Risk by Christopher Reich (3.3), STARTED 11/30/13, FINISHED 12/13/13 (fiction)
10. Confessions of Marie Antoinette (3), STARTED 11/28/13, FINISHED 12/13/13 (fiction)
11. Second Honeymoon by James Patterson (3.3), STARTED 12/12/13, FINISHED 12/13/13 (fiction)
12. Bitter River by Julia Keller (4.1), READ 12/14/13 (fiction)
13. Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble (3.75), STARTED 12/7/13, FINISHED 12/15/13 (fiction)
14. After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman (3.1), STARTED 12/15/13, FINISHED 12/16/13 (fiction)
15. On Paper by Nicholas Basbanes (3.3), STARTED 11/20/13, FINISHED 12/19/13 (non-fiction)
16. Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart (4.2) STARTED 12/18/13/, FINISHED 12/19/13 (fiction)
17. Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope (3.9) STARTED 11/17/13, FINISHED 11/20/13 (fiction) (audiobook)
18. In the Night of Time by Antonio Munoz Molina (5) STARTED 12/13/13, FINISHED 12/20/13 (fiction)
19. The Serpentine Cave by Jill Paton Walsh (4) READ 12/21/13 (fiction)
20. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks (3.5) READ 12/22/13 (fiction)
21. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein (3.1) STARTED 12/22/13, FINISHED 12/23/13 (fiction)
22. Second Violin by John Lawton (4.4), STARTED 12/23/13, FINISHED 12/24/13 (fiction/part audiobook)
23. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (3.4), STARTED 12/3/13, FINISHED 12/24/13 (fiction)
24. Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Doris Lessing (3.7), STARTED 12/1/13, FINISHED 12/25/13 (non-fiction)
25. A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd (3.2), STARTED 12/22/13, FINISHED 12/25/13 (fiction)
26. The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith (4.1) STARTED 12/24/13, FINISHED 12/26/13 (fiction)
27. Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith (3.3), STARTED 12/25/13, FINISHED 12/28/13 (fiction)
28. The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott (3.75), STARTED 12/27/13, FINISHED 12/28/13 (fiction)
29. Churchill's Angels by Ruby Jackson (1.8) STARTED 12/28/13, FINISHED 12/29/13 (fiction)
30. *Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard (4), STARTED 12/3/13, FINISHED 12/30/13 (fiction)
31. The House of Journalists by Tim Finch (4.5), STARTED 12/27/13, FINISHED 12/31/13 (fiction)

Miscellaneous other stuff:

Yes, the Man Booker Prize has already been awarded, but I'm still reading nominees.




1. The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin. Read in March, 4.5 stars
2. The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris. STARTED 7/31/13, FINISHED 8/2/13, 3.75 stars
3. The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. STARTED 8/19/13, FINISHED 8/23/13 4.1 stars
4. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri STARTED 8/23/13, FINISHED 8/25/13 4.4 stars
5. Harvest by Jim Crace, STARTED 8/26/13, FINISHED 8/30/13 4.5 stars
6. Unexploded by Alison MacLeod, STARTED 8/27/13, FINISHED 8/30/13, 4.25 stars
7. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, STARTED 9/2/13, FINISHED 9/19/13, 3 stars

And a quick book update...

410. Confessions of Marie Antoinette was perfectly adequate, but I didn't find it engaging in the slightest. Perhaps because it brings nothing new to the table for anyone who has been reading historical fiction for yonks and who thus has read scads of stuff about her, the French Revolution and the era as a whole? The author mixes up the first person narrative from the doomed queen by inserting the POV of a sculptress, Louison, but while that's more interested, it's still only muted. There are a whole bunch of books I'd recommend over and above this series -- those by Hilary Mantel, Marge Piercy and Sena Jeter Naslund among 'em -- but I suppose this, like Jean Plaidy's work, would be an interesting introduction to the events for a younger reader or one new to the genre/era. This is the concluding volume in the trilogy; read the first, skipped the second and don't imagine I'll go back to it now. 3 stars.

411. Second Honeymoon by James Patterson is a book I picked off the new books shelf at the library, and will return there this week. It's perfectly serviceable thriller light stuff -- predictably implausible, with the main characters hunting down not one but two serial killers simultaneously!! Mindless and fun. 3.3 stars.

412. Bitter River by Julia Keller was the very pleasant surprise in this batch -- a mystery by a new-to-me author (it's her second; I have the first from the library ready to pick up soonish. It's set in a small West Virginia town, in the heart of the Appalachians, where as Bell Elkins, county prosecuting attorney muses, everyone is next of kin to everyone else. It's an intriguing combination of plots -- a promising young girl is found dead, strangled, in a car discovered in the local river. As Bell and her cop colleagues investigate, a man from her past arrives on the scene -- and there's another dangerous mystery to solve, one that will change the lives of everyone in Acker's Gap. Compelling -- mostly for the setting and characterizations, which are absolutely spot-on. The plot is good, sometimes a bit predictable, with an out-of-the blue final twist that felt a little too convenient. But those were minor issues for me. Recommended. 4.2 stars.

413. Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble ended up reminding me a lot of The Women's Room by Marilyn French in its rambling, discursive, oblique narrative structure, although it's more clearly focused than that group novel. If you like a clear structure, dialog, an objective, etc., you'll find this frustrating. I confess it irritated me about half the time, and then the rest of the time I was kind of carried along by it, and admiring the caliber of the writing and the broad range of experience that Drabble manages to squeeze in. Ostensibly about the girl of the title, Anna, who is afflicted with some kind of Down's Syndrome like condition that makes her a childish delight to be around but also means that her mother will need to care for her every day as if she were still a toddler, it's actually about Jess, the mother, and her group of friends and their experiences from early adulthood to old age against the backdrop of their North London community. Jess is an anthropologist, and there are a fair number of heavy-handed symbolic things going on here, but at its core, it felt as if the novel itself were an anthropological case study of Jess, Anna and their extended community. Interesting, if not engrossing. (I dozed off reading it.) 3.75 stars.

That said, the Drabble novel did remind me of the Villon poem that I chose to begin this thread. It felt suitably, ahem, end-of-the-year-like.

Took a book bullet here, Suzanne, for the Julia Keller books. Looks like an interesting series.

Glad to hear about the Julia Keller mystery. I've been meaning to read the first one. She was the editor of the Chicago Tribune book section but I think she resigned to pursue her writing career.

I've still got 4 1/2 ARCs to read by midday Thursday. The most daunting is In the Night of Time, which weighs in at more than 600 pages... Pray for me, folks...

Congrats on the new thread. I read Keller's A Killing in the Hills and it was actually very good. I remember when she was the book editor for the Tribune.

Aha -- my final thread would not have been complete without Robert's critter du thread... :-)

That said, I have no idea what kind of bird it is.

It is a woodcock.

Robert

Aha! One of those birds that Trolloppe's hunting/shooting/fishing parsons used to go after!

First woodcock sighting for me! Hi Suz. Nice new thread.

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire.

From Hamlet. At least now I know what kind of bird Polonius is comparing Ophelia too.

I know that had been nagging at you for years, Jim, right? :-)

first of all why would anyone want to catch one?

Second of all why are they comparing that plump fowl to a pretty young girl like Ophelia?

Looks like good eating to me.

Oh my! that poem Le Testament hits too close to home. I can't imagine a translation that would soften the march if time.
Prayers duly dispatched - 600 page tome will be totally engrossing ang the pages will fly by. Fingers crossed.

Why would one want to catch it? -- a game bird, rather tasty, allegedly. (I've seen it compared to grouse)

Why Ophelia -- well one plump pretty fowl vs another? (and the frequent use of bird terms for women -- hen, bird, etc.) Also, the idea of being caught in a snare or trap to be served up at someone else's pleasure?

OK, back to my tome -- tks Lynda!

ETA: The prose is excellent, but it's a very dense and complex narrative, with shifts in time and POV which demand attention. I'm alternating between that and a very straightforward yarn, the new mystery/suspense book from Laura Lippman, After I'm Gone, so that I don't try to spend four hours at a stretch involved in the Molina novel.

How exciting. I'm all caught up with you Suz! Well, on this thread at least... will have to go back and catch some of your book reviews. Hope you're well.

Happy New Thread!

We have woodcock here in Maine and yes, it is comparable to grouse or partridge as we call them here. I had a job one summer in college working on a national wildlife refuge. One of our tasks was trapping and banding woodcock. I held one after banding it and let it fly away from my hand. It was a very memorable experience. They also make a cute little noise in the spring when they are mating.

Re Song of Ice and Fire: The 4th and 5th books are, in some ways, frustrating, I found. (I think of the two books as one since they largely cover the same time period.) They do ramble a bit. On the other hand you can still immerse yourself in the world so they're worth reading. The biggest frustration of them is the loose ends that are left dangling. It would sure be nice if there was a little more 'end' feeling to them. That happened with the others too, I guess, but I feel like it's worse with these ones. And much as I hate to say it, there are starting to be too many 'viewpoint characters'. There are so many strands to the story that it's getting hard to keep track of them all. They are very good books, but not perfect.

An update: I'm only halfway through Episode Eight, but have already added 12 books to my wishlist collection based on your comments, including two Kindle purchases of The Winthrop Woman and Avalon (I know you didn't recommend this one specifically, but I was indirectly influenced by you nonetheless). Have you read My Theodosia? I almost purchased the Kindle of Katherine as well, even though I read it last year as an audiobook. I may still do so. These are all brand new editions with gorgeous cover designs, so that I was very tempted to get the physical books but lack of space reminded me not to be a fool. This time. I read Dragonwyck at the beginning of the month and was completely enchanted by it as a wonderful treasure box of Gothic tropes. I've just brought back the movie version starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price, found at the library. I'm hoping for maximum creepiness.

I'm extremely keen on Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, but couldn't decide whether I should get the audiobook (currently on sale with everything else at Audible as you must know) or the Kindle or both. Somehow your Hild touchstone brought me to The City of Dreaming Books, which I'm not sure was your intended target, though I'd never heard of Walter Moers before and am now looking forward to discovering him, with several of his books available in French translation at the library, but curiously enough, not available for purchase anywhere else but the secondhand market, in Canada, in any case. Though must admit it was near 4 a.m. at that point and I might have not searched properly. Reay Tannahill is also completely new to me, and happily enough they have three of the books you've mentioned also at the library, all now on the wishlist.

