Pilgrim is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf (2021)

Theme in Yellow
BY CARL SANDBURG

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

September

✓1. Two in the Bush by Gerald Durrell (illus. by B. L. Driscoll) (224 pages) - 3 stars
✓2. Angels in the Moonlight by Caimh McDonnell (324 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓3. Sisters Gonna Work It Out (novella) by Caimh McDonnell (60 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓4. How to Send A Message (short story) by Caimh McDonnell (19 pages) - 1.5 stars
5. The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (306 pages) - 1.5 stars
✓6. The Fairy of Ku-She by M. Lucie Chin (272 pages) - 4.5 stars
✓7. Last Orders by Caimh McDonnell (354 pages) - 2 stars

October

✓1. Макар Чудра (short story) by Maksim Gorky (16 pages) - 3.5 stars
2. The Song of Roland - Anonymous (trans. & introduction by Robert L. Harrison) (165 pages) - 4.5 stars
3. The Snail on the Slope by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky (trans. by Olena Bormashenko) (258 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓4. The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (trans. by Raymond Rosenthal) (233 pages) - 4 stars
5. Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt (224 pages) - 3.5 stars (re-read)
6. Dare To Go A-Hunting by Andre Norton (256 pages?) - 4 stars
✓7. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (290 pages) - 3.5 stars (reread)

November

1. Morgue Drawer Four by Jutta Profijt (trans. by Erik J. Macki) (245 pages) ♪♪ (narr. by MacLeod Andrews) (7 hours 1 minute) - 2 stars
✓♪♪2. The Interlopers (short story) by Saki (narr. by Tony Turner) (15 minutes) - 2.5 stars
✓3. How It Happened (short story) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ♪♪ (narr. by Sam Dale) (9 minutes) - 1.5 stars
✓4. The Wolves of Cernogratz (short story) by Saki (5 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓5. The Purple of the Balkan Kings (short story) by Saki (3 pages) - 3 stars
6. Morgue Drawer Next Door by Jutta Profijt (trans. by Erik J. Macki) (296 pages) ♪♪ (narr. by MacLeod Andrews) (8 hours 22 minutes) - 2 stars
7. Pigs Might Fly! by Derek Woodhead (192 pages) - 1 star
✓8. All Preachers Great and Small by Peter Gammons (illus. by Drew Northcott) (96 pages) - 1.5 stars
9. Ye Gods! by Tom Holt (296 pages) - 2 stars
✓10. The War Prayer (short story) by Mark Twain (6 pages) - 2.5 stars
11. Amor Vincit Omnia (novelette) by K. J. Parker (37 pages) - 2.5 stars
12. Flying Dutch by Tom Holt (252 pages) - 3 stars
13. A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong (novella) by K. J. Parker - 3.5 stars
14. Let Maps to Others (novella) by K. J. Parker (107 pages) - 3 stars
15. The Sun and I (novelette) by K. J. Parker (57 pages) - 4 stars
16. Illuminated (short story) by K. J. Parker - 3.5 stars
✓17. Rich Men's Skins: A Social History of Armour (essay) by K. J. Parker - 2.5 stars
✓18. Arithmetic on the Frontier (poem) by Rudyard Kipling - 4 stars
✓19. The Shoot-Out at the Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World (short story) by Catherynne M. Valente (16 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓20. ♪♪The Light Fantastic by Sir Terry Pratchett (narr. by Nigel Planer) (6 hours, 55 minutes) - 3.5 stars

December

1. Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome (207 pages) - 3 stars
3. The Quantum Curators and the Missing Codex by Eva St. John (405 pages) - 2 stars
4. Stage Blood (short story) by Kat Howard (13 pages) - 1.5 stars
5. ♪♪The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (narr. by Peter Ustinov ) (107 minutes) - 3 stars
6. Good Deeds and Bad Intentions (novelette) by Caimh McDonnell (48,pages) - 3 stars
7. I Have Sinned by Caimh McDonnell (347 pages) - 3.5 stars
8. The Quiet Man by Caimh McDonnell (372 pages)
- 3.5 stars
✓9. The Dwarf (short story) by Ray Bradbury (21 pages) - 2 stars
10. The Third Eagle by R. A. MacAvoy (248 pages) - 4.5 stars
11. Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Violence, Art, and the Imagination by David Graeber (120 pages) - 2.5 stars
12. A Flint Lies in the Mud (short story) by Kevin Andrew Murphy (33 pages) - 1.5 stars
13. Dead Man's Sins by Caimh McDonnell (314 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓14. ♪♪Joseph and the Three Gifts by Brian Sibley (narr. by Alex Jennings) (70 minutes) - 3.5 stars
15. Welcome to Nowhere by Caimh McDonnell (278 pages) - 3 stars
16. The Coming of the Crow (short story) by Peadar Ó Guilín (16 pages) - 2 stars
17. I, Cthulhu, or, What’s A Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing In A Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W)? (short story) by Neil Gaiman (14 pages) - 2.5 stars
18. But A Flint Holds Fire (novelette) by Kevin Andrew Murphy (46 pages) - 2 stars
19. Needles and Pins (novelette) by Caroline Spector (50 pages) - 1.5 stars

Currently Reading


Being Orthodox by Martin Dudley
Started: 5/9/2020


The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Started: 6/10/2021


Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Sir Thomas Malory (illus. by Aubrey Beardsley; introduction by Stephanie Lynn Budin)
Started: 7/10/2021


The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
Started: 11/10/2021


The Challenge of Our Past: Studies in Orthodox Canon Law and Church History by John H. Erickson
Started: 20/10/2021


The Insider's Guide to Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Summary of the Disease and its Treatments by Anne Loeser
Started: 17/3/2020


Positive Options for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): Self-Help and Treatment by Elena Juris
Started: 4/11/2021


The Pilgrim Continues His Way by Anonymous (trans. by Helen Bacovcin)
Started: 5/11/2021


Then God Stepped In edited by Leonard Moules
Started: 14/8/2021


The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (trans. by Louise Heal Kawai)
Started: 2/1/2021


Προσευχηταριον: An Orthodox Prayer Book by Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain
Started: 07/2021

Kindle


Kings and Queens of Early Britain by Geoffrey Ashe
Started: 8/3/2021


The Orthodox Study Bible, eBook prepared by the Academic Community of St Anasthasius Academy of Orthodox Theology (publ. by Thomas Nelson Publishing)
Started: 14/2/2021
Colossians: 2/10/2021


Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition by Rowan Williams
Started: 19/9/2021


Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce
Started: 27/9/2021


The October Country by Ray Bradbury
Started: 11/10/2021


The Planets by Brian Cox and Arthur Cohen
Started: 12/10/2021


A Compendium of Orthodox Services Volume 2 by Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain
Started: 24/12/2021


Born To Run by Christopher McDougall
Started: 26/12/2021


Simplexity: Currency by Kiley Reid
Started: 26/12/2021

Audiobook


The Master's Apprentice by Oliver Pötzsch (trans. by Lisa Reinhardt)
Narr. by Malcolm Hillgartner
Started: 10/6/2021

The Gospel according to Saint John, read by Sir David Suchet (audiobook)
Started: 4/12/2021

Viewing

September

1. Andromeda: Season 3, Episodes 18 & 16
2. Citizen K (2019, English/Russian (American))
3. Detective Anna II: Episodes 19-27
4. Новые приключения Неуловимых (1968, Russian (Soviet Union))
5. Корона Российской Империи, или Снова Неуловимые (1971, Russian (Soviet Union))
6. Неуловимые Мстители (1967, Russian (Soviet Union))(rewatch)
7. My Heroic Husband: Episodes 1-3
8. Yancy Derringer: Episodes 4-7
✓9. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, English (American))
✓10. Boss Level (2021, English (American))

October

1. Detective Anna II: Episodes 26-40
✓2. Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven (1976, Russian (Soviet Union))
3. My Heroic Husband: Episode 4
4. Lucifer: Season 3: Episodes 25-26
5. Charmed: Season 1 (1998-1999, English (American))
6. My Tender and Affectionate Beast (1978, Russian (Soviet Union))
7. Farscape: Season 2, Episodes 1-8
✓8. Rédl (2018, Czech)
✓9. Твой Крест (2007, Russian (Russian Federation))
10. Children of Dune: Part 1 - Messiah (2003, English (American))
11. White Sun of the Desert (1970, Russian (Soviet Union))
✓12. Casbah (1948, English (American))
13. Children of Dune: Parts 2 & 3 (2003, English (American))
14. Babylon 5: Season 1, Episodes 1-3
15. Charmed: Season 2, Episodes 1-5

November

1. Babylon 5: Season 1, Episodes 4-10, 12
✓2. Babylon 5: The Gathering: Special Edition (1998, English (American))
3. My Heroic Husband: Episode 5
4. Charmed: Season 2, Episode 6
5. The Cuckoo (2002, Russian (Russian Federation))
✓6. To Live! (2010, Russian (Russian Federation))
✓7. The Professor (2011, Russian (Russian Federation))

December

✓1. Черные Волки (2011, Russian (Russian Federation))
✓2. Hussar Ballad (1962, Russian (Soviet Union))
3. Good Omens: Episodes 1-2
4. Charmed: Season 2, Episodes 7-8
5. Babylon 5: Season 1, Episodes 11, 13-14
6. K: Season 1 (2008, Japanese)
✓7.Yolki (Ёлки) (2010, Russian (Russian Federation)) (rewatch)
✓8. The Boondock Saints (1999, English (American))
9. K: Return of the Kings: Episodes 1-9
10. The Amazing Spiderman (2012, English (American))

Series List

Series in progress

Fiction
Heartstrikers by Rachel Aaron: 1, 2-5 - Bethesda Heartstriker: Mother of the Year
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch: 1-3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 - Action at a Distance, A Dedicated Follower of Fashion, The Cockpit; Body Work, What Abigail Did That Summer, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Granny, Night Witch, Favourite Uncle, Black Mould, The Furthest Station; Detective Stories, Cry Fox, Water Weed, The October Man, The Fey and the Furious
The Adventures of Erast Fandorin by Boris Akunin: 1 - Turkish Gambit
The Adventures of Sister Pelagia by Boris Akunin: 1-2 - Pelagia and the Red Rooster
Dania Gorska by Hania Allen: 1 - Clearing the Dark

Ralph Rover by R. M. Ballantyne: 1 - The Gorilla Hunters
Chronicles of Amber by John Gregory Betancourt: P1, 1-10 - Chaos and Amber
Dominion of The Fallen by Aliette de Bodard: 0.2-0.5, 0.8-1.5 - Against the Encroaching Darkness, Of Children, of Houses, and Hope, The House of Binding Thorns
Obsidian and Blood by Aliette de Bodard: 0.1-1 - Harbinger of the Storm
Xuya Universe by Aliette de Bodard: 8, 27 - The Jaguar House, In Shadow, Fleeing Tezcatlipoca
Pieter Posthumous by Britta Bolt: 3 - Lonely Graves
Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs: 1-2 - Fair Game
Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs: 1-8 - Fire Touched
Sianim by Patricia Briggs: 3-4 - Masques
Philip Mangan by Adam Brookes: 1 - Spy Games
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: 2-4 - Falling Free, The Mountains of Mourning, The Vor Game
World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold: 1.1, 2 - Penric and the Shaman, The Paladin of Souls
Chains of Honor by Lindsay Buroker: P1-P3, 1-2: Snake Heart, Assassin's Bond
Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker: 1-8 - Diplomats and Fugitives
Fallen Empire by Lindsay Buroker: P-3 - Relic of Sorrows
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher: 1-2 - Welcome to the Jungle, Grave Peril

Holly Danger by Amanda Carlson: 1 - Danger's Vice
Blake and Avery by M. J. Carter: 1 - The Infidel Stain
The Vinyl Detective by Andrew Cartmel: 1 - The Run-Out Groove
Greatcoats by Sebastian de Castell: 1 - Knight's Shadow
Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell: 1-6 - The Way of the Argosi
The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty: 1 - The Kingdom of Copper
Ariadne Oliver by Agatha Christie: 8 - Parker Pyne Investigates
Poirot by Agatha Christie: 36 - The Murder on the Links
Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook: 1 - The Wordsmiths and the Warguild
The Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell: 1-2 - The Lords of the North
Sharpe by Bernard Cornwell:1, 6, 8-9, 13 - Sharpe's Triumph
The Assassini by Jon Courtenay Grimwood: 1 - The Outcast Blade
Arkady Renko by Martin Cruz Smith: 1 - Polar Star

