Jill Reads, Rummages, and Sorts Through Things in 2024

Okay, I haven't come up with any new or deep thoughts about books or about the activity of reading in modern society. I just count myself lucky to have access to lots of books -- old ones, new ones, bestsellers, obscure studies, morally edifying stuff, lightweight stuff, etc. I just know I have to keep the ever-expanding collection in check.

And just as a passing cultural observation, Turner Classic Movies is showing Japanese Godzilla movies all day on this first day of 2024. (I am sure I'll want to know that at some future point in time, when I am reviewing previous years' reading threads.)

Welcome all. (Mind the drapes. One year in here we had Shakespearean characters hiding behind them with knives and swords at the ready.)

Oh that's hilarious about the Godzilla movies. Makes me wish I had cable a little.

OH, Bookmarque, thank you so much for giving me a graphic like this! I do love it. (Because the dragon is sleeping amidst all the floating colored bubbles.)

Happy new thread. I look forward to reading your words of wisdom in 2024.

Happy Reading in 2024!

Happy New Year and Reading! I'm glad the piffle party was a success.

Have a great reading year!

>1 jillmwo: Happy New Year and Happy New Thread! I can't wait to see what you're going to be reading in the months ahead.

I happen to be a huge Godzilla fan. (I am not, however, a fan of commercials.)

Ok, we watched Son of Godzilla at our neighbor's house and oh, it was awful. And funny. But mostly tragic.

Happy New Year and Happy New Thread! I hope you have a wonderful year full of good books!

>8 clamairy: >9 Bookmarque: Honestly, I was somewhat taken by the Mothra/Godzilla movie yesterday. I don't think I'd ever seen that one before. (I didn't watch it with particular attention throughout, but the bits that caught my attention -- cannibals, the twins, etc. -- were not bits that the film pundits usually spend much time on.)

I'm not exactly sure what titles I'm going to read this month. I was reading some of the poetry in The Lays of Beleriand last night, but wasn't swept away by it or by John Carswell's essay/book/thing, Tolkien's Requiem. Honestly, I am most interested in following Huan the Hound and his role in aiding Beren and Luthien; he could only speak to her three times using human speech so there had been constraints placed on him. (I imagine there might be more to Huan's backstory.)

Happy new year, Jill!

Jolly reading to you in the new year!

>11 jillmwo: I'd love more of Huan's backstory.

pgmcc and MrsLee have both already posted their stats on their respective threads. I only got around to reviewing my own last night. These have been “massaged” to some extent, using data from both Librarything and from my own tracking.

55 titles up through Labor Day; another 23 in the final months of 2023
Total of 78 titles in all

I did a fair amount of re-reading in 2023. 16 titles (Tolkien, Trollope, Le Guin, Austen, Hodgson Burnett, Christie, etc.)

Some authors new to me in 2023 and whose other works I will pursue:
–Alberto Manguel
–T. Kingfisher
–Travis Baldree
–Hilary Mantel

New format: Graphic Novel (Maybe in 2024, I’ll experiment with audiobooks.)

Genres
Classics (primarily 19th century)
Mystery
Fantasy
Literary Fiction
Non-Fiction (film studies, literary criticism, reading behaviors, literarture, memoirs, social history, etc.)
–Poisons (history, science). It appears my interest in this created concern in clamairy. But all the bodies are still breathing.

Primarily English language; some titles in translation.

I read material in both the digital format and the print. Of the print, at least a dozen of the 100 print books acquired this year were passed on to others.

Most importantly, how did I read these books? With what depth of engagement (immersively, deep reading, close reading, etc.)? This question deserves more consideration. It's not about how many books you read in a year; it's about the depth of the experience. We chart that depth in different ways.

Specific Titles
A Reader on Reading
A History of Reading
The Rains Came (I’m sorry that I passed this one on to the local Free Library. I may have to re-order it.)

One of the best (albeit cynical) quotes encountered in 2023: We hate an evil, and we hate a change. Hating the evil most, we make the change, but we make it as small as possible. (Trollope)

>15 jillmwo:
–Poisons (history, science). It appears my interest in this created concern in clamairy. But all the bodies are still breathing.

Just because you are bad at it does not mean we are any less concerned.

>16 pgmcc:. *snort* It takes time to get all the arrangements in place before one can embark on a major project. Personally, I always try to be thorough in my research and planning.

>16 pgmcc: This post made my morning...

Ooooh, look! Something new to be added to my research and planning! The Grim Reader by Miffie Seideman from Indiana University Press! (Not yet published or else only just published this week.) Visit: https://iupress.org/9781684352142/the-grim-reader/

>19 jillmwo: I think we need to be very cautious about any food or drink offered by Jill in the pub this year ...

Oh, but my dear, the henbane cookies are just now coming out of the oven. Are you sure you won't try just one?

I don't know that its possible to have poisonous cheese (as opposed to cheese that has simply spoiled), so knowing this crowd, you're probably safe sakerfalcon!

I agree that one's designated tester should always check the wine. Just as a best practice.

Two books thus far in 2024, but admittedly neither very taxing to the brain.

Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher. Very lightweight humorous romance-with-chain-mail-armour. The romance part was a bit predictable but the background characters and the setting were most enjoyable. (I love the Bishop for so many reasons -- her wisdom, her wit, her passing fling with a younger man, etc.). It was tardis talking about the series that made me go grab it, so my thanks to her! Just the right thing for my bedtime reading.

A Passion for Books - a collection of essays cribbed from a variety of sources. I had read the bulk of this in Kindle format, but then decided to grab a physical copy for the "permanent" collection. This printed copy also includes a number of cartoons from The New Yorker magazine, and I'm not sure whether those made it into the Kindle edition. Very quotable stuff.

>22 jillmwo: I think I just got nailed by two BBs in one post. Nice aim, lady...

>15 jillmwo: >16 pgmcc: ff These are reminding me of strips I've seen where a couple of very official-looking folks are monitoring someone's Web history, seeing all sorts of searches about poisons and other methods of killing, and are contemplating an interrogation, but then stumble on something else (I don't remember what it was), after which the one says, Oh, it's just another damn mystery writer.

>22 jillmwo: I've been eyeing Paladin's Grace for a while! I have it on my kindle, as well as Paladin's Strength. Their turn will come...

>25 Alexandra_book_life: Those books are so good! I love the third one, too, and the fourth is out now. You have a treat in store.

You know what? Plumbers are expensive. Bringing kitchen plumbing up to code is *also* expensive. For an hour of work or thereabouts, we spent $650.00. Granted that it was necessary, it's still a shock. Again, plumbers are expensive.

And you all would begrudge me a simple experiment with poison. That's just mean...

>22 jillmwo: I just downloaded a couple of these! Will have to get to them soon.

>27 jillmwo: They sure are expensive. Why aren't we all plumbers?

>29 Karlstar: Because some of us have to be tilers.

Jill, I became aware of the above book today. I am tempted to the 800 page tome, but I suspect it repeats a lot of what he has covered in Howdunit. I really enjoyed that book, and like the idea of reading the history of crime fiction, but I do not think I can justify it at this point.

Have you had a look at this book?

>31 pgmcc: The Life of Crime is Martin Edwards' attempt to provide a full history of the genre of mystery and crime novels from Edgar Allan Poe forward to the present day. To his credit, his book is much better than Julian Symons' Bloody Murder which I think was the last time anyone tried to do such a history. Symons was dismissive of the work by women in the genre and Edwards knows better than that. As in any instance of writing a history, the author has to pick and choose who gets included and which works get examined. For an example, your favorite Eric Ambler only gets half a dozen mentions and none of those cover him in depth. But all of the regular famous names are here and he does a decent job of examining the expansion of the genre to such sub-categories as espionage thrillers, etc.

It's a decent update and belongs on a public library's shelf. Edwards has a readable style and he does pick up some good anecdotes here and there. (I had no idea, for example, that John Creasey and Julian Symons had a feud going.) At the same time, it's an overview of the genre which means that his chapters (which run short) can seem shallow in terms of their discussion.

Does this help? Let me know if there's a particular author you'd hope to see handled in depth and I can let you know if Edwards covered him or her in an adequate way.

>32 jillmwo:
I am not worried about Ambler not getting a deep treatment. Most of his stories are adventure/espionage/ political rather than ordinary decent crime, so I would not expect him to be mentioned much in this history.

Your comment that this book should be on a public library shelf suggests to me that you are hinting that I should not be buying it. Am I correct?

>33 pgmcc: I am saying that the book is intended as a general reference -- not as an *academic* reference. I think the assumption by the publisher is that most people will grab this one off the public library shelf and check it for what Edwards can tell them about Christie or Chandler or P.D. James or Sue Grafton. The assumption by the publisher is that most people won't have the interest in reading all 800+ pages. Those with a *particular* interest in mystery as a genre will have an interest in it. It will have a long shelf life in a library.

If it helps at all, I can say that I did not buy this in hard copy; I got this one in Kindle form for purposes of doing quick look-ups. Edwards' treatment (I think) is for the general non-specialist and I didn't feel I needed to read it as an educational study. Think of it this way -- if you were looking out of an airplane window, the view here is more of a high-level cruising altitude.

I don't think it's a bad book because Edwards is a specialist in this area, working as he has with the British Library Crime Classics series. My concern is that you might find that you were already aware of much of the information Edwards is presenting here. His other book The Golden Age of Murder dealt with a much shorter time frame and he went into a lot more depth in that book than in does in this one.

>34 jillmwo:
Thank you, Jill. Your post has helped me kill my initial enthusiasm to rush out and get the book. I knew I could rely on you for a bit of sound reason and common sense.

