Jackie's 2019 ROOTs

Welcome to my thread! I've been a member of this group since 2014 and it has revolutionised my reading (it has also massively increased my wishlist and bookshelf contents, but let's not go there, shall we?!). Last year I had my best reading year ever, so I'm back for more! I have really loved my interactions with people here and in the Category Challenge group (I also participate in the non-fiction challenge in the 75 group, although I don't keep a thread there as two is enough for me to keep up with).

I live in wonderful Scotland, am married with a 5 year old daughter, and 2019 is the year when I have a significant birthday (50) that - if I'm honest - I'm not exactly ecstatic about! (my knees feel an awful lot older than 50, but the rest of me still thinks, or at least wishes, I'm in my mid-30s.)

Here's the nerdy targets bit:

I'm going to keep the same target of 48 books for the year, which works out at 4 per month. I exceeded this by quite a bit in 2018, but I'm hoping to carve out a bit of regular time for writing as well as reading, so I don't want to be too overambitious with my reading target. I'll also keep my target of reading at least one library book per month, to support my local library, and I'll record those books on this thread too, although they won't count towards my ROOT total.

I'm also going to keep track of my acquisitions again this year, this has been really helpful in making me see just how much of a book-acquiring habit I have (and how much bigger that particular habit is than my reading habit!). In 2018 I was really good for ages in not acquiring very many more books than I ROOTed out, but then from about September I really fell off the wagon and bought loads! What I would really like is for my total TBRs to be a smaller number at the start of the year than at the beginning, and I think I may have to be a bit more drastic than before to start to achieve that. I know I won't be able to do the not buying any books at all thing, but I think I'm going to have a go at the 2 for 1 thing that some people here do - ie allow myself to buy 1 book for every 2 ROOTs that get read. In order to facilitate that, I've also decided to be less wedded to finding bargains, but to allow myself a modest book budget each month (I'm thinking £20 p/m), and to try to buy books at full price (as I've been looking into book writing as well as reading over the past year, I've learnt a lot about how royalties work, and much as I love a bargain as a reader, the author gets hardly anything when books are so highly discounted). I'm not going to avoid bargains completely, but I will try and be a bit more discerning. And at least for this first year, I won't count birthday and Christmas gifts in the 2 for 1 totals.

I really enjoy chatting about my reading, and seeing what everyone else has been reading, so please do feel free to pitch in and add your 2p!

Note to self so I don't have to look everywhere - code for inserting a picture (surrounded by less than and greater than signs): img src="URL" width=200 length=150

TICKER 1 (ROOTs):




TICKER 2 (Acquisitions):




TICKER 3 (total TBR number):

ROOTs read - 1st thread

1. William Zinsser - On Writing Well, 30th anniversary edition. Finished 9.1.19. 4/5.
2. Jackie Kay - Red Dust Road. Finished 12.1.19. 5/5.
3. Robert Macfarlane - The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. Finished 25.1.19. 4.5/5.
4. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix & Cleopatra. Finished 28.1.19. 3.5/5.
5. Tim Peake - Ask An Astronaut. Finished 4.2.19. 4/5.
6. Svetlana Alexievich - Second Hand Time. Finished 9.2.19. 4.5/5.
7. Dana Stabenow - Alaska Traveler. Finished 16.2.19. 4/5.
8. Joanna Cannon & others - Three Things I'd Tell my Younger Self. Finished 18.2.19. 3/5.
9. Slavoj Zizek & Nadya Tolokonnikova - Comradely Greetings. Finished 23.2.19. 4/5.
10. Aaron Swartz - The Boy Who Could Change the World. Finished 4.3.19. 4/5.
11. Roger Hutchinson - Calum's Road. Finished 8.3.19. 4.5/5.
12. Chris Moon - One Step Beyond. Finished 11.3.19. 3.5/5.
13. Sally R. Munt - Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame. Finished 16.3.19. 3.5/5.
14. Helen Russell - The Year of Living Danishly. Finished 17.3.19. 4/5.
15. Colin Thubron - In Siberia. Finished 26.3.19. 4.5/5.
16. Mark Stay & Mark Oliver - Back to Reality. Finished 26.3.19. 4.5/5.
17. Rima D. Apple - Mothers & Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950. Finished 3.4.19. 4/5.
18. Emma Mitchell - The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary. Finished 4.4.19. 5/5.
19. Tara Westover - Educated. Finished 13.4.19. 5/5.
20. Dan Papworth - The Lives Around Us: daily meditations for nature connection. Finished 20.4.19. 4.5/5.
21. Timothy Garton Ash - The File: A Personal History. Finished 27.4.19. 4.5/5.
22. Paul MacAlindin - Upbeat. Finished 27.4.19. 4/5.
23. Peggy Shinner - You Feel so Mortal: Essays on the Body. Finished 2.5.19. 3.5/5.
24. Ellen Lewin - Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture. Finished 11.5.19. 3.5/5.
25. Mark Stay - The End of Magic. Finished 14.5.19. 4.5/5.
26. China Mieville - October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. Finished 25.5.19. 4/5.
27. Monica Connell - Gathering Carrageen. Finished 26.5.19. 4/5.
28. Peter Wohlleben - The Hidden Life of Trees. Finished 30.5.19. 4/5.
29. Kate Evans - Threads: from the refugee crisis. Finished 4.6.19. 5/5.
30. Various - Migrations: Open Hearts, Open Borders (?no touchstone). Finished 5.6.19. 5/5.
31. Ian Crofton - Scottish History Without the Boring Bits. Finished 8.6.19. 3/5.
32. Marcia Kester Doyle - Who Stole My Spandex?: Life in the Hot Flash Lane. Finished 9.6.19. 3/5.
33. Alena V. Ledeneva - How Russia Really Works. Finished 24.6.19. 4/5.
34. Dea Birkett - Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers. Finished 25.6.19. 4/5.
35. Robin Sloan - Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore. Finished 1.7.19. 3.5/5.
36. Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Finished 6.7.19. 4/5.
37. Trevor Noah - Born a Crime. Finished 11.7.19. 5/5.
38. Isabella Tree - Wilding. Finished 14.7.19. 5/5.
39. Hubert Butler - The Eggman and the Fairies: Irish Essays. Finished 20.7.19. 4/5.
40. Mark Holborn & Torsten Nystrom - Propaganda: Photographs from Soviet Archives. Finished 22.7.19. 4.5/5.
41. Rebecca Solnit - Hope in the Dark. Finished 25.7.19. 4/5.
42. Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book. Finished 28.7.19. 4/5.
43. Alexander McCall Smith - Morality for Beautiful Girls. Finished 30.7.19. 4/5.
44. Evelyne Bloch-Dano - Vegetables: A Biography. Finished 1.8.19. 3/5.
45. Jane Brown - Tales of the Rose Tree. Finished 8.8.19. 3.5/5.
46. Susan Calman - Cheer up Love. Finished 8.8.19. 4.5/5.
47. Andrea Wulf - The Brother Gardeners. Finished 15.8.19. 4/5.
48. Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine - Last Chance to See. Finished 18.8.19. 4.5/5.
49. Zvi Feine - Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006. Finished 26.8.19. 3.5/5.
50. Richard Holloway - Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. Finished 27.8.19. 3.5/5.
51. Alison Phipps - The Politics of the Body. Finished 29.8.19. 4.5/5.

Non-ROOTs (mainly library books) read - 1st thread

1. Julian Gough & Jim Field - Rabbit & Bear: Attack of the Snack. Finished 4.2.19. 4.5/5.
2. Lorna Main - First Generations: The Stirling Area from Mesolithic to Roman Times. Finished 24.2.19. 3.5/5.
3. Christopher Francis - I Don't Want to Go to Sleep!. Finished 11.3.19. 4/5.
4. Julia Blackburn - Thin Paths: journeys in and around an Italian mountain village. Finished 19.4.19. 4.5/5.
5. Amanda Owen - The Yorkshire Shepherdess. Finished 23.5.19. 3.5/5.
6. Max Porter - Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Finished 2.6.19. 3.5/5.
7. Pete Souza - Obama: An Intimate Portrait. Finished 12.6.19. 5/5.
8. Jayne Stephenson - The Home Front Stirling 1939-1945. Finished 18.7.19. 2.5/5.
9. Andi Cumbo-Floyd - Love Letters to Writers. Finished 24.7.19. 4/5.
10. Catherine Doyle - The Storm Keeper's Island. Finished 5.8.19. 5/5.
11. Anne Janzer - The Writer's Process: Getting your Brain in Gear. Finished 22.8.19. 4/5.
12. Alistair Moffat - The Hidden Ways: Scotland's Forgotten Roads. Finished 25.8.19. 4.5/5.

Acquisitions - 1st thread

1. Mark Stay & Mark Oliver - Back to Reality. Acquired 12.1.19.
2. Dan Papworth - The Lives Around Us. Acquired 24.1.19.
3. Mark Stay - The End of Magic (no touchstone yet). Acquired 1.2.19.
4. Jo Littler - Against Meritocracy. Acquired 18.2.19.
5. Limmy - Daft Wee Stories. Acquired 5.3.19.
6. Roxane Gay - Bad Feminist. Acquired 7.3.19.
7. Afua Hirsch - Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging. Acquired 17.3.19.
8. Roxane Gay - Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. Acquired 26.3.19.
9. Lorna Cook - The Forgotten Village. Acquired 4.4.19.
10. William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Acquired 4.4.19.
11. Chitra Ramaswamy - Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy. Acquired 27.4.19.
12. Tim Clare - The Ice House. Acquired 2.5.19.
13. Mark Thomas - 100 Acts of Minor Dissent. Acquired 20.5.19.
14. Elementum Journal: 3: Roots. Acquired 3.6.19.
15. Elementum Journal: 4: Shape. Acquired 3.6.19.
16. Elementum Journal: 5: Hearth (no touchstone). Acquired 3.6.19.
17. Migrations: Open Hearts, Open Borders (no touchstone). Acquired 3.6.19.
18. Benedict Wells - The End of Loneliness. Acquired 3.6.19.
19. Rachel Clarke - Your Life in My Hands. Acquired 3.6.19.
20. Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt. Acquired 3.6.19.
21. Joshua Hammer - The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Acquired 3.6.19.
22. Patrick Barkham - Islander. Acquired 3.6.19.
23. Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing. Acquired 3.6.19.
24. Isabella Tree - Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm. Acquired 3.6.19.
25. Jan Carson - The Fire Starters. Acquired 3.6.19.
26. Akala - Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. Acquired 4.6.19.
27. Wendy Cope - Life, Love and The Archers. Acquired 10.6.19.
28. Hubert Butler - The Eggman and the Fairies: Irish Essays. Acquired 21.6.19.
29. Hubert Butler - Balkan Essays. Acquired 26.6.19.
30. Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird. Acquired 27.6.19.
31. Zvi Feine - Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006. Acquired 15.7.19.
32. Lindsay Hilsum - In Extremis. Acquired 15.7.19.
33. Brett L. Markham - Maximizing Your Mini Farm. Acquired 15.7.19.
34. Andrea Wulf - The Brother Gardeners. Acquired 19.7.19.
35. Ruskin Bond - A Time for All Things: Collected Essays and Sketches. Acquired 19.7.19.
36. Jane Brown - Tales of the Rose Tree. Acquired 23.7.19.
37. JP Nettl - Rosa Luxemburg. Acquired 25.7.19.
38. James Meek - Dreams of Leaving and Remaining. Acquired 25.7.19.
39. Frances Ryan - Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People. Acquired 25.7.19. (***Note to self: all titles up to here in the Jar of Fate***)
40. Will Storr - The Science of Storytelling. Acquired 14.8.19.
41. Derek Cooper - Hebridean Connection. Acquired 16.8.19.
42. Robert Atkinson - Island Going. Acquired 16.8.19.

Nerdy Stats

ROOTs (total: 51)

fiction: 6
non-fiction: 45

female author: 25 (%)
male author: 30 (%)

paper book: 25 (%)
ebook: 26 (%)

completed: 51
abandoned: 0

ratings (4* and above): 38

Non-ROOTs (total: 12)

fiction: 4
non-fiction: 8

female author: 6
male author: 6

paper book: 9
ebook: 3

completed: 12
abandoned:

Acquisitions (total: 42)

fiction: 6
non-fiction: 36

female author: 16
male author: 24
mixed: 4

paper book: 21
ebook: 21

Amount spent overall: £108.84

Source:

kobo - 16
hive.co.uk - 2
Unbound - 1
Mark Thomas website - 1
amazon marketplace - 2
Wordery - 1
birthday presents - 13
LTER - 1
Verso - 3
Barter Books - 2

(via Bookbub - 5)

2 for 1 progress (minus presents)

51 ROOTs
29 acquisitions

Welcome back, Jackie. I'm really glad to see you again. Happy ROOTing.

Haha, nerdy stats! Love it :) Good luck with the 2-for-1 TBR!

Good luck at trying to get the TBR number down. No matter how hard I try mine seems to hover at the same range.

But I'm enjoying the effort!

I hope your ROOTs acquisition strategy works, Jackie, and good luck with finding more writing time.

Hi Jackie! Love your ideas of keeping track of the books you acquire and the number on your TBR. My TBR list consists of books I want to read not necessarily just the ones I own. I have thousands of books on my TBR shelves. According to Goodreads I have 4637 books I want to read., not sure if they are just the ones I own or all books I would like to read. I can't wait to see what the nerdy stats are.

Welcome back Jackie! I like your 2-for-1 plan. I should do something like that too for my Kindle books. I hope it works out for you.

>6 connie53: Thank you Connie, I'm glad you're here too!

>7 rabbitprincess: Thanks rp! I'm going to need all the luck I can get!

>8 cyderry: Thank you Cheli. For some reason I did really well on not acquiring too much until about August or September, and from then on I blew it spectacularly. I think that might have happened the year before too, so I reckon even if I can do 2-for-1 for a few months and then buy loads at the end of the year, I have less far to fall/fail...

>9 Familyhistorian: Thank you Meg! I'm finding it ridiculously difficult to carve out writing time, but it's the one thing I really want to do well in 2019.

>10 crazy4reading: Thank you! I've found keeping track of acquisitions and Mt TBR numbers really helpful. The ones I want to read but don't own I put in my wishlist, which is starting to get as bloated as Mt TBR is! As for the nerdy stats, at the end of the year I look at the books I've read and acquired and what they actually are (fic/non-fic, male/female author, etc etc). This will just be my way of doing that as a running total through the year, rather than doing it all at once. Hopefully it will be easier for me to do, and also I know that I'm not the only nerdy book stats fan here :)

>11 LoraShouse: Thank you, Lora! I'll be honest - I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about the 2-for-1! Maybe I should have a massive book-buying binge just before the new year, to tide me over! (not really, but it is kind of tempting!)

