Jackie's 2021 ROOT thread

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Jackie's 2021 ROOT thread

1Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 1, 2021, 1:08 pm

Hello everyone, welcome to my thread! I'm Jackie, and I've been a member of this group since 2014, so I think that means this is my 8th year ROOTing. I've found this (and the Category Challenge) group really helpful for getting a bit of a grip on Mt TBR, and I love the book and other chat in the group. I read a lot of non-fiction, and nature/place writing is my reading happy place, but I do try and fit in some regular fiction as well.

I've kept my goal the same as 2020, 60 books. In 2020 I exceeded that by quite a lot, but this year I want to feel less stressed and so I'm not going to go too all out on trying to exceed the goal. If I read more than 5 books a month that's great, but I'm not going to put myself under pressure to do more than that. There are a few books which I'm going to read over the entire year, so if I manage 5 books a month then those books will help me exceed my goal by year end.

I'm also going to keep my goal of trying to reduce Mt TBR. The last couple of years I've been successful in slowly chipping away at it. I'd hoped to start 2021 with the total number of books still left to be read under 400. I didn't quite manage that, but I did reduce the pile by 20 books. I've decided to try and aim for 375 books or fewer by the end of 2021. My main strategy is to try and only acquire a book when I've read 2 books from Mt TBR (I haven't managed it yet, but even just trying has helped!). I don't count books I receive as presents in that 2 for 1 (trying to give myself a bit of wiggle room!). I'll keep trying to get closer to that goal in 2021.

Happy reading everyone, and may 2021 be a big improvement in all areas on 2020!

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

Ticker 1: ROOTs read



Ticker 2: Acquisitions



Ticker 3: Books left on Mt TBR

2Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 29, 2021, 1:35 pm

ROOTs 1-50

1. Svetlana Alexievich - Chernobyl Prayer. Finished 6.1.21. 4.5/5.
2. J.D. Vance - Hillbilly Elegy. Finished 9.1.21. 3.5/5.
3. Jessica J. Lee - Two Trees Make a Forest. Finished 16.1.21. 4.5/5.
4. Janey Godley - Frank Get The Door!. Finished 18.1.21. 4/5.
5. Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice. Finished 18.1.21. 3.5/5.
6. Roger Deakin - Waterlog. Finished 30.1.21. 4.5/5.
7. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - B is for Beauty: A Beauty and the Beast Anthology. Finished 31.1.21. 4/5.
8. Dan Fagin - Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation. Finished 8.2.21. 4.5/5.
9. Alice Vincent - Rootbound: Rewilding a Life. Finished 14.2.21. 3.5/5.
10. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - A is for Apple: A Snow White Anthology. Finished 15.2.21. 4/5.
11. Dara McAnulty - Diary of a Young Naturalist. Finished 18.2.21. 5/5.
12. Akala - Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. Finished 19.2.21. 4.5/5.
13. Mark Stay - The Crow Folk. Finished 27.2.21. 5/5.
14. Kassidy Shade & Andy Chapman - Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars!. Finished 28.2.21. 4/5.
15. Michel Foucault - The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Vol 1. Finished 5.3.21. 3/5.
16. Craig Packer - Into Africa. Finished 11.3.21. 4/5.
17. David H Mould - Postcards from the Borderlands. Finished 23.3.21. 3.5/5.
18. Danny Katch - Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People. Finished 24.3.21. 3.5/5.
19. Fiona de Londras & Mairead Enright - Repealing the 8th. Finished 27.3.21. 4/5.
20. Jane Williams - The Merciful Humility of God. Finished 28.3.21. 3.5/5.
21. Diane Ackerman - Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden. Finished 28.3.21. 4.5/5.
22. Frank Kusy - Life Before Frank: From Cradle to Kibbutz. Finished 11.4.21. 3.5/5.
23. Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass. Finished 23.4.21. 5/5.
24. Mary Beard - SPQR. Finished 24.4.21. 4.5/5.
25. Alexander McCall Smith - The Full Cupboard of Life. Finished 29.4.21. 4/5.
26. Margaret Truman - White House Pets. Finished 4.5.21. 2.5/5.
27. Charlie Hailey - The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature. Finished 11.5.21. 5/5.
28. ed. Kathleen Jamie - Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland. Finished 15.5.21. 4.5/5.
29. John Galt - The Annals of the Parish. Finished 15.5.21. 4/5.
30. Saša Stanišić - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. Finished 18.5.21. 4.5/5.
31. Lev Parikian - Music to Eat Cake By. Finished 19.5.21. 3.5/5.
32. Jim Dodge - Fup. Finished 22.5.21. 4/5.
33. Alan Brown - Overlander: Bikepacking coast to coast across the heart of the Highlands. Finished 29.5.21. 4/5.
34. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix in Corsica. Finished 5.6.21. 4/5.
35. Arlie Russell Hochschild - Strangers in their own land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Finished 10.6.21. 5/5.
36. Sara Maitland - Gossip from the Forest. Finished 15.6.21. 4/5.
37. Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing. Finished 19.6.21. 5/5.
38. Svetlana Alexievich - The Unwomanly Face of War. Finished 23.6.21. 4.5/5.
39. Simon Barnes - On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet. Finished 26.6.21. 4.5/5.
40. Ross James - 111 Days. Finished 29.6.21. 4/5.

3Jackie_K
Redigerat: dec 30, 2020, 9:44 am

ROOTs 51+

4Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 11, 2021, 4:33 pm

Non-ROOTs

1. Dr Laura Markham - Calm Parents, Happy Kids. Finished 15.2.21. 3/5.
2. Joanna Penn - The Successful Author Mindset. Finished 15.2.21. 4/5.
3. Joanna Penn - How to Market a Book. Finished 25.2.21. 4.5/5.
4. Joanna Penn - How to Make a Living with your Writing. Finished 28.2.21. 3.5/5.
5. Henry David Thoreau - Walden; and, On the duty of civil disobedience. Finished 9.3.21. 3/5.
6. Florence Williams - The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. Finished 8.4.21. 4/5.
7. Various - Nature Writing for the Common Good (available at https://www.cusp.ac.uk/projects/arts/naturewriting/ ). Finished 16.4.21. 3.5/5.
8. Ben Aitken - A Chip Shop in Poznan. Finished 26.4.21. 3.5/5.
9. Michael Palin - North Korea Journal. Finished 11.6.21. 3.5/5.

5Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 30, 2021, 8:39 am

Acquisitions 1-50

1. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - B is for Beauty. Acquired 1.1.21.
2. C.K. McDonnell - The Stranger Times. Acquired 18.1.21.
3. Jane Williams - The Merciful Humility of God. Acquired 30.1.21.
4. Mark Stay - The Crow Folk. Acquired 4.2.21.
5. Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott, Peter Marron - The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus. Acquired 15.2.21.
6. Corinne Fowler - Green Unpleasant Land. Acquired 25.2.21.
7. Kassidy Shade & Andy Chapman - Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars. Acquired 27.2.21.
8. Tom Cox - Notebook. Acquired 1.3.21.
9. David H. Mould - Postcards from the Borderlands. (LTER) Acquired 6.3.21.
10. Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass. Acquired 13.3.21.
11. Philippa Perry - The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did). Acquired 16.3.21.
12. Leslie Kern - Feminist City. Acquired. 16.3.21.
13. Musa Okwonga - One of Them - An Eton College Memoir. Acquired 1.4.21.
14. Jim Dodge - Fup. Acquired 29.4.21.
15. Charlie Hailey - The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature. Acquired 3.5.21.
16. ed. Katherine Norbury - Women on Nature. Acquired 13.5.21.
17. Various - In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing. Acquired 18.5.21.
18. Stephen Moss - Skylarks With Rosie: A Somerset Spring. Acquired 22.5.21.
19. Pragya Agarwal - (M)Otherhood. Acquired 3.6.21.
20. Narine Abgaryan - Three Apples Fell from the Sky. Acquired 3.6.21.
21. Padraig O Tuama & Glenn Jordan - Borders & Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story for our Times. Acquired 3.6.21.
22. Charlotte Mendelson - Rhapsody in Green. Acquired 3.6.21.
23. Simon Barnes - On the Marsh. Acquired 3.6.21.
24. Stewart Ennis - Blessed Assurance. Acquired 4.6.21.
25. Peter Arnott - Moon Country. Acquired 4.6.21.
26. Simon Barnes - A History of the World in 100 Animals. Acquired 5.6.21.
27. Ross James - 111 Days. Acquired 11.6.21.
28. Frank Rennie - The Changing Outer Hebrides: Galson and the meaning of Place. Acquired 13.6.21.
29. Anita Sethi - I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain. Acquired 25.6.21. (*** note to self - all books up to and including this one in Jar of Fate ***)
30. James Rebanks - English Pastoral. Acquired 29.6.21.

6Jackie_K
Redigerat: dec 30, 2020, 9:44 am

Acquisitions 50+ (hopefully an empty post!)

7Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 30, 2021, 8:40 am

Nerdy stats

ROOTs (total: 40)

fiction: 11
non-fiction: 29
poetry:

female author: 16 (%)
male author: 24 (%)
non-binary author: (%)
mixed anthology: 3 (%)

paper book: 15 (%)
ebook: 25 (%)

completed: 40
abandoned:

ratings (4* and above): 30

Non-ROOTs (total: 9)

fiction:
non-fiction: 9
poetry:

female author: 6
male author: 3

paper book:
ebook: 9

completed: 9
abandoned:

Acquisitions (total: 30)

fiction: 9
non-fiction: 21

female author: 11
male author: 21
mixed: 2

paper book: 12
ebook: 18

Amount spent overall: £128.86

Source:

kobo - 10
hive.co.uk -
Unbound - 3
amazon marketplace -
birthday presents - 8
LTER - 2
Verso - 1
Barter Books -
amazon.co.uk - 3
Christmas presents -
Outwith -
Book Depository -
Peepal Tree Press - 1
random gift - 2

(via Bookbub - )

2 for 1 progress (minus presents)

ROOTs 40
acquisitions 20

8connie53
dec 30, 2020, 10:16 am

Hi Jackie. Good to see you back again. Happy ROOTing!

9rabbitprincess
dec 30, 2020, 10:26 am

Yay, Jackie's here! :D Have a great reading year!

My parents and I were just talking about Barter Books yesterday... we were imagining our first post-pandemic trip to the UK (likely 2022 at this rate, haha). I've been reading the Vera and Shetland books so maybe we'll have to do an Ann Cleeves special -- Northumberland and Shetland! (But I also want to go to the Hebrides and fly to Barra, and land on the beach runway...)

10Jackie_K
dec 30, 2020, 10:28 am

>8 connie53: Thank you Connie! I intend to have a very happy reading year!
>9 rabbitprincess: Northumberland and Shetland would be an amazing twofer - two of my favourite places! The Barra flight is on my bucket list too, it looks amazing.

11clue
Redigerat: dec 30, 2020, 12:26 pm

I like your idea of the total books on TBR ticker. I'm trying to decide if it would be good for me to have one or if I would just totally stess out!

Hope you have a great year!

12cyderry
dec 30, 2020, 4:44 pm

I may have to steal your stats form! You know I am a numbers person!

Good luck holding down those acquisitions - I did terribly in 2020.

Happy 2021 Reading!

13This-n-That
dec 30, 2020, 10:59 pm

Wishing you good luck with your ROOTing goals. Really fun nerdy stats. I agree with Chèli, as I am also tempted to borrow them. ;-)

14This-n-That
dec 30, 2020, 11:07 pm

How are you feeling, Jackie? I just noticed you mentioned in Henrik's topic that you recently had your first dose of the vaccine. I hope any side effects are minimal and you are okay.

15connie53
dec 31, 2020, 3:17 am

>14 This-n-That: i noticed that too. Great! I can't wait to get the vaccine. So I will be watching you closely.

16Jackie_K
dec 31, 2020, 10:16 am

>11 clue: I like it as a nice visual aid (and a bit of an incentive) to try and acquire fewer books - not *no* books (I couldn't do that!), but fewer! It's not for everyone, but I've found it helpful and motivating. It took me ages to figure out how to do it, but it turns out tickerfactory do a debt ticker as well as a savings ticker, and it's the debt ticker that counts down!
>12 cyderry: >13 This-n-That: You're welcome to borrow the stats. I kept it as I went along in 2020 and it was useful to track what I was reading and spending etc.
>14 This-n-That: >15 connie53: Thank you, I'm doing fine! It's been 48 hours (well, 49 actually, now I look at the clock) since I had the injection, and I've felt absolutely fine. My arm was a bit sore yesterday, but no worse than any other injection I've ever had, and better than some! I'm glad to have got the first dose out the way, and I already have the appointment for the next one, 28 days later. It was actually my wedding anniversary that day, so a strange way to celebrate, but I wasn't going to delay it! :D

17FAMeulstee
dec 31, 2020, 4:42 pm

Happy ROOTing in 2021, Jackie!

