Helenliz erects an edifice - the penthouse suite

Welcome to my third 2020 thread. In 2018 I had castles, in 2019 I had buildings, in 2020 I am going to be using manmade structures that are not castles or buildings. (huh? - it's OK, bear with me) These are things that would not exist without human intervention, and are ways that we make our mark on the landscape. Some are ancient, some are modern, but they all have an attraction to me.

I'm Helen and I'm a quality manager in a small firm that makes inhaler devices for delivery of drugs to the lung. In my spare time I am secretary of the local bellringers association, which is a new addition, having taken the job on last summer. When not working, reading or ringing, I enjoy crafts. I tend to resort to cross stitch, but have tried quilting and other machine and hand sewing over the years. I also try and keep in some form of shape, as I prefer food to dieting. >;-)

I have more books than I know what to do with, and I could easily build all sorts of structures with them. Let's see what I'm going to build in 2020.

And with that, the penthouse suite and final story of the thread is now safe to enter.

Currently Reading:


Currently reading
An Unsafe Haven
It's not about the Burqa (audio)

Library books on loan: To try and keep these under some sort of control!
✔️Home

Borrowed from Cathy
✔️The Outcast Dead Ruth Galloway #6.

Book subscriptions: To try and make sure I don't fall tooooo far behind
✔️The Pear Field (Periene July)
Tyll (MrB's May)
Mordew (MrB's October)
✔️The Year 1000 (MrB's November)
Square Haunting (MrB's December)
An Unsafe Haven (Shelterbox December)
Nordic Fauna (Periene December)

Adding book bullets
✔️The Silence of the Girls (Susan) (I'm a sucker for retellings of the ancient Greeks)
✔️The Stranger Diaries (Charlotte & Susan)
✔️Rain: Four Walks in English Weather (Carrie) (Walking in rain is sometimes the best thing ever)
✔️The Century Girls: The Final Word From The Women Who've Lived The Past Hundred Years of British History (Susan)
Death walks in Eastrepps (Liz - and it's one I can get a copy of!)
Why We Sleep (Jackie_K)
The Great Typo Hunt (Cindy)
Alone in Berlin (Tess)
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stacy)
Cain (Annamorphic)
I will never see the world again (Charlotte)
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill (Charlotte - again).
Whitefly (DeltaQueen)
Fools and Mortals (Birgit)
Wakenhyrst (Susan) (again)
Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible JackieK
Your life in my hands JackieK (again she's got me with the non-fiction)
A Jury of her Peers (Liz - and this one's not in the library - or at least not the short story)
The Seventh Cross, (Charlotte - a prolific bulleteer!)
A is for Arsenic (Mamie got me with this one)
Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne (another hit by Susan)
From Crime to Crime by Richard Henriques (Deadeye Susan) (check title)

The list: 2020

January
1. Maid in Waiting, John Galsworthy, ****
2. Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman, *** (Audio)
3. Mudlarking, Lara Maiklem, *** (non-fiction)
4. Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips, ***
5. Orphan of Islam, Alexander Khan, *** (non-fiction)

February
6. Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel, **
7. A Room full of Bones, Elly Griffiths, ***
8. Murder in the Mill-race, ECR Lorac, ***
9. The Adventures of Moriarty, Maxim Jakubowski, ****, (audio)
10. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer, ***
11. Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano, ****
12. This year it will be Different Maeve Binchy, *** (audio)
13. London Transports, Maeve Binchy, *** (audio)
14. She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman, **** (non-fiction)

March
15. The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker, ****
16. Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood, *** (audio)
17. Letters of Note: Love, Shaun Usher, **** (audio) (non-fiction)
18. Remarkable: Five women who dared to Make a Difference, Lyse Doucet, **** (audio) (non-fiction)
19. The Spanish Bride, Georgette Heyer, ***
20. Watching the Tree, Adeline Yen Mah, *, (non-fiction)

April
21. Flowering Wilderness, John Galsworthy, ****
22. Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman, ****, (audio)
23. The Porpoise, Mark Haddon, ***
24. A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes, *****, (audio)
25. The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar, ****1/2
26. Snow, Dog, Foot, Claudio Morandini, ****

May
27. Remnants of Partition, Aanchal Malhotra, ****, (non-fiction)
28. Ross Poldark, Winston Graham, ****
29. The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride, *** (audio)
30. The Stranger Diaries, Elly Griffiths, ***

June
31. Eat Sweat, Play, Anna Kessel, ***1/2 (non-fiction)
32. Selected Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling, ***, (audio)
33. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, TS Elliot, **** (audio)
34. Another Country, Anjali Joseph, **
35. The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer, ****
36. Fell Murder, ECR Lorac, ****
37. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr, ****

July
38. Latinx, Ed Morales, *** (non-fiction)
39. Ankomst, Gohril Gabrielsen, ***
40. Days in the Caucasus, Banine, **** (non-fiction)
41. Rain: Four walks in English Weather, Melissa Harrison, **** (non-fiction)
42. The Belfry Murder, Moray Dalton, ***
43. Letters of Note. Mothers, Shaun Usher, *** (audio), (non-fiction)

August
44. Eating Things on Sticks, Anne Fine, *** (Audio)
45. On Beauty, Zadie Smith, **
46. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Balli Kaur Jaswal, ***1/2
47. The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis, *** (Audio)
48. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, ****
49. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding, ***
50. Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer, ****

September
51. The Century Girls, Tessa Dunlop, **** (non-fiction)
52. Good Bones, Simple Murders and The Tent, Margaret Atwood, *** (audio)
53. Dying Fall, Elly Griffiths, ***
54. Quidditch Through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp (aka JK Rowling), **, (audio)
55. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, ****
56. Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen Collection One, Hans Christian Andersen, *** (audio)
57. How the World Thinks - Julian Baggini, **** (non-fiction)
58. Shadows on the Tundra, Dalia Grinkevičiūtė, ****, (Non-fiction)

October
59. Life as a Unicorn, Amrou Al-Kadhi, ** (Non-fiction)
60. The Astral Traveller's Handbook, David Michie, **, (audio)
61. Friday's Child, Georgette Heyer, ****
62. Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster, *** (audio)
63. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall, **
64. In the Mountains, Elizabeth von Arnim, ***
65. A Creepy Company, Joan Aiken, *** (audio)
66. Build yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix, *** (audio)

November
67. The Sunken Land begins to Rise Again, M John Harrison, **
68. A Woman of Firsts, Edna Adan Ismail, ****, (non-fiction)
69. Can you ever forgive me? Lee Israel, ** (non-fiction), (audio)
70. In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan, ***, (audio)
71. Poems to Fall in Love With, Chris Riddell, **** (audio)
72. A Fistful of Shells Toby Green, ** (non-fiction)
73. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson, ****
74. The Outcast Dead, Elly Griffiths, ***

December
75. A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan, ***
76. The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen, ***
77. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright, ***1/2
78. The Pear Field, Nana Ekvtimishvili, ****
79. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Robert L May, ****
80. Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie, ***
81. Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson, ****, (Audio)
82. A Surprise for Christmas, ed Martin Edwards, ***
83. Home, Marilynne Robinson, ****

Challenge 1: Nine Ladies Circle - Women Authors



Nine Ladies circle is a Bronze Age stone circle, which has a tradition associated with it is that the nine stones were women turned to stone for dancing on a Sunday. It is part of a wider Bronze age landscape.

It is open at any reasonable time and is managed by English Heritage.

As these are ladies, this makes it the place to put my lady authors. I want to read at least 50% of books by women authors this year.

1. Mudlarking, Lara Maiklem
2. Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
3. Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
4. A Room full of Bones, Elly Griffiths
5. Murder in the Mill-race, ECR Lorac
6. Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer
7. Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano
8. This year it will be Different Maeve Binchy
9. London Transports, Maeve Binchy
10. She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman
11. The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
12. Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood
13. Remarkable: Five women who dared to Make a Difference, Lyse Doucet
14. The Spanish Bride, Georgette Heyer
15. Watching the Tree, Adeline Yen Mah
16. A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes,
17. The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar
18. Remnants of Partition, Aanchal Malhotra
19. The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride
20. The Stranger Diaries, Elly Griffiths
21. Eat Sweat, Play, Anna Kessel
22. Another Country, Anjali Joseph
23. The Corinthian, Georgette Heyer
24. Fell Murder, ECR Lorac
25. Ankomst, Gohril Gabrielsen
26. Days in the Caucasus, Banine
27. Rain: Four walks in English Weather, Melissa Harrison
28. The Belfry Murder, Moray Dalton
29. Eating Things on Sticks, Anne Fine
30. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
31. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Balli Kaur Jaswal
32. The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis
33. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
34. Faro's Daughter, Georgette Heyer
35. The Century Girls, Tessa Dunlop
36. Good Bones, Simple Murders and The Tent, Margaret Atwood
37. Dying Fall, Elly Griffiths
38. Quidditch Through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp (aka JK Rowling)
39. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
40. Shadows on the Tundra, Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
41. Friday's Child, Georgette Heyer
42. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
43. In the Mountains, Elizabeth von Arnim
44. A Creepy Company, Joan Aiken
45. Build yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix
46. A Woman of Firsts, Edna Adan Ismail
47. Can you ever forgive me? Lee Israel
48. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
49. The Outcast Dead, Elly Griffiths
50. A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
51. The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen
52. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright
53. The Pear Field, Nana Ekvtimishvili
54. Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie
55. Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson
56. Home, Marilynne Robinson

Challenge 2: Silbury Hill - Classics



Silbury Hill is the largest artifical mound in Europe, which is something when you consider that it is estimated as being built between 2470 & 2350 BC. It's been the largest artiicial mound for a cool 4 and a half thousand years. It also is a mystery, in that is it not a burial mound and it's purpose is unknown. The roman's made use of it as a look out (the road past the base is the Roman origin A4). It has appeared in a Peter Gabriel song as well.

It is open at any reasonable time and is managed by English Heritage.

It is a lovely ageless conical mound shape and that makes it perfect as a construction to house my Classic books. I'd like to read 6 classics this year.

1. Ross Poldark, Winston Graham
2. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, TS Elliot

Challenge 3: West Kennet Long Barrow - Heyer Series Read



West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic grave site, where multiple generations were interred in the long barrow. It was used for over 1000 years between 3500 BC & 2500 BC. Remains and burial goods have been found within it.

It is open at any reasonable time and it is possible to enter the barrow. It is in private onwership, but is managed by The National Trust on behalf of English Heritage.

As it was in use for a prolonged period of time, I'm using it as a location to bury my Heyer Series read. I'd like to read 8 Heyer romances this year.

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

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

To be Read
The Reluctant Widow (r) 1946
The Foundling (r) 1948
Arabella (r) 1949
The Grand Sophy (r) 1950
The Quiet Gentleman (r) 1951
Cotillion (r) 1953
The Toll Gate (r) 1954
Bath Tangle (r) 1955
Sprig Muslin (r) 1956
April Lady (r) 1957
Sylvester, or The Wicked Uncle (r) 1957
Venetia (r) 1958
The Unknown Ajax (r) 1959
Pistols for Two (short stories) 1960
A Civil Contract (r) 1961
The Nonesuch (r) 1962
False Colours (r) 1963
Frederica (r) 1965
Black Sheep (r) 1966
Cousin Kate (r) 1968
Charity Girl (r) 1970
Lady of Quality (r) 1972
My Lord John (h) 1975

Challenge 4: The Forth Bridge - Orange Prize



The Forth Bridge is more properly the Firth of Forth Rail bridge, but everyone knows what you mean and no one thinks of the road bridge when you say you're going over the Forth Bridge. It consists of 3 double cantilevers and was, at the time it was built, the largest bridge made of steel. It opened to rail traffic in 1890.

It is still being used for it's original purpose, with trains still using this as part of the East coast main line route from Edinburgh to Fife and the north of Scotland. Network Rail. They are the lucky people who get to paint the Forth Bridge, which used to be a metaphor for something that was a never ending task.

As it is predominately a rust colour, I'm going to use this to stack up my Orange prize longlisted read. I'd like to read 6 Orange prize nominated titles this year.

1. Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
2. The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
3. A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes
4. The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride
5. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
6. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
7. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright
8. Home, Marilynne Robinson

Challenge 5: Hadrian's Wall - Guardian 100 best novels list



Hadrian's Wall was built at the instruction of the Emperor Hadrian to (possibly) keep out the dastardly Picts. Or to provide some edge to the Roman Empire and to limit further expansion beyond what was sustainable. Take your pick really. Built in about 6 years, it was inspected by the emperor in 122 AD, and 122 is the number of the bus that now runs along the military road to transport visitors.

It runs from the East to West coast, from approximately Carlisle to Newcastle, at about the narrowest point in England. At times it has completely vanished, at other is remains highly visible in the landscape. It is not between Dover and Nottingham (that's for anyone taking Robin Hood Prince of Thieves as in any way, shape or form factual!). Covering 73 miles it has various owners, but has it's own website, Hadrian's Wall Country. I've stayed along side it and have walked several stretches of it.

As it is rather long, I'm using this to record my reading from a long list. I have half an eye on the 1001 list, but I'm so far off finishing that extra long list that it's a bit dispiriting. Instead I'm going to concentrate on the Guardian's 100 novels list, where I am a far more encouraging 33% of the way through. I'd like to read 6 of these in the year.

1. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding

Challenge 6: The Great Court, British Museum - Short Stories



I adore this place. The central rotunda was the British Library reading room, with the surrounding court gradually filled with crates and other detritus over the decades. Once the British Library moved to its new home next to St Pancras station, the British Museum were able to do something really special with the space they now had. The roof of the court makes this a beautiful, useable space and the heart of the museum.

It serves as a covered space to welcome visitors and has a coffee shop in one corner. It forms part of any visit to the British Museum. I've visited this multiple times, it used to have some of the best cake in London.

The roof consists of 3312 panes of glasss, each one different. Like a short story collection, each one is unique, but together they form a harmonious whole. I'm not going to count these.

1. Norse Mythology, Neil Gaiman
2. The Adventures of Moriarty, Maxim Jakubowski
3. This year it will be Different Maeve Binchy
4. London Transports, Maeve Binchy
5. Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood
6. Letters of Note: Love, Shaun Usher
7. Remarkable: Five women who dared to Make a Difference, Lyse Doucet
8. Selected Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
9. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, TS Elliot
10. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
11. Letters of Note. Mothers, Shaun Usher
12. Good Bones, Simple Murders and The Tent, Margaret Atwood
13. Quidditch Through the Ages, Kennilworthy Whisp (aka JK Rowling)
14. Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen Collection One, Hans Christian Andersen
15. The Astral Traveller's Handbook, David Michie,
16. A Creepy Company, Joan Aiken
17. Build yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix
18. In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan
19. Poems to Fall in Love With, Chris Riddell
20. Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson
21. A Surprise for Christmas, ed Martin Edwards

Challenge 7: Ironbridge - New Authors



Ironbridge is one of those places that really did change the world. This is the first wrought iron bridge and marks the birth of the industrial revolution. From 1779 things would never be quite the same again. And yet it still has an aesthetic quality, with form following function.

It is the heart of a series of museums in and around Ironbridge, and more informaiton can be found here.

The birth of the new represented by this bridge makes this the place for me to stack up my new authors. While I have no specific targets here, I'd expect to see at least 1/3rd of books in this category. Half would be very impressive.

1. Mudlarking, Lara Maiklem
2. Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
3. Orphan of Islam, Alexander Khan
4. Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano
5. She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman
6. Remarkable: Five women who dared to Make a Difference, Lyse Doucet
7. Watching the Tree, Adeline Yen Mah
8. A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes,
9. The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar
10. Snow, Dog, Foot, Claudio Morandini
11. Remnants of Partition, Aanchal Malhotra
12. Ross Poldark, Winston Graham
13. The Lesser Bohemians Eimear McBride
14. Eat Sweat, Play, Anna Kessel
15. Another Country, Anjali Joseph
16. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
17. Latinx Ed Morales
18. Ankomst, Gohril Gabrielsen
19. Days in the Caucasus, Banine
20. Rain: Four walks in English Weather, Melissa Harrison
21. The Belfry Murder, Moray Dalton
22. Eating Things on Sticks, Anne Fine
23. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Balli Kaur Jaswal
24. The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis
25. The Lord of the Flies, William Golding
26. The Century Girls, Tessa Dunlop
27. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
28. How the World Thinks - Julian Baggini
29. Shadows on the Tundra, Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
30. Life as a Unicorn, Amrou Al-Kadhi
31. The Astral Traveller's Handbook, David Michie,
32. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
33. A Creepy Company, Joan Aiken
34. Build yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix
35. The Sunken Land begins to Rise Again, M John Harrison
36. A Woman of Firsts, Edna Adan Ismail
37. Can you ever forgive me? Lee Israel
38. A Fistful of Shells Toby Green
39. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
40. A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
41. The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen
42. The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright
43. The Pear Field, Nana Ekvtimishvili
44. Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson
45. Home, Marilynne Robinson

Challenge 8: Cleopatra's Needle - Books in Translation



Cleopatra's Needle is a Egyptian obelisk that was "acquired" by the British after the battle of the Nile in the early 1800s. It took a while to arrive in London, but has been in place on the embankment, complete with a pair of sphinxs flanking it since 1879.

I can't find who owns it or maintains it, so we'll have to resort to Wikipedia.

As an item that has been translated form it's home and is now part of the furniture, this is where I will install all my books in translation. I would like to read 6 of these in the year.

1. Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano - French
2. Snow, Dog, Foot, Claudio Morandini - Italian
3. Ankomst, Gohril Gabrielsen - Norwegian
4. Days in the Caucasus, Banine - French
5. Shadows on the Tundra, Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
6. The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
7. The Pear Field, Nana Ekvtimishvili

Challenge 9: Grimes Graves - Book subscriptions



This odd looking landscape, like a green moonscape, is actually a neolithic flint mine. Each hollow is the entrance to a small bell shaped mine. The hollows are where the land surface has fallen in to the cavities below. It is possible to go down into one of the mines, down a rather steep ladder. It is very tight when you get down there, all hollowed out with antler picks and shovels.

The landscape is managed by English Heritage .

The surface does not give away what is concealed beneath and so I will be bringing to the surface my variuous book subscriptions in this category.

1. Mudlarking, Lara Maiklem
2. Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
3. Orphan of Islam, Alexander Khan
4. Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano
5. She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman
6. Watching the Tree, Adeline Yen Mah
7. The Porpoise, Mark Haddon
8. The Pact We Made, Layla AlAmmar
9. Another Country, Anjali Joseph
10. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
11. Days in the Caucasus, Banine
12. The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Balli Kaur Jaswal
13. The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern
14. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
15. Life as a Unicorn, Amrou Al-Kadhi
16. The Sunken Land begins to Rise Again, M John Harrison
17. A Woman of Firsts, Edna Adan Ismail
18. The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen
19. The Pear Field, Nana Ekvtimishvili

Challenge 10: Tarr Steps - CATs



Tarr steps, in the Exmoor national park, is an example of an ancient bridge type that involves large slabs of stone being laid horizontally onto stone piles in order to corss a stretch of water. There is no confirmed assigned date for this bridge, with this being attributed to the medieval period, but it is a type that could be significantly older than that.

The bridge is located within the Exmoor national park.

As a bridge, this is just the kind of thing that a CAT might appreciate so that they don't get their feet wet and so I will be CATegorising my CAT reads in here.

RandomCAT
Jan - A Resolution - Maid in Waiting, John Galsworthy
Feb - published in a leap year - A Room full of Bones, Elly Griffiths
Mar - contains a season
Apr - flowers and showers - Flowering Wilderness, John Galsworthy
May - off the shelf - Ross Poldark, Winston Graham
Jun - the sea - The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr
Jul - pictures
Aug - music
Sep - book bullets - The Century Girls, Tessa Dunlop
Oct - Medical profession - The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall
Nov
Dec - contains a number The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen

GeoCAT
January-Geo Area Asia I Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
February--Geo Area: Europe (Excluding Great Britain) Host: Helenliz Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano
March Northern Africa & The Mideast: Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey (others) The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
April Australia, New Zealand, Oceania
May: Any place you would like to visit! Ross Poldark, Winston Graham
June: Space: The Final Frontier
July: Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean Latinx, Ed Morales
August: Asia II: Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan Southeast Asia The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, Balli Kaur Jaswal
September: Polar & Tundra Regions Shadows on the Tundra, Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
October: Great Britain, Canada, US Life as a Unicorn, Amrou Al-Kadhi
November: Africa II All countries excluding those from March. Possibilities: Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Ethiopia and others A Woman of Firsts, Edna Adan Ismail
December: Catch up month or read another one from your favorite CATegory! The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen

Non-FictionCAT
January - Journalism and News
February - Travel She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman
March - Biography Remarkable: Five women who dared to Make a Difference, Lyse Doucet
April - Law and Order
May - Science
June - Society Eat Sweat, Play, Anna Kessel
July - Human Science Latinx, Ed Morales
August - History The Century Girls, Tessa Dunlop
September - Religion/philosophy How the World Thinks - Julian Baggini
October - The Arts Life as a Unicorn, Amrou Al-Kadhi
November - Food, Home and Recreation
December - Adventures by Land, Sea or Air The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen

AlphaKIT
Jan - A&U
Feb - F&B Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
Mar - G&C
Apr - S&T A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes,
May - L&P
Jun - K&Y
Jul - J&R
Aug - O&H On Beauty, Zadie Smith
Sep - M&E Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell
Oct - D&V
Nov - I&Q
Dec - W&N The Forgotten Waltz, Anne Enright

Challenge 11: White Horse - BINGO card



There are a number of figures carved into the chalk slopes of the south of Englad, with the image being created with the white chalk showing against the green grass. And, bizarrely, they often appear to their best advantagte from the air - an aspect their creators could nebver have accessed. Some are ancient, some victorian. My example is an ancient one, the White Horse at Uffington, which is believed to have been cut in the Bronze age.

This example is managed by English Heritage.

These chalk cuttings are sometimes animals and while I know none that are dogs, this is where I will be storing my BINGO card.

1. Book that's in a Legacy Library Murder in the Mill-race, ECR Lorac
2. Book written by an LT author A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
3. Book published in 1820 or 1920 In the Mountains, Elizabeth von Arnim
4. Book published in the year of your birth The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
5. Book published under a pen name or anonymously Fell Murder, ECR Lorac
6. Book set in Asia Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips
7. Mystery or true crime A Room full of Bones, Elly Griffiths
8. Book involving a real historical event (fiction or nonfiction) Royal Escape, Georgette Heyer
9. Book about books, bookstores, or libraries The Stranger Diaries, Elly Griffiths
10. Book with at least three letters of BINGO consecutively in order in the title (BIN, ING, NGO, GOB, OBI...the letters can cross words but must be in order and be consecutive) Mudlarking, Lara Maiklem
11. Red cover, or red is prominent on the cover She-merchants, buccaneers and gentlewomen : the lives and times of British women in India 1600-1900, Katie Hickman
12. Title contains a pun Letters of Note: Love, Shaun Usher
13. Book about birth or death (childbearing, midwifery, human aging -- this is a combo of the "childbearing" and "human aging" suggestions) Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
14. Book with a proper name in the title London Transports, Maeve Binchy, *** (audio)
15. Book published by a small press or self-published Remnants of Partition, Aanchal Malhotra
16. Book published in 2020 Ankomst Gohril Gabrielsen
17. Epistolary novel or collection of letters A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes,
18. Book by a journalist or about journalism This year it will be Different Maeve Binchy
19. Book not set on Earth Good Bones, Simple Murders and The Tent, Margaret Atwood
20. Mythology or folklore The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker
21. Weird book title Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, Emmanuelle Pagano
22. Book with "library" or "thing" in the title or subtitle Eating Things on Sticks, Anne Fine
23. Book with a periodic table element in the title The Silver Pigs, Lindsey Davis
24. Book by a woman from a country other than the US/UK Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood
25. Read a CAT The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen

Challenge 12: Spinnaker Tower - Miscellaneous



(No, it isn't a horizontal tower, I can't work out how to get the picture from my phone to turn by 90 degrees!)

There are any number of modern sgtructures that, to some extent, have no practical purpose. The London Eye is probably the first, the millennium seems to have triggered this fashion. Portsmouth's contribution is Spinnaker Tower. It is supposed to look like the main sail of a ship, and is located right on the seafront in the old Royal Naval base (which is now a shopping complex). I like it, I like the daring and flow of it and the way it reacts to changes in the light around it. I've even been up and stood on the glass floor. *wibble*

The exterior is clearly visible form quite some distance, but you can, of course, go up and see the views from the viewing platforms of Spinnaker Tower.

A something that has little purpose of itself, I will pack anything that won't fit anywhere else into this pile, it's the miscellaneous pile.

1. Odd and the Frost Giants, Neil Gaiman
2. Where Angels Fear to Tread, EM Forster
3. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Robert L May

Happy new one, Helen!

Thank you! Figured I may as well get a new thread while I'm finishing off our two weeks off.

Hurray, a new thread! Hope you had a great vacation :)

Happy New Thread, Helen! I'm delighted to see myself on your BB list, that hardly ever happens! :)

>18 rabbitprincess: Thank you. It's been nice just doing not a lot. Been out and had dinner with some friends as well, which was a nice dose of normality.

>19 lyzard: Thank you. I thought you'd be pleased with yourself there! I get any number of "do not touch this with a bargepole" recommendations from you. Although I do worry that one of those is missing. I had it on reserve prior to lockdown and it has never turned up. I'll have to wait until they restart library transfers and try that one again.

Happy new thread!

>21 Tess_W: thanks!

It's Monday night, end of the August bank holiday, end of 2 weeks off and tomorrow it's back to work. I suspect this is going to come as a nasty surprise to the system...
Mind you, only 2 days, then we're having a work away day, so it's not like first week back will be a full on 5 days.
Even so, wish me luck!

Good luck!

Password remembered, which is always a good start...

I hope the day goes well Helen.

Happy new thread! Hope work wasn't too much of a shock to the system!

Thanks! Day 1 wasn't too bad. It wasn't so much the getting up, more the fact that I had to be up and dressed and working in a much shorter space of time that I'd got used to. No lounging about in my dressing gown until half past nine! Not quite cleared the inbox, but getting there.

>24 Helenliz: It took me three tries to remember my password yesterday!

Happy new thread! Glad to see you had a relaxing vacation and survived Day 1 back at work.

