PAUL C WITH A CLEAN SLATE IN '22 - Part 23

PLACES FROM MY PAST

One of my earliest projects was a submarine tracking station in the heart of the Rock of Gibraltar. I spent ten happy weeks there going to the cinema every week and I stayed at the Caleta Palace on an outcrop of rock by the sea. It was in truth pretty basic but I loved it!

The Opening Words

Just started Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic and I would guess it will be finished pretty quickly. So far I am enjoying the quite unique perspective of the narration.



" On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. "

Interested..............?

Books Read First Quarter

JANUARY

1. American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 by Khor Shing Yin (2019) 160 pp (AAC) - GN
2. The Forward Book of Poetry 2022 by Various Poets (2021) 155 pp - Poetry
3. Absolution by Murder by Peter Tremayne (1994) 274 pp - Thriller/Mystery
4. Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill (2008) 183 pp - (NF Challenge) NF
5. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk (1998) 671 pp - (Asian Book Challenge{ABC}) Fiction; 1001
6. The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz (1962) 158 pp - (World Books/Food) Fiction
7. The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter (1958) 216 pp - (BAC) YA Fiction
8. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (2021) 114 pp - Fiction
9. Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (2020) 343 pp - (ABC) - Fiction (?)
10. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings (1982) 192 pp - SF/Fantasy
11. Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom (2011) 230 pp - Fiction/Holocaust
12. The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1972) 208 pp - Fiction; Pulitzer
13. My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec (2008) - 103 pp Fiction/Rebecca NYC reads
14. Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (2002) - 131 pp Non Fiction / Holocaust
15. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin (2002) 384 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
16. Up With the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth (2009) 278 pp Non Fiction
17. Cheryl's Destinies by Stephen Sexton (2021) 88 pp - Poetry
18. Hotel Bosphorus by Esmahan Aykol (2001) 246 pp - Thriller/Mystery / Asian Book Challenge
19. The List of Books by Frederic Raphael (1981) 154 pp - Non Fiction / Reference
20. Disquiet by Zulfu Livaneli (2017) 163 pp - Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
21. Turkey : A Short History by Norman Stone (2017) 185 pp - Non-Fiction
22. Black Out by Ragnar Jonasson (2011) 247 pp - Thriller/Scandi
23. The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (1992) 63 pp - Poetry
24. A Foolish Virgin by Ida Simons (1959) 216 pp - Fiction
25. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (1928) 329 pp - Fiction / 1001 Books
26. The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (1969) 224 pp - Fiction / Booker Winner

5,715 pages

FEBRUARY

27. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel (2015) 244 pp - Fiction
28. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria (2021) 156 pp Non-Fiction/ABC
29. Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison (2018) 164 pp Non-Fiction
30. The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa (2015) 288 pp Fiction /Asian Book Challenge
31. Door into the Dark by Seamus Heaney (1969) 44 pp Poetry
32. The Yellow Wind by David Grossman (1988) 218 pp Non-Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
33. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (2017) 343 pp Fiction / Booker Winner
34. If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (1974) 197 pp Fiction
35. The Wrecking Light by Robin Robertson (2010) 90 pp Poetry
36. The Others by Sarah Blau (2018) 239 pp Thriller /ABC
37. Portable Kisses by Tess Gallagher (1992) 80 pp Poetry/ AAC

2,063 pages

MARCH

38. Rise Like Lions : Poetry for the Many edited by Ben Okri (2017) 258 pp Poetry
39. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin (1958) 179 pp Non-Fiction
40. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) 225 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
41. Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (2013) 283 pp Fiction/ Asian Book Challenge
42. Songs of Mihyar the Damascene by Adonis (1961) 116 pp Poetry/Asian Book Challenge
43. Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa (1983) 93 pp Fiction /Short stories
44. The Twits by Roald Dahl (1980) 87 pp Fiction /YA
45. The Historians : Poems by Eavan Boland (2020) 67 pp Poetry
46. Night Haunts by Sukhdev Sandhu (2007) 144 pp Non-Fiction
47. The Old Boys by William Trevor (1964) 170 pp Fiction
48. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2015) 244 pp Non-Fiction/Memoir
49. The Fell by Sarah Moss (2021) 180 pp Fiction
50. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926) 203 pp Fiction
51. Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (2018) 243 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
52. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney (2021) 337 pp Fiction

2,829 pages

Books Read Second Quarter

APRIL

53. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979) 180 pp Science Fiction/1001
54. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (1874) 389 pp Fiction/Re-read Reassessment
55. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961) 128 pp Fiction/Re-read Reassessment
56. Mrs England by Stacey Halls (2021) 425 pp Fiction
57. The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham (1919) 215 pp Fiction /Re-Read Reassessment
58. Poems : Giosue Carducci by Giosue Carducci (1907) 175 pp Poetry / Nobel Prize winner
59. White Mughals by William Dalrymple (2002) 501 pp Non Fiction / Shared Read (Stasia)
60. Weaveworld by Clive Barker (1987) 722 pp SF/Fantasy; BAC; Guardian Books
61. The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani (2000) 253 pp Fiction /Asian Book Challenge
62. Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah (1988) 281 pp Fiction
63. A Village Life by Louise Gluck (2009) 71 pp Poetry/AAC wildcard
64. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (1938) 269 pp Fiction/Re-Read Reassessment

3,609 pages

MAY

65. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung (2017) 251 pp Fiction/Asian Book Challenge / Short Stories
66. Peterloo : Witnesses to a Massacre by Polyp (2019) 109 pp BAC / Graphic Book
67. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid (1985) 148 pp 1001 Books
68. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allen Poe (1844) 99 pp AAC/1001 Books/ Short Stories
69. Sovietistan by Erika Fatland (2014) 470 pp Non-Fiction/Travel
70. The Kids by Hannah Lowe (2021) 79 pp Poetry
71. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin (2010) 228 pp Short Stories
72. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (2021) 420 pp Fiction
73. The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov (2016) 405 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
74. The Bell by Iris Murdoch (1957) 350 pp Fiction / Re-read
75. War : How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan (2020) 289 pp Non-Fiction
76. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1859) 394 pp Fiction / Re-read

3,242 pages

JUNE

77. Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani (2018) 91 pp Non-Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
78. Selected Poems : Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova (1985) 147 pp Poetry
79. The 3 Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat (2008) 258 pp Fiction/Asian Book Challenge
80. Murmur by Will Eaves (2018) 176 pp Fiction
81. Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay (1997) 194 pp Non-Fiction / BAC
82. The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue (2020) 295 pp Fiction/Capitals-Dublin
83. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (2007) 287 pp Fiction/ Asian Book Challenge
84. Promised You a Miracle by Andy Beckett (2015) 387 pp Non Fiction / History
85. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree (2018) 732 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
86. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare (1983) 135 pp Fiction
87. All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus (2021) 77 pp Poetry
88. Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones (2021) 99 pp Fiction / Capitals-Pristina
89. A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare (2009) 186 pp. Fiction / Capitals-Tirana
90. Ludmila by Paul Gallico (1959) 65 pp Fiction / Capitals-Vaduz
91. Zorrie by Laird Hunt (2020) 161 pp Fiction
92. First Love by Gwendoline Riley (2017) 167 pp Fiction / Capitals-London

3,457 pages

Books Read Third Quarter

July

93. Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1993) 337 pp Non-Fiction /ATW (Poland)
94. The Late Sun by Christopher Reid (2021) 77 pp Poetry
95. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (2011) 129 pp Fiction / Asian Book Challenge
96. Waiting by Ha Jin (1999) 308 pp Fiction / Asia Book Challenge
97. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (1993) 507 pp Fiction / Capitals- Vienna
98. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman (1998) 125 pp Non-Fiction

Currently Reading

BOOKERS, PULITZERS, NOBEL WINNERS, 1001 BOOKS FIRST ED. & ETC

I have an ongoing challenge to read all the Booker Winners, all the Pulitzer Fiction Winners, something by each Nobel and all the 1001 Books First Ed Books. I will track my progress here:

BOOKERS READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 34 / 57
BOOKERS IN 2022 : 2 (36 / 57)
The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

PULITZERS READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 19 / 94
PULITZERS IN 2022 : 1 (20 / 94)
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

NOBEL LAUREATES READ BY DEC 31 2021 : 74 / 118
NOBEL WINNERS IN 2022 1 (75/118)
Poems by Giosue Carducci

1001 BOOKS FIRST ED READ BY DEC 2021 : 319
1001 BOOKS IN 2022 5 (324)
My Name is Red
Tarka the Otter
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Annie John
The Purloined Letter

GUARDIAN 1000 BOOKS READ BY DEC 2021 : 349
GUARDIAN BOOKS IN 2022 4 (353)
My Name is Red
Lolly Willowes
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Weaveworld

WOMEN'S PRIZE WINNERS READ BY DEC 2021 : 7 / 26
WOMEN'S PRIZE WINNERS IN 2022

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE



January - YA - The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter
February - Mo / Renault
March - Between the Wars - Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
April - Weaveworld by Clive Barker
May - Comics, Graphic Novels & Audiobooks - Peterloo : Witnesses to a Massacre
June - Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay

AMERICAN AUTHOR CHALLENGE



January - Graphic Books - The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 by Khor Shing Yin
February - Tess Gallagher - Portable Kisses
March - Bernard Malamud
April - Louise Gluck (Wildcard) - A Village Life
May - Nineteenth Century - The Purloined Letter

ASIAN BOOK CHALLENGE 2022

Here is the link to the General Thread
https://www.librarything.com/topic/337731#n7692635

These will be the monthly jaunts for the ABC challenge.

JANUARY - Europe of Asia - Turkish Authors link to thread
https://www.librarything.com/topic/338244
1. My Name is Red
2. Last Train to Istanbul
3. Hotel Bosphorus
4. Disquiet

FEBRUARY - The Holy Land - Israeli & Palestinian Authors
Link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/339017
1. The Blue Between Sky and Water
2. The Yellow Wind
3. The Others

MARCH - The Arab World - Writers from the Arab world
link to thread https://www.librarything.com/topic/340000
1. Frankenstein in Baghdad
2. The Songs of Mihyar the Damascene
3. Celestial Bodies

APRIL - Persia - Iranian writers
link to thread : https://www.librarything.com/topic/340943#n7802013
1. The Saddlebag

MAY - The Stans - There are 7 states all in the same region all ending in "Stan"
link to thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/341521
1. The Devil's Dance (Uzbekistan)

JUNE - The Indian Sub-Continent - Essentially authors from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
1. The 3 Mistakes of My Life
2. A Golden Age
3. Tomb of Sand

JULY - The Asian Superpower - Chinese Authors
AUGUST - Nippon - Japanese Authors

SEPTEMBER - Kimchi - Korean Authors
1. Cursed Bunny

OCTOBER - INDO CHINA PLUS - Authors from Indo-China and other countries neighbouring China

NOVEMBER - The Malay Archipelago - Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Authors
1. Has the West Lost It?

DECEMBER - The Asian Diaspora - Ethnic Asian writers from elsewhere
1. Homeland Elegies
2. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
3. Intimacies
4. Night Haunts
5. The Buddha in the Attic

I was able just about to cover the whole of the continent and I didn't include one for Russia as most of the authors are decidedly European in their ethnicity and leaning.

AROUND THE WORLD IN BOOKS SINCE 2021

Around the world in books challenge. I want to see how many countries I can cover without limiting myself to a specific deadline. Continued from last year.