>34 jillmwo:, >35 pgmcc: So is that an Anti-Book-Bullet? Do we need to start recording these too?

>36 Sakerfalcon: yes! we need a 'Took One For The Team' designation of some kind.

>36 Sakerfalcon: and >37 Darth-Heather: Let me reiterate that it's NOT a BAD book. It's just not one that I believed Peter (as an individual reader) would necessarily benefit from reading. Somebody else less familiar with the genre might thoroughly enjoy it.

I'm halfway through Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart and it's not quite what I expected. I had gotten it intending to give it as a Christmas gift to my husband and he was taken up with other things so I figured what-the-heck. I dunno. I will write more at the end of the reading experience.

>38 jillmwo: Oh, I read that last month. (Or was it in November?) I thought it was perhaps a bit too detailed, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I loved the photos, especially.

>39 clamairy: I think your recommendation was the source of my idea of giving it as a gift. I think you put your finger on my problem exactly. If he'd focused entirely on his acting experiences (stage, television, movie, etc.), the book would have been shorter than its 440 pages but perhaps meatier in substance. OTOH, you do get a fairly well-rounded idea of Patrick Stewart as a human being.

I have something of a mixed reaction to Making It So: A Memoir by (Sir) Patrick Stewart. On the one hand, I had no idea where he had started from. He had a difficult childhood and his time starting out were not easy years. He worked as a furniture salesman, as a reporter for a small local newspaper, as an assistant to a champion bricklayer. (I am apt to remember his story about his uncovering and repairing of an Inglenook fireplace in the cottage with his first wife.)

The uncertainty of acting as a means of making a livelihood alarms me; it’s an unforgiving arena with some big winners, but with (I imagine) so many more smaller wash-outs. He didn’t have any training except what he could gain working with the various repertory groups; he was lucky in benefiting from that social network. His training was as much about the physicality of acting as the actual learning of lines, etc. What does come through time and again is the mix of emotional armor of iron and the vulnerability required by this industry. The story of Ian Holm and his break-down on stage, the story of Ian McKellan weeping at the end of a production, really catch at the heart. No one can do this kind of work without need of a therapist.

As he was part of the Royal Shakespeare Company for fourteen years, I’d hoped Stewart might comment on various interpretations of Shakespeare’s characters on stage or screen, but there wasn’t much of that. One comment that Steward makes is that he doesn’t see himself as a well-educated man, but rather as a well-read individual. And one gets the sense that as a result he has to work harder in his prep for a reading.

All that said, there are some nice bits – his crush on Vivien Leigh, the critique provided by Roger Rees of Stewart’s one man show of A Christmas Carol, the sonnets read during the 2020 lock-down period, the insecure miscalculation of what to expect at his first Star Trek con appearance. (At a later event when he is again well-received by ST fans, he admits he likes being liked…)

Really, it’s not until you get to his Star Trek years that you feel as if he might have been able to relax somewhat. And clearly he had fun with his American costars. Perhaps a bit of an adjustment for a British actor, but he navigated it eventually. And he does talk about some of the more memorable episodes such as the whole Dixon Hill thing.

At any rate, I didn’t find this to be an immersive read, but I did feel as if it was an interesting view of a person's life experience. I have seen Stewart in a variety of roles – I, Claudius, North and South, as Prospero in The Tempest when he was doing live Shakespeare in the Park, etc. This man is NOT Jean-Luc, but he’s an interesting person who had to travel a long way in his life.

Meanwhile, I've mislaid a book which is probably in a storage bag out in the trunk of our car which sits in the driveway on this night of 13 degrees. I'm not asking my husband to go out for a walk on the ice to retrieve the book.

>42 jillmwo: That is nice of you not to ask! Luckily books don't mind a little chilly weather.

Finished reading Sailing to Sarantium this afternoon as we await the end of today's snowfall. There were sections of the book that were absolutely marvelous and that carried me along. If there was an aspect that was less satisfactory, I think it was my perception that he shifted character POV too frequently. Kay gave me three to five really good characters in the first third of the book but then swapped back and forth to the POV of another half dozen secondary characters'. It got to be annoying. I don't want to be in the head of the second-tier charioteer if you only use him for a single portion of the plot. Anyway, I think chariot races work better on screen in a movie than as text.

I don't think I was necessarily grasping the author's theme either.

I need to find something different. Trying To Shape A Dragon's Breath now.

>44 jillmwo: I've read Sailing to Sarantium a few years ago. I remember liking it, with some reservations. I think I prefer The Lions of Al-Rassan. Have you read it?

I have read The Lions of Al-Rassan, >45 Alexandra_book_life: although its been a number of years since I read it initially. I have enjoyed much of Kay's fiction. My grumblings about Sarantium should only be viewed as grumblings because I did like an awful lot of it. The segment taking place during the Day of the Dead when the various characters meet their respective gods worked quite well and I felt like I was being led up the on-ramp of what would be a tremendous story with a real theme to it. But the novel broke off at an ambiguous point that didn't really work for me. (I have a suspicion that the story told in this Sarantium Mosaic duology should have been a single volume.)

I was reading Sarantium as an ebook and I'm finding that (for me) truly immersive reading is tied to the printed page. I just don't want to spring for Volume Two at the moment.

>44 jillmwo: i really enjoyed Sailing to Sarantium, but I'm pretty sure I don't have a good grasp on what the theme was, I just like the setting and characters. Maybe artistry was the theme? Architecture? Honor?

Okay, so I've been muttering recently on a couple of Green Dragon threads about the novel that has been sitting untouched on an upstairs shelf for at least 10 years.Actually, further back than that because I see now that I added the book in my LT inventory during July of 2006 which was my initial start w/ LT.

The physical copy had been sitting so long neglected that I couldn’t even tell you the title on the spine, just that it had a green and yellow dust jacket with flowers on it. I had bought it on the basis of a particularly positive review from a Jane Austen fan whose opinion I trusted. The American title is Vanity and Vexation but she had talked about it while referencing the British title of Lions and Liquorice. My copy is a first US edition (printing line intact) and, based on the price sticker still adhering to the back cover, I had picked it up at Borders. Sadly, I wasn’t in the right mood for it the first time I made an attempt to read the book, so I had the thing tucked in upstairs with some of the other Austen stuff where it sat for ever so long.

I should tell you that it is truly rolling-on-the-floor funny once you catch on to what the author has done in her narrative framework. Kate Fenton pulls off some very sharp re-versioning of Pride and Prejudice when she transforms it into a story of two couples coming together in the midst of a television remake of Austen’s book. Think the 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, Colin Firth in a wet shirt, and the passion for Jane Austen that arose following the airing of that mini-series. Think as well about the odd juxtapositions that you can get when you put Regency period costume dramas alongside late twentieth-century filmmaking and the balancing act of work vs.relationship building. Think Greta Gerwig, Jodi Foster, and other strong women operating in the entertainment industry. The pointy-ness! I did not see how she was going to work out the final third of the book but when it unfolded, I was all admiration, quietly snorting in delight and thinking “Oh, very nice”!! There might even have been a mental Snoopy dance on top of the doghouse, so satisfied was I with the finished product.

I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to spoil your own reading experience, but the good news is that this novel is still around in both ebook as well as paperback formats. It isn’t literary fiction perhaps, but the fact that the novel itself is available in 2024 (initially having been originally published in the UK back in 1995) says there’s some remarkably good work here. It’s a fairly quick read at 276 pages.

>47 Karlstar: I may need to go back and read it a bit more slowly to pick up on the right theme. Kay usually offers something in that regard. Perhaps the responsibility to navigate the best way you can in sailing along in life?

>48 jillmwo: I might have taken a bullet here. You're going to need to rate this one* here on LT to bump its average up.

*Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression you do not rate everything you read.

ETA: I see you rated it already!

>50 clamairy: I gave it a 4-1/2 stars (dropping half a star only for the fact that I think it works most successfully if one has a passing familiarity with P&P). You are right that I don't consistently assign stars to my reading, but only because I don't like assigning visible ratings of only a single star or two if I hit one that is a real dud for me. I know that sometimes I value a book primarily because of how it relates to my own life experience and not because it's got particular literary value or standing. Does that make sense?? I guess sometimes I assign stars as more of a reminder to myself rather than as a signal to others.

>51 jillmwo: Yes, that makes perfect sense to me. And I only figured out you weren't rating everything because I am 85% sure you were one of the people who hit me with a bullet for The Hands of the Emperor, (which I really loved) but I didn't even see it in your library, much less a rating for it.

>52 clamairy: Because I only have access to The Hands of the Emperor through the Kindle rather than owning it in hard copy. As bizarre as it may sound (and it does sound that way even to me), up until this year I had only listed stuff on LT for titles where I owned and could touch a physical copy. Given how many Kindle "things" I have access to, I'm finding that this no longer works as well as it did way back before Amazon got started with driving adoption of ebooks in the publishing sector. People don't remember that in the initial 2007-08 introduction, AMZ was running a pricing experiment with the low end at 99 cents and high end of their experiment at $1,000 for a Springer-Verlag book on high-energy physics. I thought they were going to offer me BOTH formats -- digital and print -- for a reasonable price. That was my mistake. Nowadays Amazon wants to extract itself from the whole printed book warehouse thing.

These days, I keep trying to remind myself that AMZ kindle editions are a Faustian bargain and that one should never try to trust the motivations of Mephistopheles. I trusted Jeff Bezos back in 1995 and honestly believed he was a good guy in trying to make my life easier by being able to order books online when my son suddenly needed reading material for school. I trusted him when he rolled out the Kindle device in 2007-08 and blithely thought it would make the world better and enhance the likelihood of world peace. It's now 2024, Jeff Bezos is no longer the CEO of Amazon, and I am left clutching my 1700 hardcover books in my hot little fists before the publishing community cries out once again about the horrors of selling used books.

