Sumer is icumen in, Pilgrim's going cuckoo (2021)

Den här diskussionen är en fortsättning på: A pilgrim marches into March (2021)

Den här diskussionen fortsatte här: Pilgrim is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf (2021)

DiskuteraThe Green Dragon

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Sumer is icumen in, Pilgrim's going cuckoo (2021)

1-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jun 6, 2021, 4:18 pm

2-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jan 29, 2022, 1:51 pm

June

✓1. The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax by Christopher Shevlin (320 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓2. The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre (trans. Stephanie Smee) (192 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓3. How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black (illustrated by Rovina Cai) (156 pages) - 3 stars
✓4. Articulated Restraint (short story) by Mary Robinette Kowal (25 pages) - 2 stars
✓5. Children of Thorns, Children of Water (short story) by Aliette de Bodard (54 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓6. Notes on Nationalism (essays) by George Orwell (64 pages) - 4 stars
✓7. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold (286 pages) - 4.5 stars
✓8. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold (303 pages) - 4 stars
✓9. The Fallen Blade by Jon Courtenay Grimwood (429 pages) - 2 stars
10. The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (295 pages) - 4 stars
✓11. The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (544 pages) - 4 stars

July

✓1. The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter (323 pages) - 3 stars
✓2. Shanta by Marie Thøger (trans. by Eileen Amos) (128 pages) - 3. 5 stars
✓3. The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne (384 pages) - 4 stars
✓4. The Brushwood Boy (novelette) by Rudyard Kipling (37 pages) - 4.5 stories
5. A Castle of Bone by Penelope Farmer (176 pages) - 4 stars
✓6. Dinosaurs : The Amazing World of the Pre-Historic Monster from Archaeopteryx to Tyrannosaurus Rex by Jane Werner Watson (iIllus. by Rudolf F. Zallinger) (180 pages) - 3 stars
7. A Sort of Traitors by Nigel Balchin (272 pages) - 5 stars
8. We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor (383 pages) - 2 stars
9. The Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel (340 pages) - 2 stars

August

✓1. A Zoo in my Luggage by Gerald Durrell (illus. by Ralph Thompson) (191 pages) - 3 stars
✓2. Men At Arms by Sir Terry Pratchett (288 pages) - 3.5 stars
3. Punk 57 by Penelope Douglas (336 pages) - 0.5 star
✓4. Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (160 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓5. If Only They Could Talk by James Herriot (208 pages) - 3. 5 stars
✓6. ♪♪ The Novels of Charles Dickens: An Introduction by David Timson to A Christmas Carol by David Timson (narr. by Anton Lesser (29 minutes) - 2 stars
7. ♪♪ Canada is Awesome by Neil Pasricha (34 minutes) - 1.5 stars
8. ♪♪ Learn British English: Word Power 101 by Innovative Language Learning (52 minutes) - 0.5 star
✓9. Excerpts from the Diary of a Henchminion (short story) by Sherwood Smith (6 pages) - 2.5 stars
✓10. ♪♪ The Colour of Magic (audiobook) by Terry Pratchett (narr. by Nigel Planer) (796 minutes) - 4 stars
✓11. Disaster Inc by Caimh McDonnell (310 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓12. A Man With One of Those Faces by Caimh McDonnell (362 pages) - 3 stars
✓13. Bloody Christmas by Caimh McDonnell (est. 126 pages) - 3 stars
✓14. Dog Day Afternoon (short story) by Caimh McDonnell (est. 23 pages) - 3.5 stars
✓15. The Day That Never Comes by Caimh McDonnell (362 pages) - 3 stars

3-pilgrim-
Redigerat: feb 13, 2022, 8:23 am

4-pilgrim-
Redigerat: sep 4, 2021, 6:41 am

Viewing

June

✓1. My Spy (2020, English (American))
2. The Magicians: Season 4, Episodes 4-5 (2019, English (American))
3. Lethal Weapon: Season 2, Episode 5 (2017, English (American))
4. The Baker (2007, English)
5. Andromeda: Season 1, Episodes 11-19 (2001, English (Canadian))
6. Yolki 1914 (2014, Russian)
7. Detective Anna: Season 2, Episodes 1-2 (2020, Russian)
8. Elusive Avengers (1966, Russian (Soviet))

July

1. Andromeda: Season 1, Episodes 20-22 (2001, English (Canadian))
2. Andromeda: Season 2, Episodes 1-20
✓3. Paws, Bones and Rock-'n'-roll (2015, Russian)
✓4. Fool's Day (2014, Russian)
5. Peculiarities of National Hunting (1995, Russian)
6. The Avengers: Series 1, The Frighteners (1961, English)
7. The Avengers: Series 2, Episode 15 (1962, English)
8. The Prisoner: Episodes 1, 4

August

1. The Prisoner: Episodes 2-3
2. Andromeda: Season 2, Episodes 21-22 (2002, English (Canadian))
3. Farscape: Season 1 Episodes 2-22 (1999, English (Australian/American)
4. Andromeda: Season 3, Episodes 1-15
5. Nicolas le Floch: Saison 6: The English Cadaver & The Drowned Man in the Grand Canal
6. Detective Anna: Season 2, Episodes 3-18
✓7. The Colour of Magic (2008, English)
✓8. Troll Bridge (2019, English (Australian))
✓9. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012, English (American))
✓10. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017, English)

5-pilgrim-
Redigerat: okt 10, 2021, 7:16 am

Series List

Series in progress

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

Ralph Rover by R. M. Ballantyne : 1 - The Gorilla Hunters
Chronicles of Amber by John Gregory Betancourt: P1, 1-10 - Chaos and Amber
Dominion of The Fallen by Aliette de Bodard: 0.2-0.5, 0.8-1.5 - Against the Encroaching Darkness, Of Children, of Houses, and Hope, The House of Binding Thorns
Obsidian and Blood by Aliette de Bodard: 0.1-1 - Harbinger of the Storm
Xuya Universe by Aliette de Bodard: 8, 27 - The Jaguar House, In Shadow, Fleeing Tezcatlipoca

Pieter Posthumous by Britta Bolt: 3 - Lonely Graves
Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs: 1-2 - Fair Game
Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs: 1-8 - Fire Touched
Sianim by Patricia Briggs: 3-4 - Masques
Philip Mangan by Adam Brookes: 1 - Spy Games
The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold: 2-4 - Falling Free, The Mountains of Mourning, The Vor Game
World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold: 1.1, 2 - Penric and the Shaman, The Paladin of Souls
Chains of Honor by Lindsay Buroker: P1-P3, 1-2: Snake Heart, Assassin's Bond
Emperor's Edge by Lindsay Buroker: 1-8 - Diplomats and Fugitives
Fallen Empire by Lindsay Buroker: P-3 - Relic of Sorrows
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher: 1-2 - Welcome to the Jungle, Grave Peril

Holly Danger by Amanda Carlson: 1 - Danger's Vice
Blake and Avery by M. J. Carter: 1 - The Infidel Stain
The Vinyl Detective by Andrew Cartmel: 1 - The Run-Out Groove

Greatcoats by Sebastian de Castell: 1 - Knight's Shadow
Spellslinger by Sebastian de Castell: 1-6 - The Way of the Argosi
The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty: 1 - The Kingdom of Copper
Ariadne Oliver by Agatha Christie: 8 - Parker Pyne Investigates
Poirot by Agatha Christie: 36 - The Murder on the Links

Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook: 1 - The Wordsmiths and the Warguild
The Saxon Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell: 1-2 - The Lords of the North
Sharpe by Bernard Cornwell:1, 6, 8-9, 13 - Sharpe's Triumph
The Assassini by Jon Courtenay Grimwood: 1 - The Outcast Blade
Arkady Renko by Martin Cruz Smith: 1 - Polar Star

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

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

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

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

Forever War by Joe Haldeman: 1 - Forever Free
Benjamin January by Barbara Hambly: 1 - Fever Season
Darwath by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Mother of Winter
James Asher by Barbara Hambly: 1-2, 4-6 - Blood Maidens, Pale Guardian
Sun Wolf and Star Hawk by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Hazard
The Windrose Chronicles by Barbara Hambly: 1-3 - Firemaggot
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison 4-5, 9 - The Stainless Steel Rat Is Born
Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne: 1 - Paper & Blood
Thomas Hawkins by Antonia Hodgson: 1-2 - A Death at Fountains Abbey

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg: 1-2, 4 - The Master Magician
Professor Branestawm by Norman Hunter: 2 - The Peculiar Triumph of Professor Branestawm

Conqueror by Conn Iggulden: 1 - Lords of the Bow

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

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

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

Robert Colbeck by Edward Marston: 1 - The Excursion Train
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey: 1 - Dragonquest
The Raven's Mark by Ed McDonald: 1 - Ravencry
McGarry Stateside by Caimh McDonnell: 1 - I Have Sinned
The Green Man's Heir by Juliet E. McKenna: 1-3: The Green Man's Challenge
Colonel Vaughn de Vries by Paul Mendelson: 1-2 - The History of Blood

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


Giordano Bruno by S.J. Parris: 5 - Heresy
Brother Cadfael by Ellis Peters: 1-12 - The Rose Rent
The Gaian Consortium by Christine Pope: 1 - Breath of Life
Paul Samson by Henry Porter: 1-2 - The Old Enemy
Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett: 1,2-14, 15, 15.5, 16.5 - Soul Music

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

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

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

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

Non-fiction

Zoo Memoirs by Gerald Durrell : 1 - The Whispering Land
The Spiritual Life by Hieromonk Gregorios: 1-2 - Do Not Judge

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot: 1 - It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
The History of Middle Earth by Christopher Tolkien: ??

Series up to date

Tom Mondrian by Ross Armstrong: 1
The Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 1-2
Comet Weather by Liz Williams: 1-2
The Folk of the Air by Holly Black:
P1-3, 1-3.5
The Dublin Trilogy by Caimh McDonnell: 1-4


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

6Meredy
jun 6, 2021, 4:25 pm

Oh, dear, if those are links, they're not working for me. I can see the lovely picture, though.

7-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jun 6, 2021, 5:00 pm

>6 Meredy:
Thank you- we get some magnificent sunsets around here.

Which entries have links that don't function for you?

8Meredy
jun 6, 2021, 7:36 pm

>7 -pilgrim-: Now they do. I guess you just hadn't filled them in yet. It appears from the time stamps that I was looking just when you were creating them. It's all cool now.

9fuzzi
jun 9, 2021, 2:37 pm

I have a book with the same title as this thread Sumer is icumen in 😁

10-pilgrim-
jun 9, 2021, 3:08 pm

>9 fuzzi: My mum taught me the song when I was very little.

What is the book look like?

11fuzzi
jun 9, 2021, 3:10 pm

>10 -pilgrim-: click on the Touchstone 😊

12-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jun 9, 2021, 4:08 pm

>10 -pilgrim-: I meant "What is the book like?"😡

See https://www.librarything.com/topic/328356#7526655

13fuzzi
jun 9, 2021, 5:26 pm

>12 -pilgrim-: sorry about your phone 😢

It's been so long since I last read it, all I can offer is I liked it enough to move it 900 miles 30+ years ago, and then move it again 300 miles about 20 years ago.

Time for a reread?

14-pilgrim-
jun 10, 2021, 7:19 am

>13 fuzzi: That's a good recommendation!

15-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jul 31, 2021, 12:38 pm



The Magician's Nephew (radio drama) adapted from the book by C. S. Lewis - 4 stars
7/6/2021-9/6/2021

This was not the book itself, but a dramatisation with narrator (Paul Schofield). It followed the book quite faithfully, with minor changes.

The scene in the great hall of Charn has always been one of my most vivid memories of the Chronicles of Narnia - which must again give credit to Pauline Baynes for placing the image so firmly in my head - but The Magician's Nephew is a book that I have not reread in over forty-five years, and I was surprised how much I had forgotten. (Uncle Andrew had vanished from my memory!)

I am notorious among my friends for having read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, and only later realising their allegorical component - despite being raised in a Christian home! Actually it may have been because of that - because I shared the same moral framework as the author, I did not see actions by characters that reflected that value system as being uniquely, or specifically Christian, but simply as standard human virtues.

In listening to The Magician's Nephew I was struck by how many more (non-theological) points that I had missed: growing up in the shadow of the Bomb, I had taken for granted that our world too had its own version of the Deplorable Word, for example.

Nor had I recognised a critique of Nietschean doctrines in Uncle Andrew 's insistence that "rules only apply to ordinary people". Uncle Andrew seems to be a magician with the ethos of Aleister Crowley.

Most poignant was the realisation of how close to home Lewis was writing when describing a small boy, who was desperately trying to find something to save his dying mother.
Lewis gives Digory what he could not find himself. It made that scene even more moving.

Another tiny reference that I had missed was the evil fairy godmother: Mrs Lefay. Is this a reference to her being le fey i. e. the fairy (in French), or, as the Narnia Wiki believes, does this mean that she is Morgan le Fey - linking her to the Matter of Britain? As she is the point through which magic enters the story (since the rings are made from fey dust), it is an important point, just touched on.

And while I am on the subject, I feel sure Lewis is having fun with his friend, Tolkien, in writing about Rings of Power (even if he did not phrase it like that).

I am also struck how much Lewis is in advance of much of the science fiction of his day in conceiving not only of another world, but a multiverse of other worlds.

I was worried that returning to Narnia as an adult would be a mistake, as Lewis himself has implied in Prince Caspian. Instead I found more here than I found as a child.

On the whole, I found the Focus on the Family performance acceptable. I did not think David Suchet did well as Aslan - he often came across as harsh rather than majestic - and Jadis, when angry, developed a distinctly lower class London "fishwife" overtone to her screeching. The mockery of rural accents in the animals was also uncomfortable. But the lead characters sounded authentic, so this was not difficult to listen to.

The introduction by the author's stepson, Douglas Gresham was a nice touch, although he did not have anything specific to contribute, other than the fact that he had long the books even before he met the man whom he knew as "Jack". And, of course, that he too had found himself in Digory's position. I think the best possible endorsement for a book that talks to children about a parent dying, is when a man who lost his mother as a boy loves it.

However I still prefer books to dramatisation - particularly when I already have some mental images of my own of the characters!

16NorthernStar
jun 11, 2021, 12:04 am

>15 -pilgrim-: I think that is the same dramatization I have. I bought the whole Narnia set on CD years ago, and enjoyed listening to them.

17-pilgrim-
jun 12, 2021, 2:42 am

>16 NorthernStar: Have you also read the books?

18-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jun 12, 2021, 2:53 am



Wyrd Sisters (BBC radio dramatisation) - 3 stars
Adapted from the novel by Terry Pratchett by Vince Foxall.
2/6/2021-6/6/2021

I last read Wyrd Sisters in the nineties, so it seemed a good time to revisit it, in a four part dramatisation on Radio 4e.

It brings in Granny Weatherwax from Equal Rites, who with Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick form a very small convening the Ramtop mountains on the Discworld. Each represents one of the archetypes of a witch: Granny Weatherwax is thin, celibate and scary (the sort that the locals would probably like to burn if they were not too afraid of the consequences), Nanny Ogg is the garrulous, and scandalous, matriarch of a large extended family (the sort of witch the locals go to for help with problems and midwifery) and the much younger Magrat, who is the New Age hippie type. She actively wanted to be a witch, and has got a lot of her ideas from books, rather than being entirely taught by her predecessor, Goodie Whemper. A talk given in 1985 demonstrated that Sir Terry was as contemptuous of neopaganism as he was of any other form of religion, and Magrat is his opportunity to take intermittent jibes at it.

The three witches therefore represent the three forms of the Goddess. They also fit the number of witches in Macbeth.

One of the themes of the Discworld series is that there are "morphic resonances" between the Discworld and ours. The plot of Wyrd Sisters is thus an alternative version of Macbeth.

Maybe the restriction to four half-hour episodes necessitated too much pruning. On the other hand, I do not remember Wyrd Sisters ever being a favourite.

I found it amusing, but not that amusing.

And the audio version necessarily increased the emphasis on torture. What were asides in the book are brought into focus by the sound effects. The Felmets are sadists. They also use torture as their preferred method of suppressing dissent. So a lot of people are tortured during the course of this story - suspected witches and suspected political opponents - most of them ordinary folk who do not have Nanny Ogg's methods of coping. This is not really very funny.

The performance was excellent. It was the content that felt flawed in tone at times.

19-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jun 12, 2021, 1:38 pm

Books read in May, but reviewed this month:
Doomsday Book: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7528756
Booktaker: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7527238
The Serpentine Road: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7524346
Ink & Sigil: https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7522922

Books awaiting review from March: 5
Books awaiting review from April: 3
Books awaiting review from May: 7

Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

20-pilgrim-
Redigerat: jul 9, 2021, 8:30 am



The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax by Christopher Shevlin - 2.5 stars
28/4/2021-5/6/2021

Normally a 2.5 star review indicates that a book is average - actually this swings wildly between very good and positively cringeworthy.

The plot is about Jonathon Fairfax, a reasonably intelligent young man who falls apart in social situations, says the first thing that comes into his head, and is hopelessly inept. For some unexplained reason has decided on a customer-facing career as a salesperson at Harrods. He has decided to move to London to improve his social situation (seemingly having no friends from before) and is mired in the isolation of bedsitland.

He encounters a couple of people with whom he shares an absurdist sense of humour and they adopt him into their little circle. One is an incredibly shallow guy, obsessed with being cool, whose only redeeming feature is that he is aware that he is shallow, and the other is a married glamorous "granny" (i.e. in her fifties!)

A murder is committed in the opening chapter.

The book switches between the points of view of Jonathon and his new friends, the murderer, the victim, the girl Jonathon becomes obsessed with, a sleazy politician (and occasionally some other people), and the disparate threads come together.

Where this excels is a almost Wodehousian ability to some up a person or a situation in an apt sentence. However there is a sense at times that the author is trying too hard, and so arch that he becomes cold and rather cruel. I read this book in fits and starts as it sometimes amused, but then started to feel distasteful.

