Kerry (avatiakh) reads to 75 and beyond, part 2

image from Peter Gossage's How Maui Defied The Goddess Of Death

Welcome to my second 2019 thread. I'm Kerry and from Auckland, New Zealand. This is my 11th year in the group and I hope to keep up with as many threads as I can.
I read widely and while I own many interesting books I always seem to have a large stack of library books to get through by their due date.

Currently reading:

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

I also participate in the category challenge:

Presenting my 2019 categories -

1) Focus on Scotland
2) Reading Mt tbr
3) Books in translation
4) The Classics
5) Arthurian & Celtic Literature
6) Fantasy & Scifi
7) Thrillers, crime, mystery, spies
8) Short Form - novellas, poetry, short stories
9) Australia & New Zealand Fiction
10) Israeli & Jewish Fiction & Non fiction
11) Nonfiction
12) Vintage children's books
13) Recent Children's books
14) Young Adult & Graphic Novels
15) Family Tree
16) The Extras

Best of 2018:
_______
_______

Books for the Young:
Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais
The Dogs of Winter by Bobbie Pyron
The Traitor and the Thief by Gareth Ward - fantasy YA
The Flying Classroom by Erich Kastner
In the dark spaces by Cally Black - scifi YA
Tilly and the Bookwanderers (Pages & Co.) by Anna James
Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina & Ezekiel Kwaymullina
The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Memoir:
Diary of a bookseller by Shaun Bythell
A table for one: Under the Light of Jerusalem by Aharon Appelfeld

Fiction:
The Lost Pages by Marija Peričić
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

Graphic Books:
The three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth by Ken Krimstein
The Marvels by Brian Selznick

Other top contenders:
Also rans were my rereads of the first two LOTR books and also my read of the Fever Crumb series which are the prequels to Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series. Also the concluding books in Martin Millar's Kalix trilogy and Philip Reeve's Railhead trilogy.

General plans for 2019

1) Read some books from Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart Series
2) Read Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)
3) Read books by family members & or set in regions family are from
4) Scotland - read more Scottish writers

Ongoing Australia / New Zealand Reading challenge

I'm behind on the ANZAC Bingo challenge I set up in 2017 & 2018. Will keep trying to complete my original selection of books.

ANZAC challenge 2017/8 - links back to last year's thread. I'll be setting up a thread for 2019.

ANZAC Bingo 1x25
1: Read a book set around WW1 - Somme Mud by E.P.F. Lynch
2: Read a dystopian novel - The Quiet Earth by Craig Harrison
3: Read a book published between 1950-1979 - Living in the Maniototo by Janet Frame (1979)
4: Read a book about convicts or forced migration - The Second Bridegroom by Rodney Hall
5: Read a book by a dead author - Towards another summer by Janet Frame
6: Read a book from a 'best of' list - The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
7: Read a book with a rural setting - The White Earth by Andrew McGahan
8: Read a book with yellow on the cover - Between Sky and Sea by Herz Bergner
9: Read a book less than 200 pages - The Severed Land by Maurice Gee
10: Read a book set outside Australasia - The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth
11: Read a journal/memoir (can be fiction) - Looking for Darwin by Lloyd Spencer Davis
12: Read a book about colonists/settlers - Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar
13: Read a book with a name in the title - The Legend of Winstone Blackhat by Tanya Moir
14: Read a fantasy novel - The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan
15: Read a book about the goldrush - It's raining in Mango by Thea Astley
16: Read an award winner - Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher
17: Read a book with a murder - Trust No One by Paul Cleave
18: Read a book by a young writer under 35yrs - While we run by Karen Healey
19: Read a book with a school/education setting - Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
20: Read a book published in 2016/17 - Tell the truth, shame the devil by Melina Marchetta
21: Read a book with a # or quantity in the title - Sixty Lights by Gail Jones
22:Read a book about a marriage - Perfect Couple by Derek Hansen
23:Read a young adult book - My sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
24: Read a book by an indigenous writer - Mutuwhenua by Patricia Grace
25: Read a book with an animal/bird on the cover - All the green year by Don Charlwood

Reposting My Reading for June:

I'm continuing on my go slow reading and LT posting, just not sure when it turns around but one can't hurry the reading process, it has to remain an enjoyable pastime.

I have a few library books to get done -

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo by Michael David Lukas - National Jewish Book Award 2018 Fiction
Father & I: a memoir by Carlo Gébler - Gébler is the son of Irish writers Edna O'Brien & Ernest Gébler
A long night in Paris by Dov Alfon - Israeli espionage

also current reads -
Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak - went to hear him talk at the recent writers festival, I'm a fangirl
The faithful spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix - a GN that has lot of handwritten text, making it hard to read
Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds - scifi on audio

and a few other TIOLI entries -
The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France - my Arthurian category challenge read
HHhH by Laurent Binet - long on my tbr
My sister Rosa - Justine Larbalestier - ANZAC challenge read

others out from the library and less likely I'll have time to get to -
The storyteller by Pierre Jarawan - set in Lebanon
Scrublands by Chris Hammer - Aussie crime
The friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins - crime
Death of a nightingale by Lene Kaaberbøl - crime, #3 in series
The unpunished vice by Edmund White - reading memoir
The secret of Vesalius by Jordi Llobregat - gripping new Frankenstein set in 19th century Barcelona

>1 avatiakh: Impressive image. Happy new thread!

Happy new one, Kerry.

I was really affected by reading Story of a Secret State by Jan Karski. I know you read it too and I found most chilling his trip to Berlin and dinner with his pre-war friends.

>7 quondame: Thanks. I love my Peter Gossage picturebooks of Maori myth, he injected such bold colour into his illustration.

Happy New Thread, Kerry!

Happy new thread Kerry.

The style of your topper image reminds me of American Born Chinese - really striking.

Happy New Thread, Kerry!

How are you liking Bridge of Clay? It got mixed reviews here.

I've just started Diary of a Bookseller, and I'm loving it. He's got me laughing out loud.

>8 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. I was really affected by Karski's book. He was interviewed in Lanzmann's documentary, Shoah and that was very moving footage as well.

>10 ronincats: Hi Roni

>11 charl08: Hi Charlotte.

>12 jnwelch: Hi Joe. I read Diary of a Bookseller almost in one sitting, it was very hard to put down, was drawn completely into the life of his shop.

I'm over halfway with Bridge of Clay and I'm enjoying the read though it's not as compelling as fellow Aussie, Trent Dalton's Boy swallows Universe which I recommend. My daughter and I went to hear Zusak speak at our local Writers Festival last month. I wanted to know why it took him so long to write his book (about 12-13 years) and it sounds like this was a book that he crafted and loved and wanted to get just right for himself. He promises that his next book will be a much faster write, he just had to get this one out of his system.
It's difficult to get into as it's quite disjointed to begin with, I'm well past that now. One question from the public at the event was a bit of a spoiler, and so I'm reading it knowing what is going to happen to one of the characters unfortunately. The plot, set around the five Dunbar brothers, reminds me a little of his YA trilogy about the Wolfe boys, three books that I really loved a lot.

Happy new thread, Kerry!

How did you like HHhH?

Hi Anita, I enjoyed it, have been waiting to set up my new thread before posting about it.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Kerry!

Thanks, Kerry. Yeah, I've read that some readers have struggled with the organization of Bridge of Clay. Interesting to hear that he wanted to get it just right. Sorry to hear someone asked a spoiler question. Arggh.

I've read his I Am the Messenger (which I don't remember as being a Wolfe book), and Fighting Ruben Wolfe and Getting the Girl. Which one is the third?

76) HHhH by Laurent Binet (2013 Eng) (2010 French)
historical fiction

Winner of Prix Goncourt 2010 and a nominee of several other awards, Binet's novel is an unforgettable telling of the assassination of Heydrich, the 'Butcher of Prague.' HHhH: "Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich", or "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich."
The book traverses the rise of Hitler and his henchmen, with multiple injections of authorial comment that adds a lighter tone at times to the hideous factual content on Nazi actions. This is never going to be a pleasant read, but is a necessary one and being a fictional account by no means lessens the barbaric killing spree that the Nazis undertook under the leadership of Hitler and his upper echelon of officers.

Looking forward to reading his The Seventh Function of Language.

77) Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak (2018)
fiction

Well, The Book Thief came out in 2005 and then we all heard that Zusak was working on his next novel and the title has been around a good ten years or so. I shelved my intention to read it back in February, 2011.
Zusak says he just had to take the time for this one as it was so close to his heart.

This is a novel about the Dunbar family, 5 boys and their parents. Clay is the fourth born son, and most of the novel is about him, narrated by the oldest brother. The start is quite disjointed and I will be reading the prologue again as I now can understand it a little better. The book is organised by alternate chapters following different timelines, one more in the present and the other tells the back story of the parent's and then the boys' early lives.

Last month I went to hear Zusak talk about his book, a really rewarding session as he is quite a sensitive guy and his talking about the book made me very keen to finally read it, I'd got stuck in the beginning, finding those disjointed early chapters hard to get through while I was in a reading funk.
Unfortunately an audience question right near the end of the session was a spoiler, though Zusak to his credit tried to play it down. So I read the book knowing something that I'd rather not have known.

This is beautifully written, very Australian, it's set in Sydney in the 1970s, so there's a nostalgia for an earlier era, for buildings and lifestyles no longer around. Can't wait to see his next novel, he's promised to not make us wait so long.

>16 drneutron: >17 kidzdoc: Hi Jim, Hi Darryl

>18 jnwelch: Hi Joe. The other book in the trilogy was The underdog. I noticed recently that you can buy a new omnibus edition of the trilogy, Underdogs. This trilogy was what made me a fangirl.

Nice review of HHhH, Kerry. I'll eventually get to this book, but I'm not sure when.

>22 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl. Yes, well worth picking up.

78) Brothers like friends by Klaus Kordon (1978 German) (1992 English)
children's fiction

Set in 1950 Berlin, this autobiographical novel is quite sad. Half-brothers, seven year old Frank and 14 yr old Burkie are united in their dislike for their new stepfather. Their mother quickly realises the marriage is a mistake but has no way to back out. When Burkie is injured in a soccer match he tells Frank not to tell his mother how painful it is, a fatal mistake that leaves Frank with an immense feeling of guilt.
I've had this book on my tbr pile for several years.

>24 avatiakh: I loved all Klaus Kordon books I have read. Collected all that were published in Dutch translation.
This one is the first of a trilogy, published together in Dutch (Frank, of hoe je vrienden vindt). I can't find if the other two (Tage wie Jahre and Einer wie Frank) are available in English translation.

Anita - I don't think any more of his books were translated. I got this along with No hero for the Kaiser some years ago and am finally getting round to reading them. I think, maybe, that I was checking out the winners of the Buxtehuder Bulle.

_

These are the library books I've brought home in the past short while, plus two book I purchased yesterday.
July looks like being a busy reading month as I also want to tackle Tom Jones.
Purchases -
Melmouth the wanderer:1820 by Charles Robert Maturin
The Telegram by Philippa Werry - YA, shortlisted for 2019 NZ Book Awards - set during WWI

Library
Too loud a solitude by Bohumil Hrabal - novella
Reunion by Fred Uhlman - novella
The Opawa Affair by Edmund Bohan - Inspector O'Rourke crime series
The beggar king and the secret of happiness by Joel Ben Izzy - memoir
Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo - French fiction
Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen - children
Slow Horses by Mick Herron - espionage
The little girl on the ice floe by Adélaïde Bon - French memoir
The poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo - YA

Valerian: the complete collection #1 by Pierre Christin - French graphic novel - just watched Luc Besson's film so had to seek out the source material
When I arrived at the castle by Emily Carroll - graphic novel

cookbooks:
Bethlehem: beautiful resistance recipes by Dr Abdelfattah Abusrour & Manel Odeh
Saffron in the souks by John Gregory-Smith - Lebanese cuisine
Tel Aviv: food, people, stories by Neni
Lands of the Curry Leaf by Peter Kuruvia - mostly Sri Lankan cuisine

lastly
Purakau: Maori myths retold by Maori writers edited by Witi Ihimaera & Whiti Hereaka

Great stack! The recipe books in particular caught my eye. Are there lots of beautiful photos of the region?

Nice! I look forward to your comments about The Poet X, Kerry.

