Paul C's a mellow fellow in 2015 - 17th; November a Month of Remembering

I lived a year in Egypt in the 1980s and have an affinity to the place. Yasmyne's long term boyfriend Saad is from Sinai where the Russian plane went down. I want to remember those gone but also recall my affection for the place

The opening poem this time is from Mahmoud Darwish the late, great Palestinian poet and decidedly unfortunate not to have been a Nobel laureate.



This is his poem I Come From There


I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.
I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....

Books Read in 2015 - First Quarter

January

1. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (1982) 183 pp
2. The Photograph by Penelope Lively (2003) 236 pp
3. Best, Pele and a Half-Time Bovril by Andrew Smart (2014) 332 pp
4. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (1951) 157 pp
5. The Volcano by Norman Dubie (2010) 79 pp
6. Wanting by Richard Flanagan (2008) 252 pp
7. The Bat by Jo Nesbo (1997) 425 pp
8. Talkative Man by R.K. Narayan (1986) 123 pp
9. Complete Poems by Basil Bunting (2003) 236 pp
10. Her by Harriet Lane (2014) 235 pp
11. How it all Began by Penelope Lively (2011) 248 pp
12. Winter King by Thomas Penn (2011) 378 pp
13. New and Selected Poems by Al Alvarez (2002) 73 pp
14. This Boy by Alan Johnson (2013) 286 pp
15. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro (1986) 206 pp
16. Watching the Dark by Peter Robinson (2012) 405 pp
17. Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis by Wendy Cope (1986) 59 pp
Total Pages : 3,913

February
18. Farthing by Jo Walton (2006) 316 pp
19. Twirlymen by Amol Rajan (2011) 379 pp
20. A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh (1934) 312 pp
21. Magician : Master by Raymond E. Feist (1982) 499 pp
22. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot (1939) 59 pp
23. What Maisie Knew by Henry James (1897) 309 pp
24. The Mirabelles by Annie Freud (2010) 62 pp
25. Morgan's Run by Colleen McCullough (2000) 890 pp
26. Affinity by Sarah Waters (1999) 352 pp
27. The Sense of Movement by Thom Gunn (1957) 55 pp
28. The Cast Iron Shore by Linda Grant (1996) 434 pp
29. 1222 by Anne Holt (2007) 352 pp
Total Pages : 4,019 (7,932 total)

March
30. Great Britain's Great War by Jeremy Paxman (2013) 288 pp
31. King Rat by China Mieville (1998) 421 pp
32. Racing Through the Dark by David Millar (2011) 346 pp
33. Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier (1936) 302 pp
34. Wessex Poems and Other Verses by Thomas Hardy (1898) 72 pp
35. Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes (2013) 367 pp
36. Zealot : The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan (2013) 216
Total Pages 2,012 pages (9.944 total)

Books Read in 2015 - 2nd Quarter

April
37. Death in the Olive Grove by Mario Vicchi (2008) 244 pp
38. Foundation by Peter Ackroyd (2011) 462 pp
39. The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham (1908) 233 pp
40. The Killing of Richard III by Robert Farrington (2013) 401 pp
41. Personal by Lee Child (2014) 460 pp
42. The Lost Leader by Mick Imlah (2008) 126 pp
43. Wise Children by Angela Carter (1991) 232 pp
44. The Round House by Louise Erdrich (2012) 374 pp
2,534 pages (12,476 pages total)

May
45. Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Fights, the Fifties by Kevin Mitchell (2009) 288 pp
46. The Millstone by Margaret Drabble (1965) 167 pp
47. Fiere by Jackie Kay (2011) 64 pp
48. Lionel Asbo : State of England by Martin Amis (2012) 276 pp
49. The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen (2012) 584 pp
50. The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen (2013) 385 pp
51. Cinderella Girl by Carin Gerhardsen (2014) 362 pp
52. The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler-Olsen (2013) 576 pp
53. All Russians Love Birch Trees by Olga Grjasnowa (2012) 324 pp
54. The Puzzleheaded Girl by Christina Stead (1967) 278 pp
3,304 pages (15,780 total)

June
55. Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kertesz (1990) 120 pp
56. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge (1998) 212 pp
57. Waterloo : Four Days, Three Battles and Three Armies by Bernard Cornwell (2014) 340 pp
58. Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason (2007) 398 pp
59. Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason (2008) 451 pp
60. The Gaffer by Neil Warnock (2013) 354 pp
61. The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Willem Van Loon (2014) 748 pp (updated edition)
62. Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess (1974) 390 pp
63. This Great Unknowing by Denise Levertov (1999) 68 pp
3,081 pages (18,861 total)

Books Read in 2015 - Third Quarter

July
64. Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry by B.S. Johnson (1973) 187 pp
65. The Killer's Art by Mari Jungstedt (2006) 423 pp
66. The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson (2014) 359 pp
67. Coming Out to Play by Robbie Rogers (2014) 222 pp
68. Russian Roulette by Giles Milton (2013) 342 pp
69. The Burning Perch by Louis MacNeice (1963) 47 pp
70. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (2006) 219 pp
71. The Search Warrant by Patrick Modiano (1997) 137 pp
72. Seven Days by Deon Meyer (2012) 396 pp
73. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (1968) 187 pp
74. Family Life by Akhil Sharma (2014) 210 pp
75. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925) 213 pp
2,942 pages (21,803 total)

August
76. The Last Champions by Dave Simpson (2012) 388 pp
77. Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat (1847) 408 pp
78. Handwriting by Michael Ondaatje (1998) 75 pp
79. Angelica's Smile by Andrea Camilleri (2010) 279 pp
80. The Dead of Summer by Mari Jungstedt (2008) 380 pp
81. The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene (1943) 221 pp
82. The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch (1968) 362 PP
83. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (2006) 456 pp
2,569 pages (24,372 total)

September
84. Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry (1997) 752 pp
85. The Last Lullaby by Carin Gerhardsen (2010) 326 pp
86. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut (1965) 167 pp
87. Sailing Close to the Wind by Dennis Skinner (2014) 317 pp
88. Grimus by Salman Rushdie (1975) 314 pp
89. Angry White Pyjamas by Robert Twigger (1997) 316 pp
90. Enemies : A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1966) 226 pp
91. Rain by Don Paterson (2009) 61 pp
92. The Long Song by Andrea Levy (2010) 398 pp
2,877 pages (27,249 total)

BOOKS READ IN 2015 - FOURTH QUARTER

October
93. The Song of Lunch by Christopher Reid (2009) 66 pp
94. The Siege by Helen Dunmore (2002) 291 pp
95. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor (1965) 269 pp
96. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (2014) 613 pp
97. The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (1986) 603 pp
1,842 pages (29,091 total)

November
98. The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark (1974) 107 pp
99. Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott (2012) 54 pp
100. Solo by William Boyd (2013) 322 pp
101. The Casbah Killers by Nick Carter (1969) 155 pp
102. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (2014) 263 pp
103. Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich (1997) 236 pp
104. Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (1928) 127 pp
105. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014) 283 pp
106. The Dictator's Last Night by Yasmina Khadra (2015) 190 pp
107. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (1949) 112 pp

Monthly Summaries

January 17 books - (7 literary fiction, 4 poetry, 3 thrillers, 3 non fiction) - Book of the month - Winter King by Thomas Penn

February 12 books - (5 literary fiction, 3 poetry, 3 thrillers, 1 non-fiction) - Book of the month - The Cast Iron Shore by Linda Grant

March 7 books - (2 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 1 thriller, 3 non-fiction) - Book of the month - Great Britain's Great War by Jeremy Paxman

April 8 books - (4 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 2 thriller, 1 non-fiction) - Book of the month - The Round House by Louise Erdrich

May 10 books - (4 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 4 thriller, 1 non-fiction) Book of the month - The Gingerbread House by Carin Gerhardsen

June 9 Books (3 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 2 thriller, 3 non-fiction) Book of the month - Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell

July 12 books (5 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 3 thrillers, 3 non fiction) Book of the month - Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

August 8 books (4 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 2 thrillers, 1 non fiction) Book of the month - The Nice and the Good by Iris Murdoch

September 9 books (5 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 1 thriller, 2 non fiction) Book of the month - Enemies : A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer

October 5 books (3 literary fiction, 1 poetry, 1 non fiction) Book of the month - The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes

CURRENT READING

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE


Here is the link to the latest thread : http://www.librarything.com/topic/202355

Here are the Selections:

2015 selections

January : Penelope Lively & Kazuo Ishiguro
February : Sarah Waters & Evelyn Waugh
March : Daphne Du Maurier & China Mieville
April : Angela Carter & W. Somerset Maugham
May : Margaret Drabble & Martin Amis
June : Beryl Bainbridge & Anthony Burgess
July : Virginia Woolf & B.S. Johnson
August : Iris Murdoch & Graham Greene
September : Andrea Levy & Salman Rushdie
October : Helen Dunmore & David Mitchell
November : Muriel Spark & William Boyd
December : Hilary Mantel & P.G. Wodehouse

Thirteenth Month : Bernice Rubens & Aldous Huxley

Reading Plans for November

Category Challenges

1 A.A.C - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver READING TIOLI #4
2 a) B.A.C. - The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark COMPLETED TIOLI #19
2 b) B.A.C. - Solo by William Boyd COMPLETED TIOLI #3
3 Anniversaries - Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (100th anniversary of birth)
4 Catching up my series reading - Casbah Killers by Nick Carter - COMPLETED TIOLI #3
5 1001 First Edition books - We by Yevgeny Zamyatin TIOLI #6
6 Nobel winners - Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich COMPLETED TIOLI #14
7 Stagnating shelves - Ross Poldark by Winston Graham
8 Just to be contrary - Being Mortal by Atul Gawande COMPLETED TIOLI #16
9 Poetry - Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott COMPLETED TIOLI # 18
10 Biography - H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald TIOLI #15 COMPLETED
11 Sports - The Art of Captaincy by Mike Brearley
12 History - What is History? by E.H. Carr TIOLI #1
13 Scandi - The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Sjowall & Wahloo TIOLI #13
14 Anzac Challenge - Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood TIOLI #13
15 Random Read - Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille COMPLETED

Will also be adding to my NF reads as those in challenge 6, 8, 10, 11 & 12 as a minimum will count towards Roberta's challenge and I'll dabble again with the TIOLI Challenge as I have missed Madeline and the gang there.

Nobel Prize Winners Read

2015 Svetlana Alexievich
2014 Patrick Modiano
2013 Alice Munro
2011 Tomas Transtromer
2010 Mario Vargas Llosa
2009 Herta Muller
2007 Doris Lessing
2006 Orhan Pamuk
2005 Harold Pinter
2003 J.M. Coetzee
2002 Imre Kertesz
2001 V.S. Naipaul
1998 Jose Saramago
1997 Dario Fo
1995 Seamus Heaney
1994 Kenzaburo Oe
1993 Toni Morrison
1992 Derek Walcott
1991 Nadine Gordimer
1988 Naguib Mahfouz
1987 Joseph Brodsky
1985 Claude Simon
1983 William Golding
1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez
1978 Isaac Bashevis Singer
1976 Saul Bellow
1972 Heinrich Boll
1971 Pablo Neruda
1970 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
1968 Yasunari Kawabata
1964 Jean-Paul Sartre
1962 John Steinbeck
1961 Ivo Andric
1958 Boris Pasternak
1957 Albert Camus
1955 Halldor Laxness
1954 Ernest Hemingway
1953 Winston Churchill
1952 Francois Mauriac
1951 Par Lagerkvist
1949 William Faulkner
1948 T.S. Eliot
1947 Andre Gide
1946 Hermann Hesse
1938 Pearl Buck
1934 Luigi Pirandello
1933 Ivan Bunin
1932 John Galsworthy
1930 Sinclair Lewis
1929 Thomas Mann
1926 Grazia Deledda
1925 George Bernard Shaw
1923 W.B. Yeats
1921 Anatole France
1920 Knut Hamsun
1913 Rabindranath Tagore
1907 Rudyard Kipling

57/112

Booker Prize Winners Reading Update

1968 Something to Answer For P.H. Newby
1969 The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
1970 Troubles by J.G. Farrell READ
1971 In A Free State by VS Naipaul ON SHELVES
1972 G. by John Berger ON SHELVES
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell ON SHELVES
1974 The Conservationist by Nadien Gordimer ON SHELVES
Holiday by Stanley Middleton
1975 Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala READ
1976 Saville by David Storey READ
1977 Staying On by Paul Scott ON SHELVES
1978 The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch ON SHELVES
1979 Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald READ
1980 Rites of Passage by William Golding ON SHELVES
1981 Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie READ
1982 Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally READ
1983 Life and Times of Michael K by JM Coetzee ON SHELVES
1984 Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner READ
1985 The Bone People by Keri Hulme ON SHELVES
1986 The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis READ
1987 Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively READ
1988 Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey ON SHELVES
1989 The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro ON SHELVES
1990 Possession by AS Byatt READ
1991 The Famished Road by Ben Okri ON SHELVES
1992 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje ON SHELVES
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth READ
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle ON SHELVES
1994 How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman
1995 The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
1996 Last Orders by Graham Swift READ
1997 The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy READ
1998 Amsterdam by Ian McEwan READ
1999 Disgrace by JM Coetzee ON SHELVES
2000 The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood ON SHELVES
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey READ
2002 Life of Pi by Yann Martel ON SHELVES
2003 Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2004 The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollighurst ON SHELVES
2005 The Sea by John Banville READ
2006 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai ON SHELVES
2007 The Gathering by Ann Enright READ
2008 The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga ON SHELVES
2009 Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel READ
2010 The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson ON SHELVES
2011 The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes READ
2012 Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel ON SHELVES
2013 The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton ON SHELVES
2014 The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan ON SHELVES
2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James ON SHELVES

Pulitzer Winners Read

Biography
1997 - Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Fiction/Novel
2010 - Tinkers by Paul Harding
1994 - The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
1989 - Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1967 - The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1961 - To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1941 - For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway *
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1939 - The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1932 - The Good Earth by Pearl Buck
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1921 - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

General Non-Fiction
1969 - The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
1963 - The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

History
2010 - The Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

Poetry
1965 - 77 Dream Songs by John Berryman

* Selected but not given

TBR Records

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE 2016

Planning thread : http://www.librarything.com/topic/199234

January : Susan Hill & Barry Unsworth
February : Agatha Christie & William Dalrymple
March : Ali Smith & Thomas Hardy
April : George Eliot & Hanif Kureishi
May : Jane Gardam & Robert Goddard
June : Lady Antonia Fraser & Joseph Conrad
July : Bernice Rubens & H.G. Wells
August : Diana Wynne-Jones & Ian McEwan
September : Doris Lessing & Laurie Lee
October : Kate Atkinson & William Golding
November : Rebecca West & Len Deighton
December : WEST YORKSHIRE writers
Wildcard : Rumer Godden and George Orwell

BAC NOVEMBER LADIES

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST


or

REBECCA WEST


or

WINIFRED HOLTBY

First! Happy new thread!