1. United Kingdom - The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard EUROPE
2. Ireland - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde EUROPE
3. Lithuania - Selected and Last Poems by Czeslaw Milosz EUROPE
4. Netherlands - The Ditch by Herman Koch EUROPE
5. Armenia - The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian ASIA PACIFIC
6. Zimbabwe - This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga AFRICA
7. United States - Averno by Louise Gluck AMERICA
8. Australia - Taller When Prone by Les Murray ASIA PACIFIC
9. France - Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrere EUROPE
10. Russia - The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov EUROPE
11. Denmark - Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard EUROPE
12. Democratic Republic of Congo - Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanze Mujila AFRICA
13. Canada - I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven AMERICA
14. Italy - The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri EUROPE
15. New Zealand - Dove on the Waters by Maurice Shadbolt ASIA PACIFIC
16. India - A Burning by Megha Majumdar ASIA PACIFIC
17. Libya - The Return by Hisham Matar AFRICA
18. Pakistan - Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid ASIA PACIFIC
19. South Korea - Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha ASIA PACIFIC
20. Morocco - The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers by Fouad Laroui AFRICA
21. Thailand - Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana ASIA PACIFIC
22. Norway - Echoland by Per Petterson EUROPE
23. Belgium - I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne EUROPE
24. Sweden - Still Waters by Viveca Sten EUROPE
25. Trinidad - Half a Life by VS Naipaul AMERICAS
26. Sudan - Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih AFRICA
27. Uruguay - Springtime in a Broken Mirror by Mario Benedetti AMERICAS
28. Syria - My Country : A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid ASIA PACIFIC
29. Ghana - The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim AFRICA
30. Austria - Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl EUROPE
31. Germany - Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass EUROPE
32. South Africa - No Turning Back by Beverley Naidoo AFRICA
33. Mauritania - Arab Jazz by Karim Miske AFRICA
34. Cuba - The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier AMERICAS
35. Nigeria - Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie AFRICA
36. Portugal - The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso EUROPE
37. Japan - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe ASIA PACIFIC
38. Senegal - At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop AFRICA
39. Malta - The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi EUROPE
40. Chile - A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende AMERICAS
41. Lebanon - The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf ASIA PACIFIC
42. Spain - The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon EUROPE
43. Somalia - The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed AFRICA
44. Malaysia - Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw ASIA PACIFIC
45. Mexico - Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue AMERICAS
46. Latvia - The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaian Berlin EUROPE
47. Malawi - Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver AFRICA
48. Turkey - My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk ASIA PACIFIC
49. Egypt - The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz AFRICA
50. Argentina - My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec - AMERICAS
51. Iceland - Black Out by Ragnar Jonasson - EUROPE
52. Jamaica - Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison - AMERICAS
53. Palestine - The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa - ASIA PACIFIC
54. Israel - The Yellow Wind by David Grossman - ASIA PACIFIC
55. Iraq - Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi - ASIA PACIFIC
56. Papua New Guinea - Tales of the Tikongs by Epeli Hau'ofa - ASIA PACIFIC
57. Oman - Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi - ASIA PACIFIC
58. Iran - The Saddlebag by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani - ASIA PACIFIC
59. Tanzania - Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah - AFRICA
60. Antigua - Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid - AMERICAS
61. Uzbekistan - The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov - ASIA PACIFIC
62. Singapore - Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani - ASIA PACIFIC
63. Ukraine - Selected Poems: Anna Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova - EUROPE
64. Bangladesh - A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam - ASIA PACIFIC
65. Albania - A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare - EUROPE
66. Poland - Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski - EUROPE
67. China - Waiting by Ha Jin - ASIA PACIFIC


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

100 NOVELS 100 AUTHORS

1 Things Fall Apart Achebe, Chinua
2 Watership Down Adams, Richard
3 Half of a Yellow Sun Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
4 Jack Sheppard Ainsworth, William Harrison
5 Northanger Abbey Austen, Jane
6 The Twin Bakker, Gerbrand
7 Another Country Baldwin, James
8 The Black Sheep Balzac, Honore de
9 Silence of the Girls Barker, Pat
10 The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
11. Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres
12 The Sheltering Sky Bowles, Paul
13 Orenda Boyden, Joseph
14 Rumours of Rain Brink, Andre
15 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
16 Wuthering Heights Bronte, Emily
17 The Good Earth Buck, Pearl
18 The Plague Camus, Albert
19 Jack Maggs Carey, Peter
20 O' Pioneers Cather, Willa
21 The Woman in WhiteCollins, Wilkie
22 To Serve Them All My Days Delderfield, RF
23 David Copperfield Dickens, Charles
24 Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky, Fyodor
25 Justine Durrell, Lawrence
26 Invisible Man Ellison, Ralph
27 The Round house Erdrich, Louise
28 Passage to India Forster, EM
29 The Promise Galgut, Damon
30 Sea of Poppies Ghosh, Amitav
31 I, Claudius Graves, Robert
32 The Quiet American Greene, Graham
33 The Growth of the Soil Hamsun, Knut
34 The Return of the Native Hardy, Thomas
35 The Go-Between Hartley, LP
36 Plainsong Haruf, Kent
37 The Rainbow Troops Hirata, Andrea
38 Les Miserables Hugo, Victor
39 A Prayer for Owen Meany Irving, John
40 The Dig Jones, Cynan
41 Mister Pip Jones, Lloyd
42 The Far Pavilions Kaye, MM
43 Small Things Like These Keegan, Claire
44 The Dictator's Last Night Khadra, Yasmina
45 Darkness at Noon Koestler, Arthur
46 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Kundera, Milan
47 To Kill a Mockingbird Lee, Harper
48 The Grass is Singing Lessing, Doris
49 If Not Now, When? Levi, Primo
50 The Road to Lichfield Lively, Penelope
51 How Green is My Valley Llewellyn, Richard
52 Lovely Green Eyes Lustig, Arnost
53 Palace Walk Mahfouz, Naguib
54 The Fixer Malamud, Bernard
55 A Place of Greater Safety Mantel, Hilary
56 One Hundred Years of Solitude Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
57 The Moon and Sixpence Maugham, W Somerset
58 Bel-Ami Mauppasant, Guy de
59 The North Water McGuire, Ian
60 Docherty McIlvanney, Hugh
61 A Fine Balance Mistry, Rohinton
62 The Redundancy of Courage Mo, Timothy
63 The Colour of Blood Moore, Brian
64 The Bell Murdoch, Iris
65 A House for Mr Biswas Naipaul, VS
66 The Financial Expert Narayan, RK
67 Hamnet O'Farrell, Maggie
68 1984 Orwell, George
69 Jean de Florette Pagnol, Marcel
70 Cry, the Beloved Country Paton, Alan
71 The Sunne in Splendour Penman, Sharon
72 The Memory of the Forest Powers, Charles T
73 The Yellow Birds Powers, Kevin
74 The Shipping News Proulx, Annie
75 The Wedding Queffelec, Yann
76 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
77 Shame Rushdie, Salman
78 The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
79 Fame is the Spur Spring, Howard
80 Golden Hill Spufford, Francis
81 The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck, John
82 This Sporting Life Storey, David
83 Waterland Swift, Graham
84 The Gift of Rain Tan Twan Eng
85 The Heather Blazing Toibin, Colm
86 Lord of the Rings Tolkien, JRR
87 The Road Home Tremain, Rose
88 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Tressell, Robert
89 The Children of Dynmouth Trevor, William
90 Breathing Lessons Tyler, Anne
91 Sacred Hunger Unsworth, Barry
92 Rabbit, Run Updike, John
93 The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Vassanji, MG
94 Fingersmith Waters, Sarah
95 Ethan Frome Wharton, Edith
96 The Nickel Boys Whitehead, Colson
97 Night Wiesel, Elie
98 A Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde, Oscar
99 The Shadow of the Wind Zafon, Carlos Ruiz
100 Germinal Zola, Emile

GENRE BOOKS

FICTION FROM THE EUROPEAN CAPITALS
(Started 1 June 2022)

1. DUBLIN (Republic of Ireland) - The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue COMP JUNE 22
2. PRISTINA (Kosovo) - Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones COMP JUNE 22
3. TIRANA (Albania) - A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare COMP JUNE 22
4. VADUZ (Liechtenstein) - Ludmila by Paul Gallico COMP JUNE 22
5. LONDON (England) - First Love by Gwendoline Riley COMP JUNE 22
6. Vienna (Austria) - The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson COMP July 22


