1rachbxl
Showing up for another year!
After several years of on-and-off unsatisfactory reading, last year I read 59 books, a lot more than in recent years. More importantly, I enjoyed my reading last year much more than I have for a while and feel a renewed enthusiasm for it. There were also a couple of major (unplanned) changes in my reading, both of which contributed to the general upturn. Firstly, I’ve wanted for years to read more non-fiction (or any NF at all), but whenever I tried, whatever the subject, with very few exceptions my mind would wander within paragraphs, never to return. However, in late August I felt an unexpected urge to read NF, and I haven’t stopped - 19 NF books last year. The other change is how much I read in French. I have lived in French-speaking Belgium for over 20 years and am married to a French speaker, with whom I speak French. Although I’d previously read a fair amount in French, in recent years I haven’t wanted to do so, for no particular reason. That suddenly changed at exactly the same time that i started reading NF (in fact, much of the NF I read was in French), opening up a whole new world of local bookshops and libraries.
As ever, I have no reading plans for the year, though I’d like to think I’ll read a few TBR books. I like being sucked down rabbit-holes with my reading so should any present themselves I’ll happily succumb.
After several years of on-and-off unsatisfactory reading, last year I read 59 books, a lot more than in recent years. More importantly, I enjoyed my reading last year much more than I have for a while and feel a renewed enthusiasm for it. There were also a couple of major (unplanned) changes in my reading, both of which contributed to the general upturn. Firstly, I’ve wanted for years to read more non-fiction (or any NF at all), but whenever I tried, whatever the subject, with very few exceptions my mind would wander within paragraphs, never to return. However, in late August I felt an unexpected urge to read NF, and I haven’t stopped - 19 NF books last year. The other change is how much I read in French. I have lived in French-speaking Belgium for over 20 years and am married to a French speaker, with whom I speak French. Although I’d previously read a fair amount in French, in recent years I haven’t wanted to do so, for no particular reason. That suddenly changed at exactly the same time that i started reading NF (in fact, much of the NF I read was in French), opening up a whole new world of local bookshops and libraries.
As ever, I have no reading plans for the year, though I’d like to think I’ll read a few TBR books. I like being sucked down rabbit-holes with my reading so should any present themselves I’ll happily succumb.
2rachbxl
Books read this year:
1. One Last Time by Helga Flatland (Norway, translation, 2020)
2. One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville (Australia, non-fiction, 2015)
3; Riambel by Priya Hein (Mauritius, 2022)
4. The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry (Armenia/Russia, 2023)
5. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (Russia, play, 1904)
6. Taormine by Yves Ramey (France, in French 2022)
7. The Children's Bach by Helen Garner (Australia, 1984)
8. Chicken Health for Dummies (non-fiction)
9. Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow (non-fiction)
10. Armadale by Wilkie Collins (UK, 1866)
11. Miss Marte by Manuel Jabois (Spain, in Spanish, 2021)
12. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (USA, 2022)
13. Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania/UK, 2020)
14. Raconter la guerre by Françoise Wallemacq (in French, non-fiction)
15. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (USA, 2018)
16. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (Canada, 2014)
17. The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule by Igort (graphic novel, non-fiction)
1. One Last Time by Helga Flatland (Norway, translation, 2020)
2. One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville (Australia, non-fiction, 2015)
3; Riambel by Priya Hein (Mauritius, 2022)
4. The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry (Armenia/Russia, 2023)
5. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (Russia, play, 1904)
6. Taormine by Yves Ramey (France, in French 2022)
7. The Children's Bach by Helen Garner (Australia, 1984)
8. Chicken Health for Dummies (non-fiction)
9. Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow (non-fiction)
10. Armadale by Wilkie Collins (UK, 1866)
11. Miss Marte by Manuel Jabois (Spain, in Spanish, 2021)
12. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (USA, 2022)
13. Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania/UK, 2020)
14. Raconter la guerre by Françoise Wallemacq (in French, non-fiction)
15. The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (USA, 2018)
16. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (Canada, 2014)
17. The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule by Igort (graphic novel, non-fiction)
3rachbxl
Saving this post to note down the very loosest of ideas (definitely not plans!) for my reading.
More Eduardo Halfón
More Margaret Kennedy
Helga Flatland
More Eduardo Halfón
More Margaret Kennedy
Helga Flatland
4labfs39
Happy New Year, Rachel! I didn't want to post earlier, because I was unsure if you were done setting up. I hate to barge in and mess up peoples threads. Anyway, I am glad you are back for another year of Club Read. You know I will be falling along no matter how much or how little you post. More Halfon sounds great. Which have you read so far? My favorite was Canción, but I liked The Polish Boxer and Monastery too. I think the only other one that has been translated into English is Mourning.
6rachbxl
>4 labfs39: Hi Lisa, happy new year to you too! The only Halfón I’ve read so far is The Polish Boxer, which I read (and loved) years ago. All the recent love for it oil CR (you included) reminded me that I have been meaning to read more ever since. A good excuse for a trip to the Spanish bookshop near work some day soon…!
>5 dchaikin: Hello Dan, good to see you. Yep, my reading really worked out last year after a shaky start. Hoping my winning streak continues for a while yet.
>5 dchaikin: Hello Dan, good to see you. Yep, my reading really worked out last year after a shaky start. Hoping my winning streak continues for a while yet.
7rachbxl
Yesterday I finished my first book of 2024:
One Last Time by Helga Flatland
Translated from the Norwegian by Rosie Hedger
A great way to start my reading year. I hadn’t heard of Helga Flatland when I pulled this off the shelves in Waterstones in Brighton last week, but I will be reading more by her.
60-something Anne lives alone on what used to be the family farm, faithfully visiting her husband in the nearby nursing home where he has lived for years since being debilitated by a series of strokes. Anne receives a cancer diagnosis, and is told by her doctor that there is little hope of a cure. She tells her family, her daughter Sigrid, with whom she has a prickly, brittle relationship, and her son Magnus. Sigrid, herself a doctor, is at a crisis point in her relationship with her long-term partner, and is struggling to accept the way her almost-grown-up daughter has become close to her birth father, despite the fact that he walked out on Sigrid when Mia was a baby and has only just returned. Not much actually happens in the novel, and the things that in another writer’s hands would be big events (a family trip to France, for example, to satisfy a wish Anne feels she should have to see Paris) somehow aren’t, because Helga Flatland is all about the little stuff. She zooms in on tiny details, the way people react to each other, the way relationships can turn on a word said or unsaid, on a look, and she does it brilliantly. She is an astute observer of people, and at times I cringed at what I read as I felt found out - those impatient thoughts you tell yourself it’s ok to have about your elderly mother because nobody knows? Helga Flatland knows.
One Last Time by Helga Flatland
Translated from the Norwegian by Rosie Hedger
A great way to start my reading year. I hadn’t heard of Helga Flatland when I pulled this off the shelves in Waterstones in Brighton last week, but I will be reading more by her.
60-something Anne lives alone on what used to be the family farm, faithfully visiting her husband in the nearby nursing home where he has lived for years since being debilitated by a series of strokes. Anne receives a cancer diagnosis, and is told by her doctor that there is little hope of a cure. She tells her family, her daughter Sigrid, with whom she has a prickly, brittle relationship, and her son Magnus. Sigrid, herself a doctor, is at a crisis point in her relationship with her long-term partner, and is struggling to accept the way her almost-grown-up daughter has become close to her birth father, despite the fact that he walked out on Sigrid when Mia was a baby and has only just returned. Not much actually happens in the novel, and the things that in another writer’s hands would be big events (a family trip to France, for example, to satisfy a wish Anne feels she should have to see Paris) somehow aren’t, because Helga Flatland is all about the little stuff. She zooms in on tiny details, the way people react to each other, the way relationships can turn on a word said or unsaid, on a look, and she does it brilliantly. She is an astute observer of people, and at times I cringed at what I read as I felt found out - those impatient thoughts you tell yourself it’s ok to have about your elderly mother because nobody knows? Helga Flatland knows.
8RidgewayGirl
>7 rachbxl: Making note of this one.
That's really interesting about how your reading has shifted. Looking forward to seeing what you read this year, especially from the francophone world.
That's really interesting about how your reading has shifted. Looking forward to seeing what you read this year, especially from the francophone world.
9dchaikin
>7 rachbxl: interesting. New to me. And congrats on getting off to a good start. Sometimes I really enjoy these “little stuff” novels and other times I don’t seem to get along with them.
10raton-liseur
Hello Rachel and happy new year. Great to see your thread here, I am looking forward to seeing where your reading leads you to, and I'm glad you found your reading enthusiasm back!
11baswood
>7 rachbxl: Helga Flatland knows. That sounds worrying.
12japaul22
I will definitely read something by Helga Flatland this year. I think my library has A Modern Family.
13rachbxl
>8 RidgewayGirl: I'm quite sure that the shift in my reading, both towards NF and towards reading in French, has to do with my Dad's death in August. He was a great NF reader so that part's easily enough explained - reading NF myself is a way of feeling connected to him. The French bit is trickier but I think it's because of him too; he'd lived for over 20 years in France and although his spoken French wasn't bad (idiosyncratic, but effective), he had never managed to read a book in French despite repeated attempts. His death also made me think about to what extent he had held himself back by not getting involved in French-speaking activities because he felt his French wasn't good enough - he ended up lonely and isolated because of it. My French is much better than his and I would have said that I don't think twice about doing things in French...but I realised that that wasn't true for reading, and that I have excellent libraries and bookshops around me that I wasn't making full use of for myself (I used them for my daughter). Anyway, I see both parts of the shift in my reading as a kind of gift from Dad.
14rachbxl
>9 dchaikin: Strangely enough, I didn't even realise that this was a "little stuff" novel until well after I'd finished it because Flatland turns the little stuff into big stuff (and maybe it is?) That's what really fascinated me here.
>10 raton-liseur: Happy new year to you too! Great to see you here.
>11 baswood: Doesn't it? Seriously, it's as if she has a bright torch she shines into the reader's darkest corners. Uncomfortable but quite impressive.
>12 japaul22: I look forward to seeing what you make of her. I'll definitely be reading more.
>10 raton-liseur: Happy new year to you too! Great to see you here.
>11 baswood: Doesn't it? Seriously, it's as if she has a bright torch she shines into the reader's darkest corners. Uncomfortable but quite impressive.
>12 japaul22: I look forward to seeing what you make of her. I'll definitely be reading more.
15raton-liseur
>13 rachbxl: What a nice tribute to your Dad (and a nice gift he gave you).
16dchaikin
>13 rachbxl: that’s beautiful. ( and what our reading raccoon said)
17rachbxl
One Life: My Mother’s Story by Kate Grenville
Kate Grenville is a writer whose work I’ve really enjoyed over the years, but more recently she’d slipped off my radar until I came across this book in a National Trust second-hand bookshop during my visit to the UK last week. As the title suggests, One Life is Grenville’s reconstruction of her mother Nance’s life, written after Nance’s death on the basis of her notebooks and input from family and friends. In many respects Nance was a very ordinary 20th century Australian woman, living a very ordinary 20th century Australian woman’s life, complete with all the limitations placed on women at the time. In that sense her story is universal, and the details could have been less than riveting in the hands of a less gifted storyteller. Not here, though - Grenville’s engaging style had me unable to put the book down. And then there are the parts where Nance’s story is anything but ordinary - she’d wanted to become a teacher, but her tyrant of a mother (herself uneducated) put paid to that (waste of time - female teachers were paid half what their male counterparts earned, and had to stop work on marriage) and sent her off to Sydney to train as a pharmacist. Train she did, although she hated it, working in a pharmacy every afternoon and all day Saturday, attending classes every morning, one of 3 or 4 women in a sea of men, graduating with top marks. Twice in her working life she opened her own pharmacy, an extraordinary thing for a woman to do at the time, and was hugely successful (the second time she made enough money in under a year to fund the building of the family home), but was thwarted on both occasions by lack of childcare (childcare being entirely her responsibility and nothing to do with her husband, of course). At a loose end during the school day after she’d had to give up her second pharmacy, she built the family home she had financed.
