PAUL C'S SECOND HOME - PART 21

SCENES FROM MY BOOKS

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor for the November BAC

POETRY

This is "The Truly Great" by Stephen Spender. Spender was an intimate of Auden and MacNeice and was extremely popular in his lifetime. His reputation has waned a little over the last couple of decades and he is rarely mentioned in the same breath as some of his contemporaries which is a shame and a little unfair.

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget

The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud

And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Reading Record First Quarter

JANUARY

1. Plague 99 by Jean Ure (1989) 218 pp
2. Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1857) 309 pp
3. A Lear of the Steppes by Ivan Turgenev (1870) 117 pp
4. A Fall from the Sky by Ian Serraillier (1966) 78 pp
5. The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri (2015) 262 pp
6. Dove on the Waters by Maurice Shadbolt (1996) 198 pp
7. A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson (2019) 81 pp
8. The Other End of the Line by Andrea Camilleri (2016) 293 pp
9. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019) 208 pp
10. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (1930) 501 pp
11. Carrie's War by Nina Bawden (1973) 211 pp
12. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (2020) 430 pp
13. Judge Savage by Tim Parks (2003) 442 pp
14. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie (1962) 280 pp
15. Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (1969) 227 pp
16. Jazz by Toni Morrison (1992) 229 pp
17. A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell (1951) 230 pp

4,313 pages.

FEBRUARY

18. Junk by Melvyn Burgess (1996) 278 pp
19. The Great Fire by Monica Dickens (1970) 64 pp
20. At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie (1965) 265 pp
21. A Room of Own's Own by Virginia Woolf (1929) 153 pp
22. Bury the Dead by Peter Carter (1987) 374 pp
23. Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (2011) 390 pp
24. Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne (1873) 242 pp
25. Woods, etc. by Alice Oswald (2005) 56 pp
26. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg (2015) 293 pp
27. A Burning by Megha Majumdar (2020) 289 pp
28. Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch (2011) 373 pp
29. What is History? by Edward Hallett Carr (1961) 156 pp
30. A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell (1951) 278 pp

3,211 pages

MARCH

31. The Return : Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar (2016) 239 pp
32. The Hammer of the Scots by Jean Plaidy (1978) 417 pp
33. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon (2015) 101 pp
34. Some Experiences of an Irish RM by Somerville & Ross (1899) 223 pp
35. The Age of Improvement 1783-1867 by Asa Briggs (1959) 523 pp
36. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (1853) 203 pp

1,706 pages

Reading Record Second Quarter

APRIL

37. Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham (2013) 439 pp
38. Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid (2000) 270 pp
39. Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha (2013) 200 pp
40. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (2001) 428 pp
41. Blue Horses by Mary Oliver (2014) 79 pp
42. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864) 160 pp
43. The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers by Fouad Laroui (2012) 134 pp
44. The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham (2014) 457 pp
45. Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana (2019) 244 pp
46. Figures in a Landscape by Barry England (1968) 208 pp
47. Echoland by Per Petterson (1989) 132 pp
48. Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith (2019) 205 pp

2,956 pages

MAY

49. The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley (1984) 330 pp
50. I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne (2004) 210 pp
51. Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan (2018) 71 pp

611 pages (maybe my worst ever performance!)

JUNE

52. Still Waters by Viveca Sten (2008) 434 pp
53. Half a Life by VS Naipaul (2001) 211 pp
54. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (1969) 169 pp
55. A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1944) 269 pp
56. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell (2020) 370 pp
57. Springtime in a Broken Mirror by Mario Benedetti (1982) 181 pp
58. My Country : A Syrian Memoir by Kassim Eid (2018) 194 pp
59. Vita Nova by Louise Gluck (1999) 51 pp
60. The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim (2019) 241 pp
61. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (1946) 154 pp
62. Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood (1935) 230 pp
63. Mr Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons (2010) 355 pp
64. Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge (1977) 212 pp
65. In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen (2014) 244 pp
66. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (2015) 438 pp
67. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1851) 1,179 pp
68. Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass (1961) 191 pp
69. No Turning Back by Beverley Naidoo (1995) 191 pp
70. Look at Me by Anita Brookner (1983) 192 pp
71. Vice Versa by F. Anstey (1882) 219 pp
72. The Age of Revolution by Eric Hobsbawm (1975) 308 pp
73. Mrs Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw (1893) 98 pp

6,131 pages (best for a while)

Reading Record 3rd Quarter

JULY

74. Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling by William Fotheringham (2015) 345 pp
75. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling (1997) 332 pp
76. Rendang by Will Harris (2020) 85 pp
77. Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (2016) 383 pp
78. Corridors of Power by C.P. Snow (1964) 352 pp
79. Arab Jazz by Karim Miske (2012) 242 pp
80. The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier (1949) 136 pp
81. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (2000) 395 pp
82. The Quality of Madness by Tim Rich (2020) 417 pp
83. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner (2006) 404 pp
84. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838) 162 pp
85. The Devil's Pool by George Sand (1846) 119 pp

3,372 pages

AUGUST

86. Poetry Please! edited by Charles Causley (1985) 113 pp
87. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020) 448 pp
88. Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Edward Shepherd Creasy (1851) 380 pp
89. Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell (2011) 380 pp
90. Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2021) 85 pp
91. The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell (2013) 345 pp
92. The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso (2011) 267 pp
93. Here and Now by Stephen Dunn (2011) 103 pp
94. I am, I am, I am by Maggie O'Farrell (2017) 285 pp
95. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe (1958) 189 pp
96. The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1954) 322 pp
97. At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (2018) 145 pp
98. A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow (1960) 345 pp
99. The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (2000) 282 pp

3,689 pages

SEPTEMBER

100. Pew by Catherine Lacey (2020) 207 pp
101. Northlight by Douglas Dunn (1988) 81 pp
102. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende (2019) 349 pp
103. The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf (1992) 192 pp
104. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1967) 118 pp
105. Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (2020) 107 pp

Reading Record 4th Quarter

OCTOBER

106. Everyman's Poetry : Alfred, Lord Tennyson by Alfred Lord Tennyson 1996 103 pp
107. The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (1995) 247 pp
108. The Face of Battle by John Keegan (1976) 336 pp
109. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (2021) 589 pp
110. The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes (1956) 272 pp
111. The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (2021) 372 pp
112. Corpus by Rory Clements (2017) 464 pp
113. The Promise by Damon Galgut (2021) 293 pp

NOVEMBER

114. Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw (2016) 91 pp

CURRENTLY READING

BAC



January: Children's Classics https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7317610 9 READ

February: LGBT+ History Month https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7317871 2 READ

March: Vaseem Khan & Eleanor Hibbert https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7318561 1 READ

April: Love is in the Air https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7319432 2 READ

May: V. S. Naipaul & Na'ima B. Robert https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7320231 1 READ

June: The Victorian Era (1837-1901) https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7320541 3 READ

July: Don't judge a book by its movie https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7321220 10 READ

August: Bernard Cornwell & Helen Oyeyemi https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7321374 2 READ

September: She Blinded Me with Science https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7321899

October: Narrative Poetry https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7322840 3 read

November: Tade Thompson & Elizabeth Taylor https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7323772

December: Awards & Honors https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7325017 2 READ

Wildcard: Books off your shelves https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7325595 17 READ

52 BOOKS READ TO DATE

AMERICAN AUTHOR CHALLENGE



Please see:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/327669#7354831

January : Keep it in the Family :
February : Ethan Canin
March : Roxane Gay
April : Makers of Music : Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith
May : Mary McCarthy
June : Ken Kesey
July : Native American Themes : The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
August : Connie Willis
September : Howard Norman
October : Attica Locke
November : Albert Murray
December : YA Fiction

BOOKERS
Personal Reading Challenge: Every winner of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1969

1969: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For - READ
1970: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
1970: J. G. Farrell, Troubles (awarded in 2010 as the Lost Man Booker Prize) - READ
1971: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
1972: John Berger, G.
1973: J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur - READ
1974: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist ... and Stanley Middleton, Holiday - READ
1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust - READ
1976: David Storey, Saville - READ
1977: Paul Scott, Staying On - READ
1978: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore - READ
1980: William Golding, Rites of Passage - READ
1981: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children - READ
1982: Thomas Keneally, Schindler's Ark - READ
1983: J. M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
1984: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac - READ
1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People
1986: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils - READ
1987: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger - READ
1988: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda
1989: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
1990: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance - READ
1991: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
1992: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient ... and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger - READ
1993: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994: James Kelman, How late it was, how late
1995: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
1996: Graham Swift, Last Orders - READ
1997: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things READ
1998: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam - READ
1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace - READ
2000: Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
2001: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang - READ
2002: Yann Martel, Life of Pi READ
2003: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
2004: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
2005: John Banville, The Sea - READ
2006: Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
2007: Anne Enright, The Gathering - READ
2008: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger - READ
2009: Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall - READ
2010: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question
2011: Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending - READ
2012: Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies - READ
2013: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries
2014: Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North - READ
2015: Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings - READ
2016: Paul Beatty, The Sellout - READ
2017: George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
2018: Anna Burns, Milkman
2019: Margaret Atwood, The Testaments, and Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other
2020: Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain READ JAN 21
2021: Damon Galgut, The Promise READ

READ 34 of 57 WINNERS

Pulitzer Winners

As with the Bookers, I want to eventually read all the Pulitzer winners (for fiction at least) and have most of the recent ones on the shelves at least. Current status.

Fiction

1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole
1919 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Booth Tarkington
1921 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Edith Wharton
1922 ALICE ADAMS - Booth Tarkington
1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather
1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
1925 SO BIG - Edna Ferber
1926 ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined)
1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
1928 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY - Thornton Wilder
1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge ON SHELVES
1931 YEARS OF GRACE - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 THE GOOD EARTH - Pearl Buck
1933 THE STORE - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934 LAMB IN HIS BOSOM - Caroline Miller
1935 NOW IN NOVEMBER - Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 HONEY IN THE HORN - Harold L Davis
1937 GONE WITH THE WIND - Margaret Mitchell ON SHELVES
1938 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY - John Phillips Marquand
1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940 THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck
1942 IN THIS OUR LIFE - Ellen Glasgow
1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
1944 JOURNEY IN THE DARK - Martin Flavin
1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey
1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren ON SHELVES
1948 TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC - James Michener
1949 GUARD OF HONOR - James Gould Cozzens
1950 THE WAY WEST - A.B. Guthrie
1951 THE TOWN - Conrad Richter
1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
1953 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway
1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner
1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor
1958 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY - James Agee ON SHELVES
1959 THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE McPHEETERS - Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 ADVISE AND CONSENT - Allen Drury
1961 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee
1962 THE EDGE OF SADNESS - Edwin O'Connor
1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner ON SHELVES
1965 THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE - Shirley Ann Grau
1966 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 THE FIXER - Bernard Malamud
1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron
1969 HOUSE MADE OF DAWN - N Scott Momaday ON SHELVES
1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford
1972 ANGLE OF REPOSE - Wallace Stegner ON SHELVES
1973 THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER - Eudora Welty ON SHELVES
1975 THE KILLER ANGELS - Jeff Shaara ON SHELVES
1976 HUMBOLDT'S GIFT - Saul Bellow
1978 ELBOW ROOM - James Alan McPherson
1979 THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER - John Cheever ON SHELVES
1980 THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG - Norman Mailer ON SHELVES
1981 A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES - John Kennedy Toole ON SHELVES
1982 RABBIT IS RICH - John Updike
1983 THE COLOR PURPLE - Alice Walker ON SHELVES
1984 IRONWEED - William Kennedy ON SHELVES
1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie ON SHELVES
1986 LONESOME DOVE - Larry McMurtry ON SHELVES
1987 A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor
1988 BELOVED - Toni Morrison - ON SHELVES
1989 BREATHING LESSONS - Anne Tyler
1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos
1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike
1992 A THOUSAND ACRES - Jane Smiley
1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler
1994 THE SHIPPING NEWS - E Annie Proulx
1995 THE STONE DIARIES - Carol Shields ON SHELVES
1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford ON SHELVES
1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser ON SHELVES
1998 AMERICAN PASTORAL - Philip Roth ON SHELVES
1999 THE HOURS - Michael Cunningham ON SHELVES
2000 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES - Jumpha Lahiri
2001 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY - Michael Chabon ON SHELVES
2002 EMPIRE FALLS - Richard Russo ON SHELVES
2003 MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides ON SHELVES
2004 THE KNOWN WORLD - Edward P. Jones ON SHELVES
2005 GILEAD - Marilynne Robinson ON SHELVES
2006 MARCH - Geraldine Brooks
2007 THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy
2008 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO - Junot Diaz ON SHELVES
2009 OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout ON SHELVES
2010 TINKERS - Paul Harding
2011 A VISIT FROM THE GOOD SQUAD - Jennifer Egan ON SHELVES
2013 ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - Adam Johnson ON SHELVES
2014 THE GOLDFINCH - Donna Tartt ON SHELVES
2015 ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE - Anthony Doerr ON SHELVES
2016 THE SYMPATHIZER - Viet Thanh Nguyen ON SHELVES
2017 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - Colson Whitehead ON SHELVES
2018 LESS - Andrew Sean Greer ON SHELVES
2019 THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers ON SHELVES
2020 THE NICKEL BOYS - Colson Whitehead
2021 THE NIGHT WATCHMAN - Louise Erdrich


19 READ
37 ON SHELVES
38 NOT OWNED OR READ

94 TOTAL

NOBELS

Update on my Nobel Prize Winning Reading:
1901 Sully Prudhomme
1902 Theodor Mommsen
1903 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
1904 Frédéric Mistral and José Echegaray y Eizaquirre
1905 Henryk Sienkiewicz
1906 Giosuè Carducci
1907 Rudyard Kipling - READ
1908 Rudolf Christoph Eucken
1909 Selma Lagerlöf
1910 Paul Heyse --
1911 Count Maurice Maeterlinck
1912 Gerhart Hauptmann
1913 Rabindranath Tagore - READ
1915 Romain Rolland
1916 Verner von Heidenstam
1917 Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan
1919 Carl Spitteler
1920 Knut Hamsun - READ
1921 Anatole France - READ
1922 Jacinto Benavente
1923 William Butler Yeats - READ
1924 Wladyslaw Reymont
1925 George Bernard Shaw - READ
1926 Grazia Deledda - READ
1927 Henri Bergson
1928 Sigrid Undset
1929 Thomas Mann - READ
1930 Sinclair Lewis - READ
1931 Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1932 John Galsworthy - READ
1933 Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin - READ
1934 Luigi Pirandello - READ
1936 Eugene O'Neill - READ
1937 Roger Martin du Gard
1938 Pearl S. Buck - READ
1939 Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1944 Johannes Vilhelm Jensen
1945 Gabriela Mistral
1946 Hermann Hesse - READ
1947 André Gide - READ
1948 T.S. Elliot - READ
1949 William Faulkner - READ
1950 Bertrand Russell - READ
1951 Pär Lagerkvist - READ
1952 François Mauriac - READ
1953 Sir Winston Churchill - READ
1954 Ernest Hemingway - READ
1955 Halldór Laxness - READ
1956 Juan Ramón Jiménez
1957 Albert Camus - READ
1958 Boris Pasternak (declined the prize) - READ
1959 Salvatore Quasimodo
1960 Saint-John Perse
1961 Ivo Andric - READ
1962 John Steinbeck - READ
1963 Giorgos Seferis
1964 Jean-Paul Sartre (declined the prize) - READ
1965 Michail Sholokhov
1966 Shmuel Yosef Agnon and Nelly Sachs - READ
1967 Miguel Ángel Asturias
1968 Yasunari Kawabata - READ
1969 Samuel Beckett - READ
1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - READ
1971 Pablo Neruda - READ
1972 Heinrich Böll - READ
1973 Patrick White
1974 Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson
1975 Eugenio Montale
1976 Saul Bellow - READ
1977 Vincente Aleixandre
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer - READ
1979 Odysseas Elytis - READ
1980 Czeslaw Milosz - READ
1981 Elias Canetti
1982 Gabriel Garciá Márquez - READ
1983 William Golding - READ
1984 Jaroslav Seifert - READ
1985 Claude Simon - READ
1986 Akinwande Ouwoe Soyinka
1987 Joseph Brodsky - READ
1988 Naguib Mahfouz - READ
1989 Camilo José Cela - READ
1990 Octavio Paz
1991 Nadine Gordimer - READ
1992 Derek Walcott - READ
1993 Toni Morrison - READ
1994 Kenzaburo Oe - READ
1995 Seamus Heaney - READ
1996 Wislawa Szymborska - READ
1997 Dario Fo - READ
1998 José Saramago - READ
1999 Günter Grass - READ
2000 Gao Xingjian
2001 Vidiadhar Surjprasad Naipaul - READ
2002 Imre Kertész - READ
2003 John Maxwell Coetzee - READ
2004 Elfriede Jelinek - READ
2005 Harold Pinter - READ
2006 Orhan Pamuk - READ
2007 Doris Lessing - READ
2008 J.M.G. Le Clézio
2009 Herta Müller - READ
2010 Mario Vargas Llosa - READ
2011 Tomas Tranströmer - READ
2012 Mo Yan
2013 Alice Munro - READ
2014 Patrick Modiano - READ
2015 Svetlana Alexievich - READ
2016 Bob Dylan - READ
2017 Kazuo Ishiguro - READ
2018 Olga Tokarczuk - READ
2019 Peter Handke - READ
2020 Louise Gluck - READ
2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah - READ

READ 74 OF
118 LAUREATES

AROUND THE WORLD CHALLENGE

Around the world in books challenge. I want to see how many countries I can cover without limiting myself to a specific deadline.