Marcus Didius Falco by Lindsey Davis: 1-6 - Time to Depart
Flavia Albia by Lindsey Davis: 1-2.5 - Deadly Election
Priya's Shakti by Ram Devineni & Dan Goldman: 1-2 - Priya and the Lost Girls
John Pearce by David Donachie: 1, 14 - A Shot-Rolling Ship
The Privateersman Mysteries by David Donachie: 1-2 - A Hanging Matter
Mordant's Need by Stephen R. Donaldson: 1 - A Man Rides Through
The Marie Antoinette Romances by Alexandre Dumas: 2 - Cagliostro
The Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: 1-3 - Louise de la Vallière
Cliff Janeway by John Dunning: 1 - The Bookman's Wake

The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy by Hailey Edwards: 1 - How to Claim an Undead Soul
The Time Quintet by Madeleine L'Engle: 1 - A Wind in the Door

Aviary Hall by Penelope Farmer: 3 - The Summer Birds
Sid Halley by Dick Francis: 2 - Odds Against

Metro 203x by Dmitry Glukhovsky: 1-1.5 - Metro 2034
The Archangel Project by C Gockel: 1- 1.5 - Noa's Ark
Shakespearean Murder Mysteries by Philip Gooden: 1-3 - Alms for Oblivion
The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula le Guin: 1 - The Tombs of Atuan

Forever War by Joe Haldeman: 1 - Forever Free
Benjamin January by Barbara Hambly: 1 - Fever Season
Darwath by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Mother of Winter
James Asher by Barbara Hambly: 1-2, 4-6 - Blood Maidens, Pale Guardian
Sun Wolf and Star Hawk by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Hazard
The Windrose Chronicles by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Firemaggot
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison 4-5, 9 - The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born
Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne: 1 - Paper & Blood
Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson: 1-2 - A Death at Fountains Abbey
The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg: 1-2, 4 - The Master Magician
Modern Mythologies by Tom Holt: 1,2,3-4 - Overtime
Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter: 2 - The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm

Conqueror by Conn Iggulden: 1 - Lords of the Bow

Alex Verus by Benedict Jacka: 1, 9 - Cursed
Flying Officer Joan Worralson by Capt. W. E. Johns: 4-5 - Worrals of the W.A.A.F., Worrals of the Islands

The Danilov Quintet by Jasper Kent:1 - Thirteen Years Later

The Jane Doe Chronicles by Jeremy Lachlan: 1 - The Key of All Souls
The Book of the Ancestor by Mark Lawrence: 1 - Grey Sister
The Kalle Blomqvist Mysteries by Astrid Lindgren: 3 - Master Detective
Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu and Sana Takeda: 1

Lens of the World by R. A. MacAvoy: 1 - King of the Dead
Robert Colbeck by Edward Marston: 1 - The Excursion Train
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey: 1 - Dragonquest
The Raven's Mark by Ed McDonald: 1 - Ravencry
The Green Man's Heir by Juliet E. McKenna: 1-3: The Green Man's Challenge
Colonel Vaughn de Vries by Paul Mendelson: 1-2 - The History of Blood

The Psammead by E. Nesbit: 1-2, 3 - The Story of the Amulet
Tertius by Robert Newman: 1 - The Testing of Tertius
Witch World by Andre Norton: 1-3 - Three Against the Witch World
Star Ka'ats by Andre Norton and Dorothy Madlee: 1-3 - Star Ka'ats and the Winged Warriors

Siege by K. J. Parker: 1 - How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It
Giordano Bruno by S.J. Parris: 5 - Heresy
Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters: 1-12 - The Rose Rent
The Gaian Consortium by Christine Pope: 1 - Breath of Life
Paul Samson by Henry Porter: 1-2 - The Old Enemy
Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett: 1-2, 3-14, 15, 15.5, 16.5 - Soul Music
Morgue Drawer by Jutta Profijt: 1-2 - Morgue Drawer To Rent

Theseus by Mary Renault: 1 - The Bull From the Sea
Divergent by Veronica Roth: 1, 2.5 - Insurgent

The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski: 1 - The Last Wish, Time of Contempt
Lord Peter Wimsey by Dorothy L. Sayers: 3, 5, 9 - Clouds of Witness
Old Man's War by John Scalzi: 1 - The Ghost Brigades
Jonathon Fairfax by Christopher Shevlin: 1 - The Deleted Scenes of Jonathon Fairfax, Jonathon Fairfax Must Be Destroyed
The Rhenwars Saga by M. L. Spencer: 1 - Darklands
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater: 0.2, 1 - The Dream Thieves
The Laundry Files by Charles Stross: 1-3.1 - The Apocalypse Codex
Merchant Princes by Charles Stross: 2 - The Family Trade
The Dolphin Ring by Rosemary Sutcliff: 1, 3-6, 8 - The Silver Branch

The Ember Quartet by Sabaa Tahir: 2 - An Ember in the Ashes
The Bobiverse by Dennis E. Taylor: 1 - We Are Many
Jem Flockhart by E. S. Thomson: 2 - Beloved Poison
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: 1-2 - Part 3

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells: 0.5 - All Systems Red
Miss Silver by Patricia Wentworth: 1 - The Case is Closed
Aspects of Power by Charles Williams: 1 - Many Dimensions
Detective Inspector Chen by Liz Williams: 1 - The Demon and the City
The Hitman's Guide by Alice Winters: 1-2: The Hitman's Guide to Tying the Knot Without Getting Shot
Victor the Assassin by Tom Wood: 1, 2-4: Bad Luck in Berlin, The Darkest Day
The Gestes by P. C. Wren: 1 - Beau Sabreur
Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse: 1 - The Inimitable Jeeves

Non-fiction

Zoo Memoirs by Gerald Durrell : 1 - The Whispering Land
The Spiritual Life by Hieromonk Gregorios: 1-2 - Do Not Judge
All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriott: 1 - It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
The History of Middle Earth by Christopher Tolkien: ??

Series up to date

Tom Mondrian by Ross Armstrong: 1
The Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 1-2
Comet Weather by Liz Williams: 1-2
The Folk of the Air by Holly Black: P1-3, 1-3.5
Moonsinger by Andre Norton: 1-4
Three Men by Jerome K. Jerome: 1-2
The Quantum Curators by Eva St. John: 1-3 - The Quantum Curators and the Untitled Manuscript
McGarry Stateside by Caimh McDonnell: 1-3
The Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell: 1-5: Firewater Blues

N.b.
(i) This list is still probably incomplete.
(ii) The named book is the next to be read
(iii) Inclusion of a series does not imply intent to complete it.
(iv) I have read some of the series in bold type during this year (2021).
(v) I have pruned out of this list some series that I began in 2019, but definitely do not intend to continue.

September #1:


Two in the Bush by Gerald Durrell
Started: 12/8/2021-3/9/2021

This is a book of the same form as A Zoo. In My Luggage, but from around a decade later.

Gerald Durrell and his team try to observe and film rare wildlife. He writes lyrically about the creatures that he observes, and the landscapes that he finds them in. He also includes humorous anecdotes about the misadventures of himself and his team, and interesting people that he meets.

The purpose of writing is, again, to argue the cause of conservation; this time it is primarily in the form of the need for nature reserves, and protecting creatures that farmers see as pests. It is a measure of progress since the fifties that it is now possible to argue for spending money on preserving endangered species in their natural habitat, although captive breeding programmes are still an essential part of the naturalist's repertoire.

The countries visited this time are New Zealand, Australia and Malaya.

However I found this book less successful than the previous one. Firstly technology has advanced considerably. Thus, whereas there was a single chapter in A Zoo in My Luggage that dealt with misadventures whilst trying to stage a photoshoot of supposedly cooperative specimens, rather than collect specimens, on this trip Durrell and company are trying to film them (for wildlife documentary programmes) so that a lot of space is devoted to the difficulties encountered whilst trying to stage the shots desired.

Of course, all documentaries are staged in this way, but I find I am rather less interested in the technical difficulties involved in creating this artifice than I am in the wildlife that they are trying to film.

Moreover, the actual illustrations of the book are still pen-and-ink, rather than photographs. They do not have the charm of Ralph Thompson's (in A Zoo in My Luggage, which I read in August), and comparison with modern photos suggests that they do not particularly resemble the creatures either!

Over half the book is taken up with New Zealand. And most of this section is taken up with them complaining at each other about the hardships and problems as they traipse around hard to access areas, trying to spot birds of which they only find traces of catch glimpses. There is not much observance of bird behaviour, because they do not actually see a lot. Descriptions of magnificent plumage only go so far.

They are more successful in Australia, largely because an Australian conservationist has specimens of interesting animals which they can observe closely. The description of a kangaroo giving birth made persisting this far all worthwhile!

The short section in Malaya is likewise interesting.

Durrell seems to feel that 'amusing people' anecdotes are now expected of him. His descriptions of his fellow conservationists are warm and generous, even if sometimes teasing, and the good-natured sniping at his producer and cameraman is obviously both of affection and respect. But I felt the "arrival" chapters that preceded each section were rather ill-judged. He choose to befriend an overdressed and undereducated Australian matron, on their crossing, because he thought she would be "interesting". She believes she knows more medicine than doctors, even though she speaks in malapropisms of medical terms. Her comments about "Yids" are unedifying. Yet although her language and some of her opinions are appalling, and her arrogant ignorance makes her easy target, the fact remains that they deliberately chose to befriend this woman, in order to make fun of her in this book, when she has shown them, personally, nothing but kindness.

The next anecdote is about being invited to a heavy drinking session with a party of Sikhs who are on a fishing trip. The point of the story is that, having embarked on an extensive, drunken, and seemingly rather erudite, discussion of the history of homosexuality, the conversation is concluded by a new speaker announcing: what I say, is that every man should have his hobby". It is hardly very offensive, but neither is it particularly funny.

It felt as if the author knew "funny anecdotes" were expected, and felt obligated to provide some, regardless of whether any were genuinely occurring, and even to the extent of befriending Gert in the hope of getting suitable material. But these are actually relatively minor points; they just explain this book was at times a bit of a slog. Forced humour is rather a drag. Like the documentary film footage, it is less impressive because one can see how much is being staged.

Jacquie Durrell is mentioned even less in this book, although she is part of the expedition, tramping through the jungle with the others. And when she is mentioned, the comment is usually somewhat denigrating. Apparently she does not always feel what her husband thinks he should. I am now tempted to try to find one of the books she said about their work together.

Nevertheless I am still glad that I read it.

And the final chapter, summing up why wildlife and habitat conservation is important, was something. This book was written in 1966. Conservationists are saying exactly the same things today. There has certainly been some progress. But also major losses. And the basic message, and reactions to it, do not seem to have changed much in 55 years.

>1 -pilgrim-: What a perfect poem for this month! I have never read Sandburg's poetry. I will have to remedy that.

>7 MrsLee: I had not come across him before either.

Books Awaiting Review

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 2
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August:8
Books awaiting review from September: 6

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>9 -pilgrim-: That's a rather intimidating list...

>1 -pilgrim-: good morning friend!

I know I just have read Carl Sandberg's poetry before, but that particular poem isn't familiar.

Happy new thread and thanks for >1 -pilgrim-:. I'm not a poetry fan but that was nice.

I have reviewed Notes on Nationalism here

Having previously read Animal Farm and 1984 at school, I had mentally categorised him as "disillusioned socialist".

On Nationalism has given me the impression of a man of far more nuanced views, and was what inspired me to buy a copy of Homage to Catalonia; as I now think I can trust it to be a relatively unbiased account of that war.

>12 Karlstar: Thank you. had hoped to have a suitable photograph, but I have nor been able to get out yet this quarter.

I was struck today how fundamental music is. I was reading Isaiah 42, and found it impossible to read certain verses in any way other than in the cadence of their setting in Handel's Messiah.Having heard it yearly in my childhood, the two are now inseparable.

>15 -pilgrim-: Yes, very much so. I just looked up Isaiah 40:4 ("Ev'ry valley shall be exalted ...") and found that I could hear Mark Padmore carolling away. But it only seems to work if you're looking at the King James version: I looked for the verse on line (I'm "at work") and found it on a site that gives parallel texts in a lot of different translations, and found that even renderings that are quite close to the KJV don't have the same effect.

>15 -pilgrim-: I have been heard to wish that St. Agnes had a congregation who can sing, so that when the lesson includes one or more of "those" verses to could be sung to the appropriate music (Messiah, of course). I suspect our present priests-in-charge would enjoy setting this in motion.

>16 haydninvienna: It works more broadly for me. In the translation by St Athanasius Academy, in the Orthodox Study Bible, Isaiah 42:16 is

I will bring the blind by a way they did not know, and will cause them to tread paths they have not known. I will turn darkness into light for them, and make crooked places straight. These things I will do for them, and not forsake them.