This was a quick read, hugely enjoyable. What a beautiful tribute from Grenville to her mother, and what a record of Nance’s life and times.
Kate Grenville is a writer whose work I’ve really enjoyed over the years, but more recently she’d slipped off my radar until I came across this book in a National Trust second-hand bookshop during my visit to the UK last week. As the title suggests, One Life is Grenville’s reconstruction of her mother Nance’s life, written after Nance’s death on the basis of her notebooks and input from family and friends. In many respects Nance was a very ordinary 20th century Australian woman, living a very ordinary 20th century Australian woman’s life, complete with all the limitations placed on women at the time. In that sense her story is universal, and the details could have been less than riveting in the hands of a less gifted storyteller. Not here, though - Grenville’s engaging style had me unable to put the book down. And then there are the parts where Nance’s story is anything but ordinary - she’d wanted to become a teacher, but her tyrant of a mother (herself uneducated) put paid to that (waste of time - female teachers were paid half what their male counterparts earned, and had to stop work on marriage) and sent her off to Sydney to train as a pharmacist. Train she did, although she hated it, working in a pharmacy every afternoon and all day Saturday, attending classes every morning, one of 3 or 4 women in a sea of men, graduating with top marks. Twice in her working life she opened her own pharmacy, an extraordinary thing for a woman to do at the time, and was hugely successful (the second time she made enough money in under a year to fund the building of the family home), but was thwarted on both occasions by lack of childcare (childcare being entirely her responsibility and nothing to do with her husband, of course). At a loose end during the school day after she’d had to give up her second pharmacy, she built the family home she had financed.
This was a quick read, hugely enjoyable. What a beautiful tribute from Grenville to her mother, and what a record of Nance’s life and times.
18labfs39
>17 rachbxl: Great review, Rachel. I really should read The Secret River. It's been on my shelves forever.
19dchaikin
>17 rachbxl: great find and great review.
20rhian_of_oz
>17 rachbxl: What a great review, this is going straight to the wishlist.
I also have The Secret River on my TBR shelves, though only since 2016 which is practically yesterday.
I also have The Secret River on my TBR shelves, though only since 2016 which is practically yesterday.
21arubabookwoman
>17 rachbxl: Great review! I've red and liked several books by Kate Grenville, but had not heard of this one.
22avaland
>17 rachbxl: Glad to hear that Grenville is still writing good stuff. I think I've read it all but this new one.
24LolaWalser
Happy new year, Rachel, already enjoying the reviews.
25rachbxl
>18 labfs39:, >19 dchaikin: Thanks.
>19 dchaikin:, >20 rhian_of_oz: If you enjoy The Secret River I recommend Searching for the Secret River as a follow-up - it’s Kate Grenville’s account of how she came to write The Secret River, which I enjoyed almost more than The Secret River itself.
>20 rhian_of_oz: I’m with you! 2016 in TBR terms is no time at all ;-)
>21 arubabookwoman: Thanks. I’m not sure I’d have sought this one out, despite having enjoyed other Grenvilles, so it was a happy find.
>22 avaland: I’m delighted to discover that I have several more to read, written since I took my eye off the Grenville ball. Since One Life i(2015), she’s written a further 4 since then that I haven’t read, a mixture of fiction and NF - I’ve got some treats in store.
>23 Ameise1:, >24 LolaWalser: Thanks! And the same to both of you.
>19 dchaikin:, >20 rhian_of_oz: If you enjoy The Secret River I recommend Searching for the Secret River as a follow-up - it’s Kate Grenville’s account of how she came to write The Secret River, which I enjoyed almost more than The Secret River itself.
>20 rhian_of_oz: I’m with you! 2016 in TBR terms is no time at all ;-)
>21 arubabookwoman: Thanks. I’m not sure I’d have sought this one out, despite having enjoyed other Grenvilles, so it was a happy find.
>22 avaland: I’m delighted to discover that I have several more to read, written since I took my eye off the Grenville ball. Since One Life i(2015), she’s written a further 4 since then that I haven’t read, a mixture of fiction and NF - I’ve got some treats in store.
>23 Ameise1:, >24 LolaWalser: Thanks! And the same to both of you.
26rachbxl
Riambel by Priya Hein
Riambel, published in 2023, is the first novel by Mauritian writer Priya Hein, who has lived for years between Germany and Mauritius. I hadn’t heard of her when I found this book in Waterstones on my recent trip back to the UK (recently I’ve been trying moderately successfully to read more books that come into the house instead of letting them get comfy on the TBR shelves). I don’t tend to set much store by book covers (or so I like to think, anyway), but I freely admit that I was swayed by the beautiful front cover of this book - I learnt at the end of the book that it’s by Mauritian artist Mila Gupta, who aims to capture the beauty of Mauritian nature in her work.
Riambel is a short novel written in fragments. The main narrator is a teenage girl, Noémi, who is forced to leave school, where she’s doing well, to go and work for the local rich (white, French-Mauritian) family her mother works for. Unlike generations of their ancestors Noémi and her mother aren’t slaves…but they are little more, subject to the unreasonable and often unjust whims of their employers, treated like disposable objects. The novel is a howl of anger at generational slavery and its repercussions today, and reading it was like having icy water thrown over me. In amongst Noémi’s fragments are fragments narrated by a kind of chorus of long-gone slave women, as well as recipes for the food they made for themselves. I found it all very powerful, with the exception of two passages which let the novel down - in one a teacher, and in the second a white volunteer at the school, lecture Noémi’s class at length about the injustice of racism and social inequality. The lectures themselves feel forced (for the benefit of the reader, just in case they happened to have missed the point so eloquently and elegantly made by the rest of the novel, rather than for the pupils), and Noémi’s verbatim recollection of the lectures feels unnatural. That aside, this is a really impressive debut.
*****************
Riambel is published in the UK by The Indigo Press. I hadn’t heard of them, but as the blurb sounded interesting (“Guided by a spirit of internationalism, feminism and social justice, we publish books to make readers see the world afresh, question their behaviour and beliefs, and imagine a better future” ) I had a look at their website…which led me on to my next book, Between Dog and Wolf (US title The Orchard) by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry.
Riambel, published in 2023, is the first novel by Mauritian writer Priya Hein, who has lived for years between Germany and Mauritius. I hadn’t heard of her when I found this book in Waterstones on my recent trip back to the UK (recently I’ve been trying moderately successfully to read more books that come into the house instead of letting them get comfy on the TBR shelves). I don’t tend to set much store by book covers (or so I like to think, anyway), but I freely admit that I was swayed by the beautiful front cover of this book - I learnt at the end of the book that it’s by Mauritian artist Mila Gupta, who aims to capture the beauty of Mauritian nature in her work.
Riambel is a short novel written in fragments. The main narrator is a teenage girl, Noémi, who is forced to leave school, where she’s doing well, to go and work for the local rich (white, French-Mauritian) family her mother works for. Unlike generations of their ancestors Noémi and her mother aren’t slaves…but they are little more, subject to the unreasonable and often unjust whims of their employers, treated like disposable objects. The novel is a howl of anger at generational slavery and its repercussions today, and reading it was like having icy water thrown over me. In amongst Noémi’s fragments are fragments narrated by a kind of chorus of long-gone slave women, as well as recipes for the food they made for themselves. I found it all very powerful, with the exception of two passages which let the novel down - in one a teacher, and in the second a white volunteer at the school, lecture Noémi’s class at length about the injustice of racism and social inequality. The lectures themselves feel forced (for the benefit of the reader, just in case they happened to have missed the point so eloquently and elegantly made by the rest of the novel, rather than for the pupils), and Noémi’s verbatim recollection of the lectures feels unnatural. That aside, this is a really impressive debut.
*****************
Riambel is published in the UK by The Indigo Press. I hadn’t heard of them, but as the blurb sounded interesting (“Guided by a spirit of internationalism, feminism and social justice, we publish books to make readers see the world afresh, question their behaviour and beliefs, and imagine a better future” ) I had a look at their website…which led me on to my next book, Between Dog and Wolf (US title The Orchard) by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry.
27raton-liseur
>20 rhian_of_oz: This books sounds interesting, and from a part of the world I know very little about (except that Le Clézio has the Mauritius nationality (obviously from the wealthy white, French-Mauritian side).
Between Dog and Wolf/The Orchard has been read by a few CR readers, including Lisa (labfs39) I think, so that's a book that raised quite some interest at the moment.
Between Dog and Wolf/The Orchard has been read by a few CR readers, including Lisa (labfs39) I think, so that's a book that raised quite some interest at the moment.
28rachbxl
>27 raton-liseur: Ah, I didn’t know that Le Clëzio has Mauritian nationality but it makes sense - one of the cover blurb quotes is from him. He is chair of the Prix Jean Franchette (for literature from the islands in the Indian Ocean, named after a Mauritian poet), which Riambel won in (I think) 2021. If you’re interested in other Mauritian writers, Natacha Appanah writes in French. I find her books to be variable, but when they are good they are outstanding. I like the ones set in France (where she now lives) less, but I’ve really enjoyed several set in Mauritius and/or Mayotte - Le dernier frère and Tropique de la violence in particular.
>27 raton-liseur: Interesting - I can’t find any mention of The Orchard/Between Dog and Wolf on LT other than my own. If anyone else in CR has read it I’d be interested in their thoughts on it. I’ll be back with my own comments soon, but not until I’ve finished Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard which I rushed off to read immediately when it became clear to me just how much The Orchard is based on it.
>27 raton-liseur: Interesting - I can’t find any mention of The Orchard/Between Dog and Wolf on LT other than my own. If anyone else in CR has read it I’d be interested in their thoughts on it. I’ll be back with my own comments soon, but not until I’ve finished Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard which I rushed off to read immediately when it became clear to me just how much The Orchard is based on it.
29labfs39
>26 rachbxl: Excellent review, and a book I have now added to my wishlist.
>27 raton-liseur: Nope, not me.
>27 raton-liseur: Nope, not me.
30arubabookwoman
>26 rachbxl: You've raised my interest in both books you mention here, the one you reviewed and the one newly purchased. I followed the links to Amazon (and the cover for Riambel is indeed beautiful--I hope you post it), and both books were fairly inexpensive Kindle deals, so I bought them.
31dchaikin
>25 rachbxl: I think I need to rediscover Kate Grenville. Noting Searching!
>26 rachbxl: excellent review. Sounds fantastic. I’ve read le Clezio’s The Prospector, and this might be interesting in light of that novel.
Looking forward to your next review
>26 rachbxl: excellent review. Sounds fantastic. I’ve read le Clezio’s The Prospector, and this might be interesting in light of that novel.
Looking forward to your next review
32raton-liseur
>28 rachbxl: I've actually read Le dernier frère by Nathacha Appanah, but did not really connect with the story and the writting, but I know I should try another book by this highly praised author.
>29 labfs39: Sorry... And now I can't find who mentionned it a couple of days ago. My mistake...