Where it is bad is in its treatment of women:
  • Lance: He seeks out a Girl From The Pub to have sex with every time he feels stress. They are referred to that way because he cannot be bothered to remember their names. There is no suggestion that they are likewise looking for casual sex; how he copes with their "clinginess" is one of his "amusing" character traits and an exemplar of how "cool" he is.

    No one acknowledges that he is a despicable rat for taking advantage of young girls.

  • Jonathon: He falls for a girl on first meeting. She likes him, but makes it clear that she only wants him as a friend, as she is a lesbian. This makes him even keener because it means "she rejects all man equally" so he has just as much chance as any other man!

    He continues to obsess over her, whilst first stalking her then pretending to be her friend.

    THIS WORKS! It turns out that she was only a lesbian because she was insecure about her attractiveness, and so was only with her girlfriend because she admired her confidence and wanted to be like her!! Yeah, right. Jonathon admires Lance, so by that rationale, why isn't he sleeping with him, then?


    Words fail me.
  • Jane: Jane is described as looking like 'how Lauren Bacall would age if she were English'. She is married and comfortably off. Nevertheless she is apparently obsessing over the fact that she is "getting old" (late fifties) and therefore losing her attractiveness, with an implication that means that her life is over.

    The male lead is needy and depressive. But he is clearly meant to be attractive in a dorky way. Nevertheless HE judges all women primarily on their appearance.

    And the way the author writes his female characters makes it clear that he does the same. None of them have any personality in their interior monologues other than to obsess about their assessment of their own inadequate desirability. (With the exception of an underage girl, who throws herself into sex with a much older man, and then blames herself for being abused.)

    There are actually quite a lot of married characters, but usually when couples are written, we only get the man's point of view.

    I know this is a first novel - and the author comes across as quite needy himself, in begging for reviews in the back, and citing his own depressive tendencies (possibly to try to guilt his readers into leaving positive reviews).

    And it is really quite good when following the political theme. I love the concept of the RSG.

    But the whole set of relationship stuff is so abysmally awful in its idolisation of seventies-style mistreatment of women, assumption that lesbians are simply in need of the right man, and further assumption that all women judge themselves by the standards of a superficial adolescent male.

    That endorsement of these attitudes is still being written in this century makes me incredulous. But I cannot just laugh at the author for his immaturity. Unfortunately I have met enough walking, talking, breathing proponents of the school of thought that "Only what I want matters, your wishes are irrelevant" to feel that giving their worldview "validation" is not trivial.

    It is a pity, since there is also talent here; but this author badly needs to grow up.

    Since it is a first novel I may try more, to see if he does.
  • 21BookstoogeLT
    jun 13, 2021, 12:28 pm

    >20 -pilgrim-: this author badly needs to grow up.

    Welcome to the brave new world of writers :-(

    And I have no idea why Charlotte's web got attached as a touchstone!

    22-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 14, 2021, 12:26 am

    >21 BookstoogeLT: Attached where as a touchstone? The links in my post work correctly for me...

    23BookstoogeLT
    jun 13, 2021, 3:33 pm

    >22 -pilgrim-: Huh, that is wicked weird, now it's not showing. When I posted that comment it was showing CW over on the side as a touchstone.

    24-pilgrim-
    jun 13, 2021, 3:40 pm

    >23 BookstoogeLT: Fascinating.

    25BookstoogeLT
    jun 13, 2021, 5:34 pm

    >24 -pilgrim-: Just one more way that LT stays "unique".

    26-pilgrim-
    jun 14, 2021, 10:18 am

    June #5:


    Children of Thorns, Children of Water (a short story from Dominion of the Fallen) by Aliette de Bodard - 2.5 stars

    I am not really sure why I keep returning to the world of Dominion of the Fallen, since I find the setting utterly depressing. I think it is because of the beauty of the author's writing.

    In an alternate Paris, where the Great War was between supernatural entities, not the mortal "Great Powers" of history, Fallen angels rule over a devasted city. The Fallen have little interest in humanity, who in turn harvest their bodies to turn into prefer that fuels magic. The Great Houses, consisting of both Fallen and their bound dependents and servants, politic and feud against each other, whilst the Houseless scavenge at the margins of society. It is grim.

    In this story, two dragons from beneath the Seine attempt to infiltrate House Hawthorne. It takes place after the events of The House of Shattered Wings and before The House of Binding Thorns (according to the author's website).

    It is probably the most cheerful story thus far, insofar as the few characters that do demonstrate humane emotions do not immediately suffer horribly for them.

    27NorthernStar
    jun 14, 2021, 7:05 pm

    >17 -pilgrim-: Yes, many times, starting quite young.

    28-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 15, 2021, 1:13 pm

    >27 NorthernStar: How well did you feel the dramatisations captured the feel of the books?

    29NorthernStar
    jun 15, 2021, 9:19 pm

    >28 -pilgrim-: I thought they were pretty good, and well worth getting. However, I don't remember The Magician's Nephew all that well, and it's been a while since I listened to any of them. I was mostly listening to them while on long drives, and found the variation in volume was sometimes difficult. Either hard to hear over road noise, or occasionally very loud. I should really listen to them again before too long.

    30-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 16, 2021, 8:37 pm



    Falco: Shadows in Bronze (radio play) dramatised by Mary Cutler from the novel by Lindsey Davis - 3.5 stars
    Dir.: Peter Leslie Wild

    This is a dramatisation of the second book about public informer Marcus Didius Falco, and is set in A.D. 71, near the beginning of Vespasian's reign. It begins with Falco, who is working for the emperor, and his friend, Captain of the Watch Petronius, tidying up some of the mess left over from the events of the previous book.

    Shadows in Bronze was actually my first introduction to Falco. I found it a wonderful historical novel, both moving and full of wry humour. I have reread it several times since.

    As usual with historical crime fiction, this dramatisation has the problem of having to omit, for reasons of length, many twists of the plot. However it worked better than most, largely because Anton Lesser is perfect as Falco. He world-weary, yet vulnerable tones captured the nuances of Falco's personality, and suited the Marlowe-esque narrative voice-over. The cast, even pared down, is still large for a radio drama, but the excellence of the casting removed many problems. The accents or patrician tones, and the manner of speech, immediately positioned the social class of each character, plus whether they came from old family or had risen through their own merit. It was very neatly done.

    As usual, I prefer the book to the play. But Anton Lesser's performance is such that I may well stay with the BBC radio dramas for this recap.

    31-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 19, 2021, 6:17 pm

    Another review of a book read in March:

    Palestinian Women Detainees in Israeli Prisons
    https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7531652

    Books awaiting review from January: 2
    Books awaiting review from March: 5
    Books awaiting review from April: 3
    Books awaiting review from May: 6

    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    32-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 20, 2021, 10:47 am

    June #7:


    Shards of Honor: Book 2 of The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - 4.5 stars

    Remembering the recommendations from other pub denizens, I finally got around to starting this series. I followed the author's published advice that this is the place to start this series.

    I should not have liked this as much as I did; there is nothing particularly original in the plot. A space survey team from one planet is attacked on a contested new world by a military mission from another planet. It has a trope that I dislike: a couple fall for each other extremely rapidly.

    And yet it works.

    All the worlds appear to be descended from colonisation from Earth, but during the Time of Isolation they developed quite separate cultures.

    Survey Captain Cordelia Naismith comes from Betan Earth, a technologically advanced planet, making the most of limited natural resources. Culturally it resembles an extrapolation of seventies American attitudes (particularly with respect to sex and reproduction).

    Captain Aral Vorkosigan is the commanding officer of the Barrayan ship detailed to seize the planet. Barrayar is a militaristic society, an empire with per concentrated in a hereditary upper class, who all have the prefix "Vor" affixed to their names. The names of its people seems to be intended to imply they are of Slavic descent (which gave me slight problems in keeping a straight face on learning that "Vor" denotes an aristocrat!).

    The story has three acts, each of which could have stood as a separate story: the struggle over the surveyed planet, the war that ensues, and the consequences of its aftermath. It combines military action and complex politics.

    What makes it special is how well it is written. The characters are never merely ciphers. There is heroism, but never beyond believability.

    And this is counterbalanced by a realistic understanding of the horror of war - not just death, but serious, life-changing injury.

    I liked how this handled both violence and sex. What happens, or is likely to happen, is never ducked, but neither is there gratuitous detail. More modern writers get this wrong for me: either they go into unpleasant prurient detail, or they pretend that people can get into bad situations without the bad things happening. It was refreshing to find an author getting that delicate balance right.

    And as to the romance: I think why it does not annoy me as much as most examples of military fiction romances is that there is no loss of competence - whatever they may be thinking, they do not let it interfere with their work; they only indulge their feelings when danger is past.

    And as to the speed at which it proceeds:
  • Eight days after meeting is certainly fast to propose. But in a culture where arranged marriages are the norm, then marrying someone you barely know will also be common, and not seem strange. So, if he finds women raised in his own culture unappealing, it is plausible that he might leap precipitately into proposing to a woman who does fit his ideals, given that there is no possibility of proceeding more slowly;
  • she was expecting rape, torture and death. On finding an enemy who behaved as a decent human being, rather than the monster she was expecting, then a version of Stockholm Syndrome may be operating.
    She starts from physical attraction, then gets a chance to see his genuine good qualities. And still she asks to wait.
    So all in all, it is not as implausible as it seems at first.

    I thoroughly enjoyed this and went on to its sequel immediately.
  • 33-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 20, 2021, 12:27 pm

    June #8:


    Barrayar: Book 3 of The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold - 4 stars

    Although written six years later, with other books in between, Barrayar takes up the story a few days after the end of Shards of Honor. It is focussed firmly on the labyrinth of Barrayan politics, the death of the Emperor, and the power struggles that ensue. This time we are following only Cordelia, as she struggles to get up to speed, and learn how to fulfill a diplomatic rôle.

    We see relatively little of Aral's thinking this time, and that is what makes this novel slightly weaker than the previous one. The fact we are following it all from Cordelia's point of view, and that she is usually complaining that no one has briefed her properly, enables the author to spoon-feed her readers descriptions of how Barrayar works. Aral is an aristocrat by birth, who knows perfectly well how the politics of his society work, even if he has been reluctant to get involved. He is also intelligent, capable and fully respectful of his wife's abilities. As a military officer, he knows the value of proper preparation. I therefore find it impossible that, if not able to take the time to educate her himself, he has not assigned staff to ensure that Cordelia is properly prepared.

    There were some jibes regarding how the author thinks society should function, in Shards of Honor, but they were divided equally between Beta Earth and Barrayar. Here the lecture felt a little more overt. Betans represent the extension of liberal "hippie" values, and Barrayans hierarchical military culture. Cordelia, having abandoned her own culture in disgust at how they have treated her, now spends a lot of her time complaining at how "primitive" her adopted culture is.

    One of the major themes is how Barrayar despises those who have been crippled in their military service. Maybe Bujold was thinking of the crippled young men begging in Moscow's underpasses at her time of writing (although that situation was engendered more by the state of their country's finances), or by the cold reception America's Vietnam veterans often faced (although that tended to relate to the unpopularity of that war - a situation unlikely to be paralelled in Barrayar). But a society that is oriented towards war needs to provide more than grand funerals, in order for the population to continue to willingly send its children.

    It seemed that she wanted to raise the theme of cruelty towards the disabled, and therefore worked it in, as how a disabled veteran is treated, without considering whether it was consistent. (The view that those born disabled are worthless and should be aborted is far more widespread, and completely consistent with a gender-conscious society dependent on strong male heirs.)

    However, most of the likeable qualities of the first book are still present, and characters, who we have already met, are further developed. Moreover their happiness matters just as much to the author as do her leads.

    I particularly liked how the character of Sergeant Bothari was developed. Although it has been established that he is far from normal, and suffers from schizophrenia, it is not left at "he's crazy". There is a real attempt to explain both how he thinks and why he thinks that way, and to demonstrate that he has admirable qualities as well as terrifying ones.

    But, although more of this book seems devoted to discussion of what makes an ideal society, this is not a manifesto for a particular political agenda. It is anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, pro-in vitro gestation, pro-female equality in the military (without separate selection standards) and extremely wary of psychiatric techniques that involve interfering with memory and personality manipulation. Although I suspect Cordelia of being a mouthpiece for the author's own position, the story is obviously intended to encourage debate and critical thinking, rather than assume instant agreement as 'the only possible valid position'. It is noteworthy that Aral is not an instant convert; on many issues they simply accept that they disagree.

    But the fact that politics is more to the fore than open warfare has not decreased the action quotient of this book, nor the stakes. Nor has Cordelia become domesticated: she is still as formidable as when they met.

    34clamairy
    jun 20, 2021, 1:16 pm

    >32 -pilgrim-: I've had this one on my virtual TBR pile for ages because of recommendations in this group. I'm glad it didn't disappoint you. Maybe I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

    35MrsLee
    jun 20, 2021, 2:47 pm

    >32 -pilgrim-: & >33 -pilgrim-: Very nice. I have found the Vorkosigan to be full of food for thought, as well as a romping good time. Glad you are enjoying them.

    36-pilgrim-
    jun 20, 2021, 5:32 pm

    >35 MrsLee: full of food for thought, as well as a romping good time.

    That is an excellent, succinct summary of what I was trying to say. I am glad that you feel the same way.

    37fuzzi
    jun 22, 2021, 7:28 pm

    I'm glad you enjoyed those two books, which are my favorites of all the Vorkosigan stories.

    38-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jun 28, 2021, 7:44 pm

    June #11:


    The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl - 4 stars

    I bought this in a sale, in a hurry, on one of the rare occasions in 2020 that I had access to a bookshop, on the basis that it was crime fiction about murders based on Dante's Commedia. I was rather surprised to find all the major characters were real historical figures. Given how pgmcc and I feel about authors who hand their stories on the lives of real people, it was rather disappointing, and I have only got around to it now. If I had remembered the conversation about it here, it might have taken me even longer!

    But this was less using famous names to hang a crime fiction on, than a writer, fascinated by these poets and their collaboration on translating Dante, who used a crime fiction as a way of immersing his readers in these writers and their world.

    I have never been particularly interested in 19th century American poetry, so Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the only name actually familiar to me, but the Dante Club was real, and its other members - Oliver Wendell Holmes, J. T. Fields (of the publishing house), George Washington Greene and James Russell Lowell (who, I subsequently discovered, write the words of my favourite hymn) - all were famous names of their day.

    I do not know anything of these men, to judge the accuracy of their portrayal, but in the endnotes the author acknowledges the use he makes of their writings, those of their family members, and of other Dante Club members, who were away in Europe at the time that this novel is set; I felt he was more interested in exploring these personalities, and the politics and ethos of Boston, and Harvard, at this time, than in the murder mystery he had concocted.

    Accordingly, it was rather a slow book at the start. But as a detective novel, I felt it also worked well. The amateur sleuths made great intellectual leaps, only some of which were actually correct, but were equally plausible as the "true" version. The misdirections were not forced, nor was the conclusion ever inevitable.

    Ultimately, I did enjoy the introduction to the American intellectual elite of the 1860s, and its politics, and also an intriguingly constructed mystery.

    This book worked far better than I expected it to, so that I am tempted to try another by this author - despite Peter and Bookmarque's warnings!

    However it is very obvious that the author is himself a Harvard man; I am not sure how successful he is likely to be, when setting a story in a city that he knows less intimately.

    39-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 24, 2021, 1:02 pm

    June Summary

    Average rating: 3.27
    Weighted average: 3.41
    (in 2668 pages)

    10 fiction:
    Novels: 3 science fiction, 1 comedy thriller, 1 crime fiction, 1 historical fantasy, 1 historical crime fiction
    Short stories: 1 science fiction, 1 urban fantasy
    Anthology: 1of fantasy short stories

    1 non-fiction: 1 essay anthology

    Original language: 10 English, 1 French

    Earliest date of first publication: Notes on Nationalism (1945)
    Latest: How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (2020)

    7 Kindle, 2 websites, 2 paperback

    Authors: 4 male, 7 female
    Author nationality: 5 American, 3 British, 2 French, 1 Australian, 1 unknown
    New (to me) authors: 7 (4 familiar)

    Most popular book on LT: The Dante Club (6,782)
    Least popular: The Perpetual Astonishment of Jonathon Fairfax (54)/ Children of Thorns, Children of Water (short story) (21)

    No. of books read: 11
    From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 5
    Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 0
    No. of books acquired: 41 (34 ebooks, 6 paperbacks, 1 hardback)
    No. of books disposed of: 7
    Expenditure on books: £68.15

    Best Book of June: Shards of Honor
    Worst Book of June: The Fallen Blade/ Articulated Restraint
    (short story)

    40Storeetllr
    jul 3, 2021, 12:39 pm

    I also enjoyed the Vorkosigan saga. While reading your review of Barrayar, I was thinking that a lot of the discussion about how the Barrayars behaved toward the disabled was crucial to future events, but it's been so long since I read the series I have forgotten a lot of details. Anyway, glad you are enjoying it!

    >30 -pilgrim-: Huge Falco fan here, so I'm glad to learn about this audio dramatization. On your recommendation and keeping your caveats in mind, I'll be looking for it to listen to.

    41-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 3, 2021, 12:55 pm

    >40 Storeetllr: You are right - it makes a lot more sense when one remembers that Barrayar was written well after The Warrior's Apprentice. But I think it makes more sense in terms of the metahistory than it does as an actual Barrayan attitude.

    You may have noticed that I, on the whole, dislike audiobooks, and frequently complain how the demands of the structure of drama frequently remove a lot of what I previously enjoyed about the original text. So, yes, the Falco dramatisation went against the mould.

    Shadows in Bronze appears to be currently available on BBC Sounds, if you are able to access that.

    42Storeetllr
    jul 3, 2021, 2:30 pm

    You're probably right about Barrayar. I didn't have a problem with it myself, but I read it mostly for the story as an escape from real life and didn't pay a lot of attention to the substantive issues in the story. BTW, I meant to ask you why "Vor" amused you.

