Helenliz turns a final 50 pages

I'm Helen and I'm a quality manager in a small firm that makes inhaler devices for delivery of drugs to the lung. And in 2022 I have turned 50. Gulp. That's a nasty shock to the system I can tell you. I don't feel how I think 50 feels (well apart from sometimes when I feel about 150). I'm not sure what to do about turning 50, whether to go all out and embrace it, or ignore it and hope it goes away. Probably the latter...

This year's challenge is taken from other things that were newsworthy, for some reason or another, in 1972. Or they simply happened in 1972, when I got a bit stuck.

The challenge categories have had a bit of a streamline, with a few low counting categories removed and a new one just for 2022 added. I intend to try and read a book from each decade and from as many different years I've been alive as I can in 2022. So this will be fun, I wonder if they've all aged as well as I have (no laughing in the back there).

Seeing I have got one last weekend of holiday before it is back to work on Monday, I figured I'd set up my final 2022 thread now - and there it is, all ready to go!

Currently Reading


Currently reading
Birds without Wings
London Fields (audio)

Tracking to finish 50 years reading.
1989 The Temple of My Familiar or London Fields Library collected
2001 Thief of Time my shelves

Loans: To try and keep track of the library books I've got out.✔️
Library books on loan:
Run
Rebuilding Coventry
London Fields
The Bone Clocks
The Temple of My Familiar
The Ghost Wall
Light Perpetual
Stone Blind
Euripides in 4 volumes
Caleb's Crossing
The Amber Fury
The Talented Mr Ripley
The Kiss of the Spider Woman
Wibble Wobble
Das Jumbo-Buch von Elmar und Willi = Elmer (AND) Elmer and Willi

Book subscriptions: To try and make sure I don't fall tooooo far behind
Tyll (MrB's May)
Outlandish (MrB's September)
Unwell Women (MrB's October)
Cloud Cuckoo Land (MrB's November)
Conjure Women (MrB's December)
Still Life (MrB's)
Rutherford & Fry's Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything (MrB's)
Hare House (MrB's)
We are Displaced (Shelterbox)

The List

January
1. Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton, ***
2. To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield, ***
3. The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths, **.5
4. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, ****
5. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie, ****
6. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie, ***
7. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, ***
8. The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne, *****
9. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu, ****
10. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie, ***
11. Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare, ***
12. Hamlet, William Shakespeare, ****
13. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer, ***

February
14. Macbeth, William Shakespeare, ***1/2
15. Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, ****
16. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed, **
17. The Color Purple, Alice Walker, ****
18. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner, ***
19. Mythos, Stephen Fry, ***
20. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup, ****
21. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp, *****

March
22. Richard III, William Shakespeare, ***
23. Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl, *****
24. Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl, ****
25. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan, ***
26. The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer, ***
27. My Lord John, Georgette Heyer, ***
28. Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare, ****
29. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher, ***
30. Ariadne Jennifer Saint, ***
31. The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford, ***
32. A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier, ***

April
33. Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve, ****
34. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding, **1/2
35. Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez, ***
36. The Wandering Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford, ***
37. Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo, ***
38. Pericles William Shakespeare, ***
39. An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Gideon Defoe, ****
40. The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch, ***
41. The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare, ***
42. The Wombles at Work, Elisabeth Beresford, ***
43. The Wombles to the Rescue, Elisabeth Beresford, ***
44. The Tempest, William Shakespeare, **

May
45. Demelza, Winston Graham, ***
46. A Bird in the Hand, Ann Cleeves, ***
47. The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch, *
48. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, ****
49. The Lost Spells, Robert Macfarlane, ****
50. The Crow Folk, Mark Stay, ****
51. Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare, ***
52. Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa, ****
53. A Damsel in Distress, PG Wodehouse, ***
54. The Body in the Library, Agatha Christie, ****
55. Othello, William Shakespeare, ****

June
56. Midwinter Murder, Agatha Christie, ***
57. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie, ***
58. Hello Mum, Bernadine Evaristo, ***
59. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels, ***
60. Slade House, David Mitchell, ***
61. FunnyBones, Allan Alhberg, ***

July
62. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh, **1/2
63. Matrix, Lauren, Groff, ****
64. The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi, **
65. The Birth of Radar, Rex Boys, ***
66. Black Dogs, Ian McEwan, ***
67. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, ***
68. Mrs Mohr goes Missing, Maryla Szymiczkowa, ***
69. A Morbid taste for Bones, Ellis Peters, ****
70. One Corpse Too Many, Ellis Peters, ****

August
71. The Wombles go Round the World Elisabeth Beresford, ***
72. Trojan Women, Euripides, ****
73. Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood, ***
74. The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizo, ***
75. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, ****
76. Augustown, Kei Miller, ****
77. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter, ****
78. Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey, ***
79. Amsterdam, Ian McEwan, ***
80. The Dark Angel, Elly Griffiths, **

September
81. Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, MC Beaton, **
82. The Children of Men, PD James, ****
83. Morality Play, Barry Unsworth, ****
84. The Queen and i, Sue Townsend, ***
85. The Plantagenet Prelude, Jean Plaidy, **
86. Dear Life: Stories, Alice Munroe, ***
87. The Investigation, JM Lee, ***
88. The Stone Circle, Elly Griffiths, ***

October
89. Night Waking, Sarah Moss, ****
90. Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, ***
91. The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett, *****
92. Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee, ***
93. Stardust Neil Gaiman, ****
94. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, Eva Crane, ***
95. Arthur and George, Julia Barnes, ***
96. Mort, Terry Pratchett, *****
97. Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip, Henriette Barklow, ***
98. Medea, Euripides, ***
99. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett, *****
100. Small things Like These, Claire Keegan, *****
101. The Cutting Room, Louise Welsh, **

November
102. Bright Air Black, David Vann, ***
103. Enduring Love, Ian McEwan, ***
104. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett, ****
105. Shadows in Bronze, Lindsey Davis, ***
106. Stonehenge, Bernard Cornwell, *1/2
107. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones, ***

December
108. When Will there be Good News, Kate Atkinson, ***
109. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett, ****
110. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood, ****1/2
111. Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell, ***
112. The Cockroach, Ian McEwan, ****
113. Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner, Jago, ***
114. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Robert L May, ****
115 Birds without Wings, Louis de Berniers, ****
116. London Fields, Martin Amis, *
117. Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett, ****

Challenge 1: 50 years of reading

Me, aged 4 months. Taken in 1972.

I probably won't manage to read 50 books, each published in a different year of the last half century, but it will be interesting to see how far I do get. It will also be interesting to see what it tells me about the last half century.

1972: To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield
1973: The Wombles at Work, Elisabeth Beresford, The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch
1974: The Wombles to the Rescue, Elisabeth Beresford
1975: My Lord John, Georgette Heyer
1976: The Plantagenet Prelude, Jean Plaidy, The Wombles go Round the World Elisabeth Beresford
1977: A Morbid taste for Bones, Ellis Peters
1978: The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
1979: One Corpse Too Many, Ellis Peters, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter

1980: FunnyBones, Allan Alhberg
1981: Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
1982: The Color Purple, Alice Walker, Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
1983: The Archaeology of Beekeeping, Eva Crane
1984: Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl
1985: The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
1986: A Bird in the Hand, Ann Cleeves, Trojan Women, Euripides, Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
1987: Mort, Terry Pratchett
1988: Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
1989: London Fields, Martin Amis

1990: Shadows in Bronze, Lindsey Davis
1991: Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
1992: Black Dogs, Ian McEwan, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, MC Beaton, The Children of Men, PD James, The Queen and i, Sue Townsend
1993: Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh, Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee
1994: Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
1995: Morality Play, Barry Unsworth
1996: Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding, Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels, Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
1997: Enduring Love, Ian McEwan
1998: Amsterdam, Ian McEwan, Stardust Neil Gaiman
1999: Stonehenge, Bernard Cornwell

2000: The Birth of Radar, Rex Boys, Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell
2001: Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip, Henriette Barklow, Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
2002: The Cutting Room, Louise Welsh
2003: Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
2004: Birds without Wings, Louis de Berniers
2005: Arthur and George, Julian Barnes, Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner, Jago,
2006: The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
2007: The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi,
2008: When Will there be Good News, Kate Atkinson
2009: The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner

2010: Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed, Hello Mum, Bernadine Evaristo
2011: Night Waking, Sarah Moss
2012: Dear Life: Stories, Alice Munroe, The Investigation, JM Lee,
2013: Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher, Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa
2014: Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve, Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey
2015: Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan, Slade House, David Mitchell, Mrs Mohr goes Missing, Maryla Szymiczkowa
2016: Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez, Augustown, Kei Miller
2017: The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths, Mythos, Stephen Fry, Bright Air Black, David Vann
2018: The Dark Angel, Elly Griffiths
2019: A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier, Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo, The Stone Circle, Elly Griffiths,The Cockroach, Ian McEwan

2020: The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu, The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer; An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Gideon Defoe, The Midnight Library, Matt Haig, The Lost Spells, Robert Macfarlane
2021: Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton, Ariadne Jennifer Saint, The Crow Folk, Mark Stay, Small things Like These, Claire Keegan
2022: Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp, Matrix, Lauren Groff,

Challenge 2: Women authors


Rose Heilbron was the first woman judge to sit in the Old Bailey in January 1972. She was a bit of a trail blazer, also being the first woman to lead a murder trial. She retired in 1988 and died in 2005. Her daughter, also a Barrister, wrote a book about her life, Rose Heilbron. Into this category will go my books by woman authors.

1. The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths
2. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
3. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie
4. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie
5. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
6. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
7. The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
8. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
9. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
10. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
11. Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
12. The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford
13. A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier,
14. Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve
15. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
16. Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez
17. The Wandering Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford
18. Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo
19. The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
20. The Wombles at Work, Elisabeth Beresford
21. The Wombles to the Rescue, Elisabeth Beresford
22. A Bird in the Hand, Ann Cleeves
23. The Black Prince, Iris Murdoch
24. The Body in the Library, Agatha Christie
25. Midwinter Murder, Agatha Christie
26. Hello Mum, Bernadine Evaristo
27. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
28. Matrix, Lauren Groff
29. The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi,
30. A Morbid taste for Bones, Ellis Peters
31. One Corpse Too Many, Ellis Peters
32. The Wombles go Round the World Elisabeth Beresford
33. Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
34. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood,
35. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter
36. Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey
37. The Dark Angel, Elly Griffiths
38. Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, MC Beaton
39. The Children of Men, PD James,
40. The Queen and i, Sue Townsend
41. The Plantagenet Prelude, Jean Plaidy
42. Dear Life: Stories, Alice Munroe
43. The Stone Circle, Elly Griffiths
44. Night Waking, Sarah Moss
45. Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson
46. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, Eva Crane
47. Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip, Henriette Barklow
48. Small things Like These, Claire Keegan
49. The Cutting Room, Louise Welsh
50. Shadows in Bronze, Lindsey Davis
51. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
52. When Will there be Good News, Kate Atkinson
53. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
54. Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell

Challenge 3: New Authors


There are plenty of other people with whom I share a birth year. Some of them are even authors. The gentleman pictured is Jan Costin Wagner who was born in 1972 and is not an author I have read. I will put that right and put other new authors in this category.

1. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
2. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
3. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
4. The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
5. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner (yes, that's him in the picture!)
6. Mythos, Stephen Fry,
7. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
8. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
9. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
10. Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
11. Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve
12 Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
13. Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez
14. An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Gideon Defoe
15. The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
16. A Bird in the Hand, Ann Cleeves
17. The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
18. The Crow Folk, Mark Stay
19. Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa
20. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
21. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
22. FunnyBones, Allan Alhberg
23. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
24. Matrix, Lauren Groff
25. The Messenger of Athens, Anne Zouroudi
26. The Birth of Radar, Rex Boys
27. The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
28. Mrs Mohr goes Missing, Maryla Szymiczkowa
29. Trojan Women, Euripides
30. The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizo
31. Augustown, Kei Miller
32. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter
33. Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey
34. Morality Play, Barry Unsworth
35. The Queen and i, Sue Townsend
36. The Plantagenet Prelude, Jean Plaidy
37. The Investigation, JM Lee,
38. Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee
39. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, Eva Crane
40. Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip, Henriette Barklow
41. Small things Like These, Claire Keegan
42. The Cutting Room, Louise Welsh
43. Bright Air Black, David Vann
44. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
45. Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell
46. Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner, Jago,
47. London Fields, Martin Amis

Challenge 4: Translations


Thomas Cook, the travel agent, started with a rail excursion in 1841 and grew from there. It opened its first shop on Fleet Street in 1865. It was nationalised, along with the railways, in 1948 and returned to private hands in 1972 (which is how come it fits here - I said they might get a bit tenuous). If you're my age you'll remember the jingle for their adverts, "Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it.". The firm went out of business in 2019. For years this was how Brits traveled abroad. I will use this to collect books traveling in the reverse direction - those translated into English.

1. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
2. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
3. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
4. Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve
5. Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa
6. The Honjin Murders, Seishi Yokomizo
7. The Investigation, JM Lee
8. Trojan Women, Euripides,
9. Medea, Euripides

Challenge 5: Book Subscriptions


This is a first day cover. They're a presentation envelope with all of the series of special stamps that are issued for a limited period of time and franked on the first day they were available to buy. I had a whole collection, as my Grandad used to work at the Post Office and he arranged me to receive them by post. As my book subscriptions come by post, this is where I will store those books that I don't pick.

1. Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
2. Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp.
3. Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
4. Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve
5. Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa
6. Mrs Mohr goes Missing, Maryla Szymiczkowa
7. Augustown, Kei Miller

Challenge 6: Heyer Series Read


I'm reading Heyer's romances and period novels in publication order. Lady of Quality was published in 1972 and is one of very few of the Heyers on my shelf that is younger than I am - I inherited Mum's almost complete collection.

Heyer romances:
(r) Set in Regency Period
(g) Set in Georgian Period
(h) Set in prior historical Periods.

Finished
✔️ The Black Moth (g) 1921 Finished 01Jan18, ****1/2
✔️ Powder and Patch (g) 1923 Finished 05Feb18, ***
✔️ The Great Roxhythe (h) 1923 Finished 30Apr18, ***
✔️ Simon the Coldheart (h) 1925 Finished 7May18, ***
✔️ These Old Shades (g) 1926 Finished 31May18, ***
✔️ The Masqueraders (g) 1928 Finished 17Jul18, ****
✔️ Beauvallet (h) 1929 Finished 08Sep2018, ****
✔️ The Conqueror (h) 1931 Finished 25Dec2018, ****
✔️ Devil's Cub (g) 1932 Finished 31Jan2019, ****
✔️ The Convenient Marriage (g) 1934 Finished 12Mar2019, ****1/2
✔️ Regency Buck (r) 1935 Finished 08May2019, ****1/2
✔️ The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer Finished 10Aug2019, ***
✔️ An Infamous Army, Georgette Heyer Finished 13Oct2019, ***
✔️ Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer Finished 14Feb2020, ***
✔️ The Spanish Bride, Georgette Heyer Finished 28Mar2020, ***
✔️ The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer Finished 17Jun2020, ****
✔️ Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer Finished 25Aug2020, ****
✔️ Friday's Child, Georgette Heyer Finished 10Oct2020, ****
✔️ The Reluctant Widow, (r) Finished 24Jan2021, ****
✔️ The Foundling (r) 1948 Finished 21Apr2021, ****
✔️ Arabella, (r) 1949 ****1/2 Finished 19Jun2021
✔️ The Grand Sophy, (r) 1950, **** Finished 25Jul2021
✔️ The Quiet Gentleman (r) 1951, ****1/2 Finished 24Sep2021

To be Read
Cotillion (r) 1953
The Toll Gate (r) 1954
Bath Tangle (r) 1955
Sprig Muslin (r) 1956
April Lady (r) 1957
Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle (r) 1957
Venetia (r) 1958
The Unknown Ajax (r) 1959
Pistols for Two (short stories) 1960
A Civil Contract (r) 1961
The Nonesuch (r) 1962
False Colours (r) 1963
Frederica (r) 1965
Black Sheep (r) 1966
Cousin Kate (r) 1968
Charity Girl (r) 1970
Lady of Quality (r) 1972
My Lord John (h) 1975

Challenge 7: Non-Fiction


Mastermind is surely a key leader in fact based quiz shows. Not frills or fuss, 90 seconds on a specialist subject, 2 minutes general knowledge - what do YOU know? It was first broadcast in 1972 and is still going strong with Clive Myrie the latest presenter (although Magnus Magnusson remains a soft spot in the memory). I will put all my non-fiction in here.

1. Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton
2. A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
3. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher
4. Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez
5. An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Gideon Defoe
6. The Birth of Radar, Rex Boys
7. The Archaeology of Beekeeping, Eva Crane

Challenge 8: Short works and other stories


The statue is John Betjeman, and is standing on the concourse at St Pancras station. In 1972 he was made the Poet Laureate. As poems tend to be short works, I will put any poetry, short stories or other short works in this category.

1. The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
2. The Affair at the Victory Ball, Agatha Christie
3. The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
4. The Incredible Theft, Agatha Christie
5. Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
6. Dirty Beasts, Roald Dahl
7. The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer
8. Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher
9. An Atlas of Extinct Countries, Gideon Defoe
10. The Lost Spells, Robert Macfarlane
11. Midwinter Murder, Agatha Christie
12. Hello Mum, Bernadine Evaristo
13. FunnyBones, Allan Alhberg
14. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, Angela Carter
15. The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett
16. Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee
17. Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip, Henriette Barklow
18. Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell
19. The Cockroach, Ian McEwan
20. Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner, Jago,
21. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Robert L May

Challenge 9: CATs


When googling things to do with cats in 1972 I came across this epic piece. IN 1972, Marvel comics launched a new character, The CAT. Not sure how long she lasted, it seems only until 1973, but this was just too good to miss! I will put any CATs and KITs I decide to read into the category.

AphaKIT
January: R and H Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton; To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield; Hamlet, William Shakespeare; Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
February: A and B The Color Purple, Alice Walker, A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup, Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
March: P and S Richard III, William Shakespeare, Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan, The Short, the Long and the Tall, Jeffrey Archer, Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare, Ariadne Jennifer Saint, A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier,
April: L and J Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding, Julian of Norwich, Janina Ramirez
May: O and D Demelza, Winston Graham, Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa, A Damsel in Distress, PG Wodehouse, Othello, William Shakespeare, ****
June: Q and C: Midwinter Murder, Agatha Christie
July: E and T: The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga, A Morbid taste for Bones, Ellis Peters, One Corpse Too Many, Ellis Peters
August: M and F: Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, Augustown, Kei Miller, Amsterdam, Ian McEwan
September: K and I: The Queen and I, Sue Townsend
October: V and N: Night Waking, Sarah Moss, Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee, Stardust Neil Gaiman
November: G and U
December: Y and W: When Will there be Good News, Kate Atkinson, Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby, Cressida Cowell, Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner, Jago,

RandomKIT
January: Home Sweet Home. The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne; Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer,
February: Cats. The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
March: Hobbies: A Single Thread, Tracy Chevalier,
April: Rain: Pericles William Shakespeare
May: Flowers: The Lost Spells, Robert Macfarlane, Sweet Bean Paste, Durian Sukegawa
June: Cooking: Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
July: Dogs: Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
August: Oh Canada: Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood
September: Harvest
October: Names: Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden, David McKee Arthur and George, Julian Barnes, Mort, Terry Pratchett
November: Cities
December: Christmas sweets: Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Challenge 10: Bingo Dog


Having found something so brilliant for CATs, it was only fair that I try the same for BingoDog. And so we have the cover of the last album by the Bonzo Dog Doh Dah Band (yes, really), released in 1972. This will house my BingoDog card.

The categories are:
✔️1. An Award Winning book The Color Purple, Alice Walker,
✔️2. Published in a year ending 2 Revolting Rhymes, Roald Dahl
✔️3. A modern retelling of an older story Ariadne Jennifer Saint,
✔️4. A book you'd love to see as a movie (maybe starring your favourite actor) The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
✔️5. A book that features a dog The Wombles, Elisabeth Beresford
✔️6. The title contains the letter Z Marzahn, Mon Amour, Katja Oskamp
✔️7. Published the year you joined LT Letters of Note: Art, Ed Shaun Usher
✔️8. A book by a favourite author My Lord John, Georgette Heyer
✔️9. A long book (long for you) To Serve Them All My Days, RF Delderfield
✔️10. A book you received as a gift Murray Walker Incredible!, Maurice Hamilton
✔️11. The title contains a month The Birth of Radar, Rex Boys
✔️12. A weather word in the title The Winter of the Lions, Jan Costin Wagner
✔️13. Read a CAT Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
✔️14. Contains travel or a journey The Girl in the Train, Agatha Christie
✔️15. A book about sisters or brothers The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, Ken Liu
✔️16. A book club read (real or online) Black Mamba Boy, Nadifa Mohammed
✔️17. A book with flowers on the cover Winter Flowers, Angelique Villeneuve
✔️18. A book in translation Three Apples Fell from the Sky, Narine Abgaryan
✔️19. A work of non-fiction A is for Arsenic, Kathryn Harkup
✔️20. A book where a character shares a name of a friend Richard III, William Shakespeare
✔️21. A book set in a capital city A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (London)
✔️22. A children's or YA book The House at Pooh Corner, AA Milne
✔️23. A book set in a country other than the one you live Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
✔️24. A book by an LGBTQ+ author Mythos, Stephen Fry,
✔️25. A book with silver or gold on the cover The Chalk Pit, Elly Griffiths

So, that's been going on around here? Well we;re back from a very nice holiday on the North Norfolk coast. We had a bungalow pretty much on the beach, so have some lovely views and sunsets. Days out included a couple of castles, a couple of houses, a train and a bit of mooching about. All very nice. I decided I was not taking my laptop, so I was off grid. Which was really liberating, I heartily recommend it. I got lots of reading done, and it was a proper break. Back to work on Monday.

And, seeing it is now October (how on earth has that happened???) my 3/4 year round up is taking shape.

3/4 year Review:
Number of books: 88 books in 9 months is a remarkably high number for me. And I seem to be maintaining that. Very odd. I've hit over 100 once since joining LT, exceeding that would be quite unexpected, but is surely on the cards.

Nothing with 5 stars this quarter, but there have been 9 that have earned 4 stars, which is quite a high proportion.

At the other end of the scale, the books to earn less than 3 stars were Trainspotting (2.5), The Messenger of Athens (2), The Dark Angel (2), Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death (2) and The Plantagenet Prelude, (2).

Challenge 1: 50 years of reading. The 1970s and 1980s have made some progress, and the 2010s are looking pretty good. But I have a gaping hole in the middle. Not helped by my tendency to double dip in a year. 33/50. This might be a close run thing...

Challenge 2: Women Authors: 43 books read by women authors out of 88 books is approaching a half, which is where this has sat for the last few years.

Challenge 3: New Authors: At 37 out of 88 sees me clearing the 1/3rd that this has run along at in recent years. That's going well. .

Challenge 4: Translations:6 in here at the moment, happy with that.

Challenge 5: Subscriptions. This one is the problem, 7 in here - I will say nothing about the increasing pile that I am behind on. I've got the end of the monthly subscription and haven't renewed this. Might have to spend some of next year catching up on this one!