Create Your Own Visited European Countries Map

Books of the Month

BOUGHT AND READ IN 2022

1. Appaloosa by Robert Parker
2. The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. READ JUN 22
3. Without a Claim by Grace Schulman
4. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
5. Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller
6. There, There by Tommy Orange
7. Intimacies by Katie Kitamura READ MAR 22
8. Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin READ JAN 22
9. Another Now by Yanis Varoufakis
10. A Separation by Katie Kitamura
11. Travelling in a Strange Land by David Park
12. Free Food for Millionaires by Lee Min Jee
13. Norwegian by Night by Derek B. Miller
14. The Lady from Tel Aviv by Rabai Al-Madhoun
15. Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon
16. Manchester Happened by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
17. The Others by Sarah Blau READ FEB 22
18. The Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard
19. Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay. READ JUN 22
20. King Cnut by W.B. Bartlett
21. Dear Future Boyfriend by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
22. Ottoman Odyssey by Alev Scott
23. Has the West Lost It? by Kishore Mahbubani READ JUNE 22
24. A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
25. A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
26. Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely
27. Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrom Open Library Loan READ JAN 22
28. My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec (Open Library Loan) READ JAN 22
29. Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine (Open Library Loan) READ JAN 22
30. Benjamin's Crossing by Jay Parini
31. Outlawed by Anna North
32. Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
33. The Ruin of Kasch by Roberto Calasso
34. Roundabout of Death by Faysal Khartash
35. The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
36. Salt : A World History by Mark Kurlansky
37. The Greek Myths : The Complete and Definitive Edition by Robert Graves
38. Liar by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
39. The Histories by Tacitus
40. Silent House by Orhan Pamuk
41. The Generation Game by Sophie Duffy
42. Wild Grass by Ian Johnson
43. This Living and Immortal Thing by Austin Duffy
44. Until I Find Julian by Patricia Reilly Giff
45. The Boy With the Tiger's Heart by Linda Coggin
46. The Day of Silence and Other Stories by George Gissing
47. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams READ APR 22
48. The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
49. Beast by Paul Kingsnorth
50. The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
51. Heading Inland by Nicola Barker
52. Rift by Beverley Birch
53. The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrea Eames
54. Modern Gods by Nick Laird
55. Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
56. The Sands of Mars by Arthur C Clarke
57. Coromandel Sea Change by Rumer Godden
58. A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons by Geoffrey Hindley
59. The Profiteers : Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World by Sally Denton
60. In the Wolf's Mouth by Adam Foulds
61. Daydreams of Angels by Heather O'Neill
62. The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk
63. Opium by Salar Abdoh
64. The Nest by Kenneth Oppel READ FEB 22
65. Three Light-Years by Andrea Canobbio
66. Prague : A Novel by Arthur Phillips
67. The Lie of the Land by Amanda Craig
68. The Dark Circle by Linda Grant
69. Portable Kisses by Tess Gallagher READ FEB 22
70. Down Among the Wild Men by John Greenway
71. Fate is the Hunter by Ernest K. Gann
72. The Lover of Horses by Tess Gallagher
73. The End of the Day by Bill Clegg
74. The Last Green Valley by Mark Sullivan
75. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
76. Mad Boy by Nick Arvin
77. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World by Fareed Zakaria READ FEB 22
78. Sleeping on Jupiter Anuradha Roy
79. Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati
80. Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama
81. The Manningtree Witches by A.D. Blackemore
82. Vertigo by WG Sebald
83. In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova
84. Redemption Ground by Lorna Goodison READ FEB 22
85. The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
86. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam READ JUN 22
87. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
88. The Powerful and the Damned by Lionel Barber
89. The Better Half by Sharon Moalem
90. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
91. Downsizing by Tom Watson
92. Desert Flower by Waris Dirie
93. Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro
94. The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa READ MAR 22
95. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari
96. They by Kay Dick
97. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
98. The Silence of Scheherazade by Defne Suman
99. Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
100. Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
101. The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J Sandel
102. Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
103. In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
104. The Inequality Machine by Paul Tough
105. 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson
106. The Fell by Sarah Moss READ MAR 22
107. Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney READ MAR 22
108. Learwife by JR Thorp
109. Matrix by Lauren Groff
110. Ghosted by Jenn Ashworth
111. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
112. The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey
113. I Will Miss You Tomorrow by Heine Bakkeid
114. The Fine Art of Invisible Detection by Robert Goddard
115. All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton
116. The Late Sun by Christopher Reid READ JULY 22
117. A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies
118. The Interpreters by Wole Soyinka
119. Things in Jars by Jess Kidd
120. A Vicious Circle by Amanda Craig
121. How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
122. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
123. The Collapse of Globalism by John Ralston Saul
124. Land : How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester
125. Moonglow by Michael Chabon
126. We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan
127. The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
128. Fault Lines by Emily Itami
129. Tenderness by Alison MacLeod
130. The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
131. The Great Level by Stella Tillyard
132. The Pact We Made by Layla Alammar
133. Spring by Ali Smith
134. Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
135. The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini
136. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
137. The Book of Form & Emptiness Ruth Ozeki
138. This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
139. The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton
140. The Push by Audrey Audrain
141. When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
142. A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
143. Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
144. The Familiars by Stacey Halls
145. Ill Feelings by Alice Hattrick
146. How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
147. Burntcoat by Sarah Hall
148. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
149. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
150. Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung READ MAY 22
151. Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
152. Assembly by Natasha Brown
153. The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
154. Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
155. The Colony by Audrey Magee
156. For the Good Times by David Keenan
157. The Anarchy by William Dalrymple
158. The Lost Girls of Rome by Donato Carrisi
159. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
160. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
161. Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski READ JULY 22
162. Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth
163. Southernmost by Silas House
164. A Man by Keichiro Hirano
165. Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
166. Songbirds by Christy Lefteri
167. Pandemic by A.G. Riddle
168. The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
169. Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
170. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint
171. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
172. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
173. Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
174. Male Tears by Benjamin Myers
175. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy READ APR 22
176. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
177. The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham READ APR 22
178. The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
179. The Bell by Iris Murdoch READ MAY 22
180. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
181. The Sandcastle by Iris Murdoch
182. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
183. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
184. The Clocks in this House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks
185. The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
186. O'Pioneers by Willa Cather
187. The Four Winds by Kristin Hann
188. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
189. Nostalgia by Mircea Cărtărescu
190. Mansfield Park by Jane Austin
191. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
192. The Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrere
193. Push by Sapphire
194. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
195. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene READ APR 22
196. Dignity by Alys Conran
197. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark READ APR 22
198. Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
199. A Burnt Out Case by Graham Greene
200. The Rack by A.E. Ellis
|201. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard READ MAR 22
202. Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard
203. Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard
204. Summer by Karl Ove Knausgaard
205. The Magician by Colm Toibin
206. Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
207. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
208. Careless by Kirsty Capes
209. Pilgrims Way by Abdulrazak Gurnah READ APR 22
210. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
211. The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine
212. The President's Gardens by Muhsin Al-Ramli
213. In the Country by Mia Alvar
214. Poetry Will Save Your Life by Jill Bialosky
215. Multitudes by Lucy Caldwell
216. Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto
217. Transit by Rachel Cusk
218. West by Carys Davies
219. In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant
220. The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis
221. The Witches of St. Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones
222. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
223. The Turner House by Angela Fournoy
224. A Tall History of Sugar by Curdella Forbes
225. Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray
226. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
227. The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths
228. Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff
229. The Evening Road by Laird Hunt
230. Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All by Jonas Jonasson
231. The Transition by Luke Kennard
232. A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
233. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
234. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
235. The Man Without a Shadow by Joyce Carol Oates
236. Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
237. Almost Love by Louise O'Neill
238. The Portrait by Willem Jan Otten
239. First Love by Gwendoline Riley. READ JUN 22
240. Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner
241. The Humbling by Philip Roth
242. The Butt by Will Self
243. The World to Come by Jim Shepard
244. The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons
245. The Dictionary of Animal Languages by Heidi Sopinka
246. In the Days of Rain by Rebecca Stott
247. The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa
248. Remember Me by Fay Weldon
249. Kipps by HG Wells
250. Resolution by A.N. Wilson
251. Animalia by Jean Baptiste Del Amo
252. The Autumn of the Ace by Louis de Bernieres
253. White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht
254. The Mother by Yvette Edwards
255. The Human Factor by Graham Greene
256. Memory of Departure by Abdulrazak Gurnah
257. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
258. Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes
259. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
260. Writers & Lovers by Lily King
261. Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
262. The Painted Veil by W Somerset Maugham
263. The Razor's Edge by W Somerset Maugham
264. On Politics by Alan Ryan
265. The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
266. Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones READ JUN 22
267. Dottie by Abdulrazak Gurnah
268. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
269. Sovietistan by Erika Fatland READ MAY 22
270. Mother Mother : The Sunday Times Bestseller by Annie Macmanus
271. Evelina by Fanny Burney
272. Go Big by Ed Milliband
273. Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
274. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
275. 20 Fragment of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
276. Bomber by Len Deighton
277. Mrs England by Stacey Halls READ APR 22
278. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky
279. Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
280. Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
281. The Cruel Way by Ella Maillart
282. Travels With Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski
283 The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
284 The Abyss and Other Stories by Leonid Andreyev
285 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
286 The School for Good Mothers Jessamine Chan
287 Dear Child by Romy Hausmann
288 Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz
289 The Answer to Everything by Luke Kennard
290 Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan
291 The Couple Next Door Shari Lapena
292 Pleasantville by Attica Locke
293 She Lies in Wait Gytha Lodge
294 How to Disappear by Gillian McAllister
295 Little Girl Lost by Brian McGilloway
296 Paradise Lost by John Milton
297 The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid
298 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
299 On the Eve by Ivan Turgenev
300 Ten Great Works of Philosophy commentaries by Robert Paul Wolff
includes:
301 The Death of Socrates by Plato
302 Poetics by Aristotle
303 Meditations on the First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
304 An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
305 Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant
306 Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
307 The Will to Believe by William James
308. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
309. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
310. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
311. The New Oxford Book of War Poetry edited by Jon Stallworthy
312. The Wish Child by Catherine Chidgey
313. Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
314. The Foundling by Stacey Halls
315. Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey
316. Prep by Curtis Sittenfield
317. The Years by Virginia Woolf
318. Darkness Visible by William Golding
319. The Last Family in England by Matt Haig
320. Seasons of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour
321. Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal
322. Naked Earth by Eileen Chang
323. Child of God by Cormac McCarthy\
324. River by Esther Kinsky
325. Stet by Diana Athill
326. Animal by Lisa Tadeo
327. The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm
328. Sonnets by William Shakespeare
329. The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
330. Flamingo by Rachel Elliott
331. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (replacement as someone borrowed it and failed to return it)
332. Suttree by Cormac McCarthy (I closed the book and left it on the train station platform)
333 Dark Avenues by Ivan Bunin
334 The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
335 The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
336 Wild Palms by William Faulkner
337 Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
338 The Mother by Maxim Gorky
339 Cathedral by Ben Hopkins
340 Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence
341 The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
342 The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre
343 Desiree by Annemarie Selinko
344 In America by Susan Sontag
345 Smoke by Ivan Turgenev
346 Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev
347 The Castle of Otranto by Hugh Walpole
348 The Attack on the Mill by Emile Zola
349. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh
350. The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer
351. Things I Don't Want to Know by Deborah Levy
352. Real Estate by Deborah Levy
353. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin READ MAY 22
354. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
355. Dark Neighbourhood by Vanessa Onwuemezi
356. Katalin Street by Magda Szabo
357. The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil
358. The Devil's Dance by Hamid Ismailov READ MAY 22
359. The Behaviour of Love by Virginia Reeves
360. A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos
361. All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
362. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
363. Complete Poems of John Keats by John Keats
364. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
365. Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
366. Martin Eden by Jack London
367. War and War by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
368. Selected Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley
369. After the Sun by Jonas Eika
370. Selected Poetical Works of Blake by William Blake
371. The Poetry of Lord Byron by George Byron
372. Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel
373. Gigi by Colette
374. Zorrie by Laird Hunt. READ JUN 22
375. Love in Idleness by Amanda Craig
376. Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal
377. The Slaughterman's Daughter by Yaniv Iczkovits
378. Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
379. Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor
380. Salt Lick by Lulu Allison
381. Wilhelm Meister by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
382. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
383. Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
384. Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
385. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez
386. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami
387. Salka Valka by Halldor Laxness
388. My Cleaner by Maggie Gee
389. The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
390. The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa
391. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
392. A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
393. Enon by Paul Harding
394. Purposes of Love by Mary Renault
395. The Guts by Roddy Doyle
396. Lanterne Rouge by Max Leonard
397. In One Person by John Irving
398. Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets
399. Lean Fall Stand by John McGregor
400. The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles. READ
401. The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
402. Murmur by Will Eaves READ JUNE 22
403. The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones
404. My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
405. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
406. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
407. A Love Story by Emile Zola
408. Madam by Phoebe Wynne
409. Below Deck by Sophie Hardcastle
410. Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
411. Men Who Feed Pigeons by Selima Hill
412. The Kids by Hannah Lowe READ MAY 22
413. Still Life by Sarah Winman
414. Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro
415. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
416. Transcription by Kate Atkinson
417. Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
418. Civilisations by Laurent Binet
419. Plain Pleasures by Jane Bowles
420. Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
421. I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke
422. The Death of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
423. Second Place by Rachel Cusk
424. Roxana by Daniel Defoe
425. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman READ JULY 22
426. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
427. A New Name by Jon Fosse
428. The Double Tongue by William Golding
429. Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah
430. A Small Revolution in Germany by Philip Hensher
431. The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman
432. The Golden Bowl by Henry James
433. Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
434. Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri
435. Severance by Ling Ma
436. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
437. Tangerine by Christine Mangan
438. Greenlights by Mathew McConaughey
439. Shakespearean by Robert McCrum
440. Beastings by Benjamin Myers
441. Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
442. The Wanderers by Tim Pears
443. Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit
444. The Colossus by Sylvia Plath
445. Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
446. King Lear: Arden Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
447. Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver
448. Asylum Road by Olivia Sudjic
449. The Aenid by Virgil
450. Fools Crow by James Welch
451. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
452. War : How Conflict Shaped Us by Margaret MacMillan READ MAY 22
453. The Europeans by Orlando Figes
454. Money and Government by Robert Skidelsky
455. A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
456. Time and Power by Christopher Clark
457. Dearly by Margaret Atwood
458. Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli
459. East West Street by Phillipe Sands
460. Breakout at Stalingrad by Heinrich Gerlach
461. The Hidden Pleasures of Life by Theodore Zeldin
462. The Road to War by Richard Overy
463. English Pastoral by James Rebanks
464. Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
465. Blood, Tears and Folly by Len Deighton
466. Justine by Lawrence Durrell
467. Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell
468. Mountolive by Lawrence Durrell
469. Clea by Lawrence Durrell
470. Bunny by Mona Awad
471. Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen
472. Britain Alone by Philip Stevens
473. The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
474. Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers
475. Promised You a Miracle by Andy Beckett. READ JUN 22
476. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
477. Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami
478. Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura
479. The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
480. Dominion by Tom Holland
481. Silverview by John Le Carre
482. China Room by Sunjeev Sahota
483. KL : A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps by Nikolaus Wachsmann
484. Seasons in the Sun by Dominic Sandbrook
485. Who Dares Wins by Dominic Sandbrook
486. The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
487. The Other Name by Jon Fosse
488. All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
489. Paradais by Fernanda Melchior
490. State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook
491. The Bones of Grace by Tahmima Anam
492. Mr Palomar by Italo Calvino
493. The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri
494. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
495. Red Birds by Mohammed Hanif
496. See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid
497. The Answers by Catherine Lacey
498. The World Made Straight by Ron Rash
499. Picture Palace by Paul Theroux
500. From India : Over 100 Recipes to Celebrate Food, Family & Tradition by Kumar Mahadevan
501. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
502. The Murderer by Roy Heath
503. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka READ JULY 22
504. Shadowplay by Tim Marshall
505. Governing the World by Mark Mazower
506. Adults in the Room by Yanis Varoufakis
507. My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
508. Two Hundred Years of Muddling Through by Duncan Weldon
509. The Great Crash 1929 by JK Galbraith
510. The Wars of the Roses : The Bloody Struggle for England's Throne by Hugh Bicheno
511. The Yellow House by Martin Gayford
512. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
513. Under the Blue by Oana Aristide
514. Shadowless by Hasan Ali Toptas
515. All the Names Given by Raymond Antrobus. READ JUN 22
516. Never Had it so Good by Dominic Sandbrook
517. White Heat by Dominic Sandbrook
518. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom
519. Closed Circles by Viveca Sten
520. The Hunting Dogs by John Lier Horst
521. The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron
522. Collected Poems : Louis MacNeice by Louis MacNeice
523. The Evenings by Gerard Reve
524. Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov
525. The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola
526. Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko
527. The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson READ JULY 22
528. Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay
529. A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare READ JUN 22
530. Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi
531. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman READ JULY 22
532. Emergency by Daisy Hildyard
533. Echoes of the City by Lars Sabye Christensen
534. Maud Martha by Gwendolin Brooks
535. The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
536. Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park
537. The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kaweabata
538. The Country of Others by Leila Slimani
539. Every Fire You Tend by Sea Kaygusuz
540. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
541. Identity : The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama
542. The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
543. The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard
544. Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan
545. The Fellowship : The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip Zaleski
546. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
547. The Left Handed Woman by Peter Handke
548. Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
549. The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
550. Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen
551. There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe
552. Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
553. Two Tribes by Chis Beckett
554. The Victim by Saul Bellow
555. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
556. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
557. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
558. Grant by Ron Chernow
559. A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
560. Suspicion by Friedrich Durrenmatt
561. Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon
562. The Whisperers by Orlando Figes
563. Effi Briest by Thoedor Fontane
564. The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster
565. Never Again by Peter Hennessy
566. Too Far to Walk by John Hersey
567. Fen by Daisy Johnson
568. The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy
569. Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles
570. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
571. The Boat by Nam Le
572. Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
573. The Moon and the Bonfires by Casare Pavase
574. The Brothers York by Thomas Penn
575. The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts
576. Oreo by Fran Ross
577. This is Happiness by Niall Williams
578. Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel
579. Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble
580. Hard Choices : What Britain Does Next by Peter Ricketts
581. Many Different Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen
582. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
583. The Light That Failed by Ivan Kratsev
584. The Classical School : The Turbulent Birth of Economics by Callum Williams
585. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier
586. Straw Dogs by John Gray
587. Stiff by Mary Roach
588. Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke
589. Statistics Without Tears by Derek Rowntree
590. The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

ADDED : 590
READ : 46
BALANCE : 544

Reading Stats

The next is yours.....

Happy new thread!

>19 amanda4242: That was quick, Amanda!
The virtual bookshelf is yours.

Happy new thread Paul!

This must be the earliest I've made it to a new thread of yours. I almost hoped ... then I thought 'No' ... and I see Amanda beat me to it - but only Amanda.

New-thread orisons, PC.

>21 humouress: I don't normally make a new thread at this time, Nina, as I am normally thinking of sleep. Great to see you so early anyhow and even though the time of day suits both of us in the Far East!

>22 richardderus: Thank you dear fellow.

Happy new thread Paul

>24 ArlieS: Thank you, Arlie. My post COVID fatigue is telling on me again so I am off for a little sleep.

Happy new thread, Paul, sleep well.