Yet, primed by the earlier quotes, I still "hear":
...the crooked straight and the rough places plain...

>17 hfglen: I have always been fortunate enough to attend "singing" churches. In Orthodox churches the singing is beautiful, but done only by the cantors. It is a difference I am having to get used to.

I want to sing!
(Actually damaged lungs may also be a limitation, but the urge is still there.)

>19 -pilgrim-: Generally speaking, even damaged lungs can benefit from singing, even if to yourself and of course singing is wonderful for the soul. The poem was lovely as well, thank you for sharing it!

>15 -pilgrim-: me too. There are some passages in the Bible that were used in hymns and chorales. All I have to read is Psalm 8, and I hear the music of The Majesty and Glory of Your Name by Tom Fettke in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrTV0KD_qQI

ETA: oh wow, look at this rehearsal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXW36my6WaY

LISTEN. Whew. Proof that fancy robes don't make the music any better.

>21 fuzzi: Fascinating. I also hear music immediately on reading those words, but since I come from a different musical tradition, the tune is completely different.

>20 Silversi: I still sing at home. It is just whether other people want to hear that is changing. (And whether I struggle to be breathe afterwards.) :-/

But singing was always an integral part of worship - just as it has always been an integral part of my life. I miss that. And my repertoire is reducing. I remember fewer hymns and fewer ballads in their entirety now. And no one to pass them on to.

>23 -pilgrim-: in the Bible it's written that the stars sang when God created the world:

"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Job 38:7

>24 fuzzi: As David sang and danced before the Ark?

Music as the ultimate expression of human feeling is an incredibly ancient thing.

>25 -pilgrim-: singing and dancing can be a form of worship if it's directed at God and not used as an occasion to the flesh.

I agree with you regarding music as an expression of human feeling.

Rédl (2018,Czech) - 4 stars
Dir.: Jan Hřebejk
Scriptwriter: Miro Šifra
5/10/2021-19/10/2021

This is a crime drama set in the last days of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (i.e. Czechoslovakia); all dates are given with respect to the breakup of this union, on January 1, 1993.

Prosecutor Roman Rédl is leading the case against Lieutenant General Engineer Ferenc, the former head of the StB (State Security). The charges relate to "malfeasance in office" - both in terms of repression of dissidents prior to the Velvet Revolution, and the shredding of State Security documents. Rédl is under pressure from his superiors to find spurious grounds for retaining Ferenc in "investigative detention", because they fear that otherwise he will go home to Bratislava, whence the new Slovak Republic is likely to refuse to extradite him, and thereby evade standing trial.

Rédl lives alone, and becomes aware of the disturbance next door, where the head of the department block is struggling to cope with his confused, elderly neighbour. The man's grandson, who usually acts as his carer, is missing. They go to the police, who are not interested - particularly when they find a record of the boy having just applied for a passport. Rédl decides to investigate.

This is a crime thriller, but also much more than that. It deals with the peaceful transition of a Communist bloc country into two post-Communist ones, with the problem of how to deal with servants of the state who did bad things in the course of their duty, and what those who lose their jobs in the clean-up may turn to doing next. It deals with the chaos, corruption, and wild entrepreneurship of that era. It also deals with the social problems of a poor standard of living, overstretched social services, and how the AIDS epidemic affected a country where, until recently, the StB tended to violently harrass the gay community (despite homosexuality having been legal since 1962).

Meanwhile the Russians are withdrawing ammunition and weapons from East Germany. Poland refused to allow these trains onto their territory, so they take a southern route through Czechoslovakia.

The plot is complex, but it plays fair. There are no "out of nowhere" twists. The hints are all there for the viewer. (Minor example: a character with a Czech name turns out to be a Russian who "stayed on". Previously we have heard him mention that he was raised Orthodox and seen him in a telnyasha at one point. One doesn't have to be Russian to do either of those things, but that is typical of the sort of subtle clues I mean.) The author does not cheat.

The approach to violence is similar. Very bad things do happen, but there is no gloss or glamourisation of it. They are not prolonged (and definitely not portrayed as "cool"). There are no gratuitous sex scenes. Nudity is only there to convey what is going on, not to titillate (and never frontal).

This is a distinction that I have noticed before. Film and television from countries where that sort of police brutality was a recent reality does not use interrogation scenes as an "admire actor's body" excuse.

There is a welcome shortage of stereotypes and clichés. The illustration on the Amazon Prime cover shows a man and a woman in a way that suggests they are either a couple, or a professional team. They are neither. They work for different organisations, Ivana is comfortably married with children, and Roman is gay (and firmly in the closet).

The historical setting was lovingly recreated, as well as the mood of the era. This was not "the past as spectacle", but a genuine attempt to explore the conflicts and motivations of the time. And, apart from one moment where Roman is unbelievably stupid, the plot is plausible. No heroics, no wild leaps of intuition.

This repaid close attention. I am glad that I watched it. Recommended.

>27 -pilgrim-: The English title of "Redline" refers to the military trains, but misses the point of the original title, "Rédl". The name of the protagonist is not neutral.

Alfred Rédl was a counter-intelligence officer of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, who betrayed his country to the Russians, probably because he was being blackmailed on account of his homosexuality. When confronted, seeing no way out, he shot himself.

There have been several films made about this, both old and recent.

Roman Rédl is not Alfred Rédl, but the comparison adds another layer to the drama.

ETA: I now want to find a subtitled version of one of the films about the other Rédl.

>28 -pilgrim-: now you've piqued my interest.

There is a series of books by Stuart Kaminsky about police in the USSR, slightly prior to and during the time that the country was transitioning into a less Communist system. I love the characters, shown with all their flaws, and despite their flaws. There are only two books left in the series that I have not read but since the author passed away I am hesitating to finish it.

If anyone is interested the first book is Death of a Dissident, and the entire series is listed here: https://www.librarything.com/nseries/11689/Inspector-Porfiry-Rostnikov

>29 fuzzi: Hmm. It's been a long time since I have read an American novel set in that part of the world. That would be Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith, and times were rather different then.

Is the lead character a reference to Dostoevsky's Porfiry Petrovich?

If you are familiar with the immediate post-Cold War situation in Russia, I heartily recommend to you Do Time, Get Time by Andrey Rubanov. The original Russian title, Сажайте и вырастет ("Plant and grow") gives a better idea of what it is about, but relies on the Russian pun that "to plant" is slang for "put in prison". It is about a young entrepreneur remanded in custody for irregularities in his company. The character's name is the same as the author, who himself served time under similar circumstances. Fascinating description of the prevailing conditions, told with wit and black humour. The only thing is that it was not written with an international audience in mind, so understanding of the political situation is taken for granted.

>30 -pilgrim-: yes, the lead character was named for Doetoevsky's character.

I'll add your recommendation to my loooooooooooooong TBR list!

>24 fuzzi: That explains the opening chapter of The Silmarillion.

>32 Karlstar: It is also the Greek concept of the Music of the Spheres.

>32 Karlstar: I'd forgotten about that, thanks for the reminder.

October #1:

Makar Chudra (Макар Чудра) (short story) by Maksim Gorky - 3.5 stars

I wanted to read this after watching the film by Emil Loteanu, which is based around it.

I was motivated by the fact that the ending of the film did not entirely make sense to me. I suspected - correctly - that it has to end that way because that is the climax in the original story, but the reason behind it was not carried over.

This is a very early short story by Maksim Gorky, first published in 1892. It takes the form of the author, as narrator, recounting a conversation that he had with an elderly tsigan - the eponymous Makar Chudra. (Tsigan is a Russian term for a Romani man. Like "gypsy" in English, in the 19th century it was used an an ethnographic description, but nowadays tends to have pejorative intent.) Makar is a magnificent figure of a man, for whom the years have brought wisdom, who is given to gnomic utterances.

Makar tells the story of the tragic love between the famous, and respected, horse-thief, Lojko, and the beautiful Rada. They loved each other very much, but both love freedom more.

The wildness of the scenery is a counterpoint to the tempestuous spirits described.

Since this is told in very stylised prose, it would have been a very slow read, requiring much dictionary consultation. As I was impatient to reach the denouement I cheated and made liberal use of Google Translate. I know that is far from ideal, but given how bad some of the published translations from Russian that I read earlier this year were, I am not sure how much I missed out on!

For anyone also puzzled by the film ending, the story, being much more concise, does make its point far more clearly. Radda, like Bizet's Carmen, toys with gadje men, whilst disdainng them, but she sincerely loves Lojko, seeing him as strong as herself.

Before she will limit herself by accepting him as her husband, she demands that he publicly kneels before her, and touch her feet, as to the elder of the tobor - I note this is the traditional Indian gesture of respect for an elder or for a woman, as seen in the Mahabharata. He struggles with himself, but agrees.

MAJOR SPOILER:Lojko declares before the tobor that Radda has broken his will, because he can no longer think about anything but her, and so he will kneel as she demands - which the short story treats as being a very shameful thing, that disgusts Makar Chudra - he stabs her and THEN makes the submission that she required.

What puzzled me, when watching the film, is that Lojko seems shocked and horrified by his act, such that he passively accepts his own death at her father's hands, but he did not seem to be acting in a moment of rage or passion.

Either it was bad acting, or I was missing something.

Reading this short story did provide the answer. Lojko is demanding to see, literally, whether her heart is as strong as she claimed before he will submit.

Lojko's act was not impulsive, but that which he had decided on the night before, confirmed by the urging from Radda, which made it clear that she may move on to another if he did not obey.

This is a tragedy of two people who do love with each other, but are both too proud to curtail their freedom by submitting to the other.

What I found interesting in Gogol's story was the double narration. The eponymous Makar Chudra, who tells the story of Lojko and Radda, quite clearly puts all the blame on Radda.

He describes her as a "diabolical" girl and a ведьма (ved'ma). Although I have always seen that translated as "witch", that is not really what it actually implies. A woman who has magical abilities, through inherited ability and study, whether she uses them for good or ill, is a колдунья (koldun'ya) - the female version of a колдун (koldun), which is usually translated as "wizard". A ved'ma is a monster that can appear to be a human woman; I have never heard of one doing good.

Thus Makar is not just blaming Radda - and we heard at the start his poor opinion of women in general - he is asserting that she is evil, demonic.

But this is a tale within a tale, and what is interesting is the narrator's reaction. His portrayal of Makar Chudra in the opening description is romantic and positive: a wise sage, living in harmony with nature. At the end, he declines the blacksmith's company in favour of being alone with his thoughts. MAJOR SPOILER: His vision is of a bleeding Radda, regal and beautiful, endlessly pursued by Lojko; he is crying, and unable ever to catch up with her.

At first sight this appears a typical piece of nineteenth century ethnographic writing, romanticising the ways of a marginalised people, and idealising their valuation of liberty above everything - although this itself could be interpreted as an poltical statement, in the unstable atmosphere of the Russian Empire in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

However the contrast between the blacksmith's conclusions and the narrator's also seems to me to question the assumptions of an honour culture.

This was the first story published by the writer and political activist, Maksim Gorky. His own background was impoverished and then radical. For him to be subtly critiquing the prevailing ethos would be quite plausible.

September #6:



The Fairy of Ku-She by M. Lucie Chin (272 pages) - 4.5 stars

The blurb on the back cover recommends this for fans of Barry Hughart, but this is the sort of lazy comparison that does a disservice to both authors. They are both set in a version of Ancient China where the gods and spirits of traditional Chinese belief are real. But that is as far as it goes.

Although the setting of Bridge of Birds and its sequels are authentically Chinese, its humour and sensibilities are Western. However, despite M. Lucie Chin likewise being an American author, her novel is Chinese in mood as well as setting. It is frequently beautiful; it is not humorous.

The novel consists of three "books". Each one reaches a conclusion, but the events of each book are a necessary consequence of what took place In the previous one. Events have consequences, and their consequences have consequences, and so on. It all starts when someone, for a prank, steals the Golden Chopsticks, which are the tools of her office, from the Fairy of Ku-She. Although Heaven is timeless, on earth his takes place at some time during the Ming Dynasty.

There are two strong themes throughout. Beauty is important - both visible beauty and that of inner nature. Perfection is to be aspired to. Appearances, of beings and of the natural world, are described with a sense of wonder at their loveliness.

The second is that of order, duty and hierarchy. One should be punished for failing in one's duty, because one has failed. Whether or not it was actually possible to do otherwise may be a mitigating factor, but never an exonerating one. One's highest goal is to fulfill one's duty - and what that is depends on one's rank.