From 1 October 2020

1. United Kingdom - The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard EUROPE
2. Ireland - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde EUROPE
3. Lithuania - Selected and Last Poems by Czeslaw Milosz EUROPE
4. Netherlands - The Ditch by Herman Koch EUROPE
5. Armenia - The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian ASIA PACIFIC
6. Zimbabwe - This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga AFRICA
7. United States - Averno by Louise Gluck AMERICA
8. Australia - Taller When Prone by Les Murray ASIA PACIFIC
9. France - Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrere EUROPE
10. Russia - The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov EUROPE
11. Denmark - Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard EUROPE
12. Democratic Republic of Congo - Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanze Mujila AFRICA
13. Canada - I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven AMERICA
14. Italy - The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri EUROPE
15. New Zealand - Dove on the Waters by Maurice Shadbolt ASIA PACIFIC
16. India - A Burning by Megha Majumdar ASIA PACIFIC
17. Libya - The Return by Hisham Matar AFRICA
18. Pakistan - Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid ASIA PACIFIC
19. South Korea - Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha ASIA PACIFIC
20. Morocco - The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers by Fouad Laroui AFRICA
21. Thailand - Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana ASIA PACIFIC
22. Norway - Echoland by Per Petterson EUROPE
23. Belgium - I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne EUROPE
24. Sweden - Still Waters by Viveca Sten EUROPE
25. Trinidad - Half a Life by VS Naipaul AMERICAS
26. Sudan - Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih AFRICA
27. Uruguay - Springtime in a Broken Mirror by Mario Benedetti AMERICAS
28. Syria - My Country : A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid ASIA PACIFIC
29. Ghana - The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim AFRICA
30. Austria - Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl EUROPE
31. Germany - Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass EUROPE
32. South Africa - No Turning Back by Beverley Naidoo AFRICA
33. Mauritania - Arab Jazz by Karim Miske AFRICA
34. Cuba - The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier AMERICAS
35. Nigeria - Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie AFRICA
36. Portugal - The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso EUROPE
37. Japan - Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe ASIA PACIFIC
38. Senegal - At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop AFRICA
39. Malta - The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi EUROPE
40. Chile - A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende AMERICAS
41. Lebanon - The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf ASIA PACIFIC
42. Spain - The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon EUROPE
43. Somalia - The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed AFRICA
44. Malaysia - Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw ASIA PACIFIC


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

QUEEN VIC CHALLENGE
Regarding my Victorian Era Challenge which I started this month with the aim of completing it by the end of 2021. 64 years. 64 books. 64 authors.

From Dec 2020

1838 NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET by Poe
1843 FEAR AND TREMBLING by Kierkegaard
1845 THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO by Dumas
1846 THE DEVIL'S POOL by Sand
1850 PENDENNIS by Thackeray
1851 FIFTEEN DECISIVE OF THE WORLD by Creasy
1853 CRANFORD by GASKELL
1854 CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE by Tennyson
1857 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS by Hughes
1864 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND by Dostoevsky
1870 A LEAR OF THE STEPPES by Turgenev
1873 AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS by Verne
1881 PRINCE AND THE PAUPER by Twain
1882 VICE VERSA by Anstey
1893 MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION by Shaw
1899 SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH RM by Somerville & Ross
1900 THREE SISTERS by Chekhov

17/64

QUEEN BETTY CHALLENGE

From December 2020 70 Years 70 Books 70 Different British Authors

1952 A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell
1954 The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner
1956 The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes
1959 The Age of Improvement by Asa Briggs
1960 A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
1961 What is History? by EH Carr
1962 The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side by Agatha Christie
1964 Corridors of Power by CP Snow
1966 A Fall from the Sky by Ian Serraillier
1967 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
1968 Figures in a Landscape by Barry England
1969 Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Framer
1970 The Great Fire by Monica Dickens
1973 Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
1975 The Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm
1976 The Face of Battle by John Keegan
1977 Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge
1978 The Hammer of the Scots by Jean Plaidy
1983 Look at Me by Anita Brookner
1984 The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
1985 Poetry Please! edited by Charles Causley
1987 Bury the Dead by Peter Carter
1988 Northlight by Douglas Dunn
1989 Plague 99 by Jean Ure
1996 Junk by Melvyn Burgess
1997 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
2000 The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi
2001 Half a Life by VS Naipaul
2003 Judge Savage by Tim Parks
2005 Woods, etc. by Alice Oswald
2010 Mr Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons
2011 Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
2013 A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre
2014 The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham
2015 Bernard Hinault and the Fall and Rise of French Cycling by William Fotheringham
2017 I am, I am, I am by Maggie O'Farrell
2018 Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan
2019 A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson
2020 Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
2021 The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

40/70

52 BOOK CLUB CHALLENGE

Based on this challenge suggested by Katie & Chelle

https://www.the52book.club/challenges/2021-reading-challenge/

January
Week 1 : Set in a school : Tom Brown's Schooldays by Hughes Read 2 Jan 2021
Week 2 : Legal profession : Judge Savage by Tim Parks Read 28 Jan 2021
Week 3 : Dual timeline : Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer Read 29 Jan 2021
Week 4 : Deceased author : Jazz by Toni Morrison READ 30 Jan 2021
Week 5 : Published by Penguin : Junk by Melvyn Burgess READ 3 Feb 2021
Week 6 : Male Family Member : Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch READ 12 Feb 2021
Week 7 : 1 Published Work : A Burning by Megha Majumdar READ 19 Feb 2021
Week 8 : Dewey 900 Class : What is History? by EH Carr READ 28 February
Week 9 : Set in a Mediterranean Country : The Return by Hisham Matar READ 5 MAR 2021
Week 10 : Book with discussion questions : Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham READ 2 APR
Week 11 : Relating to fire : Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid READ 4 APR
Week 12 : Title Starting with D : Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha READ 6 APR
Week 13 : Includes an Exotic Animal : Life of Pi by Yann Martel READ 11 April
Week 14 : Written by an author over 65 : Blue Horses by Mary Oliver READ 14 April
Week 15 : Book Mentioned in a book : Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky READ 15 April
Week 16 : Set before 17th Century : Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell READ 5 June
Week 17 : Character on the run : Figures in a Landscape by Barry England READ 26 April
Week 18 : Author with 9 letter surname : Springtime in a Broken Mirror by Mario Benedetti READ 6 JUNE
Week 19 : Book with a deckled edge : In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen READ 21 JUNE
Week 20 : Became a TV series : Corridors of Power by CP Snow READ 12 JUL
Week 21 : Book by Kristin Hannah : The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah READ 22 JUNE
Week 22 : A Family Saga : Mr Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons READ 14 JUN
Week 23 : Surprising Ending : Still Waters by Viveca Sten READ 2 JUN
Week 24 : Book to be read in schools : Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl READ
Week 25 : Multiple POVs : Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys READ 11 JUL
Week 26 : Author of Colour : The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim READ 8 JUN
Week 27 : 1st Chapter Odd Page : The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner READ 25 JUL
Week 28 : Little known historical event : The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier READ 20 JUL
Week 29 : The Environment : The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf READ 16 SEP
Week 30 : Dragons : Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling READ 8 JUL
Week 31 : Similar Title : The Return by Dulce Maria Cardoso READ 9 AUG
Week 32 : Selfish Character : The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner READ 24 AUG
Week 33 : Adoption : The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi READ 31 AUG
Week 34 : Five Star Read : Poetry Please! by Charles Causley READ 1 AUG
Week 35 :
Week 36 : Nameless Narrator : Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe READ 22 AUG
Week 37 :
Week 38 :
Week 39 : Alternate History : Corpus by Rory Clements READ 30 OCT
Week 40 :
Week 41 : Endorsement by Author : At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop READ 28 AUG
Week 42 :
Week 43 :
Week 44 :
Week 45 :
Week 46 :
Week 47 :
Week 48 : Woman Facing Away : A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow READ 30 AUG
Week 49 :
Week 50 :
Week 51 : Published in 2021 : Notes on Grief by Adichie READ 7 AUG
Week 52 : Repeat Category : The Promise by Damon Galgut READ 31 OCT

SERIES PAIR CHALLENGE

January : Andrea Camilleri - MONTALBANO DONE
February : Agatha Christie - MISS MARPLE DONE
March : Ben Aaronovitch - PETER GRANT DONE
April : Harry Bingham - FIONA GRIFFITHS DONE
May : Megan Whalen Turner - EUGENIDES DONE
June : Bernard Cornwell - UHTRED DONE

BRITISH HISTORIANS

As if I don't have enough challenges! I want to polish up on my reading and re-reading of the British historians who either inspired me as a student or who I have since come to greatly admire

The French Revolution by Thomas CARLYLE 1837
The Age of Improvement by Asa BRIGGS 1959 READ MAR 21
The History of England by Thomas Babington MACAULAY 1848
The Making of the English Working Class by EP THOMPSON 1963
Fifteen Decisive Battles by EDWARD CREASEY 1851 READ AUG 21
What is History? by EH CARR 1961 READ FEB 21
The Course of German History by AJP TAYLOR 1945
The American Future by Simon SCHAMA 2009
The Face of Battle by John KEEGAN 1976 READ OCT 21
The King's Peace by CV WEDGWOOD 1955
The Age of Capital by ERIC HOBSBAWM 1975 READ JUN 21

READ MORE THAN ACQUIRED

Last year I added 300 books but read 50 of them. In addition I have another 4,500 plus on the TBR.
The challenge is not to make the situation of my TBR worse.
So I must read or remove from my wider TBR more than I acquire this year and I will gauge this against last years "new" TBR and any future incomings. Therefore the older TBRs don't count against this challenge.

The figure at the start of the year is 250 books and this number must be smaller by December 31. These are the 250 books:

1 Stay with Me Adebayo
2 American War Akkad
3 The Catholic School Albinati
4 The Unwomanly Face of War Alexievich
5 Saltwater Andrews
6 Big Sky Atkinson
7 At the Jerusalem Bailey
8 The Body Lies Baker
9 The Lost Memory of Skin Banks
10 Remembered Battle-Felton
11 Springtime in a Broken Mirror Benedetti READ JUN 21
12 A Crime in the Neighborhood Berne
13 Stand By Me Berry
14 Love Story, With Murders Bingham READ APR 21
15 This Thing of Darkness Bingham
16 The Sandcastle Girls Bohjalian
17 The Ascent of Rum Doodle Bowman
18 Clade Bradley
19 The Snow Ball Brophy
20 Paladin of Souls Bujold
21 Parable of the Sower Butler
22 The Adventures of China Iron Camara
23 The Overnight Kidnapper Camilleri READ JAN 21
24 The Other End of the Line Camilleri READ JAN 21
25 Lord of all the Dead Cercas
26 Uncle Vanya Checkov
27 The Cherry Orchard Checkov
28 Blue Moon Child
29 Trust Exercise Choi
30 The Night Tiger Choo
31 The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side Christie READ JAN 21
32 At Bertram's Hotel Christie READ FEB 21
33 The Water Dancer Coates
34 The New Wilderness Cook
35 Hopscotch Cortazar
36 The Illumination of Ursula Flight Crowhurst
37 Deviation D'Eramo
38 Boy Swallows Universe Dalton
39 The Girl with the Louding Voice Dare
40 The Rose of Tibet Davidson
41 Dhalgren Delany
42 The Butterfly Girl Denfeld
43 Vernon Subutex 1 Despentes
44 Postcolonial Love Poem Diaz READ SEP 21
45 Childhood Ditlevsen
46 Youth Ditlevsen
47 Dependency Ditlevsen
48 Burnt Sugar Doshi
49 Frenchman's Creek Du Maurier D
50 Trilby Du Maurier G
51 Sincerity Duffy
52 Sumarine Dunthorne
53 The Narrow Land Dwyer-Hickey
54 Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race Eddo-Lodge
55 Axiom's End Ellis
56 Figures in a Landscape England READ APR 21
57 kaddish.com Englander
58 Shadow Tag Erdrich
59 The Carpet Makers Eschbach
60 The Emperor's Babe Evaristo
61 Small Country Faye
62 To Rise Again at a Decent Hour Ferris
63 At Freddie's Fitzgerald
64 The Guest List Foley
65 Man's Search for Meaning Frankl READ JUN 21
66 Love in No Man's Land Ga
67 Norse Mythology Gaiman
68 The Spare Room Garner
69 The Kites Gary
70 Gun Island Ghosh
71 Vita Nova Gluck READ JUN 21
72 Trafalgar Gorodischer
73 Potiki Grace
74 Killers of the Flower Moon Grann
75 The Last Banquet Grimwood
76 Guapa Haddad
77 The Porpoise Haddon
78 Late in the Day Hadley
79 The Final Bet Hamdouchi
80 The Parisian Hammad
81 Nightingale Hannah
82 Coastliners Harris J
83 The Truths We Hold Harris K
84 Conclave Harris R
85 The Second Sleep Harris R
86 Tales of the Tikongs Hau'ofa
87 A Thousand Ships Haynes
88 The River Heller
89 Dead Lions Herron
90 Real Tigers Herron
91 War and Turpentine Hertmans
92 A Political History of the World Holslag
93 Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Honeyman
94 The Light Years Howard
95 Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself Huber
96 A High Wind in Jamaica Hughes
97 Ape and Essence Huxley
98 Me John
99 Nightblind Jonasson
100 Black Out Jonasson
101 How to be an Anti-Rascist Kendi
102 Death is Hard Work Khalifa
103 Darius the Great is Not Okay Khorram
104 Himself Kidd
105 Diary of a Murderer Kim READ APR 21
106 Dance of the Jacakranda Kimani
107 The Bridge Konigsberg
108 Who They Was Krauze
109 The Mars Room Kushner
110 The Princesse de Cleves La Fayette
111 The Other Americans Lalami
112 The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers Laroui READ APR 21
113 Fish Can Sing Laxness
114 Agent Running in the Field Le Carre
115 Pachinko Lee
116 The Turncoat Lenz
117 The Topeka School Lerner
118 Caging Skies Leunens
119 The Fifth Risk Lewis
120 The Three-Body Problem Liu
121 Lost Children Archive Luiselli
122 Black Moses Mabanckou
123 Blue Ticket Mackintosh
124 A Burning Majumdar READ FEB 21
125 The Mirror and the Light Mantel
126 Original Spin Marks
127 Deep River Marlantes
128 The Return Matar READ MAR 21
129 The Island Matute
130 Hame McAfee
131 Apeirogon McCann
132 Underland McFarlane
133 Hurricane Season Melchor
134 The Shadow King Mengiste
135 The Human Swarm Moffett
136 She Would Be King Moore
137 The Starless Sea Morgenstern
138 Poetry by Heart Motion
139 A Fairly Honourable Defeat Murdoch
140 The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov Nabokov
141 The Warlow Experiment Nathan
142 The Left-Handed Booksellers of London Nix
143 Born a Crime Noah
144 The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney Nzelu
145 Girl O'Brien
146 After You'd Gone O'Farrell
147 Henry, Himself O'Nan
148 Inland Obreht
149 Weather Offill
150 Dept. of Speculation Offill
151 Stag's Leap Olds
152 Blue Horses Oliver READ APR 21
153 Felicity Oliver
154 Will Olyslaegers
155 Woods, etc Oswald READ FEB 21
156 Night Theatre Paralkar
157 The Damascus Road Parini
158 Empress of the East Peirce
159 The Street Petry
160 Disappearing Earth Phillips
161 Arid Dreams Pimwana READ APR 21
162 Peterloo : Witness to a Massacre Polyp
163 Lanny Porter
164 The Women at Hitler's Table Postorino
165 A Question of Upbringing Powell A READ JAN 21
166 A Buyer's Market Powell A READ FEB 21
167 The Acceptance World Powell A
168 The Interrogative Mood Powell P
169 Rough Magic Prior-Palmer
170 The Alice Network Quinn
171 Where the Red Fern Grows Rawls
172 Such a Fun Age Reid
173 Selected Poems 1950-2012 Rich
174 The Discomfort of Evening Rijneveld
175 Jack Robinson
176 The Years of Rice and Salt Robinson K
177 A Portable Paradise Robinson R READ JAN 21
178 The Fall of the Ottomans Rogan
179 Normal People Rooney
180 Conversations with Friends Rooney
181 Alone Time Rosenbloom
182 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Rowling READ JUL 21
183 The Watch Roy-Bhattacharya
184 The Five Rubenhold
185 Contact Sagan
186 The Hunters Salter
187 The Seventh Cross Seghers
188 Will Self
189 Moses Ascending Selvon
190 The Dove on the Water Shadbolt READ JAN 21
191 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Shafak
192 In Arabian Nights Shah
193 The Caliph's House Shah
194 Mrs Warren's Profession Shaw READ JUN 21
195 Arms and the Man Shaw
196 Candida Shaw
197 Man and Superman Shaw
198 Dimension of Miracles Sheckley
199 The Last Man Shelley
200 Temple of a Thousand Faces Shors
201 Year of the Monkey Smith P READ APR 21
202 Eternity Smith T
203 Crossing Statovci
204 Lucy Church, Amiably Stein
205 Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead Stoppard READ SEP 21
206 Blood Cruise Strandberg
207 Shuggie Bain Stuart READ JAN 21
208 Three Poems Sullivan READ MAY 21
209 Rules for Perfect Murders Swanson
210 Cane River Tademy
211 Real Life Taylor
212 The Queen's Gambit Tevis
213 Far North Therous
214 Walden Thoreau
215 Civil Disobedience Thoreau
216 Survivor Song Tremblay
217 The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee Treuer
218 The Small House at Allingham Trollope
219 A Nest of Gentlefolk Turgenev
220 A Quiet Backwater Turgenev
221 A Lear of the Steppes Turgenev READ JAN 21
222 The Queen of Attolia Turner READ JUL 21
223 The King of Attolia Turner READ JUL 21
224 Redhead by the Side of the Road Tyler
225 Outlaw Ocean Urbina
226 Plague 99 Ure READ JAN 2021
227 The Age of Miracles Walker
228 The Uninhabitable Earth Wallace-Wells
229 Judith Paris Walpole
230 Love and Other Thought Experiments Ward
231 The Death of Mrs. Westaway Ware
232 Lolly Willows Warner
233 Second Life Watson
234 Final Cut Watson
235 Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen Weldon
236 Before the War Weldon
237 Lazarus West
238 Educated Westover
239 The Nickel Boys Whitehead READ JAN 21
240 The Death of Murat Idrissi Wieringa
241 Salome Wilde
242 An Ideal Husband Wilde
243 Lady Windemere's Fan Wilde
244 A Woman of No Importance Wilde
245 The Salt Path Winn
246 The Natural Way of Things Wood C
247 East Lynne Wood E
248 A Room of One's Own Woolf READ FEB 21
249 Interior Chinatown Yu
250 How Much of These Hills is Gold Zhang