Happy new thread!

>17 amanda4242: Thank you Amanda, I am surprised that I have regained my zest for the group after a pretty torrid mid year. I do think that if you had not stepped into the breach for me one month and put up the BAC Challenge thread for that month I would have properly floundered. xx

>18 foggidawn: Thank you, dear Foggy

Happy new thread!

>20 cbl_tn: Thanks Carrie. Your own posting stats are quite impressive this year and I'll hazard you are heading for a top 15 finish this year up a little on previous years, if I am not mistaken.

>21 PaulCranswick: Nobody is more surprised about that than I am. Partly due to Adrian pics, I'm sure.

>22 cbl_tn: Pics alone don't take people to your thread, Carrie, you do. XX

>1 PaulCranswick: that is a beautiful photo, Paul, and I can imagine that it doesn't come anywhere close to capturing the true beauty or feel of the locale.

For what it's worth, I think I'll vote for Vita. Truth is, I've not read anything by any of them so it's a bit like the average American heading to the polls....

>24 EBT1002: Last year we drove across Sinai to Sharm-El-Sheikh and got exactly the feel of the landscape - roadblocks and all.
Hahaha on your voting patterns. At least the BAC is not going to screw up most of the free world and the other bits the free world decides is of interest to it.

I vote for Hotlby. I have had South Riding on my TBR shelves for a long long time and it is time to get it off.

Happy new thread! Love the photo and the poem.

>26 benitastrnad: I am conflicted as usual, Benita.

I have The Edwardians on the shelves for Sackville-West
Return of the Soldier for West
and
South Riding for Holtby. All are good for me but the votes are well spread.

>27 banjo123: Thanks Rhonda. It is a desolate but strangely beautiful place. Mohamed, Saad's father hails from the border town (with Israel) of Arish or El Arish as they more often refer to it. On the mediterranean sea and a lovely sea it is there too, it is also famous for its palm groves, some of which have been cut down by the army to afford less protection to terrorists:

Stopping by to congratulate you on your new thread, Paul, and to ogle the majestic view in the thread topper pic.

>29 lkernagh: Thanks Lori. I like to be ogled occasionally and chastely.

Happy New Thread, Paul! Love the Egyptian topper!

Hope you are enjoying Being Mortal. A very important read.

I'm with everyone who loves the Egyptian topper, Paul! Always wished I could go to Egypt but never got to do it. Oh, well, maybe in my next life I'll be born a camel or something. I meant to say the topper in your last thread was quite impressive. Congrats on that.

I second Mark's thoughts on Being Mortal. An excellent and important book!

>30 PaulCranswick: Thanks Mark. I am abundantly aware of the importance of what Gawande is writing although with my own ageing process apace some of it makes less than comfortable reading!

>31 msf59: Mary, Egypt was my very first place of real work and the first time, outside university, when I got to mix with people from other cultures. The reason I selected Darwish's poem is because I used to stay in a home belonging to a distant relative of his General Karim Abdul Darwish) in Hannuville, Alexandria. The same individual was the inspiration for my islamic name which I can reveal is Karim. His wife, Leila, was a lovely enlightened soul whom I met on the beach - I was reading Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers if I am not mistaken and she was devouring a Time magazine. We got to talking and struck up a friendship which ended up with me being given the run of their summer home complete with two servants (he was Chief of Police for the whole bloody country) and in the lap of luxury. My colleagues were a little bemused as I was a junior staff somehow staying in the best accommodation of anyone on that posting and saving on my allowance!

Hah! Great story, Paul. Just goes to show how readers often connect. Everyone should read; you never know when it might lead to staying at posh places. :)

Oh, I have South Riding on my shelves, too, now that you mention it.

>33 PaulCranswick: Great story. Readers finding one another. I love it.

You're reading Being Mortal? Oh good, I hope you find it worthwhile. I think it's required reading.

>34 Storeetllr: It was a question of dropping on my feet really and vindicating a difficult decision I had made in the first place to take up the assignment. I had walked away from the possibility of a professional cycling contract with French team RMO on the basis that the salary of GBP6,000 p.a. would be hard earned and possibly only for two years whilst I had a one year posting in my area of study for GBP16,000 p.a. tax free and the assurance of continued work thereafter. I think all told I made the right choice.

>35 EBT1002: So far so very good with Being Mortal. I am reading it together with Voices from Chernobyl which is very harrowing and makes for heavy reading. I have some light relief with one of the Nick Carter yarns that I used to read in my teens and will start The Poisonwood Bible this evening.

>24 EBT1002: For what it's worth, I think I'll vote for Vita. Truth is, I've not read anything by any of them so it's a bit like the average American heading to the polls....
You made me snort in my wine with that one, Ellen!

Lovely new thread, Paul!

Thanks dear Roni, xx

Love the top photo. I visited Sharm el-Sheikh & Nuweiba a couple of times when the Sinai was part of Israel. The bus zoomed down the coast, stopping in the middle of nowhere on several occasions for local bedouin to get on or off. In the far distance you could sometimes see a few tents. I remember it was hot, sandy and the fish extremely fresh and tasty.
My mother took a weekend bus tour from Tel Aviv to Cairo in early 1982 so probably went through Arish. I remember spending a glorious day with friends at Yamit beach in northern Sinai also before it went back to the Egypt.

On the voting, I've not really a preference, but will go with Rebecca West as I enjoyed The Return of the Soldier.

Looking through the various Pulitzer categories and given that life can demand choices, I imagined that I was to be cast away for a long period and was allowed to gather unto me a number of book based on a number of categories (a la Pulitzer with a little tweaking from Cranswick). This is what I came up with and I would be interested to see what others liked:

NOVEL (BEFORE YOU WERE BORN) - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
NOVEL (AFTER YOU WERE BORN) - A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
NOVEL (CRIME / THRILLER) - Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
NOVEL (SC-IFI/FANTASY) - Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
NOVEL FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD - Moonfleet by J. Meade Faulkner
NOVEL IN TRANSLATION - If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi

SERIES OF NOVELS - The Rougon MacQuart Cycle by Emile Zola

COMPLETE WORKS - W. Somerset Maugham

COMPLETE WORKS (POET) - Ted Hughes

BIOGRAPHY - Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
HISTORY - The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
NON FICTION GENERALLY - The Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed

>40 avatiakh: Lovely anecdote Kerry. What is perhaps a little surprising is the admiration by many of the people of Sinai for the Israelis. From stories told me by Mohamed there is very little antipathy between the two sides of the present border and the Sinaians see themselves as quite distinct from the people of Greater Egypt.

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE - NOVEMBER 2016

REBECCA WEST



No clear consensus here so I'll exercise a wee bit of discretion. Books by all three ladies are pining for attention on my shelves so it was the toss of a three sided coin to be honest.

Happy New Thread Paul! Happy with you choice of Rebecca West, though you couldn't go wrong with that one. Too late now to think of my favourite books, but I'll give it some thought and post when I'm fully awake.

>44 Smiler69: I can almost sense you yawning dear lady - go and sleep!

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE - NOVEMBER 2016

I watched the latest episode of that British institution James Bond at the cinema this weekend but he is not the only British spy. For November as the grey skies descend we will choose between these three writers of espionage and intrigue:

Eric Ambler

or

Len Deighton

or

John Le Carre

Le Carre puts me to sleep and I'm not big on Cold War thrillers, so I guess I'm voting for Ambler.

>47 amanda4242: You are right some of Le Carre's stuff drags for me too although I thought that The Spy Who Came in From the Cold was excellent. Eric Ambler is a favourite of mine - usually normal guys in abnormal circumstances. Deighton wrote more than spy books. His books on WW2 are pretty good.

101.

The Casbah Killers by Nick Carter

Date of Publication : 1969
Pages : 155
Category Challenge : Series Reading
TIOLI Challenge : #3 in November TIOLI (4th Book)

Before Ludlum came up with Jason Bourne, the nearest thing America had to James Bond was Nick Carter. He was N3 to 007 and as always in this missive he proves to have more lives than our flying cat and a penis as overactive as his stiletto blade.

These were a series of syndicated stories with a variety of authors and this one is set in Casablanca and the Rif with Carter washed ashore and on the look-out for a missing agent. Thrills and spills ensue and plenty of politically incorrect groans. Good, lite fun.

6/10

Hej Paul, great to read all these comments about the British authors. Thanks for the pix and the commetns. Some I didn't know so I refrained from commenting. But it gives me reason to hunt for the authors you mentioned and read the books I already have.

Have a good start into the new weak.

>50 paulstalder: Great to see you Paul. With your rapidly building collection you are likely to have many of the BAC on the shelves somewhere or other, I would have thought.

Eric Ambler



Details of his work here:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/eric-ambler/

The original and in many ways the best of the genre. Mostly ordinary Joes caught up in events beyond their ken. From 1936 to 1940 his five thrillers look at a Europe foreshadowing the catastrophe to come. His books of the early and mid 1950s look with a sanguine eye at the skewed way of the post-war settlement.

He created the TV thriller series Checkmate and wrote the screenplay for The Cruel Sea.

Len Deighton



Details of his work here:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/d/len-deighton/

Like Ambler, Deighton was born in London where he witnessed the arrest of a Nazi spy as an 11 year old and it set him on the course of his writing career.

His first five books feature the sometimes unnamed Harry Palmer, British spy and cynic and they were lauded for their realism. He wrote series of spy novels (9 books) featuring the world worn spymaster Bernard Samson as well as excellent novels based upon World War 2. He has written Alternate History, Military History and several cooking books. He is a renowned illustrator and his work included the British version of On the Road, for years he had an illustrated strip in The Observer Newspaper.

Prolific and likeable.

John Le Carre



Details of his work here:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/john-le-carre/

Still very active into his eighties, Le Carre's highpoint was arguably his Smiley books Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People although I would pick The Spy Who Came in From the Cold as his absolute best (which barely features Smiley).

At his best, very good. Work since the seventies is as varied in quality as it is in topic.

He is the father of writer Nick Harkaway and has lived by the sea in Cornwall for the last 40 years. Another snippet of trivia is that his real name is David Cornwell but he is no relation to Bernard the creator of Sharpe.

(Assuming you're done and I can stick my oar in.)

Gosh, Paul; have some sympathy! I haven't got back into any kind of exercise routine since the haze (hopefully) dissipated.

Happy new thread ... again.

>55 humouress: You are welcome to paddle along any time, Nina.
I do think that I will be in Singapore in the next week or two on business. I will PM you when I have details - it would be nice to finally meet-up?

Once again I will be happy with any of the three. I have books by both Deighton and Le Carre in my TBR stash. I will cast my vote for Deighton since his work isn't limited to the spy/espionage genre. I know it's not a favorite genre for some.

I'll go for Ambler as I have an omnibus collection of his novels.

Nice picture up top. Makes me think of 'Lawrence of Arabia' which I first saw with my father and loved.

I have a very, very strong dislike of spy novels. I almost gave up reading Agatha Christie early on (I was, and am, trying to read her chronologically) as she seemed to keep turning down that road. I find them so tremendously boring. Profoundly boring.

That said, I vote for Eric Ambler.

Catching up, missed so many posts again over the weekend.

I'm not a desert person and would visit Egypt mainly to see the antique sites one day, but that palm grove in >28 PaulCranswick: is so beautiful!

I am sorry your mum has to go back to hospital, I hope she'll be better soon and that you and Hani can give her some comfort over the phone.

Haven't read any of the November candidates yet and there's nothing on my shelf, so I'm fine with all of them.

>57 cbl_tn: Thank you Carrie. I want to read Deighton's Alternate History of WW2 XPD

>58 avatiakh: Kerry, if it is Ambler I will be reading The Night-Comers which is one of the few books of his I haven't read.

>59 Fourpawz2: Deighton's non spy stuff perhaps or Ambler's innocents abroads. Le Carre doesn't sound like he'll be for you, Charlotte.

I was thinking The Mask of Dimitrios which my library has. It doesn't sound too bad.

>60 Deern: There are three books by Le Carre in the first edition of the 1001 books and one by Ambler if that is any use, Nathalie.

It is funny when I think of Egypt, the sea springs to mind first and trees bowing under the weight of sweet figs, water melons cut and gnawed as soon as open, the juice running down my chin and attracting the ever present ants and meat flies. I think of the people, the shy smile of young ladies with provocative eyes under severe headscarves, of chilled "Crush" orangeade gulped down at the roadside with its sugary goodness providing vim and of flat bread, tossed and floury and warm served by an Albino so fearsome looking I dare not refuse his wares. Lastly only the sand; seemingly all pervasive but actually incidental to the people and the produce.

>62 Fourpawz2: That is a good book, Charlotte - from his early purple patch.

Happy new one, Paul!

Thanks Amber. Glad to see you survived the weekend!

>49 PaulCranswick: That cover really is something special. Yikes. I don't really have an opinion about the three choices. I have read some Le Carré but in a contrast to my usual preferences, am more of a fan of the recent Tinker Tailor film (so dark) and the Smiley radio dramatisations. Simon Russell Beale is amazing as Smiley: makes me believe in great moral questions at the heart of British Intelligence (in real life, not so much).

Did you see that Corbyn sang the national anthem at the cenotaph? How sad to see long held principles get washed aside.

>67 charl08: I missed that film when it came out Charlotte and really should make an effort to track it down.