I didn't even know there was a movie version of Dragonwyck, Ilana -- how fabulous. I rushed off to Netflix, which has it, and it's now #2 on my queue, so I should have it by the weekend. I've read most of the Anya Seton novels, although it's been a while since reading either My Theodosia or Avalon. When the latter emerged from a box post-move, I set it aside to re-read. As for Daily Rituals, I'd recommend the dead tree book -- it's the kind of book that is fun to pick up, dip into and put back down again. I think listening to it might be too much of the same kind of thing. Part of the fun would be the serendipity, and I think that generally it's right up your alley. Sorry about the Hild touchstone -- this should correct it.

Steve, thanks for the comments re 4 & 5 -- I've heard that he intended the two to be a single volume, but it simply proved to be too long. (Understatement of the decade??) I found I didn't mind about the rambling on the audiobooks, so reading #4 will be a real test for me. I'm not a big reader of fantasy, and still very, very selective (and I have a dragon phobia) but I'm intrigued at the way he has incorporated so much "real" history in a variety of ways, from Hadrian's Wall and the War of the Roses to Byzantium and the Mongols. Of course, the more strands he creates, the bigger the problem he creates for himself, in terms of pulling 'em all together.

Heidi, that's fascinating about the woodcock. I have to confess I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild, although hiking in Cornwall I've accidentally flushed some pheasants (who are extremely stupid birds, it seems to me...)

More snow here today, and a migraine. Not impossibly bad, but enough to make it unpleasant to do a lot of reading. Went to pick up cat food & tea, and when I came back, Tigger-the-terror-cat bolted out the door before I could catch him. Realizing just how unpleasantly cold snow on the paws can be (this is the cat who has taken to sleeping atop the hot air vents), he promptly bolted back indoors, also before I could catch him....

Watched the first episode of The Cazelets on DVD last night -- it's very faithful to The Light Years but generally not as good as I remembered, alas. It's available via Netflix and I'll probably watch the other episodes but am in no rush.

414. After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman was surprisingly underwhelming. It's a standalone novel in which Sandy Sanchez, cold crimes investigator, probes a murder that may be connected to the 1976 disappearance of Felix Brewer, who bolted rather than face a jail sentence for gambling. It covers too many decades and too many points of view, as we see segments written from the perspective of his abandoned wife, his three daughters, his mistress etc. as well as Sanchez's contemporary investigations. There's relatively little narrative tension until the last 75 pages, and by then I just wasn't engaged enough to care all that much. Too much hopping, skipping and jumping all over the place. 3.1 stars.

Another ARC down -- but three to go. One is a very short novel -- Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart -- but the others are that intimidatingly long novel and the third is a non-fiction tome that I've only just started. Guess what I'll be doing all day tomorrow once my head has cleared up.

Ugh ick blech ptooptoo. Having unpleasantness. Glad you're not.

Just normal unpleasantness -- basically life funk mid-grey colored stedda charcoal grey, for the moment at least. Too many niggly things to do and not enough time. And not feeling as if there's all that much point to it all, either.

Piffle.

Am now about midway through both Sanctuary Line and Careless People, and with about 200 pages to go in the Molina opus. If I had to, I could write my reviews for Amazon for the latter two based on what I've read so far, so I'm not going to fuss too much. But I do have 500 pages to read in the next 24 hours. Doable, but only if I put other projects to one side. And those include a phone interview with Donald Trump at 11 tomorrow. Really truly.

Can.Not.Wait.to hear what you have to say about The Donald. Though understandably, you probably can't say much...

Katie, yeah, this week is amusing. The Donald and the 5-person pedicab coop that is delivering UPS packages for Xmas. (They even delivered a 30-pound kitchen sink.)

Hello- my second secret santa book arrived today, and once again I was unable to resist opening so within seconds, I was drooling over my newest new book (and bookmark- I love those Book Depo bookmarks).

Thank you so much- I really look forward to reading Religion for Atheists. I have had a flick though and see the author has peppered the pages with photos as per his usual style. It makes for fast and interesting reading as the illustrations are sometimes only loosely related.

I started and finished Train Dreams last night, it was really wonderful (I read it in the bath til the water went cold!). Now I feel annoyed, like Mark said, that it wasn't longer so I could have more of it. In fact, that is my only criticism of the book. So maybe you aren't surprised that i gave it 4.5 stars :)

Megan -- I'm so glad that book #2 was also a hit -- although I now find myself wishing that I had chosen slightly thicker tomes that might actually last you through to Xmas day! As far as my swap book is concerned, it's book #2 in Elena Ferrante's trilogy set in Naples, and I have yet to read book #1, so have no choice but to wait a little while...ke de

I do like de Botton's approach to those books, but his newest one strikes me as slightly different (and slightly more pricey!) so I think I'll wait on that until it's out in paperback. They are books that I like to own -- and Kindle copies, even if available -- just don't have the same oomph.

I'll update my reading tomorrow afternoon, after my reading frenzy and work frenzy are over. I've finished Sanctuary Line and am forging ahead with In the Night of Time, which is dense but worthwhile. I have no idea why the only touchstone available is for the Spanish edition, and why the English edition -- which was available when I added the book to my library -- is now no longer an option.... *baffled*

...but his newest one strikes me as slightly different
There's a newer new one than Religion for Atheists?
I was heavily into de Botton after his one about various jobs, and Essays in Love, but some after that I wondered if he wasn't just rambling a bit, then gathering said ramblings and picking a theme to title them under....that is not to say I didn't enjoy the ramblings, but they seemed a little random sometimes.

Btw- thin tomes are very appealing as dont have that intimidation factor ;)

The new one is Art as Therapy; I think it's only just out. The focus is on aesthetics, as a branch of philosophy, I believe. I haven't spotted it yet, but the retail price is a hefty US$40 here, and marked down to $30 on Amazon. Too rich for my blood!

Books finished, and in need of comments... but I don't have time to get to 'em yet.

415. On Paper by Nicholas Basbanes is subtitled "the everything of its 2,000 year history", and sometimes everything is just waaaay too much. This is a book to dip into, and not one to read cover to cover. Some of it is interesting, but I felt eventually as if I was drowning in paper-related factoids. Mildly interesting, but not much more, really. Nowhere nearly as interesting as his books about books, despite little vignettes and tidbits that worked as fascinating anecdotes. 3.25 stars.

416. Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart is the latest novel from this Canadian author that was published in the Great White North a few years ago and is only now appearing here. It's a small gem: pristine prose, themes ranging from migration to family history and connectedness, to both land and water. Hard to describe, but a compelling read. Short & elegant. 4.3 stars.

417. Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope is the fourth in this series, which I've been consuming (mostly via audiobook) this year. Trollope can make me chortle with glee at points here, mostly when he is skewering the silent Miss Griselda Grantly, but I find his heroes and heroines too silly for words. Of course, the Framley rector is too pure to refinance the debt he incurred for a 'friend' when the latter defaults because of a newfound aversion to debt; he'd rather have the bailiffs show up and then have another friend cough up the money. Really... *eyes roll* And of course, his sister, in love with the latter friend, insists she can't possibly marry him unless his mother comes to her to ask her to. Argh. I wanted to slap them both, and the author for favoring such passive-aggressive individuals. On the other hand, I really love his creation of Miss Dunstable, who made her debut in Doctor Thorne and whose life takes a new turn toward the end of this book. She makes an interesting contrast with the unpleasant Mrs. Proudie, who refuses to let the bishop listen to a complaint from the archdeacon about her malicious gossip... Generally, a mixed bag, and I'm less of a Trollope fan than I was in my 20s. 3.8 stars.

I've got another 50 pages to read in the Anthony Munoz Molina tome, although I already wrote my Amazon review (!) since I knew what I wanted to say...

There was another massive technology snafu with Amazon Vine today, so the list was taken down -- first time that has happened that I know of. I have one pick remaining, so I'll be curious to see whether items are added. My "targeted" list has been very bad of late, with all the books that I'd be interested in popping up on OTHER peoples' lists!

#34: A Nicholas Basbanes book I have not read yet?! I must get to it! I love his books.

Go Suz!, Go Suz!, Go Suz!

In happy remembrance of lovely hours reading, chatting, and eating together in 2013, and more to come in 2014, my dear Suz:



Celebrate the return of the light with feasts, merriment, and gratitude for all the wonders of this wide green earth.

RMD

I'll be interested to see where you end up book numbers wise this year. Last year's 421 is clearly in sight and, but for your mini-book funk I think even you would have been satisfied with your total.

Have a lovely weekend.

I think I should meet my target of 425, and perhaps hit 430. I'll be having a quiet Xmas here at home, which means lots of time for reading!

Two more books to comment on later...

418. The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse was an underwhelming and overhyped novel; the idea of someone haunted by ghosts of WW1 encountering ghosts from a far more distant era and being forced to confront his own past and theirs was interesting, but it was handled in a perfunctory manner. Meh; mildly interesting at best. 3.1 stars.

419. In the Night of Time by Antonio Munoz Molina -- I had a long review written here when the power went out on Saturday, and it vanished. For now -- let's just say it's a 5-star book but not for every reader. I'll try to reconstitute the review when I have the patience!

Stasia, I wasn't all that impressed by this Basbanes book, compared to his others or in absolute terms. More on those & the other books later. For now, I'm determined to try and get to see the new "Hunger Games" movie this afternoon.

The Guardian story about the pedicab UPS packages will be out on Sunday (tomorrow). I'll post the link here.

Suz, I've been slowly catching up with your older threads to see how many book bullets I might attract. Lots. I've only gotten through #8 so far, but started in on #7 and going back to a comment you had made to me about Kobna Holdbrook-Smith being one of your favourite narrators, just added Midnight Riot to the wishlist (not sure why I'd failed to do this the first time around). I was just wondering whether you post any reviews to Audible? If you do I'd definitely like to follow you there. Impossible to do a search for other users there. In any case, any hope you might put together a list of your favourite listens this year?

eta: among others, I've added both The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 and Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City to the wishlist. Both are available as audiobooks, and I might consider the MacMillan book in this format, especially as it's rather a chunky one. I like to read about WWI at any time, so will definitely want to read up on it in the coming year! The other book is read by the author who makes it sound rather dull, so I think I'd borrow the paper book from the library in that case.

eta2: did a google search on 'pedicab UPS packages' and didn't come up with anything. Huh? Will look out for that link to The Guardian.

The Guardian link should be live by noon tomorrow (Sunday), Ilana. It's precisely because no one else seems to have written this that I did. I can literally say this was a story that showed up on my front doorstep.