BEGIN : 250
READ : 33
LEFT : 217

THIS YEAR'S ACQUISITIONS

1. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. by Somerville & Ross READ MAR 21
2. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome READ JAN 21
3. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
4. The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
5. The Black Corsair by Emilio Salgari
6. The Prime Ministers : Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to Johnson by Steve Richards
7. The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim READ JUN 21
8. Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante
9. Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli
10. The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
11. The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron
12. Death's Mistress by Terry Goodkind
13. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
14. Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi
15. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
16. Desert by JMG Le Clezio
17. For the Record by David Cameron
18. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
19. The Guardians of the West by David Eddings
20. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
21. The Council of Egypt by Leonardo Sciascia
22. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
23. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
24. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
25. Rupture by Ragnar Jonasson
26. White Out by Ragnar Jonasson
27. The Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm READ JUN 21
28. The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill
29. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
30. Modern Times by Paul Johnson
31. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy
32. The Warehouse by Rob Hart
33. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
34. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
35. Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings
36. Magician's Gambit by David Eddings
37. Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
38. In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan
39. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
40. The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
41. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
42. At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell
43. Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell
44. The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell
45. The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
46. Still Waters by Viveca Sten READ JUN 21
47. Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
48. The Europeans by Henry James
49. Vice Versa by F. Anstey READ JUN 21
50. A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
51. The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler Olsen
52. Closed for Winter Jorn Lier Horst
53. News of the World by Juliette Jiles
54. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon READ MAR 21
55. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri
56. Death in the Tuscan Hills by Marco Vichi
57. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
58. Good Morning Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
59. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
60. The Enchanted by Rene Denefeld
61. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
62. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis
63. The Innocents by Michael Crummey
64. Night Waking by Sarah Moss
65. Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
66. Throw me to the Wolves by Patrick McGuinness
67. Consent by Annabel Lyon
68. Selling Manhattan by Carole Ann Duffy
69. Rendang by Will Harris READ JUL 21
70. The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
71. No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
72. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
73. The Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff
74. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan
75. Afternoon Raag by Amit Chaudhuri
76. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
77. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
78. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
79. Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer
80. The Eastern Shore by Ward Just
81. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
82. The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
83. Vertigo& Ghost by Fiona Benson
84. Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
85. Soot by Dan Vyleta
86. Deacon King Kong by James McBride
87. Abigail by Magda Szabo
88. Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugresic
89. Coming Up for Air by Sarah Leipciger
90. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
91. Selection Day by Aravind Adiga
92. The Voyage by Murray Bail
93. Peace : A Novel by Richard Bausch
94. The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano
95. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
96. The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier READ JUL 21
97. My Life as a Russian Novel by Emmanuel Carrere
98. Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
99. Man V. Nature by Diane Cook
100. The Melody by Jim Crace
101. SS-GB by Len Deighton
102. Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
103. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
104. The Beautiful Indifference by Sarah Hall
105. Munich by Robert Harris
106. Bodies Electric by Colin Harrison
107. The Punch by Noah Hawley
108. Spook Street by Mick Herron
109. London Rules by Mick Herron
110. The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
111. The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby
112. The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes READ OCT 21
113. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
114. Exiles in the Garden by Ward Just
115. Duffy by Dan Kavanagh
116. The Good People by Hannah Kent
117. The Life to Come by Michelle de Krester
118. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin
119. 10:04 by Ben Lerner
120. Home is the Hunter by Helen MacInnes
121. Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
122. The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney
123. The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller
124. Arab Jazz by Karim Miske READ JUL 21
125. Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
126. Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates
127. The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe
128. The Horseman by Tim Pears
129. Echoland by Per Petterson READ APR 21
130. Last Stand by Michael Punke
131. The Waiting Time by Gerald Seymour
132. Home Run by Gerald Seymour
133. Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith
134. To the Back of Beyond by Peter Stamm
135. They Know Not What They Do by Jussi Valtonen
136. The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette Van Heugten
137. Smoke by Dan Vyleta
138. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
139. That Eye, The Sky by Tim Winton
140. Fear : Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
141. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell READ JUN 21
142. Gerta by Katerina Tuckova
143. My Country: A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid READ JUN 21
144. Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann
145. The Hotel Tito by Ivana Bodrozic
146. Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride
147. Blame by Paul Read
148. House of Lords and Commons by Ishion Hutchinson
149. To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek
150. Your Story, My Story by Connie Palmen
151. Wake Up : Why the World Has Gone Nuts by Piers Morgan
152. Death of a Coast Watcher by Anthony English
153. Limitless by Ala Glynn
154. Toddler Hunting and Other Stories by Taeko Kono
155. Daughter of the Tigris by Muhsin al-Ramli
156. Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
157. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
158. Incomparable World by S.L. Martin
159. The Dancing Face by Mike Phillips
160. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors
161. Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
162. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
163. Rest and Be Thankful by Emma Glass
164. Minty Alley by CLR James
165. The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy
166. Actress by Anne Enright
167. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
168. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
169. Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas
170. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov *Replacement*
171. Summer by Ali Smith
172. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor *Replacement*
173. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
174. The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima
175. The Girls by Emma Cline
176. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich READ AUG 21
177. The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner READ AUG 21
178. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
179. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
180. The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
181. Just Like You by Nick Hornby
182. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
183. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih READ JUNE 21
184. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
185. The Dig by Roger Preston
186. The Historians by Eavan Boland
187. Selected Poems by Elizabeth Jennings
188. The Deemster by Hall Caine
189. When Rainclouds Gather by Bessie Head
190. Maru by Bessie Head
191. Derek Mahon: New Selected Poems by Derek Mahon
192. A Move in the Weather by Anthony Thwaite
193. Door into the Dark by Seamus Heaney
194. Driftless by David Rhodes
195. Independence Square by AD Miller
196. Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga
197. Lot by Bryan Washington
198. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende READ SEP 21
199. The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha
200. Fire and Ice by Dana Stabenow
201. Aria by Nazanine Hozar
202. Waking Lions by Ayelet Gudar-Goshen
203. Victim 2117 by Jussi Adler-Olsen
204. The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell READ AUG 21
205. The Quality of Madness by Tim Rich READ JULY 21
206. Ghosts of the Past by Marco Vichi
207. The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
208. Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie READ AUG 21
209. Here We Are by Graham Swift
210. Deaths of the Poets by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts
211. I am, I am, I am by Maggie O'Farrell READ AUG 21
212. The Whale at the End of the World by John Iremonger
213. Precious Bane by Mary Webb
214. Bina by Anakana Schofield
215. Little Siberia by Antti Tuomainen
216. At Night the Blood is Black by David Diop READ AUG 21
217. Muscle by Alan Trotter
218. The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai
219. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
220. Missionaries by Phil Klay
221. Pew by Catherine Lacey READ SEP 21
222. Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
223. Selected Poems by Anna Akhmatova
224. The Safety Net by Andrea Camilleri
225. Corpus by Rory Clements READ OCT 21
226. Nucleus by Rory Clements
227. The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins
228. The Hill Station by JG Farrell
229. Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut
230. The Abstainer by Ian McGuire
231. The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray
232. Mating by Norman Rush
233. One by One by Ruth Ware
234. The Yield by Tara June Winch
235. The Sicilian Method by Andrea Camilleri
236. Rotten Days in Late Summer by Ralf Webb
237. Tracks by Louise Erdrich
238. The First Century After Beatrice by Amin Maalouf READ SEP 21
239. Dances With Wolves by Michael Blake
240. The Holy Road by Michael Blake
241. Afternoons with the Blinds Drawn by Brett Anderson
242. A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
243. A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville
244. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
245. The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed READ OCT 21
246. The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
247. E.E.G. by Dasa Drndic
248. English Monsters by James Scudamore
249. The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
250. The Matter of Desire by Edmundo Paz Soldan
251. The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
252. A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
253. Monogamy by Sue Miller
254. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
255. Bewilderment by Richard Powers
256. Evangeline and Other Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
257. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
258. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
259. The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. READ OCT 21
260. Cavalleria Rusticana by Giovanni Strega
261. A Girl's Story by Annie Ernaux
262. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead READ OCT 21
263. The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia
264. Tribes by David Lammy
265. Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Conde
266. Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley
267. Girl A by Abigail Dean
268. The Promise by Damon Galgut READ OCT 21
269. The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
270. The Cook of the Halcyon by Andrea Camilleri
271. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
272. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones
273. Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw READ NOV 21
274. The Drowned City by K.J. Maitland
275. Remaking One Nation by Nick Timothy
276. How to Run a Government by Michael Barber
277. Those Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara
278. The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
279. Nemesis by Rory Clements
280. Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright
281. The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall
282. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree

282 added
31 read
251 nett additions

A book for the book bullet that made the biggest mark on me that month. Only one win per person each year.

January 2021 MARK (msf59) for THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones
February 2021 ADRIENNE (fairywings) for THE BELGARIAD by David Eddings
March 2021 BONNIE (brenzi) for DRIFTLESS by David Rhodes
April 2021 KERRY (avatiakh) for THE DIG by John Preston
May 2021 DEBORAH (Cariola) for I AM, I AM, I AM by Maggie O'Farrell
June 2021 ES (Esquiress) for not failing any challenge
July 2021 CAROLINE (Caroline_McElwee) for Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
August 2021 DEBORAH (arubabookwoman) for Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

BOOK STATS :

Books Read : 114
Books Added : 282
Nett TBR Addition : 168

Number of Pages in completed books : 29,829
Average per day : 97.82
Projected Page Total : 35,704

Number of days per book : 2.69
Projected Number : 135
LT Best : 157

Longest Book read : 1,179 pages
Shortest Book read : 51 pages
Mean Average Book Length : 263.57 pages

Male Authors : 69
Female Authors : 45

UK Authors : 56
USA : 19
France : 3
Italy, Russia, South Africa : 2
NZ, India, Libya, Pakistan, South Korea, Canada, Morocco, Thailand, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Trinidad, Sudan, Uruguay, Syria, Ghana, Austria, Germany, Mauritania, Cuba, Nigeria, Portugal, Japan, Senegal, Malta, Chile, Lebanon, Spain, Somalia, Malaysia : 1

1001 Books First Edition : 13 (317)
New Nobel Winners : 1 (73)
Pulitzer Fiction Winners : 3 (19)
Booker Winners : 3 (34)
Around the World Challenge : New countries : 30 (43)
BAC Books : 52
AAC Books : 2
Queen Vic Books : 16/64
Queen Betty Books : 40/70
52 Book Challenge : 40/52
British Historians : 5/12

OVERALL TBR RECORD/UPDATE

TBR at Midnight 31 May 2021

Books Unread : 4,425
Pages Unread : 1,555,749
Average Book Length : 351.58 pages

Books Read : 62
Pages Read : 16,920 pages

Books Added : 95
Pages Added : 28,852 pages

Books Culled : 180
Pages Culled : 77,262

Revised TBR
Books Unread : 4,278
Pages Unread : 1,490,419
Ave Book Length : 348.32 pages

Next is yours

Happy new thread!

Wow, 25 before entry! All the best for a new thread Paul!

>26 quondame: Thank you Susan for being first.

>27 mdoris: I realise I am a little too organised, Mary! Have actually cut out a few of the earlier set-up posts! Lovely as always to see you here.

Happy new thread!

Happy New Thread!

>29 amanda4242: Thank you dear Amanda. You will note of course that the topper is going to be my November BAC read.

>30 mahsdad: Thanks Jeff. Always a pleasure buddy to have you stop by.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>32 Berly: Kimmers!

Dropping in a wave. Hope you guys are doing okay.

Happy new thread Paul.

I started reading Station Eleven last night. It hooked me pretty much straight away.

>34 BekkaJo: We are all reasonably ok, Bekka. Hani is visiting a friend today whose husband has just passed away following a heart attack and she is worrying herself about the condition of my health as the same time!

>35 fairywings: I have my fingers crossed that you would like it. The algorithm used to suggest what books from my collection would be a good fit for my friends has proved reasonably accurate so far.

Happy new thread, Paul!

I always enjoy seeing all your lists, and compare what I have read.

>37 FAMeulstee: You would be able to guess, Anita, that that is a pastime that I enjoy too looking at my pals' threads.

For example I noted on your thread that from your 238 reads I have read 25 of them and have a further 37 on the shelves.

Happy new one, Paul. That's Joan Plowright in your topper, right? Have you seen the film, a documentary, that she is in, made a few years ago? The title is Nothing Like a Dame, but it was the 4 great Dames: Plowright, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and the 4th who I was not familiar with and whose name I can't remember now*. It took place in the garden and house of one of them (perhaps Plowright, who is now blind) and was an absolute hilarious afternoon of reminiscing. Really a delightful film.

* Eileen Atkins. I just googled it

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/26/nothing-like-a-dame-review-judi-den...

Sorry for the tangent...;-)

HAppy new one!

Happy New Thread, Paul. Sweet 21! I am sure you are looking forward to wrapping up the work week.

