PAUL C'S SECOND HOME - PART 12

SCENES FROM MY BOOKS

A BELL FOR ADANO

Poem

James Kirkup is not so well known these days but was an inspiration to a young writer growing up. This is his poem "No Men are Foreign"

Reading Record First Quarter

JANUARY

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

4,313 pages.

FEBRUARY

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

3,211 pages

MARCH

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

1,706 pages

Reading Record Second Quarter

APRIL

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

2,956 pages

MAY

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

Currently Reading

Hamnet & Dead Lions

READING PLAN

1 British Author Challenge - set this year by Amanda in the 75er Group

2 1001 Book First Edition - Ongoing

3 Booker Challenge - Read all the Booker winners; I may get close to completing that in 2021

4 Nobel Winners - Read all the Nobel Winners

5 Pulitzer Winners - Read all the Pulitzer fiction winners

6 Around the World Challenge - Read a book from an author born in or with parents from all countries - I reset this challenge in October 2020.

7 Queen Victoria Challenge - Read a book from every year of Queen Victoria's reign (1837-1901) with no repeat authors. Started December 2020

8 Queen Betty Challenge - Read a book from every year of Queen Elizabeth II reign (1952-2021) - British authors only and no repeats.

9 Dance to the Music of Time - One a month all year.

10. The 52 Book Club Challenge - A book a week from these selected categories https://www.the52book.club/challenges/2021-reading-challenge/

11. A Dent in the TBR - I have approaching 5,000 books in my TBR so I must read some of the 250 books I have bought in 2020 that end the current year unread.

12. Poetry - My first love in many ways and I am still something of a scribbler of lines to this day.

13. American Author Challenge - Linda came up trumps.

14. Series Pairs - I will choose one favourite series and read the next two books in that particular series I have slightly fallen behind with.

15 Great British History Writers - One classic work per month from a great British historian.

16 New Fantasy Series - I may take a couple of months over each so six may be the most I manage this year.

BAC



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

February: LGBT+ History Month https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7317871 1 READ

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

April: Love is in the Air https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7319432 1 READ

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

June: The Victorian Era (1837-1901) https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7320541 1 READ

July: Don't judge a book by its movie https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7321220 6 READ

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

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

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

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

December: Awards & Honors https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7325017 1 READ

Wildcard: Books off your shelves https://www.librarything.com/topic/326122#7325595 9 READ

29 BOOKS READ TO DATE

AMERICAN AUTHOR CHALLENGE



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

January : Keep it in the Family :
February : Ethan Canin
March : Roxane Gay
April : Makers of Music : Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith

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

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

READ 33 of 56 WINNERS

Pulitzer Winners

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

Fiction

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


17 READ
37 ON SHELVES
39 NOT OWNED OR READ

93 TOTAL

NOBELS

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

READ 72 OF
117 LAUREATES

AROUND THE WORLD CHALLENGE

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

From 1 October 2020

1. United Kingdom - The Ways of the World by Robert Goddard EUROPE
2. Ireland - The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde EUROPE
3. Lithuania - Selected and Last Poems by Czeslaw Milosz EUROPE
4. Netherlands - The Ditch by Herman Koch EUROPE
5. Armenia - The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian ASIA PACIFIC
6. Zimbabwe - This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga AFRICA
7. United States - Averno by Louise Gluck AMERICA
8. Australia - Taller When Prone by Les Murray ASIA PACIFIC
9. France - Class Trip by Emmanuel Carrere EUROPE
10. Russia - The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov EUROPE
11. Denmark - Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard EUROPE
12. Democratic Republic of Congo - Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanze Mujila AFRICA
13. Canada - I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven AMERICA
14. Italy - The Overnight Kidnapper by Andrea Camilleri EUROPE
15. New Zealand - Dove on the Waters by Maurice Shadbolt ASIA PACIFIC
16. India - A Burning by Megha Majumdar ASIA PACIFIC
17. Libya - The Return by Hisham Matar AFRICA
18. Pakistan - Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid ASIA PACIFIC
19. South Korea - Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha ASIA PACIFIC
20. Morocco - The Curious Case of Dassoukine's Trousers by Fouad Laroui AFRICA
21. Thailand - Arid Dreams by Duanwad Pimwana ASIA PACIFIC
22. Norway - Echoland by Per Petterson EUROPE
23. Belgium - I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne EUROPE


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

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

From Dec 2020

1843 FEAR AND TREMBLING by Kierkegaard
1850 PENDENNIS by Thackeray
1853 CRANFORD by GASKELL
1857 TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS by Hughes
1864 NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND by Dostoevsky
1870 A LEAR OF THE STEPPES by Turgenev
1873 AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS by Verne
1881 PRINCE AND THE PAUPER by Twain
1899 SOME EXPERIENCES OF AN IRISH RM by Somerville & Ross
1900 THREE SISTERS by Chekhov

10/64

QUEEN BETTY CHALLENGE

From December 2020 70 Years 70 Books 70 Different British Authors

1952 A Buyer's Market by Anthony Powell
1959 The Age of Improvement by Asa Briggs
1961 What is History? by EH Carr
1962 The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side by Agatha Christie
1966 A Fall from the Sky by Ian Serraillier
1968 Figures in a Landscape by Barry England
1969 Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Framer
1970 The Great Fire by Monica Dickens
1973 Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
1978 The Hammer of the Scots by Jean Plaidy
1984 The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
1987 Bury the Dead by Peter Carter
1989 Plague 99 by Jean Ure
1996 Junk by Melvyn Burgess
2003 Judge Savage by Tim Parks
2005 Woods, etc. by Alice Oswald
2011 Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
2013 A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre
2014 The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham
2018 Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan
2019 A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson
2020 Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

22/70

52 BOOK CLUB CHALLENGE

Based on this challenge suggested by Katie & Chelle

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

January
Week 1 : Set in a school : Tom Brown's Schooldays by Hughes Read 2 Jan 2021
Week 2 : Legal profession : Judge Savage by Tim Parks Read 28 Jan 2021
Week 3 : Dual timeline : Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer Read 29 Jan 2021
Week 4 : Deceased author : Jazz by Toni Morrison READ 30 Jan 2021
Week 5 : Published by Penguin : Junk by Melvyn Burgess READ 3 Feb 2021
Week 6 : Male Family Member : Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch READ 12 Feb 2021
Week 7 : 1 Published Work : A Burning by Megha Majumdar READ 19 Feb 2021
Week 8 : Dewey 900 Class : What is History? by EH Carr READ 28 February
Week 9 : Set in a Mediterranean Country : The Return by Hisham Matar READ 5 MAR 2021
Week 10 : Book with discussion questions : Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham READ 2 APR
Week 11 : Relating to fire : Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid READ 4 APR
Week 12 : Title Starting with D : Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha READ 6 APR
Week 13 : Includes an Exotic Animal : Life of Pi by Yann Martel READ 11 April
Week 14 : Written by an author over 65 : Blue Horses by Mary Oliver READ 14 April
Week 15 : Book Mentioned in a book : Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky READ 15 April
Week 16 : Set before 17th Century :
Week 17 : Character on the run : Figures in a Landscape by Barry England READ 26 April
Week 18 : Author with 9 letter surname :

SERIES PAIR CHALLENGE

January : Andrea Camilleri - MONTALBANO DONE
February : Agatha Christie - MISS MARPLE DONE
March : Ben Aaronovitch - PETER GRANT DONE
April : Harry Bingham - FIONA GRIFFITHS DONE

BRITISH HISTORIANS

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

The French Revolution by Thomas CARLYLE 1837
The Age of Improvement by Asa BRIGGS 1959 READ MAR 21
The History of England by Thomas Babington MACAULAY 1848
The Making of the English Working Class by EP THOMPSON 1963
Fifteen Decisive Battles by EDWARD CREASEY 1851
What is History? by EH CARR 1961 READ FEB 21
The Course of German History by AJP TAYLOR 1945
The American Future by Simon SCHAMA 2009
The Face of Battle by John KEEGAN 1976
The King's Peace by CV WEDGWOOD 1955
The Age of Revolution by ERIC HOBSBAWM 1962

FANTASY SERIES CHALLENGE
Six New (for me) Fantasy Series to go at:

I will concentrate on one series every two months

N.K. JEMISIN - The Inheritance Trilogy

TAD WILLIAMS - Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

C.J. CHERRYH - Chanur Saga

GENE WOLFE - The Book of the New Sun

DAVID EDDINGS - The Belgariad

DIANA GABALDON - Outlander

READ MORE THAN ACQUIRED

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

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

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

BEGIN : 250
READ : 24
ADDED : 147 (Nett after deducting those already read)
CULLED : 0 (AGED TBR)