Glad to read you got the vaccination, and belated happy anniversary.

18Jackie_K
dec 31, 2020, 4:49 pm

>17 FAMeulstee: Thank you very much, Anita! Our anniversary was quiet, it wasn't a 'significant' number (well, it's significant to us, but you know what I mean!). We usually get a curry to celebrate (eating out or getting a takeaway), but our 7yo wanted pizza, so we decided to live dangerously and got pizza delivered instead!

19floremolla
dec 31, 2020, 5:57 pm

Hi Jackie, Happy New Year to you, and happy ROOTing in 2021!

2020 was a year of distractions for me but hope to see more of you, and fellow ROOTers in 2021!

20Jackie_K
dec 31, 2020, 6:45 pm

>19 floremolla: Thank you, Donna, and also to you!

21connie53
jan 1, 2021, 5:03 am

>18 Jackie_K: I just missed the anniversary thing. Congrats on that.

22Robertgreaves
jan 1, 2021, 6:13 am

Have a happy and healthy year of ROOTing, Jackie, and congrats on the anniversary

23Jackie_K
jan 1, 2021, 12:50 pm

>21 connie53: >22 Robertgreaves: Thank you Connie and Robert! 13 years (we were late bloomers!), it's gone really quickly!

My 2 for 1 has got off to a start, in the wrong direction, as I had a preorder arrive on my kindle today. I also heard that I have won an LTER book (the first one I've requested in a year and a half - although the last one never arrived, so I'll only count it when I actually get it). I'd better get on with some ROOTing!

24ritacate
jan 1, 2021, 12:51 pm

>5 Jackie_K: Love it, you're not wasting any time!

25Jackie_K
jan 1, 2021, 12:55 pm

>24 ritacate: In my defence, the anthology is edited by a friend, and includes stories by her and a handful of other people I know, and I preordered it in 2020. And it's just typical that the first Early Reviewer book I've been remotely interested in reading in ages is awarded at the start of the year as well!

26karenmarie
jan 1, 2021, 1:04 pm

Hi Jackie and Happy New Year!

I'm glad to hear that you got your first COVID vaccination and that you only had a sore arm and no other side effects.

Happy anniversary, too, and here's to another great ROOTing year.

27Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 1, 2021, 1:30 pm

>26 karenmarie: Thanks so much Karen! My arm's no longer sore, and I'm just relieved to have started the process of vaccination. The hospital where I work, like others up and down the country, is very busy - I'm on leave right now, but I'm wondering what I'm going to find when I get back to work at the end of next week. We had a nice quiet anniversary, and a pizza delivered (A's choice - we usually have a curry for our anniversary but we'd had one a week or so ago so we decided to ring in the changes!).

28curioussquared
jan 1, 2021, 7:28 pm

Happy new year, Jackie! Great news on the vaccination! It's so exciting to hear of more and more people getting it. Can't wait to get mine, though as a young, healthy person who can work from home I'm last in line!

29readingtangent
Redigerat: jan 1, 2021, 9:02 pm

Happy new year, Jackie! That's awesome that you reduced your TBR pile by 20. I would be overjoyed to manage that :). I like the debt ticker idea, too.

30Jackie_K
jan 2, 2021, 11:22 am

>28 curioussquared: Thank you! It looks like the UK are delaying the 2nd doses of the vaccine (trying to get as many people as possible to have the first dose first) so I don't know if I'm going to get my 2nd dose when I expect, but probably not (I'll know for sure when I get back to work at the end of next week). I have mixed feelings about this - on the one hand, I expect the modelling has shown that this will be more effective at suppressing the virus across the entire population than some of us being fully vaccinated while others have to wait for longer before even getting their 1st dose. But on the other hand, particularly as someone who works with vulnerable patients, I would like to know that I am fully vaccinated and less likely to catch/pass on the virus. I'm also concerned that it will get logistically much more complicated - it's not been so bad in here Scotland, but in England I have no faith that the government could organise a proverbial **** up in a brewery, never mind a more complex vaccination schedule. I suspect it will be harder to ensure all people have both doses if they're waiting longer between doses. I hope I'm wrong.

>29 readingtangent: Thank you, I'm really happy to have reduced the pile a bit! I'd have liked it to have been a bit more, but I'll take it! I have good intentions this year too, we'll see how well I do :D. To get to 375 I'll need to reduce it by 32, which is quite a big ask!

31susanj67
jan 2, 2021, 12:36 pm

Hi Jackie! That's great news about the first shot of the vaccine. I hope they don't stretch out your your second shot for too long - if anyone needs to be as fully vaccinated as possible it's medical staff and people working in healthcare settings.

32Jackie_K
jan 2, 2021, 4:01 pm

>31 susanj67: Thank you, I agree! Looking at some of the recent papers (specifically a briefing by JCVI, in whom I have much more faith than in Johnson, Hancock & co), they seem to be suggesting that leaving it a bit longer to have the 2nd dose may actually confer a greater level of individual protection than you'd get by having them only 4 weeks apart, which is encouraging. But, as with so much about covid, there's a lot of hypothesising without necessarily having all the data because it's all been so quick (wonderfully quick, I'm not saying it's been overly rushed). Anyway. I'm not going to worry about it, and I'm glad to at least have some partial protection already!

33Robertgreaves
jan 2, 2021, 6:17 pm

>30 Jackie_K: My parents in Reading are scheduled to have their second vaccination dose tomorrow (Monday).

34Henrik_Madsen
jan 3, 2021, 5:47 am

Glad to hear vaccination is going along smoothly and without sideeffects of any significance.

Interesting to hear the decision to wait with the second dose. I had not heard about that possibility and the policy here is to aim for three weeks apart - at least initially. Probably to get the most vulnerable and exposed groups finished first.

Good luck ROOTing!

35Jackie_K
jan 3, 2021, 11:20 am

>33 Robertgreaves: Fingers crossed it still goes ahead for them! I presume there will be a lot of local variation.
>34 Henrik_Madsen: Thanks Henrik! Our policy was initially 21-28 days apart (my appointment for the 2nd dose is 28 days later), but just in the past couple of days the talk about extending the time between doses has started.

36detailmuse
jan 3, 2021, 3:25 pm

Welcome back, Jackie!

SO glad to hear you've gotten your first dose of vaccine. Last week some chatter started in the US about also delaying second doses but there's no traction on that yet. Methinks no one conceived how large-scale a mass-vaccination plan was needed here ... available stock isn't even being utilized.

37susanj67
jan 4, 2021, 9:22 am

It was great to see the first person getting the Oxford vaccine today.

I'm just watching Nicola Sturgeon locking Scotland down from midnight, Jackie - inevitable I suppose. No word yet on what England's going to do.

38Jackie_K
jan 4, 2021, 10:55 am

>38 Jackie_K: Yes, I think it was inevitable. It's the right thing to do, but I'm going to have to get my head round home school again (sigh) and how to organise my time (looks like I'll be doing my tax return in the evenings!). Johnson's going to do an announcement at 8pm, so I'm assuming there'll be a lockdown across England too. Not before time.

39MissWatson
jan 5, 2021, 9:17 am

Welcome back, Jackie. Such exciting news about the vaccination!

40Jackie_K
jan 5, 2021, 9:53 am

>39 MissWatson: Thank you, welcome back to you too, Birgit! I'm still in full working order after it (much to the disappointment of the conspiracy theorists, I expect).

41MissWatson
jan 5, 2021, 9:56 am

>40 Jackie_K: Those people are unbelievable. A vaccination centre went operational here in Kiel, but they still don't have a lot of the vaccine, so things are going slowly. Care homes and medical professions are first in line.

42Carmenere
jan 5, 2021, 6:04 pm

Happy new year, Jackie and happy ROOTing!

43Jackie_K
jan 6, 2021, 12:35 pm

>41 MissWatson: I hope things start to speed up for you there soon!
>42 Carmenere: Thank you so much!

ROOT #1



My first book of the year was excellent, if harrowing. Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich's Chernobyl Prayer is an oral history, she interviews people who lived and worked in the area of Ukraine and Belarus near the Chernobyl nuclear power reactor - clean up workers, widows, conscripted soldiers, scientists, politicians, volunteers, journalists. As usual she does not include any of her own questions or commentary, it is just the people talking, which leaves a raw and powerful account of the aftermath of the nuclear disaster. Very powerful and harrowing. 4.5/5.

44Jackie_K
jan 8, 2021, 10:16 am

I'm reminded that I didn't post my 2020 reading stats yet (they're at the front of my 2020 thread, but I don't expect anyone to be looking there!). My fiction and non-fiction ROOT reading and acquisitions very accurately sum up my preferences I think! (75% non-fic read, and 82% non-fic bought). I was surprised I had acquired so many paper books - I much prefer reading on my kobo these days.

ROOTs (total: 86, of which there was only 1 DNF, and 59 were 4* or higher)

fiction: 19 (23%)
non-fiction: 65 (75%)
poetry: 2 (2%)

female author: 30 (32%) (must do better!)
male author: 58 (62%)
non-binary author: 1 (1%)
mixed anthology: 5 (5%)

paper book: 38 (44%)
ebook: 48 (56%)

Non-ROOTs (total: 13)

fiction: 1
non-fiction: 8
poetry: 4

female author: 7
male author: 6

paper book: 4
ebook: 9

Acquisitions (total: 66)

fiction: 12 (18%)
non-fiction: 54 (82%)

female author: 29 (43%)
male author: 29 (43%)
mixed anthology: 9 (14%)

paper book: 27 (41%)
ebook: 39 (59%)

Amount spent overall: £332.73 (I'm not sure this is accurate - I think it's a bit more and I forgot to count a handful of books. So let's say about £350).

Sources:

kobo - 33 (of which 7 were via bookbub)
Unbound - 2
amazon marketplace - 4
amazon.co.uk - 3
birthday presents - 7
Christmas presents - 4
British Trust for Ornithology - 1
Big Green Bookshop* - 1
Little Toller - 1
twitter giveaway - 1
Outwith* - 2
Book Depository - 1
Janey Godley Store - 1
Book-ish* - 1
Granta - 2
direct from author - 1
(* = indie bookshop)

45FAMeulstee
jan 8, 2021, 10:25 am

>43 Jackie_K: Svetlana Alexievich writes excellent books. I have read Chernobyl Prayer, Second-hand Time, and The Unwomanly Face of War. Last December I have read Last Witnesses about the memories of people who were children when the war started. All were powerful reads.

46Jackie_K
jan 8, 2021, 10:29 am

>45 FAMeulstee: Yes - I read Secondhand Time a year or two ago too. I have The Unwomanly Face of War lined up for a challenge a bit later in the year. I keep getting Boys in Zinc recommended too, so I might give that a try at some point.

47connie53
jan 8, 2021, 11:48 am

Nice stats, Jackie!

48curioussquared
jan 8, 2021, 12:25 pm

Very nice stats!

49Robertgreaves
jan 8, 2021, 8:27 pm

>44 Jackie_K: Always interesting to see what stats people think are significant

50susanj67
jan 9, 2021, 7:02 am

Chernobyl Prayer does sound pretty harrowing, Jackie. I read Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy last year (I think) and that was bad enough.

I hope home-schooling isn't too bad this time around.

51Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 9, 2021, 9:07 am

>47 connie53: >48 curioussquared: >49 Robertgreaves: Thank you! They're the same stats I cobbled together a couple of years ago - I'm thinking I really ought to also look at how many books I'm reading by people of colour, and perhaps also the non-US/UK totals too.

>50 susanj67: I must admit I find the whole history of Chernobyl fascinating, and I do mean to get to the other two Chernobyl books (including the one you mention) at some point. I think it's one of those subjects though where you have to ration your reading, as it is so harrowing. Homeschooling starts on Monday for us - so far my daughter seems a lot more enthusiastic than she was last year, we'll see how long that lasts!!

ROOT #2



I have mixed feelings about J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, which is his memoir of growing up in a poor hillbilly extended family in the USA and turning his life around. It is really well written, and the fact that he was able to move beyond his troubled childhood is really impressive. He creates a vivid picture of his significant family members, particularly his grandparents Mamaw and Papaw, who were his refuge while his mother's life was so chaotic. But I found his conclusions about what the problems are and how to tackle them simplistic and contradictory - (rightly) criticising policies drawn up by faraway elites without considering the reality of lived experience, but ultimately seeming to make it primarily about individual good and bad life choices. Of course he is not saying it's only one thing and not the other, and both individual choice and government policy and programmes are important in tackling poverty and alienation. But I ultimately found his criticisms of policy and large emphasis on individual choice and behaviour unsatisfying and unconvincing. I'm glad I read this, but I think I'd want to read other accounts rather than basing my entire view of white working class poverty in the USA on just the one book. 3.5/5.