Welcome back!! Wishing a great year of reading and ROOTing.

Hi Jackie, are you reading from the Jar of Fate this year?

>12 Jackie_K: a massive book-buying binge just before the new year
I do a little version of that each year. This year it was just 4 books, one of which I've started reading!

>13 majkia: Thank you Jean, to you too!

>14 detailmuse: Hi MJ. Yes I am still using the Jar of Fate (I have quite a lot to add to it thanks to extremely generous Christmas gift-givers!). I am also doing a couple of reading challenges (one (occasionally two, but only if I have a TBR book that fits) in the Category Challenge group, and the non-fic challenge in the 75ers group), but my other reads will be from the Jar, and occasionally I will read a book while it is still new and shiny (I have one of my Christmas books on the go at the moment). My first Jar of Fate book for 2019 will be one I picked out a few months ago, but then got distracted from actually starting.

I'm not going to do a book-buying binge (much as I'd like to), as slightly-behind-schedule Santa delivered a book a couple of days ago and then another couple today. Today's books were from my in-laws, who had already given me books for Christmas, but then they'd got themselves in a muddle and convinced themselves that they hadn't given me much. I did tell them I didn't need any more (and that I'd swiped a book from my husband's present as well, as in their muddle they'd given him a book that was from my wishlist not his), but they didn't listen! When I phoned them earlier today to say thank you, my mother-in-law told me that she felt I needed more! (clearly she hasn't read my ROOTs thread!)

>15 Jackie_K: LOL!! (clearly she hasn't read my ROOTs thread!)

I really laughed out loud reading that!

Maybe you just look like you need more books, Jackie. lol

>16 connie53: I'm not entirely sure how I managed to keep a straight face when she said that, Connie! At least we were on the phone and not face-to-face, I wouldn't have been able to hide my amusement!

>17 Familyhistorian: Yeah, that must be it, Meg! Maybe I need to smarten up and look better read!

Maybe she used "needed" interchangeably with "wanted" more -- which is always true!!

>19 detailmuse: Oy - I resemble that remark! ;)

I've just posted this up on my 2018 ROOTs thread, but here are my 2018 nerdy stats. No great surprises - lots of ebooks bought, mostly non-fic bought and read, although I think my % of fiction read in the year did increase a little bit from 2017. I'm a bit nervous about trying a 2-for-1 system, but let's see how I go!

----------------------------------------------

I've taken a look at all the books I've read (or abandoned) and acquired, and here's what I've found (NB total author numbers won't match the book total numbers exactly, because if a book is jointly authored/edited I count all the authors/editors):

ROOTs (total: 71)

fiction: 15 (21.12%)
non-fiction: 56 (78.88%)

female author: 38 (46.34%)
male author: 44 (53.66%)

paper book: 26 (36.62%)
ebook: 45 (63.38%)

completed: 66
abandoned: 5 (not including Huckleberry Finn which I did abandon but will give it another chance)

ratings: 49 out of the 71 ROOTs were 4* or above, which I'm pleased with! Of these, I gave 9 books 5*

Non-ROOTs (total: 14)

fiction: 5 (35.71%)
non-fiction: 9 (64.29%)

female author: 7 (38.89%)
male author: 11 (61.11%)

paper book: 13 (all library books) (92.86%)
ebook: 1 (7.14%)

completed: 13
abandoned: 1

Acquisitions (total: 120)

fiction: 20 (16.67%)
non-fiction: 100 (83.33%)

female author: 62 (48.82%)
male author: 65 (51.18%)

paper book: 17 (14.17%)
ebook: 103 (85.83%)

Amount spent overall: £119.59 + $7.00

Source:

kobo: 75
amazon: 1
present (birthday/Christmas): 17 (5 I chose from kobo, I suspect the rest from amazon)
Barter Books: 2
Verso: 7
University of Chicago Press free ebook: 2
charity shop: 1
UCL Press: 1
LTER: 5
Policy Press: 1
Haymarket books: 7
Springer Link: 1

Happy rooting in 2019, Jackie!

Yay, nerdy stats! That is how I will be spending my afternoon :)

Welcome back - nerdy stats and all. I will follow your 2:1 attempt closely as I am also considering something like it.

Good luck ROOTing!

Hi Jackie, wishing you a happy new year and happy ROOTing in 2019!

>20 Jackie_K: Those jointly authored books do mess up the stats. I have always wondered how authors who write together divvy up the work and actually manage to produce things that are very readable.

>20 Jackie_K: yay for nonfiction! And I'm in awe at how many ROOTs you read vs non-ROOTs and how little you spent on *120* acquisitions!

>25 Familyhistorian: Joint writing is quite a skill, I think! With the most recent piece of academic writing I did (written a couple of years ago, but not yet published - hopefully early this year) I met with my co-author, we spent a day discussing what we thought should go in our chapter (it's in an edited book on child health), what literature we knew already and what we thought we needed to look up, then agreed between us who would write the first draft of each section. Then we'd put all the bits together, comment on each other's work and make suggestions for changes. So in the end it read consistently throughout, and wasn't 'bitty'. It was a really nice way to write - when I've done academic joint writing before it's more usually been that the first author does the whole first draft, with varying amounts of input from the other authors at that stage, and then they comment and add things once the draft has been circulated, and the first author then draws it all together. I always found that less satisfying, I must admit. I can't imagine jointly authoring a more creative book - although my favourite writing podcast is The Bestseller Experiment, where the two guys who run the podcast did just that, and it worked really well. With them I think they outlined the story very extensively so they knew they were on the same page in terms of plot, characters etc, then one would write a bit and the other would follow on (they were in different time zones so one wrote while the other slept, it seems!). I wonder how these husband and wife writing teams do it? (Nicci French, Ambrose Parry, etc)

>26 detailmuse: Don't be too impressed, I count all my books (including the new and shiny) as ROOTs, so they might have been non-ROOTs in someone else's system! As for the amount spent, quite a few of them were freebies (around 35, I think), and nearly all of the others were on offer (so £1.99 or less). I've decided to change that this year - I'm going to allow myself £20 a month for new books, and try to mostly buy them at not knock-down prices (I want my favourite authors to make a living and be able to eat!). I'm not going to abandon the bargain entirely, but I'm going to be a lot more thoughtful about it (so I'd be more likely to go with a bookbub bargain than just a daily deal, because often it's the author's strategic decision to run a bookbub deal in order to target the bestseller lists, for example, rather than the online retailer's attempt to lure you in). We'll see how I go with that - I've not seen a bargain yet to tempt me, so I don't know how strong I'll be at resisting the temptation! :D

>27 Jackie_K:,>26 detailmuse: I have a wishlist on BOL (kind of Dutch Amazon) were I put the BookBullets that hit me here. It happened in last years that I lost interest in time and could just delete the book from the list. If I buy it when the BB hits me it might end up unread for years.

Of course there are favorite writers and I go for their new books immediately.

I decided to have a go at the end of year book meme that I'm seeing a lot of people doing. Answering the questions with titles of books I read (or abandoned) last year:

Describe yourself: Bossypants
How do you feel? Green Gone Wrong
Describe where you currently live: Asterix in Britain
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? The Galapagos Islands
Favorite form of transportation: Walking the Woods and the Water
Your best friend is: A Little Princess
You and your friends are: The Unmumsy Mums
What's the weather like? Fire and Fury
Your favourite time of day is: Why We Sleep
What is life for you? Peculiar Goings On
You fear: It Came from the Diaper Pail
Best advice: Nothing to Envy
Thought for the day: What We're Fighting for now is Each Other
How you would like to die: Bad Science
Your soul’s present condition: Swimming with Seals

>28 connie53: Yes, my wishlist has grown enormously with BBs over the last couple of years. I can't quite bring myself to delete many of them, but I have created a second wishlist (which I've called the Library list) where I move the ones that I think I'd like to read but don't mind not owning. So my wishlist is more the books I'd like to own, and that's what people use if they want to buy me a book.

>25 Familyhistorian: , >27 Jackie_K: The most difficult joint authorship ever must have been Intelligent Life in the Universe, by I S Shklovskii and Carl Sagan. I think the way this went was that Shklovskii wrote the book in Russian first, and then it was translated into English, and for the US edition Shklovskii and Sagan collaborated on a revised version--back and forth by snail mail, in the early to mid 60s with their respective countries rattling nuclear warheads at each other. I used to have a copy but lost it years ago, damn.

>31 haydninvienna: Wow, I really want to get hold of that now!

>32 Jackie_K: Available on Amazon for reasonable money. I might get a replacement copy myself. But of course it's probably pretty dated now.

Hi Jackie!

I'm looking forward to another exciting year of ROOTing with you. Is the Jar of Fate still big enough?

Hi! Good luck with this year's ROOTs. :) I'm planning to steal your Jar of Fate idea again this year. (But with my list of ROOTs and a random number generator.) I slacked off last year but my goal is one chosen-by-fate book per month.

>12 Jackie_K: >14 detailmuse: I only count books acquired in the previous year as ROOTs, so there's always a binge at the end of December. I was on Powell's website at 8pm on New Year's Eve.

>29 Jackie_K: Love the list. Esp. your fear. :D

>34 karenmarie: Haha, Karen - the Jar is indeed still big enough, although it got a bit fuller the last few months of the year! Let's see how I go getting it down a bit this year.

>35 madhatter22: I'm sure you weren't the only one binge-buying on NYE!

Hi Jackie, glad to see you're back! Good luck with your writing plans!

>37 MissWatson: Welcome back Birgit!

Thanks to a reminder on detailmuse's thread, I went back to check my ratings for my 2018 ROOTs. I did have a good year - of 71 ROOTs, I gave 49 books 4* or more (and 9 of those were 5* reads). I hope I do as well this year!

>28 connie53: Yes to everything you wrote!

>29 Jackie_K: Fun! I think I'll try the meme this weekend

>35 madhatter22: Sounds like a terrific place to be on New Year's Eve!!

>38 Jackie_K: That's some good reading!

>1 Jackie_K: I really do remain truly astonished by how well the one-in/two-out system has been working for me. And I think one of the things it's done for me, too, is to discourage me from going nuts with the bargain books, but instead to concentrate more on buying the ones I really, specifically want to read, whether they're for sale cheap somewhere or not. Having a specific book-buying budget sounds like an interesting wrinkle on that, too. I hope it works for you!

I find one aspect of it that seems to really help keep me on track is to have an actual physical notebook in which I keep my in-vs-out ledger. There's something about writing the book titles down in ink that makes it all feel more real to me, somehow, and having it all written down where I can see at a glance how I'm doing helps keep me honest.

>40 bragan: Thank you, I have high hopes (and possibly lower expectations, but we'll see how it goes!). Interesting you find writing it down helpful. Certainly since keeping a list here on my ROOT thread of my acquisitions I've been much more aware of what's coming in as well as being read. And of course having it here means that it's public, so I'm accountable if I'm tempted to cheat!

Hi Jackie!

>40 bragan: and >41 Jackie_K: I keep track of my Adds and Culls on my thread in the 75 book challenge group. It will probably upset me, but I just might write down what each costs for Adds. Writing each one down didn't work well last year as I had 400+ additions and only 84 culls, but there were exceptional circumstances which won't play out the same this year. That said, I've already bought a book this year. But, in my defense, it was with Christmas money, I wouldn't have otherwise bought it, and it's for a group read. (These Truths by Jill Lepore). *smile*

>27 Jackie_K: It was the husband and wife writing teams that really intrigued me, Jackie. I can't imagine being that sympatico with a partner that I could both live with them and collaborate with them in that manner. Amazing to have that kind of respect in a relationship. I got the same kind of feeling when Esi Edugayen won the Giller Prize. She was asked about her beta readers and she said that she just gives her draft to her husband, the writer, Stephen Price.

>42 karenmarie: I found it interesting to figure out how much I was spending, Karen, as I honestly had no idea. As it happens, because I have focused up to now on bargains, it has been remarkably little. I want to change that this year, and where possible buy fewer books full-price (so my favourite authors can put food on the table, and my Mt TBR becomes a bit less daunting!). My Christmas money was spent before the end of 2018, so at least those books don't count for my 2019 numbers!

>43 Familyhistorian: Me neither, Meg. My husband is great, but we have such different tastes in books that I can't imagine where we'd start to write or critique each other's work!

I've finished my first ROOT of 2019.

ROOT #1



William Zinsser's On Writing Well, 30th anniversary edition was one of the books I bought in the final week of 2018. I had bought Stephen King's On Writing with my Christmas money, and so kobo is now recommending loads and loads of writing craft books to me. This one was cheap, so I added it to the basket. The author was a columnist for many years with the New York Herald, and also taught creative writing at Yale and New College in New York. Some of the book I found a bit fussy (basically some of the grammar/word choice fussiness didn't work for me, possibly because I'm fussy about different grammar/word choices! Although I did get his point!), but other chapters on specific topic types (sports writing, arts/culture, etc) were better, and it was worth the money for the chapter on memoir writing alone. This isn't a how-to book (you won't find writing exercises here) so much as the author's thoughts on different genres and types of non-fiction and on the writing craft. It's very readable though, and I did enjoy where he took a newspaper article he'd written and annotated it to show why he made the decisions he did. 4/5.

>44 Jackie_K: eek seems I've had this TBR for 13 years ... lucky 13 maybe this year? Your mention of the case study (annotated draft of article) makes me want to get to it soon. Hmm I see I also have his Writing About Your Life, more about memoir-writing.

Yay for first ROOTs!

>45 detailmuse: That particular bit (which was an article about going to Timbuktu) was really good. I definitely want to get hold of Writing About Your Life after reading the memoir chapter. I also had Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir recommended recently. I'm thinking about always having a writing craft book on the go, alongside the jar of fate and challenge books.

I liked The Art of Memoir. You might also like The Paris Review interviews (collected in volumes, or available on the website) -- transcripts of renowned writers interviewed about their craft. I used to set up my days with writing in the morning, reading about writing in the afternoon, and reading for pleasure at night...I've been thinking of getting back to some version of that.