(Yes, I do tend to the dramatic outburst upon occasion.)

>53 jillmwo: I hear you. I do realize I don't technically own my Kindle copies, I own the right to read them on various devices. On the other hand, I do know people who have figured out how to download a digital copy of every eBook they have purchased just in case some other evil corporation buys Amazon and decides to start charging us for things we've already technically purchased (the rights to.) I put everything in my library, and tag the things I've borrowed one way, the physical books another and the ebooks yet a different way. But that is one of the many perks of LibraryThing. You get to use your account whichever way suits you the best.

Just for the record part of me does miss reading print books, but I have arthritis in my right wrist and tendonitis in my left thumb, and my new Kindle weighs next to nothing.

I don't think Jeff Bezos is actually evil, but being a bazillionaire has definitely changed his mindset.

>53 jillmwo: When I first began at LT, I only put the books I had read into my LT account. About 10 years ago I made a half-hearted attempt to enter all my books, but I don't think I finished. So my account is probably missing at least a third of the books in my house. Any purchases since that time, I have entered, except Kindle books. For awhile, most of the Kindle books I bought were for my parents, some of which I might read. I only enter those when I've read them.

>49 jillmwo: Now you've got me thinking that there's more than one theme and that is one of them.

>55 MrsLee: I used to list only physical books I owned, I've gradually moved to listing all books I've read and all physical books I own, including ebooks, library books and other borrowed books.

>56 Karlstar: I thought I had highlighted the paragraph in my Kindle edition where he explains what the cultural understanding of the phrase was, how the phrase was shorthand for in daily life, but I can't find it. (Another reason to get back to print copies for this kind of thing.)

>54 clamairy: and >55 MrsLee: Agreed that we all have our internal sense of how we think we need to track print v. digital holdings. I actually have different uses for my various social networks (FB, Twitter, LT, etc.) but I am increasingly finding that none of the platforms work quite the way they did when they started out and we were all new at this. LibraryThing is still one of the more important social platform sites for me and actually, I suppose it is my own shifting behaviors that need to be factored in. (Like acknowledging that licensed access is part of my world. I swear it really never occurred to me that the book-buying could get out of hand and that, due to space considerations, I'd have to do something about it. I behaved as if my house were a Tardis and I'd never run out of room.)

At any rate, I've been trying to shift behaviors and my mental construct as I work through the book collection. I'll never get it down to the 30 titles that Marie Condo thinks we should be working towards, but it does all have to fit on shelves if one isn't going to trip over things! I thought Peter's discussion of the different "parishes" of book housing and groupings was an interesting one. There are the spaces with all the lovely Folio titles (although not all of those are on display). There are the shelves with all the "middle-class" non-matching bindings are crammed in together. (And then there are the book boxes full of titles that I am not yet ready to relinquish and which might be classified as "thinking how attached I am to this and how likely it is that I'll need this" boxes.) And of course there are books on the shelf that have been there for 20 years before I was able to get round to them and enjoying them.

OTOH, I think Alexandra mentioned something about her set-up of nice piles under tables.

Also, apparently there are concerns about the 2023 Hugo Awards as the numbers (finally released to the public) aren't adding up quite right. Did the Chinese government or other related bureaucrats fiddle with the ultimate outcome?

My husband sent me these as the write ups:

(1) https://astrolabe.aidanmoher.com/astrolabe-36-panic-at-the-hugos-2023-controvers...

(2) Read the comments on this one: https://file770.com/chengdu-worldcon-releases-2023-hugo-nomination-statistics/

On one level, none of it should be surprising, but still...shall we say, irksome?

>57 jillmwo: "nice piles under tables"

Those would be the Troglodyte parishes?

About books waiting on shelves to be read. I have books I've inherited which have probably been on my shelves for 40 years waiting and waiting. I kept them because I thought they would be interesting, lots of nature and history from my grandmother and mom and an uncle of my husband; and some from a friend who read books in a genre that is a stretch for me, but I sometimes like. I think it is called magical realism? Or southern states women writing memoirs or funny. Reading one of those right now. I don't feel any qualms about those books on my shelves.

Most of the books I have bought for myself are languishing in my Kindle. I do have some paper books I bought that are waiting, but I am a mood reader, so I will get to them when I feel like it. That's why I bought them, not because they had to be read right now, but so they would be there when I want them.

>58 jillmwo: Somehow, I am not surprised... but I am annoyed. Facepalm. This is very disappointing for everyone involved, and bad for the reputation of the Hugo Awards.

>58 jillmwo: Not surprising.

John Scalzi on worthy books and the Hugo Award thing at Worldcon 2023: https://whatever.scalzi.com/2024/01/21/whats-up-with-babel-and-the-hugos/

>62 jillmwo: Thanks! I read John Scalzi's blog quite regularly, but haven't been there for a few days.

Jill, please tell me you have read, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino. There is such a wonderful parody of a publishing house that I think everyone involved in publishing should read it. Granted, it is from the age of printed manuscripts, but the attitudes and author communication aspects are probably still recognisable. I was laughing out loud while reading it.

There is a certain Kafkaesque quality to the book.

Enough said. If you have read it I would love to hear your views of it. If you have not, then I think you would find it very interesting.

>64 pgmcc: As it happens, I have not yet read it. But I have reason to believe that it is sitting in this house on a shelf somewhere and will make an effort to unearth it. Up until now, my reluctance has (I think) been due primarily to my impression or general sense that it was sophisticated European literary fiction and that I was probably not yet up to the challenge of it.

But if it comes with your particular and most robust recommendation, I am going to dip a toe in and see what the water feels like. I just have to find the right box (unless it's on a shelf behind another row of titles).

>64 pgmcc: I am very glad to hear you are enjoying the Calvino. If On A Winter's Night a Traveler was my very first kindle purchase back when I acquired my paperwhite. I'm thinking it is due for a re-read soon.

>65 jillmwo:
I just have to find the right box (unless it's on a shelf behind another row of titles).

I know the problem.

it was sophisticated European literary fiction and that I was probably not yet up to the challenge of it.

You jest, I trust. If anyone is ready for "sophisticated European literary fiction" the you are. Also, if this was an example of "sophisticated European literary fiction" I would not have a grim a view of "literary fiction" as I do.

I can see how it would annoy people. It is not a straightforward telling of a story, but a humorous depiction of the frustrations and emotions of reading. I will put the following comments behind the spoiler cloak of invisibility, not because I am giving away any of the details of the story, but I will talk about the surprising structure and why I described it in an earlier post as Kafkaesque. You can make your mind up as to when you wish to read my comments.


The opening chapter is about someone at a railway station. The author interacts with the reader by suggesting what they have pictured in their minds from the information provided so far, and he reveals that there are other interpretations of how to picture the story as presented. Towards the end of the chapter the story turns into quite an intriguing mystery. The reader will be wondering if the events shown in the story are about a criminal enterprise, a politically subversive organisation, or some espionage endeavour. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

The next chapter has a bit of author discussion about meaning and interpretation and then gets on to the story, or does he? The reader of the novel quickly discovers that the second chapter has nothing to do with the first chapter. The author is describing the reader's thoughts as they realise there has been some mistake and the book is the result of a binding error. Pursuant to these thoughts the reader goes back to the bookshop where the retailer is happy to give the reader a replacement copy and tell them that he is not the first person to experience this error. It is explained that a block of pages from another book was inadvertently bound into the book, hence the total change of story just as the reader was getting into it.

As the reader starts reading the replacement copy they realise the story is totally different from what he read in the first copy. By the end of the first chapter he is deeply engrossed in the new story and, when he turns to chapter two, is very disappointed to discover blank pages. At this stage he has started and been intrigued by two stories, both of which he would love to read to completion. His adventures are just beginning.

The Kafkaesque element is the frustrating of the reader at every turn. The non-Kafkaesque element is how Italo Calvino uses the frustrations, and the stories themselves, to delve into many aspects of reading and publishing. I find myself laughing out loud on reading some of the passages presented.

It struck me that you would be someone who would appreciate the humour and the use of this humor to analyse our reading habits and our motivations for reading. So far I am about 50% through the book, but I am loving it.

I understand, however, that this would not be everyone's cup of tea.

>66 ScoLgo:
I am loving it. I can see it being worthy of many re-reads. Books that play with the reader's mind are very entertaining. When I have to stop to think what level of the story I am in, whether this is part of the main story or part of a sub-story or someone's fantasy, I love it. Fudging the boundary between reality and fiction is great fun.

I love the section where he describes the strategy to keep the Sultana reading her book by introducing other books into the story. He is basically describing what he has done with If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. I cannot wait to see where he takes the book in the second half.

I too am a fan of If on a winter's night a traveller. The title caught my eye and intrigued me when I saw it on the shelf in the library of my VI Form college. The cover image was of the opening sentences which drew me in, so I had to start reading the book, and then checked it out. It was like nothing I'd ever read before, and I loved it.

Poor Jill... caught in a crossfire of BBs in her own thread. (I believe I am collateral damage in that crossfire...)

>70 clamairy: Thank you for understanding how I might be quivering under such an onslaught!

There's a bunch of books coming in the next day or two or three. I may not be one out on cruise liners or airplanes and seeing the world but all my spare change goes for the great reading others are recommending.

Okay, it's a bit rambling but here's my latest write-up:
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/01/26/reading-it-cant-be-about-the-numb...