This is a world in which people are bought and sold. A great lady, who is very fond of, and pleased with, her maid, plans to buy her a nice young man to make her happy. She would not consider freeing her, because she values the maid's intelligence and loyalty too highly. But we should not assume that the maid would prefer her freedom. Her tasks are light, she has authority within the household, and choice over her own husband. Parents sell their children, not just as a way to get money to feed their other children, but as a way to give an intelligent child a better life, rather than one of backbreaking labour and semi-starvation.

This is a world where no one thinks slavery wrong, because there is no real concept of freedom. Whereas a servant must obey their master or mistress, no matter how arbitrary, an official must obey his superiors in a direct line of authority that traces back to the Son of Heaven, the Emperor himself. Moreover, for him to fail in the social proprieties is to dishonour his rank; this brings dishonour to the Emperor, and will be punished as such. And this punishment can be as sudden, as arbitrary, and as corporal, as any he might inflict on his servants - maybe worse, since it is may be inflicted on his relatives as well. When a high official cannot mourn the death of a dearly loved only son, because the boy was"only a child" and thus it is his duty to appear in his office the next day and act as if nothing had happened, in what sense is he free?

Things on earth must be ordered thus, brcause the Jade Emperor, ruler of Heaven, prizes order. This ordered society is civilization.

The characters in this story - both mortals and immortals - are real people, with real feelings. They care about one another, love, fear and hope. Although a state of endemic corruption is taken for granted, there are few really evil characters (and their motivations are explained).

Yet society is so ordered that a husband and wife can love each other passionately - and I do mean love, not just lust - yet never for a moment consider confiding in each other. I found it a terrible prospect.

As to the ending - that is Chinese in its sensibilities too. A friend explained to me that Chinese art prefers the perfection of a tragic ending. Apparently this is the only novel that the author wrote - although the ending gave obvious opportunity for a sequel (whilst being perfectly satisfactory without).

I suspect that this is because it is a Chinese novel written in English, rather than an American novel about China. There were some points where the narration indicates archly that what happened next was inevitable, but I could not see why.

I found it beautiful, fascinating - compelling. But one cannot read it with expectations about how it should end.

And I really do not like the Jade Emperor.

(I would love to read more by this author. Apparently she wrote some short stories, but I have not found them.)

>36 -pilgrim-: Wonderful review! Sounds like a fascinating book. I am going to see if I can find this (or one of the author's short stories that you mentioned).

>37 Storeetllr: I think you will have to look for a second-hand copy. As far as I can make out it was first published in 1988, and never reprinted after 1990.

But it should be worth the effort.

I am just dropping by to let you know I am still laughing out load when reading A Man With One of Those Faces.

Thank you for pointing me towards that series.

>39 pgmcc: I am glad you are enjoying this. The "trilogy" kept me happily occupied for much of September.

Which reminds me that I do not seem to have posted my reading summary for September:

September Summary

Average rating: 2.64
Weighted average: 2.64

6 fiction:
Novels: 2 crime fiction, 1 science fiction, 1 historical fantasy
Novella: 1 crime fiction
Short stories: 1 crime fiction

1 non-fiction:
1 autobiography

Original language: 7 English

Earliest date of first publication: 1966 (Two in the Bush)
Latest: How to Send A Message (short story) (2019) / The Psychology of Time Travel (August 2018)

5 Kindle, 2 paperbacks

Authors: 2 male, 2 female
Author nationality: 2 British, 1 Irish, 1 American
New (to me) authors: 2 (2 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: The Psychology of Time Travel (503)
Least popular: Sisters Gonna Work It Out (novella)/How to Send A Message (short story) (1) / Last Orders (31)

No. of books read: 7
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 2
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 2
Rereads: 0
No. of books acquired: 23
No. of books disposed of: 2
Expenditure on books: £47.81

Best Book of September : The Fairy of Ku-She
Worst Book of September: The Psychology of Time Travel

And now for October:

October Summary

Average rating: 3.86
Weighted average: 3.88

5 fiction:
Novels: 2 urban fantasy, 1 literary fiction, 1 fantasy
Short stories: 1 literary fiction

Poetry: 1 epic

1 non-fiction:
1 autobiography

Original language: 3 Russian, 3 English, 1 Old French, 1 Italian

Earliest date of first publication: 12th century/1970 (The Song of Roland)/1892 (Макар Чудра (short story)
Latest: 1993 (A Night in the Lonesome October)

5 paperbacks, 1 website, 1 Kindle

Authors: 9 male, 2 female
Author nationality: 4 American, 3 Russian, 1 Frank, 1 Canadian, 1 British
New (to me) authors: 5 (6 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: The Song of Roland (4,624)
Least popular: Макар Чудра (short story) (3) / The Snail on the Slope (192)

No. of books read: 7
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 4
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 3
Rereads: 2
No. of books acquired: 33
No. of books disposed of: 2
Expenditure on books: £31.81

Best Book of October: The Song of Roland
Worst Book of October: Макар Чудра

When your worst book rated 3.5 stars, you knoe it has been an exceptionally good month!

Books Awaiting Review

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 1
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August:8
Books awaiting review from September: 5
Books awaiting review from October: 6

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>42 -pilgrim-: Yeah, your average rating went up a whole star. That's a pretty big jump.

It also appears that I never posted a summary for May either (now corrected). That comes from being without a phone for so long

Put A Wet Paper Towel On It by Adam Parkinson and Lee Parkinson - DNF

This was written by two brothers who run a podcast on primary education (in England). It was advertised as a book of humorous anecdotes on their experiences.

Having asked cindydavid4 and clamairy questions about how the US education system works, I thought it might be interesting to see how things have changed since my last contact with that milieu in England.

I did not mind that this book was written in anecdotal, conversational form, replete with banter between the brothers and rambling digressions - I was expecting something lighthearted in tone.

I did not mind them ranting in their views of current government education policies - they are at the sharp end of implementing them and so are entitled to express strong views on the subject.

What caused me to give up on this book was the level of ignorance and laziness that the authors complacently displayed.

Discussing the effect of the pandemic on parent-teacher relations:

After a few weeks of home-schooling shenanigans, social media became filled with GIFs, videos and memes professing newfound appreciation for educators and suggestions of 1,000 per cent pay rises (which is as likely as it is mathematically possible.)

This demonstrates either
(i) a truly appalling level of mathematical ignorance (If your pay goes from £10 per hour to £110 per hour then that is a 1,000 per cent pay rise, which is mathematically feasible)
(ii) a level of disguising rhetoric with lies that is hypocritical, given that they have stated that one of their main teaching goals is to teach children to detect such manipulation by politicians and in the media, or
(iii) they have completely lost touch with reality (if you take their statement at face value i.e. that they believe a 1,000 pay rise for teachers is "likely").

Does it matter if mathematics is not their forte? Yes, if that ignorance is at such a level that they do not understand a concept that they are supposed to teach (such as basic percentages).

They are proud of being lazy. They call it "working smarter, not harder". But when this includes such examples as grading homework based on few sentences, because they "know" that "no child" is interested in whether they got something right or wrong (and hence whether they have understood properly), but only (maybe) in the mark at the end...

I had a senior school teacher with that attitude. When I took my chemistry "A"-level, I struggled with the physical chemistry part of the exam (30% of the mark). Checking with my clpassmates, so did everyone else. When I approached the teacher, she said: "Oh, that's because I never taught you that part of the syllabus. I never understood it myself, when I was training. So I decided not to bother. Why were you trying that section anyway? You only have to do two out of three, and I find inorganic and organic chemistry much easier, personally."

Yes, she assumed that her entire class had exactly the same interests and aptitudes as she did, and therefore she was entitled not to bother to teach parts of the examinable syllabus that she found difficult or boring. And my best friend lost her university place (to read Chemical Physics) because of it. (It was not just the teacher's ignorance of her own subject that was the issue: it was her assumption that everyone was like her so would want to omit that section too. If she had simply given a list of the parts of the syllabus that she was not going to cover, then we could have attempted to cover it for ourselves, or at least known that some exam questions would not be answerable on the basis of what we had been taught.)

The same assumption underlies these brothers' attitude. One describes how he enjoyed his schooldays, but paid little attention in class, being more interested in rugby and acting. He had got bored with acting by the end of his schooldays, had no real motivation towards a career. So he trained as a teacher because his girlfriend was and she suggested it.

What is not OK is his assumption is that all children are the same and as unmotivated as he was.

It seems that for all the "diversity awareness" that he is supposed to be teaching, he has failed to grasp that not only are not all adults the same, but not all children are either.

It amazes me that for so many people "empathizing" means "imagine how I felt/would feel in that situation, and treat you as I would like to have been treated". But to see this fallacy being promoted by guys with the responsibility of being a child's introduction to education is depressing.

I assume everyone has met bad, lazy teachers. And I do understand how micromanagement of the education system has affected the brilliant, creative, inspirational ones. And how the increased administrative load means that promotion involves moving further away from actually teaching.

I hope these lads are not representative of current teachers. But I don't see any point in reading their self-congratulatory anecdotes further.

A final example from the Prologue, describing their claims to fame:

We have had two pupils who have represented Great Britain at the Olympics, but also taught the Manny Massive, the gang who pulled off the jewellery heist two years ago. We take great pride in the fact our curriculum was able to equip those pupils with the skills to pull off one of the most famous robberies in recent history.

What does this tell me?
(i) "We are so unable to put ourselves in anyone else's position as to realise that don't know when you are reading this, so 'two years ago' may mean something totally different to you";
(ii) "We are so lazy that we expect you, the reader, having paid us for this book, to also research when it was first published in order to find out when we are talking about";
(iii) "We are so egotistical that we think our little world is the centre of the universe".
I have never heard of the "Manny Massive" or this robbery. So I Googled. Two years after this, one of the most famous robberies in recent history (supposedly) - this book was published in 2021 - I could find nothing about it.
My own local news broadcasts can also be extremely parochial in what they cover, but I am at least aware of that - I do not assume that these reports are also broadcast to other regions.

I really hate lazy writers who expect readers to do their job for them, AND pay them for the privilege.

>46 -pilgrim-: Great review. Is that book a reflection of the system?

>46 -pilgrim-: There were teachers like that in the U.S. too when I was going to school. (I hated school, but not necessarily because I had to learn. It was more how some teachers "taught" and the mean girls and the arrogant boys and the bullies and the subliminal malaise of the whole system, and then there was the homework. I mean, we had to be in school from 9 am to 3 pm, with a half hour lunch, and then we got hours of homework for after school. I thought that was wrong then, and I think it's wrong now.) (I also had wonderful teachers, like my algebra teacher Mr. Flisk, who was tough but made learning fun. This was a big deal, because I hated math yet got straight As that semester. Next semester, I had an idiot for geometry and almost failed it. And I wanted to be an archaeologist, so I was prepared to love Latin - yes, those were the days when they taught Latin even in public school - but the teacher was also an idiot, and I hated it. Didn't fail it, but it was torture. Anyway, good review and I will avoid that book like the plague. Which I actually am still avoiding, unlike many apparently.)

>48 Storeetllr: You report an almost accurate version of my memories. Single-sex private boys' school, but everything else fits. Though in Std. 8 (10th grade) the Latin teacher was a diminutive Afrikaner one could get on with; in the last 2 years it was the headmaster, who never grew out of being an escaped POW in Italy in WW2. A$$hole. Up to St. 9 (11th grade) our English teacher was an upper-class twit from Godalming, whose finest achievement was having a nervous breakdown and going home. So in St. 10 we got a Johannesburg Jewish lad (in a church school!) in his first job; he could remember being a teenager, a vast improvement.

>48 Storeetllr: similar situation here. I survived five years of non-stop bullying (4th-8th grade).

I loved Algebra I in 9th grade, great teacher, made the learning fun. I had all Bs and As. Then I had Geometry in 10th grade with an arrogant "God's gift to the world" teacher, barely passed, first Ds on my report card in my life. A good/bad teacher can make or break a student.

When I was in 8th grade the two year junior high I was attending offered Latin I as a two year course for 7th and 8th grade. I asked to attend, was told I couldn't because it was set up for both 7th and 8th grade. I asked to just take it, "audit", no credit, for my 8th grade year, but was told no. Crazy, why discourage a student who is interested in learning? When I got to high school Latin was not an option so I never got to take it.

I wanted to take Industrial Arts (shop) but was told no, because I was a girl, and girls take Home Ec. (insert rolling eyes here)

>47 Karlstar: I have not had contact with the primary education system since acting as a teacher's aide aged c. 16.

There was a great revamp of the English education system in the seventies, with more legislative changes subsequently. That is why I picked up this book, to see what it is like now.

My own experience of primary education - which covers ages 5-11 (and, in my case, both infant and junior schools) - was extremely positive. The guys writing this book seemed to have gone through the same system.