>1 PaulCranswick: Hope you are feeling stronger, Paul.

Was this location mentioned in DEFENDING THE ROCK?

>1 PaulCranswick: I am loving the images you are posting and the back stories too. You have explored a lot of wonderful places. i just finished The Swimmers and now want to read Otsuka's previous books >2 PaulCranswick:. Happy new thread. WOW #23! Amazing!

I always enjoy your opening images!

23 threads already! And, quite a lot of books read. Hooray for you.

Happy new thread!

>1 PaulCranswick: It's always so great to see modern views of the locations mentioned over and over in books I've read. I often seek out maps, but very rarely current images.

>26 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita. Four hours is better than nothing!

>27 m.belljackson: Thanks Marianne. I have no idea to be honest as I haven't read that one but it is impossible, I think, as according to wikipedia (I had to check I'm afraid), the hotel was built and opened in 1964.

>28 mdoris: Thank you, Mary. I am really enjoying The Buddha in the Attic and also have The Swimmers on the shelves.

>29 Whisper1: Thanks Linda. I am determined to reach 200 books for the first time since my university days.

>30 quondame: I'm not sure exactly how contemporary the image of the hotel is in >1 PaulCranswick: but I have to say that from a distance it looks exactly as it did. Looking at the website, I remember little of the place from the renovated decor - it certainly looks like it has gone upmarket a bit!

>31 PaulCranswick: As the one LT who has been there, you would likely delve more deeply into DEFENDING THE ROCK, as you will, some glorious day, THE 1619 PROJECT!

>34 m.belljackson: I suppose with the project I was involved in (and having to sign the Official Secrets Act) means that I have played some small part in defending the rock.
I will read the 1619 Project all being well in September.

Happy New Thread, Paul!!

Thank you. buddy!

It has been a long time and I honestly don't remember it very well, but I do remember liking The Buddha in the Attic.

>38 EBT1002: It has a very unique style which is fairly hypnotic, Ellen.

Happy new one!

>40 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita. x

Happy new thread, Paul!

I read The Buddha in the Attic for book club some years ago and really enjoyed it. Hope it continues to be a good one for you!

Happy New Thread, Paul.

Happy new thread Paul! I just put in an order today for a handful of books off your Asian Book Challenge so I can finally participate - I've got books covered from August to December now, well except November because there was no suggestions list yet (unless I missed it somewhere). Anyway, looking forward to them and being able to participate! It's a very cool challenge you've put together and going off your last thread I would be interested if you did another one next year - Asian or African - if it so strikes your fancy and you have the time, of course.

>42 bell7: I love the way that she is trying to tell the story for all the Japanese women at the same time. It is very effective in my opinion, Mary. Lovely to see you as always. x

>43 Kristelh: Thanks Kristel. I hope you don't mind my recognizing you as a stalwart of my threads this year. I have thoroughly enjoyed your company. x

>44 WhiteRaven.17: Thank you, Kro.
My usual rules when it comes to my book challenges are that the rules are meant to be broken as I want it to be fun. Those that want to follow strictly month by month can do that and those that want to pick and choose and read qualifying books at any time of the year are more than welcome to do so too.

I think it is safe to assume that I will host one of the challenges if not both and thanks for your very kind words - my cheeks have a fetching pink tinge just now!

This link to the general thread might help your planning a little bit:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/337731#n7692635

>45 PaulCranswick:, proud to be so. I enjoy your thread and it is a real source of books to hunt down.

>46 PaulCranswick: That's a good way to look at a challenge and I've definitely saved the general thread - I was scouring it earlier as I added too many books to my order cart. I eventually plan to go back and get books for every month that you planned when I have time, it helps a lot to have a reference list when looking for authors and books outside my normal purview and I'd like to start tracking my own 'Around the World' challenge next year.
Well, I look forward to whatever you end up putting together!

>47 Kristelh: I have noticed a bit of a redefinition of my thread over the last couple of years coincidental with my call for more tolerance and decency in public debate and the crunching of personal freedoms in the face of a much more polarized world. Some people have chosen to stay away from my threads in consequence as I welcome expressions of opinion across the spectrum so long as it is polite and not intended to hurt others and this has lead to more debate than they would like in a forum essentially about books and reading.

I do miss some of those friends terribly but I am inordinately grateful that there remain a large number still willing to put up with me!

>48 WhiteRaven.17: Very kind of you to say that, Kro.

I have made a number of attempts at the Around the World Challenge and ostensibly to get 80 books done from 80 countries in a year which is frankly too much for me. I reset it last year and I will keep it chugging along until I have done as many as I can reasonably manage.

Playing with ideas for an African challenge in order to have a balanced challenge across 12 months.

>50 PaulCranswick: Afro/Asian > Things Fall Apart and Cutting for Stone...?

The Official Secrets Act sounds like an intriguing book title.

>51 m.belljackson: Both would be African challenges (Nigeria / Ehthiopia respectively) although Verghese obviously has Asian antecedents.

The Official Secrets Act is well-known to most British defence contractors and I have had it put before me on three separate occasions already : Gibraltar, Aldermaston and in relation to a project in Africa.

>50 PaulCranswick: Understandably so, I tip my hat to anyone that can accomplish that in a single year. My plan is to look at it more as a general challenge to work towards accomplishing, at whatever rate that may take me.

I do not envy the task of putting together, balancing, and organizing such a challenge and hopefully it's not too much work - or at least if it is, its enjoyable. Either way I'm sure it will be well appreciated.

>53 WhiteRaven.17: Thank you, Kro. There are some of our number who could certainly manage the challenge in a year but I am not of their number.

Putting together a challenge is good fun but there is always the worry that you'll mess it up or get some basic facts wrong.

Happy new thread, Paul. That’s quite the long list of new books that you open with!

>55 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg. I have added 545 books already this year and I need to read at the speed of Stasia and Suz combined just to keep up with myself!

>49 PaulCranswick: It is a harsh time. I think you do a great job of trying to make your thread a safe place for all opinions. But mostly it is a place about books and authors and I appreciate that. I am enjoying the Asian challenge. I really like how the 75 group is set up and find myself expanding my reading and my participation. Have a great week. Hope that computer is becoming more and more "friendly".

Happy new one, Paul!

>57 Kristelh: Thank you for those nice words, Kristel. I like talking about books than most anything else too!

>58 drneutron: Thanks Jim

Happy new thread! Hoping to get to visit this one more often as I love both the books and the conversations. Thanks for being a LT leader.

>61 witchyrichy: I'm not sure I qualify as a LT leader, Karen, although it is nice of you to say so. Jim, RD, Mark, Stasia, Peggy, Madeline and Linda (whisper1) were fixtures here long before I showed up and I have tried my best to follow the example they have set here.

>39 PaulCranswick: I wrote a review of bita in 2015. I was somewhat disappointed but I did describe the rhythm of the book as almost like chanting. I liked the first chapter a lot but was underwhelmed with the rest with the collective we, rather than individual stories. San Francisco, tho, always a plus for me.

>63 RBeffa: I did like it, Ron, and the collective viewpoint worked for me but I am not sure it would have endured successfully had the book been longer.

>49 PaulCranswick: *hug*

Happy new thread, Paul!!

>65 ArlieS: All hugs are gratefully received, Arlie!

>66 banjo123: Thank you, Rhonda

Happy new thread, Paul!

>1 PaulCranswick: Looks lovely!

>2 PaulCranswick: Interesting quote!

>63 RBeffa: >64 PaulCranswick: And now I am intrigued…

>68 EllaTim: Nice to see you as always, Ella.

I think you would enjoy Buddha in the Attic.

>1 PaulCranswick: Are you even allowed to say 'a submarine tracking station in the heart of the Rock of Gibraltar' out loud?? Surely that was top secret ;)

>16 PaulCranswick: I think you should also read Lampedusa, which I recently finished, mainly because it rhymes with your book #1. Appaloosa by Robert Parker :)

>70 LovingLit: Probably but I think the effective period is 20 years and it is more than 30 years ago!

Good spot with Appaloosa/Lampedusa - there must be a limerick in there somewhere. xx

BOOK #93



Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Date of Publication : 1993
Origin of Author : Poland
Pages : 337 pp

The famed and erudite Polish travel writer and commentator refers to the Soviet Union as the "Imperium" and in this book he describes his encounters with and explorations of the Imperium.

His first encounter in September 1939 as the Red Army marched into the part of Poland in which he lived remains the most vivid and I do wish we had had more of this.

The remainder of his impressions are from his visits in the 60's, 80's and very early 1990s. If I can compare with Fatland's Sovietistan, Kapuscinski's has the more gravitas and it is the more acerbic but Fatland is more immersive and comes from a position of genuine interest rather than an obviously intended critique.

That said his descriptions of a Siberian miner's strike and his prescient commentary of Ukraine and the Russian attitude towards Ukraine are probably higher points that Fatland ever reaches. In other words I believe that Imperium is the more important book but Sovietistan is the book I will probably read again.

>72 PaulCranswick: Adding that one to the BlackHole. As far as I know, I have only read one of Kapuscinski's books.

Happy whatever, Paul!

Happy New Thread Paul!!

Now there are two more titles into the aforementioned 'Blackhole' of my own after reading your new thread, Paul!

>73 alcottacre: Nice to see you, Stasia. It is my first read of a book by him but I do have another two on the shelves. x

>74 hredwards: Thank you, Harold

>75 kaida46: Happy you got snagged, Deb!

Wordle 382 6/6

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First time I have played for a few days due to the setting up of the new computer and the bringing up to date of this year's stats (now done). Just edged my way across the line!

Hi Paul, Happy new thread! Moving along at a rapid pace, as usual!

I loved The Buddha in the Attic when I read it several years ago.

>1 PaulCranswick: Now there’s a place I had never even thought to go and now I want to! It looks so lovely!

BOOK #94



The Late Sun by Christopher Reid
Date of Publication : 2021
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 77 pp

Christopher Reid is a deft and adept poet. A writer of technical skill with a very sound feel and touch for the right line and the appropriate phrase.

This is generally a very successful collection but it does clunk in a formulaic way on one or two more occasions than is fitting from someone of his ilk. His poem about the scents of London is throwaway stuff that I wouldn't have been happy turning in for my school English assignment.

He is otherwise assured, measured but slightly wanting in hyperbolic emotions (not always a bad thing) but a number of poems do stand out to the reader and I particularly like this one :

Death of a Barber

Not Mustafa, but one of his colleagues
cut my hair today.
That’s when I learned that Mustafa
had passed away,
a victim of the virus.

Intimate work, the barber’s:
fingers, scissors and razor
titivating
with professional gentleness
crown, sides, back and neck.
Almost a caress.

I had been going for ages
to the little shop he used to have,
festooned with climbing plants
and budgerigars in cages,
before I learned Mustafa’s name
and something of his life
but, as etymology tells us,
touch and tact are the same.

For months now, no one had touched me
except my wife,
and I was looking forward
to a needed trim.
I got one, as expert and luxurious
as any of Mustafa’s,
But it was not from him.

Recommended but with the proviso that the reader is a bit selective about which poems to concentrate upon

>79 Copperskye: Thanks Joanne and lovely to see you!
Gibraltar has plenty of things to see and do across its 5 sq miles or so, but it does have a sort of faded charm about it that would not be to everyone's taste!

>81 PaulCranswick: Faded charm? We’d get along just fine! :)

>16 PaulCranswick: This makes me wish that I had the space for so many books...

>82 Copperskye: Hahaha, yes, I liked it too!

>83 ocgreg34: Six months of additions only, Greg, a less than 5% addition to my collection at home but the boss is noticing already!

I have read six of Ryszard Kapuscinski's books and I also read the his biography written by Artur Domoslawski. I found them all excellent reads.

>85 torontoc: He is certainly a good writer, Cyrel. I will read the other two of his books that I have on the shelves in the near future.

Hi Paul, and happy new thread to you.

From your previous thread, re The Sign of the Beaver you said Aside from the fact that that is pretty outrageous behaviour to leave a 14 year old boy on his own in a land that is not fully settled, with potentially hostile Native Americans in the area, I think children had to be more reponsible much earlier in those times, and was entirely in keeping with those times that a 13- or 14-year old boy was left alone. However, I do admit that I don’t know how the boy felt about it in this particular story. Just sayin’, very late, of course. And I seem to remember reading that ‘squaws’ was only used in some of the Native American languages but became a pejorative term for all Native American women.

Ludmila: A story of Liechenstein - Sentimental to the point of mawkishness, it is something I can imagine reading to my grandkids and have them sleep before the cow does. Anything that can help children sleep is to be kept on the shelves, for sure.

I hope you’re liking your Dell. We’re a Dell family and have been for 20 or more years. One of your reasons is like Bill’s although he did it years ago – Apple was way too much money to justify given our finances at the time.

Next year stationed in Morocco? Based out of the UK or still in Malaysia? Enquiring minds and all that…

>2 PaulCranswick: Oh yes, The Buddha in the Attic. I read it in July of 2013 for my RL book club and it was a stunner.

>49 PaulCranswick: You’re definitely worth visiting, my dear friend, but I haven’t been as diligent in visiting my friends in the last few months as I’d like. And now, of course, I get way behind. 10 days and 117+ 85 posts behind here.