PRESENT TOTAL : 374

THIS YEAR'S ACQUISITIONS

1. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. by Somerville & Ross READ MAR 21
2. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome READ JAN 21
3. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
4. The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle
5. The Black Corsair by Emilio Salgari
6. The Prime Ministers : Reflections on Leadership from Wilson to Johnson by Steve Richards
7. The God Child by Nana Oforiatta Ayim
8. Arturo's Island by Elsa Morante
9. Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli
10. The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott
11. The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron
12. Death's Mistress by Terry Goodkind
13. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey
14. Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi
15. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
16. Desert by JMG Le Clezio
17. For the Record by David Cameron
18. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
19. The Guardians of the West by David Eddings
20. Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
21. The Council of Egypt by Leonardo Sciascia
22. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
23. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
24. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
25. Rupture by Ragnar Jonasson
26. White Out by Ragnar Jonasson
27. The Age of Capital by Eric Hobsbawm
28. The World Turned Upside Down by Christopher Hill
29. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
30. Modern Times by Paul Johnson
31. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy
32. The Warehouse by Rob Hart
33. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
34. Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
35. Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings
36. Magician's Gambit by David Eddings
37. Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
38. In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan
39. The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
40. The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
41. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
42. At Lady Molly's by Anthony Powell
43. Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell
44. The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell
45. The Financier by Theodore Dreiser
46. Still Waters by Viveca Sten
47. Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
48. The Europeans by Henry James
49. Vice Versa by F. Anstey
50. A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
51. The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler Olsen
52. Closed for Winter Jorn Lier Horst
53. News of the World by Juliette Jiles
54. Bright Dead Things by Ada Limon READ MAR 21
55. A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri
56. Death in the Tuscan Hills by Marco Vichi
57. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
58. Good Morning Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
59. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud
60. The Enchanted by Rene Denefeld
61. The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
62. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis
63. The Innocents by Michael Crummey
64. Night Waking by Sarah Moss
65. Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
66. Throw me to the Wolves by Patrick McGuinness
67. Consent by Annabel Lyon
68. Selling Manhattan by Carole Ann Duffy
69. Rendang by Will Harris
70. The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
71. No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
72. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
73. The Awkward Squad by Sophie Henaff
74. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan
75. Afternoon Raag by Amit Chaudhuri
76. The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
77. The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson
78. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
79. Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer
80. The Eastern Shore by Ward Just
81. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
82. The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
83. Vertigo& Ghost by Fiona Benson
84. Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
85. Soot by Dan Vyleta
86. Deacon King Kong by James McBride
87. Abigail by Magda Szabo
88. Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugresic
89. Coming Up for Air by Sarah Leipciger
90. Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
91. Selection Day by Aravind Adiga
92. The Voyage by Murray Bail
93. Peace : A Novel by Richard Bausch
94. The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano
95. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
96. The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
97. My Life as a Russian Novel by Emmanuel Carrere
98. Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
99. Man V. Nature by Diane Cook
100. The Melody by Jim Crace
101. SS-GB by Len Deighton
102. Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
103. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
104. The Beautiful Indifference by Sarah Hall
105. Munich by Robert Harris
106. Bodies Electric by Colin Harrison
107. The Punch by Noah Hawley
108. Spook Street by Mick Herron
109. London Rules by Mick Herron
110. The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
111. The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby
112. The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes
113. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
114. Exiles in the Garden by Ward Just
115. Duffy by Dan Kavanagh
116. The Good People by Hannah Kent
117. The Life to Come by Michelle de Krester
118. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin
119. 10:04 by Ben Lerner
120. Home is the Hunter by Helen MacInnes
121. Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
122. The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney
123. The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller
124. Arab Jazz by Karim Miske
125. Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
126. Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates
127. The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe
128. The Horseman by Tim Pears
129. Echoland by Per Petterson READ APR 21
130. Last Stand by Michael Punke
131. The Waiting Time by Gerald Seymour
132. Home Run by Gerald Seymour
133. Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith
134. To the Back of Beyond by Peter Stamm
135. They Know Not What They Do by Jussi Valtonen
136. The Tulip Eaters by Antoinette Van Heugten
137. Smoke by Dan Vyleta
138. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
139. That Eye, The Sky by Tim Winton
140. Fear : Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
141. Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
142. Gerta by Katerina Tuckova
143. My Country: A Syrian Memoir by Kassem Eid
144. Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann
145. The Hotel Tito by Ivana Bodrozic
146. Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride
147. Blame by Paul Read
148. House of Lords and Commons by Ishion Hutchinson
149. To Calais, In Ordinary Time by James Meek
150. Your Story, My Story by Connie Palmen
151. Wake Up : Why the World Has Gone Nuts by Piers Morgan
152. Death of a Coast Watcher by Anthony English
153. Limitless by Ala Glynn
154. Toddler Hunting and Other Stories by Taeko Kono
155. Daughter of the Tigris by Muhsin al-Ramli
156. Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
157. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
158. Incomparable World by S.L. Martin
159. The Dancing Face by Mike Phillips
160. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors
161. Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
162. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
163. Rest and Be Thankful by Emma Glass
164. Minty Alley by CLR James
165. The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy
166. Actress by Anne Enright
167. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
168. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan
169. Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas
170. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov *Replacement*
171. Summer by Ali Smith
172. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor *Replacement*
173. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
174. The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima
175. The Girls by Emma Cline
176. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
177. The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner
178. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
179. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
180. The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
181. Just Like You by Nick Hornby
182. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
183. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
184. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
185. The Dig by Roger Preston
186. The Historians by Eavan Boland
187. Selected Poems by Elizabeth Jennings

187 added
4 read
152 nett additions

RESOLUTIONS

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

January : The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
February : Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
March : The Return by Hashim Matar
April : Life of Pi by Yann Martel

READING INFLUENCE WINNERS

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

January 2021 MARK (msf59) for THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS by Stephen Graham Jones
February 2021 ADRIENNE (fairywings) for THE BELGARIAD by David Eddings
March 2021 BONNIE (brenzi) for DRIFTLESS by David Rhodes

BOOK STATS :

Books Read : 48
Books Added : 151
Nett TBR Addition : 103

Number of Pages in completed books : 12,187
Avergae per day : 101.56
Projected Page Total : 37,069

Number of days per book : 2.50
Projected Number : 146
LT Best : 157

Longest Book read : 523 pages
Shortest Book read : 64 pages
Mean Average Book Length : 253.90 pages

Male Authors : 31
Female Authors : 17

UK Authors : 28
Italy : 2
USA : 6
NZ : 1
Russia : 2
France : 1
India : 1
Libya : 1
Pakistan : 1
South Korea : 1
Canada : 1
Morocco : 1
Thailand : 1
Norway : 1

1001 Books First Edition : 7 (311)
New Nobel Winners :
Pulitzer Fiction Winners : 1 (17)
Booker Winners : 2 (33)
Around the World Challenge : New countries : 9 (22)
BAC Books : 28
AAC Books : 1
Queen Vic Books : 7 (10/64)
Queen Betty Books : 19 (20/70)
52 Book Challenge : 16 (16/52)
British Historians : 2 (2/12)

Next up is yours

>1 PaulCranswick: I don't recall the film but I liked the novel when I read it in 2103! OK OK mistype 2013!

Happy new thread!

>26 RBeffa: Nice to see you first, Ron. I hope your date is a mistype otherwise I want to ask you how it is to survive without fossil fuels?!

>27 amanda4242: Thank you, dear Amanda.

Happy New Thread, Paul. I am back. Slowly trying to catch up on the threads. Glad you are reading Hamnet. One of my top reads of last year.

>28 PaulCranswick: Caught me! I am very fumblefingered today.

>30 msf59: Nice to have you back from you perambulations in the Pacific North West, Mark.

>31 RBeffa: Hahaha Ron, no problem. I was 99.99% sure it was a typo!

>33 PaulCranswick: With all the time travelling I do it is hard to keep track of dates.

>34 RBeffa: Haha, good man! You're making a miserable chap smile.

Hi Paul, I kept waiting for you to come back to the Category Challenge, but finally decided you've let that fall by the wayside for this year. Looking at your numbers you are obviously getting lots of reading done. Hope you and yours are staying healthy and safe.

>35 PaulCranswick: My good deed for the day!

HAppy new one!

>36 DeltaQueen50: No, Judy, I will be back there before the week is out. Life has been pretty hectic for me this last month or so.

Lovely to see you over here and I will surprise you over there this week. xx

>37 RBeffa: Indeed.

>38 figsfromthistle: Thank you Anita xx

Happy new thread.

>41 quondame: Thank you, Susan.

Happy new thread, Paul.

>43 humouress: Thanks neighbour. How is the pandemic across the straits? Not improving much here to be honest.

Happy 12th tread, Paul!

>44 PaulCranswick: Things were going well and restrictions were easing slowly; my husband just started going into work 3 days a week with 2 work-from-home. But last week they identified a new cluster and had our 31st covid death so they're tightening up again and he will be back to 2 weeks in office and 2 weeks WFH (which segregates the different teams more effectively, I assume).

>45 FAMeulstee: Thank you, dear Anita

>46 humouress: The fatality rate in Singapore for such a densely populated city-state is extraordinary. I do feel with the level of cases we are shipping at work that the company should again be working from home. I am a lone voice on this amongst our Senior Management Group and hopefully I am overly cautious in this sense.

Happy New Thread, Paul!

Happy new thread, Paul. May it usher in a more peaceful time for you.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>49 connie53: Thank you, Connie

>50 jessibud2: Thanks Shelley. I do hope so, the last few days have been a bit traumatic.

Happy new thread! I saw the sad news on your last thread. We're praying for you.

>52 PaulCranswick: Has the "injection" clinic been sued?

Happy new thread Paul, we are celebrating the birth of Elliott Robert Welch who entered the world at 8.11 am weighing 8lb 4oz, mother and child are doing fine. What a day for him to arrive, Andy is a big Star Wars fan and it is Star Wars day, May the 4th be with you.

>53 drneutron: Thank you, Jim. Spent the better part of the morning at the national registry department getting the official Death Certificate and managed to liaise with the lady who organised her student pass who is trying to get her insurance cover to kick in to cover her funeral expenses and the repatriation of her ashes to Mongolia.

>54 m.belljackson: I'm not sure it could be termed as a "clinic", Marianne. I managed to find a phone number for the place from her handphone and passed it to the Mongolian Consul, so let's see. I don't want to come across the place myself otherwise I could get myself into trouble because I am not sure what I would do there.

>55 johnsimpson: I heard from Hani, John, this morning (it is 5.45 am here) that Karen had sent her a message with your happy news and I went straight to your thread.

I hadn't realised that Amy now shares a surname with Joe and Debbi!

I'm learning something new this morning. There is a programme on Radio 4 at the moment with Jane Garvey, until recently a Woman's Hour presenter, interviewing people who've had huge changs in their lives. In this case, a man who was adopted as a kid adn brought up in Wales has discovered that he was related to a Malaysian royal family. I hadn't realised that Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy or possibly a set of constitutional monarchies.

>55 johnsimpson: Congratulations!

>58 elkiedee: As I understand it, each state has its own sultan and the position of king of the whole country rotates among them. But I’m sure Paul could tell you all about it and explain it properly.