    As for audiobooks, if it weren't for audio I probably wouldn't read half as much. Most of my audiobooks have been straight reads, and with those the reader is super important to my enjoyment. I've listened to a few dramatic productions of books (notably The Screwtape Letters performed by John Cleese; The Importance of Being Earnest; and How the Marquis Got His Coat Back) and loved them. On the other hand, I did not enjoy the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe dramatizations.

    43-pilgrim-
    jul 3, 2021, 7:45 pm

    >42 Storeetllr: I am not sure what you mean by the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy dramatisations. I am only aware of the original radio plays, as broadcast in c. 1978, on which the books were based. Have there been further versions subsequently?

    As to Vor:
    Well the Barrayans are stated to be descended from Russian settlers "before the Time of Isolation".

    And Vor in Russian means "thief". More precisely, it refers to a career criminal who observes all the restrictions and norms of their Thieves' Code, and has been recognised with the title of Vor by his peers, after a "coronation" ceremony.

    I don't know yet whether the reference was intentional, but the Barrayan aristocratic ethos has strayed pretty far from the tenets of the Thieves' Code!

    44Storeetllr
    jul 4, 2021, 1:55 pm

    Hah! That is amusing,.

    You're right, I was thinking of the radio broadcasts. I listened to some of it and just did not enjoy it for some reason. The books were so much better, imo, though it was a long time ago that I listened to it and may want to revisit it.

    45-pilgrim-
    jul 4, 2021, 3:13 pm

    >44 Storeetllr: I remember going to bed early so that I could listen to the radio broadcasts on secret in my bedroom as a teenager. So that gives them a special place in my heart.

    46MrsLee
    jul 4, 2021, 4:26 pm

    >43 -pilgrim-: Huh, interesting about the Vor title. If it was intentional by the author, do you suppose the original group were "forced" to emigrate from earth, in the same way England sent their criminals to Australia and America? I don't recall that ever being addressed later in the book, but then I read them pretty fast.

    47-pilgrim-
    jul 4, 2021, 8:19 pm

    >46 MrsLee: It has not been addressed so far, but then I have only read 3 as yet. It will be interesting to see if the reference is deliberate and, if so, what the explanation is.

    48-pilgrim-
    jul 7, 2021, 8:58 am

    Books awaiting review from January: 2
    Books awaiting review from March: 5
    Books awaiting review from April: 3
    Books awaiting review from May: 6
    Books awaiting review from June: 6

    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    49-pilgrim-
    jul 8, 2021, 8:55 pm

    July #2:


    Shanta by Marie Thøger (trans. by Eileen Amos) - 3 stars

    This is a story about a year in the life of a girl in rural India, the year that she visits a town for the first time. It is labelled as for ages 11+.

    It was written by a Danish schoolteacher who spent some time in India teaching at a school for girls, so her portrayal of the life of a poor family from a small village in South India is likely to be accurate. There are cars, and steam trains, so the story seems set contemporary to the author's time in India, in the fifties.

    I do not remember reading this as a child; I think I bought it when I was 9. I suspect my mother decided that it was too grim, and spirited it away, since I found the copy among her papers. Since I had already read the autobiographical stories by Laura Ingalls Wilder - which include family deaths, severe illness and danger of starvation - that might seem an overreaction, but those accounts were leavened by the stories of the warmth of family life. There is far less joy in Shanta's.

    The story is written from Shanta's point of view and she is usually telling it (apart from a rather odd episode from the point of view of an elephant!)

    There is no sensationalism in the portrayal of domestic life, no dysfunctionality or discord. Shanta's father did not see any point in educating her, because he considers he is providing for her better by putting her money towards her dowry - she is dark, so more will be needed. And at 12 years old, everyone agrees that Shanta is now old enough to marry.

    Men and women live separate lives. We learn the name of Shanta's mother, but not of her father. This is probably because she herself does not know it; it would be disrespectful of her mother to ever use his name.

    The pace of the story is gentle, but it is very grim. Tragedy strikes her family, and terrible things happen around her.

    I tried to find out more about the author's background. She was born on a farm in rural Denmark in 1923, and started her career as an agricultural labourer on neighbouring farms at 14. Teacher training came much later; she considered herself fortunate that her parents valued her education and sent her to high school at all (i.e. beyond the village school).

    A friend tells me that life on rural Finnish farms could be extremely hard into the eighties, and hypothesises that this may also have been true in Scandinavian countries. I think this explains the tone of this book.

    This is not a story written by some middle class foreigner patronising poor Indians. She herself had a hard rural childhood amongst good people, and an adulthood away from rural life, achieved via education. So she is a passionate advocate for education for girls.

    She writes beautifully about the minute details of village life because the rhythms are similar to her own childhood. She is clear about how simple innovations make life much easier, but is also aware of what can be lost in the process. The town is a place where ordinary people are wealthier, but poverty is also more extreme and life can be more precarious.

    She does not shy away from terrible things happening - the story of the seventeen year old sent back to her parents because she could not bear her husband a son is chilling, as is that of the leopard-hunter, who dies because he is scared of the doctor- but this is never a sensation-seeking story. It aims to portray the reality of rural India at that time.

    I loved the fact that it portrayed a rigidly patriarchal society resolutely from the female point of view.

    HoweverI am not sure that the author understands the culture as well as she does the lifestyle. The description of Kali simply as "evil" sounds wrong to me.

    Likewise some of the character's decisions are explained in a way that did not make sense to me:
  • Shanta is obviously frightened by the tale of the young, loved, wife, rejected by her husband's family because she failed to bear a child. But why did that make her decide that she does not want to marry at all? The teenager had to return to her parents, and live with them for the rest of her life, working to care for them with no option of another future. Why did fearing that cause Shanta to want to chooseexactly that for herself?

  • MAJOR SPOILER: At the end, she rejects a more comfortable life, and the chance of education, in favour of taking on the providing for her sick Granny and little brother. Yet this ending is treated as a happy one, and "life going on as before" (despite the deaths).

    Is it being hinted that she will eventually marry the stolen boy - who intends to leave as soon as her brother is old enough, to and go back to his father's rich farm in the north (in a village he cannot now remember the name of)?


    A further odd thing is the way the "stranger girl" disappears from the story. It is stated explicitly that both children survived the fever, yet after that point she is never mentioned, only her brother.

    Given the rather rushed feel to the ending of the book, I am now wondering if there were more events, perhaps even darker ones, that were excised from this edition?

    I would recommend this book for its portrayal of a place and time. But I think a sensitive child would find it distressing.

    The cover design by Doreen Roberts amuses me: despite the plot putting emphasis on how Shanta is darker-skinned compared to her mother, and therefore knows that she is 'not pretty', in the picture her skin has a light tan wash only. So a story dealing with prejudice against darker skin is illustrated by an artist who cannot conceive of a heroine who is not almost white!

  • 50-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 9, 2021, 4:12 pm

    July #1:


    The Strangler Vine: Book 1 of Blake and Avery by M. J. Carter - 3 stars

    This story is set in 1837-8, when large portions of India were run by the Honourable East India Company (which the author describes as the world's first multinational). Its Board of Control is in London, and is overseen by the British government, but it has its own army, police and governmental structure.

    The plot is simple: the famous poet, Xavier Mountstuart, has disappeared. He headed off into Central India to research his next ballad, which is to be about the notorious practice of Thuggee, and the Company is now sending an expedition to find him. The expedition is led by a civilian, Jeremiah Blake, who is a former HEIC officer, who has served the Company before in unspecified capacities, but has now "gone native". The story is narrated (we find out at the end to whom) by Ensign William Avery, a recent arrival in India, who is given a temporary commission as lieutenant for the purpose of this mission. They are travelling light and rapidly, so the only other members of their party are Indians: Mir Aziz, Sameer and Nungoo.

    But the point of this book is not really the plot; it is its portrayal of 19th century India. In a journey of over 700 miles, full attention is paid to the changes in geography, flora and fauna. It also does not make the mistake of treating the Indian people as homogeneous, there are different religions, castes, social classes, races and languages.

    When I read books set in India that were written in th 19th century, they took for granted this cultural diversity, but also the assumption that British rule in India was for the benefit of the indigenous population. More recent books tend to make the opposite assumption: that all representatives of a colonial power are there only to exploit the native inhabitants.

    This novel takes an equally nuanced view of the British in India as it does of the locals. The British who were there because they were fascinated to learn about another culture, older than their own, the British who believed that Western civilisation was superior, but devoted their lives to trying to share its benefits, as well as those who saw India as a resource to be acquired and exploited - all are represented here.

    It rapidly becomes clear that there are no idealised "sides" - just good or bad people. We follow Avery as he learns this. He is all but a "griffin" (a complete newbie), acclimatised to Calcutta society (which is thoroughly Europeanised) but he came to India because of a love of Mountstuart's romantic poetry, and is aware of his limitations.

    The attitudes are authentic, and the author has chosen to immerse us in the culture, by using the vocabulary of the Hobson-Jobson dictionary, rather than modern anglicisations of Hindi words (or Hindustanee, to use the book's terminology). The characterisations are never offensive; this is an attempt to realistically portray an era and a world.

    This is a historical novel that treats real historical figures appropriately; where they appear, it is only to do the actions for which they are known, or behaviour in keeping with it - they are not used simply as pegs on which to dress an author's fancies. Those familiar with 19th century British writers on India will recognise Major W. H. Sleeman and Mrs Fanny Parkes.

    Its main problem was that the first half of the book is extremely slow; it is basically a travelogue through early 19th century India. The action adventure picks up speed pretty rapidly after that!

    But the plot is the weakest part of this book. The characterisation Blake is a classic example of what we are told about him being contradicted by his actual behaviour.

    We told that Blake is an extremely observant individual, and an agent excellent at reading character. Yet he never noticed that his complete refusal to confide in, or explain his actions to Avery, is causing Avery to lose trust in him, and that this, combined with Avery's insecurity and inexperience, is going to cause Avery to seek the advice of another superior, as a mentor.

    I can understand why Blake is unwilling to trust Avery, and make him party to his real views and intentions. Yet an experienced agent should be able to provide a (perhaps untrue) explanation for his behaviour that will reassure a subordinate, and to recognise the necessity of doing so.
    MAJOR SPOILER:And that is ignoring the fact that Blake is actually wrong in his character assessments as often as he is right!

    This is a story that has the "movie" flaw that it seems to prioritise certain set scenes taking place, without regard to character consistency. But the problem mainly applies to Blake; Avery, the narrator throughout, is a beautiful portrayal of a young idiot growing up into a thoughtful, competent young man. In a century where young adults are expecting their parents to support them into their twenties and even thirties, it is difficult to remember that young subalterns like Avery were teenagers when they left their home country, not expecting to see it, of family, again. His arrogance is of a boy desperately trying to claim a man's dignity, and his evolution into a young man deserving of his rank is one of the most enjoyable aspects of this story.

    My rating for this book is not particularly high because I found the first part spent so much time showing me things with which I was already familiar. There was enough unfamiliar ground to make me want to keep reading, but it made it rather slow. If this is your first novel set in India, then you may enjoy that part of the book more.

    Note: there is a glossary. Sandwiching it between the Afterward (where the author discusses her use of historical material, which you do not want to read until after finishing the novel), and the inevitable sample of the sequel, is perhaps not the best choice of location.

    51-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 12, 2021, 5:58 am

    July #3:


    The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne - 4 stars
    5/8/2020 - 11/7/2021

    Robert Michael Ballantyne was the son of a printer, and the nephew of Sir Walter Scott's friend and publisher. He left home at 15 and went to work for the Hudson Bay Company in Canada as a fur trader, where he stayed for 5 years.

    Thus, he comes from a background where a teenage boy is expected to make his own way in the world. Ralph Rover, the narrator of The Coral Island is 15, and has already been working for two years on ships that work coastal waters, before he persuades his parents to let him undertake a South Seas voyage on the Arrow. (And the surname he gives us a pseudonym, a nickname acquired from his shipmates.)

    When he is shipwrecked, on Coral Island, at the end of Chapter 2, it is with two other boys from the crew; Jack Martin, at 17, is "almost a man" in both build and experience, and becomes their leader, whilst 13 year old Peterkin Gay is an apprentice.

    The tone of the first two thirds of the book is that of a travelogue/survival guide: the geography, fauna and flora are described in great detail, as are the steps that the boys take to provide for themselves. When they build a boat, every step of its construction is given.

    It is an not until Chapter 19 that they meet another human being. The inhabitants of the nearby island are described as savages, but that is because they are cannibals and their customs are brutal; the term is equally applied to the European pirates who also disturb the boys' paradise.

    The latter third of the book is full of danger and adventure, with a Samoan girl to rescue and be safely returned to the young man whom she loves.

    This book was written in 1858 - a time when black people in the U.S. were assumed to be inferior because of the colour of their skin - yet the boys do not share such attitudes. Their initial proposal, on finding themselves stranded and alone, is to take service under a local (black) ruler. (It is true that they expect to rise in his service "as white men always do", but it is the assumption of the superiority of Western civilisation that is in action here; they expect to rise because they bring new technology, I think.) Near the end of the book they happily receive instruction from a black teacher on the scientific and geological knowledge that they are lacking.
    (The "n-word" is used once, by a pirate. Since it is only used once, and in that context, its use seems intended by the author to indicate how the pirates are bad people, with inappropriate attitudes towards the locals.)

    The later stage of the book seems as anthropologically minded as the earlier were geographical. It is made very clear that there are multiple races here, and that within each people, customs vary from village to village. The rather frenetic pace of these chapters seem intended to introduce as many horrifying local customs as possible.

    Because it is in this stage that the book does introduce an agenda. Ralph's mother gave him a Bible when he sets off (which he loses in the wreck), and he has a tendency to contemplate occasionally how, for example, the greatness of the Creator is manifest in the wwonderful environment of these islands. But there is no obvious divine intervention, and Ralph is not particularly observant in his religion. But once the natives come into the plot, so does the subject of which ones are Christian.

    It is recognised that support for missionary activity can be motivated by evil intent: the pirate captain commits many evil deeds, yet protects
    missionaries because Christian tribes are easier to deal with.

    And most of the missionaries are themselves black - including manifestly heroic individuals. Yet repeated exhortations to the boys to recognise the value of the work done by the London Missionary Society does feel like blatant propaganda.

    However it is difficult to argue that ALL local customs - including infanticide, cannibalism, killing subjects at whim, burying alive - should be preserved. And there are other passages devoted to the Christian villagers showing off their indigenous culture, in terms of foodstuffs and technology, to their European guests.

    I think the emphasis on Christianity stems from the author's desire to demonstrate that the horrifying behaviour of the islanders stems from "false religion", rather than any intrinsic depravity. He repeatedly states that the pirates, and traders who use violence and try to exploit the natives, are far more wicked, because they "know better".

    Having included horror stories (atrocities by both pirates and villagers) to titillate his audience, he seems anxious to preclude harmful consequences (of readers despising the islanders) through his emphasis on how that was not their natural behaviour, but caused by the injunctions of their religion.

    Throughout he portrays all his characters as individuals, not as representatives - there is even a pirate who was kidnapped and forced into the life, and regrets it; thus he attempts an heroic act, although without hope of redemption (as he thinks, Ralph knows his Scripture slightly better).

    The big question for me was whether the Fijian religion and customs were portrayed accurately. Ballantyne had not travelled to the region himself, but was relying on information from other travellers. Since his trio slice the tops off their cocoa-nuts with a knife, rather than cracking them open, one can infer that his information is not always accurate. But I think his stories are told in good faith.

    You have to be in the right mood for lengthy descriptions. And I wish I could remember more of my sailing knowledge, since the use of which sail in response to which weather feature is also described in detail. So this has been a slow read.

    I first encountered Coral Island as one of the Bancroft Classics titles, but it was one of the few that I never acquired. That is a series that abridged books, sometimes heavily, for a child audience.

    The edition of The Coral Island that I read was unabridged. It would not be suitable for young children, despite ages of its protagonists.

    But I am glad that I have finally read it. I have always been interested in survival stories, and this seemed a very plausible one, and a wonderful visual picture of a very distant past of the world.

    One final point: it was refreshing to see the word "love" used in its original broad meaning. Nowadays it tends to imply erotic attraction, except between immediate family members. Ralph declares that the three boys love one another and, in case you suspect a homoerotic subtext, Peterkin likewise declares that he loves his cat!

    52-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 12, 2021, 7:13 am

    June #4:


    Articulated Restraint (short story from The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal - 2 stars

    This short story stood fairly well on its own - apart from odd points such as never explaining what an NBL was, but then that is what Google is for.

    But neither was there any real involvement or tension, as it was obvious what the outcome was going to be.

    However I was impressed with the author's interest in technical detail, which had increased the chances that I may be tempted to read one of her novels at some point

    The problem is that the whole "peril' scenario seemed false to me. The tension is predicated on the fact that Ruby should not be working because she is too injured, but she is needed to, because no one else can fit in her suit and there is no time to reset it.

    Now, as I understand it, this is set in an alternative version of the USA in the fifties, where women are accepted into the astronaut programme. (Since this is a short story, not much background is given.)

    Now in that era, in our world, the fighter pilot programme was the source of candidates (and another team member certainly comes from that background in thos story). I knew someone who worked in the US military defence programme, and he had a compiled list of the average dimensions of U.S. military pilots, so that cockpits could be designed to fit. So the pilot training programme likewise selected men who physically fitted that norm. It was a glamorous job, so there were enough candidates that they could select for physical criteria, and so get someone excellent at the task. It took a while to work out that the ideal physique for space was different, but being an even more sought after job, they could do select for physical criteria and find someone who was mentally and intellectually suited for the job.

    Thus, deciding to have an astronaut who is of markedly different physique to her colleagues - regardless of her gender - is a point where this alternate space programme has made different decisions from the real world one.

    If we posit a programme that values diversity (as the current space programme now does) above interchangeability, and optimisation of equipment for a single body type, then that is a conscious decision that has been made.

    The principle of building on redundancy, so that the failure of no one part is crucial, is well-known in engineering. And that applies to the human components as well as the mechanical ones.
    A programme that has consciously decided to have non-interchangeable human components will have to have built in redundancy in terms of team size to compensate.