Happy new thread. I enjoy your threads very much and they are dangerous to my own TBR/wishlists.

Eileen Atkins' memoir Will She Do? Act One of a Life on Stage is just out this month. It was last week's Radio 4 Book of the Week (non fiction abridged serial with 5 x 15 minute episodes - so often really just a few carefully chosen extracts from a book - there've been a few real doorstopper books.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Paul!

>39 jessibud2: Joan Plowright has been so fine in many roles and I will go and look up the show you suggest, Shelley.

>40 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita.

>41 msf59: I am past 6,000 posts too, Mark, which is something I am quite satisfied with.

>42 Kristelh: That is so nice of you to say so, Kristel. xx

>43 elkiedee: That sounds like a book to look out for, Luci.

>44 drneutron: Thanks Jim. Always nice to have you swing by.

>45 karenmarie: Thanks Karen. I will get some stats to the group this weekend.

Happy new thread, Paul. I need to read more Elizabeth Taylor but my local library does not have any of her books. I have read Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, but that was years ago.

>43 elkiedee:
That is a BB. I love memoirs and just had to add this one to my TBR list even though it isn't eve published yet.

It's a little difficult keeping up with you, Paul! I love all of your self-challenges and lists--I love the "keeping track" of my reading, too.

Have a great weekend!

Karen O.

>39 jessibud2: Shelley, if you can get a BBC programme called 'Who Do You Think You Are', watch Judi Dench's recent episode, you couldn't write it.

>38 PaulCranswick: Yes, I know, Paul: you, me and some others.

And that addition made me do the same, of your 111 reads I have read 12, and have 2 on the shelves.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336316

>53 Caroline_McElwee: - Not sure how I would find it but I will google and see if something comes up. Thanks for that, Caroline. I have Dench's memoir on the shelf, too. I love her! Did you ever see her doc on trees? Wonderful!

Ugh. I got up at 5.30a this morning and didn't notice until now that you'd moved quarters. Anyway, here I am. For all the good I'm likely to do anyone today.

Why is there a 5.30a anyway? No one likes it.

Hi Paul, Happy New Thread mate. Good news about Stokes and then Yorkshire put out a statement today that is a total car crash, i think the County could be punished with some serious sanctions over the Azeem Rafiq case and this will not help one iota.

I've created an LT list for books that I hope to get hold of some time soon, probably in the New Year. It was the Radio 4 Book of the Week last week - books that get that are usually newly published or just about about to be. There's a chance to add info so I mention if books have been serialised. I see if the library has a copy normally, and if they don't the library I use most has an online suggestions form, and they've bought about 8 newish books I've suggested. Also, all but one of them have had other reservations placed while I had them out on loan - and some really obscure books that probably hadn't been borrowed for years to. I wonder if there's someone working there going ooh, that looks interesting....

https://www.librarything.com/list/43268/all/Maybe-Next-Year-Books-to-Look-Forwar...

>50 alcottacre: Surprisingly Stasia this will be my first book by her although I have had a couple by Taylor on the shelves for ever.

>51 benitastrnad: Luci is getting dangerous, Benita! Lovely to see you. x

>52 klobrien2: I struggle sometimes myself, Karen! I do like to look at what all my pals are reading and it has been the inspiration for many of my purchases over the years!

>53 Caroline_McElwee: One of the world's greatest actresses is Ms. Dench. I have a memoir of hers somewhere and must go and read it soon.

>54 FAMeulstee: Interesting that we both read about 10% of the same books, Anita!

>55 SilverWolf28: Thank you Silver

>56 jessibud2: I don't know if we have the same memoir, Shelley, but I do intend to get to it pretty soon.

>57 richardderus: I am often a 5.30 person and my fail-safe alarm is set at 6.15 (never used) - I was up a similar time as you were dear fellow albeit half a world away and was - until my coffee - just as grumpy!

Happy new thread, Paul!

>58 johnsimpson: For us to win over there, John, we need Stokes playing as a genuine all-rounder. I don't like us trying to play him at 5 and think he pads out the side much better at 6. I was disappointed at Essex taking Critchley from Derbyshire - where has the loyalty to and from the counties gone?

I am ambivalent about the Azeem Rafiq affair as it seems from what I know that he was bullied by some officials of the County and apparently a couple of the players but was cut a lot of slack by others for doing things - including not showing up oftentimes - that would have landed others in hot water/disciplinary proceedings. Anybody who racially abuses another is little better than crud on my shoe and I don't want them to be part of Yorkshire Cricket Club but I don't think that Azeem Rafiq is an especially praiseworthy individual either. He is still only 30 but after several spells at Yorkshire wasn't able to convince another of the 18 counties to take a chance on him because he is known to be "trouble".

Free speech has again been kicked in the face with the Quintin de Kok kerfuffle. I wouldn't have a problem taking-the-knee at a sporting events (my problem would be getting back up again!) on the basis that I am against racism but not in support of the BLM organisation whose wider political aims I cannot support. Others, including a number of black sportsmen don't agree any longer with this and believe it to be a form of tokenism (John Barnes and Wilfred Zaha for example) and Quintin de Kok is apparently on the word of his many black colleagues NOT a racist and is anyway of mixed-race. So why does he get singled out for not taking-the-knee? It is not an obligation of a sportsman to do so although it is an obligation on all of us not to abuse each other. If there is to be a cancel culture than please let's find the right targets to cancel and not merely someone expressing his perfect right of free expression.

>59 elkiedee: I like that idea, Luci! I will go and study what you have done there.

>64 bell7: Thank you, dear Mary.

>63 PaulCranswick: - The one I have, Paul, is called And Furthermore

>67 jessibud2: Yes it is the same one, Shelley.

I might read it next month if you are up to joining me on it.

Happy new thread Paul!

>57 richardderus: There’s a 5 a.m.?

>69 humouress: Thanks, Nina and hahaha. I have seen you online and on the threads here well into the early hours too as we share the same time zone and I am equally guilty.

>60 PaulCranswick: I admit that I am surprised by that!

>71 alcottacre: Actually Stasia until I joined LT I was completely unfamiliar with her work.

>72 PaulCranswick: I was too. I cannot tell you how many wonderful authors that I have discovered through LT!

So many things to be grateful for!

Friday Lunchtime Additions

My usual three on a Friday

270. The Cook of the Halcyon by Andrea Camilleri
271. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
272. How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

The first book is obvious and the penultimate Montalba. The second is because Mark and others were so enthusiastic and the third must win Book Title of the Year award even if it did fall short in the Women's Prize.

>56 jessibud2: Yes Shelley, really liked her doc on trees.

I've been lucky enough to see her on stage a number of times, including in Antony and Cleopatra, opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 1980s, as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of being Earnest, and several other roles.

>77 Caroline_McElwee: I saw her and her late husband Michael Williams at the Lyric sometime in the mid 80's if I am not mistaken in a play called Pack of Lies. I remember little but enjoying the experience of going to the theatre.

>68 PaulCranswick: - You know, I have never committed to a shared read before because I am usually such a mood reader but hey, why not? Say when! I will move it to the bedside table right now so as not to forget!

>75 PaulCranswick: >75 PaulCranswick: I still have a few Montalbanos to read (or listen to), but I'll be sad when the reads are completed.

>79 jessibud2: Great Shelley! I am looking forward to reading along with you. Monday?

>80 thornton37814: I have four to read plus the short story collections. I have all but the last of the series already waiting for me. I think I will read three of them in December, if I manage to travel.

>81 PaulCranswick: I hope you are able to travel. I know you miss it!

>82 thornton37814: I do indeed, Lori. Things do seem to be opening up a bit so, hopefully I will be able to travel in December.

>81 PaulCranswick: - I won't be able to start on Monday, Paul, as I have a library book due back then that I hope to finish and another to pick up. But I should be able to start the second week of November when I will be travelling to Montreal and will have two 5-hour train rides. That ought to take care of it! Can you wait till then? I am also not as fast a reader as you are.

>84 jessibud2: No problem Shelley, I am happy to wait for you - 2nd week it is. It isn't as if I have nothing else to read.

>85 PaulCranswick: - Thanks, Paul!

>75 PaulCranswick: I remember reading The Raw Shark Texts several years ago and enjoying it, Paul. I hope you do too!

Happy Friday!!

>86 jessibud2: Welcome. xx

READING PLAN FOR NOVEMBER

A-Z CHALLENGE

I have done this a few times where I try to go through the alphabet of authors in a single month - I have come very close before.

Will finish any of the Booker shortlist not done by then.
Other confirmed targets:

Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami (shared read with at least Caroline and Stasia)
And Furthemore by Judi Dench (shared read with Shelley)

>87 alcottacre: I have quite a bit of love for that one in the group, Stasia.

When do you want to start Nakano Thrift Shop?

>89 PaulCranswick: As noted on Caroline's thread, the second week of November looks to be a go for us all. I am very much looking forward to it!

>90 alcottacre: Me too!

>75 PaulCranswick: Happy Weekend! Glad you picked up Raw Shark Text, tho you should have told me, I would have sent you my copy (which was actually Mark's). If anyone around here wants to read it (its a worthy read), PM me, and I'll send it to you.

How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House sounds pretty interesting, adding to the WL.

>92 mahsdad: Hahaha Jeff; if we all shared the same copy the poor author would be as broke as we are!

>93 PaulCranswick: You got a point there. I like to keep a good mix of new, used, borrowed, DTE, Ebooks and audio round here. :)

>94 mahsdad: I do like second-hand bookshops, Jeff, which is the same sort of recycling, I suppose! The wonderful Hay-on-Wye is full of such bookshops Jeff and I could happily spend a week there going from shop to shop adding to my not too inconsiderable TBR pile. :D

>95 PaulCranswick: Also, for me, part of going to used bookshops is also the thrill of the hunt. These bookstores in my area are generally filled floor to ceiling and on multiple floors. It would be even more perfect if you could grab a tea on the way in :)

>96 figsfromthistle: Exactly, Anita! You never know what treasures you might unearth and the seemingly higgledy-piggledy nature of the places add further to the enchantment of trying to find something.

Hi Paul!

>59 elkiedee: and >66 PaulCranswick: I bought two lifetime LT accounts when they were $25/each – totally, beyond belief worth it, of course – and I use the second as a wish list. I started off using that account to record BookMooch activity, then wanted to use it for our audiovisual inventory, and have finally settled on wish list. I just started it last December 27th and have 88 books on it, 4 of them yours. (Rivers of London and Cat and Mouse the other two).I add the book and put the username of the person giving me the BB as a tag. Pretty easy for me. I just keep that LT account open in another browser.

I think I need a new mouse. I've been duplicating a lot of posts lately.

>98 karenmarie: That is a really good idea, Karen.

>99 karenmarie: Could be the site not the mouse as it has happened to others too, I think.

I was going to say happy new thread, Paul, but maybe it's not new anymore? Happy reading!

>101 banjo123: New, newish, oldish or old, my threads are always better places when you visit, Rhonda.

BOOK #112



Corpus by Rory Clements
Date of Publication : 2017
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 464 pp

Challenges :
Series Pair
52 Book Club : 39/52

What if Hitler had planned to intervene in the Abdication Crisis and take out Baldwin and Bertie in a staged coup-d'etat? This is the basic premise for this first in series Thomas Wilde series.

Thrillers are meant to be thrilling and this was. The story was convoluted and a little far fetched perhaps but it certainly worked as entertainment.

It is a series I will follow.

>70 PaulCranswick: Shh! No comment (other than: oh, I recognise 5 a.m. from the other side).

>98 karenmarie: Ooh, that's a good idea. If I did that, it wouldn't mess up my series lists so it'd be clearer as to which books I actually have and it wouldn't highlight duplicates when I finally buy the missing books.

(>103 PaulCranswick: wrong touchstone)

>104 humouress: Sometimes I have to say that I find those empty hours the best of my day.

*Corrected the touchstone (thanks x)

A to Z Reading Challenge November

26 books 26 authors 26 letters of the alphabet

1 A Passage North Arudpragasam
2 A Time to Dance Bragg
3 Nucleus Clements
4 And Furthermore Dench
5 Sudden Death Enrigue
6 Boy From the Chemist Farley
7 By the Sea Gurnah
8 When Rainclouds Gather Head
9 Nocturnes Ishiguro
10 Black Out Jonasson
11 Nakano Thrift Shop Kawakami
12 No One is Talking About This Lockwood
13 Black Moses Mabanckou
14 What is Left the Daughter Norman
15 The Opposite House Oyeyemi
16 Bewilderment Powers
17 The Streets Quinn
18 The Persian Boy Renault
19 The Town in Bloom Smith
20 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Taylor
21 The Songs of the Kings Unsworth
22 The Time of the Hero Vargas Llosa
23 Hurry on Down Wain
24 A Loyal Character Dancer Xiaolong, Qiu
25 A Woman in Jerusalem Yehoshua
26 The Listeners Zumas

Interesting challenge.

I have read #19, #20 and #24, have #3, #9, #12, #15, #17 and #18 TBR. |I have a previous book by the author of #26, Red Clocks TBR and will look up this one.

>98 karenmarie: I had 2 and am now up to 3. One is for my library books, one is primarily for the BlackHole and books I have added to my library, and the third is for the books in my library that I have actually read so that I can track the books that I have and have an accurate record of my books.

>103 PaulCranswick: I am going to have to see if I can find that one. It sounds like a series I would enjoy as well.

>106 PaulCranswick: Good luck with that!

Happy whatever, Paul!

>107 elkiedee: I have tried it a couple of times before and came close to pulling it off last time.

>108 alcottacre: Wow, Stasia, I would have thought that three was getting into the unmanageable area!

I think you would like the Clements book - very compelling narrative.

>109 PaulCranswick: I seem to be managing OK :)

I have ordered a copy of the Clements book. I hope I enjoy it as much as you did!

>110 alcottacre: I tried to maintain threads in two groups this year, Stasia and I failed to keep up in the other one so I don't know how I would keep up with three accounts.

>111 PaulCranswick: Well, I am retired and do not have to worry about work :)

>112 alcottacre: I do actually like the idea of having a couple of accounts, Stasia, and I will mull it over as I don't like to keep a big wishlist here.

>113 PaulCranswick: The size of the BlackHole is what finally decided me on getting the third account.

>114 alcottacre: I guess if I sat down and contemplated what books I NEED to add then I could easily justify another place to put them in!

Happy new thread Paul!

I keep my LT books separate by collections - Read but unowned, wishlist, your library (I think it should be my library). If it doesn't have a date it's a bit of a grey area as to whether I've read it or not if its in the your library collection.

>115 PaulCranswick: Yes, but can you both justify it and keep up with it is the question.

>116 SirThomas: Thanks Thomas. Hope your weekend has been a good one.

>117 quondame: I have always kept spreadsheets too Susan which I also use to monitor the sum total and balance of my actually available library and what I have read in the last years.

>118 alcottacre: I should in theory be able to do so, Stasia. My total unread book collection is correct on a day-by-day basis as are the LT stats that I upkeep.

I tried keeping multiple threads in multiple groups once. It didn't work very well.

But there's no generalizing experiences!

>121 richardderus: You're right, RD. I have seen some of our pals manage two or three threads spread across the site without seemingly much trouble but I guess I concentrate better this way!

BOOK #113



The Promise by Damon Galgut
Date of Publication : 2021
Origin of Author : South Africa
Pages : 293 pp

Challenges :
52 Book Club : 40/52
2021 Booker Shortlist : 3/6

I enjoyed both of the other Booker shortlisted books I read recently but, really, this is different gravy.

Emotional depth and maturity of pitch help make this a wonderfully realised piece of writing. There is a scene in the first portion of the book where the Matriarch is being prepared for burial in the Jewish traditions which - almost certainly given my own untimely experience - quite frankly brought me to tears.

Profound novel and highly recommended. My best read in October definitely.

>123 PaulCranswick: Profound novel and highly recommended. My best read in October definitely.

That is good to hear! Thanks for the input, Paul.

>124 alcottacre: It is no slight on the other two either, Stasia. I thought Great Circle, (excellent narration but main story stronger than subsidiary story) and The Fortune Men (well executed, pun only slightly intended) were both good novels. It's just that this one was - for me - just on a different level.

>123 PaulCranswick: Looks like a good weekend of reading Paul!

>126 mdoris: I am satisfied with finishing two books, Mary, and they were both (in quite different ways) very good ones.

Hi, Paul. great photo up top. I thoroughly enjoyed the Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont book, but haven't seen the movie.