>47 detailmuse: That sounds like my perfect day! I just need to win the lottery and give up the day jobs, and then I'm sorted! :D

ROOT #2



I read poet Jackie Kay's collection Fiere last year, where she used her poetry to beautifully discuss identity, adoption, Scotland, Nigeria, and family, amongst other things, and I discovered then that it was published around the same sort of time as her autobiography, Red Dust Road, which covered the same sort of topics. I'm so pleased I got to read this book too - this is her account of growing up knowing she was adopted, of her adoptive family, of her search for her birth parents, of being both Scottish and Nigerian, of writing, of racism, of family, of identity. I thought it was brilliant - what could have been quite heavy was written with a light touch, and was both profound and in places very funny. I know I share a name and initial with her - I wish I shared her writing talent too! Fabulous. 5/5.

ROOT #3



Robert Macfarlane is one of my favourite authors, in one of my favourite non-fiction genres (broadly: nature writing). This book details walks that he took primarily throughout the countryside of England and Scotland, following ancient paths, but also with chapters of walks in Palestine, Spain, and Tibet. It took me a couple of chapters to get into the rhythm of it, but by then I was hooked, this is beautiful writing and really brought the places alive. It included a couple of chapters on 'sea paths' around the Hebrides (so involved sailing as well as walking). There were a couple of places that I'd not heard of - I really really want to see and experience the Broomway on the Essex coast (although whether I'd dare walk it, I don't know). Gorgeous. 4.5/5.

>49 Jackie_K: This sounds wonderful!

>49 Jackie_K: I enjoyed The Old Ways when I read it last year, Jackie. I imagine it would have felt more immediate to you knowing some of the local areas that he wrote about, most of the areas were unknown to me.

>50 detailmuse: It really is, he writes so beautifully. I love his books, and have found that if he blurbs someone else's book or writes a forward for them then they're usually good too.

>51 Familyhistorian: Yes, I could picture quite a lot of them. Even the ones I didn't really know, I had a good idea of the surroundings. For example he walks a bit of the Icknield Way, and whilst it was in a different part from the bit I know, I am familiar with the chalk downs further down the trail (in fact, my husband's high school was called Icknield as he is from near part of the trail too).

ROOT #4



Shamelessly admitting to reaching for a short book to reach my monthly target! I've several bigger books on the go, but none I'm going to finish before the end of the month. I think I'm going to have to invest in some more Asterixes, they're ideal for quick meeting of targets! Asterix and Cleopatra sees Asterix, Obelix and Getafix in Egypt, helping to build a palace for Caesar in 3 months in order that Cleopatra can win her bet with Caesar that the Egyptians aren't lazy has-beens. This has all the usual fare - superhuman strength from Getafix's magic potion, hapless Romans, pirates in a losing battle with the Gauls at sea, Obelix trying to sneak some of the potion - another solid and reliable book in the series. 3.5/5.

I'm currently waiting in for a delivery and obsessively watching the delivery tracker rather than doing any work, so I thought I'd post my January stats as I doubt I'll get any more books bought this month and I won't get any more finished. I was successful for my first month of 2 for 1 reading - I read 4 ROOTs, and acquired 2! I did have to let two or three bargains pass me by though, which was really hard! This means Mt TBR is currently sitting at 441 books.

ROOTs were:

1. William Zinsser - On Writing Well, 30th anniversary edition.
2. Jackie Kay - Red Dust Road.
3. Robert Macfarlane - The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.
4. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix and Cleopatra.

The acquisitions were:

1. Mark Stay & Mark Oliver - Back to Reality (no touchstone yet).
2. Dan Papworth - The Lives Around Us.

I haven't done great on the male/female split this month - just one woman amongst seven white dudes. I also haven't finished a library book for January (I do have a big one on the go, but won't finish it today), but I have got some kids books out so I might just read one of the shorter ones of those later and count that!

>53 Jackie_K: seven white dudes
w00t Jackie Kay, bringing so much diversity!

>54 detailmuse: I know - I really must do better! Jackie Kay was the best of the bunch (although Robert Macfarlane was also fabulous).

>55 Jackie_K: no no sarcasm or commentary intended -- just meant that she brings a lot of diversity in one person :)

Congrats on doing so well on your 2 for 1 reading, Jackie.

>56 detailmuse: Oh no worries - I'm just a bit disappointed that I didn't have a more diverse month, I don't want my namesake to be the 'token' :) We'll have to see how I go the rest of the year.

>57 Familyhistorian: Thank you Meg - turning down the bargains has been hard!

ROOT #5



Tim Peake is the British astronaut who spent 6 months on the International Space Station in 2016, and did an amazing job of enthusing the country as a whole about space and science. Ask An Astronaut is a collection of all the various questions he's been asked since, and it covers everything from astronaut recruitment, to training, to living on the ISS, and returning to Earth. It includes the obvious question of course (ie, how do you go to the toilet on the ISS?), but even though it is presented in a very accessible and readable way, the main thing that I have been left with having read this is the sheer amazing amount of scientific knowledge that has gone into building, running and maintaining life on the ISS (and space exploration in general). A very good (and not too taxing) read. 4/5.

Non-ROOT #1



Rabbit & Bear: Attack of the Snack is one of several kids' books I got from the library to look at things like story length, level etc (I've got one pre-school picture book on the go, but want to see about writing for slightly older kids too). Although I've not come across the author Julian Gough before, Jim Field is one of my favourite illustrators (we have all of his Oi! children's books and they are a big hit in this house!), and Neil Gaiman has given a glowing quote for the back cover, so I was looking forward to this very much. And it didn't disappoint! This is actually the third book in the series, and I'll be looking out for the other ones. Rabbit and Bear are two friends, and in this book their tranquil life is disturbed by the sudden appearance of a small, dazed baby owl. Bear wants to help, but Rabbit immediately remembers his dad's tales of scary huge owls, and instantly jumps to the conclusion that the owl is dangerous and needs to be imprisoned. Basically this is a fable about 'fake news', and about how easy it is to be deceived by loud voices and people jumping up and down labelling 'others' (there's even a fleeting, but unmissable, throwaway nod to the current occupant of the White House). This does have a happy ending, with various of the animals realising the error of their ways, and they all end up as (slightly wiser) friends in the end. Highly recommended! 4.5/5.

ROOT #6



Second-Hand Time is the most recent book by Nobel prizewinner Svetlana Alexievich. It's the first book of hers I've read, although I do have The Unwomanly Face of War on my TBR pile and I'm now keen to get to that too. This book is an oral history, she interviewed dozens of people throughout the former Soviet Union about their memories of the Soviet time and the end of communism, and their thoughts on contemporary life in the new post-Soviet countries. Nearly all of it is basically verbatim what the people tell her, with almost no commentary or interruption by the author; that took a little bit of getting used to, but I found I really liked that, and I think it shows a brave writer who doesn't have a fragile enough ego that she has to keep getting in the way. The people she spoke with ranged from survivors of the gulags, students who'd taken part in the demonstrations in the early 90s, parents whose children had died either through suicide or conflict, as well as people from many of the various republics that are now independent but at the time had been part of the Soviet Union (Armenia, Tajikistan, Belarus, Ukraine, etc as well as Russia). There were quite a few common themes, even though the stories themselves were all highly individual - domestic abuse, alcohol, the kitchen as a place of communal discussion, salami as the symbol of 'freedom', and many others. I really liked how she interviewed people from all sorts of different backgrounds and generations, this gave a really rich picture of the Soviet Union and what has followed it. I would have liked to have heard an account from someone from one of the Baltic states, as their experience of the Soviet Union would have probably been quite different again. But that's a small criticism, as the book as is is already epic in both scope and size (t's over 700 pages, so quite a chunkster). A very interesting book, and I really want to read some of her other work now too. The translation I thought read really well, so hats off to the translator, Bela Shayevich. 4.5/5.

Hi Jackie!

Congrats on your 2-for-1 month. You did way better than I did - I acquired 24, of which 10 were gifts and I paid for 14 (there was a special Foreign Language Book sale put on by the Friends of the Library - a retired professor donated 1,000 books from his personal collection. I'm actually happy I only acquired 10 from that sale.) On the upside, I've culled 81 since the beginning of the year, most of them in January. Onward and upward!

>61 Jackie_K: It was the first book by Alexievich I read, very impressive. I had it from the library, and now I have my own copy on the shelf. After this one I read Voices from Chernobyl and The Unwomanly Face of War, both reacommended.

>62 karenmarie: Thanks Karen! I seem to remember last year being really good at the start of the year in not acquiring too many, and spectacularly falling off the wagon come August or September. So, although I'm quite impressed with myself so far, the year is still young! ;)

>63 FAMeulstee: Yes, Anita, I thought it was very impressive, and in places very moving and shocking. I'm looking forward to getting to her other books - I have The Unwomanly Face of War already so will start with that.

Falling off the wagon about books is not the end of the world as we know it, right? Although, I'm actually using the library this year. I've read 2 book club books (Barracoon and The Essex Serpent) that way. I also just finished a non-book club book, The Great Believer's. And, most important of all, turned them in way before they were due.

>65 karenmarie: Absolutely not the end of the world as we know it! I know I've said it before, but if this is our worst vice, we're doing OK!

What did you think of The Essex Serpent? I heard an interview with Sarah Perry and thought she sounded really interesting, but as I'm a bit fiction-wary I've not followed up that interest yet!

Since it wasn't a ROOT for me I only posted my review on my 75ers thread: review of The Essex Serpent

No spoilers, but a few quotes in addition to my thoughts.

>67 karenmarie: Oh wow, I just read that - great review, thank you for pointing me to it! It's definitely going on the wishlist!

ROOT #7



Dana Stabenow is a well-known crime and thriller author, but she was also, for 5 years in the early 2000s, a columnist for 'Alaska Magazine'. This book is a collection of her columns over that time, and details travels and events all over Alaska. It just sounds amazing there, I'd love to go! I loved her easy-going style, her obvious enjoyment, and her appreciation of everything she saw. 4/5.

Ask an Astronaut sounds fun, have you read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars? I'm interested to see that a former astronaut will run for US congress -- Mark Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords (who was seiously wounded in an assassination attempt). Maybe gun control (and science!) will get some traction.

>68 Jackie_K: You're welcome, Jackie. I hope you like it when you get around to it. I know fiction is not your go-to genre, so am happy it's going on your wish list.

>70 detailmuse: Hi MJ, no I've not read Packing for Mars, but I've enjoyed the other Mary Roach books I've read. And I saw that about Mark Kelly - I hope you're right about gun control and science (although it seems it wouldn't take very much for it to be more on the agenda than it is at the moment).

>71 karenmarie: Fiction is very much on my 'ooh I want to buy this' radar, it's just less on the actually getting round to reading it! I'm trying to do better with that this year and try and actually finish some of the many fiction books on my shelves!

ROOT #8



Three Things I'd Tell My Younger Self is a short little freebie ebook that I picked up last year. The instigator is the author Joanna Cannon - she wrote one of my favourite fiction books of a few years ago, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, and this I think was a bit of a 'magnet' for her new book, Three Things About Elsie (which I've already got on my TBR). It consists of advice collected by Joanna Cannon from people in various walks of life that she looks up to (ranging from other authors, publishers, doctors, and even her mum), written to the authors' younger selves. It was published I think on the day that A'level results came out in England, and most of them seemed to be variations on the themes of 'don't worry it'll all be fine eventually', 'don't spend ages worrying what other people think of you', 'your choices aren't set in stone', 'it's worth waiting' etc etc. Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but a nice way to while away 3/4 of an hour, and there's an opening chapter from Three Things About Elsie included too. 3/5.

Hi Jackie, finally getting around to your thread. Lot of things going on here. Sending hugs!

>73 connie53: Hello Connie! Yes, I'm getting a fair bit of reading done! Hugs to you too, I hope you're well and having a good weekend!

ROOT #9



Comradely Greetings is a short collection of letters exchanged between philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova, whilst the latter was serving her 2 year sentence in a Russian labour camp after their 'punk protest' against the Putin regime in the cathedral in Red Square in 2011. Initially the two discuss philosophy in the context of repressive politics, and then the final two letters are after Nadya is released, and she can be a bit more open about the situation and conditions in the labour camps, as well as her post-imprisonment activism. That was the bit I found most interesting. She included some interesting thoughts on the fate of Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower who ended up living in Russia where he was unable to speak freely. Tolokonnikova (herself a philosophy graduate) is more than able to hold her own in discussions with Zizek. 4/5.

>74 Jackie_K: It sounds eye-opening and relevant.

>75 detailmuse: Hi MJ, yes it is, although as I'm sure I've said here before, philosophy is something I find quite baffling so I didn't always follow the discussion completely. Nadya's fellow imprisoned Pussy Riot member, Maria Alyokhina, has a book out too, called Riot Days, which I'd really like to read.

Non-ROOT #2



First Generations: The Stirling Area from Mesolithic to Roman Times is one of this month's library books, and is written by Lorna Main, who at the time of publication (2001) was Stirling Council's Archaeology Officer. The book details the various archaeological finds in the area, and how the area developed in terms of population, trade, farming etc etc. 3.5/5.

I'm not going to finish any more ROOTs before month end, so here's my monthly progress report. I'm delighted that my 2-for-1 (2 read/1 bought) system is still working well, and is - at the moment, anyway - really motivating me to make a dent in Mt TBR. Having started the year with a total TBR of 443, last month I finished up with a total of 441, and today the total is 438.

These are the ROOTs I read in February:

Tim Peake - Ask An Astronaut
Svetlana Alexievich - Second Hand Time
Dana Stabenow - Alaska Traveler
Joanna Cannon & others - Three Things I'd Tell my Younger Self
Slavoj Zizek & Nadya Tolokonnikova - Comradely Greetings

And the books I acquired in February:

Mark Stay - The End of Magic (no touchstone yet) (this is a book where I contributed to the crowdfunder via Unbound.com)
Jo Littler - Against Meritocracy.

As per usual I've got several books on the go, so hopefully something for every mood in March!

Congrats on sticking with the 2 for 1 plan! I really must try harder with that.

Making dents in Mt. TBR is even harder than numbers indicate!! Well done.

>79 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit - I'm finding it motivating, although the daily bookbub emails are hard to ignore sometimes! (I can't quite bring myself to unsubscribe!).

>80 detailmuse: Yes, it is hard, but I'm pleased with myself so far!

ROOT #10



I picked up The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz thinking that I could use it for this month's Non-Fiction Challenge, this month's theme is true crime and justice. Swartz was a young internet 'hacktivist' who was involved in setting up both RSS and reddit, and who eventually was charged after making vast numbers of academic journal articles freely available and threatened with a 35 year jail term. He committed suicide before he could be sentenced, at the age of 26. However, his collected writings here cover much much more than his thoughts on open information and its relation to the law, and did not include specific discussion of that case, so I didn't feel I could include it in the challenge.