>28 rabbitprincess: oh dear! That was cutting it a bit fine, 3 wrong tries and we get locked out! I have a system, I just have to remember where I am on the system.

>29 lkernagh: Thanks. >:-)

Book: 51
Title: The Century Girls
Author: Tessa Dunlop
Rating: ****
Where: BirThingaversary pile
Why: Book Bullet
Categories: Woman author, new author,
TIOLI:Challenge #5. Read a 20th century book

This book has a simple surmise to tell the story of the 100 years since the franchise was extended to women by taking 6 women who were born at or before that date and telling their stories. The author takes the opportunity to put their individual experiences into the context of the history of the nation, so that it is a broader book than just the biography of 6 women. But what interesting women she found! They really make it by their variety. Two were born else where (British India & Guyana), some were born into an elite, others were at the bottom of the social scale. Some followed a well trodden path, others broke the mould. They have such varied experiences of the same events that it makes you wonder how you can possibly lump "old people" into a single bucket. These women all come across as individuals. They are a product of their times - the author uses a quote from Napoleon, which in essence says to understand a (wo)man you need to understand the world when they were young. We are made by our experiences in our early decades. For these women that was a pretty turbulent period, the roaring 20s, the depression, the rise of social unrest and WW2 all featured in their first quarter century. When you think of it like that, they are a special set.

>31 Helenliz: Sounds good, Helen! I'll have a look for it. Still no sign of the library order system (which is fair enough), so it might have to wait a while.

>31 Helenliz: That book is on my radar. I'm hoping to read another of hers, The Bletchley Girls, for a challenge in a month or two.

Book: 52
Title: Good Bones, Simple Murders and The Tent
Author: Margaret Atwood
Rating: ***
Where: Library
Why: Short Story
Categories: Woman author, Short Stories, Bingo
TIOLI:Challenge #6: Read a book by an author who is not only from a different country than you, but also from a different continent

A selection of short stories, most of them very short. Some of them are in conjoined sets, so you'll have several on a common theme that are read in order. But don't let length put you off, some of the are delightful. The sets wjhere she takes delight in skewering fairy tales, or telling classic stories from a different perspective are worth the rest of the book alone. The one taking the voice of Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, is just fantastically twisted in conception.
Some of them just didn;t do it for me, but the gems are there and deserve to be picked out.

>32 charl08:, I got hit with a bullet from Susan on that one, so you can blame her. It was pretty good and I liked the way it managed to combine the personal and the national/global.

>33 Jackie_K: Having read this one, I can see me looking out some of her other works. I'll see what you make of that one.

Well, deary deary me. Work away day involved sleeping in bell tents in a glamping style. And I remembered, again, why it has been decades since I last slept under canvas. **** me it was cold! And it wasn't all that cold last night. The 2 am trip to the loo was very cold indeed. As was the loo seat. It ws nice when we were sat round the fire pit (apart from everything stinks of woodsmoke), but I'm too old to see the wee small hours and be fit for anything the next day. I was optomistic and took a couple of books. One would have done. I read a few chapters when I woke up ridiculously early (too bright, too loud, too cold) and was unable to persuade my body that I'd like to go back to sleep. This afternoon will involve a bath, a nap and a lot of washing.

>35 Helenliz: Team building? I like camping but...

Well survived.

Camping? *shudder*

I love camping. It's the team building bit that would spoil it for me! :D

It was a reasoned choice. Glamping, so all nice beds and no sleeping on hard floors. Outdoors, so less covid worries (in theory). We had the entire field to ourselves, so one bell tent each. They'd laid on additional facilities, so we each had a cubicle to ourselves. There was an outdoor kitchen, and we had a chef come and cook us a BBQ type meal (which was delish!). And then we sat around a fire pit until the wee small hours. It was great.
Then I remembered why I don't do camping. Getting into bed it was a cold as a very very cold thing. Then I woke up needing a wee trip, which was also as cold as a very very cold thing. And then I woke up stupidly early and couldn't get back to sleep.
It was great fun (if you ignore the camping bits)

The team building was basically eating, drinking and playing silly garden games. It turns out that, even a bit drunk, I'm very good at Jenga.

>38 Jackie_K: LOL Jackie!

OK, actual beds are better than sleeping on the ground, but was the toilet a flush toilet or an outhouse?

I think the team building would be the hardest part to endure. Any events for that purpose that I attended were just a lot of talking - and unsuccessful.

>40 rabbitprincess: Mixture. They had eco toilets, but due to Covid had introduced more festival style toilets, so that there was 1 per tent, to reduce mixed use of facilities. My tent's allocated loo was one of the festival style ones. So hand driven flush, but not water flush. Have no idea if that's made any sense.

>41 VivienneR: as the team building element was mostly about getting pissed, it was quite enjoyable. It's as much about us spending time together as a team outside work. As a small company, we work hard, but we also know how to play hard too. Fortunately we only play hard twice a year (usually).

I avoided the afternoon nap, but had an early night and slept for 11 hours. Which was bliss and I feel much more human this morning. >:-)

Book post! I had my next Shelterbox book come. I can honestly say that I don't think I would have picked this book up in a million squillion years. The title, the cover, the colour, all would have conspired to have this firmly on the shelf, blurb unread. It should be more interesting than it looks (to me).

LOL, Glamping for me is in a motor home with its own bathroom!

>44 Tess_W: I think the bathroom is by far the most important thing. I like the idea of camping, I'm less keen on the reality.
I can't say I fancy a motor home though. Too much of my teenage years was spent sleeping in the van when away from home.

>43 Helenliz: Sounds like a fascinating memoir, but I would be totally put off by the cover. Too much pink!

>46 charl08: That's it entirely. Having read the blurb, I'm interested to see what it says, but might be wrapping in in brown paper while I do!

Book: 53
Title: Dying Fall
Author: Elly Griffiths
Rating: ***
Where: borrowed
Why: next in series
Categories: Woman author
TIOLI:Challenge #3. Read a book by a woman author: Alphabet challenge

This all gets a bit odd at various points along the way, but it's exciting enough. The story is set in & near Blackpool and two strands of story take Ruit & Nelson back that way. He's supposed to be on holiday, but has ended up getting in touch with his old buddy, Sandy, and is actually working, but not in charge (which doesn;t go down well). Ruth is there to investigate some bones that, it turns out, might be King Arthur's, and that there's something interestng about them that some people are not too keen on getting out. Along the way we have a neo nazi group and a spin off that's obsessed with King Arthur - at all gets pretty unpleasant pretty quickly. The two stories come together in the body (not a spoiler, he's dead in Chapter 1) of Dan, an archeology lecturer at the fictional Pendle University (I've been to Pendle, this is far-fetched!). Dan's death is suspicious and so the police and the bones end up being entwinned. It has an interesting surmise in that it is entirely plausible and yet you can see why those of a certain persuasion would have such a problem with it. It also takes us a bit further along the Nelson/Ruth storyline. Sandy spots that something's up, how long can they all keep playing the game... but that's why it's a series.

I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Life as a Unicorn. It's certainly a cover that demands a reaction.

I was laughing with my best friend about camping only being fine if the bathrooms are clean and well outfitted. Of course, we also joke that during our yearly meet-up at a book festival (sadly not this year) we party hard, as long as that means a reasonable bedtime and a good skin-care routine.

>49 RidgewayGirl: I will certainly report back.

"reasonable bedtime" is not a phrase that can be used to describe our work away days! I was first to turn in at 1am, and our admin jumped at the chance to not be first to leave and followed me. Unsurprisingly, we were the first two up. The drinking lasted until after dawn, as evidenced by the sunrise piccies. I can't do drinking into the wee small hours any more (assuming I ever could). It's the lack of sleep that knocks me out. I had an early night and 11 hours sleep the following night. >:-)

Book: 54
Title: Quidditch Through the Ages
Author: Kennilworthy Whisp (aka JK Rowling)
Rating: **
Where: borrowed
Why: audio
Categories: Woman author, short story
TIOLI:Challenge #13. Read a book featuring a sport that's currently "in season"

This is a short book but, for me, it was a bit too long. I enjoyed the early chapters, charting the development of the fictional sport of Quidditch. But when there was an entire chapter about the various teams in the national league and notable teams in the world, then a chapter on the development of the broomstick it lost my interest. It put me in mind of those football annuals that can get very in depth and nerdy very quickly, meaning that the casual fan glazes over after a while. There was a bonus 90 minutes material which almost doubled the length of the book, and I'm afraid that I gave that a miss, I;d had enough. As I listened to all of the originally published book, I'm counting that finished.

It's decision time again. The three options for the Shelterbox Book Club are:
1) Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They're completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home. As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.

2) A Bit of Difference by Sefi Atta
Sefi Atta's A Bit of Difference is a deft character and cultural study following Deola, a Nigerian expat living in London as she returns home to Lagos. The plot is deceptively simple but allows Deola's urgent and incisive voice to guide us through the intricate layers and vivid scenes of a life lived across continents. The book challenges preconceived notions of Africa and brings to life contemporary Nigeria where Deola encounters changes with her family and a new friendship with a charming hotelier offering lasting potential.

3) A Woman of Firsts by Edna Adan Ismail
In this incredible memoir Edna Adan Ismail tells the story of her life. Born on the eve of the Second World War in Somaliland, Edna experienced a turbulent and painful childhood which set her on the path to medicine, against all the odds. She was the first medically trained midwife to practise in Somaliland, has been a government minister, First Lady and an ardent advocate for women's rights. Ismail has led an extraordinary life and her writing conveys all the joy, heartache, and humanity that such a life could bring.

As I've already read Purple Hibiscus, it's a decision between 2 & 3. I'm hoping for 3, but any thoughts and opinions welcome as usual. I reserve the right to ignore them, clearly!

I was going to say #1 until I read your last line :-P I'll vote for #3 because I don't see many memoirs of African women.

>52 Helenliz: I've read Purple Hibiscus and really liked it, but my vote would also be for #3, as it really sounds intriguing and informative.

I think I have a copy of 2, so of you want to borrow it if they do go for 3, you'd be more than welcome.

>53 katiekrug:, >54 DeltaQueen50: >:-) I voted for 3.
>55 charl08: thanks for the offer. I'll bear that in mind.

Just stopping by to wish you good luck with the remainder of BingoDog. :-) It will be interesting to hear what you think of Hamnet. There has been a lot of bookbuzz about it, but I am still not sure if I want to read it.

>57 This-n-That: thanks! They're getting harder to fill now...
I'll report back on Hamnet. The hardback is almost more lovely than the dust cover, bright scarlet with embossed gold.

>58 Helenliz: I'm not big on fiction, but I'm very curious about Hamnet. Maggie O'Farrell can seemingly do no wrong, in either her fiction or non-fiction.

The book sounds lovely. I don't know about reading it, I'd be sitting there stroking it!

>59 Jackie_K: It is, oddly, one of the things I'm most enjoying about my book subscription, that they're hardback books. I've never really bought hardbacks, tending to wait for the paperback (smaller, cheaper). But they are just so nice to look at, and the number that have lovely bindings as well as nice dust jackets has really surprised me.

I've not ready anything by O'Farrell before, what non-fiction has she written?

>60 Helenliz: Her memoir I Am, I Am, I Am was very highly praised. I think it's the only non-fiction she's done so far, but I hope she writes more.

Book: 55
Title: Hamnet
Author: Maggie O'Farrell
Rating: ****
Where: new
Why: MrB's subscription
Categories: Woman author, Orange prize, New Author, Subscription
TIOLI:Challenge #4. Read a book for The Numbers Game

You know that Shakespeare wrote two types of plays - the one you did at school and the all the others. Hamlet is "the one I did at school". It also appears to be the one Maggie O'Farrell did at school too. The novel is about lots of things, but in her author's note at the end she points out that nowhere in any of his plays does Shakespeare mention pestilence (as the Black Death wouold have been known). Living in an age when it was an ever present threat, that's an intersting thought. A bit like any play now not using a mobile phone. That and what does it mean when you give your dead child's name to a play. what exactly are you trying to say and do with that. And from those random musings come this novel. It's an interesting construct.
And to the novel. It is good. It is very good. It reduced me to tears (not difficult, admitedly). It explores the past and the present, how he and his wife met, their children, the secrets that lie in families and are never revealed to the outside world. The family dynamics are explored and it is interesting how the characters (most noticably the femlae ones) grow and change in response to their situation. The relationship between mother in law and daughter in law is one that evolves over the years captured in the book.
The author has a few stylistic quirks that felt odd. She'd refer to Shakespeare (for example) as "The father" throughout a paragraph. I know that in families you are very much defined by your relationship to the other members of the family but it felt like an odd convention to use. She also repeats a clause with a slightly different wording as emphasis. It works, but it seems to be repeated quite a lot as a trick.
Maybe it was the fact that this has just won the Women's prize for fiction and has been lauded quite a lot. I went in with high expectations, maybe too high. It's good, very good, but it never quite blew me away.

>62 Helenliz: I am always impressed when people notice stuff about the style on the first reading - I am by default (and perhaps rather childishly) reading for 'the story' and usually don't notice - as with this. I should go back and look at the style.

The absence of the plague is such an interesting note, that I wondered if anyone else had theories on the reason for it.
Great review.

>63 charl08: ahh, I didn't get it all. reading other reviews, Shakespeare is never mentioned by name. he's the Glover's son, the Latin Tutor, Agnes' husband, the father etc. Which is interesting of itself.