The Promise sure sounds like a good one. For a second, I thought it was Chaim Potok's book. Thanks for the enthusiastic review.

Hi Paul!

>106 PaulCranswick: Whew. Ambitious, and I hope you accomplish it.

>128 jnwelch: It is a very good novel, Joe - all Galgut's books have resonated.
Ms. Taylor will be finished tomorrow. Also very good.

>129 karenmarie: I have a good feeling about it to be honest, Karen and have gotten off to a good start.

Happy Monday, Paul. Have a great week!

>131 alcottacre: Thanks Stasia. Same to you, too.

>65 PaulCranswick:, Hi Paul, more revelations about the abuse Rafiq got and Yorkshire's answer was that it did not warrant any action being taken and then in the next paragraph they said that something Rafiq said to another player did warrant action but this was not done. I get the feeling that the delays in sending the ECB the final document and then being forced to give it by a certain date and then this revelation could land the Club in some very hot water and if sanctions are given, they could be very hard. Yorkshire have not helped themselves one little bit, they appear to think they can do what they want, when they want. Despite saying that they were getting an independent team to look at all the allegations, which they did and gave them some credit, since the report was finished they have prevaricated until they were given an ultimatum and all the good work has been undone.

On the taking of the knee, i was thinking today about it and thought when is the end point. If it goes on too long people will just ignore what they are doing, they will think that it is just something done before a game and not the significance of it. Personally i would not take the knee now as it has run its course but i am all for racism to be eradicated and would be making that point, i think Barnes and Zaha are correct.

Buttler came up trumps for England today and it was nice to see Morgan get some runs, and to get a Ton off the last ball with a Six says something of the guy. Always nice to stuff the Aussies though.

>133 johnsimpson: Yorkshire CCC definitely have some skeletons in their closet, John, but I also get the distinct impression that Azeem Rafiq's behaviour has also been far from exemplary.

Taking the knee as a white man is a difficult one and unfortunately a white man's intentions in not doing so would seem to be interpreted differently to a black man's. That we stand with our black and brown brothers and sisters is important John but you are right in that the form of solidarity needs to change over time lest it becomes mere tokenism. I am also cognisant that sport is being hijacked too often to be required to set a moral lead - they are just footballers or cricketers or whatever.

Buttler is having a great tournament so far - as much as I think he is lucky to be keeping Foakes from the test team, he really is some one day player.

>133 johnsimpson: We've been watching the T20 (my husband seems to prefer that format). My older son and I support England but my younger son supports Australia (he's got dual nationality). He was at a sleepover with a couple of friends (at least one other of whom also has divided allegiances) when England beat Australia and was most unimpressed to get messages from us (at two in the a.m. but the kids were awake and bouncing after trick-or-treating) about the win.

>135 humouress: The match-up between us and the Aussies was surprisingly one-sided wasn't it? And all the better for it. We are the best team in the tournament but doesn't necessarily mean that we will win it. Another good win yesterday against Sri Lanka.

>136 PaulCranswick: It should have been easier, I'd have thought. Sri Lanka kept the run rate up - but we got the wickets.

>137 humouress: They kept dropping wickets because they had to take chances in order to keep up with the run rate.

The Songwriters A-Z

To go with my A-Z challenge this month I will also feature songwriters that I admire.
For A, I will choose Ryan Adams - a prolific but troubled Alt Country singer from North Carolina.

This is a live rendition of the beautiful O' My Sweet Carolina from his debut album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4ISDUT4RM

Hi Paul, i think things are starting to move over the Azeem Rafiq case, Government ministers have weighed in with both Sadiq Javid and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries saying his treatment is disgusting and Julian Knight, Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, has called on the board of YCCC to resign and has called on Yorkshire's Chair, Roger Hutton to give evidence to the Committee.

Anchor Butter, sponsors of the Royal London One Day Cup shirts has said it no longer wishes to be associated with the Club.

I think it is a case of watch this space.

>140 johnsimpson: It is a sign of the times as well, John. "Zimbo" must be Gary Ballance who I guess will be made an example of and cancelled. I'm not condoning it but the pejorative used was in pretty common parlance a dozen years ago but isn't used anymore as it is understood to be inappropriate. Anyway Pakistan is a country and I am certainly not offended by being called a Yorkie.

There are far more important problems in the world, John, than stray words in a locker room. Yorkshire should have disciplined the player at the time and moved on. Azeem Rafiq's treatment was disgusting? The club gave him more chances than a batsman playing to Monte Panesar's fielding. I would point out his expletive ridden abuse of then England U-19 coach John Abrahams using far worse language than the words that purportedly made him cry. This surfaces a decade or so later and I can think of far better victims than him to be honest John.

I will pretend that I know what you are all talking about in regards to cricket and agree with everything you say :)

Happy Tuesday/Wednesday/whatever, Paul!

>141 PaulCranswick: Hahaha ok Stasia.

>143 PaulCranswick: Well, you could be correct in everything you say. Who am I to judge?

>144 alcottacre: I'm often wrong, Stasia and just as often provocative. This issue involves a Pakistani born Yorkshireman who was a cricket prodigy with the County of John and myself - Yorkshire. His career wasted away and he has not been playing at the top level for around five years because of a poor attitude to training (he was plainly unfit) and disciplinary issues. He was interviewed by the Cricket Magazine Wisden last year and alleged that he had been the victim of systematic racism by the Cricket Club. This centres on the allegation that he was racially abused by one of the players who apparently called him a "Paki" on several occasions. The guy calling him thus (it is for those from the US reading this and unfamiliar with it, an unacceptable form of address and would be offensive to many Asians often lumped together under that epithet even though it relates to Pakistan) was reacting to being called a Zimbo by the player concerned. Now Zimbo refers to the fact that this chap was born in Zimbabwe. Apparently both were offended to some degree (the former white settlers families of what they called Rhodesia seemingly don't like using "Zimbabwe" as most of them were victims of black racism under Mugabe who chased away, confiscated and in many cases had white farmers killed there).

The Yorkshire Cricket Club swept aside the Asian born cricketer's complaints as heated "banter" between the players and this is what is causing the turmoil now. The Club should have disciplined both at the time (it was over ten years ago) and laid the matter to rest. I don't like Azeem Rafiq (the Asian born player concerned and I know people who know him and have little good to say about him) but my personal likes here are not so important. I don't think the two epithets equate (assuming even Zimbo is an epithet) and the other player involved and the club should have apologised. I note that Prince Harry called someone several years ago a "Little Paki" and his apology was accepted. He had far more responsibility and privilege than a mere cricketer so if an apology for him sufficed
why is the entire Yorkshire Cricket establishment on trial for an earlier incident?

Racism is wrong period. There are no excuses. To call someone a Paki is wrong even when it accurately describes the country they were born in because that is invariably not the sentiment conveyed. Such epithets have no place in civilised society and Yorkshire County Cricket should come out and unequivocally say so.

I don't think that the entire board should resign but they do need to take a proper look at themselves.

It seems that Virginia has been called for Youngkin which is rather an ironic name given the fact that he had made education his platform. The Dems lost because the President has had a dire last 4 months and McAuliffe ran a pretty awful and shabby campaign. Youngkin on the other hand played down Chump and concentrated on issues that seemed to resonate.

As a centrist I hope that both sides take a little bit of note here.

>146 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. Something weird going on with LT right now. Making posting difficult. Just wanted to say I read your post on my thread. I'll try and do the counting myself. It has been such a mess this year, can't expect you to make heads or tails of it. ;-) sorry.

>147 EllaTim: The internet is not at its best at the moment full stop, Ella. Don't worry too much on the numbers, I am a little too obsessive.

I'm pleased with the announcement of the Booker Prize winner.

Damon Galgut wins for The Promise. Almost four books in and having read smidgeons of the other two it would have definitely been my pick too.

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2021

>146 PaulCranswick:
The Republican candidate did indeed hammer away on issues that resonated, but they were stupid issues. Critical Race Theory being the main one. Nothing gets my hackles up like those silly dog whistles about CRT. Most people don't even know what it is or could tell you what it is about, but those silly right wing wingnuts keep bringing it up and scaring people with their racists attitudes. Do not fool yourself. The Republicans couldn't win on real issues so they had - HAD - to play the race card in Virginia. It pays to remember that Virginia is a Deep South state and was one of the nine rebellious states back in 1861. It is a state that will probably never be anti-racist so it will keep swinging back and forth between race issues and non race issues.

>150 benitastrnad: I'm not going to go into CRT, Benita, mainly because I have no idea what is being taught in schools in Virginia that upset parents there. I think it is a little bit simplistic to say that Youngkin won on the race card because it seemed to me Terry McAuliffe was the one inciting race to get the black vote out for himself. Frankly he ran a shockingly bad campaign concentrating on national rather than local issues and he deserved to lose. The Lincoln project was the one trying to mislead on race and McAuliffe was the one making verifiably misleading statements about Youngkin wanting to ban Toni Morrison's books from schools. To dismiss all concerned parents as racists is exactly why the Democrats are in trouble.

> I don't think that the entire board should resign but they do need to take a proper look at themselves.

I am thinking that the entire board does need to resign. Geez louise.

>152 alcottacre: Some of them weren't at the club at the time Stasia but there should be some responsibility taken.

Happy Divali to any Hindu or Indian heritage friends here. Malaysia is a lovely country and celebrates the main festivals of all its constituent parts with joy.....and yet another day off!

Progress on my project for anyone interested:
This is how it looks this week:

Wow, that's an impressive building!

>156 drneutron: Thanks Jim, we will have a topping out ceremony with the Malaysian Prime Minister in attendance on 25 November.

>155 PaulCranswick: I am afraid of heights. It makes me sick just looking at it, lol. Did I ever mention that I have an overactive imagination?

Happy Thursday, Paul!

>158 alcottacre: You know, Stasia, my staff have tried hard to get me to go up to the top of the building in its incompleted state and climb the unfinished spire. Not happening!

>155 PaulCranswick: That is an impressive building Paul. Once finished, will it be fully occupied. I'm pretty sure a lot of the new buildings in London are not.

>149 PaulCranswick: I'm happy that The Promise won this year's Booker Prize. I liked A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam slightly better, but the Galgut was my second favorite, and it is a very worthy choice.

>155 PaulCranswick: Wow!!

>160 Caroline_McElwee: The building owner is the Malaysian Government's public investment company. Government Lnked Companies (GLCs as they are called here) will be "encouraged" to take up space. The upper floors will be a 6-star Park Hyatt hotel.

>161 kidzdoc: I have just about finished A Passage North, Darryl and my ranking is almost the same as you but I would have put Galgut first with Arudpragasam just behind. I also thought The Fortune Men and Great Circle were really good novels. Not many years when 4 of the books would have been ok as the winners.

>162 PaulCranswick: I can't argue with you, Paul. I gave 5 stars to A Passage North and 4½ stars to The Promise, but if I could rank them in tenths instead of halves the difference would be far less than 0.5 stars, probably no more than 0.2 stars. Damon Galgut is one of my favorite writers, and is underrecognized IMO, so I'm happy to see him win.

Luci (elkiedee) also spoke highly about Great Circle on my Club Read thread a few minutes ago, so I'll have to get to it this year, despite its length. I had hoped to finish it by yesterday, as I've read the other five shortlisted novels, but I decided to cancel my two week vacation in Lisbon and stay in the Philadelphia area to help out my parents, which was worthwhile and rewarding but severely cut down on my reading time. I don't regret it for one millisecond, though.

>163 kidzdoc: I'm not as sure that you'll love Great Circle as much as three of the others (I would have placed it fourth). I liked it but thought it let down by not being 50 to 100 pages shorter and preferably by losing the modern storyline.

I'm sure that you'll never regret spending time with the folks, my friend. Give a gentle hug to both of them for me. Your parents are a constant in my prayers, Darryl.

>155 PaulCranswick: An impressive building indeed. However close you are to completion, may it be even sooner than expected.

>151 PaulCranswick:
Exactly right! You are correct in saying that the Democrats didn't run a good campaign. They failed to call out the "local control of public schools" debate for what it was - Racism. Most people don't know what Critical Race Theory is and I can guarantee that CRT is NOT part of the curriculum in Virginia K-12 schools. It isn't a part of the curriculum in any K-12 school that I know of. But I am not going to let you off the hook so easily on this one. I think that looking at it from the outside doesn't really expose what the real arguments are about.

This political debate was mostly about Race. The candidate who brought up CRT in the public schools was the Republican candidate. The Democrat candidate was left in the position of trying to defend something that isn't even taught in the public schools of Virginia, so for him to say that it was just a Republican Dog Whistle to the Right wing, was a very good defense. That is exactly wat it is. I think that the Democrats ran a good campaign. They lost in Virginia because the Republicans played the Race issue. The Race issue cloaked as "local control of the public schools," which in turn was cloaking the cultural debate centered around Race that percolates in that state and the other Deep South states. Think about what happened in Charlottesville and at the bottom of that was Race. Virginia is the state where, finally and thankfully, they have removed some of the statues along the main street in Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy. Virginia is the state where there was a debate about the propriety of placing a statue of Arthur Ashe on the same street as the ones of Generals Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Jackson. That happened in 1996. At heart the South is the South and there are elements that will never give up on putting that other Race in its place. It was disgusting to me that the Republican party pandered to this penchant in this particular political race.

I do agree with you that the Democrats are going to keep failing until they come up with a strategy that will answer this subtle and very dangerous Racism. However, I think that is going to be hard to do because calling these spun subjects what they really are is going to just turn an election into a shouting match, and those who shout the loudest and longest will win.

Let's see - around 40 Years ago, a professor father of one of my 4th grade students

was invited to speak on evolution to my class.

Cranium-by-cranium, and more, he offered facts to show that all our ancestors evolved from Africa.

Not a single CRT was raised by any parent in our racially, culturally, and financially diverse group.

>165 richardderus: Thanks RD. The sooner it is done here, the sooner I am done here.

>166 benitastrnad: Thank you for that passionate exposition, Benita. I'm not going to mount a defence of Republicans as it would go against the grain for me but McAuliffe ran a piss poor campaign and to say otherwise is spectacularly misconceived.

>167 m.belljackson: That humankind originated in Africa seems to be well established evolutionary theory/fact. I don't see anything to take issue with in such teaching, Marianne.

On the Azeem Rafiq controversy in Yorkshire cricket, the English Cricket Board (ECB) today announced that Headingley in Leeds will no longer host England games until Yorkshire CCC cleans up its act. So hurt all fans of cricket across the best supported county because of the actions or non-actions of Yorkshire CCC. Zimbo - Gary Ballance has been banned indefinitely from international cricket for identifying himself and he was apparently Azeem Rafiq's best friend!

Racism is a cancer but this smacks of the ECB jumping on the bandwagon in order to stop the question being asked as to why they did nothing earlier either?

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/59169535

>164 PaulCranswick: We appreciate your kind thoughts and prayers, Paul. I just left them on Tuesday, but I'll return on the 22nd to spend Thanksgiving Week with them. We'll have an unusually large Thanksgiving dinner on the 25th in their home, which will be extra special as it will likely be one of the last ones we'll celebrate there.

I'm pretty happy with the Booker results Paul although I really loved Great Circle and didn't want it to end regardless of its length. I have to say this was the best Booker shortlist in my memory.

>169 PaulCranswick: Try running it past a CRT non-believer!

>168 PaulCranswick:
We will just have to disagree as I believe you have no idea how ridiculous the Republican party has gotten about CRT and its danger to our schools. They are simply trading on ignorance. I believe that the Democrats ran a good campaign and talked about real issues. They refused to participate in the egregious race baiting. In that they failed to try to outshout the shouters is only indicative of the Right Wing Wingnuts thoughtless and irresponsible wanting to play in the muck of ignorance. To say that the Democrats should play in that same muck is not a smart move by anybody.

>171 kidzdoc: I have always envied you Americans (and Canadians with a different date) your Thanksgiving as the sentiment underlying it is a wonderful one. I'm really glad you are able to spend some quality time with your family, dear fellow.

>172 brenzi: I tend to agree with you, Bonnie, as I thought four of the six were extremely good and I could have seen the merit in Shipstead winning too. I loved the more historical fiction components of the book at least as much as anything else and could have done without the distraction although the eventual denouement did tie the tale together.

>173 m.belljackson: Historical fact is a difficult one to take issue with, Marianne. I don't understand CRT or even whether it is real or not as it portends to school teaching.

>174 benitastrnad: I'm not sure that there is too much in the way of disagreement here, Benita. I will NEVER EVER support racism of any kind. I did not like the Lincoln Project's actions in the campaign which were clearly race baiting as you put it. I have not seen any statements by Youngkin or the black Lieutenant Governor which would indicate that either are racists.