If the narrator of the MacMillan book is good, def go with that. The Amsterdam tome is more readable -- flows more readily -- to the eyeball than Macmillan does. Both are excellent, but the latter is shorter and slightly livelier.

I just went to my first movie of the year! Really...

Power went out last night, just as I had begun to update some of my books with reviews. I had just finished a detailed analysis of "In the Night of Time" when it went poof. Still out, and no ETA. Now camped in a bar to recharge my cellphone.

More books to note in passing, though clearly I'm not going to tempt fate by using minimal laptop battery life to write reviews.

420. Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O'Brian (audiobook) was a slightly disappointing conclusion to the series (there are 2 or 3 chapters of book #21 that were finished before the author's death, but I'm not sure I'll seek it out.) Part of the disappointment is due to the fact that the war is over and the intensity has slightly evaporated; there is less at stake for our heroes, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Yes, the trip to Chile and Peru is as interesting as ever, but too much of the book is composed of Stephen's letters, written to Sir Joseph and to his new lady love interest. I'd rather hear about what's happening first hand, through a character's eyes and experience, and O'Brian would never have done a great job with an epistolary novel, clearly. 3.75 stars. A disappointing conclusion. For my 2013 categories challenge.

421. The Serpentine Cave by Jill Paton Walsh is a reminder to seek out more of this author's adult novels. I had read some of her children's books back in the day, then gravitated to her excellent series of mysteries featuring Imogen Quy (A Piece of Justice), and had mixed results with her Peter Wimsey homages, the latest of which is waiting for me on my UK Kindle. It's a straightforward and interesting tale: our main character's mother dies; Marian ends up heading off to St. Ives in pursuit of some personal mysteries of her past and that of her mother. None of it is terribly revolutionary, but it's elegantly written and deftly plotted, with a moral dilemma of whether and how to risk a life and for what purpose at its core. I read A Desert in Bohemia a number of years ago, and recall really liking that; I may have to seek it out to re-read as well as a copy of Goldengrove Unleaving, which I think I bought as part of one of Waterstone's "3 for 2" deals, and then there's Knowledge of Angels, which I can get for my UK Kindle. 4 stars.

422. Morality Play by Barry Unsworth (audiobook) was simply excellent. The narrator's voice in this was slightly rushed, giving an almost panicky tone to the tale which suited it in many ways. The narrator of the book, Nicholas Barber, is a priest who has defied his bishop and walked away from his assigned labors; that was in the spring and now it's winter and he's hungry and cold and alone. Then he falls in with a troupe of traveling players (this is the 14th century or thereabouts) just as one of their number dies. Somewhat grudgingly, he is accepted as a replacement, and the troupe sets out back on the road, body of their late comrade stuffed onto a cart. When they spot a town, they figure it will be a great opportunity to bury him -- and make some money with their traditional miracle/morality plays. But the predictable and ritualized dramas are old-fashioned and the audience small and grudging -- and the priest demands a big payment for the burial. Then the master player decides to do something radically different: to tell the story of a true crime for which a young woman is about to be hanged. But as the players research and then enact the murder of young Thomas Wells, it rapidly becomes clear that this isn't at all that it seemed. Before too long, the players are treading on very dangerous ground indeed. This is a practically perfect little novel, one that captures in every detail the perilous nature of changing times; the post-plague era where the feudal bonds are being questioned and the religious domination of everyday life challenged. (Historically, this would have been the period in the decades leading up to the Peasants' Revolt.) I particularly loved the interplay toward the end between Nicholas and the King's justice. Very excellent. 4.7 stars. For my 2013 categories challenge.

All were good, although the O'Brian was nowhere near as good as the 19 previous books in the series.

Guardian story is live now:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2013/dec/22/drone-ups-bicycles-go...

Very spritely story, Suz. Hope your power is on again soon.

Great article Suz! I really enjoyed reading it and I shared it on my Facebook wall.

I hope your migraine has gone away. This unsettled weather we are having in New England is tough on us migraine sufferers.

I'm halfway through Winter Ghosts, did you add it to a TIOLI challenge?
Will click through and read your article.

That was a really interesting piece, Suz. Liked it a lot.

Great article, Suz!

Thanks, all! It was a fun piece, especially realizing that back in 1907, UPS was about the size that Sol Chariots is today. Who knows what new business idea or business model will be tomorrow's behemoth? Confess that I kinda hope it isn't drones, although life with Amazon would be about as gloomy as life sans electricity was for most of today.

Heidi, the migraine is lurking but not attacking in full fledged mode. I'm keeping it at bay with meds, but don't really like doing that as they make me a bit groggy.

Kerry, I put Winter Ghosts in as a matched read for whatever # challenge suggested reading a book with "winter" in the title.

I'll try to update the book comments later, but the highlights were Morality Play (excellent and nuanced) and "In the Night of Time", with honorable mention to The Serpentine Cave and Sanctuary Line. I've concluded that I have an ambivalent relationship with Trollope. I find his direct-to-reader comments wearying and too often trite, and for every time I relish a pointed observation about a character or event, another one annoys me. At least half of what bugs me has to do with the fact that I'm not living in the 1860s.

btw -- am I correct that we don't yet have a 2014 challenge up? I'm not nagging Jim about it, just requesting confirmation that my inability to locate it does not signal ineptitude on my part...

Great article Suz. Yes to bikes, no to drones. My first thought was of city skies littered with those things making deliveries for every company imaginable. Visions of Blade Runner... nothing good in any case.

I'm listening to The Golem and the Jinni right now, though I've got Morality Play downloaded to my MP3 player and intend to listen very soon. Glad to know you thought it excellent.

You didn't answer about chances you might do a listening favourites or whether you post reviews to Audible? Is electricity back on? Going without must have been a drag.

I haven't seen the 2014 group yet. It should be set up any day now.

Electricity went back on early this evening. I'm going to have to stock up on candles and batteries soon, however, and maybe some of those little solid fuel cans that you can use to boil water, etc.

Ilana, I don't review on Audible. I am finding it hard enough to keep up with my Amazon Vine reviewing obligations these days, and if I picked up one more thing, it would be to return to my moribund blog. I'm not sure I've listened to enough audiobooks to be a reasonable judge. I definitely have prejudices: for some reason, I prefer English accents to American accents. My faves so far? I had a great listen of a book by James Lee Burke and the friend who has shared his audiobook library with me tells me that the narrator for those is consistently excellent. Patrick Tull with the O'Brian series of novels featuring Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Nicola Pagett narrated The Greengage Summer, which was very good. Simon Jones read both of Robert Harris's Cicero mysteries, and Steven Corssley's narration of the CJ Sansom "Shardlake" series is superlative. On the flip side, Harriet Walter's narration of the Balkan trilogy has been very disappointing for me (I'm bogged down halfway through volume 2) and the ubiquitous Simon Vance, while very good and smooth, never immerses himself enough in any single book or author to really "inhabit" the characters in the way that some others do. I did pick up an audiobook of Paul Scofield (the wonderful lead in "A Man for All Seasons") reading TS Eliot's The Waste Land and Four Quartets, which I have promised myself to listen to. A fun read was Simon Callow and Pyg.

I'll work my way backward through the reviews/comments owed on the books above, hopefully tomorrow, but meanwhile:

423. Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Faulks was another one of those literary homage books (as are so frequently seen with Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen and her characters, etc.). In this case, it's PG Wodehouse and Bertie Wooster and the dapper, debonair Jeeves the butler. Bertie tries to help a friend out of a romantic pickle and much chaos and misunderstanding ensues, including cricket games and midnight dashes across the rooftops of old manor houses. It's faithful in language and style to Wodehouse, but the magnitude of the absurdity/silliness/whimsicality is dialed down several notches (which I actually quite like) and in contrast to the other books, there is some real momentum in terms of character and plot development. I think/hope this will be a one-off by Faulks, but it was entertaining enough. 3.5 stars. Mildly recommended if you're a Wodehouse fan. I used to love this when I was 12/13/14 or so, but found the humor a little too over the top as I got older. Partly because it's so much of its time (the 1920s) and partly because it's so flaky and unreal.

Only two more books to go to reach my 2013 target!

50: am I correct that we don't yet have a 2014 challenge up?
He said on his thread that he’d get to it by the 25th or 26th.

Thanks, Katherine! I hadn't yet been over to his thread to check; have had a hard enough time trying to meet work & reviewing deadlines this past week, and it just hit me that it's almost that time of year... Who hit the fast forward button???

And one more. Even though I couldn't get much sleep last night worrying about whether the power would come on again, I'm now struggling to get to sleep, so I finished...

424. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein, which I should have found more gripping than I did. Even writing about her time in Ravensbruck, the young heroine still uses words like "gosh", ends sentences with exclamation points and generally sounds far younger than her years. The drama comes from the events and the historical context -- especially the story of the "rabbits", subjected to medical experimentation. The story brought tears to my eyes, but not because I felt caught up in the experiences of the narrator -- rather, it was in spite of that. Pity. 3.1 stars. If you liked Wein's first, this is different and not quite as strong, because you know the broad outlines of the plot from (a) the jacket and (b) the first 75/100 pages.

#49 Looking forward to your thoughts on Morality Play, which I loved too when I read it earlier this year. Have you read anything else by Barry Unsworth?

Hi Rebecca! My musings on Morality Play are up in message #43 now; it's the second I've "read" by Unsworth, the first being Losing Nelson), which I think I read last year. Although I have two others waiting for me: The Ruby in Her Navel and Land of Marvels. The intensity (or so I presume) of Sacred Hunger and the concept of setting up an utopian society in the wilderness has always slightly deterred me from being interested in that novel, although if the other two are good, also, I assume that I'll eventually find myself in the right frame of mind for that one as well. I was surprised to see that Unsworth wrote Pascali's Island. That has the distinction of being one of a tiny handful of movies I've ever simply walked out of. (Usually, I winnow 'em out by not going at all...)

i also loved Morality Play which i read a few years back. I've also read Land of Marvels which was quite interesting. I want to read The Ruby in her navel as my son quite enjoyed that one.
I added The winter Ghosts to the TIOLI wiki, it was a quick middling read though I'm now interested to find out a little more about the historical period she wrote about.
My current read is Kingdom Come which is about Sabbatai Zvi. Have you read anything by Bernice Rubens?

#58 Thanks, Suz. I enjoyed your review! I bought Sacred Hunger after I read Morality Play (because my bookstore had it), and I am looking forward to reading it.

Read Morality Play a few years ago and really liked it.

And in case I don't get by here again before Christmas, Suz, good wishes to you and your fur folk for a kind end to 2013, with all the best wished for 2014, especially for good health and a soupcon of good luck!