I hadn't seen Jeremy singing - he could of course have been singing an entirely different song!

Happy New Thread, Paul! Good poem from Mr. Darwish.

I've read a good bit of LeCarre, and a Deighton book way back when. I don't have a strong feeling among the three.

>69 jnwelch: Thanks Joe. Darwish didn't get near the attention he deserved in the west in his lifetime. It looks like Adunis
the other perennial poetic contender from the Arab world may continue to miss out. The Academy doesn't seem to care for literature from that region and unduly favours central and eastern Europe and France, especially, in their award giving. At 85 he is running out of time to get recognised.

>37 PaulCranswick: I agree with your comment on Voices from Chernobyl being a tough read. I've also been reading it along with a couple others for some lighter relief. However, since it's due back at the library and other people are waiting to read it (ie no renewals) it's time to finish.

>71 streamsong: Well Janet reading that and Being Mortal with its serious message is weighing me down a tad and it is refreshing to hear the girl's voices at the beginning of The Poisonwood Bible which is promising to be a top read. Lovely to see you here, by the way.

Re: >70 PaulCranswick: And my hobby-horse.

This is an extract of a poem by Adunis :

from “Elegy for the First Century”

Bells on our eyelashes
and the death throes of words,
and I among fields of speech,
a knight on a horse made of dirt.
My lungs are my poetry, my eyes a book,
and I, under the skin of words,
on the beaming banks of foam,
a poet who sang and died
leaving this singed elegy
before the faces of poets,
for birds at the edge of sky.

From the Arabic it seems a touch high-flown and hyperbolic but it is unmistakably the voice of a great poet.

>72 PaulCranswick: Besides Chernobyl, I'm also reading Shock Doctrine, another one that is a tough but important read. The two together are making me lose faith in humanity. :-(

>74 streamsong: The most disturbing part of Voices from Chernobyl are the families that came there from Kyrgyzstan and were pleased to be anywhere else but that hive of ethnic cleansing. Cheer up Janet, I do have P.G. Wodehouse on offer in December. xx

>63 PaulCranswick: Well that verbal picture rivals the actual photo at the top of the thread---thanks so much for sharing your memories of Egypt! It's profoundly sad how we often come to know a place only because it is being torn apart by conflict. The Darwish poem is very powerful...I will try to find more of his work. So thank you for that as well.

As for the male authors for November, 2016, I will defer to others. That may be a month when I read from the CAC or AAC instead.

If you choose The Return of the Soldier for your West read, you are in for a treat.

>76 laytonwoman3rd: I often try to make words draw pictures, Linda, and invariably fail. I was in fact speechless when I returned to those scenes last year to find that 27 years had resulted in changing the place beyond recognition. Where once were villas, and palm trees and space were close knit modern apartments - neither well constructed nor affording me with a salve to my memories.

I will concede that I don't envisage you with an Ambler or a Deighton or a Le Carre curled up in front of a raging fire and I promise not to grumble overly if you sit that one out. xx

Happy New Thread, Paul.

No Deighton for me because I can't find a book.

I like both Ambler and Le Carre. To make it easy for you my vote goes to Ambler.

My memory of Egypt dates back to 1981, when my mum and I, then living in Israel near Tel-Aviv, had planned to make a trip there which I was rather excited about, and then of course, Anwar Sadat was assassinated and it became a very bad spot to travel to indeed. I wonder if I'll ever see the place now I haven't travelled these many years. They certainly have had their share of Troubles.

As for our November man, I'm taking note of Len Deighton, who is already on the wishlist because of Ipcress File, which you recommended once, but as I have loads of Ambler and all of the Smiley books by Le Carre on the tbr, my vote goes to those two. I guess it's been a pattern of mine throughout this selection process that I've dealt out double votes, never asking if it was allowed, but as you are ever so tolerant, I figure it can't be too bad. ;-)

Happy new thread, Paul!

Happy new thread mate.

I had to purchase Being Mortal after you turned down muffins on Joe's thread. Sounds like something I should read up on as I noticing some lack of energy issues lately - maybe it is age creeping up or maybe incorrect body fuel?

I vote for Deighton. I have never read anything by him but, as he once tried to get info from my Dad about his war experiences I would like to have a better idea of what Deighton writes as it might give me some more clues about what family research I should be doing.

I really hate that I missed voting on the women yesterday. My choice would have been Sackville-West. I have only books about Rebecca West available to me so I probably won't be reading a woman's book that month. Sackville-West's books available at my library looked really interesting to me.

Now let's get to the men under consideration. Only one book by Ambler is available, and I'm not interested in it at all. I'm okay with both of the others, but if I were to vote for one, I'd pick Deighton. I just mainly vote against Ambler.

>78 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. I am a little surprised that Deighton is so difficult to find over there - I thought Switzerland was supposed to be neutral!

>79 Smiler69: Egypt has proven very adept over time at pushing the self-destruct button but a stable country is essential for the future of the Middle-East and as a counterbalance to the fundamentalism promoted by the Saudis and tolerated by the USA from greed and self-interest.
I love the fact that there has been such an enthusiastic participation in the BAC selection process this year and I am fine with the manner in which all of us express our vote - pick one or two or all of em or negatively against one of them or rate them in order - all is fine .

>80 connie53: Thank you, dear Connie

>81 johnsimpson: Cheers John

>82 Familyhistorian: The path to wellness is an incremental one, starting with virtual muffins! It is a thought provoking and, in some ways, grounding experience reading that book, Meg.
The voting looks fairly spread again this time.

>83 thornton37814: And you may well have made the difference, Lori! I couldn't really pick up much of a discernible preference yesterday and basically plumped for West on a hunch as I will read books by all of them anyway.

>83 thornton37814: Lori, The Return of the Soldier is in the public domain. I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg when I read it last year.

>49 PaulCranswick: ha ha, looks like a step up from a trash mag (and by that I mean a woman's celebrity picture one, not nude lady ones!)

Congrats on getting past 100!

>56 PaulCranswick: Gosh, Paul; I got excited there for a minute! I would love to finally meet you ... but I'll believe it when I see you ;0)

I should warn you, though, I'm in the run-up to my kids' birthdays & parties. Due to excellent (non)-planning, they are both in that slim window between the end of the school year, when all their friends evacuate Singapore for the long holiday, and Christmas. So the shops are filled with shoppers, while I'm trying to do my much more urgent party shopping. Oh, the trials of parenthood ...

>86 cbl_tn: I believe a lot of those old "classics" are available on line, Carrie, right?

>87 LovingLit: Not sure that the second one wasn't more accurate, Megan. They are good, red blooded fun. The world is black and white and the end always justifies the means.

>88 humouress: One of these days we will manage to meet up for sure, Nina. When I am going to be in Singapore I will let you know and if we can do it fine - if not - next time. xx

Had the whole day out today with it being a Public Holiday here to celebrate Deepavali, the Indian festival of lights. We went to Pulau Carey (Carey Island) on the other side of Kuala Lumpur and about an 80 km drive away with four sets of family friends. Carey Island is home to a large group of indigenous tribes or orang asli - the "Mah Meri" people and their cultural centre is very interesting indeed. A good day spent with good friends.

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE NOVEMBER 2016

LEN DEIGHTON



Another close call. There were a couple with votes against Ambler which just swung it in Deighton's favour.
Only one more month to go.

Well, at least it didn't turn out to be Le Carre. Think I am going to go with Fighter, which my library actually has. Actually, I am kind of excited about this book as I've never read anything about The Battle of Britain.

>89 PaulCranswick: I'll certainly do my best to catch up with you when you're here, Paul; I just may be more scatter-brained than usual.

>90 PaulCranswick: What beautiful golden locks :0)

>89 PaulCranswick: Yes, at least in sime countries. Anything published in the US before 1923 is in the public domain. Several of the authors on next year's list have at least some of their works freely available online:
Agatha Christie
Thomas Hardy
George Eliot
Joseph Conrad
H.G. Wells
Rebecca West

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE DECEMBER 2016

BACK TO MY ROOTS - WEST YORKSHIRE WRITERS

The challenge for December will be a little different.

I hail from West Yorkshire in the frozen North of England. It is famous for coal, woolen and manufactured cloth and heavy engineering. Leeds is a major financial centre; Marks and Spencer originates from Leeds. Two Prime Ministers from the last century were born there - Herbert Asquith who took us into the First World War and Harold Wilson who kept us out of Vietnam.

West Yorkshire has five main administrative areas: Halifax, Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds and my home city Wakefield (John Simpson also hails from the same city). It has a population of just over 2 million people which is similar to New Mexico or Botswana. It is culturally quite diverse these days with large ethnic-Asian populations in Bradford and Wakefield and a large West Indian population in Leeds. Leeds is also home to by far the largest Jewish populations in the north east of England.

It is also a hotbed for writing. So the challenge for December will be writers born or brought up in WEST YORKSHIRE.

Here are some examples:

SIMON ARMITAGE - Huddersfield
STAN BARSTOW - Wakefield
ALAN BENNETT - Leeds
JOHN BRAINE - Bradford
ANNE BRONTE - Bradford
CHARLOTTE BRONTE - Bradford
EMILY BRONTE - Bradford
LINDSAY CLARKE - Halifax
HELEN FIELDING - Leeds
GEORGE GISSING - Wakefield
TONY HARRISON - Leeds
TED HUGHES - Halifax (nearby Mytholmroyd)
DAVID PEACE - Wakefield
CARYL PHILLIPS - Leeds
J.B. PRIESTLEY - Bradford
ARTHUR RANSOME - Leeds
PETER ROBINSON - Leeds
DAVID STOREY - Wakefield
KEITH WATERHOUSE - Leeds

>92 Fourpawz2: I am not going to go with his spy books either I think, Charlotte. Probably XPD for me which is an alternate history of the Germans winning the war.

>93 humouress: If I am not mistaken those tresses are made from dried bamboo leaf!

>94 cbl_tn: If I wasn't such a Luddite I would be rubbing my hands at all that freely available literature, Carrie.

95 - So, are these our choices or is the list going to be whittled down?

>97 Fourpawz2: No whittling down Charlotte. You can read anything by a West Yorkshire writer. These would also include Ross Raisin and Jeremy Paxman, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Phyllis Bentley.

Normally we get to the end of the year and struggle to focus so I am making it wider for December.

Wild Card Votes Welcome:

LADIES

RUMER GODDEN

ELIZABETH TAYLOR

ROSE TREMAIN

MEN

GEORGE ORWELL

PATRICK HAMILTON

MICHAEL MORPURGO

I like the Yorkshire idea. Simon Armitage in particular is a favourite of mine. And I feel like I should read something by David Peace.

>99 charl08: Charlotte, you shouldn't be stuck for something to choose from:

There are ten books by West Yorkshire writers in the First Edition of the 1001 Books

Jane Eyre
Villette
Shirley
Agnes Grey
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Wuthering Heights
New Grub Street
Born in Exile
Nineteen Seventy-Seven
Billy Liar

One Booker Winner

Saville

A poet laureate

Ted Hughes

Huge bestsellers / Famous Films :

Bridget Jones' Diary
This Sporting Life
A Kind of Loving
Room at the Top
The Good Companions
Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks

>95 PaulCranswick: I haven't yet read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall so that will be my pick for the female author. I'll have a hard time making up my mind about the male author. I've long intended to begin the Inspector Banks series. I was disappointed that Caryl Phillips didn't make the cut earlier in the year, and I'd love to read Cambridge. I'd also like to try George Gissing. I guess I'll wait and see what I'm in the mood to read next December!

>98 PaulCranswick: My first choices are Rumer Godden and George Orwell. Neither of my libraries has any books by Patrick Hamilton. I could watch Rope, though.

>95 PaulCranswick: - I, too, will choose Anne Bronte, going with either TToWH or Agnes Grey. And for the guys it's Robinson for me.

>98 PaulCranswick: - torn between Godden and Tremain. None of the guys appeal to me. I know for sure I will not be reading Orwell ever again.

>101 cbl_tn: I of course haven't decided what to read yet Carrie but something by the Bronte sisters for sure - possibly the same as you and something by Priestley who is one of my favourite authors. I would probably try to squeeze in a couple more which would certainly include some poetry maybe by Hughes.

>102 Fourpawz2: It is funny isn't how Orwell is able to do that to certain people. I have to admit that I don't enjoy his fiction too much but I do expect to read his Burmese Days sometime soon. His journalistic stuff is better IMO. Morpurgo is an easy read but Hamilton is one writer I do keep meaning to get around to.

From next week I am planning to start a series showcasing poets alphabetically. I know that poetry is not "in" any longer but anyone reading Suz's new thread yesterday couldn't help but be moved by the beauty of the poem atop her thread.

One of my specialties reading wise - if I have one - would be modern British Poetry and I hope to burden introduce those interested to contemporary British poets and then do the same for "overseas" (in a British sense) poets - usually American.

My A Poets will be:

Simon Armitage - British poet from Huddersfield

&

John Ashbery - American poet

>95 PaulCranswick: Ransome looks good.

>106 humouress: Interesting fellow. Arthur Ransome was a spy in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the revolution there in 1917 and many believed him to actually have been a double-agent although I don't think anything was proven or dis-proven conclusively either way.

Rumer Godden for the wild card woman.

Love the December selection! For the wild card, my votes go to Rumer Godden and George Orwell.

>105 PaulCranswick: poetry may not be in, but yesterday I got a collection of them out of the library by Mary Ruefle! Trend-setters? Or heel-digger-inners?
;)

>95 PaulCranswick: Paul, for the December challenge are there any other female authors next to the Bronte sisters?

I think this wild card selection may be easy...I'm voting for Rumer Godden and George Orwell too.

>108 ronincats: Noted Roni

>109 amanda4242: I am pleased you approve of my sudden change of tack, Amanda.

>110 LovingLit: That is certainly gratifying Megan - I haven't been described as a trend-setter in living memory!

>111 Ameise1: Barbara - Admittedly there are more male than female options for December but there are :
Barbara Taylor Bradford
Helen Fielding
Phyllis Bentley
Christine Evans

>112 laytonwoman3rd: Does look like a shoe-in at the moment, Linda

Wild card: My vote for female is Rumer Godden. I'm leaning toward Morpurgo for the man because he has a book called Kaspar, the Titanic Cat that fits my "cat weakness."