Me, too, Kerry. I loved The Poet X.

>28 charl08: Hi Charlotte - Lands of the Curry Leaf only seems to have photos for the recipes, lots of street food (all vegetarian) that looks really yum.

Saffron in the Souks has a few scenic shots but overall the book doesn't excite like others can. The writer seems to have a good lifestyle, travelling and churning out cookbooks.

Tel Aviv: food, people, stories is more interesting, good photos, a variety of people but again not many location shots. The recipes look like a cross section of gourmet and street food. I probably wouldn't cook from this but will read about all the people, restaurants, kiosks. My husband is from Tel Aviv, so we know locations etc and have watched a lot of Israeli cooking shows this past year.

Bethlehem: beautiful resistance recipes has some fairly amateur photos of local vege/fruit stalls, people. The recipes are a mix of local and typical Levantine fare. I visited Bethlehem years ago before the Oslo Accords when it had a majority Christian population and thought the book might show some scenes of Bethlehem, but no, it is just another ethnic cookbook. I asked my library to purchase this a few weeks ago when I saw mention of it somewhere online, proceeds go to a Culture & Art society in one of the refugee camps.

Overall, I'd want to cook from the Curry Leaf book.

>29 kidzdoc: >30 jnwelch: I've had it out from the library before and never managed to get started. I saw in a bookstore yesterday that she has another book out, With the Fire on High.

79) Call me Evie by JP Pomare (2019)
crime
A debut psychological thriller by Joshua Pomare, a New Zealander based in Melbourne. This has had lots of hype and just about lives up to it. My problem with these types of reads where all the characters are unlikeable is that the main character has to hold your interest and in this one, not really.
17 year old Kate/Evie is a hostage in rural NZ beach township, Maketu. She's being held there against her will, having been taken from Melbourne, Australia after an incident that she doesn't remember clearly. The book alternates between 'before' and 'after', and comes with a few good twists. Overall a good rather than great read, and I'd like to try whatever Pomare writes next. His descriptions of Maketu and its residents are done well.

When i arrived at the castle by Emily Carroll (2019)
graphic novel
I was looking forward to this as I loved her Through the woods. This wasn't as interesting, was much shorter and had more horror and less story for me. Some of the artwork such as the doublepage spread below was inspired, the two protagonists were mysterious but I just didn't 'get' any of it.

Saffron from the Souks: Vibrant recipes from the heart of Lebanon by John Gregory-Smith (2019)
cookbook

Gregory-Smith travelled all over Lebanon and also worked for a while in a Beirut restaurant. He has put together an interesting collection of recipes here. It's sometimes preferable to get a Westerner's take on an ethnic cuisine, in that the recipes are adapted and tested with ingredients that are generally more available at home. Kricket: An Indian-inspired cookbook is another like this. The photography is ok, each section showcases a view from Lebanon's rural interior.
I picked out a few recipes to try - Coriander, Garlic and Chilli Potato wedges - I already do very similar wedges, but this uses allspice, garlic, chilli and fresh coriander, I usually go for paprika, black pepper, garlic & parsley.
Druze Saffron Mansaf - lamb simmered in yoghurt & more - looks tasty
Rock Star roasted cauliflower - I already have a number of similar recipes to try, but this one is worth a look.

Gregory-Smith has lots of recipes on his website and here is the recipe for his Rosewater & Pistachicio Cheesecake from the book.

Nice review of Saffron from the Souks, Kerry. You've reminded me that I need to go back to one of the cookbooks I bought recently, Rose Water and Orange Blossoms: Fresh & Classic Recipes from my Lebanese Kitchen by Maureen Abood. I adore Lebanese food, and I liked the one or two I've tried of hers, so I'll make some of her other recipes soon.

>34 avatiakh: Hani would love that one, Kerry. I'll look out for it as a present for both of us - her to read, myself to feast!

I wish you a good start into July with a wave of a popcorn

>31 avatiakh: All sound intriguing Kerry. I'm not great with onion so struggle with food from the region (despite loving the flavours).

>35 kidzdoc: I have several Lebanese cookbooks and don't use them often enough, just keep doing my favourite recipes over and over. I'll have to get Abood's book out from the library for a look.

>36 PaulCranswick: Paul, I don't think the book is special enough for Hani, allow me to suggest:

Feast: food of the Islamic World (2018 edition) by Anissa Helou who is a Lebanese-Syrian Londoner.
The Lebanese Cookbook by Salma Hage - a Lebanese Londoner
Saha: A Chef's Journey Through Lebanon and Syria by Greg Malouf - Australian Lebanese
Man'oushe: Inside the Lebanese Street Corner Bakery by Barbara Massaad (Lebanese) - has beautiful photographs and well worth looking through, here's an overview of her latest book, Mouneh.

>37 paulstalder: Hi paul

>38 charl08: Oh dear, onion is in almost everything.

80) The Polish Detective by Hania Allen (2018)
crime
Dania Gorska #1. Promising first in a series. Set in Dundee, Scotland where Dania has transferred to from London after the break up of her marriage. Her twin brother Marek, a journalist, is based there. Dania could have been a talented concert pianist but she is a rising DS in the police force. This plot is about a series of murders that are linked to a local neo-Druid movement.
Like her detective, the author is the daughter of Polish refugees and so Dania's Polish roots become part of the storyline, introducing the local history of the Poles living in Dundee during WWII. The story is set around the Brexit referendum and the future prospects of East Europeans living in the UK, Scotland especially.
Book 2 came out a few months ago and I'll be giving that a go sometime soon.

I read this and My sister, Rosa for a GoodReads Jun/Jul bookpool challenge that I like to do. I'm now reading White Earth and hope to read Elizabeth Taylor's Angel for same challenge this month.

Happy New Thread, Kerry! I have not been by in ages. I hope you are doing well. A friend just finished Bridge of Clay and loved it. Glad to hear you felt the same. I will have to get to it.

Hi Mark - Have to say that Bridge of Clay is one that is hard to get into at first.

Bethlehem: beautiful resistance recipes by Dr Abdelfatteh Abusrour & Manal Odeh (2017)
cookbook

From the title it can be seen that this book wants to be a little political. Abusrour founded an arts cultural centre in the Aida refugee camp and proceeds from the book go to the centre. His timeline of Bethlehem's history starts only in 636 AD with the Battle of Yarmouk.
There are some editing problems - a couple of pages use a much smaller font in order to squeeze in two rather than one recipe perhaps. A photo of spiced flatbread opposite a recipe for rolls. No captions on the photos which is unhelpful especially when there is a collage of photos of different local herbs.
The recipes are local and many from all over the Levant which shows the influence of the Ottoman rule and also the migration of Arab population into the region during the British Mandate for work opportunities. I liked that they explained the local cheeses as my local Middle Eastern grocery has most of them and now I know which one to use in knafeh. There's a hardened yoghurt cheese from Jordan, Jameed, that is used in mansaf, Jordan's national dish.
Unfortunately the recipe for falafel uses cooked chickpeas, I've never come across a recipe like that before. I know that making falafel from cooked chickpeas is near impossible because when I first tried making my own falafel many years ago, I misread the recipe, cooked the chickpeas after soaking and ended up with an oily crumbled mess. I searched online and every recipe I came across uses soaked chickpeas for falafel.

One aspect I like in cookbooks and is used in this one is that the recipes use the Arabic name and also a general descriptive name in English as well, so you can look online for similar recipes.
I managed to find several that I might try making -
Sumac Chicken Onion Flatbread (Musakhan) - https://www.thedeliciouscrescent.com/sumac-caramelized-onion-mini-musakhan/
Shish Barak - https://food52.com/recipes/66975-shish-barak-lebanese-lamb-dumplings-in-yogurt-s...
Lebanese zucchini fritters (ejjeh koussa) - https://www.sbs.com.au/food/recipes/lebanese-zucchini-fritters-ejjeh-koussa
Helba (Semolina + Fenugreek Cake - http://www.katherinemartinelli.com/blog/2013/helba-semolina-fenugreek-cake-and-a...
Kufta Kebab - https://www.myjewishlearning.com/recipe/kufta-kebab/

I asked my library to purchase this cookbook and so at least the cultural centre will end up with a small donation. One of the links above is to Katherine Martinelli's website, she went to a cooking workshop with the Noor Women Empowerment Group in Aida camp. They offer workshops to support families who have children with disabilities. https://noorweg.wordpress.com/support-us/the-project/

From the Bethlehem cookbook, I looked for a similar recipe for lentil soup and found this one by Sami Tamimi from Ottolinghi on instagram, I added a dob of creamy labneh to each bowl -
sami_tamimi

Shorbat Adas (Split lentil soup) شوربة عدس. It's so easy to make, delicious and nutritious and it always reminds me of home in Jerusalem. Fry one chopped onion in 2 tbls of olive oil until translucent, add one cup of split red lentils, 6-8 cups of chicken/veg stock or water. Add 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ground black pepper. Bring to a boil and cook on a low heat for 20-25 minutes or until the lentils are soft and mushy. Season with salt to taste. Garnish with fried onion or shallots, chilli flakes and chopped coriander or parsley. I like to serve the soup with radish, spring onion, beard and lemon on the side.

81) Death of a nightingale by Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis (2013 Eng) (2011 Danish)
crime

Nina Borg Series #3 of 4. Decided to finish this series this year. Now only one to go. Nina is a Red Cross nurse at a crisis center in Copenhagen. The plot surrounds two stories which blend towards the end. In one there is a Ukranian woman escaped from prison and trying to get her daughter from the crisis centre, in the other a story from 1930s Ukraine about two young sisters. Not as compelling as it could have been, the first two books were excellent.

I read Kaaberbøl's fantasy YA books and loved them before sampling these.

82) The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall (1959)
children

A quick fantasy read that I took my time over. I was never invested in the story and only read it because it was a Newbery honor book. The Minnipins are a people who have forgotten their own history, but the past hasn't forgotten about them. There's a sequel, The Whisper of Glocken.

>45 avatiakh: I'd not read the first two, so perhaps I should go back and read them now? Thought the plot was good, just felt a bit long.

>39 avatiakh: >36 PaulCranswick: >38 charl08:

Another great one is LEBANESE MOUNTAIN COOKERY by Mary Laird Hamady!

It's a lovely David Godine hardcover book, around $20 on abe and is now available for $16.16 in paper from B&N.

>47 charl08: Charlotte - I was probably done in by all the snow in this one, but I do think the first two books are more exciting. Kaaberbøl is a writer, Friis is a journalist and together they work to portray strong women characters and expose the exploitation of women with this series. I'll read the last book later this year.

>48 m.belljackson: That looks like a good one. My first cookbook on the Middle East was Penguin's Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden and then I added Tess Mallos's The Complete Middle East Cookbook as a friend had that one and used it constantly. Both books have had colourful new editions in recent years. Roden is an Egyptian Jew and Mallos is Australian Greek.
Roden's book was so informative with all the background and history as well as recipes and Mallos does excellent recipes that work. Now I have a huge cookbook collection but tend to use my Pinterest collection of recipes.

83) Toffee by Sarah Crossan (2019)
YA

Another verse novel from Crossan. This didn't tug my heartstrings as much as her previous books. It's a good story for all that, a runaway teen finds sanctuary in the home of an elderly woman, Marla, who suffers from dementia. Marla thinks that Allison is a friend from the long ago past called Toffee.
I'm reading through Crossan's older books and have requested her Apple and Rain from the library.

Lands of the curry leaf: a vegetarian journey from Sri Lanka to Nepal by Peter Kuruvita (2018)
cookbook

If I didn't already own so many cookbooks, this one would be top of my list to buy. It's jam packed with simple delicious recipes, too many to mention but a few. There's lots of information on the various Asian ingredients and talk of his travels and restaurants he visits. Kuruvita was born in London to a Sri Lankan father and Austrian mother. In 1968 when he was 4 years old the family bought a van and journeyed overland from Engand to Sri Lanka. His mother kept a diary of the trip about all the hospitality and food they experienced along the way, a diary that Kuruvita treasures. He now has a restaurant in Noosa Heads in Queensland, Australia and is also a travelling chef tv personality.
The cookbook showcases vegetarian dishes from Sri Lanka, India, Bhutan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There's at least 20 recipes I'd love to try making, but have to give the book back to the library and join the queue for it again.