    Yes, this is a significant expense. But the cost of not doing so is worse. If our heroine had not completed her task, an entire crew would have died. That is a major economic loss, in terms of the expenditure involved in training those people in very specialised skills (as well as a tragedy in human terms). So it still makes economic sense to maintain appropriate redundancy levels.

    Furthermore, it is common for people whose job role is literally irreplaceable (whether temporarily or permanently) to have clauses in their contract specifying limits on how they spend their "downtime" immediately before a mission (or a match).

    I find it implausible that a programme world deliberately introduce such irreplaceability by gratuitous physical uniqueness. (Even if they have a doctrine that requires including women, then, again, it is more practical to select one with a physical build that fits the average, rather than our heroine; even if she tests out as the best in all other requirements, it would still make more sense to hire someone who is not quite so good, not a better overall fit - the candidate pool will still be wise enough that "not quite so good" is still excellent.) But having done so, it is inconceivable that they would not ensure availability by such clauses.

    Because, rather than an injury deriving from wilfully putting her body at risk, Ruby could simply have been hit by a car on her way to work, I find the lack of redundancy implausible. But, if it exists, the lack of risk control is inconc

    eivable.


    I recognised the emotional situation. Having spent a lot of my working career as the only woman on all male teams, I was well aware of the requirement for perfection - that any failure on my part world be "because you're a woman". The double standards that ensued are something that I could rant about at length, and the emotions and reactions portrayed here felt true.

    But that alone is not sufficient. The complete implausibility of the crisis, as set up, robbed this scenario of any impact.

    I suspect this is a result of what I have complained about before in alternative fiction: the author changes one thing, in order to tell the story that they want to tell, whilst completely ignoring all consequences of that change and assuming that everything else would be "same as it was in reality", (despite the fact that the causes of those aspects have been removed). Thus decisions regarding manpower, made based on an assumption of interchangeability, artificially remain in place even though the homogeneity had been removed

    I realise that this short story is part of a series of books set in this alternate history scenario. I suppose it is possible that somewhere else a rationale is given for the decisions that I find so implausible. But they are not present in this story, so as it stands, it fails.

    A final small puzzle: I felt that the name "Ruby", and the choice of the lindy hop as her favourite hobby, were both indicators that the character was probably African-American. Yet the illustration shows a white woman.

    Obviously there is nothing that says a name or a hobby is exclusively reserved to particular cultural group. But there is a literary convention that in a short story, the author does not mention anything contrary to expectations that is not germaine to the plot. You do not give a character an unusual hobby, unless the point is that their hobby is unusual. A short story requires that the reader to grasp context very rapidly, and part of the mechanism for enabling that is to deliberately trigger those expectations that you are not explicitly challenging.

    But if this story IS about the challenges faced by an African-American woman, surely it is a major dilution of the author's intention to change her race in the illustration?

    53hfglen
    jul 12, 2021, 6:43 am

    NBL = Non-Breeding Local?

    54-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 15, 2021, 5:44 am

    >53 hfglen: :)

    ETA: NBL = Neutral Buoyancy Lab
    (apparently)

    55-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 16, 2021, 3:44 pm

    Inspector Chen: A Case of Two Cities (radio play) (2017) - 2.5 stars
    Dir.: David Hunter
    Dramatist: John Harvey
    14/7/2021

    This is episode 2 of the second series, of Inspector Chen, the BBC dramatisation of the books by Xiaolong Qiu.

    The hero of this story, Inspector Chen, serves in the modern Chinese police, in the Shanghai of the nineties, although here he is endowed with a rather antiquated title - "Special Envoy to the Emperor with an Imperial Sword" - which carries a rather sinister set of modern powers.(The reaction of his sidekick, on being asked to deputise for him temporarily, is delightful.)

    The initial case involved rooting out corruption at home, but then the inspector is asked to represent his country in a delegation of Chinese poets in America. (There is an apposite jibe about Western attitudes with the comment that Americans know nothing about, and are not interested in, Chinese writers, unless they live in exile and write against their country; coming from a Chinese author, published in English, who is writing in exile, I appreciated the humour.) And Chen himself comes under attack there.

    Of course, I have missed a lot of established backstory, and the plot is obviously simplified to fit the confines of the radio play format, which made the play itself rather unsatisfying.

    But I loved the main character. His melancholy attitude towards life, his poetry, and his philosophising about his case, all made him a character I would like to see more of. Now I want to seek out the original books.

    56-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 19, 2021, 4:37 am

    As is probably clear from my earlier post, I have been trying to go through the stored crates of books from my parents' house.

    I am currently reading a couple of books that I think were my father's - Patrice Périot and A Sort of Traitors. The characters are realistic, the storytelling all too plausible.

    But – good grief! Knowing that he read books like these, gives me some insight into why he was... the sort of man that he was.

    57-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 19, 2021, 5:51 pm

    June #9:


    The Fallen Blade: Book 1 of the Assassini by Jon Courtenay Grimwood - 2 stars

    This was a recommendation from Busifer, but I am afraid that it just did not work for me. I tried it last year, then tried it again this summer and finished it.

    The setting is a fantasy version of Renaissance Venice, complete with the author's own take on werewolves and vampires. It is definitely "grimdark" in ambience, in that lots of horrible things are casually done.

    The ruthless politicking, the treachery, the use of women as political pawns, and the casual indifference to the suffering of the poor were all perfectly plausible. The fact no one seems to actually care for anyone else, except a priest and the inhuman characters, seemed a bit overdone - Servant of the Underworld is a better, because it allows the concept that some people in a brutal society are capable of caring about one another.

    But if you are going to portray an unpleasant society, I think you are obligated to create a plausible one - otherwise it is just a case of the author wallowing in filth for its own sake. And the problem here is the same as I pointed out in my review of Washington Black - the author ignores the economic mitigation of cruelty. Even when you care nothing about the lives of people, as human beings, they still have value as economic resources. You don't kill a skilled tradesman casually, because he took at least seven years, maybe much more, to train in that skill. You may care nothing about bereaving his family, but you still need somewhere to buy shoes. So you might kill a man to keep a great secret - but not a minor one (unless he is an unskilled labourer and easy to replace).

    And I demand character consistency, not a ruthless killer who keeps someone who has NO skill, or economic value, alive (although a witness to something), because the plot needs him later. Atilo kills a beggar girl "because she was a witness", but not her brother (who saw the same things, but is conveniently imprisoned).

    The treatment of the prison is illogical too. It is explicitly explained that the prison floods tidally, twice a day, and they only dry location is the island in the centre, which the strongest hold by force. And there is a treadmill, that has to be constantly worked, otherwise even the island will submerge. Men have therefore to stand up to their necks in water for hours, and the shortest will drown, or have to swim at times. Yet an 8 year old boy and a dwarf are both at the back - and still alive, despite not being new to the place!

    And the silliest part is right at the beginning: Atilo is a master strategist etc. etc. (And completely ruthless, naturally.) He follows someone across the entire city, into an area that he knows to be extremely dangerous, until nightfall "because he hoped that they would return of their own accord". Naturally, they are attacked - and the results, having to sacrifice his ENTIRE force of highly-trained assassins (except 3 who are on missions abroad), in order to save the girl from an anticipated attack, put him at a severe disadvantage from which he never recovers. The author seems to expect us to admire him for the calculation he makes in the crisis - being willing to make such a great sacrifice to preserve the girl, who is the centre of another plot- but completely ignores the fact that the real choice was not that - it was "sacrifice my entire force rather than stop the girl BEFORE she reached danger and nightfall" - which is one of the most stupid reasons to destroy your own position that I have ever read!

    Since the plot is so illogical, it is clear that it is not particularly important to the author. It appears that he is simply interested in finding excuses for as much ingenious violence, in detailed description, especially when committed on females - the several page description of forcible artificial insemination was a particular low - as he can fit in.

    And we have the usual excuse for vampires - murdering for food should be forgiven, "because they can't help it, poor things" (actually they can, their sustenance did not require the death of their victim).

    I rated this as high as I did because it did have the advantage of a realistic analogue of Venice and its neighbours in a particular period, rather than a vague fantasy mis-mash - I agree with Busifer about the quality of the world-building. He seems to have done some decent research. But I felt its real purpose was to let the author fantasise about torture, particularly of women.

    I would rather have read a historical novel.

    58-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 20, 2021, 11:44 am

    I do love books that assume a degree of intelligence on the past of the reader!

    I am currently reading A Sort of Traitors. A character casually makes an comment that makes no sense at all, unless you know what the following refers to:
    'Twenty shillings would not have ruined Mr. Hampden's fortune, but one-twentieth of twenty shillings would have made him a slave.'

    I had to look that one up. It is from a speech in Parliament by Edmund Burke.

    This novel was written in 1949, but seems extremely apposite today.

    I highly recommend it, but particularly to pgmcc.

    59-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 21, 2021, 8:32 am

    Have just reviewed:
    Be Ready: An Approach to the Mystery of Death
    https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7559029

    Books awaiting review from January: 2
    Books awaiting review from March: 5
    Books awaiting review from April: 3
    Books awaiting review from May: 5
    Books awaiting review from June: 4


    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    60-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 25, 2021, 8:03 pm



    Shardlake:Heartstone (BBC full cast dramatisation) - 3 stars
    Adapted by Colin MacDonald from the novel C. J. Sansom
    Dir: David Jackson Young

    This play was stretched over a week; as a result I did not find it too rushed or too linear, although I accept that it must have been pruned down from the original novel.

    As it opens, Shardlake is once again practising as a lawyer and trying to stay out of court affairs. But then Queen Catherine asks him to act on behalf of her maid.

    He is also visiting a young woman in Bedlam, who has been confined there since being raped may years before. As he is becoming embarrassed by her obvious attraction to him, he decides, without seeking her permission, to investigate what warrant is holding her there, with the sin of seeking her release.

    I disliked a lot of Shardlake's actions in this story:
    On the one hand, he made some incredibly stupid decisions, that almost got him, and someone he was supposedly trying to protect, killed.

    On the other, he had such an exalted opinion of himself that he repeatedly exerted himself to achieve goals for women whom he was interested in, without considering whether they actually wanted what he was getting to advice for them - and persists in pursuing these goals even after each woman has told him clearly and precisely what it is that she does want. Her views are irrelevant; he "knows better".

    Despite the fact that he had put these women's lives in danger, and destroyed their own plans for their lives , he sounds aggrieved at the end, apparently believing that they ought to be grateful for the harm he has done them , because he did, of his own volition, put himself at risk to achieve the outcomes that HE had decided were best for them!

    We, the audience, are reminded again about the prejudice Matthew Shardlake faces as a hunchback, how he stands up for his Jewish assistant - and indeed his concern for, and treatment of, males who need his help, regardless of social class, is quite exemplary. But I am getting tired of stories that take the tone that if a character suffers in some way, then they are somehow entitled to treat others badly, and still claim the moral high ground.

    I also found unsatisfying the contrivance whereby the two plot lines just happened to conveniently tie together.

    What I did enjoy was learning about obscure facets of Tudor law, and the attention to historical accuracy.

    61Storeetllr
    jul 25, 2021, 7:24 pm

    >60 -pilgrim-: Huh, I didn't know there was a dramatization of Heartstone. I don't think I'll search for it, tho if it turns up I may give it a listen. I have read all the Shardlake mysteries and enjoyed the first few the most, especially Sovereign which is my favorite. I didn't sense any of the faults you mentioned when I read them, but perhaps I'm not as discerning as you. I mean, I mostly just read it for the mystery and history, not so much the characters who are often shady and unpleasant. I don't think I would have enjoyed living during that time period, though it's really interesting historically.

    62-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: jul 25, 2021, 9:11 pm

    >61 Storeetllr: My records show that I listened to the radio dramatisation of Revelation last winter - I think the BBC are working their way through the entire series.

    If I remember, my main reaction to that one was that it was simply extremely predictable; I put that down to a complex plot having had to be pared down to fit, with the result that it was obvious that any apparent irrelevancies were going to become important eventually. MAJOR SPOILER: Thus, mentioning the underground rivers, when so many other aspects of the setting were being rushed, made it obvious what they were being used for...

    I agree with you about the Tudor period: on the cusp of the mediaeval and modern eras, and often showing the worst aspects of both!

    I wonder what sort of world we would be living in, if Henry VIII had stayed on his horse in that joust in 1536?

    63pgmcc
    Redigerat: jul 26, 2021, 7:06 am

    >58 -pilgrim-: When I saw the title in >56 -pilgrim-: my interest was piqued. Now you have fired a shot directly at me I can only admit to being wounded. Nice shooting.

    ETA:
    I found a copy on abebooks.co.uk. It was only £2.49 with £1.77 postage. It asked me for the country of destination, even though it already had my address. I clicked Ireland and the postage went up to £46.79. Thank Brexit for that.

    64-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 5, 2021, 10:47 pm

    >63 pgmcc: Wow! I thought the "charge silly postage because we don't want to deal with the red tape" era had abated...

    65pgmcc
    jul 27, 2021, 4:05 am

    >64 -pilgrim-: It appears some of the booksellers have not adjusted to the new Brexit bureaucracy and are charging rates to dissuade EU customers from buying from them and causing them the bother of filling in the customs documents. They have to fill in the same documents for postage to the USA.

    66-pilgrim-
    jul 27, 2021, 4:11 am

    >65 pgmcc: I suppose that might be understandable if one is not a professional bookseller, but simply doing it as a sideline (although frustrating).

    Did you see if the other sellers all had the same approach?

    67-pilgrim-
    aug 1, 2021, 5:49 pm

    Books awaiting review from January: 2
    Books awaiting review from March: 5
    Books awaiting review from April: 3
    Books awaiting review from May: 5
    Books awaiting review from June: 4
    Books awaiting review from July: 6

    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    68pgmcc
    aug 1, 2021, 6:13 pm

    >66 -pilgrim-: When Brexit came into effect I deliberately went to ABEBooks to check what was happening. I sampled about twenty sellers and they were all charging prohibitive charges for postage; they average just below £50. Subsequently I sought out a few books and found the sellers to have adjusted and be charging postage close to what had been the case.

    When I looked for the book you mentioned I found the seller in question was still charging prohibitive charges. I suspect it depends on the readiness of the seller to go through the customs documentation process.

    69-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 9, 2021, 5:17 am

    July Summary

    Average rating: 3.44
    Weighted average: 3.27


    8 fiction:
    Novels: 3 children's fiction, 1 historical fiction, 1 literary fiction, 1 science fiction, 1 crime fiction
    Novelette: 1 literary fiction

    1 non-fiction:
    1 natural history

    Original language: 8 English, 1 Danish

    Earliest date of first publication: 1858 (The Coral Island)
    Latest: 2016 (We Are Legion (We Are Bob)/The Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax)

    4 paperbacks, 4 Kindle, 1 hardback

    Authors: 5 female, 6 male
    Author nationality: 6 British, 1 Danish, 1 American, 1 Russian, 1 Canadian, 1 unknown
    New (to me) authors: 8 (3 familiar)

    Most popular book on LT: The Coral Island (1,040)
    Least popular: Shanta (8)

    No. of books read: 9
    From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 4
    Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 4
    No. of books acquired: 26 (20 ebooks, 3 hardbacks, 3 paperbacks)
    No. of books disposed of: 14
    Expenditure on books: £78.62

    Best Book of July: A Sort of Traitors
    Worst Book of July: The Vinyl Detective: Written in Dead Wax

    70-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 9, 2021, 5:05 am

    I suppose that I had better get back to actually writing some reviews!

    But first a little detour to a book from my childhood:

    Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer

    This is an unusual story in which a girl, Charlotte, starting boarding school in "the present" (i.e. 1963) wakes up the next morning to find the dorm looking different, the other girls unfamiliar, and everyone calling her "Clare". It turns out that she is in 1918, and a younger girl, Emily thinks she is her sister. Unlike a lot of "bodyswap" time travel stories, this takes seriously the issue of "Well, where is the real Clare?" Every night, Clare and Charlotte simply change places - so that when Charlotte is being Clare in 1918, Clare has to cope with trying to be Charlotte, 45 years later. A lot of the story is about the practicalities of how they cope - with Emily's help, and by leaving notes about homework etc. for each other. But then the school is evacuated to the country...

    There was both a dreamy unreality, as Charlotte (who is always the POV character) tries to cope with being someone else, and an underlying darkness - the horror of a distant, yet present war is evoked, with children being taught about "baby-eating Huns" and the adult daughter of the house to which the girls are evacuated still missing her only brother, killed in war. The 1918 flu epidemic running through a boarding school is also vividly portrayed.

    There is a final point in the ending which is extremely dark: MAJOR SPOILER: Having been evacuated as Clare, Charlotte is desperate to get back to her own time. To do this, with Emily's help, she creeps back into her own bed in the school dormitory, which is being used as an influenza ward. She wakes up in her own bed and time, and never switches times again.

    A little later she receives a package and letter from a woman who turns out to be Emily, as an elderly woman (in her fifties, I presume). The package contains something that was given to "Clare", when Clare was actually Charlotte. The letter explains that she has delayed this long in sending it, in order to assure that it is not actually Clare who receives it. Because Clare died. She caught influenza from that night, was transferred to a different bed, and never slept in that bed again. That is why there were no more swaps.

    And so Charlotte, in her hurry to get home, caused Clare's death.


    The 'reason' for the swapping is never explained, the mechanism is the shared bed, but other people are able to sleep in that bed, I think, and still wake up where they were the previous morning. The girls share an initial, they both have sisters whose names begin with 'E', but, although their characters are different, it seems implied that they share an affinity. But also, it is because Clare is dead by 1963, that she can travel forward to that time.

    This was one of the books that was destroyed by mould (as mentioned here ).

    In looking for another copy, I learned that this was, in fact, the sequel to a less well-known book about Charlotte and her sister, but I have not been able to find a copy.

    But I found a copy of another book by Penelope Farmer, of which I recognised the title and the opening premise, but could remember nothing more, except that when I read it as a child I found it weird. I never owned a copy. So that is the book that I bought and read in July...