52This-n-That
Redigerat: jan 9, 2021, 11:40 am

>51 Jackie_K: A thoughtful review. I also had mixed feelings about Hillbilly Elegy and thought by the end of the book, the author came off as pompous. I also found his stance on people receiving financial aid to be contradictory, especially since he himself received a substantial amount of financial aid to get through college and law school. Unfortunately, I still don't have a well balanced book about poverty in the US to recommend. Perhaps some readers here have good recommendations on the subject.

53FAMeulstee
jan 9, 2021, 2:26 pm

>51 Jackie_K: My mixed feelings about Hillbilly Elegy went eventually to the more negative side, I rated it 2.5/5.
My thoughts: The book is both memoir and political, and the last part bothered. He is one of few who made it, yet he has no compasion at all for the ones who didn't make it. Based on a few people who misused social securety, he pledges to take all benefits, forgetting he profited from the system himself, as he would never been able to attend Yale without a scolarship.

54Jackie_K
jan 9, 2021, 2:35 pm

>52 This-n-That: >53 FAMeulstee: Yes, you've both put better into words what I was trying to express. I'm not sure I'd say he had no compassion, but I think that he was contradictory - compassionate when it suited him, but also blaming them just as much. And yes, benefitting from the system but then saying the system is making it worse did jar.

55karenmarie
jan 9, 2021, 2:42 pm

Hi Jackie!

Impressive statistics, especially the 75% nonfiction.

>51 Jackie_K: Hillbilly Elegy has never once called my name. The one book that I can recommend unequivocally about poverty in the US is Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed. It's probably somewhat dated, but it's about the working poor, whose plight has not changed in 19 years even if the specifics might have. Here's Amazon's blurb:
In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, our sharpest and most original social critic, goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.

Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job―any job―can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour?

To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.

Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity―a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything―from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal―in quite the same way again.It came out in 2001 and I had read it by 2007 when I joined LT and cataloged it.

56rocketjk
jan 9, 2021, 2:53 pm

Greetings and happy reading in 2021.

I'm with you on Hillbilly Elegy, which I read last year. I thought it was well written but ultimately self-indulgent and tone deaf to the condition of the people he purported to be in sympathy with.

57Jackie_K
jan 9, 2021, 4:00 pm

I'm glad to have started a book discussion so early in the year!

>55 karenmarie: Thank you for the recommendation, Karen - I'll add it to my BB list. I also came across an article on medium.com recently by an Appalachian woman who is also a writer, and who was very critical of Hillbilly Elegy, and I'd love to read some of her work. I just need to see if I can find the article again, because I can't for the life of me remember her name! (one day I'll remember to write things down when I actually see them and not rely on my ageing memory).

>56 rocketjk: Thank you, happy new year to you too! 'Tone deaf' is a good way to put it. I'm glad it's not just me being the awkward squad with this book - I know it got lots of plaudits when it was published, and it's not every book that gets made into a Netflix film (although his family story, which he does write about really vividly, is the kind of thing that I could imagine would be very watchable on the big screen).

58connie53
jan 10, 2021, 7:27 am

Hi Jackie, I can't participate in the conversation about the book, so I'm sorry to change or interrupt the conversation.

I have a question though. How do you get the line next to a quote as in >55 karenmarie: ? It looks real cool.

59Jackie_K
jan 10, 2021, 8:10 am

>58 connie53: I have no idea! Karen? 😁

60connie53
jan 10, 2021, 8:25 am

Okay, that was a stupid question. I now see that Kare made that post!

61rabbitprincess
jan 10, 2021, 9:24 am

>60 connie53: LOL at the emoticon!

Not Karen, but it is HTML code called "blockquote".

62connie53
jan 10, 2021, 9:26 am

Not Karen, but it is HTML code called "blockquote".


Got it! Thanks RP.

63Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 10, 2021, 12:40 pm

>60 connie53: haha I love that emoticon! We've all had those moments!
>61 rabbitprincess: Thanks RP! Every day's a school day.

64detailmuse
jan 10, 2021, 3:56 pm

Great stats, Jackie!

I second the recommendation of Nickel and Dimed -- enlightening when it was published. And I eagerly read her next, Bait and Switch about white-collar work, but recall that her voice had turned angry and mocking and I haven't read more than maybe an essay by her since.

>57 Jackie_K: Is it Cassie Chambers (author of Hill Women)? Hers is my favorite of recent memoirs about Appalachia.

65Jackie_K
jan 10, 2021, 4:06 pm

>64 detailmuse: I've just googled, and it wasn't Cassie Chambers. Actually (I didn't fully appreciate this when I read the article initially) she's reviewing the film primarily, and it sounds like the film has focused on the family drama to an exaggerated degree. But her points about the book more widely did resonate with how it made me feel (and she too recommended the Chambers memoir). The article is here: https://gen.medium.com/when-will-the-rural-mother-rise-up-4ffed08ea438

66detailmuse
jan 11, 2021, 11:23 am

>65 Jackie_K: Thank you, I've favorited your post to keep the link. I liked the article's referrals for further reading on Appalachia and the Rust Belt (though they're pretty dispiriting in an already low time). Also liked the characterization of Vance's “literary strip-mining. He mined it but didn’t put anything back.” -- Cassie Chambers returned to provide legal aid to the impoverished.

67karenmarie
jan 12, 2021, 8:40 pm

Yes, glad you were able to get the answer about blockquote.

In case you've never seen some of the fun stuff, here's a great thread for html code.

How to do cool stuff in your threads

68connie53
jan 13, 2021, 6:46 am

Yes, I know. I saw the blockquote HTML-code there too, but did not quite know what it meant.

69Jackie_K
jan 17, 2021, 9:42 am

ROOT #3



Jessica J. Lee's Two Trees Make a Forest is a memoir of discovering her family's roots in Taiwan. She herself has Canadian and British citizenship, her father is Welsh and mother is Chinese-Taiwanese; it was her mother's parents who had to flee to Taiwan from China in 1947. In this book she returns to Taiwan to discover the place and to try and make sense of her family history, helped by recordings she made with her grandmother before she died talking about her life, and also by a letter written by her grandfather, already starting to feel the effects of the Alzheimer's that would eventually kill him, about his life in China and Taiwan. The book includes lush descriptions of the Taiwanese countryside and mountains and nature that she explores, and meditations on identity, belonging and language.

The first couple of chapters I was a bit unsure about the book - the prose did feel like it was veering towards the purple a bit, and there were some words that I just didn't know (she's particularly fond in the early chapters of the word 'lithic'). But it was so worth persevering - as I got a few chapters in, and got more used to the rhythm of her prose, and got more fascinated by both her family history and the nature of Taiwan, I was drawn in and felt fully immersed in her journey. I also found the chapter where she discussed Taiwanese nature writing fascinating. 4.5/5.

70Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 18, 2021, 4:47 pm

ROOT #4



Ever since lockdown began last year, the Scottish First Minister's daily covid briefings have been considerably livened up by comedian Janey Godley's voiceovers. Using the visuals from the briefings, she provides an alternative commentary in (very sweary) Scots, and it has been a real highlight of the last year. Frank Get The Door! is a book with the transcripts of the first 5 and a bit months (from the second half of March to the end of August) of the voiceovers. As is often the case with these things, the actual video and sound is funnier than reading it on the page, but there were still plenty of things here which made me laugh out loud (especially the briefing where she was asked about Donald Trump's remarks on light and bleach, and the following day when she was talking about face coverings in shops: "DON'T PUT A G-STRING OAN YER HEID"). A welcome bit of light relief now we're in lockdown again. 4/5.

71Caramellunacy
jan 18, 2021, 9:28 am

>70 Jackie_K: Now you have me googling to find the video so I can watch Nicola Sturgeon's face seeming to exclaim "DON'T PUT A G-STRING OAN YER HEID!" because I think that might be just the thing to cheer me up.

72Jackie_K
jan 18, 2021, 9:33 am

>71 Caramellunacy: Haha, happy to help! If it's any help, it's the episode from 28th April 2020, and the episode title is "Face masks".

73Jackie_K
Redigerat: jan 18, 2021, 1:16 pm

ROOT #5



Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice is a book I started in April 2020, but don't let the fact that it has taken me months and months to read it put you off - I did like it! I just kept getting distracted! It is the story of English woman Jean Paget, who unexpectedly inherits a fortune from her uncle. She initially decides to return to Malaya, where she had been a prisoner of the Japanese along with other British women and children and where they had been forced to march from town to town with the Japanese soldiers unwilling to take responsibility for them. While on the march she got to know Joe, an Australian soldier, also a prisoner, who is killed after stealing some chickens from the Japanese for the women. Her time as a prisoner takes the first third of the book. Thereafter, when she returns to Malaya to build a well to help the village which eventually took them in, she discovers that Joe in fact wasn't killed, but recovered and eventually returned to Australia. She goes on to Australia to try and find him, and finds that he's been holding a candle for her too. The rest of the book is the story of her settling in Australia and finding love. It has to be said that some of the language in the book is 'of its time' (particularly about the Aborigines in Australia, and Japanese in Malaya) which I could overlook as it was of its time, but also couldn't overlook and I wish it wasn't there. But I'm glad I've read it (eventually!) and would read more Shute if it comes across my path. 3.5/5

Also, the man on this cover always reminds me of Keir Starmer (leader of the UK Opposition). Once I saw it I just couldn't unsee it.

74Caramellunacy
jan 19, 2021, 6:16 am

>73 Jackie_K: I read this one several years ago - picked it up when I was flying through Alice Springs, which seemed fitting. I enjoyed the story, but definitely was uncomfortable with some of the language/attitudes, which impacted my enjoyment as well.

75connie53
jan 19, 2021, 12:45 pm

I have to get to that book again. I have good feelings when I think of the book, but don't remember much about the story. Just an impression of 'That was a good book'.

76Jackie_K
jan 30, 2021, 7:17 am

>74 Caramellunacy: I think that's a common reaction - good book, good story, shame about the racism.
>75 connie53: I'd read it again, I think, but forewarned about the less savory bits!

ROOT #6



Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey Through Britain by Roger Deakin is a wonderful, immersive book. He undertakes to spend a year swimming in as many wild and random swimming spots in the British Isles as he can - taking in rivers, sea, lakes, open air pools and lidos. I enjoyed this immensely - I'm never going to be a wild swimmer myself, I'm not a strong enough swimmer, but I enjoyed the journey from my armchair. There were a few places where he turns back without swimming (a super-scary sounding pothole in Yorkshire and, thank goodness, the Corrievreckan whirlpool north of Jura in Scotland, trying to swim that would be madness), but he still manages to convey the emotion and physicality and nature and beauty of the places. There's plenty about the wildlife and plants and manmade structures he encounters. I'm keen to read some of his other books now. 4.5/5.

77rabbitprincess
jan 30, 2021, 9:43 am

>76 Jackie_K: Beautiful cover on that one!

78Caramellunacy
jan 30, 2021, 10:07 am

>76 Jackie_K: How perfectly put, I am going to go add that as a tag to my copy now.

Waterlog sounds so interesting - although I am wrapping myself in a thicker blanket thinking of swimming as I look outside.

79Jackie_K
jan 30, 2021, 12:29 pm

>77 rabbitprincess: Isn't it? So simple, but so evocative.
>78 Caramellunacy: Yes, I was glad to be considering wild swimming from the vantage point of my centrally heated house whilst under a duvet!

80Jackie_K
jan 31, 2021, 5:22 pm

ROOT #7



My final completed read for January is B is for Beauty: A Beauty and the Beast Anthology, a collection of ten short stories retelling the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale in various different genres - from sci-fi, romance (Regency, paranormal, sweet), through to urban fantasy. I bought this book (and its predecessor, A is for Apple: A Snow White Anthology which I'm planning on reading in February) because my friend Robyn Sarty edited and contributed a story to it; regular readers of my reviews will know that none of the above genres are my reading comfort zone! That said though, I really enjoyed this, and whilst (as with any collection of short stories) there were stories that I liked more than others, there were no stories (unlike most collections of short stories I've read) that I actively disliked or thought was weak. Short stories are so hard to do well, so for every story to have sufficient depth to be satisfying is a real achievement. 4/5.

81Familyhistorian
feb 1, 2021, 12:50 am

I read on the group thread that you had finished a book that you started last year sometime. For a minute I thought you might mean Jerusalem, Jackie. I haven't cracked the covers of that book in ages.

82Jackie_K
feb 2, 2021, 12:06 pm

>81 Familyhistorian: Same here with Jerusalem, Meg, although I am full of good intentions for this year!

83Jackie_K
feb 2, 2021, 12:11 pm

January got off to a good start, with 7 ROOTs read and 3 books acquired. I did find reading 7 a bit stressful though, I need to be disciplined enough to let myself not take on too much. Note to self: 5 a month would be fine!

The books I finished this month were:

1. Svetlana Alexievich - Chernobyl Prayer.
2. J.D. Vance - Hillbilly Elegy.
3. Jessica J. Lee - Two Trees Make a Forest.
4. Janey Godley - Frank Get The Door!.
5. Nevil Shute - A Town Like Alice.
6. Roger Deakin - Waterlog.
7. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - B is for Beauty: A Beauty and the Beast Anthology.