Challenge 6: Heyer series read. None in here yet. But she can wait.

Challenge 7: Non-fiction: 6 in this category is a slow down from the early part of the year. Not too worried, I return to it every now and then.

Challenge 8: Short works. This has been upped by some children's books, and now stands at 14.

Challenge 10: CATs: I've cut my CAT commitments to just 2 this year - Just one miss in 9 months is pretty good going.

Challenge 11: Bingo: Finished successfully.

All in all, going pretty well. Just need to track down the missing years for the run into next year. On which topic, I have no idea what next year's theme will be as yet.

Welcome back from your holiday and a Happy New Thread. I like new threads that get me to review the books that people have read. (I'm not sure I entirely like the new way that jumps you right to last new post.) So new threads give me the opportunity to see if there's something of interest I might have missed. You've really done very well on your last 50 years of books challenge. I'm approaching a milestone next year and may look into "borrowing" that idea.

Happy new one, Helen. Your holiday sounds great. I am debating whether to bring my laptop on vacation later this month...

>13 Helenliz: When I was 10 or 11, a new music teacher came to my middle school, who also played her guitar (I think) in school assemblies and introduced some very interesting choices to the music featured in both music teaching and assemblies. I just wish I had more musical ability but it was quite fun. We started tp what I think was surely a selected version of I'm the Urban Spaceman by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. What I think we must have sung did make an interesting point that no one is that perfect and I guess it had a rather sweet message about not judging people too harshly, but the original also has some lyrics which don't seem suitable. I also first came across the Beatles' serial killer song Maxwell's Silver Hammer through that teacher.

Happy new thread! I still love that photo in >4 Helenliz:, you were very cute!

>14 Helenliz: I love the north Norfolk coast - those beaches feel like they go on forever. I have particularly fond memories of family holidays in Wells Next the Sea, and Hunstanton (Sunny Hunny).

>18 Jackie_K: Aww shucks. It's the size of the sky in that neck of the woods that gets me every time. We had a lovely time, staying right on the beach at Heacham. It wasn't quite sunny enough, or, rather, the wind never dropped enough, to make Crazy golf on the prom in (un)Sunny Hunny a goer!

>17 elkiedee: I have a passing familiarity with the piece in question, but not enough to know all of the lyrics. Going to google in a mo - and will blame you for the earworm later. >;-)

>16 katiekrug: I thought it liberating; he only took hi i-pad and nearly went nuts, especially when he realised there was no TV. Horses for courses...

A cottage on the Norfolk coast sounds heavenly. Welcome back.

>19 Helenliz: Yes, you're right - the skies there are enormous.

Happy new thread! Glad you had a nice relaxing holiday and got a lot of reading done. I get *less* reading done on vacation, it seems, because I'm always doing other things!

Your holiday does sound wonderful, I love getting away from all the usual stuff, but of course, I can always rely on books to help pass the time. :)

Book: 89
Title: Night Waking
Author: Sarah Moss
Published: 2011
Rating: ****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author
TIOLI Challenge #16. Read a book by an author who teaches writing

This might just be the neatest explanation of why I never wanted children. There are no rose tinted spectacles at work here. Anna and Giles have 2 young children, and timothy (Moth) is at the stage waking most nights and not going to sleep without Anna. As a result, Anna is feeling extremely tired and not terribly in love with her children. She is also struggling to work and juggle motherhood. The burden is falling on her and she no longer feels like herself. She is torn between loving her children and not wanting them. The situation is not helped by their current living arrangements, they are on a Scottish island, where Giles' family are the distant landlord and the island has had no permanent residents since the 60s. Memories are long in this corner of the world and Anna seems to spend time trying to answer to the sins of her husband's ancestors. Anna & Giles are converting one of the old crofts into a holiday cottage and during the book a family come to stay as the first guests. Another family comes with its own troubles, in this case mostly Judith, a rather difficult character.
Along the way, Anna & Raph uncover a child's skeleton in the garden when they were planting trees. This sends Anna, who is a historian, down a path of discovering what happened on the island in the past and fending off the unpleasant questioning and insinuations of the local police. Between the chapters of this contemporary tale are letters from a lady on the island in the late 19th century. These bring you closer to understanding the skeleton and the family's past. It is an example of a dual timeline done well - the two elements support each other but they do not make everything clear until the very end.
I enjoyed this, but the turmoil of emotions that Anna experiences is not for the faint hearted (like parenting itself).

>22 rabbitprincess: I agree, a holiday usually means less reading, but the lack of a TV made time in the evening that isn't usually there.

>23 DeltaQueen50: it was quite a decision to leave it all behind, but it was well worth it. I found it quite liberating. And I've broken a couple of game habits that I'd got into by not taking my laptop with me.

>24 Helenliz: Great review, Helen. I'm off to find a copy of this.

>24 Helenliz: It's interesting to see such a positive review of the book from someone who hasn't had children. Not that I've seen negative ones - I really loved Night Waking but identified so much with some of Anna's difficulties (though my experiences weren't quite the same) that I worry other readers might say oh, what's she on about?

I also would say that Anna is going through a very difficult time but it doesn't mean that everything will always be so hard for her or anyone else (not to mention that her isolation is partly geographical, as she's living on a very remote Scottish island and I vaguely remember thinking her husband could have been more supportive). I was glad to read it after I'd come through some I think having children is a really personal choice and I would never tell any other woman she should or shouldn't have children, another baby etc (though support for kids and parents shouldn't be something everyone's just left to somehow cope with, and I have quite strong views on the need for more support whether with practical issues, money and childcare, pregnancy and birth, mental health before and after babies are born etc.

Much as I love historical fiction and I was very excited when I learned that Sarah Moss was writing a kind of sequel, or more accurately related book, to the historical part of this novel, I was most gripped by the present day storyline. There are two more novels set in Victorian England about the 19th century woman's sister.

>26 RidgewayGirl: I enjoyed it, I hope you do too.

>27 elkiedee: I did wonder if it might divide opinion based on experiences of motherhood. I know that I would be abysmal at it, so reading an account that's not all rosy and glowing was quite interesting. I did think that Giles came out of this quite poorly, he didn't seem to be pulling his weight. And the isolation of the location can't help.

Book: 90
Title: Oranges are not the only Fruit
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Published: 1985
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author
TIOLI Challenge #9. Read a book with a fall color (Red, Orange, Yellow, Brown) predominate on the cover or with one of the color names in the title or author name

I think that this probably had more impact when it was written than it did for me now, mainly because the author's family history is more widely known - the events of this autobiographical novel are not the surprise that they would have been at publication. I thought that the final chapter, with the allegory and analogy was the most inventive writing, the remainder read as a narrative line. I'm not sure that there's a lot more I can say here. I feel it may have lost some of its impact with time.

>29 Helenliz: - I read this earlier in the year and agree that in 1985 it probably had more impact. I gave it a 3* too.

>30 dudes22: Thanks for your thoughts on the subject. Interesting that we both read it recently for the first time.

>29 Helenliz: I thought her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? was better suited to the story she was telling than the fantastical, convoluted novel.

Book: 91
Title: The Uncommon Reader
Author: Alan Bennett
Published: 2006
Rating: *****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, short work
TIOLI Challenge #18: Read a book in honour of Queen Elizabeth II

Another re-read. I like the way that Alan Bennet captures what is probably our idea of the Queen and then subverts it ever so slightly. She starts behaving in a way that's not in keeping with out picture of her. Being late because she has her nose in a book is entirely understandable in a normal human, but it so at odds with our mental picture of the Queen that it is quite startling. And it doesn't matter how many times I read this, the whole universe of possibilities opened up by that last line still takes my breath away. Just imagine...

>33 Helenliz: - I love that one. I read it in print, but I have it on audio, too, so will likely revisit it that way soon.

>34 katiekrug: It is just perfectly formed. I've not tried it on audio, I can see that working well provided the narrator is good. Too often people doing the Queen make her sound just a bit too ridiculous.

>32 ELiz_M: I think knowing about her past blunted the edge of this. I will see if the library has the non-fiction version.

Book: 92
Title: Neues von Elmar und seinen Freunden
Author: David McKee
Published: 1993
Rating: ***
Why: First effort at reading in German.
Challenge: 50 years, short work
TIOLI Challenge #7. Read a book in a language that is not your mother tongue

I've never read Elmer the Elephant before, he came out after I was of an age for them. This is a pair of stories, the first of which involves the elephants avoiding some elephant hunters, the second where a small elephant's teddy gets lost. The second story was easier, in that Elmer visits several animals and has basically the same conversation with each animal. Which made reading in a foreign language for the first time easier.
Google Translate gave a lot of support here, I read the page, translated what I could, interpolated the gaps and then checked what I thought was written through Translate. This was hard work, but it turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm feeling very pleased with myself.

My Teddy looking pleased not to be lost.

>36 Helenliz: I love the lost teddy story! I only discovered Elmer late when looking for books for my daughter, but I really like these stories.

Happy Birthday. You have quite a list of books. I see you and I both have Sarum on the books we share. Someday, I will finish it; a good read but a big book.

Congratulations on completing your first German book! I admire anyone who has the ability to speak/read in more than one language.

>37 Jackie_K: It was very sweet. Certainly better than the Elephant hunter story.

>38 mnleona: Thanks. I read that a very long time ago. It's still on my shelf, tempting me to a re-read.

>39 DeltaQueen50: I'm not sure I'd class myself as able to read a second language quite yet. It was quite a bit harder than I thought it would be. Vocabulary for things like shopping or ordering in a restaurant are very different from that in a story book! I've not done colours, for instance, yet.

>40 Helenliz: Well, then good luck with your on-going efforts!

Hello Helen and congratulations on your many, many reading successes! I am suitably impressed. I was never very good in reading German, and I love how you are incorporating modern technology with real-time reading.

And my condolences on the loss of the Queen and how lovely to honor her with your bell-ringing! It must have been beautiful, and I guess you're back to your usual bell-ringing schedule now?

The piece you quilted in your previous thread, the table-runner. Was it a kit by Eva Rosenstand? She has (had?) such lovely, classic looks and you did her artistry proud.

My various weekend performances are a bit more sparse this fall so yay for catching up on threads on LT! I'll need to review Christmas songs soon, though; 'tis the season that always comes round again!

>24 Helenliz: A BB for me! I love Sarah Moss.

>36 Helenliz: Congratulations on reading a book in German. I tried that when I was in school because I knew a little German already but gave up quite soon. Translation apps were still a long way off.

Book: 93
Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Published: 1998 (again)
Rating: ****
Why: needed an audio read in a hurry. And Gaiman never disappoints in this format.
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #16: Read a book by an author who teaches writing

I listened to a full cast recording and it was genuinely excellent. Full of set pieces that are touching and funny by turns. Yes, there's a love story, but it doesn't get in the way of the rest of the adventure. While there were a lot of characters to keep straight, the voices were all sufficiently different that it was possible to identify who was speaking without too much intervention from the narrator. In this format there was little in the way of description, such that you can, in a sense, invent your own landscape for the most part and picture the characters yourself. As someone with no visual imagination, that's a drawback, so I wonder if in novel or graphic novel format I might get something different from this. As it was I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in Faerie.

It's not my usual jam, but I really enjoyed Stardust when I listened to it several years ago...

>45 katiekrug: Gaiman is rapidly becoming one of my exceptions. I'm not massively into fantasy, but seem to have enjoyed everything of his I've read. I enjoyed this.

>43 VivienneR: I'm enjoying her writing as well. Thank you on the German. I've placed a number of other early years books in German on reserve at the library.

>41 DeltaQueen50: Thanks. Ongoing describes them quite well - we are not at finished article yet!

>42 threadnsong: Thank you. The quilt centre piece was a cross stitch pattern, I assume Mum found it in a cross stitch magazine, of which she had very many. I don't know the designer. I think it must have been a series of 4, one per season, as she'd also done 2 more.