>87 karenmarie: Thank you, Karen. I always look forward to your comprehensive and thoughtful comments.
Sign of the Beaver - quite right they were different times!
Ludmila was certainly a saccharine tale and I can certainly imagine reading it to Belle had I known of it years ago.

I'm slowly getting used to the Dell and apart from a smaller battery life I am happy as Larry (or Bill!) with it already.

Morocco would be based there most of the time but run through our UK company - I have just set up with my brother an overseas office and local company out of Gibraltar (topically enough) and we will also have a company with my local partner in Casablanca's tax-free zone.

Buddha in the Attic is a really good read as is my latest one that I'm chugging through (Waiting by Ha Jin.

You are one of my besties here, Karen, and I couldn't conceive a time (I sincerely hope) that we wouldn't be regulars on each other's thread. xx

>88 PaulCranswick: Will your Company be located in one of Gibraltar's famous tunnels?

>89 m.belljackson: No Marianne. It's office will be registered there, the premises in effect will be in Morocco.

Wordle 383 2/6

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I have not managed that one for a while!

Hi Paul, i think that i am listening and watching (highlights) a completely different sort of Cricket than i am used to BUT boy am i enjoying it, even (god forbid) Crawley. This new ear with Baz and Ben is refreshing although i wish Stokes would show the game some respect, he is the Captain after all.

Four wins on the bounce, four chases over 270, unheard of before and Bairstow and Root are batting with so much freedom and yet both make sure that they have a platform before exploding.

Bairstow and Root are 6 and 73 runs short of 1,000 Test runs for the year, i felt sorry for Lees with the run out but he is showing lots of promise and Crawley (yes him again) has some exquisite shots when he concentrates and then gets out when leaving a ball as he has been told to, although the ball from Bumrah was a good one. Pope needs more time to master the the No 3 position, a position that has been troubling English Cricket for more years than i can remember.

Roll on the South Africa series and yes we have to face better teams, by the time that happens we will have had so much practice at this new idea of you set us a target and we will chase it. There has to be a bump in the road to come but that is to be expected, or will it?.

>92 johnsimpson: John to be fair India and New Zealand are number one and number two in the test rankings and we are 4-0!

It has been exciting and Bairstow and Root have been magnificent. Lees has done well and Pope enough, although I am still not convinced he is a number 3. Crawley isn't up to test cricket - temperament isn't there he is averaging less than 20 over two summers in tests and that is simply not good enough. It isn't about potential any more he should have delivered already.

Nice to see you mate.

>91 PaulCranswick: I'm hoping to emulate you with a 2 tomorrow.

>94 richardderus: You have consistently done slightly better than I have RD so it wouldn't surprise me.

>91 PaulCranswick: good job!

>96 figsfromthistle: There are exceptions to every rule, Anita. In something like 160 games that is only the second or third time I have managed that.

>92 johnsimpson: Alright!

I'm a bit lost re cricket; we don't get test matches on TV and two minutes ago England were in the middle of a series agains New Zealand. Looks like the England team have taken T20 techniques to the test wicket.

I am in a very happy place today as Boris Johnson has been forced to resign following the removal of support for him by his own ministers. It will be interesting to see who becomes the next British PM. I'm not a Conservative by any stretch of the imagination but I do hope the country gets a half-way sensible leader - someone of the Tom Tudenhadt or Ben Wallace mode. I personally don't mind Jeremy Hunt too much although his time as Health Minister was a bit concerning.

Most of the rest of the candidates are probably damaged by their previous close support of the Boris.

>98 humouress: Simply tremendous stuff, Nina, and what a delight for a Yorkshireman to see Root and Bairstow lead the way. I love the brave captaincy of Ben Stokes and they are entertaining the public to boot.

>99 PaulCranswick: YAY! Now if we can get rid of his twin!

>101 cindydavid4: I think we will struggle to find a decent politician most anywhere these days, Cindy!

>99 PaulCranswick: I've just been reading that Ben Wallace is the members' favourite. Apparently Priti Patel and Steve Baker (who threw his hat in the ring this morning) are down the bottom of the list, thank goodness.

meme on FB: on sandwich chalk board reads

"carpenters urgently required, cabinet is falling apart. apply at 10 downing street, no tools required the building is full of them!"

>102 PaulCranswick: I meant his twin on our side of the pond!

Good to see you are up and running with a new computer, Paul.

>103 SandDune: Baker seems very much to the right and has all the charisma of a skunk whilst Patel is an arrogant bully. Skunkish Bullies have had their day there hopefully, Rhian!

>104 cindydavid4: Hahaha Joinery is certainly needed over there, Cindy.

>105 cindydavid4: Yes, I figured that one, Cindy.

I did see an extraordinary report today that Biden has been releasing 1 million barrels of oil a day from the emergency strategic reserve - supposedly to address the rise in fuel/gas prices domestically. It now transpires that his administration has been selling the reserves to Europe, India and - my God - China. Signally the dumbest and most insincere move I have seen from an American government when its people are struggling with energy costs. Russia and China must be really laughing up their sleeves at this fellow.

>106 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg. I am getting used to it!

I didn't get Wordle in 2, but was happy with 5!

>108 PaulCranswick: I don't think the US has insufficient oil. We should be sending our excess to Europe. The US has been selling oil to China for a very long time: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTEXCH1&f=M

>108 PaulCranswick: WTF!!!!!! no i have not heard that. All Ive been hearing is that fellow dems are unhappy at his passivity in gettiing things to happen. But this, what in the world could possibly be the reason?

>109 richardderus: I got lucky, RD, is all.

>110 RBeffa: The difference Ron is in the use of your strategic emergency reserve, it is unbelievable. The action was taken ostensibly to correct US prices. Europe is not too controversial as there is a good argument that you don't want them buying from Russia but why on earth would you be calling on your strategic emergency reserve and supplying China who wants to supplant and destroy you?

>111 cindydavid4: The gas situation is a direct result of his policies pursued at precisely the wrong time. He campaigned on a pledge to end fossil fuels and oversaw an increase in prices by 66% before Russia invaded Ukraine but then has the confused gall to blame Putin for the rise in prices!

>112 PaulCranswick: Selling to China in hopes this will prevent them from buying from Russia? Putin is already making too much money at the moment from the rise in prices.

>80 PaulCranswick: Loved the poem Paul.

>114 EllaTim: China is insatiable, Ella. The USA should not be depleting its emergency reserves and still supplying China - it is madness and it will not stop them buying from Putin as is proved.

I bought the collection on the strength of that poem as I had read it in a best of year anthology and made a note to look for the book.

>108 PaulCranswick: Oh, that is the wrong way to address the Balance of Trade. Why are we such dipshits.

>112 PaulCranswick: Because they did not need to call on the strategic reserve. It was waving a ragged "we are doing something flag". In truth it was idiotic. The problem in the US right now is refining capacity and an extremely large demand for fuels. I live in an area with quite a few refineries. At least two closed in the last couple years because they were inefficient and/or poorly run and they are being converted to produce alternative fuels (like using old cooking oil.) There have been no new refineries of any size built in the US for over 40 years and with the anti-oil spiel from the Biden green faction there are certainly not going to be more refineries built here. The Russia invasion unsettled the world for fuel. If so many Americans could give up this ridiculous need for SUV's among other sensible things it would help.

A bit more than two years ago oil producers in Texas were literally paying people to take their oil. Tankers were rented to store oil. On April 20, 2020 I made a facebook post: "In Texas about 30 minutes ago the price of a barrel of oil went negative - as in they would pay you to take it. What next? Free gas at the pump?"

I did not hear screaming about oil and prices then. Companies went bankrupt. Even the biggies had to borrow tons the last two years. Now they are catching up.

Wordle 384 4/6

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Not as spectacular as yesterday but I am happy enough.

>116 quondame: So many of his policy decisions seem to be more to China's long term advantage than to the US or the Wests. I was banging on 25 years ago that we needed to wake up and smell the coffee with China before it was too late. It is probably too late.

>117 RBeffa: You are right, Ron, it was just so he could pretend to be doing something.
America has gone from the obnoxious to the hopeless; from callous extreme to incompetence.
I think most right-minded people wanted to see the back of Trump but the Biden administration has been a shambles to date.
The UK has had a pathological bumbling liar at its helm.

Where oh where are the leaders needed in the West?

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342791

Thanks Silver!

>119 PaulCranswick: There's that old adage about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. There are advantages to having an interdependent relationship between regions. It can avoid war as one benefit although that did not work so well, so far, with Russia attacking the Ukraine. But for a significant part of my lifetime and from before I was born the US was at war with China by proxy (Korea, Vietnam in particular) and an all-out war was not unthinkable. Nowadays I don't think that is a worry. The balance of our relationship with China got seriously off-balance and it needs to be addressed. Having huge tariffs on chinese solar panels in the Trump and Biden admins is not the smartest thing if you need those panels to go green. Today the US lifted tariffs on Canadian solar panels. You know, Canada our enemy. Sheesh. I'll shut up.

Wait, one more thing. Oil and gas prices have fluctuated severely for a very long time. However never ever have I seen the inflation on food prices that I witness now and increasingly the past six months or so. That is scary.

>119 PaulCranswick: Let's see - FDR died, John Kennedy was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was assassinated,

and Clinton torpedoed himself...

While Hillary had that election stolen...

...not sure if anyone brave followed your Churchill.

>122 RBeffa: Ron, a leading source of America's wealth is via its energy sector. If and when the world transitions from fossil fuels to other forms of energy America must be in a position to lead the way or it will fall behind. It will not lead the way if it becomes dependent upon China (as it is becoming) to manufacture most everything including crucially the vast majority of world solar panels. That will lead to conflict because the American economy and way of life / standard of living will not survive the change unscathed.

Increased fuel costs does impact the cost of all products but supply chain restrictions due to an over reliance on Chinese supply and caused by COVID-19 shutdowns have made the cost increases generational. It is scary buddy you are right.

>123 m.belljackson: Attlee was a better and far more principled man than Churchill but there has been a dearth of good leadership in the UK for a long time for sure. I was actually thinking back the last decade or so, Marianne. I think Obama was a very special man but his Presidency disappointed largely due to an uncooperative house and the conflicts he inherited.

>125 PaulCranswick: When I think back to Obama's eloquence and statesmanship and compare him with the two that have followed, I am so sad.

>122 RBeffa: I was in college during the last inflation time; I didnt notice the change that much except for gas went from a few quarters a gallon to 3 dollars very quickly. But Im really feeling this now. foods we buy weekly have either doubled in price or no longer avaiable (are we still having supply chain issues) We are lucky tho we both are working but I feel badly for those who were already struggling

>124 PaulCranswick: If you ask many my daughter's age the American Way of life with its high standard of living is caput. She has a comfy place and no student debt, but unless she wants to move to a red state she's priced out of the market for anything but dreary housing while fully employed.

>127 cindydavid4: The world economic situation is extremely concerning. The West is reaping what it sowed with the Chinese exacerbated by the pandemic, the root causes of which the current administration do not seem overly concerned about investigating thoroughly. It is grievously ironic that the state that wrought the pandemic, unintentionally I would hope, seems most likely to emerge its main beneficiary.

>129 PaulCranswick: Lifestyle choices will hopefully not become existential ones, Susan. I understand that there is a significant migration from California and New York to other states which may become a very important and careful choice, given the Federal Courts obvious current majority giving rights back to the states to decide over the federal protection of rights.

BOOK #95



The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Date of Publication : 2011
Origin of Author : USA
Pages : 129 pp.

This excellent little novel manages to be sweeping and intimate at the same time.

Otsuka has a fairly unusual way of telling the story of the arrival of Japanese brides to their waiting husbands in the USA and their subsequent experience by focusing on not any one of them but on all of the as a collective.

It is effective but probably explains why she was unable to sustain a longer novel. I was absolutely captivated by the first three-quarters of this but was a trifle disappointed that she didn't follow the ladies all the way on their journey. That said definitely recommended.

>127 cindydavid4: You are right - gas about tripled or more in a very short time in the late 70's or do. When I started college Calif gas was about 25 cents a gallon and quickly tripled and more to at least 80cents a gallon with the mideast oil embargo crisis in 1973. Luckily I did very little driving at the time. Inflation in general has often been balanced with deflation in other items - such as televisions getting better and better and costing less and less over the year. The same with computers and printers. But I have never seen food inflation and missing items like I have been. Even cat food - you feel like you hit the jackpot to pay double for the half a dozen cans that might be there. Something is wrong.

>131 PaulCranswick: good summary Paul

>132 RBeffa: food, baby formula (has that been solved?) and for god sakes Tampon shortage?there arent many altervatives for that time of the month, yikes

That time in the late 70s was als a recession. I had just graduated and could not find a job in the city whereI wanted. Ended up taking a job in a small rural school for four years which actually a very good experience, and I was making $9000 a year. Weeeeee

>132 RBeffa: Shortages of essentials or prohibitive prices for them is a huge concern and it is starting to hurt the less advantaged faster and obviously less proportionately than those who have enough funds. It is a classic recipe for civil and particularly industrial unrest - the UK is now facing more strikes than the mid years of the Thatcher government - it is not a coincidence as when price rising far outstrip wage growth the less well-off become desperate.