And January's acquisitions are:

1. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - B is for Beauty: A Beauty and the Beast Anthology.
2. C.K. McDonnell - The Stranger Times.
3. Jane Williams - The Merciful Humility of God. (I'm going to read this one for Lent this year).

84detailmuse
feb 2, 2021, 5:14 pm

>80 Jackie_K: retelling the ... fairy tale in various different genres
What an interesting idea. I read little genre fiction so that would be fun exposure.

85Jackie_K
feb 4, 2021, 9:15 am

>84 detailmuse: It was - as you know I'm not a big fiction reader, but shorter versions (especially when done well) were easier to pick up and dip into. And the different genres meant that if I was less fussed about one story, the next one was likely to be better.

86Jackie_K
feb 9, 2021, 3:24 pm

ROOT #8



Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2014, deservedly so. This chunkster of a book details the story of the town of Toms River, New Jersey, and the growing realisation of the impact of industrial pollution on the town. As well as meticulously detailing the various players: there was a big Ciba-Geigy chemical plant there from the 1950s, the town's biggest employer until it was eventually closed in the 1990s; also Union Carbide used a local farm to dump waste; the local water company neglected to add filters or report about known pollution in some of their wells; local and federal government neglected to order or follow up on studies, and brushed rumours of pollution hazardous to health under the carpet; and meanwhile families throughout the town were unwittingly drinking water polluted with industrial waste, or working with minimal protection with highly hazardous waste. Over the years there seemed to be more and more cases of both adult and childhood cancers, and this book looks at each study which eventually built up a bigger picture of what was happening. At times it read like a detective story, at others like an epic family tragedy. I was absolutely gripped - with admiration for the investigative writing, rage at the incompetence, indifference and focus on profit over health and environment, and sorrow for the families affected. 4.5/5.

87karenmarie
Redigerat: feb 10, 2021, 2:29 pm

Hi Jackie! I hope you're doing well. Are you in lockdown, and is A in school or at being schooled from home?

>70 Jackie_K: What a riot! I found that April 28 2020 YouTube video and laughed my head off, especially at the end when she was muttering about her handbag, shoes, and sandwich.

>73 Jackie_K: Excellent, enticing review. I have A Town Like Alice on my shelves, and have tagged it 2021 read. Who knows, I may actually read it in 2021… *smile*

>83 Jackie_K: Congrats on a great start to 2021. You’re ahead of the game for sure.

>86 Jackie_K: Excellent review.

88Jackie_K
Redigerat: feb 11, 2021, 10:04 am

>87 karenmarie: Hi Karen! Yes, we're in lockdown in Scotland currently, and have had to homeschool since schools returned in January. But the youngest children are returning after the half term holiday in a couple of weeks, including A (she's in the oldest year that is returning, Primary 3). To be honest I'm relieved - there will be fewer children in the school, but the socialisation that's so important for the younger children will be there. She's really missed her friends, and we're getting by with homeschooling but not loving it! Meanwhile, I now have a date for my 2nd covid vaccination, in mid-March, so that's another relief.

I'm so pleased you enjoyed the Janey Godley voiceover video. I think she's brilliant. She gets a horrific amount of abuse on Twitter (mainly from football fans) but she keeps going - I have a lot of time for her.

Right now A is having a Google Meet meeting with her class and teacher, and it is chaos, but fun to listen in!

89connie53
feb 11, 2021, 1:03 pm

>88 Jackie_K: A class meet sounds like fun. My grandkids are back to school and daycare too. Fiene loved to go again, Marie is happy where ever she is and she is not going every day and Lonne is in daycare on Monday only. But it's just for this one week, because next Monday the Carnival Holiday is starting so I think the Netherlands should have done the same as in Scotland and waited until after that week.

90Jackie_K
feb 11, 2021, 1:31 pm

>89 connie53: Marie is happy where ever she is - this made me smile so much!

I think you're right about the holidays - next week is our half term holiday; originally schools were provisionally meant to go back on 1st February but they extended it to the holiday, and then it's only the younger 3 years that are going back; older children have to homeschool for longer.

91connie53
feb 12, 2021, 4:09 am

Here it's a bit unclear. The schools can make their own rules for the the 2 oldest years. So they can choose to split the class up in two parts and switch between them. One group in the morning and the other in the afternoon, or one group in class and one group attending through zoom. What they decide is depending on the amount of teachers that are available. Some are sick at home or in quarantine. Some are older and don't want to be in physically.

92detailmuse
feb 12, 2021, 10:47 am

>86 Jackie_K: What a beautiful review, such a terrible tragedy. I feel the rage and impotence -- against regulators in nearly every industry, who for decades (and right now) have looked away from the public interest and contributed to catastrophe.

93Jackie_K
feb 12, 2021, 2:44 pm

>92 detailmuse: Yes, it really was a tragedy. As I read it, it reminded me of Erin Brockovich, and also the ongoing campaign in Flint. These lessons just never seem to be learnt :(

94Jackie_K
feb 14, 2021, 12:53 pm

ROOT #9



Alice Vincent's Rootbound: Rewilding a Life was longlisted for last year's Wainwright Prize. It's part memoir, part discovery of the healing power of gardening and green spaces. After a breakup and having to live out of suitcases for several months, Alice finds solace through planting and growing, and discovering the green spaces of London and other cities around the world (I enjoyed her account of the High Line in New York particularly). Large parts of this are really beautifully written, and I'm sure I'll come back to this again and get even more out of a reread, but curmudgeonly me would have preferred a bit more of the plants and a bit less of the relationship angst. 3.5/5.

95Jackie_K
Redigerat: feb 15, 2021, 9:27 am

ROOT #10



A is for Apple: A Snow White Anthology, edited by Robyn Sarty, is from the same stable of anthologies as the Beauty and the Beast anthology I read last month. If anything I think I preferred this one - 6 stories retelling the Snow White fairytale from a number of different genres, including fantasy and contemporary literature (including one which recast Snow White and her stepmother as rival beauty influencers). The only one which didn't really work for me was the paranormal fantasy story, but that's more the genre than the author, as the writing was good, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I think my favourite was probably the first story, where the author Phoenix Xiao drew on Chinese mythology to explore the question of what if it was the stepmother who was the victim? Honorable mentions also to Julian Barr's fantasy retelling, and to Mark Hood's aforementioned beauty influencer contemporary story. A solid 4/5.

96Jackie_K
feb 15, 2021, 1:58 pm

Non-ROOT #1



Calm Parents, Happy Kids by Dr Laura Markham is a parenting book which focuses on building connection with children and fostering resilience. It gives practical tips, as well as an easy presentation of the science behind espousing this approach. I pretty much agreed with the approach, although I didn't always find it obvious what the practical tips were, and I preferred another book which she recommends, Lawrence J Cohen's Playful Parenting. 3/5.

97Jackie_K
feb 16, 2021, 6:40 am

Non-ROOT #2



A couple of years ago I got a box set of 3 of indie author Joanna Penn's books for authors, and am just now working my way through them. The first is The Successful Author Mindset, which looks at the issues which can plague authors at all stages of the creative and publishing journey (self-doubt, perfectionism, etc) and offers thoughts on how to deal with these. It's a short book that will be good for dipping in and out of. There's nothing here that I've not heard on her excellent podcast, but it's good to have it all in one place. 4/5.

98Jackie_K
feb 18, 2021, 1:28 pm

ROOT #11



My first 5* book of the year - Dara McAnulty's Diary of a Young Naturalist won last year's Wainwright Prize and I can certainly see why. It's a diary of a year in his life (when he was 14 - he's 17 now) chronicling his interaction with nature, his growing nature and climate activism, his life with his family, and his experiences of growing up as an autistic teenager (including how commonplace bullying and isolation was). I loved how he was able to explain how he experiences nature and how autism brings it into such sharp focus, but also how he so clearly and naturally explained how he experiences the neurotypical world and how exhausting it can be. He is a really impressive and accomplished writer, and this is a wonderful book. 5/5.

99Jackie_K
feb 20, 2021, 11:51 am

ROOT #12



Akala's Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire is an impressive and highly readable book about race and class, primarily in the UK although acknowledging there are global issues and threads. It is part memoir of his life growing up as a mixed-race, black-identifying boy in the 80s and 90s, and his experiences of racism, prejudice in education and at the hands of the police, as well as violence in his community and beyond, and part polemic about the roots of institutional racism in imperialism and capitalism. Highly recommended. 4.5/5.

100detailmuse
feb 21, 2021, 3:16 pm

>98 Jackie_K: Always appreciating your reviews of nature books. This one sounds fabulous. It looks to be available in the US (maybe??) but also looks like it'll be released this summer...looking forward to it.

101Jackie_K
feb 25, 2021, 5:48 am

>100 detailmuse: Thank you, MJ! I definitely highly recommend The Diary of a Young Naturalist. I'm trying to read at least one nature book a month this year, there are plenty of really good ones out there so this is a project I'm enjoying immensely! :)

102Caramellunacy
feb 25, 2021, 6:20 am

>101 Jackie_K:
That sounds like a wonderful project, I look forward to seeing what you choose.

103Jackie_K
feb 26, 2021, 4:36 pm

>102 Caramellunacy: I was looking at all the nature books on my wishlist yesterday, and wondering if I could afford to give up absolutely everything and just spend the entire time reading. So many lovely books, so little time!

Non-ROOT #3



The second of my Joanna Penn boxset of writing books, How to Market a Book is a really excellent primer for all stages of the book marketing process and I'd highly recommend it. 4.5/5.

104Jackie_K
Redigerat: mar 6, 2021, 4:48 pm

A fiction two-fer to finish off the month!

ROOT #13



The Crow Folk by Mark Stay is the first book in the Witches of Woodville trilogy (book 2 is due in October 2021), and I loved it! It's 1940 in a Kent village, Woodville, around the time of the Battle of Britain in WW2. 17 year old Faye finds a book left her by her dead mother, full of recipes, runes and spells, and a previously unheard-of bellringing method. Meanwhile, strange goings-on are happening in the village. Scarecrows are walking round, led by the charismatic Pumpkinhead, and Pumpkinhead wants Faye's book. The only thing that can stop Pumpkinhead are Faye, two eccentric village witches, and a bunch of church bellringers. Stylistically, think Dr Who meets Dad's Army - this is a cosy, and funny, historical fantasy, and I can't wait for the next installment (also, isn't the cover stunning?). 5/5.

ROOT #14



Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars! by daughter and father team Kassidy Shade and Andy Chapman is a bonkers chapter book for young children just starting on their reading adventure. 8 year old Tommy makes a wish as he blows out the candles on his birthday cake, and gets an awful lot more than he bargained for. Featuring a giant dinosaur called the Tommysaurus, a swimming pool full of jelly, a giant child-eating gummy worm, and a mysterious character known as the Disco Voodoo King (plus plenty of disgusting farts), this is the sort of mad and silly story that young kids will love, and I think it's sorted out my birthday presents for the many 7-8 year olds in my life for the next little while! 4/5.

105Jackie_K
Redigerat: feb 28, 2021, 12:02 pm

Non-ROOT #4



The third and final of the books in my Joanna Penn boxset is How to Make a Living with your Writing (which actually she's in the process of rewriting and updating at the moment). Again, nothing here I'd not already picked up from her podcast, but again, handy to have all in the one place. I do think though that the price of the boxset was worth it just for How to Market a Book, I'll definitely be returning to that one later this year. 3.5/5.

106Jackie_K
Redigerat: mar 6, 2021, 4:49 pm

I'm not going to get any more books read before tomorrow, so here's my February round-up. It was a good month, with 7 ROOTs and 4 Non-ROOTs finished, and 4 acquisitions (2 of which were pre-orders). My 2:1 ROOTs:acquisitions ratio is spot on, at 14 ROOTs and 7 acquisitions. But the last couple of years I've started off well, and fallen off the wagon in August/September time, so I'm not going to rest on my laurels!

This month's ROOTs:

1. Dan Fagin - Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.
2. Alice Vincent - Rootbound: Rewilding a Life.
3. Various, ed. Robyn Sarty - A is for Apple: A Snow White Anthology.
4. Dara McAnulty - Diary of a Young Naturalist.
5. Akala - Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire.
6. Mark Stay - The Crow Folk.
7. Kassidy Shade & Andy Chapman - Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars!.

The non-ROOTs were:

1. Dr Laura Markham - Calm Parents, Happy Kids.
2. Joanna Penn - The Successful Author Mindset.
3. Joanna Penn - How to Market a Book.
4. Joanna Penn - How to Make a Living with your Writing.