>31 dchaikin: Le Chercheur d'or/The Prospector is a Le Clézio I have not read (actually, this sentence seems to imly I've read a lot from him, which is not true.), but it sounds interesting, I keep an eye to see if I find it in a second hand bookshop one of these days.
>29 labfs39: Sorry... And now I can't find who mentionned it a couple of days ago. My mistake...
>31 dchaikin: Le Chercheur d'or/The Prospector is a Le Clézio I have not read (actually, this sentence seems to imly I've read a lot from him, which is not true.), but it sounds interesting, I keep an eye to see if I find it in a second hand bookshop one of these days.
33rachbxl
>30 arubabookwoman: I’ll try to come back and post a photo of the cover of Riambel this evening. I hope you enjoy both books when you get to them.
>31 dchaikin: I’ve not read any Le Clézio (but now that I’m reading in French again I have no reason not to!), and having read your comment and investigated a bit, I’m now thinking that The Prospector might be interesting in light of Riambel.
>32 raton-liseur: I find that I either connect very strongly with Appanah’s books, or I just don’t, and when I don’t I sometimes can’t even finish them. The ones I’ve connected with I have loved.
>32 raton-liseur: Mmm, I think it was me! I’ve mentioned it several times these last few days, including on your thread, I think ;-)
>31 dchaikin: I’ve not read any Le Clézio (but now that I’m reading in French again I have no reason not to!), and having read your comment and investigated a bit, I’m now thinking that The Prospector might be interesting in light of Riambel.
>32 raton-liseur: I find that I either connect very strongly with Appanah’s books, or I just don’t, and when I don’t I sometimes can’t even finish them. The ones I’ve connected with I have loved.
>32 raton-liseur: Mmm, I think it was me! I’ve mentioned it several times these last few days, including on your thread, I think ;-)
34raton-liseur
>33 rachbxl: Wait... So I informed you that you were reading Between Dog and Wolf/The Orchard???
Isn't this slightly embarrassing?
Sorry for that!
Isn't this slightly embarrassing?
Sorry for that!
36dchaikin
>32 raton-liseur: >33 rachbxl: Le Clezio's better books are really fun and The Prospector is my favorite of those I've read.
37rachbxl
I've updated >26 rachbxl: - the cover of Riambel is there now (stunning work by Mauritian artist Mila Gupta).
38rachbxl
The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry
UK title Between Dog and Wolf
A glorious example of a ricochet read (thanks, raton-liseur - I know it wasn't your term originally but you introduced me to it). Between Dog and Wolf is published by the same small independent publishing house as Riambel and I liked the sound of what I read about it on their website. I found a library copy available immediately (meaning that I read a book with the American title, The Orchard, which I think is a better fit).
Before reading the book not only had I read the blurb on The Indigo Press's website, I'd also followed a couple of links to interviews with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, and one to a clip of her talking about the book, her first novel. I'm glad I did that as I got more out of the novel as a result, though I wish I had read Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard first too, as The Orchard turned out to be more heavily influenced by Chekhov than I had realised. I read The Cherry Orchard immediately on finishing the novel, and things made more sense - not that it's impossible to read the novel without, but I got a better understanding of why certain things happened. The Afterword also clarified for me that events in The Orchard are based on Gorcheva-Newberry's own experiences during her childhood and adolescence in the USSR - part of the "perestroika generation"; this, too, helped me understand why certain things happened as they did (the most far-fetched of incidents turned out to be the most realistic, sadly).
Anya and Milka meet as very small children. Classmates and neighbours, they soon become inseparable friends, with Milka almost an adopted second daughter for Anya's parents (there's an unspoken understanding that something is not quite right at Milka's home with her mother and stepfather). They spend long summers together at Anya's family's dacha, complete with its small orchard, just outside Moscow, and as they get older they navigate their changing bodies and changing feelings together, soon forming a foursome with 2 boys from school, Petya and Aleksey (the former a likeable nerd, the latter a likeable almost-scoundrel who later, thriving in the new post-perestroika Russia, becomes involved in the sale of Anya's family dacha). Like the girls, Russia, too, is changing (as it is changing in The Orchard, as the country hurtles towards perestroika. Throughout this first part of the novel I struggled to connect with it. I really wanted to, but it was as though I was seeing the characters through tinted glass. I felt like I was waiting for it to get going and I wondered if I should put it aside. And then, suddenly, just when I least expected it, get going it did. The second half of the novel takes place 20 years later. Anya has been living in the USA for 20 years and hasn't been back, until now. At this point it all came alive and made the first half come alive in retrospect, and it's a wonderfully poignant exercise in looking back and trying to grasp what's no longer there.
I learned after reading it that Gorcheva-Newberry had spent years working on a short story about her friendship with a girl in her neighbourhood - the story of Anya and Milka - without ever been happy with it. It was only as she attended a performance of The Cherry Orchard more recently that she had the idea of imposing the structure of the play on her story and turning it into a novel. Obviously her freedom as a writer is therefore limited twice over - by the need to "follow" Chekhov and by the need to tell her story as it happened. I realised that some of the points I thought were a bit wooden were actually the result of one of these restrictions, or both. However, once I understood more about the story Gorcheva-Newberry was wanting to tell, and after I'd read The Orchard and had a better idea of what she was trying to do there and why, I minded less about the artifice. In a nutshell, the novel didn't quite work for me on its own merits as I was reading it, but once I had finished it, and even more once I had extra information gleaned from interviews and the Afterword, etc, Anya and Milka got right under my skin (Petya and Aleksey still didn't, but they did once I had read The Cherry Orchard, which helped me understand Gorcheva-Newberry's characters better. Reading it and The Cherry Orchard has been an enriching experience.
UK title Between Dog and Wolf
A glorious example of a ricochet read (thanks, raton-liseur - I know it wasn't your term originally but you introduced me to it). Between Dog and Wolf is published by the same small independent publishing house as Riambel and I liked the sound of what I read about it on their website. I found a library copy available immediately (meaning that I read a book with the American title, The Orchard, which I think is a better fit).
Before reading the book not only had I read the blurb on The Indigo Press's website, I'd also followed a couple of links to interviews with Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry, and one to a clip of her talking about the book, her first novel. I'm glad I did that as I got more out of the novel as a result, though I wish I had read Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard first too, as The Orchard turned out to be more heavily influenced by Chekhov than I had realised. I read The Cherry Orchard immediately on finishing the novel, and things made more sense - not that it's impossible to read the novel without, but I got a better understanding of why certain things happened. The Afterword also clarified for me that events in The Orchard are based on Gorcheva-Newberry's own experiences during her childhood and adolescence in the USSR - part of the "perestroika generation"; this, too, helped me understand why certain things happened as they did (the most far-fetched of incidents turned out to be the most realistic, sadly).
Anya and Milka meet as very small children. Classmates and neighbours, they soon become inseparable friends, with Milka almost an adopted second daughter for Anya's parents (there's an unspoken understanding that something is not quite right at Milka's home with her mother and stepfather). They spend long summers together at Anya's family's dacha, complete with its small orchard, just outside Moscow, and as they get older they navigate their changing bodies and changing feelings together, soon forming a foursome with 2 boys from school, Petya and Aleksey (the former a likeable nerd, the latter a likeable almost-scoundrel who later, thriving in the new post-perestroika Russia, becomes involved in the sale of Anya's family dacha). Like the girls, Russia, too, is changing (as it is changing in The Orchard, as the country hurtles towards perestroika. Throughout this first part of the novel I struggled to connect with it. I really wanted to, but it was as though I was seeing the characters through tinted glass. I felt like I was waiting for it to get going and I wondered if I should put it aside. And then, suddenly, just when I least expected it, get going it did. The second half of the novel takes place 20 years later. Anya has been living in the USA for 20 years and hasn't been back, until now. At this point it all came alive and made the first half come alive in retrospect, and it's a wonderfully poignant exercise in looking back and trying to grasp what's no longer there.
I learned after reading it that Gorcheva-Newberry had spent years working on a short story about her friendship with a girl in her neighbourhood - the story of Anya and Milka - without ever been happy with it. It was only as she attended a performance of The Cherry Orchard more recently that she had the idea of imposing the structure of the play on her story and turning it into a novel. Obviously her freedom as a writer is therefore limited twice over - by the need to "follow" Chekhov and by the need to tell her story as it happened. I realised that some of the points I thought were a bit wooden were actually the result of one of these restrictions, or both. However, once I understood more about the story Gorcheva-Newberry was wanting to tell, and after I'd read The Orchard and had a better idea of what she was trying to do there and why, I minded less about the artifice. In a nutshell, the novel didn't quite work for me on its own merits as I was reading it, but once I had finished it, and even more once I had extra information gleaned from interviews and the Afterword, etc, Anya and Milka got right under my skin (Petya and Aleksey still didn't, but they did once I had read The Cherry Orchard, which helped me understand Gorcheva-Newberry's characters better. Reading it and The Cherry Orchard has been an enriching experience.
40SassyLassy
>38 rachbxl: What a review! It really adds to it to have all the added information you provided. I think that seeking this information is often a measure of how much of an impression a particular book made on the reader.
41rachbxl
>39 dchaikin:, >40 SassyLassy: Thanks. I find it interesting that if I’d picked up The Orchard because it caught my eye in the library, say, I don’t think I’d have finished it. I certainly would have missed much of what it’s really about. I’m glad I came to it via the publisher’s website instead, the crucial thing being that there was a link on the site to a YouTube clip of Gorcheva-Newberry talking about her book, which I watched immediately. It was because of that clip that I persisted, because I realised that there was more to it than what I could get without further research. So I happily fell into the rabbit hole and was particularly glad that it led me to:
The Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Other than one or two stories over the years - but really one or two, no more - Chekhov was a big gap in my reading. I assumed his work would be difficult to read, even though those one or two stories weren’t, and were in fact really enjoyable. During lockdown I watched a production of Uncle Vanya on BBC4 (a hybrid film/theatre version of a production at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London which was interrupted by lockdown), and it brought me joy for days afterwards (part of that was certainly the lockdown effect, but let’s give Chekhov some credit too). Yet still I didn’t read any Chekhov. I’m grateful that my experience with Gorcheva-Newberry’s book propelled me into The Orchard; what I found was imminently accessible and again, a joy.
The Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Other than one or two stories over the years - but really one or two, no more - Chekhov was a big gap in my reading. I assumed his work would be difficult to read, even though those one or two stories weren’t, and were in fact really enjoyable. During lockdown I watched a production of Uncle Vanya on BBC4 (a hybrid film/theatre version of a production at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London which was interrupted by lockdown), and it brought me joy for days afterwards (part of that was certainly the lockdown effect, but let’s give Chekhov some credit too). Yet still I didn’t read any Chekhov. I’m grateful that my experience with Gorcheva-Newberry’s book propelled me into The Orchard; what I found was imminently accessible and again, a joy.
42rachbxl
Taormine by Yves Ravey
(Not translated into English?)
I picked this novel up the other day because the book I really wanted to read was upstairs and I was too lazy to go and get it. I chose this one from the nearest bookshelf on the basis that it was short and therefore wouldn’t interfere for too long with the other books I was reading, and indeed its brevity turned out to be welcome.