Teachers took the same class for all subjects throughout a year. There were no set subject timetables, or any formalised exams until the "11-plus". All my teachers were female except for the headmaster and the Year 4 teacher of my junior school.

We did not have any homework until we started senior school. Originally one hour a night, it increased to 3 hours a night by the 5th form (roughly age 16). School hours 9am-3.30pm. Abd separate teachers for each subject by secondary school, of course. All subjects compulsory until 4th year, when some remained mandatory, but there were choices for "O"-levels. I had some inspiring teachers - and some appalling ones. (Another chemistry teacher, who insisted on referring to all chemicals by the names with which he was familiar, and not the IUPAC nomenclature that was used in our textbooks - and in the exam! Or the physics teacher (whose qualification was in biology and "special needs teaching"), who tried to teach physics "A"-level by reading a chapter ahead of us in the textbook.... Luckily I had had an inspirational physics teacher for the "O"-level, who motivated me enough to keep me going.)

I did not have a very happy time at primary school, because the only thing that was rewarded was prowess at sports - not the ones I was any good at - which made me unpopular with my peers (since everyone had to represent their House on Sports Day). But I have few negative memories of the actual teaching.

It was at secondary school (state, grammar) that I first became aware of the difference between good and bad teachers.

H H Munro - Five Short Stories by Saki (radio plays) - 2.5 stars
Dir. by Ned Chaillet
Adapted by Roger Davenport
26/10/2021-2/11/2021

The Lumber Room

(2 stars)

The Schartz-Metteklume Method

(2.5 stars)

Fur

(3 stars)

The Toys of Peace

(1.5 stars)

The Open Window

(3 stars)

Saki is one of those authors who I had heard praised by my father but never actually read. I quite enjoyed these five short dramatisations, each of a different short story.

The stories themselves were written around the turn of the previous century. I found them amusing, to varying degrees.

Two had children getting the better of adults; two were at the expense of "forward-thinking" middle-class intellectuals. There was a definite theme of puncturing pomposity.

Given the period in which they were written, what I found noticeable was how all the female characters were intelligent - if not always nice. Dull, unthinking stupidity seems to be a male attribute here.

Compared to the tone of, for example, Jerome K. Jerome, I found this noteworthy.

I found Fur and The Open Window the best.

The Toys of Peace was the weakest. It was very much attacking a straw man, with a specious argument. It is easy to find more exciting pacifist role models than waste disposal or civic officials - how about explorers or missionaries (to fit the period - civil rights workers and astronauts might be more modern alternatives)?
Or boring military examples - how about a supply vehicles or a logistics officer?
Failing to match equivalents when making a point like this always annoys me. If your thesis is sound, it should not require false comparisons.

Instead of hijacking Karl's thread, I figured I'd bring the Alice talk over here.
How long has it been since you read the Wonderland books, even if abridged?

>53 BookstoogeLT: About 49 years!

♪♪The Interlopers (short story) by Saki (15 minutes) - 2.5 stars
Narrated by Tony Turner

After >52 -pilgrim-:, I thought I would try some Saki in his own words; this is not a play, but a reading of a short story - and it is a lovely, and chilling, little piece.

It is set in the Carpathian mountains at the end of the nineteenth century. That is often a setting picked as a venue for ignorant exoticism, but H. H. Munro was actually living and working in the Balkans at that time, so this is "local" for him.

Two families have been feuding over a piece of land, and who has the right to hunt in it. Both sincerely believe that they have right on their side, and are losing patience with the "poacher". And both men have armed retainers to back then up, as they each attempt to deal with the "interloper"...

>53 BookstoogeLT: And you might be right about the abridgement. You have now intrigued me about the originals...

>56 -pilgrim-: I'm pretty sure I read the unabridged versions back in '08 but honestly, without the paper copies to check, I'm not sure. I just remember there was a lot of what I'd call padding to the overall story that could have been cutout without hurting the story itself at all.

>57 BookstoogeLT: There was nothing extraneous in the abridgements that I read. The Bancroft Classics series was definitely aimed at presenting classics to children.

For example Journey to the Centre of the Earth becomes a pure adventure story, without the science. And The Black Arrow becomes semi-coherent, because the war atrocities committed by the young hero are omitted. (The point of the original is that civil war is nasty.)

But I can see that removing philosophising might introduce since of these books to a new generation.

>58 -pilgrim-: For a younger reader, I'm all for abridgements (ie, 10 and under) but once they hit the tween years and older, they need to start growing their reading muscles or they're going to end up on a stead diet of Twilight and Paranormal Romance Or Mack Bolan.

>59 BookstoogeLT: I agree. I was reading Dumas, unabridged, before the age of 10. Was that "muscular" enough for you? ;-)

Have a look at the books in the Bancroft Classics series and you will see what they were trying to do. Note "abridged" does not mean "adapted" or "simplified" here.

The results on my reading were a little odd. My other childhood staples were C. S. Lewis, Mark Twain, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and mythology collections.

I spent my teens with Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, Lewis' adult writing and Alan Garner.

I did not really start reading fantasy and SF until I got to university. (The side effects of growing up in a country town where the sole bookshop thought SF=John Norman!)

Note: I am only mentioning authors whom I was in "read everything they ever wrote" mode for (limited by aforementioned shop's range).

My school had a lot of abridged classics like Dickens and the Brontës, which I read my way through, but, as I was not really impressed by any of them, I am suspicious of the quality of the "abridgement".

You could suggest that my reading age decreased as my actual age increased...

Given that pgmcc has already posted his
review of a book that I recommended to him, I thought that I had better post my own review of A Man With One of Those Faces, here, in my summer thread (which is when I actually read it).

>60 -pilgrim-: It is what is available that shapes our reading. Which is why, despite all the issues, I am so happy with ebooks. It gives a lot more access....

>63 BookstoogeLT: I fully agree! There are allegations that our library has been hit so hard by the endemic corruption in the municipality that they have had no budget for buying books in the last 3 or 4 years, and even when they do the person responsible for selecting books appears to live on a different planet to any rational Dragoneer.

In the UK, the situation changed noticeably with the end of the Net Book Agreement in 1995.

Until then, books were published with a fixed price printed on them, at which they had to be sold.

This was to enable smaller retailers to compete equally with the large chains. It is also, of course, price rigging.

The rendering of the NBA illegal might seem, initially, a good thing - now that booksellers can sell at a discount, the result is cheaper books.

But only the ones that the chains think have a large enough market to be worth discounting. And to recoup their lost profit margins, they raised the prices of the others.

This was very advantageous if you liked the types of books that the big chains decided you should, but made anything less mainstream extremely expensive.

Prior to this, all books of the same physical type (i.e. costing roughly the same to print), had tended to be marketed at the same price, irrespective of estimated popularity.

The nature of bookshops changed. None of the small, independent booksellers could afford to sell "Harry Potter" books, after the first, because they could not compete with the deep discounts that the chains arranged by buying in bulk. So they had to specialise.

Thus the larger chains tended to carry larger quantities of fewer books, whilst the independents carried a narrow, and expensive range. If live in a town with maybe a smaller chain store, or have to rely on the discount books in the supermarkets, you really don't have much choice.

I hoped ebooks would help the situation, but they don't seem to have: there is still the same margin between "popular" and "niche" books, even though the production costs are identical.

>64 hfglen:
The concept if a “rational Dragoneer” sounds like something worthy of study.

:-)

>66 pgmcc: All Dragoneers are rational, Peter. It is the rest of the world that has gone crazy.

>64 hfglen: You now have me intrigued as to what these (rare) new acquisitions comprise...

>67 -pilgrim-: hear! Hear!

>67 -pilgrim-: Or maybe that is what we want them to think.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...!

What do you expect? I am reading a story set in a secure psychiatric unit.

The Quiet Patient

November #3:


♪♪ How It Happened (short story) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 1.5 stars
Narrated by: Sam Dale
2/11/2021

Having found the last audiobook (cf. >55 -pilgrim-:) in a BBC Radio 4 series, A Celebration of the Short Story (BBC Radio), I decided to try another from this series, by a different author.

This was an interesting period piece about the consequences of an inadvised drive of a new car, first published in 1913. Fifty mph is terrifyingly fast!

Since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known for his detective creation, it is easy to forget that he was also greatly interested in "spiritism".

>71 -pilgrim-: Anything in particular to drop it to 1.5stars?

>72 BookstoogeLT: Just supremely predictable. It is of interest as a mark of how times have changed, rather than actually being a story with any suspense in it whatsoever. It basically reads like a Public Broadcast Service Broadcast on motoring irresponsibility

Have just added review to another story from The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1 to my summer thread.

>73 -pilgrim-: We could use some more of that PSA today! I only have a 10min commute but my goodness, there are days I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands just to go on the road because of the aggressive, reckless and selfish way so many others are driving.

>75 BookstoogeLT: I agree, it is getting worse. I probably would not attempt driving on London these days (if the whole driving issue wasn't moot at present).

There are significant variations across the country. In Scotland, in particular, there are quite a lot of even A roads where you have to take care passing a car on the opposite directions. And plenty of B roads where you need a passing place. When I visit rural Scotland, I find courteous driving is still the norm.

>75 BookstoogeLT: There is no doubt that the additional distractions in cars - nav panels, entertainment screens, cell phones has made driving more hazardous. I don't know if people also drive more aggressively or carelessly, though that also does seem to be a factor. Not disagreeing with you at all, I observe the same behavior, I just can't prove that there's more of it than there used to be. Small, zippy cars aren't helping either.

>77 Karlstar: I think when you have National Speed limit (i.e. 70mph) A roads that rise suddenly and then have 90° turns just beyond the blind summit, or National Speed Limit B roads where cars can only pass each other (from opposite directions) at designated passing places, there is a sort of Darwinian principle operating. Careless drivers rapidly become non-drivers.

So yes, drivers are getting worse in Southern England. But visiting rural Scotland is a step back in time.

>77 Karlstar: I've noticed in the last few year that people are generally less courteous while driving, more aggressive, displaying "me first!" actions with their vehicles. It's scary when one regularly sees stop signs being ignored, red lights being run, and some drivers actually blocking others from merging into the traffic.

"Where's the fire?"

>79 fuzzi: On parking, I have vivid memories of the mourners who deliberately blocked my driveway with their cars whilst attending a funeral - thereby preventing my arriving at my own relative's funeral I time, and requiring me to purchase a second air ticket to get there in time for the interment.

The assumption that their bereavement entitled them to prevent my attending my own relative's funeral, rather than their walking the 500 yards from the public car park is astounding.

(Yes, I called a taxi, but the wait for availability plus journey time to my address tripled the actual drive time from home to airport; hence not making the flight.)

>79 fuzzi: I've seen too many people watching their phones while driving obliviously through red lights. It is scary!

>81 Karlstar: I have not actually seen this. But admittedly do very little city driving these days.

>80 -pilgrim-: You remind me of an oft-repeated childhood memory, which may explain why I would be loth to part with money for a ticket to any major sporting event. The house I grew up in was about a mile from a major sporting venue. And every international match, some yob would block our driveway, without fail.

>81 Karlstar: Taxibuses (aka matatus in East Africa) don't need phones to drive happily through red lights. And I am convinced that too many South Africans think the red is for turning right (across the traffic) on.

>83 hfglen: Which shows how selfishness amongst car users is a longstanding phenomenon. (In deference to both our ages, I will refrain from commenting on how longstanding!)

At least with the matches you could predict when you would be blocked. (Preplanned frustration?!) In a rural area, with the church being a different denomination, the blockade took me completely by surprise. I did consider going into the service and asking for the car to be removed, but to discreetly go around the congregation individually would have taken even longer, and to interrupt such a service, and disrupt the grieving of several hundred bereaved people, in order to contact the single group that had blocked me in, would be unconscionable.

November #10:

The War Prayer (short story) by Mark Twain - 2.5 stars

As established in a previous conversation with Karlstar, Mark Twain was strongly opposed to the American war against the Philippines, and this was the context of this short story also.

I have started rewatching Babylon 5, since I never got to see all of it when originally broadcast, and was pointed to this short story by a B5 episode with this title, and comments by J. Michael Straczynski indicating that he was consciously referencing Twain there.

It is a well-written short story, pointing out the explicit implications of assuming that you are fighting a war with "God on our side". Nicely done, but, for me, an exercise in "stating the bl**dy obvious".

I guess for my generation this message was stated by Bob Dylan: https://youtu.be/P4EkQfXtheg

Re >85 -pilgrim-::

Bob Dylan was a political poet, and re-reading my post, I see it that it could be construed as breaking the rules of this group.

So I should probably state that my intention was neither to support nor to criticize Mr Dylan, but simply point out the similarity of his theme to that of Mr Clemens.