I did make Boolawnee, Afghani leek pastries, a simple filling with mild seasoning and very tasty. This was from the street food chapter. There's a recipe for Boolawnee here, the difference being that Kuruvita's recipe calls for the oil to be infused with garlic, a quick easy process.

I want to try his Spinach Rice and also the Bhutanese red rice, goji berry & hazelnut salad.

>51 avatiakh: This sounds amazing. Will try and see if the library can find me a copy. How lovely to have a diary like that from your parents.

Lands of the Curry Leaf won't be published in the US until early October, but I'll look for it then.

>53 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl - there are so many great cookbooks available. I generally get the books out from the library or search online to see their recipes. When the good cookbooks first come out there is usually a news item somewhere online that has sample recipes.
My latest library cookbook is Ethiopia: recipes and traditions from the Horn of Africa, just want to explore this cuisine. I've had Ethiopian food a few times and would like to know a little more about it.

84) Planetfall by Emma Newman (2015)
scifi

This was very good and I'm glad I waited so long to read it as there are now three more books in the series already waiting for me to grab. The story has an unreliable narrator in Ren, who was in the first exploratory team to make Planetfall twenty odd years earlier. They came here at the direction of their spiritual leader, Suh-Mi, who vowed that this planet held the answers they were seeking. They established their now thriving colony beside God's City, but there are secrets held by very few of the inhabitants, Ren is one of them.

85) Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds (2018)
scifi

Prefect Dreyfus #2. Set earlier in time but also in the world of Revelation Space. Dreyfus is a Prefect for Panolpy, a police investigation force responsible for the Glitter Band - 'the realm of thousands of orbital habitats surrounding the planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system, and the height of human civilization at the time' in the 25th century. In this book Dreyfus is investigating a string of strange deaths occurring across the Glitter Band. Entertaining scifi with lots of interesting technology and ideas including the character Prefect Sparver, a hyperpig.

Now my reading is being dictated by the due dates of library books that I can't renew, so The Beggar King and the secret of happiness and Pūrākau: Māori Myths Retold are my focus.

>56 avatiakh: I think I need to read about a hyperpig!

>58 quondame: Yep, he's in book #1 as well. He's more intellectual than the hyperpigs in the Revelation Space series, you forget that he's not human most of the time. There's a wiki on Revelation Space with an entry on pigs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Revelation_Space_races#Pigs

>39 avatiakh: I have passed them on to Hani, Kerry.

Trust you had a great weekend.

Just made some divine courgette & feta fritters using a recipe from Nopi by Ottolenghi, the lime and cardamom soured cream was pretty darn good as well.
https://www.stylist.co.uk/life/recipes/recipes-nopi-yotam-ottolenghi-scully-cook...

>31 avatiakh: Hi, Kerry. With the Fire on High is almost as good as The Poet X, or maybe even as good. I think you'd love it.

86) The Beggar King and the secret of happiness by Joel ben Izzy (2003)
memoir

I loved reading this. Izzy is a professional storyteller and just as he's at his happiest, settled in a comfortable home, family, wife and two young children he finds out that he has cancer in his throat. An operation removes not only the cancer but also his ability to speak.
The book is more than that short part of Izzy's life and he prefaces each chapter with a short folktale from around the world. The prologue and epilogue tell the story of Solomon, the Beggar King, a story well worth seeking out. As Izzy is Jewish several stories or jokes he tells within the chapters are about the people of Chelm.
At the end of the book is an 'about the stories' showing where Izzy first came across the tales and where they are most commonly found. Not every story can be found in a book, some were just told to him on his travels.

His website: https://www.storypage.com/

>62 jnwelch: Hoping to read The poet X later this week.

87) Reunion by Fred Uhlman (1971)
novella

I read the 2016 edition by Vintage Classics which comes with an afterword by Rachel Seiffert. A great read about a friendship between two friendless youths - one a Jew and the other a German aristocrat. One where you can't help who your parents are, the friendship is brief but intense, but soon Hans must leave for America, a safe haven away from the rise of Hitler.

I look forward to your thoughts about the Ethiopian cookbook, as I love that cuisine as well.

Ooh, those courgette fritters sound amazing! I'll go to the supermarket after breakfast, and I'll pick up ingredients to make this while I'm there. I copied that link and posted it to my Facebook timeline just now, so that I could find that recipe more easily.

>66 kidzdoc: I hope you enjoy them. I looked at a few courgette fritter recipes before going for this one. I'll try it again with haloumi cheese.
We're in a mini dumpling rave at present. Easy and delicious, I've made both meat and vegetarian versions. Here's the recipe I used for Thai prawn dumpling, the green chilli sauce is great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAc70bilRdc
https://www.marionskitchen.com/thai-prawn-dumplings/

88) The Bears' House by Marilyn Sachs (1971)
children

I almost let this go back to the library without reading it, but picked it up last night. This story plucks the heartstrings. Sach's says in her author notes that when she was a child her mother was hospitalised for 12 months and someone gave her a dolls' house and that helped her immensely. She wanted to write a story about her experience and finally came up with her story of Fran Ellen and the Bears' house.
Fran Ellen and her brother and sisters are hiding a secret - their father has left and mother is suffering post natal depression since the birth of baby Flora. They are trying to manage on their own, living on canned food & cereals and dividing the chores. At school Fran Ellen is picked on for being smelly, sucking her thumb, and her erratic behaviour but there is also her teacher's Bears' House and she loves imagining a happy life with Goldilocks and the three bears when she spends time with it.

100 great children's picture books by Martin Salisbury (2015)
nonfiction

I didn't read this cover to cover, just leafed through and read about the artists that caught my eye. The picture books are from around the world and also across the years - a very fine sampling of illustrators.
Salisbury is Professor of Illustration at Cambridge School of Art in Anglia Ruskin University.

From the book description - 'This unashamed visual feast celebrates the best designed and illustrated picturebooks from around the world over the past one hundred years. Each book is a creation of genius and inventiveness, and their design and illustration represent such diverse trends as the Russian Constructivists, Italian Futurists, and Postwar Neo-romantics. They are also mirrors of their times reflecting social concerns from a child's and family's perspectives throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.'

A good overview here: http://www.playingbythebook.net/2015/04/13/100-great-childrens-picture-books-by-...

89) Estranged by Ethan M. Aldridge (2018)
graphic novel

I liked this far more than I thought I would. Set in the world of faerie and involving a changeling, his human Childe down in faerie land, their human sister and a wax golem named Whick. The sequel is due out in October.
_

>67 avatiakh: I picked up ingredients from the supermarket yesterday to make your courgette fritters, including halloumi. I'll make them tomorrow, and let you know how they turn out.

Dumplings!!! I love them! Thanks for posting that recipe; I'd love to learn how to make dumplings at home.

>71 kidzdoc: I have lots of Chinese supermarkets nearby where I get ready made dumpling pastry for pot sticker dumplings and/or wonton pastry. One day I'll make my own.

Lot of dumpling recipes here (scroll right to the bottom for the recipe on each page) - https://rasamalaysia.com/?s=dumplings

There are also lots of online tutorials for how to prepare dumplings:
Adam Laiw's dumpling school - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm6gLR_sRM4ySncpWBF8DCE2MdTBXTsb-
The Dumpling Sisters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkvFssMz24

>72 avatiakh: Fabulous! Thanks, Kerry!

90) Scrublands by Chris Hammer (2018)
crime

A really entertaining read set in the Australian outback. Lots of twists and turns, you don't know who is hiding the truth and why until right to the end.
A journalist is sent to an isolated rural town, his job is to write a human interest story for one of the big Australian papers on the residents twelve months on from the horrific incident when the local priest gunned down five people just before the start of a Sunday service. What Martyn finds is that the accepted story behind the shooting is not the real story and finding out the truth is a chaotic and dangerous game.

>74 avatiakh: Given Jane Harper's success Anzac crime may be the new Scandi!

Have a lovely weekend, Kerry.

>75 PaulCranswick: It was a good read, had a few flaws but if I'm enjoying the ride I can forgive a few details. I'm now reading The Opawa Affair which is a bit slow going, historical crime fiction set in Christchurch.

91) Good Boy by Mal Peet (2019)
YA

This is for reluctant YA readers, in that it is an illustrated short story with limited vocabulary. For all that it is a fine read, atmospheric and tense.
A girl is plagued by dreams of being stalked by a large black dog, very realistic and she constantly wakes screaming. The mother gets a puppy for her and Robbie sleeps under her bed and keeps the nightmares at bay. Eventually the girl grows up becomes a policewoman, Robbie dies and immediately the dreams come back. The climax is really gripping.

92) The Opawa Affair by Edward Bohan (1996)
crime

Inspector O'Rorke series #1. Set in Christchurch during the 1879 elections. O'Rourke investigates a possible murder of a maid amidst the election campaign and the arrival of a small opera company that is performing on a nightly basis. Interesting reading if not riveting and I'll continue with the series of six books.
Bohan is known for his historical biographies and also had a long career as an opera singer.

93) The cat who came in off the roof by Annie M. Schmidt (1970 Dutch) (2015 English)
children

A delightful read about a cat that has been turned into a young woman. She helps Mr Tibbles, a timid news reporter, write his more newsworthy articles as she's able to tap into the town's cat network for gossip. Miss Minou still retains much of her feline tendencies, so is especially fond of fish, purrs when happy and likes nothing more than to curl up in a cardboard box to sleep. Everything to love in a great cat friendly book here.

I read the recent Pushkin edition but I think this has been translated to English back in the 1990s. Definitely will look for more of her books.

Hi Kerry! Just finding your thread again. And no, thank you, I do not need any more cookbooks.

Or at least not until I can find another bookshelf to fit them on. And maybe I should use them more often, too.

>80 humouress: Yes, I own too many but still use the internet too often to find a recipe.


The Dumpling Sisters' Cookbook: Over 100 Favourite Recipes From A Chinese Family Kitchen by Amy and Julie Zhang (2015)
cookbook

I've seen this cookbook around for a long while and assumed it was a dumpling cookbook but these sisters are bloggers, youtubers and this is about cooking their Chinese food. The Zhang sisters are from Christchurch, New Zealand and are now based in London following academic study at Cambridge & Oxford universities (one has a chemistry PhD the other a Masters in criminology & psychology). They grew up helping in their family food kiosk at a local weekend food market and once together again in London decided to blog cooking their favourite recipes.
The recipes are mostly Chinese staples, but explained well and with interesting short intros to each recipe. There's an ingredient list at the back of the book which lists the name in English, Chinese and Chinese phonetic name - very handy when you are in a Chinese grocery to have access to all three of these as some labels aren't too helpful. The ingredients are also photographed so you know what type of packaging to look for. A really good cookbook for beginners to chinese cooking.

Lots of interesting recipes - I made their Black Bean and Chilli Beef and enjoyed it. It was done a little differently, the meat is marinated then grilled rather than cooked in a wok. I also made their Sesame Prawn Toasts from a recipe & video tutorial I found on the internet, I didn't try this but husband lined up for more both times I made them.
http://dumplingsisters.com/recipes/sesame-prawn-toast
Their dumpling tutorial - The Dumpling Sisters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkvFssMz24

I'll definitely be using their website and I love their videos, they are very efficient in covering details but also allow themselves a large dose of smiles and humour.

Hi Kerry, sorry to be AWOL from your thread for so long. I somehow didn't follow the continuation from your last thread. Lots of great reviews, as always. I'm curious about HHhH. I couldn't tell from your review (>19 avatiakh:) whether you liked it or not. Despite the grim topic, I enjoyed the book and found the author's introspection into his own writing process to be quite interesting.

>82 labfs39: Hi Lisa, yes I enjoyed HHhH and agree it was interesting to read the authorial to and fro. I looked up what else he'd published as I'd like to read another of his books.

94) Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds (2019)
scifi, novella

A short novel from Reynolds that explores the concept of time travel. It's 2058 and up in the Russian northern expanse of ice and snow is Permafrost, a facility to develop time travel. The world has collapsed and gone to ruin, an attempt has to be made to take seeds from a facility in 2028, and stash them in a safe place so they can be found in the present. Myriad obstacles present themselves. The time travelllers must take over host bodies rather than physically travel to the past.

Enjoyable though takes some time to set the scene. The last third of the book is all action.