(the 3 books by Joanna Penn were a boxset)

And these are my acquisitions:

1. Mark Stay - The Crow Folk.
2. Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott, Peter Marron - The Consolation of Nature: Spring in the Time of Coronavirus.
3. Corinne Fowler - Green Unpleasant Land.
4. Kassidy Shade & Andy Chapman - Dinosaurs, Jetpacks, and Rock Stars!.

107karenmarie
mar 2, 2021, 10:30 am

Hi Jackie!

>106 Jackie_K: Congrats on your good reading month.

108connie53
mar 2, 2021, 1:09 pm

>104 Jackie_K:. That Crow book sounds good!

109Jackie_K
mar 2, 2021, 2:46 pm

>106 Jackie_K: Thanks Karen! A few of them were hangovers from January, but I'll take the numbers! I'm trying to slow my reading down a bit, so I don't have too much going on at once.
>108 connie53: It really is! Only just out in the UK, so I don't know if there'll be a translation of The Crow Folk at some point or not - hopefully there will, as this book really deserves a wide audience.

110connie53
mar 4, 2021, 12:21 pm

>109 Jackie_K: I've put it on my wishlist so as not to forget it. And it now officially is a BB.

111Jackie_K
mar 5, 2021, 5:55 pm

>110 connie53: Excellent! I've pre-ordered the next in the series this week, it's out in October 2021.

ROOT #15



When I was doing my PhD, I bought all 3 volumes of Michel Foucault's A History of Sexuality. I only managed to read the first volume, The Will to Knowledge, at the time. I found it really fascinating and helpful, and I always intended to get back to them just for interest and learning's sake. So I've started by re-reading Vol 1. Clearly in the 10+ years since I did my PhD, my intellectual capacity must have atrophied because I found quite a large chunk of this book pretty incomprehensible, and I ended up skimming quite a lot of it. The bits I'd highlighted still made sense, and there were a few other parts where I thought that the ideas were really interesting, but I'm really not sure I can muster up much enthusiasm for the other 2 volumes. The book considers Foucault's usual themes (knowledge, power, discourse) and was pretty groundbreaking at the time, influencing many (frankly much more readable) scholars working on sexuality. I may give Vol 2 a try at some point, but suspect though that I'll be giving these away to someone who'll appreciate them more. 3/5.

112connie53
mar 6, 2021, 2:51 am

>111 Jackie_K: Interesting that time can change your own perspective on a book that much.

113Jackie_K
mar 6, 2021, 8:58 am

>112 connie53: I don't think it was a change of perspective (I still think it's an interesting and important book that was groundbreaking in many ways) so much as a change of environment (no longer in academia) meaning that I'm just not immersed in such academic/intellectual conversations, so it was much harder going!

114connie53
mar 6, 2021, 1:07 pm

>113 Jackie_K: Oh I see what you mean. Thank you for clearing that up.

115Henrik_Madsen
mar 8, 2021, 12:04 pm

>111 Jackie_K: I don’t think your intellectual capacity has diminished - then mine was flawed to begin with, at least. I have always thought reading Foucault meant enjoying truly brilliant parts but having to read through large chunks which wasn’t really accessible.

116Jackie_K
mar 8, 2021, 1:32 pm

>115 Henrik_Madsen: Thank you Henrik, that makes me feel much better! I remember a colleague telling me, when I was bracing myself to start reading Foucault early on in my PhD, that instead of trying to understand every sentence, I should just read it like a story, or a historical account. I found that amazing advice at the time, and found loads in this book that I thought was brilliant. I tried to do it again this time, but it was much harder work this time round! :D

117Jackie_K
Redigerat: mar 31, 2021, 11:46 am

Non-ROOT #5



This month's library book was Henry David Thoreau's Walden; and, on the duty of civil disobedience. Written in the mid-19th century, Walden is the account of the author's building a shack and living on the land by Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. It's considered a classic of nature writing, and an American classic (one of my American friends told me that, at least when she was growing up and at school, everyone had to read it in high school). This particular copy also includes his later essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Walden is a series of essays about the place, and I had high hopes!

Unfortunately, I found it pretty hard-going! I am coming to the conclusion that for the most part I'm really not suited to pre-20th century writing. I found this book verbose and a bit overblown, but most disappointingly for me, for the bulk of the book what I was wanting to know about - the nature and the place - were largely subsumed in Thoreau's writing about himself and his deep thoughts. A couple of the essays, specifically about the pond itself, were sublime (extra half star for them), and most of the others had bits of nature writing if you dug hard enough, but I found myself skimming more of this than I like to do in a book. 3/5.

118rocketjk
Redigerat: mar 10, 2021, 4:51 pm

>117 Jackie_K: " . . . largely subsumed in Thoreau's writing about himself and his deep thoughts. "

Ha! I was reading a collection of excerpts from Thoreau's various works a couple of years back and finding it very tough sledding exactly for this reason (I had never read him before). I was sitting in front of a local small grocery when a friend passed by and asked what I was reading. I showed her the book and said that I was finding the work dull because Thoreau seemed so impressed with himself. She said, "Yup, that's the Transcendentalists for you. Not a self-effacing one in the bunch." I got a good laugh out of that.

119Jackie_K
mar 10, 2021, 5:01 pm

>118 rocketjk: Yes, exactly! I'm glad I can say I've read this, but I won't be rushing to read any more of his work.

120curioussquared
mar 10, 2021, 5:40 pm

>117 Jackie_K: We read Civil Disobedience in high school alongside MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail. I liked reading it in that context, but I don't think I'd pick up Thoreau again anytime soon.

121Jackie_K
mar 11, 2021, 3:48 pm

>120 curioussquared: I found Civil Disobedience really interesting. I'm not especially au fait with the finer details of historical US politics, but there were bits of it which felt very modern-day 'Republican' (small govt, etc), alongside the full-on anti-slavery stuff, which was an interesting juxtaposition.

122Jackie_K
mar 12, 2021, 1:21 pm

ROOT #16



Into Africa by Craig Packer is an account of a fieldwork trip in the early 1990s to the Serengeti and Gombe national parks in Tanzania. Packer is an academic who has worked on lion studies in the Serengeti since the 1970s, also working with Jane Goodall on chimp/baboon studies in Gombe. During this trip he is initiating some new field assistants who will be collecting data in the field, and helping a PhD student collect samples. This is written as a daily diary, but he also reflects on the things he has learnt about the animals and the place over the decades, and his past experiences as well as what happens during this field trip. It was very readable, not dusty and academic at all, and gave a great sense of the excitement and mundanity of the work, as well as the challenges of the setting. I really enjoyed it. 4/5.

123Caramellunacy
mar 12, 2021, 3:18 pm

>122 Jackie_K:
That sounds like a lovely visit to the Serengeti - would love to travel to Tanzania - armchair or otherwise...

124Jackie_K
mar 13, 2021, 11:42 am

>123 Caramellunacy: It was perfect armchair travel - throughout the book I could really picture the scenes he was describing. I'd love to see Tanzania too, but may well have to make do with TV and books. Many many years ago I went to Namibia including a few days at Etosha National Park, and seeing all the animals at the waterholes was AMAZING. What an experience.

125Jackie_K
Redigerat: mar 23, 2021, 6:01 pm

ROOT #17



I received this book from the publishers as part of the LibraryThing Early Reviewers programme; thank you to the publishers and author for this opportunity.

Postcards from the Borderlands sees the author in several countries which have disputed, precarious, or otherwise not necessarily logical borders. He travels extensively, usually working as a consultant, and seeks out the more authentic experience of the countries than the average tourist would usually experience. I enjoyed reading this very much, although his accounts of some countries and in particular their issues around borders were more interesting and obvious than others, and in most of the chapters there were aspects which felt a bit more basic 'travel writing' than analysis of the impact of borders. The final chapter, where he sums up the main issues (eg different perceptions of borders depending on nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc), was very interesting - I'd have liked to have seen a bit more of that sort of discussion threaded more overtly throughout the whole book. 3.5/5.

126Jackie_K
mar 25, 2021, 7:32 am

ROOT #18



Danny Katch is an American comedian and activist, unashamedly politically left-wing. Despite the deliberate provocation of the cover image, Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People is not just "Trump is terrible" (although he does think that) - he's equally critical of the Democrats (even Bernie Sanders doesn't get 100% favourable coverage here!), and traces how mainstream politics and society going way back led to where politics is today. Having read this a few years after it was published, it didn't feel like there was much new as a lot of this has been hashed out in discussions and debates over the past 4 years. But as an outsider looking in at American politics, what was new to me was the sheer extent of wasted opportunities and general incompetence. It was a very readable account, and as someone who basically agrees with him I enjoyed this (if 'enjoy' is the right word for a book about so many missed opportunities and terrible politics). If you want an unbiased account of American politics then this won't be the book for you, but as a short introduction to the major issues and players then it's well worth a look. 3.5/5.

127Jackie_K
mar 27, 2021, 5:38 pm

I meant to add in my earlier post, I had my second covid vaccination a couple of weeks ago - like the first one, I just had a sore arm the next day and no other side effects, so I'm very happy about that. Even happier that my husband also had his first vaccination last weekend. The end is in sight! (I hope!)

ROOT #19



Repealing the 8th: Reforming Irish Abortion Law by Fiona de Londras and Mairead Enright is a short book, originally published in 2017, the year before the referendum where the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution was repealed. This book does have an epilogue from after the referendum was announced, but before it took place - I'd be interested in a further update now that it's been 3 more years further down the road. The two authors are law professors, and they look at the background to the 8th Amendment and related legislation regarding pregnancy and abortion, and propose an outline of new legislation based on their extensive discussions with interested parties. Law is not usually my field of interest, as it always seems so dry, but this book was interesting and it was really helpful to see how the legal situation was being analysed and proposals for future law being made. 4/5.

128Jackie_K
Redigerat: mar 28, 2021, 5:00 pm

ROOT #20



The Merciful Humility of God by Jane Williams is the book I've been reading for Lent this year. It is laid out in 5 chapters, which consist of an exposition of a relevant Biblical passage, an account of a saint or other holy person (eg St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila) whose life embodies the subject of the chapter, and some questions for discussion/contemplation. I think this would work better as a group read rather than an individual one - I'm probably a bit shallow, but I think I really prefer a more structured, day by day Lent read, and I'll try to go back to that structure for my Lent book next year. 3.5/5.

ROOT #21



Diane Ackerman's Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of my Garden is a lovely book detailing a year in her clearly very extensive garden in New York state. She is an avid gardener, and describes the seasons and lives in the garden beautifully. Occasionally I felt a bit cynical, I'm sure if I had access to that sort of huge garden I could rhapsodise that much too, but I got over myself, because cynicism is just antithetical to such a delightful book. Lots of memorable accounts, although I think my favourite was the short chapter about the hospice garden she volunteers at, and the birdhouse competition they came up with to raise funds. Definitely recommended. 4.5/5.

Also, hooray for me - this marks me getting below 400 books on Mt TBR for the first time in many many years! :D

129Robertgreaves
mar 28, 2021, 9:28 pm

Congrats on the reduction, Jackie. Well done.

130MissWatson
mar 29, 2021, 4:42 am

>128 Jackie_K: Oh, that's quite an achievement! My TBR is going out of control (again), I was so happy that bookstores were allowed to open that I splurged.

131curioussquared
mar 29, 2021, 1:31 pm

>127 Jackie_K: Congrats on the second COVID vaccine!! And on reducing your TBR :) My fiance and I are not technically eligible in our state yet, but we were able to get leftover first doses at a nearby mass vaccination site -- basically, they had opened too many trays of vaccines and had some no-show appointments, so at the end of the day they just wanted arms to put them in, eligible or not. We were so excited!

132Jackie_K
mar 30, 2021, 9:21 am

>129 Robertgreaves: >130 MissWatson: >131 curioussquared: Thank you, I'm really pleased, even though it's only a sliver under 400 it's still under!

>131 curioussquared: Glad to hear you got your first vaccine!

133Rebeki
mar 31, 2021, 2:07 am

Adding my congratulations on going below 400 - great work!

134Jackie_K
mar 31, 2021, 11:08 am

>133 Rebeki: Thank you very much!

I'm not going to get any more ROOTs finished in March (and in fact I've got some big books on the go so doubt I'll get another one read before the end of next week), so here's my March recap. It was a good month for reading, 7 ROOTs and 1 non-ROOT, as follows:

ROOTs read:

1. Michel Foucault - The Will to Knowledge: The History of Sexuality Vol 1.
2. Craig Packer - Into Africa.
3. David H Mould - Postcards from the Borderlands.
4. Danny Katch - Why Bad Governments Happen to Good People.
5. Fiona de Londras & Mairead Enright - Repealing the 8th.
6. Jane Williams - The Merciful Humility of God.
7. Diane Ackerman - Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden.

non-ROOT read:

1. Henry David Thoreau - Walden; and, On the duty of civil disobedience.

I acquired 5 books this month (1 was a pre-order, another was an Early Reviewer book, and another was a gift). As mentioned a few posts upthread, I'm now below 400 books on Mt TBR (398 to be precise). I'm also only just behind on the 1 book acquired for 2 books read - I've read 21 ROOTs this year, and acquired 11 (non-gift) books. I just need to get one more read to be back on track with that. Anyway, here are this month's acquisitions:

1. Tom Cox - Notebook.
2. David H. Mould - Postcards from the Borderlands.
3. Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass.
4. Philippa Perry - The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did).
5. Leslie Kern - Feminist City.