It is too simplistic to blame an appeal to race for the loss of Virginia as angry as one may be about it. Exit polls revealed that the major issue of concern was the economy (inflation and the supply chain crisis especially) far more than education. Three issues seemed to govern the education issue:

1) Whether parents have a say in what is taught their children (CRT was made an agenda here certainly);
2) The cover up of the rape of the young girl in the toilet by the Loudon board - the transfer and reoffence of the individual; and
3) The ill-advised labelling of parents as domestic terrorists.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, Benita. My view is that McAuliffe ran a poor campaign and the fact that he lost from a seemingly un-losable position only a few weeks ago rather proves my point. He decided to make Virginia a national referendum on the Administration by bringing Obama, Harris and Biden amongst many others to demonise Youngkin by aligning him with Trump. Youngkin didn't fall for that and concentrated on local issues.

If I was American I would not be a Republican but the Dems are not helping themselves. Shouldn't have tied the infrastructure bill to their wider spending plans. Should have pushed through their social policies one by one instead of piling everything into such a cumbersome document as it would have shown up those not in favour of some of the social policies. I suspect that there is so much fat in the spending plan that would fail to get support otherwise which is why they are doing things that way.

>176 PaulCranswick: I have to say that to dismiss race as an issue when one of the candidates is using Trump's endorsement to support a campaign means you aren't catching the ubiquitous subtext of many US campaigns. There are always the official reasons and the real reasons, and the real reasons are them vs us.

Hi Paul, I agree with you that McAuliffe ran a terrible race and I'm not surprised he lost. I hope other Democratic candidates learn a lesson from this.

Here is a brief history on Critical Race Theory as I understand it. The theory discusses the historical treatment of blacks in this country from slavery to present day and part of the discussion is about how we teach black history honestly. It is debated at the graduate school level and has been for about 40 years. It has never been taught in elementary, middle-school or high school in this country. Republicans have misled parents into thinking it is being taught now and they see it as teaching their children to hate their country. As a result we have had violent outbreaks at school council meetings.
Republicans have turned this into a "dog whistle" and it is an undercurrent in races even when not specifically talked about.

What a sad country we are right now!

>177 quondame: Where did I say I was dismissing race, Susan?

What I said was to say that the race card is the only reason the Democrats lost is too simplistic and not borne out by what the people there were saying themselves. I don't claim to be an expert on American elections but not even the New York Times and Washington Post both of which I read daily in digital form blamed their defeat solely on race based politics.
Are you saying that the electorate also didn't consider the price of gas, or the supply chain crisis or the porous Southern border or the debacle of the Afghanistan withdrawal?

I am certainly not dismissing race as an issue of concern but the Dems need to focus on what the country needs now and look forward positively rather than keep raising the spectre of Trump. Biden and the Democrats will stand and fall on what they do or do not deliver and not on the baseless rhetoric of one party or the other.

>178 Oregonreader: Thank you, Jan.

I am certainly not saying that the Republicans have not over-egged the pie when it comes to teaching in schools and in fact to the contrary I am sure that the vast majority of teachers and administrators country-wide have the best interests of all their pupils in mind every day at work.

The most cited violence at a school board meeting was the guy carried out by police who it turned out later was incensed by the school board allegedly covering up the rape of his daughter in a school washroom. Not pleasant but I would have made just the same fuss as he did in fairness.

What I did say Jan was that I feel it is a mistake to write off all the votes for Youngkin as essentially racist as 1,659,000 people voted for him and I don't believe them all to be either racist or dupes.

Fact checks carried out by fairly independent groups seems to suggest that CRT (whatever that is) is NOT taught as a matter of course in Virginian schools but those same fact checkers did also largely concur that the previous McAuliffe administration did lower accreditation standards in schools. I am very much in favour of a meritocracy that develops from equality of opportunity. There is still plenty of work to ensure that the poor and those from minority groups get that equality of opportunity but I would like a striving for high standards rather than a levelling off of standards to create the best in society regardless of colour, class, gender, sexuality or creed.

>149 PaulCranswick: Having not read any of the Booker candidates I was hoping for A Passage North to win, purely because it's by an Asian and set in Asia.

>180 humouress: I am sure it came close, Nina as it is a very good book too.

Hi Paul!

>139 PaulCranswick: Nice to see a singer-songwriter from my adopted state featured for “A”.

>155 PaulCranswick: Impressive. I’m amazed.

>159 PaulCranswick: How tall will it end up being? How many stories?

(avoiding the political issues right now...)

>182 karenmarie: I have heard some negative reports about Adams as a guy but he is a wonderful songwriter.

PNB 118 will stand 678 metres and have 118 floors/storeys. It will also contains the world's highest elevators and escalators.

I am my own worst enemy with always having an opinion!

>177 quondame: & 178
Thank you for saying what I was trying to say in a much more succinct way. I think it is easy for people outside of the U. S. to underestimate the power and underlying layers and layers of racism embedded in the U. S. This happens because globally the U. S. is always championing democracy without practicing it here at home.

>179 PaulCranswick:
Alabama is currently running under a state constitution that was written in 1902. The original constitution written in 1832 had to be rewritten after the American Civil War because it made slavery a fact of law. Alabama had to redo this constitution in order to be readmitted to the Federal Union and that was finally accomplished in 1902 after years of wrangling and struggle at the state level. 1902 is four years after the Plessey v. Ferguson court case that made Jim Crow (Separation of the Races) legal. The current state constitution of 1902 has Jim Crow embedded in it. It is 1200 pages long and it makes Apartheid legal. Since it is the current state constitution that means that Apartheid is still legal in the state of Alabama. The only reason Apartheid is not enforced in Alabama is that Federal (National level) law overrides state law. (This concept of Federal topping State was decided on the battlefields of the American Civil War and finally with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.) Apartheid in Alabama is real and is still the law. Until the state constitution is changed it will be the law in Alabama and it makes it hard for any progress on Apartheid/Racism to happen. Alabama is NOT the only Deep South state to have this legal problem. All 9 of the former Confederate States have it. Virginia is one of the nine former Confederate states.

On the surface it may seem like the recent election in Virginia was about ubiquitous things like education or taxes, but dig deeper and you will find Apartheid raising its head.

MacAuliff might have run a bad campaign. Any loser runs a bad campaign. But there is no way that the issue of Apartheid/Racism can be ignored in this election and in the past series of elections in the U. S. from local all the way up to national elections. Race is a powerful issue and it moves people to vote in ways that seem to be contradictory to the ideals of this country. Race is an issue that in the U. S. can stay quietly in the background, so quietly that it doesn't even seem to be there, but it is almost always there.

>184 benitastrnad: Race is an issue that in the U. S. can stay quietly in the background, so quietly that it doesn't even seem to be there, but it is almost always there.

Boy, isn't that the truth? Racism raises its ugly hear far too often.

Happy Friday, Paul!

>184 benitastrnad: Thank you for that, Benita. I was commenting on electoral campaigning and strategy and not making a wider point about race or the constitutions of the previously secessionist states. History is a strange subject when used to instruct since Lincoln was a Republican and it was the Democratic Party that founded the Klu Klux Klan. "Birth of a Nation" was the first movie screened at the White House by Democratic President and possibly its most avowedly racist one, Woodrow Wilson.

If your comments are absolutely correct then sadly I am pleased not to be American as I wouldn't want to live in a country that only a vote for the Democrats would relieve me from being labelled a racist irrespective of every other issue available. Winsome Sears was also a racist vote? The decisive majority of Latinos that voted for Youngkin were racist?

If you are right then your country is truly baffling.

Thanks as always Benita for your passion and your instructive insight perhaps I am trying to insert logic into a situation that doesn't lend itself to it and those biases are endemic to those states.

>185 alcottacre: Of course Stasia the blight and stain of racism is still present everywhere and not just in America.

Happy Friday to you too, Stasia.

On the racism row in Yorkshire cricket, heads have indeed rolled. The Chairman has resigned and several of the board have followed him.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/59172267

Racism in a sport invented by bored, and boring, white men. I gasp, I reel in shock, I clutch my pearls.

>179 PaulCranswick: My feeling is that if the issues the voters stated as motivating their choices were examined through windows other that our race tinted spectacles, those voters would see that the GOP candidate is not the one who is likely, in this moment in time, to actually decrease gas prices or make positive changes to the distribution issues. The GOP doesn't have to fix anything for the middle or lower class as long as they can count on their votes for not being libtards. Should the Democrats ever break the racist high pressure zone over the south and midwest, they will be, as they were, just as bad.

>184 benitastrnad: Thanks, though you were absolutely clear. We have generations of developing ways of making racist statements that to outsiders seem like perfectly polite discussion. From my reading, various versions of not our sort filled in for other countries when they don't feel up to ranting about refugees.

Has a novel been written telling what the U.S. might now be like if the Union had allowed the South to secede?

>190 m.belljackson: That's a good question. (I never understood why they were not allowed to secede.) There have been a number of alternate history books with the southern states winning the civil war. I've only read one, about 10 years ago, called Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore. It was published in 1953.

>188 richardderus: Sublime irony then too, RD, because it is the sport most beloved by the brown skinned of Asia. The Indian subcontinent - India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh compete at the very highest level and, indeed, India is pretty much the world's cricketing superpower. Some of my own personal heroes - Michael Holding, Sir Vivian Richards, Sachin Tendulkar and Imran Khan are people especially in the case of the first two many of us would have loved to be able to imitate. Colour in the sport for many of us fans didn't matter a jot.

>189 quondame: Susan, the comments made by people I esteem like yourself and Benita and Jan have made me incredibly sad. If in the final vestige in America it all comes down to race then Western civilisation as a project is doomed. I have always been a glass-half-full kinda guy but the receptacle is looking pretty bloody empty at the moment.

>192 PaulCranswick: Well, it's always been us vs. them, so while it's not pretty, it's just the flavor of the day, and at least they aren't expecting everyone to clap them on the back when they use racial slurs, because almost anytime in the last 30 years they have become aware that they'll be called on it, and by more and more so it's getting pretty close to a tipping point in some places. Not that it will inevitably tip, but maybe, just maybe. In the meantime, watch their hands, not their mouths.

>190 m.belljackson: Not a subject I am very well versed in but wikipedia does have this on "civil war" alternate histories:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War_alternate_histories

>191 RBeffa: It is an interesting topic, Ron and as I remember from reading about Lincoln he propounded several reasons why the states shouldn't be allowed to secede:

that no such right subsisted
that all states were friends
that secessiion would lead to anarchy
the need to preserve what he felt was the world's only true democracy

Whether the USA with slavery still legal in a number of its states was more democratic than Britain's constitutional monarchy at that time in which the vote was restricted to a landowning class is a moot point (women were excluded from the democratic process in both) but I think even through a modern prism we know what Lincoln meant. The obvious irony that the North and the South were killing each other to preserve friendship would be another point of interest.

>193 quondame: It isn't pretty Susan, certainly. I had better concentrate more on my books! xx

>192 PaulCranswick: Can I point out that Virginia elected a black woman as Lt. Governor?

>192 PaulCranswick: Cricket's popularity is utterly bewildering to me. But its popularity, and its extremely high level of professionalism among people who are being dissed by its august pooh-bahs, are things to make a sane person wacky. How do racists come by their sense of superiority anyway? And then, to demonstrate racist asininity in an arena where some of the very best competitors are Other, well...that's a whole different level of stupid.

>196 RBeffa: You can indeed, Ron. I observed the same in >186 PaulCranswick: but it occasioned no comment as it hasn't really in the so-called mainstream media either.

>197 richardderus: For me, RD, cricket is a game which has proved the idiocy of racism. The West Indies team of the 70s and 80s played wonderful and vibrant cricket. The English County game had two wonderful overseas players in each of the then seventeen counties other than in my own county which only considered players born in the County.

Duplicate post for some reason. I will say instead that the Rory Clements, Tom Wilde series is great fun.

>198 PaulCranswick: I'm sorry that I read your comment initially and promptly overlooked it. The election of Winsome Sears would seem to me (like you) to somewhat negate the racist election narrative.

>194 PaulCranswick: Regarding our Civil War, your points about Lincoln are correct - but I know that the Southern states voted to secede just like they voted to join. That would seem to me to be democratic. The colonies of the future 13 United States in a manner of speaking voted to secede as well. For the times they were democratic processes. To go to war over the southern states still befuddles me as much as I have read over the years. I have ancestors on both sides of the war of rebellion.

>201 RBeffa: If I were the northern states I wouldn't look forward to having a competitor of such similarity as a neighbor - we tried to fix that in 1812 too. Anyone familiar with the friendship between England and Scotland would have had strong feelings against yet another nation all along the border. I sometimes wonder what the Southern leaders expected their lives to be like if they won, for surely they did not go into the war expecting to lose. Each of the actual leaders must have had some specific gain in mind to take that sort of risk, unless they assumed there was little risk at all.

>201 RBeffa: No problem, Ron.

As a student of history, Ron, my specialist period was Richard II to Charles II in British history so I cannot even pretend to have any answers to your good points, Ron. Was peaceful coexistence possible? What would have happened to slavery had secession gone uncontested in the North? It does seem clear that, whilst some of the secessionist states had different priorities in wanting to secede the continuation of slavery was a common one.

If the Civil War hastened the abolition then history would be on the side of the North surely? The right to secede does seem a dry legal point and I would agree with you, if that were the only issue then the South may have had more of an argument.

>202 quondame: It is an interesting point though isn't it Susan because peaceful coexistence with Canada has largely been possible? The two sides would have evolved and slavery would have been abolished in the South eventually but at the suffering of how many more generations?
Other points of interest:

The segregationist policies specific to the South may have moved forward longer in a South African type manner of apartheid?
What would have happened in the Western states and whither the fate of the Native American tribes in a divided 'nation'? Would the two 'nations' taken different sides in the World Wars? Would they have been individually strong enough to have made a significant difference? Would the West have lost the Cold War?

>203 PaulCranswick: It's my speculation that the powerful in the secessionist states imagined themselves as taking over large tracks of western land, free to rule as they liked. I doubt many had any real awareness of the major differences in the landscape and how it could yield profit. But we would have been at war, because the north wanted the same, only their own version, which some realized.

>204 quondame: Yes, quite possibly so and who would have taken which states is also interesting to speculate. California for instance was Union leaning during the war but not overwhelmingly so.

My dad showed me this video this morning and it's really interesting: https://youtu.be/D2t4u_tEefM

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336521

>206 SilverWolf28: I will go and watch that properly, Silver, when I have a free moment - it does look interesting.

>207 SilverWolf28: Thanks, I really do need to make some headway soon!

>208 PaulCranswick: I joined the readathon for the same reason, Paul - I need to make headway on all these books I have around me. Best of luck to you!

>209 alcottacre: You too, Stasia.

I am about to leave my office. A stop off at the bookshop and then some reading!

>192 PaulCranswick: I did notice that many (more) teams have players from a mix of races in this world cup; England, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, (Kenya usually do, but I didn't see them play this time), New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and I thought the West Indies had one or two players of Asian descent although my husband disagrees and India have players from all regions of the sub-continent.

>210 PaulCranswick: (re >209 alcottacre:) A stop off at the book shop would surely result in you moving backwards in your resolution to make headway with all the books around you, Paul?

>211 humouress: You are right on the West Indians, Nina. They have a tradition of batsmen and spinners from Trinidad of Asian descent and altogether their squad comprises three players of Asian descent.

The downfall of Kenyan cricket is sad. They got to the very cusp of Test status but have fallen away.

A quick stop off at the bookshop after work on a Saturday lunchtime:

273. Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw
274. The Drowned City by K.J. Maitland
275. Remaking One Nation by Nick Timothy
276. How to Run a Government by Michael Barber
277. Those Bones Are Not My Child by Toni Cade Bambara
278. The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
279. Nemesis by Rory Clements
280. Uncle Tom's Children by Richard Wright
281. The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall
282. Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree

Well reviewed memoir of place by Malaysian author, Tash Aw; Karen Maitland morphs into KJ Maitland to start a series set in the time of King James I; Timothy and Barber are political thinkers trying to take conservatism to the centre-ground; Two novels by the late author and activist Toni Cade Bambara; the third Thomas Wilde book; Richard Wright's famous early collection of novellas; another thought provoker on geo-politics by Tim Marshall; finally a sprawling Hindi novel recommended by one of my site team.