    71-pilgrim-
    aug 9, 2021, 5:25 am

    Re >70 -pilgrim-::
    I learned from Wikipedia that the author herself re-edited the book for its reissue in 1985, and that she removed the ending with the gift (discussed in the MAJOR SPOILER above). Continuing that discussion: Does that mean Penelope Farmer removed Clare's dying in the epidemic completely? That destroys the dark implications, but also what rationale there was for the swapping taking place.

    72Sakerfalcon
    aug 10, 2021, 7:33 am

    Charlotte Sometimes is a book that haunts me still, one of the best time swap stories I've read. I have read the books that preceded it but they are only very loosely linked and I didn't think they were nearly as good - certainly not as memorable. I will have to find my copy of Charlotte and reread it, as I don't remember the details of the ending. Perhaps my copy contained the revised text.

    I can't think of another time swap story that talks about the person switched from the past to the future. While it is disorienting for the person sent back into the past, once they have worked out when they are they can figure things out based on their knowledge of history. However, the person sent to the future has no such references to fall back on. There was quite a good recent novel called Beswitched about time-switched schoolgirls but the story completely focused on the girl sent back in time, whereas I would have been far more interested in how the other girl coped with finding herself in our era, after coming from the 1940s.

    73-pilgrim-
    aug 10, 2021, 10:27 am

    >72 Sakerfalcon: I am glad to find someone else that it had the same effect on!

    I do not think we ever see things directly from Clare's point of view, but we have her diary entries, what her sister says about their conversations, and the consequences of her actions in her future. She certainly has the more difficult situation. Charlotte knows from her history lessons at least a little about how people thought and behaved in Clare's day, but Clare will have NO information on what people are going to be like, forty years into her future. Imagine being expected to write history essays on events that, from her perspective, have not happened yet? Or understand the geography of the Cold War, when to you Russia is an ally, currently in distress and disarray due to civil war?

    I wanted to read more about how Clare felt - particularly when stranded in her own future. Did she ever think of trying to find her own descendants?

    I think there is room for a story about someone from the past coming into our present (and their future). But that would have been easier to write before the Internet. Coming to our times, apart from the culture shock being more extreme, the urge to Google one's family, and even oneself, would be overwhelming.

    74-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 26, 2021, 9:42 pm

    August #2:


    Men at Arms: Book 15 of the Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett - 3.5 stars

    I could not remember how far I had got with the Discworld series: it turns out this is the one that I thought I had read - but I had not. Having now retrieved my copy, I at last read a book that I was given as a present in 1993! (Maybe I can compete with Peter here?) And it was rather a disappointment.

    I was very much enjoying it initially, but eventually the heavy-handedness of the moral lecturing got in the way. It is not that I objected to, or disagreed with these themes - equal opportunity across races and genders - but the pomposity with which that and other subjects were belaboured was annoying, given the author's own values, which find rape jokes (as well as the lengthy leering at Angua's body) amusing: the canine "hero" Gaspode boasts that his sexual experience includes "an unsuspecting chihuahua". Yeah, right.

    I think the problem with this book is that it is a transitional phase.

    The early Discworld books are simply taking the mickey out of various fantasy tropes and their implications. There are a lot of times when something is actually rather cruel, or has unfortunate implications, but it is against the spirit of the quickfire jokes to examine that humour too closely.

    In later books, Sir Terry uses his Discworld stories as metaphors, in which he satirises our own world, in order to make various social and political points. Most of the time I agree with his political views, occasionally I disagree with him strongly, but that is irrelevant. He has the complete right to expound his views through his humour. And, whether I agree with them or not, his metaphors become consistent.

    I think this is the first book with such a heavy-handed "lesson". And it sits uneasily with itself. It is "speciesist" to claim "trolls are stupid rocks" - yet a running joke is that Detritus cannot salute without knocking himself out. It is "speciesist" to claim that dwarfs are obsessed with gold, yet it is the punchline of a joke that, according to Cuddy, dwarfs take their gold to bed with them. Sir Terry here seems undecided whether to write a book with a "point", or go for easy jokes, using the stereotypes that he himself set up for the Discworld.

    I hate hypocrisy. And I think meaningful points can be made more effectively if they are handled more subtly. So an extended lecture on equality, combined with cheap jokes about women, made this the least enjoyable book so far. (I also happen to disagree with his proposition that it is OK for some people to be speciesist/racist, but not others.)

    I also find his attack on "the rich" as a class - from which Lady Sybil has to be clearly stated to be an exception - to be just as bad a case of pre-judging people as the attitudes that he is accusing them of. In my opinion, idiots with offensive views turn up in every walk of life. And how much their views matter is proportional to his much harm they can do with them: racist views that impair employment opportunities are awful, but racist views that persuade you to burn down the housing in a neighbouring quarter are worse.

    But what of the storyline? As focussed on the Night Watch, this story is at heart an investigation. But the plot seemed rather unfocussed - MAJOR SPOILER:WHY is the gonne a sentient artifact, when it was designed by Leonard of Quirm, who has no magical ability? Plot consistancy seems to have been sidelined in favour of another moral lecture on the theme that "guns are intrinsically evil" in a way that other weapons are apparently not - another instance where I disagree with Sir Terry. I do not think guns are any more insidious than any other weapon. They attract some people as "cool", in the same way as blades do others. I think that is because for this book making social points was the motive for writing, rather than the plot being primary.

    Nevertheless, Sir Terry is one of the best humourists that I know, so a weaker book by him is still well worth reading.

    75-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 9, 2021, 5:18 am

    August #4:


    Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie - 2.5 stars

    This is a late story, written and set in 1972. Both the crime novelist, Ariadne Oliver, and her friend Hercule Poirot, are long established characters.

    I have been left unimpressed by Poirot as TV episodes, but felt that I should not dismiss the Queen of Crime without trying something that she actually wrote, as opposed to adaptations. I found Elephants Can Remember among the books that I had inherited from my parents.

    The theme of the story is how there are human "elephants": people who can remember details of long ago events. And how memory is a mutable thing, as facts get mixed together with hypotheses of explanations. And how the past effects the present, and attempts to forget it, however well-intentioned, can cause harm.

    I felt that the dialogue was very natural, but the novel broke the first rule of fiction: we frequently hear Mrs Oliver interview someone, then the same information as she tells Poirot about it.

    By getting the story mainly as conversations, the author plays fair: indeed I could see the probable explanation of the mystery very early on.

    But when the author is leaving clues for the reader, it behoves her not to contradict herself and this leave false clues (as opposed to 'red herrings').

    General Ravenscroft's age is given at one point as twenty-five years older than his wife, yet his wife's twin sister was romantically involved with him when he was a "young subaltern or Captain". Men who are still subalterns, or even captains, in their forties, do not become Generals - which implies that the sister thought she was going to marry Alistair Ravenscroft before she was even born!

    There is also a major 'red herring', with Mrs Burton-Cox having been in Malaya at the same time as the Ravenscrofts, and having lost a son under unexplained circumstances, at the time that "a neighbouring Service family" to the Ravenscrofts had lost a son under suspicious circumstances - yet neither of our investigators follow up on, or even mention, the possibility that it was Mrs Burton-Cox's child who was the neighbour's child, as an explanation as to why she was so particularly interested in another peculiar death in the Ravenscroft family.

    Another odd statement was after it has been established that the twins were identical, it was also repeatedly claimed that one was noticeably handsomer than the other!

    In short, the plotting and structure of the story felt slapdash.

    It was also very cold. Whereas Lord Peter Wimsey always agonised about whether it was morally appropriate to investigate something, Ariadne Oliver and Hercule Poirot decide to investigate purely to satisfy their own curiosity - so that, solely for their own amusement, they consider it acceptable to force a young woman to relieve the trauma of the violent death of both her parents when she was in her early teens! It is true that first her young man, then Celia herself, afterwards ask the pair to continue, but the arrogance of probing someone's private tragedy out of sheer idle curiosity appalled me.

    Agatha Christie seems to enjoy setting up complex puzzles (or not so complex ones), but there is no sense that her characters are real people, with lives and emotions that will be affected by the crimes she describes. This is "murder as a hobby" at its worst.

    I was also shocked by the language used on the second page of the book, where the n-word is used to describe the type of brown colour of part of Mrs Oliver's hat. I do not object to the word being used in dialogue, showing authentically how a particular character would have spoken in a particular period. But this is either the author's narration, or the thought processes of the heroine, Ariadne Oliver. I am not trying to judge the past by present day standards, but by those of the time in which it was written in and set. In 1973 I was well aware that that was a word no decent person should ever use.

    There is no other evidence that the author is trying to make her rather well-bred protagonist appear unpleasant, so it seems probable that this is an insight into the mind of the author. Ariadne Oliver appears to be a self-portrait, so it appears that the author of Ten Little N****ers had not changed her attitudes, despite that book having been renamed Ten Little Indians in the sixties.

    N.b. I note that Agatha Christie was in poor health from 1971 onwards, with what is more surmised to have been Alzheimer's disease, according to Wikipedia. This may explain the contradictions and errors. Also, according to a quote from Brian Aldiss, she wrote her stories first, before deciding on the culprit, then went back and wrote the clues back in. That may explain the whole Burton-Cox in Malaya and dead son digression.

    Thus it may be unfair of me to judge her work by this sample.

    76-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 9, 2021, 5:21 am

    August #5:


    If Only They Could Talk: Book 1 of All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot - 3.5 stars (re-read)
    10/8/2021-12/8/2021

    Having inherited two identical copies from my parents, I decided to reread this first volume of James Herriot's autobiography. This volume is rather puzzling, because it gives an impression date of 1973, yet the cover clearly references the TV series All Creatures Great and Small, which ran from 1978-1990.

    I first read this coming from the TV series and that, combined with the comic cover illustration by Thelwell, made me read this as a collection of humorous anecdotes.

    Coming to it afresh, I was struck with the grimness of the world it portrayed. James Herriot (a pseudonym) qualified as a vet in the 1930s. The depths of the Great Depression cannot be shown more clearly than the repeated advertisement by desperate men: "Experienced vet. Will work for food". James thinks himself in clover for getting a job that involves working 7 days a week, permanently on call at night, for £4 per week. 12 hour days are quite normal. He seems warm towards his boss, yet the way he is treated by the practice owner is, by modern standards, horrible, as he always blames his assistant for the consequences of his own mistakes.

    In the Yorkshire Dales, there were great extremes between wealth and poverty of farmers. James Herriot came from Glasgow; he finds the culture of the Dales very different. He both portrays dour hostility and his own gratitude for warm hospitality.

    What shines through it is his love for the animals in his care, and the landscape in which he living. His descriptions are vivid and lyrical.

    The television series was so much part of my memory, that some of the book's descriptions took me by surprise. I still see Christopher Timothy as James Herriot, but rather than the blond, open-faced Peter Davidson, the real Tristan Farnon actually had "floppy dark hair".

    Even more startling was to learn that the ruddy-faced, middle-aged Robert Hardy, as Siegfried Farnon, was playing a tall, fair, slim young man in his thirties, with a small moustache, who appears to be found irresistible by the young society ladies of the area.

    Siegfried's devotion to his profession does not come into question, but his lifestyle, his careless attitude to money, his arrogance towards his employees, all gave the impression of an upper class young man, for whom vetinary practice was a hobby. (This probably also explains why Tristan could take such a dilettante attitude to his studies without getting sent down.)

    Unlike the author, I didn't find Siegfried's method of sabotaging his secretary's attempts to do her job, then reprimanding her for the obsequences, a great jape - to me it seems a rather mean-spirited way to treat someone who probably cannot afford to leave. James Herriot's description of her as a woman who was not ugly, but whose efficiency and commanding manner was such as to "ensure" that she was still single, as it would "send any man running" is on a par with his attitude towards women in general - whether the nameless members of Tristan's harem, or the women in the background at the farms he visits, who feed and mother him. The tone is ugly; but this is the author describing himself as a young man of under twenty-five (albeit writing decades later). Hopefully his attitude matured later, but what is described here is unapologetically a "man's world".

    The humour is still there, both at his own expense and others'. But it is far from the dominant theme in the book. It is a lyrical description from a man who loves his work, and the region in which he works. Yet he recognises fully the poverty hidden in that landscape, and although nostalgic for the days of horse-drawn farm work, recognises the advantages of modern equipment, just as the cures available to him as a vet have changed beyond all recognition.

    ETA: This is a case where I got more out of a book than I did from my first reading.

    77-pilgrim-
    aug 15, 2021, 4:59 pm


    Magic and the Shinigami Detective by Honor Raconteur
    Started:14/6/2021 DNF

    Anyone who has been following my threads knows that I very rarely give up on a book. I have ploughed on through some quite appallingly written books because I needed to know "what happened".

    Here I give up. I am a fifth of the way through, and actually have no interest in what happens next. I realised that I was getting a sinkng feeling every time I returned to it.

    The plot concerns a female FBI agent who ends up in a different world, where she immediately gets recruited into their police and pairs up with a forensic investigator who uses magic as his method of working. The setting seems to be a version of 19th century America where magic is relatively common.

    This is not awful. It is just bland to the point of insensibility.

    I am giving up, and, unless someone tells me that there is a marvellous plot twist a short way ahead, I doubt I will ever return to this author again.

    78Meredy
    aug 15, 2021, 7:06 pm

    >77 -pilgrim-: Thanks for the warning. Will steer clear of that one.

    My late husband and I did all the Harry Potter books (and many other things, from Watership Down to Consciousness Explained) as read-alouds. Any one volume took us months, at a rate of 25-30 pages per weekly session. By the time we got to book 5, which "everyone" was reading as soon as it came out, I was covering my eyes and ears wherever I went to avoid spoilers. So he started off by flipping to the last page, glancing at it, and announcing: "Hermione's pregnant."

    Unless you're expecting a plot twist like that, you can probably make up a better one of your own for a boring book. Then give your time to something more rewarding. I have quit books in the first chapter and sometimes even on page 1 with no regrets.

    79-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 18, 2021, 2:23 am

    >78 Meredy: That sounds a wonderful way to enjoy books together! You were so lucky to have had someone who shared your tastes.

    I have always found difficult to bail from a story without knowing how it ends. There are a lot of good books that start slowly, so I try to give them more than a chapter - unless they have irredeemable signs of awfulness, such as atrocious spelling or grammar (if the author did not care enough about their work to spend time getting it proofread, why should I care enough to waste time reading it?), factual inaccuracies, or gross content.

    But what has made you bail on page 1?

    80Meredy
    aug 16, 2021, 2:00 pm

    >79 -pilgrim-: Two things have done that. One is finding that the book is written in the present tense. That axed Wolf Hall for me instantly.

    The other is a main or major character whose name I don't like. Not just don't like, but actively dislike. I don't want to see it over and over, I don't want it lodged in my mind. So--bye-bye.

    I also won't even get close to reading a book whose author's name I dislike. And I don't mind if this closes off a good book. There are plenty of others. This petty prejudice is harmless enough, it seems to me. It doesn't extend to real people; I've never avoided an acquaintance or disdained a friendship because of a name. It's more the sight of the name than the sound of it that bothers me.

    81-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 19, 2021, 2:32 pm

    >80 Meredy:
    I too avoid books in the present tense, although there are times when I consider it justified, such as when the narrator is talking to a specified audience in a particular context.

    I am intrigued by your aversion to certain names. What sort of names generate that reaction? Do you mean things like names that are culturally inappropriate, or obviously fake in the case of author's? Or just not euphonious?

    82-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 17, 2021, 2:26 pm

    August #9:

    Excerpts from the Diary of a Henchminion (short story) by Sherwood Smith - 2.5 stars
    16/8/2021

    This is a rather amusing short story which views some standard tropes of fantasy from the point of view of a footsoldier (humanoid) in the employ of an evil sorcerer.

    I found this on Book Cafe. I have never read anything else by this author.

    83MrsLee
    aug 17, 2021, 7:02 pm

    When I find myself cringing about returning to a book, (usually because of the way the characters talk or behave very unnaturally), I will read a little bit halfway through, if nothing has changed, I will check the ending to confirm my suspicions about a predictable plot, then I'm done.

    84-pilgrim-
    aug 18, 2021, 2:29 am

    >83 MrsLee:
    I have been known to check the ending, but I had not thought of the "test the middle" approach. Thanks.

    If I am bailing on a well-known book, I often Google it, to check if I have misjudged where it was going.

    This is the point at which spoilers would actively be helpful. I occasionally fantasise about starting a website to provide endings for films and books, so that people who are not enjoying a book but want to know "how it ends" are enabled to bail.

    85Meredy
    aug 18, 2021, 3:15 pm

    >81 -pilgrim-: Your question about the names I dislike sort of stumped me. I've never tried to explain this reaction before, and in fact I might not have ever mentioned it to anyone at all.

    I don't think there's a general pattern or category that would make sense to anyone. It's more of an instantaneous internal reaction. I guess I might liken it to the way we simply know, on sight, when we're shopping for clothes, that we don't care for a certain item. It might be the color or the print, the style or the design, but we just know we don't want that one, and we pass it by. We might say "I don't like dresses that --", but more likely don't we just know we don't want that one, and never bother with an analysis?

    To me it's a matter of sight more than sound, so euphoniousness doesn't cover it. Here's a well-known character name that I will never read about: Jack Reacher. And here are two authors whose books I won't read because of my aversion to their names: C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold. Ugh, I don't like seeing them here in my own post. In the case of the first, that h is so wrong (and I do know why it's there) that it causes a visceral revulsion. In the second, it's just grotesque in color and shape. Not the author's fault--but it just really turns me off.

    86MrsLee
    aug 19, 2021, 12:42 pm

    >85 Meredy: Thank you for sharing that. It's interesting. Letters and words don't do that to me, but colors do. On the clothing front, ruffles, lace and strings. Blech. My sister-in-law won't look at or wear anything with buttons. The brain is a mysterious thing.

    87-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: aug 19, 2021, 2:35 pm

    >85 Meredy:, >86 MrsLee: Yes, that is fascinating. It sounds like a sort of synaesthesia. Thank you for sharing.