Remember that piece in the Washington Post about how many books American citizens read over the course of 2023? The number of books was going down from previous decades. I think clamairy and Mrs Lee posted on their threads about it. At any rate, I wrote about that as an on-going concern.

>72 jillmwo: Great piece, Jill. I got into quite the discussion with my son about this over my birthday weekend. He argues that people are reading more, they are just doing it on their phones with articles, blogs or information from websites they frequent. He definitely has a point. He also doesn't agree that I should count any of my audio books as having been read, because he believes I can't possibly be paying the same amount of attention to them as I would to the written word. I kind of get his point, but I tried to explain to him that I frequently have to stop my book because I'm doing something that requires too much concentration for me to listen adequately. I can wash dishes, vacuum, weed my garden, or walk on the treadmill while listening. I cannot plant, I cannot sort things adequately, I can't even decide what I'm going to wear while listening. He was flabbergasted when I told him that I can read a book while walking on the treadmill, provided I make the font large enough on my Kindle. (I cannot remember if the Washington Post article counted audiobooks as having been read or not. Were they included in the original survey?)

>72 jillmwo: Great stuff!

I especially liked this "If there is a common hopeful message across those titles, it is that attentive reading fosters a sense of self and individual philosophy. Allowing time for the slow absorption of long-form content pushes back against mindless societal acceleration. The hope is that the practice counters the effect of Orwell’s “group think”. " I really hope that is true.

How would we measure adult reader engagement with a book? Does it have to be a book, or is a long short story or novella enough?

I think the articles calling attention to the quantity of books read still have a place, but I think we should avoid granting merit to numbers over 6 to 10.

>72 jillmwo:
Very interesting.

I would like to see your views on the reading practices of the characters in If on a Winter's Night a Traveller.

:-)

ETA: The last chapter I read is very apropos to your article.

Thanks for the encouraging words, folks!!

I want to follow up with what Karlstar notes as a relevant aspect. The length of the work is important; one of the books I was reading (don't know if it made it into the final post you read) talked about the importance of long-form as a form of exercise for the human brain. Those books of 500+ pages have a place in building the stamina for complex thinking. That student referenced in the piece with 70 dog-eared pages should be given extra credit points even if it did distress her professor.

That said, shorter forms -- blog posts or short essays, short stories, novellas -- serve a purpose as well. Those short stories can pack a punch that resonates and stays with us for a longer period than some of the full length novels. Novellas are great for allowing the busy soul to feel a sense of accomplishment because you actually FINISHED A BOOK which is an encouragement for the next reading experience. (I swear I used to read regency romances for exactly that reason. My mind needed that shot of dopamine gained from finishing a whole story during those times in my life where every period of reading something for fun would get interrupted. Even short books felt like they took a long time to get through. Romance novels one could speed through really quickly.)

As for >73 clamairy: and her audiobooks, I understand why those are appealing to you and to others for much the same reason. You can listen to a book while you're doing other things.

And again, is there a difference between reading a book all the way through and the "use" of a book as one dips in and out of it (as I mentioned with regard to the Reader's Companion to Trollope). Did I "read" that or did I just visit with it? The metrics for recognizing reader engagement really do not exist in any meaningful way in a digital environment. Do we count downloads of ebooks? Is it meaningful to measure how far someone got in moving through a digital file? (I think that is so open to abuse...)

Do you remember how Amazon played it early in the game? In one of their models, publishers got paid more if a reader got through the whole book. Publishers responded by putting the copyright page (usually part of the front matter) by placing the copyright page at the very END of the file. That made a real difference to certain types of books, most particularly non-fiction because readers are more apt to check how recent the content might be, how up-to-date. Once Amazon twigged on to the game and with the Kindle moving forward, they began requiring that the copyright page be returned to a proper placement in the front of the book.

Metrics of reader engagement are a real BEAST to think about and develop. So we fall back on number of books read. I grumble about this regularly. But there are also people also get really embarrassed about only having gotten through half a dozen books in a year. Time available to read and the convenience of having something immediately at hand (reading an ebook on your phone) are the big factors.

>76 jillmwo: As an example of 'long form' reading - In a facebook group I'm in, a poster asked if Wheel of Time is any good, because they can't get past page two. To me, that means they just aren't mentally prepared to read something long. They may not like WoT, but how can you tell from just two pages?

I think there is a difference between reading all the way through and use. 'Reference books', to me in my collection, means books that have distinct sections that I can refer to as needed, without reading front to back to get something useful out of it.

I know people who read but don't read that much. At least they read!

>76 jillmwo:
In terms of metrics, it is always the easy thing to measure that gets measured; not the most meaningful. In Weapons of Math Destruction there is a chapter about BMI, Body Mass Index. It is used by doctors and other medical people to determine whether someone is overweight or not. The BMI is weight divided by height, thus easy to measure.

What people do not realise is that there is no scientific research behind this metric. Someone measured one individual, a white male, whom they considered to be healthy and at the peak of their athletic life. The metric does not have any supporting data for females, people of different ages, etc... Everyone is being measured against the measurement of one individual. Again, measurement of the easy rather than the relevant.

Today is Sunday, Jan 28th. My afternoon had multiple book discussion groups, one of which involved a 2023 book title that was largely “thrust upon me” with little or no introduction about the universe involved or the author. The book is entitled To Shape A Dragon’s Breath and the author is Moniquill Blackgoose.

The book features a sixteen-year-old heroine from an indigenous tribe in an alternate New England during a period roughly analogous to 1830 - 1870. There is a strong Viking influence. She is “chosen” by a dragon breaking out of its egg shell and as a result is forced into a different cultural setting for training purposes. The school is set up for those working with dragons but the approach adopted seems overly harsh and unnatural to Anequs. She (not being of either an Anglais or other acceptable ethnic descent) is treated badly by her instructors but makes friends with other marginalized students – a neuro-diverse student with a speech impediment would be one example. – and ultimately succeeds in helping those allies in important ways. Anequs is beautiful, smart, kind to small dragons – just too perfect to suit my taste. In terms of world-building, the author draws on a variety of myths and previous SF fictional universes (Pern, anyone?). I wasn’t in the right mood for this book and I am certainly not the intended audience, but others in the discussion seriously enjoyed it.

Actually what struck me the most as I read this book was the contrast between this type of “school” story and others such as the Crater School books. It seems to me that there are two different slants generally adopted. There is the kind that emphasizes assimilation as a positive thing – learning to work with one’s team and how one can thrive in melding with a group in the context of a firm structure with rules. The contrary slant that may be on display in these boarding school stories is the refusal to assimilate, rebellion against mindless uniformity and ultimate validation of the perverse individual. The former focuses more on the individual burying self in order to help the group succeed; the latter focuses more on insisting upon the self. (Honestly, reading these, it’s no wonder adolescents find themselves driven mad. Adults should make up their minds about what they really want to see in their tween-agers.)

Edited to add a note that one of the participants made the point that the issue of assimilation comes down to whether or not the process of assimilation is a choice made voluntarily or not. In the instance of this story, the heroine does not wish to be assimilated. (In fact, as another woman pointed out, the story had to more than a little to do with the schools set up in Canada and the US to re-educate indigenous peoples by educating the children in the dominant culture's ways and attitudes.)

>78 pgmcc: There is no worthwhile metric for reader engagement and it is damn near impossible to think of how one might design such a thing. I have nightmares about developers talking to publishers about sensors, switches and wired cables all feeding into some nineteen-fifties looking helmet on the head of a trusting reader.

>77 Karlstar: Two pages isn't sufficient, I quite agree with you. Using that would be more of an indicator of the individual reader's mood at the moment they picked up the book. Real engagement between reader and author isn't always instantaneous, but barring any obvious and egregious error, every book deserves a better chance than that.

>73 clamairy: One of my problems with that Wapo article and the survey they discussed was the insane ambiguity of it all. Did anyone indicate whether audiobooks would count as "reading a book"? Did anyone ask what KIND of book got read? Fiction vs. non-fiction? Novella vs. graphic novel? Nut-jobs...

>80 jillmwo: I'm glad to hear that, I couldn't even imagine how to define such a measurement. As for Wapo, their articles are increasingly lacking in anything resembling actual effort, except perhaps those from the Department of Data and the Fact Checker.

>80 jillmwo: " I have nightmares about developers talking to publishers about sensors, switches and wired cables all feeding into some nineteen-fifties looking helmet on the head of a trusting reader."

Oh my. Methinks you really do need to find your copy of If On A Winter's Night, a Traveler...

>82 ScoLgo:
LOL!

Hear! Hear!

>83 pgmcc: I just knew you would catch the reference, Peter. ;-)

>84 ScoLgo:
I think jillmwo is in for a treat when she finds the book. Either that or it will blow her mind.

>84 ScoLgo: and >85 pgmcc: FWIW -- I have located the volume and I have made it to the town outside of Malbork. Thus far it has not been what I had expected. There were one or two early chortles.

>81 Karlstar: That article WAS from the Department of Data...

>85 pgmcc: Why not both?

>86 jillmwo: Glad to hear the resource has been located. I hope you enjoy the distraction(s).

>86 jillmwo:
Thus far it has not been what I had expected.

I trust that is a good thing, given how you described your expectation of the book in an earlier post. This is a book that no one could have accurate expectations about.

>87 Marissa_Doyle: Then it was lacking their usual thorough exploration of the subject. However, they may have gone as far as possible with the existing data they were using. Thank you for pointing it out, I hadn't noticed.

General question for the group --> How does one find the number of books in translation in one's holdings here on LT? I feel really stupid this morning for not being able to work it out on my own, but I'm sure there's some mechanism in place.