As the novel opens, a childless couple whose relationship is at breaking-point have just arrived in Sicily for a holiday which may or may not save their relationship. Their flight was delayed, and then it took ages to get their hire car, and now, tired, they’re heading for the hotel some distance away and they’re a bit lost but the man feels they should see the sea - they’re on holiday! - so turns off the main road on to a track which can only lead to the sea. Except it doesn’t, the area is one big building site, though there is at least a snack bar so they have a coffee, but the waiter is unfriendly…and so on. Yves Ravey does an excellent job of piling up the little details to create a realistic situation - the little disappointments and frustrations of the first day in a new place, it’s not how I expected, actually it’s probably partly me in that I’m expecting things to work like they do at home but I can’t admit it’s me so I’ll be low-level cross with this new place, and I feel a bit stupid because i don’t know how they do things here, but rather than admit that I’ll snap at my wife, etc etc. And then as they get back into the car it starts to rain. It rains so heavily that visibility is reduced to zero, and on top of that it’s getting dark. As they drive back up the track the car hits something with a big crash. The woman wants to get out and look; the man, driving, decrees that they need to get on to the hotel - there are bits of building site debris all over the place, not surprising they hit something, but it’s done now, the car’s still running so are they really going to get out in this downpour and see something they can’t do anything about right now anyway? And anyway, he wants this holiday that he’s organised to work and he’s not going to let a little bump in the car stand in his way…
…and that was where they lost me. The husband is a morally ambiguous character, but, until then, interesting - he justifies his choices in what I think is a realistic way although most of us perhaps prefer not to admit it. Interesting too in the way he contrasts with his wife, whose moral compass at first seems to be in full working order and who comes across as someone who generally has it together, unlike her husband. After they fail to investigate the bump, a really interesting story could have followed but I immediately realised that given we were already halfway into the 110 pages, I wasn’t going to get what I was hoping for. Instead the couple embark upon a mad jaunt in which he feverishly tries to cover their tracks, and she goes along with him as lies lead to more lies and one inexplicable decision leads to another. Before they know it they are in way above their heads, and don’t forget that this is Sicily, after all, so let’s pull out all the tropes - mafia! Migrants! People smugglers!
The End. (It just sort of stopped, and I actually checked that I wasn’t missing some pages!)
I hadn’t read anything by Yves Ravey before this, but I believe he’s quite popular (and certainly in the first half of Taormine I could see why - I was excited at the thought of having found a new source of not-too-taxing between-books books). Just before Christmas I read a book by another popular new-to-me French author, Marek Halter (because the subject, the Jewish community in Shanghai, was of interest to me), and Taormine makes me want to repeat what I said about Halter’s book - in both cases I felt like I had read the latest offering from a prolific and very successful writer who knows how to please his fans with a tried-and-tested formula…but I’m not one of those fans so both books left me wanting more.
My comments are almost longer than the book itself, but then I always find it easier to talk about books I haven’t enjoyed when there’s a particular reason rather than just a feeling of “didn’t work for me”.
(Not translated into English?)
I picked this novel up the other day because the book I really wanted to read was upstairs and I was too lazy to go and get it. I chose this one from the nearest bookshelf on the basis that it was short and therefore wouldn’t interfere for too long with the other books I was reading, and indeed its brevity turned out to be welcome.
As the novel opens, a childless couple whose relationship is at breaking-point have just arrived in Sicily for a holiday which may or may not save their relationship. Their flight was delayed, and then it took ages to get their hire car, and now, tired, they’re heading for the hotel some distance away and they’re a bit lost but the man feels they should see the sea - they’re on holiday! - so turns off the main road on to a track which can only lead to the sea. Except it doesn’t, the area is one big building site, though there is at least a snack bar so they have a coffee, but the waiter is unfriendly…and so on. Yves Ravey does an excellent job of piling up the little details to create a realistic situation - the little disappointments and frustrations of the first day in a new place, it’s not how I expected, actually it’s probably partly me in that I’m expecting things to work like they do at home but I can’t admit it’s me so I’ll be low-level cross with this new place, and I feel a bit stupid because i don’t know how they do things here, but rather than admit that I’ll snap at my wife, etc etc. And then as they get back into the car it starts to rain. It rains so heavily that visibility is reduced to zero, and on top of that it’s getting dark. As they drive back up the track the car hits something with a big crash. The woman wants to get out and look; the man, driving, decrees that they need to get on to the hotel - there are bits of building site debris all over the place, not surprising they hit something, but it’s done now, the car’s still running so are they really going to get out in this downpour and see something they can’t do anything about right now anyway? And anyway, he wants this holiday that he’s organised to work and he’s not going to let a little bump in the car stand in his way…
…and that was where they lost me. The husband is a morally ambiguous character, but, until then, interesting - he justifies his choices in what I think is a realistic way although most of us perhaps prefer not to admit it. Interesting too in the way he contrasts with his wife, whose moral compass at first seems to be in full working order and who comes across as someone who generally has it together, unlike her husband. After they fail to investigate the bump, a really interesting story could have followed but I immediately realised that given we were already halfway into the 110 pages, I wasn’t going to get what I was hoping for. Instead the couple embark upon a mad jaunt in which he feverishly tries to cover their tracks, and she goes along with him as lies lead to more lies and one inexplicable decision leads to another. Before they know it they are in way above their heads, and don’t forget that this is Sicily, after all, so let’s pull out all the tropes - mafia! Migrants! People smugglers!
The End. (It just sort of stopped, and I actually checked that I wasn’t missing some pages!)
I hadn’t read anything by Yves Ravey before this, but I believe he’s quite popular (and certainly in the first half of Taormine I could see why - I was excited at the thought of having found a new source of not-too-taxing between-books books). Just before Christmas I read a book by another popular new-to-me French author, Marek Halter (because the subject, the Jewish community in Shanghai, was of interest to me), and Taormine makes me want to repeat what I said about Halter’s book - in both cases I felt like I had read the latest offering from a prolific and very successful writer who knows how to please his fans with a tried-and-tested formula…but I’m not one of those fans so both books left me wanting more.
My comments are almost longer than the book itself, but then I always find it easier to talk about books I haven’t enjoyed when there’s a particular reason rather than just a feeling of “didn’t work for me”.
43baswood
Enjoyed your review of Taormine. There are many books where you feel that the author starts with a good idea, writes well and then lurches into familiar trope territory.
44FlorenceArt
>42 rachbxl: Your description of the beginning sounds exactly like me at the beginning of a holiday! Too bad it didn't pan out.
45labfs39
>42 rachbxl: I too related strongly to your description of the beginning of the book: we rented a car at Charles de Gaulle, got lost on the peripherique because the exit we wanted was under construction, my ex put a large denomination bill in the toll booth and coins spewed out with such enthusiasm that the man in the car behind us got out to help collect them all, our three-year-old started crying, I was hangry, we stopped at what we thought was a mall hoping for a food court, but it was a multilevel home goods store, bought what food we could find, and hours later got to Giverny. No unidentified bumps though! Although later in the trip, my ex did back the rental car into a post.
46raton-liseur
>42 rachbxl: This author does not ring a bell, but your summary makes me think I've heard of this book before. I did not bother reading it, and won't bother after reading your review either.
Love the reason why you chose to read this book!
Love the reason why you chose to read this book!
47dchaikin
>42 rachbxl: up to the mafia part, and maybe not checking the bump, very relatable.
48kidzdoc
Fabulous review of Taormine, Rachel. I was eagerly following along with the story as you narrated it, and I felt a great sense of disappointment when the last half was so disappointing.
49rachbxl
>43 baswood:, >44 FlorenceArt:, >45 labfs39:, >46 raton-liseur:, >47 dchaikin:, >48 kidzdoc: I keep coming back to Taormine and to how good that first part was and to how it went spinning off and lost me. Babelio (French book-chat site) is full of ecstatic reviews of it, but mainly from readers who are dyed-in-the-wool Yves Ravey fans who say in their reviews that they know what to expect in a Ravey novel and that with Taormine he hasn't let them down. I guess we just look for different things in a novel.
50rachbxl
The Children's Bach by Helen Garner
I could do with a better system for keeping track of who my recommendations come from, but I think I have Kate to thank for putting Helen Garner, very well-known in Australia, it seems, on my radar. My one regret with this very short novel is that I didn't read it in one sitting, or two at a push. Instead I got distracted and let it spin out over several days. I still very much enjoyed it but it's such a focused, subtle novella where every word counts and what isn't said is as important as what is - as well as being told in a non-linear way that's confusing if you dip and and out - that I would have got more out of it from reading it in a different way, but that's my problem, not the book's.
I can't very well give plot details because there isn't really a plot. Nor can I talk about the main character, because there isn't one. I recall saying in my comments on another book I read recently that I felt like I was watching events and characters through tinted glass, and I didn't like that. Here I had the same feeling, and I loved it. The characters in the novella are a group of normal people in 1980s Melbourne, and what happens to them is life. They come into focus for brief moments and then drift away again, and Garner does nothing to make them stay. She doesn't give details, she doesn't entice us in with dramatic scenes...she just describes, in her laconic, elliptical way, what's going on in those brief moments when the characters are fully present. The focus becomes clearer as all of the characters move towards a crisis point in their respective lives...and then the focus slips again as their lives go on. I've been wrestling for a few days with what to say about The Children's Bach, and I'm not happy with my comments because I've made it sound too clever for itself, inaccessible, which it isn't. It's just not quite like anything else I've read for a very long time, but that's no bad thing.
I could do with a better system for keeping track of who my recommendations come from, but I think I have Kate to thank for putting Helen Garner, very well-known in Australia, it seems, on my radar. My one regret with this very short novel is that I didn't read it in one sitting, or two at a push. Instead I got distracted and let it spin out over several days. I still very much enjoyed it but it's such a focused, subtle novella where every word counts and what isn't said is as important as what is - as well as being told in a non-linear way that's confusing if you dip and and out - that I would have got more out of it from reading it in a different way, but that's my problem, not the book's.
I can't very well give plot details because there isn't really a plot. Nor can I talk about the main character, because there isn't one. I recall saying in my comments on another book I read recently that I felt like I was watching events and characters through tinted glass, and I didn't like that. Here I had the same feeling, and I loved it. The characters in the novella are a group of normal people in 1980s Melbourne, and what happens to them is life. They come into focus for brief moments and then drift away again, and Garner does nothing to make them stay. She doesn't give details, she doesn't entice us in with dramatic scenes...she just describes, in her laconic, elliptical way, what's going on in those brief moments when the characters are fully present. The focus becomes clearer as all of the characters move towards a crisis point in their respective lives...and then the focus slips again as their lives go on. I've been wrestling for a few days with what to say about The Children's Bach, and I'm not happy with my comments because I've made it sound too clever for itself, inaccessible, which it isn't. It's just not quite like anything else I've read for a very long time, but that's no bad thing.
51raton-liseur
>50 rachbxl: I don't know this author either, but your review is intriguing: no plot, no main character... but a story that works for you.
I like the image of watching events and characters through tinted glass. I'm with you: somtimes it works for me, sometimes it does not and it's difficult to pinpoint why it does or doesn't.
There are few books by Helen Garner in French, so I would have to read here in English. I'll have to think twice about it...
I like the image of watching events and characters through tinted glass. I'm with you: somtimes it works for me, sometimes it does not and it's difficult to pinpoint why it does or doesn't.
There are few books by Helen Garner in French, so I would have to read here in English. I'll have to think twice about it...
52FlorenceArt
>50 rachbxl: Intriguing!
53rachbxl
>51 raton-liseur: It's really short and not half as difficult as I've made out - even in French you'd need your wits about you to try to keep track of which character is doing what, so that wouldn't be any worse in English...give it a go!
>52 FlorenceArt: Not the most helpful review, I know, but I was at a loss!
>52 FlorenceArt: Not the most helpful review, I know, but I was at a loss!
