HanGerg hopes for stability in 2016
Forum75 Books Challenge for 2016
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1HanGerg
Goodness me! It's been such a long time since I started a new thread that I'd forgotten how to do it! That tells you as much about my contributions around here in 2015 as you need to know. I'd love to say I'll do better this year, but with an already active 5 month old around, that wish may not come true.... Anyway, welcome everyone! Old friends and newbies alike. I may not be the best correspondent this year, but as always I treasure and admire the warm friendships, really incisive reviews and comments and inspiring reading choices I always find in this, the cosiest of cosy corners on the web.
Well, I said no pictures of baby Leó would go on social media, but rules are made for breaking. Me and the little fella and one of my current favourite authors snuggling up just a few days out of hospital. 2015 was one of those years that seemed to cram in about 10 years worth of life experiences - some amazing, some awful and lots in-between - the kind of year the term "emotional rollercoaster" was invented for. Hence my wish in the title of this thread. How realistic that is, with Leó, life in a new city with a husband with a still-new job and possibly a new house in the pipeline, I don't know....
Well, I said no pictures of baby Leó would go on social media, but rules are made for breaking. Me and the little fella and one of my current favourite authors snuggling up just a few days out of hospital. 2015 was one of those years that seemed to cram in about 10 years worth of life experiences - some amazing, some awful and lots in-between - the kind of year the term "emotional rollercoaster" was invented for. Hence my wish in the title of this thread. How realistic that is, with Leó, life in a new city with a husband with a still-new job and possibly a new house in the pipeline, I don't know....
2HanGerg
In the end I read 62 books last year, which with everything else I had going on, doesn't feel like too bad a total. At one point I thought I might make it to the elusive (for me) 75, but that was pretty early on in the year when I was making really good progress - things slowed considerably in the tumultuous second half of the year. I think 2016 will not be the year I finally crack 75, but you never know....
2015 didn't seem to be a classic year quality wise, I only had two five star reads, which were:
Cyteen - C.J.Cherryh
I am so in love with Cherryh right now; different books bring different things to the table, and her "Foreigner" series is my current go-to comfort/treat read. But this book from her Alliance/Union series is something much deeper and darker, probing into that place where we become the people we are; what gets us there and how that influences the kind of lives we lead. It feels like it has something quite profound at its heart and is the work of an author at the peak of their powers.
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America - Jill Leovy
A book from late in the year that just caught my eye on the library bookshelves and ended up being one of those books that causes a small but still seismic shift in my world view. I guess you could find parallels with the Cherryh if you wanted; this is also a book that seeks to explain some of the seemingly inexplicable things about human nature placed in extreme situations, and it succeeds pretty spectacularly in doing so, to this complete lay person's way of thinking. If it were up to me, every person who ever joined a police force, any police force, would be made to read it before joining up.
(NB, I gave it this title to get the touchstone to work, but the version I read was actually titled "Ghettoside:Investigating a Homicide Epidemic")
Other honourable mentions to some of my favourite 4.5 stars:
Invitation to the Waltz - Rosamond Lehmann Virago coming of age tale that beautifully proves that teenage angst and awkwardness are hardly new inventions.
Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss A deserved SF classic.
Vurt - Jeff Noon Very weird contemporary SF that got extra points from being set in the city I was living in at the time of reading.
Queen Lucia - EF Benson One of the finds so far of my "150 books from 150 years" challenge. Waspish social satire that manages to find the human side to some terribly snobbish people but still lets you delight in their downfall. A delicately pulled off balancing act that made me feel I'd discovered a really interesting author, so I promptly bought a huge stock of his work for my Kindle for 99p or something equally silly. Looking forward to discovering more about him in 2016.
Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov Pitch black Ukranian "absurdist noir" that tackles that country's post-Soviet moral corruption through the story of a man with a touchingly bitter sweet relationship with his pet penguin. What's not to love?
2015 didn't seem to be a classic year quality wise, I only had two five star reads, which were:
Cyteen - C.J.Cherryh
I am so in love with Cherryh right now; different books bring different things to the table, and her "Foreigner" series is my current go-to comfort/treat read. But this book from her Alliance/Union series is something much deeper and darker, probing into that place where we become the people we are; what gets us there and how that influences the kind of lives we lead. It feels like it has something quite profound at its heart and is the work of an author at the peak of their powers.
Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America - Jill Leovy
A book from late in the year that just caught my eye on the library bookshelves and ended up being one of those books that causes a small but still seismic shift in my world view. I guess you could find parallels with the Cherryh if you wanted; this is also a book that seeks to explain some of the seemingly inexplicable things about human nature placed in extreme situations, and it succeeds pretty spectacularly in doing so, to this complete lay person's way of thinking. If it were up to me, every person who ever joined a police force, any police force, would be made to read it before joining up.
(NB, I gave it this title to get the touchstone to work, but the version I read was actually titled "Ghettoside:Investigating a Homicide Epidemic")
Other honourable mentions to some of my favourite 4.5 stars:
Invitation to the Waltz - Rosamond Lehmann Virago coming of age tale that beautifully proves that teenage angst and awkwardness are hardly new inventions.
Non-Stop - Brian Aldiss A deserved SF classic.
Vurt - Jeff Noon Very weird contemporary SF that got extra points from being set in the city I was living in at the time of reading.
Queen Lucia - EF Benson One of the finds so far of my "150 books from 150 years" challenge. Waspish social satire that manages to find the human side to some terribly snobbish people but still lets you delight in their downfall. A delicately pulled off balancing act that made me feel I'd discovered a really interesting author, so I promptly bought a huge stock of his work for my Kindle for 99p or something equally silly. Looking forward to discovering more about him in 2016.
Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov Pitch black Ukranian "absurdist noir" that tackles that country's post-Soviet moral corruption through the story of a man with a touchingly bitter sweet relationship with his pet penguin. What's not to love?
3HanGerg
Books Read
January
1.Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris 3/5
2.What Makes This Book So Great - Jo Walton 3.5/5
3.Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food - Gill Rapley 3.5/5
4.Baby Led Weaning: Step by Step - Julie Clark 4/5
February
5.Miss Mapp - E.F.Benson 3.5/5 (Kindle)
6.The Oncoming Storm - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (Kindle)
March
7.Falcone Strike (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 2) - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (Kindle)
8.Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope 5/5
9.The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters 2/5
April
10.Lucia in London - E.F. Benson 4/5
11.Deceiver - C.J.Cherryh 4/5
May
12.Green Earth (The Science in the Capital) - Kim Stanley Robinson 4.5/5
June
13.The three Body Problem - Cixin Liu 4/5
14The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula Le Guin 3.5/5
July
15.More Secrets of Happy Children - Steve Biddulph 3/5
16.Black Star Rising - Frederik Pohl 3/5
17.Dr.Thorne - Anthony Trollope 4.5/5 (Kindle)
August
18.Mapp and Lucia - E.F.Benson 4/5
19.The Bullet Catcher's Daughter - Rod Duncan 4/5
September
20.Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson 5/5
21.Soft - Rupert Thompson 3/5
22.Round Ireland With a Fridge - Tony Hawks 3/5
October
23.South Riding - Winifred Holtby 5/5
24.Intruder - C.J.Cherryh 4/5
November
25.Hunting Party - Elizabeth Moon 3.5/5
26.The Reason I Jump - Naoki Higashida 4/5
27.Black Sheep - Georgette Heyer 4/5
28.Moranthology - Caitlin Moran 3/5
29.Sporting Chance - Elizabeth Moon 3.5/5
30.Our Spoons Came From Woolworths - Barbara Comyns 3/5
December
31.Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman 3.5/5
32.Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver 4.5/5
4HanGerg
So, this is my big ongoing reading challenge. 150 books from the last 150 years, all taken (with a few very recent exceptions, as the list was published a few years ago) from the Guardian list of 1000 books everyone must read.
2015 was the first year, and in that I read 15 books from the list - even with my maths I know that at that rate, it'll take a decade to complete, so I'm hoping to up the ante this year if possible.
1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
1866 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky* READ 4/5
1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope *
1868 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott *
1869 Lorna Doone - RD Blackmore */> READ 3/5
1870 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
1871 The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer-Lytton * READ 2.5/5
1872 Erewhon - Samuel Butler * READ 3/5
1873 Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
1874 Middlemarch - George Elliot
1875: The Crime of Father Amaro - José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
1876 Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
1877 L'Assommoir - Emile Zola
1878 The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
1879 The Red Room - August Stringberg
1880 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
1881 Bouvard and Pécuchet - Gustave Flaubert
1882 The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain
1883 Treasure Island - R. L. Stevenson
1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1885 After London; or, Wild England - Richard Jefferies / King Solomon's Mines - H Rider Haggard
1886 Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
1887 She: A History of Adventure - H Rider Haggard
1888 Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant
1889 Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog - Jerome K. Jerome
1890 News from Nowhere - William Morris
1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
1892 The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
1893 The Odd Women - George Gissing
1894 The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
1895The Time Machine - HG Wells
1896 Effi Briest - Theodore Fontane
1897 The Invisible Man - H.G.Wells
1898 The Turn of the Screw - Henry James / The War of the Worlds- HG Wells
1899 The Awakening - Kate Chopin
1900 Sister Carrie - Theodor Dreiser
1901 Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
1902 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
1903 The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
1904 Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
1906 The Man of Property - John Galsworthy
1907 The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
1908 The Man who was Thursday - GK Chesterton * READ 3/5
1909 Institute Benjamenta - Robert Walser
1910 The Vagabond - Colette
1911 Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm
1912 A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
1913 Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence / Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust *
1914 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
1915 Pointed Roofs - Dorothy Richardson /Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman * READ 3.5/5 / The Rainbow - D H Lawrence
1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
1917 Christine - Elizabeth von Arnim
1918 The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
1919 Night and Day - Virginia Woolf READ 4/5
1920 Queen Lucia - EF Benson READ 4.5/5 A Voyage to Arcturus - David Lindsay /
1921 Rosa Sacaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
1922 One of Ours - Willa Cather
1923 A Lost Lady - Willa Cather
1924 The Rector's Daughter - FM Mayor /We - Yevgeny Zamyatin * READ 4/5
1925 The Polyglots - William Gerhardie
1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
1927 Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
1928 Ali and Nin - Kurban Said
1929 The Last September - Elizabeth Bowen / Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin / All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
1930 Narziss and Goldmund - Hermann Hesse
1931 Afternoon Men - Anthony Powell / Sanctuary - William Faulkner
1932 Invitation to the Waltz - Rosamond Lehmann* READ 4.5/5
1933 Frost in May - Antonia White / They Were Counted - Miklos Banffy / Love on the Dole - Walter Greenwood
1934 Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
1935 Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand
1936 South Riding - Winifred Holtby READ 5/5
1937 Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
1938 Count Belisarius - Robert Graves / The Beast Must Die - Nicholas Blake
1939 Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood / Rogue Male - Geoffrey Household
1940 The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead / Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
1941 No Bed for Bacon - Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
1942 Darkness Falls from the Air - Nigel Balchin
1943 Two Serious Ladies - Jane Bowles
1944 The Shrimp and the Anemone - LP Hartley
1945 The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
1946 Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
1947 Manservant and Maidservant - Ivy Compton-Burnett/ The Plague - Albert Camus
1948 I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
1949 The Parasites - Daphne du Maurier / The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
1950 The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge / A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
1951 Foundation - Isaac Asimov / My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
1952 The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate - Isaac Bashevis Singer / Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
1953 The Go-Between - LP Hartley /The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow / The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
1954 I Am Legend - Richard Matheson / Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
1955 Memed, my Hawk - Yasar Kemal / Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
1956 A Legacy - Sybille Bedford / Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz / The Lonely Londoners - Samuel Selvon
1957 The Fountain Overflows - Rebecca West / The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham *
1958 Non-Stop - Brian W Aldiss READ 4.5/5 / Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene: *
1959 Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut / Zazie in the Metro - Raymond Queneau /Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes
1960 The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks / Rogue Moon - Algis Budrys / God's Bit of Wood - Ousmane Sembène
1961 Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein (*)/ Solaris - Stanislaw Lem / The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
1962 The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis - Giorgio Bassani / One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1963 The Group - Mary McCarthy
1964 Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr READ 3/5
1965 Dune - Frank L Herbert
1966 The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
1967 The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien / A Season in Sinji - JL Carr
1968 A Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines
1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles / Travels With My Aunt - Graham Greene
1970 Ringworld - Larry Niven
1971 Chronicle in Stone - Ismael Kadare
1972 My Name Is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok / The Harpole Report - JL Carr
1973 Carrie's War - Nina Bawden
1974 The Forever War - Joe Haldeman * READ 4/5 / Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino / Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John Le Carre
1975 Hello Summer, Goodbye - Michael G Coney
1976 The Painter of Signs - RK Narayan / The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington
1977 Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
1978 Who Do You Think You Are? - Alice Munro
1979 Kindred - Octavia Butler / Sophie's Choice - William Styron
1980 Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban *
1981 Good Behaviour - Molly Keane / Sharpe's Eagle - Bernard Cornwell / Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (*)
1982 Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo / The Color Purple - Alice Walker / An Ice-Cream War - William Boyd
1983 Look At Me - Anita Brookner
1984 Money - Martin Amis
1985 Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy /Illywhacker - Peter Carey / White Noise - Don DeLillo
1986 The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
1987 In the Country of Last Things - Paul Auster:
1988 The Swimming-Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst / Nice Work - David Lodge
1989 Hyperion - Dan Simmons * /A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes
1990 Vineland - Thomas Pynchon
1991 A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
1992 The Children of Men - PD James / Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson / Hideous Kinky - Esther Freud/ Fatherland - Robert Harris
1993 Vurt - Jeff Noon READ 4.5/5
1994 Only Forward - Michael Marshall Smith / The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh
1995 The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro /Blindness - José Saramago / Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson / Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
1996 Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov READ 4.5/5 / The Insult - Rupert Thomson / The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester
1997 Great Apes - Will Self
1998 Death in Summer - William Trevor / The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills
1999 Darwin's Radio - Greg Bear / Cryptonomicon - Neil Stephenson / The Mighty Walzer - Howard Jacobson
2000 Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds * / The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon* /White Teeth - Zadie Smith
2001 American Gods - Neil Gaiman / The Lecturer's Tale — A Novel - James Hynes:
2002 Light - M John Harrison / The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
2003 Personality - Andrew O'Hagan
2004 Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
2005 On Beauty - Zadie Smith / Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
2006 Genesis - Bernard Beckett
2007 The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett / A Quiet Belief in Angels - RJ Ellory
2008 The Night Sessions - Ken Macleod / The Sacred Book of the Werewolf - Victor Pelevin
2009 The Earth Hums in B Flat - Mari Strachan
2010 Room - Emma Donoghue READ 4/5
2011 Embassytown - China Mieville
2012 2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson
2013 Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
2014 The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
2015 The Just City - Jo Walton
Ok, now it's your turn!