I will definitely vote for Orwell, but no preference on the ladies.

>115 thornton37814: Lori - I think I have that book too - I bought it for Belle who has a weakness for felines as well.

>116 banjo123: Rhonda, I do think that Orwell is an ideal Wild-card simply because so many people have strong feelings about him one way or the other. Those who like him can drop him in somewhere whilst those that don't have no need of missing the month of BAC just because it is him!

You've made it nigh on impossible for me to choose among the women for the wildcard pick. Elizabeth Taylor and Rose Tremain are two great favourites, and I have several Rumer Goddens on the tbr I'm itching to plunge into and discover.

I'm not familiar with Patrick Hamilton and should probably put Hangover Square on the wishlist, so any of the men would work for me too, as I can't wait to discover Orwell beyond Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm, both of which I've read several times (and am well-stocked on the tbr with other of his writings), while I definitely have a soft spot for Morpurgo.

Not being terribly helpful, am I? ;-)

>118 Smiler69: Maybe not assisting me to make up my own mind but at least giving me some comfort that I got the wildcard picks somewhere near. I had toyed with Huxley again but really he should have been a shortlist option this time and twice in a row as wildcard doesn't work. R.F. Delderfield and Howard Spring are writers I like to read but I worried about availabilty and then there was Graham Swift who almost made a shortlist. I cannot include everyone though!

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE WILDCARDS

LADIES

RUMER GODDEN



&

GENTLEMEN

GEORGE ORWELL



A bit one-sided really here in truth.

That wraps up the BAC 2016 selections - I hope I got a favourite or two for most people interested in participating at some stage. Wildcards can be used whenever required. Please feel free to dip in and out of the challenge - there is no compulsion to read everything although that makes me happy too!
Darryl's idea of combining challenges is a sound one and one that I endorse.

I think Amanda tops the charts for the most BAC books read in 2015 so far with a staggering 45 books. I have 24.

>120 PaulCranswick: When I got back from vaccay and before I was able to do anything with my research I had to watch a DVD set that someone had lent me because they wanted it back by last Saturday. It was Simon Schama's History of Britain. (At least 15 hours of viewing - no wonder I haven't gotten anywhere with my writing and all of the stuff I am supposed to sorting out.)

The last episode was started around WWII and Schama told the story of the lead up to the war by contrasting the public persona's of Winston Churchill and Arthur Blair and their take on Britain. Blair, of course, is more well known as George Orwell. It was a very effective way of telling this episode of history and made me want to read Orwell again so that I can put his work in historical context.

>122 Familyhistorian: I have seen that too Meg and I enjoyed it also. Eric Arthur Blair to give him his full name was contrasted with Winnie both on their differences of opinion and where their views and interests coincided. The antipathy of Orwell for the Soviets was a hallmark of his views especially heightened by his experiences in Catalonia.

I counted 19 books read so far for the 2015 BAC. I have a book by each of the Nov authors checked out from the library to read later this month.

>124 cbl_tn: Also very good Carrie. I am really pleased at how enthusiastically the BAC has been received in its first year; I think about half the group have dipped in at some stage.

It looks like I've read 26 BAC books, with a total of 63 books by British authors out of 165 so far this year. Of course I don't know if I'm cheating with my 26 count, since some of those were read in other months than those officially slotted for specific authors.

>126 Smiler69: I didn't count which months they were read in Ilana so most definitely 26 it is.

Many of those authors we've read this year are on my "must read more by this author" list, so I'd say I found this year's challenge to be a roaring success!

>128 Smiler69: Thank you dear lady. It has exceeded my expectations as we are overwhelmingly an American group with 2/3 of our number. I enjoy all the challenges but do of course have to give plenty of attention to my own!

All of the excitement is over, I guess. Time to sweep up all of the confetti that's littering the floor and go off into a corner to make my book picks for the BAC and the CAC.

Great job, putting together the BACII, Paul. Many of these authors, I am not familiar with, so it will should be an interesting experience. I doubt I'll be able to get to all of them but I should be able to sample, here and there.

Well, I said that about the BACI too and ended up making a sizable dent.

>130 Fourpawz2: I'm doing that very thing myself. I'm surprised at how many of the BAC authors I've already read (leaving aside the West Yorkshire lot, because other than the Bronte sisters those are almost entirely unknown to me), and how few unread books I have on hand by any of them.

>130 Fourpawz2: I reckon no more than an engagement party - weddings are announced and on the horizon; looking forward to the honeymoon!

>131 msf59: Yep you haven't done at all badly buddy. I have managed most of the AACs as well.

>132 laytonwoman3rd: To be fair the West Yorkies are not that obscure surely, Linda? Bridget Jones' diary? Booker winners, six authors on the 1001 lists and J.B. Priestley on a par with Greene and Maugham in his day.

A quick check shows I've got books by 11 of the BAC authors that are in my library already.

And I still plan on reading a Spark & Boyd too.

Hi Paul, pardon me while I hijack your thread for a moment....

Mark commented earlier today, that it was time for the Christmas Swap. I'm taking over this year and the thread is up. Stop on by...

https://www.librarything.com/topic/204658

>135 Fourpawz2: I checked how many books on my shelves that are unread and would qualify for BAC 2016 : 98.

>136 msf59: I make your score 17 so far Mark which is pretty impressive given your full house of AAC.

>137 mahsdad: Jeff,

With pleasure kind sir!

>138 PaulCranswick: - 98 - Dang!

>140 Fourpawz2: Will almost certainly end the year as more too!

Some books arrived from Book Depo this morning:

295. Poems 1960-2000 by Fleur Adcock (2000) 275 pp
New Zealand poet who has been based in the UK for a loooong time
296. Selected Poems : John Heath-Stubbs by John Heath-Stubbs (1990) 144 pp
Accessible classicist if there is such a thing?
297. Holiday by Stanley Middleton (1974) 222 pp
Joint Winner of the Booker Prize in 1974. Not well read these days
298. Selected Poems : Edmund Blunden (1982) 130 pp
Self described as a "harmless young shepherd in a soldier's coat". A favourite poet of my youth

Look forward to the verdict on Fleur Adcock. I only low a couple of her anthologized poems, although I did like this one about voice recognition software.

Poem of the week: Dragon Talk by Fleur Adcock
http://gu.com/p/2kgah?

Looking forward to next years BAC. I just tallied up my totals for this year and realised I'm at 20 books if you just count one for each author. But so many of them were more-ish, that my total is 28 for BAC authors, with another 3 planned before the year ends. Which is a substantial chunk of my 91 book total thus far!

Of to count the total of books I have on the tbr for next year's BAC!

>134 PaulCranswick: No, I didn't mean they were obscure, or that I hadn't heard of most of them. I just haven't READ most of them. Caryl Phillips is on my wishlist, actually.

Just a de-lurk and a wave. Been missing checking in :/

V glad you didn't pick Le Carre by the way...

>143 charl08: Good stuff. She has to be a poet, Charlotte, with a name like Fleur Adcock! It is her collected poems from 1960-2000 which I am looking forward to. The availability of poetry is poor here for especially British based poetry which, given my background, I of course largely prefer. I have therefore ordered quite a few anthologies recently from Book Depository recently to expand my library in that area.

>144 evilmoose: I am impressed Megan. That is probably a podium score! Next year I am hoping to read something by all the shortlisted authors for the BAC which would mean 72 books taken. I am also determined to again get to 200 books as I keep falling short in this. My 159 of a couple of years ago is my best since joining LT. At least I have never failed to read at least a hundred books in any year since I was 14 years old - a 35 years run I am pleased with.

>145 Smiler69: I reckon it will be a decent number, Ilana. xx

>146 laytonwoman3rd: Actually I did a little checking and was surprised at just how obscure, in terms of the availability of his books, J.B. Priestley seems to have become. One of his most renowned works The Good Companions is not even available for purchase on Book Depository which I find amazing and sad. I have to say my comment was occasioned by surprise as I know of fewer members of the group as well read as you are, Linda. xx

>147 BekkaJo: And you have been missed too! I will agree that some of Le Carre's books are a slog and not a particularly rewarding one. The Naive and Sentimental Lover which was his attempt at literary fiction is as dull as ditch water.

Paul, it looks like I have 54 books currently on the tbr which are eligible for BAC 2016. Not bad... doubt I'll get to all of them. Not surprisingly, the highest number of books by any one author are Agatha Christies; 11 in total. Next comes Thomas Hardy with 6 options.

I see all these challenges being planned and I sort of get all excited. Taking advantage of a slight lull in work before an expected storm I stormed off to Kinokuniya yesterday lunch time and added 'a few'. Main thinking was BAC, AAC, Pulitzer, CAC and 1001 Books.

299. What God Hath Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (2007) 855 pp
Pulitzer winner and daunting door stopper
300. Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum (2003) 586 pp
Pulitzer winner and junior door stopper
301. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2000) 636 pp
Pulitzer fiction winner and a third doors topper
302. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (1949) 112 pp
Pulitzer winner and non-door stopper
303. Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan (2011) 255 pp
AAC pick by Mark. I have to confess to not having heard of him!
304. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (1992) 154 pp
AAC Pick by Mark. 1001 Book First Ed.
305. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones (1986) 429 pp
BAC Pick. One of her most celebrated books
306. My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl (1979) 264 pp
BAC shortlisted. Only grown up thing of his I hadn't read
307. Six Poets: Hardy to Larkin by Alan Bennett (1990) 206 pp
BAC Pick for December. Bennett was born in Leeds.
308. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews (2014) 321 pp
Ilana's CAC Pick. 2nd addition of hers in the last couple of weeks
309. Moon Palace by Paul Auster (1989) 307 pp
1001 Books First Ed. Had my troubles with him before but I am a forgiving soul
310. The Green Man by Kingsley Amis (1969) 222 pp
1001 Books First Ed. Had before in England didn't read it.
311. Watt by Samuel Beckett (1953) 214 pp
1001 Books First Ed. Unread Nobel winner.
312. Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee (2003) 230 pp
1001 Books First Ed. Already read Nobel winner
313. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973) 340 pp
1001 Books First Ed. Apparently a bit raunchy
314. The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama (2011) 483 pp
No challenge? It certainly looks like a challenge!
315. Day by Day by Robert Lowell (1977) 138 pp
Last collection by the American poet and one of my favourites from there

>150 Smiler69: With yesterday's splurge I am up to a round 100 in options for BAC. I have 27 options currently for CAC and 73 for the AAC counting the poetry.

Oooh, lots of new books. I love all DWJ books, but my latest fave has to be her The Dark Lord of Derkholm.

>153 avatiakh: I fear I may get hooked Kerry and she has a fair few to go at.

Wow! What a book haul! Go Paul! Go Paul!

I started my very first Spark, Loitering With Intent. I like her easy-going style.

>155 msf59: I am also fond of Spark's style, Mark, but she doesn't seem to have been everyone's cup of tea, if I sample the comments on the BAC November thread.

>142 PaulCranswick: Fleur Adcock! Cool *trendsetter*

>151 PaulCranswick: Gulag: A History: sounds harrowing.

Looking forward to the BAC 2016, but not starting my planning yet after my last plan didn't work out at all. Guess I'll just take it from month to month. What a great haul, I wish I had enough space for so many physical books!!
Your weekend has already started/ is going to start very soon, so I wish you a very good one!

Good luck with Death of a Salesman. I still associate him with exams and pressure as he was on the A Level syllabus - even many years later. That said, I was intrigued by the Arthur Miller series on - yes, you guessed it, Radio 4 (but also Radio 3). David Suchet as Willy Loman, presumably without the Poirot moustache and padding. Maybe going on Audible, because they seem to have been taken down from the site.

>149 PaulCranswick: Well, thank you for the kind words, Paul. I'm not sure there is much accuracy in them, but thank you just the same! My problem with Priestley is that when I see that name my mind goes to the 18th century scientist, philosopher and religious dissenter, Joseph Priestley, whose name was always coming up in textbooks in my early education.

>158 Deern: Sometimes Nathalie I fear I am planning more for the love of planning than anything else. I very rarely meet my exacting expectations but it is good fun trying. xx

>159 charl08: It is funny Charlotte but my A-Level literature course gave me the opposite feeling. Volpone, Richard II, Hamlet, The Go-Between, The Wasteland, Songs of Innocence & Experience and Return of the Native. All I look back on with a fondness that ought to surprise me. I am not sure why our teacher made us wade through so many texts as I think that is more than was actually required to tackle the exams!

>160 laytonwoman3rd: No obvious relation between the two as far as I can see, Linda, although both were West Yorkshire men like myself. Joseph Priestley being from my home city (actually nearby Batley) was very much a liberal theorist whilst J.B., from Bradford an ardent socialist and campaigner against nuclear weapons. Joseph invented soda water and, some say, discovered oxygen whilst J.B. was buried by a German mine in WWI, was hugely successful as a novelist and playwright, had unusual concepts on the nature of time and broadcast to the nation during WW2 to such a popular extent (up to 18 million used to listen to his radio show) that Churchill in a fit of pique had his programme banned for being too populist and socialist.
Two hugely interesting characters.

>161 PaulCranswick: That sounds like a good teacher Paul. Glad yours were good memories. I did discover authors that I still love: in particular we were lucky enough to read Alan Bennett's monologues, Talking Heads and see a fab northern production. Also Sheridan, which was rewarding (and funny), and Chaucer, although we never got beyond the Prologue. I suspect other classmates had other favourites!

Happy weekend!

>162 charl08: Sugar! I forgot we also did The Merchant's Tale and I was astonished at how bawdy it was. Pilgrims my bottom! I will probably read Talking Heads fairly soon.

Catching up with the LT threads to add some sanity to the evening which is full of reports about the carnage in Paris. So bad and worrying that they have been attacked by terrorists again this year. When will it stop?

My copy of Being Mortal was in my mail box when I got home. After Mark's warbling your posts about reading the book finally made it a BB. Just diving into the introduction now and I find that I am agreeing with a lot of what is written.

You really are statistically driven if you know that you have been reading over 100 books a year since you were 14. All I know is that I read lots but I didn't start counting until I started posting on LT!