>133 RBeffa: Thanks Ron. It was an affecting little book.

>134 cindydavid4: There is no doubt that the Biden administration has made missteps although the situation they faced as a result of the pandemic and the global realignment of economic clout was always going to leave them with grave challenges. The supply-chain has not been handled well, the response to the baby formula crisis was sluggish at best and feminine hygiene product shortages should not be impacting what is still the world's biggest and richest economy. Where he hasn't lead other nations tied to US fortunes are not really able to follow.

I remember the high inflation era of the 1970s with its three day weeks and candle-light evenings. I remember it with affection but as a schoolboy I wasn't exposed to the stresses and strains my late mother was.

Happy new thread, Paul.
I almost missed the last one, I want to do better this time.
Have a wonderful weekend.

>99 PaulCranswick: Agreeing Paul. And it needs to be someone who will not have Pritti Patel in the Cabinet. Find A cabinet to lock her in, sound-proofed, and throw away the key!

>137 SirThomas: Thank you, Thomas. Monday is a public holiday so I am looking forward to a nice break.

>138 Caroline_McElwee: I think that any of the three I did mention would be a vast improvement and I don't see Hunt or Tugendhat including Ms. Patel. I see that Tom Tugendhat has already declared his candidacy.

Terrible news today in that the Japanese Prime Minister Mr. Abe has been shot and killed when campaigning. What a terrible thing to happen. My thoughts are with his family and the Japanese people this evening.

Looking at friends' posts on Twitter and Ben Wallace's voting record, he's not that sensible.

He has a long record of voting against gay rights.

He has been an outspoken supporter of an incursion by Turkey into Syria, which I assume (for geographical and political reasons) was against the Kurdish population in the region in question. And he's heavily involved with arms deals with Saudi Arabi

No such thing as a good Tory PM in my view though! (I'll resist ranting about Churchill here).

>141 elkiedee: I wouldn't disagree with you at all on there being such a thing as a good Tory PM, Luci, but there are shades of disaster. I must admit that I have not studied the voting records of any of the candidates because, as a member of the Labour Party, it isn't really my scrap. I do have to say though that Tom Tugenhadt's speech on Afghanistan was one of the most memorable in recent times and he looks like a principled and credible fellow. Won't win of course.

Pleased to see that Starmer and Rayner were given a clean bill of health on "Beergate" by Durham police today much (comically) to the chagrin of right-wing commentators.

A plague on all right-wing houses.

Deleted a jeremiad so I won't cause undue harm to your thread, PC, but I reviewed two books today that reinforced my disdain for and disgust with the radical idiots on the "conservative" (ie reactionary) end of the political spectrum.

>143 richardderus: Hehe RD, it would have not occasioned any discomfort to me dear fellow as I don't hold with right-wing politics either although I would plead for their right to hold some (but not all) of their views. The xenophobic, homophobic nature of much of it frankly appalls me to my core. That said some of the state behemoth tendencies and crushing of personal liberties that is becoming vogue in parts of the more judgemental of the left makes me shudder too.

I will go over to your place in the hope of incendiary reviews!

>136 PaulCranswick:
The Baby Formula Crisis - This was caused by the company that makes baby formula. There are only three of them in the U. S. and the one in Michigan (Abbot is the name of the company) closed their plant. The reason - several babies got bacterial infections from the formula produced in the plant and at least 2 died from the resulting infection. The FDA (Federal Drug Administration) closed the plant after Abbot recalled several of its formula brands because they were dangerous. It took Abbot months to clean and disinfect the plant to meet FDA cleanliness standards and food safety regulations. FDA officials asked other baby formula companies to increase production to cover the Abbot plant downtime, but these companies (Gerber was one) were slow to respond. (consumers should wonder why they were slow to respond?) President Biden then had to invoke the defense Production Act that would allow the US to import baby formula from abroad. (The US has strict health and safety rules that are not followed in other countries, for the production of baby formula. Even Switzerland, the headquarters of Nestle, one of the world's biggest producers of baby formula.) He also asked Congress to relax the restrictions on the importation of baby formula, which they did NOT do.

In short, the government did just what it should have done. It protected consumers from unsafe products. The actions of the FDA might have saved the lives of dozens of babies who were getting unsafe formula from Abbot (the maker of Similac) and kept these families from unnecessary grief. It is clear from the lack of response to the shortage, that the other US companies that produce baby formula opted for increased revenues rather than elevating the formula shortage and so stretched out their response time as long as possible in order to maximize profits.

It is my opinion that the US government agencies involved in this fiasco were not at fault. The companies who produce baby formula were the ones at fault. The US government responded appropriately and are not responsible for the panic and profiteering purchasing that went on by consumers in the US during the shortage. The companies that produce baby formula in the US saw an opportunity to increase profits and they did so. It is a mark of the unhesitating drive to make a profit (plain old greed) that made it necessary for the President to step in and use a War Power's Act to compensate for this greed. President Biden should have been commended for the way the government responded to this manufactured shortage rather than condemned.

I learned about this causes of this crisis by reading reliable reports from many different sources and I would advise that course of action for others. The more you read about it, the more obvious it becomes as to what caused the crisis and who alleviated that crisis. President Biden's actions in invoking his War Powers (in peace time, when he should never have had to do so) created a buffer so that the US companies could increase capacity to cover the short term crisis created by the closure of one (1) plant. I am sure that in the coming years there will be books written about this manufactured shortage that will show the unconscionable actions of these food companies to be just that - unconscionable. Consumers should boycott every one of these companies and their products, but the fact that there are so few manufacturers of these food stuffs precludes that possibility because there simply aren't any alternatives for these products that are readily available. Unless, the US relaxes it safety regulations and allows companies like Nestle to come in and compete with the few companies who have the market currently fenced in.

>145 benitastrnad: For some people, Benita, the buck never stops at Joe Biden. Look at the dates that they first knew the baby formula was going to be a problem and when was it they actually bothered to do something about it. It is shameful that the world's leading economy should have empty shelves for basic essentials a la the Soviets.

Since the Government actually controls the majority of the supply via the department of Agriculture (WIC programme) it cannot excuse its lack of timely reaction, but hey according to Bette Midler they should stop moaning and start breast feeding. (a disgusting comment considering the shortage hits poorer families the most where the mum's generally can't afford to stay home all day to provide that form of natural sustenance) The Government should have known about the impending crisis earlier and acted faster especially as the monopolistic problems you rightly identify were a result of direct (and to be fair to Biden) successive government policy.

Time is hardly a bastion of red-neck journalism but even they couldn't give him a pass on this:
https://time.com/6177128/baby-formula-congress-monopoly-abbott/

I am a bit tired of his Putin Price Hike nonsense, and his lashing out at small businesses to take the fall for the consequences of his actions in office. He is now blaming the Gas pump Stations for profiteering when the majority are on the edge. He should be honest with the public - he set out to destroy the American energy sector (he campaigned on it openly) and he is reaping at the Western world's expense the results of that intentional policy. When John Kerry stops flying on his private jet maybe someone should tell him we cannot all afford an electric car.

He doesn't get called out by a very compliant media although I can see ennui setting in. He is an upgrade in terms of character in comparison with the odious man he replaced but he is still an enormous disappointment.

>146 PaulCranswick: Re formula and breastfeeding, in the US and UK, the problem is that, despite theoretical policies promoting it, there isn't the structure to support in either country, eg very little maternity leave in the US, and underfunding for support etc here. Meanwhile formula milk and baby food are a hugely profitable part of the processed food industry, so the companies that make it have lots of money to invest on promotion (and they can recoup that by huge mark ups in price).

>147 elkiedee: I don't purport to be an expert in the subject of baby formula, Luci. My simple point was one of administration - the Biden administration or the entirely hapless Johnson government - are the executive power in their respective countries and it is their responsibility to ensure that its citizens have adequate access and availability of essential products. It is no good blaming others for every ill you are facing having campaigned on a platform of taking full responsibility for government and on uniting the country.

Wordle 385 4/6

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Another comfortable one.

BOOK #96



Waiting by Ha Jin
Date of Publication : 1999
Origin of Author : USA (born in China)
Pages : 308 pp

This is a very well crafted novel by the Chinese American novelist Ha Jin. I emphasize here his background because this is one of the most non-American books to win the National Book Awards concentrating as it does on love, marriage (and divorce) and responsibilities in Maoist China.

We have three main characters explored in a love triangle (plus a number of extremely well drawn supporting cast members) and Ha Jin is skillful in allowing us to see the foibles and failings of all three without causing us to dislike any of them entirely. We have a basically good man in a loveless marriage, we have his wife (whom he wishes to divorce) who adores him and who he feels an honour and responsibility towards and the third person who is.....waiting.

Recommended.

I read that book ages ago and lovedi t!

It will be interesting to hear what you think of Never had it so Good by Sandbrook. I'm tempted to pick it up.

Watching any Tour de France? I watched the stage yesterday on a train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. Oh, so close Vingegaard was to win in front of Pogacar, but that man is too good in the sprints.

>151 cindydavid4: It was really good. Cindy. First of his books that I have read but it won't be the last.

>152 ctpress: I have read the first couple of chapters and it is good, Carsten.

As you can guess I follow Le Tour avidly. It is shaping up to be a straight fight between Pogacar and Vingegaard who are both so impressive. I am pleased to see the French competing better with Gaudu and Bardet both prominent. If one of them has a magnificent day either to Briancon/Serre Chevalier or to Alpe d'Huez cheered on by the local fans it could be really interesting.

Two book addition expeditions to report. Both mini splurges.

MINI SPLURGE 1

Early last week I enjoyed cake and breakfast with Hani at a mall near where we used to live and noticed an exhibition for a book sale. They didn't really have much of the stuff I normally get but did manage to add five books for only $20.

541. Identity : The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment by Francis Fukuyama
542. The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris
543. The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard
544. Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan
545. The Fellowship : The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip Zaleski

Fukuyama often strikes a chord.
Morris' book I read during my university days.
I remember Shephard as a Cabinet Minister and she made no favourable impression on me then but I do enjoy political memoirs.
Strachan's first novel is still calling to me to be read but this one looks good too.
I have always been fascinated by that fellowship of fellows at Oxford.

MINI SPLURGE 2

Yesterday lunchtime (Friday) was my regular trip to Kinokuniya and I added:

546. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
547. The Left Handed Woman by Peter Handke
548. Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein
549. The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy
550. Dog Park by Sofi Oksanen

Gladwell normally entertains and seeks me to reason and think.
Handke's politics are obnoxious but this is a 1001 book I think and short. He is probably a worthy Nobel winner as much as I abhor his support of what was done by Slobodan Milosevic and those of his ilk.
Klein's book tackles one of my prime hobby-horses and it won't sit long on my shelves unattended
I have now managed to snaffle all of the trilogy of reflective memoirs by Levy
Oksanen's Purge made an impression and this looks a big hitter too.

>154 PaulCranswick: interesting that you would find a copy of the naked ape. I too read it, partly at least, during college. I held on to it for a few years but then let it go. I never see it anymore but it was very popular long ago. There was one by Robert ardry , the cultural imperative I think it was called, that also intrigued me at that time.

Eta: The territorial imperative, and African genesis, by Robert Ardrey. Imperfect recollection by myself. I found those interesting long ago.

>155 PaulCranswick: Why We're Polarized sounds very interesting indeed.

>154 PaulCranswick: The Inklings! Good heavens, PC, I wouldn't've thought that of you.

>150 PaulCranswick: A lovely book, a strange book when I read it at 40...probably wouldn't strike me so now.

>149 PaulCranswick: One more than you. It was a really interesting pattern that took me there!

>131 PaulCranswick: I really need to get that one read!

>150 PaulCranswick: Already in the BlackHole or I would be adding it again.

>154 PaulCranswick: >155 PaulCranswick: Hooray for new books, Juan!

Happy whatever, Paul.

>156 RBeffa: I think reading Sapiens a few years ago re-opened my eyes and mind to anthropological history.
I will certainly hunt down your suggestion, Ron, thanks buddy.

>157 richardderus: I read the introduction in the car going back to site, RD, of Klein's book and I know I will read it very soon.

I did have a smile at your comment on the Inklings as I well know your views on Tolkien.

Ha Jin managed to convey his story simply but rendered it moving quite effortlessly.

I'll go and have a look how you fared with today's puzzle.

>158 alcottacre: Lovely to see you as always dear Stasia.

Only ten books so far in July added to be collection so I really am slipping!

>160 PaulCranswick: Well, I have not added any lately, so you are still doing better than I am!

>161 alcottacre: Ah but Juana, you are clearing the decks reading wise at such a healthy rate that surely your self-imposed rule must be creaking under the strain of disappearing unread titles!

>159 PaulCranswick: The Ardrey books are probably artifacts of their time but I would hope they might still have value. I never read Sapiens. I should probably give it a try.

>150 PaulCranswick: Waiting sounds interesting. I'll look for it.

I heard Malcolm Gladwell speak a few years ago- he gave a really good presentation!