2015 was the first year, and in that I read 15 books from the list - even with my maths I know that at that rate, it'll take a decade to complete, so I'm hoping to up the ante this year if possible.
1865 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope *
1868 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott *
1870 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
1873 Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
1874 Middlemarch - George Elliot
1875: The Crime of Father Amaro - José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
1876 Daniel Deronda - George Eliot
1877 L'Assommoir - Emile Zola
1878 The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
1879 The Red Room - August Stringberg
1880 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
1881 Bouvard and Pécuchet - Gustave Flaubert
1882 The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain
1883 Treasure Island - R. L. Stevenson
1884 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
1885 After London; or, Wild England - Richard Jefferies / King Solomon's Mines - H Rider Haggard
1886 Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
1887 She: A History of Adventure - H Rider Haggard
1888 Pierre and Jean - Guy de Maupassant
1889 Three Men in a Boat: To Say Nothing of the Dog - Jerome K. Jerome
1890 News from Nowhere - William Morris
1891 The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
1892 The Diary of a Nobody - George Grossmith
1893 The Odd Women - George Gissing
1894 The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
1895The Time Machine - HG Wells
1896 Effi Briest - Theodore Fontane
1897 The Invisible Man - H.G.Wells
1898 The Turn of the Screw - Henry James / The War of the Worlds- HG Wells
1899 The Awakening - Kate Chopin
1900 Sister Carrie - Theodor Dreiser
1901 Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann
1902 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
1903 The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
1904 Nostromo - Joseph Conrad
1905 The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
1906 The Man of Property - John Galsworthy
1907 The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
1909 Institute Benjamenta - Robert Walser
1910 The Vagabond - Colette
1911 Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm
1912 A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
1913 Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence / Remembrance of Things Past - Marcel Proust *
1914 The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
1917 Christine - Elizabeth von Arnim
1918 The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
1921 Rosa Sacaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
1922 One of Ours - Willa Cather
1923 A Lost Lady - Willa Cather
1924 The Rector's Daughter - FM Mayor /
1925 The Polyglots - William Gerhardie
1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
1927 Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
1928 Ali and Nin - Kurban Said
1929 The Last September - Elizabeth Bowen / Berlin Alexanderplatz - Alfred Döblin / All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
1930 Narziss and Goldmund - Hermann Hesse
1931 Afternoon Men - Anthony Powell / Sanctuary - William Faulkner
1933 Frost in May - Antonia White / They Were Counted - Miklos Banffy / Love on the Dole - Walter Greenwood
1934 Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
1935 Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand
1937 Star Maker - Olaf Stapledon
1938 Count Belisarius - Robert Graves / The Beast Must Die - Nicholas Blake
1939 Goodbye to Berlin - Christopher Isherwood / Rogue Male - Geoffrey Household
1940 The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead / Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler
1941 No Bed for Bacon - Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
1942 Darkness Falls from the Air - Nigel Balchin
1943 Two Serious Ladies - Jane Bowles
1944 The Shrimp and the Anemone - LP Hartley
1945 The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
1946 Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
1947 Manservant and Maidservant - Ivy Compton-Burnett/ The Plague - Albert Camus
1948 I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
1949 The Parasites - Daphne du Maurier / The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
1950 The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge / A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
1951 Foundation - Isaac Asimov / My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
1952 The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate - Isaac Bashevis Singer / Excellent Women - Barbara Pym
1953 The Go-Between - LP Hartley /The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow / The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
1954 I Am Legend - Richard Matheson / Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
1955 Memed, my Hawk - Yasar Kemal / Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
1956 A Legacy - Sybille Bedford / Palace Walk - Naguib Mahfouz / The Lonely Londoners - Samuel Selvon
1957 The Fountain Overflows - Rebecca West / The Midwich Cuckoos - John Wyndham *
1959 Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut / Zazie in the Metro - Raymond Queneau /Absolute Beginners - Colin MacInnes
1960 The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks / Rogue Moon - Algis Budrys / God's Bit of Wood - Ousmane Sembène
1961 Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein (*)/ Solaris - Stanislaw Lem / The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
1962 The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis - Giorgio Bassani / One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1963 The Group - Mary McCarthy
1965 Dune - Frank L Herbert
1966 The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
1967 The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien / A Season in Sinji - JL Carr
1968 A Kestrel for a Knave - Barry Hines
1969 The French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles / Travels With My Aunt - Graham Greene
1970 Ringworld - Larry Niven
1971 Chronicle in Stone - Ismael Kadare
1972 My Name Is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok / The Harpole Report - JL Carr
1973 Carrie's War - Nina Bawden
1975 Hello Summer, Goodbye - Michael G Coney
1976 The Painter of Signs - RK Narayan / The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington
1977 Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
1978 Who Do You Think You Are? - Alice Munro
1979 Kindred - Octavia Butler / Sophie's Choice - William Styron
1980 Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban *
1981 Good Behaviour - Molly Keane / Sharpe's Eagle - Bernard Cornwell / Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (*)
1982 Sour Sweet - Timothy Mo / The Color Purple - Alice Walker / An Ice-Cream War - William Boyd
1983 Look At Me - Anita Brookner
1984 Money - Martin Amis
1985 Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy /Illywhacker - Peter Carey / White Noise - Don DeLillo
1986 The Sportswriter - Richard Ford
1987 In the Country of Last Things - Paul Auster:
1988 The Swimming-Pool Library - Alan Hollinghurst / Nice Work - David Lodge
1989 Hyperion - Dan Simmons * /A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters - Julian Barnes
1990 Vineland - Thomas Pynchon
1991 A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley
1992 The Children of Men - PD James / Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson / Hideous Kinky - Esther Freud/ Fatherland - Robert Harris
1994 Only Forward - Michael Marshall Smith / The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh
1995 The Unconsoled - Kazuo Ishiguro /Blindness - José Saramago / Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson / Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
1997 Great Apes - Will Self
1998 Death in Summer - William Trevor / The Restraint of Beasts - Magnus Mills
1999 Darwin's Radio - Greg Bear / Cryptonomicon - Neil Stephenson / The Mighty Walzer - Howard Jacobson
2000 Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds * / The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon* /White Teeth - Zadie Smith
2001 American Gods - Neil Gaiman / The Lecturer's Tale — A Novel - James Hynes:
2002 Light - M John Harrison / The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
2003 Personality - Andrew O'Hagan
2004 Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
2005 On Beauty - Zadie Smith / Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
2006 Genesis - Bernard Beckett
2007 The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett / A Quiet Belief in Angels - RJ Ellory
2008 The Night Sessions - Ken Macleod / The Sacred Book of the Werewolf - Victor Pelevin
2009 The Earth Hums in B Flat - Mari Strachan
2011 Embassytown - China Mieville
2012 2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson
2013 Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
2014 The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
2015 The Just City - Jo Walton
Ok, now it's your turn!
6HanGerg
Why thanks Jim. It amazes me how you always manage to be the first! ; )
I'm just about hanging in here, even though I may not have much time to devote to LT this year. I value it too much to abandon it though, and I know me, if I let it slide for one year, that'll be it! So, I'm back for another round, and very much looking forward to it!
I'm just about hanging in here, even though I may not have much time to devote to LT this year. I value it too much to abandon it though, and I know me, if I let it slide for one year, that'll be it! So, I'm back for another round, and very much looking forward to it!
7PaulCranswick
Great to see you back Hannah. xx
9HanGerg
Thank-you Paul and Rhian! Very much glad to have two such old campaigners (in the nicest possible sense!) back in the fray. I would promise to be more active in your threads this year, but in both cases, you hardly need little old me to keep the conversation ticking along! Lovely to see you both here though, as always!
10scaifea
Hi, Hannah! Ooof, a 5-month-old will certainly keep you busy! Best of luck finding reading time!
11souloftherose
Welcome back Hannah!
12dk_phoenix
Welcome back and good luck with reading/LT-ing! There are a lot of us back this year with hopes of finding time to continue. What I love about this group is that even if we vanish for a bit, we're welcomed back as if we never left. :)
13ronincats
So glad to see you are back this year, Hannah! What is the living situation now? How does your husband like his job? How do you like your new city? Are you getting any art done? And finally, how is that 5 month old?
14charl08
Admire your ambition to read with everything you've got going on. Are there still lovely second hand bookshops in Lincoln (although I guess a key question is whether they're pram accessible too)?
15PaulCranswick
>14 charl08: I also remember a good second hand bookshop in Lincoln down the hill from the cathedral. Enjoy what's left of your Sunday, Hannah.
16HanGerg
>10 scaifea: Hi Amber! Yes, finding time to read may be a bit of a challenge this year! But, because of having a little one in the house, we've resolved to cut our TV watching to practically zero, so conversely, that might free up some time - that's the plan, anyway!
>11 souloftherose: Hi Heather! Great to see you here!
>12 dk_phoenix: Faith! Wow, welcome back indeed! So nice to see you around these parts once again!
>13 ronincats: Hi Roni! Wow, that's a lot of questions all at once! Let's see....
1. Currently, we are living in a nice but pricey and quite small rented flat. We had to find it in a real hurry; in fact, I wasn't even here when my husband choose it, as he was kind of commuting to work here from Devon for a few weeks. That was a crazy time! He basically had two evenings after work in which to find us a place to live, so all things considered he did very well! It's not ideal, but it works for now. Medium-long term we want to buy, and have spent most of our weekends since arriving looking at houses. Something pretty much perfect has just come up and we are, for the third time, starting the process of buying in Lincoln. Fingers crossed that it's third time lucky!
2. My husband loves his new job (lecturer in film studies at Lincoln uni). Trouble is, he has had to contend with the twin pressures of starting a new job; learning the ropes, meeting lots of new work colleagues, making a good impression etc whilst frantically rushing to finish his latest research project which takes the form of a 110,000 word book that is due for submission this Friday. Hopefully, I might actually get to see him a bit after that! ; )
3.Lincoln is a weird place. The area around the cathedral and castle is lovely, and it has many charming parts in that area of the city. Away from that though, there's quite a lot of poverty and deprivation, and being such a small place (only about 90,000 inhabitants), the two are in quite close contact in a way that just doesn't happen in other places. Also, to me it feels like there's very little middle ground - you're either a have, and probably have a very nice lifestyle, or you're a have not, or, the third option, you're a student. It makes for a weird social mix that I haven't really got my head around yet.