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, a joyous Festivus or whatever, to all of you!

Tui, did you get hit with some of the power outages? My brother has apparently rigged up a generator and was entertaining half the neighborhood for dinner last night. (in Scarberia...) Thankfully, my mother, in downtown TO, is OK.

Has anyone read John Lawton's "Inspector Troy" books? I decided to read them in chronological order, and have found myself completely caught up by the first in chronological order, but maybe the fifth or sixth in terms of publication. It's set in Vienna in 1938, with the action shifting to London in 1939. Fascinating characters, and I'm listening to a good narrator on audiobook.

I ran slightly amok on Amazon's Vine Last Harvest (pick as many books as you want, but be prepared to read and review them within five or six weeks). Almost all are completely new authors to me, with the exception being Chang-rae Lee's new book, On Such a Full Sea. I nabbed Alena, which is supposedly a variant on Rebecca set in an art museum; The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette van Heughten, a story with roots in WW2 in the Netherlands; The White Lie by Andrea Gillies, which got raves from Publishers' Weekly and Kirkus but has oddly no reviews, The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton, and Dark Invasion, a non-fiction account about a 1915 German spy ring in America. I also managed to nab a copy of My Life in Middlemarch. The author may not be one of the warmest and most pleasant people I've ever met, but she does have a great narrative style, and amidst all the Austen-mania, what a pleasant change to read something different!

Yup. The missus and I decided to spend a couple of days in Colonial Williamsburg since we've both been working our butts off. So I thought I'd get the new group going Christmas Day while the Christmas gumbo is simmering. :)

That sounds delightful, Jim! Staying at that lovely big sprawling inn with the open fireplaces that I remember from eons ago? Very relaxing...

Suz - You are a marvel; pure and simple. The doyenne of speed readers and able to dissect what you have read with an unerring eye if you'll excuse the shameless mixing of metaphors. Hope that in 2014 I will make it stateside and we'll get to meet-up.

btw. I also loved Morality Play. I don't think that Sacred Hunger is nearly so good.

Have a lovely Christmas my dear and I hope the neighbour doesn't keep you up singing carols!

Hey Suz, wishing our favorite financial writer a very merry Christmas!

Hi Suz,

I loved the guardian piece!!

Merry Merry, Suz.

Suz, have a great Christmas and New Year (hopefully without noisy neighbour)!

I was one of those who was raving about Wein's Code Name: Verity and eagerly looking forward to her next - still after a dazzler like CNV she's entitled to a little bit of a sophmore slump.

>62 Chatterbox:: we didn't lose our hydro, Suz, thank goodness. Toronto is still a mess but a big city doesn't cope well with those kinds of events. Saw a woman on the news last night kvetching because she couldn't get her dips or cheeses for her Christmas dinner because her local grocery store had no power...lady, about 300,000 people don't have heat or the ability to cook! Old people, sick people. Some high rises don't even have water because their pumps don't work.

Anyway, m'dear, like Rhian I hope noisy neighbour takes a hike for the holidays, leaving you with peace on your little patch of earth.

Happy Holidays, Suzanne!

Wow, folks, thanks for all the lovely greetings!!

And right back at you -- hope your Xmas, solstice, new year's, Festivus, Kwanzaa or simple staycation is just what you want it to be.

Lucy, omigod, I LOVE Santa's corgis. Is that Miss Posey's recreational pastime?? I can't stop laughing...

I'm fairly sure noisy neighbor is almost gone. Her visits are less frequent, and she was here only for about two hours last night (banging and crashing away) and left after dumping a piece of furniture (looks like a TV/DVD stand, a giant one) outside by the garbage. So I'm fairly sure that 2014 will dawn with her gone!

Jim, I found myself wishing I had liked both the Elizabeth Wein books better than I did. In both, the emotion came from the historical events, not the characters who participated in them. "Mildly interesting" is the best I can drum up, I confess. On the other hand, I'm preparing to rave about Second Violin, especially for all those who liked Zoo Station and the rest of David Downing's series.

Tui, a lot of my friends and family are among that powerless crowd, including my brother and sister in law. My brother rigged up a generator, but the new computerized furnace apparently doesn't want to talk to it, so so much for that. They are being told that power won't be back until Saturday, by which point they will be en route to Turks & Caicos with my mother. I, not invited, therefore am sympathetic but only to a limited degree! They will still have a big Xmas feast, a tree and a party, followed by a vacation in the sun.

I got a box from my mother today; the customs declaration says there are two books. I know one is my long-anticipated copy of Joseph Boyden's new novel The Orenda, which will be among my first books of the new year. The other is a mystery! (A real mystery; not a book that is part of the mystery genre.) The other item is a calendar -- my usual Group of Seven (http://www.mcmichael.com/collection/seven/) calendar, which is a necessity for me! If offered a Monet, I think I'd decline politely -- or else sell it, and use the proceeds to buy a bunch of works by Tom Thomson, AY Jackson, Lawren Harris et al. So I will have something to unwrap tomorrow morning...

Merry Christmas!

Delurking to wish you a very merry Christmas, Suz!

Wow, Caro -- gorgeous! I must see if I can attempt a book tree next year, although I suspect Tigger would view it as an invitation to climb it and sit atop it. And possibly dislodge everything en route...

And Katherine, thanks for my note of tropical splendor!!

Suz, you could use Tigger to pick your next read off the 'tree' if that were to happen.

Ha -- now THAT is an excellent idea. Lay the books I want to read out in a row and see which one Tigger decides to sit atop of. Whichever is taller or closer to the hot air vent, I suspect... :-)

Merry Christmas, Suz!

Suz, it was great to finally meet you this year, and i've enjoyed once again following along with your reading journey. Cheers!

hope your Xmas, solstice, new year's, Festivus, Kwanzaa or simple staycation is just what you want it to be

Love it, Suzanne. And same to you. Have a wonderful holiday season.

I know what I'll be doing throughout January: Reading Amazon Vine books. After the technical problems with last week's newsletter, they seem to have dumped all the outstanding books into Last Harvest (unlimited # of choices, limited time in which to read and review, which means that this crop will have to be done by mid-February.

My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead
Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed by Adhaf Soueif
Alena by Rachel Pastan
The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette van Heugten
The White Lie by Andrea Gillies
Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War by Howard Blum
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee
The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton
The Dark Road by Ma Jian
Trieste by Dasa Drndic
Vienna Nocturne by Viven Shotwell
The Deliverance of Evil by Roberto Costantini
The Corpse Reader by Antonio Garrido
Decoded by Mai Jia
A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith

All of these are new to me authors; I've read Rebecca's stuff for the New Yorker, and own one of the Chang-rae Lee novels as well as Soueif's big epic novel set in Egypt, both of the latter remaining unread...

So, a lot of gambles here! The April Smith novel is the one I'm most uncertain about - it's slotted into the romance category, but it's set post-WW1, which is a period I want to be reading more about, so...

Meanwhile, the Amazon Vine books that must be read between now and mid-January:

The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott
Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France by Nicholas Shakespeare
The House of Journalists by Tim Finch
Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel
Churchill's Angels by Ruby Jackson (no touchstone)
The Eternal Wonder by Pearl Buck
Stringer: A Reporter's Journey in the Congo by Anjan Sundaram
Hunting Shadows by Charles Todd
Death of a Nightingale by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis

It's kind of like being given access to a bookstore with a cross section of new releases and told to knock yourself out -- they're all free. Then realizing that you have to read 'em all by a deadline...

Whoops, two more:

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabi Alameddine
The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena

Putting the list of "books I must read" firmly to one side, along with my anxiety about much-delayed checks, here is the much shorter list of "books I have read" (well, those that I've finished in the last 12 hours or so.)

425. Second Violin by John Lawton: It's nice to meet my target for the year with a "thumping good read" in the form of this novel; encouraging, too, as I have one of the others on my Kindle and (allegedly, according to LT), a galley of a third although I have no idea of where it might have ended up post-move. If you liked David Downing's novels, you should find a lot here to relish, too. It starts with Hitler's takeover of Austria and moves through to the height of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz in the autumn of 1940, following the experiences of three members of the Troy family: Freddie (who will be the central figure in subsequent novels; a detective on the Murder Squad); Rod, his older brother and a journalist who, when the book begins, is reporting from Vienna and Berlin; and Alex, born Alexei Troitsky in Russia, and now press baron Sir Alex Troy. At the outset, there are several parallel narratives that converge in 1939 at the outbreak of war: a Viennese Jewish tailor and his counterpart in Stepney; Alex and Churchill; Rod and his journalistic colleagues and Third Reich "minders"; Freddie and his colleagues and love interests. This turns into a mystery in the conventional sense only late in the book, when Freddie realizes that the deaths of several East End rabbis aren't just accidents, but everything leads up to that in the sense that this is a novel about how national and 'ethnic' differences suddenly begin to matter extremely. Particularly compelling is the roundup of low-priority 'enemy aliens' for internment on the Isle of Man; ironically, Freddie is recruited by Special Branch to help, while his elder brother, born in Vienna and who, unknown to his little brother, ends up being deported as well... I'm really looking forward to the next in this series... 4.4 stars.

426. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness left me oddly ambivalent. The author is a capable writer and has a clear command of her material, but the romance is as silly as anything I read in a Harlequin/Mills & Boon novel back in my early/mid teens. The idea that Diana Bishop is a unique kind of witch with powers she needs to find a way to manage is entertaining, and I may well end up reading the next in the series, although it won't be as much of a priority. I've been reading this in fits and starts for three weeks now, so clearly not unputdownable! 3.4 stars. Slow to start and ultimately forgettable, but entertaining as long as you can put the silly romantic gushiness to one side.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!!

Merry Christmas, Suzanne.

Robert

Thanks, Robert & Chelle!

Well, Christmas's Kindle Daily Deals included the second book in the Deborah Harkness series, so, whotthehell, right?

My next door neighbors have decided to continue the tradition of making lotsa noise now that upstairs goofball has left. Which is why I'm still up. That said, this is a one-off. They're noisy on weekend evenings during the summer, when dozens accumulate in their parking area out back and hang out, but it usually wraps up by midnight. I can handle that better than bouncing above my head all night long.

OK, back to try for some zzzz's.

Merry Christmas to all!

Suz, funny about Secod Violin because I'm n e middle of Lily of the Field by the same author. If I weren't on e iPad or about to go for a walk with everyone I would figure out if my one if part of the same series. It is excellent too and bought randomly when it was a Kindle deal a year or so ago. Sleep well!