The writings here consist of blog posts, longer essays and speeches, and the earliest ones date back to when he was 14 years old. It is clear that he was a very intelligent and talented young man, and even when I didn't agree with him (or understand him, as in the collection of writings on computers), I found him a very engaging writer who often was quite compelling. The most impressive section, in my view, is the section on politics, including an extended seminar he gave outlining the workings of American politics, in particular the various decision-making processes and the ways that bills do (or more often don't) get passed. That was fascinating, and also quite scary. I'd love to read what he'd have made of the last couple of years, and it's a tragedy that his voice was lost too young. Although I'd say I was largely sympathetic to a lot of what he was saying, there were a few topics where I felt that his conclusions went way beyond where I would go (this is particularly true of his thoughts on free downloading, and also on 'unschooling'), but I was always interested in seeing where he was going with his arguments. 4/5.

That sounds like an impressive book, Jackie. Such a waste of a young much-promising live.

>82 connie53: Yes - it was really tragic that he died so young. And I had to keep reminding myself how young he was when he was writing this stuff - if I hadn't known I would have assumed he was in his 30s or 40s with tons of life experience and activism under his belt.

ROOT #11



Calum's Road by Roger Hutchinson is a fantastic book. I bought it a few years ago while on holiday on the Isle of Skye. It tells the true story of a remarkable man on the neighbouring island of Raasay, who after decades' worth of petitions to the local council to extend the main road on the island had fallen on deaf ears, decided to take matters into his own hands and build the road himself. By the time he finished it (well into his 60s), he and his wife were the only residents left in the north of Raasay, and since their deaths the north of the island has remained uninhabited. Calum had hoped when he started building the road that it would encourage the then population to stay, and once they had left, that it would encourage new crofters to come into the area. Sadly that didn't happen, but the road is still there, now officially known as Calum's Road, and this is its extraordinary story. A wonderful and inspiring man, and his story is really well-written here. 4.5/5.

There's a brief summary of the story here: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/raasay/calumsroad/index.html

ROOT #12



Chris Moon's One Step Beyond is one of my longer-standing ROOTs, bought from the QPD (postal!) monthly book club, which I was in in the late 90s/early 2000s. I bought it after seeing him on a talk show (I suspect either Wogan or Parkinson) plugging the book. Chris Moon left the army and started working for the HALO Trust in mine clearance, first in Cambodia and then in Mozambique, in the mid-90s. In Cambodia he and his team were kidnapped by the Khmer Rouge, but managed to make it out alive. While he was working in Mozambique he stepped on a mine, and lost part of his right leg and his right hand. He nearly died, but made a remarkable recovery and ended up running the London Marathon. That's where this edition of the book ends - I gather that a subsequent edition features his subsequent running of the Marathon de Sables, a 137 mile race across the Sahara.

There was a lot of interesting information about the mine clearance programmes, and this plus the latter chapters detailing his treatment and rehab were the most interesting for me. The kidnapping in Cambodia took up about a third of the book - they were captive for a few days only, but this section is told in minute-by-minute detail, which did give a sense of the tension and stress and foreboding they must have all gone through, but did also make the book drag a bit. In contrast, the only things he really details about the Mozambique work is the day of the accident. He's clearly a very impressive person - having survived the kidnapping where everybody assumed he'd be killed, and then horrific injuries after the mine blast which would have killed most people, to have survived at all, never mind achieved all he has, is testament to his strength of character (facetiously, with luck like that it also made me think I'd like him to choose my lottery numbers). It took me a while to get into - he writes throughout in the present tense, which I found a bit jarring, and I think I also found him a bit intimidating. Not in a bad way, he's clearly a nice guy with a great sense of humour, but it was just going through so much and making so many right decisions in extreme adversity made him feel a bit on a pedestal. I'm not explaining that very well - suffice to say, I'm glad I've read the book, and I'd recommend it although I probably wouldn't reread it. 3.5/5.

Non-ROOT #3



I don't want to go to sleep! by Christopher Francis is a sweet picture book with simple and minimal words, that would be ideal to read to a pre-schooler before bed. A brother and sister don't want to go to sleep, but the Moon tells them about all the dream-adventures they'll have if they sleep. Cute. 4/5.

Pdf copy received from the publisher as part of the LT Early Reviewers programme.

Jackie, it looks like an inspiring batch of recent reads!

>86 detailmuse: Yes, I've not done too badly have I?

ROOT #13



Sally R. Munt's Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame is an academic book which I bought towards the end of my PhD (as shame was a theme which had emerged from my research), but which I never got the chance to do much more than skim at the time. The book looks at aspects of historical and contemporary culture (including TV programmes such as The Office, Queer as Folk, and Six Feet Under, the St Patrick's Day parades in the US, and the art of Tracey Emin) and looks at how shame, as well as being a negative thing, can also be productive in forming identities and communities. This is done with particular reference to Irish, queer, and working class communities.

I found the book mostly very interesting (I particularly enjoyed the Six Feet Under chapter), although sometimes I did find the academese writing a bit dense - I suspect I'd have got a lot more out of this if I'd read it when I bought it when I was in a more academic frame of mind! Mostly though it was a thoughtful and interesting read, and I'm glad I got to read it eventually. 3.5/5.

ROOT #14



I'm a sucker for a good book title pun, so was already favourably disposed towards Helen Russell's The Year of Living Danishly (subtitled 'Uncovering the secrets of the world's happiest country'). The author is a journalist who was based in London and fully living the rat-race life, when her husband gets a job with Lego for a year and so they move to rural Jutland. She discovers that Denmark is regularly touted as the happiest country in the world in international surveys, and sets out to discover why. The book is a January to December look at various issues as they settle in and try to make sense of Danish traditions and see if living there really can make them happier.

Initially I thought I was going to be disappointed, and felt that the book was a bit superficial. However, a few months in she does start addressing the more negative side of Denmark (the everyday sexism, despite legal gender equality, and the growing rise of right-wing anti-immigrant parties) and then it felt much more balanced and realistic. About half way through the book they are visited by a Swiss friend, and the incident where they hoist the Swiss flag in his honour is hilarious (turns out Denmark has Rules about flag-raising).

I did feel sad in several places, that the move that they were able to make so easily (due to the UK being part of the European Union) is likely to be much harder (if our stupid politicians can ever get their act together, that is). Bah.

4/5.

>88 Jackie_K: (if our stupid politicians can ever get their act together, that is). Bah. Do I detect a hint of frustration there, Jackie?

>89 Familyhistorian: Oh my goodness, Meg, I can't tell you how awful it is. Nobody has any idea what is going on, it's all about Theresa May trying to appease the right-wing of the Conservative Party and prevent a split, rather than anything at all to do with the good of the country. I can hardly bear to turn on the news, because it's making me so angry. People who have made their home here (with marriages, children, mortgages, jobs) are having to apply for permission to stay in their own home, it's just awful. And businesses have no idea what's going to happen, so there is minimal investment going on until they know. I'm pretty sure my 5 year old could do a better job than the current shower of numpties who are supposedly in charge.

>90 Jackie_K: I didn't realize that it was as bad as it is, Jackie, but being in limbo can be very destructive especially when investors don't know which way to go. Are a lot of people in Scotland kicking themselves for not voting for independence when they had the chance? Looks like the English centred government isn't working for anyone but the leaders trying to save themselves, at this point.

>90 Jackie_K: Much of the news I see is broad and about trade, etc., so your details are shocking. The anxiety and paralysis while waiting sounds awful.

>87 Jackie_K: Oh interesting -- what is the history of St Patrick's parades regarding shame?

>91 Familyhistorian: That's a good question, Meg. I think that for most people in Scotland, their views on independence remain pretty entrenched either way, so I think that although there are some people who are regretting their 'no' vote in 2014 because of what's happened with Brexit, I don't know if it would be enough to tip the balance. However, what I think is more likely to increase the independence support is the utterly incompetent way that Brexit is being managed by Westminster. I think as well the way that the Westminster leaders seem to be completely clueless about the dynamics of Northern Ireland, and the cavalier way that they seem to be treating them, is also giving people in Scotland pause for thought.

>92 detailmuse: There's a project called In Limbo, set up by an Italian woman settled in the UK, Elena Remigi, which collects testimonies from EU nationals settled in the UK, they've produced a couple of books now which I wish every politician would read. And with the St Patrick's parades, she was looking at the 1990s when an Irish lesbian & gay organisation wanted to march, and were forbidden to do so, because being gay is apparently (according to the organisers, and shockingly the ACLU too) incompatible with Irish identity.

Hi Jackie!

I'm listening to National Public Radio talking about Brexit right now - it's a complete disaster, for sure.

I'm pretty sure my 5 year old could do a better job than the current shower of numpties who are supposedly in charge.

The numpties ought to be ashamed.

>94 karenmarie: It's so depressing. And embarrassing. I'm ashamed to be British, we must be (well, we are) a laughing stock. And it was all so unnecessary. *sigh*

Anyway, on a brighter note, I finished two more ROOTs today, both very good.

ROOT #15



In Siberia by Colin Thubron, one of my favourite travel writers, was every bit as good as the other books of his that I've read. He travelled east from the Urals in the late 90s, sometimes on the Trans-Siberian railway but not always, discovering the length and breadth of this vast unknown land. As usual with his books, we meet locals, experience life in the raw, and his descriptions are just beautiful, it was easy to picture what he was describing and there wasn't a word out of place. Fabulous. 4.5/5.

ROOT #16



I've been binge-listening to the Bestseller Experiment podcast for the last several months, and it is one of my favourite writing podcasts out there. The premise is that the two Marks set out to write, edit, market and sell a book that became a bestseller, all within a year, and share the journey in the first year of their podcast, which features tons of writing and publishing industry advice from both indie and traditionally published authors and publishers. Back to Reality, by Mark Stay & Mark Oliver, is the book that was the end result. The first thing I have to say is that this really isn't the kind of book I normally read - I guess it basically falls into the 'up-lit', women's contemporary fiction type genre - and so despite loving the podcast I wasn't actually holding my breath that I'd like the book all that much. However, I was increasingly pleasantly surprised, and would thoroughly recommend it as a light-hearted and funny read. This is the amazon blurb:

Jo's world is about to change forever, and it’s about time

Her marriage is on auto-pilot, daughter hates her, job sucks and it’s not even Tuesday.

As Jo's life implodes, a freak event hurls her back to ‘90s Los Angeles where, in a parallel universe, she’s about to hit the big time as a rock star.

Jo has to choose between her dreams and her family in an adventure that propels her from London to Hollywood then Glastonbury, the world’s greatest music festival.

In her desperate quest, Jo encounters a disgraced guru, a movie star with a fetish for double-decker buses, and the biggest pop star in the world... who just happens to want to kill her.

Back to Reality is a funny, heartwarming story about last chances, perfect for fans of Rowan Coleman and Helen Fielding.

It's well-plotted, fast-paced and funny, and I could absolutely see it as a fun summer movie. 4.5/5.

You're making great ROOT progress! On the Brexit front, I'm getting nervous about my summer trip...!

>96 detailmuse: Thanks MJ, I'm pleased with my ROOT progress too! Don't get nervous about your trip - you'll be welcomed with open arms! And nobody has any idea where we'll be politically by then - the only possible thing I can think of is some festival performers won't get visas in time, but that's not a Brexit thing specifically - festivals have been complaining about this for the past few years, and it's usually performers from the Middle East, Africa and Asia who are affected (I wonder why, hmmmm...).

Speaking of ROOT progress, as it's the last day of the month here's my update. March was a good ROOTing month for me, with 7 read:

1. Aaron Swartz - The Boy Who Could Change the World
2. Roger Hutchinson - Calum's Road
3. Chris Moon - One Step Beyond
4. Sally R. Munt - Queer Attachments: The Cultural Politics of Shame
5. Helen Russell - The Year of Living Danishly
6. Colin Thubron - In Siberia
7. Mark Stay & Mark Oliver - Back to Reality

I'm also really proud of myself for sticking to my 2:1 (2 read, 1 bought) plan - for the year to date I've read 16 and acquired 8 books. 4 of those were acquired this month:

1. Limmy - Daft Wee Stories
2. Roxane Gay - Bad Feminist
3. Afua Hirsch - Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging
4. Roxane Gay - Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

I've some good books lined up for April (several already started) so hopefully my good reading year will continue on next month.

Congrats on your progress and on sticking with your acquisitions plan!

That is a good March! It's a testament to you that I can remember (from your reviews) something about almost every ROOT you list for March.

>98 MissWatson: >99 detailmuse: Thank you both so much! I'm really enjoying my reading year so far.

ROOT #17



Rima D. Apple's Mothers & Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding 1890-1950 has been on my bookshelves for several years. Shortly after I moved to Scotland in 2005 I attended a really interesting guest lecture she gave on the history of infant feeding and I've been meaning to read this book ever since. She outlines the industry, medical, and cultural factors which led to the increase in formula feeding in America during the period. I must admit when I was reading about the various concoctions that were cobbled together for babies who were deemed to be failing to thrive, I was amazed that any of them survived at all! As well as the expected dominance of big business, one of the main take-homes I got from this was the incredible paternalism of the medical profession, wanting to maintain control over the process of infant feeding and position themselves, not mothers, as the experts. 4/5.

ROOT #18



Well, my plan was to read a chapter a day of Emma Mitchell's The Wild Remedy for 2 weeks. That happened for the first couple of chapters (as I was reading just before going to sleep). But then I picked it up today during the day, and, er, I appear to have just read the rest of the book in a single sitting. It's gorgeous. The author details, month by month, her walks in the countryside (mainly local to her, in the Cambridgeshire Fens, but occasionally further afield), and the impact that it has on her mental health (she lives with severe depression). During the year that she was writing this she had a particularly prolonged and serious depressive episode, which she doesn't shy away from, but her writing is exquisite, and the importance of the outdoors for her wellbeing is made clear (whilst being very emphatic that she is not saying ditch the meds and hug a tree). Illustrated throughout with the author's photos, paintings and sketches, it is a simply beautiful book. 5*

I need to get my hands on The Wild Remedy - though my countryside walks are sadly limited to Central Park.

>101 Jackie_K: Onto the wishlist! Looks like it's being released here on July 1.

>102 PensiveCat: >103 detailmuse: Ooh, I hope you like it as much as I did! It really is a thing of beauty.

I have finished my 19th ROOT of the year (3rd for April), Tara Westover's Educated. I think I need a bit of time to process it though before I write a review. Spoiler alert, I've given it 5*.