>164 Familyhistorian: Me and statistics is a bit like Fred and Ginger, Meg!
What a shame that this terrorist madness continues. France has had a torrid year for sure. Vive La Belle France! Vive the free world!

Hi, Paul ~ Happy weekend!

It never occurred to me that I would enjoy reading (and analyzing) Death of a Salesman back when I took English 102 in community college a few years ago, but I did. Very much. I hope you do too.

What's happening in Paris is heartbreaking. My eyes are swollen from crying. We've heard from some Parisians who are also participating in NaNoWriMo that they were at a write-in very close to one of the sites where violence took place but that they were safe and continuing to write "to take (their) minds off the fear and horror."

AUJOURD'HUI, NOUS SOMMES TOUS FRANÇAIS!

>166 Storeetllr: I only really "get" plays Mary by verbalizing them, so Hani is in for some fun and games!

Indeed, the events in Paris are a reminder of what a dangerous world we live in and how hatred and intolerance can still find a foothold in an age when people really ought to be able to understand each other better.

TEN GREAT FRENCH NOVELS

1. Germinal by Emile Zola
2. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
3. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
4. The Black Sheep by Honore de Balzac
5. The Red and the Black by Stendahl
6. David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky
7. The Plague by Albert Camus
8. Jean de Florette by Marcel Pagnol
9. Iron in the Soul by Jean-Paul Sartre
10. Les Noces Barbares - "The Wedding" by Yann Quefflec

>168 PaulCranswick: a fearful & intolerant one as well .... In response to terrorism the world often becomes a more fearful, meaner and closed in place. Which is what these people want .... I've watched over the last10 years & wonder what will break the fear cycle ?I have no answers but we need them

>170 roundballnz: It is a little ironic Alex, because I was pontificating on a friends thread much earlier about what a better world it was nowadays comparing my closeness with a Japanese friend to the rancour felt for all Japanese by my Uncle Bill who was "torpedoed by the Japs" in the last War. It is at these moments that people should come together more but I fear the opposite.

102.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Date of Publication : 2014
Pages : 263
Category Challenge : Just to be Contrary (Bought and read in November)
TIOLI Challenge : #16 (5th book)
November Non-Fiction Challenge : 1st Book

"Being mortal is about the struggle to cope with the constraints of our biology, with the limits set by genes and cells and flesh and bone. Medical science has given us remarkable power to push against these limits, and the potential value of this power was a central reason I became a doctor. But again and again, I have seen the damage we in medicine do when we fail to acknowledge that such power is finite and always will be" pp 259

This book deserves a little quiet reflection before rushing off another of my glib and pithy reviews. In fact it deserves a more considered effort all together.

One of the questions the experience of reading this made me broach to myself was, "why did parts of this move you so, Cranswick, you big softie?"

Well I guess it is because the writer brings experience, knowledge and most of all empathy to a subject that each of us in our own way will face ere long. At the dawning of our lives the sunset of old age, illness and our demise is beyond the horizons of our understanding. As we grow closer to its actuality must we ponder the manner of our ending, our dignity, our life and death choices? I am firmly of the view that one needs to be of a certain age to appreciate and be moved by a book of this scope and nature and suffice to say I am of sufficient years to be sufficiently moved!

Gawande's precis here is on the finite nature of all things. The limit to life, the limit of advances in medical science to prolong life and how, in striving to do so, it can impinge upon the quality of the life it is seeking to lengthen. His examples, both professional and private used to examine his beliefs are handled with a candour and a sensitivity which does him great credit as a human being as well as a medical practitioner. Not many of us know how we will react if faced with the reality of terminal illness and to each the ways to cope will be profoundly different I am sure. There is no cure-all, he makes that clear - palliative care works for some, others want to tough it out and fight to the bitter end. I don't know what I would do but there is courage and dignity in both ways.

I am mortal. You are mortal. This book will not be so.

10/10

Good review of Being Mortal, Paul. 10/10 sounds about right. This is a Must Read. For now and for later. Have you posted it?

I am getting ready to start A Brief History of Seven Killings. I have been looking forward to this chunkster.

Solidarite

:(

Nice review of Being Mortal, Paul. That book is at least 10/10, if not higher.

>173 msf59: I did save the review Mark, for what it's worth. I also want to get to A Brief History of Seven Killings soon.

>174 BekkaJo: Right on sister!

>175 kidzdoc: A bit like the hours you're working Darryl....eight days a week...12 out of 10 - I would have if I could have.

>172 PaulCranswick: Great review of Being Mortal, Paul. I am just starting to dive into it. I have just read the introduction and it echoes many of my own thoughts about the medical profession and dying - something that I have come into close contact with over the last few decades.

103.

Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich

Date of Publication : 1997
Pages : 233
Category Challenge : Nobel Winners (57/112)
TIOLI Challenge : #14 (6th Book)
November Non-Fiction Challenge : 2nd Book

It's April in Chernobyl, haven't you heard?
There isn't a flower, there isn't a bird.
It started with a fire under a mushroom cloud
Extending tumorous fingers, the people were bowed.
A hard rain descended, puddles yellow and green
It'll take a millenium to make the place clean.

So that collective memory cannot be erased
It is so she recorded the voices that were raised.

In April 1986 the name Chernobyl was writ large in the public consciousness but years later those affected by it, directly and indirectly are still struggling to come to terms with it. Alexievich won the Nobel prize for literature recently and the work she is most renowned for is this one recording those who played a part large or small.

This is unremitting and fairly grim stuff and the overall effect, with the odd clanging difference, is that the voices of the many meld into one voice. It is a voice of despair, of disbelief and of misunderstanding. It is an angry voice and one that speaks to be remembered. For me the most affecting was the monolgue of the family escaping civil war in Kyrgyzstan, I think it was, who believed that after the horrors they had faced (and which were recounted poignantly), living amid the poisoned air of Chernobyl would provide blessed relief.

Did she deserve the Nobel Prize, well possibly not, this award was as much about politics as it was about penmanship, but that is not to take away from what is an exceptionally effective piece and journalism.

8/10

>177 Familyhistorian: Thank you Meg. I am lucky not to have spent much time since my childhood in hospitals to date but the shadow mortality casts over middle age is brought home by that profound piece of writing by Gawande.

Glad you found Being Mortal as compelling and important as I did. Us old softies...

>180 Storeetllr: I am really not very good at the John Wayne impressions anymore, Mary. xx

>178 PaulCranswick: I was pleased she won the award on reading this book, partly as she said she would use the money to write more books... A great read, and I finished it feeling much more aware of the continuing legacies of Soviet pollution.

>182 charl08: I agree with that Charlotte. I am not particularly sorry that she won as I was the previous year when the fairly slight Patrick Modiano won, because what she set to do and achieved in this book was eminently important. Well conceived and well executed. If you are looking for an impressive body of work then Kundera, Farah, N'gugi wa Thiong'o, Oates, Adunis, Trevor and Murakami might have been a little more obvious.

>169 PaulCranswick: I'm a Dumas fan, so I'd stick The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers in there. Les Miserables, too.

I'm with you on 10/10 for Being Mortal. Good point about being old enough to appreciate it. Although we want our in-their-20s kids to read it some day, we're going to wait until they're older to recommend it.

I feel I'm seeing a positive effect on doctors here who have read it. Medical students and new medical professionals they we run into are talking about how there's more emphasis in medical school now on how to humanely relate to patients. Finally, the rest of us would say.

Good for you for reading Voices from Chernobyl. Good to hear it's exceptionally effective. I feel better about this unexpected prize winner than some others.

Great to see Being Mortal touched & impacted you like so many of us ....

I think you are right in that there is a certain age when this will hit home, move away from 'trying to fix' everyone cannot be a bad thing, treat the patient, listen to what is important to them.

The book does open up the conversations across the generations & the Medical/patient divide.

Hi Paul, hope you are having a good weekend mate, the ODI result was a good one and nice to see Hales getting his first ODI ton. As you said mate he should have been given a go at the top of the order in the Test Series, looks like the poor devil will be thrown in at the deep end against South Africa. Sending love and hugs to you and the family mate.

>184 jnwelch: Les Mis was there Joe but I haven't read the Dumas books yet so couldn't include them.
Gawande has a thing about relating bad news and options on procedures to patients not being a simple recitation of facts. It should also be about what the priorities of the patient are.

>185 roundballnz: Alex, the book forces you to address fundamental issues that you may otherwise wish not to ponder upon. It may also trigger something of a lifestyle change to improve my general health condition in the hope, if not expectation, of a more comfortable older life.

>186 johnsimpson: A little bit like Lyth, Joe. They played him against a decent NZ team and he got a ton. Against the Aussies he did no worse than some of the others who kept their place and he would surely have cashed in against Pakistan. Hales is obviously more of a long term option than Ali to open and we choose to unveil him against S. Africa. Cook and his buddies have no sense at all. We beat the Australians because the Australian's didn't bat well not because we were great and we had Root as the difference between the teams. Cook doesn't suddenly become a good captain because he will never be that and shouldn't have the role IMO. He should open the batting for sure but not as Capt.

Forgot to mention 2 little additions yesterday:

316. Immortality by Milan Kundera (1991) 387 pp
A favourite of mine, Kundera. I am surprised he has still not won the Nobel.
317. Bitter Fruits by Alice Clark-Platts (2015) 438 pp
A debut thriller set in the lovely Northern English city of Durham

104.

Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille

Date of Publication : 1928
Pages : 127
Category Challenge - Random Read
1001 Books Challenge (First Edition) - 260/1001
TIOLI Challenge - #8 (7th book)

I have always considered myself a fairly adventurous young cove but increasingly realise that my sexual proclivities are far more conventional than some of the fantasies dreamed up by those writing in the years between the last Centuries two World Wars.

At the risk of being inelegant I have to confess no erotica is to be found by me in urination but there certainly was depravity in abundance; if pornography is to be used here in a negative connotation then this was certainly that - It managed to abominate rather than titillate.

I got the symbolism and didn't need the pompous essay by Sontag or the rather briefer and better one by Barthes to highlight for me Bataille's heavy handedness. The eye as an egg, the eggs as the balls, both as life forms, the liquid motif - the viscous nature of the sex act, the viscous eye and bull's bollocks, the rain,,,,,dadedadedadeda & oh um!

None of that makes good art from the sordid, smelly script Bataille managed to conjure. A bataille in french is a sword and that implement should have been used to give the finishing touches to his manuscript instead of a biro. For those likely to be offended by gratuitous sex, violence and sacrilege then I would advise you not to bother with this.

5/10

(Marked up one because the quality of the actual writing was pretty good!)

I loved your thoughts on Being Mortal Paul. Thank you for sharing them on the NF November thread.

>190 luvamystery65: My pleasure, Roberta. Thank you for putting up the challenge for me to share it on!

Fairly quiet today with almost 12 hours with no posts. Spent the last couple of days bringing together all my unread 1001 Books First Edition reads so that I can have a real go next year of making some dent in those numbers.

I have currently read 260 of them and have a further 264 unread on the shelves. In addition there are some more on my kindle (about 30 I reckon) but I am not counting these at present.

One slim volume of poetry waiting for me this morning:

318. Selected Poems 1940-1982 by Norman Nicholson (1982) 78 pp
Always liked his poems when schooling but I am surprised at how stingy this pages wise given his career and the $25 price-tag

Thanks for the thoughts on Voices from Chernobyl I am planning to read that next year.

>194 banjo123: Not one to read if you are feeling too down in the dumps, Rhonda.

Passing nearby and thought I'd duck in to wave hello. Cheers!

My last stop before calling it a day. Have a great week my dear friend. xox

>196 weird_O: Nice to see you Bill. My unread Pulitzer winners were sorted at the weekend too. I have plenty to go at next year!

>197 Smiler69: And you a good rest, dear lady.

Chernobyl and Being Mortal...two pretty good books right there. Certainly beats my last two which reached the not dizzying heights of 2 and 2.5 stars respectively.

I just sorted my category challenge for next year, probably needs some tweaking but I have a slot for the BAC.

You've got me daydreaming about rearranging my books, Paul, and that's dangerous - no time this week at all for such playing around!

Hope you had a good weekend, Paul! It is all about Seven Killings for me this week, but that is just fine with Marky-Mark.

>199 LovingLit: Yeah they were pretty good, although good sounds almost too inadequate a word for them both, Megan

>200 avatiakh: I am so pleased that you'll be along for some of the authors - I very much value your view on books, Kerry, you have a very keen and sure eye.

>201 scaifea: After sorting out the 1001 books and the Pulitzers I got onto my poetry collection. Got it done too albeit that a good number of the finished anthologies are kept at my office.

>202 msf59: "Don't take your guns to town son, Leave your guns at home Bill......" Seven killings with all the mayhem about may have to wait another week at least at my place, mate.

Nice review of Voices from Chernobyl, Paul. I barely started it last week, and I'll resume reading it today.

>205 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl. I was reading/ sampling from the famous Sixties collection of the Mersey Beat poets and it put in my mind those six lines of verse. The last two I added a little later. The Mersey Beat poets had a simple direct form of expression that made melody of rhyme from often unpromising subjects. The line about the yellow and green puddles is actually paraphrased directly from the book.

Just a quick hello, Paul. Hope things are going well for you.

I, too, am just passing through with a quick hello, Paul. I am feeling rather guilty at my terrible performance at the author challenges this year. I started off well but it wasn't long before I was struggling to fit all the reads in and by June I had pretty much quit trying. I am trying not to get interested in your next year offerings as I have already got a lot on my plate for 2016. As a proud Canadian, however, I am going to try and fit a fair number of reads into the CAC!

It sounds like you had a couple of not so happy reads lately Paul. I read A Good Death :Taking More Control at the End of Your Life by Patrick Hill, so I feel that I am fairly well versed in things like Living Wills, Do Not Resuscitate etc, so I have skipped reading Being Mortal. Sounds like you could use a fabulous mystery to sink your teeth into.

>207 karenmarie: Karen, lovely to see you. Things are extremely busy this week but, I hope, under control.