>58 elkiedee: & >59 humouress: Malaysia is indeed a Federal Constitutional Elective Monarchy and a unique one at that. It is also a Federation of States which incorporates: Johor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Pahang, Perak, Kedah, Pinang, Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and the two Malaysian Borneo states Sabah & Sarawak. In addition there are federal territories created which include Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and the tax-free island of Labuan.

Of these states and territories - nine of them - Johor, Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Pahang, Perak, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu have Sultans or hereditary rulers. The Sultan of each one takes it in turn (although technically they are elected by the council of rulers) to rule as Agong or King for 5 year terms.

Technically the Agong and Sultans' rule is/are ceremonial although they do occasionally get embroiled in controversy. There is at the moment for example a State of Emergency declared ostensibly to face the COVID crisis but in reality and fairly transparently to keep a minority supported government and Prime Minister in office. This was declared by the Agong under pressure and/or inducement from the current government.

Some retail therapy this lunchtime to assuage my pained soul.

157. Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers
158. Incomparable World by S.L. Martin
159. The Dancing Face by Mike Phillips
160. Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors

Clare Chambers was on the Women's Prize longlist (I now have 25% of the original longlist of 16)
The books by Martin and Phillips are part of a series of six books chosen by Bernardine Evaristo for a Penguin series called "Black Britain Writing Back" which I will collect this month all being well.
The book by Nors was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2017.

Happy (relatively) new thread, Paul!

>58 elkiedee: Oh I was listening to that too. Such a nice man, he sounded. His accent made me feel all nostalgic- he sounded exactly like some of my older relatives.

>62 SandDune: A sort of Welsh Sultan then, Rhian. Most of the Sultans (I have met three of the current rulers, had lunch, tea and ahem beers with one of them - whilst he was Crown Prince to be fair) have impeccable english, were trained at Sandhurst and are extremely Anglophile.

I did work for the Sultan of Johor when he was Tengku Makhota (Crown Prince) and I will attest that he is a real character.

Today's additions

>60 PaulCranswick: When I was young I found the postage stamps of all the malay states rather fascinating. And confusing with all the members of the straits and the various sultans.

>65 RBeffa: It did take me a little bit of getting used to, Ron! Melaka, Pinang, Sabah and Sarawak have governors not Sultans which means that their states are never represented as having the King. Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya were part of Selangor originally but hived off by Dr. M as a means of weakening potential power of the Sultanates.

Happy new one, Paul!

I was very sorry to read about your loss on the previous thread. Please know that we are thinking about you and holding you in our hearts.

>67 Crazymamie: Thank you dear Mamie. Nice to see you posting yesterday - all at the Pecan Paradisio bring plenty of joy to our lives.

This last months book bullets were many varied and deciding on my BOOK RECOMMENDATION WINNER has been a struggle.

In the end I determined a narrow winner to be Kerry (avatiakh) for her review of The Dig by John Preston. I will check whether I still have an address for Kerry and will choose and send her a book.

Just had to do a back check - and I'm adding to the sympathy. So hard when these things are so out of blue, so pointless. *hugs*

>5 PaulCranswick: I have a copy of Hamnet looking at me accusingly... hope its good.

>70 BekkaJo: It is. It is. Don't worry. If my head had been right I would have gobbled it up. Hope to get back into reading tonight.

>70 BekkaJo: Hugs gratefully received. x

Catching up, Paul, and I join everyone in extending condolences on the loss of your friend. Some of the comments on your last thread seemed to suggest her death was related to getting the Covid vaccine, which I understand is NOT the case, am I correct? I don't know of a risk of embolism from cosmetic injections, so that is all quite strange and very very sad.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/331993

>73 laytonwoman3rd: You are correct, Linda. It was nothing to do with COVID-19 although my awareness of the danger of vaccination generally has been heightened as a result of what happened to Manda. Thanks for your kind words. Plodding away with the paperwork paid off yesterday as she was released into the care of the funeral home in the afternoon. It was quite stressful for me to organise something that I was so ill prepared for.

>74 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver!

Some more retail therapy.

161. Sharks in the Time of Saviours by Kawai Strong Washburn
162. The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
163. Rest and Be Thankful by Emma Glass
164. Minty Alley by CLR James
165. The Fat Lady Sings by Jacqueline Roy
166. Actress by Anne Enright
167. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

I also replaced my copy of The Count of Monte Cristo as the present copy was an old Wordsworth edition cramming 1,200 pages into 700 plus. My new version is already calling to me.

Happy new thread, Paul!

Thank you Thomas.

The Washburn book caught my eye in the new releases display. Serpell's is a name I had seen in reviews and is a Zambian author for my Round the World Challenge. I liked the blurb for Glass' short novel. James and Roy are books 3 and 4 in the Black Britain writers series chosen by Bernadine Evaristo. I have read two books by Enright one I really liked (The Green Road) and the other I disliked almost equally as much (The Gathering) and I hope this will be akin to the former rather than the latter. EVERYBODY is talking about Bennett's book so I pounced as soon as it hit the shelves in a size and format I like.

Oh and this is my replacement Count of Monte Cristo which I was pleased to pick up today also:



in all it 1,179 page glory. I will read it in June if anybody fancies joining me for it.

>76 PaulCranswick: I was surprised at how much I liked The Old Drift because I usually don't enjoy magical realism. I don't think it quite stuck the ending, but it was overall very good.

And listen to the call of the Count! Its length may be intimidating, but the pages fly by.

>81 amanda4242: A number of our pals have suggested the Count this year so I really needed to fold!

The Pulitzer Prize will be awarded in a few weeks time in an award delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Which books do we expect to win? I would guess based on reviews and blurb that these are the top ten candidates:

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Luster by Raven Leilani

We don't have a short list or a long list with the Pulitzer which adds to speculation and can mean that we are way out.

Any strong feelings on what should win?

>80 PaulCranswick: Everytime I think of this book, I think of Shawshank Redemption when they are building the library.

"The Count of Monte Crisco" ... That's Cristo, you dumb-s*

By Alexandre Dumbass

https://youtu.be/PA5dMT6AC7A

Happy Friday. Or for you Happy Saturday, in 3 minutes. :)

>84 mahsdad: What a great movie that is, Jeff.

Thanks mate.......just passed into Saturday here.

Its a movie that if I happen to scroll past it on Live TV (not that I do that much anymore), I have to watch it till its done, no matter where they are.

>86 mahsdad: I watched it twice on a long haul flight, Jeff, it was just that good.

Its one of the few King adaptations that is as good as the source materials.

>88 mahsdad: He isn't someone whose books I have read much, Jeff. I read Carrie a few years ago and thought it quite juvenile (but then again it was his debut) and it has put me off picking up some of his other stuff I have on my shelves.

In terms of film though from his books and short stories - Misery, The Shining and The Green Mile all stand out.

I agree with your assessment of Carrie and some other of his earlier works. They don't require a reread from me. (I was an avid reader of his stuff when I was a wee lad).

But the 3 movies you mention are all good reads, and speaking of Shawshank, if you ever want to dip your toe back in to the Kingaverse, check out Different Seasons, 4 novellas that contain "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" (they should have kept the full name for the movie :) ), The Body (which became Stand By Me), Apt Pupil (a tough read and not a very good movie with the great Ian McKellen) and the Breathing Method, a truly weird, horrorific and excellent story that they never made into a movie, and if you read it you'll know why.

>90 mahsdad: I may just go and find that one, Jeff. Thanks or the recommendation, buddy.

Hoping your weekend is full of fabulous, Paul!

>90 mahsdad: I would second Jeff's recommendation. I have that one and just have the last story left to read.

>92 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie. The fabulous quotient is always given a boost by your presence. xx

>89 PaulCranswick: Someone dumped a load of books on us and one of the Gunslinger books was included. I read the series and was impressed with King's storytelling but not his writing. I mostly don't like horror, so I'm only intermittently tempted to read anything else by him.

>94 quondame: I think that you have made the right distinction, Susan, between storytelling and writing. He is undoubtedly a master of the former but I am not sold on his credentials as to the latter.

>69 PaulCranswick: Oh Paul, what an honour! I've been away from the threads for a few days so it was a lovely surprise.

My sympathy on your loss of a good friend. A sad story.

>76 PaulCranswick: #161 & #162 are both worthy additions to your shelves, PC. And another one comes out this Tuesday: The Artful Dickens: The Tricks and Ploys of the Great Novelist is a must-have for your Chuckles-cherishing self, I assume.

Smooch Hani from me, and tell her I'm looking forward to meeting her someday reasonably soon!

...I suppose you'll be there as well...

;-P

>96 avatiakh: Nice to see you back, Kerry, please PM me your address so that I can send the book to you!

>97 richardderus: They both really caught my eye in the bookstore, RD, and the blurb on the cover sold the books easily.

If you want Hani all to your lonesome, I suppose............((((Humph!))))

>79 PaulCranswick:, >83 PaulCranswick: I haven't read The Vanishing Half yet, but I understand it was inspired by Nella Larsen's Passing, which I did read and enjoyed, and is quite short and powerful.

>99 kac522: That one is also on my shelves frowning down on me occasionally, Kathy!

I really need to spend some time with my TBR!

>100 PaulCranswick: It's very short--you could probably read it in a day, and would be well worth it. Definitely read it before Bennett's book.

ETA: Plus there are some scenes in Chicago.

Hi Paul. Happy Saturday. I'm glad you were able to sort the paperwork and you can relax a bit now that Manda's remains are released for het funeral. I hope it will be a good closure for you and I admire you for doing this for your friend.

Hi Paul, and a belated happy new thread.

From your previous thread, I am so sorry about the loss of your friend.

>80 PaulCranswick: The Count of Monte Cristo is on my shelves… I might be tempted to join you. My edition is only 479 pages. Curious.

>89 PaulCranswick: Of the Stephen King books in your catalog, my absolute favorite is 11.22.63 followed closely by The Stand and Under the Dome.

11.22.63 is a book about time travel, with no hints of horror except the horror of JFK’s assassination.