>64 Helenliz: Missed it completely here.

The plague thing - this interview with James Shapiro seems to suggest it is mentioned in Romeo & Juliet - https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/04/06/shakespeare-plague-coronavirus

Whereas Greenblatt seems to agree (almost!) with O'Farrell, and contrasts with Thomas Nashe
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-shakespeare-actually-wro...

I like the attempt to seem contemporary here - after a long quote from R&J!
"Mentioning the plague was the Shakespearean equivalent of ending a tweet with “Sad!” There was no need for any sort of further explanation."
https://slate.com/culture/2020/03/shakespeare-plague-influence-hot-hand-ben-cohe...

>65 charl08: thanks for those.

So it appears that we have great taste, the book chosen was A Woman of Firsts, which I am quite looking forward to. It will certainly be different. And I think that's the first time I've voted for the winner. Maybe my steak is about to break.

In other news, my book subscription has been coming in a packet, rather than beautifully wrapped in brown paper, sealing wax and string. As of next month, the wrapping might come back. It is silly, I know, but there is something about the unwrapping of a book that increases the suspense over tearing open a cardboard packet and tipping it out. It's the little things that matter. >:-)

>66 Helenliz: Ooh, that does look good. And a properly wrapped parcel - I can't think of the last time I had one like that (if ever?)

OK gang, I need your help.
To complete my bingo card I need to read books by a female author that was first published in 1820 or 1920 and 1972.
Any hints on titles that will be readily available much appreciated.

>68 Helenliz: - Just perusing my own catalogue -

1972
Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie
Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
Green Darkness by Anya Seton

1920
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The only one I've actually read is TMAaS, but the Woolf and Wharton are high on my list, so maybe you can provide me the impetus to get to one of them!

Thank you. I've read both TMAaS and The Age of Innocence. I might well end up resorting to rereading the former, as I know we have a copy of that. Still open for ideas there though.

Library catalogue claims that it has a copy of The Summer Book, so I've requested that and we'll see if it is where it should be. They're not doing library transfers so I'm limited to what's in the local library for the time being. And the catalogue isn't always the most accurate...
While I have the Heyer, I'm on no way ready to read that one in my sequence reading, so that feels a bit like cheating (yes, I am illogical).

>68 Helenliz:
1920
Chéri by Collette
Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield (a long short story, available as an ebook)
The Lamp in the Desert by Ethel M. Dell (Gutenberg) I've read a couple of Dell's but not this one.

1972

Harriet Said by Beryl Bainbridge.
The Story of a Non-Marrying Man Doris Lessing (short stories)
The Bird of Night - shortlisted for the Booker
The Devastating Boys Elizabeth Taylor (also short stories)
The Needle's Eye
In the Ditch
One I've actually read: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

>68 Helenliz: For 1920:
Miss Lulu Bett by Zona Gale, an American author
Further Chronicles of Avonlea, a short story collection by L. M. Montgomery

For 1972:
Another vote for An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James. Really good.
The Seventh Sinner by Elizabeth Peters

Thanks with the additional suggestions, keep 'em coming. Not sure I've got a winner there yet.

I'm going to veto the LM Montgomery. I really couldn't be doing with Anne of Green Gables, so have no desire whatsoever to read any more by her. I realise that's approaching heresy...
I think we've probably for the PD James, so that's an option. I think I've read it before, but it was a good while ago.

Today is one of those days that aren't quite what you signed up for. Our society AGM is usually held in June, but we postponed it in the hope that we could hold an actual AGM later in the year. It became apparent that wasn't going to happen, so today we are holding a virtual AGM. 50 registrations, at least some of those are going to be couples so we're probably looking at 60 - 70 people which is a good turn out. All via Zoom's webinar add on.

Oh. My. God!

Sleep deserted me, as it does when I'm worried or stressed, so now I feel rough AND worried. Distraction activity this morning, I'm going to take my frustrations out on the weeds.

Wish me luck, there will be wine later - just need to see if is in celebration of success or the drowning of sorrows!

>75 Helenliz: Hope it goes well, Helen. Sounds like everyone will appreciate the chance to get together, given how many have registered.

I hope it goes well, too, Helen.

And, Lookout, weeds!

Enjoy that wine when it comes...

Phew!
That's done and dusted.
It all went surprisingly well, no major hiccups. See, those many practices I made them go through were useful. Apart from the occasion my husband (the technical support) managed to change me from a panellist to an attendee, which came as a nasty surprise!
Pizza on order, wine opened, typing going to stop before spelling goes to pot.
And breathe!

Book: 56
Title: Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen Collection One
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Rating: ***
Where: library
Why: audio
Categories: Short Stories
TIOLI:Challenge #2. Read a book that has the word lie or a synonym for lie in the title

A nicely narrated selection of fairy tales. It was an interesting set, in that some I was familiar with, but others I do not remember having read before. It's interesting how dark these are at times, there's no sex, but there's a lot of death, black magic and trouble that occurs. The good do tend to get their reward, but sometimes they have to wait quite some time...

>78 Helenliz: Congrats on the successful big meeting! Large groups on unfamiliar technologies are always worrying; so many small things can go wrong and troubleshooting quietly 1 on 1 is quite hard to pull off unless everyone shares an expectation for how to do it, there are extra people, and maybe even an out of band communication mode. Sounds like you were more than prepared.

Glad your conference went well and that glass of wine could be celebratory.

>80 pammab:, >81 RidgewayGirl:. It all went down well, I was just really tired by the time we'd done. And as we've had a number of messages as to how well we'd done, it clearly wasn't just wishful thinking.
I ought to bite the bullet, play the recording and write my minutes, but I don't fancy listening to myself. I might just fast forward through most of me and just make sure I pick up the key items - who proposed & seconded motions, for example.

Book: 57
Title: How the World Thinks
Author: Julian Baggini
Rating: ****
Where: #Al-Rhodan prize bundle
Why: non-fiction
Categories: New author, CAT
TIOLI:Challenge #1. Read a book whose title is or contains the name of your school

I've not read a great deal of philosophy (if any), so this was a really great introduction to the world's philosophies. It it titled a history, but it isn't a chronological history, instead it is themed. It starts with how the world knows, then proceeds to examine different schools of thought in how the world is, who we are and how the world lives. I found the thematic approach really interesting, rather than tracing the evolution of each of the major schools of thought. I like that he also atempted to include the oral traditions, this wasn't exclusively limited to the aritten tradition.

I will be honest, the first few chapters were hard going. But they set a foundation and I found that the remaining secitons were much more readable and understandable, maybe as a result of having put some building blocks in place. I felt that I learnt a lot, recognising the aspects of philosophical thinking that I have unconciously embraced without even knowing it. It might not be meant as an introduction to philosophy, but for me it functioned reallly well as exacltly that.

I won this from the #Al-Rhodan prize, which aims to enhance cultural understanding - in which case it's an excellent winner.

>83 Helenliz: Sounds interesting!

>84 rabbitprincess: It really was. Starting at a very low knowledge level, I was worried it would leave me floundering, but it didn't. Lots of examples to explain the various schools of thought. But it also contained lots of balance and this is what happens if you take it to extremes. At the end he uses the analogy of a mixing desk, you can't turn each channel up to 10, but you can adjust the priority you give each channel, bearing in mind that some will always conflict at certain levels. Once I got past the first section, it was surprisingly readable.

>85 Helenliz: Sounds like all the prize books were winners, Helen. I'm still telling myself I will pick up Toby Green's book about West Africa.

>86 charl08: So far they have been. I will admit to putting off the Mao... The Toby Green is on the slate for November, when GeoCat puts paws down in Africa again.

Did you see the new shortlist has been announced?
https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/prizes-medals/nayef-al-rodhan-prize-global-c...

>88 charl08: no. But I've not finished last year's shortlist yet...

>88 charl08: Oh my word, that list looks amazing! I don't recall hearing of that prize, but it's another one to keep on my radar!

>90 Jackie_K: Charlotte pointed it out last year, when they had a competition to won the shortlist - which I did! I'm slowly working my way through them. Not had a duff read yet. The only problem is that I don't read quickly enough...

>91 Helenliz: I'm impressed how many you have read - they're not exactly skinny books!

>88 charl08: I never heard of this before, but the shortlist looks fascinating!

Hello Helen! I just wanted to wave at your lovely new book list, and chuckle at your glamping trip. I don't know if you would trade the cold evenings spent around the fire (including the visit to the Porta-Pottie - what we in the South call the "Camping Loo") for the camping experience of August in Hopkinsville, KY to watch the solar eclipse in 2017, but I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. And got some rest! Camping can be exhausting.

Your book lists look fascinating, and I am also wondering what you thought about the book with the pink unicorn cover?!

Have a great rest of your reading month!

>94 threadnsong: thanks! I can imagine it being warmer might make camping a little more enticing. But I think I've done my share of camping; the allure of a warm bed and ensuite has drawn me in!

The pink unicorn book will be next up, once I've finished the current paper read. I will report back.

Book: 58
Title: Shadows on the Tundra
Author: Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
Rating: ****
Where: shelves
Why: non-fiction, CAT
Categories: New author, woman author, translation, CAT
TIOLI:Challenge #5: Read a 20th Century Book

This is a book that is at odds with its contents. It's written in really easy, accessible language, which makes it easy to miss quite how brutal the situation being described is. The dehumanisation of the deportees by those in charge beggars belief. Set that against an already inhospitable landscape and it's any wonder that any of them survive. And yet the work they are doing is next to worthless. The fish rots in the barrels, wasting resources and effort, which just makes it seem even more futile. The cause of her deportation is never stated, but that her family was middle class in Lithuania was probably enough, she remembers a trip to the Opera as a memory of a former life.
And yet, despite the bleakness of the landscape and the treatment endured, she doesn't seem to succumb to total despair. There is a determination to endure. Maybe that is because she does survive, this is written with some degree of hindsight. Even the blackest moments are not untinged by some anticipation that life will continue.
The manuscript itself has a remarkable story, that is not told here. She and her mother escape, and return home, where her mother dies and Dalia writes her experiences on scraps of paper that are buried in the garden. This is before she is again deported to the labour camps, before being released and working as a doctor. The manuscripts themselves were rediscovered in the garden after Dalia had died and were then published. Therefore the end of this account finds her still in the frozen north, we don't hear, in her own words, the voyage home and the difficulties subsequently endured. This is not an easy book to grasp, it's painful, at times, yet is told with remarkably clear language. At time the chronology is unclear, and it seems to cover just 1 year of her time there. I can't say it is terribly enjoyable, but it is important as a nearly contemporaneous account of Stalin's policies of oppression.

>96 Helenliz: Yet another book read in this challenge that I want to read. Sounds grim yet fascinating.

>97 NinieB: that's a good description of it. This challenge did throw up an interesting mixture of books.

Well that's the end of September and the year is 3/4s done.

3/4 year review
Number of books: 58 is heading for just a smidge over 75 in the year, which is a little bit behind on the target of 80 in the year. Not commuting has had a bit of an impact as I'm not listening to audio books, so I would expect the rate of reading to slow based on that. But it was never a numbers race.

The standout book of the year so far remains A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. This quarter sees a number of 4 stars ratings, for Days in the Caucasus, Rain: Four walks in English Weather, The Starless Sea, Faro's Daughter, The Century Girls, How the World Thinks and Shadows on the Tundra. It's noticeable how many are non-fiction. And how many I didn't pick! 4 are books I didn't buy.

And, for balance, the lowest rated books this quarter were On Beauty and Quidditch Through the Ages, both of which merited just 2 stars.

Challenge 1: Women Authors: 40 books read by women authors out of 58 books is over 2/3rds !!! I wanted to aim for at least 50% so I'm doing more than OK on this one so far. And I'm not really aware that it a conscious decision to seek out women writers.

Challenge 2: Classics: With a target of 6 and 2 completed sees me somewhat behind here! Lack of access to the library has had a bit impact here.

Challenge 3: Heyer series read: 4 read in 9 months sees me somewhat behind target for 8 in the year.

Challenge 4: Orange Prize. 6 read means that this category has hit its target. Not that I'll stop reading them, of course.

Challenge 5: Guardian 100 novels list. A measly 1. The lack of library access has had an impact on this.

Challenge 6: Short Stories. 14 in this category so far. This has moved on more than I thought it might.

Challenge 7: New authors: 29 out of 58 is a nice neat half. That remains nicely above the target of 1/3 of reads being new authors, so that's doing OK.

Challenge 8: Translation: A nice healthy 5 in here so far, which is nicely ahead for 6 in the year. Actually reading some of my subscription books has had a positive impact here!

Challenge 9: Book Subscriptions: 14 in here so far, and I'm not doing too badly on staying up to date. Listing them might have helped with the staying up to date thing.

Challenge 10: CATs: These have suffered form having to resort to my own shelves, but I'm still greater than 50% on each one, so that's not too bad. I'm not going to bend myself out of shape worrying about these.

Challenge 11: Bingo: To make this more challenging, I've decided I will only use female authors this year. And now I only have 4 left. I have 2 more lined up, and a vague idea for the LT author, so I should be able to finish this.

Challenge 12: Misc: Just the one oddball that didn't want to fit anywhere. I'm not going to worry about that.