4. Art wise, there's quite a lot to report! But no, I haven't really done much - yet! What I have managed to do is get involved with a bit of a creatives professional network that has already thrown up some interesting opportunities for collaboration further down the line. Also, I have two exhibitions lined up for 2016 already! And all this without really exerting myself hugely to network - it just kind of happened. One of the benefits of the "small pond effect" I guess. Making links in Manchester was never this easy, even though I considered the creatives of Manchester a remarkably open and friendly bunch. Anyway, the first exhibition is in March and at a little gallery just round the corner from our current flat. The owner is a lovely friendly guy who I got along well with straight away, and before I knew it, he was putting dates in the diary! I'll be exhibiting some of my photographs, of which I have plenty already printed and ready to go, and small paintings on paper, which I will have to produce more of. Luckily they're quite quick to do so I'm reasonably hopeful I can produce some more in time for the show, and what a brilliant incentive to find time to do some art! So I'm hopeful that will actually happen sometime soon!
5. I see you saved the most important till last. He is fabulous and terrific; just a delight. He's smiling and laughing a lot now and loves playing "row your boat" with me, so he can sit up but not unaided. Rolling over is the latest big project he has on the go, although just staring in awed wonder at his own hands is still a firm favourite. He has always been a pretty good sleeper (thank GOODNESS! I really don't know how I would have coped with a bad sleeper!) and most night now he sleeps through from the 12am feed until about 7-8am, making me a very lucky mum, I know! Weaning is the next big thing on the horizon - we're going to give this baby-led weaning stuff a try, which in a nutshell means no puree, just batons of food that they choose from and feed themselves. Apparently it makes for less fussy eaters which I'm all in favour of, but how it works in practical terms we shall soon begin to find out. There's a lot of mess apparently, which might not be so great in our all white rental apartment, but we'll see.
Phew! Ok, so that's the life update done anyway! No need to write one in up top now, so thanks for asking Roni!!
>14 charl08: Hi Charl, welcome back! Yes, there are a few pretty good bookstores, but as you say, not all of them so buggy friendly, so I haven't had quite the look around I would like. The one Paul is probably thinking of in particular is a real maze of split levels and narrow passageways; the kind of thing I adore usually, but just don't have chance to visit at the moment! Hopefully, once my husband's book is done I'll be able to do some non-baby shopping and get to have a browse!
>11 souloftherose: Hi Heather! Great to see you here!
>12 dk_phoenix: Faith! Wow, welcome back indeed! So nice to see you around these parts once again!
>13 ronincats: Hi Roni! Wow, that's a lot of questions all at once! Let's see....
1. Currently, we are living in a nice but pricey and quite small rented flat. We had to find it in a real hurry; in fact, I wasn't even here when my husband choose it, as he was kind of commuting to work here from Devon for a few weeks. That was a crazy time! He basically had two evenings after work in which to find us a place to live, so all things considered he did very well! It's not ideal, but it works for now. Medium-long term we want to buy, and have spent most of our weekends since arriving looking at houses. Something pretty much perfect has just come up and we are, for the third time, starting the process of buying in Lincoln. Fingers crossed that it's third time lucky!
2. My husband loves his new job (lecturer in film studies at Lincoln uni). Trouble is, he has had to contend with the twin pressures of starting a new job; learning the ropes, meeting lots of new work colleagues, making a good impression etc whilst frantically rushing to finish his latest research project which takes the form of a 110,000 word book that is due for submission this Friday. Hopefully, I might actually get to see him a bit after that! ; )
3.Lincoln is a weird place. The area around the cathedral and castle is lovely, and it has many charming parts in that area of the city. Away from that though, there's quite a lot of poverty and deprivation, and being such a small place (only about 90,000 inhabitants), the two are in quite close contact in a way that just doesn't happen in other places. Also, to me it feels like there's very little middle ground - you're either a have, and probably have a very nice lifestyle, or you're a have not, or, the third option, you're a student. It makes for a weird social mix that I haven't really got my head around yet.
4. Art wise, there's quite a lot to report! But no, I haven't really done much - yet! What I have managed to do is get involved with a bit of a creatives professional network that has already thrown up some interesting opportunities for collaboration further down the line. Also, I have two exhibitions lined up for 2016 already! And all this without really exerting myself hugely to network - it just kind of happened. One of the benefits of the "small pond effect" I guess. Making links in Manchester was never this easy, even though I considered the creatives of Manchester a remarkably open and friendly bunch. Anyway, the first exhibition is in March and at a little gallery just round the corner from our current flat. The owner is a lovely friendly guy who I got along well with straight away, and before I knew it, he was putting dates in the diary! I'll be exhibiting some of my photographs, of which I have plenty already printed and ready to go, and small paintings on paper, which I will have to produce more of. Luckily they're quite quick to do so I'm reasonably hopeful I can produce some more in time for the show, and what a brilliant incentive to find time to do some art! So I'm hopeful that will actually happen sometime soon!
5. I see you saved the most important till last. He is fabulous and terrific; just a delight. He's smiling and laughing a lot now and loves playing "row your boat" with me, so he can sit up but not unaided. Rolling over is the latest big project he has on the go, although just staring in awed wonder at his own hands is still a firm favourite. He has always been a pretty good sleeper (thank GOODNESS! I really don't know how I would have coped with a bad sleeper!) and most night now he sleeps through from the 12am feed until about 7-8am, making me a very lucky mum, I know! Weaning is the next big thing on the horizon - we're going to give this baby-led weaning stuff a try, which in a nutshell means no puree, just batons of food that they choose from and feed themselves. Apparently it makes for less fussy eaters which I'm all in favour of, but how it works in practical terms we shall soon begin to find out. There's a lot of mess apparently, which might not be so great in our all white rental apartment, but we'll see.
Phew! Ok, so that's the life update done anyway! No need to write one in up top now, so thanks for asking Roni!!
>14 charl08: Hi Charl, welcome back! Yes, there are a few pretty good bookstores, but as you say, not all of them so buggy friendly, so I haven't had quite the look around I would like. The one Paul is probably thinking of in particular is a real maze of split levels and narrow passageways; the kind of thing I adore usually, but just don't have chance to visit at the moment! Hopefully, once my husband's book is done I'll be able to do some non-baby shopping and get to have a browse!
17souloftherose
>16 HanGerg: Lots of news! Lovely to hear how Leo is getting on (I love the way babies can be so fascinated by stuff we take for granted) and good to hear he is letting you get some sleep. Hope the latest house offer is accepted and goes through and that the art exhibitions go well.
18HanGerg
>17 souloftherose: Thanks my luv! We are currently keeping fingers and toes crossed that we can get the mortgage offer we need to be able to afford the house. It all looks good at the moment although after the house buying nightmare we had last year (long story short - the seller walked away with no warning, days before we were due to move in, after already making us wait beyond our preferred moving in date), I won't believe it's actually happening until we have the keys in our hands!
Just to say, I've filled in a lot of missing info up top if you want to glance that way. Your reward will be a glimpse of the little fella - just a glimpse mind you...
Just to say, I've filled in a lot of missing info up top if you want to glance that way. Your reward will be a glimpse of the little fella - just a glimpse mind you...
19ronincats
Ooh, love the picture! And this isn't exactly like Facebook. Thank you so much for your answers to all my questions.
20lauralkeet
De-lurking to say I love the photo and it's nice to see you in it as well!
21souloftherose
>1 HanGerg: Awwww! (*melts from cuteness overload*)
22charl08
Beautiful picture. May he continue to sleep so peacefully :-)
I just read above your favourites included Ghettoside and Death and the Penguin. Enjoyed both (although for very different reasons of course).
I just read above your favourites included Ghettoside and Death and the Penguin. Enjoyed both (although for very different reasons of course).
23HanGerg
Thanks for all the picture love, Roni, Laura, Heather and Charl. Charl, Death and the Penguin was handed to me by a friend who was very heartily recommending it (nay, DEMANDING that I read it!) She gave me the sequel Penguin Lost at the same time. It didn't seem to me to be a book that especially needed a sequel, so I'm not going to rush to get to that one (she's in no hurry to have it back, so it's fine!), but it does look like it takes the story off in a new, interesting direction.
Ok, so I'm going to try not to get horribly behind on my reviews this year, like I did last year. To this end, I'm going to keep them brief, and I'm going to dispense with any fancy stuff like posting a picture of the cover or any of that gubbins.
1.Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris 3/5
I've read a few collections of David Sedaris' essays now; and as a general rule I enjoy his work. He has a fairly unique authorial voice I would say; American but also somehow quite European from his stints of living in France and the UK, rooted in family life but also detached and ironic, queer yet homespun. Also, I have recently been really enjoying his BBC Radio 4 series where he reads his essays aloud, which gives them a whole new dimension. Several of the ones collected in this volume are ones I've heard him reading, and somehow they now seem a little diminished on the page in comparison. There are still some lovely moments here, but overall I found lots of these essays sliding out of the memory banks the minute I turned the page.
2.What Makes This Book So Great - Jo Walton 3.5/5
I haven't read any of Jo Walton's fiction yet ( I know, I know!), but this book is such a firm favourite here on LT I somehow got to this one first. Reading this makes me want to read her fiction, as she is a warm and knowledgeable presence in this book, not to mention a very thoughtful expert of SF tales and their conventions, motivations and effects. All that was good. But the so-called "classics" that she is reflecting on are somewhat mis-named I think; I hadn't heard of most of the books she talks about here, and have read even fewer. So much the better for getting recommendations perhaps, but not so good for reflecting on a shared experience, as I was hoping to do. This is especially a problem for the two huge series reviews that are in here, one of which I've read one book of, and one of which I've never even heard of, so reading a detailed recap of each book in the series was kind of pointless, not to mention spoiler-rific and I largely skipped them. The broader essays on reading and re-reading were interesting and I would have enjoyed more of that, but on the minus side this book's origin as a series of blog posts was a bit too much in evidence at times, as it felt like interesting topics that could have stood a lot more discussion were dealt with fairly superficially, so overall this collection was a bit hit and miss for me.
Ok, so I'm going to try not to get horribly behind on my reviews this year, like I did last year. To this end, I'm going to keep them brief, and I'm going to dispense with any fancy stuff like posting a picture of the cover or any of that gubbins.
1.Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls - David Sedaris 3/5
I've read a few collections of David Sedaris' essays now; and as a general rule I enjoy his work. He has a fairly unique authorial voice I would say; American but also somehow quite European from his stints of living in France and the UK, rooted in family life but also detached and ironic, queer yet homespun. Also, I have recently been really enjoying his BBC Radio 4 series where he reads his essays aloud, which gives them a whole new dimension. Several of the ones collected in this volume are ones I've heard him reading, and somehow they now seem a little diminished on the page in comparison. There are still some lovely moments here, but overall I found lots of these essays sliding out of the memory banks the minute I turned the page.
2.What Makes This Book So Great - Jo Walton 3.5/5
I haven't read any of Jo Walton's fiction yet ( I know, I know!), but this book is such a firm favourite here on LT I somehow got to this one first. Reading this makes me want to read her fiction, as she is a warm and knowledgeable presence in this book, not to mention a very thoughtful expert of SF tales and their conventions, motivations and effects. All that was good. But the so-called "classics" that she is reflecting on are somewhat mis-named I think; I hadn't heard of most of the books she talks about here, and have read even fewer. So much the better for getting recommendations perhaps, but not so good for reflecting on a shared experience, as I was hoping to do. This is especially a problem for the two huge series reviews that are in here, one of which I've read one book of, and one of which I've never even heard of, so reading a detailed recap of each book in the series was kind of pointless, not to mention spoiler-rific and I largely skipped them. The broader essays on reading and re-reading were interesting and I would have enjoyed more of that, but on the minus side this book's origin as a series of blog posts was a bit too much in evidence at times, as it felt like interesting topics that could have stood a lot more discussion were dealt with fairly superficially, so overall this collection was a bit hit and miss for me.
24charl08
I think Death and the Penguin pretty much stands on its own. I can't imagine a sequel.
I have found some wonderful books reading 'books about books' but also some authors that just drove me round the bend. I picked up one of Larry McMurty's memoirs on books and reading and didn't even finish it, for example. I think it has to be quite a personal reflection for me to find it powerful, not just a listing of great books bought or read, or even those enjoyed.
I have found some wonderful books reading 'books about books' but also some authors that just drove me round the bend. I picked up one of Larry McMurty's memoirs on books and reading and didn't even finish it, for example. I think it has to be quite a personal reflection for me to find it powerful, not just a listing of great books bought or read, or even those enjoyed.
25HanGerg
Agreed about the "Penguin..." sequel; kind of unnecessary, but it's in the house now so I'll probably pick it up at some point.