Actually, Underground Airline by Ben H. Winters is an alternative history of the US if the civil war never happened. I recently read it and liked it but some have criticized it because Winters is not black.

>214 PaulCranswick: The Salt Eaters is an excellent read indeed. Remaking One Nation sounds like something I'd froth at the mouth if I even tried to read. I've never heard of that Tash Aw novel so now off to Ammy I trudge, you beast.

Have a great weekend's reads.

>213 PaulCranswick: Great haul Paul. All new to me. I shall watch for your comments as you go along.

>215 Kristelh: Deja Vu in a way Kristel isn't it? Someone's age, race, gender, creed or sexuality should not prevent them from writing about whatever they want to as fiction. An imagination should not be limited by skin colour.

>216 richardderus: I saw your review on the work page and was heartened by its enthusiasm.
I often read books with points of view that I may not agree with as it tends to broaden ones horizons or confirm ones prejudices!
The Tash Aw is a memoir of sorts delving into his origins.

>217 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks Caroline. Tash Aw first.

Oh dear...Lord Patel has his work cut out for him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plId600n_SY

>191 RBeffa: Thanks for your response which has precipitated a lot of possibilities here.

I wasn't thinking about The South winning, just that Honest Abe had said, "Secede, Fine, just let the Slaves go free."

If The South had won, a lot of us would still be picking cotton...

I saw the video of your Singapore joke on IG. Very funny.

And now I have a new inner sound for when I read your posts. I don’t know what I had in my mind for what you sounded like, but it wasn’t reality and I love it.

Have a great Sunday.

The planning thread for next year's BAC is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/336553

>213 PaulCranswick: Terrific haul, Paul! I have not heard of most of the titles, so I look forward to your thoughts on them.

>220 richardderus: He has indeed RD but the English Cricket board has too as they didn't want to act either. To be brutally honest there is also a settling of scores going on here.

>221 m.belljackson: Alternate histories are so fascinating to speculate upon, Marianne, but I would struggle to see scenarios playing out for the better with a Southern victory.

>222 mahsdad: You don't get the whole joke but Hani did at least capture the punchline, Jeff! For some reason I have more of an accent when I am telling jokes.

>223 amanda4242: Oooh Amanda, I am excited and will go and look it up shortly. x

>224 alcottacre: I would normally have tried to hid the haul from SWMBO but she kindly offered to pick me up from the mall so I was left having to shame-facedly explain the crammed bag.

In partial answer to the question about the right of states to secede.

Before 1865 there was only one state that entered the Union of the United States that had a remote Constitutional right to secede. That was Texas. Texas entered the union in 1845. It was an independent nation prior to that and choose to annex itself to the U.S. The thinking was that since Texas was a sovereign nation before it became a state that it could also withdraw from that agreement. The question of its right to secede was decided in 1865 with the surrender of the Confederate armies and the collapse of the Confederate government.

The basic problem of secession of the states in the US that lead to the American Civil War is that the U.S. Constitution provides for entry into the United States but it does not provide for an exit. Therefore, the ability of a state to remove itself from the Union of the United States was a legal question that was to be decided. It turned out that this question was decided, not in court, but on the battlefield. The position of many Northern political theorists was that once in the Union never out. The Union was permanent. It was unconstitutional for a state to remove itself from the Union. This was the position of Lincoln and the Republican party. The fight started over the legality of slavery because that status IS in the US Constitution and made legal by that document. The fight then moved into the realm of States Rights and those States Rights in question was the right to secede. The majority of people in the US at that time lived in the Northern States. The majority of them did not believe in the right of a state to secede or the right of a state to Nullify (the Nullification Doctrine), or invalidate any federal law it deemed unconstitutional. The majority of people in the Southern States believed in the Nullification Doctrine and thought that it was the individual states that were Sovereign - not the Federal Government. When the war started in 1861, it started because the North was fighting to protect the Constitution by saying that the Southern states couldn't secede and and the South was trying to break the Constitution by saying that they had the right to secede. At the root of all this was the question of legality of owning another human being - slavery.

Scholars have long held that the US Constitution, as it was written, was a flawed document because in order to have a viable country big enough to defend itself from the European powers of the late 18th Century, compromises had to be made. The biggest compromise was the legalization of slavery. The only way to get rid of this great mistake was a constitutional amendment. However, because the Southern states believed in the Nullification Doctrine, the right of states to nullify any law that came from the Federal government that they didn't like, they also believed that they could withdraw, or secede, from the Union, at will or ignore any law that outlawed slavery and the Constitution backed them up on the question of slavery. It was this stalemate that lead to the war because eventually one side or the other had to either OK slavery or say no to slavery.

The issue of states rights is simply another name for the question of legalizing slavery or not. Or, at least, slavery was the manifestation of the concept of states rights in practical terms.

If you think that none of this is simple it isn't. If you think this doesn't paint a pretty picture of the US - it doesn't. But that is our history. We are a violent racist nation from our founding and we have to struggle to make a more perfect union. That struggle didn't end in 1788. Or 1865. Or 1965. It is still going on.

This is just a simple explanation of secession. Entire books have been written on the subject.

Good to hear that someone must have reissued the late Toni Cade Bambara's work if you're able to buy her two novels. She's one of my favourite short story writers, and I included her work in my dissertation for my degree (on short stories by women writers: from oppression to resistance).

>228 benitastrnad: Thank you for that, Benita. Greed and bigotry are unfortunately quite universal and the USA is not unique in having issues from its past and present that it needs to face and address.

>229 elkiedee: It is funny, Luci, because i didn't even realise that I had picked up two of her books until I was paying because the posthumous one was a novel that caught my eye but I will admit to having never heard of it before. The author I knew of and The Salt Eaters was on my hitlist so I got myself an unexpected bonus.

Hi Paul!

>183 PaulCranswick: Wow on the PNB 118 stats.

I love your opinions, just don’t always want to engage. I’m mostly in a non-engagement period, right now. Please keep the opinions flowing. I read them, and usually read what others post on your thread, although not always. Skippety-skip-skip.

>190 m.belljackson: and >191 RBeffa: The Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters is an alternate reality in which 4 states still have slavery.

>194 PaulCranswick: Good reference, thanks. I see that they have The Underground Airlines, which I read in 2016 and gave 4*.

>213 PaulCranswick: A smallish Cranswickian haul, but I see you’re getting close to 300 for the year. Bravo.

>215 Kristelh: I’m reading Paul’s thread in order since my last post, so see you were ahead of me with The Underground Airline. I didn’t think of the author's race as I was reading it. It rang good and true, as I recall. I also loved his The Last Policeman series.

>227 PaulCranswick: Are you already out of shelf space, or could you squeeze the new ones in?

>231 karenmarie: Thank you, Karen, I can't help myself anyway so the comments will keep coming.

I reached exactly 300 books last year and will almost certainly pass that this year - steady accumulation is the order of the times for me.

I am still ok for storage and have identified space for more shelving (psst Hani doesn't know yet!)

>232 PaulCranswick: Hani not only knows it, she's got plans to make use of it before your shelves go up. Never forget: She's a wife, an omniscient omnipotent being of uncertain motives and moods.

>233 richardderus: That really is hitting the nail on the head, RD. Foible or faux pas big or small will not slip beyond her.

I read Underground Airlines when it came out in 2016. I left a review here on LT then. It is a powerful affecting novel and I would have given it 4 stars except that I thought it had a very poor ending

>235 RBeffa: I must go and look for that one, Ron.

>231 karenmarie: Couldn't agree more! Yes please Paul keep those opinions expressed and you do express them so well!

Have you ever read Kathryn Schultz Being Wrong?. It is such a good book about beliefs and perceptions and how we get there and how we're often so certain of our beliefs.

>227 PaulCranswick: Glad to hear that Hani was gracious in this case. I know how that goes. I hide books from Kerry all the time, lol. Thankfully, the mail gets here before he gets home so it is not too bad unless it is the weekend.

Have a happy Sunday!

>237 mdoris: Mary, thank you. I do often feel that polite and respectful discourse even when a little impassioned can help better mutual understanding.

I will look for that book.

>238 alcottacre: Hahaha Stasia - I was sure it couldn't just be me!

Hani is actually pleased with me as I took the day off today (Monday) and drove her down to Johor Bahru (4 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur) to spend time with her mum. We booked a couple of rooms in a newish hotel in the city and Hani & I have one of the rooms and her mum, my SIL and two of their cousins are in the other one.
Hani is going off to the UK sometime in the coming week and wanted both to see her mum as well as visit her father's grave. Impinged on my reading but the brownie points are welcome.
Belle and Erni haven't followed us a Belle had her Pfizer jab earlier in the last week and we wanted to keep her at home until she is feeling 100%.

The view from our hotel room this morning in Johor Bahru.

Reference to the energising debate we had been having about secession and Lincoln's constitutional arguments comes a very interesting essay in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times today which effectively argues that Lincoln in effect broke and remade the US Constitution in the 1860s. In a largely complimentary overview of Lincoln by Harvard professor Noah Feldman he does however conclude that most jurists did believe that Lincoln had no constitutional right to wage war on states to coerce them from secession.

It isn't my area and I don't claim to have the foggiest but I did find the article interesting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/opinion/constitution-slavery-lincoln.html

>241 PaulCranswick: Thank you Paul.

>240 PaulCranswick: *waving from across the Causeway*

>242 RBeffa: Welcome, Ron. I hope it sort goes a way to helping piece together the legitimacy of secession or for that matter armed conflict to prevent it.

>243 humouress: So close I can almost see you!

This article in the Spectator by Lionel Shriver raises the awful spectre of a Trump v Harris race in 2024. Harris seems spectacularly unpopular and surely the Republicans won't try to inflict another four years of that man on the USA will they?

But the main thrust of her article is the rank stupidity of paying families who entered the USA illegally and were separated the princely sum of $450,000 per child or up to US$1,000,000 per family. I haven't seen a more strikingly crass method of encouraging an open border policy or rewarding illegality. It seems that the family of an American serviceperson who is killed on active duty is awarded $100,000 and the immigrants trying to enter the country by legal means get little but a likely rejection.

I don't agree with many things said by Ms. Shriver but she is right that the Democrats are squandering the electoral advantages that fed Biden's election as an avowed centrist with some pretty daft decisions when it comes to the court of public opinion.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-re-gift-to-donald-trump

There has been some discussion in academic newsletters of the Noah Feldman article. The concensous is that there is nothing new in the Feldman article.
Historians have been saying that about Lincoln for years, and most do not regard him as the savior of the Union as much as making a new Union in which the vicissitudes of the Constitution would not be fatal in the future. Feldman is a well respected historian of the US Supreme Court and its relation to politics. Earlier this year I read his book on Franklin Roosevelt and his Supreme Court appointees. Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices. It was a very interesting book but is quite academic in style. There are large sections of the book that are about the various legal philosophies that each justice brought with him to the Court and how their legal opinions followed or, in some cases, outlined this philosophy. The title comes from the fact that each of the justices were very ambitious men and at least 3 of them aspired to running for President themselves. When they were thwarted in doing so by circumstances, they were unhappy ambitious men and turned to fighting amongst themselves. Three of them hated each other and weren't above sniping, back biting, and spreading rumors among the press about the others. That said, this is not a gossipy book. It is very much a legal philosophy book and I found it enlightening in many ways. I read it because I wanted a better understanding of how the US Supreme Court became the political appointment that it is today. The answer to that question, according to Feldman, is that the SCOTUS was always political. From the beginning.

>246 benitastrnad: I don't think it could be very well contended, Benita, that the Supreme Court has no political connotations in that the separation of powers always had it as one prong of the Trident. I think though as politics moves more away from the centre this becomes more obvious.

good morning wishes from Switzerland

>247 PaulCranswick: What >246 benitastrnad: said...the speculation has always been that, had Lincoln lived beyond 1865, he would've been impeached and tried on several counts. Including fiat money's introduction to the US, which ***enraged*** the London bankers. (Gods bless you, Salmon P. Chase!)

>240 PaulCranswick: Attractive low-rise city. Nice bay view, too.

>239 PaulCranswick: >240 PaulCranswick: Glad you have earned some brownie points Paul, and are enjoying some family time before Hani leaves for the UK.

HI Paul!

>240 PaulCranswick: Nice view!

Happy to be getting around to the threads, lol

>248 paulstalder: Lovely to see you here, Paul

>249 richardderus: I often felt, RD, that for the preservation of his reputation, he died at the right time. Still he did so many such a great service.

JB is not the most attractive of cities, but I always enjoyed going home there.

>250 Caroline_McElwee: I have just arrived back in KL, Caroline and she remains happy. She just bought a I-Phone 13 Pro Max whatever the hell that is.

>251 The_Hibernator: Lovely to see you, Rachel. Have missed you not having been so active this year in the group.

Hi Paul!

>232 PaulCranswick: You’re very welcome – although it’s your thread and your rules so even if I didn’t like your comments, I’d just skip them. *smile*

I’ll probably top 300, although I’m ‘only' at 268, so perhaps not. Depends on thrift shop visits, free or inexpensive Kindle books, and the few new books I might buy before December 31. Alas, or perhaps yay, that we won't have any Friends of the Library sales this year. Last year was a serendipitous 128 acquired and 128 deaccessioned. The ratio will be not be good this year.

>237 mdoris: I have not heard of Being Wrong but find the description of it interesting and have added it to my 2021 96-book wish list. Thanks, Mary.

>238 alcottacre: Fortunately, I don’t have to hide books from Bill. He loves that I love books and reading, and I can’t recall a single time in 30 years of marriage that he’s even raised an eyebrow at the number of books that have come into the house.

>239 PaulCranswick: I’m glad to hear that Belle has gotten her Pfizer dose.

>240 PaulCranswick: Beautiful view, glad you’re making brownie points and getting away for a bit.

>241 PaulCranswick: Well. I’m glad that the right-wing-crazies and white supremacists and KKKers probably don’t ever read the NYT, otherwise it would justify even more attacks on our institutions. Although, it is now it’s about 160 years down the road, things haven't settled down very much.

>246 benitastrnad: I listened to a marvelous book about Lincoln, war powers, and the Supreme Court in 2019, Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers. Taney was as political as they come when it came to supporting slavery.

>254 karenmarie: Kathryn Schultz is a regular contributor of articles to the New Yorker magazine. I found the articles always very interesting.

>254 karenmarie: Hani loves books and reading too, Karen, but she worries about me taking over the whole of our apartment with the 1000s already in situ!

>255 mdoris: I hadn't heard of her before to be honest, Mary, but I see she has also won a Pulitzer Prize.

Hi Paul. Have you started the Judi Dench book yet? I am about half way through but I will admit, I am skimming a little bit. It seems less a memoir than a CV of her acting career with some inside back stories. I am not familiar with many of the actors (not all) she talks about working with and not familiar with many of the plays she acted in (I haven't read as much Shakespeare as I probably should have). so I am simply not relating to much of what I am reading. I will read more tonight but I think I will pack it in the suitcase tomorrow for my train ride home and begin the Ron Howard memoir, as it's very new and I won't be able to renew it from the library. Not sure I will finish it before it's due but I want to try. I can always go back to the Dench afterwards as it's a book I own.

>257 jessibud2: I will read it today, Shelley. No great expectations actually!

>258 PaulCranswick: - Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed as I had hoped for more of an actual *memoir* but apparently, some bios have already been written and this is apparently a kind of continuation of the *conversation*. Maybe I will seek out those bios at some point but for now, too much on the go.

>259 jessibud2: I will read it through, Shelley, but I do tend to agree with you. I read the first chapter and I was a little bit disappointed at how she is skimming the surface of things.

I will admit to loving the challenges that so many of the group put up and take time to devise for us.

TIOLI is an institution and I, with so many of our number am so indebted to Madeline for all the effort she has put in over the years to give us monthly fun and "competition". I don't compete as often as I would like but I always go and have a look at what is going on as it often informs my own reading.

AAC - The American Author Challenge; which was started by Mark and continued equally splendidly by Linda has introduced a number of authors to me that I may have otherwise have left on the shelves in the store.

In turn this inspired me to start the BAC (British Author Challenge) in homage but also to convey that we Brits have something good to offer too! Amanda took up the cudgel from me this year and has, I think, breathed new life into it.

We have also had ANZAC and Canadian Author challenges which I have participated in before and always so enjoyed.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

I have lived and worked and loved in Asia (primarily in Malaysia) these last 27 years and feel I should also acknowledge the impact that Asian writers are increasingly having on our reading these days.

I am planning to start an ASIAN BOOK CHALLENGE next year and hope to persuade one or two of you to try and join me.