Merry Christmas, Suzanne! So happy to hear about Bad Neighbor vacating the premises. Here's hoping her replacement is a vast - and quiet - improvement.

Lily of the Field is part of the same series as Second Violin.

Black Out, chronologically #1, is only 99p for Kindle at the moment, Suzanne.

Suzanne, I hope you are having an enjoyable quiet Christmas. You have lots of reading lined up for the new year which means we have lots of perceptive reviews to look forward to. I don't post a lot here but I do stop by and get hit by an occasional book bullet! Thank you!?

I found the ARC of Lily of the Field last night; it covers a long period, about 1934 to 1948, so it's an early book but also looks as if I can read it at any time. I think Black Out -- which I do have on my Kindle -- is actually book 2, according to LT's chronology and based on my reading, which says it took place during WW2, followed by a book known here as Bluffing Mr Churchill and in the UK as Riptide. (I'm basing this on the dates that reviewers & folks provide for the action. Then Black Out. I have Bluffing Mr. Churchill, so I'll have to check to see if I have Black Out.

Spending the day with books and cats, which is lovely, but can't help feeling sad that I'm not on the distribution list for Xmas pics from brother and sis in law. I know I won't get a call -- that never happens -- but apparently if my mother wants me to have the pics, she has to forward them. Sigh. families. But the cats love me!

Lucy, I posted your Corgi-sled pic on my Facebook page... couldn't resist kidnapping it.

Aah, I got confused by series order - Black Out is #1 by publication but #3 by chronology according to the listings shown here. I've had a copy of Old Flames for a long time which means that it's now the one in the series I don't have on my Kindle. Just hoping I can find the print copy.

Thanks for the tip, Luci! I didn't have Black Out, so I added that to my UK Kindle. Next up will be Bluffing Mr. Churchill, however.

I've started my next audiobook, Japantown, which my mother recommended. She's right; it's good, albeit a conventional kind of thriller.

Merry Christmas Suzanne! Why in the world am I ducking book bullets on Christmas Day? Why it's just one of the hazards of visiting your thread.

I have a reputation to uphold, Bonnie... *Grin*

Opened my Christmas gifts and BOTH of the books are autographed copies! One is the much-coveted first Canadian edition of Joseph Boyden's new novel, The Orenda, which my mother picked up for me at his reading in Toronto in the fall; the second was Finding Japan: Early Canadian Encounters with Asia by Anne Shannon, written by a Canadian foreign service friend and that doesn't seem to have a touchstone yet. It's published by a teeny tiny press, so perhaps not surprising, but it'll be a fun read. I've known Anne through good & tough times for three decades now, and she has morphed from diplomat to think tank guru and UN type to Liberal Party candidate (Vancouver Island) and now is at U Vic (that's University of Victoria for non-Canucks). One of the tiny handful of people I both like and respect tremendously; one of an even tinier handful whom I'd try to emulate. Other packages: my Group of Seven (well, Tom Thomson) calendar and a tube of Clarins hand cream, just in time for the lizard-hand season....

I suppose I should update stuff here, right??

427. Prisons We Choose to Live Inside by Doris Lessing was a collection of lectures -- the Massey Lectures aired on CBC each, in which someone is invited to deliver five successive lectures on a theme. These were originally given in the mid 1980s, and focus on political topics, and in particular the use of political power by the state to obtain consent, either overtly or covertly, and how that breeds "group think" and hostility toward the "other". I confess this sometimes felt overly polemical and also a bit dated (my own fault, for not reading it for 25 plus years...), but I though that Chris Hedges made very similar arguments in War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, while taking himself less seriously and being less dogmatic and holier-than-thou. It's not that Lessing is wrong; just that the tone is occasionally almost scolding. 3.7 stars.

428. A Treacherous Likeness by Lynn Shepherd is one of those books that feels as if it's going to be better than it turns out to be. I was very intrigued because it promises to put Clair Clairmont, stepsister of Mary Shelley, at the center of a narrative and a mystery. It does -- but only kinda sorta. Charles Maddox is hired by Shelley's son in 1850 to recover some papers, but the plot morphs and spreads like a pot of ink knocked off a table, so that ultimately it's hard to see what this is about, other than reminding us that Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley may today be Great Writers but in their time led very rackety lives and may have been very troubled people. The problem is that the novel isn't focused. The jacket seems to suggest that Maddox is investigating the suicide of Shelley's first wife, but that's not it. There are at least three or four different things that could be the puzzle, but it's all a bit of a muddle. And the plot twist in the final few pages came so out of the blue that it left me very irritated. This is the second book I've read by this author and the second to disappoint. Bah, humbug. 3.2 stars.

I've switched from the audiobook of Japantown to the library book, and returned the former to audible. You know there's trouble when the narrator has FOUR DIFFERENT pronunciations of the simple Japanese surname "Hara" (the three I can remember are HAH-ra -- correct -- then HAIR-ah and Hair-AH). It's bad enough to be wrong, but to be inconsistent, with as many different options as there are letters in the said name?? Gah.

Delurking to say Merry Belated Christmas, Suzanne!

Thanks for taking the hit on A Treacherous Likeness. I read A Solitary House last year and wasn't terribly impressed. Since it sounds kike the series isn't getting any better, I think I can safely cross it off my list.

Have you read Muriel Spark's biography of Mary Shelley? I read it a couple of months ago and thought it was very good.

I really appreciate that about Audible that you can return any book you don't like for any reason. Makes me more willing to try things I wouldn't otherwise, which I guess is the idea.

Suz, I'm not sure why I waited so long, or why I felt intimidated to do so (maybe because I've always been a bit in awe of you), but I would be really honoured if you participated to my "Picked for Me" challenge for 2014. Not much work required, just pick a book for me to read from my tbr. A link and details are here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/160751

Merry happy belated Xmas right back, Faith! Have you been side-swiped by the ice storm?

Carrie, I'm actually slightly depressed that the book wasn't any better. On the other hand, I really enjoyed The Aspern Papers, one of whose main characters is based on Clair Clairmont. In many ways, I've actually found her a more intriguing character than Mary Shelley. I've not yet read Muriel Spark's bio of her, but found Daisy Hay's book, The Young Romantics, both incredibly good reading and fascinating. I just nabbed it when it popped up at a discount for Kindle. Very memorable and both whetted and satisfied my curiosity about that oddball menage. Her research was incredible and I'm hoping she's working on something new.

Ilana, I'm honored! I posted my picks (what, you thought I could go through a thousand books and choose just ONE??) on your thread and am cross posting here. (Although you really need to ditch the awe stuff; it's SO inappropriate; people who know me IRL would howl with laughter, and rightly so.)

My picks for Ilana:

Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden. Writing so vivid and clear that it literally brought tears to my eyes at points; a fascinating narrative set among the Ojibwe and drawing on contemporary issues and their historic experiences and zeitgeist, without ever becoming didactic. A practically perfect novel.

Audiobooks:

I see you have Master and Commander there and unread -- Patrick O'Brian as narrated by Patrick Tull. I really think you should immerse yourself in this series and let yourself be borne away on the waves of the Mediterranean and all the oceans of the world.

Something short and lesser known:

I really like Michael Gilbert -- enjoy his sometimes elliptical narratives. Smallbone Deceased is a short little book and very evocative of a time and era. I think I'm going to try to re-read some of his next year. A quick and very entertaining mystery.

And just because....

To follow on from the tutored read of Wolf Hall, you really should jump into Dissolution by CJ Sansom. The audiobook is excellent, and now that you've got all the background for Cromwell, Henry VIII, etc., you'll be able to follow the historical context and just relish the mystery. Again, a series, so if you like it, you'll have plenty of stuff to read/listen to later!

Sorry I couldn't winnow it down further, but I confess that I find it hard to be doctrinaire and prescriptive with books, and like giving people options! Pick any one of these, and I'd be enthusiastic about it.

#39: Sorry to hear that the Basbanes book is not up to his usual standards because I love his work. I am anxious to hear what was wanting.

Loved the Guardian article!

Stasia, hello! I think the problem was that nothing was wanting. Had the kitchen sink been made of paper, it would have been in there. Essentially, the only theme was "paper", and to me it lacked a narrative arc or a point beyond "I'm fascinated with paper, and you should be too." Perhaps it's a book to read intermittently, over a long period of time? And you may react to it differently, too...

#104: Ah, OK - one of those books where, if the author knows a fact, he wants to throw it in. Thanks for letting me know, Suz. I will still read it at some point, I am sure, but probably not in as much of a rush now to get my hands on it.

The Aspern Papers sounds great. I've downloaded a copy from Project Gutenberg. I should be able to squeeze it in fairly soon since it's less than 100 pages! My library doesn't have The Young Romantics, but maybe they'll acquire a copy by the time I would be ready to read it.

>102 Chatterbox:: We were, but we're mostly out of it now! Sunday was pretty bad, though we escaped better off than just about anywhere else in Ontario. We didn't even lose power once, though my parents about 20 minutes down the road lost it for 5 hours, and my sister in Toronto lost it for... 5 days, I think! Some branches came down and missed our car by inches, but it's sad to drive down the road around here and see all these massive branches down from old, beautiful trees. I know they'll recover, but it's still hard to look at.

That's a lot of readin' and reviewin' on your plate!

Carrie, I'd recommend looking around for a cheap second-hand copy of the Daisy Hay tome; it was that good.

Faith, yes, it's horrible to see. A big branch of the giant oak tree next to the house I inhabit broke off and ended up on the sidewalk during the last storm. It has several "widowmakers" that I can see are in a position to take out power lines if loaded down with ice. Making the transition from a city that has buried power lines to one where they're exposed and more vulnerable is, ahem, interesting. Too bad no one thought of this as a good infrastructure project back when the government was funding these programs as economic stimulus. Combine the impact of jobs with that of lost productivity from power cuts... Oh well...

Lucy, yes. I must have been temporarily deranged. I'm going to try to get cracking on some of the outstanding Amazon Vine books now, so that when the new batch arrives, I can launch right into 'em. I've already warned the poor letter carrier about what's in store for him.