>36 Helenliz: Congrats on your first German book! Teddy looks quite pleased with himself, did he read it, too?

>47 MissWatson: He didn't, but he does look good with a book. The second story involved a Teddy going missing, mine's just very pleased he hasn't gone missing. It's OK, Teddy gets found

OK, plan to complete challenge 1 in the next 2.5 months made. I may not be reading anything else between now & then! 14 to go, 2 in progress. 14 in 12 weeks ought to be doable.

1983 Archaeology of Beekeeping Finished
1987 Mort my shelves Finished
1989 The Temple of My Familiar or London Fields Library reservation not yet received
1990 Shadows in Bronze Borrowbox
1991 Reaper Man my shelves Finished
1994 Soul Music my shelves
1997 Enduring Love Playaway - have a cable to connect to the car now listening to
1999 Stonehenge my shelves
2001 Thief of Time my shelves
2002 The Cutting Room library collected Finished
2003 Oryx and Crake Library reservation not yet received
2004 Birds without Wings my shelves
2005 Arthur and George Borrowbox Finished
2008 When will there be good news library collected

Those that are reservations may not be found and received, so back up plans may be needed for those... Will revisit in a couple of weeks, see where we are.

Go Helen! Go Helen!

I bet you'll make it. I was thinking of borrowing this idea next year for a similar reason, but I think maybe not. (even though I could just read all the books you've read.)

Book: 94
Title: The Archaeology of Beekeeping
Author: Eva Crane
Published: 1983
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, new author, non-fiction
TIOLI Challenge #13: Read a book with an uneven number of pages

I picked this for the sole reason that it was first published in 1983. It turned out to be quite interesting, but it was rather dry and academic.
It set out to look at the history of bee keeping, from honey hunting through a bee maintaining phase to bee keeping. It ends in the mid 19th century with the invention of what we all think of a a bee hove, he moveable frame hive. Before that this ranges from Ancient Egypt through Ancient Greece & Rome to the middle ages and across all continents. It concentrates on physical evidence of bee keeping methods and it makes the point that these vary significantly based on the prevailing conditions - roughly there is a North South split. It becomes more UK & Ireland focused as it moves to the post medieval, looking at various bee structures that were not hives, but would have contained a hive, bee houses and the like. To the non-bee keeper, the last chapter had the capacity to be the most interesting, and was disappointingly short. It covered bee keeping in culture. While it captured painting and jewelry, it omitted (for nor apparent reason) medieval manuscript and stamps, but included coins. This section was quite brief, but that would have been where my interest would have lain.
It was illustrated with figures, both diagrams and photographs. In some cases these would have benefited from being in colour - there are a few that I couldn't make out what the author was referring to.
Interesting, but not one I imagine coming back to - I'm not about to become a bee keeper.

Oh. E-mail from the library - Canal Dreams not available. So have ordered The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker and London Fields by Martin Amis, in the hope that one arrives.

But 1983 completed. *does a happy dance*

>50 katiekrug: Thanks Katie
>51 dudes22: It's been quite fun. If you did want ideas, Vivienne has also done a yearly read challenge this year, although she read a book form each of the last 70 years of QEII's reign. https://www.librarything.com/topic/343852#7917318

I've also bailed on The Mountains Sing it simply wasn't floating my boat.

Next up is Mort for the eyes and still on Arthur and George for the ears.

>51 dudes22: >53 Helenliz: Agreed with Helen that it's fun. I did 1920 to 2020 a couple of years ago (I gave myself two years to complete), and I really enjoyed finding the books to fill in the years.

>52 Helenliz: I understand not being interested being a bee keeper, me neither! When my uncle retired from farming he put in several hives to keep him busy and he loved it. Honey straight from the hive is so good! My neighbor put a couple of hives in a few years ago and the bees were all dead within a month. As you probably know, the bee population is declining at an alarming rate!

>56 clue: We toyed with the idea of getting some hives (maybe still will if we move somewhere bigger), but reading Dancing With Bees the other year made me think that what would be more important and better for the environment overall would be to plant flowers to attract the native/wild bees, rather than introducing honey bees that may or may not be suited to that particular area.

>54 NinieB: I am debating continuing it as a challenge, working my way backwards through decades at a time. I think 50 in one year is probably only going to be the once. Maybe stick to 20 at a time.

>56 clue: our neighbours over the road have some hives at their allotment, and so I just buy their honey. I like the idea, I'm not sure I want to go to the effort.

>57 Jackie_K: I think that's sensible. There are many species of solitary bees, not just the sociable bees. I keep toying with a bee house somewhere in the garden for those species.

>49 Helenliz: Good for you on deciding to finish your challenge #1. You've chosen some good books to do it. I hope you enjoy The Cutting Room. I almost stopped reading very early in the book but was so glad I kept going.

>59 VivienneR: thanks for that warning. I took it from your list to fill a gap. It'd be interesting to compare the years that we've both struggled with, for various reasons.

Book: 95
Title: Arthur and George
Author: Julian Barnes
Published: 2005
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book tagged "historical" or "historical fiction"

This is a bit of a slow burner. It takes over half the book before the two protagonists come together. Arthur is Arthur Conan Doyle, while George is the son of a Shropshire vicar who becomes a solicitor. he also happens to not be white and is the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It is this miscarriage that brings the two together, with Arthur putting his Sherlock Holmes hat on and investigating the conviction. The story starts with short chapters of each character's life, such that you develop a picture of them and they are fully formed before they come together. this ground work means that the second half of the book accelerates based on the effort put into the foundations during the first half.
It does beg the question how valid is the English Justice system, as the case appears, from this account, to be entirely manufactured, and the genuine culprit is not brought to court. This isn't one of those cases where you feel the same couldn't happen again now. While set in the past it remains entirely relevant.

Book: 96
Title: Mort
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1997
Rating: *****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #13. Read a book with an uneven number of pages

It has been far too long since I last read this. At one level it is like I am 16 again and I'm discovering this fantastical universe for the first time. It is magical, and bizarre, but he never treats is with anything less than with respect - it's a combination that works really well. Pratchett holds a mirror up to the world, and it doesn't always reflect back the world as it is - some times it is as we wish it were or fear it is. It's brilliant and yes that may well be the rose tinted glasses or the glass of red talking, but I don't care. I love every minute of this. Death might just be my favourite character in the entire series, I love the way he is presented, the dichotomy he represents and how entirely human he appears. To the person who gave me this, aged 16, forever, thank you.

Well.
Just had our annual audit of the company's Quality System (which I run). And after 1.5 days she found nothing wrong.
PHEW

You have no idea how relieved I am. And maybe now I will do boring stuff like sleep properly for a bit.

Well done, you!

>63 Helenliz: Having had similiar responsibility in my working life I congratulate you and hope you can let your mind rest now!

>64 katiekrug: Thanks

>65 clue: Thank you. The last 2 days are the days I really earn my salary. I'm now so tired that it's going to be a freezer tea and an early night!

Glad you made out ok. Audits are never fun even if you're pretty sure you've done everything right.

>63 Helenliz: You earned your rest!

Book: 97
Title: Die Riesenrube = The giant turnip
Author: Henriette Barklow
Published: 2001
Rating: ***
Why: In German
Challenge: 50 years, Woman Author, new author, short book
TIOLI Challenge #7. Read a book in a language that is not your mother tongue

An urban setting of a story where a giant turnip is grown, and they children have to work together to pull it out of the the ground.
The dual language meant that I can see what the sense of the sentence is and them see how it correlates. Lots of vegetable vocabulary.
Nicely illustrated.

Book: 98
Title: Medea
Author: Euripides
Published: 431BCE
Rating: ***
Why: Amber's suggestion.
Challenge: Translation
TIOLI Challenge #2: Read a scary book

This is rather though provoking. Medea has history here, we come in at the end of her story, this is set in just a few hours. But it would make little to no sense without understanding how she came to be in Corinth and why Jason, her husband in all but the legal sense, feels that he can up and marry someone else. Medea, unsurprisingly, doesn't see it that way. The play is dominated by her, with her presence on stage for the majority of the play. She faces Jason, Creon (the king of Corinth) and Aegeus (King of Athens) and manages to shock the first 2 severely.
When the play opens, Jason's marriage to Creon's daughter (who, I think, goes unnamed throughout, which is interesting) has been planned and Creon banishes Medea, for fear that she may do him or his daughter harm. He allows her one day to leave - and calls himself a fool for allowing her the time - how right he is proven.
I struggle to see how the chorus fit in here, if they were ladies of Corinth, would they really have stood by when Medea expands on her plot against the bride and her father? It feels unlikely, so I'm uncertain of who they are. In the play they serve as a foil to the action, taking the news and digesting it as we do the same, casting it into a different light or reviewing it.
Medea leaves the stage under her own agency, relying on her lineage as the daughter of the son of the Sun, but she does so under her own agency. She leaves Corinth in a very different state than it was a few hours earlier. I can;t say that I understand her, or her actions, but she does feel real, which is a thing when this was written 2.5 thousand years ago.
I wonder what this is like staged...

>67 dudes22: you can say that again! And I speak as an auditor as well as an audit host.

>68 MissWatson: I did. And my flowers that arrived the next day from work. >:-)

>70 Helenliz: "In the play they serve as a foil to the action, taking the news and digesting it as we do the same, casting it into a different light or reviewing it."

I believe that is exactly the role of the chorus -- they weren't characters, but a device to reinterpret the action for the audience while the main actors are offstage getting ready for there next extrnace. So, think montage of previous scenes with voiceover: "previously on...." rather than "camera pans to shocked bystanders...."

>72 ELiz_M: thanks for that, this is all new to me - no classical education at my local comprehensive! The previous play I read was The Trojan Women where the chorus seemed to occupy a different position, they seemed to be additional of the Trojan women of the title, just the un-named ones. Seemed that the role of the chorus wasn't necessarily the same in the two plays.

Good luck with finishing your challenge, Helen.
I've never read any of the classical plays you're ticking off, but having just read Haynes' latest I'm almost tempted.

>74 charl08: Thanks. I'm in positive mood about successful completion.
Me neither with the classical education. I spend a lot of time feeling I am making up for lost time.
When (if) I retire, I'm going to go back & take a degree in the humanities, try the path not taken. I just need to decide which particular topic...

>75 Helenliz: Well, Natalie Haynes almost has me signing up for Beginner's Latin. Except then I inconveniently recall being rubbish at the one year I did of it as a 13 year old (back when brain plasticity was in my favour, so god knows what it would be like now).

>75 Helenliz: I don't have the education I would have liked to have either. My college work is all in business. When I retired I took all of the subject course work for a degree in Art History. I didn't actually get (or want) an actual degree, I was just after knowledge. Because I was taking classes over the internet and was charged an out of state fee for each class, I didn't take the things I didn't need (like PowerPoint!) or want. I'm still thinking of doing more.

>75 Helenliz: You could do a Combined Studies degree. That's what I did. You do still need to choose which courses you're going to do within whichever arrangement, and different universities offer very different schemes.

>76 charl08: If it is any help, at 50 I am learning German again and it feels to be going well. A bit every day seems to be the trick and reinforcing the learning by revisiting prior lessons is helping.

>77 clue: In the UK we narrow down focus quite early, and I've done just science & maths since I was 16. I quite like stretching the brain, I also think I would so a lot better that the "compare & contrast" type essays I was a bit crap at when in school.

>78 elkiedee: Something like that would be ideal, excellent thought. It would be the humanities equivalent of Natural sciences, I suppose.