>208 DeltaQueen50: Judy, it is always nice to get a visit from my LT guru! I am a firm believer of dipping and delving into the various challenges but I do try to get to as many as I can. I am pretty much honour bound to read all the BAC authors and it would be bad form not to, but I have also managed most of Mark's AAC challenge this year too. Since I did sort of play a role in pestering Ilana to start the CAC it would be entirely remiss not to go for as many as possible and I have started adding "missing" authors to my shelves.
I do hope that you will re-boost the Canadian contingent next year by returning to your rightful place at the heart of the 75ers. I have missed you lots this year. Meg and Megan have picked up some of the slack and Deb is back in the fold, but without you and Chelle (her little bundle of joy limits her time) and Valerie and Faith spending less time too - the CAC will certainly benefit from your 200 books a year capability!

>209 vancouverdeb: And here is Deb, right on cue. I want to read a few things with a good story, mystery or not. Poldark is lined up as I have been following Heather chew a big hole in the series and I am enjoying The Poisonwood Bible at the moment. I am at the same time also reading the elegiac and strangely compelling H is for Hawk and they are making a pretty good combination.

That sounds like a wonderful combination of good reading Paul. Looking forward to your comments on those two favourites.

I don't know whether it is the encroaching shadow of Christmas or the impending Big Bad Wolf sale at the beginning of December which is finding me in aquistionary fervour, but the call of the bookstore reached my willing ears this afternoon:

319. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (1965) 232 pp
2nd of his "African Trilogy - 1001 Books First Ed.
320. The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson (1889) 219 pp
Famous tale of revolution and a struggle for inheritance - 1001 Books First Edition
321. The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1975) 229 PP
Possibly Latin America's finest writer ever.
322. Desire by Frank Bidart (1997) 59 pp
Pulitzer nominated collection from the critically acclaimed American poet
323. Paper Aeroplane by Simon Armitage (2014) 232 pp
West Yorkshire's successor to Ted Hughes. Prolific poet with a self selected overview of his career to date
324. Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham (1950) 344 pp
Third in the Poldark series. Heather has gotten me planning to follow her on this journey
325. Return of a King : The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple (2013) 487 pp
A third option for the BAC next February
326. Slade House by David Mitchell (2015) 233 pp
Well everybody else has bought it
327. The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke (1975) 266 pp
Pulitzer winning poet displays all his wares
328. A New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell (2001) 179 pp
A updated version of the Pulitzer Prize winning collection

>211 charl08: I am making fairly steady progress with both of them at the moment. Both are enjoyable in different ways and are pushing me towards a pretty good reading month.

I loved H is for Hawk, Paul, and had a great time with the Poldark series. You're in a good reading groove, mate.

Not among my favorites, but I've liked Kinnell's and Roethke's poetry. Good grabs.

>214 jnwelch: Joe, I haven't really read much of anything by Kinnell or Roethke but, based on my research I ought to like them. I have always been centred on the British Isles in my poetry reading (with the exception of Eliot who sort of straddles the pond) but reading 77 Dream Songs opened my eyes a little last year. I would still list my main favourites as Hughes, MacNeice, Heaney, Yeats, Auden and Dylan Thomas but I do "get" American poetry a little more than I used to.

>215 PaulCranswick: Berryman would be up there among my favorite poets, Paul, along with Yeats, Eliot and Adrienne Rich. I also have a soft spot for James Wright, to whom Kinnell wrote two elegies. Oh, and Neruda. Auden has a couple that knock me out, as does Dylan Thomas. I've read a lot of Hughes and Heaney, but haven't connected with them the way some others do. I did like Hughes' Tales from Ovid and Heaney's Beowulf A New Verse Translation.

Going way, way back, I'm a big fan of The Odyssey and The Iliad. As Amber and I have discussed with Mark, the sleek Stanley Lombardo translations are particularly good, and I like the Fagles ones, too.

>216 jnwelch: I guess background, upbringing and early influences play a major role in what we like, Joe. I won a book of poetry in a school reading competition at 11 years old Chatto Book of Modern Poetry 1915-1955 and it probably set the course for what I liked and also how I constructed my own fumblings at poetry. There are not too many of us in the group that enjoy rather than suffer this particular art form but my life would be much less richer without poetry in it.

My ancient Spidey sense is tingling - did someone mention Homer? Don't forget that Roman ace, Vergil. And we certainly can't leave out Catullus. Or Martial...

Hi Paul, a good result for England in Sharjah yesterday, hopefully they will go on to win the last ODI and win the series then on to the T20 games.

Hello Paul, I have had quite a busy year with work and have not been on here much. I love seeing all your adventures on Facebook though. Just thought I would pop in say hello.

I have also been reading the Poldak novels. I am getting ready to start the third book Jeremy Poldark but I got bogged down in trying to finish a David Mitchell novel Ghostwritten. I am now more than halfway done with that book and hope to read more Poldark over Thanksgiving break.

I have tried to participate in the BAC to the extent I could and even knowing that I am often a tag-along long after the group has moved on to another month and other authors, I can say that I have enjoyed participating and reading what others have to say about these authors and their work. I hope to continue with the BAC next year and would like to add the CAC as well. However, I suspect that my reading pattern for both will be much the same as this last year. Since it is all in fun I won't be intimidated or cowed by the glorious reading records of others but will preserver onward and simply do what I can. Whatever I manage to read will certainly expand my reading horizons.

Oh dear, I am once again way behind. I see that you rounded out the BAC Redux selections. I am looking forward to participating, taking a rather laissez faire approach. That means I'll read some but I'm not even pretending that I'll be a 100%-er.

I love that you posted ten great French novels. I have Germinal on my TBR shelves and maybe I'll read it in December.

I'll also be vaguely participating in Bill's Pulitzer challenge in 2016 and have been wanting to choose a poet. I'm thinking I'll look about for a copy of The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke. But I'm also newly familiar with Galway Kinnell so perhaps his A New Selected Poems...

I hope life is treating you well, my friend!

>172 PaulCranswick: I see that you gave Being Mortal ten out of ten. I don't know that I've ever seen you give a book a perfect score but I fully agree with you on this one.

>217 PaulCranswick: I won Pippi Longstocking in a school reading contest at about that age, Paul, maybe a little younger, and I've been getting myself into trouble ever since.

>223 EBT1002: 10/10 for Being Mortal sounds right to me, too.

>217 PaulCranswick: Liking this poetry love a lot. I had a very kind teacher who bound together our 'poems' when I was about nine or ten. My godmother read my 'book' and gave me Wendy Cope's Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis - she did well, as has continued to make me laugh and think since then. More recently, membership of a poetry group meant I was given a free copy of the Forward prize collection for a few years and that introduced me to a range of contemporary poets, but I do think that the early ones stick with you more.

>212 PaulCranswick: Of course, that number pales in comparison to some years.

>218 scaifea: Wow, that is uncanny Amber, don't you have an Achilles heel? xx

>219 johnsimpson: Yes they look better with someone who knows how to captain a side, John.

>220 MonicaLynn: Lovely to see you Monica. Hani does a sterling job in documenting our every move over on FB, Sometimes I have to go and check myself what I've apparently being doing!

>221 benitastrnad: I am so pleased that so many of my good friends, you included, have so enthusiastically embraced the BAC this year, Benita. I don't think it matters if you don't read them "on time" or in the right order or if some of the authors just don't work, it is the fact that the group swaps ideas on writers they either have loved or are new to them. I will certainly be doing my best next year with CAC and will always try to keep up with our Grandaddy, Mark, in the AAC.

>222 EBT1002: Life is reasonably good, dear Ellen, although possibly a little too hectic work wise. I have a client here from Australia these last couple of days and we settled/cemented our business relationship over a few beers last night which explains my absence from LT last night and my heavy head this morning!
The Pulitzer challenge is one that I definitely need to work at as I have so many past winners sitting on my shelves.

>223 EBT1002: You are right, I very rarely do bestow 10 out of 10. I remember doing so for Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes but I don't remember any others.

>224 jnwelch: That is an interesting concept, Joe, that what we win in school reading competitions will go on and impact upon our personalities in later life. I am glad in that case that I didn't win Robinson Crusoe or Lord of the Flies.

>225 jnwelch: Yeah, Darryl, wanted it to be given more than that but then again doctors have a habit of being numerically challenged, it is all those long hours! (kidding buddy).

>226 charl08: Wendy Cope must be the most accessible poet publishing to a wide audience today, Charlotte. Sometimes at first glance her stuff can seem a little throwaway (some of them at second glance too!), but usually one can admire the cleverness of her construction.

>227 thornton37814: Well yes, Lori, 2 years ago I bought/added 1,200 books and last year 660 so this is much more mundane isn't it?! The Big Bad wolf sale may see the numbers spike a little though.

Hey, who you calling Grandaddy? I am only a few years older than you and I am still not officially a Grandpop!! (No hurry, either!)

I am really enjoying Seven Killings, but it is a challenging read, especially with the authentic dialect. The brilliant writing and clever structure, keep me turning the pages.

Looking forward to hearing what more of my LT pals think...

>231 msf59: I was talking figuratively not in a biblical sense dear fellow! The AAC started it all off so is the grandaddy of such challenges - you introduced it and so hey presto! I will read that one too this year, I reckon.

I knew that, mate, just had to mess with you.

I just hope people don't get overwhelmed by the Challenges. We never want this to feel like homework.

I am off tomorrow, so I plan on pulling together my final line-up for AACIII.

>233 msf59: I am looking forward to seeing which one you cull, tomorrow. I hope you keep the poetry though!

There seemed to be a lot of interest in the poetry month, so I will probably keep that in there.

A fine Cranswickian haul, Paul! :) Can you imagine that I browsed in bookstore yesterday and left empty handed? Gasp! But it's so small. Not a lot tempted me and I was trying to be good.

Hi Paul! Lots of good books there.

I was at B&N last Saturday night with daughter and didn't buy anything. I wanted to buy The Quartet by Joseph Ellis, but the only copy's dust jacket was a bit mussed, so resisted. Amazon, here I come!

Paul, I'm not even trying to catch up. All I can say is, "Read Poldark! READ POLDARK!!!"
(I won Slade House through ER, and I'm reading it bit by bit. I'm finding it slightly on the horror side and not sure at this point what I think.)

>235 msf59: I am pleased to see that buddy because I have plenty of anthologies I would like to get to. Ashbery, Berryman, Collins, Kinnell, Levine, Oliver, Trewerthy - to name but seven.

>236 vancouverdeb: Yes, I am not too good a doing that, Deb! I have had a delivery from Book Depo this morning that takes my November adds to one shy of 60.

>237 karenmarie: For all my buying you found one I don't have, Karen. Looks like good, solid and pretty serious history.

>238 LizzieD: I am about to start to, Peggy, honestly! Slade House looks a lot slighter than some of his more perplexing work.

One subject I keep coming back to is the dying art of poetry. Over the last few years Hughes, Heaney, Rich, Kinnell, Wright, Abse have passed away.

Who is the greatest living American Poet?

Fifteen possibilities in 2015

Rae Armantrout
John Ashbery
Frank Bidart
Robert Bly
Billy Collins
Rita Dove
Stephen Dobyns
Stephen Dunn
Sharon Olds
Mary Oliver
Carl Phillips
Charles Simic
Gary Snyder
Natasha Trethewey
Richard Wilbur

Who is the greatest living British Poet?

Fifteen Possibilities

Simon Armitage
Wendy Cope
Carol Ann Duffy
Douglas Dunn
James Fenton
Geoffrey Hill
Liz Lochhead
Roger McGough
Robert Minhinnick
Andrew Motion
Paul Muldoon
Alice Oswald
Don Paterson
Jo Shapcott
Anthony Thwaite

GREATEST LIVING POET WRITING IN ENGLISH

Other English Language Poets?

Chris Abani
Fleur Adcock
Sujata Bhatt
George Bowering
Kamau Brathwaite
Anne Carson
Fred D'Aguiar
Bruce Dawe
Patrick Lane
David McFadden
Don McKay
Les Murray
John Tranter
Derek Walcott
Phyllis Webb

Wow! Lots of poetry choices. I may know literature but I am an infant, when it comes to poetry.

BTW- The AACIII list is up, as promised. I think it is a good list.

>244 msf59: Mark, I don't pretend to be familiar with the work of all 45 of those poets listed. I didn't include Atwood, Ondaatje and Okri as they are more famous as novelists, I guess.

I am straight off to inspect the final list and plan my reads.

Book Depository arrived in poetic style today at my office in Kuala Lumpur with a stunning nine books delivered during the working day:

329. The Dead Sea Poems by Simon Armitage (1995) 57 pp
As you probably know by now I do quite like Mr. Armitage
330. 1914 by Jean Echenoz (2012) 109 pp
Delightful looking little book about a not so delightful event
331. The Enigma of the Return by Dany Laferriere (2009) 227 pp
Bought for C.A.C. and an interesting looking book it certainly is
332. What Work Is by Philip Levine (1991) 77 pp
Sadly passed away this year - the Blue Collar Poet Laureate
333. The Many Days by Norman MacCaig (2010) 121 pp
A mixture of "strictness and susceptibility" according to Seamus Heaney
334. New Selected Poems by Robert Minhinnick (2012) 185 pp
Direct and abrasive is the political voice of Minhinnick
335. House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1968) 185 pp
Pulitzer winner for fiction
336. The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat (1969) 243 pp
Canadian whimsy for the CAC challenge
337. Selected Poems of R.S. Thomas by R.S. Thomas (2003) 343 pp
Generous selection of the great welsh poet

Mark's AAC picks have been finalised. Tentatively plan to read :

January- Anne Tyler - Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
February- Richard Russo - Empire Falls (PULITZER)
March- Jane Smiley - A Thousand Acres (PULITZER)
April- Poetry Month - Turtle Island Snyder (PULITZER)
May- Ivan Doig - The Sea Runners
June- Annie Proulx - Heart Songs
July- John Steinbeck - East of Eden
August- Joyce Carol Oates - Black Water
September- John Irving - The World According to Garp
October- Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (PULITZER)
November- Annie Dillard - The Maytrees
December- Don DeLillo - White Noise

All are on the shelves!

>241 PaulCranswick: Woo, that's a tough one. No one jumps out as being head and shoulders above the others, for me. I'd add Adrienne Rich to the list. Some would add Robert Pinsky and Kay Ryan, I imagine - both former Poet Laureates.