I think I would like to read more "books about books", although I read the second volume of Woolf's The Common Reader last year and really didn't get along with it. I'm not sure what I was expecting; some insight into what Woolf enjoys about other's work, or what she thinks makes for great fiction or something, but that book wasn't it. It's hard to say exactly what it was. Just plot recaps of books that are now largely out of print and forgotten, if memory serves. There's the odd seering Woolfian insight into life the universe and everything, so really not enough to justify the effort of reading the whole volume. Which books would you recommend Charl?
I think I would like to read more "books about books", although I read the second volume of Woolf's The Common Reader last year and really didn't get along with it. I'm not sure what I was expecting; some insight into what Woolf enjoys about other's work, or what she thinks makes for great fiction or something, but that book wasn't it. It's hard to say exactly what it was. Just plot recaps of books that are now largely out of print and forgotten, if memory serves. There's the odd seering Woolfian insight into life the universe and everything, so really not enough to justify the effort of reading the whole volume. Which books would you recommend Charl?
26HanGerg
So, my main reading at the moment is Green Earth by Kim Stanley Robinson which is kind of a chunkster so progress is fairly slow. In the meantime it's all wall-to-wall baby weaning books and undemanding quick kindle reads.
3.Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food - Gill Rapley 3.5/5
The book on BLW by the lady who popularised it in the UK, so it's very evangelical in selling you the approach (in a nutshell, no puree, let baby choose what they want to eat from a healthy selection you put in front of them, which they will eat in their own good time with little to no intervention from adults), but also very repetitive and vague.
4.Baby Led Weaning: Step by Step - Julie Clark 4/5
If you want to wean your baby the baby led way, you could do worse than starting with this. Lays out the basic principle, then provides good concrete examples of what to expect your baby to be able to handle at different ages, and with practical suggestions of foods that are suitable for each stage.
5.Miss Mapp - E.F.Benson 3.5/5
More snobbery in small town England with a monstrous anti-heroine at the centre, but not quite as fun or as finely honed as my first experience of Benson in Queen Lucia. I still have a tonne of these to read so hopefully the quality will bounce back.
3.Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby to Love Good Food - Gill Rapley 3.5/5
The book on BLW by the lady who popularised it in the UK, so it's very evangelical in selling you the approach (in a nutshell, no puree, let baby choose what they want to eat from a healthy selection you put in front of them, which they will eat in their own good time with little to no intervention from adults), but also very repetitive and vague.
4.Baby Led Weaning: Step by Step - Julie Clark 4/5
If you want to wean your baby the baby led way, you could do worse than starting with this. Lays out the basic principle, then provides good concrete examples of what to expect your baby to be able to handle at different ages, and with practical suggestions of foods that are suitable for each stage.
5.Miss Mapp - E.F.Benson 3.5/5
More snobbery in small town England with a monstrous anti-heroine at the centre, but not quite as fun or as finely honed as my first experience of Benson in Queen Lucia. I still have a tonne of these to read so hopefully the quality will bounce back.
27charl08
>25 HanGerg: The one I really loved is Ex Libris - essays about growing up in a family of writers, ideas about words, worries about books (the first time I read a dicussion of combining books when you move in with someone - the horror! - at what point do you acknowledge this is permanent, maybe we don't need X copies of all the classics that we picked up along the way). And 84 Charing Cross Road of course. And The Library at Night, which someone on one of the threads has just read and raved about, and reminded me thar I have a cipy somewhere. More randomly, I've also read some great history about French publishers getting round censorship (they used to carry books in bit over the alps in packing cases that claimed to be other things. The Forbidden Bestsellers of PreRevolutionary France.
(Touchstones fixed!) Good luck with the weaning.
(Touchstones fixed!) Good luck with the weaning.
28PaulCranswick
>26 HanGerg: Oftentimes the best way to read a chunkster is to weave some smaller ones around it.
Have a great weekend, Hannah.
Have a great weekend, Hannah.
29sibylline
Nice to hear from you - yes, good luck with weaning. I loved trying out new foods to see what the LD did and didn't like. One friend talked once about her child's first taste of a lemon tart, she didn't expect him to like it but he lit up like a 100 watt bulb! Loved it! The LD was mad for watermelon. We had to simply remove all her clothing and let her loose with it. fun times!
30HanGerg
Hello lovely visitors, namely Charl, Paul and Lucy!
>27 charl08: Thanks for the recommendations Charl, I will check out those recommendations and add them to the wishlist!
>28 PaulCranswick: I am indeed weaving Paul! Luckily, the aforementioned chunkster is pretty easy to dip in and out of, so my grasp of the storyline is not suffering too much for being neglected for other, easier to handle things at times.
>29 sibylline: Thanks for the weaning wishes! I've heard several reports of children loving lemon Lucy (that's a lot of L's!). My husband amongst them; apparently he used to eat them like oranges! So far Leó has shown an interest in most things we've given him to try, from fairly bitter cranberries (which we had just now, stewed down to kind of a jam, on our Oatibix) to the yummy sweetness of mango which is obviously a hit. He also likes the sweet root veg; sweet potato is very popular, as is butternut squash. He'll give most things a go, though and it's kind of hard to tell if he's rejecting anything, as most of the food gets pushed out of his mouth as he chews anyway!
The baby-led aspect of weaning has been a bit less successful. I found he was sucking quite large chunks of stuff into his mouth and then trying to swallow it without chewing, resulting in scary gagging. As a result we have wrested back a little control over the eating, and now largely give him stuff ourselves, either on the end of a spoon or from our hands. It's still early days though.
Ok, back to the books!
6.The Oncoming Storm - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (kindle)
This was one of those cheap deal books you can get for Kindles which I thought I'd take a punt on, as it sounded like fun, and it was - just the kind of light breezy read I was looking for. I almost gave it 4 stars in fact, as I enjoyed it hugely, but the writing is a touch clunky in places so I reined myself in a bit. It's a solid start to what is obviously going to be a series that has the potential to span multiple volumes, as it establishes an interesting set-up and some good characters within it, several of whom could take the story arc forward. This one is about a young military commander who has shunned her family's wealth and influence to prove her worth in the "Navy" (their term for their fleet of hyperspace traversing spaceships). Trouble is, daddy doesn't take that as a sign that he should stop meddling, and has had her promoted beyond her experience to become commander of her own ship just as it looks like war is about to break out with a neighbouring empire of religious fanatics. Can she prove up to the task and win over the hearts and minds of her crew at this crucial moment, and will even that small triumph be enough to avert the disaster that seems to be looming on the soon-to-be frontline which is their first posting?
>27 charl08: Thanks for the recommendations Charl, I will check out those recommendations and add them to the wishlist!
>28 PaulCranswick: I am indeed weaving Paul! Luckily, the aforementioned chunkster is pretty easy to dip in and out of, so my grasp of the storyline is not suffering too much for being neglected for other, easier to handle things at times.
>29 sibylline: Thanks for the weaning wishes! I've heard several reports of children loving lemon Lucy (that's a lot of L's!). My husband amongst them; apparently he used to eat them like oranges! So far Leó has shown an interest in most things we've given him to try, from fairly bitter cranberries (which we had just now, stewed down to kind of a jam, on our Oatibix) to the yummy sweetness of mango which is obviously a hit. He also likes the sweet root veg; sweet potato is very popular, as is butternut squash. He'll give most things a go, though and it's kind of hard to tell if he's rejecting anything, as most of the food gets pushed out of his mouth as he chews anyway!
The baby-led aspect of weaning has been a bit less successful. I found he was sucking quite large chunks of stuff into his mouth and then trying to swallow it without chewing, resulting in scary gagging. As a result we have wrested back a little control over the eating, and now largely give him stuff ourselves, either on the end of a spoon or from our hands. It's still early days though.
Ok, back to the books!
6.The Oncoming Storm - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (kindle)
This was one of those cheap deal books you can get for Kindles which I thought I'd take a punt on, as it sounded like fun, and it was - just the kind of light breezy read I was looking for. I almost gave it 4 stars in fact, as I enjoyed it hugely, but the writing is a touch clunky in places so I reined myself in a bit. It's a solid start to what is obviously going to be a series that has the potential to span multiple volumes, as it establishes an interesting set-up and some good characters within it, several of whom could take the story arc forward. This one is about a young military commander who has shunned her family's wealth and influence to prove her worth in the "Navy" (their term for their fleet of hyperspace traversing spaceships). Trouble is, daddy doesn't take that as a sign that he should stop meddling, and has had her promoted beyond her experience to become commander of her own ship just as it looks like war is about to break out with a neighbouring empire of religious fanatics. Can she prove up to the task and win over the hearts and minds of her crew at this crucial moment, and will even that small triumph be enough to avert the disaster that seems to be looming on the soon-to-be frontline which is their first posting?
31SandDune
Not really weaning but J was very fond of blue cheese at the age of two (Saint Agur and Stilton were his favourites). I remember taking him out for Sunday lunch with friends at the age of five and he ordered the cheese board rather than dessert - everyone thought it was very funny.
32ronincats
Hey, Hannah, great to see you emerge from the miasma of motherhood into the rarefied atmosphere of LT--okay, maybe not so much miasma and rarefiety, but good to have an update anyway.
33PaulCranswick
Have a great weekend Hannah. How are you enjoying Lincoln by the way now that you're settled in?
34HanGerg
>31 SandDune: Ooh, blue cheese Rhian! Now, I never heard of a child liking that. It seems like such a quintessentially "grown up" food, like olives and mushrooms. (has anyone ever met a child that liked mushrooms? In my experience they are universally loathed amongst the under 10's - something about the texture I think). J once again shows himself to be a sophisticated young gentleman!
>32 ronincats: Hi Roni! Miasma of motherhood sounds about right to me! And LT does feel fairly rarefied when you've just finished your fifteenth rendition of "Twinkle, twinkle...." for the day!
>33 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. One thing about having a young child is that weekends don't feel that different from weekdays, except the husband is around to help out, so that rarest of things for the new parent can be occasionally achieved - a lie in!!!
Lincoln still feels like it has a lot of mysteries to reveal as what I've mainly seen of it is the inside of the various children's centres. At any other time of my life I would be a lot more familiar with the inside of its many charming pubs by now, and bookshops and art galleries have also taken a bit of a backseat, I'm sorry to say. But generally, it seems like a nice, if small place. The smallness comes with distinct pros as well as cons - as much as me and the husband enjoyed the attractions of big city life in Manchester, it makes a lot of sense to be in a more manageably sized place when you have a young child. It definitely seems to have a lot more nice sized parks and other green spaces than Manchester, and I think we'll really feel the benefit of that once the weather perks up a bit.
Ok, so I'm stealing this idea from Kriti (kgodey), but I have toyed with something similar in the past; film reviews! Like her, I have a husband who's a film nut, and we watch a fair amount of films together (although he always complains that we don't watch enough!) Perhaps doing reviews will motivate me to watch more with him, plus it might make me update my thread more often when time between finishing books slows down, so it could have multiple good outcomes. Plus I like wittering on about films almost as much as I do about books. Most of the films we watch are from a list compiled by my husband so some of the choices will seems quite arbitrary (his research leads him into strange areas - he's currently watching the entire Arnold Swartzenegger back catalogue - don't ask!), but there's also some obscure gems that only a professional film geek could unearth, so hopefully it will be interesting for other folks, although I promise to keep them quite brief in case it's not!
>32 ronincats: Hi Roni! Miasma of motherhood sounds about right to me! And LT does feel fairly rarefied when you've just finished your fifteenth rendition of "Twinkle, twinkle...." for the day!
>33 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. One thing about having a young child is that weekends don't feel that different from weekdays, except the husband is around to help out, so that rarest of things for the new parent can be occasionally achieved - a lie in!!!
Lincoln still feels like it has a lot of mysteries to reveal as what I've mainly seen of it is the inside of the various children's centres. At any other time of my life I would be a lot more familiar with the inside of its many charming pubs by now, and bookshops and art galleries have also taken a bit of a backseat, I'm sorry to say. But generally, it seems like a nice, if small place. The smallness comes with distinct pros as well as cons - as much as me and the husband enjoyed the attractions of big city life in Manchester, it makes a lot of sense to be in a more manageably sized place when you have a young child. It definitely seems to have a lot more nice sized parks and other green spaces than Manchester, and I think we'll really feel the benefit of that once the weather perks up a bit.