>79 Helenliz: Oddly, I don't think I was actually taught how to write an essay before A level, when a couple of teachers thought from what I handed in that I could learn how to write a good essay but needed some help. And at university, in the second year I got a disappointing mark on a history essay, but when I got over the knock to my ego, I realised that the tutor had written a separate note outlining how to do better. Sadly, I didn't have a chance to use his advice with that tutor, as it was a two part course with someone separate doing the other part. But following that advice I got much better grades for my two other History essays that year, and started to do far better on the other essays I turned in.

Every year when people say exams have become too easy if results are improving, I think, no, I think teachers are generally better trained than they were when we were at school, and that there's far more emphasis on what's expected.

Book: 99
Title: Reaper Man
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1991
Rating: *****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #3. Read a book for the Grady Girls rolling challenge

I've never read a Discworld Miniseries before, I've always read them in publication order. Reading the Death series in relatively quick succession has pros and cons. Pros - I love the inventiveness of Death, the character. Con, you spot the continuity errors. In Mort, Death writes in a rounded hand as typified by a balanced personality, In this he writes in Gothic. None of which stops me loving the character of Death. In this he is retired and a certain kind of chaos ensues.We have Death, aka Bill Door, bringing in the harvest on Miss Flitworth's farm and there is the trouble back in Ankh Morpork that is is resultant on the lack of Death appearing to tidy up the souls of the dead.
There are lovely touches, the appearance of the Death of Rats and the shapes he tries before deciding on one that is wrong, but somehow right. Windle orchestrates a romance that will, we expect, enact after he dies. It is a fitting way to end a period of existence. If you wanted to take that turn, there is philosophy in here, what is death, what happens afterwards to the soul & the body, and what is living for. WIndle has a more energetic afterlife than he had life itself, and makes the most of the opportunity he is presented with. Bill Door, too, faces up to the knowledge of time passing and dealing with the fact that he will die. But he does it from a very different perspective than most of humanity. It would be nice to think that Death learnt something from Bill and that he continues to care.

>79 Helenliz: I think your own pace is a good idea. My last attempt was Arabic, with a class of (mostly) 18 year olds. Talk about humbling!

>82 charl08: I can imagine!

>80 elkiedee: I think that I've probably learnt a lot about how to make an argument that age, and having to make a case for things in life and work, which probably mean I'd be better equipped to be a student now than I was at the time.

>83 Helenliz: I'm sure that's true. My course attracted quite a lot of mature students, and I also knew a few on other courses. I had a friend who'd gone back to education after splitting up with her husband, and came to university aged 28. Also, my stepdad taught a lot of part time mature students as he got into academia through working in University Adult Education initially, and many, whatever their previous experience of education, produced much better work than their full time counterparts. I also think having more idea of what you want to do and why you're doing it and having the confidence to ask questions when you need to is useful. I just wish funding structures were better designed to support people coming back into education at different stages in their lives - and that includes further as well as higher education. My MP used to talk a lot about wanting night school to be brought back but I don't suppose that this will feature if we every get another Labour government, and I think he's forgotten all about it since he got a top Shadow Cabinet position.

Book: 100
Title: Small Things Like These
Author: Claire Keegan
Published: 2021
Rating: *****
Why: Bullet - which I can't renew as someone else has it reserved, so I need to get it back to the library!
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, new author,
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book tagged "historical" or "historical fiction"

This is a short novella, at just over 100 words, but it packs a punch.
Bill Furlong is living in Ireland in the mid 80s and times are hard. He's the local coal merchant and so ha s a reliable, steady income and is doing OK for his wife and 5 girls. But he is also a good man, he puts aside a bag of logs for the young woman opposite his yard because she provided him a kettle or water to unfreeze the padlock on morning in the run up to Christmas. Well that's the reason, but not why he did it - he's a good man. He had an odd start in life, being the child of a single mother who was working as a servant at the time. Mrs Wilson did not turn his mother off and so the young Bill grew up in a secure environment, supported by Mrs Wilson, but subject to the sticks & stones of childhood taunts, nonetheless.
This is set in the few days in the run up to Christmas and it's a hard winter. The story revolves around a visit to deliver coal to the convent and what he discovers when he arrives earlier than expected. To say more would be too revealing and this is one you need to find for yourself. The final action is startling because it is the action of a good man, but it is also a very brave move. And it is not going to be without repercussions - and yet how could he not do it?
There isn't a spare word in here, it is all very restrained and in keeping with Bill, nothing is brash or showy about him and yet he makes a positive difference to those around him. He is never actually described, but he doesn't need to be. This is genuinely excellent, I read it in one sitting and was just not going to put it down.

I forget who pinged me with this one as a book bullet - but thank you, it was excellent.

I loved this one, am looking forward to the paperback copy arriving so I can read it again.

I am looking forward to qualifying for U3A, myself.

>86 charl08: I can understand why the library copy I borrowed was subject to another reservation, so I couldn't renew it!

Round here I wonder about the U3A. When I ran a reading group, I had a few people ask if there were any books that were off limits. Seems the U3A reading group had a long list of authors and genres that it wouldn't consider. Which struck me as rather an odd way to go about things, but hey ho.

Book: 101
Title: The Cutting Room
Author: Louise Welch
Published: 2002
Rating: **
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, new author,
TIOLI Challenge #14: Read a book with a verb used as a noun in the title

This really isn't my cup of tea. It's well done, but the whole tale of sexual abuse, prostitution, drugs etc was just too sordid for me. A palate cleanser is needed to rinse the taste of it from my mouth.

>59 VivienneR: I think I understand the thought about stopping. It never quite got that bad, but I really can't say I enjoyed it.

Saw this on twitter today; laughed until it hurt.

Oops! I do think it's silly when publishers assume readers can't cope with English as written on the other side of the Atlantic.

>90 elkiedee: Ok, but also I took a class in England that involved hiking across a field with tall grass. At the end, someone asked me how I was doing (I was the least experienced person in the group) and I replied, "Great, except my pants are wet." There was quite a pause after I said that, for obvious reasons.

>89 Helenliz: Ahahaha the perils of Find and Replace!

>92 rabbitprincess: I'm English and live here - I'm critical of publishers on both sides of the Atlantic. There are cases where a change in title may be more understandable, but there are some I dislike on both sides.

Renaming a whole load of Noel Streatfeild's books as part of an imaginary Shoes series is one that annoys me. There are some actual series among her books, and characters from Ballet Shoes make a couple of brief appearances in later books. The story of Party Frock starts with a dress, and there aren't even theatre shoes, circus shoes or skating shoes on either side of the ocean (they are skates or ice skates!) And it started in the US but new editions of these books here include these silly titles. Please!

And there is a series of US crime novels by S J Rozan which each have a title which relates to the story or its starting point, many of which are distinct and interesting in themselves. Several were published here out of order and with titles like Bad Blood and other titles that have been used with lots of different books, which are overused in the genre, and they're all so similar that it would be very hard to remember which ones I've read/which are which (mostly two words, all with Blood in the title, all very stock phrases). They also make the series sound like some kind of gore fest, an entirely different sub genre of crime fiction, and unlikely to attract the readers who would most enjoy them.

>91 RidgewayGirl: I hope you weren't wearing a fanny pack on your hike.

>94 pamelad: I realise it is incredibly childish, but that makes me snigger every time I hear it!

>92 rabbitprincess: I know. >:-)

>91 RidgewayGirl: That get to me as well. Sorry. I'm 50 going on 5.

>90 elkiedee: I know we can cope, but I still have to mentally translate it in my head. I think it does make for a better reading experience if you're not being dragged out of the story because of the word choice.

I once did find and replace to change a character's name from Jack to Will, which was fine until I noticed somewhere halfway through the book my character put on a willet.

>96 susanna.fraser: Interesting, you could have tried to carry it off and invent a new item of clothing. I assume you didn't!

Nope--inventiveness of that sort is frowned upon when working with a historical setting!

The first time I met our UK-based director for Europe at my old job, he was wearing red trousers, and I commented on his colorful pants. Lesson learned :-P

>98 susanna.fraser:. Good point, well made!

>99 katiekrug: Yup. Them be trousers, he'll show his colourful pants to select company only!
Mind you, if we're on about making an impression, my first day in my current job I got taken out to lunch - and promptly dropped a ketchup covered chip down my white shirt. Fortunately I wasn't employed for my ability to eat chips neatly. >:-)

ION - we won the quiz this evening. I love me a good quiz. In fact I love me a good quiz even when I don't win.

Enjoying the pants/ trousers bandinage here. Fun fact: in some areas of Liverpool/ Merseyside pants are interchangeable with trousers (linguistically speaking, at least). Caused no end of confusion when I moved north as a kid.
(Port communities: reliably different)

>100 Helenliz: They are fun. Congrats on winning!

Couldn't agree more about quizzes 🙂

Today's stitching finish in front of the Grand Prix. >:-)



This is an edit of a fantasy stich-a-long pattern with one character per month. I've now done 7/12 of the circles, time for a change, methinks.

>102 RidgewayGirl:, >103 katiekrug:. Loving the quiz love. I may have opened my share of the winnings - bar of chocolate!

>104 Helenliz: My other half was watching the Grand Prix too! He nearly missed the start of it because the network broadcasting the race over here thought it would start at 5 our time, but in fact it started at 4. Fortunately he figured that out BEFORE 4.

>103 katiekrug: Very nice piece and I love the design in between the circles. Adds a bit of flair.

And thank you my UK literary friends for clueing me into the difference between "pants" and "trousers." I never would have guessed, until I made some sort of faux pas!

Also, congrats Helen for a) learning to read German and b) reading classic plays. I do hope you are able to take some Humanities courses/classes in these years of your life. I'm sure your professors will be glad to have a dedicated, thoughtful student who *wants* to be in class.

Book: 102
Title: Bright Air Black
Author: David Vann
Published: 2017
Rating: ***
Why: Following up on Medea
Challenge: 50 years, new author,
TIOLI Challenge #8: Read a book by an author whose name has different spelling variations

I read this on the back of having read Medea by Euripides. This is a modern telling her her story from her perspective. It starts with her & Jason on the Argo, fleeing from her father and throwing the chopped up remains of her brother overboard to distract the pursuing father. We then spend the majority of the book getting to Jason's homeland, where things do not go as Jason intends.
I'm not sure what to make of this. The sentence structure is odd, with some very short clauses and a number of sentences that don't seen to be complete. It is quite unnerving to read and that's before you get to the contents. Jason himself is portrayed as not what he made himself out to be. His behaviour all the way along seems to be to take the easy path through life, I think he's just too easy going to cope with Medea.
Now she's my problem with this. She is portrayed, at times, as so very single minded for something that cannot and does not exist in her world that she seems to be quite one dimensional. Which is odd when we spend the book inside her head. I got the feeling that Euripides admires her, fears her but secretly likes her. I got the impression that in this book the author fears her and that's the dominant emotion. She is such a strong woman that the rest of her psyche barely gets a look in.
I am a sucker for female perspective retellings of ancient myths, but this left me disappointed in the outcome.

>105 rabbitprincess: ohh, near miss! The time change thing meant it was a different time to the qualifying, which confused us, but the timings were as printed. And I dished up dinner at about 10 to the start, so that was a feat of good timing. My husband claims that the one time I won't be serving dinner is the time I say I'll serve dinner.

>106 threadnsong: that's it's an excellent pattern. It's a year long pattern, with 12 circles, so there's loads of options to get it to fint the size available.
Happy to help with the trousers/pants thing!

Having a couple of days off after my busy few weeks and I've got too much holiday left. Productive day. It included a visit to a museum, coffee & cake, a couple of meetings with the local cathedral & diocese staff (with my bellringing secretary hat on - the trouble with dealing with people who work when you're a volunteer is that they're available to talk when you're working!), tea & cake and a spot of shopping. I may have visited a bookshop, you never know... 2 dual language books of short stories. Beyond me right now, but a target to aim at.