Meanwhile:

429. The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith was better than some reviews and/or comments had led me to fear it would be. It's the sequel to Child 44, which I read and enjoyed (last year, I think?). I probably should have read them closer together, as Leo Demidov's actions in book #1 come home to roost, like the proverbial chickens, in book #2, as word of Kruschev's secret speech denouncing Stalin leak out. I know the broad outlines of this period, but the novel's specifics have made me curious about the detail, so I may seek out something more on that... The plot revolves around the idea that the secret speech triggers waves of revenge/vengeance seeking by Stalin's victims, and we see variations on that throughout the novel, as it takes Leo and his family from Moscow to the gulag and on to Budapest and forces each of them to re-evaluate the compromises they have made in the past. I liked it. 4.1 stars.

Glad to see you liked The Secret Speech, Suzanne. I read it earlier this year and loved it. I still have Agent 6 to read, but I guess I am kind of hoarding it and hoping that Smith will publish another in the series soon. Don't know if I can keep from reading it past 2014, though. I like Demidov a lot - mostly because he is so flawed. He still keeps on trying though.

Charlotte, I completely agree with you. There's some interesting historical background, and a flawed but evolving character -- both are guaranteed to hold my attention, even in a conventional mass-appeal novel. I may read Agent 6 in January for wandering_star's TIOLI challenge.

Ulp! Well, then, I guess I'll have to break Agent 6 out as well. Wouldn't want to have to skim over your review. Woe is me!

Who am I kidding? Am very excited to have a good reason to rescue it from the Basket o' Series Books. Am beginning to form a plan for January - and I NEVER do that.

Suz I always keep an eye out for books with "Witch" in the title.

I've had A Discovery of Witches on my Kindle for about a year and couldn't get into it.

She's not goopy about the Craft which is a blessing, but she is very goopy about the romance part.

I will probably finish it eventually. Glad to hear (from you) that I ain't missing much.

I was able to put the goopy romance to one side, or just skim the ultra-goopy parts. Really, the romance was particularly adolescent: swoon over hunky guy, instantly decide it is love at first sight, blah blah blah. Fairly unconvincing to any reader over 30 that has a brain, and probably to a significant chunk of younger readers, too. It doesn't even meet my daydream standards. Thankfully, at some point the plot became interesting enough for me to wade through the goop, but really not a memorable book.

430. Japantown by Barry Lancet was a book that my mother urged me to read, I suspect because of the Japan connection (long story). At heart, however, it's really quite a plain vanilla thriller, with not just one arch-villain, but a whole community of them in a Japanese village, dating back 300 years to a rogue samurai! And it's a mystery unraveled via a strange "kanji", or Japanese character! Well, you get the picture. Entertaining enough, but also predictable. I might read others (allegedly this is the first in a series) but I won't be waiting for them with baited breath. And avoid the audiobook. The narrator is OK, but bizarrely for someone picked to narrate a book that is set at least half in Japan, he bungles the simplest Japanese names. I gave up when he turned Kato (correctly pronounced (Kah-TO) into KAY-toh, like the ancient Roman senator. ARGHHHHHHHH. Like fingers on a chalkboard. 3.5 stars, for my 2013 categories challenge.

Two books to read for my TIOLI this month and I'll have managed a full house! I'm about midway through Ashenden, which is reasonably good, and have embarked on The Frackers by a former colleague of mine, Greg Zuckerman. He's a smart cookie and has a nice, elegant writing style, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Then I'll pick out a few other books with which to wrap up the year!!

431. Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide is what you might end up with if you combined Downton Abbey's setting with the kind of endless serial novels written by Edward Rutherfurd. Happily, this is less sprawling, less over-ambitious and better written than anything I've read by Rutherfurd: it's essentially a series of more or less successful vignettes/short stories, following generations of people whose lives interact with the stately home of the title, Ashenden Hall. These include its architect and his niece; several of the owners, people who visit it, etc. Because these are only snapshots and because it's essentially a popular novel, it's a bit frustrating to just get glimpses of the lives of the characters, which is why this ended up with only 3.5 stars. Adequate, if this is your sort of thing.

Moving on to one of my ARCs from Amazon, The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott. I was encouraged to pick it because of Alcott's novel take on what could have been an overdone subject, the sinking of the Titanic. She's got a flair for creating a strong narrative voice and thoughtful, slightly different plots, and this setting -- the mill towns of Massachusetts in the 1830s -- is fresh and interesting. Sure, it's still genre fiction, but good/solid. That, and Sunshine on Scotland Street, will be my next light reads, followed by Olen Steinhauer's The Cairo Affair!

OK, I have no idea if I'm over-reacting or being over-emotional, but I need to vent, briefly. Every year, I spend a few hundred dollars (at least) on gifts for my brother, my sister-in-law and the three kids, now 12, 11 and 9. Most years I get a card and a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Last September, I spent more than $300 to buy new Kindles for my niece and elder nephew for their birthdays. Now, I'm sitting here and wrapping more presents that will be waiting for them when they get back from Turks & Caicos. Here is what is eating at me. I've yet to hear "thank you" from the kids for the Kindles. I haven't had any answer to my e-mails asking when it would be convenient for me to be in Toronto & see them (I don't stay with them; I've never been invited), and I know that if I don't go, that, too, will become an issue with them. This year, I haven't had an Xmas card, much less the statutory $25 gift certificate. And yeah, I'm upset. I do this stuff because I know it matters to them, and because I want to, even though I'm also busy, stressed and FAR more financially strapped, especially this year. I'm always the person who goes to visit them -- when they are in the US, it's to go down to Florida or somewhere with my SIL's siblings and sometimes my mother, but I've never been invited, nor have they visited me since before they were married 12 years ago. If I don't pull my weight with respect to gifts or visits, my mother hears about it in some way -- a comment or a roll of the eyes. (Apparently, the kids wanted e-readers, and I should have bought them Kobos instead, since they could get library books on them.)

OK, I've vented. I'm now going to go and find something to read while I listen to the Met broadcast of Tosca to cheer myself up. And by the time I have to make three separate trips downtown to the post office to mail the big boxes of gifts and fork over the postage, I'll try to be in a better mood. Or at least, once it's done, and the holidays are over, I can forget about it until they forget my birthday yet again. But I'm a grown up and it doesn't matter.

It does matter, Suz, but I have nothing helpful to say except that I feel your pain wrt certain members of my own family. Your brother sounds like a pill. Is your mother at all understanding/have any insight?

ETA: it certainly sounds like you are making an effort and have for some time. Maybe it's time to cut back on the level of effort. Still send gifts and acknowledge birthdays and such but maybe in a less expensive and time-consuming way? Obviously the emotional investment and potential for hurt are still there but at least your not outplaying as much time and money...

116: Urgh. I’d want to vent too. Re thanks from the kids, at their ages it would seem a parental responsibility to model and enforce proper behavior. We were nagged as kids to write thank you notes until we left home for college, with much grumbling, but now that I’m on the other end it’s surprisingly important to get a few sentences of acknowledgement. I thought I was raised in an egalitarian household, but my brothers are rather too reliant on their wives to deal with this sort of thing. I assume you and your brother are not on terms that would allow for discussion, or this situation wouldn’t be occurring. Is your mother the mediator? I agree with katiekrug, about finding ways to cut back on effort and money, while maintaining connections with cards and such. Also maybe make things more explicit, e.g. ask what the kids want, state when you need to hear back from them for a visit, invite them to visit you, etc. Use their upsetness at consequences to explain why. Which, I realize, is easier to advise in someone else’s family. You are not over-reacting.

My brother has been giving me the cold shoulder for decades now, for reasons I don't know or understand and that he hasn't been willing to share or discuss. I hear about what is going on mostly via my mother, but she is what I would have to call fragile, both healthwise and emotionally and putting her more in the middle than she is already would produce other stuff for me to deal with. I had hoped when the kids were born that I'd end up forging independent relationships with them, and that my sis-in-law would help address this in some ways, but disappointed on both fronts. A case in point: years when I have received Xmas cards, they aren't ever signed "love", which is something I'll do with friends, and sort of see as a matter of course with my immediate family. I gather Lynda gave my brother the responsibility of gifts, etc. for me. When my mother asked what I received, I had to say "nothing" and her answer was "well, he's busy". Okay... But really, if we're talking a $25 gift certificate, it takes less than 5 minutes to do.

I cut back to the extent of sending checks instead of gifts -- but then my mother reported that Jamie's b-day check from last May is still pinned to the refrigerator. So I'm going back to sending gifts, which costs more because of the enormous postage (sometimes more than the cost of the gifts).

It's just sad.

And here's the contrast. My high school buddy in Atlanta, who has become a friend again over the last 18 months, went to the time and trouble to make me a small gift -- a miniature suitcase that he made out of metal, that will work either to store things in or, with a bit of velvet inside, to put earrings inside so I don't lose 'em all the time, with my monogram on the outside. Small, and thoughtful. Moreover, he called me on Xmas to wish me a good holiday -- which family didn't do. And this is someone who, while he has become a good friend, isn't a family member and has his own family members (two daughters, a brother and SIL and neices) to think about. It's all just -- sad.

ETA: thanks for the empathy. It's appreciated; really.

I'm sorry for you sadness about your family, particularly your brother. I also have brother-issues. I have 3 of them, but my oldest brother has always been my favorite--not for anything he ever did, however, that's for sure, but just for who he was--my "big brother." He's the kind of person you either have to accept or not--he does for people what he wants to do, and that's it. If you ask more of him, then he shuts it all down. I honestly can't think of a single kindness that he's ever extended to me as an adult. I called him this Christmas and got no answer, so I left a message. He sent me a one-liner email: "We're in New Zealand. Not much cell coverage here." Okey-dokey. He recently took up again with a woman he lived with some 30 years ago. She was not a nice person then, and in talking to her recently for about 10 minutes, I got the impression that she hasn't changed. My thought is that she will do nothing to make my brother a better person.

You are kind-hearted to think of not putting your fragile mother in the middle. Family--ach!

ETA. Oh yes, and the road goes only one way--I have to visit him. It's never been the other way around, not ever.

119: Double urgh. Almost impossible to forge independent relationships with kids still at home; maybe the best you can do is continue communication and small gifts until they’re grown; no point in unappreciated extravagance. Or invite them to stay with you for a week over the summer. I get “he’s busy” from my mother too re my brothers, and it’s annoying. No, I’d go for putting your mother less in the middle, since your brother relies on her to express his dissatisfaction with you. Some people are better at gifts than others, enjoy the process, choose appropriately, but yeah, a gift certificate seems a minimal token if he expects something from you. (Any chance of a family agreement to get gifts only for the kids?) Still, it seems that you’re hoping for an emotional reciprocity that you’re not going to get, which is sad.