Thus, encountering these American authors in the reverse order, I found nothing "new" in The War Prayer.

November #19:

The Shoot-Out at the Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World (short story) by Catherynne M. Valente - 2.5 stars

I had been following the K. J. Parker short stories and novellas in the archive version of Subterranean Press; this was my first look at another story, from a different author, from one of those issues.

The power levels and stylised characters in this story have an Amberite 'vibe', set in a 'Wild West' type environment that is actually a future dystopia in which magic has evolved.

It is very weird, and rather intriguing, but I did not feel the payoff was strong enough to justify the absorption of this rather odd setting.

If this is a side-story in a setting that Catherine M. Valente uses in other works, then I suspect it would be more effective read after those.

Does anyone else know more of her works?

>87 -pilgrim-: I read and enjoyed The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and have the next 2 in the series but haven’t read them yet. They are YA, but I gather that Ms Valente’s other works include some that are distinctly not YA.

ETA touchstone didn’t work, although it showed up ok on preview.

>88 haydninvienna: Interesting. It seems as if this story may be within the same setting.

The Shoot-Out is between the Wizard of Los Angeles and the Wizard of New York. And the narrator's uncle is the Duke of Maine.

However it is rather grim.

>86 -pilgrim-: I deliberately did not reply to avoid the historical/political discussion!

November #17:

Rich Men's Skins: A Social History of Armour (essay) by K. J. Parker - 2.5 stars

Given that I have read quite a lot of ancient and mediaeval history, and military history in general, there was not really any new information in here for me.

Nevertheless it constitutes a nicely argued explanation of why armour involved in the way it did, responding to both developments in weaponry and social developments.

The distinction between warriors (those who fight for glory and prestige) and soldiers (who fight for pay) explains the of different armour types: heavy armour for elites who fight for prestige, and really don't want to die, light armour the makes the attackers more effective as killers, but are being equipped by people who can afford to overwhelm with numbers, used in situations where the warfare appears desperate.

In other words, this essay takes into account the social pressures determining what innovations are wanted, as well as the engineering capabilities about what could have been done.

I would recommend it to anyone who has not considered this aspect of military technology before. It is a serious piece, but informs the attitudes behind Parker's Siege series.

ETA: And it is written with Parker/Holt's usual light touch.

- And here's a history review for Karlstar; one without political overtones!

November #14:

Arithmetic on the Frontier (poem from Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling - 4 stars

Kipling is one of my favourite poets. In deceptively vernacular language, he has the knack of getting to the crux of human tragedy.

Here he points out the fallacy of thinking that military expenditure is any match against the frailty of the human body.

I was sent to re-read this by its being referenced "K. J. Parker"'s essay above. Set on the pass into Afghanistan, it is a reminder of the futility of "trying to win a land war in Asia". It is particularly poignant just now.

>80 -pilgrim-: people can be so selfish...and if you politely show them why their actions are infringing on others they would probably give you a blank stare.

>93 -pilgrim-: I love Kipling's poetry, doggerel, whateveryouwanttocallit! :)

His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride–
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.

If ye find that the Bullock can toss you, or the heavy—browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us; we knew it ten seasons before.

Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.

“There is none like to me!” says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.

Lot of wisdom in that poem.

I picked "If" for a poem recitation in high school, still love it though I can't recall it all from memory.

>94 fuzzi: My mother's favourite was "Gunga Din" and I can see why.

It is written in the person, and the vocabulary, of the common soldier, and thus uses offensive terminology (like "fuzzy wuzzies" for the opposition) - but that is the whole point!

This common soldier doesn't know about what were would now call PC terminology, he uses all the "wrong" words. But what he SAYS about the opposition contains nothing derogatory about the African - it is simply filled with respect for a terrifyingly brave and competent fighting force.

Its main theme is how he and his fellow soldiers initially did not respect the Indian water-carrier, deriding him for wearing only a dhoti - and how wrong they were to do so. The poem tells of Gunga Din's heroism and bravery, and how although his rôle is far from glorious, the aid that he gave to dying men, at the eventual cost of his own life, meant an awful lot to the recipients. The last line:

"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"

Says it all.

This poem supports the valour of soldiers - and even more the bravery of those who risk their own lives to save life, rather than take it.

But why I love it is that it shows that absence of racism does not consist of using the right words, but in how you think. This soldier uses the wrong ones, but sees the men of other races whom he had come across as equals, or moral superiors.

The contrast to, and implicit criticism of, those who talk politely - and condescendingly - about other groups of people is delicious.

>95 -pilgrim-: nicely put.

November #20:


♪♪The Light Fantastic: Book 2 of the Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett - 3.5 stars
17/8/2021-30/11/2021

After listening to the audiobook version of The Colour of Magic in August, which I have just reviewed here, I went on to listen to the audiobook of The Light Fantastic - which was also covered in the Jean Vadim film.

I have found this far less compelling; it has taken me over three months to complete.

It does feel like the problem of the author who has written a book that was fast more successful than he expected, and is feeling around, trying to work out how to continue it.

That does not mean that it is not very funny, but it is rather bitty in places.

I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the eighty year old Cohen's romance with the young virgin, Bethan. That is one case where the film was an improvement. In the reading too, you can hear affection in Cohen's voice, which softens his use of such unflattering terms as "daft cow" and "bitch".

But the film's portrayal was even better, making it clear that she was hitting on Cohen. And why? Because she counted his deeds (and, in that sense, his personality) more important than his appearance - which made me feel a little uncomfortable with the condemnation I had felt of the relationship during my earlier readings (in the eighties and nineties).

>97 -pilgrim-: what does "rather bitty in places." mean? I'm not familiar with the term and can't work it out with context.

>98 BookstoogeLT: Sorry, I wasn't aware of a regionalism.

It comes from cookery, I think. When you put an ingredient in and it doesn't melt in fully, so that you can taste a lot of little pieces.

In this context, what I meant was that there were a lot of little sketches, or one line jokes, that were perfectly fine in and of themselves, but did not really gel with the main narrative so as to form a coherent whole.

>99 -pilgrim-: Thanks. I know exactly what you mean now. I've experienced that in the little bit of cooking I've done over the years.

>98 BookstoogeLT: >99 -pilgrim-: Thanks, I couldn't quite parse that expression!

"Bitty" looks like it might be a useful term. I'm one of the few (I guess few) who could not "get into" Pratchett's Discworld stories. I also find Valente to be hit-or-miss. I hadn't heard of The Shoot-Out at the Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World before but want to read it just for the title alone.

>102 Storeetllr: Pratchett changes a lot over time. I loved his early books when they first came out, but they haven't aged as well as others: parodies of author's no longer widely read fall a little flat.
(E.g. I think that Anne McCaffrey's Wyrmberg's are recognisable, but most people now do not realise that P'Teppic is Andrew Offut's Hanse Shadowspawn.)

And I am not setting myself up as an authority; I am sure that for every joke I get, there are three more that I missed.

But in later books, he starts caring about the consistency of the world that he has been building. It stops being generic.

But that does generate a few little inconsistencies that I am noticing on this re-visit.

November #4:

The Wolves of Cernogratz (short story) by Saki - 2.5 stars

Another short story read at the beginning of November.

What I like about Saki is that his short stories never resort to stereotypes. Here it is the banker who is the sympathetic character.

There is an ancient castle in the Carpathians and an old legend. But what matters here is the portrayal of character; the dignified scion of an ancient house is sympathetically portrayed.

November #5:

The Purple of the Balkan Kings (short story) - 3 stars

This is set in Vienna at the time of the First Balkan War and is more of a character study than a short story. A man, sitting in a café, ponders developments.

For anyone who gazed aghast at events in the nineties, this story, set 110 years ago but contemporaneous with the author, who was a journalist working in the region, makes an interesting insight

November Summary

Average rating: 2.65
Weighted average:
Audiobooks average: 2.69

16 fiction:
Novels: 4 urban fantasy, 1 fantasy
Novella: 2 fantasy
Novelettes: 2 fantasy
Short stories: 4 literary fiction, 2 fantasy, 1 ghost story

1 poem

3 non-fiction:
1 autobiography
1 joke book
1 essay

Original language: 18 English, 2 German

Earliest date of first publication: 1886 (Arithmetic on the Frontier) (poem) / 1905 (The War Prayer) (short story) / 1986 The Light Fantastic
Latest: 2013 (The Sun and I/Illuminated/The Shoot-Out at the Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World) (novelette & short stories) / 2009 (Morgue Drawer Next Door)

11 websites, 4 paperbacks, 2 podcasts, 2 Kindle, 1 audiobook

Authors: 14 male, 2 female
Author nationality: 8 British, 4 American, 1 German, 3 unknown
New (to me) authors: 10 (5 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: The Light Fantastic (12,972)
Least popular: Arithmetic on the Frontier (poem) (1) / The Purple of the Balkan Kings/The Wolves of Cernogratz (short stories) (3) / Pigs Might Fly! (5)

No. of books read: 20
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 4
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 4
Rereads: 1
No. of books acquired: 8
No. of books disposed of: 1
Expenditure on books: £7.92

Best Book of November: Arithmetic on the Frontier (poem) / The Sun and I (novelette) / The Light Fantastic
Worst Book of November: Pigs Might Fly!

Books Awaiting Review

Books awaiting review from January: 2
Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 1
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August: 3
Books awaiting review from September: 5
Books awaiting review from October: 6
Books awaiting review from November: 11

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

While I have Internet access, catching up on my reviews for September - and Bunny McGarry.

September #2:

Angels in the Moonlight: Book 3 in the Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell - 2.5 stars
26/8/2021-6/9/2021

Bunny McGarry, as we have come to know him, is very much a loner. He has no family, no close friends, and no life outside his work (except coaching junior hurling). It is clear that he has a Tragic Past.

This novel steps back about ten years, to a period when young Paulie Mulchrone is the star of St Jude's hurling team, and Detective McGarry has a solid working partnership with Detective Sergeant Tim "Gringo" Spain, which extends into a close friendship. Tim even manages to drag Bunny to a little jazz club; Bunny has always loathed jazz, until he hears the girl there sing...

This story has more foreign input: there are shady Americans, and some "boys from the North" get themselves involved. There is an unusual shelter for abused women, more Garda corruption, more Bunny violence - and Bunny in love.

This is the usual fast-paced, well-constructed story, and I enjoyed it as I went along, but at the end I was left a little bit unsatisfied.

Bunny is what is known as "a character", undoubtedly. He has a very strong impulse towards justice, a slightly shaky grip on the relevance of law, and a propensity towards violence. He is particularly prone to extreme responses where violence against women is concerned.

I had hoped that his backstory would provide some insight into why he is this way, and why his chivalric responses can be more than that required to halt the abuser and bring them into the range of the law. But right at the beginning of this book he is there, wading in, whaling away, ignoring the woman saying that he is making matters worse.

Bunny has always been the type of policeman who largely disregards the law. But here some if his actions appear not only illegal, but disproportionate - and extreme. Originally he came across as a man who was fiercely protective of "his own" - his patch, his people - and willing to put his life on the line to protect them, whatever the personal risk, to him, to his career, or to his reputation. But now the element of vigilantism is becoming so pronounced as to seem incompatible with his position as Garda. (And since this is a prequel, this is not a new development in his character.)

But although Bunny is not good at listening, there are still plenty of strong women in this book. And even Bunny knows to be on his best behaviour around nuns:

"Besides, in this country, nuns are more powerful than the law." He lowered his voice. "And considerably more scary."

My reviews of earlier books in the series are at the end of my summer thread.

September #3:


Sisters Gonna Work It Out (a novella in the Dublin Trilogy) by Ciamh McDonnell
- 3.5 stars

Mr MacDonnell has a problem. He admits to it, in the discussion pieces that he writes to introduce each item in The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 2. He creates background characters for one novel, and then they take on lives of their own...

We first met the Sisters of the Saint in Angels in the Moonlight, where Sister Bernadette and Sister Assumpta were living in a house in Dublin, and giving refuge to women who needed it.

Here they, accompanied by Sister Dionne (who turns out not to actually be a nun), are in Casca Province, Colombia in 1985. And as the story starts, they seem to be in a lot of trouble with a very angry general. (He gets angrier.)

It is a story that goes into the past of each of the trio, explains how they each came to be part of the Sisters of the Saint, and how that is not exactly a regular religious order.

It is lightweight, fastmoving, with some thoroughly enjoyable kickass heroines.

The way that it came about does necessitate a certain amount of retconning though. In Angels in the Moonlight, Sister Assumpta was simply very large, scary and crazy. Now it is revealed that she is an autistic savant. She cannot handle people, but is exceptionally good with numbers (including betting odds!) But why does that result in inappropriate clothes removal, as described in Angels in the Moonlight?