>108 Helenliz: Sounds like a very productive day! Are the dual language books in the same language?

>109 charl08: Yes, both are a collection of 8 short stories with the left hand page in German, the right in English. Like I say a bit of a stretch from my current level, but they'll serve as a stretch target.

Book: 103
Title: Enduring Love
Author: Ian McEwan
Published: 1997
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #12: Read a book where the title completes the phrase, "I am thankful for..."

I think I've worked out what McEwan's "thing" might be. He writes very different stories, but in all of them you are left with a nagging sensation that there's something that's not been said, that there is more to this that you've been told. In Atonement, he did the whole rip the carpet out from under your feet in the last chapter trick. IN Amsterdam you're left wondering if there is a mastermind at work, pulling all the strings. In this, the seeds are planted mid way through that what Joe is saying might not be true, he might be seeing things, he might be the one with the mental instability. It's very clever, it's also rather unsettling. I think I'm going to space hos books out, too many at once could lead to increasing instability.
In this, the story starts with an accident, where a group of disparate people come together to try and hold a hot air balloon on the ground after the pilot miscalculates. The various people arrive, take hold of the balloon's ropes but are unable to keep it under control and there is a dreadful accident. The incident is the point at which the two male characters are first brought together and one of them completely misinterprets what's taking place. The relationship that is formed is one sided and not at all healthy, but it does endure, as the second appendix makes clear. It's quite a sad book as there is the ending and a fruitless beginning wrapped up in this one story.
Joe is presented as unreliable narrator, and even after the appendix, I'm still left with the nagging feeling that he's not been entirely honest, either with us or himself, about something. It's well done, but the religious mania element, while entirely relevant to the story, felt to have been laid on rather heavily at times. But then, I am speaking from an agnostic position, in the same way that Joe is from an atheistic one. I can understand his discomfort at what ensues, but I'm not sure he went about dealing with it in a logical manner, which is something he prided himself on. Hence my ambivalence about the truth of the matter. Hopefully that's danced around too many spoilers!

>104 Helenliz: Lovely cross-stitch piece!

I enjoyed reading your Pratchett reviews and it reminds me that I really ought to continue the Death series, as I did enjoy Mort. I started reading Discworld in publishing order and then jumped around a bit, but reading a subseries in order seems like a good idea.

>111 Helenliz: I listened to Atonement years ago though I did not finish it. I saw the movie as kind of a wrap-up to what I had heard, and could not go back and finish the book in any format. It was just so, I dunno, tragic? in a way that classic tragedies can't even touch. I couldn't deal with the sadness of the story.

Book: 104
Title: Soul Music
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1994
Rating: ****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #7. Read a book Rolling Challenge - E L T O N & B E R N I E - Read a Book with a word beginning with any of the letters in this challenge Or the authors name must begin with any of these letters. For "&" read a book with Musician, Poet, Piano, Concert, Lyricist in the title or somewhat similar word along those lines

Re-read.
This has some fabulous set pieces, and some great humorous passages where you're playing "spot the reference". But I'm not sure that, as a whole, it works as well as some other entries in the series. That's not to say it is bad - far from it, but it's not a gem, it feels maybe it's just a fraction off the beat.

>112 mathgirl40:, Thank you, and there's another one up there ^.

>113 threadnsong: I thoroughly enjoyed Atonement right up to the last chapter, where I felt he'd ripped the carpet out from under my feet. Having read 2 more since then, I've got a feel for him and sowing seeds of doubt appears to be a common theme. I think I'd be better prepared for it now.

Book: 105
Title: Shadows in Bronze
Author: Lindsey Davis
Published: 1990
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, women authors
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a book by an author whose name has different spelling variations

This is the second in the series of Didius Falco, an informer in Vespasian's Rome. In this case Falco starts by disposing of a body and selling off an estate of an unlikable character who happens to be the former husband of his lady love. From here follows a somewhat unlikely tale about a plot to overthrow the emperor, simply because he isn't high class enough for certain people. I can't say I enjoyed this initially, but it did grow on me. The plot is rather complicated and Falco's friends and family become embroiled in the increasingly bizarre happenings. I can;t decide what his attitude to women is, it feels complicated. It does tie up a number of story lines, but some are seemingly left dangling. This book follows on closely from the first and I wonder how much sense it would make without having read that. I can see me picking up book 3, but not running out to do so.

>116 Helenliz: I think you're right, the plot is pretty closely linked to the one before.

>115 Helenliz: The ending still makes me quite cross.

Book: 106
Title: Stonehenge
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Published: 1999
Rating: *1/2
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #11: Read a book whose title is not unique

I find myself torn over this one. At one level, it tells a deeply dramatic tale of the construction of Stonehenge, all within one man's lifetime. At another it is so intensely male that you can almost feel the testosterone and misogyny oozing out of the pages. Until beyond page 50 no women feature in person. There is one instance where 2 women meet (at about page 550), all the rest of the interactions are with men. Women are slaves, wives (and usually invisible wives at that), sorceresses or beautiful goddesses/sacrificial victims. It all get very wearing. I find it hard to believe that work was all done by men with the women singing encouraging songs. If you can get over the overt sexism, then it's not too bad, but it kept annoying me too much to ignore. He does finish with a historical note that some of his incidents are supported by archeological evidence, but that doesn't make up for the rest. I finished it, I can't say I thought it terribly good, I will not be reading it again, this one is heading to the charity shop.

I only finished this as I need it to fill in a missing year in my 50 year challenge. In other circumstances, a DNF would have been on the cards. Avoid...

>118 Helenliz: Bernhard Cornwell has always been an author I wanted to get to one day, but reading your review I'm not so sure anymore! Have you read other books by him? Are they all like that?

Yes, I have read others by him. They are usually set in male dominated environments, but this felt like an extreme case - and an unrepresentative one. I enjoyed Azincourt and Fools & Mortals. I've read some of his Viking series, but have never tried Sharpe.

Book: 107
Title: Howl's Moving Castle
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Published: 1986
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, new author
TIOLI Challenge #8. Read a book by an author whose name has different spelling variations

This is massively inventive and the child in me raced through it. Unfortunately, the adult had rather more questions. It's fast paced and full of incident, with lots of intriguing characters and goings on. I just spent most of it wanting to know why or how.

>118 Helenliz: Stonehenge is (?) on my wishlist but after reading your review I'm having second thoughts. According to LT I liked Gallows Thief but haven't read anything else by Cornwell.

>122 VivienneR: I really can't recommend it, I'm afraid. He's written better books than this one and books that annoyed me less than this one.
If you did want to try another by him, I enjoyed Fools & Mortals and Azincourt.

Making note of the Cornwell recomendations (and un-recommendations), as I have not read anything by him...

>124 katiekrug: "unrecommendations" being every bit as valuable as the positive versions!

Book: 108
Title: When Will there be Good News
Author: Kate Atkinson
Published: 2008
Rating: ***
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author,
TIOLI Challenge #5. Read a book that helps to finish up a personal reading challenge

This is going to be difficult to discuss without spoilers, so go ahead and assume this is spoilerville.
There are a number of different strands of story here and you wonder how they will come together - and the ending still leaves you with almost more questions as answers.
It starts with a murder of a mother and 2 of her 3 children, the third escapes and runs off. Joanna survives and we pick up her story some 30 years later when she is a GP in Scotland and has a baby of her own. Her family's killer, Andrew Decker, was brought to justice and is now about to be released from prison. The police come to tell Joanna about this, so that she is aware that the press may be on her trail. The police also visit the Hunter's house to talk to Neil, Joanna's husband, about a fire in a casino that he owns that is viewed as suspicious. Into the mix we add Reggie Chase, who is pretty much alone in the world, her father never having been around and her mother died in a holiday accident. Reggie has a good for nothing brother Billy and she happens to work for Joanna Hunter as "mother's help". Reggie is also being schooled by a retired school mistress with a brain tumour that's about to kill her. Into this set of disparate characters we add Jackson Brodie and Louise Munroe, a pair that have had a history and gone their separate ways. Jackson's story seems separate from the others until he ends up in Scotland as well and gets tied up with Joanna's family killer and has his life saved by Reggie.
Its a story that runs along at quite a pace, with Reggie's boundless energy and ability to bounce back from disaster after disaster seemingly driving the story forward. She's the one that insists that there is something unusual in Joanna's absence and that the ill aunt is not the whole story. While she is disbelieved, she turns out to be right on the nose more often than not. The focus of the story shifts every chapter or two, with different characters being the focus and so the story doesn't always seem to run purely chronologically, sometimes feels lie we go back & catch up on someone. Joanna is more the still centre on which the story revolves, in her words, just because something dreadful happened once, doesn't mean something dreadful can't happen again. And so the way she manages to rescue herself is both shocking in its violence and somehow not at all out of character of this extraordinarily capable woman. The ending, and especially what happens to Decker, leaves you wondering what exactly she did or didn't do and why he was on that train to Scotland.
I listened to this. I'm aware that it is the third in the Jackson Brodie series, but I'm not sure that this needs to be read in order, it read perfectly well as a standalone novel.

Book: 109
Title: Hogfather
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1996
Rating: ****
Why: Series read, can't read book 5 in the series before book 4.
Challenge: 50 years, CAT
TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book with an 4 plus letter word embedded in the title

Re-read 2022
Reading this in the run up to the Christmas season, there's a lot to think about amid the fun and frolics.
The auditors of reality are up to their tricks again, and have put a contract out on the Hogfather. This is taken up by Mr Teatime, a member of the assassins Guild who has little touch with reality and is perfectly suited to the seemingly impossible job.
The thing about the Hogfather is that he's an old God, a very old God. And Gods take on new guises and roles as the world changes. He may now be all about the presents and if you've been good or not, but he has a much older root. The core of all the mid winter festivals is the prayer to the Gods that the sun will return. And so while that may not be the core belief that sustains him now, no Hogfather means that the sun will not rise. And so there is a space in the belief and it is important that that space is filled so that there is a sun rise and that there will be a space for the Hogfather to return to. This is where Death steps in, because while he is not human, i think he finds them endlessly fascinating. The false beard and the cushion do part of the work although Pixie Albert could do with some polish. The children in the department store are a complete delight, the pig that did sustains the story for any number of pages.
The thing about Death is that he gets a bee in his bonnet and goes for something in a way that's all out and not always quite right. So the stories of the Little Match Girl and Good King Wenceslas get a seeing to. Albert tries to explain that sometimes the world isn't nice and right and fair, but Death goes ahead anyway. He's seems blind to the ability to accept contradiction and you've got to love that about him.
Along the way the Tooth Fairy gets involved, as does Susan (against Death's express instruction - but when did that ever stop Susan?). The belief space also causes a number of new Gods and fairies to be brought into being, the pencil fairy and sock eater being just two of this fabulously inventive band. Hex takes a starring role and is instructed to believe and, as we know, everyone who believes can write their letter to the Hogfather for a present. Just don't tell the Archchancellor that the machine won't work without its Teddy.
As ever there is a lot of fun to be had, and a fair amount of thought provoking comment, if you want to take it. It's not shoved down your throat, but it's there. Death gets outraged at the unfairness and injustice in the Hogwatch night and I think that's a fair feeling to take into Christmas, justifiable outrage.

I keep planning to re-read the Jackson Brodie series before starting the last one. Maybe next year?

>128 katiekrug: There's always next year for a lot of reading plans...

>129 Helenliz: Thank goodness for that!

>130 charl08: oh there's always next year to get around to a book or a series or an author. >:-)

I read about your 50 years of books challenge on TIOLI. What a great idea!!

>132 lindapanzo: It's been pretty interesting, I have the final few to go, so am hopeful I'll finish.