54FlorenceArt
>53 rachbxl: No, it was very useful to me. I think plot is overrated anyway, but probably that’s just me, I am plot challenged because I tend to forget as fast as I read.
55raton-liseur
>53 rachbxl: Nice try! Same as you, I try to let interesting reviews percolate before jumping on the book... And finding the book in English might prove to be a bit challenging, but I shall see.
>54 FlorenceArt: plot is overrated anyway. I love the way you put it. It would make a nice opening sentence for a thread in CR! (Although I am among those readers who do love a good plot, even if plot is not all what matters!).
>54 FlorenceArt: plot is overrated anyway. I love the way you put it. It would make a nice opening sentence for a thread in CR! (Although I am among those readers who do love a good plot, even if plot is not all what matters!).
56rachbxl
>54 FlorenceArt:, >55 raton-liseur: I think I'm somewhere between the two of you. I love a good plot when I'm actually reading, but not at the expense of everything else, and it's not essential (and whilst I might enjoy the plot at the time, like you, Florence, I forget the details all too quickly). But plot details are really not what I react to when I read comments or reviews of a book.
>55 raton-liseur: I would offer to send it to you to push you a bit further along the road to temptation, but fortunately for you it was a library ebook ;-)
>55 raton-liseur: I would offer to send it to you to push you a bit further along the road to temptation, but fortunately for you it was a library ebook ;-)
57dchaikin
>50 rachbxl: your review has me interested.
58raton-liseur
>56 rachbxl: On the plot question, I think my position is close to yours.
fortunately for you it was a library ebook ;-) Phew... Joking aside, it's very kind of you to have thought to send it to me.
And this leads me to a question. You live in Belgium, right? Where do you get library ebooks in English from? I read few books in English so don't want to pay a huge fee for this (in France, the library fees I pay are between 0 and 10 euros...), so if you have any suggestions, I am all ears (eyes).
fortunately for you it was a library ebook ;-) Phew... Joking aside, it's very kind of you to have thought to send it to me.
And this leads me to a question. You live in Belgium, right? Where do you get library ebooks in English from? I read few books in English so don't want to pay a huge fee for this (in France, the library fees I pay are between 0 and 10 euros...), so if you have any suggestions, I am all ears (eyes).
59rachbxl
>58 raton-liseur: My local library network has some English books, but early in the pandemic I realised that I was going to need something more so I started looking around for a library in an English-speaking country which would accept me, albeit for a fee (until the pandemic I had relied on 2 good libraries to which I have access through work, which both have physical books only). I found several with astronomical membership fees for overseas readers, but then I found Queens Public Library in New York where I have full borrowing rights for ebooks (and magazines and newspapers) for - I think- $50 a year. I don’t know if it would be worth for you, but for me it definitely is.
60raton-liseur
>59 rachbxl: Yes, it seems the Queens Public Library is quite popular for overseas subscriptions, I rad about it earlier as well. Knowing that I read 1 or 2 books in English per year, $50 would be on the expensive side for me. Too bad... But I'll keep it in mind in case I increase my reading in English. Thanks!
61rachbxl
Chicken Health for Dummies by Julie Gauthier and Rob Ludlow
I’ve been keeping a few chickens for several years (“I”, not “we”, since nobody else in the family is interested in anything other than eating the eggs), and I until recently I’d only ever dipped occasionally into my chicken keeping books in an “I suppose I should, just in case” kind of way as they had never had any particular problems. Around Christmas I was seized with the desire to find out as much about chickens as I can so I’ve been reading my existing collection of chicken books cover-to-cover (and possibly adding new ones to my collection), and I’ve been really enjoying doing so. Chicken Health for Dummies is the first I’ve actually finished (I’m reading several at once, in different rooms). I haven’t read any other dummies’ guides but I understand that the engaging, slightly humorous style is typical - which isn’t to say this book isn’t stuffed with useful information.
My new knowledge has been timely, as after several problem-free years I suddenly found myself dealing with a poorly chicken (or maybe it’s just that ignorance was bliss?) Unfortunately my new expertise didn’t save us a trip to the vet’s, but I did at least know for sure that I couldn’t help her myself.
I’ve been keeping a few chickens for several years (“I”, not “we”, since nobody else in the family is interested in anything other than eating the eggs), and I until recently I’d only ever dipped occasionally into my chicken keeping books in an “I suppose I should, just in case” kind of way as they had never had any particular problems. Around Christmas I was seized with the desire to find out as much about chickens as I can so I’ve been reading my existing collection of chicken books cover-to-cover (and possibly adding new ones to my collection), and I’ve been really enjoying doing so. Chicken Health for Dummies is the first I’ve actually finished (I’m reading several at once, in different rooms). I haven’t read any other dummies’ guides but I understand that the engaging, slightly humorous style is typical - which isn’t to say this book isn’t stuffed with useful information.
My new knowledge has been timely, as after several problem-free years I suddenly found myself dealing with a poorly chicken (or maybe it’s just that ignorance was bliss?) Unfortunately my new expertise didn’t save us a trip to the vet’s, but I did at least know for sure that I couldn’t help her myself.
62labfs39
>61 rachbxl: My daughter raised chickens when she was young and we lived in Washington, all different breeds, so we had different colored eggs. One chicken was descended from an egg Colin Firth had brought over from England. :-) I was amazed at the different personalities the hens had. Much more interesting than I had ever imagined and inspired me to only ever buy free-range eggs. Although our Labrador retriever was a dear about small animals friends and would let the chickens ride on his back and would snuggle with the guinea pigs, my daughter's German shepherd is much too prey driven to allow us to have small animals now.
63avaland
Caught up with your reading and I did have a laugh when I got to the Chicken Health for Dummies ...
64rachbxl
>62 labfs39: How has it taken me so long to reply? Where on earth did the last month go? Anyway, chickens certainly are little characters, which explains why the one of mine that's been sick is still alive - I keep hearing my late grandma's voice in my head, "wring its neck and get it in the pot!", but when she has a name and identifiable characteristics I can't do that...
>63 avaland: Ha! It's not my usual fare, is it? I've finished another in the meanwhile.
>63 avaland: Ha! It's not my usual fare, is it? I've finished another in the meanwhile.
65labfs39
>64 rachbxl: Time does seem to be whizzing by these days. Glad you are doing well. We could never eat our hens either, but did enjoy the eggs.
66rachbxl
Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow
I particularly enjoyed the bits that are irrelevant to me and my chickens and spent some happy reading moments discovering the whole new world (to me) that is breeding show chickens. I don't know why I found it so fascinating as it is really not something I have the slightest interest in doing!
I particularly enjoyed the bits that are irrelevant to me and my chickens and spent some happy reading moments discovering the whole new world (to me) that is breeding show chickens. I don't know why I found it so fascinating as it is really not something I have the slightest interest in doing!
67rachbxl
Armadale by Wilkie Collins
Recommended by SassyLassy as a good first Wilkie Collins (thanks again).
The plot is preposterous and requires almost permanent suspension of disbelief. Several characters have the same name and at times it was hard to work out who had done what to whom. It's wordy and goes into ridiculous detail. And I loved it, all 700+ pages of it. I didn't exactly zip through it, and sometimes I put it down for days at a time, but always knowing I would come back to it soon, and whenever I did it felt like going back to an old friend. I'm really pleased to have got to Wilkie Collins at last, and I am looking forward to reading more by him.
Recommended by SassyLassy as a good first Wilkie Collins (thanks again).
The plot is preposterous and requires almost permanent suspension of disbelief. Several characters have the same name and at times it was hard to work out who had done what to whom. It's wordy and goes into ridiculous detail. And I loved it, all 700+ pages of it. I didn't exactly zip through it, and sometimes I put it down for days at a time, but always knowing I would come back to it soon, and whenever I did it felt like going back to an old friend. I'm really pleased to have got to Wilkie Collins at last, and I am looking forward to reading more by him.
68rachbxl
Miss Marte by Manuel Jabois
(in Spanish - not translated into English?)
A few weeks ago I popped into my local Spanish bookshop with 2 aims, firstly to pick up something by Eduardo Halfon other than El boxeador polaco (The Polish Boxer), and secondly, to have a chat with the owner and get some recommendations. I failed on both fronts - they didn't have any Halfon, and the owner was busy with other people the whole time I was there. So instead I browsed, and came away with 2 books, one by an author I know, which I haven't yet finished, and this one, which I hadn't heard of.
Miss Marte starts with the wedding of two young people being disrupted by the discovery that the bride's toddler daughter has disappeared. This is in Galicia in the early 1990s. 25 years later, in the present day, a young prize-winning journalist, Berta Soneira, has decided to investigate the disappearance, which was never resolved. She arrives from Madrid and hooks up with a local journalist to act as her fixer. This man is the narrator, who goes on to write a book retelling the accounts given by local people and filmed by Berta Soneira for her TV documentary, which was never aired. So the book we read is a book written by the local journalist about an investigation into a long-dormant disappearance...but this local journalist isn't neutral, since he's also one of the people interviewed for the documentary, having been a close friend of the groom at the time. That perhaps sounds confusing, but I enjoyed the effect of the different layers of perspective - is what appears to be the truth actually the truth? Who can say?
This book was a lovely surprise and I fell in love with it a little bit. We're never sure what happened because things go in and out of focus, and the setting - small-town coastal Galicia - contributes to this, the fog rolling in off the sea and obscuring the view, the rain making it hard to distinguish things clearly. It's almost a magical environment, where things happen that couldn't happen elsewhere - and the title character, Miss Marte, aka Mai, the bride, a mysterious young girl who blows in from nowhere, has her magic too (there's a mention of Macondo at one point, and there's a definite whiff of magical realism here). I read an interview with Manuel Jabois in which he said Miss Marte isn't a comic novel but it does have elements of humour, and the gentle humour is something I really appreciated, all the more so as it took me back to my own years in northern Spain, right at the time of the disappearance. I lived in a town on the Camino de Santiago, which wasn't the big thing in the early 90s that it is today. There's a bit in the book where the narrator recalls that whenever he and his friends saw an outsider in the village they would immediately accost them with, "Are you doing the Camino?" That made me laugh out loud, it's such a beautiful observation and reminded me of something I'd forgotten - that's exactly what people used to do in the town where I lived too, confusing tourists who were generally there to see the cathedral and had little idea of what "el Camino" was. Interesting how that little comment anchors the narrative to a certain time - the Camino's popularly has soared since then, and it's unlikely that any visitors now would be unaware of it.
(in Spanish - not translated into English?)
A few weeks ago I popped into my local Spanish bookshop with 2 aims, firstly to pick up something by Eduardo Halfon other than El boxeador polaco (The Polish Boxer), and secondly, to have a chat with the owner and get some recommendations. I failed on both fronts - they didn't have any Halfon, and the owner was busy with other people the whole time I was there. So instead I browsed, and came away with 2 books, one by an author I know, which I haven't yet finished, and this one, which I hadn't heard of.
Miss Marte starts with the wedding of two young people being disrupted by the discovery that the bride's toddler daughter has disappeared. This is in Galicia in the early 1990s. 25 years later, in the present day, a young prize-winning journalist, Berta Soneira, has decided to investigate the disappearance, which was never resolved. She arrives from Madrid and hooks up with a local journalist to act as her fixer. This man is the narrator, who goes on to write a book retelling the accounts given by local people and filmed by Berta Soneira for her TV documentary, which was never aired. So the book we read is a book written by the local journalist about an investigation into a long-dormant disappearance...but this local journalist isn't neutral, since he's also one of the people interviewed for the documentary, having been a close friend of the groom at the time. That perhaps sounds confusing, but I enjoyed the effect of the different layers of perspective - is what appears to be the truth actually the truth? Who can say?