Thin slices of anxiety: Observations and Advice to Ease a Worried Mind by Catherine Lepage (2016)
illustrated nonfiction

I thought this was a graphic novel but it is more a book where the artwork tries to portray emotion.
Reasonable for what it is but I'm not sure who the target audience would be.
Quote from Brainpickings: 'Laced with the meta-stressors familiar to anyone afflicted with anxiety — shame for being gripped by anxiety in the first place, self-blame for putting oneself in situations known to trigger it, exasperation upon realizing that its predictable trajectory of anguish is underway yet being unable to stop it — the book radiates a wistful yet warm assurance that these overwhelming emotional states, as all-consuming and singular as they seem, mark our membership in a larger fellowship of tribulation in which we are never as alone as we may feel.'

Tel Aviv: food, people, stories: a culinary journey with NENI by Haya Molcho (2018)
cookbook

This is more than a cookbook, it is also a journey to meet several of Tel Aviv's culinary heroes, both from the most popular restaurants to ethnic bakeries to street food vendors. The writers are from the Molcho family, a Vienna based Israeli family who run a bunch of restaurants. The mother and four sons came to Tel Aviv for two weeks to make this book project.
It is interesting to read the stories of some of the chefs, lots of human interest, the photographs are mainly of people and food dishes, much less of the interiors of the food places or of the street scenes. In some ways I think the book is suited for someone who wants to know where to eat on a trip to Tel Aviv.
There are many recipes through the book, some are by the people interviewed and some by the authors themselves. I'd felt they didn't explain the inclusion of many of the dishes, just needed some more details to tie everything together a little better.
I've eaten at HaKosem, the popular falafel restaurant they include and also been to similar places in the neighbourhoods they profile. I'll probably mention a couple to my daughter who will be there in September for a few days. Some of the recipes look interesting, I like comparing ethnic recipes and will be trying their green shakshuka as I still haven't found a recipe that I like.

Three recipes from the book here - https://glamadelaide.com.au/cookbook-extract-tel-aviv-food-people-stories-by-hay...

An article about the Molcha family - https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/249229/waltzing-with-hummus

'Founder of go-to restaurant NENI in Vienna, Haya penned Tel Aviv after spending two weeks living in the rhythm of the city with her sons – Nuriel, Elior, Nadiv and Ilan, after whom her restaurant is named. The NENI chain has now spread its wings to Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Zurich, Amsterdam, Mallorca and Paris, as well as a cooking school and product lines.'

95) Survivors of the Holocaust by Zane Whittingham and Ryan Jones (2016)
children, graphic novel

This tells the stories of six children caught up in the Holocaust, the stories are sad but delivered in an acceptable language for younger readers. The illustration style is quite stunning and based on wartime propaganda posters of the time. All the children seemed to have ended up in Britain, though only one came on the kindertransport.
There is a glossary, timeline and list of websites at the back of the book. Would be a great addition to a school library.

'Our novel tells six remarkable stories of survival and courage from eyewitnesses of Nazi atrocities during World War Two, told in the authentic words of genuine Holocaust Survivors.

Ruth – Escape from East Germany thanks to brave and resilient parents.

Martin – Poland, the Kindertransport and the Coventry Blitz.

Trude – Occupied Bratislava, evacuation to Britain and the search for her parents.

Heinz – The Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht and internment in the UK as an Enemy Alien.

Arek – Squalour and survival at Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp.

Suzanne – Isolation, loneliness and neglect as a hidden child in occupied France.

The book is based on original artwork from the Children of the Holocaust animations by Fettle Director Zane Whittingham, and the individual frames of the animation were styled into comic book format by Fettle Animator Ryan Jones with the help of Hachette designer Peter Scoulding.'
The trailer for the animations is here: https://vimeo.com/89223502

_

>79 avatiakh: Annie M.G. Schmidt was the grand dame of Dutch childrens books and well known for writing the texts of funny musicals, both on TV as on stage.
She made also lots of funny, obstinate and rebellious childrens rhymes.

Hi Anita - I read about Annie Schmidt and wanted to read more of her books. My library has a book of her poems for younger children so I'll get that and a 2014 film based on one of her novels Wiplala. Nothing else so hopefully Pushkin Press publish more of her work.

96) The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (2018)
YA

Award winning verse novel about teen angst. Xiomara's mother is a devout Catholic and wants her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Xiomara uses poetry to escape and explore her emotions, to say what she can't front up to her mother with. Acevedo is a well known slam poet and this is her debut. I liked it, I always enjoy verse novels though this one didn't draw me in as others have.

Number 94 sounds like my kinda thing!

Hi Jim - Permafrost was pretty good, he considers some of the repercussions of time travel in this quick read. Reynolds usually sets his novels off Earth so if you haven't read him before do give him a go.
A couple of his short stories featured on Netflix's Love, Death & Robots, I liked them both - Zima Blue & Beyond the Aquila Rift.

Another trip to the library. I've frozen most of my other library holds as my library will be closed from next week through to October while they move to a larger location just a few metres away within the mall. The large bookshop shut last year and now the upper floor will house our library.

Evie and the animals by Matt Haig - children's
Rogue by A J Betts - YA scifi, book 2
The Good thieves by Katherine Rundell - children's
I was there by Hans Peter Richter - YA
Shepherd by Catherine Jinks - historical fiction, Australia
Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun by Guillermo del Toro & Cornelia Funke - fantasy
The Blue Rose by Kate Forsyth - historical fiction

97) A Love for the Ages by Daniel Pennac (2015 French) (2017 Eng)
graphic novel

Fun, enjoyable read. The illustrations are by Florence Cestac who gives all her characters big noses. Both Pennac and Cestac are in the book as Pennac tells her the story over lunch, pitching for her to illustrate the book, other customers and the waiter are all drawn in to the story.
An elderly couple, Jean and Germaine Bozignac, live in the small village of Colle sur Loup where Daniel Pennac and his brother holidayed when they were children. Pennac loved spending time with the couple and hearing the stories about their marriage. Jean was disowned by his aristocratic family when he chose Germaine over an arranged marriage with an heiress. Germaine's family were not that happy that Jean brought no skills or money to the marriage, they were dealers in junk and other less salubrious pastimes. Jean had inherited his uncle's book collection, some were sort after first editions and with clever trades he was able to provide a house for his wife.
The illustrations are comic but with great colour and the lettering makes it an easy read on an iPad.




Just noting here that I decided not to read the Valerian comic book as I found after a page or so that the illustration style was not for me. I might pick it up another time.

The Little Girl on the Ice Floe by Adélaïde Bon (2019)
memoir

This is a 'did not finish', mainly because it's due back at the library in a couple of days and I don't have time to finish it but also because it's quite sad. The writing is very good and maybe I'll revisit at a later date.
From the publisher: 'A powerful and personal account of the devastating consequences of childhood rape. Adélaïde Bon grew up in a wealthy neighborhood in Paris, a privileged child with a loving family, lots of friends and seemingly limitless opportunity lying ahead of her. But one sunny afternoon, when she was nine years old, a strange man followed her home and raped her in the stairwell of her building....Throughout her adolescence and young adulthood, Adelaide struggles with the aftermath of the horror of that afternoon in 1990. The lingering trauma pervades all aspects of her life: family, education, friendships, relationships, even her ability to eat normally. And then one day, many years later, when she is married and has a small son, she receives a call from the police saying that they think they have finally caught the man who raped her, a man who has hidden in plain sight for decades, with many other victims ready to testify against him. The subsequent court case reveals Giovanni Costa, the stuff of nightmares and bogeymen, finally vanquished by the weight of dozens and dozens of emotional and horrifying testimonies from all the women whose lives and childhoods he stole.'

>95 avatiakh: Gosh that does sound like a heavy read Kerry. What a terrible thing to escape justice for so long.

>93 avatiakh: Will you not be able to access the library at all until October? Oh no!

>96 charl08: Yes, the book got good reviews for the quality of writing. I liked the first couple of chapters but really didn't feel like focusing on it for the next couple of days. Feel much better now that it's sitting by the front door ready to go back.

My library will be shut for simply ages, but I can get some holds delivered to other libraries a short drive away. I have frozen most holds and will try to read more of my own books for a few weeks at least.


>86 avatiakh: I tried the green shakshuka recipe from Tel Aviv: food, people, stories tonight, it is fairly plain but enjoyable for all that. I didn't get any eggs, only got the green sauce as my three sons all appeared in the kitchen wanting to try. The tomato based shakshuka can be quite spicy so this is a nice change. The photo shows a white cheese but kashkaval is a mild yellow. I'd play around with the recipe as there are so many versions online.

Tel Aviv green shakshuka recipe here- https://www.cuisine.co.nz/recipe/green-shakshuka/

On Sunday we went to a performance at Pop-up Globe theatre. They have put a temporary roof on for a short winter season. We saw Two Gentlemen of Verona and stood as usual as groundlings for $10 (approx 6USD). Both of us commented on how young the cast was and how good the music and singing was too. Got home to find out that several of the cast were still in acting school, and all the cast were from the 15-24 age range as it was the Pop-up Globe's Youth Theatre Company. There were only two performances of the play, I hadn't picked up on that when I purchased the tickets a while back. Anyway it was fun & entertaining, I only took a photo of Crab, the dog who plays a part in the play.
Next Sunday we go again for Twelfth Night.
_
I found the FB page for Pop-up Globe's Youth Theatre Company

>93 avatiakh: Always makes me wince when I see that another bookshop closed. The price of new books in New Zealand is scary as I remember. At least it is salvaged somewhat by having the library take its space.

98) Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds (2018)
graphic novel

I really liked this. Saw it mentioned on twitter and was able to download it to my ipad from the library so started reading it straightaway. Cassandra is basically an unlikeable character that you come to admire or at least feel a little compassion for towards the end. She's modeled on the character of Scrooge from Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Anyway Cassandra is an art dealer, successful but with not many/any friends. Her husband ran off with her stepsister 35 years earlier and since then she's lived on her own, apart from the housekeeper, the cleaner, the gardener. The story revolves around two Christmases, a year apart, a year that sees her fortunes change.

The artwork is very good, and page layouts alternate between standard GN and some with block text.

>99 PaulCranswick: Yes, I've seen many many closures in my time. Lots of used bookshops gone by the wayside and I've noticed lately that the charity shops are restricting the space for books.
Today I was in my favourite used bookshop and overheard the assistant on the phone arranging staff for the next couple of weeks as the owner has been in intensive care after heart surgery. Really hope she recovers ok.
Books in New Zealand are costly, I support NZ writers and will buy their books at full price when I'm feeling the love during the Auckland Writers Festival.

>100 avatiakh: I liked this too - was interesting seeing the shifts and similarities in her work, comparing it to a copy of her early cartoons for the Guardian, which were centred around left-leaning, feminist families and their dilemmas, which I also read fairly recently (the library dug up a copy for me!).

>102 charl08: Hi Charlotte, there's a good chance that I found Cassandra on your thread then as I did a big catch up read on your threads about 10 days ago. I'm so behind here on LT but do skim through the older threads when I have a chance. I don't keep track of who I get recommends from, rely on my memory which doesn't work about 75% of the time.
I pick up on a lot of new books on twitter where I follow lots of writers, readers and publishers etc.

Posy Simmonds is new to me, I've already requested another of her books.

Current reads:
_____

Not getting a lot of reading done this past week but can see the end in sight with Slow Horses and The Zelmenyaners.

99) Slow Horses by Mick Herron (2010)
crime

Jackson Lamb #1. Got off to a slow start but I ended up really enjoying this and will continue reading the series.
Slow Horses is a label given to those who work at Slough House, a place where MI5 employees who've stuffed up in some way in the past are parked. A place where they can be utilised on mundane activities. Several slow horses feel they've been wrongly assigned this deadend posting, others have rightfully earned it. Their boss, Jackson Lamb knows how to play the game.

100) The Zelmenyaners: a family saga by Moyshe Kulbak (Yidddish 1931/1935) (English 2013)
fiction

This was one of the only novels I could find about Jewish life in Minsk. The only other novel I've come across is the psychological thriller,The forest of souls by Carla Banks which is partly set in WW2 Belarus. I believe The Zelmenyaners was initially published in episodic form and then collected into two volumes. It tells the story of the extended Zelmenyaner family who occupy various buildings in a yard in Minsk and how they respond to the 1920s implementation of the Soviet collectivist regime to their traditionally Jewish shetl. Humorous and heartbreaking, absurd and enriching.