>103 karenmarie: I loved that book 11.22.63 too. One of my favorite reads of 2020. Definitely a 5 star book.

>101 kac522: I have it in a slim volume together with another of her novels and I could probably manage them both in a single day if I started early enough.

>102 connie53: We have the funeral on Monday and it is in the middle of a lock-down so I really hope it doesn't get disturbed by it.

>103 karenmarie: I suspect that your version may be an abridged one, Karen, because I don't see how it could be crammed into less than 500 pages even with tiny print.

I will eventually try another Stephen King book and it will definitely be one of them already on my shelves.

>104 connie53: I have seen so many positive reviews for that one, Connie, that I will have to pick it up sooner rather than later.

I better post now or else another thread will pass me by. It feels like I have been MIA for most of this year so far which made it seem very strange to make the top 20 posters.

Condolences on the loss of your friend, so young, so needless.

Favorite King book? That’s a tough one! All of the above are really good. I love King’s early stuff, then he went through a period where I just didn’t care. Duma Key was a return to form for me! Most since then were spot on.

>107 Familyhistorian: Posting is a way down on last year, Meg, but your figures are still more than respectable!

It was sad going through her things yesterday afternoon to choose a dress for her to go on her final journey in.

>108 drneutron: Since I have only read Carrie and didn't think so much of it writing wise, I am a poor judge, Jim.

I'm another one who isn't enamored of Stephen King, but I thought The Eyes of the Dragon was pretty good, as are some of his short stories.

>110 amanda4242: I have quite a few of his books too, Amanda, mostly bought in sales.

With the passing of someone very dear to me last Monday, I read virtually nothing at all until yesterday when I finally managed to sit and concentrate for a few hours (four hours solid) to make a huge dent in The Camomile Lawn and very good it is too.

The funeral is this morning and with the lockdown restrictions there will probably be only three people in attendance plus her family on live stream from Mongolia. How sad.

The country has effectively closed down here for three days in the face of a large spike in cases. All the malls are closed and travel very strictly controlled beyond a short radius. I needed a special police permit to attend the funeral later today and we are not allowed to travel more than two persons per vehicle until further notice.

I saw from someone else I know in Malaysia that the country had shut down. It makes things like a funeral very difficult in so many ways.

It's been the same here, no intercity travel, no driving except for essential workers or something like going to a hospital.

Hi Ursula. I got all my paperwork and allowed a good time to drive the 40 km to the funeral home that had been chosen. Saw a couple of checkpoints but nobody stopped me.
The funeral itself was immeasurably sad with only 6 friends being able and/or allowed to attend plus her family on live streaming in Ulan Bataar. Manda looked at peace and ethereally beautiful. I managed to say some words and all of us were in tears.

On the way back to Kuala Lumpur there was a long queue due to a roadblock but again I was waved through without having my (valid) documents appraised.

>115 PaulCranswick: Many many hugs.

>116 BekkaJo: Thank you, Bekka. I really, really need them today. xx

BOOK #49



The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley
Date of Publication : 1984
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 330 pp

Challenges :
British Author Challenge : April (29th book total)
Queen Betty Challenge : 21st book in challenge of 70

Marvellously sardonic exploration of the lives and intertwined loves of an extended family who meet for an annual family holiday on the Camomile Lawn at Aunt Helena's country estate in Cornwall on the eve of the second world war.

We follow the loves of all the members of this group throughout the war and then in the years following and Wesley portrays them each and all through the various lens' of the others in a masterful and assured manner.

Novels don't seem to be written like this anymore and it is more the pity.

>115 PaulCranswick: My condolences, Paul, on the loss of your friend Manda. So sorry this happened to her.
I hope speaking a few words at the funeral gives some kind of ease.
(((hugs)))

>115 PaulCranswick: Glad you were able to attend and that you were not hassled with checkpoints. Sending hugs your way.

I’m glad you made it to the funeral, but sad you had a funeral to go to.

>119 FAMeulstee: I listened to her mother speaking (in Mongolian) via the live stream and it was hugely affecting. I couldn't understand what she was saying but the raw emotion needed no translation.
Thank you, Anita.

>120 figsfromthistle: Thanks Anita.

>121 drneutron: I was glad that there were no hitches, Jim, because it was stressful enough as it was.

{{Paul}}

What a tragic responsibility to fall on your shoulders, Paul, but what a blessing you are to those close to her, most especially, I'm sure, to her mother. As you say, the actual spoken language is secondary; grief is a universal language.

May Manda rest in peace and may this hideous pandemic end so grief can be shared the way it is meant to: physically together.

>124 jessibud2: Thank you for those lovely words, Shelley. I am still a little numb.

Little bird
I could not mend your broken wing.
Songbird in flight
to peace everlasting.

Little bird
gone too soon;
Songbird in flight
borne by a mournful tune.

Little bird
whose heart was young.
Songbird in flight
her song now sung.

I took a Book Bullet on Camomile Lawn. It sounds like the kind of quiet historical novel I love. I recently purchased an omnibus edition of the Map and Lucia series and I started on the Dance to the Music of Time series by reading Question of Upbringing. Thanks to you and Bonnie talking about them.

>126 benitastrnad: I think you'll like it, Benita. Extremely witty.

>113 PaulCranswick: Sorry you had such a sad day Paul, but glad you were able to attend.

>118 PaulCranswick: years since I read this novel, glad it hit the spot for you.

>128 Caroline_McElwee: Thank you, Caroline.

I liked Wesley's voice in this book - very ironic and knowing.

>80 PaulCranswick: I might join you for this! I just need to finish a few books beforehand

>80 PaulCranswick: That would be great!

Hi, Paul. I hope the work week is off to a smooth start. How are those current reads treating you?

>69 PaulCranswick: I like that cover of The Dig. Congrats to, Kerry. I wish we saw here around more often.

>132 msf59: I managed to knock off one of the books, Mark and hopefully will finish another today.

I miss all our pals when they are absent or leave us - Kerry is still posting albeit at slightly lower levels than previously.

>118 PaulCranswick: Gah, I've had that one sitting on my Kindle, where all books go to die. Do I read it before or after the next Anita Brookner? Hmmmm

Hey Paul, I'm glad you were able to make it to the funeral even with the restrictions. Sorry it's been such a hard day - thinking of you and Manda's family.

>135 bell7: I'm sure that you'll love The Camomile Lawn, Bonnie.

>136 PaulCranswick: Thank you, Mary.

I'm sorry to hear the bad news, Paul.
I wish you all the best.
>80 PaulCranswick: I found an issue with 1,504 pages and I think I will join you. I hope I can wait until June.

>137 SirThomas: Thanks Thomas. It is going to take a while to wade through more than 1,500 pages - for me it will be 1 June to manage 1,179 pages. I will be hoping to get my teeth into it properly and gobble it up in 6 days.

So sorry to hear about your friend Paul but glad that you were able to make it to the funeral

>139 SandDune: Thank you, Rhian. My duty will be sort of done when I am able to transport Manda's ashes back to her mum in Mongolia. The funeral home are having some difficulty in finding carriage for her at the moment.

In Ontario, most funerals only allow 10 people to be present. I have seen a number of funerals online as the funeral home taped them so that people could view them on youtube. It is very sad that we have to go through this process. We are in "lockdown" and have been so for about three weeks.The province will continue to shut down for an extra two weeks. However the number of COVID cases has started to decrease this week - so the rules do work.

>140 PaulCranswick: That is a difficult job I guess, Paul. Will you try to find someone who travels to Mongolia, or looking for a kind of registered sending?

>118 PaulCranswick: A beautiful book. I'm so glad it was there to lead you away from the too-rotten world and its burdens.

Fun fact: The ITV adaptation of the novel remains their most-watched drama premiere, and only got knocked to second-overall most-watched drama in 2015...twenty-three years later!

>141 torontoc: Cyrel, it was heartbreaking that the family could not be there in person and had to watch it on live stream. The logistics to bring Manda's mother to Mongolia were simply impossible. Firstly because her passing was so tragically sudden and unexpected and secondly due to prohibitions on quarantine etc. As her closest friend it was left to me to represent them as best as I could.

>142 FAMeulstee: It is a specialist business, I believe, Anita. Part of the funeral package anyway.

>118 PaulCranswick: It is a wonderful book, RD and did help me through some of the misery of the last fortnight.

I didn't know that about the TV drama but I'll bet it filmed well.

I am sorry to read about your friend passing away Paul. Such a tragedy.
Take care, and hugs.

>146 EllaTim: Thanks Ella. I'm not sleeping too well but then again I never did so well.

Very sorry to hear your sad news, Paul. Do take care. Thinking of you at this sad time.

Hi Paul!

>108 drneutron: Duma Key was my introduction to King – I was desperate for a new audio book from the Library and nothing else appealed. Excellent book.

>115 PaulCranswick: I’m so sorry about Manda, glad that you were able to be there for her at her funeral even if there were many tears.

>118 PaulCranswick: I have 3 by Wesley on my shelves, but not The Camomile Lawn. I bought them at a Friends sale solely based on the title of one – The Vacillations of Poppy Carew. Thanks for reminding me about Wesley.

>138 PaulCranswick: 200 pages a day, this should be doable, if there is not too much distraction...
Good luck and enjoy the reading, Paul.

Eid Mubarak - I hope my timing is not too bad.

>148 sirfurboy: Thank you, Stephen. Ramadan has just come to a close here in terms of breaking my final fast of the year and I have been praying that God bestows his mercy upon all those newly passed.

>149 karenmarie: I don't see me reading any more Stephen King in the immediate future, Karen.
Mary Wesley now......that's another matter entirely!

>150 SirThomas: Your timing is amazingly on point, Thomas, as I had just referenced it on my thread whilst you were posting on it!

Thank you dear fellow.

HI Paul - My sincere condolences on the loss of your friend. I'm sure your friend's family is most grateful that you were there to perform the needful services.

Several older women in my church have lost husbands this year - as well as one here on the 75 - and have had to do the awful zoom funerals.

My son was married in January without any witnesses being able to be present and a zoom reception that evening.