Book: 110
Title: Oryx and Crake
Author: Margaret Atwood
Published: 2003
Rating: ****1/2
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, woman author
TIOLI Challenge #4. Read a book with an 4 plus letter word embedded in the title

The trouble with Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction is that you can see that it could happen. While her scenario in this seems provocative, the tale of how Jimmy/Snowman arrives in this predicament is entirely logical and doesn't need a massive leap of faith anywhere. It manages to be chilling and yet leaves you with a degree of hope in the end.
Trying to describe this further is futile. it's excellent, read it.

>134 Helenliz: - I was surprised how much I enjoyed that one. Still need to get to the other two in the trilogy...

>135 katiekrug: It was very good. The library has the next two as well... I can't work out where she'd take the story, if I'm honest.

>136 Helenliz: Same world, different characters.

>137 ELiz_M: Ahh, thanks.

Which nutter decided to read a 600+ page book and listen to an audiobook of 21 hours to finish her challenge... Should be OK, but very slightly feeling the pressure!

>139 Helenliz: - Yikes!

I'm cheering you on :)

>140 katiekrug: Thank you
*fistbump*
*deepbreath*

>139 Helenliz: You can do this!

Book: 111
Title: Was ist los mit dem Boo Hoo Baby
Author: Cressida Cowell
Published: 2000
Rating: ***
Why: German.
Challenge: 50 years, woman author, new author, short works
TIOLI Challenge #9: Read a book in honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas (rolling challenge)

This was a pretty easy read, lots of repetition of animals and the noises they make as the creatures try to settle the crying baby. The repetition is good for children learning language and it has the same effect on me learning German as an adult. Duck & cow were new ones to me. Also contains tense change, which is interesting.

Book: 112
Title: The Cockroach
Author: Ian McEwan
Published: 2019
Rating: ****
Why: He's quite good.
Challenge: 50 years, short works
TIOLI Challenge #4: Read a book with an 4 plus letter word embedded in the title

Like all good satire, this manages to be funny and incredibly close to the knuckle. Jim Sands wakes up one morning to find he has changed. He seems to have become Prime Minister of the UK and has remarkably little experience to support this state of affairs. And so he embarks on a massive change to the direction of the British economy, based on "the will of the people".
This is a reversal of Kafka's Metamorphosis (which I've not read, but will seek out). If it is not also a seering indictment of the state of UK politics and Brexit, then I'm massively misreading this (I bet I'm not). In a future time I suspect this will be viewed as a classic, right now it's all a bit to painful.

Ok, I admit it, Christmas is nearly here. After the cold it has certainly looked like it, even if the temperature is due to jump by ~ 20 C next week! Nuts!!

Last night was work Christmas do, started at lunch time, went on late. I'm maybe not on top form today. I'm going to sleeeeeep tonight. As is traditional, I stopped at a Christmas tree farm on the way home this morning and bought my Christmas tree. It'll come in for decoration during the week.

Watched Love Actually, as my first Christmas film watch. What are your Christmas film recommendations? What's your tradition in this regard? I'm not a big film watcher, so I'm open to ideas.

I usually watch the Grinch (the Boris Karloff one, although I did like the Benedict Cumberbatch one too), Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and White Christmas. I like the idea of watching It’s A Wonderful Life but don’t do it often because I have a very short attention span for movies.

>145 Helenliz: - My favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard. Other ones in the annual rotation:

A Christmas Story
Elf
Trading Places
The Ref

>144 Helenliz: I really like Ian McEwan so this goes on my wishlist. It was probably the title that prevented me from reading it before now.

>145 Helenliz: We don't watch TV during the holidays, usually. But in the weeks before nearly every public station is showing a repeat of a Czech fairy tale film, "Three hazelnuts for Cinderella", and I watch it at least once. Like most people I know...

>134 Helenliz: I listened to this on audiobook, and agree: it is a wonderful book. I look at chicken breasts in the grocery store much differently now than I once did.

>145 Helenliz: I totally love "Love Actually". My must-watch at Christmas-time is "Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer" animated classic. For movies, I'll watch anything that is not a Hallmark channel movie, as long as I catch it near the beginning. There are a lot of good ones out there.

I used to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" every Christmas but I have given it a rest for the last few years. I also enjoy "Christmas in Connecticut" and I love the Alastair Sim version of "The Christmas Carol".

>145 Helenliz: My must-watch Christmas movie is The Miracle on 34th Street

I love Christmas movies! Like >152 lowelibrary:, one of my favorites is Miracle on 34th Street (the original one, with Maureen O'Hara). I also have nostalgic fondness for How the Grinch Stole Christmas (again, the original half-hour cartoon) and A Charlie Brown Christmas, which I usually watch every year on Christmas Eve.

If you enjoy romantic comedies, While You Were Sleeping isn't explicitly a Christmas movie, but it is set at Christmas and is incredibly sweet and charming!

Thank all!

Helen's Christmas Film Club started with these two:

Scrooged. Clearly based on a Christmas Carol, the star act is clearly the ball breaking fairy Ghost of Christmas Present. Fun but not sure it would stand a very repeated viewing.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I couldn't decide what this was trying to be, funny, or showing the hopelessness of the way reality never lives up to the weight of expectation. It took some odd turns along the way. At times predictable.

I'm not a Scrooged fan myself. You might like the Muppets version of A Christmas Carol.

Christmas Vacation is the 3rd in a series of movies about the Griswolds and not my favorite, but I have a soft spot for Cousin Eddie ;-)

Helen's Christmas film club today featured The Christmas Carol (the Simon Cowell 2018 single hander) & Elf. Nothing like a bit of contrast. First a dramatic reading, the second a whole load of fun - can see why that's a favourite.

>155 katiekrug: oh that's a firm favourite - only seems it's only on Disney Plus this year, so might be a year without it. >:-(

Book: 113
Title: Die Kleine Rote Henne und die Weizenkörner
Author: Jago
Published: 2005
Rating: ***
Why: In German
Challenge: 50 years, new author, short works
TIOLI Challenge #9: Read a book in honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas (rolling challenge)

From the point that the Little Red Hen finds the grains of wheat and asks the other animals for help planting it and they decline, you know exactly where this story is going. New animals added to the vocab (Henne is hen & Ganz is a goose.) I liked the glossary at the back with the key words in German & English.

Helen's Christmas film club today features Die Hard. Love Alan Rickman, just the most excellent panto villain.

I'm just hoping that the Unicorns I was stitching at the time are not too traumatised!

>158 Helenliz: I've never seen Die Hard, but on the evidence of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves I have to agree that he is an excellent baddie. Apparently a number of scenes of his in that film were cut because he stole the show so emphatically from Kevin Costner!

>158 Helenliz: - The. Best.

>159 Jackie_K: He's reported to have put his baddie skills down to panto training in Rep. I can imagine, he already steals the film. They'd have had to retitle it The Sheriff of Nottingham had he done so any more emphatically.

>160 katiekrug: isn't it just?!

Helen's Christmas film club today is another one I've not seen before, The Holiday.
Part of me rebels against the RomCom's central idea that a woman needs a man to be complete. The old romantic in me is usually won over by it before the end. And so it proved.

>162 Helenliz: - I haven't seen that one in ages. I vaguely recall not loving it, but I might give it another whirl one of these days.

Book: 114
Title: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Author: Robert L May
Published: 1939
Rating: ****
Why: Because.
Challenge: Short works
TIOLI Challenge #Read a book with an 4 plus letter word embedded in the title

Re-read. Because some traditions need to be maintained.

see if this works: https://files.mastodonapp.uk/media_attachments/files/109/570/011/127/071/987/ori...

>145 Helenliz: And would you believe, "Love Actually" was on TV last night? It is a great film and it really did make the Christmas holiday this year.

>164 Helenliz: Agreed. I think I used to have this book on my shelves. I may have read it so much it fell apart.

Here's to a Christmas with many traditions and great movies for you!

Hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas day.

>165 threadnsong: >:-)
Our copy is distinctly not in the best condition. Both covers have been badly damaged, but most of the popups still work. I wonder if it could be restored, but would have no idea who to go to for that.

Helen's Christmas film club yesterday really only had one choice - It's a Wonderful Life.
It was fascinating this time to realise how much of the film is spent setting up Clarence. Then the darkness of the life if George had never existed.
It ends on a high, but part of me wonders what happens next, Uncle Billy and the missing money, Potter who found it. hmmm.

3 books to finish & 1 week to do it, this is going to be tight...

Helen's Christmas Film club today was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Jim Carey one.
Interesting to contrast with the animated version. Cindy Lou felt a lot more convincing here than in the animation.
Again, the Grinch is all front and just needs a hand extended to break through the frosty (green) exterior.

Helen's Christmas Film club comes up with a less than stellar entry. I'm not sure I see the point of The Christmas Story. I was waiting for something to draw me in and it never happened.
Sorry Katie, that one's not up for repeat viewing.

But... but... the leg lamp!

"Oooh, must be Italian."

I double-dog dare you to watch it again, but with more wine ;-)

Just kidding - not every movie is for every person. Just like books!

Helen's Christmas film club has a couple of entries today.

A Christmas Carol. Seeing I can't see the Muppet one this year, I thought I'd try some of the others. It was the turn of the one featuring Patrick Stewart as Scrooge & Richard E Grant as a very meek Bob Cratchitt. It does a very good job of Scrooge on Christmas day, it;s not a complete change, he suffers doubt about his welcome at nephew Fred's house.

Trading Places. I did wonder what I was getting into when Sky prefaced this with a warning about dated attitudes. Watching it, I see what it means, but it certainly works as a story. I can see it being remade at some point, as I think the story still works even if the language, in some cases, does not. Katie redeems herself with that suggestion.

"Katie redeems herself with that suggestion."

PHEW!

>171 katiekrug: It was quite fun. Never seen it before.

>170 Helenliz: I love Trading Places, I don't know how many times I've seen it - although not for several years, now I think about it.

I'm trading in my Tesco Clubcard points (one of our biggest supermarket chains here with a loyalty card/selection of random discounts scheme) for a 3 month Disney Plus subscription - making it clear to Mike and the boys that we will use it before the offer ends, as I'm not going to continue to pay £8 a month for a sub when that finishes because we already have access to more films and TV programmes than even Danny knows what to do with (I tend to mostly watch late night BBC 4 and a few things on Sky Arts and then go back to BBC Radio 4/4 Extra (spoken word radio). One of the main reasons is to watch all the Muppets content - including the late 70s TV shows. We watched it was a family when I was a kid, and I remember saying that it was my baby brother's favourite programme. Thing is my baby brother really was very young at the time and probably would have liked almost anything....

>174 elkiedee: Ohh, that's very sensible. I'm a fan of BBC4. My husband has given up asking what channel the box is recording and now asks what's being recorded on BBC4.

I didn't really watch the Muppets as a child, but Muppet Christmas Carol is up there in the best Christmas films.

Love BBC4! Whenever my family travelled to the UK in the Before Times, at least one night of the trip we’d end up watching BBC4 for about 4 hours straight. Such good music documentaries especially.

Book: 115
Title: Birds without Wings
Author: Louis de Berniers
Published: 2004
Rating: ****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #2. Read a book with a word in the title that can be found on a charcuterie board

This started off very slowly, the first third felt like a struggle, but thereafter it picks up. It is written with lots of chapters by or about different people who live in the one village plus Mustafa Kemal. This makes it difficult to get to grips with the cast initially, but pays dividends for sticking with it later on. Gradually his story and that of the village comes together - just as the village is torn apart. If told now the events here would be described as ethnic cleansing and it would be a crime against humanity, about 100 years ago this wasn't the case.This tells a story of great sweep and scope, in the founding of Turkey, and it tells of individuals caught up in those events. Its the contrast between the big and the small scale story at work here and how that fundamentally changes a place and its people.

> I've just checked. This has been on my TBR since 2015. I tried it a couple of times but put it down after a few chapters. Clearly I need to stick it out.