135Henrik_Madsen
apr 1, 2021, 12:43 pm

>128 Jackie_K: Congratulations on getting below 400. That is very well done and quite an inspiration for those of us who haven’t even dared counting them yet!

136karenmarie
apr 1, 2021, 2:51 pm

Hi Jackie!

Congrats on getting your second dose of vaccine and on your husband getting his first.

I remember trying to read Walden once upon a time and not appreciating the navel-contemplation. I got rid of my copy without regret.

Nice reduction of Mt TBR. Even with the pandemic I've managed to acquire 75 books this year - 43 from a 250+ mystery book donation to the Friends that I was allowed to pick through first and not nearly enough discipline about saying no to other books.

137Jackie_K
apr 2, 2021, 5:12 pm

>135 Henrik_Madsen: Thank you Henrik! Of course, no sooner had I been pleased with myself for getting down to 398 books than a pre-order came in yesterday, so it's now 399. But still below the magic 400!

>136 karenmarie: Hi Karen! I feel so much better hearing all the 'me too' comments about Walden - I thought I was missing something, but apparently not! And I think I'd struggle to be restrained too if I had free reign to look through 250+ books!

138connie53
apr 3, 2021, 12:22 pm

Wow, two vaccinations AND reaching -400 ROOTs is awesome. Job well done, Jackie. Even some books into the house is not going to spoil that.

I want to wish you and your family a very Happy Easter.

139Jackie_K
apr 4, 2021, 7:39 am

Thank you Connie, to you too!

And of course I wish all my lovely LT friends a very happy Easter, however you celebrate it (or not). Me, I'm in a rather agreeable chocolate haze at the moment :)

140detailmuse
apr 4, 2021, 4:15 pm

Such good progress on decreasing the TBRs, Jackie! Yikes to the comments about Walden...it's in my TBRs, an annotated edition that I hope will help rather than slog the reading.

141Jackie_K
apr 8, 2021, 5:00 pm

>140 detailmuse: Thank you, MJ! I hope the notes help not hinder your reading of Walden too! I can't help thinking if I had someone explaining all Thoreau's deep and meaningfuls I might well have got a lot more from it!

Non-ROOT #6



I'm very much appreciating our library service's expansion of the digital book catalogue over the past year of the pandemic! Florence Williams' The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative is my most recent library book and I really enjoyed it. She's a journalist by background, and this translates to a very readable and non-stuffy book. She looks at all the various research going on around the world into nature's effect on our mental health and wellbeing, and visits a number of fascinating projects, in the US, Japan, Korea, Finland, Scotland and Singapore, amongst others. I found her writing style just the right blend of curiosity, critique, chattiness, openness, and snark. I'll probably get myself a copy of this to keep, as I'm sure I'd dip back into it. 4/5.

142Jackie_K
apr 11, 2021, 2:05 pm

Finally finished a ROOT this month!

ROOT #22



Frank Kusy is an indie author who has produced a series of 6 travel memoirs, all of which I've picked up over the years on Bookbub deals. This book, Life Before Frank: From Cradle to Kibbutz is the prequel memoir to that series, detailing his life before embarking on those travels. I must say he has some cracking anecdotes (including being puked on by Keith Richards, working for a while with Russell Grant the astrologer, and having his hair ruffled by Ronnie Kray when he was a boy, as well as his Polish dad having a connection to Wojciech the bear in WW2), and he's a good writer too. There are a lot of larger than life characters here - cruel Jesuit teachers, his friend Tristan who was into the occult, his Hungarian mother who is desperate for him to be a good Christian, his dim stepbrother, the cruel work manager at the kibbutz he ends up in towards the end of the book. I did feel sorry for his first girlfriend Addie (who he leaves at the end of the book despite her having supported him for years as he got sacked from job after job), but am interested enough to want to read the other books at some point. 3.5/5.

143connie53
apr 15, 2021, 4:28 am

Hi Jackie! I'm visiting threads to see what everybody is doing and reading. I hope everything is going well with your family.

144Jackie_K
apr 15, 2021, 2:35 pm

>143 connie53: Thank you Connie, yes we're well here. It's the second full week of the Easter school holidays, so A is back to school next week. Pete took the first week off while I was working, and then I've taken this week off, as the holiday club she normally goes to a couple of days a week in the holidays still hasn't reopened. I hope that they are able to open in the summer, because neither of us have enough holidays from work to be able to take all that time off, even sharing it between us.

I'm also reading some really good books at the moment, so that's good too! :)

145Jackie_K
apr 16, 2021, 1:35 pm

Non-ROOT #7



Nature Writing for the Common Good is a set of essays by previously unpublished authors on the subject of nature, ecological challenges, and connections between people and place, curated by CUSP (Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity). As is always the case with this sort of collection there were some that I liked more than others, but all made me stop and think. Some dealt with returning to childhood haunts, others with recovery from trauma, others with watching a particular natural phenomenon (eg the seal pupping on the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts). There was also one poem about so-called invasive species which mirrored some of the thoughts I've been having in my own writing. The collection is available at https://www.cusp.ac.uk/projects/arts/naturewriting/ 3.5/5.

146Jackie_K
apr 23, 2021, 5:14 pm

At last, another ROOT!

ROOT #23



Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, subtitled "Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants", is a beautiful, beautiful book. The author is from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and is also a scientist (botanist), and in this book she looks at how indigenous wisdom and teachings about the natural world can enhance and inform scientific knowledge. The main takeaway for me was the importance of gratitude, reciprocity, generosity and respect in our interactions with the environment and with others. And the writing is stunning - the links she makes between indigenous teaching and world events really stopped me in my tracks (especially towards the end when she talks about the start of the war in Iraq and the migration of salamanders to their spawning pools - I just had my mouth open in awe reading that). Highly, highly recommended. 5/5.

147curioussquared
apr 23, 2021, 5:50 pm

>146 Jackie_K: I've heard so much good about this one -- must get to it soon!

148Jackie_K
apr 24, 2021, 9:11 am

>147 curioussquared: Oh it's lovely, I hope you enjoy it!

And now, one of the reasons it's taken me so long into April to get many ROOTs read!

ROOT #24



SPQR by Professor Mary Beard is a sweeping history of the first millennium of the Roman Empire. It's quite a chunkster of a book, hence taking quite a long time to read, but I very much enjoyed it. As well as covering kings and senators and emperors, she also presents what is known about more 'normal' people and society throughout the Empire. What I liked about this, more than the actual history itself, was her discussion throughout as to the relative strength (and amount) of available evidence, and so how confident we can be about it, what can be claimed with some certainty and what is more speculative. I wish more history books would do that. As an aside, every time she mentioned Gauls I must admit to instantly thinking of Asterix, but that's my fault not hers! A very good read, even with the mental interruptions of a small band of indomitable Gauls! 4.5/5.

149Caramellunacy
apr 24, 2021, 9:43 am

>148 Jackie_K: Officially a BB for me! My husband is very interested in the Romans and I just don't know that much about them - this sounds great!

150FAMeulstee
apr 24, 2021, 10:38 am

>148 Jackie_K: I enjoyed SPQR a little over a year ago, and was as impressed.

151connie53
apr 25, 2021, 5:35 am

Hi Jackie! Good books read is a very good thing. I hope the summer will be better covid wise! And A. can go to the kids club again. Here lots of things are opening up again against all advise the Outbreak Management Team (OMT) has given and hospitals are crowded and too full with covid-patients.
I will get my first shot next Thursday. So I'm grateful for that and looking forward to it.

152Jackie_K
apr 26, 2021, 11:44 am

>149 Caramellunacy: It's very readable and not at all stuffy! (unlike many history books!)
>150 FAMeulstee: Yes - it's an impressive and enjoyable book.
>151 connie53: Thanks Connie - we're starting to cautiously open up here too, but our rates are not too bad and going in the right direction at the moment. I hope it's not too soon. I'm glad you're having your first vaccine this week. My sister lives in Germany and doesn't know when she'll get hers.

Non-ROOT #8



A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland by Ben Aitken is a travelogue detailing the author's time in Poland, which included the Brexit vote in the UK while he was there. He'd seen more and more Poles moving west to the UK and this made him curious about the country. Initially he gets a job teaching English (I had a lot of sympathy with him about that; I taught English in Romania and probably wasn't any better than him at it!), but then ends up peeling potatoes at a restaurant, having a frustrating will-they-won't-they non-relationship with a Polish woman, Anita, and travelling round to various parts of the country. He muses on Brexit, and on the experience of living abroad; I can't say there's anything massively profound here, but I enjoyed the read. 3.5/5.

153connie53
apr 27, 2021, 5:12 am

I hope your sister gets het shot soon, Jackie.

154Jackie_K
Redigerat: apr 29, 2021, 4:37 pm

>153 connie53: Thank you, Connie, I hope so too.

ROOT #25



The Full Cupboard of Life is the 5th installment in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Botswana. I always like these for a couple of hours of not very demanding reading, with likeable characters and mostly not very high stakes. I think this one is my favourite so far, I did laugh a couple of times, especially at the subplot of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni being coerced into doing a charity parachute jump. 4/5.

155Jackie_K
maj 1, 2021, 6:16 am

I can't believe it's May already, but here we are! Here's my April books read/acquired summary:

Only 4 ROOTs this month, but I appreciated not being too pressured by taking on too many at once! The ROOTs were:

1. Frank Kusy - Life Before Frank: From Cradle to Kibbutz.
2. Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass.
3. Mary Beard - SPQR.
4. Alexander McCall Smith - The Full Cupboard of Life.

I also read 3 non-ROOTs (two of these were library books, the other a short collection of nature essays found online):

1. Florence Williams - The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.
2. Various - Nature Writing for the Common Good (available at https://www.cusp.ac.uk/projects/arts/naturewriting/ ).
3. Ben Aitken - A Chip Shop in Poznan.

I only acquired 2 books this month, and I'm back at the 2:1 ROOTs read:acquired ratio I'm aiming for. One book was a gift, and the other was a pre-order, so technically I didn't buy a single book this month, which feels a bit weird! Hopefully I can keep up the momentum and get my TBR total down even lower (it's currently 396) so that my early June birthday doesn't push it back over 400! Anyway, the two books I acquired this month were:

1. Musa Okwonga - One of Them - An Eton College Memoir.
2. Jim Dodge - Fup.

156karenmarie
maj 1, 2021, 9:38 am

Hi Jackie!

Happy First of May.

I've got a June birthday, too, and have already started my birthday gift wish list - if only to help me remember the exact kitchen scale I want!

157connie53
maj 3, 2021, 7:52 am

>155 Jackie_K: How nice you are back on the 2:1 track. And birthdays are always a TBR enlarging event. I hope you can stay below the 400 mark!

158Jackie_K
maj 4, 2021, 2:00 pm

>156 karenmarie: Hi Karen! May the 4th be with you! ;) I'm thinking of adding a food dehydrator to my birthday list - in anticipation of all the vegetables we'll grow this year (and assuming that we're more successful in that than we were last year!).

>157 connie53: Thanks Connie! I'm trying hard, and my wishlist is bulging!

ROOT #26



I wasn't expecting a book called White House Pets to be particularly high literature, and this book by Margaret Truman (daughter of President Truman, so of course a former White House resident herself) really did meet my expectations. It was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple of hours, but I found the writing quite dull so it won't be one I reread. In 16 chapters it covered many of the early presidents and their animal companions - the most recent were Kennedy and Johnson. 2.5/5.

159connie53
maj 5, 2021, 2:36 am

>158 Jackie_K: Mine is too. So much more then last year. The BB's have been hitting me a lot.

160Caramellunacy
maj 5, 2021, 5:00 am

>158 Jackie_K: I read one of Margaret Truman's mystery novels (there's a whole series called Capital Crimes) and I wanted to like it, but ultimately found the plot too slow and the writing quite dull as well. Quite unfortunate!

161Jackie_K
maj 5, 2021, 6:08 am

>160 Caramellunacy: that's interesting - I just learnt that those mystery novels were possibly/probably ghost-written. If true then that's doubly unfortunate!

162Caramellunacy
maj 5, 2021, 7:45 am

Oof - that's rough. I remember being upset that for a book called "Murder at the National Gallery" it was something like 200 pages before anyone was murdered (though the art history details were interesting).