Yes, I think going forward it will be gifts for the kids only. If I unilaterally confine my gifts to the kids, my brother and sister in law can't really complain, and maybe they'll stop taking it all for granted, at least. It sounds/feels awfully petty, but if that's what happens, well, so be it.

I've invited them to visit countless times and it's always been, well NYC is such a big and intimidating city for kids. Which didn't stop the woman who is our de facto cousin (she's the daughter of my father's oldest friend; we have known each other since we were born, pretty much) from bringing her two young girls down in 2010, when the youngest was about 7, as a single mother, yet. Even tales of being able to go to a sleepover at the Museum of Natural History (underneath the giant whale) didn't sway them. And now I'm in Providence, well, that's too out of the way. The kids wouldn't be allowed to visit solo, and I'm not sure it would be a good idea anyway -- the three of them are very close and I don't know any of them well. I didn't even get to see my niece last time I was in Toronto because she was too busy with dance rehearsals, etc.

My brother thinks I should visit him because the area is so "beautiful." There will always be an excuse.

It's the apparently obliviousness to the double standard that annoys me. They will travel to see Lynda's siblings, or to Florida, or to conferences, or to a cottage in the summer, because that's what they need to/should do. I could have come to see them when they were in Boston or in DC, but that was declined. Apparently I'm only able to see them if I travel to Toronto. And if I go anywhere else, meanwhile, that's me being selfish. That's just one example. I should apparently have moved back to Toronto to look after my mother because I'm single & childless and thus CAN do this. Blah blah blah. OK, I need to stop whining or I will drive myself around the bend.

Listened to Tosca Met broadcast, which was lovely. This is my favorite bit of it -- when, against the backdrop of a Te Deum, Scarpia expresses so vividly how demented Tosca makes him, to the point that he forgets even God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgJgYhc6g_E
It's a fabulous contrast, both dramatically and musically.

OK, back to the books now I have (mostly) finished wrapping the gifts. Still one or two small things to arrive.

I don't think you're being petty. They sound very ungrateful, and rather rude.

It seems very reasonable in the circumstances both to limit presents to giving to the kids, and maybe to be a little less generous. You're struggling and they don't seem to appreciate it. Sounds like your relationship with your sort of cousin and her daughters would be more worthwhile to cultivate, do you get to see her when you're up there?

I'm worrying now that I might seem ungrateful to my brothers and sisters, but I couldn't imagine behaving like this, Suzanne.

Finished two more books, checking off one of the next batch of must-read, deadline Amazon ARCs in the process.

432. Sunshine on Scotland Street is the next-to-most-recent book in this series by Alexander McCall Smith, focusing on a group of folks and their daily lives in Edinburgh. It's pretty much impossible to summarize because, like life, it kind of drifts along. Bertie gets to look after Cyril, the dog with the gold tooth, but then there's a chain of misadventures that follows. His dreadful mother Irene further messes up the six year old's life. Vain Bruce meets a doppelganger, and Elspeth and Matthew adjust to life with twins, and a Danish filmmaker who wants to chronicle their every footstep. There are a few implausible twists and a dangling plot thread in this, which annoyed me. 3.3 stars.

433. The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott is the second novel by this author that I have read that has left me positively surprised. The plots themselves are straightforward, the characters themselves relatively plain vanilla -- good-hearted, industrious young women make lives for themselves and find a path to happiness, blah blah blah -- but the setting and the way that Alcott writes make this particularly interesting. Alice Barrow arrives to become a mill girl in Lowell, Mass. in 1832; she falls in love with the boss's son, and her best friend at the mill is found dead -- murdered. It's a time and setting that few historical novelists pay attention to, and that alone made it intriguing. 3.75 stars.

ETA: I'm hoping to wrap up The Frackers, The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer (my November ER book), The House of Journalists (another of the Amazon ARCs) by Tim Finch and Marking Time between now and the end of the month. I also have Death of a Nightingale and The Paris Winter sitting here and staring at me reproachfully. It will all depend on how efficiently I do my work, I suspect.

I'm interested in The Frackers. Is there an agenda behind it or just a good story?

I don't have any siblings at all. I always think of this as a lack, but you and Becky make me realize that having them is not an unmixed blessing. I'm sorry that they hurt you, and I wish that it were not so. It's not easy to be a mensch, but you are whether they appreciate you or not. I'm really sad that the children don't get to know you and see that the world isn't necessarily like their parents. At this point you have my permission to make whatever compromises make life easiest for you.
(And I listened to a lot of Tosca today too. What a treat!)

Peggy, thank you... Both my parents were only children, so I grew up without cousins or 'real' aunts or uncles, and always felt I had missed out on something. I was very excited when my niece and nephews were born -- a new generation and making the family a little more diverse. It seems, and that's completely understandable, perhaps, that they prefer to bond with my sis-in-law's three siblings, all of whom are married with children. I'm glad the kids have the experience of growing up in an extended family, and that my mother, at least, is part of their world. (My brother and father also are not close, largely due to my parents' very messy divorce and its aftermath.) I wish I could get to know them better, especially my elder nephew, who is both the most outgoing and has a curious streak a mile wide. I suppose there is still hope; it depends on the type of people they grow up to be as adults, now.

Katie, The Frackers so far is excellent. There doesn't seem to be an agenda at all (which is kinda what I'd expect from the author, who's level headed and analytical); I'm 100 pages into it now, and he's laying the groundwork for the technological breakthrough, the convergence of horizontal drilling techniques and 'fracking' itself. I've skimmed, and I see that he does deal with the environmental issues, but his emphasis is on the tremendous business (and geopolitical upheaval this represented -- the technology, the creative wildcatters, the businessmen, the regulatory context. I confess I have my reservations about environmental critics: I suspect that the real issue here is likely to be the impact of newly-cheap shale oil and gas on the ability to research and finance innovations in the green energy arena. I find myself already wondering who out there is going to do for green energy what the people Greg writes about did for the fossil fuels business. (The environmental upside of this is that we might blow the tops off fewer mountains in the Appalachians in quest of hard to get coal...)

Oh, good to know. I will keep it on the WL.

There is a good documentary - a little hard to find - called The Switch which looks at fossil fuels, renewables, nuclear, etc. and the advantages and disadvantages of all. I thought it was interesting and pretty well-done.

Hi Suz,
Just dropping by to mention I am loving Religion for Atheists and am nearing the end. He manages to capture those wandering thoughts I have and articulate them so well. I was reading out passages to my lovely other while we were away camping over Christmas and generally encouraging others to read it....so I guess the jury's in- I love it.

127/129 I have been hearing about fracking lately here, and am divided on my opinion of it as a method of securing the use of oil/gas. Being a cynic means I don't trust either sides rhetoric. Usually I sway to the conservation side, just to be safe ;) Seriously though, it probably comes down to changing the way we live and consume, so that we need less of these raw materials in the first place.

Happy holidays to you!

eta: I have wishlisted The Frackers on my library account.

Hi Suz,

I'm adding The Frackers to my WL too and have a similar reaction to Megan. There is a great deal of knee jerk opposition to lots of things in NZ, and I usually find things a bit complicated. I now work with a right-on environmentally conscious teacher with whom I cannot be bothered having conversations, and I'd like to know a bit more.

Onto your family... I read your post last night and was wordless. Now I am not. You gave tHem KINDLEs and didn't get a thank you in any form?!?! Holy moly. My kids are useless at thank you notes but they will at least get the phone stuck in front of their mouth and told what to say, whether they like the presents or not. I would be easing way off... I know you don't like
Book Depository but books with free postage might be an easy option.

Oh and Becky, mobile coverage in NZ is pretty good unless he is down a cave somewhere!!

The Daring Ladies of Lowell sounds good!

No thank yous? Not a phone call? Argh. Perhaps they are grateful but clueless. I was (still am) awful with thank yous. Family stuff stinks. It's just me, my brother and SIL and SIL was my friend long before he fell for her. We all get along great, but sometimes I wish there were more of us. Then I here stories...

Suz, I'm so sorry to read about how unlovely your brother and sister-in-law are to you. Sounds like a no-win situation, and I agree with Katherine's advice that it might save you some pain (and unnecessary expense) to pull back a little. I grew up an only child and often wished for siblings, but as Peggy says, these relationships are definitely not guaranteed to work. I inherited three step-brothers in my teens, but there's not that much of a bond there, even though I liked one of my step brothers a lot, but he's got his own family in Australia and my family, such as it is avoids all unpleasantness by simply keeping very much OUT of touch.

I should explain my admiration of you Suz. Firstly, you are obviously an extremely smart person, and intelligence is always something I have respect for. Your capacity for processing information simply astounds me, and the fact that you struggle with a debilitating migraine condition—something I know about all too well, and which leaves me unable to perform in any normal way—and still manage to function so highly with a demanding freelance career (another thing I know about well) and an active reading life really impresses me. I guess it's safe to say that since I've been 'officially' disabled for quite a few years now, I'm always intimidated by people who manage to carry on full steam, period, but all the more so when saddled with ailments which would normally slow down any other normal person on top of it all. Am I making sense? My brain is very muddled today, more than ever, so hope I'm forgiven for going round in circles.

I left you some comments on my thread about your selections which I was very pleased about. I don't know why I didn't ask you to participate last year too, since I really wanted to. Silliness. I'm known to be very silly, in case you haven't figured it out! ;-)

Thanks, Ilana, but really, I'm just as silly and no more worthy of respect/admiration than 99% of other people lurking around here. (Well, there's always that 1%, right... *grin*) But I appreciate the compliment, and will nip over to see which of the books you're most likely to pick!

I've just spend the last 90 minutes or so pulling together the skeleton structure of a thread over on the 2014 group for anyone interested in reading thematically about WW1 next year. If you want to join in, please drop by. No formal sign ups required, of course, but I'd love to have suggestions for more books to add to the reading lists. In particular, I'm short of books from beyond the Western Front, including Gallipoli, and from the POV of the Central Powers.

Here's the linK: http://www.librarything.com/topic/163004

Meanwhile, a rather dismal book to add to the list:

434. Churchill's Angels by Ruby Jackson was an Amazon Vine choice that lends entirely new meaning to the word "banal". God help us all, but it seems to be the first of a series of four novels, each of which will revolve around a separate member of a group of four young women doing different things in WW2 -- this one is about Daisy, who's good with machines and wants to fly. Frankly, if you like Amish romances, this would be a good choice for you. Everybody is courageous and good and simply lovely in their distinct ways (the handful of unpleasant people rapidly disappear from the pages) and the Heroine Triumphs Over All. It's the kind of book where someone can say, in all seriousness, in response to a comment from someone else sheltering from a bombing raid that she can't do anything to stop the bombs, "our soldiers and airmen are doing it for us", and where characters say things like "pet" and "well, I never did". If ever a book made me want to sneer, this is it. I'll stop sneering, though, as my need for a barf bag is more urgent. 1.8 stars, avoid unless you've got a tolerance for this stuff. Clearly, it's aimed at the crowd that doesn't like bad words or sexual contact beyond a chaste kiss, and makes Elizabeth Wein's YA tales look stellar in comparison.