From http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Kulbak_Moyshe -
'Despite the dramatic changes in all aspects of Kulbak’s work during his Soviet period, he continued to create antiheroes, and maintained the ability to weave a faint note of humor and irony into his works. Thanks to these virtues, Zelmenyaner is one of the most significant achievements in Soviet Yiddish prose. The narrator concentrates on two generations of an extended Jewish family in Minsk, who face the profound changes brought on by the Soviet regime and its lifestyle. Taking into consideration the accepted conventions of Soviet literary policies, one would expect a sharp divide between the “negative” types of the older generation and the “positive” ones among the young, but thanks to his sense of humor the narrator creates an intricate portrait that leaves no room for simple revolutionary optimism. When publishing the second volume in 1935, Kulbak was obligated to keep in mind the requirements of Soviet criticism, but even then he was able to protect his work from too much one-sidedness.'

My husband's grandmother came from a Jewish family in Minsk, though by 1920 they had mostly dispersed to the USA and British Mandate Palestine.

Reading plans for August:

Group read:
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding - need to demolish 2/3rds of book this month

Finish:
The White Earth by Andrew McGahan - my current ANZAC challenge read
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor - enjoying this
Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson - enjoying this audiobook
On a sunbeam by Tillie Walden - GN
Too loud a solitude by Bohumil Hrabal
Rogue by A.J. Betts - YA dystopian

others, mostly library books on this list:
The Explorer by James Smythe - scifi
Voyage through air by Peter F. Hamilton - children's fantasy 3/3 in series
Good thieves by Katherine Rundell - children's fiction
Arctic Zoo by Robert Muchamore - YA
I was there by Hans Peter Richter
Mapping the bones by Jane Yolen - YA
The Blue Rose by Kate Forsyth - historical fiction
Shepherd by Catherine Jinks - fiction

others:
Tenants & Cobwebs by Samir Naqqash - fiction
The sunflower forest by Torey Hayden - fiction
Block 46 by Johana Gustawsson - crime
Pan's Labyrinth: the labyrinth of the faun by Guilermo del Toro & Cornelia Funke

and more

I also allow myself the freedom to pick a random book from my shelves - sudden interest in a subject or guilt from neglecting my own books, or just to be contrary.

101) Arctic Zoo by Robert Muchamore (2019)
YA

I'm a huge fan of Muchamore's CHERUB series and this new standalone novel sounded intriguing. A few years ago, just when he was becoming an extremely successful writer, Muchamore ended up in a Mental Health Unit after trying to take his own life. He has discussed his bouts of depression in interviews. Anyway he wanted to write a book about teenagers in this setting.
I think he wrote an exciting book that possibly doesn't quite hit the mental health mark but YA fans will still very much enjoy. The narrative follows two teens in completely different stories, who meet briefly in a residential home.
Georgia's story is fairly outlandish, but exciting as only Muchamore can write. Her father is a drone expert and she's a highly skilled drone pilot, winning competitive races for years, though she's outgrown this interest. She gets involved in social activism after the death of her sister.
Julius is part of a political family in Nigeria, his uncle is state governor but it's his mother who is the power behind the position. His life is one of privilege but he starts to understand the corruption that has built his family's fortune.
The story is contemporary with the social activism aspects and the two characters are very sympathetic.

Well done for already passing 100, Kerry.

I also eventually enjoyed Slow Horses

Have a splendid weekend.

102) On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden (2016)
graphic novel

This was a chunky GN, the story was first published as a web comic. I was quite drawn in to the world that Walden created. Set in some future universe, the story revolves around Mia who falls for Grace at school. Grace's past is a little mysterious, she doesn't talk about it. The story is split between Mia's time at boarding school and her first job working as crew on a small spaceship where they go around clearing sites for new construction. I don't think I saw a single male person on any page.
The artwork is delightful, though I had trouble at times to tell some of the characters apart.

_

103) Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (1957)
fiction

I think this was one that Ilana recommended. I really enjoyed this even though the main character, Angel, is quite toxic. It's pre-WW1 and a London publisher receives a manuscript unlike any he's come across before, it will be a bestseller, he can sense that but there needs to be some editing, there's a market for this new and racy type of romance. To his surprise, 15 year old Angel turns up on her own for the first meeting, she refuses to do any editing, the book either comes out as is or not at all. So begins the writing career of Angel Deverill, working class girl, who imagines the lives of lords and ladies, gets it all wrong but sells a heap of books anyway.

104) I was there by Hans Peter Richter (1987)
YA
This is a companion novel to Friedrich which I still haven't read. In this one the narrator and his friends Gunther and Heinz join Hitler Youth in the 1930s. The narrative is sort of episodic, covering the boys' advancement through Hitler Youth to the military and active service. A compelling read.

>110 avatiakh: I liked this one too: fascinating imagined world.

A pond full of ink by Annie Schmidt (1978 Dutch) (2011 Eng)
children's poetry

This 2014 edition has been illustrated by the late Sieb Posthuma using a retro style. The translation was done by Australian David Colmer who has translated many current Dutch writers. I'm always impressed by translations of poems that manage to keep the humor and rhyme of the original. This is a fun collection of poetry that should be in school or library collections.

Belinda Hated Getting Clean...
Belinda Beronda, from somewhere near Flushing,
was not keen on washing and not fond of brushing.
She was an inveterate cleanliness hater,
and always postponed her baths until later.
Her bodily odor grew stronger and stronger,
and her hair and her nails grew longer and longer.
Belinda was filthy, a terrible fright.
She looked like a pig, a horrible sight.
And when her mother finally came home
with soap and shampoo and a brush and a comb,
Belinda just started to yell, howl, and glower,
as if she was going to drawn in the shower.
Her mother - by now at the end of her tether-
gave in and shouted "Stay dirty forever!
But if that's what you want, you just walk out that door,
and I won't be your mother anymore!"
So that filthy little Belinda Beronda
took off up the street and started to wander
the highways and by ways all over the land,
getting grubby and covered with mud, dirt, and sand,
with grimy smudges all over her face.
The more she avoided a bathroom or scrubbery,
the more she began to resemble some shrubbery.
Grass started growing on her shoes and her clothes,
it covered one leg, then slowly rose,
until she was totally, thoroughly hid
and no one could see that she was a kid!
And then the roots grew into the ground,
and fixed her in place like a tree on a mound.
Birds came and build little nests on her sleeves,
and slowly she grew her own branches and leaves.
A nightmare, but true- you can take it from me --
Belinda Beronda turned into a tree.

So now you know, little cleanliness haters
end up as trees....sooner or later.

- Annie M.G. Schmidt

_

>113 charl08: That was a lucky grab off the library shelves. I loved the idea of people living on islands in space rather than planets.

Topp Country: a culinary journey through New Zealand by Lynda & Jools Topp (2018)
cookbook

From wikipedia: The Topp Twins are the folk singing and activist sister comedy duo of New Zealand entertainers Jools and Lynda Topp. They are known for their country music influenced style, live shows and television performances. They often perform as characters, the most notable being the roles Ken & Ken, and Camp Mother & Camp Leader.

I've never been much of a fan of the Topp Twins, they're from the same rural community as me and that's about where it ends. I don't go for their music or their tv shows but they're an extremely well known festival fixture for years with their singing and comedy sketches.
I picked up their cookbook as it was on display at my library, and looking through it was really impressed. The book is a product of their most recent tv foodie show, Topp Country - 'You get to meet the people, all heartlanders, who made the recipes and hear the stories behind them, too. Food made with love and all in full colour. From free-range pig farmers in the deep rural south to urban taco-trucking hipsters. As they travel around New Zealand they discover a land full of top tucker and great yarns.'
It was a really great read, I found that I read about the people with more interest than most of the recipes. I have no desire to watch the show the book is based on as I can't stand the twins' banter, just not for me.

I might try their mum's gingernut biscuit recipe:

The Topp Twins had to beg their mum Jean to share their nana’s famous Gingernut Biscuit recipe for their new cookbook Topp Country: A Culinary Journey.

Prep time 10 minutes, Cook time 20 minutes

INGREDIENTS
125g butter
½ cup golden syrup
½ cup sugar
1½ cups (200g) flour,sifted 3 times
1 tsp ground ginger, sifted 3 times
½ tsp baking soda, sifted 3 times

METHOD
1 Preheat oven to 150°C.
2 Beat butter, golden syrup and sugar together until smooth and creamy. Add dry ingredients and mix well.
3 Take teaspoonfuls of mixture, roll into rounds and space out on a tray. Press flat with a wet finger.
4 Bake for 20 minutes – be careful not to overcook as they burn easily

The Topp Twins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH8TWT1mkjs

Destination Flavour: people and places by Adam Liaw (2018)
cookbook

Liaw won the 2010 Masterchef Australia competition. Since then he's focused on cookbooks, food writing and hosting a tv travel/food show. This book is based on his tv show and while I found a few interesting recipes, I also found the choice of destinations a bit hodge podge in book form. There are sections on New Zealand, Australia, China, Scandinavia, Japan and Singapore. I would recommend one of his more basic cookbooks over this one, maybe Adam Liaw’s Asian Cookery School. I haven't used any of his books but do like watching him prepare food on youtube.
Liaw's website: http://adamliaw.com/

Among the recipes I bookmarked:
Australia: Roast pumpkin with fennel seed, curry leaf and goats cheese - (mainly because I have these ingredients at home right now)


Ingredients
¼ Japanese pumpkin (kabocha squash)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 handful curry leaves
sea salt and black pepper
6–8 shallots, peeled, left whole
goat’s cheese and goat’s curd, to serve
Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Remove the seeds from the pumpkin and chop into large chunks or crescents, leaving the skin on.

Mix the olive oil, fennel seeds, vinegar, honey and curry leaves together. Season with salt and pepper. Toss the pumpkin and shallots through the mixture and transfer to a large roasting tray.

Roast for 45 minutes or until the shallots and pumpkin are well caramelised. Remove from the oven, add the goat’s cheese and return to the oven for a further 5 minutes.
When the goat’s cheese has melted, transfer to a serving tray and dot with small pieces of goat’s curd.

Take a little bit of the oil and curry leaves from the tray and sprinkle over the top like a dressing

China: Xinjiang-style lamb skewers (I often make lamb souvlaki and this looks like a good alternative)


Ingredients
1.5kg lamb forequarter chops or lamb shoulder

3 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp chilli powder (preferably Korean)

2 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, optional

1 tsp salt

1 tsp soy sauce

½ tsp castor sugar

¼ cup vegetable oil

Method
1. Debone the lamb and cut into 2cm chunks, including any fat. Grind the spices together to a coarse powder, mix through the salt, sugar and vegetable oil. With your hands, rub the paste all over the lamb ribs and refrigerate overnight.

2. Thread the lamb and fat chunks on to skewers (if using bamboo, soak in water first). Grill the skewers, turning frequently, for around five minutes until they are charred and fragrant and serve.

>114 avatiakh: So happy to see you could enjoy some of Annie M.G. Schmidt's poetry!
The poem you shared was indeed very well translated, the translator kept it very close to the original.

>118 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita - that's good to know. I'm always wondering about the freedom translators get with poetry. Did you read Sarah Crossan's verse novel Moonrise in English or Dutch? Her books are so so good.

Hi, Kerry. I was looking forward to On a Sunbeam after liking her Spinning, but thought OAS was about twice as long as it needed to be. Maybe the webcomic origin accounts for that.

>120 jnwelch: yes, I didn't crack it open for a fair while, the size was quite intimidating. I just enjoyed the world she created, but not that much of a story all said.

>119 avatiakh: I read (almost) all books in Dutch, Kerry, and only in English if there is no Dutch translation available.
Yes, both Sarah Crossan's Moonrise and One were very good reads.

Kerry, you should check out the new Early Reviewers list. I especially think you might like this one and it's an international offering.

Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers: Unique Recipes and Stories from the Crypto-Jews by Genie Milgrom (Gefen Publishing House)

Description: Recipes of My 15 Grandmothers is a collection of recipes and stories from the times of the Crypto-Jews – who were hiding and pretending to be Catholic during the Spanish Inquisition while practicing their Judaism underground – through the present. The grandmothers of the family devised clever ways to disguise the fact that they were still keeping kosher while appearing to be eating pork. Until modern times, the family pretended to be devout Catholics, yet passed many of the Jewish customs on, sometimes in the form of these recipes, their true legacy. For several hundred years they hid their fasts and celebration of Jewish holidays, revealing them only via their recipes and some kosher kitchen customs. This collection was found recently, hidden away at Genie Milgrom's mother’s house.

https://www.librarything.com/er/list

>123 ronincats: Hi Roni - thanks for the hint. I checked and Gefen doesn't include New Zealand in the list, there are many countries but NZ isn't one of them. I've corresponded with them in the past about this. I might see if it is a reasonable cost and buy the book.

I have Just add love: Holocaust survivors share their stories and recipes out from the library at present, it's a new Australian publication.

Good-bye Marianne: the graphic novel by Irene N. Watts (2008)
graphic novel

An adaption of the novel Good-bye Marianne: A Story of Growing Up in Nazi Germany which tells the story of Marianne in the week or so before her mother obtains her a place on the kindertransport.
There are three books in this series and my library has them all. The graphic novel is very good for younger readers, the illustrations are in soft pencil by Kathryn Shoemaker.. Marianne meets a boy who is having a short stay in her apartment building, they share a love of Emil and the detectives but she's Jewish and he's about to join the Hitler Youth, their lives are so different.


There's a follow-up graphic novel Seeking Refuge.

105) Rogue by A.J. Betts (2019)
YA scifi

Hive #2. This is the sequel to Hive which I read earlier this year. I enjoyed this dystopian story about Hayley who has grown up in The Vault and this book continues her story. I won't say anymore, well worth reading both books. The first book is set in the ocean near Tasmania.
I loved her debut novel Zac & Mia which won the Text Prize in 2012, it has since been adapted to a US tv series.

Betts was awarded her PhD on the topic of wonder in life and in reading, writing the manuscript for this novel was part of the process - 'Rogue: A Novel - and - Wonderlust: the value of wonder for readers, writers, and The Vault: A critical essay'

Today's library visit. This library is further from home but does have books for sale.

Bought for $2
The confidant by Hélène Grémillon - French debut novel, her second novel, The case of Lisandra P., sounds like a good read too.
Brooklyn Heights by Miral al-Tahawy - fiction, doesn't get good rating here or on GR, but a Bedouin author so has to go on my tbr pile.
Asterix omnibus - first three Asterix stories

Loans:
The beggar king and the secret of happiness - I read it a few weeks back but wanted my daughter to read the King Solomon story and this seems to have the best version.
Ben Hecht: fighting words, moving pictures by Adina Hoffman - biography
Lent by Jo Walton - fantasy
The Book of Science and Antiquities by Thomas Keneally - fiction
Around the world in 80 novels: A global journey inspired by writers from every continent by Henry Russell
Where is Rusty by Sieb Posthuma - picturebook

The Bomb by Sacha Cotter (2018)
picturebook

The New Zealand Children's Book Awards Book of the Year (2019) winner announced last week ago. The Bomb also won the best picturebook category. It's a very kiwi story, a young boy wants to do a great waterbomb dive into the swimming pool, mostly he fails. He ends up doing a spectacular bomb that earns him cred with his friends and granny.
The illustrations by Josh Morgan are in keeping with the humorous text. There's an excellent article on the creation of Morgan's artwork for the book here - https://www.thesapling.co.nz/single-post/2018/10/29/Picture-Book-Design-the-Unsu...




Puffin the architect by Kimberley Andrews (2018)
picturebook

This book won the Russell Clark Award for illustration. The illustrations are superb, the text a tad dry but ok. A puffin is designing a home for a puffin family and suggests a series of home designs that suit other creatures before designing an ultimate puffin home for, it turns out, his own family.

106) The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell (2019)
children's fiction

An action packed read from Rundell with plenty of suspense and a great cast of characters. Vita's grandfather has been tricked into losing his property just outside of New York by a corrupt swindler. She's determined to get it back for him. I found this mightily entertaining for all that it's for younger readers.

Nice book haul, Kerry. I look forward to your thoughts about Brooklyn Heights, as I bought my copy of it several years ago, possibly from a bookshop in Brooklyn, but I haven't read it yet.

>130 kidzdoc: I can't guarantee I'll read it straight away, but will want to as I need to move it out of my house asap, I own far too many books.

Where is Rusty? by Sieb Posthuma (2015 English) (2008 Dutch)
picturebook

I got this from the library because I enjoyed Posthuma's illustrations in the Annie Schmidt poetry book. This is a cute story inspired by Posthuma's own dog. Bill Nagelkerke did the translation for NZ's Gecko Press, he's a well known librarian/writer here in NZ.

>114 avatiakh: That’s a wonderful poem. I may send that to my kids :0)

Congratulations on 100!

>133 humouress: Yep - kids will love that.

107) Too loud a solitude by Bohumil Hrabal (1976)
novella

This was recommended to me a couple of months ago. I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I should, probably because I spent too long on it. Anyway it's set in Prague and about a guy who has spent 35 years compacting truckloads of books into bales, to send off to either the dump or a paper recycling centre. He's seen whole libraries of valuable books disposed of. He picks out the odd volume till he has about 2 tonnes worth of books balanced above his bed in his small apartment. Lots of literary references etc etc.

108) The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo (2012 Spanish) (2018 Eng)
crime
Found this one on Anita's thread and liked the idea of reading a book set around Pamplona. Enjoyed it enough that I'll read the next one in the trilogy. The main character is Inspector Amaia Salazar who must find a serial killer of young teen girls, who appears to be from her home town near Pamplona.


109) Lying in wait by Liz Nugent (2016)
crime

I really enjoyed her Skin Deep which I read earlier this year. This was another entertaining read. The chapters alternate between Lydia, her son Laurence and Karen, the sister of a young woman who disappeared. I have her Unraveling Oliver home from the library and just want to dive straight in.

>136 avatiakh: Glad you liked The Invisible Guardian, Kerry.
I read the second and am waiting for the translation of the third. They are all available in English translation, so you might get to book 3 before me.

>137 FAMeulstee: I have a lot of books out from library and need to stop reading the crime novels for a while and tackle some classics. I will probably try to read them next year.


110) Unravelling Oliver by Liz Nugent (2014)
crime
Dived straight in, again the chapters alternate between various characters that feature in Oliver's life. In the opening chapter Oliver has beaten his wife senseless, the book explains why. It's a journey of unexpected revelations.

111) A voyage through air by Peter F. Hamilton (2017)
children's fantasy

The Queen of Dreams trilogy #3. So the concluding book in Hamilton's fantasy for children. I'm a huge fan of Hamilton's scifi and found the world building for this children's trilogy to be really interesting. The story is about two young sisters finding out that their parents are royalty from other realms who have raised them in the apparent safety of our magic-less world. Now it's time to go back. This final book sees the two princesses and their companions take a voyage through the air.

>139 avatiakh: I have the first of these on my wishlist thanks to you, but the library still doesn't have any of these and only the first two on Kindle...

>138 avatiakh: I like the look of that one, Kerry, though I haven't seen it in the shops here yet.

Have a lovely weekend.

>140 ronincats: That's a shame. I don't think they're hugely popular, due to him mainly being known as a scifi writer for adults....and that cover art doesn't help. I liked them, though I'm enjoying so much YA and children's fiction at present, there's so much good writing being done.
The illustrator, Rohan Eason, has some lovely work on his website but these covers just do not help the books.
I'm happy to send you my copies of books 2&3, I already culled book 1. Send me a message if you would like them. I haven't sent a book parcel for a long while.

>138 avatiakh: Hi Paul - I highly recommend all 3 of Nugent's books. She's coming to NZ in Sep/Oct for Celtic Noir but her only Auckland session is on the opposite side of the city so I probably won't bother to go. Dunedin does the Celtic Noir Crime Writing Festival in Oct, perhaps partly due to a certain Professor Liam McIlvanney being Co-Director of the Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at Otago University.

I just finished watching the latest two Inspector Montalbano episodes on dvd - vol. 10. My husband finally watched with me, he studied Italian at university so enjoyed them. Now I'm determined to go back and re-watch the earlier ones with him. I've requested the Young Montalbano volumes first but have to wait till late September for them.


My library has been closed for five or six weeks now while they move to another site in our shopping mall. Another 4 or 5 weeks to go. Today I walked past the old library site and saw that a small free library has been set up. Will make use of it, maybe take some children's books.

This week's additions to chez moi, all from a used bookstore where I have a large credit.
London Rules by Mick Herron - read book #1, just adding to my tbr pile
Days without end by Sebastian Barry - why not
Jade Dragon mountain by Elsa Hart - looks interesting
Adele by Leila Slimani - I liked the creepyness of her last book, The Perfect Nanny.
Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy - one for my collection
Nailing Down the Saint by Craig Cliff - I liked his other two books and this sounds good too, lucky find as it has just been published

Ooh nice stack of books, Kerry. Wild things sounds like one I want to watch out for here.

>144 avatiakh: & >145 charl08: Yes, I would say that that is one book that could have been written with you in mind!

>145 charl08: >146 PaulCranswick: Yes, agree. I'm currently taking small doses of Why you should read children's books even though you are so old and wise by Katherine Rundell. It's a small gift sized book, but delightful.

I've been working my way through a tapas cookbook, making some of the dishes that we loved when in Spain. Most recipes I also look up online to get an overview before making them.
First up was patatas bravas, I made two sauces and still have to find my ideal recipe for the sauce. One was tomato based and the other, more authentic, just used paprika.
Next was an olive, capers & anchovy tapenade which my husband likes. Then marinated tuna with thyme and pimiento olives which also got the nod from husband. I don't eat anchovies or much seafood so he is my tasting board for these.
I've also made garlic prawns & garlic mushrooms, don't really need a recipe for these as I make both fairly often.
Today I cooked the ham croquettes that I prepared yesterday, having to leave the mix in the fridge overnight. Wow, so creamy and delightful, though have to be careful not to have too many. Later I'll be also making seafood croquettes....and then will be just about done with the book by then.
Another favourite tapa was chorizo with red wine, so I've found a recipe that uses a red wine, honey glaze that I'll be trying out.

The recipe I used for ham croquettes: https://spanishsabores.com/2011/10/12/croquetas-de-jamon-serrano-recipe-ham-croq... I didn't have enough serrano jamon so I added in a chorizo as well.

I'd made the tapanade before and marked some other recipes and then put the book aside and forgot about it. Really enjoying the change after making dumplings and wontons nonstop for a few weeks.



I wouldn't recommend this book over others, I do like the multitude of photos for each recipe though.

This week I get my new freestanding oven, it will be great to have a reliable cooker once again, I loved my old stove but it needed many repairs and is over 23 years old. I'm looking forward to being able to bake and tryout new bread recipes.

112) The Dog Runner by Bren MacDribble (2018)
children's fiction

This recently won the Junior Fiction Award (2019) as part of the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. Last year MacDribble won the same award for How to bee and also won the Young Adult Award (2018) under her pseudonym Cally Black for the scifi In the dark spaces which I loved.

This book was equally enthralling, an eco-dystopian type adventure. The book is set in Australia, in a near future time when all the grasses of the world have failed, leading to a world wide food shortage. Two children set out from the city towards the farm run by the indigenous grandmother of one of them. They must escape the electric bikes and motorcycles of pillaging vigilantes, the children are travelling with a team of dogs and a sled. For the gangs, the dogs are food, the children possibly too. Their parents are also hopefully moving to the same destination. Exciting stuff with lots of interesting details on seeds, crops and climate.

113) West of the moon by Margi Preus (2014)
children's fiction

This was a good read. Preus has blended Norwegian folktales into a story of two sisters finding their way to America in the 19th century. Their mother died when the youngest one was born, their father has left them with their aunt while heading off to America to seek his fortune. Meanwhile as Astri grows older the aunt sells her to a smelly old goat herder.
Preus was inspired to write the story after reading her great grandmother's diary of crossing to America. I've enjoyed both books I've read by Preus.

>148 avatiakh: Wow, your kitchen must have smelled amazing - I don't know much about Spanish cooking but have enjoyed the little bits I've sampled.