163detailmuse
maj 7, 2021, 11:28 am

>146 Jackie_K: Oh my gosh. I finally got to the front of the queue for the library's audio of Braiding Sweetgrass and your reactions are exactly how I'm feeling -- her stunning connections between nature's and society's patterns. The author does the narration and her voice is so calming. I won't finish before the borrowing period ends, and I think I will buy a hard copy -- to keep, plus it's easier to go back and see how she gathers things into the stunning moment.

164rosalita
maj 7, 2021, 4:34 pm

Well, I wondered why I hadn't seen any new posts from you lately, Jackie, but it turns out my fat fingers accidentally ignored your thread. Anyway, I'm glad to see your rave review of SPQR up in >148 Jackie_K:. That's a book that's long been on my wishlist, so perhaps it's time to start looking for a copy.

165Jackie_K
maj 11, 2021, 4:59 pm

>163 detailmuse: Oh I'm so glad you're loving it too! It's definitely one to keep and mull over again and again.
>164 rosalita: Hello! It's a good read, so I hope you find a copy soon!

ROOT #27



The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature by Charlie Hailey is a book I'd never have thought to buy, but I got a copy through the LT Early Reviewers programme and my goodness what a gem! I absolutely loved it, and am so glad I got this chance!

Genre-wise it's certainly a bit niche - it's a mix of architecture (specifically about porches, unsurprisingly), philosophy, and nature, with an occasional touch of memoir as subtle seasoning. The prose is absolutely beautiful, and I found reading this book such an immersive experience, it was like I was sitting on his porch myself. The author is a professor of architecture, and the bulk of the book is based on the porch of his riverside cabin on the estuary of the Homosassa River in Florida. He writes of the liminality of the porch, both inside and outside, part of the house and separate from it, and how those different roles alter and clarify perspectives on the nature and life outside and its relation to the inner life of the house. It also looks at the precarity of the porch - particularly his riverside porch, as he's seeing the effects of climate change in real time, and doesn't expect the cabin to be around more than a few more decades, if that. He includes discussion of a number of other different porches as well, in literature, antiquity, and also some religious buildings - the section on the porch of the Memorial Chapel in the main Stockholm cemetery was fascinating. But the bits on the Homosassa porch were my favourite - the prose felt like the river water lapping on the shore, it was gorgeous. 5/5.

166Jackie_K
Redigerat: maj 15, 2021, 4:34 pm

ROOT #28



Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland is an anthology, edited by the wonderful poet and essayist Kathleen Jamie, of essays, poems and a couple of photo-essays designed to represent the contemporary writing on nature and environment in Scotland. Some of the authors were well-known names (including some of my favourites: Amy Liptrot, Malachy Tallack, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy), others less known to me. Every piece was strong (although I must admit that I found it a bit harder to connect with the photo-essays), and it was the essays by Amanda Thomson ("Around Some Islands") and Sally Huband ("Northern Raven") that were my favourites. Topics impressively ranged from a pigeon on a city windowsill; watching a stag rut; sexism and the Lerwick Up Helly Aa festival; the reintroduction of sea eagles; sailing to an abandoned Hebridean island; wild swimming; and watching wasps build a nest in the garden, amongst others. A really excellent collection. 4.5/5.

ROOT #29



John Galt's Annals of the Parish is a novel written in 1821 (I'm trying to read at least one "classic" a year). It is the first person account of the fictional presbyterian minister Micah Balwhidder, each chapter representing a year of his 51 years of ministry at the kirk in the fictional town of Dalmailing, Ayrshire. To start with I thought it was going to be a satire of the minister's sense of self-importance, but actually once it settled down (or rather, once I got into the feel of it more) it is more a chronicle not only of a particular place at a particular time, but also the impact of world and local events. The parish sees its men go off to fight in the American Civil War, the parish sees prosperity and growth with the coming of a cotton mill, there are religious debates and admonitions, insights into the view of the role of women at the time, the effect of smuggling on the community, and much more. The account is liberally sprinkled with Scots dialect so wouldn't necessarily be the easiest read (although most words can be gathered from the context), but overall I really enjoyed this. 4/5.

167Jackie_K
maj 18, 2021, 10:25 am

ROOT #30



How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić, translated by Anthea Bell (who I know best as the translator of many Asterix books), is a strange but compelling novel about the Bosnian war. The main character, Aleks, like the author himself, flees the city of Višegrad as a teenager with his family and goes to Germany just after the start of the war. Some of the book looks at his family life and growing up before the war starts, some covers the start of the war before they leave, and some covers Aleks' return to Višegrad years later to try to find out what's happened to Asija, the girl he tried to save before they left but had lost touch with. It wasn't always easy to work out whose point of view a particular bit of the narrative was (although I got there in the end), but that didn't seem to matter. The slightly absurd situations actually reminded me of one of my favourite films, by Serbian film-maker Emir Kusturica, Black Cat, White Cat, even though that's a dark comedy and there is very little about this book that could be called comic. I found the book moving, absurd, thought-provoking, a bit grim in parts, and it will stay with me for a long time. 4.5/5.

168Jackie_K
maj 20, 2021, 2:25 pm

ROOT #31



Lev Parikian's Music to Eat Cake By is one of several books I've helped fund via the crowdfunding publisher unbound.com in the last couple of years. The short blurb is contained in its subtitle: "Essays on Birds, Words, and Everything in Between"; the longer story is that as well as people like me who just chipped in a bit for the book, he also set himself the challenge of writing essays based on topics suggested by supporters (who will have paid a specific amount for the privilege), and of including individual words suggested by still more supporters. On top of this, he also set himself the challenge of writing 40 essays, with the first starting at 4000 words, and then taking 100 words off the length of each subsequent essay until the 40th essay was just 100 words long.

I have followed the author on twitter for a while - he's a conductor and also a nature buff (especially birds), and has a wonderful way with words. So I was keen to see how he did with this challenge. I enjoyed the book a lot (subjects ranged from cricket, music, nature, walking, sports commentators, to a random Welsh TV weatherman), but I couldn't help feeling that the extra challenges bogged it down a bit - not so much the word length (although the shorter ones didn't really work so well for me), but the individual word suggestions especially started to get on my nerves a bit as I went along. Some fitted in seamlessly, but others felt a bit shoehorned in, and it ended up feeling like one gimmick too many. As with any collection I enjoyed some essays more than others, but overall he is, as I'd suspected from his twitter, a fine and genial companion and I'd happily recommend the book for a fun read. 3.5/5. (but really 3.75).

169Jackie_K
Redigerat: maj 23, 2021, 8:16 am

ROOT #32



Jim Dodge's Fup is a book that I received from karenmarie, it is doing the rounds of LT members and I'm happy to send it on to whoever first requests it so it can continue its travels round the world (so far it's been read by LTers in NZ, US, and now Scotland).

It is a small (52 page) novella described in the blurb as "a wildly eccentric modern classic set in the coastal hills of Northern California ... {a} whiskey-fueled tale...", which I think is a very apt description. This is the first bit of the blurb on the back of the book:

Start with Granddaddy Jake Santee, a cantankerous, ninety-nine-year-old with a taste for gambling and whiskey; add Tiny, his gentle giant of a grandson, whose passion is for building well-crafted fences on land with no livestock; then add Fup, a twenty-pound mallard with an iron will and a fondness for hooch and romantic movies...

The story is a riot, and will provide fuel for anatidaephobics everywhere who think there's something weird about ducks. 4/5.

If you'd like to be Fup's next reader, drop me a private message, and if you're the first then I'll get back to you to ask for your address (and I'll note here once it's been requested). I'm also going to post this on my Category Challenge thread. I'm really happy to send it on so it gets a wider audience - where in the world will this book go next? Hooray, it's found its next destination!

170karenmarie
maj 23, 2021, 7:52 am

Hi Jackie!

I'm so glad you liked Fup. I hope there's a taker on this little gem.

171Jackie_K
maj 23, 2021, 8:15 am

>171 Jackie_K: Thank you for sending me it, Karen! It is so different from what I usually read, but I really enjoyed it. And yes, there's now a taker :)

172Jackie_K
Redigerat: maj 23, 2021, 4:37 pm

And as we're on a duck theme, I had this random conversation with A at bedtime this evening which made me laugh:

A: Mummy, I'm scared.
Me: Why are you scared?
A: I can't tell you.
Me: OK. Maybe you should think of something else instead. {so I grab the nearest two soft toys, which happen to be two ducks} Why don't you think about Duck* and Black Duck* having silly adventures?
A: OK, I have to tell you something. One of the things I'm scared of is ducks taking over the world.

It made us both laugh, so I think we're good for now! (I'm pretty sure the scared thing is a stalling tactic to stop me leaving the room and her going to sleep, rather than anything actually scary)

* their actual names - we're very imaginative when it comes to toy names in our house!

173rosalita
maj 23, 2021, 5:09 pm

>172 Jackie_K: I love that story, Jackie! I hope A is never asked that eternal question: Would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?

174connie53
maj 24, 2021, 4:24 am

>172 Jackie_K: That's so cute and definitely a stalling measure.

175Jackie_K
maj 30, 2021, 11:26 am

>173 rosalita: haha, we'd have hours of angst with a question like that!!
>174 connie53: It really was cute, Connie! Whenever I hear "Mummy, I have to tell you something" I know I'm in for it!

ROOT #33



Alan Brown's Overlander: Bikepacking coast to coast across the heart of the Highlands is his account of a week spent biking from Taynuilt on the west coast of Scotland over to Findhorn on the Moray Firth. It's the type of trip I'd never do myself (far too unfit and fair-weather!) but I enjoyed it from my sofa! Camping or staying in bothies overnight, he writes about the joys of cycling, of being in the open air, of Scotland, but also considers thorny issues such as land ownership, history, use of the land for grouse and deer shooting, access laws, and the scourge of the Highlands aka the midge. A very interesting and evocative account. 4/5.

176rosalita
maj 30, 2021, 1:45 pm

>175 Jackie_K: Like you, I'd never actually make a cycling trip like that but the book sounds interesting nonetheless. I'll look for it here.

177Jackie_K
maj 31, 2021, 1:45 pm

>176 rosalita: Maybe it was the setting, but I engaged more with this one than some other travel books I've read recently.

178Jackie_K
maj 31, 2021, 2:09 pm

I was hoping to get a library book finished this month too - it was due back today, and already had someone waiting for it, so I wouldn't have been able to renew it. I was really enjoying it (it was The Midnight Library by Matt Haig) and want to know how it ends, but the stress of having to finish it was too much. I'll get it out again at some point - just putting it out here that I didn't not finish it because I didn't like it, just couldn't be doing with the time pressure!

Now it's the end of May, here's my monthly update. Even without finishing The Midnight Library, it was a good month. I read 8 ROOTs:

1. Margaret Truman - White House Pets.
2. Charlie Hailey - The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature.
3. ed. Kathleen Jamie - Antlers of Water: Writing on the Nature and Environment of Scotland.
4. John Galt - The Annals of the Parish.
5. Saša Stanišić - How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone.
6. Lev Parikian - Music to Eat Cake By.
7. Jim Dodge - Fup.
8. Alan Brown - Overlander: Bikepacking coast to coast across the heart of the Highlands.

I also acquired 4 books this month, and am still 2 for 1 read:acquired* so I'm happy with that. The acquisitions are:

1. Charlie Hailey - The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature.
2. ed. Katherine Norbury - Women on Nature.
3. Various - In the Garden: Essays on Nature and Growing.
4. Stephen Moss - Skylarks With Rosie: A Somerset Spring.

* remembering that gifts don't count! Actual figures are 33 ROOTs, 18 acquisitions, but 2 of the 18 were gifts so I've not included them in the ratio.

179detailmuse
maj 31, 2021, 4:31 pm

>178 Jackie_K: A good month!

I'm so eager -- the North American edition of Diary of a Young Naturalist is coming out June 8!

180Jackie_K
jun 1, 2021, 4:38 pm

>180 Jackie_K: Thank you MJ! I hope you love Diary of a Young Naturalist when you get to it.

181Familyhistorian
jun 2, 2021, 2:21 pm

I've been terrible keeping up with the threads this year. As I was listing my May acquisitions I thought you might be interested in Funny You Should Ask: Mostly Serious Answers to Mostly Serious Questions About the Book Publishing Industry. It's written by an American literary agent which would skew it towards the US but she's the agent of the mentor in my writing program that is almost over so I think it will be a good one.

182Jackie_K
jun 4, 2021, 9:08 am

>181 Familyhistorian: Thank you Meg - I'll look that up. I hope your book-writing is progressing well! (mine isn't - life happened. But I'll be back to it soon).

In other news, thanks to being newly even more ancient than I was a couple of days ago, I have a lovely stash of new books, which has brought my TBR total back to 399 (it was down as low as 392 before then!). I'd better get reading some more, I really really don't want it to tip back to 400+. I think my year-end goal of 375 is looking increasingly unrealistic. Oh well. More books. It could be worse ;)

183rosalita
jun 4, 2021, 9:14 am

>182 Jackie_K: Well, happy belated birthday to you, Jackie! I like to pretend that I won't die as long as I have books on my TBR. So in that sense your TBR total is like life insurance! ;-)

184Jackie_K
jun 4, 2021, 9:17 am

>183 rosalita: Haha, I love your thinking! I suspect some of us would be immortal if it really works like that...