This book was a lovely surprise and I fell in love with it a little bit. We're never sure what happened because things go in and out of focus, and the setting - small-town coastal Galicia - contributes to this, the fog rolling in off the sea and obscuring the view, the rain making it hard to distinguish things clearly. It's almost a magical environment, where things happen that couldn't happen elsewhere - and the title character, Miss Marte, aka Mai, the bride, a mysterious young girl who blows in from nowhere, has her magic too (there's a mention of Macondo at one point, and there's a definite whiff of magical realism here). I read an interview with Manuel Jabois in which he said Miss Marte isn't a comic novel but it does have elements of humour, and the gentle humour is something I really appreciated, all the more so as it took me back to my own years in northern Spain, right at the time of the disappearance. I lived in a town on the Camino de Santiago, which wasn't the big thing in the early 90s that it is today. There's a bit in the book where the narrator recalls that whenever he and his friends saw an outsider in the village they would immediately accost them with, "Are you doing the Camino?" That made me laugh out loud, it's such a beautiful observation and reminded me of something I'd forgotten - that's exactly what people used to do in the town where I lived too, confusing tourists who were generally there to see the cathedral and had little idea of what "el Camino" was. Interesting how that little comment anchors the narrative to a certain time - the Camino's popularly has soared since then, and it's unlikely that any visitors now would be unaware of it.
69labfs39
>68 rachbxl: What a lovely review. Sounds like it invokes a sense of place very well.
70SassyLassy
>67 rachbxl: So happy and relieved that you enjoyed it. I was somewhat apprehensive, to say the least, when I started your review, but then a huge smile. Read on!
>68 rachbxl: Envy you being able to read in Spanish. There are so many interesting authors.
>68 rachbxl: Envy you being able to read in Spanish. There are so many interesting authors.
71rachbxl
>70 SassyLassy: Oops, sorry about that! I can well imagine how you felt on reading the first couple of lines... I really loved the way Collins built a whole world peopled by such vivid character (even if they do all have the same name!) - my mind keeps going back to it and them.
72dchaikin
>67 rachbxl: >68 rachbxl: a good streak. The Spanish books sounds terrific (if i read Spanish)
73rachbxl
>72 dchaikin: Hello Dan. Yes, a good streak, and it continues. I'm enjoying it.
74rachbxl
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
The right book at the right time. I came back from a skiing holiday last week with a heavy cold, and I wanted an easy, fun read, but an easy, fun read which credited the reader with a modicum of intelligence - and that's what I got.
Elizabeth is a scientist...but a female scientist in 1950s America has it tough, suffering not just at the hands of men (often less intelligent, less competent, less everything, but male) but also of women too - how dare another woman step out of line? Who does she think she is? Elizabeth doesn't fit the mould, and she (almost) doesn't care what other people think. Why can't she do what men do? She tries to forge ahead regardless. I liked Elizabeth from the outset, though she's prickly and doesn't read social cues, but I also had a problem with her from the outset: could a woman like this actually have existed in the 1950s? She has an awareness of the sexism, the inequalities, her lack of rights, that I'm not convinced by. Of course, there were women who had exactly that awareness and fought for women's rights decades before the 1950s, but as Elizabeth lives in her own little bubble I'm not sure she's one of them. Elizabeth struck me from the start as having more of a 21st century mindset, which bugged me a bit but I read on because I was enjoying Bonnie Garmus's funny, fresh voice so much (this is her first novel)...and then I realised that for me at least, it was exactly this clash between the 21st century mindset and the 1950s reality (not that long ago, after all) which made the book so effective because it shows just how ridiculous - how farcical - the situation of women was (I'm not saying it's perfect now, but what a long way we've come). There were a couple of other possible anachronisms which made me raise an eyebrow, and there was also a highly improbably dog (I can't say a talking dog, because he's not, but a dog whose very human thoughts are transcribed) that I should have hated, and some rather-too-convenient plot twists, particularly at the end, but somehow none of it spoiled my overall enjoyment.
The right book at the right time. I came back from a skiing holiday last week with a heavy cold, and I wanted an easy, fun read, but an easy, fun read which credited the reader with a modicum of intelligence - and that's what I got.
Elizabeth is a scientist...but a female scientist in 1950s America has it tough, suffering not just at the hands of men (often less intelligent, less competent, less everything, but male) but also of women too - how dare another woman step out of line? Who does she think she is? Elizabeth doesn't fit the mould, and she (almost) doesn't care what other people think. Why can't she do what men do? She tries to forge ahead regardless. I liked Elizabeth from the outset, though she's prickly and doesn't read social cues, but I also had a problem with her from the outset: could a woman like this actually have existed in the 1950s? She has an awareness of the sexism, the inequalities, her lack of rights, that I'm not convinced by. Of course, there were women who had exactly that awareness and fought for women's rights decades before the 1950s, but as Elizabeth lives in her own little bubble I'm not sure she's one of them. Elizabeth struck me from the start as having more of a 21st century mindset, which bugged me a bit but I read on because I was enjoying Bonnie Garmus's funny, fresh voice so much (this is her first novel)...and then I realised that for me at least, it was exactly this clash between the 21st century mindset and the 1950s reality (not that long ago, after all) which made the book so effective because it shows just how ridiculous - how farcical - the situation of women was (I'm not saying it's perfect now, but what a long way we've come). There were a couple of other possible anachronisms which made me raise an eyebrow, and there was also a highly improbably dog (I can't say a talking dog, because he's not, but a dog whose very human thoughts are transcribed) that I should have hated, and some rather-too-convenient plot twists, particularly at the end, but somehow none of it spoiled my overall enjoyment.
75kjuliff
>74 rachbxl: I also had a problem with her from the outset: could a woman like this actually have existed in the 1950s
I understand where you are coming from, but i think many “ordinary “ women were aware of the need for gender equality in the 1950s and earlier. I remember my mother who was not formally educated talking about her actions in those dreary times. She joined a group which fought for women’s rights. Suppressed people are aware they are suppressed no matter what period.
I enjoyed your review. I didn’t really understand what Lessons In Chemistry till I read your review. You’ve revived my interest in the book which I’ve been putting off reading.
I understand where you are coming from, but i think many “ordinary “ women were aware of the need for gender equality in the 1950s and earlier. I remember my mother who was not formally educated talking about her actions in those dreary times. She joined a group which fought for women’s rights. Suppressed people are aware they are suppressed no matter what period.
I enjoyed your review. I didn’t really understand what Lessons In Chemistry till I read your review. You’ve revived my interest in the book which I’ve been putting off reading.
76rachbxl
>75 kjuliff: I don’t think my comments in >74 rachbxl: were as clear as they might have been (it was my third attempt to post as the first two versions disappeared, and each attempt got more and more telegraphic! I’m glad you got something from my post, Kate, as by the time I managed to post it felt like there wasn’t much of my original thoughts left). There certainly would have been a lot of the kind of awareness you mention in the 1950s, I agree, but my (probably unclear) question was really about whether Elizabeth herself could have had that awareness rather than if someone with that awareness could have existed. I didn’t find the package that is Elizabeth convincing in that sense. I’ve tried to explain what I mean in several different ways but I keep getting straight into spoiler territory and as you might read it I don’t want to do that (and it’s too late on a Friday night for me to go and check how to hide spoilers!) Read it and then we’ll talk ;-)
77kjuliff
>76 rachbxl: I think I understand what you are saying Rachel. Guess I’ll have to read the book now! ;)
I do understand though how difficult it is to get your thoughts across in a review. I’ve tied myself in knots many times, reading what I’ve typed and knowing it’s not quite right. One problem is that there’s no way to save a post without publishing it. I have lost posts and had to rewrite them countless times.
I do understand though how difficult it is to get your thoughts across in a review. I’ve tied myself in knots many times, reading what I’ve typed and knowing it’s not quite right. One problem is that there’s no way to save a post without publishing it. I have lost posts and had to rewrite them countless times.
78dchaikin
>74 rachbxl: I’m sorry you lost two drafts. Your review provides an interesting perspective, a sense of the author’s play. Not sure this book is for me, but I would want your take in mind if I read it.
79rachbxl
>78 dchaikin: I can quite confidently say that this isn’t a book for you, Dan ;-)
80kjuliff
>79 rachbxl: Rachel, why are you confident that Dan would not like that book?
BTW since I replied to you I thought about my comments ( >75 kjuliff: )and I think I was wrong. I should have understood your point as I had the exact response in my review of Small Pleasures. I don’t know why I didn’t empathize with your point, but mea culpa.
BTW since I replied to you I thought about my comments ( >75 kjuliff: )and I think I was wrong. I should have understood your point as I had the exact response in my review of Small Pleasures. I don’t know why I didn’t empathize with your point, but mea culpa.
81LolaWalser
Hi, Rachel!
>74 rachbxl:
I've heard so much about this book that reading it seems superfluous... I even caught an interview with the author. Must say I was most impressed that she took on studying chemistry in order to be able to write about it, I'd have assumed someone with that background.
I will say the choice of the 1950s is a little surprising, sexism in science is still going strong. It was only some ten? years ago or so that a chem Nobel publicly said women in a lab were a distraction.
>74 rachbxl:
I've heard so much about this book that reading it seems superfluous... I even caught an interview with the author. Must say I was most impressed that she took on studying chemistry in order to be able to write about it, I'd have assumed someone with that background.
I will say the choice of the 1950s is a little surprising, sexism in science is still going strong. It was only some ten? years ago or so that a chem Nobel publicly said women in a lab were a distraction.
82rachbxl
>81 LolaWalser: Hello Lola! Now that’s interesting (that Bonnie Garmus studied chemistry to write the book) - it’s not like there are little nods to chemistry here and there, the book’s full of it. I’m in no position to say whether it’s convincing or not but it did strike me when I looked Garmus up that there was no chemistry in her bio, whereas (to this layperson, anyhow) what’s in the book goes beyond a layperson’s knowledge. Actually - as a former rower myself - it was the rowing I was interested in when I looked her up because there’s also a lot of technical rowing stuff in there, and yes, she’s a keen rower. I’m really selling this book now, aren’t I? Lots of chemistry, lots of rowing details…somehow Garmus pulls it off, though. It’s been a few weeks now and I really can’t remember much about the book itself, it faded quickly. What I do remember, though, was my sense that Garmus had a blast writing it and her enthusiasm was infectious. Really not one of the best books I’ve read recently, but I can forgive it many things because I enjoyed the ride so much. Somehow I hadn’t heard anything about it at all when I read it, which helped as well. (As for the 1950s setting…the rest of the plot wouldn’t work if it were set any later, I think).
83rachbxl
I'm hopelessly behind with my comments on books read. Really enjoying my reading though, so I'll take that and live with the backlog. Jotting down books I've read recently before I forget, hoping to come back and comment on them later...
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Raconter la guerre by Françoise Wallemacq
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule by Igort
Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Raconter la guerre by Françoise Wallemacq
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks: Life and Death under Soviet Rule by Igort
84labfs39
Hi Rachel! Some interesting reading, as always. Would you give the Igort graphic work a thumbs up? If so, I will look for it.
85rachbxl
>84 labfs39: Hi Lisa! On balance I would recommend it, yes. I did find it quite bitty, piecemeal, though - but then, it's called "Notebooks", after all, ie it's more a collection of thoughts or snapshots rather than something linear. It's also worth noting that it's 2 completely separate notebooks published together, the Ukrainian one looking at the Holodomor, and the Russian one at Anna Politkovskaya's life and death. The purely factual parts are unlikely to go beyond what you already know, but the parts I liked best were the personal accounts of people who told their stories to Igort.