I'll be so glad when we can once more take part in the human gatherings that help support our sorrow and mark joy with new family members.

Eid Mubarak

>153 streamsong: Thank you Janet and lovely as always to see you here. Her age, the sudden nature of her passing and her joie de vivre all leant more weight to my grief over Manda's passing. Her cousin in Mongolia was in close contact with me via whatsApp relaying the family's wishes and I did my best here to facilitate those wishes.

>141 torontoc: I actually watched a live stream of an Ontario funeral the other day. There certainly were very few people in attendance. However, I appreciated being able "attend" the funeral of a long-retired librarian who still attended the library conference I usually attend. She used the golf cart shuttles we had between buildings and always made a point of getting to know the students who drove them. When we hosted the conference, these students talked to me for months afterwards about "Miss Ruth" because of the impression she'd left on them. It was evident from the few people there and from the comments left online that she left the same type of impression everywhere she went.

>155 thornton37814: I remember being quite offended at the foot of Manda's coffin as some fellow in a T-Shirt seemed to be taking pictures of the poor girl in her final sleeping place. Just as I was about to lose it I realised that he was the guy facilitating the live streaming.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/332167

>156 PaulCranswick: It's hard to keep up, isn't it?

>157 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver. I need to join to try to catch up after so many days feeling unable to concentrate properly

>158 laytonwoman3rd: These days, Linda, I am starting to feel generationally older!

Because I was struggling to concentrate on reading, I switched to re-cataloguing on a new spreadsheet all the unread books I have in the house (I include in this list the few books I bought specifically to re-read as I haven't read them in years such as Lord of the Flies and Return of the Native).

I have managed to catalogue 1000 books in the last four days. Takes a bit of time as I record the date of original publication and the number of pages.

I feel like doing so reading now!
Reckon it will take me three weeks to get them all catalogued and I am guessing that there are about 5,000 of them. It will not include my Kindle books and the books I have in the UK.

>160 PaulCranswick: haha spreadsheet guy.

I love The Return of the Native. I've read it about three times, and have Alan Rickman reading it on Audio, and have listened to that a couple of times too.

>162 Caroline_McElwee: It gets me bookish going through the lot of them, Caroline.

I did The Return of the Native for my A Level and have always loved the book. The top drawer Hardy novels are right up there with my absolute favourite novels and, though I really like Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, the story of Eustacia Vye will always be the one I go back to.

>163 PaulCranswick: I also like The Mayor of Casterbridge, he drives me mad, but it's a great read. I've not read most of the others yet.

If you're into updating and lists then you need to add your most recent reading to the At LT Lists section list of Books read in 2021! I know you've read more than 35!

Remember to back up your spreadsheets, or even just email the file to yourself, anything. I was still in the middle of cataloguing my crime fiction including lots of info on purchase dates and reading dates on an Excel spreadsheet when in 2009 my hard drive crashed taking all that information with it. I managed to reconstruct what I'd read in 2009, helped because my relatively low number included 15 books in 2 series and I'd written some reviews of the last few books.

>164 Caroline_McElwee: The one that I read which was really substandard was The Trumpet Major. Desperate Remedies was better but not on a level with his best work.

>165 elkiedee: Good idea, Luci. I will email the latest version (I have added another 100 or so already) to myself before I sleep.

Yes I will go to the lists section and update too. I love that facility.

Now the BBC are promoting Sounds and app based listening to all their radio stations and podcasts, are you able to access their material online from overseas, beyond what gets on to the World Service?

Currently Radio 4 is running a series of dramas which tell the stories of several of Hardy's novels, but putting the women's viewpoint at the centre, so they are interpretations in their 19th century settings rather than straight adaptations. It's called Hardy's Women, I think.

A couple of years ago they did two series or two related sets of Zola adaptations and inspired dramas. One set was the original 19th century French settings, with provincial accents rendered as northern accents in true BBC style, and the other set put the stories in more 21st century settings in the UK.

I'm quite fond of most types of BBC radio adaptation, the more faithful ones and the reinventions, though when I read the views of others online they're not always very happy. I've read lots of good stuff in print which I wouldn't have picked up otherwise, and got a taste of things I'm a bit too lazy to read properly myself (some Proust and recently a Thomas Mann novel).

Belated Eid Mubarak!

Happy cataloging, too.

ETA size!

>168 elkiedee: That is fascinating, Luci, I will go and check it out. It seems a little bit hit and miss what you can get from the BBC in a remote location like this. I can get some of the podcasts for example and then some things will come up "not available in your area". Hani does still pay for and keep a TV licence which you would think would be sufficient to help but seemingly not.

Hardy and Zola would be in my top ten all time favourite authors......oops a list is coming!.......so anything by or about them would be of interest to me.

I do think that Hardy's portrayal of ladies is before its time and he is generally wholly sympathetic to their travails. Other than choosing some strange names for them......Eustacia and Bathsheba for example........he did create some memorable and very strong feminine leads in his novels.

>169 richardderus: Thank you, dear fellow.

It has been a strange Eid (or Hari Raya as they call it here) with visitors not being allowed in each other's homes and no travel outside districts allowed. This is the four of us on Eid morning - unfortunately without Yasmyne who is still in Norway and awaiting her passport.

>171 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul. Lovely picture!
I lost sight of a lot of threads so I'm trying to make up for that now. I read you have more strict lockdown measures. So glad you could attend the funeral of your friend despite of that. I know it's sad when a funeral is so small. We had one for Peet's brother in January and although it was a good ceremony we had to limit the company to just family. You can postpone a wedding, but you can't with a funeral.

>172 connie53: Yes, Connie, and I have seen my fair share of postponed weddings in this last year and a couple - one where the intended husband was killed in a traffic accident and the other whereby the intended bride changed her mind - didn't end with a happy ending.

>171 PaulCranswick: Lovely to see you all Paul.

>174 Caroline_McElwee: Just wish that Yasmyne was with us, Caroline and the day would have been perfect.

And there is a reminder of my missing eldest:

Lovely picture, Paul. Yasmyne is a gorgeous woman.

>173 PaulCranswick: Very sad reasons to call of a wedding!

>177 connie53: Thank you, Connie - she is quite a little character too!

Yes, these have been awful times for so many people. x

Always good to see your lovely family, Paul. I hope Yasmyne can be with you soon.

>179 laytonwoman3rd: She is hopeful of getting her passport in the next couple of weeks (she won't/can't use her British passport to travel to Malaysia) and, if so, I shall buy her a ticket to come home.

Miss her lots, Linda.

Another productive day cataloguing my unread books.

Now up to 1,500 books catalogued. 506,882 pages.

>171 PaulCranswick: Happy faces! (Well, except Kyran, did you wake him up to take the photo?)

Isn't cataloging *satisfying*?

>182 richardderus: If sleeping was an Olympic sport, RD, the young man could bring home the bacon for Malaysia with its first ever Gold medal.

I am about a third through the cataloguing and it is fun although not great for getting much sleep.

>171 PaulCranswick: Lovely picture of your family, Paul.
>176 PaulCranswick: And I hope Yasmine can get to you soon.

>183 PaulCranswick: I remember when I first came to LT and spend a few days putting all my books on here, fun indeed!

Great family pictures, Paul!

I love the pictures of your beautiful family Paul.

>184 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita. Cataloguing is cathartic.

>185 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda. Lovely to see you posting. xx

>186 brenzi: Bonnie, I am indebted to Hani who has taken so many pictures of us over the years and put most of them on facebook at one time or another.

>181 PaulCranswick: I had so much fun with cataloging all my books, even the ones in boxes in the attic, when I started LT in 2009. I particularly like to add all the common knowledge things. I usually try to complete them when I'm reading or have finished a book with the things that are more visible when you have actually read the book.

>189 connie53: It is also helping me revitalise my reading, Connie, as I picked up a book today and read it cover to cover and I am planning to do less planning in order to reduce that TBR.

BOOK #50



I Choose to Live by Sabine Dardenne
Date of Publication : 2004
Origin of Author : Belgium
Pages : 210 pp

Challenges:
Around the World Challenge : Country #23

Sabine was snatched from her bicycle as she wended her way to school on 28 May 1996. For 80 subsequently horrific days the 12-year old girl was held captive by the Beast of Belgium, Mark Dutroux. She was subjected to all manner of depravities - sexual, physical, emotional and psychological, but she somehow survived. When Dutroux introduced a "friend" into her world he took a step too far and was caught.

Sabine's retelling of her story was deeply affecting. She wisely does not go into the minutiae of the horrible sexual things done to her and what she doesn't say makes her silence all the more deafening. Her simple love for her grandmother was ultimately the most touching for me.

What a brave and admirable young lady and I hope that the rest of her life will be filled with all she wishes it to be.

Suddenly I really want to start cataloguing... darn it!

>192 BekkaJo: Oops sorry!

Now up to 1,700 catalogued as yesterday I had a busy work day. Will hopefully pass 2,000 shortly.

>193 PaulCranswick: Don't be - I pretty much constantly want to catalogue something ;)
I definitely would have nowhere near that much to do either - I'd say c.600 at a rough guess. I also just left my last read on my friends desk downstairs, with a note 'from her upstairs' (her office is directly below mine).

>194 BekkaJo: I could do with working neighbours like you, Bekka!

Today I will pass 2,000 unread books re-catalogued.

Hi Paul!

>171 PaulCranswick: Nice photo and of course I love seeing the bookshelves.

>176 PaulCranswick: She’s gorgeous.

Congrats on the cataloging effort. I find it immensely pleasing too.

>196 karenmarie: It is not easy to take a photo in my house without seeing a bookcase of some description as a backdrop, Karen!

>197 PaulCranswick:
You would fit perfectly onto a Zoom meeting here in the States. It is a thing to do your Zoom interviews in front of a bookshelf or cabinet of some kind. When the lockdown started it was also a thing to go into people's shelves and look at titles to see what they were reading. I wonder if they were reading at all, or if books on shelves just provided a good backdrop. For a long time I used the "Wrapped Reichstag" as my zoom backdrop just so people wouldn't look at my overloaded bookshelves.