It's been an odd few months. In some ways I'm reading differently, there's lots of challenge and I seem to be reading more non-fiction again. Non-Ficiton Cat has had a hand in that, although a number have arrived through subscriptions. It's the classics that I'm not seeking out. Maybe when the library starts doing inter-library transfers again I can pick up on these again.

Now to plot the theme for 2021, put 2020 behind us and move on.

Great summary, Helen. And I can't wait to see what your 2021 theme is!

>99 Helenliz: Sounds like a successful quarter.

You've reminded me I have some Peirene books to pick up. Happiness!

>99 Helenliz: I'm plotting my 2021 theme as well! I always use the same categories but like to have different decorations each year.

>100 katiekrug: I have some ideas... Not yet firmed up as yet.

>101 charl08: So do I, the latest one is still on the shelf, as are a few back orders.

>102 rabbitprincess: I'm thinking I might mix it up a bit, I dropped non-fiction for this year, but I do seem to be reading more of it again. Having both classics and the 1001 list (or a subset thereof) doesn't seem to be working terribly well. But we'll see, part of this is supposed to push me out of my comfort zone a bit, so stretch is always good.

>103 Helenliz: I'm not plotting themes, that hasn't worked for me twice. I peruse my books and wishlist and determine which books I currently own are the oldest, what genre they are, what time period, etc, and come up with 5-6 categories which will generate me a lot of reading of my own books! It's worked well this year.

>103 Helenliz: I quite enjoy the intellectual exercise in trying to get aspects of the theme to fit the challenges. OK, sometimes that is more shoehorn the challenges into the images I like for the theme, but what the hell!

I generally keep the same 11+1 categories each year, and just mix up the theme, which occasionally will have some tenuous link to one or more of the categories, but usually are just 12 related things.

Book: 59
Title: Life as a Unicorn
Author: Amrou Al-Kadhi
Rating: **
Where: new
Why: Shelterbox book club
Categories: CAT
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book whose title contains a Halloween Costume

There's a story in here, trying to get out, but it's prevented from doing so by some pretty poor writing, some stylistic quirks and a general sense of immaturity.
The author was born one of twin boys to Iraqi parents in the Middle East, brought up a Muslim and spends most of the book trying to battle with various insecurities and trying to find themselves. It could have been incredibly interesting, but failed to engage this reader, for several reasons. The writing is not terribly good. The use of a significant amount of what I'd describe as slang, assuming that it is common parlance, prevents it being entirely accessible. There is then the habit of whenever a new person is introduced of saying "let's call him XXXX". I can understand not wanting to necessarily use real names, but it could have been a lot neater to have explained up front that some names have been changed than to go through this rigmarole each time. There was also an attempt at a literary version of the stage aside to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. They don't come off terribly well. It feels artificial; the book is addressed to an audience - adding an aside addressed directly to an audience has an air of redundancy about it. It's trying to be matey and fails.
I also found that some experiences were so extreme that I doubted the authenticity of the experience - and in doubting one you find the remainder being thrown into doubt. While at Eaton they are reciting a passage from Richard III. Fine, you may not be familiar with the play, but having done history you surely know enough that monarchs are described by ordinal numbers - no one says Henry eight, he's Henry the eighth. By claiming not to know this in relation to Richard III, when they have previously said that they'd studied History at GCSE, it makes you doubt what else is subject to exageration. The text only works if you can trust it, and I didn't feel I could.
I'm not going to deny that there is a lot of angst and conflict contained within this person, coming from their family, religion and cultural background. Howver, it felt to lack any ability to look at life dispassionately. In the book reference is made to "A Child called It" and the so-called misery memoir genre and it feels that this is trying to follow in those footsteps. The last chapter was a more encouraging ending than might have been expected of the remainder of the book.
I feel this would have been a better book had it been written by someone who was comfortable in their own skin and more mature in their ability to provide balance and draw conclusions from their experiences. They have one hell of a story to tell - but this doesn't do it justice.

Moving on to a Heyer as a palatte cleanser. My copy of Friday's Child was Mum's, is older than I am an no longer possesses a back cover.

Book: 60
Title: The Astral traveller's handbook
Author: David Michie
Rating: **
Where: library
Why: audio
Categories: New author, short stories
TIOLI:Challenge #1. Read a book whose first line includes an odd number

This was not at all what I expected from the title, I was thinking it might be something scifi ish. No. I suppose I should have been altered by the introduction being narrated by the Dalai Lama's cat... this is a set of stories with a Buddhist message not at all subtly encoded within. One or two would have been OK, but I just stopped caring about being preached at at some point. I finished, but apart from the introduction, which really caught my imagination, I can't say I cared about it.

Book: 61
Title: Friday's Child
Author: Georgette Heyer
Rating: ****
Where: Mum's collection
Why: Heyer series read
Categories: Heyer, woman author
TIOLI:Challenge #7. Read a book by an author you've read since March 15, 2020

This is fabulously silly and far fetched and just such fun!
Lord Sherringham offers marriage to the beautiful Isabella, who turns him down. IN a fit of pique, he says he'll marry the first woman he sees - and that happens to be Miss Hero Wantage, who is the peniless relation of a neighbour and a girl he has almost gorn up with. She's just 17, and is about to go to be a teacher or governess, and ends up being Sherry's wife. All of which happens in the first few chapters. From there you have what happens when one partner married unthinkingly someone who loves them almost to distraction. They are both very very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, the opposite sex and adulthood. After a series of scrapes and disasters, most of which seem to involve Hero having taken Sherry at his word when he was being an idiot or showing off to his friends, his friends (and he should thank his lucky stars that he has one very sensible and sensitive friend) decide that something should be done.
It's a different take on the regency romance, in that they start the book married. Marriage requires adjustments and give and take and certainly for most of the book, all the loving and giving is one sided (Hero is represented by the title), but the end (while utterly ridiculous in several ways) does give you hope that things might just go a boit more smoothly in the future. Silly, eye-rolling but adorable. It's a bit like my favourite fluffy socks, you get stick for wearing them, but sometimes they're exactly right.

Thought you might like to see the actual copy I read. This was Mum's - I'm working my way through her Heyer collection. From the publication date, it's older than I am. At least I've not got a coffee ring on my front and no back cover any more!

I think that the nicest thing I can say about that copy of Friday's Child is that it has clearly been well-read.

>111 Helenliz: I like books with a bit of family history like that Helen!

Oh, I remember really enjoying Friday's Child - when I finally get through all of her books this will be one of the first I would pick up for a re-read.

>110 Helenliz: I have a copy of Friday's Child, but it does not appear so evidently well-loved as yours! I will have to make time to read it.

Glad you appreciated it! I think "well loved" is an appropriate description. >:-)
I wonder if I can tell which was her favourite from the condition of the book...

I am wondering what the worst condition book is in everyone's collection...
(Mine are sometimes more about where they were acquired than how often I read them.)

Just catching up on your amusing thread . . .

>12 Helenliz: Where is Grimes Graves? I've never heard of this or seen pictures of it. Looks fascinating

>117 charl08: I am wondering what the worst condition book is in everyone's collection

My used copy of I Capture the Castle, which is a first edition hardcover, came to me with a huge hole torn into the front cover. It looks like it was violently attacked with a tire iron.

>118 Nickelini: Thanks for popping by. It makes me sound a little bit like the BBC, with their ethos to inform, educate, entertain. >:-) I'd be happy with even a bit of that.

Grimes Graves is in Norfolk, UK. It is near the town of Thetford in an area known as the Breckland. The area is largely forest with cleared areas. The soil isn't very good, so has never been really well populated.

I visited the site when we lived not far from Thetford, and you could descend one of the mines, complete with hard hat and high vis vest. It was certainly fascinating, although I can't say I fancied being down there very long.

I'm not sure any of my books look quite that bad. Although I did pick up Mum's habit of reading in the bath, so more than one book I own has spent time in the airing cupboard, drying out!

>119 Helenliz:
Thanks -- I've put it on my list of places to visit if I ever get to that corner of England.

>120 Nickelini: If you're in the area it's certainly worth the detour.

*mounts soap box*
Roll up, roll up, Ladies and gents (and none of the above).
For your delectation, we have a quiz! 100 questions to amuse, bemuse and confuse!! All for the grand sum of £1.
Speciality subject is UK tramstops, so plenty of opportunity for niche knowledge to be displayed!!!
*coughs and stops sounding like a barker*

It's our annual ringing guild quiz, to raise funds to restore bells in our diocese. See pdg.org.uk for what we get up to. Message me if you'd like to try one. You can win cash prizes for the most correct answers submitted.

Book: 62
Title: Where Angels Fear to Tread
Author: EM Forster
Rating: ***
Where: Library
Why: Audio
Categories: Miscellaneous
TIOLI:Challenge #8: Read a book whose title contains a Halloween Costume

This is such an odd book I'm not sure I know where to start. It feels very stilted and Victorian, with the family, society and appearances taking such a high profile in the behaviour of the English people depicted. Lilian marries into the Herriot family, and is not approved of. After she is left a widow, she goes to Italy and falls in love. At which point, her former husband's brother is sent out to sort things out. He is destined to fail, being unable to undertsand either of them. From here, events take a turn for the worse and the stuck up Victorian attitudes of the family, comerned more with the appearance of good than of actually doing good mean that this ends up being a sorry tale. It almost comes to murder apart from the interference of a woman who comes into her own and sees the disctintion between looking good and doing good. It all ends up in a bit of a farce, with misplaced affections all over the place. I couldn't help thinking that this could have had a very different outcome at any number of points, but I think that's the point, society's expectations were so conditioning that it would have taken a fool or a very brave person to have stepped in and crossed that line of expected behaviour.
It had some beautiful descriptions and some really joyful passages, but the overwhelming effect was of constriction tot he point of claustophobia. I'm very glad I'm not a Victorian.

>122 Helenliz: That was very much my own reaction when I read this years ago. This age may have its drawbacks, but as a woman I'm glad I'm living now.

>123 MissWatson: Indeed, living now clearly has its own set of problems, but I can't imagine how constricting society was. I hope I'd have been a rebel of some description. Purple and green suit me quite well. >;-)

Book: 63
Title: The Well of Loneliness
Author: Radclyffe Hall
Rating: **
Where: my Shelves (and will not be staying)
Why: I nominated it for the 1001 group read and thought I'd better read it!
Categories: Women authors, new authors
TIOLI:Challenge #2. Read a book written by a female author who does not fit the binary gender/sexuality stereotype

A couple of notes: I understand this book is historically important - that doesn't mean it is very good or has aged very well.
And I have to get this off my chest right away. My edition was 496 pages long and throughout that entire time not one person comments, "Stephen, huh, that's an odd name for a girl". NOT ONE! I understand why she's called Stephen (father convinced the cild was going to be a boy, so she gets the boy's name they'd picked out) but for not one person to even make passing reference to it throughout the remainder of the book is just entirely unrealistic.
So what to make of the book itself. Well it's all very overblown and flowery. At times it disappears into a religious strain that to the modern reader is redundant and self indulgent. It is of its time.
I also thought that this was going to go down the nature vs nurture debate. The first part of the book sets this up: the girl born instead of the wanted son, such that she is given a boy's name and brought up more like a boy - being allowed to ride astride, for instance. But the text itself, at every oportunity, is insistant that inverts (to use the language of the time) are born. That they can;t be unnatural, as society would have it, because they are born that way. And then God gets dragged in again and you go round the loop again. It's one I have no intention of revisiting, although I am able to admire its bravery while not having enjoyed it very much at all.

>125 Helenliz: Sadly, that's how I feel about 90% of the books from the 1001 list I have read.

>125 Helenliz: Oh dear. I have this on the shelf, but not tempted to pick it up!

>126 Tess_W: I've had some good reads, but I'd agree that a number of them are just more worthy than enjoyable.
>127 charl08: I really can't encourage you to do so. As I said, historically important does not mean it's very good.

I've not got round to this until now, but I have my latest subscription book arrive this weekend. They used to arrive in a cardboard traveller, within which was a book wrapped in brown paper, tried with string and sealed with sealing wax. Recently, however, books have been arriving just in a brown traveller. But the bookstore has been able to put in place some decorative packaging that can be applied with a little less handling than the previous. So I present the unwrapping of my latest book.

>129 Helenliz: Ooh, nice. The wrapping paper looks fun.

>130 charl08:, It was nice and cheery. And just wrapped round, rather than as a parcel, so easier. There are apparently a few different designs, so I'll have to see what I get each time. >:-)

>129 Helenliz: I love it when books arrive with a little more ceremony than a padded mailer.

Book: 64
Title: In the Mountains
Author: Elizabeth von Arnim
Rating: ***
Where: bought specially
Why: fill my 1920 CAT square.
Categories: Women authors, CAT
TIOLI:Challenge hmm, nothing fits!

This is a book entirely in diary form. You are pitched into an entry in June and it proceeds from there. You know nothing of the narrator's former life apart from what she chooses to tell you through the diary entries. You quickly put some pieces together though, she's lost a love in WW1 and has escaped to her mountain hideaway to recover her sense of perspective. Into this beautiful place come a pair of sisters, also widows, and finally her Uncle. he comes with one mission and leaves with something entirely different having happened. It is interesting in the dynamic between the diarist and her surroundings, her staff, her guests and the landscape. She responds to each of them in different ways, sometimes amusing, sometimes it brings pain, we can feel her loss and desolation and the comfort she finds in being in this happy place. It turns out to take them all somewhere else while not leaving the small confines of the house and surroundings. Melancholic but hopeful. This deserves reading at a slow pace.