ROOT #19



Tara Westover's Educated is a memoir that I've been picking up and putting down for several months now. By the end I couldn't put it down though. This is the memoir of her childhood as one of the several children in an extreme Mormon family, and her eventual move away from the family (where she was supposedly home-schooled, although the reality was basically working for her dad's scrapyard business and trying to avoid the many horrific accidents that the various family members have (whilst avoiding either insurance or mainstream medicine)) to higher education and beyond.

What was clear from the very beginning was that Tara Westover is an extraordinarily gifted writer. She really has a way with words, and it was very easy to picture the places and people and events she was describing. She is also not afraid of 'less is more', and whilst there were plenty of horrific things going on, it never felt like she was describing events, arguments, fights, accidents or whatever just for the sake of it. Having said that, although I honestly wouldn't call this a 'misery memoir', the first half of the book (which deals with her childhood before she leaves home to attend Brigham Young University) is pretty relentless, and I think that's probably why I needed to keep taking breathers from it. The second half of the book details her time at BYU, figuring out a lot of things (like how to take exams and write essays, and events such as the Holocaust) that she'd never ever heard of before, and gradually finding her place and her feet and her voice, and then to her subsequent postgraduate experience at Cambridge and Harvard. This is the section I found really interesting, although here the 'less is more' didn't work quite so well for me - there were a few places where the transformation from clueless undisciplined kid to serious scholar seemed to happen quite quickly without a lot of detail, as well as her recovery from what sounded like quite a serious mental breakdown, and so had to be taken on trust, whereas I'd have liked a bit more about how she got from A to B. What I did really like about this section though was how she described her relationship with her family evolving over time, and how the relationships with individual family members changed over time (not always for the better). That evolution over time was much more clearly portrayed, with fewer gaps.

Overall though, this is a fantastic memoir which is well worth the time, and a worthy 5* from me. It really is as good as the hype, in my view. 5/5.

Hi Jackie, I'm finally tackling the thread catch-up, seeing who's reading what and any other news. Brexit? Don't start me...

On the plus side, you're powering through your reading and I can't believe your daughter is five now - how did that happen?!

>106 floremolla: I know - she's 5 going on 15 a lot of the time! The big news is that yesterday her first wobbly tooth came out, so she is super-excited about that! She insisted on taking her coin from the Tooth Fairy to school to show all her friends. It's been really funny, since starting school and seeing some of the slightly older children with wobbly and missing teeth, she's been absolutely desperate to start having wobbly teeth too! And today a couple of the parents were saying how their children (who've not yet started having wobbly teeth) are also really desperate for their teeth to start falling out. I don't remember being that excited about it when I was her age, but I guess I probably was. All those signs of growing up mean so much to children, don't they?

Hi Jackie!

>105 Jackie_K: I'm completely skipping your review of Educated because I'll be reading it in July for our RL book club's August discussion. I've got quite a few reviews to read after I've read it as there are quite a few people in the 75 Book Challenge group whose reviews I've also skipped.

Congrats on your daughter's first wobbly tooth coming out. Definitely a milestone.

>108 karenmarie: Hi Karen! I hope you like Educated when you get to it. I don't think I've included any spoilers in my review, but that's very restrained of you to avoid it!

It feels like we're having a milestone every other week at the moment - it's dizzying to think how much they change in this first year at school. I'm loving seeing how much she is picking up at school and learning - she's like a little sponge.

Non-ROOT #4



I've just finished my latest library book, Julia Blackburn's Thin Paths: journeys in and around an Italian mountain village, and it was gorgeous. Part memoir, part oral history of the elderly residents of the remote Italian village near the French border that she and her husband made their home. She details gradually getting to know the residents, and then gradually hearing, and getting their permission to write, their memories of WW2, partisans, Fascists, greedy landowners, and the other people that lived and worked there over the years. It's gentle and beautiful. 4.5/5.

ROOT #20



Dan Papworth's The Lives Around Us: daily meditations for nature connection was the book I chose to read for Lent this year. He is a member of Cheltenham Forest Church, where a couple of my friends are also involved (in fact they appear in the acknowledgements). This book features 40 daily readings, each focusing on a different animal, plant or mineral found in the UK. He explains about the life of the creature, and also features a passage from the Bible and a section on prayer and reflection. It's nice and crusty, and right up my street!

I did wish that the Bible passages he had chosen, particularly for the last week, had been more reflective of the Easter story (so the Last Supper, Gethsemane, etc), rather than more general passages, although that does mean that this book isn't just restricted to Lent but can be used throughout the year. What raised it up for me from a 4* read was the concluding chapter, where he looks more generally at the links between Christian spirituality and nature, and our responsibilities (particularly given environmental degradation and climate change) and I've added an extra half star just for that. 4.5/5.

I too thought Educated was 5* (and harrowing!). Congrats on wobbly teeth! What I remember from my own is my dad figuring out the right time to tie a thread (thick, like black button thread?) around the tooth and give a yank. No pain but yikes the thought still makes me shudder :0

>107 Jackie_K: Oh, the joys of wobbly teeth and the ensuing gappy grin. Lovely!

>112 detailmuse: yikes, indeed! I was never that brave.

You're latest reads are scoring highly, Jackie - is that just down to the luck of the draw from the jar of fate? Or have you been particularly discerning about what you put in the jar?

>112 detailmuse: My dad talked about doing that, but never did! (thankfully!) We told A about that and she just laughed - I don't think she believed that anyone would do that! As it happened she ended up just pulling it out herself, so I'm glad she wasn't too squeamish about it!

>113 floremolla: You're right, the gappy grin is very cute. I'm calling her Gappy McGapface in my head :) And yes, I am doing well with the higher scoring books. Not all of the books are random Jar of Fate ones, as I take books out each year which I plan to read for any challenges I'm participating in (this year, the non-fiction challenge in the 75ers group, and the TBRCat in the Category Challenge group, plus the RandomCAT occasionally if I have a book that fits the theme). So those are possibly more skewed to the likely higher-scoring ones (plus the ones that are relatively new are more likely to be higher scoring because I'm being more discerning about not buying every bargain going regardless of whether it looks any good or not). But every book I need to read at least starts off in the Jar - a book only gets pulled out if I think I'm going to read it for a challenge, and if I don't, then it goes back in to face its chances with the rest of them again! I also wonder if now I'm learning more about the process behind writing books that I'm instinctively becoming a bit more generous... (having said that, I'm reading a classic and not really enjoying it very much, so not feeling very generous towards that!).

ROOT #21



Journalist and academic Timothy Garton Ash writes in The File: A Personal History about discovering his Stasi (East German secret police) file, and sets out to track down the informers and Stasi officers who were monitoring him during his student days in West and East Berlin in the 1970s and 80s. It's not just a dry 'he said, she said' description though, but musing on memory, morality, nation, history, not to mention the secret service activities of the UK state, as well as the actual content of the file. The 2009 afterword (the book was originally published in 1997) has a very interesting discussion about present-day surveillance and politics, and the relevance of the Stasi to this question (although now, 10 years after the Afterword, even that feels a bit out of date, with him talking about "personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace" - although plenty of it is pretty prescient still). A very interesting read. 4.5/5.

ROOT #22



Upbeat: The Story of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq, by Paul MacAlindin, is the sometimes inspirational, sometimes frustrating, often exhausting tale of the formation of the NYOI, from the initial idea in 2008 to its final summer school and concert in France in 2014. The author was the musical director, and much of the vision and energy required to form and maintain the orchestra, when they were only meeting once a year for a summer school and having to negotiate the complex politics of having players from all ethnic groups and backgrounds and languages, was down to him pretty much single-handedly. Each of the summer schools (the first few in Iraqi Kurdistan, then Beethovenfest in Germany, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and finally in Aix en Provence in France, plus the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get them to the US the following year, are described in detail, plus the behind the scenes activity the rest of the year. The final few chapters detail the achievements and learning from the years of NYOI.

What the author does really well here is portray the frustrations and lows of the story, but also the moments of inspiration and breakthrough, and the growth of everyone involved. Whilst it's uplifting, it's also realistic, and I think that's what I liked most about it. 4/5.

I've had another good reading month this month - none of my ROOTs were less than 4* reads, and I gave two 5*.

ROOTs read this month:

1. Rima D. Apple - Mothers & Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890-1950.
2. Emma Mitchell - The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us - A Diary.
3. Tara Westover - Educated.
4. Dan Papworth - The Lives Around Us: daily meditations for nature connection.
5. Timothy Garton Ash - The File: A Personal History.
6. Paul MacAlindin - Upbeat.

I'm still (just) sticking to my 2 for 1 scheme for new acquisitions (2 ROOTs read then 1 bought), although I've had to let quite a few really good bookbubs and kobo offers go this month which is a shame! Oh well, they're on the wishlist. Books I acquired this month:

1. Lorna Cook - The Forgotten Village.
2. William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer - The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
3. Chitra Ramaswamy - Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy*.

So that takes me to 22 ROOTs read and 11 bought.

* no I'm not, just in case anyone sees this and wonders!!!

*:)) with the books on pregnancy and infant feeding...!

>118 detailmuse: Yeah, I know! The infant feeding book was from the Jar of Fate, and the pregnancy book was a BB (I really like the author, she's a journalist here in Scotland, and the book had rave reviews. And I do still work with pregnant and new parents, so it does make sense to me!).

ROOT #23



Peggy Shinner's You Feel So Mortal: Essays on the Body was an interesting musing on what various bits of the body and what we do with them (eg autopsies) mean. What made it more interesting and lifted it above the ordinary, for me at any rate, was how imbued it was with her thoughts on how it all related to Judaism, the religion she is a member of but doesn't observe. So the opening chapter about the nose, and subsequent ones on posture and feet, both drew on and subverted religious stereotypes. I'm glad I read it. 3.5/5 (although really it's a 3.75).

Hi Jacky, keeping up with treads and catching up on everyone's reading is a real challenge for me. But I finally made it to your thread. I hope and intend to keep up now (I really don't know how often I've said that in the last year). Sending hugs!

>121 connie53: Hugs to you too, Connie! We all have such busy lives, I've noticed less activity on the threads overall this year (not less reading though, so that's good!). Hope you have a good weekend!

>122 Jackie_K: I noticed the same thing. Not that much interaction between members. Just the mentioning of books read. Perhaps it is something that has to be activated by 'us', the group members.

Hi! I'm interacting :) I requested Educated at the library. It's taking a billion years to arrive, but I have plenty of reading to keep me busy in the meantime!

>123 connie53: Sometimes I find it hard to interact if I have no interest in the books being read by a particular person! But it's worth making the effort, of course - I feel like I have not just true book buddies here, but people who would notice if I was gone. That's worth a lot :)

>124 PensiveCat: All interaction welcome here! I expect Educated has a billion people requesting it. It'll be worth the wait though!

ROOT #24



Ellen Lewin's Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture is quite an old book now, and gender and sexuality scholarship (not to mention popular culture) has moved on a bit since this was published, but I did find it interesting, particularly the final chapter summarising her findings and their implications. The author interviewed lesbian and heterosexual single mothers (135 in total), in the late 1970s and early 1980s, about their experiences of family, views of motherhood, issues around fatherhood and contact with the fathers of their children, and where sexuality fits in to all that. Overwhelmingly her findings were that the groups were remarkably similar, with both groups seeing 'mother' as a greater marker of identity than sexuality, and in so doing were showing how influenced they were by cultural markers and traditional gender orders, even if their lives were ostensibly not the 'norm' (as defined by a culture which privileges 2.4 children within heterosexual marriage as the ideal). 3.5/5.

ROOT #25



A rare foray into fantasy for me here, made even rarer by the fact that I was one of the people who crowdfunded the production of this novel, (via unbound.com) - and I have to say, it was worth the investment! I've invested in a handful of other books there too, most of which will hopefully be out sometime this year - the others have quite a bit to live up to after this good start!

The End of Magic by Mark Stay tells the story of two mages, Rosheen Katell and Sander Bree, whose magic is derived from the Lapis Moon. When the moon is destroyed, and with it the source of their magic, they have to rely on their luck and nous to try and thwart evil warlord Haldor Frang, avoid the vengeful crowds who resented the mages' previous power and are all too happy to kill any newly-weak mages they find, and rescue Rosheen's brother Oskar (a so-called moon-child whose world is also turned upside down, though in a very different way, by the destruction of the Lapis Moon). I've seen the author describe this story as 'like Game of Thrones without the boobs', which I thought was a great description. Yes there are battles (and death, and gore), yes there's swearing (not excessively though), and yes there are no boobs, not even the hint of romance. And this literary wimp could cope with all of that. I particularly liked how all the characters were very flawed, there was no obvious 'goody' to counteract the very obvious 'baddie'. It kept me engaged and had me guessing right till the end, and was an absolutely cracking story. 4.5/5.

>127 Jackie_K: The book crowdfunding -- interesting! and glad this was a winner

>126 Jackie_K: You have me thinking about gender identity. Not sure I can separate my innate sense of my own gender from the physical/social/etc definitions of it, and am interested in learning about people who have/are doing so.

Hi Jackie!

I've never heard of book crowdfunding - it's a wonderful concept and congrats for donating to several.

>128 detailmuse: >129 karenmarie: I used unbound.com, which has produced some really excellent books. It's a proper publisher, but the author has to crowdfund the initial production costs (between £4K-£5K). What it means is that once those are covered, as soon as the book is published it is already profitable, so the author starts earning straight away, rather than having to wait until their advance has been covered by sales (which may or may not ever happen). They also don't take on all-comers - if you're accepted to crowdfund on their site then it means that your proposal has already been vetted and you will be working with a top editor etc, so the quality control is there. What you tend to find is that the books that aren't fully funded within a few months tend not to get over the line - when that happens then as an investor you are offered the option of your money back, or you have credit to invest in another book. I am in that position at the moment - I've contributed to six books, but one of them just stalled at about 35% funded, so the authors pulled it and I've got the money sitting there waiting for a book I like the look of. There aren't any more at the moment that I'm particularly interested in, but I keep checking every so often.

Non-ROOT #5



This month's library book was Amanda Owen's The Yorkshire Shepherdess, subtitled "How I left city life behind to raise a family - and a flock". It's her story of ending up first working as a freelance shepherd, and eventually marrying a sheep farmer in the Yorkshire Dales, and their life on the farm. She's basically living the dream - close to the land, living with the changing seasons - it sounds great, I'd love that, although her dream involves a lot more sheep and children than mine does!