>178 clue: It took me a very long time to get into it, probably over 200 pages. It does improve.

Helen's Christmas Film club today was Christmas Carole, a Sky Max production where a modern day business woman encounters ghosts of Christmas past, present & future. It was well done, in that you couldn't believe someone could be ignorant of the Scrooge story - and so it proves here. Only she misunderstands the message the ghosts are trying to tell her. Done very well for a contemporary retelling set in a recognisable present.

Helen's Christmas Film Club today was an old b&w film, The Holly and the Ivy. The family gathers at the parsonage and all sorts of secrets are revealed against the backdrop of a traditional Christmas. In some senses, still quite contemporary.
Features one actor in common with an earlier film. Who & which film?

Helen's Christmas Film Club entry for today is an unusual one. I found it through Mark Kermode's Christmas Cinema Secrets (excellent programme btw)
Hector follows a homeless man as he travels to London to spend Christmas. Manages to be funny, practical, eye-opening and terribly sad while leaving a lot left unsaid.
Available on i-player for just over 2 more weeks.
If you watch just 1 film from my Christmas film club, make it this one.

Book: 116
Title: London Fields
Author: Martin Amis
Published: 1989
Rating: *
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years, new author
TIOLI Challenge #5. Read a book that helps to finish up a personal reading challenge

This is easily the worst book I read in 2022. Awful, just awful. It has relieved me of the need to read anything else by Mr Amis. Save yourself the bother.

I listened to this as I needed a book published in 1989 and the pickings were thin. An American author undertakes a house swop with an author based in London. He arrives and meets with 3 people who form the core of the book. They are Guy (an upper class nit), Keith (a neanderthal that can barely string a sentence together) and Nicola. Nicola is barely human, she seems to be, instead, a fantasy figure to each of the three men involved, such that she is utterly unconvincing. She has this gift/curse of being able to see the future, and so the events that happen are both pre-ordained and induced by Nicola's own actions. She also invents a scheme to extract money from Guy by searching for her childhood imaginary friend, Enola Gay and her equally made up child Little Boy. I found it impossible to believe that no-one twigs. She feels to be the object of different male fantasy, and each different fantasy is scrunched into one woman, but she is made inhuman by this creation.
Keith is into darts, has a harem of women, including an underage girl that he pays her mother for regular congress. Keith rips off everyone, leaving an old lady with very little and an exploding boiler while acting as a handman. Keith also abuses his wife, who then takes it out on their child - to whom Keith makes no effort whatsoever. There is also discussion of historic rape and violence and ongoing compensation for prior actions. He is a thoroughly unpleasant creation and spending 18 hours with him is not something I can ever recommend to anyone else.
Guy just seems to be somewhat dense. Not stupid, just rather naive. I'm not sure how he ended up involved, but he has his own problems that need attention that he had been spending elsewhere.
I can't decide if the author is writing these events, and there is a degree of uncertainty as to if they are real to the author or whether he is also inventing these people & events. It was the longest 18 hours listen of my life. Save yourself the effort, just don;t go there.

I'm sorry you're ending the year with such a bad book! At least it means your first of the new year should really stand out :)

>183 katiekrug: I might just have to spend the rest of the afternoon reading something to finish on a higher note. Oh dear, what a shame.

Such a sacrifice!

>182 Helenliz: I'm assuming that the character Nicola is under 40? Enola Gay would have seemed like a very unusual name in 1980s London even to people who didn't know the reference - the plane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was named after someone's mum. Looking it up, I did actually buy London Fields as a Kindle bargain (presumably) in August 2021 (and no, it wasn't on the 6th) but it doesn't make me rush to pick it up. London Fields is in Hackney in north east London, a few miles from where I live.

I also have a Kindle copy of his memoir, which I'm slightly more interested in than his novels - dad was Kingsley Amis, and novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard became his stepmother in MA's late teens - I do like her books, which I think I read in my late teens.

18 hours listening as well - eek!

My review of the 50 books challenge:
In 2022 I hit one of “those” birthdays; this one completely messed with my head. For reasons that no longer seem at all logical, I decided to read a book published each year I’ve been alive. This is the result. Some years have more than one book read (before you just add up the number of covers and come to the wrong answer).
What did I learn from it? Some books have aged particularly badly. Anything that the cover describes as cutting edge or contemporary now looks rather dated. Generally historical fiction or that with a nostalgic air fares better; being set in the past, it can’t become dated in the same way – although there is one notable exception that I will come to later. Some books still look to be ahead of their time. I remember the Wombles as a cozy book & TV programme about creatures on and under Wimbledon Common. I’d not realized quite how far ahead of their time they must have been, as they still seem to be right at the driving edge of environmentalism even now.
There was a mixture of new reads and re-reads. In general, the re-reads were books I know and have read multiple times already. Pratchett never fails to disappoint and Alan Bennett’s book is one that is reliably in my desert island book list. I’d not read The Wombles in a very long time and those stood up to repeated reading remarkably well. There were a few points that jarred a bit now that I probably didn’t notice back then.
New reads included those authors I now want to read everything they’ve very written and those I’m not going to touch with a barge pole ever again. I realise I’m possibly the last person on the planet to read The Handmaid’s Tale; better late than bever. I also read Cat’s Eye and Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood and she is genuinely excellent. I’d read a few of her works previously; her back catalogue is now going to have a going over. Another on the pile to read everything they’ve ever written is Ian McEwan. He is another writer who writes a very different book each time, all of them with a twist or air of uncertainty about what you’re being told. Amsterdam, Black Dogs, Enduring Love & the Cockroach were books by him I read this year and I intend to read more.
On the flip side, I tried Iris Murdoch & Martin Amis for the first time, and have no intention of seeking out anything that either has written ever again. Murdoch can write, but chooses such unpleasant people to write such nice sentences about. Just a bit too depressing to spend time in her world. Martin Amis wrote easily the worst book I read all year. At 18 hours on audio book, I was fit to give up, but needed it for 1989 – a year in wjhich it seems very few good books were published. I found London Fields a very dull, misogynistic dirge.
Another to fall into the misogynistic trap was Bernard Cornwell. I read a couple by him. His books are always set in very male dominated environments, sometimes it works; Azincourt is one by him I enjoyed. Stonehenge, set at the building of said monument, completely not. I refuse to accept that in a resource poor environment the women would be restricted to standing around and singing while the men & slaves moved the stones. It is his decision to present the ancient world this way and it makes no sense. An example of historical fiction that feels weighed down by the author’s way of thinking and this did feel dated in attitude if not in detail. This has relieved me of the feeling that I ought to get to some of his books I have on my shelves unread – they’re all going to the library sale instead.
The best books are those that resonate or stay with you long after they’ve been read. Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is a brilliant novella. Not a word that doesn’t serve a purpose, and for a man who is never described, I would know Bill if I were to meet him. I read it in a single sitting and it remains in my thoughts. A book for the ages, I think.
By contrast, Marzahn Mon Amour by Katja Oskamp was a book I read at the right time. It spoke to me, being the thoughts of a woman of a certain age, not that dissimilar from my own. This, if anything, seems like a sentence I can believe in answering note within me.
"You're almost fifty and you've realised that the time for you to do the things you want to do is now, not later. It might be an old self-help-book platitude, but it's true all the same. You're almost fifty and you're even more invisible that you were; ideal conditions for doing those things, be they terrible, wonderful or peculiar."
I can probably manage terrible things, peculiar things are my stock in trade, the wonderful might take a little more effort.

Book: 117
Title: Thief of Time
Author: Terry Pratchett
Published: 1991
Rating: ****
Why: 50 years thing
Challenge: 50 years
TIOLI Challenge #5. Read a book that helps to finish up a personal reading challenge

Death has a problem - the world is due to end next Wednesday. Tradition demands that the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse ride out, but War has married a valkryie and is encouraging an ant world war in is spare time, famine and pestilence have also got other things to worry about, so it looks like Death's on his own.
And then there's the 5th horseman, the one who left due to "artistic differences" before they got famous... And he gets tied up in the end of time, as he happens to be right in Ankh Morpork when time stops.
And then there's the history monk and his apprentice. Lu Tse has been round the block a bit and knows the tricks that time can play, his apprentice appears to be a natural at it. They're searching for the perfect clock, the one that will stop time, and they almost get there in time, but Lobsang Ludd doesn't make the cold blooded decision, and the clock strikes, just the once.
Time (the characterisation) is a creation of humans, and time had a child. In fact, time had twins. The offspring of time is able to operate separate from time, as are the other deities and anthropomorphic personifications in the discworld - and there's a fair few of them running round Ankh at this particular time! Also present are the auditors of reality, and they're at the root of the trouble (as usual). But this time they get more than they bargained for, and discover that there are perils in becoming human, including learning the real meaning of death by chocolate!

Re-read.
Excellent fun and at least I end the year on a positive note.

>188 Helenliz: Yay! Good for you. Terry Pratchett is just the thing to get the bad memory of your 0* out of your brain and laugh with Pratchett and his re-envisioning of the world.

Glad you were able to end the year on a high note!

Congratulations Helen!

Double post: more congratulations!

End of year Review:
Number of books: 117 books. Honestly, you can knock me down with a feather. I've cleared 100 once before since joining LT. I usually run in the 80s. I'm rather surprised.

7 books earned 5 stars this year, they were:
The Uncommon Reader, Mort, Reaper Man, The House at Pooh Corner, Marzahn, Mon Amour*, Revolting Rhymes* and Small Things Like These*. * is a new to me book.

At the other end of the scale, the books to earn less than 3 stars were these:
1 star: The Black Prince, London Fields
1.5 stars: Stonehenge
2 stars: Black Mamba Boy, The Tempest, The Messenger of Athens, The Dark Angel, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, The Plantagenet Prelude and In the Cutting Room
2.5 stars: Trainspotting & Bridget Jones' Diary

Challenge 1: 50 years of reading. Complete! Left it the the end, but finished.

Challenge 2: Women Authors: 54 books read by women authors out of 117 books is 46%, a bit lower than past years, but not unspeakable.

Challenge 3: New Authors: At 47 out of 117 sees me at 40%, clearing the 1/3rd that this has run along at in recent years.

Challenge 4: Translations: 9 is pretty good.

Challenge 5: Subscriptions. let's draw a veil over this one. I have a lot hanging over, as they were mostly new books, so didn't help the 50 years challenge. This one will get some attention next year. Subscription has been on pause for a while until I clear the backlog.

Challenge 6: Heyer series read. None in here. She is getting more attention in 2023.

Challenge 7: Non-fiction: 7 in this category is a slow down from the early part of the year. Not too worried, I return to it every now and then.

Challenge 8: Short works. This has been upped by some children's books, and now stands at 21.

Challenge 10: CATs: I've cut my CAT commitments to just 2 this year - Just 3 misses in 24 categories is pretty good going.

Challenge 11: Bingo: Finished successfully.

I can't imagine 2023 will match that. I want to return to Alan Moore's Jerusalem, where I stalled somewhere in book 2. I want to clear the library loans that I ordered for a particular challenge & then never read. I want to read more Atwood & McEwan. I want to carry on enjoying reading. Happy new year to you.

I have set up home here for 2023: https://www.librarything.com/topic/345337#7960057 Be good to see you there.

Thank you all, it was tight but worth the solid reading time!

>186 elkiedee: It was published in 1989 and she is 35 at the time. Enola Gay is the name of her imaginary childhood friend, so we can assume that would have been the late 1950s. I think that's not unreasonable. That none of the other characters got the reference when this is set (assume late 1980s) struck me as rather odd. I recognised it.

It's been interesting to follow your reading this year and see you reach your goal. Looking forward to following you again next year.

Sounds like you've had a really great reading year -- congratulations, and happy 2023!