I'm going to return to the meatier fare of The House of Journalists for compensation. It's edgy and intriguing, whether or not it ends up succeeding...

Here are my reading plans for the rest of the year -- such as it is.

Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard (about 3/4 finished)
The House of Journalists by Tim Finch (about 1/2 finished)
The Frackers by Greg Zuckerman (about 1/3 of the way through)

and either Death of a Nightingale OR The Cairo Affair. I'll see which of 'em proves more engrossing.

ETA: Just realized I also have The Paris Winter here too. Whoops.

Churchill's Angels sounds awful - I wouldn't have finished it, but I realize it might be one of your review copies. Yuck.

It was one of my review books...

Amazon Vine has just decided that it's going to post a newsletter this month after all -- tomorrow. That means I'm now stampeding to get all my work completed and then read everything that needs to be reviewed by tomorrow afternoon, when I thought I had another three weeks or so. Harumph.

UGH -- some weird glitch just caused the reviews I just wrote to vanish and this to "page back". So these will be more perfunctory.

435. Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard is the second of the Cazalet chronicles, covering the two years from late 1939 up until Pearl Harbor. It's interesting, mostly because Howard makes her myriad characters all come alive individually. It's what I'd call a domestic tale of the impact of war on a range of family members. 4 stars.

436. House of Journalists by Tim Finch is a book you should at least consider reading if (a) you're comfortable with non-traditional narrative styles, structures and voices and (b) interested in themes of exile and free speech. I'm going to cut & paste my Amazon review instead of rewriting something: 4.5 stars.

"It's a mind-bending little doll's house." That's how the mysterious narrator (is it an omniscient voice? that of a single individual watching events from offstage, or from within the walls of the House of Journalists itself, or that of a collective, a first person plural?) describes the House of Journalists at the conclusion of this novel. And he's right.

On the surface, it's all straightforward. The House is a place of refuge for elite refugees and exiles, writers and photographers, creative types all, who have fled persecution in their home countries. It exists to help smooth the way for them as they try to reconstruct their lives as strangers in a strange land. And all it asks in return is their stories -- how they ended up suffering for their convictions, for their claim to freedom and free speech. A simple and straightforward quid pro quo, but one that is all dressed up in fancy dress, given the reluctance of the House of Journalists' supporters and director to admit to any self interest in the midst of such a noble cause, and the wariness of the refugee fellows, whose stories may be all that is left to them and who must barter them for safety.

I found this novel riveting. Yes, stylistically it's difficult at times: the narration is oblique and elliptical, and the narrative structure isn't a plain vanilla one. But what appears to be a rambling assortment of mis-matched narratives soon begins to acquire a structure and a point to it, if you're not deterred by that style or the author's choice to rely on creative narrative techniques. What happens when you flee torture and persecution and find yourself in the kind of luxurious refuge offered by something like the House of Journalists? You are safe and "free" to speak -- but there are certain kinds of voices and narratives that are welcomed and others that aren't. Just as certain activities -- communal ones -- are prized and those who shun those are viewed warily and even with suspicion by the increasingly protective and paranoid Julian, the director of the House.

It's that paranoia that's at the heart of this novel, along with a twinned sense of oppression among the fellows of the House of Journalists. "In this place of fellowship and sharing, secrets are so precious -- and treated with suspicion," the narrator comments at one point, before noting that one of the fellows sneaks out to purchase a lockable cash box in which he can store some of his writings. Of course, he's free to write, but...

The arrival of the mysterious AA proves to be a catalyst for the emergence of all of these emotions and anxieties, although this happens subtly, indirectly. While the tension certainly climbs, there's no single clear moment at which it is released; no easy solution for any of those whose fate is entwined with the House of Journalists. But the same is true of life itself: it's less dramatic and less readily assembled into a neat and tidy narrative than most novels suggest.

Clearly, based on the reviews written here (Amazon) thus far, this isn't a novel for everyone. Certainly, it's not one that I'd suggest tackling if you have an aversion to anything that isn't a straightforward narrative structure or voice. But if you've got an interest in some of its themes -- questions of refugee and exile; what the recipient of charity owes to his or her benefactors; the ambiguities surrounding resistance (several of the House's fellows may have fallen victim to torture, but they've also been blind to similar abuses by the rivals to their oppressors), to start. For whose benefit does the House of Journalists exist? And above all, what really constitutes an oppressive environment? Can it be benign and non-threatening on a physical level, and yet still stifling and restrictive?

I relished this novel; it was an intriguing glimpse into some questions of that kind that I find fascinating, through the exploration of the collective stories and experiences of a number of those whose lives are connected to the House of Journalists, from its supporters, its political masters, its adminstrators and volunteers, to the motley crowd of fellows who make very odd bedfellows.

My final two books of the year:

437. Be Shot for Sixpence was a re-read of a Michael Gilbert novel just released on Kindle (hurrah!) that I hadn't read for some time. (My paperbacks of his books are literally disintegrating...) Gilbert is a straightforward author of mystery and spy novels, with a fun ability to craft interesting plots around unpredictable 'heroes', like lawyers and accountants. Even his police inspectors end up tripping over big mysteries and conspiracies by exploring small crimes, like the behavior of young kids on their beat, or the deteriorating quality of the cuisine in a small local restaurant, which leads to black market activities, etc. This particular novel, first published in 1956, feels a bit different, as its focus is squarely on espionage and geopolitical stuff, in a remote corner of Hungary and Yugoslavia. Yup, it's very Cold War era-ish, but if you like Eric Ambler's stuff, you really need to give Gilbert a try. He kept writing almost up to his death, with new short stories and a shortish series of mysteries revolving around WW1 (the Luke Pagan mysteries) into the 1990s. This was 3.8 stars.

438. The Frackers by Greg Zuckerman is a fascinating glimpse inside the changes to the US energy industry, a tale told via some of the prime movers in the push toward shale oil and gas, like Chesapeake and EOG Resources. Suddenly, the US is on the verge of energy independence, with tremendous ramifications, and Greg (a former colleague and friend) tells how we got here. I'm not convinced that telling the story through the people is always the best way to do it, and there are some details that I wish were better developed (the application of technology to oil and gas exploration and production; with respect to pricing, the economic tradeoff between oil and gas isn't really explained and the question of when & at what prices new discoveries become economical could be more comprehensive). Annoyingly, the book also is missing an index. I can't help wishing that Zuckerman hadn't saved his contribution re the environmental issues surrounding fracking for an afterward; it would have been better to include them in the main narrative, as the debate/discussion arose. (On the other hand, he takes a very even-handed approach, noting that there are problems with poorly-sealed wells, although the reserves being exploited from fracking are at least 4,000 feet and up to 14,000 feet beneath the surface, while the deepest acquifers are only 1,200 feet down; the same difficulty with the geology that has made it difficult to extract oil and gas and required fracking makes it difficult to see how acquifers could be contaminated.) The bottom line: the jury is out, and we need to be pragmatic, even while we push toward long-term sustainable solutions. (Hey, wind farms are great, but we also need to be able to store the energy they produce far better than can be done today, for instance.) The above are my comments, rather than Greg's. If you're convinced that fracking is Evil, this book won't change your mind and it won't interest you. On the other hand, if you're curious about the science, the business and the people that have changed the energy business so dramatically in the last two decades, this is an excellent survey, and very readable for those without knowledge of either the energy biz or business/finance. I confess I wrote my first stories as a staff reporter about gas pipelines (back in 1988) and have long been fascinated by the industry, which combines science, technology, politics, regulation, innovation & creativity, finance, business, and I was impressed by Greg's ability to convey all the needed info in a smooth and often creative way. Put it this way -- read this and you'll be much better informed about some of the key issues in what is likely to be an ongoing debate, as we fuss and fret about questions like pipeline expansions, LNG imports, deepwater drilling, etc.) 4.5 stars.

My own POV on all this is that the environmental opposition to the energy industry is impracticable. We aren't yet at a point where green technologies are economically competitive (and few of us can afford to take a giant economic hit on our power bills for green reasons -- what would you do if your utility told you that your power costs were going to be much more volatile, and your supply more erratic, because they were only going to use green fuels? If you were legally required to drive a car fueled only by green fuels, even though supplies are inadequate to keep all of us on the road, meaning that prices would soar in response to all that demand?) Nor is this for want of investment capital -- there is a tremendous amount being raised for new ideas, both business capital and R&D. It will happen, but it won't happen overnight to the extent where we can just walk away from fossil fuels and not feel the impact tremendously, and possibly severely. And yet, many are arguing that we should do just this: no pipeline expansions, no new transportation capacity, no fracking, etc. Yes, that means that oil and gas prices will soar and make solar/wind, etc. more affordable on a relative basis. But on an absolute basis, those relative prices could be crippling. I think the jury is out on the environmental fallout of fracking and pipelines, but I also think that we know what those risks are and can plan to contain them to a far greater extent than we can cope with banning fossil fuel transportation and production. Is it safer to import crude oil or drill offshore? (Exxon Valdez; the BP blowout in the Gulf?) To rely on alternatives like coal or nuclear? (blowing tops of Appalachian mountains and wreaking a different and more obvious kind of environmental havoc/Chernobyl & Fukushima)? I want these new shale wells closely monitored, especially for methane and especially when crude reservoirs are closer to acquifers. But the automatic assumptions that correlation is causation trouble me philosophically, as do the impracticable and dogmatic insistence of some crusaders. It's a delicate balancing act.

I'm going to cross post this on my 2014 thread, and then I have to go feed the cats...

OK, as of now, I have shifted the discussion over to my new thread in the 2014 group -- here it is!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/162703#4440161

I had Mr. Churchill's Secretary on audiobook - the woman reading it has a nice touch of Veddy British but the book - while interesting as to period and tone - is tone deaf about the quasi murder mystery that drives the plot.

I give it a six - good melody but you can't dance to it

That's the author who stalked me, along with her fans/friends...

I read Princess Elizabeth's Spy by that author last year and found it too improbable. Wouldn't read any others by this author.