>132 RidgewayGirl: I know, it just extends the anticipation. If it's just the cardboard traveller, one rip and it's all over. This took 3 distinct steps before I could see what it was.

>129 Helenliz: What lovely packaging! I love the colors as well as the anticipation.

I haven't read The Well of Loneliness though it comes up now and then given its historical status, mostly because I had the impression it was both depressing and immensely dated. Your opinion confirms that and gives me more reason to skip.... I will probably never read it now, and that is absolutely okay by me!

>135 pammab: It is. And there's apparently more than one wrapping paper, so I'll have to see what I get next.

I really can't recommend you do go and read The Well of Loneliness. It wasn't exatly acclaimed as great literature when it was published (Victoria Woolf described it as unreadable) and age has not been kind to it. I felt like I waded through it but that's as I'm an annoying completist. Save yourself the bother.

A couple of finishes to report:
Book: 65
Title: A Creepy Company
Author: Joan Aiken
Rating: ***
Where: library
Why: audio
Categories: Women authors, new author, short stories
TIOLI:Challenge hmm, nothing fits!

This is a collection of creepy tales written for a YA audience. I'm not sure they count as horror, but there is enough creep in them. Some of them seem to have a rational explanation, some of them leave you hanging at the last minute and some of them just leave you wondering what the point was. I'm not a fan of horror, so that I thought tbhis was OK shows you it's not actually all that scary. An enjoyable enough listen, without ever setting the world alight.

Book: 66
Title: Build Yourself a Boat
Author: Camonghne Felix
Rating: ***
Where: library
Why: audio
Categories: Women authors, new author, short stories
TIOLI:Challenge #2. Read a book written by a female author who does not fit the binary gender/sexuality stereotype

This is a particularly dark collection of poetry. In one poem there's a line about being all edges, all corners and this is certainly not a smooth ride. With topics ranging from rape to suicide, self harm to drowning, don't expect to relax and feel comfortable. I listened to this, as read by the poet, and it has something about it that make it hard to stop listening to. Of all the collection, the one that stood out for me as being radically different in tone was titled "Imagine" in which she marvels that her younger sister is going to go to university and study something that could well lead to her being an astronaut. The bemusement that her little sister seems to be set on such a different path and the wonder that this young woman was her little sister is so entirely different from the rest.

Beautiful packaging! I hope you enjoy the book as much.

Thank you for your excellent review of The Well of Loneliness. It's not a book I planned on reading but now I don't need to be concerned.

I've been thinking about your review of The Well of Loneliness. I bought a copy because I was working at the 1001 books list, and I found a cover I rather liked. I've had it for a few years now, but never been tempted to pick it up, because frankly, it looks like a boring story. I do like my cover though. But I own so many books, and you've confirmed what I've expected of it. So I think I'll just let it go. Thanks for helping with that decision.

It feels like I'm providing a public service, allowing you all to take a pass on that one. Happy to help!

>139 Nickelini: This replicates my experience I bought a copy because I was working at the 1001 books list .... I've had it for a few years now, but never been tempted to pick it up, Having nominated it for the 1001 group read, I thought I'd better actually read it and I'm a bugger for completing books I've started.

>140 Helenliz: Who gave this 1001 book list guy so much power anyway? Psh. And sheesh, over a thousand books? Doesn't the median English language reader get through only 4 books a year? So like.. that's over 4 lifetimes of books for most people? And they're not even all good?

But as you rightly call out, I'm saying this from a non-completist point of view, and I'm also not a particularly voluminous reader -- it's just the idea of 15-20 more years of reading only works judged important by someone else, my goodness. More power to you who endeavor!

>141 pammab:
Well, it wasn't a guy. It was a huge team. They are outlined in the book along with their credentials. I myself have read something like 250 books, and there might be another 200 that I'm interested in at some level. Or maybe not. So, it's not one guy's opinion, but also, all those opinions are .... ?? So I guess we've arrived at the same place. Who cares what we are told to read?

Still, it's fun to read the list as long as one is interested in it. These are the most talked about, most studied, most referenced books. (But not plays, poetry,etc. Except sometimes. Yeah, the list is a bit of a mess. Still, if you seek to be "well read" it's a start)

>141 pammab: It's a way of challenging ones self. I've read books I'd never have picked up otherwise by reading books that have been ajudged as being important. Doesn't always mean they're good, a book can be important historically without being very good (case in point). I never feel I'm very well read, and so this is a way of filling in the gaps. I'm likely never going to finish the list - but that's slightly not the point.

And yes, there are issues with the list and what is on it and excluded from it, but it's a start and as you need to start somewhere, its a good a place as any.

Thanks for the explanations! I definitely had understood all the folks reading from 1001 books as people who were literally trying to read them all. Probably that's because this group attracts strivers, and because I'm also impressed by how much folks are able to read.

But as a way of not forgetting what's out there -- that's a different understanding, and that does appeal to me. This is actually making me think maybe I should pick up the book itself. It does feel like it fits quite nicely into the challenge of it all.

>144 pammab: while there are some members of the 1001 group who have read the majority (the book has run to different editions, so the grand total of books that have ever been included is approaching 1400), there are also those of us who've read just over 100. I'm now at 126 (I think). I've got a way to go before I get to the ones I'll likely never get hold of or have decided not to read. I love a list and I have a thing about completing them, but I am viewing this in a slightly different way, it's a jumping off point rather than an objective to be completed.

Book: 67
Title: The Sunken Land begins to Rise Again
Author: M John Harrison
Rating: **
Where: new
Why: MrB's subscription
Categories: New author, subscription
TIOLI:Challenge #7. Read a book that has something comforting in the title

This is, um, odd. There are some lovely passages of description and he certainly has a turn of phrase. but the whole thing was set in a very odd story that I'm, not sure I ever got my head around. Something to do with water and another species of humans, I think, but it was really hard to tell what was going on. I fear it went over my head

>146 Helenliz: So, no then. Good to know.

I love the discussion about the 1001 list - I am not a completist, so I am happy to just pick and choose from it. I do love me a list.

>129 Helenliz: Thanks for sharing - what charming packaging!

>147 Crazymamie: I feel like I'm providing a public service the last few weeks. Hopefully I'll be onto a run of better books soon. >:-) I go into each one hoping for the best.

That's better!

Book: 68
Title: A Woman of Firsts
Author: Edna Adan Ismail
Rating: ****
Where: new
Why: Shelterbox book club
Categories: New author, subscription, woman author.
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book by a woman of colour

This is a life story of an amazing woman, who probably doesn't think she is all that amazing. The daughter of a doctor, in what was then the British protectorate of Somaliland, he seems to be remarkably forward thinking; she gains an education and a scholarship to train in Britain. And so begins a life of dedication to nursing. It is not an easy life - for herself or others. She had 3 failed marriages - but then I imagine that most agents of change are impossible to live with. Along the way she serves as first lady of Somalia, for the WHO and UN in a variety of positions. And still has the time and energy to build a hospital and train hundreds of nurses and midwives.
The subtitle may initially appear overblown, but having read this extrodinary life, I can't disagree - this is one woman who you have probably never heard of and should.

Yay, a 4-star read!

>149 Helenliz: Well, you were definitely due a good read!

SO glad you did not have to make another public service announcement, Helen. Hooray for a 4 star read!

Thank you all.
It was a good one. Well worth the read.

>149 Helenliz: What an impressive set of accomplishments for Ismail! Hearing about people like this, I always wonder how many more extraordinary people just haven't been written into widespread history yet.

>149 Helenliz: - That's definitely going on my wishlist - she sounds amazing.

>154 pammab: I know, it's one of the reasons I read the obit columns, because there are fascinating people out there who don;t blow their own trumpet. And I know it's a shame that I only know of their life after it has ended, but I think that's better than not knowing of them at all.

>155 LittleTaiko: she is. It's a good, interesting read.

Book: 69
Title: Can you ever Forgive me
Author: Lee Israel
Rating: **
Where: library
Why: Audio
Categories: New author, woman author
TIOLI:Challenge #11: Read a book that has something to do with United States country music

It is noticeable that this is titled memoirs of a lterary forger, rather than confessions. And that sets the tone of the piece. It is an odd combination of misery memior about her descent from making a living as an author to being broke enough to consider forgery. Then there is a sense of bragging about the letters she forged, which are quoted extensively, and how those who she fooled were clearly schmucks who deserved it.
There's some interesting detail about watermarks and typewriters and the mechanics of the process, and that for me was the most interesting. The rest of it was a puff piece and overly full of padding. The author sounds unpleasant and unrepentant and I can't say I feel at all sorry for her and her self-inflicted predicament.
The title is taken form a phrase she put into the Dorothy Parker letter and not a sense of the author's repentance for her crime.

>157 Helenliz: I'd not realized this was a book - I'd come across ads for the film, which I think got good reviews (but I've not been to the cinema in a while for reasons I can't quite recall just now...)

>157 Helenliz: I had wondered about this one - sounds like you took one for the team, Helen. Thanks for that.

>158 charl08: yes, apparently it is a film, I had no idea. Not sure I;d bother watching it.
>159 Crazymamie:, yup, you may pass on that one without worrying you're missing out. No FOMO there.

>160 Helenliz: The film's worth watching for Richard E. Grant.

>161 pamelad: for every film there is a high point, I support. >;-)

I may well be missing in action for the next week or so. I've got our Stage 2 audit for 13485 next Monday & Tuesday (think really big business exams) so I'm a tinsy bit busy and fretty. Not sleeping (which is typical for me) and not in the mood to curl up with a book.

Also grumpy.

It will all be fine, and I know that, but that doesn't stop me being a complete worry pot about it.

>163 Helenliz: - Good luck with everything, Helen, and we'll be here when things settle down!

>163 Helenliz: Wishing you calm and confidence going into your audit. You'll do great.

What Katie and Kay said, Helen. Sending you positive mojo.

Hope it goes smoothly, Helen.

Good luck, Helen!

Good luck, Helen! Sounds like you will be ready to relax in a comfy chair with a good book when you are done.

>163 Helenliz: Good luck! That sounds intimidating, and I hope it goes smoothly (and without too much loss of sleep for you!).

Good luck, Helen! I hope everything goes well and you can enjoy your books again afterwards.

Thanks. So far (fingers and everything else crossed) it's not looking too bad... or at least the prep's not uncovered any bear traps yet.

So that's the prep done, just got to lay out clothes for Monday and pack for Tuesday and I'm done. Ready as we're ever going to be...

I hope the weekend goes well for you and passes quickley. From my own experience nerves begin to settle once I'm actually underway. Good Luck!

hmm. Well that was a bit of a mixed result. 3 findings, which I'd have been thrilled at in a 2 days audit. Only 1 of them is judged as major so I am not a happy bunny. I know what I need to do about it and we'll have a follow up to review just that area within 90 days. All doable, just really really really annoying.

Ho hum. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

Although.... assessor reviewed his observation against our documents and the major has been downgraded. So that's just 3 minor findings. That's a lot better.
>:-)

Book: 70
Title: In between the Sheets
Author: Ian McEwan
Rating: ***
Where: library
Why: Audio
Categories: Short Stories
TIOLI:Challenge #9. Read a book of short stories in a 'genre' category

McEwan can write, that is for sure. This was just a very odd application of that talent. Each of these stories is quite unsettling in some way. The tales all have quite an explicit element. There isquite a bot of ambiguity here, at times you feel that you're looking at the characters through a windown of smokey glass. If you're of a sensitive disposition, you may find some of these rather upsetting. I can't say I reccomend this piece of his writing, but I finished it nonetheless.

>177 Helenliz: I get that creepy old uncle feeling from Ian McEwan's writing.

>177 Helenliz: - Mamie just finished a McEwan and had a similar reaction...

>179 katiekrug: What Katie said. Definite ick factor, but I gave him three stars for his writing chops.

Book: 71
Title: Poems to Fall in Love With
Author: Chris Riddell
Rating: ****
Where: library
Why: Audio
Categories: Short Stories
TIOLI:Challenge #4: Read a book where the word "love" is embedded in the title or author's name

I listened to this and it was a most pleasant accompaniment to my morning commute. I am not sure I would necessarily describe all of these as poetry, but that would be hair splitting. A wide range of authors, from Sappho to contemporary and all describing love in some way. Some of them felt to be the high emotions of passion, others were far more gentle. A lovely thing to listen to.

And an apt listen, as today's our 15th wedding anniversary.

I had my usual day in the office today. And where it was my 3 year anniversary at work and the audit earlier in the week, my lovely colleagues had bought me a big bunch of flowers. So a good day all round really.

>180 Crazymamie: I did see that review. I know what you mean, this is certainly more of the same.

>177 Helenliz: Some of it, yes. I thought Atonement was very different in tone and very good. I keep hoping for more of that quality without the "ick" factor.

>181 Helenliz: Congratulations on your anniversary! (as it happens I have some friends who also have their 15th anniversary today, and it is also my daughter's birthday. So clearly 26th November is a very auspicious day!)

>181 Helenliz: Congrats! Surely that made up for all the nervousness in the previous days?

>184 MissWatson:. It is quite an achievement. I only get nervous because I care; if I didn't care, it would be easy.