>91 jillmwo: If you go into your profile page and click the tab for Charts & Graphs and scroll down you will find a pie-chart for original language. If you click on the pie-chart you will find a list of languages and the number of books in your library originally written in that language. Of course, the accuracy of these counts depends on all your books having the correct original language entered. I have discovered the counts to be underestimates because not every book has its original language in the appropriate field. It does not appear to be automatically updated in all cases.

>92 pgmcc: Thanks for the instructions. None of the three Sapkowski (Witcher) novels I've read had the original language listed as Polish. I've always looked at that number/graph and assumed it was correct, before.

>82 ScoLgo: and >83 pgmcc: I have encountered the precise scene you referenced in your posts. Someone should pour me a drink. I think one might need to re-read this several times before you get all of it. (In particular, there was the paragraph that went on for 26 lines of type with only 3 periods appearing as indicators of a sentence ending. Very Russian.)

But I still think any translator for a book like this deserves to receive equal credit. My brain is exploding. The amount of work and polishing that must have gone into this would (again) drive me to drink.

Is there a bar keep on duty here in the Pub this evening?

>94 jillmwo: I think one of the Augmented Roombas™ is always behind the bar for just such circumstances.

Let's see who might be awake on this bright Monday. Go read https://thecritic.co.uk/grimdull/ and then comment on the writer's view of current output in the genre of fantasy. (As it happens, I agree with him about the work generated by Michael Moorcock.)

But the author of The Critic article does seem like a bit of a grumpy, old curmudgeon.

I started reading but he's so full of strawman arguments that I gave up after only a few paragraphs.

>96 jillmwo: Oof, that's long. All fantasy writers are nerds that really want to write nice stories about heroes and swords but can't because that's boring?

>96 jillmwo: He makes some worthwhile points - I've had similar reactions to "grimdark" fantasy. I'm not a big fan of the nihilistic outlook behind such writing.

Okay, my mind currently has all the sticky adhesiveness of a 1970s age teflon frying pan. Things put into the brain this week have gone skidding all over the place. I am writing Post-It notes to myself and sticking them in odd places just to keep vaguely on the rails. (And yet, I still haven’t got a menu plan for the coming week…)

Amidst the pressure of my single free-lance gig, here’s what I did with regard to reading over the course of the past 7-10 days.

Wrestled in my head with the idea of writing something comparing a book designed to foster slow, contemplative reading with a book designed (theoretically) to foster a more rapid, immersive read. Both use the same text; the read difference is all to do with how you lay out the page and the production values (things like paper stock, selected font, etc.). The targeted audience for each is pretty close. The problem is that I can’t think who would run such an article. But I still spent an inordinate amount of time staring at pages in two print titles this week.

For one reading group, I finally finished Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. One of my problems in reading the book is that I truly don’t recall the Little House series that well. It never made the impact on me that it made on one of my sisters. The Fraser biography of the two women thoroughly documents the role that each had in producing that series. The biography is good in illuminating (for me) the harshness and challenges of pioneer life and how those who experienced those various challenges processed the events of their lives and how the next generation felt the impact as a result.

I also finished reading Italo Calvino’s book, If, On a Winter’s Night, a Traveler which is all about the ways in which readers experience an author’s work and to some extent about the role of translators as influencers of that experience. The novel is a brilliant construct but it’s going to take me a few more days before I can properly process my own reading experience. I don’t know who the genius really is – Calvino as author or Weaver as translator. But I must admit there were segments that made me chuckle with recognition and I am glad I read it. (So thanks for the push, pgmcc ScoLgo )

One thing I will say about Winter’s Night is that there are those passages where Calvino was remarkably aware in anticipating the desires and anxieties of an international corporate publishing industry and entirely on the mark with regard to various Powers-That-Be trying to shape reading behaviors. And his book was originally written back in 1979!

Otherwise, as previously noted, I continue to experience teflon-brain.

Meanwhile, I scribble short lists of potential reading projects. Alternately, those same little lists might serve as mental maps for how various titles should be shelved, indicators of their relatedness to each other. Me creating those lists alternates with making up the next week’s menu plan (again, one for Feb 11-18 not yet posted to the fridge) and other much-needed practical tasks. I need a better plan to get retirement up and off the ground...Procrastination is the name of – something.

>100 jillmwo:
I am glad you found If on a Winter's Night a Traveller amusing in places. It really amused me and I was interested how Calvino, assuming the english translation is actually true to his original, deals with different concepts and ideas in each chapter. He, or possibly his unreliable translator, must have had fun writing it..

>101 pgmcc: I am quite sure that the author and the translator were both (at various points) being driven mad working through the processes. I was reading some of the more poetic passages and honestly wondering whether the lyricism was crafted more by Calvino or by Weaver. I am quite sure that it will take me another re-read or two before I get some of the more veiled meanings hidden away in later chapters. One of the things that I see is different about our reading experiences of the book is that you were laughing a lot during your first read and experiencing it as more of a roller coaster. Meanwhile, even as I was getting the humor in the book, I was spending a lot of time analyzing -- what is this guy trying to say as he builds this weird narrative of alternating chapters? What is he trying to get across? Speaking off the cuff, he wasn't only expressing his thinking about the intimate relationship between reader and the book's author, but also the potential awkwardness on that intimacy created by the introduction of a translator between the two. (Personally, I think that's why there was so much sex in the book, she noted with a bit of a grin).

FWIW, I did enjoy the chapters written in the literary styles of different countries (Russia, Japanese, etc.); I just don't think I picked up all of Calvino's intent.

I also only just caught the acknowledgement by Weaver in the book's front matter to the use of a particular quote from Crime and Punishment in Chapter 8, specifically the "beloved translation by Constance Garnett". Wheels within wheels...

>102 jillmwo:
I found a lot more than humour in the book. In many of his chapters he worked in a lot of societal critique and , in several places, he was drawing attention to the stupidity and futility of things such as war, social unrest, revolution and prejudice. This was as well as highlighting the ironies and peculiarities of writing, publishing, translating, selling, and consuming books. I thought, as Umberto Eco did in many of his novels and in his non-fiction, he is hinting at how our grasp of reality can be easily tampered with and that much of what we take for real, or that we assume is solid and fits perfectly with our neurological model of the world, could in fact not match our mental model at all, and slight nudges in one direction or another could dislodge our confidence in the world around us.

I think it is well-nigh impossible to grasp the complete intent of any author from a book, and with a book as complex as this I am sure even the most determined analysis will miss some of the message.

Having said that, I did enjoy it as a roller-coaster, and I did laugh a lot, but a lot of what I laughed at was the anomalies and disruption of reality that Calvino highlighted. Shrek would say this book is like and onion, it has layers, and every layer has its own issues and incongruities.

ETA: By the way, I am not sure if you answered my question about whether or not you have read Umberto Eco's Mouse or Rat: Translation as negotiation.

>103 pgmcc: I agree that Calvino was making every bit count in terms of the commentary that you identify behind those spoiler tags. The book needs more than a single read. FWIW, the book made an impact on me. It's memorable! The concluding bit on the next to last page where he links together all the various titles of the various novel fragments into a single sentence to me is a striking piece of work. What did the Calvino/Weaver team have to do to make it work in both English as well as Italian? Frankly, I believe that my eyes bugged out at that point, just like an old Warner Bros cartoon character! I am tucking my hand-written notes into the back of the book, putting it on the shelf and definitely will re-visit again (possibly sooner rather than later as I continue to mull it over).

Meanwhile to answer your question, I have not read the Eco book all the way through. I did consult it at some point but I don't want to say that I actually progressed through it in linear fashion. I'll get there.

Okay, so something of a theme is apparently seeping out from my brain.

For the past two or three weeks, I have been looking at a set of printed textual materials and the ways in which publishers lay out their pages in order to support a certain style of reading --immersive reading, slow, reflective reading, historical or critical studies. One of the books that is on the reading ottoman is The Science of Reading by historian Adrian Johns. So is Naomi S. Baron's book, How We Read Now. How we navigate long-form content is shifting as we shift our reading behaviors across formats and platforms. Reading Calvino actually helped with some of this!

BTW, I just finished the brilliantly funny mystery by Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone on This Train is a Suspect. It is not about reading so much as it is about modern publishing and the foibles of being a professional writer. I think I muttered over in the weekend thread that it was not doing anything for me and it turns out that I was totally wrong. It's really clever and an excellent antidote to all of the crime fiction written with a focus on the angst and despair of criminal behavior. (It has all the proper goodies of an old style Golden Age mystery -- a map, a program, and the logic of a robust narrative structure, allowing the reader to work out the solution. Not being overly logical in my casual reading, I did not work out the solution. But I crowed aloud in delight by the time I hit the Epilogue.) Even if you look ahead and sneak a peek at the ending, there will be surprises. And Stevenson does in fact play fair. Definitely recommend this one!!

>105 jillmwo: Fair's fair — I got you with Books Promiscuously Read and you've returned the favour with Everyone on this Train is a Suspect. Cosy mystery (sort of): check. Setting Australia (and on a train at that!): check. Recommended by Jill: check. But I can just trot down to the local shopping centre and buy it.

ETA Just done so.

>105 jillmwo:
Cut another notch on your BB-gun. That sounds very interesting. I will be in the vicinity of Chapters Bookshop on Saturday. I may happen to be diverted into those premises and tempted to peruse the crime section in a search for Everyone on This Train is Suspect.

>105 jillmwo:
I just went onto the Chapters website to order Everyone on This Train is Suspect when I found a message to pre-order the follow-up book, EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE.