In all honesty I preferred James Rebanks' The Shepherd's Life, which I read a couple of years ago and LOVED, but this was a nice read and gave a good glimpse into a very different way of life. 3.5/5.

I've been looking into reading more - I don't know, pastoral? - books, to counteract busy New York life a little bit.

>130 Jackie_K: That is an interesting way of funding a book. I know that it is hard to get one off the ground as my brother is a writer. He has recently turned to the Patreon site for support for his creativity.

>131 PensiveCat: I'd definitely recommend The Shepherd's Life, plus basically anything at all on the long/shortlists of the Wainwright Prize. Another book I read last year which I loved was by an American smallholder called Sue Hubbell - the book was A Book of Bees, and I'm wanting to get to her A Country Year. A Book of Bees was about her smallholding in the Ozark mountains.

>132 Familyhistorian: It is a good way of book funding, although I think the authors involved have to do quite a bit of publicity and blowing your own trumpet, so if you're very British and reserved that doesn't always come naturally!

ROOT #26



October: The Story of the Russian Revolution is fantasy author China Mieville's retelling of the momentous events of 1917 in Russia. Whilst this is non-fiction, and is based on an impressive amount of research and recourse to scholarly and eye-witness sources, I really liked that his literary background meant that this book was never stuffy, even when it was detailing player after player after committee after Soviet, and meeting after congress after meeting. It brought the events alive in a way that the more academic accounts I've read just haven't. Mieville is a well-known left-winger, and makes no claims to impartiality here, although he does say that he has tried to be fair in his portrayal of everyone. Largely I think he's achieved that.

One thing which really struck me when I was reading it yesterday, was when he was talking about the leader of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, in the final days and hours before the overthrow of the Provisional Government, and wrote: "He was certain that the Preparliament would now support him. The man was 'completely oblivious', the Left SR Kamkov would recall, 'to the fact that there was nobody to put down the uprising regardless of what sanctions he was granted'", and all I could think of as I read those words was "that's Theresa May, that is!" Of course even as I'm reading about momentous political upheaval of 100+ years ago, over here we're living through momentous political upheaval ourselves. And just like the people in revolutionary Russia would have had no idea where what they were living through would lead, same here too. 4/5.

>133 Jackie_K: It seems like there is a lot of the "blowing your own trumpet" required of authors, at least these days. Hard for many of them, I would suppose because writing doesn't usually equate with out going exuberant personalities.

>134 Familyhistorian: I think that's very true, but with publishers slashing their marketing budgets it seems to be being left more and more to the authors themselves to shout about the books.

ROOT #27



Gathering Carrageen by Monica Connell is exactly my kind of book. It's a memoir of her year spent living in rural Donegal in Ireland - the people, places and events that make a community and a place. From farmers to fishermen, widows to teachers, she seems to make friends easily and settle into the rhythm of Donegal life, cutting peats, going to the pub, experiencing the Atlantic storms that howl over the land, making friends. A nice gentle read. 4/5.

ROOT #28



Peter Wohlleben's The Hidden Life of Trees (subtitled 'What they feel, how they communicate - discoveries from a secret world') is a book I've wanted to get to for ages, and luckily my former book group (who I'm still in touch with) were reading it this month so I joined in with them. Initially I was a bit worried that I was going to be disappointed - there is a bit of anthropomorphising going on which, until I got used to it, put me off a bit. The author is a forester in Germany, and this is based on many years of observations, and study of the academic science looking at trees and forests. My overriding feeling after reading this is that trees are amazing. 4/5.

Hi Jackie!

>133 Jackie_K: Onto the wish list it goes. I have read The City & The City and have 3 other to-be-read fiction books by him.

>137 karenmarie: Hello Karen :) My husband is a big fan of his fiction too. I find it a bit intimidating!

It's the end of May already (HOW?????!!!!), so here's my May stats. It's been another good month!

6 ROOTs read:

1. Peggy Shinner - You Feel so Mortal: Essays on the Body.
2. Ellen Lewin - Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Culture.
3. Mark Stay - The End of Magic.
4. China Mieville - October: The Story of the Russian Revolution.
5. Monica Connell - Gathering Carrageen.
6. Peter Wohlleben - The Hidden Life of Trees.

And just the two acquisitions - go me! Although as it's my birthday next week and I also know that two of my unbound.com investment books are now going to press so likely to arrive in the next few weeks, I'm not complacent at the numbers! Anyway, the two acquisitions are:

1. Tim Clare - The Ice House. (no touchstone yet)
2. Mark Thomas - 100 Acts of Minor Dissent.

Non-ROOT #6



I really struggled to know how to review this book. Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers is a short novel about grief - a dad and his two young boys lose their wife/mum suddenly, and the story is told in three voices, the dad, the boys, and the crow, which is a metaphor for their grief and helping them get through it. The positives: it's beautifully written, poetic, with stunning use of language. The negatives: it just felt slightly out of reach to me - I understood the crow as a metaphor, but aspects of what was written felt clever and a bit arch, and made me feel like I wasn't quite clever enough to really fully get it. I'm glad I read it, but I don't know that I'd rush to read it again. 3.5/5.

Thank you -- I now have The Wild Remedy (finally available here on July 1) AND A Country Year on my wishlist. I may get both!

>136 Jackie_K: Ditto to everything in your review -- the anthropomorphizing and the amazing!

>140 detailmuse: I don't think you'll be disappointed, MJ!

Well, I have had a very indulgent week, book-wise, and it's only Tuesday! Yesterday was (whispers) my birthday, and I got 12 new shiny ROOTs to add to the pile! They have almost wiped out the dent that I have made in Mt TBR - I'm still (just) on the right side of chipping away at that mountain, but I might have to tighten the belt for a bit! They were a great haul though, I'm delighted!

I did manage to finish my first June ROOT today though, which means that Mt TBR is now standing at 440 books (at the start of the year it was 443).

ROOT #29



I had high hopes of Kate Evans' graphic non-fiction book Threads: from the Refugee Crisis, having previously read her excellent graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg, Red Rosa. I wasn't disappointed, this is an absolutely fantastic book. She documents her trips volunteering in the Jungle refugee camp in Calais a few years ago, foregrounding the people living there trying to eke out an existence and find a way of reaching the UK (often to rejoin family members who were already there). Amongst their stories, she includes images of tweets and comments received against her work - the typical below the line 'how do you know they're refugees, they're coming over here, taking our jobs' type comments - and the stories that she presents really show the ignorance and prejudice behind those comments. She doesn't shy away from the deprivation and traumas that people have experienced, and the reality of the prejudice, indifference and politics they are likely to face if they are ever successful in reaching the UK, not to mention the police brutality and traffickers that prey on camps like the Jungle. But infused throughout is hope - a celebration of the human spirit and generosity. Outstanding. 5/5.

Happy belated birthday, Jackie! Enjoy your haul!

>142 MissWatson: Thank you very much, Birgit! Here's the first of the haul, that I very very much enjoyed:

ROOT #30



Migrations: Open Hearts Open Borders (which doesn't appear to have a touchstone yet) was completely and utterly gorgeous. Here's the blurb:

From all over the world, picture book illustrators sent original images and personal messages, in postcard form, for Migrations, an exhibition curated by the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society.

Over fifty of the cards are reproduced in this very special book. With contributors including Isol, Jon Klassen, P.J. Lynch, Roger Mello, Jackie Morris, Chris Riddell and Axel Scheffler, it carries a powerful message about human migration, showing how cultures, ideas and aspirations flow despite borders, barriers and bans.

All of the pictures are of birds, and many of the cards featured messages from the illustrators, either personal messages or extracts from poetry or prose by others. It is just so beautiful, and so moving, I loved it. 5/5.

ROOT #31



I picked up Ian Crofton's Scottish History Without the Boring Bits at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh a few years ago. This is the blurb:

Scottish History Without the Boring Bits offers a colourful melange of the bawdy, the bloody, the horrific and the hilarious episodes and characters that have spattered the pages of our nation's story. From the War of the One-Eyed Woman to the MP cleared of stealing his ex-mistress's knickers, Ian Crofton presents a host of little-known tales that you won't find in more conventional works of history.

The story starts in the 4th millennium BC with the expulsion from Eden of the first Scot. It then makes its way via the medieval bishop roasted in butter and the appearance of the Devil in Ayrshire disguised as a lady's lapdog, right up to the twenty-first century, when US intelligence identified a distillery on Islay as a possible threat to world peace.

So forget the usual parade of what James Bridie called 'Wallace-the-Bruceism' and Charlie-over-the-waterism'. That's all history. Here, for the first time, is the story of Scotland as it's never been told before.

The book is a succession of anecdotes, some with stronger claims to historical accuracy than others, and I must admit I found the 20th century and beyond section the most entertaining (not least because I remembered some of the latter things happening, and in fact one of them was round the corner from where I used to live in Glasgow). This is the ideal book for the toilet bookshelf - it's one to dip in and out of. Reading it from beginning to end got a bit stodgy, but with occasional dips into random pages I think it would be more entertaining. 3/5.

ROOT #32



Marcia Kester Doyle's Who Stole my Spandex? Life in the Hot Flash Lane was a book I got via bookbub a couple of years ago. The author is an American blogger who writes the Menopausal Mom blog, and what I hadn't realised when I bought it was that this book is basically a collection of blog posts. Which is fine, but there were so many that they did start to feel very repetitive after a while. I also found the blurb and the introduction rather over-promised on the hilarity, although maybe that says more about me than the book. I do like mum bloggers (eg the Unmumsy Mum, etc), but just found this book wore a bit thin. She is clearly a very good and entertaining writer, and actually the three posts that she wrote about family members she had lost (her twin son who died shortly after birth, her sister, and her dad) were really very moving - I've added an extra half star for those ones. The rest all pretty much ended blending into one for me, and I can't help feeling a stronger editor might have made this a stronger book. 3/5.

>144 Jackie_K: Scottish History Without the Boring Bits looks interesting, Jackie. You especially caught my interest with "when US intelligence identified a distillery on Islay as a possible threat to world peace."

>146 Familyhistorian: I'm not sure I'd buy the book on the strength of any single anecdote, to be honest! I was interested in that too, and now I've finished the book I can't remember the story!

Non-ROOT #7



Pete Souza was the official White House photographer throughout President Obama's 8 years as US president. This huge coffee table book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, is a collection of over 300 of his photos of that time. I got it as a Christmas present a couple of Christmases ago, and until recently hadn't even taken the cellophane off it, because I thought I would feel too sad looking at it. Actually I found it very uplifting - even though politically he wasn't all I had hoped - particularly when I made myself remember that it wasn't actually a lifetime ago (even though that's what it sometimes feels like). Souza's commentary on the pictures is very minimalist, he largely lets the pictures do the talking. Some of these photos are really very powerful. 5/5.

In other news, now I've finished that, I only have fiction on the go at the moment, several of them which isn't like fiction-phobe me at all! I'm feeling the need for more non-fiction to help me chill out!

>147 Jackie_K: I'm feeling the need for more non-fiction to help me chill out!

This made me smile, I'm sure most people feel just the other way around.

Belated happy birthday, Jackie! I think, like me, you’re celebrating a big one this year?

How are you enjoying the Scottish summer so far? I’ve put in some long shifts in the garden on the rare good days and then didn’t get to sit out and enjoy it before it needed doing again. Bah!

Anyway, you're doing a lot of interesting reading and I’ve taken a few BBs and ideas for gifts for friends! :)

>147 Jackie_K: I wouldn't buy a book based on the one anecdote, Jackie, but I might take it out from the library. Sadly, my library doesn't have that book so the impulse passed.

Happy birthday (month) !!

>145 Jackie_K: I keep tags "From a blog," "From a Twitter feed," etc. My highest rateds are collections of recipes or collections of images. For me too, the text collections are more forgettable.

>147 Jackie_K: A lifetime. I am exhausted.

>148 MissWatson: Haha - I know I'm in the minority there! I'm still plugging away at the fiction, but the non-fic is just my happier place, usually.

>149 floremolla: Thank you Donna! Yes, it was a big one, and so far I am enjoying it. I've decided to embrace it rather than pretend it's not happening! You're right, the Scottish summer has been a bit disappointing, hasn't it? Especially compared to last year. We've got some veg (mainly salad leaves) on the go, but other than that the garden isn't looking as bonny as it could, sadly.

>150 Familyhistorian: It's the kind of book you'd find in big museums, I expect, so maybe check it out on your next visit to Scotland!

>151 detailmuse: Thank you MJ! You're right, 2 years feels like 200, doesn't it?

Finally, another ROOT! Of course, despite all the fiction I've been reading, I've kept putting it off and this one (plus the next one I'm going to finish soon) are also non-fiction, as usual for me.

ROOT #33



How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices that Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business, by Alena V. Ledeneva, is an academic book which carries on from her previous book which looked at blat (personal informal practices) during the Soviet period in Russia. This book looks at the late 1990s, and analyses the various informal practices that have moved beyond the personal to grease the wheels of political and economic life in Russia in the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It covers practices in elections (eg use of PR), media (use of compromising material), industry and business (barter and financial scheming), and legal and security (alternative enforcement). It was very interesting, although I can't claim to have been able to fully follow all the ins and outs of quite complex trails of accountability and obligation. 4/5.

ROOT #34



Dea Birkett's Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers is the book that accompanied a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2004. I went to the exhibition and bought the book at the time, so I'm glad I got round to the book eventually! Most of the women featured here, at least the British women travelling round the world, are from the moneyed/aristocratic classes, as might be expected, but despite me not being a huge fan of aristocrats generally, this was a very entertaining look at some very enterprising (and, it has to be said, very very white) women. The final section detailed women who travelled to Britain, and at last there was a bit more diversity to add to the mix. I remember enjoying the exhibition very much at the time, and I enjoyed this book too. 4/5.

Now back to fiction for the rest of the month! I'm hopeful I'll get one more ROOT finished before the end of the month.

>152 Jackie_K: My next trip to Scotland will definitely be longer with time to check out big museums! Cruising didn't allow more than 8 hours per Scottish stop.

>154 Familyhistorian: That's one of the things that puts me off cruising, Meg. Although I probably would do a cruise to somewhere more inaccessible (eg Norway or Alaska fjords) where the onland destinations aren't the main attraction.

--------------------------

So I didn't quite manage to finish the fiction book I've been reading in June before month-end, but hopefully it'll get finished today. June has been a good month for me - 6 ROOTs and 2 non-ROOTs read. They were:

ROOTs:

1. Kate Evans - Threads: from the refugee crisis.
2. Various - Migrations: Open Hearts, Open Borders. (no touchstone)
3. Ian Crofton - Scottish History Without the Boring Bits.
4. Marcia Kester Doyle - Who Stole My Spandex?: Life in the Hot Flash Lane.
5. Alena V. Ledeneva - How Russia Really Works.
6. Dea Birkett - Off the Beaten Track: Three Centuries of Women Travellers.