    88Meredy
    aug 19, 2021, 4:45 pm

    >87 -pilgrim-: In my case, it is an effect of synesthesia. I see words and especially names in color and with secondary visual attributes. And if they're strongly displeasing to me, I just don't want anything to do with them.

    89-pilgrim-
    aug 19, 2021, 5:36 pm

    >88 Meredy: Do you ever get any positive effects? I mean that the associated colour attributes make the result especially pleasant at times?

    90Meredy
    aug 19, 2021, 5:53 pm

    >89 -pilgrim-: Oh, sure. Some names and words (especially proper names) are just lovely. And some are simply entertaining. A page of text looks like it's been sprinkled with colorful confetti.

    They're not associations, though. They're properties. Attributes. I know the word is written in black on white. I see the black just fine. But in my head I also "see" the colors, just as you can look at a black-and-white photo and "see" the green landscape or the actress's red lipstick.

    The effects of grapheme-color synesthesia also make me a good proofreader. When a word is the wrong color, I know it's misspelled. This faculty has been very useful in my career.

    91-pilgrim-
    aug 20, 2021, 7:24 pm

    >90 Meredy:
    I described them as attributes and you chose exactly the same word to 'correct' me.

    You could at least have had the decency to come up with an alternative word to "take your stand on", rather than the claim that the same word is wrong if I use it, but right if you do!

    They're not associations, though
    Who is supposed to have said that they were?
    I did not. MrsLee did not.
    What is the point of that statement? It looks as if you are trying to imply that thatwas a word that I> used, but such misrepresentation, relying as it does on your readers not bothering to go back and look, would be a very low way of scoring points off someone.

    Obviously it would irrational for you to make the claim that the colours that you see are independent of the spelling of the word, (in the way that other attributes, such as font or ink colour are) since the fact that, for you, one word is always a given colour was the fundamental point that you were making in >85 Meredy:, reiterated in the Wikipedia link that you provided in >90 Meredy:.

    If they were independent attributes then good could they help you in proofreading? They must be associated, otherwise there could be no implication of identity.

    If for you these attributes are independent, then how does the colour tell you anything about the word?

    I am quite happy to use whatever word you prefer, but to imply that my use of Noun A (attribute) is wrong, and tell me that I should have used Noun A (as I did) seems a ridiculous way to pick a fight.

    92Karlstar
    aug 29, 2021, 12:59 pm

    >82 -pilgrim-: That does sound interesting.

    93-pilgrim-
    aug 30, 2021, 7:54 am

    >92 Karlstar: It is short, but different.

    94-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 9, 2021, 5:24 am



    Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies (audiobook) by Hayley Nolan
    Started : 16/8/2021 - DNF

    I started with this as an audiobook, as I wanted something I could listen to while working. The narrator's presentation - it is narrated by the author - irritated me intensely, so I switched to text...

    Following the discussion with Meredy and MrsLee, I am abandoning this after the introduction.

    The author's website discribes her as a "historian", but her career history seems to be as a vlogger, whose training is in scriptwriting.

    What makes me doubt her credentials is the ridiculous claim that "we have always been taught that this was a love story" (and this is a lie). Well, only if you learnt your 'history' from Hollywood movies. My school history classes made it clear that Anne was an astute player in the court politics of the era, having gained much experience during her time at the French court; nor was she simply her father's pawn, having seen how that worked out for her sister.

    But the author's 'evidence' is "whoever heard of a love story ending in a beheading?" This is another ridiculous statement: the crime reports are, and always have been, full of men killing lovers and spouses that they have tired of. The hatred is perhaps the stronger where love genuinely existed previously.

    So, either Hayley Nolan was abnormally ignorant and naive (she is 24), or she has a contemptuous attitude to her intended audience, and believes them to be stupid.

    She is positioning her book as a revolution against how "historians" have traditionally "misrepresented" Anne Boleyn - in a way in which I have never actually seen her portrayed. This "straw man" approach, bolstered by strident feminism, did not impress me. It made it clear that the author intends to garner her audience through the relevance of her agenda, rather than the quality of her research or writing.

    I remember a history lecturer complaining, around a decade ago, about the quality of history teaching in schools today. He said that history undergraduates were not arriving prepared to study the subject, "they expect to be told stories".

    If that charge has justice, then the most charitable interpretation of Ms Nolan is that she has been a victim of this type of education and is simply young, ignorant and opinionated. The alternative is that she is deliberately creating a false dichotomy, in order to make her book seem controversial.

    There may be some solid history in the rest of the book. But, whichever of the above interpretations apply, I realised that they mean I cannot trust the contents.

    Book abandoned.

    95-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 6, 2021, 5:57 am

    Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.

    96-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 10, 2021, 5:19 am

    August Summary

    Average rating: 2.6
    Weighted average: 2 37
    Audiobook weighted average: 3.39


    10 fiction:
    Novels: 4 crime fiction, 2 fantasy, 1 romantic fiction
    Novella: 1 crime fiction
    Short stories: 1 fantasy, 1 crime fiction

    5 non-fiction:
    2 autobiographies
    1 literary companion
    1 essay
    1 language learning

    Original language: 15 English

    Earliest date of first publication: 1960 (A Zoo In My Luggage)
    Latest: 2019 (Bloody Christmas) (novella) / 2018 (Disaster Inc)

    6 Kindle, 4 audiobooks, 3 paperbacks, 1 hardback, 1 website

    Authors: 7 male, 3 female
    Author nationality: 6 British, 3 American, 1 Canadian, 1 Irish
    New (to me) authors: 6 (6 familiar)

    Most popular book on LT: The Colour of Magic (audiobook) (18,967) /Men At Arms (9,160)
    Least popular: The Novels of Charles Dickens: An Introduction by David Timson to A Christmas Carol (1) (audiobook) /Dog Day Afternoon (2) (short story) /Bloody Christmas (novella) (3) /Disaster Inc (31)

    No. of books read: 15
    From Mount TBR (books owned before 2021): 4
    Books owned before joining Green Dragon: 4
    Rereads: 2
    No. of books acquired: 13
    No. of books disposed of: 4
    Expenditure on books: £10.89

    Best Book of August: The Colour of Magic (audiobook) / Dog Day Afternoon (short story) /Men At Arms
    Worst Book of August: Punk 57


    Total pages read: 2,372

    97Karlstar
    sep 5, 2021, 10:45 am

    >94 -pilgrim-: Was that self-published?

    98-pilgrim-
    sep 5, 2021, 10:55 am

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

    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    99-pilgrim-
    sep 5, 2021, 11:07 am

    >97 Karlstar:
    I got it via Audible, but it appears on Amazon as published by "Little A", which turns out to be an imprint of Amazon publishing.

    I presume that is why Amazon seemed to be pushing it so heavily on my Kindle.

    100-pilgrim-
    sep 6, 2021, 5:29 am

    Re >94 -pilgrim-:, >99 -pilgrim-::
    Fortunately this was a bad Kindle Unlimited choice; I did not purchase.

    101-pilgrim-
    sep 6, 2021, 5:50 am

    July #4:


    The Brushwood Boy (novelette) by Rudyard Kipling - 4.5 stars
    15/7/2021

    It has been a long time since I read any Kipling, and I had forgotten just how wonderful his writing is - every character is so clearly delineated, and their personality completely believable, even when, as here, the story itself is just weird!

    This story is about Georgie Cottar. We first meet him aged three, and in the episodes from his early years, Kipling captures perfectly a small person's puzzlement at the world around him. He goes to the sort of public school that C. S. Lewis attended and loathed; but being what today we would call a "jock", Georgie thrives, and is thoroughly, and genuinely, imbued with the ideals of duty and service that might seem alien now, but were the goal of the public school system. From thence, as a matter of course, Georgie proceeds to the Army, and to India.

    The mentality of the public school ethos, the attitudes of his officers, the response of his men - all these milieux are described in crisp prose that often tells so much in a single sentence.

    Kipling is equally telling in his descriptions of the women of the camp, and elsewhere. Georgie had no time "for girls", but Kipling does. His characterisation of women is extremely sympathetic, whatever their age or social class.
    The housekeeper had taken good care that her boy should not go empty, and before he changed to the white mouth he sat down to excellent claret with sandwiches of potted egg and things that adoring women make and men never notice.

    But what makes this different from a conventional tale of a nice, handsome, athletic young man (who is amusingly oblivious both to the effect that he has on women, and how the men around him regard him) is that when Georgie was a very small child, he learnt to make up stories for himself. And he had interesting dreams. As an adult, he still dreams (and records them in a notebook).

    And Kipling spends as much time recounting the contents of Georgie's dreams as it does his waking life. And this is where one is reminded that Kipling was primarily a poet, and a Nobel Prize winner.

    The ending has the haunting, semi-supernatural quality of much of his later work. There is no explanation: when one character asks why this has happened, the question is dismissed with "perhaps when we die we may find out the answer". But unlike many of his supernatural stories, the ending is unambiguously upbeat.

    I loved this.

    I loved it for its authenticity and its sly humour - such as the repeated elbow jabs from mater, needed to prevent pater blurting out the wrong thing.

    I know that to admire Kipling is unfashionable nowadays. He is accused of racism and imperialism. But I think this is to badly misunderstand him. He is, above all, an acute observer of human behaviour. He portrays people as they are, not as they ought to be. (For example, in this story, Georgie is about to be introduced to a girl called Miriam, and asks whether she is Jewish (because of the name), to which his father indignantly replies that she is of an old and respectable county family. Now Cottar senior certainly has some anti-Semitic prejudice, whether deep-rooted or simply habitual, we never learn. As an instinctive response, it would certainly be plausible from a elderly gentlemen of that era, but there is no reason to assume either Cottar junior or Kipling himself shares that view. The point of the episode is to show that Georgie is so oblivious to his parents' attempts at matchmaking, that he asks a question that, given his father's prejudices, he would have known the answer to if he had realised that she was being thought of as a possible wife. Kipling never lectures; he portrays real human beings, then lets the reader decide themselves whether their actions are acceptable.

    Note: The cover of my copy is apparently a stock photo. It has no relevance to the story.

    102-pilgrim-
    sep 8, 2021, 7:54 am

    I know >101 -pilgrim-: sounds unusually effusive for me, but that was a novella that succeeded in providing some distraction during a very bad time.

    103-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 9, 2021, 5:27 am

    We (radio play)
    Dir.: Jim Poyser
    15/8/2021

    This play was an adaptation by Sean O'Brien of the novel by Evgeniy Zamyatin, which was written, Iin secret, in the early years of Stalin's rule.

    It seems still extremely relevant today.

    D-130 is an engineer, living in OneState, which is ruled by The Benefactor. Happiness has been achieved through Reason and Order.
    Anyone can put in an official request for a "personal hour" with anyone else, which cannot be refused so there can be no reason for jealousy.

    It is considered vital that everyone vote in the elections, but the result is known in advance, so there is no chance of disruption to the order.

    D-130 is an important person, since he is working on the spaceship that is going to bring the benefits of rational order to the inhabitants of Venus. He has requested that he be allowed to write the poetry that is going to spread the culture of OneState to Venus. But since writing purely rational poetry, uncontaminated by emotion, is difficult, he has adopted the form of recording the daily events of his life as he readies ship for launch, which is an endeavour both beautiful and completely rational. It is this account to which we listen.

    Anton Lesser gives a beautiful performance as D-130; bemused by the emotions of the women in his life, and his own reactions. Because there are problems below the surface in every aspect of the apparently idyllic situation I have just described. Maybe it is time for another Revolution?

    What fascinated me about the plot was this: There are both men and women Dionysians, working for the overthrow of Order. And there are both men and women who oppose this. But all the male characters (except The Benefactor, whose only apparent emotion is paranoia) are motivated by sexual attraction. The only true idealists - people whose motives are self-sacrificing for the good of others - are all women.Of course, MAJOR SPOILER: it is the selfish, lustful woman, not one of the idealists, who is the character who wins in the end.

    104-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 10, 2021, 5:06 am

    August #6:


    ♪♪ The Novels of Charles Dickens: An Introduction: A Christmas Carol by David Timson - 2 stars
    16/8/2021

    This is one of a series of introductions by David Timson to books in the Nacos Audiobooks catalogue.

    Since I ready knew A Christmas Carol itself very well, I was not sure whether this short audiobook would contain anything new for me. However it did have some interesting information on context and how Dickens himself viewed his work, and the pleasure of listening to Anton Lesser's superb reading of exerpts.

    This was a freebie from Audible, obviously designed to inveigle one into purchasing the Dickens novel. It does its job well, in introducing what the book is like prior to purchase.

    105-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 14, 2021, 8:26 am

    July #6:


    Dinosaurs: The Amazing World of the Pre-Historic Monster from Archaeopteryx to Tyrannosaurus Rex by Jane Werner Watson, and illustrated by Rudolf F. Zallinger - 3 stars
    17/7/2021

    This was another childhood book, unpacked from a storage crate. It is one of a set of Piccolo Colour Books. Since it was crammed in with parental books, its condition was fine (except rather dusty). In the depths of my childhood, I paid six (new) pence for it.

    Having no brain for anything more complex at the time, I was tempted into reading.

    The first person present plural style I found irritating, but then I am considerably older than the target audience.

    What struck me first was the amount of detail that was given about each dinosaur, and the pseudo-witness narrative approach did make it easier to absorb the information.

    The book is organised through the prehistoric eras, with an introduction on the climate and flora before the dinosaurs emerged, and an epilogue on the era of mammals.

    I realise, of course, that a book written first in 1960 - I had a later edition - is unlikely to actually be correct.

    But what kept me reading were the illustrations. They are meticulously detailed, and set in landscapes that are likewise appropriate to the period.

    The artist, Rudolf F. Zallinger, turns out to be a famous fresco artist. He was born to a White Russian family in Siberia, spent his early childhood in Manchuria, and then emigrated to America, where he studied Fine Art at Yale. There he painted the 110' mural for the Peabody Museum of Natural History called "The Age of Reptiles", for which he took a crash course in paleontology and paleobotany.

    I assume therefore that these illustrations are not "an artist's impression", but an accurate representation of the best understanding at the time that this book was written. Since the author wrote on many diverse topics, I feel less confident about he level of knowledge.

    I wish that recent books on the topic were as beautiful as this, but in sixty years I expect the field has moved on, so the information is unlikely to be completely correct. This I can only treat this as a fascinating historical curiosity.

    Sorry about the quality of the image. I find that I had no proper photograph of it, just the preliminary record, and I have now disposed of it. No one else appears to have the same edition.

    106-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 22, 2021, 10:22 am

    August #1:


    A Zoo In My Luggage by Gerald Durrell (illus. by Ralph Thompson) - 3 stars

    This is an account of an animal-collecting expedition made by Gerald Durrell and his first wife, Jacqui, to the British Cameroons (as they were then), along with assistants, Bob and Sophie.

    His goal is to set up his own zoo. However his purpose is primarily research; he wants to be able to observe the animals closely, and determine what they need in terms of habitat and diet, for conservation purposes. Having visitors simply serves the secondary purposes of funding the establishment, and educating visitors about the necessity and importance of wildlife conservation. However, being Gerry, he goes animal collecting before he has established a venue, so the last section of the book covers his dumping the animals on his long-suffering sister, Margo, in Bournemouth, whilst he attempts you solve that problem!

    This is the sort of travel writing that flourished before easy photography made it less necessary.
    Gerald Durrell's describes everything he sees - landscape, animals, birds, flora, people - with the same minute, vivid and objective detail. Having read about the author as a boy, in My Family and Other Animals, one can recognise him in the man here; there is the same lack of filter in his description. He describes what happens, without any commentary of what he thinks of people.

    The only time where he attempts to describe someone's personality, rather than letting their actions speak for themselves, is speaking about his host, the Fon of Bafut. He relates how he considers him to be a wise ruler with an admirable zest of life, and is worrying in retrospect whether the descriptions that he gave in a previous book, The Bafut Beagles, could be misinterpreted negatively (as of a senile drunk).

    And that is typical of how he proceeds; he describes what happened, with blythe disregard for whether it reflects badly or well on the person described - and is frequently the butt of his own anecdotes.

    The same approach applies to language. Durrell communicates with the locals in pidgin English, and that is how he writes his conversations.

    I do not think simply translating into standard English would work, because the simplified structure resulted in several misunderstandings. The most notable problems arose from the use of beef to refer to any animal, bird or reptile, but boa meaning python and tiger meaning leopard are also complicating factors. But to simply quote the ambiguous language without context could give the false impression that the locals are 'ignorant' and simply speaking English badly.

    Pidgin English was a lingua franca that is still used in West Africa. It is a construct language with a simplified grammar and its own vocabulary. A side interest for me was trying to reconstruct pidgin English grammar and vocabulary from the examples given.

    I instinctively flinched at reading Masa as a routine form of address. But I think the fact that the spelling differs from the antebellum Southern American usage is a useful reminder that the language here is not English. The fact that it sounds like an American usage that we would not wish to perpetuate is irrelevant. Beef obviously derives from the English word "beef", but that is not what it means in pidgin. Similarly, it is clear that Masa means something like "boss", and is simply a respect full term of address towards an employer. (This, of course, is precisely what "Master" meant in English in the 16th century, which is when the first European traders visited the Cameroon.) I find it fascinating that, despite knowing this, my instinctive discomfort was still triggered.

    Durrell's detached, but enthusiastic, and certainly not judgmental, observation of human behaviour is, I think, what enables him to function in this environment. He is an enthusiastic practitioner of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do".

    I found the Fon of Bafut's treatment of his wives extremely distasteful, but his behaviour is not unkind from the standpoint of his own culture. Gerald Durrell never criticizes his host, who is, moreover, the ruler of the area. But, by suggesting that his own wife, Jacquie, teach the Fon European dances, he introduces the Fon to interacting with a woman as a person. And when the Fon honours Gerry by making him a "deputy Fon", he recognises how greatly he had been honoured and, in thanking him, perforns the correct obeisances for a Bafut man before his lord (which he knows, having previously observed them with interest).