>108 pgmcc: Now, that's bizarre! Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone is actually the first in the series and the book I read is the second. (Sorry. I suppose I ought to have mentioned that earlier...) You don't need to have read them in order to the best of my understanding!

>109 jillmwo:
As I said earlier, "Spooky".

E.T.A.: It must be an error on the Chapters website. I have had a look at the Demon Site, and it has the paperback and Kindle version available already.

Just an FYI since the Hugo Awards (and the issues related to them) were discussed in this thread, I thought people might be interested in this news: https://file770.com/adrian-tchaikovsky-will-no-longer-cite-his-2023-hugo/

>41 jillmwo: I'm very much interested in your comments about Making It So. My son is a big Star Trek/Picard fan, so I gave it to him for Christmas. It didn't survive an unexpected purge. So I've been wondering whether to replace it. I'll bear your thoughts in mind.

>111 clamairy: It's a sad mess.

>112 Meredy: I don't read many memoirs or biographies as a rule, although we're already two months into the year and I've gotten through two thus far. Making It So was not one I held onto, but not due to lack of interest or quality. I went in expecting one thing (talk of Shakespeare) and was surprised and intrigued when I got something rather different. Stewart had some luck in his life, but he also made the best of what he was born with. I was just caught off guard when I realized that the real-life Sir Patrick Stewart is a very different person from the fictional Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Stewart's not nearly as Posh as Picard.

>111 clamairy: and >113 Karlstar: It may or may not have been an avoidable debacle (but it is still a debacle); I feel for everyone involved with the process and with the final outcomes. Someone ought to have seen the potential for this type of a problem in holding a Worldcon in China. The whole thing has gotten a surprising amount of mainstream attention -- coverage in everything from The Hill, a political outlet on up to both versions of The Times (that is, London and NY). I really feel for Ben Yallow as one of the co-chairs.

>114 jillmwo:
Jill, I had thought you would realise the Patrick Stewart was an actor and that the characters he portrays, including the character of Jean-Luc Picard, are not actually him. You may find it useful to view the video in the link below. Ian McKellen explains his acting process. It is very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5CX00i4uZE

Jill blows 2-minute raspberry at man an ocean away! That said, it is an excellent video.

Of course, I have grasped the concept that an actor and the acting roles assumed are different entities. BUT the man is from the Northern part of England (far away from London), an area noted for its distinctive accent. And in the memoir, he talks about growing up in a house where the toilet facilities were separated from the building. They lugged a metal trough in for bathing purposes. Listen to Patrick Stewart now and you'd never guess that was his background. His enunciation is mellifluous.

>117 jillmwo:
LOL!

I was wondering what sort of reaction the video would elicit.

:-)

>16 pgmcc: *snigger, snort*

>119 MrsLee:
:-)

>119 MrsLee: Haha! This response is perfectly apropos to both >116 pgmcc: and >16 pgmcc:

>116 pgmcc: Bwahaha... You are heartless, Peter. I do love Ricky Gervais, too.

>122 clamairy:
I had the heart removed. I found it got in the way.

>121 ScoLgo:
I do not know what you mean. :-)

>121 ScoLgo: and so it stays! lol

I had my eldest son with me over the weekend (hence the late weekly posting regarding any rummaging, reading, or sorting). Unlike pgmcc, I foolishly fail to haul out even a cell phone to document the event. I'm too busy yammering with him.

As for what I've read, I decided to revisit 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff because it had been a charming read for me 25-30 years ago. I remembered wishing that I could buy Jane Austen in copies bound with covers of “soft leather, slim and impeccable” or that some used bookseller would keep an eye out for much-desired titles in clean shape at reasonable prices. I know real booksellers will do “wish lists” for established customers, but I never qualified for that kind of treatment.

At any rate, when I originally read her book, I remember feeling somewhat poorly educated in that – while I may have heard of a percentage of the authors that Hanff mentions – I certainly hadn’t read most of them. I wouldn't have thought of them as required reading. I certainly had no idea who the heck Arthur Quiller-Couch might be and she considered him to be her guide in terms of establishing a sound literary education. I’d browsed a few of the essays in my college undergrad Norton Anthology of English Literature. But beyond that….

It was her lifestyle that I dreamt of. She wrote about tucking a book of Elizabethan poets in her pants pocket and sitting in the sun to read it in Central Park. but she was living in NYC back in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. It didn’t seem nearly as good an idea living in the cash-strapped urban environment of the eighties. City park maintenance had issues at best and they ranked as a very low priority. Hers was the life in New York City I was hoping for when I married a native New Yorker. Little did I know. Reading and writing and intellectually stimulating discussions – except our Mafia-controlled neighborhood in Brooklyn wasn’t anything at all like that.

Back to the book! The first time I read 84, Charing Cross Road, I found it charming! The way Hanff told it, she was passionately focused on absorbing earlier centuries of British Literature. I envied the kind of extended correspondence she had with Frank Doel over the twenty years between 1949 and 1969. Her letters to Marks & Co were incredibly flippant and not ever the sort of thing I would have thought appropriate to write to a business. These things change however.

At the same time, she came across as a caring person, shipping so many holiday food parcels over to London to ease their rationing. When the less-than-impressive 1987 movie adaptation came out with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, I dragged my husband to see it.

So for part of this week, I reread it in a lovely Folio Society edition that bound 84, Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury in a single volume. (A surprisingly inexpensive binge-buy on ABEBooks.) And while I still liked the book, the passing of time has rendered my views a bit less rosy in tint. Maybe he did find her to be a bit tiresome as a customer to be satisfied. At times, she calls him “Frankie” rather than Frank, but then in Duchess, she gets miffed when his wife calls her Helen rather than Helene. And it’s also obvious from The Duchess of Bloomsbury, published in 1973, that the US and the UK cultures were dramatically different. American tourists to London as described by Hanff were clearly just this side of boorish in visiting other countries; Americans neglected to change for dinner. The British had signs saying “Commit No Disturbance” as police warnings against any Vietnam anti-war demonstrations (referenced once or twice in passing). Hanff references other elements of the early ‘70’s – Readers Digest when it was still a viable publisher and BOAC travel bags. It was a nostalgic read, but very clearly the output of another lifetime -- one a few decades before my own.

>125 jillmwo: So, you didn't exactly have a visit from the dreaded Suck Fairy, but one of her lesser cousins might have been flitting about.

I'm happy to hear you got to spend some time with one of your sons.

>125 jillmwo: And back then, Charing Cross Road may well have had a lot of booksellers in it. Not now--the real estate is too valuable.

>127 haydninvienna:
On our trip to London in January 2020 I was surprised to find there still being quite a few antiquarian bookshops on Charing Cross Road. Foyles’ new store is also on Charing Cross Road.

Off Charing Cross Road is Cecil Court (the supposed inspiration for Diagon Alley). It has several bookshops too.

Whether the years of COVID have changed that situation or not I do not know.

“The Circus” is on Charing Cross Road, so, as a Le Carré and bookshop fan, I had multiple reasons to visit the area.

>128 pgmcc: My idea of a secondhand bookshop is rather further down the economic tree than most of the ones now in Charing Cross Road. But the Foyles shop I know all too well — it has separated me from quite a bit of cash over the last few years.

>128 pgmcc: Charing Cross Road has lost several of its bookshops just in my lifetime. Cecil Court has been less affected. In general, the shops on Cecil Court are more expensive than those on CXR. I still miss the Silver Moon women's bookshop on CXR, and Murder One (which specialised in Crime, Romance and SF).

I can't see a reference to Marks & Co without thinking about Between Silk and Cyanide, written by the son of the co-owner. Amazing book.

>129 haydninvienna:
While looking at the remaining “secondhand” bookshops on Charing Cross Road I was thinking their pricing probably matched the locale.

I enjoyed Cecil Court.

That visit was my only time in Foyles. It was momentous. We got to meet >130 Sakerfalcon: and -pilgrim-.

>130 Sakerfalcon: I would love to have visited the area in its hay-day.

>132 pgmcc: That was a great day!

Any Amount of Books is still affordable. At least, they have taken a fair amount of my money over the years

Real-estate magnates and brokers have much to answer for in our society. Driving out the bookshops in order to bring in chains of various sorts and revenue streams is not something I am prepared to readily forgive. I think I may prefer the images of Charing Cross Road and (now) the Cecil Court as derived from reading. *more murfling*

I see that pgmcc neglected to mention one of the clever elements of Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone even as he acknowledged the excellence of the novel in the second segment of his personal reading thread. The premise of the mystery is an entirely dysfunctional family group gathering for a reunion at a ski resort. The brother, the stepfather, the mom, the soon-to-be-ex-wife, the sister-in-law, everyone has a reason to kill some other member of the family. The bodies mount up. The writing is sound. The humor is deftly woven in. If you recognize the significance of a reference to Father Ronald Knox in the context of Golden Age mysteries, you’re a prime candidate for reading the book. If you enjoy working out clues provided in a fair-play way, you will in all likelihood enjoy this book as much as Peter and I did.

But here’s what the man neglected to share as a selling point for why you would enjoy this book: Just before the half-title page, there appears another page -- one displaying Ronald Knox’s Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction. In the upper right hand corner of that page appears a dotted line and the words “Fold Here”. An active reader would laugh, having gotten the signal that this was a situation of the author committing to playing fair with all the clues laid out for the reader while the editorial team provides a navigational tool for purposes of proving that he’d done so. Handled with a sly sense of humor, the engaged reader might well want to check Rule 6 when referenced on page 270 (two thirds of the way through the book). Dogearing the page makes checking back on that easy. (Some of you can hear MrsLee gasping at the horror of such wickedness. It's bad to abuse a book's pages that way.)