>149 avatiakh: The cover really reminds me of the style of another children's book, which hopefully will come back to me.Funny how they have a fashion for a while.

I've seen blurb online for Katherine Rundell - you've prompted me to find a copy, so thank you!

Well done on your Spanish cooking, Kerry! Thanks for posting the recipe for croquetas de jamón; I'll give that a try soon. I've found several good recipes on the Spanish Sabores web site, especially the tortilla de patatas con cebollas that I make more often than anything else.

That tapas cookbook looks good; before I buy it I should look at the book I bought during last year's Decatur Book Festival, Basque Country: A Culinary Journey Through a Food Lover's Paradise by Marti Buckley. The author is originally from Alabama, moved to San Sebastián (food heaven) eight years ago, and has never looked back. She made several basic pintxo recipes from her cookbook in the festival's Culinary Tent, and the book itself is a visual feast, but for some reason I haven't tried any of the recipes in it yet. I'll do so after I return to Atlanta next week.

Thanks Darryl. I always wanted to make the ham croquettes and while it was a fairy lengthy process the end result was really tasty. I'd only want to make them once in a long while though. The seafood croquettes were a let down, tasteless was the verdict, so I'll be looking for a different recipe.
I have a few tapas cookbooks including The Book of Tapas, all look interesting. The book I was using had several dip recipes that seemed pretty good. My husband enjoys the tapenade, it's low carb which is what he's after.
Basque Country: A Culinary Journey Through a Food Lover's Paradise looks interesting. I'll be looking through some more of my Spanish cookbooks in the next few weeks.

Tapenade:
100g or 3 1/2 oz canned anchovy fillets in oil
350g or 12oz black olives (stoned & roughly chopped)
2 cloves garlic (roughly chopped)
2 tablespoons capers (drained & rinsed)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons Spanish extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice

1) Drain anchovies, keeping the oil to use in dip
2) Roughly chop anchovies
3) Add all ingredients including reserved anchovy oil to food processor.
Process to smooth puree. Transfer to serving dish.
4) Leave in fridge covered, until needed.
5) Bring to room temperature and serve with crusty white bread.

114) Shepherd by Catherine Jinks (2019)
fiction

Jinks's last couple of books have been for adults rather than for the YA market she previously wrote for. Her protagonist here is young, a 14 year old Suffolk lad who was transported for poaching. He's now a shepherd in rural NSW and one of the men he works with is a vicious killer. Tom has to bring all his poaching skills to the fore in this strange new environment in order to save himself and fellow worker, Rowdy. This is a gritty thriller, set in Australia's colonial past and not one for the faint hearted.

>135 avatiakh: I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Too Loud a Solitude. I always feel horrible when I recommend a book that falls flat for the other reader. Reading time is too precious to be wasted. At least it was a short book.

>155 labfs39: Hi Lisa - it was more that I dragged out my reading of it and that I was in the market for a happy read rather than a literary read.

The little ghost who lost her boo! by Elaine Bickell (2019)
picture book

The manuscript for this cute book won the 2018 Joy Cowley Award. The text scans really well when reading aloud, lots of interesting animal sounds that rhyme with 'boo'. The little ghost has lost her boo and comes across a variety of animals and birds who offer to loan her their 'moo', 'coo', 'whoo hoo' etc till her boo is found. There's a bit of reader participation at the end to help get the boo back into the book. Very fun, cute read.
The illustrations are delightful, I haven't seen Raymond McGrath's work before. I visited his website where he's included a project, Little Letters, that he has done for his young daughters. Most lunch times he makes (not sure if this is still ongoing) an illustration for one of them, mails it to one of them. There's about 60 of these on the website from 2015 thru 2017, you can see the folds to fit them into an envelope which makes them even more endearing.
http://theonetrickpony.net/portfolio/little-letters/

115) Straw into gold by Gary Schmidt (2001)
children

A retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. The story opens 18 years after Rumpelstilskin has run off with the Queen's baby and Tousle who has been raised by Da knows nothing about his true parentage. There are some twists to this tale and it didn't turn out how I first thought it would. There's adventure and magic, love and guilt.

116) The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (2004)
fiction
One from my ANZAC reading list. Took me an age to read as I kept putting it aside for library books. When William's father dies in a farming accident, his great uncle turns up and takes William and his mother to live with him in a long neglected grand house on Kuran station. He's keen to see if William has a love for the land, if so he'll become heir to the station. At the same time the Australian government is looking to pass a Native Title law, which could draw aboriginal claims to the land. The story travels into the past and also some mystical elements.
Overall I'm satisfied to have read it though the story was fairly bleak at times. The book won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 2005, Australia's top book award.

>157 avatiakh: What a lovely site! Thanks for sharing it. The idea of sending a letter every day to a child is quite a commitment, never mind the (very cute!) drawing too.

>154 avatiakh: Tempted by this one, will have a look when the reservations calm down a bit.

>153 avatiakh: Thanks for the tapenade recipe, Kerry. I have all the ingredients I need to make it, so I'll give it a try this week.

>160 charl08: Jinks is a good storyteller.

>161 kidzdoc: Hope you like it. I make it for my husband as I don't like most of the ingredients.

I missed my LT thingaversary last month, I think I'm at about 12 years on LT. Anyway I had vouchers for a local book chain and their shop at my mall just relocated and reopened so were promoting a 20% off all books and I had a little splurge yesterday and today. Also a couple of books on the pile that I got when I spent a week with my mother and visited her local Books for Kids shop.
Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People by Julia Boyd - had this out from the library a few months ago
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente - YA from my wishlist
Killer T by Robert Muchamore - YA favourite writer
Pages & Co: Tilly and the Lost Fairy Tales by Anna James - childrens, I loved book #1
Legacy by Whiti Hereaka - YA, won the best YA in NZ Young People's Book Awards (2019).
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz - Millennium #5
The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox - her latest, bookseller did not enjoy this, but it's getting great reviews so I hope I'm with the reviewers.
Hilary McKay's Fairy Tales - collection of tales, have given this to my daughter
The Second Sleep by Robert Harris - looking forward to this one
Angel Mage by Garth Nix - YA, also looking forward to this one
Pathway of the Birds: The Voyaging Achievements of Māori and Their Polynesian Ancestors by Andrew Crowe - I like Crowe's books, always interesting reads, this one has lots of images, maps & diagrams
Kiwi Baker at Home by Dean Brettschneider - I like his cookbooks

>163 avatiakh: Some interesting looking titles there but many of the authors are not that familiar to me.

Have a lovely weekend, Kerry.

>164 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul.
Brettschneider has about 10 Baker & Cook cafes and a cooking school in Singapore as well as many fingers in lots of pies elsewhere.
We are celebrating 250 years since James Cook's arrival to New Zealand on his first scientific voyage to view the Transit of Venus plus mapping and navigating the region. Present day Maori activists are strong in their displeasure in how this is being celebrated. The organisation tasked with the many local events has a 'weaving people together for a shared future' theme which seems fairly inclusive to my mind. https://mch.govt.nz/tuia250
Crowe's book was an impulse buy, though I do know his work, it was just so informative looking, and tells the story of navigation by the peoples of the Pacific. I was reading an article tonight that stated a theory that Maori lost all their seafaring canoes and expert boatbuilders & navigators when our shores were hit by a tsunami in the 15th century, wiping out all those who lived near the sea.
Crowe is from the UK but has lived here many years, his first book was A Field Guide to the Native Edible Plants of New Zealand, it's still in print and has proved very popular. He lived in a cave for six months while gathering material for the book.
I also have another two volumes of Graeme Lay's Captain Cook trilogy to get through.
https://mch.govt.nz/tuia250

David Lagercrantz is continuing Stieg Larsson's Millenium series, I enjoyed his first one and now he's written two more.
Robert Muchamore writes exciting YA thrillers, I enjoy them immensely though I'm in no way his target audience. He has a new series starting next year starring a boy called Robin Hood, but set in the near future.
Catherynne M. Valente writes unusual fantsy stuff, I've only read one of her children's books that was very popular and have always wanted to try her adult or YA.
Elizabeth Knox is a well known New Zealand writer best known for The Vintner's Luck. I've enjoyed everything I've read by her.
Garth Nix is an Australian YA fantasy writer - very popular. I've also loved everything he's written.
Hilary McKay is a wellknown UK children's writer, her latest book The Skylarks' War has rave reviews.
Anna James was Book News Editor at The Bookseller magazine and Literary Editor of Elle UK before turning to write her Pages & Co children's book series - wonderful read for lovers of books.
You know Robert Harris, brother-in-law to Nick Hornby.

116) How to Bee by Bren MacDribble (2017)
childrens
This won a sleuth of awards last year both in Australia and New Zealand as MacDribble is an Australian based NZer. Like her other junior book back in post #149 it's a great dystopian read. Peony lives on a fruit farm with her grandfather and younger sister in a world where bees no longer exist and children must do the work of pollinating the blossoms.
MacDribble also writes YA scifi under her pen name, Cally Black.

>166 avatiakh: I think if my name was McDribble then I would also be deciding upon a pseudonym!

Have a great weekend, Kerry.

117) The Chain by Adrian McKinty (2019)
thriller
I wasn't going to read this until I read an article about the author, 'From Uber driving to huge book deal: Adrian McKinty's life-changing phone call.'
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/08/adrian-mckinty-interview-crime-nov...
This is a racy read from start to finish, beginning with the abduction of a 14 year old girl.
Now I'll be going on to read his Sean Duffy series.

>167 PaulCranswick: I have to agree. Weekend is pottering along.

118) The other end of the line by Andrea Camilleri (2019)
crime
Commissario Montalbano #24. I'd recently watched the tv episodes of this one and the next to be published. The book is always better but I do love the cast in the tv series. Montalbano's station is grappling with the endless arrival of migrants across the Mediterranean and Livia wants him to get a new suit.

119) Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson (2019)
scifi

Some of the same characters from Reamde, not that you need to read one before the other, both are quite standalone. I listened to this, about 32 hours worth. It's partly set in the near future and also within a digital world. Billionaire game developer Richard “Dodge” Forthrast dies unexpectedly and his executors discover that his brain has to be scanned ready for upload once technology creates a digital world for the dearly departed. He eventually becomes the pioneer inhabitant of this digital world and is soon joined by others but the digital world is not the paradise that they were expecting. Really interesting, riveting even at times, but I was also ready for it to finish, Stephenson's books are epic reads.

120) It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood (2019)
YA
This won the 2018 Text Prize for a YA manuscript. I try to read them all, I still have a couple to read from the 10 or 11 years of the award. This was YA romance which I try to avoid but I ended up quite enjoying it for all that. Natalie, an only child, has suffered from brutal acne and has scarred shoulders and her face has undergone multiple treatments to try to lessen the damage. She's just turned 18 and about to find out if she's been accepted into her first choice university and course. Her parents surprise her with the announcement that they are getting a divorce, that the past 12 months has been a farce as they waited for her to finish up high school to make this announcement. On top of that her two best friends, Zach and Lucy, have become a couple so she feels like a third wheel. Will she ever get a boyfriend and live a normal young adult life or will her lack of self confidence continue to ruin her chances.
This was quite a fun read for all the set up and I enjoyed the ending.

>170 avatiakh: How generous of Andrea Camilleri to leave us a few more instalments to enjoy despite his passing. I have read 22 of them so far and look forward to having the others available in stores here.

121) The Adventures of Tupaia by Courtney Sina Meredith (2019)
illustrated nonfiction

In prose and verse this book imagines the story of Tahitian navigator, Tupaia, who travels with Captain James Cook in the Endeavour on Cook's first voyage to New Zealand after arriving in Tahiti in 1769. The illustrations are by Mat Tait.
As I mentioned above, New Zealand is celebrating 250 years since James Cook's arrival to New Zealand so there are several new books around this theme. Auckland Museum has an exhibition, 'Voyage to Aotearoa: Tupaia and the Endeavour' that I might to go to next week, though it does look to be more for children than adults. The poster uses a Mat Tait illustration, possibly from the book.