Also her backstory raises as many questions as it solves - if she comes from Florence, why did she join a convent in Barcelona? It is stated that she is also a polyglot, but moving to a different country with a different culture seems unnecessarily stressful for a girl whose motivation seems to have been to withdraw from a confusing world.

Assumpta had become a nun because her family had initially not known what to do with her and then were forced into making a swift decision by circumstance. She had gone willingly, although she had been disappointed to find out she had not joined one of those silent orders.

Still, my issue is mainly that Sister Assumpta here does not fit terribly well with her previous portrayal.

This story is enjoyable, and works well as a standalone. It needs no knowledge of Angels in the Moonlight, or anything else. If it can be found on its own, I would recommend it a an excellent introduction to Caimh MacDonnell´s style.

I liked the concept of an order of adventuring nuns; that was what drew me to Sisters of the Vast Black, which I found disappointing. This worked MUCH better for me.

September #4:

How to Send A Message (a short story from The Dublin Trilogy) by Caimh McDonnell - 1.5 stars

Keith and Scanner are two young Dubliners in their late twenties. As the story opens, they are debating the best way to "send a messsge" - and we are not talking email vs. paper here. Keith, the more intelligent lad, is in favour of the traditional method, whilst the opiniated Scanner is in favour of trying a (more revolting) alternative.

It us an amusing portrayal of two young men who hang out together from habit, rather than actually liking each other 's company.

Unfortunately for them, the intended recipient of the messsge is Bunny McGarry. He sends a message to their employer instead.

This is crude and rather scatological short story. It was nevertheless funny at times. But afterwards, on reflection, I felt extremely uncomfortable.

Bunny has always been a policeman who is very strong on justice but rather lax on legality. But up to now, his violence has always been perpetrated on those who have abused others. In this case, he is simply taking revenge.

MAJOR SPOILER: And as readers, we are expected to approve of Bunny using the threat of being framed for serious crimes that they have not committed to make them submit to sexual assault - they have bullets stuffed into their anuses; it is not clear whether the lads do it to themselves or to each other.

This is a serious escalation from anything that the lads either did or attempted to do. Before, what Bunny has done has always been actually less than what the offender had either done or attempted. This seems to be written by the sort of man who finds anal penetration intrinsically amusing, and the desire to write about it trumped any consideration as to ethics. Bunny has always been portrayed as having a strong, if idiosyncratic, moral code. How is this episode consistent with that?

The Dwarf (short story from The October Country) by Ray Bradbury - 2 stars

A brief tale about how the reaction of some people to disability is try to make themselves feel better by hurting those who are already suffering.

How picking the easiest possible target boosts their self-esteem I do not comprehend, but having had it attempted here on myself, I find nothing implausible in what Bradbury portrays.

The story's sympathy is not with the tormentor, but the fact that he is successful (by his own twisted standards) and the victim is shown as destroyed by the attack I suppose will encourage the like-minded.

♪♪Black Wolves (Черные Волки ) (2011, Russian (Russian Federation)) - 4.5 stars
Dir. & Scriptwriter: Dmitry Konstantinov
Watched: 30/11/2021-1/12/2021

This series is set in the Soviet Union in 1954, a year after the death of Stalin. Pavel ("Pasha") Khromov returns from Kolyma to find his sister has been murdered. Her death follows a pattern of murders committed by a gang called the "Black Wolves" (because they leave a wolf's head at the scene of each robbery).

Pasha used to be a captain in the UGRO (equivalent to CID - plain clothes police detectives), but was framed for theft and has spent 8 years in the camps.

One of the detectives suggests asking for Pasha's help in finding the gang who killed his sister, but the suggestion is indignantly refused by the lieutenant-colonel in charge of the division.

From then on, there are three separate investigations taking place...

This story is extremely bleak. Really bad things happen, although screen violence is minimal. (This is the opposite of Tarantino - whilst he shows gleeful quantities of gore, but glossed over the human consequences of what he portrays, Konstantinov shows little, but makes the viewer all too aware of the trail of ruined lives.)

At first I found it too bleak; the story eschews cinematic conventions of "characters you cannot kill". But then I realised that this was the point; it is not there for gratuitous "shock value". The point of the film is the moral degradation of the entire country, as a result of the Soviet terror.

The treatment of women is harsh, but accurate to the morals of the time. If a man is arrested, and his girlfriend has another man force himself on her whilst she waits for him, she has to marry that man. And her boyfriend holds her guilty - as she does herself.

This was hard to take - but again this is the point. Everyone suffered through the War, and in the paranoia of the era. Life was fragile; people lost everything in an instant. All they could do was try to survive, and to start again.

The police are so frightened of being disciplined for failure (loss of their post being a mild outcome, execution a possibility) that they are more concerned with having someone whom they can produce as the criminal than with solving a crime. It was Pasha's closest friends, wartime buddies, who sent him to the camps. And the police chief beats a man till he cannot speak, and cripples his hand so that he cannot give a statement, not because he thinks him guilty, but because his testimony would exonerate the designated "culprit".

There are career criminals (blatnye)- ruthless, but shocked by the Black Wolves' excesses - or are they simply annoyed that they are not getting their share?

Corruption is everywhere - and everywhere winked at. When there is such scarcity, but trading a criminal offence, how can anyone be totally law-abiding?

Yet although this is a grim indictment of society - near the end there is a flashback to the past of the most ruthlessly evil character, with the realisation that his motive is not money but revenge on society as a whole - it is not of humanity as a whole. Individuals risk everything for a friend, or because they feel impelled to do the morally decent thing.

But there is no "good guys" versus "the bad guys", only good or bad people. And the many many people who are both. Good people also do extremely bad things here. And vice versa.There is the child-killer who risks everything for his own wife and daughter; and the swindler who is stealing not for himself, but to serve his country!)

There is some humour - a pair of low-life thieves with unexpected moral zeal. Also I really enjoyed the sight of Pasha trying to pose as a career criminal, swearing his head off and using all the correct argot. This was especially funny because the Russian Federation still has censorship laws regarding bad language, particularly with respect to representatives of the state such as police officers, so that the script had to convey that the most vulgar vocabulary was being used - without actually using any!

Although Pavel Khromov and the Black Wolves are fictional creations, Colonel Klimenko and his construction battalion are not. (The Soviet Army assigned a sizeable proportion of its conscripts to such battalions.) The most unlikely-seeming part of the story is actually true! (Although the outcome is somewhat different and there is no suggestion that the real Klimenko was operating for the same reason as the fictional one, who just wanted to build first class roads and bridges across the Motherland, as he has done during the war.

The subtitles occasionally let the series down at times, particularly when translating slang. The mention of pork took me by surprise, until I realised that musor (derogatory work for cop, which literally means "garbage") was being translated and "pig" was intended! And this is not even consistent - most of the time, "trash-cop" was used.

October #7:


A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (illus. by Gahan Wilson) - 3.5 stars (re-read)
8/10/2021-31/10/2021

I read this avidly when it first came out and loved it. This year, I decided it was time to reread and see if it was as good as I remember it. I read it the traditional way - each chapter on the appropriate day, culminating on Hallowe'en (with occasional bouts of catch-up!) I even broke my rule of not buying duplicate copies of books I own but cannot access for this.

And it was worth it. This is as good as I remember.

I got all the main character references on my previous read - with the exception of Jill. Unless she is named purely for the last line? But there are lots more that I got this time, and I suspect further reads would yield more.

This is a fascinating story constructed with a mismash of traditional characters. But they are not the characters of traditional myth, they are their Hollywood counterparts. Spotting the references is much of the fun.

My favourite is the "religious distress signal".

This an excellent Hallowe'en read for people who do not like horror as a genre. There is no real gore (although there is one extremely unpleasant idea) or creepiness - although one does ideally need a familiarity with the classic horror movies of the thirties to fifties (and basic Lovecraft).

As usual with Zelazny, the concept underlying what is actually going on is intriguing.

And leaves one question for every reader: Opener or Closer?

As a footnote: I really loathe the cartoon illustrations that have been included in this edition. Like the book itself, they date from 1993, but they were not part of my original copy.

I find it frustrating when a cover artist produces an image that had nothing to do with the content of the book, which they have obviously not bothered to read anything of, but I consider the same approach to illustrations within a book to be completely unacceptable.

As an example, this is supposed to be a sleeping thirteen year old normal human girl:

It looks like some publishing editor has said: "this is a humorous book with a horror theme; Gahan Wilson is a humourist cartoonist who does horror, let's get him to illustrate it". It completely ignores the fact that humour comes in many varieties - and these two don't mesh.

The cover from the first paperback edition was better too.

I have just found some reviews that I wrote, but apparently did not post, frim the beginning of the year.
So here I have posted a review of The Quantum Curators and the Fabergé Egg by Eva St. John, which I read back in January!

>114 -pilgrim-: The last image you posted is the cover of my copy and I love it!

>117 Sakerfalcon: And I think Snuff is one of my favourite fictional dogs! He deserves centre place.

♪♪John Masefield -The Midnight Folk (radio play) - 2.5 stars
Adapted by Christopher William Hill
22/12/2021

I do not think this book by John Masefield adapts well for radio dramatisation. The story is a sequence of adventures, for which a radio play seems the worst possible narrative form; a television version would be quite spectacular, whilst an audiobook would allow for descriptive passages. But a radio play forces each episode to be put into the mouth of one character after another, turning all conversations into exposition.

But the story itself is a wonderful set of fantastic adventures for a small boy, which may or may not be simply his active imagination during his dreams.

I wish I could have found the original book when I was small.

September #7:


Last Orders (Book 4 of the Dublin Trilogy) by Caimh McDonnell - 2 stars
13/9/2021-26/9/2021

I read Last Orders as the final part of The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 2. Caimh McDonnell provides a brief introduction to each work in this anthology; he talks of feeling the pressure to create a fitting conclusion to the Dublin Trilogy.

I have to say that I think he fails. This is not a good book; however McGarry Stateside is a trilogy that takes place after this book, so I persisted in order to see how we get to the situation with which Disaster Inc opened.

In the aftermath of the ending to The Day That Never Comes, Bunny McGarry is in terrible shape. This is realistic; there are some things that you cannot just spring back from - and prolonged, sadistic torture at the hands of a professional is one of them.

Furthermore, the events of a decade ago appear about to come to light, and the choices he made in Angels in the Moonlight are coming home to roost.

So Bunny has PTSD, is in physical pain, and under considerable pressure. Given that he has always drunk heavily, the result is a foregone conclusion. So he goes missing, and about half the book concerns various characters, whom we already know, trying to find him.

But mainly that section concerns my least favourite character, Paul Mulchrone, being petty, vindictive and childish AGAIN - only this time it his friends', and particularly his girlfriend's, lives that he is wrecking in his quest for revenge. When he discovers who engineered his estrangement from Brigit (at the start of The Day That Never Comes) he is quite happy to destroy her professionally and financially to get "their" revenge on a third party who was involved. He is the epitome of the type of man who is unable to take into account, or even notice, the feelings of anyone else - even when supposedly in love with them. He is a completely plausible character, but not a likeable one.

And of course, Paul is oblivious to the distress that Bunny - who has something real to be unhappy about - is in.

These novels have always spent quite a lot of time 'in the heads' of their protagonists, even to the extent odd recounting their dreams. The portrayal of an inebriated man having a mental breakdown is very well done. But the problem is that listening to the repetitive ramblings of Bunny, as he holds conversations with people who he knows cannot be really there, is rather boring to read. He cannot think clearly, so we cover the same ground over and over again.

So, on the one hand the book is going down the stream-of-consciousness route, where the writing may be a realistic portrayal of extreme distress, but the plot moves at the pace of cold treacle; on the other hand we have Paul's ludicrous antics. They do not mesh well in the same book.

An ending of sorts was necessary. There has been an escalation in Bunny's behaviour. MAJOR SPOILER for earlier books: Whereas in the first book he was a Garda officer (policeman) willing to commit violence in order to bypass corruption and achieve justice, his grounds for extreme violence have been becoming more and more tenuous - from responsibility for multiple deaths, to domestic abuse, to adultery. Bunny is always acting according to his own moral code, and unselfishly, but there are limits. The Garda Síochána has never been portrayed here as whiter than white; it has a mixture of good cops, fallible cops and a sprinkling of outright crooked cops. But the idea that a Garda could deviate as far from the law as Bunny is now doing, and remain a serving officer, is untenable. A resolution was needed.

This book provides one. It just was not, of itself, a particularly enjoyable read. I certainly would nor recommend reading it without having read the other three novels in the Dublin trilogy first.
As a bridge between the two sequences it was acceptable, and probably should be included if you intend to read both.