>183 Jackie_K: It's a good day.

>6 Helenliz: Having a look at your Georgette Heyer progress. I just bought The Early Georgette Heyer Collection, which contains The Transformation of Philip Jettan a.k.a. Powder and Patch, The Black Moth, The Great Roxhythe, Instead of the Thorn and a short story, Proposal to Cicely. After a few discards I'm getting along well with The Black Moth. Re-reading Powder and Patch is a good effort on your part: after a couple of chapters I decided that one read had been enough. Couldn't get into The Great Roxhythe either. Fortunately there are plenty of other Heyers to look forward to!

What made you decide to read all of Heyer's books in order?

>186 pamelad: I'm not counting The Great Roxhythe as one I intend to revisit either.

I inherited an almost complete set when we cleared Mum's house.

I saw that Liz had read them in order, and it seemed a more reliable way of reading them than to pick and read some twice while missing others. I like order and a methodical approach, so this suits me quite well. They are in order on the shelf and the next one is always just pulled out a smidge, so that I know which one's next up.

Book: 72
Title: A Fistful of Shells
Author: Toby Green
Rating: **
Where: Al Rhodan shortlist winnings
Why: None-fiction
Categories: New author, CAT
TIOLI:Challenge #4: Read a book where the word "love" is embedded in the title or author's name

This aims to be a history of West Africa with very much an economics view of interactions and trade. And most of it went well over my head. Some chapters made sense, but to someone who can barely balance their current account, it just passed me by. I also found it very confusing as to who was where and when. The end papers were a modern map of Africa, and there were a few maps of regions within the book but, on the whole, ot was assuming a far greater familiarity with the geography than I possess. He uses landmarks but they weren't on the map, so I don;t know where he means. A few more maps of terretories and groups of people over time would have helped enormously. Overall I found it a bit muddled, but I think that is as it was assuming knowledge I don't have.
This is the first of the 2019 Al Rhodan shortlist that I can't say I enjoyed reading.

>188 Helenliz: Bummer.

Happy Sunday, Helen. What's up next in your reading?

>189 Crazymamie: It felt like it could have been interesting had I known a bit more about the area and understood anything at all about economics.

I'm most of the way through the next one. An unexpected trip to the local hospital meant I got through a fair bit of The Summer Book. Short chapters, undemanding to read and yet lyrically beautiful.

>190 Helenliz: I have that one in the stacks, so I'm hoping it's good.

Sorry about the unexpected trip to the hospital. Hoping all is well.

>191 Crazymamie: Yes, I'm fine. One of those things that sounds silly, but could be something other than trivial. Called the out of hours service feeling like an idiot, they then wanted to see me, then referred me on and want to follow up. Got to love the NHS.

Congrats on the audit outcome and the anniversaries! And thanks for the head's up about McEwan; it sounds like probably not my cup of tea right now.

Book: 73
Title: The Summer Book
Author: Tove Jansson
Rating: ****
Where: Library
Why: Bingo filler
Categories: New author, woman author, Bingo
TIOLI:Challenge #10: Read a book that is in a 'best books' list on LibraryThing

This is quite lovely, in its own quiet little way. Don't expect plot or progression, there isn't any. It is simply a set of incidents that take place on a little island, occuplied by Sophia, Papa and Grandmother. Sophia and Grandmother spend quite a lot of time together over this one summer, exploring the island, exploring what it is to be 6 and old, from two very different perspectives. There are things that happen, there is weather and the plants grow, and nothing much takes place. And yet... As it progresses you come to realise that it is a love song to Grandmother and all she stands for. This is was written after the author's mother, Grandmother, had passed away and it serves as a means of importalising this lovely woman in words that roll around on the page and bring her to life. It turns out to be quite beautiful and life affirming

>193 pammab: thanks. And I think that's fair, he's not always an easy read and sometimes you don't need challenging themes in your life.

>194 Helenliz: I got this book for my birthday this year, I'm looking forward to reading it at some point! Lovely review - it sounds delightful!

Book: 74
Title: The Outcast Dead
Author: Elly Griffiths
Rating: ***
Where: Borrowed from Cathy
Why: next in series
Categories: Woman author
TIOLI:Challenge #12. Read a book explaining what is puzzling you about this strange year using all or part of a book title

I've decided that the best thing to do with these books is to leave logic at the door and just let co-incidences happen. And there's a whole load of co-incidence here, Nelson is investigating a possible child murder while Ruth is digging up a supposed child murderer who was hanged in Norwich castle. Those two places are not terribly close together, so the fact that Nelson's team find themselves off patch and criss-crossing the county rather frequently is possible stretching the bounds of credibility a tad. But let's let that pass. It gets quite complicated, with various people being suspects in nelson's case, and then they all get tangled up in a couple of child abductions. Last time it was kate who was snatched, this time it's Judy's son. And at the very end the two story lines come together - you've been waiting for it all this time - wondering when the two would collide. And they do and it's all very spurious. But, you know what, I don't read them because they're great literature, I read them because they're kind of fun. And this one introduced a silver fox of an American Historian called Frank, and we'll see where he ends up.

>196 Jackie_K: It was lovely, I hope you enjoy it too.

>188 Helenliz: Oh no. I have this on the shelf to read. I didn't realise it was economics heavy.

I'm surprised he didn't include maps. So fascinating to look at these.

>199 charl08: I am a complete dunce when it comes to economics, it simply makes no sense to me, so if you have even an ounce more understanding, it may well be fascinating. There were some maps, but only a few. It felt like there were nothing like enough to capture the complexity of people and movements across 4 centuries. For example, he discusses Benin, but it seems to be in a different location to the country now called Benin. And I couldn't work out if that was true, or me misreading what he'd said. A few more maps would really have helped me get my head around things like this.
It felt like there was a really interesting book there, it just remained out of reach to me.

"...I don't read them because they're great literature, I read them because they're kind of fun." Yep. I love Ruth. And my Dad's name was Nelson, so I love seeing that in print over and over again.

It's Tuesday, Helen. And we have made it to December! Hooray for that.

>201 Crazymamie: It is Tuesday, that much was true!
I think I might like Ruth, were we to meet. And, seeing we work in the same town, we might well do. Athough part of me would love to know where the author has plonked her University... >:-)

Decisions time again. Which oif these do I want to vote for?

Buying a Fishing Rod for my Grandfather by Gao Xingjian

We, The Survivors by Tash Aw

The Vagrants by Yiyun Li

Te,pted by the third on the basis that the author is a woman. But that's the extent of the leanings so far.

>203 Helenliz: - I vote for the 3rd one because I have a copy on my shelf :)

Hello Helen! Thank you for adding such wonders to your thread, and since you love lists:

1) Sorry to see you had so many ** on several recent books
2) Yech that you had to deal with an audit at work (congrats on 3 years, though - woo-hoo!)
3) Thanks for the heads up about Well of Loneliness since it does come up in discussions
4) Thank you for the great discussions on 1,001 Books; are they a list to follow or a jumping off point?
5) Hmmm, Ian McEwan. Good to know and be wary of.
6) Congratulations on a 15th wedding anniversary!

Though I may not join in the conversations much, i do love how you structure your reading, especially the sites in England that have such stories/historical bits.

Joining with your other friends on this site to say I am so looking forward to seeing how your 2021 page will look!

>205 threadnsong: thank you for popping by, always nice to read such a cheery message. And I'm happy to act as a public service ocassionally. >:-)

Shameless plug - next year I can be found here.

Book: 75
Title: A Natural History of Dragons
Author: Marie Brennan
Rating: ***
Where: My shelves (although I'm not sure why!)
Why: Bingo square
Categories: Woman author, new author, Bingo
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

I get the impression that I'm the wrong age for this target audience. It feels a bit like it is aimed at a teen girl audience. Although i wonder how they responded to the somewhat didactic tendency (I know I didn't respond very well to it!) Written as the memoirs of a elderly lady, this cover the period of her life from childhood to first marriage and into her 20s (just). She's a bit of a nerd, with a scientific mind that her father encouraged, even if society did not. She also doesn't have very much in the way of common sense or ability to be rational at moments of stress. And she has a passion for dragons.
the author has invented a world that comes complete with lashings of superiority, racism and misogyny, then has a tendency to say "you wouldn't believe it now, you young things have never had it so good". It's an odd mixture of Russian type setup, peasant villagers, distant overlords, smugglers, and ancient ruins along side a scientific expedition to discover more about dragons. There are a few areas where you can't help thinking that if they'd bothered to talk to the locals as human beings, a lot of the later trouble might have been avoided, but that just goes hand in hand with the inherent superiority complex that the main group of characters seem to have, to greater or lesser degrees.
It's not great literature, it's inventive enough, but I'm not going to be seeking out the further adventures of Isabella.

>207 Helenliz: - Hmm, well, I won't be rushing to read that one!

>208 katiekrug: It wasn't awful, in fact it was quite readable. I'm just not sure that it's aimed at someone probably nearer in age to the old lady writing her memoirs than the 19 year old who runs headlong into everything...

>207 Helenliz: >208 katiekrug: Hm, I think this can stay on the TBR a bit longer.

>210 MissWatson: Although that does just mean that you'll be even further from the target audience when you get around to reading it. >;-)

>211 Helenliz: Oh dear. Wouldn't be the first time, though.

Book: 76
Title: The Year 1000
Author: Valerie Hansen
Rating: ***
Where: MrB's Subscription
Why: Bingo square
Categories: Woman author, new author, Bingo, CAT
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

I like the idea of this book, but I'm not convinced by the execution. It aims to show how, around the year 1000 (that being give or take a couple of hundred years, by the wat), the world was far more globalised than might be imagined. There is then a chapter for each of the major peoples or areas of the world and how they interacted with other peoples, how they traded, what they traded etc.
And it would work really well if this didn;t feel to be quite so superficial. Dealing with Africa in 30 pages really doesn;t do anything to get under the skin of the place or its global trade implications, so this feels very much like a skim over the surface. It also felt like it jumped about in ech chapter, in both time and space, too much to actually present a coherent thesis.
I also didn;t like the tone, at times it slips into discussing "our story". I like my general non-fiction to be prurely in the impersonal, and this feels to be a rather slipshod means of writing.
Great ambition, let down by the flimsiness and execution.

And that's the Bingo card done! hurrah.

>213 Helenliz: Congrats on finishing your Bingo card, and thanks for warning me off that book. I had been looking at it, but your comments convince I don't need to bother.

>213 Helenliz: Thanks. I think that for me the biggest disappointment was that it could have been so much better...

Congratulations on finishing the women-only bingo.

Congrats on completing your Bingo card, Helen! I read A Natural History of Dragons several years ago, and I liked it more than you but was not compelled to read further.

Congratulations! I went back to check what you read for the 1820/1920 square and saw you read Elizabeth. I have read one book by her, Princess Priscilla's Fortnight, which was mostly light and funny but went dark towards the end.

Congratulations on finishing your Bingo card! Extra kudos for keeping it women only.

>218 Crazymamie:, >219 NinieB:, >220 VivienneR: Thank you all.

>218 Crazymamie: It was really quite readable, just didn't ever quite hit the spot for me.

>219 NinieB: This is the second of hers I've read. I agree - they've both had a fluffy appearance, but have far more substance then just that.

>220 VivienneR: It was interesting. Apart from the published in 1820 (where there are none) and 1920 (when the choice was a little limited) it wasn't too difficult to keep it just to women.

YAY! That's it!! Out of Office on, I'm on holiday for 2 whole weeks!!!!
Well, apart from having to check mail for the next few days to see if something that was due this week actually turns up... But could be worse. I still remember one phone call while VERY hungover that something needed our attention urgently. That was a less fun morning.

Enjoy your break, Helen! I'll be joining you Wednesday :)

Congratulations on completing your Bingo Card. Enjoy your time off!

>222 Helenliz: Woo hoo! Enjoy your time off! I'm working right up until Christmas Eve but will have the rest of the year off.

Enjoy your holiday!

Enjoy your time off! I've got one more shift (on Tuesday) to go, and I am really really ready to stop!

>222 Helenliz: Me too. I am already anticipating much napping this holiday.

Thanks all!
The weekend has involved visiting a Cjristmas tree farm and selecting my tree, getting it home and decorating it. It does feel like I can actually just sit and go "flump" on the sofa for a bit now.
Or, you know, read a book...

Hooray for just sitting and going "flump" on the sofa, Helen! And two weeks off is happy making.

>230 Crazymamie: Thanks.
A couple of flumping days have been put to good use. The information expected did arrive, so I'm off the hook now until 4th January. Apart from a walk into town each day I'm happily doing not a lot, some cross stitch to try and finish this baby blanket (and the Alphakit letters) and watching TV to clear the recorder before filling it again over the holidays >:-)

Book: 77
Title: The Forgotten Waltz
Author: Anne Enright
Rating: ***1/2
Where: Library
Why: Trying to start the New year with a clean shelf! (some hope!!)
Categories: Woman author, new author, Orange
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

This is an interesting books, it starts out as one thing, but somewhere along the way it morphs into something deeper. Initially it is Gina, telling the story of her affair with Sean and how they come to be together. So much so superficial, you might think. But stick with it and it becomes an exploration of love and memory and how both can play tricks on you. In Gina's case how she and her sister have each responded differently to memories of their father, who dies when they were teenagers. They remember him and his drinking in dofferent ways. Maybe that reflects that each of us has a unique relationship with each parent and that majorly influences the rest of your life and interactions with other people. For a daughter, a father is their first and deepest love. An dso there is then the flip side of the coin, with Sean and his daughter and how Gina fits into that triangle. It's a deeper and more ellusive book at the end than it appears to be at the beginning, but it manages that without necessarily any great gear change, it's a gradual sink to the deep end.
Set in Dublin, some of the dialogue is distinctly an Irish word usage, but it looses none for that. Although a handy guide on how to pronounce some of the characters' names would have been greatly appreciated!