Ok, so I'm stealing this idea from Kriti (kgodey), but I have toyed with something similar in the past; film reviews! Like her, I have a husband who's a film nut, and we watch a fair amount of films together (although he always complains that we don't watch enough!) Perhaps doing reviews will motivate me to watch more with him, plus it might make me update my thread more often when time between finishing books slows down, so it could have multiple good outcomes. Plus I like wittering on about films almost as much as I do about books. Most of the films we watch are from a list compiled by my husband so some of the choices will seems quite arbitrary (his research leads him into strange areas - he's currently watching the entire Arnold Swartzenegger back catalogue - don't ask!), but there's also some obscure gems that only a professional film geek could unearth, so hopefully it will be interesting for other folks, although I promise to keep them quite brief in case it's not!
35charl08
Lovely to hear an update from you.
Films sound like fun. Review away. My last film decision was Deadpool which was a Very Bad Choice. The kids behind us seem to find it funny though, so at least someone was laughing!
Do you and your other half go to the its a scream showings with the little one?
Films sound like fun. Review away. My last film decision was Deadpool which was a Very Bad Choice. The kids behind us seem to find it funny though, so at least someone was laughing!
Do you and your other half go to the its a scream showings with the little one?
36HanGerg
Oh, and another thing! We've had little art on this thread so far this year, even though I've been fairly busy on that front. I've been doing a weekly art class that has taken me out of my comfort zone (crazy abstract stuff I pretty much make up on the spot), and I've been doing figurative stuff! In watercolour! I'll try and get some photos of those pieces soon, but in the meantime here's the latest of my usual stuff I've finished - one of the small works I've been doing on old sample cards that will go into an exhibition along with some of my abstract photos at the end of March.
37HanGerg
Hi Charl - we must have cross posted! I didn't see Deadpool - the husband did and declared it not good much as you did. He had a whole objection to it based on the idea it was very conventional filming masquerading as something edgy and daring but you've seen the film and I haven't so I'll let you fill in the blanks on that one. I wasn't that keen to tag along as I've kind of had it with films whose key themes I have simplistically labelled "men with guns". This seems to cover about 80% of Hollywood's output, but so be it. Anything with revenge as a major theme too - booooooriiing! I'm not sure if our local Odeon does "it's a scream" showings. I will certainly check them out at some stage, but for now we're trying to keep the little fella away from screens. We're doing OK on the TV, less so with computers and phones. They're just so embedded into everyday life it's hard to avoid giving him the idea that they are magical little boxes of joy and wonder, made all the more appealing by the fact that we seem to be trying to hide them from him. As Police chief Wiggum says.... https://youtu.be/vDRAXlNYZB4
38sibylline
We managed to avoid teev until she was about 2. When the time comes I cannot recommend more highly the canadian (out of Halifax) *Theodore Tugboat* series. It is so lovingly and intelligently done. Denny of the Mamas and Papas is the harbormaster! And it was filmed in the schoolhouse that he went to school in as a boy! Everything about it is beautiful. The LD WAS Theodore Tugboat for years, went around in a red cap with earflaps until she was four. I would just invest in DVD's of the good shows like that. Plus there are older movies, like some of the old Disneys (That Darn Cat etc) that move slowly and gracefully and are very charming. The LD's other favorite movie was the Robin Hood from 1937, with that heartthrob, Errol Flynn. We also never left her alone watching, so we watched many of those films at least a hundred times ourselves. I did things, but I was always in the room. We all know parts of them by heart. And they never got boring! The good ones are that good!
I was a lemon-eater too. My mother thought it very odd. And then one day I picked up a lemon and bit into the rind and found it sour and that was that. I think I was seven or eight.
Golly, I had something to say about a book up there but it has fallen right out of my head.
I was a lemon-eater too. My mother thought it very odd. And then one day I picked up a lemon and bit into the rind and found it sour and that was that. I think I was seven or eight.
Golly, I had something to say about a book up there but it has fallen right out of my head.
39ronincats
>36 HanGerg: Ooh, like that!
40SandDune
>34 HanGerg: has anyone ever met a child that liked mushrooms? In my experience they are universally loathed amongst the under 10's
Apparently as a very small child I was known for trying to steal other people's mushrooms - and it must be genetic as J has always loved them, even when tiny!
Apparently as a very small child I was known for trying to steal other people's mushrooms - and it must be genetic as J has always loved them, even when tiny!
41charl08
>37 HanGerg: I'm still not sure what annoyed me so much about Deadpool. Think it was the combo of quite extreme (to me) violence and humour, which just didn't work. Plus the woman in her suspenders. Surely a film that thinks it is so revelatory should have better parts for girls. Although maybe it's me - just seen the new Coen brothers and although I smiled a lot I didn't exactly laugh much, and others have said they laughed all the way through!
I hated mushrooms. Love them now.
Your exhibition sounds exciting. Hope that's going well.
I hated mushrooms. Love them now.
Your exhibition sounds exciting. Hope that's going well.
42souloftherose
>36 HanGerg: I like the painting!
43PaulCranswick
>41 charl08: I quite liked "Hail Caesar" but I don't think you could have said it was laugh out loud funny except for an absolutely priceless scene with Ralph Fiennes as a Director imparting to a cowboy how to say his lines in a comedy of manners.
Have a lovely Sunday, Hannah.
Have a lovely Sunday, Hannah.
44HanGerg
Hi everyone! Thanks as always for your visits and comments!
>38 sibylline: Thanks for the Theodore Tugboat recommendation Lucy. It sounds delightful. I will definitely check it out! I went to a shop the other day that was doing a special offer on children's DVDs and came away with two. One Peppa Pig - I haven't really watched it but all parents assure me it's great and a big hit with young kids, and something timeless - some Tom and Jerry! Although, actually, now I come to think about it, some of them are a bit dodgy in terms of sexism and racism. Hmm, may have to watch them carefully first and root out the dodgy ones, or just offer a commentary on why they are a product of their time.... Charlie Chaplin is high up the list to show Leó early on. The husband has a huge box set of his feature films that also contain loads of his short films as extras, and they have been a big hit with other children of our acquaintance. Plus, it's a good idea to introduce early the idea that old B&W film doesn't mean boring film (a view I held until embarrassingly recently, I'm ashamed to say!)
>39 ronincats: and >42 souloftherose: Thanks for the painting admiration Roni and Heather. There are lots more new ones I've been doing for the exhibition - I will try and photograph them and post them at some point, but right now it's a mad rush to get work finished to put in the show!
>40 SandDune: Ha! I never had you pegged as a mushroom swiper Rhian! I'm sure most other kids were only too happy to let you have them. Adults might have required a bit more stealth though! ; )
>41 charl08: "Plus the woman in her suspenders. Surely a film that thinks it is so revelatory should have better parts for girls" Exactly!! So many films seem to do this - they pay lip service to the idea of having strong female characters, but somehow always manage to find a reason to feature a shot of her in just her bra! I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of the Bechdel Test I only found out about it fairly recently and it still amazes me how many mainstream films fail miserably. Hence my proviso about no more "men with guns" films.
>43 PaulCranswick:. I'm keen on seeing the new Coen brothers film Paul, although I usually prefer them when they do serious rather than comedy. Trips to the cinema are a pretty rare treat for me these days, but I will try and catch it at some point.
I'm being rubbish at the moment and neglecting LT, but apart from baby related stuff, I've also had a trip down to Devon to fit in plus getting ready for my upcoming exhibition. There will be a lot more of that this week (it starts next Monday - I think neither I nor the gallery owner realised it was Easter Monday when we picked that date. It might be an awful time to do it or it might be a day on which lots of people are enjoying some time off and might feel like wandering into a gallery - we'll see!).
Ok, so I owe some book reviews, but also, my new thing, FILM reviews! Actually, I have hardly watched any films at all since I came up with this idea. I did watch a weird French mini-series by a director that normally does films, but let's be strict and limit the reviews to films. Ok, so recently I saw:
1.Bringing Up Baby 4/5
A classic screwball comedy from 1938, starring two of Hollywood's most charismatic stars - Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I was in the mood for something light and fun, and this was, but with a plot so silly that even the two fabulous stars found it hard to "sell" at times. Also, I'm not quite buying Grant as a dorky Palaeontologist, and Hepburn is hampered by some very ridiculous looking costumes at times, but overall this tale of the tame leopard "Baby" and how KH uses it as a lure to try and get CG to fall in love with her (how she fell in love with him after their initial meeting is rather skimmed over), and all the comedic high jinks that ensue, is reliably charming, fun and in places genuinely funny.
2.Jingle All the Way 1/5
A terrible Arnold Swartzenegger vehicle from 1996. The husband is watching all his films for a research project which means I've recently endured a glut of AS films. Most of them have been pretty bad, and this was probably the worst yet. A Christmas movie that has nothing good to say about Christmas. You could read it as a comment on the obscene commercialism of that time of year but I don't think that's intended. It also ends with the message that as a father you can win the affection of your child without resorting to bribing them with expensive gifts, but only if you are willing to transform yourself into the living embodiment of everything they admire. Or something. It's possible I was overanalysing it, but that was the only way to make it interesting.
I'll try and pop back later to do the book reviews I owe, in between bouts of trying to get my act together for my exhibition. Until then, happy reading!
>38 sibylline: Thanks for the Theodore Tugboat recommendation Lucy. It sounds delightful. I will definitely check it out! I went to a shop the other day that was doing a special offer on children's DVDs and came away with two. One Peppa Pig - I haven't really watched it but all parents assure me it's great and a big hit with young kids, and something timeless - some Tom and Jerry! Although, actually, now I come to think about it, some of them are a bit dodgy in terms of sexism and racism. Hmm, may have to watch them carefully first and root out the dodgy ones, or just offer a commentary on why they are a product of their time.... Charlie Chaplin is high up the list to show Leó early on. The husband has a huge box set of his feature films that also contain loads of his short films as extras, and they have been a big hit with other children of our acquaintance. Plus, it's a good idea to introduce early the idea that old B&W film doesn't mean boring film (a view I held until embarrassingly recently, I'm ashamed to say!)
>39 ronincats: and >42 souloftherose: Thanks for the painting admiration Roni and Heather. There are lots more new ones I've been doing for the exhibition - I will try and photograph them and post them at some point, but right now it's a mad rush to get work finished to put in the show!
>40 SandDune: Ha! I never had you pegged as a mushroom swiper Rhian! I'm sure most other kids were only too happy to let you have them. Adults might have required a bit more stealth though! ; )
>41 charl08: "Plus the woman in her suspenders. Surely a film that thinks it is so revelatory should have better parts for girls" Exactly!! So many films seem to do this - they pay lip service to the idea of having strong female characters, but somehow always manage to find a reason to feature a shot of her in just her bra! I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of the Bechdel Test I only found out about it fairly recently and it still amazes me how many mainstream films fail miserably. Hence my proviso about no more "men with guns" films.
>43 PaulCranswick:. I'm keen on seeing the new Coen brothers film Paul, although I usually prefer them when they do serious rather than comedy. Trips to the cinema are a pretty rare treat for me these days, but I will try and catch it at some point.
I'm being rubbish at the moment and neglecting LT, but apart from baby related stuff, I've also had a trip down to Devon to fit in plus getting ready for my upcoming exhibition. There will be a lot more of that this week (it starts next Monday - I think neither I nor the gallery owner realised it was Easter Monday when we picked that date. It might be an awful time to do it or it might be a day on which lots of people are enjoying some time off and might feel like wandering into a gallery - we'll see!).
Ok, so I owe some book reviews, but also, my new thing, FILM reviews! Actually, I have hardly watched any films at all since I came up with this idea. I did watch a weird French mini-series by a director that normally does films, but let's be strict and limit the reviews to films. Ok, so recently I saw:
1.Bringing Up Baby 4/5
A classic screwball comedy from 1938, starring two of Hollywood's most charismatic stars - Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I was in the mood for something light and fun, and this was, but with a plot so silly that even the two fabulous stars found it hard to "sell" at times. Also, I'm not quite buying Grant as a dorky Palaeontologist, and Hepburn is hampered by some very ridiculous looking costumes at times, but overall this tale of the tame leopard "Baby" and how KH uses it as a lure to try and get CG to fall in love with her (how she fell in love with him after their initial meeting is rather skimmed over), and all the comedic high jinks that ensue, is reliably charming, fun and in places genuinely funny.
2.Jingle All the Way 1/5
A terrible Arnold Swartzenegger vehicle from 1996. The husband is watching all his films for a research project which means I've recently endured a glut of AS films. Most of them have been pretty bad, and this was probably the worst yet. A Christmas movie that has nothing good to say about Christmas. You could read it as a comment on the obscene commercialism of that time of year but I don't think that's intended. It also ends with the message that as a father you can win the affection of your child without resorting to bribing them with expensive gifts, but only if you are willing to transform yourself into the living embodiment of everything they admire. Or something. It's possible I was overanalysing it, but that was the only way to make it interesting.