Every person in your family, Paul, is good looking and far above average. How did you manage that!

What sort of data are you recording on your cataloging spreadsheet? Don't any of the LT cataloging options work for you? I'm not being judgmental, just curious. Looking for ideas that could work for me.

>198 benitastrnad: Your comments made me smile, Benita, because I was thinking of a zoom call the other day with one of my Sub-Cons where their senior rep had some setting whereby his background was blurred and he was in focus. This occasioned admiring comments and I chuckled and said that in some cases it would be better that the foreground be blurred and the background in focus!

>199 weird_O: Hahaha Bill, I guess they benefitted more from Hani's genes than mine!

I am happy with my LT cataloguing which, I think, is pretty much up to date but I like my excel/numbers spreadsheet for page number tallies and easily read sorts by year of publication, author and genre etc.

>198 benitastrnad: I'll admit I do love doing Teams calls from my home study. Since I sorted it all out, the background for me is the bookshelves :)

Hope all is okay Paul.

>201 PaulCranswick: I also use a spreadsheet besides LT.
Here I enter my reading list and have the data for my monthly statistics right at hand and don't have to count by hand.

>202 BekkaJo:
I didn't want anybody to see my overstuffed book shelves or the boxes of books stacked beside them. Having some books visible might make you look like an avid reader, but having too many of them just makes you look like a hoarder. That would not be a good thing.

It was for this reason that I thought that having a background done by Jean-Claude and Christo was better than my bookshelves. Sure enough - when I took the background down the first comment about my books came from my sister who told me that I was bragging to the world about the number of books I had because they were so prominent in the background on my Zoom meetings. I put up a different Jean-Claude and Christo background. However, the more I thought about it I decided to display my bookshelves with pride. I'm a librarian! Books are my thing. I should be proud and say it loud!

I now don't have a background. I think that being more comfortable with Zoom is also a reason why I dropped the Jean-Claude and Christo. I do have to say that many people asked about the Wrapped Reichstag and the Running Fence, but nobody has asked about my books.

>182 richardderus: Wow! It sure is, but I'm so much slower.

Here's the next readathon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/332341

>204 benitastrnad: Ah Cristo. I was new to California when he did his Umbrella installation, very trippy.

I currently have a landscape photo I took as my background, but I'm not above letting my freak flag fly and showing off my TBR stacks. :)

>207 mahsdad:
I am going to have to look for the umbrellas. Didn't know about that one.

>202 BekkaJo: If I do Teams or Zoom from home it is always from my reading nook so I cannot help but having book shelves in the backdrop.

>203 SirThomas: I do wonder sometimes, Thomas, why so many of us are concerned with "pages read". I am certainly one of those and a spreadsheet enables that to be monitored easily.

Good going on the cataloging Paul. I haven't added many books to my catalogue since my initial endeavour when I first joined LT. I've also culled lots of books so my catalogue is completely out of date now.

>204 benitastrnad: There would certainly be suspicions then that I was a hoarder, Benita! That is true in terms of books anyhow, I'm afraid.

>205 ArlieS: Speed doesn't matter! I only catalogued 70 or so books yesterday as I was tired after a full day's work.

>206 SilverWolf28: Thanks Silver! I need to join this weekend. xx

>207 mahsdad: I have never tried to set a "false" backdrop, Jeff. Firstly because it is too much trouble for the IT impaired such as I and secondly I don't really mind someone seeing a "few" books when they are talking to me.

>208 benitastrnad: Now I'll be looking for umbrellas too!

>210 avatiakh: Yikes, that worries me a little, Kerry, as my book selection for you is of course based upon an analysis of your collection as stated in your LT catalogue. Fingers crossed then that I have not sent you something you already have. xx

>207 mahsdad: Yeah I hear ya. Heck, every time Windows dictates an update it messes with the camera and its another call to IT. (And I can confidently say I'm not IT impaired). :)

>171 PaulCranswick: >176 PaulCranswick: Love the family photos, Paul and they were able to get a smile out of you too. Your eldest is gorgeous. How is she doing?

>214 mahsdad: I have my staff at the PNB118 project - my Contract team - who are all extremely proficient in IT and this helps me pass muster too.

>215 msf59: That picture is on the morning of Eid, Mark, where I am no longer fasting and in eager anticipation of Hani's wonderful cooking, so of course I am smiling!

Yasmyne is still in Norway but hoping to come back to Malaysia soon as she misses the food probably as much, if not more, than she misses her old man!

>209 PaulCranswick: The only reason I can think of is that it's fun.
But I try not to let it turn into a competition (even with myself), then I wouldn't be able to enjoy the short books carefree anymore.
I recently got 2 very interesting short stories from Harry Bingham from the DC Fiona Griffiths series. By the way - also a BB from you, Thank you again!
My English is not good enough for long books and I often have to use the translation function of my ebook reader.

Best wishes and hopefully Yasmyne will be able to travel soon!

>209 PaulCranswick: I think that "pages read" provides a better picture a lot of times than "books read." The year I read Infinite Jest, it slowed down my number of books read considerably, but my pages read were trucking right along! Or maybe saying it is a better picture isn't quite right, more that it helps make a more complete picture.

>217 SirThomas: I think you underestimate your english skills, Thomas!

I do like keeping "score" of my pages read and I am always frustrated when I start to fall below 100 pages per day minimum.

The Fiona Griffiths series is good fun isn't it?

>218 ursula: You are right of course, Ursula. One War and Peace and one Mary Oliver poetry anthology may be one book each but there is clearly a different effort going into completing each!

>216 PaulCranswick: The Fiona Griffiths series is good fun isn't it? YES!

>220 SirThomas: I will hope to read episode 4 of the series before the end of the year, Thomas.

Completed Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan which is thought provoking if a little bit patchy. Cannot really review it yet as the touchstones are not working properly.

Hopefully it will right itself and I can get a review of the book done shortly.

BOOK #51



Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan
Date of Publication : 2018
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 71 pp

Challenges
Poetry : 5/12
Queen Betty Challenge : 22/70

This first collection won the TS Eliot prize and I can see why. Erudite, knowing and brave particularly in some of the graphic sexual imagery in the first section.

I do feel that it was not entirely consistent and some of the graphic content did make me a tad uncomfortable in that it was striking but not especially poetic.

The first poem covered her time in New York and provides acute observation both of place and her position there. The second is more meandering but includes time in San Francisco whilst the third which packed the biggest punch for me juxtaposed the birth of her son with the death of her father.

She is certainly a poet to watch and has talent in abundance.

This is her awaiting an overdue birth:

Think of the saltwater eel in the suburban restaurant.
It wants to be rid of the tank, the shriek of lobsters,
The monotonous view of leatherette banquettes,
The off-duty industry folk, greedily appraising,
“Let’s do it half sashimi-style, half dry-fried-spicy,”
And also not to be rid of the tank, to remain forever
Chosen and not yet chosen, neither living nor dead,
Eddying between two walls of bubbling glass.
Learn something about indifference.

Recommended.

Hi Paul!

Our Friends of the Library Board Meetings have been on a great app called GoToMeeting. Since most, if not all, of our Board members are serious readers, most of us have bookshelves behind us. We are probably going to be able to meet in person, at the Library, for our June meeting, but I must admit that I’ve loved seeing even teensy portions of folks’ homes that I wouldn’t otherwise see.

>224 karenmarie: I would find it strange if there were an absence of books, Karen. It is one thing I notice at my brother's house - the complete absence of any books. I understand my niece has some secreted in her bedroom but there are literally none at all on show in the reception rooms of the home which I find unthinkable for myself. I suppose mine is a little unusual in that there are several thousand on show but it does occasion conversation as first time guests will invariably want to browse.

>225 PaulCranswick: - Hi Paul. I totally agree with you about books in a house. Which brings to mind the smile-inducing title of Grant Snider's cartoons, I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf. I am like you and it's the first thing I notice. In fact, I, myself, love to browse my shelves, especially in this time of no one visiting, first time or otherwise! ;-)

Lovely pics of your family, up there. I thought I had already commented on them but apparently, I only thought I did!

>226 jessibud2: I suppose it is sort of preaching to the converted, Shelley, as it would obviously be strange if we didn't like perusing bookshelves but I do find those who don't keep any books at home a rather strange breed!

Hello, Paul! Love the family photos and thought I should say so before this thread is over and done with! Congrats on the cataloging...I have stalled out in the "S"s. But at least I am reading again! Finished two up and started three. I think I have books in almost all the rooms in my house...Hmmmm...None in one bedroom, the dining room and the bathrooms. Every other room has books, lots of books!!

>228 Berly: I am still going "strong" in cataloguing all the unread books in the house. I am currently at 2,375 which equates to 807,039 pages to date.

I reckon I may have it done by next weekend and I do note that there will probably less than my predicted 5,000. This means:

1 Yasmyne gave away more than I had thought by sending wrong boxes to school libraries and orphanages

2 Some of the books didn't make the move from the previous house (I think that number would be very small)

3 I miscalculated when deducting what I had read.

4 There are more books than I thought in the UK.

My current estimated is about 4,200.

>228 Berly: Always lovely to see you here Kimmers and I hope to get round the threads with more like my usual verve soon!

I'm trying to become a person who keeps no more than maybe 10 books at home... whittling them down.

>231 ursula: Wow and why, Ursula? What about the 20 or 30 books you must one day re-read that left such an impression?!

If I don't buy any more books, ahem, then I reckon I will clear the decks in about 20 years!
There is a strong possibility that I may cull about 10% of the unread books which will equate to over 2 years of potential reading cut.

Catalogued another 145 books this morning so I am at 2,520 unread books or 864,604 pages. I reckon I will get to 2,700 books catalogued today. Not bad in two weeks - should get them finished by the month end.

I have found that I don't enjoy having unread books on the shelf; they oppress me. Right now I estimate we have about 75-100 paper books, and I think 5-8 of those are books that Morgan has read but kept because of their relationship to his deceased best friend. As I'm reading through the rest, they're getting put aside to be donated/gotten rid of in some way. I cannot wait for that day.