185karenmarie
jun 4, 2021, 9:30 am

Belated Happy Birthday Jackie, and congrats on more books.

186rocketjk
jun 4, 2021, 10:54 am

I definitely have more books in my house than I will be able to read in my lifetime, especially since I keep buying more of them. Belated Happy Birthday from me, too. I have a "more ancient day" coming up in early July: I'll be 66!

187curioussquared
jun 4, 2021, 12:49 pm

>182 Jackie_K: Happy belated birthday! I keep thinking of myself as having around ~400 unread books, but that number has slowly been creeping up to closer to ~430... Time to crack down on my purchasing!

188Caramellunacy
jun 4, 2021, 2:00 pm

Happy belated birthday!!

189Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 5, 2021, 7:26 am

>185 karenmarie: >186 rocketjk: >187 curioussquared: >188 Caramellunacy: Thank you very much! I had an ordinary but very lovely day :)

>185 karenmarie: I'm now up to 7 new birthday books, several from my wishlist, so I'm very happy!
>186 rocketjk: I do like having a summer birthday - it gives a nice opportunity for gifts midway through the year, rather than (like my daughter, whose birthday is the end of November) what feels like non-stop gifts at the end of the year then nothing till nearly a year later! Have a happy birthday when it comes!
>187 curioussquared: I must admit to reaching for a short book today (see below) to try and stay this side of 400. I've worked really hard to get rid of that 4, I don't want to see it back! When I first thought of counting my unread books I thought I had about 100-150. Once I passed 300 I realised I may have an addiction after all...

ROOT #34



I can always rely on an Asterix book to make me smile (and add quickly to my number of finished books!), and Asterix in Corsica was no exception. I enjoyed this one a lot. Our heroes Asterix and Obelix travel to Corsica to return the escaped prisoner Boneywasawarriorwayayix to his village, see how the Corsicans battle their local Romans, and stop this year's Praetor from stealing a years worth of taxes and taking them to Caesar. The usual punch-ups and puns ensue. 4/5.

190MissWatson
jun 5, 2021, 11:35 am

Happy belated birthday, Jackie! Enjoy your new books!

191rabbitprincess
jun 5, 2021, 1:15 pm

Belated happy birthday! Enjoy working your way through the latest acquisitions :)

192detailmuse
jun 10, 2021, 4:24 pm

Cheers to you, Jackie!

193Jackie_K
jun 10, 2021, 5:01 pm

>190 MissWatson: >191 rabbitprincess: >192 detailmuse: Thank you all so much! My cake lasted till Monday, so I milked it till then - it's been a lovely few days!

ROOT #35



Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right is a thoughtful, sympathetic, and deep journey across what she refers to as 'the empathy wall' to try and understand, from her liberal, left-leaning perspective, folk on the other side of the political divide in today's America. She spends time with a number of Tea Party advocates in Louisiana in the 3 or 4 years leading up to the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016 (my ebook featured an afterword about that election; the hardback was published in September 2016 so just before the election). She uses the issue of environmental regulation as a lens to try to understand the very different political worldviews of the people she comes to know as dear friends, and to try to get to the heart of what she refers to as 'the great paradox' - that people who in many cases are directly impacted by industrial pollution and state/federal courting of big business through incentives and tax breaks nevertheless oppose greater environmental regulation of businesses and vote for candidates with policies which negatively impact on their own health, environment, and jobs. She spends time with people in their homes, churches, and the places they knew as unspoiled during childhood which are now environmental no-go areas thanks to massive pollution, and shows a genuine respect and desire to understand, as well as seeking to try and bridge the political divide and find areas of common concern. I thought this was an outstanding and important book - I learnt lots, and was challenged again about my own 'people like me' bubble. 5/5.

194Jackie_K
jun 11, 2021, 4:38 pm

Non-ROOT #9



North Korea Journal is the day by day journal kept by Michael Palin during the two weeks he spent in North Korea filming a Channel 5 travel documentary. Frustratingly for me I'm having issues with library ebooks which meant I had to read this on my computer on Adobe Digital Editions, and for some reason it only showed the top half of the (many, given it was a TV tie-in) photos. Apart from that though, it was an easy and interesting read, even if it didn't reveal anything particularly new, and was of course influenced by the fact that their guides (aka minders) from the official tourist agency had to approve and vet their every move. I'd like to get hold of a copy so that I can see the photos in full. 3.5/5.

195Jackie_K
jun 15, 2021, 2:40 pm

ROOT #36



In Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of our Forests and Fairytales, Sara Maitland explores one UK forest per month for a year, and uses the visits as a starting point to look at the development of fairy tales in tandem with the growth and development of ancient and modern woodlands. Each chapter is one walk, and then ends with her retelling a fairy story, sometimes well known ones like Little Red Riding Hood, and sometimes less familiar ones (at least less familiar to me). It took me a couple of chapters to get into, but I really enjoyed her musings both on the nature and history of the forests she visited (and the people who work in them - I had no idea about the Free Miners in the Forest of Dean, for instance), and on the development and proliferation of fairy stories, so many of which are set in and around forests. Fascinating (also, gorgeous cover!). 4/5.

196rocketjk
jun 15, 2021, 2:44 pm

>195 Jackie_K: Wow! What a great idea for a book. Might have to find that.

197Jackie_K
jun 15, 2021, 2:57 pm

>196 rocketjk: It really was, and it's meticulously researched too. Right up my street! I hope you enjoy it if you get to it.

198clue
Redigerat: jun 16, 2021, 4:27 pm

>139 Jackie_K: My library has this and maybe it would help settle my own mind. I have a friend of forty years who has stopped any commuication with me because I voted "against" her candidate. What is ironic is that when she has wanted to talk about any issue I have just listened and have never commented or argued about it. Maybe she took that as agreement but she knows me well enough to know otherwise on most issues. As far as I'm concerned every person should vote as they think is right. The big problem was created when I told her I voted for Biden. She removed me from her Facebook friends and stopped answering my emails, texts, and phone calls. It has really been hurtful and since this has been going on for 7 months I don't think it will change.

199Jackie_K
jun 17, 2021, 4:43 pm

>198 clue: I'm really sorry to hear this. It's so sad when politics (or religion, or ideology) comes between dear friends. Even though I'm in the UK, I have a family member who has got completely sucked into the whole QAnon thing - they keep posting stuff about how Trump is still the President, how the virus is fake, the paedophile cabal, anti-vax stuff, etc etc etc. At the moment our policy with each other seems to be to not comment on each other's posts, as we both know we're not going to change each other's minds, but I am hiding an awful lot of people whose posts they're sharing. I am really sad, and really worried. It doesn't stop me loving them to the moon and back, and (like Hochschild and her Tea Party friends, to an extent) knowing their background so well makes it much more nuanced than just dismissing them as stupid or uncaring. But I'm finding it really difficult. I hope you can make peace with what has happened with your friend, somehow.

200Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 19, 2021, 12:38 pm

ROOT #37



The Electricity of Every Living Thing is a wonderful memoir by Katherine May, one of my favourite authors (who also runs an excellent online memoir/narrative non-fiction writing course that I highly recommend). It details her walking parts of the South West Coast Path (the same path in Devon and Cornwall that Raynor Winn and her husband walked in The Salt Path - the two books came out at the same sort of time so I think that year they were on a lot of literary festival panels together) and the North Downs Way in Kent, while coming to terms with realising, at the age of nearly 40, that she is autistic. The book features details of the walks, of learning, with her husband and 3 year old son, how autism affects and impacts their lives, and memories of past events where suddenly awkward situations make sense in the light of her diagnosis. This is a beautiful book. Incidentally, the byline for the book seems to have changed from the hardback copy I have ("One Woman's Walk with Asperger's") to the byline on this picture, which is of the paperback ("A Woman's Walk in the Wild to find her way Home"). 5/5.

201Jackie_K
jun 24, 2021, 11:06 am

ROOT #38



The Unwomanly Face of War is the third book I've read by Svetlana Alexievich, and it was just as excellent as the others. In this one, she interviews women who participated in World War 2 in the Soviet armed forces (the interviews took place before the end of the Soviet Union, mostly during the 1980s). Her starting point is that most accounts of war are men's accounts, and focus on things like types and numbers of weapons, the men who commanded the forces, etc etc. Her very interesting introduction included comments from the Soviet censors, to whom she had to submit drafts before publication, who insisted that people wouldn't want to read about these accounts and that she should focus on Victory. As with all her books, the accounts are relentless, one after the other, with not a minute's break for a breather. It's therefore pretty harrowing in places, but let's face it, nothing compared to what the women telling their stories went through. 4.5/5.

202Jackie_K
jun 26, 2021, 12:27 pm

ROOT #39



Simon Barnes' On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet is a gorgeous account of the author's home in Norfolk, which includes several acres of marshland in the Broads National Park. He charts the comings and goings of wildlife and plants throughout the year, shows how this habitat fits into the national and global scheme of things, and also shows how important the place is for his family, including his son Eddie who has Downs Syndrome. Several of Eddie's poems appear in the book. I loved this, it was simultaneously a gentle and urgent read, and like several of the 'nature' books I've read this year was a call to observation and gratitude. There was also a joke about Siegfried Sassoon that really made me laugh. 4.5/5.

203connie53
jun 28, 2021, 6:08 am

Hi Jackie! Long time since I've been here. Due to Peet's situation I've been away for a while only keeping up my own thread.
I'm trying to visit threads by other ROOTers now, just to say Hi!

204Jackie_K
jun 29, 2021, 1:44 pm

>203 connie53: Hi Connie! Totally understand, you've more important things on your plate right now! Thank you for visiting :)

ROOT #40



111 Days: Tales of a Fisheries Observer: Decapitation, mutiny, hurricanes and a dog named Pirate by Ross James (not James Ross, as the touchstone has it!), is a diary of the author's first job out of university, which was as the observer on a Portuguese trawler in the North Atlantic. What could have been quite a dull tale was made interesting by his observations of the job, the crew and officers, and the sea and wildlife and weather he saw and experienced. I had no idea that such a job even existed, and it certainly was challenging, especially at the time which was before the ubiquity of mobile phones and satellite/broadband communication (early 2000s), so at times it was an extremely lonely job. It's also a job I could never do (the thought of the constant smell of fish and engines turns my stomach from the comfort of my sofa, and the cooking sounded really vile!). The book is self-published, and a bit of light editing probably wouldn't have hurt, but overall it was interesting and well written. 4/5.

205Jackie_K
Redigerat: jun 30, 2021, 8:49 am

I'm not going to get any more read in June, so I'm going to do my monthly round up and then start a new thread for the second half of the year (please do join me!). It's been a good reading month - 7 ROOTs (all of which I rated 4* or higher) and 1 non-ROOT. ROOTs were:

1. Goscinny & Uderzo - Asterix in Corsica.
2. Arlie Russell Hochschild - Strangers in their own land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.
3. Sara Maitland - Gossip from the Forest.
4. Katherine May - The Electricity of Every Living Thing.
5. Svetlana Alexievich - The Unwomanly Face of War.
6. Simon Barnes - On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet.
7. Ross James - 111 Days: Tales of a Fisheries Observer: Decapitation, mutiny, hurricanes and a dog named Pirate.

My library book this month was:

1. Michael Palin - North Korea Journal.

Acquisitions-wise, it's been a VERY acquisitive month (happy birthday to me :D ). But, aside from birthday gifts, I have stuck to my 2 read for 1 acquired plan (up till now I've acquired 20 non-gifts and read 40 ROOTs). There's still plenty of time for that to go pear-shaped (it usually does), but I'm pleased for now! Here are this month's 12 (count 'em!) acquisitions (birthday gifts marked with a *):

1. Pragya Agarwal - (M)Otherhood.
2. Narine Abgaryan - Three Apples Fell from the Sky.*
3. Padraig O Tuama & Glenn Jordan - Borders & Belonging: The Book of Ruth: A Story for our Times.*
4. Charlotte Mendelson - Rhapsody in Green.*
5. Simon Barnes - On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet.*
6. Stewart Ennis - Blessed Assurance.*
7. Peter Arnott - Moon Country.*
8. Simon Barnes - A History of the World in 100 Animals.* (doesn't seem to be a touchstone for this one)
9. Ross James - 111 Days: Tales of a Fisheries Observer: Decapitation, mutiny, hurricanes and a dog named Pirate.
10. Frank Rennie - The Changing Outer Hebrides: Galson and the meaning of Place.* (no touchstone for this one either)
11. Anita Sethi - I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain.
12. James Rebanks - English Pastoral.
Den här diskussionen fortsatte här: Jackie's 2021 ROOT thread - 2