Around the world in 80 novels: A global journey inspired by writers from every continent by Henry Russell (2019)
nonfiction

I skimmed through this and took note of the interesting reads. I'd read a lot of the books already but found many more to look into, was a good mix of classics and recently published:
Vienna Passion by Lilian Faschinger (Austria)
The island by Victoria Hislop (Greece)
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian (Armenia)
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said (Azerbaijan)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by Bruno Traven (Mexico)
The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag (Mongolia)
The unforgotten coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Mongolia)
Savushun or A Persian Requiem by Simin Daneshvar (Iran)
One by one in the darkness by Deirdre Madden (Northern Ireland)
Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban by Lisa Wixon (Cuba)

My library has finally reopened in its new location and is surprisingly boring considering that in the old location it won awards for innovation. Anyway it's spacious and has lots of study areas so can't complain, just not that attractive, more like visiting an office, children's area is totally bland with no colour and same functional metal shelves as adult areas. A missed opportunity as some recent library renovations have been architecturally stunning such as Devonport Library across the city.

Devonport library - lots of natural timber

my library entrance - totally uninspiring and inside more of the same

inside shot

>176 avatiakh: I'd put up pictures of my local reading library but I don't have one. I can go to the National Library but its lending section in English is embarrassingly poor. Building is certainly architecturally innovative though.

That's a great looking building. Still I just go to mine to pick up my requests and it's right next door to my regular cafe so can't complain really. Would have liked them to have made an effort for their child customers though.

122) An illustrated treasury of Scottish Castle Legends by Therea Breslin (2019)
children
This collection of stories is part of a series of Scottish stories retold for young children. This one features stories from many of Scotland's stunning castles. Did I say how much I love the covers of these books.
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I love the round window of the Devonport library. The new library at work makes the most of amazing views - sometimes a bit distracting though!

>180 charl08: That sounds good, my new library has many more windows and for the staff there is no escape, we now have glass walls so can see their every move including their staff room and food prep areas.
I visited Devonport library a few months ago, it's a lovely space and I also loved the round window. Still they renovated a building, my library is in a shopping mall and must conform to the retail mall requirements.

123) Monuments by Will Kostakis (2019)
YA

One of my pickups from the Scholastic factory shop - all year they have been selling recent YA for $2 a book. Only problem is the stock moves slowly and you have to be lucky to get at their new stuff.

This is the first in a new series and sets up the characters for an almighty battle against the rebel gods. During book one several characters inherit god like powers which they'll need in book 2 to do battle.
For 16 year old Connor the adventure begins when he decides to stay hidden in a tower room rather than go to class at his preppy school, he finds a trapdoor that leads him to adventure and pursuit.
The book didn't really grab me, I got lost on some of the time slips, and I'd rather have straight adventure without characters lusting after each other. Lots of twists and turns in this and it should excite less demanding readers.

If all the world and love were young by Stephen Sexton (2019)
poetry

The premise was interesting and my library had it on order, but I'm not always a poetry person and these failed to fire up for me. Sexton uses his childhood love for Super Mario World to work through his grief of losing his mother in this collection of poems.
My son is the top NZ competitive player in some Nintendo games so Mario, Yoshi & co have always figured highly in our household.
I'll link to the review that got me interested - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/stephen-sexton-for-me-death-and-super-m...
'...I started writing what would become If All the World and Love Were Young almost two decades later, in the summer of 2015, three years after my mother died. I was a PhD student at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s, producing work which considered the interaction of poems and images. I’m fascinated by how verbal and visual signs correspond, but I grew a little bored of writing poems after paintings. As a kind of joke, I figured I’d write a poem for every level of Super Mario World, harnessing the urge towards completeness so deeply felt by many players of video games. I say it was a joke, because the tradition of poems after paintings – or ekphrasis, to be Greek about it – has a certain classical air to it; a seriousness.'

124) Pages & Co: Tilly and the lost fairy tales by Anna James (2019)
children

Second installment in Tilly's adventures as a book wanderer. This ends fairly abruptly and you just want to pick up the next book which is still being written. As fairy tales mostly have evolved and have no true author, wandering in them is risky business. Delightful, almost as good as the first book.

Lunch at 10 Pomegranate Street: a collection of recipes to share by Felicita Sala (2018)
picture book

Loved this. Every resident at 10 Pomegranate Street is preparing a speciality dish from their culture for a shared meal out in the garden. The recipes are simple but quite yummy and I might try a couple before I take the book back to the library. Celebrates the multicultural society in France without being didactic.
The artwork is quietly subtle. She's illustrated several other books including Ode to an onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse & She made a monster : how Mary Shelley created Frankenstein that I'll have to look out for.
More on Felicita Sala's art here - http://www.letstalkpicturebooks.com/2018/09/lets-talk-illustrators-83-felicita-s...
Felicita is a self taught illustrator. She graduated in Philosophy from the University of Western Australia. She has worked on several animation projects along with husband Gianluca, but her passion is making picture books. She lives in Rome with Gianluca and their daughter Nina - from her website https://felicitasala.com/

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125) Seconds: a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley (2014)
graphic novel
The cover is very arresting and so i took it home from the library. The plot is a little hard to follow at times, it involves house spirits, magical mushrooms and an assorted cast of restaurant people. Chef, Katie, gets the chance to relive pivotal moments in her recent life and make changes that should improve her circumstances. Of course this does not happen, her life just begins to spiral downwards. I enjoyed it and loved the artwork.

I haven't been reading much as I've been doing family history of late. I'm also making my way through Tom Jones which is quite a big read, I've switched to audio and have a way to go. It's a fun read I have to say for all that it was published back in 1749.

Miriam Karpilove (Karpilow) (1888–1956) was my husband's grandmother's cousin and it was very exciting to discover today that Yiddish studies academic, Jessica Kirzane, has done the translation and an actual book is being published. Kirzane has already translated quite a few short stories, articles etc of Karpilowe some of which I've read online.

About the Book: From the perch of a diarist writing in first person about her own love life, Karpilove's Yiddish novel of immigrant life told from the perspective of a woman offers a raw personal criticism of radical leftist immigrant youth culture in early twentieth century New York.

About the Author: Miriam Karpilove published dramas, criticism, sketches, short stories, and novellas in a variety of prominent Yiddish periodicals during her fifty-year career. She was a member of the Forward (Forverts) staff, publishing seven novels and numerous works of short fiction in that paper between 1929 and 1937.

>185 avatiakh: I bought a copy of this one - and must get round to cooking some of the recipes. I love the final page with everyone eating together.

>188 avatiakh: This is exciting! How brilliant that her work will be available in English, too. Will you buy a copy or will the library help?

>189 charl08: Hi Charlotte - Yes, I love that picture-book and bought some broccoli to try that very simple Chinese recipe. Too bad I've already chopped quite a lot up for tonight's stir fried rice. I probably found out about this book on your thread.

...and the Miriam Karpilove book is quite a blast. I knew that Kirzane was into translating her work but hadn't looked at her website for a few months. I immediately went to book depository and ordered a copy.
This is a writer who I've been curious about for many years and was finally able to read small portions of Kirzane's translations only in the last couple.

_

Doing family research turns up some gems. Seems like a fairly frivolous court case, my distant relative was the defendant. I had to look up the book - Vivilore : the pathway to mental and physical perfection, the twentieth century book for every woman by Mary Ries Melendy (1904) and a new edition (2019) though can't say I'm tempted.

126) Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen (2018)
YA
Lodz Ghetto, 1942. Chaim & Gittel are twins and with their parents and another family make an escape. Soon separated from the adults, the four children are first taken by partisans on a journey across Poland. Eventually they are captured and end up in a slave labour camp, making armaments. The story is structured around the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. Not one I'd recommend over other Holocaust fiction, I feel Yolen has been perhaps a little ambitious with this tale, though I liked the character of Chaim, the narrator.
edit to add link to this rather thorough review: https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/mapping-the-bones

127) Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld (2019)
YA

Imposters#2. Set in the world of his Uglies series but about 20-30 or so years later. I liked the fist book and this one is also a good escapist read. I think there are two more books to come.

I was going to read Malorie Blackman's Crossfire next but decided that I just don't need to go back to this series after the eleven years since the previous book came out. So it's going back to the library and I'll continue to be ruthless with my library reads. Last week I took 3 newly published books back, I'm just not reading fast enough at present to be able to read everything I've requested.

On the go:

Tom Jones - audio, I'll be out in the garden this week and hope to finish up.
Anya and the dragon - really enjoying this, I've had to put it to one side due to library due date, but will finish it asap
Girl by Edna O'Brien - loved the first couple of chapters
Buddha Vol 1. by Osamu Tezuka - graphic novel that I'm reading on my iPad when I remember.

128) Buddha Vol 1: Kapilavastu by Osamu Tezuka (1972)
graphic novel

First of 8 volumes in this series about Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, done manga-style as only Tezuka could do. I enjoyed this first installment though do have to gripe that the women are mostly topless. Anyway the story is richly imagined, lots of interesting characters and quite silly at times. I'll be going for the second volume.

>194 avatiakh: I'm not sure that your gripe would be my gripe!

Lack of brassieres notwithstanding that does look interesting.

129) Mrs Battleship by Tim Tipene (2019)
children

Tim has written the story of his childhood schooldays in simple language, great for reluctant readers, and what a story. He grew up in an abusive home where he was hit regularly by both parents, his father was especially violent towards him. He failed at school, yet some special teachers gave him enough of a spark of hope in himself that he was able to cut the cycle of violence and eventually turn himself into an outstanding member of his community.
He details the numerous learning and social difficulties he had at school, including his first day in class where he didn't know where the toilets were, was too afraid to ask, and so piddled in a corner of the classroom. He describes taking his 'position'; a way of hunching over the desk and wrapping his arms across his books, so teachers couldn't see that he was actually doing nothing, a strategy that worked for all his years at school.
I've met Tim on numerous occasions and he is a very lovely person, dedicating his life to helping children make the most of themselves through his martial arts project Warrior Kids.

130) Girl: a novel by Edna O'Brien (2019)
fiction

I haven't read anything by O'Brien before and was sold on her writing by the first chapter alone. I don't think the story of the Boko Haram schoolgirl kidnap has been told in a novel before and there was some criticism that this first treatment is by a white women. That said I always think that if the research and heart are in a story it will be told well, and this was the case here.
The part of the book that resonated most was the reception on return for these schoolgirls who managed to escape. They've been ostracised by their families and community, who fear that the terrorists will return and rain down retribution for taking back one of their women. Some of these girls were married and bore children, these babies are unwelcome back in the communities as they share the blood of the murderers. O'Brien in this slim novel manages to convey this story in a respectful way, also drawing attention to the non-judgemental help given by convent nuns.

>197 avatiakh: Edna O'Brien is IMO either really on point or extremely obtuse. When she is good though she is very good. I loved her Country Girls books and this one looks another I should look out for.

Have a lovely weekend, Kerry.

Hi, Kerry. Always good to see what you've been reading as they are the most interesting books.

>195 PaulCranswick: Yeah, I think this series was targeted at teenage Japanese schoolboys.

>198 PaulCranswick: I thought this book was timely, as the world has basically forgotten about these girls. The families they left behind are ruined and as O'Brien makes clear, even if the girls return, there is no joyous celebration - this too heightens the dangers of retribution and stigma. The girls' position in their family/village can never be the same again.

>Hi Roni - I've been a lurker this year and find myself reading less and less as my family history research increases.

131) Anya and the dragon by Sofiya Pasternack (2019)
children's

First up, I love this cover design. This story is infused with Jewish and Eastern Europe folklore. Anya, her parents and grandparents live on the edge of a tiny village, they are the only Jewish family in the region. Her father has been conscripted to the army and the local magistrate has now imposed a tax they cannot afford, this means they'll lose their home. The Tsar has also forbidden the use of magic and a travelling family of fools has just arrived to rid the village of its dragon.
I enjoyed this story, it finished a little abruptly, but there will be another adventure with Anya and Ivan in a sequel.

>197 avatiakh:

Is any organization working to help the schoolgirls relocate away from the community abuse?

>202 m.belljackson: Good question. I'm not sure that there is an overall organisation, just these local convents and support groups, there are displaced persons camps as well. Larger organisations tend to situate themselves in the large cities where they can influence politicians rather than spreading out into the countryside - there's so much ground to cover which is also why the Boko Harum is able to operate as it has done.
O'Brien spent three years on the book and spent a lot of time in the region with lots of help from the Irish Embassy staff there. There's an afterword to the book where she relates her time there, but I only skimmed this as I had to give book back to library.