Have a little think and I will return soon with my ideas for the 2022 challenge.

>239 PaulCranswick: I am happy that Hani is happy with you about something :)

>261 PaulCranswick: I am interested in the Asian Book Challenge, Paul. The problem for me will be as to whether I can find the books or not.

>262 alcottacre: I am normally adept at keeping my finger on the self-destruct button!

I took her to the kubur (muslim cemetery) and we spent some quiet moments at her Dad's graveside. I said a couple of prayers for him and she had a little cry. It is those sorts of moments when you truly realise that you couldn't quite manage without that other person. Hani and I have had some turbulent times, especially in the last five years or so but we have managed (I hope) to come through those times together, slightly bruised but still holding hands.

I will try to keep it so that I don't choose anything so obscure.

>261 PaulCranswick: A new challenge! Most of my Asian reading has been of Japanese authors because they are the easiest to find around here, but I've always wanted to expand my reading of that vast continent.

>264 amanda4242: I am thinking to have a geographical trek around the continent, Amanda. I will pick a country or region and suggest a few authors. Of course with my normally bohemian view of rules anybody can change to another author as it may please them.

>263 PaulCranswick: but we have managed (I hope) to come through those times together, slightly bruised but still holding hands.

I hear you there. Kerry and I have done the same.

I didn't know there was a Canadian challenge Paul. I'm not much into challenges per se but I love many Canadian authors so maybe you could point me in the direction of that challenge. I read more British authors than any other nationality. It's just my cup of tea lol.

ASIAN BOOK CHALLENGE 2022

These will be the monthly jaunts for the ABC challenge.

JANUARY - Europe of Asia - Turkish Authors
FEBRUARY - The Holy Land - Israeli & Palestinian Authors
MARCH - The Arab World - Writers from the Arab world
APRIL - Persia - Iranian writers
MAY - The Stans - There are 7 states all in the same region all ending in "Stan"
JUNE - The Indian Sub-Continent - Essentially authors from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh
JULY - The Asian Superpower - Chinese Authors
AUGUST - Nippon - Japanese Authors
SEPTEMBER - Kimchi - Korean Authors
OCTOBER - INDO CHINE - Authors from Indo-China
NOVEMBER - The Malay Archipelago - Malaysian, Singaporean and Indonesian Authors
DECEMBER - The Asian Diaspora - Ethnic Asian writers from elsewhere

I was able just about to cover the whole of the continent and I didn't include one for Russia as most of the authors are decidedly European in their ethnicity and leaning.

>268 PaulCranswick: I will have to hope that someone helps me out with author's names for each region because I currently pay no attention whatsoever to where an author is from, only if their books are good, lol.

>266 alcottacre: Sometimes the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" really does apply, although we have been on life-support a time or two!

>267 brenzi: I don't think that there was one this year, Bonnie, but Ilana did one a few years ago and then it was re-instituted last year I think. Let me check and I'll come back to you.
I did Anita Brookner for the BAC a few years ago and I know her books mean a lot to you.

>269 alcottacre: I am a bit of a dab hand at that Stasia, don't worry. I will put up plenty of suggestions.

>270 PaulCranswick: I understand that too.

>271 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul! I appreciate it.

>272 alcottacre: I will try to put up a General Thread to plan in a few days time.

>273 PaulCranswick: Sounds good! Thank you again, Paul.

>268 PaulCranswick: I like the breakdown. And I've been looking for an excuse to try one of the Chinese Classics.

>275 amanda4242: Me too actually, Amanda, although I'm not sure that I will manage it in 2022.

January will see us in the stew of Constantinople / Istanbul and the waters of the Bosphorus and the plains of Anatolia leading to its pinnacle of Mount Ararat.

It has a wealth of authors (and poets) although I will concentrate on the authors active since the formation of the modern state in 1923.

We may need some local colour from Ursula for January's challenge.

>268 PaulCranswick: Ooooh!

De-lurk to get excited over new book lists. I have issues...

>268 PaulCranswick: I am excited about the Asian challenge.

Some long promised thread posting stats.

All threads above 100 posts

1 scaifea 7,197
2 PaulCranswick 6,301
3 KatieKrug 5,650
4 msf59 5,009
5 richardderus 4,731
6 karenmarie 3,734
7 jnwelch 3,490
8 crazymamie 2,536
9 MickyFine 2,191
10 FAMeulstee 2,104
11 laurelkeet 1,824
12 ronincats 1,538
13 FamilyHistorian 1,488
14 BBLBera 1,449
15 bell7 1,431
16 lyzard 1,373
17 EBT1002 1,367
18 Berly 1,330
19 quondame 1,209
20 drneutron 1,208
21 SandDune 1,118
22 Whisper1 1,105
23 mstrust 1,007
24 rebarelishesreading 988
25 Streamsong 968
26 johnsimpson 941
27 thornton37814 917
28 Weird_O 901
29 jessibud2 884
30 curioussquared 855
31 Humouress 852
32 figsfromthistle 844
33 PersephonesLibrary 838
34 brenzi 789
35 Caroline_McElwee 752
36 mahsdad 744
37 connie53 720
38 loving-lit 691
39 Swynn 660
40 sandymc 652
41 LizzieD 628
42 foggidawn 627
43 Sir Thomas 619
44 laytonwoman3rd 601
45 sibyline 563
46 EllaTim 558
47 ChelleBearss 480
48 Carmenere 479
49 AMQS 478
50 fuzzi 465
51 Ursula 457
52 coppers 442
53 cbl_tn 437
54 alcottacre 431
55 ffortsa 431
56 Ameise1 399
57 avatiakh 384
58 Chatterbox 341
59 sirfurboy 341
60 hredwards 312
61 harrybutler 307
62 mdoris 296
63 klobrien2 291
64 banjo 284
65 paulstalder 283
66 oberon 272
67 Rbeffa 268
68 Bekkajo 265
69 PawsForThought 262
70 magicians_nephew 255
71 justchris 254
72 tiffin 250
73 jayde1599 240
74 London 240
75 CDVicarage 237
76 DianaNL 227
77 vivians 219
78 amanda4242 218
79 SqueakyChu 218
80 lindapanzo 213
81 souloftherose 209
82 witchyrichy 208
83 aktakukac 201
84 false-knight 175
85 The_Hibernator 173
86 CassieBash 169
87 majkia 165
88 fairywings 157
89 AnneDC 156
90 lycomayflower 152
91 torontoc 150
92 ArlieS 143
93 trifolia 143
94 silverwolf28 141
95 Oregonreader 140
96 arubabookwoman 134
97 tymfos 124
98 BBGirl55 122
99 elkidee 117
100 LoisB 116
101 vikzen 114
102 kristelh 111
103 yoyogod 109
104 Deedledee 105

>277 BekkaJo: Bekka....tell me!

>278 Kristelh: I am pleased to see some enthusiasm, Kristel. Gives an opportunity to try new authors.

>268 PaulCranswick: Well I have been pretty bad at the challenges Paul, I really like the idea, but I'm such a mood reader, however, I'll certainly aim to do a few of the months, especially where I already own a book that fits.

I love your stats - and I am in it - Thank you, Paul!

>281 Caroline_McElwee: Caroline, I suppose an advantage of having me administrate a challenge that I apply no rules. No reason you need to go in order and can read whichever selection you want whenever you want.

>282 SirThomas: You are most welcome, Thomas.

Books read will follow very shortly.

READING STATS

Based on the same selection group in >279 PaulCranswick: above (posts above 100)

Books read. Usual apologies for mistakes and not being fully up to date for several threads as it took me several days to update.

1 silverwolf28 361
2 Chatterbox 304
3 amanda4242 290
4 foggidawn 259
5 quondame 249
6 hredwards 246
7 FAMeulstee 240
8 klobrien2 211
9 yoyogod 191
10 richardderus 187
11 scaifea 180
12 CDVicarage 177
13 thornton37814 163
14 vivians 159
15 FamilyHistorian 152
16 jnwelch 150
17 Sir Thomas 148
18 elkidee 135
19 BBLBera 131
20 AnneDC 130
21 lyzard 126
22 msf59 123
23 MickyFine 121
24 sibyline 121
25 souloftherose 115
26 PaulCranswick 114
27 harrybutler 112
28 bell7 111
29 sirfurboy 111
30 Swynn 111
31 Whisper1 111
32 avatiakh 108
33 PersephonesLibrary 108
34 KatieKrug 107
35 brenzi 106
36 curioussquared 106
37 kristelh 101
38 witchyrichy 100
39 crazymamie 99
40 alcottacre 98
41 karenmarie 98
42 mstrust 98
43 tiffin 97
44 connie53 93
45 fuzzi 93
46 Weird_O 92
47 majkia 90
48 paulstalder 90
49 false-knight 89
50 Streamsong 89
51 arubabookwoman 87
52 cbl_tn 82
53 Humouress 82
54 ChelleBearss 81
55 LoisB 81
56 figsfromthistle 80
57 drneutron 79
58 torontoc 79
59 Bekkajo 78
60 Deedledee 78
61 jayde1599 78
62 London 78
63 sandymc 76
64 mahsdad 75
65 oberon 75
66 Oregonreader 75
67 Rbeffa 75
68 Ameise1 73
69 Caroline_McElwee 73
70 lindapanzo 72
71 ArlieS 71
72 justchris 71
73 ffortsa 69
74 AMQS 68
75 EBT1002 68
76 rebarelishesreading 68
77 aktakukac 67
78 CassieBash 67
79 johnsimpson 67
80 Berly 66
81 jessibud2 66
82 laytonwoman3rd 66
83 ronincats 65
84 coppers 64
85 banjo 59
86 Ursula 59
87 mdoris 58
88 laurelkeet 57
89 magicians_nephew 57
90 fairywings 48
91 loving-lit 48
92 SandDune 48
93 tymfos 48
94 LizzieD 44
95 lycomayflower 43
96 Carmenere 36
97 EllaTim 30
98 trifolia 30
99 SqueakyChu 27
100 BBGirl55 24
101 vikzen 21
102 DianaNL 15
103 PawsForThought 15
104 The_Hibernator 15

>279 PaulCranswick: >284 PaulCranswick: Thank you for the stats, Paul!
It is a lot of work, and I appriciate you get to them from time to time.
I have seen you roaming the threads to get the right numbers.

I am happy find myself in the top 10 twice :-)

>276 PaulCranswick: I've found Ann Morgan's year of reading the world blog very helpful in finding authors.

https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/thelist/

And thanks for the stats!

>284 PaulCranswick: You're a whole thread behind, PC. My second post of each thread always has counts and links: https://www.librarything.com/topic/336406#7643306

187, if'n you please kind sir. Moving me into slot #10.

>268 PaulCranswick: Inspired challenge! I was planning on having an Asian lit category next year, so will try to join in. My reading has dropped away this year, I blame the lockdowns we've had in Auckland for that. Still finding it hard to get engrossed in many of the books I pick up.
There are lots of helpful threads in the Reading Globally group which could help with the more obscure regions.

>284 PaulCranswick: I've read at least 25 more books since I've updated my thread. I'll hopefully get it updated this weekend.

>285 FAMeulstee: You are welcome, Anita. The posting one is easy really as I update it daily but the reading one does obviously involve checking each thread and we all have slightly different ways of recording (or not) what we have been reading. That is why sometimes I am a little out especially with very fast readers or those who update intermittently.

>286 amanda4242: Thanks for that Amanda, I will go and have a look at that.

>287 richardderus: My only excuse RD is that yours was one of the first that I updated so it is maybe 5 days old or possibly I somehow misread the figures. It is never more than two days between my visits to your place but obviously not for book counting but to see how you are.

Will amend my figures, dear fellow.

ETA Amended.

>288 avatiakh: Will be glad to have you join in, Kerry.

>289 SilverWolf28: There are one or two speed readers without 100 posts, Silver, but otherwise I cannot see anyone catching you this year. x

Paul - if you PM an email address, I can forward a link to R.M. 81st Birthday Concert last week in NYC -
for your Music Loving Malaysian Friend. It may even inspire you to haul out a Drum Kit!

If your friend enjoys name dropping, the gentleman hosting the event is the grandson of the
famous or infamous IBM President.

*hmmf* well then. At last I am in my proper list-topping spot.

I'm going to break 200 reviews this year, absent disasters! That will be nice.

>293 m.belljackson: I will do that certainly, Marianne.

>294 richardderus: Well RD you did get fairly quick restitution - especially compared to the Birmingham Six or Guildford Four.

I was hoping for 200 too this year but I just can't avoid having a couple or three bad months that sours my soup.

The New York Times today has an article on Powell's bookstore in Portland and its efforts to survive the pandemic. It better still be there when I can finally make it to the Pacific North West.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/09/business/powells-books-pandemic.html?action=c...

>279 PaulCranswick: I don't see SandyAMcPherson.

>279 PaulCranswick: Placed 40th with 652 posts, Susan.

BOOK #114



Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw
Date of Publication : 2016
Origin of Author : Malaysia
Pages : 91 pp

Challenges
Around the World Challenge : 44th

This short reflection on belonging and displacement, traces Tash Aw's family to the river banks of Northern Malaysia. He recalls his sense of being Chinese and being Malaysian at the same time and the prejudice faced by the ethnic Chinese in a country with a majority Malay population.

This prejudice is clear and real and I see it everyday. The Chinese community is the motor of the economy here but they often receive scant appreciation for their efforts. It is also a story of education and upbringing and culture and understanding.

I don't feel that Aw fully develops many of his ideas but it does give a little bit of an insight into the Chinese disapora and the tremendous efforts in survival of several generations ago. The sacrifices of yesterday are giving way to the realisation of potential by today's generation.

>298 PaulCranswick: OK. The others were more easily recognized.

>279 PaulCranswick: Wow, I have become quite a slacker, Paul. Babies and birds are not cutting it. LOL!

>284 PaulCranswick: Hey, I think #22 is pretty respectable, especially considering retirement. Silver is sure kicking butt! You are a bit a slacker here though. LOL.

>300 quondame: I had shortened the name to fit in the spreadsheet column I keep, Susan.

>301 msf59: You have actually picked up quite a bit recently, Mark, in all fairness. You are overall at a similar pace to last year but Amber and Katie are posting much more this year. It is by some way Katie's best posting year for her threads.

I have fallen away a bit after a couple of difficult months. I'm still cautiously optimistic of reaching 150 books.

>296 PaulCranswick: I live in the Portland suburbs & Powells has been a treasure for my 30+ years here. But I'll confess I've not been there since the pandemic began.

>303 ChrisG1: I am fairly sure that Powell's will host an LT Meet-Up in the near future featuring one portly Englishman and numerous like-minded pals from the Pacific North-West. x

Paul - if you can get the online SMITHSONIAN, there's an incredible article about Portuguese Sousa Mendes vs "neutral" Portugal.

>279 PaulCranswick: wow, look at me breaking into the top 20 for posts!

Last year started a real uptick in my thread numbers, though my reading is about average instead of on the high side like it was in 2020. We're still impressively close for number of books read this year, but we've been so consistent with that over the years that at this point I'd be more surprised if our reading numbers diverged widely.

Thanks for the stats, Paul. I’ve been feeling that I’ve been mostly absent from LT this year, but those posting stats tend to prove me wrong.

>305 m.belljackson: I will go and have a look, Marianne

>306 bell7: Indeed Mary your posting numbers have surged these last couple of years and more of our pals have realised what a great place to be your thread is.

>307 Familyhistorian: Last year with 2,774 posts was your highest number ever and, though you probably won't make that number you will be close to 2000 posts for the fifth year in a row.

>299 PaulCranswick: Adding that one to the BlackHole. My knowledge of the Chinese diaspora is pretty much nonexistent.

As far as Powell's goes, it is a dream spot for me so I echo your sentiments in hoping that it is still there if and when I ever get to the Pacific Northwest!

>304 PaulCranswick: That would be excellent indeed! I've noticed some others from this area in posts.

>310 alcottacre: One of the things I so loved about Malaysia when I was fresh off the plane and starry-eyed, Stasia, was the ease with which the three main ethnicities (Malay, Chinese and Tamil) got along. I could sit in a coffee shop, usually a stall or a shop-house and chat about most things in "interesting" English with three friends of different races and it felt liberating after Europe.

Sadly that ease that the races had with each other has deteriorated over the last 25 years mainly due to the cynical tactics of Malay politicians creating scapegoats to hold onto power.

Powell's and The Strand are both on my Bucket List.

>311 ChrisG1: I know of at least half a dozen in the group in the vicinity (well reasonably so!).