I'll try and pop back later to do the book reviews I owe, in between bouts of trying to get my act together for my exhibition. Until then, happy reading!
45souloftherose
>44 HanGerg: Hannah! Lovely to see you pop in again. I love Katharine Hepburn - Bringing up Baby is fun but not a favourite in the way Holiday or African Queen is. I think I will pass on the AS film!
And good luck for the exhibition!
And good luck for the exhibition!
46charl08
>44 HanGerg: Is that the one with the twin bed scene where one foot is always, carefully, on the floor!?
I am a fan of His Girl Friday from this era.
I am a fan of His Girl Friday from this era.
47PaulCranswick
Have a wonderful Easter.
48HanGerg
Hi all! I hope everyone is having a good Easter. It's not a holiday I usually celebrate in any particular way, and this year even less so as all energies are geared towards my exhibition which starts on Monday. I spent today going around town putting up posters and dispensing flyers for the aforementioned event and people were gratifyingly nice and encouraging about it. At another art gallery I met a group of very friendly fellow artists who were also telling me all about the Lincolnshire Artist's Society which they were saying they would help me apply to, so it was all most productive and fun. I also finally got into the really higgledy piggledy bookshop that it's impossible to tackle with a baby buggy in tow. I bought a fascinating looking book about Devon during WWII and got a poster for my exhibition put up in the window; result!
>45 souloftherose: Hi Heather! I haven't seen either of those KH films so I will keep my eye out for them. She's one of my favourites! So fiercely independent and capable, and about charisma rather than sex appeal if you see what I mean. A female movie icon for females, which is quite a rare thing. (I'm not sure who else would fit the bill actually. From more recent times; Juliann Moore? Sigourney Weaver? I'm not so keen on the former, lots of her roles feel very "worthy" to me, but Sigourney is awesome!)
>46 charl08: Hi Charl! No bed scene in this one. I'm trying to think what film that might be, but I'm not sure if it's one I've seen. Perhaps there's something like that in one of the comedies where she stars alongside Spencer Tracy but I might be imagining it...
I'm a big fan of "His Girl Friday", and even more so of "The Philadelphia Story". Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn AND Jimmy Stewart! Fabulous!
>47 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. A lovely image, thanks for the wishes! A lovely Easter to you and your family too!
OK, so I've owed a couple of book reviews for a while now, so I need to get on with those otherwise I'll fall behind like last year.....
7.Falcone Strike (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 2) - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (Kindle)
The second book in the SF series I stumbled across on the Kindle, and I lapped it right up just like the first one. Unfortunately this is as far as the author has got into his series so I face a bit of a wait now to find out how this saga continues. This volume sees our heroine, Captain Kat Falcone, returned quickly to active duty, on a seeming suicide mission trying to disrupt the enemy and gather intel behind enemy lines. To say more would be to enter spoiler territory, but it was another thrilling, if slightly clunky read.
8.Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope 5/5
Also the second in a series, but of a rather more distinguished pedigree, and with further volumes to follow which I hope to track down in fairly short order, as this was fabulous. Rather less moralising than The Warden and all the better for it, as Trollope was clearly having fun with some of his characters here, such as the henpecked new Bishop and the awful Mr Slope. (I heard somewhere, probably on LT, that a TV adaptation exists with Alan Rickman as Slope. That must be worth a watch!) What strikes me about much of his observations about human nature is how thoroughly modern they feel. Or maybe I mean timeless. It certainly feels like you are in the hands of a master of understanding the human condition, and furthermore someone that can render these observations with pinpoint accuracy and warmth and empathy. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Ok, a few more films have been watched since last I was here, so I shall quickly take off my book reviewer hat and put on my film reviewer one.
3.Dark Corner 3/5
A Film Noir from 1946 that is not particularly dark and gritty nor very memorable, although enjoyable enough. The plot centres on a Private Dick (when doesn't it?) who has previously been framed for manslaughter by an ex partner who has suddenly resurfaced and appears to be meddling in attempts for him to get his life back on track, or is it that simple? (It isn't, obvs.) The plot twists are fairly predictable and the acting, by a largely unknown cast, nothing special, but it was reasonably entertaining nonetheless.
4.Of Horses and Men 2/5
A recent Icelandic film about the strong bond between humans and horses in a remote community where wild horses roam but are occasionally rounded up and pressed into service by the human inhabitants. The story takes the form of a series of vignettes with interconnected characters, some of which are tragic, and some are...semi-tragic. Death of animals and humans features quite prominently, and as all the events seemingly take place within a relatively short timeframe, I can't help but wonder how anyone, human or animal is left alive there, such is the carelessness and cruelty with which the humans seem to conduct themselves. My husband thought the film was aiming for a more metaphoric angle and wanted to say something about the human condition, but I didn't like it enough to give it the benefit of the doubt on that score. He didn't like it either, mind you, so however you interpret it, it wasn't a great watch. The horses were very beautiful though, it was pretty short and it ends on a sort of upbeat note, so not entirely a waste of time.
>45 souloftherose: Hi Heather! I haven't seen either of those KH films so I will keep my eye out for them. She's one of my favourites! So fiercely independent and capable, and about charisma rather than sex appeal if you see what I mean. A female movie icon for females, which is quite a rare thing. (I'm not sure who else would fit the bill actually. From more recent times; Juliann Moore? Sigourney Weaver? I'm not so keen on the former, lots of her roles feel very "worthy" to me, but Sigourney is awesome!)
>46 charl08: Hi Charl! No bed scene in this one. I'm trying to think what film that might be, but I'm not sure if it's one I've seen. Perhaps there's something like that in one of the comedies where she stars alongside Spencer Tracy but I might be imagining it...
I'm a big fan of "His Girl Friday", and even more so of "The Philadelphia Story". Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn AND Jimmy Stewart! Fabulous!
>47 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. A lovely image, thanks for the wishes! A lovely Easter to you and your family too!
OK, so I've owed a couple of book reviews for a while now, so I need to get on with those otherwise I'll fall behind like last year.....
7.Falcone Strike (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 2) - Christopher Nuttall 3.5/5 (Kindle)
The second book in the SF series I stumbled across on the Kindle, and I lapped it right up just like the first one. Unfortunately this is as far as the author has got into his series so I face a bit of a wait now to find out how this saga continues. This volume sees our heroine, Captain Kat Falcone, returned quickly to active duty, on a seeming suicide mission trying to disrupt the enemy and gather intel behind enemy lines. To say more would be to enter spoiler territory, but it was another thrilling, if slightly clunky read.
8.Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope 5/5
Also the second in a series, but of a rather more distinguished pedigree, and with further volumes to follow which I hope to track down in fairly short order, as this was fabulous. Rather less moralising than The Warden and all the better for it, as Trollope was clearly having fun with some of his characters here, such as the henpecked new Bishop and the awful Mr Slope. (I heard somewhere, probably on LT, that a TV adaptation exists with Alan Rickman as Slope. That must be worth a watch!) What strikes me about much of his observations about human nature is how thoroughly modern they feel. Or maybe I mean timeless. It certainly feels like you are in the hands of a master of understanding the human condition, and furthermore someone that can render these observations with pinpoint accuracy and warmth and empathy. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Ok, a few more films have been watched since last I was here, so I shall quickly take off my book reviewer hat and put on my film reviewer one.
3.Dark Corner 3/5
A Film Noir from 1946 that is not particularly dark and gritty nor very memorable, although enjoyable enough. The plot centres on a Private Dick (when doesn't it?) who has previously been framed for manslaughter by an ex partner who has suddenly resurfaced and appears to be meddling in attempts for him to get his life back on track, or is it that simple? (It isn't, obvs.) The plot twists are fairly predictable and the acting, by a largely unknown cast, nothing special, but it was reasonably entertaining nonetheless.
4.Of Horses and Men 2/5
A recent Icelandic film about the strong bond between humans and horses in a remote community where wild horses roam but are occasionally rounded up and pressed into service by the human inhabitants. The story takes the form of a series of vignettes with interconnected characters, some of which are tragic, and some are...semi-tragic. Death of animals and humans features quite prominently, and as all the events seemingly take place within a relatively short timeframe, I can't help but wonder how anyone, human or animal is left alive there, such is the carelessness and cruelty with which the humans seem to conduct themselves. My husband thought the film was aiming for a more metaphoric angle and wanted to say something about the human condition, but I didn't like it enough to give it the benefit of the doubt on that score. He didn't like it either, mind you, so however you interpret it, it wasn't a great watch. The horses were very beautiful though, it was pretty short and it ends on a sort of upbeat note, so not entirely a waste of time.
49HanGerg
So, I've had my exhibition now, plus a rather hectic week of getting back into the swing of baby related activities since then. The exhibition went pretty well - I sold three pieces! They were all sold to people that we invited to the open evening event, so the nice wine my husband supplied may have had something to do with it!! Not really, but the fact that they were people that knew me a little bit (both work colleagues of my husband that I'd met before) certainly helped, just because people kind of like having a bit of an link to the artwork when they buy art I've noticed; some kind of narrative they can frame their purchase around. Anyway, acquaintances or not, they bought some of my work, and I'm thrilled! The exhibition looked pretty good too I think - here's a little snapshot looking in through the front window.
In other news, I've finished a couple of books.
9.The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters 2/5
I usually bow to no-one in my admiration of Sarah Waters, but this was a big disappointment. I didn't care for the central characters or the predicament they find themselves in, the pacing was sluggish, and the writing, although good, didn't really excite like it usually does. Honestly, this felt like a massive regression for her as a writer, if that's not a super mean thing to say about a writer I normally enjoy so much. About the only positive thing about it was the picture it painted of post-war London society and how the war had changed it so subtly in some ways and utterly in others. It's not up to her usual standard at all in my opinion, although part of me wonders whether it's just my personal taste. Some people seemed to love it on the book's page, but they seem mainly to be people that haven't read her other stuff. Perhaps if you find yourself liking the central characters more than I did, you can enjoy the whole book much more. But then again, how can you like them? So absorbed in themselves and their own little love affair and treating those around them with disdain. To say more would be spoilerific, but I guess proceed with caution rather than avoid completely would be my overall recommendation.
10. Lucia in London - E.F.Benson 4/5
The continuing saga of "the Queen of Riseholme", the thoroughly awful Lucia. She's a terrible snob and really very vacuous at heart, although she pretends to be vary, vary cultured. She does have a shameless genius for social climbing though, which is demonstrated in this volume of the on-going series excellently when she and her husband abandon little Riseholme for the hitherto disdained charms of London. She starts to neglect her Riseholme friends awfully in favour of the flashier London set she gathers around her, which made me quite outraged on behalf of lovely Georgie, her trusted right hand man in the village whom she throws over without even a pang of remorse. However, in the end we do find she has a heart of some kind, as it is revealed that there is someone who she genuinely cares for and will put above her otherwise ruthless social climbing. A delight from start to finish.
(As a slight aside, I'm really curious about homosexuality in regards to these novels. I wonder if the author himself was gay? There appears to me to be at least two male characters in this book that would seem to be gay; snappy dressers, prefer the company of women to men but in absolutely platonic terms, love gossip, fond of doing embroidery... you get the picture. But there is not even the slightest hint from anyone in the novel that they should be anything other than heterosexual. They are just referred to as bachelors, and everyone seems to go along with that idea - so it isn't like the author is trying to tip us a wink and say "but we know that actually they are unmarried for a different reason", but at the same time it seems to me obvious they are meant to be gay. Perhaps at the time these books were written you couldn't even hint at such things?
I've just gone and looked at his Wikipedia page, and it is indeed rumoured that he was gay, but not confirmed. Also, his father was at one time the Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, a building I've just visited today, so that has a pleasing coincidence about it!)
Ok, book review hat off, film review hat on:
5.Ant Man 4/5
I'm not usually a big fan of superhero movies, but this one had bags of humour that really made it for me. The fight sequence on a model train set is surely one of the funniest action set pieces ever filmed, and the whole thing has a bright and breezy charm I enjoyed a lot.
In other news, I've finished a couple of books.
9.The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters 2/5
I usually bow to no-one in my admiration of Sarah Waters, but this was a big disappointment. I didn't care for the central characters or the predicament they find themselves in, the pacing was sluggish, and the writing, although good, didn't really excite like it usually does. Honestly, this felt like a massive regression for her as a writer, if that's not a super mean thing to say about a writer I normally enjoy so much. About the only positive thing about it was the picture it painted of post-war London society and how the war had changed it so subtly in some ways and utterly in others. It's not up to her usual standard at all in my opinion, although part of me wonders whether it's just my personal taste. Some people seemed to love it on the book's page, but they seem mainly to be people that haven't read her other stuff. Perhaps if you find yourself liking the central characters more than I did, you can enjoy the whole book much more. But then again, how can you like them? So absorbed in themselves and their own little love affair and treating those around them with disdain. To say more would be spoilerific, but I guess proceed with caution rather than avoid completely would be my overall recommendation.