>146 PaulCranswick:
For some people the buck always stops at Biden. In this case the government did what it was supposed to do.
1. close a dangerous plant after the plant repeatedly refused to stop unsare production practices.
2. Notified other companies of the impending shut down and requested that they increase production or the President would invoke the War Production Act
3. After following the law and the guidelines the President invoked the War Production Act.
That is the end of the story. Biden did what the US law required him to do within the timelines that same law required. As they say in television shows "Nothing to see here." Those looking for more are just trying to go against US law and should appeal to their lawmakers (the do-nothing Congress) to change the laws if they think that the government was slow to act.

How long do you think that would take?

>154 PaulCranswick: The Naked Ape reminded me of similar books of the period and brought The Descent of Woman to mind, what with the more recent notice that the assumption of "male is norm" is a bit askew. TDoW wasn't very convincing, but the yes, traits that gave a woman more g-*granddaughters should also be noted.

>163 RBeffa: 'Science' based books are always of their time, Ron, aren't they? Sapiens is a book I'm sure would draw you in.

>164 torontoc: I would have thought that Gladwell made for interesting company, Cyrel!

>165 benitastrnad: Benita, I am not talking about suspending the activities of the Michigan factory, I am talking about taking fast and proper measures to ensure continuation of supply when you do so. They failed miserably and the empty shelves are there for all to see.

I don't blame him for everything but as President of the world's leading economy he must step up to the plate and not keeping blaming everything and everybody else for the consequences of his own executive decisions.

>166 quondame: I am sure that it is of its time, Susan, as it can only pontificate on the facts and norms of the day. The Descent of Woman is a book I am not familiar but I have to say that four of the six most important figures in my life are ladies - Hani, Yasmyne, Belle and Erni - (Kyran and my twin brother being the other two) and from my earliest days when my Gran and my Mum were my universe - I have always elevated and venerated the female figures in my life.

Wordle 386 4/6

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Continuing my decent form.

I loved Waiting. He is quite a writer.

>145 benitastrnad: Once upon a time, the US had anti-monopoly laws, and perhaps even "only 3 manufacturers" would have been a red flag. If you put all your eggs in one or even three baskets, failures have much bigger effects. Add "just in time" inventory, and an ongoing transport problem.

Basically, the US, business and law makers together, has been voting for "reduce resiliency, so as to make more money now" for many decades. When failures result, the businesses tend to be "too big to fail", and the public loses twice over - they bear the brunt of the problem, and their taxes go to bail out risk-taking businesses, which then pass the bail out to the decision makers as bonuses.

Also, I'm not really sure the US has higher safety standards for any food product than any European country, or Canada for that matter. When it comes to baby formula, IIRC there's an ongoing problem - some babies can't handle anything sold in the US, but thrive on some of what's available in Europe. I forget the details - they were mentioned in passing in a book about medicine.

>170 banjo123: I may also try to read something else by him this month, Rhonda, I enjoyed it so much.

>171 ArlieS: The anti-trust policies were to enable both private (i.e. the lobbied interests) and public interests in the form of supply control and security of market. The nonsense about everywhere else not meeting American health standards is another page in that playbook. Any glitches in that and the little people (all of us) get screwed. Big government is meant to protect not profiteer.

The very sad facts here are that they were fully aware of a looming problem in September and it took them six months to act. Typical but disappointing.

>172 PaulCranswick: I got carried away Paul and picked up 2 by Ha Jin today. Waiting, and A Free Life, which is 660 pages, yikes, but when I saw that pages 633 thru 660 were poems it came home with me. I also got the Naked Ape, 1969 edition which I am pretty sure is the exact anthropology book I had in the 70s. I was also pleased to note that my physical anthropology prof is still on my university faculty, emeritus. I must have had him his first year of teaching. https://anthropology.ucdavis.edu/people/fzmchen

>173 RBeffa: Well done, Ron! I have a few on the shelves and was think to read War Trash next.

When I have more free time I was thinking to do another degree course and anthropology / geography are distinct possibilities.

>171 ArlieS: The problem was definitely NOT that US standards are higher - rather, the inflexibility of our bureaucracy. US regulations on product labeling are so onerously cumbersome that made it impractical for foreign producers to enter the market.

>175 ChrisG1: And price prohibitive if they managed to get through the red tape, Chris, because of tariffs to protect those lobbied interests.

>174 PaulCranswick: I was quite surprised how many books Ha Jin has, and how interesting they sound. War Trash looks good.

I discovered Anthropology in the middle of my University years - I think one of the classes must have been a requirement. I then took several because of how much I enjoyed them. My degree was in Genetics, and almost wildlife biology which I truly loved, but if I had found Anthropology early on, who knows.

>177 RBeffa: That is really interesting, Ron, that type of specialist natural science is very appealing to me too.

>177 RBeffa: we had to take so many humanities credits freshman year. A friend pick anthro andso I did. The professor was well known in the field interesting and funny. Became very interested, and continued reading books about the subject well passed college. Not enough to change my majorbuyt enough to keep me a life long learner

>179 cindydavid4: The nature of humankind and its origins really ought to interest most of us, don't you think so, Cindy? x

Wordle 387 4/6

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My usual score these days.

>178 PaulCranswick: My wife's brother made a career out of it https://anthropology.nmsu.edu/anthropology-faculty/mccrossin.html

>179 cindydavid4: the random chances of life, this door or that one ...

BOOK #97



The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson
Date of Publication : 1993
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 507 pp

I'm conflicted here because though the characters were in turn mawkish and annoying and the writing occasionally clunky, there was a narrative impetus that made me very keen to know what happens.

Isn't that, in the final analysis, most of what is important in reading?

Recommended for those who like to be told a story even when it sometimes results in the gnashing of teeth!

>182 RBeffa: Thanks Ron. I have rarely seen anyone look more professorial than Professor McCrossin! Absolutely fascinating.

Anything written by him to seek out, Ron?

>171 ArlieS:
Exactly
>175 ChrisG1:
Exactly
These are exactly the reason why the baby formula shortage was not Biden's fault. The bureaucracy followed the laws and rules as set down by Congress. It is the do-nothing Congress that is at fault. The FDA and the President had to follow the rules, and the rules make doing anything in a hurry very very very hard to do. (I can't stress that enough- I will say it again - the rules make it very very very hard to respond in any way that might damage US business interests.) That is because the rules favor the businesses and don't favor the consumer. They always have and probably always will - until people get tired of it and vote the b______s out! To say that Biden was at fault for the slow response is to not understand how US laws work. They are written to favor business.

This is an old problem in US history. The problem that Biden ran into with the baby formula was exactly the same problem that FDR ran into during the Great Depression and before the US entered WWII.

>184 PaulCranswick: No books that I am aware of. Published in Academic Journals and in the magazine Nature if I recall correctly.

>185 benitastrnad: We are at cross purposes, Benita. We agree on the causes of the shortage, but I am talking about the administrations very slow reaction to it. I am not making a political point, I am raising a competence issue. The alarm bells were sounded in September with the Abbott recalls and subsequent closure but only in the face of an outcry and empty shelves did he try to address the issue fully seven months later. Not him personally but his administration dropped the ball. The empty shelves prove it. You have separation of powers in the USA and the executive role of the FDA and their powers are wide reaching, is clear that, had they acted in a timely manner, the problem could have been minimised.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/infant-baby-formula-shortage-biden-product...

>186 RBeffa: I will try and find some of his articles at least, Ron.

>187 PaulCranswick: Google can be helpful. This lists 102 publications up to 2019 anyways https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2RQ6sKUAAAAJ&hl=en

>188 RBeffa: Utterly fascinating, Ron. Your brother in law is clearly one of the world's go to experts in his field.

>16 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul
It looks like Books Acquired >> Books Read
I seem to suffer from a similar issue. I have been trying to reduce my library but it seems I always find something interesting (or many things) at a book shop or even worse a library book sale.

>190 brewbooks: I do have rather a reputation for adding more than I subtract, John as will be very clear below!

A new mall with a new bookstore today. Tsutaya is apparently the largest bookstore chain in Japan and they opened in a new mall a few days ago. It is a public holiday here and I queued for an hour to get in.
Kinokuniya is better but its social sciences and penguin classics have a good selection:

551. There Was a Country by Chinua Achebe
552. Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
553. Two Tribes by Chis Beckett
554. The Victim by Saul Bellow
555. The Mothers by Brit Bennett
556. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
557. Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
558. Grant by Ron Chernow
559. A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
560. Suspicion by Friedrich Durrenmatt
561. Returning to Reims by Didier Eribon
562. The Whisperers by Orlando Figes
563. Effi Briest by Thoedor Fontane
564. The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster
565. Never Again by Peter Hennessy
566. Too Far to Walk by John Hersey
567. Fen by Daisy Johnson
568. The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy
569. Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles
570. Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
571. The Boat by Nam Le
572. Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
573. The Moon and the Bonfires by Casare Pavase
574. The Brothers York by Thomas Penn
575. The Storm of War by Andrew Roberts
576. Oreo by Fran Ross
577. This is Happiness by Niall Williams
578. Black Shack Alley by Joseph Zobel

>192 PaulCranswick: Wow, quite the Cranswickian haul, Paul!
I have read Effi Briest (loved it) and Lives of Girls and Women (not my kind of book). Returning to Reims is on the shelves.

>192 PaulCranswick: "A new mall with a new bookstore today. Tsutaya is apparently the largest bookstore chain in Japan'

I want.

I’ve read Effi Briest (thumbs up), Lives of Girls and Women, I like Munro. I have The Mothers on my shelf. Lucky you with another bookstore to feed your addiction.

Hi Paul!

>88 PaulCranswick: Eights! Aw, shucks, thanks.

I keep my laptop plugged into the power supply, which is kept plugged int the UPS. I rarely have to take it anywhere – typically only Friends of the Library business at the Library – and at home use a 21” monitor, wireless mouse, and wired keyboard. Wireless printer, too, and I’m considering getting a photo scanner.

Nice to hear about your setting up with your brother.

Ha. Chugging. I read Waiting for my RL book club in 2007 and have joked ever since that I kept waiting for the book to go somewhere. Not a fan, obviously, although as I read further down the thread see that you really liked it.

>99 PaulCranswick: I was happy to see that Boris Johnson resigned, too, and will be interested to see who succeeds him. Heh. Determined to deliver on his mandate in his last few weeks in office.

>128 quondame: My daughter will be 29 next month and agrees with Becky’s assessment. No student debt, but couldn’t afford to live in Asheville NC on $18/hour with the high price of rent, which went up 10% from last June to this June. She’s coming home this week to regroup.

>131 PaulCranswick: I’m glad you liked it – ‘sweeping and intimate’ is as good a description as any.

>192 PaulCranswick: Ah, a truly Cranswickian haul, as Anita pointed out in >193 FAMeulstee:. Are they being snuck in or boldly coming through the front door? I suppose I’ll get Grant one of these years since I’m happily and fully immersed in the audiobook of Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton. I love his writing style and have an absolute faith in his research and interpretation of events of Hamilton’s life. I just bought his Washington: A Life since I’m still interested in this pivotal period of US history.

>193 FAMeulstee: Quite difficult for me to avoid a new bookstore especially on a public holiday although it was really busy.

>194 humouress: There appears to be a really nice Japanese cafe inside the store too, but I was a bit busy and didn't want to get too distracted.

>195 Kristelh: I do accept of course that it is an addiction by this stage, Kristel!

>196 karenmarie: I love your posts, Karen!

The books could not be hidden so I bit the bullet and asked Hani to follow me to the new mall knowing that she would find something that caught her eye too. She wisely brought a friend and they went to eat whilst I went on my spree. She looked none too pleased when she saw me heading towards her with three bags of books but I figured that her friend as company would mean that I wouldn't get bawled out so badly!

>197 PaulCranswick: Hmm, a bit suspicious there. And, >192 PaulCranswick:, '''28 books'''! I think I have 5 of these. The only one I've read is Chinua Achebe's There Was a Country. I think this memoir of the war in Biafra was his last book and I found it a bit disappointing, with a lot of endnotes saying "author's memory". I preferred his 2009 essay collection The Education of a British-Protected Child. I had a review copy via Amazon Vine and had already shared my review on the LT page for the book.

>199 elkiedee: I was actually disappointed, Luci, because it was supposed to be 30 but I got an omnibus Abel and Cain by Gregor von Rezzoni but accidentally put it down and left it behind. The place was so busy that I couldn't be bothered to go and seek it out again.

>192 PaulCranswick: Ten North Frederick! First time I'd ever read the word "abortion" in a novel about people like me. I thought my family were the only people who'd had them before that.

Burke's Reflections should raise your blood pressure a bit.

What an eclectic mass of words to assemble under Hani's censorious gaze. Still, better to fly your biblioholic's flag than sneak with that weight to tote.

Enjoy the week's reads.

>201 richardderus: an eclectic mass of words to assemble under Hani's censorious gaze. - I love that RD!

I did read Burke's book years ago at Uni, RD, and it did leave an impression. The book by Didier Eribon brought you to mind, as I picked it up. Funny I thought to myself - "I bet Richard would like this" as I threw it into my basket. I'll let you know whether I like it.