Non-ROOTs:

1. Max Porter - Grief is the Thing with Feathers.
2. Pete Souza - Obama: An Intimate Portrait.

As far as acquisitions go, it was my birthday month so that's my excuse ... 17 acquisitions this month, of which 13 were birthday presents. I am very very glad I included a 'presents don't count' exception to my 2-for-1 plan, as without the presents I am still on track, with 34 read and 17 acquired. I am still - just - running with a net reduction to Mt TBR, so I'm pleased about that - currently I'm at 4 fewer books unread than at January 1st.

These are this month's acquisitions (books marked * were birthday presents):

1. Elementum Journal: 3: Roots. *
2. Elementum Journal: 4: Shape. *
3. Elementum Journal: 5: Hearth. *
4. Migrations: Open Hearts, Open Borders (no touchstone). *
5. Benedict Wells - The End of Loneliness. *
6. Rachel Clarke - Your Life in My Hands. *
7. Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt. *
8. Joshua Hammer - The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. *
9. Patrick Barkham - Islander. *
10. Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing. *
11. Isabella Tree - Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm. *
12. Jan Carson - The Fire Starters. *
13. Akala - Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire.
14. Wendy Cope - Life, Love and The Archers. *
15. Hubert Butler - The Eggman and the Fairies: Irish Essays.
16. Hubert Butler - Balkan Essays.
17. Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird.

>155 Jackie_K: In many ways I don't think it was a typical cruise that I was on, just 2 at sea days out of a 12 day cruise. Maybe something similar to "If This is Tuesday it Must Be Belgium"? I'm contemplating a cruise to Alaska with my genealogy society in a couple of years which will be more relaxing - well, except for all the genealogy talks, I suppose.

I like the rule that books as presents don't count!

What a stack of gift books! I can't remember if I've asked -- do people inquire about what books you'd like, or pull from a wishlist, or do you buy them with gift cards?

>155 Jackie_K: P.S. forgot to mention -- Bird by Bird! In my all-time Top 10!

I also loved her memoirs of being ultra-liberal politically yet coming to Christianity. Her essays are also good, her fiction not so much for me.

>156 Familyhistorian: I love the idea of a genealogy (or in fact any special interest) cruise! I imagine being away from it all would fire the imagination much more than if you were just stuck at home researching.

>157 detailmuse: Mostly the gifts were from my amazon wishlist. A handful were completely random, and one was from a very unsubtle hint! :D

>158 detailmuse: I'm enjoying it so far. I've heard similar about her fiction. I'd like to read some more of her essays.

I didn't quite manage to finish this for June, but got it finished yesterday:

ROOT #35



Robin Sloan's Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore has been on my ereader for a few years, I'm glad I finally got to it. An enjoyable romp of a mystery focused on books and a secret literary society - this was basically geeks do the Da Vinci Code. It wasn't life-changing literature or anything, but it was fun (although the female characters were a bit one-dimensional for my taste, and the focus of his friend Neel's start-up tech company had my eyes nearly roll out of their sockets). 3.5/5.

Hi Jackie! I didn’t think it had been this long since I visited…

>138 Jackie_K: I agree with your husband. I’ve read The City & The City and was bemused. I have 3 more fiction books by him waiting patiently.

>144 Jackie_K: This is the ideal book for the toilet bookshelf High praise indeed.

>155 Jackie_K: Good stats. I see you got The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. I got it for Christmas last year and really need to read it in 2019.

Congrats on 35 ROOTs so far this year.

>159 Jackie_K: They have cruises for writers too, Jackie.

>160 karenmarie: Hi Karen! The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu had been on my wishlist for a couple of years, but this time was its time, apparently! It was among the six books that my in-laws got me from my wishlist - I wasn't sure they'd go for it, as 'bad-ass' isn't really in their vocabulary, but I'm happy they did!

>161 Familyhistorian: Ooh, if one of those went to somewhere remote and beautiful then I'd love that!

ROOT #36



No sooner bought than read! Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is a book about writing, and so much more, and I've meant to get to it for ages. Short chapters cover all aspects of the writing process, from deciding to write, first drafts, plot, writing groups, publication, and all sorts of other things. This isn't a book about improving your writing per se - it doesn't have writing exercises, or millions of examples - I suppose it's more about the philosophy behind why we write, and how to make the most of the experience if we decide that's the direction we want to take. I did find some of it a bit too hyperbolic and overblown for my taste (especially the penultimate chapter on publication), but there were plenty of bits which I absolutely loved, and in particular towards the end when she talks about writing as giving. I think this is one I will dip in and out of often. 4/5.

>162 Jackie_K: I sign up for the Surrey International Writers Conference every year and in the last few years they have started offering cruise writers' retreats https://www.siwc.ca/siwc-at-sea/ but they are to the Carribean so not exactly remote, I guess.

>164 Familyhistorian: The Caribbean, eh? Well, it's a hard life but I suppose someone has to do it! ;)

I'm going to be away for the next week and a half, we are venturing into Englandshire to see family, and apart from the occasional instagram photo and check of emails I'm planning on going mostly offline. As well as the social stuff, I'm loading up on books and podcasts, as well as taking my writing journal. I'm hoping when I come back I'll have 3 more ROOTs finished, plus a library book.

>166 Jackie_K: Have a great time!

>167 rabbitprincess: Thank you, RP! We're not going to go to Barter Books on this trip, but probably will in August instead, when we've got a bit more time for a leisurely journey (ie not going so far!). I've got a nice little pile building up of books to barter.

>165 Jackie_K: I have only attended the conference on dry land, although the cruise does look interesting.

Have a great trip and get lots of writing done!

Glad you loved some bits in Bird by Bird. Have a wonderful vacation!!

>169 Familyhistorian: >170 detailmuse: Thank you! We are now back, having had a lovely time, but we are now in the midst of the post-holiday recovery (which seems to involve a lot of laundry). I didn't manage to read quite as much as I had hoped, but I did finish two (both excellent) ROOTs:

ROOT #37



Trevor Noah's memoir of growing up in South Africa around the end of the apartheid regime, Born a Crime, was absolutely brilliant, I loved it. He is an absolute master storyteller, and could teach fiction writers a thing or two about writing characters, about crafting scenes, and evoking a time and place. He discusses family, politics, identity, and race, both through stories of his family and in short sections explaining how the politics of apartheid impacted on daily life. A couple of the sections had me laughing out loud (for those who have read it: the bit where he takes a dump in his grandma's kitchen instead of using the outhouse, and also later on his break-dancing friend Hitler). But amongst all the absurdity, he doesn't shy away from the more violent side of life, with an abusive and violent stepfather, and the realities of living in a police state. An absolutely wonderful book. 5.5.

ROOT #38



Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm by Isabella Tree is currently shortlisted for this year's Wainwright Prize (my absolute favourite literary award - I've never read a Wainwright nominee I didn't love). The author and her husband owned a dairy and arable farm in Sussex in southern England, but increasing financial precarity led to them selling their livestock in 2000 and gradually letting the farm return to a wilder state. They introduce some free-roaming grazing animals (longhorn cows, Exmoor ponies and Tamworth pigs), and stop spraying and weeding the land. Over the years they see the resurgence on their land of animals that had disappeared (or were close to disappearing) from the English landscape - such as the Purple Emperor butterfly, turtle dove, and nightingale - and muse on alternative ways to farm sustainably whilst not destroying biodiversity. They are also open about the resistance they faced, certainly in the first decade, from neighbouring farmers and landowners, and the frustrations of political caution and obstruction. This is a really important book, and I'd urge everyone to read it. 5/5.

I also enjoyed Born a Crime, the second book is sadly not available in Dutch translation. I will keep an eye out for it, as it sounds good to me.

>172 FAMeulstee: Thanks Anita. I would imagine that it will come out in Dutch translation eventually, because the project was very much influenced by the work of Dr Frans Vera and the Oostvaardersplassen project.

>173 Jackie_K: That makes it even more interesting!

Non-ROOT #8



Jayne Stephenson's The Home Front Stirling 1939-1945 was a short book from the library detailing local memories of WW2 in Stirling. The city only saw one hostile action (two bombs dropped on Kings Park in 1940), otherwise this just mentions things like rationing, evacuees, and changes in employment, plus memories of the VE Day celebrations. It's a thin volume (30-odd pages) which reflects the lack of action here - it would be of interest I presume to local historians. 2.5/5.

ROOT #39



I've acquired a few essay collections recently, and amongst those were a couple of collections of essays by Hubert Butler. This one, The Eggman and the Fairies, is a collection of his Irish essays (the other one I bought is of his essays about the Balkans). He was writing throughout much of the 20th century, and I found that many of the essays were pretty timeless. I liked some more than others, of course, but throughout I appreciated his focus on the importance of the local, as well as his discussions of nationalism and history. The essays I particularly liked were one on Irish literature (a hastily-written but impressive talk he gave to the Union of Writers in then-Leningrad in 1956), and an essay from 1941 called 'The Barriers', about nationalism and small nations, and the importance of diversity to national culture. There was also a quote in the final essay which really made me think nothing has changed at all really, however much things change - this was written in 1956, but could have been written yesterday:

Speed of communications has increased, and we are expected to have strong feelings about an infinite series of remote events. But our powers of understanding and sympathy have not correspondingly increased. In an atmosphere of artificially heated emotionalism truth simply dissolves into expediency.

I'll look forward to reading the Balkan essays when I eventually get to them. 4/5.

>176 Jackie_K: The quote is a bit more educated sounding than something you would read today but the sentiments could equally apply.

>177 Familyhistorian: You're right, of course - but it did leap out at me, and I had to look back at when it was actually written!

ROOT #40



Propaganda: Photographs from Soviet Archives (curated by Mark Holborn and Torsten Nystrom) is a coffee table book of photographs from the Novosti Press Agency archives in Sweden. Mostly from 1960-1990, it details the vast scale of Soviet enterprise in many domains, from forestry to space. It made me think how exciting it must have been in the 1960s and 70s to see so much technical innovation, even if a lot of the hardware today looks slightly ridiculous. A really interesting set of photos, recommended. 4.5/5.

Non-ROOT #9



Author Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a member of a number of online writing groups, including the one that I am part of, so I was happy to buy this to support a very supportive writer. Love Letters to Writers is a series of 52 short letters (so you could read it one a week for a year, which I might well do, although I read it in a couple of short sittings this time) covering various aspects of the writing life, and has plenty of wisdom and down to earth advice. 4/5.

ROOT #41



Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit is a series of essays, originally published in the early 2000s around 9/11 and Iraq invasion time. This features a foreword and afterword from 2016, and could clearly be updated again (sigh). She discusses activism and protest, and ways of looking at it, and at a time when I'm feeling politically quite impotent I needed this shot in the arm. I freely admit to being her target audience, but I did really like it. 4/5.

>127 Jackie_K: On the list for my FF-bookclub it goes. This book might be just what they would like.

And I've completely missed your birthday. But my congratulations are very sincere.

I really must visit some threads more often.

>180 connie53: Thank you Connie! At this age the years tend to melt into each other anyway :) But so far I am enjoying being 50 - I have decided to treat it as 50 and fabulous, rather than get depressed about it!

>181 Jackie_K: That's a good way to treat it. 50 is still young.

>171 Jackie_K: You made me decide it's time to get to Born A Crime!

HI Jackie!

So many good books read. I especially agree about Born a Crime. It was an absolute stunner.

50 is young - I could have been your babysitter. *smile*

>184 karenmarie: LOL, me too.

>182 connie53: >184 karenmarie: >185 connie53: Thank you, that made me smile too! I bet you would both have been really fun babysitters :)

>183 detailmuse: I'm very very confident that you will love it!

ROOT #42



Lost in a Good Book is the second book in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, and it was just as fun and silly and clever as the first one. This time, the dastardly Goliath Corporation manage to 'eradicate' Thursday's new husband, Landen Parke-Laine, and she embarks on an adventure jumping between books in an attempt to a) get him back, and b) save the world. In order to do this she is apprenticed to ace JurisFiction agent, Miss Havisham (yes, that Miss Havisham). I loved this, and the explanation of the Well of Lost Plots (which, as it happens, is also the title of the next book in the series) made me laugh out loud. 4/5.

ROOT #43



It's not like me to race through a fiction book in 2 days, but that's what I've just done with Alexander McCall Smith's Morality for Beautiful Women, the 3rd in the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. As with the previous books, detective Mma Ramotswe gently goes about solving mysteries (in this case the alleged poisoning of the brother of a Government official), and observing daily life in Botswana. And as with the other books, this was just the gentle read I needed. 4/5.

July recap

July has been a really good reading month for me, with 9 ROOTS and 2 non-ROOTs read. The ROOTs were:

1. Robin Sloan - Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Bookstore.
2. Anne Lamott - Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
3. Trevor Noah - Born a Crime.
4. Isabella Tree - Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm.
5. Hubert Butler - The Eggman and the Fairies: Irish Essays.
6. Mark Holborn & Torsten Nystrom - Propaganda: Photographs from Soviet Archives.
7. Rebecca Solnit - Hope in the Dark.
8. Jasper Fforde - Lost in a Good Book.
9. Alexander McCall Smith - Morality for Beautiful Girls.

And the non-ROOTs were:

1. Jayne Stephenson - The Home Front Stirling 1939-1945.
2. Andi Cumbo-Floyd - Love Letters to Writers.

As far as acquisitions goes, let's just say it's been slightly more acquisitive than it probably should have been! I've fallen of the 2 for 1 wagon a little bit (I read 9 ROOTs, and acquired 9 books - 1:1 is *nearly* 2:1, right?!), although I'm hopeful if I can be a bit more frugal the next month or so I'll catch up with myself again (we won't think about the imminent Barter Books trip). By the end of July I'd read 43 ROOTs for the year, and acquired 26 non-gift books, which if I were still going for 2 for 1 would mean I should have read 52 ROOTs. So it's not completely unsalvageable, and I still just have a net reduction in Mt TBR overall (a reduction of 4, but at least in the right direction!). Anyway, my plan is apart from Barter Books to try not to buy books in August, and read up a storm, to try and get back as close as I can to 2 for 1. Let's see how it goes! I do have some good books on the go at the moment, so will hopefully get through them pretty quickly.