I always enjoy Billy Collins and Mary Oliver, not to mention Natasha Trethewey and Sharon Olds, but I'd probably go with Charles Simic. There isn't a giant bestriding the poetic cosmos right now, IMO.

>248 jnwelch: Adrienne Rich died in 2012. But I think Pinsky should be on the list. And if we're open to including authors who aren't exclusively poets, Wendell Berry.

>249 laytonwoman3rd: Oh thanks, Paul. I forgot the living vs. recent part. Someone just posted a lovely Wendell Berry poem in the 75er group (can't remember who).

>250 jnwelch: *raises hand* That would be me. Probably why I mentioned him! (And>249 laytonwoman3rd: would be me, too. Am I SO forgettable?)

>251 laytonwoman3rd: You're quite memorable, Linda. :-) I'm just a doofus who has trouble remembering, or is oblivious, sometimes. Nice pick with that Wendell Berry poem!

I must give credit to my cousin, Susan, who is not an LT user, but is a reader to be reckoned with. She first posted it on FB, and I snagged it. It seemed not only appropriate, but necessary, just now.

>248 jnwelch: >249 laytonwoman3rd: >250 jnwelch: >251 laytonwoman3rd: >252 jnwelch: >253 laytonwoman3rd:

Joe and Linda, Yes, unfortunately Adrienne Rich, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, James Schuyler, Charles Wright and his son Franz Wright all fairly recently stopped qualifying for that list.

I had toyed with including both Wendell Berry whom I have work by and Robert Pinsky who I don't, so the fact that I struggled a little to prune to fifteen in all three lists shows that poetry is not quite as finished as I was worrying it was.

From your Brit list I'd go with Duffy. Love her The World's Wife collection in particular, although Rapture by Carol Ann Duffy is also good. The Anne Hathaway one (about the second best bed) that begins
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls.
is a favourite. Goes well with Greer's book on Hathaway.

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/anne-hathaway

>255 charl08: Solid pick, Charlotte. I will be reading a bit of Duffy next year for sure.

>247 PaulCranswick: Wow! You sure don't waste time, Paul. Nice list. I am a HUGE fan of A Thousand Acres, Empire Falls and Garp. Kavalier & Clay & East of Eden are also important reads.

Hi Paul. Any update on your weekend plans?

ps - I'm not a huge poetry fan, but I read that there will be a Slam final at Fort Canning on 29th November for the Lit Up festival.

2016 READING PLAN

With the different challenges taking shape I am starting to pencil in possible reads for next year.
I am looking at participating in AAC (American Author Challenge), CAC (Canadian Author Challenge), BAC (British Author Challenge).
Nobel Laureates (NL), Pulitzer Winners (PP), Booker Prize Winners (BW) and 1001 Book First Edition Books (1001) are also on my radar and I will try to polish off as many of these as I can too.

January : AAC - Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler; CAC - The Manticore by Robertson Davies, Kim Thuy TBA; BAC - The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth; All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (PP); Gosta Berling's Saga by Selma Lagerlof (NW) (1001); Holiday by Stanley Middleton (BW)

February : AAC - Empire Falls by Richard Russo (PP); CAC Helen Humphreys and Stephen Leacock TBA; BAC - Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, White Mughals by William Dalrymple; Selected and Late Poems by Czeslaw Milosz (NL); The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell (BW), (1001)

March : AAC - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (PP); CAC - The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat, Anita Rau Badami TBA; BAC - There but for the by Ali Smith & The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy (1001), In A Free State by V.S. Naipaul (BW) (1001), Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (NL) (1001)

April : AAC - Turtle Island by Gary Snyder (PP); CAC - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (BW) (1001), Michael Crummey TBA; BAC - Middlemarch by George Eliot (1001) & Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi (1001); The Interrogation by JMG Le Clezio (NL)

May : AAC - The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig; CAC - Michel Tremblay TBA, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel; BAC - Old Filth by Jane Gardam & Blood Count by Robert Goddard; What God Hath Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (PP); The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer (BW); Red Sorghum by Mo Yan (NL); The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield (1001)

June : AAC - Heart Songs by Annie Proulx; CAC - Famous Last Words by Timothy Findlay, Joseph Boyden TBA; BAC - Mary Queen of Scots by Lady Antonia Fraser & The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad (1001), A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (PP), Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (BW) (1001), On Africa by Wole Soyinka (NL)

July : AAC - East of Eden by John Steinbeck; CAC - Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, Pierre Bertron TBA; BAC - The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens (BW) & Love and Mr Lewisham by H.G. Wells; The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass (NL), (1001); Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (PP)

August : AAC - Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (1001); CAC - Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler, Gabrielle Roy TBA; BAC - Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones & Atonement by Ian McEwan (1001); Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (PP), G by John Berger (BW), (1001); The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek (NL) (1001)

September : AAC - The World According to Garp by John Irving (1001); CAC - All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, The Enigma of the Return by Dany Laferriere; BAC - The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing & Selected Poems by Laurie Lee; A Death in the Family by James Agee (PP); The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (BW) (1001), Watt by Samuel Beckett (NL), (1001)

October : AAC - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (PP); CAC - Laurence Hill TBA, Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart; BAC - Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson & Rites of Passage by William Golding (BW) (1001), The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan (BW); Wislawa Szymborska (NL)

November : AAC - The Maytrees by Annie Dillard; CAC - The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje (BW) (1001) & Margaret Laurence TBA; CAC - Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (1001) & XPD by Len Deighton, Selected and New Poems by Galway Kinnell (PP), Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti (NL) (1001)

December : AAC- White Noise by Don Delillo (1001); CAC - View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro & De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage; BAC - Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (1001), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) by Anne Bronte (1001); Machiavelli in Hell by Sebastian De Grazia (PP), Life of Pi by Yann Martel (BW) (1001)

PP - 12
BW - 12
1001 -27
NL - 12

Total books allocated : 89

>258 humouress: I did send you a PM, Nina. Looks like I am going to be stuck here again, drats.

>260 PaulCranswick: Oh - I thought I'd checked, but looks like I missed it.

We'll try for another time then? Yet again ...

>260 PaulCranswick: May turn out to require a new year's resolution!

Thanks for posting your ambitious challenge reading plan! I copied it into Word and tried to fill it out for me (don't want to call it "plan" yet, no pressure for me next year). Many gaps, many new to me authors, I'm hoping for lots of pleasant surprises.

Have a nice weekend!

>263 Deern: My plans are there for me to aim for and fail miserably, Nathalie, but I get a kick out of meticulous planning and heroic failure. xx
As always I will be on the look out to see what you'll be reading next year.

I am not so regularly on Facebook - it is very much Hani's domain.

In a world gone crazy, it is nice to sometimes see that people are people and that labels don't have to define us.

Here is a video she that put up on FB that I think is worth a look at.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.cranswick.9/posts/10153988983845769?notif_t=like

I will add :

I am moslem but I am henpecked;
I am moslem and I love my LT friends all over the world;
I am moslem and I stand for peace and the right of others to have an opinion;
I am moslem and I would take the pen before the sword at every opportunity.

Thanks, Paul. Liked and shared.

Love your reading plan " meticulous planning and heroic failure". Wonderful. Mine is more like "probably gonna and whoops".

>266 streamsong: Hahaha, thanks Janet. And there was me thinking "I need to flesh this out a bit!"

>259 PaulCranswick: My what a comprehensive plan, Paul. I used to be a great planner as well but then life got in the way *sighs*. Now I am lucky to plan a month at a time.

Happy Friday, Paul! I think you missed me up there in #247 but that is okay, I can handle neglect.

Admirable reading plans for 2016. Good luck. We are also going to be starting War & Peace in January. Interested?

>268 Familyhistorian: A month? Five minutes is good going for me. ;0)

Paul, I've been adding to and refining my 2016 list too. Lots of great reading ahead! Other than the AAC Pulitzer winners though, I haven't slotted in the other Pulitzer books in my tbr, to give me some leeway and pick according to mood. I DO like making lists, but then it's interesting to see how many items on those lists actually get struck off. There's something to be said for picking a book "just because" on a regular basis too!

Wishing you a great weekend my dear. xx

>270 humouress: Yes, a month - not that most plans come to fruition *smiles*

>268 Familyhistorian: I can plan with the best of them but read with the rest of them Meg!

>269 msf59: Mark you scolded me for the wrong number >247 PaulCranswick: was my list advertising and supporting your AAC! >257 msf59: On the other hand I missed mate, sorry. You are right, they are important reads that I will now have every opportunity of getting to.

>270 humouress: Hani says that five minutes is good for me too but I am not sure what the heck she is referring to. xx

>271 Smiler69: In theory, Ilana, I should still have some leeway as it would take up about half of my reading. I still have my poetry reads, my Scandi and whatever else takes my fancy during 2016.

>272 Familyhistorian: When I make a yearly plan, a month is normally how long it pans out before I start making amendments to it.

Hey, Paul! I am starting Sweet Caress. This is Boyd's latest and I have not seen any LT activity on this one. I will lead the charge. This is only my second book by him. I wish I had time to read a couple more.

>275 msf59: He is pretty good, isn't he Mark? I think someone like him with such a well travelled life has a great advantage in writing as his depth of experience is so varied.

Cough cough Mark, I've read Sweet Caress....

>275 msf59: & >277 charl08: Unless I am mistaken I think Suz might have read it alongside the gazillion other books she has read this year and I know James (Eyejaybee) who is in the group but reads much more than he posts has read it too, but Mark's enthusiasm is infectious and I didn't want to check my list of who has read what!

Belle had school sports practice this morning and I squeezed in a trip to the mall for me & her. She got herself a book and I added a few :

338. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (1947) 112 pp
Pulitzer Winner for Drama and one heck of a film with Ms. Leigh
339. John Crow's Devil by Marlon James (2005) 218 pp
I think a few people will try this debut novel now!
340. The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke (1989) 555pp
West Yorkshire born writer's greatest success
341. Fences by August Wilson (1986) 101 pp
Debut play that won the Pulitzer Prize
342. The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (2015) 468 pp
Booker Prize shortlisted novel from Indian born Sahota
343. Frog by Mo Yan (2009) 388 pp
I cannot believe how far down the touchstones that book was. He won the Nobel Prize for heaven's sake

105.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Date of Publication : 2014
Pages : 283
Category Challenge : Biography
TIOLI Challenge November : #15 (8th Book)

The world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you're lucky you might be alive to see them. I had thought that the world was ending, but my hawk had saved me again, and all the terror was gone." 278 pp

Elegant and elegiac, Macdonald brushes the pages with a poet's touch here in recreating her struggle to come to terms with the loss of her father, whom she clearly adored, which she salves her being by coming to terms with another - a goshawk.

We follow her trials and trails over the eastern English countryside of wind-swept hedgerows, rabbit and pheasant filled, as she attempts to train 'Mabel' in the arts of falconry. I am not quite sure who tames who here bird or lady or vice-versa and, if the exercise was therapeutic, it was one which had a lengthy gestation.

As an aside to her grief and her training was the parallel telling of TH White's own struggles with his "Gos" and the germination of "The Once and Future King". In some parts she appeared to see her father in White and in others, herself. As she trained her hawk, decidedly better than White did his, she eventually found both.

One false note was her interrelation with other humans. Some of the scenes she paints of these can be excruciating - especially one in which she seems to want to brow-beat a friend's husband for a seemingly sexist comment. The coffee visits of her friends are barely tolerated. She appeared more comfortable with her bird. There is also plenty in the telling which is bereft in her writing. She refers nothing about her work which she seems to abandon and makes a one line reference to a love/lust fling in the aftermath of her father's death that came to naught. At times it seemed that she was either wishing the Goshawk to be a metaphor of some kind or a substitute for dealing with other issues in her life; I would have liked to hear about those things too.

8/10

Happy Saturday, Paul! Good review of H is For Hawk. It is a top read of the year for me.

Very nice review of H is for Hawk, Paul. I'll likely read it in the next year or two.

Hi Paul, I finally find time to do some weekend greetings. Wishing you a most lovely weekend.

>281 msf59: Does it beat out Marlon James' hit for you, Mark?

>282 kidzdoc: A year or two? You are getting more like me every day, Doc!

>283 Ameise1: Good to see the old Barbara back!

>280 PaulCranswick: Good to read what you thought of H is for Hawk. I was quite glad not to read about her academic or love life, so I guess we differ there.

>285 charl08: I didn't necessarily want too much of the other stuff, Charlotte, but enough so that I wouldn't have noticed its absence.

Paul, I thought you might be interested in this article about Australia's first crime novel which became an international success. I'd never heard of Fergus Hume before.

>287 avatiakh: Great story, Kerry. Born in a lunatic asylum is certainly material for a creative life. He deserved to be famous for that moustache alone!

Thank you for sharing the video, Paul.

meticulous planning and heroic failure

That describes every category or author challenge I've ever tried, so now I just read what leaps out at me. But I wish you joy of the planning and kudos when you complete.

Edited to add that I just got The Mystery of a Hansom Cab downloaded to my Kindle for $0.00. Such a deal!

>289 karenmarie: The planning is often reward enough, Karen. xx

I really enjoyed H is For Hawk too but I had one small gripe I guess which also falls into the people skills category.

When you have animals, stuff happens. But when the stuff happens, you need to fess up, make it good with the landowner and pull out your wallet or offer to work it off to make it right. It happened several times, but I'm thinking especially of the incident where the hawk killed several pheasants in a pen of exotic pheasants. Macdonald quickly stashed them in her hunting coat, beat feet out of there, congratulated herself on avoiding an unpleasant confrontation and most probably went home to dine on pheasant.

No. Just no.

>280 PaulCranswick: Good review of H is for Hawk, Paul. One of the top reads of the year for me.

Point well taken in >291 streamsong:. That bothered me, too. I wonder whether she's been contacted by anyone on the bad end of one of those hawk incidents, now that the book is being read all over the place?

Hope you've been having a relaxing weekend, mate.

#279
I have looked for The Year of the Runaways for some time, but it is not available in the U.S. I would think that a book nominated for the Booker Prize would be on the shelves in bookstores, but it isn't. I look forward to haring what you think of it.