10. Lucia in London - E.F.Benson 4/5
The continuing saga of "the Queen of Riseholme", the thoroughly awful Lucia. She's a terrible snob and really very vacuous at heart, although she pretends to be vary, vary cultured. She does have a shameless genius for social climbing though, which is demonstrated in this volume of the on-going series excellently when she and her husband abandon little Riseholme for the hitherto disdained charms of London. She starts to neglect her Riseholme friends awfully in favour of the flashier London set she gathers around her, which made me quite outraged on behalf of lovely Georgie, her trusted right hand man in the village whom she throws over without even a pang of remorse. However, in the end we do find she has a heart of some kind, as it is revealed that there is someone who she genuinely cares for and will put above her otherwise ruthless social climbing. A delight from start to finish.
(As a slight aside, I'm really curious about homosexuality in regards to these novels. I wonder if the author himself was gay? There appears to me to be at least two male characters in this book that would seem to be gay; snappy dressers, prefer the company of women to men but in absolutely platonic terms, love gossip, fond of doing embroidery... you get the picture. But there is not even the slightest hint from anyone in the novel that they should be anything other than heterosexual. They are just referred to as bachelors, and everyone seems to go along with that idea - so it isn't like the author is trying to tip us a wink and say "but we know that actually they are unmarried for a different reason", but at the same time it seems to me obvious they are meant to be gay. Perhaps at the time these books were written you couldn't even hint at such things?
I've just gone and looked at his Wikipedia page, and it is indeed rumoured that he was gay, but not confirmed. Also, his father was at one time the Chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, a building I've just visited today, so that has a pleasing coincidence about it!)
Ok, book review hat off, film review hat on:
5.Ant Man 4/5
I'm not usually a big fan of superhero movies, but this one had bags of humour that really made it for me. The fight sequence on a model train set is surely one of the funniest action set pieces ever filmed, and the whole thing has a bright and breezy charm I enjoyed a lot.
50sibylline
Always happy when you have a moment to stop in. I haven't read the Benson's, but I just finished reading the exquisite Flora Thompson semi-memoir, Lark Rise to Candleford which covers the last two decades of the 19th century and it is interesting indeed how, from a later perspective, she realizes that the Oscar Wilde trial made it impossible to "pretend" anymore just who, say, the two retired army men, were and they were harassed, for a time, afterward. The Cazelet Chronicles which I just read this winter also address this issue wonderfully well thirty years later, people just not seeing what they don't want to see.
51scaifea
Congrats on selling some of your work! YAY!!
And I really want to see Ant Man soon - I really like Paul Rudd.
And I really want to see Ant Man soon - I really like Paul Rudd.
52charl08
>49 HanGerg: Congrats on the gallery success. I think you are right about the story of the art. I am always more tempted by local pieces where the artist has shown somewhere I know or have visited, can be described as working nearby etc.
I've read comments on The Paying Guest that suggest Waters was replicating a particular style of early 20c novel - as she had done for Victorian crime earlier on. It just did nothing for me, even knowing that. I didn't even finish it! Wishing you a good week.
I've read comments on The Paying Guest that suggest Waters was replicating a particular style of early 20c novel - as she had done for Victorian crime earlier on. It just did nothing for me, even knowing that. I didn't even finish it! Wishing you a good week.
53Cait86
>49 HanGerg: Oh so sad about The Paying Guests -- I love Sarah Waters and have yet to be disappointed by her!
55avatiakh
Congrats on your sales, that's fantastic.
I occasionally talk up a film or two on my thread, though at present my daughter is making her way through The Gilmore Girls so I'm also catching up on lots of missed episodes.
I occasionally talk up a film or two on my thread, though at present my daughter is making her way through The Gilmore Girls so I'm also catching up on lots of missed episodes.
56HanGerg
Oooh, lots of lovely visitors!! Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll be back soon for a more detailed response to you individually, as I'm just breezing through to post a video clip all about me, me, me! Well, my artwork mainly. I didn't mention before, because I had kind of forgotten, that a guy came into the gallery and explained that he makes this sort of video magazine about Lincoln life that he puts on YouTube every month, and would I like to be in it? All publicity is good publicity I figured, so here I am - a whole ten minutes of me waffling on, with lots of images of my artwork to boot! I start at the 20 minute mark, and what little I saw of the stuff before me makes me think you would be wise to as well! ; )
Here's the link:
https://youtu.be/juSSxciVAPE
Here's the link:
https://youtu.be/juSSxciVAPE
57souloftherose
>49 HanGerg: Big congratulations on the exhibition! >56 HanGerg: And also the video magazine. Fascinating to see some more of your artwork.
59PaulCranswick
>56 HanGerg: Very interesting Hannah. I don't profess to understand or appreciate abstract art overly but you explaining each piece certainly helps. The film is also a reminder of what a lovely city Lincoln is.
The Ostara ritual is a little eye-opening - I was half expecting naked dancing and drinking of lamb's blood!
Have a lovely weekend.
The Ostara ritual is a little eye-opening - I was half expecting naked dancing and drinking of lamb's blood!
Have a lovely weekend.
60HanGerg
Thrilled that you looked at my video Heather, Lucy and Paul! I was pleased that I managed to be reasonably coherent - talking off camera like that took a lot of the pressure off.
Sorry for my long absence. We have moved house since I last checked in so is has been a hectic time, and it's not over yet; there is still the epic quest to retrieve most of our furniture from Devon to undertake in the coming weeks, plus renovations and decorating to do. Then my father-in-law and brother-in-law are coming over from Hungary for a visit, and then we are going back there for a week immediately after.
AND last but not least, our lovely son is growing up at a rate of knots and will be crawling any day now. Well, already does in fact, but only backwards. It still means you can't rely on him being where you left him, so pretty much constant supervision is required. On the plus side, all the extra movement means he naps more reliably now during the day, so there is that. I am slightly dreading the next phase, the into everything phase. I was just reading a list of toddler proofing advice for the home and it terrified me as I wouldn't have thought of half of them; Blind cords as possible strangulation risks, toilets and buckets of mop water as drowning risks, mouthwash as poison and other seemingly everyday objects turned into deathtraps. And I can't even start thinking about the half-drained fishpond in the garden without doing a little inward scream... Anyway, I'm sure we'll get it all sorted before he masters the art of forward propulsion - maybe.
On the reading front, there has been reading, but not much. I'm currently reading my first Chinese Sci-Fi! The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, which was last year's Hugo winner. It's a great thrill ride so far. I'm also, FINALLY approaching the end of KSR's enormous Green Earth (The Science in the Capital) which I've really enjoyed, but it never really demanded reading with any urgency so I just nibbled at it. Ok, more on all this, plus perhaps a few film reviews if I can grab a few spare minutes, SOON!
Sorry for my long absence. We have moved house since I last checked in so is has been a hectic time, and it's not over yet; there is still the epic quest to retrieve most of our furniture from Devon to undertake in the coming weeks, plus renovations and decorating to do. Then my father-in-law and brother-in-law are coming over from Hungary for a visit, and then we are going back there for a week immediately after.
AND last but not least, our lovely son is growing up at a rate of knots and will be crawling any day now. Well, already does in fact, but only backwards. It still means you can't rely on him being where you left him, so pretty much constant supervision is required. On the plus side, all the extra movement means he naps more reliably now during the day, so there is that. I am slightly dreading the next phase, the into everything phase. I was just reading a list of toddler proofing advice for the home and it terrified me as I wouldn't have thought of half of them; Blind cords as possible strangulation risks, toilets and buckets of mop water as drowning risks, mouthwash as poison and other seemingly everyday objects turned into deathtraps. And I can't even start thinking about the half-drained fishpond in the garden without doing a little inward scream... Anyway, I'm sure we'll get it all sorted before he masters the art of forward propulsion - maybe.
On the reading front, there has been reading, but not much. I'm currently reading my first Chinese Sci-Fi! The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, which was last year's Hugo winner. It's a great thrill ride so far. I'm also, FINALLY approaching the end of KSR's enormous Green Earth (The Science in the Capital) which I've really enjoyed, but it never really demanded reading with any urgency so I just nibbled at it. Ok, more on all this, plus perhaps a few film reviews if I can grab a few spare minutes, SOON!
61ronincats
Spare minutes? With an almost-toddler scooting around? Good luck, Hannah! We'll be glad to see you whenever you manage those minutes.
62charl08
Also impressed you're still reading with everything else you've been packing in. Hope the rest of your move goes smoothly. Whilst I never loved the lugging of boxes, the bit where all my stuff was out of storage (and especially with the books, back in the shelves) was great!
My friends toddlerproofed their flat, and it took me ages to work out how to open kitchen cupboards after that. Some of those systems are pretty complex (in my defence) :-)
My friends toddlerproofed their flat, and it took me ages to work out how to open kitchen cupboards after that. Some of those systems are pretty complex (in my defence) :-)
63PaulCranswick
Hannah, just stopping by to wish you and delightful Lincoln a wonderful weekend.
64souloftherose
Lovely to hear from you Hannah. And I'm also impressed you've been reading with so much going on.
65sibylline
I'm presently reading The Three Body Problem. Definitely a page-turner.
Respect those fears! I wanted to say, oh, just put wire mesh over that fishpond, but really, at our old house we had a "water feature" and summers we lived beside a real pond and we did ok, vigilance and never saying, "I'll be right back" is the bottom line. I also took our daughter to swimming class around the time she started getting mobile. Found a wonderful teacher and we both really enjoyed it, one of the few things like that that was a howling success. She's always been happy in the water and it did ease my fears that she learned so young to hold her nose, keep her mouth shut, and paddle.
Respect those fears! I wanted to say, oh, just put wire mesh over that fishpond, but really, at our old house we had a "water feature" and summers we lived beside a real pond and we did ok, vigilance and never saying, "I'll be right back" is the bottom line. I also took our daughter to swimming class around the time she started getting mobile. Found a wonderful teacher and we both really enjoyed it, one of the few things like that that was a howling success. She's always been happy in the water and it did ease my fears that she learned so young to hold her nose, keep her mouth shut, and paddle.
67HanGerg
Hi everyone, sorry I've been so hopeless and absent. I just have a crawling son (a year old next week! Goodness!!) and a new house to decorate so..... yeah. Busy. And August will be full of family visits so might not get here for a while yet. I am planning to get here eventually though, my love of LT is undimmed if not demonstrated very often!
Just to say; we are fine. Totally and utterly bereft by the Brexit vote (which is maybe what you were alluding to Roni? If so, thank-you!! ) which has perhaps put obstacles in our path and at the very least caused some uncertainty. It has left my husband feeling unwelcome in his adopted home country and unsure about the future of his job etc, but we muddle on as best we can, and day to day just get on with things and enjoy the many great things we have, most of which can't be taken away from us by the manoeuvrings of politicians and the unkindness of strangers. (Britain suddenly does feel like an unkind place. It never used to, but now it does. Maybe it always was and we just didn't see it, I'm not sure...) Anyway, life goes on. And so does the reading, only much less of it than before. But I will try and get here and review what reading has been done soon. Otherwise, I also dropped by to say: BBC 4 are doing a series of Dystopia dramas!!! I haven't listened to any yet, but the lie-up looks fantastic! Check it out, my SF loving brethren! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02v1q2n
I hope you are all doing well. I have occasionally lurked on the odd thread so I'm not totally behind the times, but I am largely, and I miss you all. Let's catch up soon, m'kay?
Just to say; we are fine. Totally and utterly bereft by the Brexit vote (which is maybe what you were alluding to Roni? If so, thank-you!! ) which has perhaps put obstacles in our path and at the very least caused some uncertainty. It has left my husband feeling unwelcome in his adopted home country and unsure about the future of his job etc, but we muddle on as best we can, and day to day just get on with things and enjoy the many great things we have, most of which can't be taken away from us by the manoeuvrings of politicians and the unkindness of strangers. (Britain suddenly does feel like an unkind place. It never used to, but now it does. Maybe it always was and we just didn't see it, I'm not sure...) Anyway, life goes on. And so does the reading, only much less of it than before. But I will try and get here and review what reading has been done soon. Otherwise, I also dropped by to say: BBC 4 are doing a series of Dystopia dramas!!! I haven't listened to any yet, but the lie-up looks fantastic! Check it out, my SF loving brethren! http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02v1q2n
I hope you are all doing well. I have occasionally lurked on the odd thread so I'm not totally behind the times, but I am largely, and I miss you all. Let's catch up soon, m'kay?