One day I wouldn't mind having nice editions of books that I have really enjoyed and might one day re-read, but I am not a re-reader by nature so even that is a tough sell. And I wouldn't consider it until we are really settled somewhere, if that ever happens. I can't imagine lugging around books I've already read from continent to continent.

>234 ursula: Actually we are not so dissimilar then Ursula. I do separate read and unread books and don't really hoard the read ones overly. I will reduce to probably about 1,000 read books in two double stacked book shelves of books that I particularly liked.

The other thing that "helped" grow my collection is the absence of libraries encouraging me towards the bookstores. I have always loved collecting things and so I have always tended to add many more than I could ever read.......hence the Cranswickian adjective coined here by one of my pals (I can't remember which wag come up with it first) to describe a huge book haul.

I am dreading the difficulty of relocating my books when we finally manage to relocate to UK.

I dunno, Paul. Maybe you and I should apply?

(With reference to post 236, which I suspect may be deleted soon.)

>236 eric63555: Eric? Or should I call you Count? Vampirism is not an ambition I presently have. I am told it can be rather a pain in the neck! Nice of you to drop in. Sorry but blood-sucking is just not my fang.

>237 humouress: I suppose a visitor is a visitor is a visitor, Nina, no matter that he would prefer me to keep my company only in the hours of darkness.

>235 PaulCranswick: Except 5000 (or 500) unread books would give me an aneurysm!

>239 PaulCranswick: Well, we do tend to burn rather more midnight oil than we ought.

>235 PaulCranswick: The same here, Paul, we acquired most of our books when we didn't use the library.

In my late twenties and early thirties I was famous for my cranswickian hauls from bookshops (often together with Frank, which doubled the number of books taken home), secondhand bookshops and the weekly bookmarket. Back then space was no problem, as we had the luxury of two large rooms for our private library.

5000 or 4000 unread books? Yes, a catalogue is a great idea then. So how do you pick which one to read?
I do want books in my home. I am a rereader, there are books I really love. Of course you can always borrow from the library, but I find my library purges older books a lot. I want to be able to find them on my shelves when I want them!

>240 ursula: That is rather the effect it has on the good lady wife, Ursula!

>241 humouress: Of course Nina we two both know that the pair of us are sleep deprived by our posting times!

>242 FAMeulstee: A smaller place is going to be quite cluttered for us, Anita, if it happens. It would be very hard for me if I had to reduce my stockpile other than by reading through them!

>243 EllaTim: You hit the nail on the head, Ella. Choosing what to read is more problematic the more books you have to choose from!

>236 eric63555: & >244 AbbieSanders: Well we have had vampires and Big Tech blood suckers now. What does it mean you can earn up to from? Surely you can earn up to or you can earn from it cannot be both.

>243 EllaTim: *sigh* Ah, yes, I regret the library purges of older books too.

>245 PaulCranswick: Shhh! (or Ffhhh! if you have fangs) ;0)

>248 humouress: Nina I used to be a werewolf but I am ok nowoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

My, the spammers have been prolific. Such an irritating thing to do.

Good week's work cataloging ahead, PC.

>250 richardderus: Wouldn't you think that they had better things to do, RD?

I will meet my 2,700 book target for today as I am almost there.

The various comments about libraries purging books brought to my mind a collection of essays by Nicholson Baker, published in 2012 and titled The Way the World Works. I could just now go to the living room and pluck it from the bookshelves. 'Cause I didn't purge it after reading. I'm thinking I want to re-read all or parts of it. Anyway, I recall that he had a long piece in The New Yorker about the extermination of card catalogs. Focused on what was being discarded. The book has an essay about the San Francisco Public Library, in which Silicon Valley moguls engineered the construction of a vast new structure with lofty spaces but less shelf space than the existing building. The image in my head is that of city dump trucks lining up to be filled with books being tossed.

>252 weird_O: Ha, off I went to Amaz to seek a copy of those essays Bill, and see they were published in January 1633! (having to go hardback @ £3 rather than paper @ £24!)

>252 weird_O: I don't see me purging that many, Bill.

Reached 2,700 unread books re-catalogued and they account for 933,006 pages.

>253 Caroline_McElwee: I don't think Nicholson Baker is quite that old, Caroline!

>252 weird_O: That piece in The New Yorker, with its details of how they had to hire guards to "protect" the books from being "stolen" in the landfill, the collections of outdated science books that had to be tossed out, all of it...I was incandescent with fury the whole way through the read!

>255 richardderus: I think it would have upset me too, RD. I don't understand the philosophy that would go into a decision like that.

A couple of books I found in my library during the last few months were gone when I was getting ready to make my first in person trip. (Now that they are fully reopened, we had to go "in person" to renew the library cards they've just been extending for brief periods. I decided I might as well check out a few "real" books from the library list. As I was preparing my list, at least two books I had thought I might check out were no longer in the system. One is still available at Knox County Public library, but the other one may never get read because neither system owns a copy.

>257 thornton37814: How does that happen, Lori? Pilferage?
Sad, if so.

I see Your TBR library has expanded to 5000 .... staggering.

>259 roundballnz: The TBR in the house isn't going to make it to 5,000, I don't think Alex, but it is likely to pass 4,000. I have currently got 2,800 re-catalogued. Will pass 1,000,000 pages unread today.

Lovely to see you, Alex.

>258 PaulCranswick: I suspect they were just old enough that they were withdrawn from the collection. They seem to do it much more regularly at this particular library than at other ones.

>261 thornton37814: And then they sell them off?

Another couple of hundred unread books in the house re-catalogued. Now up to 2,900 for a total of 1,002,241 pages.

>262 PaulCranswick: Yes. They have an ongoing sale with some things, but the majority get put in the larger friends' sales.

>264 thornton37814: I would love to have those libraries near me!

>252 weird_O: Oh my, unfortunately the Amsterdam Library is so fond on doing this. They have convinced themselves that digital is the future. A whole new main branch was built, a beautiful building with a great view of the city, but it holds far less books, the bookcases are lower than the old ones. Lots of empty space...

My own small neighbourhood library branch was nearly deleted, but it has been partly saved. It now has half the space, and has to shrink it's collection. From 18.000 to 14.000 books. So only three times Paul's TBR. Now is it a small library, of does Paul have a big TBR? Or both?

>266 EllaTim: I suppose I like the feel of being surrounded by books, Ella, so that modern trend of more space and less shelves appals. 14,000 books doesn't sound a huge amount for a public library.

A Baker's dozen of additions today which includes a couple of titles I have noticed must have been amongst those given away by Yasmyne - I will list these as "replacements".

170. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov *Replacement*
171. Summer by Ali Smith
172. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor *Replacement*
173. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
174. The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima
175. The Girls by Emma Cline
176. The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
177. The Flint Anchor by Sylvia Townsend Warner
178. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
179. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
180. The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
181. Just Like You by Nick Hornby
182. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

I was in a highbrow mood today largely (Hornby & Osman also have Hani in mind as a readership)

>268 PaulCranswick: Looks like a very literary haul!

>270 thornton37814: And I missed a couple from earlier in the month I noticed, Lori.

168. Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas
169. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams by Richard Flanagan

The latter brought to my attention by Luci on her thread with her reference to Aussie book blogs.

>271 PaulCranswick: I've read and appreciated The Slap but not encountered Damascus (fix yer touchstone, PC!). I'll hope for it to reach the top of the relevant pile soonish...like before 2030.

>272 richardderus: Touchstone duly fixed.

I was surprised to note that both Tsiolkas and Jay Parini both published fictional re-tellings of Paul's story in 2019.

Hi Paul!

>254 PaulCranswick: 933,006 unread pages with 2,700 books. As my friend Rhoda says, “Unread books are like money in the bank.”

>267 PaulCranswick: I love being surround by books, too. And I’ve been keeping the Library door closed because of the 70 bags of book donations to the Friends that I’m storing. Combined with the 1800 books in there, the lovely book smell is concentrated.

Hi Paul, i have 1.1 million unread pages as it stands at the moment mate, i think yours will be in excess of this figure.

Hi Paul! I think I have about 150 unread books. It's pretty easy for me to get books, either from the library or bookstore, so I try (but don't succeed) to limit book purchases to things that I intend to read in the near future.

>274 karenmarie: Yes and still counting, Karen. As of last night I had re-catalogued 3,410 books for 1,191,902 pages. I estimate about another 900 to go and I will finish it this weekend.

Books especially as they age do give off a lovely odour, don't they?!

>275 johnsimpson: Lovely to see you John with the first test imminent. What on earth has Billings done in red ball cricket to deserve a call up?! Hosein, Davies, Brown and Cox who perform week in week out in the county game and mostly perform admirably must be shaking their heads.

I think my total number of pages in unread TBR will exceed 1,500,000. I have a few in the UK too which won't get counted right now and I am not looking at my Kindle which is well stocked but largely unused.

>276 banjo123: Eminently sensible, Rhonda. My purchasing of books has nothing sensible about it, I'm afraid.

In life news, Hani got her vaccination yesterday!

She had the Astra Zeneca jab and so far seems to be ok. Mine is now apparently scheduled for 20 June.

>279 PaulCranswick: Yay Hani! Increased safety = good, though to my memory's files, neither of you smokes or has smoked. That's the strongest correlative factor in bad-to-lethal outcomes.

That's great that Hani got her vaccine!

>280 richardderus: I am a wheezy old mutt, RD, and need my inhaler frequently but, thankfully, I am not a smoker. Hani too.

So far she is showing no ill effects of yesterday although she was mightily stressed yesterday.

>282 PaulCranswick: Yes and she is relieved the first one is over, Rhonda. I am up next month and Kyran has a date in July although typical of Kyran, he is not quite sure which date he managed to get. Both of us will also be having Astra Zeneca.

Yay! Glad that you guys are finally getting your jabs. Fingers crossed for no side effects.