86labfs39
>85 rachbxl: Sounds worth a peek, onto the list it goes!
I hope spring has sprung for you. My daffodils (the ones that survived the April snowstorm) are finally blooming, and I wake to the sound of birdsong. It's still freezing some nights, but the days are in the high 40s low 50s and sunny more often than not. I'll take it!
I hope spring has sprung for you. My daffodils (the ones that survived the April snowstorm) are finally blooming, and I wake to the sound of birdsong. It's still freezing some nights, but the days are in the high 40s low 50s and sunny more often than not. I'll take it!
87rachbxl
>86 labfs39: Spring has sprung here too, a little while ago now. The daffodils (my favourite flower) are just about over (every year I take a photo of them to send to a Guatemalan friend who now lives in Mexico, and who fell in love with daffodils when she lived in the UK), but the tulips are in flower now. I've got 2 pots of tulips on the patio, visible from the living room, and they make me smile every time I see them. It's a beautiful spring day today, sunny but chilly (it froze last night), but generally what we've been having is rain, rain and more rain. To get to work I cycle along tracks through fields to the station, and every day I have to get togged up in full waterproofs whether it's actually raining or not, because there's no avoiding the huge muddy puddles right across the path (Peppa Pig would love it). By the way, I was thinking of you and your daughter earlier this week when our new Araucana chickens started laying their beautiful blue eggs. My daughter had the first two tiny ones fried on toast for breakfast this morning.
88labfs39
>87 rachbxl: When I studied in France, I got around by bicycle, but did not have the proper rainwear. I didn't realize how cold and rainy it could be. I ended up getting pneumonia! I'm still nostalgic about the biking though, and when I took my daughter to France when she was 10, we did a lot of bike riding.
I have been thinking about chickens (and guinea pigs) lately and wondering if I could keep some. Unfortunately, I think my daughter's German Shepherd would be a little too enthusiastic about the idea. I'm probably just waxing nostalgic in my dotage. But both chickens and guinea pigs had surprising amounts of personality. I enjoyed when my daughter had them.
I have been thinking about chickens (and guinea pigs) lately and wondering if I could keep some. Unfortunately, I think my daughter's German Shepherd would be a little too enthusiastic about the idea. I'm probably just waxing nostalgic in my dotage. But both chickens and guinea pigs had surprising amounts of personality. I enjoyed when my daughter had them.
89KeithChaffee
My father used to raise chickens. He'd buy a few dozen chicks every spring. It turns out that the time of year when you buy chicks is, at least in northern Vermont, too early in spring for the chicks to be put outdoors in the chicken coop. If you put chicks in a cold coop overnight, what you find in the morning is a small mountain of chicks in the corner of the coop, trying to stay warm, with all the chicks at the bottom of the mountain having been smothered to death.
So for the first few weeks of their lives, the chicks had to live indoors with us. We cleared out the dining room -- a room that we only used at holidays, when there were more family present than could be seated at the kitchen table -- covered the floor in several layers of newspaper, and laid 2x4s across the entrance to the room to keep the chicks from escaping. (All you need is a 2x4, baby chicks being notoriously bad at pole vaulting.)
Turns out that chicks peep pretty much non-stop. Twenty-hours a day. All day. Every day. And my bedroom was directly above the dining room. No one ever longed for spring nights to get warm more than I did during chick season.
So for the first few weeks of their lives, the chicks had to live indoors with us. We cleared out the dining room -- a room that we only used at holidays, when there were more family present than could be seated at the kitchen table -- covered the floor in several layers of newspaper, and laid 2x4s across the entrance to the room to keep the chicks from escaping. (All you need is a 2x4, baby chicks being notoriously bad at pole vaulting.)
Turns out that chicks peep pretty much non-stop. Twenty-hours a day. All day. Every day. And my bedroom was directly above the dining room. No one ever longed for spring nights to get warm more than I did during chick season.
90labfs39
>89 KeithChaffee: Gosh, that reminds me of the year we got a single chick, which I, in all my three or four year old wisdom named Peep-Peep. As you say, the peeping is constant (I can't imagine with a whole batch of them!) My parents quickly found P2 a farm that "adopted" it.
91rachbxl
>89 KeithChaffee:, >90 labfs39: I really fancy the idea of raising chicks but as soon as I think about the practicalities I go off the idea - so this year once again we got a couple of point-of-lay pullets who went straight into the outdoor coop!
92rachbxl
Dear Life: a Doctor's Story of Love, Loss and Consolation by Rachel Clarke
Non-fiction
Rachel Clarke, a former current affairs journalist, is a palliative care doctor, and this book is about death, dying, end-of-life care and loss. Sounds bleak? Maybe - but I will be surprised if I read a more uplifting book this year. Clarke decided relatively late to follow her beloved father into medicine, driven by a desire to help people and make a difference (that's the one thing, she tells us, that you shouldn't say when interviewing for medical school). Dear Life recounts her path to the hospice in which she works, caring for terminally ill patients (and, I would say, their loved ones) and most definitely making a difference to them, by minimising their pain and discomfort, yes, but equally importantly by making sure that their last days are as full of life as the patients wish them to be, be that with a big event like a last-minute hospice wedding (complete with white dress, wedding cake and flowers) or with a relatively simple thing like moving a patient's chair and opening the double doors so that he could see the trees, the birds, the sky, and be in touch with nature. There is so much humanity here, so much compassion, and it moved me to tears on several occasions. Clarke is self-deprecating and modest and is at pains to point out that the humanity comes from her patients and that she receives as much as she gives - but what a lot she and her colleagues give. Her relationship with her GP father is a thread running through the book, and when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer she finds herself having to step out of the doctor's role and into the daughter's...and even here she is humble and manages to resume work after her father's death with a new understanding of what family members endure. I see Rachel Clarke has written 2 other non-fiction books, one about life as a junior NHS doctor, the other about her experience during the Covid pandemic, and I will seek them out because she writes so well.
Non-fiction
Rachel Clarke, a former current affairs journalist, is a palliative care doctor, and this book is about death, dying, end-of-life care and loss. Sounds bleak? Maybe - but I will be surprised if I read a more uplifting book this year. Clarke decided relatively late to follow her beloved father into medicine, driven by a desire to help people and make a difference (that's the one thing, she tells us, that you shouldn't say when interviewing for medical school). Dear Life recounts her path to the hospice in which she works, caring for terminally ill patients (and, I would say, their loved ones) and most definitely making a difference to them, by minimising their pain and discomfort, yes, but equally importantly by making sure that their last days are as full of life as the patients wish them to be, be that with a big event like a last-minute hospice wedding (complete with white dress, wedding cake and flowers) or with a relatively simple thing like moving a patient's chair and opening the double doors so that he could see the trees, the birds, the sky, and be in touch with nature. There is so much humanity here, so much compassion, and it moved me to tears on several occasions. Clarke is self-deprecating and modest and is at pains to point out that the humanity comes from her patients and that she receives as much as she gives - but what a lot she and her colleagues give. Her relationship with her GP father is a thread running through the book, and when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer she finds herself having to step out of the doctor's role and into the daughter's...and even here she is humble and manages to resume work after her father's death with a new understanding of what family members endure. I see Rachel Clarke has written 2 other non-fiction books, one about life as a junior NHS doctor, the other about her experience during the Covid pandemic, and I will seek them out because she writes so well.
93rachbxl
Literary Life Revisited by Posy Simmonds
The original Literary Life came out about 20 years ago, a collection of the Literary Life cartoons that had appeared in The Guardian on a weekly basis over the previous two years, cartoons in which Posy Simmonds lampoons the pretensions of writers (and readers!) Literary Life Revisted is a bigger collection of Simmonds’ work. It’s a beautiful book physically, lovely thick paper and robust covers, a joy to have in my hands. And the cartoons…some are one-offs, whilst others bring back the same setting and characters every now and then (an independent bookshop and its staff and their attempts to bring in “real” customers (as opposed to those who duck in to get out of the rain and drip over the books), the pseudo advice column in which a doctor helps floundering writers fix their atrocious sex scenes, etc). The cartoons are charming, witty, often savage, wry. Unfortunately this was a library book so I read it quickly, and I don’t think that does it justice. This is a book to dip into and savour every now and then, then put aside.
The original Literary Life came out about 20 years ago, a collection of the Literary Life cartoons that had appeared in The Guardian on a weekly basis over the previous two years, cartoons in which Posy Simmonds lampoons the pretensions of writers (and readers!) Literary Life Revisted is a bigger collection of Simmonds’ work. It’s a beautiful book physically, lovely thick paper and robust covers, a joy to have in my hands. And the cartoons…some are one-offs, whilst others bring back the same setting and characters every now and then (an independent bookshop and its staff and their attempts to bring in “real” customers (as opposed to those who duck in to get out of the rain and drip over the books), the pseudo advice column in which a doctor helps floundering writers fix their atrocious sex scenes, etc). The cartoons are charming, witty, often savage, wry. Unfortunately this was a library book so I read it quickly, and I don’t think that does it justice. This is a book to dip into and savour every now and then, then put aside.
94labfs39
>92 rachbxl: This sounds like a lovely book for when I am in the right mood.
>93 rachbxl: I'm tempted by this one, and I love beautifully made books. Have you read Tom Gauld's literary cartoons?
>93 rachbxl: I'm tempted by this one, and I love beautifully made books. Have you read Tom Gauld's literary cartoons?
95lisapeet
>93 rachbxl: I love love love Posy Simmonds—when I was drawing and cartooning regularly, I always used to look at her work and wish mine had just a little of that self-assured look—but haven't read that one. Onto the list it goes.
96FlorenceArt
>93 rachbxl: I think Posy Simmonds received the main prize at the Angoulême festival last year. I had not heard of her. I should look her up at the library.
97rachbxl
>94 labfs39: Yes, you’d have to be in the right mood for Dear Life, but I think you’d enjoy it if you were, Lisa (I use the word “enjoy” deliberately).
I don’t know Tom Gauld so I’m off to look him up.
>95 lisapeet: I lack vocabulary for talking about cartoons (and graphic novels) but I can see why you say it’s self-assured. Some of my favourite cartoons in this book were one single frame (? (I told you I lack vocab ;-) ) enlarged to fill the whole page, and with minimum words. I kept turning back to them to marvel at how much Simmonds says with so little. Now I want to read Gemma Bovery. Do you still do any cartooning, Lisa? What a great skill to have. It’s school holidays here, and my 10-year old is spending her days producing her own cartoon strips. I did the same at that age but mine were always flat and lifeless (I’ve never been able to draw), whereas my daughter manages to put life into her drawings - I’m quite envious (as well as a bit “are you sure you’re my child???”)
>96 FlorenceArt: That’s right, Simmonds won the main Angoulême prize, which is indirectly how I came to read Literary Life Revisited - thanks to Angoulême there was an article in Le Soir’s cultural section about Simmonds recently, and it mentioned this book (has a French translation just come out, maybe?) A few days later I went to the library at work and there it was, Literary Life Revisited - book serendipity.
I don’t know Tom Gauld so I’m off to look him up.