Book: 78
Title: The Pear Field
Author: Nana Ekvtimishvili
Rating: ****
Where: Pierene subscription
Why: Trying to start the New year with a clean shelf! (some hope!!)
Categories: Woman author, new author, Translation
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

I think that this can best be described as unflinching. Brutal is another word, but it is all very matter of fact and that seems to take the edge off the horror that is described so very casually in here. If you are easily upset by child abuse, I'd give this one a miss.
Lela is 18 and has been in the institution locally known as the School for Idiots for some years now. She should have left 2 years ago, but has nowhere else to go, no family, no where. And so through her you hear about the state of the school, the surrounding area and what goes on in a crumbling system. She has not let the system grind her down and part of the tale related to Irakli, a younger boy whose mother left him at the school and who regularly promises to come and get him - and never does. When there is the chance to be adopted by an American couple, Lela pushed Irakli forward in order to make his life better.
She is such an engaging narrator, and this is written in such liquid prose that you almost miss the horrific circumstances that these children are living under and what they suffer. This is all repoted in such a matter of fact way that it seems to be entirely normal, and in their world it probably is. A book worth reading, but not for the faint of heart.

>232 Helenliz: - That sounds really interesting. I will keep an eye out for it.

>232 Helenliz: I watched the launch event with the author for this one and it seems like a lot of the book is from her memories of growing up next to one of the homes (or rather, institutions) described in the book. Fascinating insight into a place, and in such a relatively short read, too. I was reminded of all those documentaries on UK TV (maybe even a Challenge Anneka? Or am I imagining that?) where reporters went into the Romanian children's institutions for the first time after the fall of Ceauşescu.

>233 katiekrug: It's not a seasonal read, but it's certainly worth reading.
>234 charl08: That is interesting. No, I got the same mental images, those pictures of children in Romanian orphanages. Very sad.

Book: 79
Title: Rudolph the red Nosed Reindeer
Author: Robert L May
Rating: ****
Where: My shelves
Why: Tradition
Categories: Miscallaneous
TIOLI:Challenge #12: Read a comfort book

This was a family Christmas tradition - that I'd entirely mis-remembered!
I thought every year we'd sit down and have read to us 'Twas the night before Christmas in a pop-up book that had been my dad's as a child. Well the second part is true - the hand written note on the inside front cover dates it at 1952. But it turns out to be a different Christmas eve poem, this one all about Rudolph and his read nose savijng the day. All in rhyming couplets with red lines under certain words to know what to stress. The covers have long since past their best (understatement, this is not merely foxed, but probably badgered and beared as well) but there is just 1 piece of popup that no longer pops.
The text is cute and fun, although more American than I remember, snow like the froth on a soda for example would not be something I think I'd have related to as a child. I'm also fairly sure that it borrows some lines from the poem, the ending for example, I'm sure is a complete copy! It's a bit twee, but perfect for reading aloud and with its tale of the bullied reindeer saving the day and becomming the hero of all, it still has something to say to children.

Re-read - annual tradition. It's as much what this stands for as the text but, you know what? That doesn't matter. It's still beautiful and emotional.

Just to wish all my visitors a Merry Christmas. It wont necessarily be the day we'd hoped for, but that doesn't mean we can't make the best of it. We will be eating, drinking and making merry. Cheers!

Merry Christmas, Helen!

>238 MissWatson: thank yuo! And to you!!

Book: 80
Title: Murder on the Links
Author: Agatha Christie
Rating: ***
Where: Thingaversay cum birthday buying spree
Why: mmm.
Categories: Woman author.
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

An after Christmas lunch snooze seemed likely, so I settled down with a book instead. It's a sufficiently convoluted murder, with 2 deaths and two different crimes and two different girls in love with the same boy - apparently. Themystery starts when the rich man who had called on Piorot for help is found dead in a grave in the garden, kidnapped and murdered from his own bedroom. And so the French police investigate. And my goodness, what a palava they make of it. The detective, the poilice, the doctor, the magistrate, there seem to be a cast of thousand suited men - none of then asking the right quesitons. Poirot gets to the bottom of it, not without some false trails being led here and there. And I think he might get annoying in large doses. If I plan to read Poirot in order, I'm going to space them out.

Marry Christmas, Helen.

I also find Hercule Poirot can be rather annoying so best taken in small doses. :)

Book: 81
Title: Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days
Author: Jeanette Winterson
Rating: ****
Where: Library
Why: audio.
Categories: Woman author, new author, short stories
TIOLI:Challenge #8. Read a book written by a woman

This is such an engaging surmise, a short, seasonal story followed by a seasonal recipe, complete with story. I listened to it on audio book, with the stories read by a narrator, the recipe and associated memories by the author. This works really well. The short stories are a wide range, all with a seasonal flavour. But, be warned, I spent a lot of the time with tears flowing down my face - this is not a fancy free and sugar sweet reflection on Christmas, it is about life, with all its love and loss writ large, Christmas just has a way of bringing all of life to a head. Emotion is often closer to the surface at Christmas and this just makes that really plain. It is reflective, thought provoking, sad but with moments od lightness and humour. Which is, afterall, what real life is.
I've not read any of her other works, and she does cover some of her past and her relationship with both her parents and remembrance of Christmases past.

>240 DeltaQueen50: And to you. And mental note made. >:-)

Book: 82
Title: A Surprise for Christmas: And Other Seasonal Mysteries
Author: Ed Martin Edwards
Rating: ****
Where: recent Purchase (shhh)
Why: Seasonal read!
Categories: Short stories
TIOLI:Challenge #6. Read a book with a title or part of a title that you can use after the word “with” which indicates how you might be observing the holidays this year

A seasonal colleciton of short stories with a mystery at their heart. They make for a varied bunch, and some of them are more convincing than others. Probably the least sucessful is the longest one, which seems to drag on quite a bit with people running around a cross purposes. Some are very effective, the locked room mystery set in the restoration, and told over brandy on a cold Christmas eve is particularly good, and the last one works especially well, even though its mystery is more of the nature of a coincidence and a foretelling mistold. The one reverse mystery, where you know who did it and how was possibly the most shocking in how it was uncovered.
Some of them require Christmas for their stor - a disguise as a pair of Santas reallly only works for a short period each year! Others use Christmas as a jumping off point, rather than a key plot element. An enjoyable way to spend a cold, blustery few days, curled iup safe while mysteries unfold before you.

Happy Christmas holidays, Helenliz! I took last week off from work and I'm so glad you get to stay off till the 4th! And kudos on not having to answer phone questions with a hangover. I don't envy you that (ahem) event!

I didn't get as much reading done as I intended - cooking, driving for various excuses (like, driving my new-ish car, for once!) and wrapping presents all resulted in more me-time and less reading-time. But I have two left to finish and a few days still to read.

Hope you and yours have a wonderful end to 2021 and many more books that come to your newest fortresses!

>244 threadnsong: a long run off work is sometimes really nice. And at least at Christmas you know you're not comming back to a mass of work everyone has been doing while you've been off.

ohh, new (to you) cars are good. Hope it's very shiny and nice. Me time is good too.

Book: 82
Title: Home
Author: Marilynne Robinson
Rating: ****
Where: library
Why: Clears all my borrows!
Categories: Woman author, new author, Orange prize
TIOLI:Challenge #8: Read a book written by a woman

This is almost unbearably sad, in the way that families are. The Boughtons have as their patriarch a retired reverend and thenn there are 4 boys and 4 girls. Mostly scattered to the 4 winds, although they come back for holidays. At home there is just Glory, youngest daughter, with a failed relationship behind her and has come home in the absence of anywhere else to go. She is then the one stiuck at home, forced to play the dutiful daughter and be satisfied with her lot. Into this comes one of the brothers, Jack, the ne'er do well. He's clearly been in trouble, from a turbulent childhood to a disturbed adulthood. The two children nurse their aging father and try to put life straight between them, only there is so much past and history that it's hard to know what to say and not make a false step. Their pasts contrast with each other, and their futures are going to be very different, but for now they share this present. Where do we go wrong in life? And can we ever put that right? Probably not, but this novel is a testament to trying to do exactly that.

I'm unlikely to finish another book in the next day and 1/4, so I declare 2020 is finished and will move on to 2021. But not before a round up of the year. It's been an odd one, let's say that much for it.

End of year review
Number of books: 83 is more than I'd anticipated reading at various points in the year. Not commuting has had a bit of an impact as I wasn't listening to as many audio books. But then I discovered that you can listen to them while ironing or embroidering and so they crept back into my life. Satisfied with that.

I also finish the year with no unread library books. Which for me is pretty amazing and takes a global pandemic to achieve. Ho hum.

The standout book of the year was A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes, the only book to earn 5 stars. The second highest rating book was The Pact We Made, a discovery through the Shelterbox Bookclub.
I gave 4 stars to 33 different books, so I think that has to rate as a pretty positive reading year.

And, for balance, I gave 2 stars to 10 books and one star to Watching the Hare which I suggest you avoid at all costs.

Challenge 1: Women Authors: 56 books read by women authors out of 83 books is over 2/3rds !!! 67.5 % actually! I wanted to aim for at least 50% so I'm did more than OK on this one

Challenge 2: Classics: With just 2 books, this never really got off the ground. The lack of access to books through the library for a significant portion of the year has clearly had an impact.

Challenge 3: Heyer series read: 5 read was below target, but they'll keep. They have so far.Trouble is, I keep plotting who will be my next author read, so I need to get this one finished first!

Challenge 4: Orange Prize. 8 read means that this category exceeded target. Of course, as the longlist is more than 8 books, I end up falling further and further behind every year...

Challenge 5: Guardian 100 novels list. A measly 1. The lack of library access has had an impact on this. Less said, soonest mended.

Challenge 6: Short Stories. 21 in this categorywas more than I anticipated earlier in the year. A lot of good stuff in here.

Challenge 7: New authors: 45 is more than 50%, which ended up being far above the target of 1/3 of reads being new authors. At some point I need to make sure I do actually go back to some authors, but that's a problem for another day...

Challenge 8: Translation: A nice healthy 7 in here, which is above the target of 6. Some of the subscription books has had a positive impact here!

Challenge 9: Book Subscriptions: 19 in here, but I do find myself sometimes falling behind. Listing them might have helped with the staying up to date thing.

Challenge 10: CATs: Lack of access to the library had an impact here. The one that has made the most difference is probably the Non-Fiction CAT as that's made me pick up non-ficiton again. I used to read about 1 a month, but for some reasont hat had dropped off. This has picked it back up and I've enjoyed it.

Challenge 11: Bingo:I finished this with a little time to spare, and managed to complete it using just female authors. So that's a success.

Challenge 12: Misc: Just the three misfits. but that's why there is a misc category, to scoop up the oddities.

All in all it has been an interesting reading year. I've explored new books and authors, discovered the pleasures of non-fiction and rediscovered the joy of being read to. All in all, form a reading perspective 2020 has been surprisingly good.

Thank you for following along with me and I hope to see you over in my new home in the 2021 group. I can be found here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/325290#7286081

>246 Helenliz: - I've been debating reading this. I read Gilead, and while the writing was lovely, I found the religious aspect of it a bit overhwelming...

>247 Helenliz: - Well done! And amazing you have no unread library books. Imagine having read every book in the library! ;-)

I've just done the same over at my thread and I am looking forward to setting up camp at the 2021 Category Challenge. You've had a very successful reading year, Helen and here's hoping 2021 brings us many more great reads.

Nice end of year review, Helen. Am I missing something - "...40 books read by women authors out of 58 books..." Didn't you read 83 books?

I have A Thousand Ships on The List and hope to get to it next year.

I have not read anything by Robinson, and though she is very much appreciated here on LT, her books do not call to me.

>248 katiekrug: *rimshot*

Never mind - I went back up to your category and see that the goal was 50% but that you read 56 books by women in total. I still don't know where the 40 comes from or the 58, but hooray for 67.5 %. I hope to read more books by women authors next year, which is why I made it one of my categories. *crosses fingers*

>250 Crazymamie:, ahem, that might be a copy & paste error from my 3/4 year review. Will scurry up thread and sort that out!

>248 katiekrug: Snort. That wasn't what I meant - AND you know it!

>249 DeltaQueen50: Off to 2021 for all of us then. >:-)

Too funny! At least you know I was paying attention.

>248 katiekrug: I agree about Gilead, which I found to be a sermon.

Helen, I've enjoyed sharing your year and look forward to 2021. Have a good celebration - if that's still possible.

>255 VivienneR: Thank you and the same to you.

I have not read Gilead, so can't comment on that one. I wonder if the fact that Jack is not a believer and Glory has some reservations mean that while there is religion in here, it is presented more from a doubting perspective that a believer's one, if that makes sense. I didn't find it to be overpowering.