>202 PaulCranswick: Yes, it does appeal...Didier Eribon is a mainstay of leftist Frenchness. And his subject here, how left moves all the way to the other end, is one I feel I need to comprehend. And I just don't.

>187 PaulCranswick:
We aren't at cross purposes. We flat out disagree.

It is laws like this one - the Defense Production Act - favors business and makes it very difficult to by-pass the business interests. Monopoly's are the problem here. Not the government. I am not a fan of our do nothing Congress and I am not a fan of Biden. He is too old and too moderate. This country needs a change and Biden is not providing it. But - he worked within the laws this time and so is not at fault for this business made crisis. The government agencies had a choice. They could have not forced the contaminated plant to close and let babies continue to die or they could force the eventual invocation of the Defense Production Act by closing the plant with fewer possible deaths but skyrocketing prices. I am sure that the people running the FDA knew that the other big baby formula companies, like Gerber, would raise their prices and cash in on the windfall and make the watchdog government agencies like bad. Gerber knew that they would look like a White Knight and US government agencies/Biden would look like the evil ogre. Of course, that is exactly what happened.

Time is a very conservative source of news in the US. I know that Europeans think it is not that conservative but in the 35 years I have been a librarian that magazine was considered to be more conservative than were other general readership news magazines. After all, it was started by Henry Luce - and he was an arch conservative. Time is not quite Fox News but it is a conservative bastion.

>197 PaulCranswick: Rub it in, why don'tcha.

>198 PaulCranswick: 🤦‍♀️ Three bags?!

>183 PaulCranswick: I dunno - a strong and memorable connection with the character(s)

feels most important - many good books out there where the plot just moseys along.

>203 richardderus: It does look fascinating as another of his themes is the acceptance or non-acceptance of a gay man in a provincial town in Northern France after his experiences of Paris,

>204 benitastrnad: Ok then we do disagree, Benita. The FDA is under Biden and could have acted promptly to alleviate the suffering of mothers. It didn't.

>205 humouress: :D. They give nice tote bags with the books - I got three of 'em!

>206 m.belljackson: Narrative was good. It got marked down because the characters, some of them anyway, were not realistic.

>203 richardderus: Because the left abandoned their traditional followers in Europe, and went on after a neo-liberal, slightly social-democratic dream, where the banks would pay enough taxes to pay for social security and other facilities. That dream fell flat, but on the way they gave in way too much, at the cost of workers pay. Globalisation did the rest, and right wing (both fascists and national socialists) stepped in and won most of the workers votes. This is still going on :'(

>209 FAMeulstee: I have to say, Anita, I am not so optimistic about the immediate future - the farmer's protests in the Netherlands and elsewhere are indicative of the difficult balances and choices that need to be made between environmentalism and being able to feed ourselves.

Wordle 388 4/6

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5 times in a row I have made it in 4.

I've just finished Tom Jones. How are you getting along with him?

>212 amanda4242: I'm not that far into it yet, Amanda, but I will finish it this month!

>210 PaulCranswick: The problems over here are mainly because for 20 years all tough desicions about farming and environment have been avoided by the government, afraid to loose votes. Enviromentalists went to court and won their case, so the government was forced to act.

80% of our agrarian produce is exported!

The banks invested a lot in larger stalls to keep more animals, larger equipment to work the land etc. (same as in the UK, read English Pastoral), so many farmers are in debts, and are afraid of change. A few others (not protesting) changed to biological farming, as they saw this coming.

>208 PaulCranswick:

>214 FAMeulstee: There is a very difficult balance between environmentalism (which most of us must support) and the realpolitik of not impoverishing ourselves in the process of achieving emission and other green targets. The goal of moving to an economy based on renewables is clearly both laudable as well as ultimately existential but we cannot fully make that switch at a time when renewables or alternative energy sources cannot generate supply to meet demand or where the current wealth generated by the existing energy sector has not been transitioned either. Especially in the case where major consumers refuse to play by the same rules and will enrich themselves at everybody else's expense. We should not be selling energy to China and we should certainly not be buying renewables (solar panels etc) from them. It is a difficult quandary we are all in and we must win the economic fight first and foremost to be in a position to dictate the rules on global environmental concerns. Self sacrifice alone whilst laudable will not put food on tables and the public disorder that will come from an absence of heating, fuel for transport etc, and insufficient food is something that the West is not geared up to face, but they are the logical conclusion of unilateral adoption of a green economy.

>215 humouress: Yes, that is the sort of look she gave me!

Hopelessly behind, but... >192 PaulCranswick: "A new mall with a new bookstore today." And, of course, you had to check it out. LOL. I only recognize about 10 of those titles but nice score, because, well, you can't go wrong with books! And you have pretty good taste. : )

>217 Berly: Lovely to see you, Kimmers, especially when you are saying such nice things!

Wordle 389 4/6

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It is becoming mechanical - 6 days in a row I got the word in 4.

Me too!
Wordle 389 4/6
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>216 PaulCranswick: Food crisis to be expected, and first caused by war. But also by climate change. Ukraine, but have you seen the pictures of the drought in the Po valley in Italy? And of course the poorest in the world will suffer, not the ones with money enough to pay for higher prices.
I think protecting the environment now is a necessity, not a luxury. But how to reconcile all our needs? Tough times.

Congratulations on a new mall, and a new bookstore opening. It’s always nice to have choices and options available.

>220 LovingLit:, >219 PaulCranswick: Me three! AEONS, MIRTH, FLANK, BLAND

>219 PaulCranswick: ooh ooh. I play rarely (only 14 times since it became a NY Times one which lost all my earlier stats somehow after several days of having them.)

I do random words that pop into my brain. Today I started with SPARK which proved to be an excellent starter after a "lucky" 2nd choice. I spent 5 minutes or more going over everything I could think of for number three guess. I almost gave up because my second word had ruled out crucial letters for the 5th one. Nothing seemed possible. Eventually I figured two words it could be

Wordle 389 3/6

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Oh my. Probably the best stage in year's in the Tour. I can't remember a stage with so many attacks by the classement so early. Insane.

Of course, I cheered for Vingegaard, but Barguil trying, Quintana blossoming as well as Geraint and Bardet. And Pogacar will not go down without a fight.

>220 LovingLit: We are twins, Megan!

>221 EllaTim: It is of course, Ella, a problem that needs to be faced before it becomes insurmountable but I am afraid that human nature is such that we don't like making do with much less even for the greater good.

>222 richardderus: Well done, RD, and triplets we are! I started with the same word by the way.

>223 RBeffa: It sounds like you play just as scientifically as I do, Ron! My first word is taken from the cover of a book on my reading table - normally from the blurb on the back cover.

>224 ctpress: Indeed it was, Carsten. One of the finest stages I have seen in a long time in the Tour. Vingegaard was awesome and deservedly leads but most of the leading lights came to the party. I am pleased that two of the magnificent seven at the head of affairs are French as they desperately need a hero to cheer.

Came by to say hi and see what you're up to. Hopelessly behind, of course. A couple of days - heck, a couple of hours! - and I'd be behind. :) Still, I see you have been feeding your book addiction. Very nice hauls. I have had Waiting on my bookshelves for over ten years and still haven't read it. I know, it's short too, so there's really no excuse. Maybe this year.

>228 Storeetllr: I had it there for ages too, Mary, before reading it but it is worth erm waiting for!

>229 PaulCranswick: Heh. I see what you did there.

>230 Storeetllr: Most would say, Mary, that it just isn't punny! (sorry)

Wordle 390 2/6

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Da dah!
One letter away from a feat I have never managed!

So close!!! You'll get it in one one of these days. ; ) Not to brag about how lucky I am, but I have done it twice! : P

>233 Berly: I am impressed Kimmers. I have a few 2s but that is the closest I have come to acing it completely.

>232 PaulCranswick: I did Wordle last night, just after 0:00, and miserably failed :'(
Glad you did WAY better, Paul!

>235 FAMeulstee: I have been on a pretty good run with the game recently, Anita, and 4 is my worst score in many games.

>232 PaulCranswick: congrats Paul!

Took me 5 today, PC, so be extra thrilled with your 2-day!

*fires up cauldron to foment rebellion, revolution, and wickedness in KL*

Congratulations!

>237 Kristelh: Thanks Kristel but I am rather unfairly kicking myself too!

>238 richardderus: I did see that you stumbled over the line today a wee bit, RD.

I don't that often do better than you in wordle so let me have my day!

>232 PaulCranswick: awesome!

I was a hot mess. This is only the second time i had to go to six. I started with a stupid random word.

Wordle 390 6/6

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>240 RBeffa: Just plain lucky, Ron. I couldn't really fail to get it in two after my first completely random guess.

Wordle 391 3/6

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Not as good as yesterday but I am still on a roll!

>162 PaulCranswick: It may be creaking, but it is still there!

I am not even trying to catch up on the 80+ posts I am behind. Happy whatever, Paul!

>243 alcottacre: Lovely as always to see you here, Stasia

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342888

Thanks Silver!

Wordle 392 4/6

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Back to my default score!

Some additions:

579. Jerusalem the Golden by Margaret Drabble
580. Hard Choices : What Britain Does Next by Peter Ricketts

I will add a few more before the weekend is out, but not so many!

>248 PaulCranswick: Not so many as 2? :)

Happy whatever, Paul.

>249 alcottacre: Another five, I will pick up after work!

>250 PaulCranswick: Good going, Juan!

>251 alcottacre: Well I almost kept to my word.
But not quite.

Here is what I just added:

581. Many Different Kinds of Love by Michael Rosen
582. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
583. The Light That Failed by Ivan Kratsev
584. The Classical School : The Turbulent Birth of Economics by Callum Williams
585. The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier
586. Straw Dogs by John Gray
587. Stiff by Mary Roach
588. Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke
589. Statistics Without Tears by Derek Rowntree
590. The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

Today was a strictly non-fictional journey concentrating on Science, Current Affairs and Economics

Cannot find a Touchstone for The Classical School which is a Economist publication on 20 economics thinkers who shaped the debate on economic theory.
Rosen & Clarke view COVID from the point of view of patient and doctor respectively.
Adam Kay has taken junior doctoring onto the TV screens and Mary Roach talks of things we normally want to avoid but eventually become.
Straw Dogs is modern philosophy
Pinker is pondering the art of writing
Derek Rowntree takes us on a fun trip through a subject near and dear to me - stats!
Collier and Kratsev analyze separately where they see the West mis-stepping.

Happy Weekend, Paul. I recently finished The Perseverance. Thank you so much for the recommendation. I loved this collection and plan on reading more of his poetry.

>253 PaulCranswick:, I just finished reading Stiff. It was definitely a subject that is avoided but eventually become.

I really enjoyed Stiff when I read it a decade or so ago. I'm thinking of rereading it, seeing if my enjoyment is the same, now that I'm that much closer to being, you know, that. 😂

>253 PaulCranswick: You're adding some very intriguing stuff...Pinker writing about writing interests me most of all.

Enjoy Hani's irritated sighs!

>254 msf59: I'm pleased, Mark, that my recommendation of Antrobus hit home. You may have seen that I recently reviewed his sophomore collection.

>255 Kristelh: I have had a lot of loss in my life in the last year and a bit so I suppose it caught my eye.

>256 Storeetllr: I plan to read it very soon if you would be up to join me, Mary - possibly next month.

>257 richardderus: I avoided trouble by taking Hani and the ladies on a trip North to the coast for the weekend, RD. No irritated sighs just now, just contented snores emanating from the Queen.

Wordle 393 4/6

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Not really a surprise anymore.

>253 PaulCranswick: I'm looking forward to reading what you think of #584 and #585.

>261 ArlieS: I am quite enthusiastic about my recent additions, Arlie, so hopefully I will get to them soon.

>260 PaulCranswick: Your #3 guess TACKY is the word I thought it was until I realized that, with MIRTH, I'd eliminated it from the possibles. So there was only one word left that fit...and fit it did.

>263 richardderus: Well done, RD, that was indeed my third word!

>150 PaulCranswick: I'm midway through Waiting with mixed feelings. A very melancholy book. The best part is the sense of life in 60's communist china that emerges.

>265 RBeffa: I think that you are right about the tenor of the book, Ron. I did find it very well done though and one or two of the scenes in particular I thought were splendidly drawn.

Wordle 394 3/6

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That one worked out well for me!

>256 Storeetllr: I read Stiff a while back and enjoyed it enough to buy some other books by Mary Roach. I haven't gotten around to reading them yet though of course.
Thinking of rereading Stiff as well.

>259 PaulCranswick: Sounds like a plan! I just put a library hold on the kindle copy of Stiff, so August should work just fine. Or maybe Sept.

>268 hredwards: I've liked what I've read by Roach so far (Spook and Packing for Mars), but Stiff remains my favorite. I just borrowed the audio of Gulp, which really sounds interesting and fun.

>268 hredwards: Looks like a picked a good one off the shelves in the bookstore, Harold!

>269 Storeetllr: Gulp was also available in the bookstore, Mary.

>253 PaulCranswick: Here is the touchstone for -The Classical School by Callum Williams

>271 elkiedee: Thanks Luci.