    ETA: correction where I had transposed the pidgin English and the English words.

    107haydninvienna
    sep 14, 2021, 9:26 am

    >106 -pilgrim-: I remember the Fon of Bafut! As to “pidgin”, most places where cultures overlap develop some kind of trade language, which sometimes ripens into a real language, as Tok Pisin has in New Guinea. Even as a pidgin, it usually has something like a recognisable grammar and syntax.

    108-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 10, 2021, 1:02 pm

    >107 haydninvienna: Yes, I found learning the grammar from the samples given fascinating. Cameroonian Pidgin English (also known as Kamtok) is a recognised regional language in Cameroon.

    I looked up its structure on Wikipedia after I finished A Zoo in My Luggage to confirm my deductions.

    Where did you encounter the Fon of Bafut?

    109haydninvienna
    sep 14, 2021, 4:49 pm

    >108 -pilgrim-: I read some of Durrell’s books about his collecting expeditions many years ago. The other story I remember is one about a lady who thought animals were God’s creatures and agreed to help him check a collection of monkeys for parasites—and then discovered how one of the monkeys had been amusing himself.

    110-pilgrim-
    sep 14, 2021, 5:51 pm

    >109 haydninvienna: I read other books by Durrell back in the seventies - My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Overloaded Ark are ones that I remember.

    But I do not recollect that incident. I am wondering if I should look out for The Bafut Beagles, which covers Durrell's earlier visit to the Fon.

    .... and I dread to speculate ss to what that monkey was doing!

    111reading_fox
    sep 16, 2021, 8:46 am

    >109 haydninvienna: He's written many books, some details of single trips and some more rambling anecdotes - all as fund-raising efforts for his marvellous zoo. But very very much a product of his times, and not aged at all well. A pioneer, and probably enlightened at the time, but best read as evidence of the culture at the time. My Family is the most famous one I think, covering his boyhood in greece. The Best of Gerald Durrell written posthumously by his wife is a good and well illustrated summary of his life.

    112-pilgrim-
    sep 16, 2021, 2:50 pm

    >111 reading_fox: I am curious as what you mean by not having aged well, since you seem very emphatic about it.

    And which wife are you referring to? I have only come across books by Jacqui, but she would seem an odd choice to put together a retrospective.

    113reading_fox
    sep 16, 2021, 5:18 pm

    >112 -pilgrim-: - Lee Durrell. From the books I have read - no more than half at best of those he's written - he's quite opaque regarding his personal life, a quick wiki shows he divorced Jacquie the same year he married Lee.

    Regarding a product of their times: the cultural values respect to the colonies and natives he encounters, attitudes to drink, smoking, safety et al. He seems to have more respect for women having brought up by a strong mother and his elder sister.

    114Sakerfalcon
    sep 17, 2021, 6:38 am

    >113 reading_fox: Going on expeditions to capture wild animals for zoos, however laudable the conservation aims, is also not well-regarded these days. I do love the books about his childhood though.

    115-pilgrim-
    sep 25, 2021, 3:39 pm

    >114 Sakerfalcon: That seems to be criticising Durrell for being successful!

    Or would the people who think his actions "not well-regarded nowadays" have preferred species to go extinct whilst the slow process of persuading governments to put aside land for conservation went on (bearing in mind that both government and public opinion considered aid to the million or so DPs a higher priority, and without visible evidence of what was at risk, the change in public attitudes could be expected to have bèn much slower)?

    And then, of course, without the studies on diet and habitat requirements carried out in zoos, the prevalent policy of putting aside only unwanted land for "conservation", completely disregarding any consideration of whether the land so reserved would actually support the "protected" species and the other species that it lived in, would have continued.

    Not to mention that by the 1950s there were already a significant number of species whose existence had been reduced to a small population in a single locale, thus rendering them liable to be wiped out by a single manmade or natural disaster.

    The pressure on wild populations comes from the humans native to the region, both through hunting (either for food or from fear) and treating their environment as a harvestable resource. Policing as a preventative measure is not viable on its own, as it is too manpower intensive. Public education is essential - and that is a slow process.

    So are these people genuinely arguing that allowing the extinction of yet more species, whilst waiting for public opinion to change, would have been preferable?

    116-pilgrim-
    sep 26, 2021, 3:54 am

    I have been going through some boxes of books and other memorabilia from my childhood, which (unlike my favourite books!) appear to have survived the attic unmildewed.

    Apropos of the discussion above, I found this souvenir guidebook:


    Apparently this park was set up by the sons of Billy Smart - he of the famous circus. So it is defintely in the tradition of "animals as entertainment", rather than any conservation agenda.

    I found it fascinating how on one page it extolled how "natural" the environment was for the creatures, then a few pages on talked about teaching a killer whale to do tricks, and showing small children handling domesticated species.

    Even more horrifying, given that this is s tourist attraction largely aimed at families with children, was the advertising for cigars or cigarettes on almost every page!

    117-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: sep 28, 2021, 2:04 am

    Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.

    118-pilgrim-
    sep 28, 2021, 2:04 am

    Apropos of my discussion with reading_fox and libraryperilous (at https://www.librarything.com/topic/328099#7611880), I have just posted my review of Crownbreaker, which I read in April, at
    https://www.librarything.com/topic/330196#7613961

    119reading_fox
    sep 28, 2021, 5:45 am

    >118 -pilgrim-: - I've a few books to read ot get that far into the series. Good to know it ends well.

    >115 -pilgrim-:: Many of Durrell's early expeditions were not conservation based at all, literally just grabbing animals to put into a zoo for a few years. It was this attitude that inspired him to have a more meaningful collection and the worlds first conservation based zoo.

    >116 -pilgrim-: what year was that from?

    120-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 2, 2021, 12:36 pm

    >119 reading_fox: A Zoo in my Luggage describes the first trip that he made to collect for his own zoo. I have read his accounts of earlier trips, but I read those books in the seventies, so I cannot remember if he said anything then about what the places he was acquiring the animals for were like, or what their motivations were.

    I definitely got the impression that his claimed motivations for setting up his own zoo were as he claimed: he was too disorganized (for example, collecting before he had a site, then keeping them in his sister's back garden) to be motivated by business.

    He comes across to me as a typical good-natured aristocratic type, who throws his money at his hobby enthusiasms, then scrambles for cash to keep going, because his pockets are not that deep.

    >113 reading_fox: I found he put my hackles up regarding his attitudes to the women on his expedition: he only really mentions Sophie and Jacquie to bitch about them. For example, he denigrates them for cooing over cute specimens and wanting to name them- yet he names his animals and writes adoringly shift how "cute" they are.

    I was intrigued that you said that Gerald divorced Jacquie - I had read that she divorced him, on grounds of his alcoholism and obsession with his work.

    I didn't find him "colonial" in his attitudes; he seemed to enthusiastically embrace Bafut culture, and obviously respected the hunters whom he employed. Although he is being polite - because of enjoying their hospitality and being too well-bred to insult one's hosts - I felt it was the colonial administrators whom he found an amusing species
    to observe.

    As regards the Safari Park programme -
    It is undated, without even a printing date. However it appears that the park opened in 1969, and I made the trip there with both my parents, if I remember correctly, which means that it was probably from before 1974.

    So probably early seventies.

    121-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 4, 2021, 5:51 am

    June #2:


    The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre (trans. by Stephanie Smee) - 3.5 stars

    The narrator of this story, Patience Portefeux, was born into a well-to-do colonial family that had to relocate back to France after Tunisian independence. Her father, whose sources of income were not always completely legal, provided for his beloved daughter by marrying her to an older man of similar wealth and habits. The marriage was blissfully happy, but short, as her husband died suddenly of a heart attack, and his mysterious wealth vanished.

    Unprepared for any profession other than being a rich man's ornament, Patience survives in genteel poverty, and manages to raise her daughters, and pay the fees for her own mother's nursing home, by working as a translator for the French police. Her fluent Arabic enables her to translate the interview statements of North African immigrants.

    Her relationship with her elderly mother - a Jew who survived the Second World War, but whose emotions appear to have shut down as a result - is not good, but she builds up a good relationship with the middle-aged Algerian woman who is a care assistant on her mother's floor in the care home, and is impressed by her unflappable competence. So when Khadija appears in tears, she naturally consoles her. Khadija's grandson is in trouble, and our heroine recognises that this relates to one of the cases which she is translating. She immediately tells her that the driver is heading for a trap and must dump his current shipment.

    Patience has served the state diligently for 25 years, and is now about to be made to retire - without a pension, since her work is notionally freelance. She has a developing relationship with an officer on the drugs squad.

    On the other hand, she knows the drug trade, she knows its slang, she knows who the main players are and the going rates, and, with the help of a former police dog, she thinks she can find the dumped shipment.

    There is now a new player on the scene - one who can erase any mention of her from the police statements (as long as they are in Arabic, not French, of course).

    This is a story of female empowerment, with a middle-aged heroine. She lacks conscience; this would seem strange for a minor civil servant, so one has to remember the values of the world she grew up in.

    But this is not a glamorous "crime romp". The drugs trade is treated as the ruthless, violent world that it is. Our narrator may lack of conscience, but the same should not be assumed of the author.

    There is a sympathetic portrayal of the rural farmers, who simply want to grow the most profitable cash crop that will raise their family out of poverty, and are willing to brave considerable risks to get their product to market.

    There are stupid, arrogant young men, full of machismo - and long-suffering mothers who love them regardless.

    The economic situation, and the racism, which gives them no real career opportunities beyond the criminal, is unflinchingly portrayed, as is the entrenched sexism of the French state, which expects women to have men to provide for them.

    This is the other side of the French "war on drugs".

    The author of this novel is a practising French criminal lawyer. She has won both the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière (2017) and the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award for Fiction in Translation (2020).

    Apparently a film made of this novel was released in September last year: La Daronne (aka Mama Weed). I want to find it.

    (I rated this as 3.5 stars because, as a roman policier I thoroughly enjoyed this, but could not see myself revisiting it. But it has stayed in my mind, so it maybe deserved more.)

    122pgmcc
    okt 4, 2021, 6:02 am

    >121 -pilgrim-: Have you read The Gunmother by Daniel Pennac? It is very funny. It is one of several short novels about the poor family involved. His first novel is, The Scapegoat, and is about one of the family members whose job is to be the scapegoat for customer service failings in a large department store in Paris. From the description of the store I would suggest Pennac had La Samaritaine in mind when writing this book.

    123-pilgrim-
    okt 4, 2021, 6:17 am

    >122 pgmcc: That does sound fun. I think that you have recommended Pennac to me before? Can the books be read or of sequence?

    Although The Godmother has a dry humour, it is not really comedy. But I would recommend it to you.

    124pgmcc
    okt 4, 2021, 7:27 am

    I picked up The Gunmother in Books Upstairs, an independent Dublin bookshop which I have discovered several authors whose work I enjoy. Investigation revealed it was the second novel in the series so I hunted out The Scapegoat and read that first. It did help understanding by reading those two books in sequence. I would say reading The Scapegoat first opens you to reading the others in any sequence. They do link in terms of the growth of the family, but there is no story arc that requires sequential reading.

    The first two books are the best in my opinion.

    125pgmcc
    okt 4, 2021, 7:29 am

    >121 -pilgrim-: You can chalk up a hit with The Godmother.

    126-pilgrim-
    okt 4, 2021, 8:58 am

    >125 pgmcc: And you with the Pennac, if only I can find it...

    127pgmcc
    okt 4, 2021, 9:19 am

    128-pilgrim-
    okt 5, 2021, 7:14 am

    >127 pgmcc: Duly noted.

    129-pilgrim-
    okt 7, 2021, 5:12 pm

    June #3:


    How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (a novella in The Folk of the Air series) by Holly Black - 3 stars

    This little book is only worth reading after you have completed The Folk of the Air trilogy, but it provided a nice way to conclude the series. It consists of a series of short stories, told as retrospectives, within a framing story in which Jude and Cardan travel to mundane America.

    The perspective is Cardan's; he recounts events from his past. Whereas The Folk of the Air is a very contemporary story in the setting of a fairly traditional version of the fae, these stories have the slightly fey, offbeat tone that one associates with traditional fairy tales.

    The real point of this book is the beautiful, ethereal illustrations by Rovina Cai.

    130-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 8, 2021, 8:07 am

    Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.

    131-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 8, 2021, 3:52 pm

    August #11:


    Disaster Inc (Book 1 of McGarry Stateside) by Caimh McDonnell - 3.5 stars
    18/8/2021-19/8/2021

    The opening scene in a New York diner was wonderful, and I thought that this was going to be something really special. The dialogue was superb, and who could resist a character whose response to two armed robbers trying to tell him to put his hands up is
    "No offence, lads, but I'm not intimidated by arseholes in balaclavas. I come from the country that invented the concept.

    - followed by disarming them using only a coffee pot (extremely hot) and a fork?

    Another quote:
    Ara, big deal. You're in America, champ - land of the free, home of the armed. Everybody's got a gun. D'ye really think you're the only ones in the room packing hardware?

    (followed by a rationale as to why each individual diner is likely to be armed).

    Unfortunately, although the portrayal of Bunny McGarry is excellent - and definitely larger than life - the American characters tend to be a little less surely portrayed, and once the plot settles down to working out what is going on and what can be done about it, it becomes more of a routine, if rather enjoyable, thriller.

    The plot is extremely political so I will not discuss further. To give an idea of the author's position, I will add that
  • racism is portrayed as the default American mindset,
  • it is taken as read that employees of American three-letter agencies are both completely ruthless and completely amoral.

    A running joke for much of the book is that Bunny is trying to find a guy who is 4'5", but everyone struggles to describe him, because no one knows what the "correct" word is to describe persons of his stature. (Note the character himself is one of the main protagonists; he himself is not being mocked by the author, only the linguistic confusion that he generates.)

    But that makes the book sound more of a polemic than it is. It is basically fast-paced, humorous, with wacky schemes, albeit with some dark undertones. Some nasty stuff is implied, but the real violence - apart from the coffee pot incident! - tends to be more "off- screen" than on; although Bunny does get into fair few scraps as he wanders around New York, first on St Patrick's Day, and then again, whilst trying to find out what he had done on St. Patrick's Day.

    "I said I like to keep a low profile, I didn't say I was actually managing it."


    One other irritating factor is that although this book is listed as McGarry Stateside (1), it seems to follow on from other books about the character. Why he is in the U.S. without documentation is very sketchily explained, and over the course of this book he makes zero progress on the issue for which he is ostensibly there.

    I proceeded on to A Man With One of Those Faces (the first book of Dublin Trilogy), in the hope of clarifying this.
  • 132-pilgrim-
    okt 8, 2021, 8:10 am

    Re >131 -pilgrim-::
    I should probably add that Caimh McDonnell is an Irish stand-up comedian. He is gleefully having a go at everybody.

    133pgmcc
    okt 8, 2021, 9:02 am

    >131 -pilgrim-: You have piqued my interest.

    134-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 8, 2021, 12:05 pm

    >133 pgmcc: Bunny is ex-guard, and an enthusiastic volunteer hurley coach to boys. He names his hurleys.

    You are either going to love him or hate him. I am not sure which.

    I would love to know what you make of these books. (Available on Kindle Unlimited if you are tempted.)

    ETA: "Guards" here are the Garda Síochána that Peter had cause to mention recently. Not military, and not security guard. Bunny was a cop.

    135ScoLgo
    okt 8, 2021, 10:46 am

    >131 -pilgrim-: >133 pgmcc: Mine too. From the description, I am getting a real 'The Price You Pay' vibe. Is the narrative in first-person, by chance?

    BTW... your Dublin Trilogy touchstone appears to be pointing to a different author, (Sean O'Casey.

    136-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 8, 2021, 11:09 am

    >135 ScoLgo: Not first person, although we do spend a lot of time with the contents of Bunny's head.

    It all starts low key; Bunny has lost his phone and he really needs the contact on it. It escalates.

    To determine whether any American sensibilities will be offended, here is the Author's Note on Language:
    Please note, as the author and the main character of this book are both from Ireland, it is written in the version of English that is standard there. So recognise is spelled recognise and not recognize etc. The author recognises some North American readers may find this upsetting and while he is of course scared of them, he is considerably more scared of his Mammy, who taught him how to spell. Nevertheless, as an apology, here are a bunch of Zs for you to mentally stick in as and when you choose.

    Z z z z z z

    Look, they look like a mummy duck and little ducks. Adorable!


    ETA: Touchstone fixed.

    137-pilgrim-
    okt 8, 2021, 11:11 am

    If you look at my reading for August, you will see how much of it was Bunny-related.

    138ScoLgo
    okt 8, 2021, 2:15 pm

    >136 -pilgrim-: Thanks. I just read part of the excerpt on Amazon.com and it does look like something I might enjoy. Added to wish list. I don't do Kindle Unlimited though so will have to keep an eye out for another version. Overdrive also only seems to offer his books in audio, which is a format that sadly does not work for me.

    139-pilgrim-
    okt 8, 2021, 4:03 pm

    >138 ScoLgo: I also rarely get on well with audiobooks. I sympathise.

    140ScoLgo
    okt 8, 2021, 4:17 pm

    >139 -pilgrim-: I know many people love them but my mind is usually too occupied with the other thing I am doing while trying to listen. It makes me miss things and then I have to back up over & over & over again. I also read printed or digital words faster than someone else can read them to me so, it's more efficient use of my reading time to read instead of sitting around listening.

    I know library budgets are limited but I sure wish both formats could be available. It's frustrating to see that the library has the book - but not in a format that I can use.

    First world problem. Sorry for the rant...

    141-pilgrim-
    okt 8, 2021, 4:42 pm

    >140 ScoLgo: I share it, so rant away...

    142clamairy
    Redigerat: okt 9, 2021, 9:17 am

    >140 ScoLgo: I end up hitting the 30 seconds rewind thingy quite a bit. Audio works best for me if I'm doing something like gardening, which isn't exactly mindless but is using a completely different area of my brain. Do you have the option to request that OverDrive acquires the Kindle version? The few times I've done just that my local consortium got the Kindle book within a few weeks.