>95 lisapeet: I lack vocabulary for talking about cartoons (and graphic novels) but I can see why you say it’s self-assured. Some of my favourite cartoons in this book were one single frame (? (I told you I lack vocab ;-) ) enlarged to fill the whole page, and with minimum words. I kept turning back to them to marvel at how much Simmonds says with so little. Now I want to read Gemma Bovery. Do you still do any cartooning, Lisa? What a great skill to have. It’s school holidays here, and my 10-year old is spending her days producing her own cartoon strips. I did the same at that age but mine were always flat and lifeless (I’ve never been able to draw), whereas my daughter manages to put life into her drawings - I’m quite envious (as well as a bit “are you sure you’re my child???”)
>96 FlorenceArt: That’s right, Simmonds won the main Angoulême prize, which is indirectly how I came to read Literary Life Revisited - thanks to Angoulême there was an article in Le Soir’s cultural section about Simmonds recently, and it mentioned this book (has a French translation just come out, maybe?) A few days later I went to the library at work and there it was, Literary Life Revisited - book serendipity.
98lisapeet
>97 rachbxl: I don't draw comics anymore really... that feels like such a different life. But I recently got a copy of Lynda Barry's Making Comics because I thought it would be fun to get back into, or at least have a smoother path between eye and hand the way I used to when I drew constantly. I had just gotten back into a good drawing practice at the end of 2022 when everything went south (ridiculous work stuff, husband health stuff) and I feel like I need to kick myself in the ass (there's a cartoon for ya) to get back there again, because it made me so happy.
99kidzdoc
Great review of Dear Life, Rachel; that definitely goes onto the wish list, and I'll be on the lookout for all of her books. I was also greatly impressed by With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix, another British palliative care specialist. She read the glowing review I posted on Facebook, and after she learned that I was a pediatric hospitalist (hospital based pediatrician) who shared an office space with the Palliative Care team in the hospital we began to communicate with each other. I met her during the 2017 or 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, where I attended her talk, got her to sign my book, shared lunch with her, and attended a talk by Karl Ove Knausgaard about one of his books. I thoroughly enjoyed spending part of a day with her, and I was impressed with her sensitivity and compassion, which seems to be an essential element of palliative care physicians and advanced practice providers (I'm still good friends with one of the former palliative care nurse practitioners, thanks to Facebook).
ETA: Ooh, the Free Library of Philadelphia has two copies of Dear Life that no one is reading, so I just requested a copy of one of them.
ETA: Ooh, the Free Library of Philadelphia has two copies of Dear Life that no one is reading, so I just requested a copy of one of them.
100rachbxl
>98 lisapeet: I hear you! I know how easy it is to stop doing things that make us happy - music, in my case - and not to come back to them even though we know they'll make us happy again. In the last couple of years I've joined an orchestra once again, and more recently a choir, and I get such a lot out of them both. But yes, it took a huge kick in the ass to get out there and do it. On Saturday evening I played in a wonderful concert and it made me think again how glad I am that I gave myself that kick.
>99 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl. I have to say that I thought of you as I read Dear Life as I thought it might be one for you. What a nice story about Kathryn Mannix!
>99 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl. I have to say that I thought of you as I read Dear Life as I thought it might be one for you. What a nice story about Kathryn Mannix!
101rachbxl
Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius
Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
I came across this during a trawl through the library's e-book collection of translated fiction and thought it looked interesting, though I hadn't heard of the novel or the writer. Ann-Helén Laestadius has already published several YA novels, and this is her first adult novel. She's of Sami descent herself, and the Sami people and culture are at the heart of Stolen, offering a glimpse into a world I know little about. The novel opens with 8-year old Elsa witnessing the slaughter of her reindeer by a local - non-Sami - man. He sees her watching and gestures to her that he will kill her, too, if she speaks out. Fearing for herself and her family, she stays silent, and the increasingly gruesome killing of her community's reindeer (they are reindeer herders) continues for years. They all know who is responsible but the police turn a blind eye, just another example of how the Sami are treated. In the second half of the novel Elsa is an adult who determines to change things.
There was a lot I liked here - Stolen reads like a love-song to a disappearing world and a disappearing way of life, and the people and places Laestadius describes are very real. I did find it a little lengthy, and I got a bit frustrated with unnecessary detail and explanation (please don't tell me AGAIN that Elsa inherited her grandmother's short legs - I was paying attention and I got it the first time), but I wonder if that's a hangover from YA writing. The translation reads for the most part very smoothly...but almost too much so, in that to me it sounds so American that I half-think it was set in some snowy wilderness in the USA, rather than in northern Europe (at one point one of the characters takes some Tylenol; I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I think it unlikely that Tylenol be the painkiller of choice (or even available) in Sweden). The smoothness of the translation is regularly interrupted by Sami words, including all the chapter headings (at least, I assume they are Sami but there's never any mention or explanation of them, they're just there) - some were self-explanatory (I soon worked out that gatki is a form of traditional dress, for example), but others I had no idea about. Not necessarily the translator's fault since I assume the Swedish original is peppered with Sami words - but maybe the average Swedish reader is a little more familiar with at least some of these words than the average reader of English? I don't know.
Anyway, on balance I'm glad I read this. I believe Laestadius has another adult book out soon, this time about the "nomad schools", schools set up by the Swedish authorities to force Sami children into the system, and I'll be on the look-out for an English translation coming out.
Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
I came across this during a trawl through the library's e-book collection of translated fiction and thought it looked interesting, though I hadn't heard of the novel or the writer. Ann-Helén Laestadius has already published several YA novels, and this is her first adult novel. She's of Sami descent herself, and the Sami people and culture are at the heart of Stolen, offering a glimpse into a world I know little about. The novel opens with 8-year old Elsa witnessing the slaughter of her reindeer by a local - non-Sami - man. He sees her watching and gestures to her that he will kill her, too, if she speaks out. Fearing for herself and her family, she stays silent, and the increasingly gruesome killing of her community's reindeer (they are reindeer herders) continues for years. They all know who is responsible but the police turn a blind eye, just another example of how the Sami are treated. In the second half of the novel Elsa is an adult who determines to change things.
There was a lot I liked here - Stolen reads like a love-song to a disappearing world and a disappearing way of life, and the people and places Laestadius describes are very real. I did find it a little lengthy, and I got a bit frustrated with unnecessary detail and explanation (please don't tell me AGAIN that Elsa inherited her grandmother's short legs - I was paying attention and I got it the first time), but I wonder if that's a hangover from YA writing. The translation reads for the most part very smoothly...but almost too much so, in that to me it sounds so American that I half-think it was set in some snowy wilderness in the USA, rather than in northern Europe (at one point one of the characters takes some Tylenol; I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I think it unlikely that Tylenol be the painkiller of choice (or even available) in Sweden). The smoothness of the translation is regularly interrupted by Sami words, including all the chapter headings (at least, I assume they are Sami but there's never any mention or explanation of them, they're just there) - some were self-explanatory (I soon worked out that gatki is a form of traditional dress, for example), but others I had no idea about. Not necessarily the translator's fault since I assume the Swedish original is peppered with Sami words - but maybe the average Swedish reader is a little more familiar with at least some of these words than the average reader of English? I don't know.
Anyway, on balance I'm glad I read this. I believe Laestadius has another adult book out soon, this time about the "nomad schools", schools set up by the Swedish authorities to force Sami children into the system, and I'll be on the look-out for an English translation coming out.
102labfs39
>101 rachbxl: I'm interested in reading about the Sami culture, I wonder if there are other better books out there that have been translated into English? Will have to do some research. I'll keep this one on the back burner for now.
103rachbxl
>102 labfs39: I read an interview with Ann-Helén Laestadius in which she mentions a couple of other books written by Sami women (as opposed to outsiders writing about the Sami) - I'll try to dig up the titles for you, I noted them down somewhere.
104rachbxl
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
Despite - or perhaps because of - having loved both The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, I didn't rush to read this, and even glowing reviews didn't do much to push me towards it. I think this was because I knew The House of Doors was "about" Somerset Maugham, which put me off for two reasons. Firstly, I know nothing about Somerset Maugham and haven't read any of his work, and secondly, I have a thing about (by which I mean against) novels which take a real person as one of their characters (I know, I know, I've enjoyed several of them, but I always think I'll hate them). My library hold kept coming up and I kept putting it off, but I told myself that if the hold came up again to coincide with my holiday last week, I'd read it then. Come up again at the right time it did, and no sooner had I started to read than I was hooked. Spellbound, in fact, and I remembered that that's what I love about Tan Twan Eng's writing; he weaves magic with words and carries me away to different worlds that I never want to leave. It doesn't matter whether he's writing about Somerset Maugham or a Japanese garden, it has the same effect on me. In contrast with Stolen, my previous read, this novel whizzed by all too quickly ("am I halfway through already?" as opposed to "am I still only halfway through?")
Despite - or perhaps because of - having loved both The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists, I didn't rush to read this, and even glowing reviews didn't do much to push me towards it. I think this was because I knew The House of Doors was "about" Somerset Maugham, which put me off for two reasons. Firstly, I know nothing about Somerset Maugham and haven't read any of his work, and secondly, I have a thing about (by which I mean against) novels which take a real person as one of their characters (I know, I know, I've enjoyed several of them, but I always think I'll hate them). My library hold kept coming up and I kept putting it off, but I told myself that if the hold came up again to coincide with my holiday last week, I'd read it then. Come up again at the right time it did, and no sooner had I started to read than I was hooked. Spellbound, in fact, and I remembered that that's what I love about Tan Twan Eng's writing; he weaves magic with words and carries me away to different worlds that I never want to leave. It doesn't matter whether he's writing about Somerset Maugham or a Japanese garden, it has the same effect on me. In contrast with Stolen, my previous read, this novel whizzed by all too quickly ("am I halfway through already?" as opposed to "am I still only halfway through?")
105labfs39
>104 rachbxl: I have been putting off House of Doors too, fearing it wouldn't live up to his previous two novels, and, well, Maugham. I'm so glad to read your review and know that it held up for you.
106FlorenceArt
>104 rachbxl: I understand about novels with real people in them. I still haven’t read Wolf Hall because of that. Also, I hate Maugham. And I’ve never read any Tan Twan Eng, so I guess I don’t know what I’m missing.
107rachbxl
>105 labfs39:, >106 FlorenceArt: in the end I don't think it matters whether Maugham in The House of Doors is Maugham or not, unless you're a Maugham fan anyway. There's another plotline which is based on a real (though not famous) person too, though I only realised quite late on that it wasn't entirely fictional and I don't think that affected my reading. Interestingly, though I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, it hasn't made me want to go and find out more about Maugham OR read any of his work. I'm happy just to leave him in the novel.
>106 FlorenceArt: Yes! Someone else who hasn't read Wolf Hall! (and for the same reason!) There aren't many of us around... As for Tan Twan Eng, I've really enjoyed all 3 of his novels but if you want to read any I would suggest starting with either of the other two rather than this one.
>106 FlorenceArt: Yes! Someone else who hasn't read Wolf Hall! (and for the same reason!) There aren't many of us around... As for Tan Twan Eng, I've really enjoyed all 3 of his novels but if you want to read any I would suggest starting with either of the other two rather than this one.
108Ann_R
>1 rachbxl: What a wonderful introduction! That's so nice when you suddenly find yourself enjoying what you are reading. I noticed you've read Chicken Health for Dummies. Just curious if you raise chickens?
As for Wolf Hall, for myself initially it was a tough reading experience. I had to rely on the audiobook to help get me through my hardbound copy. It ended up being a very rewarding experience though, and I've since reread the entire series a second time.
As for Wolf Hall, for myself initially it was a tough reading experience. I had to rely on the audiobook to help get me through my hardbound copy. It ended up being a very rewarding experience though, and I've since reread the entire series a second time.