68souloftherose
>67 HanGerg: One year old already?! Where has the time gone. Crawling baby and house decoration doesn't sound like the most productive combination - good luck!
I was very saddened by the Brexit vote too.
I was very saddened by the Brexit vote too.
69sibylline
Crawling one year old! He'll be on his feet soon. We're happy to hear from you whenever. If you get a moment, though, reading would make more sense!
70charl08
>67 HanGerg: Lovely to hear you are doing well and busy busy. Hope the decorating goes well. Will you hang your own art or is it all on the gallery?
So sorry about Brexit. It sucks.
So sorry about Brexit. It sucks.
71ronincats
Hi, Hannnah! Thinking of you, although having a mobile toddler will take up all your time. Hope you have a little time left for art. But we miss you!
72HanGerg
Ahhh, thanks Roni!! I miss you too! But... well, I think I just need to be a bit more disciplined with myself and I CAN actually get here a bit more often. I have just become addicted to skimming the internet for quick fix things to read, not the deeper intellectual effort, not to mention time, that LT demands. But I should stop with that nonsense and try and get here more often. (Giving self firm talking to as we speak)
One of the things I've been doing a lot, like everyone I guess, is follow the US elections. It has an addictive soap opera quality about it at present, thanks to a certain candidate. Well, at least now it seems like a soap opera, in a few months time it might feel like a disaster movie. But he can't surely, not now??? The vote is actually on my birthday so I don't know how much celebrating I'll be doing. I think I'll have one eye on the news all day!
So, personally, we are fine! Leó is walking now, albeit a little unsteadily. I will post a new picture of him soon. He is looking more and more like a little boy and less like a baby, which seems to have happened remarkably fast!! I'm still really enjoying being a mum and doing the daily tour of the baby groups and soft play areas. I've built up a pretty big network of mum friends who I meet up with regularly, which I'm sure is the key to success. Professionally I've been easing myself back into something like work helping out as a volunteer for this awesome social enterprise that teaches kids, teachers and parents about issues that can challenge their emotional wellbeing, from the minor to the most major. They're a formidable team of experts and I'm just along for the ride, but so far it's proving very interesting and maybe opening up avenues of professional development for me.
House wise, we have settled into our new home really well, after a rather chaotic start which saw Leó starting to crawl coinciding with the house suddenly being full of all our worldy belongings in boxes piled everywhere and almost to the ceiling! That was a few weeks I'd rather not go through again. But the house is really starting to look and feel like a proper family home - something we have really been missing for the past few years with our semi-nomadic existence, so it's been blissful. Again, I'll try and post some images soon.
So, all that's left to update you on is reading! Unfortunately, there hasn't been that much to report. I still have several books on the go at all times, and try and snatch as many moments during the day as I can to read them, but those moments tend to be a minute here and there and never seem to add up to much actual reading. Still, I've read a few corkers in recent months; KSR's Aurora and Winifred Holtby's South Riding being the two stand outs. Ok, a certain someone seems to be stirring from his nap, so for now I'll say Adios!
One of the things I've been doing a lot, like everyone I guess, is follow the US elections. It has an addictive soap opera quality about it at present, thanks to a certain candidate. Well, at least now it seems like a soap opera, in a few months time it might feel like a disaster movie. But he can't surely, not now??? The vote is actually on my birthday so I don't know how much celebrating I'll be doing. I think I'll have one eye on the news all day!
So, personally, we are fine! Leó is walking now, albeit a little unsteadily. I will post a new picture of him soon. He is looking more and more like a little boy and less like a baby, which seems to have happened remarkably fast!! I'm still really enjoying being a mum and doing the daily tour of the baby groups and soft play areas. I've built up a pretty big network of mum friends who I meet up with regularly, which I'm sure is the key to success. Professionally I've been easing myself back into something like work helping out as a volunteer for this awesome social enterprise that teaches kids, teachers and parents about issues that can challenge their emotional wellbeing, from the minor to the most major. They're a formidable team of experts and I'm just along for the ride, but so far it's proving very interesting and maybe opening up avenues of professional development for me.
House wise, we have settled into our new home really well, after a rather chaotic start which saw Leó starting to crawl coinciding with the house suddenly being full of all our worldy belongings in boxes piled everywhere and almost to the ceiling! That was a few weeks I'd rather not go through again. But the house is really starting to look and feel like a proper family home - something we have really been missing for the past few years with our semi-nomadic existence, so it's been blissful. Again, I'll try and post some images soon.
So, all that's left to update you on is reading! Unfortunately, there hasn't been that much to report. I still have several books on the go at all times, and try and snatch as many moments during the day as I can to read them, but those moments tend to be a minute here and there and never seem to add up to much actual reading. Still, I've read a few corkers in recent months; KSR's Aurora and Winifred Holtby's South Riding being the two stand outs. Ok, a certain someone seems to be stirring from his nap, so for now I'll say Adios!
73ronincats
Great to see you here, Hannah. Take an idea from Amber's thread (scaifea) and log the books you read to Leó here too--I know you are reading to him! Glad the house is becoming homelike at last.
74charl08
Lovely to hear your news. The volunteering sounds impressive given how much else you have on.
The web reading comment made me nod. My black hole of choice is US talk shows. I can watch clips for ages until I suddenly notice the time or a dead elbow. I love Jimmy Fallon.
I am thinking of trying the 'serial' app to get me reading the longer, older books - Rachel (the hibernator) has already tried it though.
The web reading comment made me nod. My black hole of choice is US talk shows. I can watch clips for ages until I suddenly notice the time or a dead elbow. I love Jimmy Fallon.
I am thinking of trying the 'serial' app to get me reading the longer, older books - Rachel (the hibernator) has already tried it though.
75souloftherose
Lovely to hear from you Hannah! Glad to hear you and Leo have settled into a good routine with baby groups and your volunteering. Aurora has been on my library list for a while now so I will bump it closer to the top on your recommendation that it is a corker. I also loved South Riding when I read it several years ago.
>73 ronincats: What Roni said - books read to Leo count and I like getting recommendations of books for babies and toddlers for my nephews/godchildren.
>73 ronincats: What Roni said - books read to Leo count and I like getting recommendations of books for babies and toddlers for my nephews/godchildren.
76HanGerg
Hi everyone. Wow, my previous lighthearted comments seem very foolish now. But from the little bit of thread browsing I've been doing, it seems politics is something we are avoiding talking about, so I'll do the same. I've actually had to try and wean myself off online news as I've been getting so depressed. Climate change in particular is something that has been really playing on my mind loads lately. I'm inspired to do more and get more involved with efforts to tackle it, but I'm really not sure how. If anyone has any good ideas, I'm all ears.
Ok, so back to more local affairs! Lovely to hear from you, Roni, Charl and Heather! I will start listing books I read with Leó, that's a really good suggestion. I'll start that in the new year I think.
I'm currently all about nice lighthearted reads to keep my spirits up. (Quite apart from global political/environmental meltdown, I'm also beginning to think that I just get blue in the winter. S.A.D - that old chestnut. I've noticed there seems to be a real pattern to my low periods. In previous years it would come after Christmas as I looked forward to Christmas, but in recent years Christmas has been fraught with emotional landmines too.) So yeah, trying to keep it lighthearted. I'm thinking of dusting off some P.G.Wodehouse as that hasn't yet failed to raise my spirits. I've also been enjoying Elizabeth Moon's Serrano series. I wasn't sure at first - spaceships and horse riding?! But she makes it work, just about. I've just finished the second volume, that actually had a very disturbing premise, of someone being kept in a "locked in" type state as a nasty revenge. That made me read it quickly just to get past that bit!
I also recently read another Heyer; Black Sheep. Also good fun, but am I alone in finding these rich types with nothing better to do than gossip about each other and go to concerts a little shallow? I seem to have read a few Heyers and some of the Trollops I've been enjoying recently, about this set of people, and with my contemporary eye I find them a little annoying. Swanning around in fabulous clothes and fretting over who they are going to marry whilst the people that farm their land work themselves into early graves.
Anyway, I hope everyone out there in LT land is doing OK, and isn't too discombobulated by current events. Do stop by and say "Hi!" when you can. I'm trying to get here more often now and will also try and visit some threads. I've been lurking a bit but will try and contribute too. Until then, have a happy run up to the festive season.
Ok, so back to more local affairs! Lovely to hear from you, Roni, Charl and Heather! I will start listing books I read with Leó, that's a really good suggestion. I'll start that in the new year I think.
I'm currently all about nice lighthearted reads to keep my spirits up. (Quite apart from global political/environmental meltdown, I'm also beginning to think that I just get blue in the winter. S.A.D - that old chestnut. I've noticed there seems to be a real pattern to my low periods. In previous years it would come after Christmas as I looked forward to Christmas, but in recent years Christmas has been fraught with emotional landmines too.) So yeah, trying to keep it lighthearted. I'm thinking of dusting off some P.G.Wodehouse as that hasn't yet failed to raise my spirits. I've also been enjoying Elizabeth Moon's Serrano series. I wasn't sure at first - spaceships and horse riding?! But she makes it work, just about. I've just finished the second volume, that actually had a very disturbing premise, of someone being kept in a "locked in" type state as a nasty revenge. That made me read it quickly just to get past that bit!
I also recently read another Heyer; Black Sheep. Also good fun, but am I alone in finding these rich types with nothing better to do than gossip about each other and go to concerts a little shallow? I seem to have read a few Heyers and some of the Trollops I've been enjoying recently, about this set of people, and with my contemporary eye I find them a little annoying. Swanning around in fabulous clothes and fretting over who they are going to marry whilst the people that farm their land work themselves into early graves.
Anyway, I hope everyone out there in LT land is doing OK, and isn't too discombobulated by current events. Do stop by and say "Hi!" when you can. I'm trying to get here more often now and will also try and visit some threads. I've been lurking a bit but will try and contribute too. Until then, have a happy run up to the festive season.
77souloftherose
>76 HanGerg: 'I've actually had to try and wean myself off online news as I've been getting so depressed. Climate change in particular is something that has been really playing on my mind loads lately. I'm inspired to do more and get more involved with efforts to tackle it, but I'm really not sure how.'
Yep. There was some discussion on some threads re the election results but I think a lot of people were feeling too shocked/emotional about it.
Sorry to hear about the SAD. I often find the lead up to Christmas brings on that feeling for me too but I've never been sure if it's Christmas or winter. I hope the more lighthearted reading helps.
The Elizabeth Moon series sounds fun - I read and really enjoyed Sheri Tepper's Grass which is again a very strange mix of horseriding and science fiction.
Yep. There was some discussion on some threads re the election results but I think a lot of people were feeling too shocked/emotional about it.
Sorry to hear about the SAD. I often find the lead up to Christmas brings on that feeling for me too but I've never been sure if it's Christmas or winter. I hope the more lighthearted reading helps.
The Elizabeth Moon series sounds fun - I read and really enjoyed Sheri Tepper's Grass which is again a very strange mix of horseriding and science fiction.
78ronincats
I love the first three books of that Serrano series by Moon--after that the politics overwhelms the story imho.
Yes, many of us are still in shock after the elections and very worried about the long-term consequences.
Yes, many of us are still in shock after the elections and very worried about the long-term consequences.
79PaulCranswick
Wouldn't it be nice if 2017 was a year of peace and goodwill.
A year where people set aside their religious and racial differences.
A year where intolerance is given short shrift.
A year where hatred is replaced by, at the very least, respect.
A year where those in need are not looked upon as a burden but as a blessing.
A year where the commonality of man and woman rises up against those who would seek to subvert and divide.
A year without bombs, or shootings, or beheadings, or rape, or abuse, or spite.
2017.
Festive Greetings and a few wishes from Malaysia!
82ronincats
This is the Christmas tree at the end of the Pacific Beach Pier here in San Diego, a Christmas tradition.
To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!
To all my friends here at Library Thing, I want you to know how much I value you and how much I wish you a very happy holiday, whatever one you celebrate, and the very best of New Years!
83souloftherose
Merry Christmas Hannah!
84PaulCranswick
Looking forward to your continued company in 2017.
Happy New Year, Hannah
85HanGerg
Ahhh, thanks everyone!! Sorry I have been such a poor correspondent this year! I will truly try and do better in 2017! But I do value these interactions with you greatly! Here's hoping 2017 has good things in store for all of us....
87souloftherose
>86 HanGerg: Another way to find threads you've created is to go to Talk and then select 'Started by you' from the left hand menu.