Personally, I was reading a print copy and I found the joke / design element to be delightful. I can’t be sure if the visual joke appeared as part of the ebook or how it might play in the audio version. After all, would the inclusion have made sense in those contexts? But it's a great indicator of the book's humor (and I'm pretty sure that the author, the editor and the book designer all saw it that way as well). They knew some of us would appreciate the gag.

In sympathy with regard to his current slump, I'm hoping that haydninvienna will put this particular title aside and wait until he's more in the right mood for it.

>135 jillmwo: Good advice! Thank you.

>135 jillmwo: *sputter, sputter, sputter, gasp!*

>135 jillmwo: You folks are making a strong case for that book.

>138 Karlstar: I know. My problem is that I really don't know what to read next. Because, if I may be allowed to (mis)quote Tina Turner, "it's gotta be good and it's gotta be strong and it's GOTTA be larger than life!"

>139 jillmwo: I don't think I have a recommendation for a book that good.

>139 jillmwo: Wasn't it Bonnie Tyler who sang Holding out for a Hero?

>141 Bookmarque: You may be entirely right. I'm not overly reliable when it comes to that kind of thing. (It is why no one ever invites me to be a part of the local Trivia Team...)

>140 Karlstar:. I am sure there's something lying around on a bookshelf here. Even if my spouse did suggest that I'm guilty of being persnickety upon occasion. (I had forced him to fold a blanket in a very particular way.)

Edited to clarify spousal intent...

>142 jillmwo: Are you in the mood for The Guns of August?

>143 Karlstar: What an excellent idea. Her prose is always good. I must rummage about in my Kindle for that, although I think I also may have access in print, if I can locate it. The non-fiction element is attractive.

Gifted Article from the Washington Post:
https://wapo.st/3wWkxhZ "The Oscars Always Get it Wrong: Here are the REAL Best Pictures from the past 50 years"

Really hits the nail on the head re how some of the movies that didn't win ought to have won, simply because of the impact felt in popular culture.

Example: The winner in 1995 left me just cold, given that Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility was up that year. I mean they gave Best Picture to Braveheart for heaven's sake. Somebody was out to lunch that year.

Although some of the pictures that the folks at the Post think OUGHT to have won also left me cold.

>145 jillmwo: I agree, half the time I don't agree with either the movie that won the Oscar, or the writer's alternate choice. Like 2003, I actually like Lost in Translation, but it wasn't that good, all of other nominated pictures deserved to win instead and I'm perfectly good with Return of the King - the trilogy deserved to win at least once. They forgot their own criteria, those movies are STILL on TV constantly 20 years later.

Also 2011- really, Moneyball? What about 2014 - Birdman won and one of them thought that was the right answer. I guess for Trish and I, this is about the time period when it became clear that if it won Best Picture, we didn't need to see it. We actually tried watching Birdman, just couldn't finish it and didn't want to.

You know, sometimes you read something you wrote for publication and send up a real note of gratitude because you haven't looked at the copy since the text was poured into an online system. You can't recall for the life of you what bits got edited out and which remained. (Was there a point? Did I present any kind of conclusion?)

Then when you do finally peek at it again, you feel this huge sense of relief because you don't after all sound like the village idiot. (Don't get me wrong. I am not a stupid woman but the publishing ecosystem overall is complex. I don't want to write 2,000 words about something as if sharing a great insight with colleagues only to have everyone else in the room shaking their heads and thinking "Really, she only JUST twigged on to that?") https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2024/03/12/navigating-the-page-and-the-reade...

As we speak, the London Book Fair is happening (unsurprisingly in London) and there have been some interesting side conversations on Twitter. OTOH, folks do admit that it has been raining, the tote bags being given out are a bit damp-ish and there's some *agonizingly* long queue for coffee.

>147 jillmwo: Great article.

Finalists for 2023 Nebula Awards Announced:
https://reactormag.com/here-are-the-finalists-for-the-2023-nebula-awards/

As a reminder, the Nebula Awards are given out by SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America).

I certainly enjoyed the movie Barbie but does it really belong in this list? It's up for the Bradbury Best Dramatic Presentation category.

>149 jillmwo:
I have reached the point in my Science Fiction maturity level that I only recognise two names amongst the nominated authors.

>150 pgmcc: I have read seven of them - but not any of their currently nominated works. The only one I have waiting on my shelf is Translation State. I plan to read it this year. We'll see...

>149 jillmwo: It's a pretty cool list! I really liked both Translation State and Witch King, and I have The Water Outlaws on my kindle, waiting for its turn.

I was happy to see some of the short stories from Clarkesworld on the list. These are probably not the ones I would have nominated... Oh well.

>150 pgmcc: Same here, I have some catching up to do.

>150 pgmcc: Its not just us, some of the books on the list have zero mentions here in the Green Dragon and the others have 1 or 2 at most.

>154 Karlstar:
We are not alone. :-) Just older.

>155 pgmcc: and >154 Karlstar: and >151 ScoLgo: and >152 Alexandra_book_life: I recognized four authors on the list but across only two categories -- novel and novella; specifically I have read the nominated titles by Wells and Vo. (Wells, Kingfisher, Leckie and Vo). I haven't read the nominated titles from either Leckie or Kingfisher. Some of the material looks interesting --I am not ready to experiment just yet.

And don't think of it as being older, guys. Think of it as having developed robust filters for fiction...

Think of it as having developed robust filters for fiction...

Is that not what I said? :-)

>157 pgmcc: Point taken.

Quick Quote from Books Promiscuously Read:

Taken together, these writers suggest that if one readerly worry is that there will never be enough time to read all the books, another, more serious one, is that we won’t even recognize the important books when we see them.

This book is full of worthwhile observations. Not to everyone's tastes, by any means, but I really do appreciate haydninvienna bringing the book forward on his reading thread. I have been chewing on it now and again. Ruminating on it even, in the fullest sense of that word! White talks alot about poetry whereas Marjorie Garber focuses more on literature in terms of both drama as well as longform titles.

At any rate, I am thinking about whether to bump up my star-rating from 4 to 5. I took a lot of quotes from this one. (Surprising, given that it's actually a rather skinny book.)

>159 jillmwo: That sounds like a 5, or maybe a 4.5.

>149 jillmwo: I read one! (The Martha Wells.)

Does anyone else feel like T. Kingfisher writes (and publishes) her books faster than one can read them?

Nah, I'm always jonesing for more Kingfisher. I try to get them immediately.

>159 jillmwo: Thank you! Swear I didn't have you in mind when loading the BB ... Incidentally, the Brisbane library system has five copies. One of them happened to be on the shelf in Sunnybank Hills library and I happened to see it, and now Ms White has two more copies sold and a bit of revenue from Public Lending Right.

>161 clamairy: Yes! My T. Kingfisher backlog is way too long! :)))

>161 clamairy: >162 reconditereader: and >164 Alexandra_book_life: Remember that T. Kingfisher is up for a Nebula under the novella category. I checked and Thornhedge is listed as being only 114 pages in length. I imagine an author might find it somewhat easier to productively build up a body of work focusing on the shorter literary form. Some writers (and readers) are just geared in that direction. A younger audience may find it a more attractive length.

It's a bit different in scholarly publishing. As it happens, I heard an editor from a university press say this week that at her press, they won't do consecutive contracts with authors without a 3-year respite in between books. Less stressful for the author and for the press. Also allows other voices to be brought forward. But again, trade publishing operates under different rules.

>163 haydninvienna: White has a very interesting prose style. I also found it interesting that she kept her book to a short-and-sweet page count (not longer than 160 pages IIRC.)

Of course, Kingfisher's recent Paladin's Faith is over 400 pages.

>166 reconditereader: I hadn't even looked at page count for that series by her! I am only about halfway through the second one Paladin's Strength as it is.

That's one of my favorites! There are only 4 total out now in that series, so it's not too much (at least, compared to some fantasy series I read....)

>162 reconditereader: I wasn't trying to imply that she wasn't awesome! LOL

I have been following your and pgmcc's conversations about translations, translators and the like. Thought I would mention in case you didn't see it, that in the State of the Thing this month, there is an interview with a translator of Greek works. Thought you might be interested.

>170 MrsLee: Thank you so much for alerting me to that. I haven't looked at this month's State of the Thing but I will make a point to do so now.

As it happens, earlier today, I was reading a short story by Leo Tolstoy and the whole translation thing again came to mind.

Diverting to another topic entirely --

At the moment, my life is a tad complex. I had not filed something when I ought to have done and am now seeking to avoid the "wrath of the thing high atop the whatever" that is so frequently encountered in government bureaucracy. They're being very nice but at the same time very insistent. My life is taken up in phone calls to public servants, generally with some degree of "wait time" involved.

My son is getting married in May and I haven't gotten all that together either.

The sin of slothfulness carries with it a high cost.

>171 jillmwo: I hope you get it straightened out soon!

>172 Karlstar: I'll survive. One of those instances where I procrastinated and have no one to blame but myself.

Meanwhile, here's what's simmering in the background of my reading and thinking.

This weekend, I finished a really interesting book, The Jefferson Bible: A Biography which documents the various iterations of that personal exercise by our third President. The 25-word description of what that consisted of is behind the tags here: (He constructed his own version of the life of Jesus, cutting out all the bits that smacked of superstition or which didn't conform to science as known in the Age of Enlightenment.) It's less about the actual content of the book (which Jefferson never intended for publication or dissemination) and more about how the book came to public awareness and was subsequently used to shape various social agendas. The author is associated with the Smithsonian Institute and his discussion is lively. There's also a worthwhile chapter at the end about the preservation efforts surrounding the physical artifact itself. (They found three human hairs that had ended up being glued in with Jefferson's cut-and-paste effort so there's all kinds of potential DNA possibilities.)