>279 PaulCranswick: That is good news, Paul, so glad Hani got her vaccine and yours is sceduled.

Good news on the shot!

>283 BekkaJo: Well one of us has already got hers anyway, Bekka. No side effects yet thank goodness.

With what happened to my friend I am especially edgy with Hani having an injection just now.

>284 FAMeulstee: It was funny, Anita, to see how stressed she was and then how relieved when it was all over. I ordered her a favourite meal of hers to be delivered this evening to celebrate.

>285 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

She says thanks too.

Here's the next readthon: https://www.librarything.com/topic/332513

The June BAC thread is up. Perhaps it will provide a little motivation for your Queen Vic challenge.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/332514

>288 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver

>289 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda. I need a bit of motivation at the moment!

Great to see you are getting vaccinations ...... ( but with closed borders its slower here) ... My mum got her appointment for the 1st Pfizer one - which means will be vaccinated before winter really hits. ( & risk of those colds being something else - just look at Melbourne)

>291 roundballnz: Hani will be done in July and myself hopefully by August, Alex.

Trust that your mum will be fine with her jab.

Kyran had been soulsearching about dropping law after two years at Portsmouth and he has been accepted and will commence History and International Relations at Birkbeck in London from October.

He was in fine form yesterday and we spent several hours talking about history and politics.

>293 PaulCranswick: That's great news - sounds like an excellent course :) If he ever needs anything on Crown Dependencies, you know where I am!

I was talking to Hani about a trip to Jersey later in the year, Bekka. I have only been there once and it was 35 years ago but I am sure that she would like it. If we do get relocated this year as I am still hopeful we will - Cornwall, West Wales, Jersey, Northumberland and Oban are on our radar.

I will tell Kyran of your willingness to tutor. x

Hi Paul.

>279 PaulCranswick: Congrats on Hani’s first dose and your being scheduled for your first dose. I’m also glad she hasn’t had any side effects.

>293 PaulCranswick: Congrats on Kyran for being accepted to study History and IR in London!!

>296 karenmarie: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you and Thank you dear Karen!

Aw, congrats to Kyran!

>298 scaifea: He has a real spring in his step bless him! He was a bit apprehensive, Amber, after deciding to give up his law. Despite very good results he was miserable in Portsmouth doing law which I am sure he took thinking he would follow in his Dad's footsteps. He forgets that I did English Politics and History at Warwick until I realized there would be no job for me at the end of it!

>299 PaulCranswick: It can be so hard to be self-aware enough to make such a decision, so good for him! Going into college I thought I wanted to be pre-law and then do law school, but after one pre-law meeting I knew it wasn't for me, so I sympathize with him.

>300 scaifea: I only wish he had decided during his foundation, Amber, and it would have saved me a pretty penny! I'm pleased to see him so energised though.

>293 PaulCranswick: Adding my congratulations to Kyran.

I’m reading Metropolis by Ben Wilson - the chapter on skyscrapers. Came across this quote:

There is an economic theory that you can predict that an economic crash is about to happen when a new skyscraper rises to claim the title of tallest building in the world. The Singer Building and the Met Life coincided with the Panic of 1907. The Woolworth Building arrived in time for the depression of 1913. The World Trade Center and the Sears Tower opened during the 1973 oil crisis and the 1973–4 stock-market crash. Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers became the world’s tallest buildings just before the Asian financial crisis of 1997. The subprime mortgage disaster has its monument: the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, opened in October 2009. The very day that the Shanghai Tower was finished, the Chinese stock market plunged 7% in half an hour.

Knowing that you’re building a big one, I wondered if I should be worried about our economic future… 😀

Oh thank goodness, PC. Kyran's decision resounds wit relief. I'm super-surprised to learn Oban is on y'all's list! *I* think you should move to Whiskyland...but I would.

awaiting your response to >303 drneutron: with bated breath

Thumbs up for your book cataloging, Paul. I do have the page length of each book recorded in my LT catalog (well, almost all), but of course there's no mechanism for tallying them. I wonder if such a total would put impact my reading. Number of books read is a stat sufficient to shape reading for me. I can contrive an argument that by pacing reading to yield 100 books read in a year, I'm cooking that stat by manipulating length and subject matter and reading level.

Oh well, just musing.

Have a good weekend, sir.

>302 Caroline_McElwee: Thank you, Caroline.....he is busy looking at accommodation options already and I am salivating about the prospect of visiting him and the bookhops!

>303 drneutron: Hahaha good bit of research, Jim! I am worried about the world economy certainly and especially as to how it can recover in the aftermath of being shutdown and reset. I have a feeling that the world will become especially Darwinian and that the stronger organisations who were ready and prepared for this will come out of it even stronger. I am a little cynical, Jim, but some of it does not seem entirely accidental.

>304 richardderus: Oban is on the list, RD, as a gateway to highlands and islands and the whisky-fields!

I don't think that there is a correlation between the Petronas twins and the South-East Asia crisis. This was mainly, in the case of Indonesia and South Korea, which places I have specific knowledge, that loans for growth and development were taken out in US$ and when the local currencies experienced a "run" the impact was to double and triple borrowings/liabilities with a concurrent impact on confidence. The belief in the promise to pay being realised is what sustains most transactions.

>305 weird_O: Nice to see you, Bill. I will get the re-cataloguing of my unread books done by tomorrow with the small proviso that I think I may have a small handful of books in one of my site offices. Currently I am at 3,666 books with 1,286,286 (nice number) pages to read. Looks like between 4,200 and 4,400 will be the final current tally.

I am content enough with the number of books read but I do like to track page numbers too and our LT resource - wonderful as it is in so many ways - does not allow this function (yet!). Still it allows me to reacquaint myself with my books!

I am hoping when my re-cataloguing is done to get round the threads this weekend and almost as importantly to get some reading done.

Best of luck finishing your re-cataloguing, Paul. Time to get back to reading the books instead.

>307 PaulCranswick: If you're keen to visit Oban for the whisky you should make sure to visit Islay. Lots of whisky there and a nice place to boot. Although the wifi leaves much to be desired. They even have an airport which is on the land where some of my ancestors were tenants back in the day. (One was caught making his own whiskey there too.)

>309 Familyhistorian: Meg, re-cataloguing my unread books is going apace and I have just passed 4,000 books for a total of 1,402,169 pages. Another bookcase and a bit to go so let's see what the final number is. I need to check at my site offices as there may be one or two there but I will be close to a figure by mid tomorrow. Then back to reading!

Islay single malts is precisely why Oban was on my list!

I'm typing on a new computer--trying to get used to a different keyboard and a different operating system--although I've used Mac OS before.

>311 thornton37814: I am used to my MacBook Air, Lori and I don't envisage swapping it but at work it can be inconvenient because Samsung are on Windows and their Server system is not accessible from my laptop unless I basically let them load the entire thing on my MacBook which may impair its performance.

Good luck with your new computer, Lori!

Well I have finished my re-cataloguing of my unread books in the house in Kuala Lumpur (TBR).

There are a total of 4,425 books
Total Number of Pages : 1,555,749 pages
Mean Average Book Length : 351.56 pages

The list includes books added this month

Final adjusted for what I found in the office (two books), books added (1 book delivered by Book Depo) and deducting 3 books (only 3!!!) read in May.

Now to get back reading properly!!

>313 PaulCranswick: Wow. That is a recipe for immortality right there.

>307 PaulCranswick: The belief in the promise to pay being realised is what sustains most transactions.

...I don't believe I've ever read a more succinct, relatable, and complete definition of "credit" in my life.

Bravo!

Stopping by to say hello and send love and healing to you and your family.

>315 richardderus: I'm going to have to cull some of them along the way, RD, before incapacity takes precedence over comprehension - especially as additions keep coming.

And I didn't knowingly blag the definition either; it really was on off-the-cuffer!

>316 witchyrichy: Thank you Karen. I hope to get around the threads a little and catch up with friends once my eyes are less tired and I have had a little sleep.

>317 PaulCranswick: You summed it up admirably, and that's what more bloviating "complete" definitions fail to do.

>319 richardderus: Thanks RD.

Unluckily I have strained my eyes (got dust in them) re-cataloguing all my unread books so I will have to rest them this evening and hence won't finish any of the three books well advanced.

Anyway it will give me a flying start to June when I commence in earnest to start to reduce my TBR!

Added via Book Depo this month:

183. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
184. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
185. The Dig by Roger Preston
186. The Historians by Eavan Boland
187. Selected Poems by Elizabeth Jennings

>313 PaulCranswick: Your efforts to re-catalog your unread books made me make a count of the unread books over here.

There are 1281 (of 2171) books on the shelves that I haven't read since 2008.
Some have been read by me before, but I never kept track before 2008.
Some I will never read: 13 are in German, remains from Franks schooldays, and one in Chinese, the famous Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, just a keepsake :-)
So that is 1267 left, minus 29 reference books makes 1238 books to go.

>323 FAMeulstee: Still a decent number, Anita and with your reading speed only about 3 years reading if you set your mind to it!

>322 PaulCranswick: #185 Oh, that's a great read! I thought the Netflix film did an okay job of putting the story out there, and Ralph Fiennes is very good as Basil Brown.

>324 PaulCranswick: I need to keep at least enough unread books to read for a year ahead, Paul, just to be certain in case of disaster. With the first lockdown I had to rely on my own books and the e-library for nearly two months!

>326 FAMeulstee: I won't stretch credulity too much Anita and claim that I have the same idea but only with a 20 year float!

Nice work counting your books! I was thinking on counting out my unread books---I think it was a couple of hundred last time I counted. I have been trying to read more of those, but I am not sure how much of a dent I have meade.

>328 banjo123: It has given me a bit of purpose to make a real effort to lower the number overall, Rhonda.

Let's see how I cope in reducing this number with my penchant for making the, erm, occasional addition to my collection!

>311 thornton37814: Oh dear. Not MacOS Big Sur (11.3 ?) aka large computer monitors with their UI optimized for small tablets, with a side order of simple ugliness.