This month's acquisitions:

1. Zvi Feine - Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006.
2. Lindsay Hilsum - In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin.
3. Brett L. Markham - Maximizing Your Mini Farm.
4. Andrea Wulf - The Brother Gardeners.
5. Ruskin Bond - A Time for All Things: Collected Essays and Sketches.
6. Jane Brown - Tales of the Rose Tree.
7. JP Nettl - Rosa Luxemburg.
8. James Meek - Dreams of Leaving and Remaining.
9. Frances Ryan - Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People.

The first one on the list is an ER book, 4, 5 and 6 are for research for a piece I'm writing at the moment, and 7, 8 and 9 were in the Verso 90% off ebooks sale. I'm feeling vaguely virtuous that I only got 3 this year - the original list was definitely longer!

Hi Jackie, you did well in July! I'm looking enviously at your tickers - almost reaching your goal for the year, making inroads to MT TBR and acquisitions under control. It does make you focus when you've shared your goals with others ;)

Hope you're enjoying the summer despite the changeable weather - can't believe August is here already!

Hi Jackie!

Is it my imagination, or have you been reading more fiction recently?

Congrats on a great reading month!

>189 floremolla: Hello Donna! You're right, I do feel more focused this year, the 2 for 1 thing has really helped (even though I blew it in July). If I keep it up then this may be the first year in forever that I'll have ended the year with fewer books than I started it with. Thanks, I am having a nice summer, we were away the other week seeing family in England which was nice, and we might try to go away just the three of us in the October school week. We're not having as much luck with the veg this year as last year though, sadly. I'm sure we were harvesting loads more things by this point last year. And I am enjoying spending a bit of time with A over the holidays, although I'm also counting the days now till school starts again!

>190 karenmarie: Hi Karen! Yes, I have been reading more fiction - partly for specific challenges, and partly because I know I need to get out of my comfort zone sometimes. I have 4 fiction books in various states of being read (or about to be started) at the moment. Including persevering with Vanity Fair, but not very enthusiastically, I must admit. I'm just hopeful it will be done by the end of the year!

>188 Jackie_K: Good luck with getting your book acquisitions back on track, Jackie. You are way more disciplined in the acquisitions department than I am even your numbers in July are so much better than mine.

>192 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! For some reason this year I've found it easier to reign in the acquisitions a bit - I think because I really really want to read so many books I already have.

ROOT #44



Vegetables: A Biography by Evelyne Bloch-Dano (translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan) is a short book which covers the history of various vegetables - where they came from, where their names come from, how they ended up where they are now. It includes some recipes and extracts from historical literature. An interesting book, but it felt a bit unsatisfying. 3/5.

Excellent reading month! I am looking forward to hearing about your Barter Books trip :D

>194 rabbitprincess: Thank you - I've not been since this time last year so am very excited!

Non-ROOT #10



Catherine Doyle's The Storm Keeper's Island is a middle grade (ie younger-than-YA) chapter book which I got from the library, but it was so wonderful I'll definitely be getting my own copy and I can't wait until my daughter is old enough that we can read it together. I'll also definitely be looking out for the sequel which is out any time now. Late primary/early secondary school me would have been all over this book 40 years ago - it has magic, mystery, foreboding, humour, adventure - I loved it. 5/5

This is the blurb:

When Fionn Boyle sets foot on Arranmore Island, it begins to stir beneath his feet...

Once in a generation, Arranmore Island chooses a new Storm Keeper to wield its power and keep its magic safe from enemies. The time has come for Fionn's grandfather, a secretive and eccentric old man, to step down. Soon, a new Keeper will rise.

But, deep underground, someone has been waiting for Fionn. As the battle to become the island's next champion rages, a more sinister magic is waking up, intent on rekindling an ancient war.

ROOT #45



Jane Brown's Tales of the Rose Tree was one of the books I bought recently as part of my research for something I'm planning on writing soon. It (this book, not what I'm going to write!) is a history of the rhododendron, and details the various plant collectors, gardeners, explorers and financiers involved in the spread of the rhododendron and its various hybrids as a popular ornamental plant around the world. It was a bit plummy and breathless in tone, but somehow that was really fitting for the subject. There were so many different characters that it was sometimes hard to keep up, but it was interesting and there are a few things in it which have changed (or deepened) my thinking about what I plan to write myself. I thought the penultimate chapter, on ecology, was the most interesting. 3.5/5.

ROOT #46


Cheer Up Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate by Scottish comedian Susan Calman was a frank but fun look at mental health. I had already heard her podcast series "Mrs Brightside", where she discusses mental health with eight different comedians, and in a way this was more of the same, but as I absolutely loved "Mrs Brightside" (and am happy to hear there's likely to be a second series in the pipeline), that's no bad thing - I really enjoyed this, if that's not a weird thing to say about a book about depression. 4.5/5.

ROOT #47



Andrea Wulf's The Brother Gardeners (subtitled Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession) is the account of a group of gardeners, plant collectors and botanists who led the search for more and more exotic and far-flung plants to fill the gardens and estates of Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries. As expected, a number of the men included in Tales of the Rose Tree feature here, such as Bartram and Collinson, with a really detailed account of their friendships, rivalries, arguments, journeys, and finds, all among the backdrop of the growth of the British Empire. Really interesting, and very readable. My only very mild complaint was that the formatting of the glossary was off in my epub version - not that I would have read every word of a humungous glossary, but I would have flicked through it if I could. 4/5.

(In other news: we are off to Yorkshire for the weekend and so will have a Barter Books stop, hopefully! :D )

Have fun in Yorkshire and Barter Books, Jackie!

>198 Familyhistorian: Thank you very much, Meg, we're back now and quite tired, but it was a lovely weekend. I got a bit of credit for some books I took to Barter Books, and bought a couple of books (both about the Hebrides), and finished a ROOT too, which has brought me to my goal for the year!

ROOT #48



Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine was a wonderful read - yet another reminder of the deep loss to the world when Adams died so suddenly and so young. Back in the late 1980s Adams joined Carwardine (who is a zoologist) and a BBC sound recordist on a number of trips to various countries around the world trying to track down some super-rare animals and make a radio documentary about the trips, and this is the book of that project. They go to Madagascar, Zaire (as it was then), New Zealand, China, Komodo, and Mauritius, and Adams' writing is just a joy. He manages to perfectly portray the difficulties inherent in conservation of such endangered species, the interesting characters involved in conservation, and the bureaucracy facing them at every turn. The scene near the beginning where they visit an Australian academic who's the world expert on poisonous snakes had me howling with laughter (for Brits of a certain age who remember "The Fast Show", this was straight out of a "That's Amazing" sketch). Some years after Adams' death, Mark Carwardine did a TV documentary series with Stephen Fry visiting some of the same places, and I have the book of that series lined up for reading next month.

I ended up leaving this book with the friend we were staying with this weekend - he was absolutely bemused that there was a Douglas Adams book that he hadn't heard of, so I thought it was the least I could do! 4.5/5.

Congrats on meeting your Goal! Yeah!!!

>199 Jackie_K: Well done on reaching your goal, Jackie!

Woo hoo, congrats on reaching your goal!

Congrats on meeting your goal, Jackie. What books about the Hebrides did you get?

Congrats from me, too, Jackie! How are you going to reward yourself?

Thank you Connie, Birgit, RP, Meg and Karen! Karen, I hadn't actually thought of rewarding myself, but today I got an excellent book-related tote bag and kid's book in the post (from a lovely LTer!) so I think I shall take that as my reward.

>203 Familyhistorian: Meg, the two books were Derek Cooper's Hebridean Connection (I also got his The Road to Mingulay from Barter Books a few years ago), and Robert Atkinson's Island Going. They're both quite old books (especially the Atkinson), but I'm always happy to add to the collection!

Non-ROOT #11



Anne Janzer's The Writer's Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear covers some of the cognitive and behavioural science behind writing, and suggests how to have more of an idea what's going on through the process of writing. She contrasts the Scribe and the Muse, which I found a helpful way of picturing the different but complementary tasks of researching and getting the words down on the page with the incubating ideas and getting inspiration (I tend to spend a *lot* of time in the incubation stage!). 4/5.

>206 Jackie_K: They sound interesting, Jackie, as does The Writer's Process. I really should read some of the books about writing that I have on my shelves.

Non-ROOT #12



Another great book from the library - hooray for local libraries! - Alistair Moffat's The Hidden Ways: Scotland's Forgotten Roads is his account of walking ten of the now largely forgotten but previously important roads within Scotland, including Roman roads, drove roads, and abandoned railways. This is just my cup of tea - armchair travel at its finest. As well as writing about what he sees, he includes a lot about the history, and I learnt loads. Also: what a gorgeous cover! 4.5/5.

I agree about the cover. And what a fascinating way of exploring the countryside!

>208 Familyhistorian: I've picked up a few writing books over the past year, I'm not reading one all the time but am trying to get through a few of them this year so they don't get as out of hand as my other categories of books!

>210 MissWatson: It was very interesting, and he's involved in a project (also called The Hidden Ways, I believe) to get other people walking the forgotten roads and putting them up online, so they're not lost completely.

ROOT #49



I received Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006 by Zvi Feine from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer programme - thank you to the author and publishers for providing me with the chance to review the book.

I requested this because I have worked in various positions related to civil society/non-governmental organisations in Romania over the past 20 years, but have little knowledge of Jewish organisations there (although I did have the chance to be shown round the beautiful Sibiu synagogue during a 'Doors Open Day' in 2007 and loved meeting some of the community during that).

This book details the 20+ years the author spent working with the American JDC as Country Director for Romania (plus around 7 years concurrently as Country Director for Poland); the programmes that were supported and established both pre- and post- the 1989 fall of communism in both countries (including what worked well and in some cases less well); and the various people and communities involved. The work in Romania was covered more extensively, probably due to the author's greater experience and knowledge there, although I did find the information on the Polish community very interesting and would have liked to have read more about that.

I found the structure of the book a bit clunky - it sometimes looked at specific issues and used examples from both countries, but then towards the end had sections specifically and separately about the work in Romania and then Poland. This meant there was some repetition, and I found it sometimes hard to put my finger on the nub of the work that was being described. This was a feeling I had throughout the book, but particularly in the opening chapters - whilst the author describes in some detail issues he had to overcome, people he had to negotiate with, skills he needed to do his job, I just didn't always feel like I fully understood what the programmes involved. I would have appreciated a further concluding chapter where the achievements of the work undertaken by Dr Fiene and his organisation were concisely presented; that would have helped me to have more of a handle on the wide range of projects undertaken.

That said, Dr Feine is clearly an accomplished negotiator and manager, and the work he was involved in clearly improved the lives of both individuals and the Jewish community in the two countries more widely. 3.5/5.

ROOT #50



Richard Holloway's Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics is a fairly old book (late 90s) by one of Scotland's premier thinkers. He used to be Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the premise of the book is that invoking 'God' in moral debate is problematic and meaningless in a pluralistic society, and we need an approach that is more human-centred in considering contemporary morality. He then goes on to talk about various ethical issues - sex, homosexuality, addiction, abortion, euthanasia, and assisted reproduction.

I broadly agree with him about these issues, but I'm not entirely sure that this book succeeded in its aim of proposing a morality without God/religion. It was a very good broad overview of the ethical issues, and in places he showed how religious opinions on them can be problematic, but I didn't find that consistently throughout the book. This is a very accessible and readable introduction though to some thorny ethical subjects though, and I'll happily read more of his work. 3.5/5.

>211 Jackie_K: Good luck with keeping up with your writing books, Jackie. Mine are already out of hand. I really should read a few.

>212 Jackie_K: That sounds like a worth while read but doesn't sound like a page turner.

>213 Familyhistorian: I've just decided that most of my writing books aren't ROOTs, and I'll just read them as and when (especially the shorter ones), hopefully sooner rather than later. There are a few which are ROOTs though because they feel a bit more substantial.

You're right 'worthwhile but not a page turner' is a good description (well, it's kind of a page turner for me because I'm nerdy about these sorts of things, but I appreciate it's not for most people!). It's similar in that respect to the book I just finished too!

ROOT #51



The Politics of the Body by Alison Phipps is one of many academic books I bought full of enthusiasm in my PhD/post-PhD days and then have struggled to find the time to get round to reading. I'm glad I finally made it to this one, it was very much my bag! She covers issues such as sexual violence (using the cases of Julian Assange, Roman Polanski and Dominique Strauss-Kahn as case studies), gender and Islam, sex work, and reproduction (specifically 'normal birth' and breastfeeding campaigns) and looks at them from a political sociology perspective, looking at their various links with neoliberalism and neoconservatism. I particularly liked the reproduction chapter and its focus on the values- and class-based assumptions of many supposedly morally neutral interventions (something which I picked up in my PhD study too). 4.5/5.

I had hoped I'd squeeze one more ROOT under the wire before the end of August, but it's not going to happen, so here's my August update. It's been a good month: 8 ROOTs and 3 non-ROOTs, and only 3 acquisitions (I was aiming for 0 so I could catch up with my 2-for-1, but that's not too bad considering it included a Barter Books trip).

The ROOTs I read were:

1. Evelyne Bloch-Dano - Vegetables: A Biography.
2. Jane Brown - Tales of the Rose Tree.
3. Susan Calman - Cheer up Love.
4. Andrea Wulf - The Brother Gardeners.
5. Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine - Last Chance to See.
6. Zvi Feine - Jewish Communal Service in Romania and Poland 1986-2006.
7. Richard Holloway - Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics.
8. Alison Phipps - The Politics of the Body.

The non-ROOTs were:

1. Catherine Doyle - The Storm Keeper's Island.
2. Anne Janzer - The Writer's Process: Getting your Brain in Gear.
3. Alistair Moffat - The Hidden Ways: Scotland's Forgotten Roads.

And my acquisitions (the last 2 were from Barter Books):

1. Will Storr - The Science of Storytelling.
2. Derek Cooper - Hebridean Connection.
3. Robert Atkinson - Island Going.

I have still, overall, read more ROOTs than acquired new ones this year, so that's good (51 read, 42 acquired). And not counting gifts, my 2 for 1 (1 acquisition for every 2 ROOTs) is a bit off, but not too bad (51 read, 29 acquired). I'm expecting a pre-ordered book to arrive very soon, so that basically means I need to read another 9 before acquiring any more. I wonder if I'll manage that?!

There's not much fiction here this month - but the one fiction book I read (The Stormkeeper's Island) was a 5* read, so that was good. I do have 2 or 3 fiction books on the go, and will finish at least 1 of them in September.

I've just started a new thread for reads for the rest of the year - please do come and join me! :)