December #14:


♪♪ Joseph and the Three Gifts - the Angel's Story by Brian Sibley (narr. by Alex Jennings) - 3.5 stars
Dir.: Martin Jarvis
22/12/2021-24/12/2021

This is quite a traditional account of Jesus' life, following the Christian belief that He is the Son of God, with the major elaboration being what Joseph decides to do with the gifts given by the Magi.

The narrator is the archangel Gabriel and the focus is on Joseph, portrayed as a man who dearly loves his somewhat younger wife. (and adopted son) and proud of his carpentry.

However Gabriel often stops to discuss what is, and is not, included, both in the Bible and in traditions. These discussions are often quite detailed, covering when a given tradition first appears and its possible meaning.

There are many theories as to why Joseph vanishes from the Gosprl narratives. The answer posited here is a simplr and sensible one.

There is enough originality here in perspective to make this worthwhile, and it was refreshing to listen to a retelling that was not courting the label "controversial".

Καλά Χριστούγεννα!
Merry Christmas!

Geseënde Kersfees!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas my friend!

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (radio play) - 4 stars
Dramatised by Judith French
Dir.: Marc Beeby
24/12/2021

The basic story comes from Goethe's poem Der Zauberlehrling and was familar to me from the Mickey Mouse version in Disney's Fantasia.

But this dramatisation still felt special and new. The Hexenmeister has a talking cat, Cornelius, seems to be from the kabbalist magical tradition and the broom, once imbued with the spirit of the wood by the English apprentice, mutters to itself in extremely beautiful blank verse.

I also liked that this version did not make up its own rules of magic, but instead followed the magic traditions of the period.

This will stick in my memory for a while. With its Christmas Eve setting, this is a lovely child-friendly, but not childish, play for the season.

Rumpole and the Memories of Christmas Past (radio play) - 2.5 stars
Dramatised by Richard Stoneman
Director: Marilyn Imrie
24/12/2021

When I was young, I never really liked the TV series, Rumpole of the Bailey. I think the eponymous barrister, Rumpole, is meant to be annoying but goodhearted. However his unpleasant attitudes always outweighed his good points for me.

Now, several decades later, I decided to try Rumpole again, in a Chrstmas spirit, in the form of dramatised accounts of stories relating to Rumpole's Christmastide experiences.

I still found his self-centred arrogance infuriating. I know this is meant to be a comedy, but the concept of the legal profession being filled with men like him, for whom the possible innocence of a young man who may spend decades in prison is irrelevant, because his barrister's only concern is whether another loss will be embarrassing for him (and the opportunity to drink some fine claret is more important than retaining the ability to do his job properly) is too close to the truth to be funny.

Pompous, self-satisfied men in highly paid jobs, whining about the minor inconveniences thereof, whilst displaying cavalier indifference to the tedious necessity of actually doing what they are receiving those salaries for, and complete contempt for the welfare of those whose lives are in their hands, may be buffoons, but that makes them all the more dangerous.

The author, John Mortimer, was a barrister. It is said that he modelled Horace Rumpole on his father. I fear this portrayal is all too accurate. I would hope that the ethos within the legal profession has improved since the seventies; but I have met (socially) too many lawyers of my own generation with similar attitudes.

I looked at a review of Rumpole of the Bailey, where Rumpole is described as crusty but idealistic.

It made me wonder whether the stories dramatised here are late ones. I think that sometimes in long series the characters fall into being stereotypes and lose the subtler nuances of the original characterisation.

This just left me feeling depressed.

Books Awaiting Review

My last review from January is The Quantum Curators and the Enemy Within, reviewed here

Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 1
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August: 3
Books awaiting review from September: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 5
Books awaiting review from November: 11

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>123 -pilgrim-: Belated Merry Christmas!

December #4:

Stage Blood (short story) by Kat Howard - 1.5 stars

This short story, by an author whom I have never encountered before, also came from Subterranean Online. It is set in the modern world, and is centred on a stage magician, but tells its story in the stylised language of fairytale. As such it explains nothing.

The magic, the motivations - nothing is explained.

That makes it unsatisfying as ordinary story, but does it work in its designated form of fairytale? I did not feel that it did. It has the punchline, the 'truth', that demonstrates that this is the form that the writer was aiming for.

But real fairytales evolve over the years. They survive because they hold a message that seems profound, not simply 'good stories'. This story's message felt trite. It did not seem an organic part of the premise; one could see the construction.

This was prettily done, but unconvincing. It did not work for me.

November #8:


All Preachers Great and Small by Peter Gammons (illus. by Drew Northcott) - 1.5 stars

This was another discovery from a crate of my parents' books. It has a publication date in the eighties. There are no biographical details about the author, other than listing a couple of earlier publications - such as Believing Is Seeing - which appear also to have a religious theme. So I cannot tell whether or not this author is the same Peter Gammons is the same American evangelist who recently founded a British political party on the right.

In essence, this is a joke book. Mostly the entries are clippings from local newspapers, sometimes they are straight old, hoary humour.

The setting is sometimes American, sometimes British. All the humour is about Christianity - there are a lot of Church of England examples, but various Protestant denominations are well-represented too.

The anecdotes are collected under various headings: birth, marriage, death and so on.

I found the standard very poor. The actual anecdotes/jokes were all very old and well-worn. I had heard them all many times before (and probably had even in the eighties, when this was written). The majority of the "humour" came from misprints in local newspapers, or problems arising from unwise punctuation or inadvertent unfortunate juxtapositions in church notices.

Our own Green Dragon's Bad Joke of the Day threads do such things to a rather higher standard.

The book is interspersed with cartoons by Drew Northcott. These are in the pen-and-ink sketch style, and their humour appears to be text-based, given the usual presence of speech bubbles. Since the process of shrinking these sketches to fit the page rendered the text unreadable, I found these completely unfunny.

Note: this is humour about Christianity, not humour attacking Christianity. I found it a little insensitive at times (e.g. laughing at mishaps at funerals) but never malicious.

i don't think I am going to make it to 2022 my midnight under my own steam this year, so I hereby invite everyone to a PIFFLE PARTY!

>135 -pilgrim-:
I presume the provision of cheeses and wines will be considered standard.

Only a few posts to go. We can make it. We still have seven hours and twenty minutes.

We have time to do a piffle pile for sure. You never know who might drop in!

>138 Bookmarque: I know I said I’d given up commenting because I ran out of superlatives, but OMG what a picture!

I am assuming this piffle party goes until midnight your time, not mine, right?

Just want to make sure I don't leave it to the last minute and then find out I was 4-6hrs off!

Because being late a couple of minutes is one thing.....

....but several hours? INEXCUSABLE!!! (said in my best "inconceivable" voice)

Oh, is the mark 150 or 175? I can't remember.

Not that it REALLY matters, as I have the day off and am writing my year in review post.

which I left to the last day to write. So I'm stuck in front of the computer.

>137 pgmcc: Oops, didn't see that hours/minutes comment. Thanks

>136 pgmcc: This is the Green Dragon, so cheese is of course standard.

And, since it is New Year's Eve, also vodka, caviar and Russian salad.

>138 Bookmarque: Such beautiful visitors are always welcome.

>143 BookstoogeLT: I am glad to see such excellent piffle pundits appearing...

Have some sausage:



(platter at Darling Brewery)

and some wine



Herold Winery between Oudtshoorn and George. This gives you a choice of red, white, rosé, sweet or dry. The one one the right is witblits, distilled to 50% w/v alcohol. Beware!

I am delighted to see the party in full-swing. The range of nibbles and booze is very interesting.

>151 hfglen: Thank you, Hugh. I appreciate how, as a traditional New Year guest, you have brought drinks and tasty snacks to the party.

To you; and to all here! *raises a glass*

And once again, I am late (and somewhat superfluous) to the piffle party! You're probably all set, >153 -pilgrim-: since I believe the 150 mark is the trigger. I look forward to reading your thread in 2022.

>153 -pilgrim-:
Sláinte!

Happy New Year!

>154 jillmwo: You are welcomr nevertheless, Jill. Thank you for dropping by.

I'd say we all did an excellent job in getting this job done.
* dusts hands off *

I think all this hard work deserves some eggnog!

>114 -pilgrim-: If you were the person who got almost half of the group reading this one, then thank you so much. I loved it.

>157 BookstoogeLT: Eggnog? Not an offer I had expected to hear from YOU my friend! Are you bringing pigs in blankets too?!

>158 clamairy: It was a joint effort. I think it was Karlstar week introduced me to the idea of reading it day by day through October, and so prompted my own reread.

But I was recommending it enthusiastically as "a horror-themed book for people who don't like horror stories".

Happy belated piffling, Happy New Year!

What they all said. Happy new year to you, and looking forward to lots of great rea ding in 2022.

Have a great 2022, -pilgrim-.

Thank you everyone. And a best wishes for a better year to you all.

December Summary

Average rating: 2.66
Weighted average: 3.06
Audiobooks average: 3.20

17 fiction:
Novels: 4 crime fiction, 2 science fiction, 1 autobiographical fiction
Novella: 1 urban fantasy
Novelettes: 2 science fiction, 1 crime fiction
Short stories: 2 urban fantasy, 2 science fiction, 1 literary fiction, 1 Christian fiction

2 non-fiction:
1 self-help
1 political essays

Original language: 18 English, 1 French

Earliest date of first publication: 1900 (Three Men on the Bummel)
Latest: August 2021 (The Quantum Curators and the Missing Codex)

9 Kindle, 2 audiobooks, 2 websites, 1 paperback

Authors: 11 male, 5 female
Author nationality: 7 American, 5 British, 2 Irish, 1 French, 1 unknown
New (to me) authors: 10 (6 familiar)

Most popular book on LT: The Little Prince (37, 205)
Least popular: Stage Blood/The Coming of the Crow (short stories) /A Flint in the Mud/But A Flint Holds Fire/Needles and Pins(novelettes) / Joseph and the Three Gifts - the Angel's Story (short story)(audiobook) (1) / Good Deeds and Bad Intentions (novella) (7) / Welcome to Nowhere (8)

No. of books read: 19
From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 2
Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 2
Rereads: 0
No. of books acquired: 38
No. of books disposed of: 3
Expenditure on books: £72

Best Book of December: The Third Eagle: lessons on a minor string
Worst Book of December: Needles and Pins from Knaves Over Queens (novelette) / The Quantum Curators and the Missing Codex

Books Awaiting Review from 2021

Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 1
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August: 3
Books awaiting review from September: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 5
Books awaiting review from November: 10
Books awaiting review from December: 16

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

>159 -pilgrim-: The american version of eggnog :-D
like this:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Hood-Golden-Egg-Nog-0-5-gal/22259082

>168 BookstoogeLT: Yes, that is a salient difference!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/egg_nog_64580

I have only just learnt what Americans mean by cider...

Film #41 (and #1!)


Yolki (Ёлки) (2010, Russian)
Dir.: Timur Bekmambetov - 4.5 stars

As the New Year approached, it seemed time to introduce a friend to this quintessential New Year's film.

I think why like it so much is that there is no 'bad guy' or 'fall guy'. There is no one who has to lose in order for the characters whom we care about to win. The nearest we get is a couple of would-be bullies who fail in their attempt to humiliate someone. But they are not humiliated in "due" turn; they simply fail in their attempt. A presidential aide does lose his McDonald's meal, but that is just a minor irritation for him, and it was an accident, not by deliberate intent. (And he does get his own happy ending in a later film.)

There is so much deliberate cruelty and casual unkindness in this world today that I do not enjoy seeing it in "comedy".

I love this film for its fundamental kindness. It does not preach heavy-handedly, but has a simple message that the world can be better place if people help one another (and that includes racial inclusivity - it is a Tajik "guest worker", not one of the great and powerful, who saves the day). Also, the man of your dreams is not the handsome two-timer (but may be the kindly, pudgy fireman goes out of his way on New Year's Eve to try to help you realize your dreams).

When I was young, we used to watch It's a Wonderful Life at Christmas. I think this film may become my New Year's Eve tradition.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (translated by Raymond Rosenthal) - 4 stars
is reviewed
at https://www.librarything.com/topic/338144#7765979

Books Awaiting Review from 2021

Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 2
Books awaiting review from May: 5
Books awaiting review from June: 1
Books awaiting review from July: 4
Books awaiting review from August: 3
Books awaiting review from September: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 4
Books awaiting review from November: 10
Books awaiting review from December: 16

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

Books awaiting review from January: 1
Books awaiting review from February: 1
Books awaiting review from March: 1
Books awaiting review from April: 1
Books awaiting review from October: 3
Books awaiting review from December: 4

November Viewing #17: The Professor reviewed here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/340010#7785750