I think it was Marissa_Doyle and/or Sakerfalcon who hit me with a BB regarding Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries. I've started that one. Thus far, I really like the tone. Light but entirely plausible.

Upstairs by the bed (or perhaps even on the bed) is Spear. The past few nights I've not read after I got in the bed, so I haven't made as much progress as I'd anticipated.

Books sprawled about, waiting for me to engage:
The Science of Reading
The Ghost Riders of Ordebec by Fred Vargas.
The Essential Paradise Lost
Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea, part of a book series from Oxford University Press.
American Classicist (book group selection being read across four months)
The Guns of August

May revisit some Victorian novels -- depends upon my mood and the tolerance of my Teflon brain. I've got the attention span of a gnat.

>173 jillmwo:
I hope you enjoy the Fred Vargas novel. I have read her three The Three Evangelist novels and the first Commissaire Adamsberg book. I am bringing the second one, Seeking Whom He May Devour, with me to France. I see the book you have listed is the seventh in the series.

>174 pgmcc: I expect I will. I have another (an earlier one) of her Adamsberg titles on the shelf, one that I did with the township library group at some point. Have Mercy On Us All. An industry friend of mine who has familiarity with the French language and lifestyle had told me that her books were good.

But I needed something a bit lighter than her murder mystery this week.

>175 jillmwo: I'm sorry things are piling up on you, and yes, do find something light to distract you.

>171 jillmwo: As a serial procrastinator, I sympathise with you. I hope you can get caught up with everything in time.

>173 jillmwo: Marissa got me with Emily Wilde so I'm sure she is at least partially responsible for hitting you too! I need to read Ghost riders of Ordebec, it's the one volume I'm missing from the Adamsberg series.

Okay, nobody said this out loud beforehand here in the Pub, but I was reading Spear last night at bedtime when the name Beaumains floated up from my memory and hit me. Ah-ha! What a really clever twist she's given the Arthurian tale.

>178 jillmwo: I thought it was brilliant.

>178 jillmwo: Ah, yes! Wonderful :)

I thought you might find this comment from Tad Williams of interest:

"One of the great curses of the twenty-first century is that every business and service is hurriedly and often ineptly pushing customer service back on the customers themselves. Deb and I have particularly noticed this, of course, because of moving twice in two years and having to make lots of changes and adjustments because of that, but it only lifts the problem into sharper relief. It's been there all along.
Phone trees, automated "help" on websites, "Have you tried using our app first?", "Let your employees do their own payroll!" -- it's all about cutting out workers and forcing the customers or clients to do their own work. It's an epidemic.
It's happened even in my own field, as a huge amount of the publicity burden has been shoved back onto authors to have their own social media and publicize their own books, with much less help from the companies than we used to get. But it's everywhere. As late-stage capitalism rolls on, we'd better get used to doing more and more for ourselves. Unless some kind of mass resistance develops, as more and more companies are subsumed into giant conglomerates, the pressure to raise profits by using customers as employees and replace employees with algorithms will only get worse."

>181 Karlstar: Hooboy, he nailed that. It's rampant. I hadn't realized it had affected publishing, but I do learn quite a bit about what new books are being published by following my favorite authors on social media.

>182 clamairy: Yes, it's all over publishing, I'm afraid. It's part of why self-publishing is becoming so popular, even among successful multi-published authors.

Three from the Romance/Fantasy -- “Romantasy” -- Genre
And before anyone comments, that's really what they're calling it!!

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries - Bought this one on faith based on what people like Marissa_Doyle had said about it here in the Pub. I was so pleased with it. I loved the use of the first-person journal format to structure the narrative. I found myself surprised by the twists and turns (and I’d been thinking that I was terribly jaded and unable to be caught off guard). Heather Fawcett - the author - played the “found family” theme very nicely. Very much recommended and I'm looking forward to the next in the series!

Paladin’s Strength (The Saint of Steel #2) T. Kingfisher. This one didn’t charm me quite as much as I’d hoped, but that was mostly because I felt the whole romance just took too long to come to fruition. It could have been tightened up just a bit. Honestly, by the time I got to the last page, I’d forgotten how the two protagonists had initially met on page one. OTOH, I encountered this very funny threaded discussion between the author and her editor about this particular novel and it explained much: https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/1352707917494046721 I wasn’t the only one who felt the characters took the long way round. I’m not read to plunge into #3 in the series, but neither am I totally put off. I just don’t need more of the Templar chain-mail approach at the moment.

Spear - I think @claimairy was the person who said the author’s style in this one was half Patricia McKillip. I’m not sure I totally agree. I’d say it was one third McKillip (the cross between the world of Magic and the ordinary world; one third Le Guin (most of the description pared down to what was simply necessary); and the final third was the author’s own. It’s a brilliant retelling of Arthurian legend (drawing heavily from the Welsh perspective). Based on Sir Cei’s (that is, Sir Kay) mocking of the protagonist, Initially I had thought it was the story of Sir Gareth – Beaumains – and made assumptions about where the story would then go. But then it became apparent that this was a retelling of a totally different knight’s tale. Really well-done and, despite being snubbed in last year’s various award competitions, deservedly worthy of retention, a long shelf life and your attention. *happy sigh*

>181 Karlstar: Yes, absolutely true. The trend has been with us since the '90's, but it's being adopted in really bizarre (and counter-productive) ways.

>184 jillmwo: Wasn't Emily Wilde wonderful? I enjoyed the second book as well, though I think the first is my favorite.

>184 jillmwo: I had a lot of fun with Paladin's Grace, and will continue with the series, just not all at once. It might not be a good idea to read too many romantasy books in a row ;)

I'm glad you liked Spear, it's such a wonderful reading experience, I think.

Well, we are thrilled. The government NOW agrees that I am a living human being, one who has been a contributing member of society and they will be extending all of my benefits as obligated. Will the denizens of the Pub all join me in cheering and applauding and sending off sprockets of joy? Of course, nothing is real until one gets all the hard-copy paperwork, but still, all things considered, it might have been a whole lot more painful than it actually was.

>188 jillmwo:
Cracking open the fizzy water here. Glad to hear that good news. Welcome to the community of living human beings.

>188 jillmwo: Wait... There was an issue with your existence on paper?

I'm so glad you enjoyed Spear. You might be right about the mix. I realized you were barking up the wrong tree in >178 jillmwo:, but I didn't want to spoil anything.

>190 clamairy: There was an issue with your existence on paper?

Could she be a bot? Are we taking part in a Turing Test? The programming is very convincing.

jillmwo, I cannot find the post, but I recall your expressing your hope that I managed to get all the books I listed for my trip to France packed. Well, I not only got all of them packed, but I managed to sneak an additional book into the car, The Leaky Establishment by David Langford.

>190 clamairy: Most of the issue was my own fault. I never went thru the process of legally changing my name when Patrick and I first got married. It was my gesture for women's rights back in the eighties. At some point, I tried to get all the documents to match (before agency stuff was fully digitized) but the bureaucrats failed to process the paperwork associated with my marriage appropriately and I got distracted and never went back to force the correction.

Nowadays, if everything the government has as a form of documentation doesn't all match in every particular, the computer systems arch an eyebrow and quibble. Whoever programmed the system really wanted all documentation have the same freakin' name on it with/without apostrophes, with/without hyphens, etc. In some respects, the government reserves its right to doubt the veracity of your existence. (Once I got to the right and very competent woman today, it was very smooth. She asked me questions and I had all the right answers. 45 minutes and we were done. But I carried with me all kinds of documentation that no one ever usually requests or asks to see -- passport, marriage license, birth certificate, social security card, etc.)

Yes, I know this is necessary because fraud is an ever-present reality these days, but jeez louise, I'm real. I breathe, I know my mother's maiden name, my maiden name, my grandmother's maiden name (or at least that of my grandmother on my mother's side), my birth date, my husband's birth date, our marriage date, the whole nine yards.

Bear in mind as well that less than ten years ago, they were perfectly willing to issue me a passport as an American citizen, provided with the same spectrum of physical documentation, but when I couldn't get the online sign-up process to work back in February, they seemed to feel that my claim to living existence should be further investigated. (Perhaps I ought to have thought to bring along my tax returns as well...)

The lesson, my children, is that one should never procrastinate on government paperwork. Be clear, be consistent and turn things as soon as possible.

And yes, with regard to Spear, I had been barking up the wrong tree. It wasn't until I started to make notes about her Welsh names that everything finally clicked in...

>188 jillmwo: Delighted for you! But “sprockets of joy”? Is that like a “shuriken of approval”?

>193 jillmwo: When I say "sprockets of joy", I meant the little firework type rockets one can set off in the backyard (which I think I called sprockets as a child).

I have never heard of "shurikens of approval". Googling the phrase brought up some very mixed results that did not clarify. Wikipedia claims it is a Japanese weapon used by ninjas. I think the ninjas would approve of my celebration, don't you?

>193 jillmwo: Congratulations on getting that straightened out. I would gladly launch a rocket in your honor if I still had one, or fireworks.

jillmwo, apologies about posts #196 and #197. I was under the impression I was in my own thread.

>195 jillmwo: The ninjas would undoubtedly approve.

"Shuriken of approval" is Good Show Sir-ese for the multi-pointed round things that publishers sometimes put on the covers of books to carry laudatory messages: examples.

>193 jillmwo: Yeesh! Well I'm glad it got straightened out!

>188 jillmwo: I'm applauding! That's excellent news :)