    143-pilgrim-
    okt 9, 2021, 10:47 am

    I have a resolve never to buy duplicate copies of a book just because I cannot access my original copy, but this time I cracked and bought a Kindle copy.: I am now reading A Night in the Lonesome October as it is meant to be read.

    I last read it when it first came out, in the nineties. It is as good as I remembered.

    144ScoLgo
    okt 9, 2021, 1:35 pm

    >142 clamairy: I work at a computer all day so audio would be perfect - if it weren't so distracting. I can barely listen to music without losing focus on work. The opposite is also true; when reading a book, I find it difficult to concentrate if there is any noise going on, (TV, music, spouse Facebooking/Instagraming on their phone without earbuds, etc... ;-)

    Yes, the Overdrive system allows me to request acquisitions. I currently have a book on request because they have volume 1 and 3 of a trilogy, but not volume 2. All three books are available on audio so I put in a recommendation that they purchase the e-book. It's only been five days since I entered the request so we'll see how long it takes. The previous recommendation I filed took at least 5 or 6 months.

    >143 -pilgrim-: I'm also re-reading A Night in the Lonesome October this month in the intended manner. as Snuff says, "Perhaps it were best to take it day by day."

    145pgmcc
    okt 9, 2021, 4:34 pm

    >144 ScoLgo:
    I am the same as you; I cannot concentrate on anything if there is noise. It can be radio, music, TV,…

    If music is playing I will find myself listening to the music and not focusing on my book or work.

    146-pilgrim-
    okt 9, 2021, 5:00 pm

    >145 pgmcc: Agreed. Music is music, not background sound.

    147pgmcc
    okt 9, 2021, 6:31 pm

    >134 -pilgrim-:
    I just had a pleasant little surprise. I went onto Amazon to have a look at the Ciamh McDonnell books. As a prime member I was able to get A Man with One of Those Faces for £0.00. I can sample his writing more cheaply than I expected.

    148-pilgrim-
    okt 9, 2021, 7:49 pm

    >147 pgmcc: That is the debut novel. He is not quite in his full stride yet. But not bad either. It ID very detailed about Dublin locations. I look forward to your comments on his accuracy.

    149clamairy
    okt 9, 2021, 9:56 pm

    >144 ScoLgo: & >145 pgmcc: I can't read while listening to music with any lyrics, but I'm okay with instrumental music. It can't be very loud, though. LOL I used to be able to workout with the TV on, but I've discovered that I now lose track of how many reps I've done, so now it's music only.

    150-pilgrim-
    okt 10, 2021, 6:18 am

    >149 clamairy: I am the opposite there. I can manage to function with an "earworm" of a set of lyrics in my head, but music either needs to be listened to properly, I find, or else is not worth listening to at all.

    Even as a child, doing homework, I could sometimes listen to a radio programme - of the talk show variety, not a drama - and extract the interesting bits whilst working, but music always distracts me.

    I do listen to radio plays, documentaries etc. whilst find manual activities - but that is because they are always painful now, so that I WANT, at some level, to be distracted from what I am doing.

    151-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: dec 27, 2021, 3:57 am

    Awaiting review

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

    Books still awaiting review from 2020:

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

    152-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 10, 2021, 7:29 am

    Now I can finally start my autumn thread.

    Please feel free to continue any conversations that were started here; I will continue to use this thread for reviewing summer reading

    153-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: okt 13, 2021, 6:33 pm



    Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell - 4 stars
    12/01/2021-14/06/2021

    This collection of essays is superb. In today's polarized world, it was refreshing to read an analysis of political behaviour that did not presuppose agreement to any political doctrine. Indeed, its thesis is the danger of blind adherence to any such.

    The title here may be rather misleading, because Orwell is referring to something rather more widespread than fanatical devotion to one's nation state. Modern American idiom talks about one's 'tribe', in a sense that has nothing to do with the genuine meaning of blood-relatedness and shared ethnicity, but as a "set of people with whom one shares a feeling of shared identity, based on shared cultural values". That is Orwell's 'nation'. He admits that his is a broader definition than the standard, but says he could not find a better word.

    'Nayion' can be built around national borders, or about ethnicity, or about religion, or political party, or even about football teams. It is about ANY group with which a person identifies so strongly that ALL actions are automatically justified because "we" did it, even if they would be considered heinous when committed by the opposition.

    When a football supporter cannot accept that his team lost because they played badly, but needs to insist "we was robbed", then this is an example of the type of nationalism yhat Orwell is warning about. Such blind loyalty in sport can lead to a punch-up in the pub, or in the street - attached to a country, a religion, or a political movement, the consequences can be devastating.

    Orwell is quite clear that nationalism, properly bounded, is a force for good. He tefers to that as patriotism. Loyalty to one's country, or to an ideal, can impel a person to do great things, place others before oneself, and make personal sacrifices for the greater good of their community. But when that loyalty becomes so intense, and so blind, that ANY action taken by the "nation" against outsiders becomes justified, and "the other" becomes demonised and less human, then real evil results.

    Orwell was writing in 1945, so the obvious examples of his thesis were Fascism and Communism. But his arguments are not restricted to a particular belief system, and he is warning of a more general mindset, in terms that seem very applicable today. He writes clearly and lucidly about the distorted thinking that is required to support this blind loyalty, and how that enables people to adopt positions that appear obviously ludicrous to those not caught up in their fervour. To try to give modern examples would break the rules of this pub, but they come from all sides of the political spectrum.

    That is why to think of Orwell's arguments as purely applying to the Communist/Fascist polarity is to belittle them. He is arguing that the problem arises from the excessive devotion to the group, not because there is necessarily anything intrinsically wrong with that group or cause. But once the principle is established that "our cause justifies ANY action that furthers our goals", the way is opened for madmen and tyrants to lead to the abyss. What makes this essay interesting and pertinent is that Orwell is not attacking specific examples - he gives illustrative examples equally from the Right and from the Left.

    He is examining the type of distorted thought processes that are engendered, and those that are needed for this type of thinking to function. This is provides a useful way of detecting unhealthy trends, irrespective of the ideology to which they are adhering.

    His writing does not oversimplify: he distinguishes between "postive nationalists", who hold views on the superiority of 'us', and "negative nationalists".

    There are actually three essays in this book, which all relate to this theme. The others are Antisemitism in Britain, which is excellent on how prejudice need not express itself in howling mobs, and Sporting Spirit, which deals specifically with the "goodwill" tour of Dynamo Moscow to the UK in 1945.

    The points that Orwell makes are relevant as ever, and perhaps the fact that their immediate context is so from over 75 years ago will make it easier to hear them, instead of a "nationalist" impulse to instinctively decry them. Modern books on modern politics speak mainly to their own "side", because arguments from the opposition are dismissed simply because they come from the opposition. Orwell, a voice from the past, is neutral, but far from a dispassionate observer. He has seen where bigotry leads.

    Another point that Orwell makes, which is extremely relevant to our current society, is that societal disapproval of a particular type of prejudice seems to increase the actual existence of these prejudices.

    A prejudice is an irrational dislike of someone or something.

    Orwell was writing in the fifties. After the exposure of Nazi atrocities, everyone knew that antisemitism was wrong. So what he encountered was people - from all social classes and education levels - who would sayv things in private like "I am not antisemitic, but..." followed by a soecific hostile statement about Jews that was either visceral and unreasoned, or based on a specific "fact" which was often ludicrously false.

    But becausr the social climate made it impossible to express them openly, the ridiculous nature of these fallacies were never challenged.

    Orwell says that he has no definitive explanation as to where this type of irrational dislike for another group - and here he is not talking only abiut Britain, nor only about Jews - comes from. He accepts historical situations and economic arguments may hold part of the truth, but feels that does nor explain prejudice in its entirety.

    He thinks the roots lie in the need for an "other", for a scapegoat, as required by the thought processes of nationalism (as he defines it).

    I would recommend this highly, particularly to anyone bemused by the irrational and confrontational nature of much political discourse.

    154-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: nov 25, 2021, 8:40 pm

    August #12:


    A Man With One of Those Faces: Book 1 of The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1 by Caimh McDonnell - 3 stars

    This was Caimh McDonnell's debut novel, and it does show in places. I read it as part of The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part One, which comprises 2 novels, 1 novella and 1 short story. (If you are wondering what Part Two of the "trilogy" consists of, the answer is the same!) In this anthology McDonnell introduces each work with a little bit about why it was written. Basically, ideas get away from him and take on an existence of their own. Paul Mulchrone in the novel has evolved considerably from the original concept (which was a conman). And Bunny was never intended to be a main character...

    Paul, the ostensible protagonist, was a character I started off by disliking immensely. He is a "loser", but this is by his own deliberate
    choice. He was left a stipend of €500 a month, and the use of her house, by his great-aunt Fidelma, while he endeavours to find proper employment, a challenge given his poor start in life. Incensed by her judgmental attitude towards his unmarried mother, he has resolved to spite the dead woman by living solely on the €500/ month for the rest of his life (thereby preventing the trust being wound up and her estate going to charity as she intended).

    The great-aunt does not sound a nice person. He is probably entitled to hate her. But what got to me was the idea that, having never done anything for her - he met her twice - or even had a kind word to say about her, he nevertheless feels ENTITLED to her estate, and so aggrieved about this 'injustice' that he is wrecking his own future to 'get revenge' on a dead woman whom he barely knew. The saying about "cutting off your nose to spite your face" was made for him.

    This is not the only time in his life that he has done this. He was a hurling player of considerable promise. But when his coach sabotaged his chance of being adopted, ostensibly in order to keep him in the area and therefore still eligible to play for that team in the junior national championships, he not only refused to play in that game, or for that club, he never picked up a hurley again.

    Yes, his life is going nowhere. Yes, he is living in poverty. But this is because he has chosen to live thus, as his 'revenge'. So whining and self-pity is a 'bit rich'. It seems to me that if could not stomach her attitude, the normal response would be to refuse to accept anything from her will and make his own way; success in such a manner being the best possible refutation of his great-aunt's slur about the "poor start". But Paul always prefers sitting around pitying himself to taking concrete, positive action.

    There are, however, 3 provisos to his great-aunt's will. The third is that, to improve his moral fibre, he shall be required to complete six hours of charity work a week, to be verified by her solicitor.

    What he does for this is: he visits elderly and dementing hospital patients who get no visits from friends or family. Paul has "one of those faces" - a face that you think you have seen before somewhere. So when the person who is visiting 'recognises' him as a son or grandson or nephew or neighbour, he goes along with it and tries to play that role.
    His every facial attribute was a masterpiece of bloody-minded unoriginality, an aesthetic tribute to the forgettably average. Collectively they formed an orchestra designed to produce the facial muzak of the Gods.
    “But,” she said, “Margaret thought you were her grandson—”
    “Son,” corrected Paul.
    “Right,” continued Brigit, “whereas old Donal down the hall thinks you’re his neighbour’s young fella. Mrs Jameson thinks you’re…”
    “I’m not sure,” said Paul. “Butler would be my best guess.”


    This would be fine, if it were not for his attitude.
    Paul nodded, giving the bare modicum of assent she needed to ramble off down whatever mental path she was on.

    Meanwhile, we are treated to his thoughts - which are bizarre, random and completely disjointed.

    I am not sure if the character or the author has the reprehensible attitude here, but I found the implication that the same behaviour is perfectly normal on the one hand and 'evidence of senility' on the other, the acceptability of "woolgathering" being determined solely by the age of the perpetrator, distasteful.

    So this book got off to a bad start. It is redeemed somewhat later by the character Dorothy, one of Paul's clients, who turns out to have been 'playing' him. She knows perfectly well that he is not her relative, but find him more nteresting to talk to than the genuine article, so has been pretending to recognise him. She is intelligent, brave and competent - the antithesis of what Paul thinks of the elderly.

    The story gets going when the nurse asks Paul to visit an extra patient, a newly admitted old man, dying of cancer, who has had no visitors.

    The old man has been expecting "him". What happens next ends with Paul bleeding and being investigated on suspicion of murder. He is also completely without finances, since that broke proviso 2 of the will, about having no "trouble of any kind with the police" rather thoroughly, and proviso 1 was that he received "no other assistance of any kind from the state, charities or any other source".

    Paul ends up on the run, with no idea who the old man had believed him to be.

    Inspector Jimmy Stewart (yes, the officer predates the actor) is nearing retirement. He is not looking forward to it. So he is giving his new, posh sidekick a hard time.

    And he is very puzzled by the violent death of a dying man - who has been believed dead for over a decade already. And that raises questions about an old murder/kidnap case, the suspect for which is now a respected local crime lord...

    Brigit, the nurse who had asked Paul for that favour, feels responsible for the mess he is in and tries to help.

    She is a determined intelligent "country girl", who had to give up her dreams to nurse her mother. With her mother now dead, she is also at a dead end - for reasons that I find far more relatable and sympathetic. She also seems attracted to Paul, for some unfathomable reason.

    The plot follows these two pairs. (And, as an investigator on the original case, Bunny McGarry - and his hurley - become involved.)

    Paul continues to behave in objectionable ways. His revenge when he feels slighted continues to be out of all proportion to the offence - feeling put down by Brigit's former boyfriend, Paul plants the mobile phone that he has worked out people who are trying to kill him are tracking them by on the guy, thus nearly causing the murder of him and his new girlfriend..

    If I had not already read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Disaster Inc, I would probably have given up on this. And that would have been a pity. After all, this was a debut novel.

    Once the pace picks up the fact that I actually do not like Paul Machrone becomes less and less relevant. What this book does have is extremely well-drawn, if sometimes larger than life, characters - even the minor ones.

    It also has an interesting plot, fast-paced action and extremely funny.

    This is not great literature. I doubt that I will re-read. But it was amusing and I enjoyed it. For trying to distract myself from the pain it worked quite well. (That may be something of an understatement, since I spent the rest of the month and a large part of September reading the rest of The Dublin Trilogy.)



    155MrsLee
    nov 16, 2021, 7:02 pm

    >154 -pilgrim-: There was a little tease given at some point that Paul was perhaps having an epiphany about his life choices thus far. It gave me hope that between Brigit and Dorothy there may be some hope for him yet. Not sure if he ever appears in future books though.

    156-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: feb 13, 2022, 5:44 am

    >155 MrsLee: He is still a major character in Books 2 & 4 of the Dublin Trilogy and has a cameo as a schoolboy in the third.

    And yes Paul does improve. Unfortunately I don't think we see any more of Dorothy.
    (ETA: Apparently we do, eventually - Book 6 of The Dublin Trilogy)

    My point is that ultimately disliking Paul is irrelevant to liking these books.

    157-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: nov 17, 2021, 5:34 pm

    August #13:


    Bloody Christmas (novella from The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1) by Caimh McDonnell - 3 stars
    20/8/2021-23/8/2021

    In this novella, Bunny has to deal with the consequences of his actions at the end of A Man With One of Those Faces before he can get back on the streets of Dublin. Someone refers to him as "our sheriff", and that describes perfectly the relationship that Bunny has to his patch. We see him coaching junior hurling, drinking with locals, and coping with would-be assassins.

    Beneath the Christmas preparations, bad things are happening, but everything is resolved in time for Christmas.

    This was originally written to raise money for a homelessness charity. It deals with illegal immigration and the underground economy in Dublin.

    158-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: nov 24, 2021, 3:44 am

    August #14:

    Dog Day Afternoon (a short story from The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1) by Caimh McDonnell - 4 stars
    23/8/2021

    This short story starts with Bunny walking into a vet's, and making a most unusual request:
    "I need a dead dog."

    Of course he has a good, if definitely Bunny-esque reason for this, and being Bunny, persuades people to help him.

    The end result is Bunny gaining a partner who is even more eagerly psychotic than he is. Maggie!

    159-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: nov 24, 2021, 3:47 am

    August #15:


    The Day That Never Comes: Book 2 of Dublin Trilogy (from The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1) by Caimh McDonnell - 3 stars
    23/8/2021-26/8/2021

    This is the second novel in Caimh McDonnell's Dublin Trilogy - and the last of the four stories that comprise The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 1.

    It opens with all previous relationships in disarray. Paul was photographed in a compromising situation that he does not even remember, and Bunny is being a very silent partner in the private detective partnership that they have set up together. Since Bridget lost her job through getting some very well-deserved revenge on a doctor who abuses his position, Bunny is now even less popular in the Garda Síochána than usual, and Paul can no longer sponge off his dead aunt, then their agency would seem to be a good idea - if only they were actually talking to each other.

    The title refers to a saying that the day of justice is the day that never comes. But then fatal events start taking place, with the chilling comment: This Is the Day That Never Comes.

    The plot is more political than the last one. A lot of the plot centres around the urban development of Dublin, an Occupy-style movement led by a radical priest (and the disparate groups involved in it), and levels of corruption in the Garda. We continue to follow our Garda officer friends as they have to deal what seems to be populist terrorism.

    This is where I felt McDonnell is really getting into his stride. Paul is a lot less annoying - even I, despite disliking him, did not really think he would "throw away a good thing", as he appears to have done at the beginning of the book, whilst bring so drunk as to have no memory if it. Bunny's unselfish, heroic side is to the fore. And Bridget, now in a career that she has chosen, shows just how competent she is.

    .For me, these books get the detective aspect just right. There are enough twists and turns to make it never boring, but they are properly foreshadowed, not simply appearing out of the blue.

    160-pilgrim-
    Redigerat: dec 4, 2021, 4:31 pm

    August #10:


    ♪♪The Colour of Magic: Book 1 of the Discworld by Sir Terry Pratchett (narr. by Nigel Planer) - 4 stars

    I watched the film The Colour of Magic (which actually covers the first two Discworld novels) this summer, as discussed here.

    It inspired me to listen to the audiobook. Nigel Planer acted the parts very well, and override my usual antipathy to audiobooks.

    I found that there was a lot more in the book than I had remembered, but it was rather disjointed.

    Actually, in this case, I think the film was better.
    Den här diskussionen fortsatte här: Pilgrim is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf (2021)