It is a good thing that I keep up with the threads because I find that most people on LT who review the books they read, don't post the reviews to the book site. They only post to the threads. I wonder why? I often remember that somebody read a certain book and wonder what they said about it. However, when I look at the book site on LT there is nothing posted. I also look for the reviews of people who I know from the threads, and from time-too-time I do see names I recognize among the reviews - but not that often.

>291 streamsong: Good point Janet. I didn't think too much about it but you're right. It may have been jealousy a bit since pheasant is possibly my favourite meat!

>292 jnwelch: It has been an ok weekend but it did feature a hospital visit for my MIL who we brought up to KL and has had checks and some treatment for thyroid issues. Barack Obama has also been in town this weekend but was unavailable for breakfast this morning which I enjoyed at our favourite french bakery with Hani.

>293 benitastrnad: It may be soon, Benita, hopefully because it has just arrived in normal sized paperback form here hence its snapping up by yours truly. xx

>212 PaulCranswick: I picked up Slade House and then proceeded to NOT buy it at the book sale on Friday. Darn it. As now I realised I made a mistake. I think I was put off by the sound of the plot (scary? Ghostly?)

You have been buying up large lately Paul? So much for good intentions eh? Or was that last year... ;)

>295 LovingLit: Megan, to be quite honest I have started the last few years wanting to buy more than I read but, somehow, I don't seem to be able to read fast enough!

Interesting that membership of LT has now exceeded 2 million members according to the zeitgeist pages.
The 75ers remains by far in a way the most chatty group running still on average at five times more posts than any other group. We are also in fairness a very active cataloguing group (not sure where we find the time and I have neglected this, this year). According to a quick check of the relevant zeitgeist page here are our top 10 cataloguers. Sorry if my less than eagle eye has missed anyone:

1 Liz (lyzard) 27,956 books (10th overall)
2 Stasia (alcottacre) 14,258 (111th)
3 Luci (elkiedee) 13,718 (126th)
4 Paul S (paulstalder) 11,974 (164th)
5 Paul C (PaulCranswick) 10,980 (189th)
6 Suz (Chatterbox) 9,008 (300th)
7 Linda (Whisper1) 8,516 (346th)
8 Bruce (bruce_kraftt) 7,714 (445th)
9 Caroline (CarolineMcElwee) 7,595 (465th)
10 Kerry (avatiakh) 7,462 (488th)

Oh wow, I made the top ten for something!

>298 avatiakh: Not only that but also the top 0.025% of the whole of the LT membership of 2 million people.

You would also be top ten in books read this year amongst those threads posting more than 100 posts (about 150 threads)

1 Dejah 383
2 Suz 339
3 Kathy (kmartin) 285
4 Charlotte (charl08) 270
5 Kerry 217
6 Jennifer 208
7 Susan 203

Hi Paul, a bit chilly here in Walton this morning.

Hej Paul, we had the first snow flakes here in Basel, and I should take care of our tortoises in the garden, that that their little pond doesn't get frozen too much in the next months. The nights are getting below 0° C now.
Have a good start into the new week

>297 PaulCranswick: Gosh that's a lot of books! Nice to read the stats, thanks for sharing.

>300 johnsimpson: Expected John. I saw the news reports. Glad I am here!

>301 paulstalder: It is easier than here with such animals Paul. Hani once cleaned the house in JB and left the terrapins out in their 'cage'. When she remembered them the poor things were cooked to a turn. She was in floods of tears for a week.

>302 charl08: Welcome, Charlotte. Your 2,728 books catalogued puts you in the top 4,000 too.

Happy Monday, Paul!

>304 scaifea: Why thank you Amber. Didn't recognize you under all those layers of clothing! Stay warm my dear.

>305 PaulCranswick: Ha! Charlie has already practiced his best impression of Ralphie's little brother with, "I can't put my arms down!"

>294 PaulCranswick: LOL! I'm sorry Barack couldn't make it for breakfast. I'll bet he would've enjoyed the time with you and Hani.

#307
When I heard that Obama was in Malaysia I immediately thought of our bookish friend and business entrepreneur Paul and wondered if he would see Obama or if it that visit would only complicate his life with traffic snarls and extra security making it hard to get around.

With all the posts to the threads that the 75'ers do and all the book reviewing that they do, why don't I see more of their book reviews on the book pages? It seems easy enough to me to copy and paste book reviews into the book pages. Am I missing something with the reluctance to post the reviews to the book pages along with the reviews on the threads?

The stat man is back!
;)

>306 scaifea: I bet he looks a picture.

>307 jnwelch: I am no great wit and raconteur, Joe, but I would have been better company than our witless and greedy fingered Prime Minister.

>308 benitastrnad: I am as guilty as most in this Benita as I rarely post reviews to the work page. I do see quite a few of our number when I do go to that page though.

>309 LovingLit: :D

>308 benitastrnad: I post my reviews to the book page when I think I've done the book justice. Sometimes my thoughts don't gel and I just get down enough to remind myself of how I reacted to the book, but not enough to be of use to anyone else. When that happens, I let them lie on my thread.

>311 laytonwoman3rd: I know exactly what you mean, Linda. I am often faintly dissatisfied with my comments on a book or feel that it is too pithy or sarcastic to foist it permanently on the work page.

>311 laytonwoman3rd:, >312 PaulCranswick: I just automatically put mine over on the book page if it's more than a couple of sentences. I usually review ones that I'd like to encourage others to read, so putting it on the book page fits that.

>313 jnwelch: I suppose you are right to do so too Joe and I will look to pay more attention to that in future. It is strange that I don't so often post my reviews since I invariably read what others thought in gathering my own musings together to write a review.

When I set up a new thread one of the things I try to remember to do is take my more comprehensive reviews of the books I still own and copy them to the works pages. A slower process for me as I don't set up new threads as often as some people.

>315 Familyhistorian: Well I have had a lot fewer threads than normal this year too, Meg, but it hasn't affected my posting reviews either way. I guess it was more that I hadn't prioritised doing so but since I like reading the thoughts of my fellow 75ers on the same work pages I really ought to change that.

Pithy reviews are exactly what the book pages need. These provide insight about the book, and in these days of publishing glut help people to make decisions about what books to read. With two million users of LT it should be noted that most people don't use the social networking part of the site and only use the book cataloging part. For that reason the reviews that they are likely to see are the ones on the book page, not these wonderful insights that I see here on the threads. It took me almost two years of using LT before I even ventured out into the threads so I am sure that there are others out there who don't participate in the threads.

#311
I don't write reviews if I don't like the book. I simply rate it with 1 or 2 stars. Don't sell your book reviews short. You read many books and I value your opinion. I am sure that others would as well.

>317 benitastrnad: New reviews will go onto the work page, Benita, dear - you have pricked my conscience on this!
>311 laytonwoman3rd: I agree with Benita, Linda, I also value your views on books and et cetera. xx

>317 benitastrnad: You were ahead of me. It took me 5 years to find the social networking threads on LT, Benita. But then I didn't look at the reviews either because I didn't know they were there. Then again I might have stumbled across the reviews when I started to explore LT more. I wonder if just having access to the reviews would have had the same effect on my book buying as all the BBs on the threads?

>319 Familyhistorian: I came onto LT strictly to have a place to catalogue my books and stumbled across the 75ers completely by accident just browsing through the site. I wasn't expecting it to have such a profound impact on my life.

>317 benitastrnad:, >318 PaulCranswick: Well, thank you for the kind words, both of you. I've written some reviews I'm pretty proud of. I checked my stats and I have "published" 344 reviews on the book pages since I started doing so in 2007. (I joined LT almost ten years ago, on December 3, 2005). Since I read an average of 82 books a year, that means I've reviewed approximately half of my reads on the book pages (344/688). I would have thought more.

Thank goodness you stumbled onto the 75ers group, Paul. I can't imagine not having you part of this.

I wonder whether Tim and our presiding LTers should do more to let folks know about the discussion groups and threads? Or maybe it's fine as is.

As an aside, because I am so slow to the party I wanted to let you know that I am about to finish Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, a book I have been calling the interminable novel. I use that word lightly but also seriously. I read the novel because it was for Paul's BAC back in October when he featured Mitchell as one of the authors. This is novel is David Mitchell's first novel (published in 2000) and therefore the first of his trademark "puzzle novels." I think that because it is so experimental it is very hard to read. It definitely is a puzzle and I think that some of the puzzles don't get solved until the next book, which is - I think - Cloud Atlas. All of the "seemingly" unconnected parts of the novel makes this a very disjointed read, and while, at times, I like novels to make me think, on some levels this one just doesn't quite work. I am happy that I read Cloud Atlas first because that is the better novel of these two and because I loved Cloud Atlas and Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet so much I kept going. There have been some surprises in this novel, but overall those have not been enough for me to think this novel was anything outstanding. Thank goodness the publisher thought that Mitchell showed promise and stayed with him, because that promise is hard to see in this novel. The commercial reviews of this novel are positive and all talk about the gorgeous prose and convoluted plot lines. I think they should have mentioned that the novel is dense and very hard to read. I would bet that few readers actually read it from cover to cover. I almost didn't and can't say that I am better for having stuck with it to the end.

#322
I can't imagine LT without you, Paul, Mark, Darryl, etc. etc. The presence of all these people has enriched my reading and my life.

I have talked with Tim about the threads. I see him and Abby at almost every American Library Association meeting. Right now Tim is concentrating on the cataloging part of LT that is used in many small public, church, school, and private institution libraries, so he told me last summer that he is not doing much with the threads anymore. He did tell me that LT is primarily a service company and that there are lots of ways that LT can help small organizations to keep track of their collections and make their holdings "public" so that they can be used in more efficient ways. However, I have talked to both Tim and Abby about the impact of the threads and of certain people who are really important in the social part of LT. I specifically mentioned some names to them and told them that these people have strong followings for both social and book review reasons. Their influence and impact is probably more than what is thought.

Talking to Tim and Abby at ALA is something that I strongly encourage people who use LT to do if you attend the ALA meetings. LT gives away free passes to the exhibits at ALA and I wish that more people would take advantage of these and that those who get the passes seek out and find the LT booth and talk to Tim or Abby. (Tim is the founder of LT and Abby was his first employee.) Both of them are looking for ways to expand LT and make it more useful to members, but because it is a small company they only do a few things at a time. Tim told me that he has been astonished at the response to the TinyCat project. This is the extension of LT that is marketed to small libraries and in fact LT was overwhelmed by the response when TinyCat went live and had to hire another computer geek to work with Tim on the project. (I believe that they now have 9 full-time employees, but I am not sure about that.)

At this point the company is still small and is based in that major silicon valley of Portland, Maine (Tim's hometown). Tim Spaulding is the major stockholder, but 40% of the company is owned by a major information supplier (Cambridge Information Group & Amazon). Tim told me that he intends to remain the major stockholder because he wants to keep the company small and intimate so that it can continue to do what it does best - be a base for readers. However, as LT grew it needed to have more cash in order to have more servers and computing power. That was the main reason why he sold part of it in 2005. (AbeBooks bought it and then in less than a year AbeBooks was purchased by Amazon.) Tim assured me that he still has the majority stake in the company and has no plans to make things any different than they are now.

In the past, I have met Tim and Abby for LT meet-ups in the cities that host the American Library Association meeting. It works out best for us to do breakfast meetups as Tim and Abby have to be in the exhibit hall ready to go at 9:00 a.m. and in the evenings they have meetings with other information software and hardware folks. That makes it hard for people who are only going to the exhibits to get to a meetup. But from time-to-time we try and I always notify Abby of time and place, when I can, of meeting other LT'ers for lunch or coffee. Sometimes they make it to share with us and sometimes they don't.

The ALA meeting starting on January 8, 2016 will be in Boston and in a week or so I will e-mail Abby and find out if LT is planning on doing the free passes again. Because the meeting is so close to the Christmas holidays it will be harder for me to keep bugging people to take advantage of the free passes, but I will try to do so and will try to set up a meetup. You can be sure that if there are free passes and a meetup planned that I will be hijacking lots of threads to make sure that folks know about it.

Thanks for all that good information, Benita. I try to keep up with the State of the Thing and so on, but that is an excellent summary of the internal workings of LT.

>324 benitastrnad: ... if only they were in Asia, too ...

>321 laytonwoman3rd: Well I think those statistics are quite impressive and place you just outside the top 1000 in the list of reviewers for the whole of LT.

You may have guessed that I would check but our little 75ers group is not entirely shabby in the reviewers ratings either. Ten of our number have more than 1000 reviews and all place in the top 200 reviewers in the whole site:

1 jeremy (jnd1) 1619 (67th overall)
2 jennifer (jjmcgaffey) 1607 (69th)
3 Tad 1423 (86th)
4 kathy (kmartin802) 1259 (121st)
5 Lori (Thornton) 1186 (142nd)
6 Linda (Whisper) 1165 (147th)
7 Melissa (kassilem) 1093 (164th)
8 Judy (DeltaQueen50) 1091 (166th)
9 Richard (richardderus) 1033 (190th)
10 Carrie (cbl_tn) 1028 (193th)

>322 jnwelch: Thank you so much for that, Joe. As you would know the feeling is entirely mutual. I have made so many firm friends in this group and feel so privileged.

>323 benitastrnad: I know exactly what you mean with Mitchell, Benita. I thought most of Ghostwritten was superb but the ending sort of tailed off in an anti-climax of some proportions.

>324 benitastrnad: A 75ers love-in! What a lovely way to start my day to see such affectionate words on my thread. In many ways you are a unique presence here Benita as you don't maintain a thread but are very much part of the 'team'. I think that if our group was an accurate slice of what the whole world was like, we wouldn't be seeing all those terrible things on the TV news everyday. xxx

Of course I cannot participate in the ALA meet-ups but I do think that the platform that Tim has provided here that goes way beyond cataloging and servicing of organisations. It may not have been intended that the 75ers in large part would take over the social networking part of the site and, in many ways, globalise the thing, but the fact that the infrastructure was in place to do so gives kudos to Tim and his team.

>325 laytonwoman3rd: I also read The State of the Thing is a cursory way Linda; Benita's summations are more interesting!

>326 humouress: No disrespect to Tim and his team but I am far more interested in meeting our fellow group members although my failure to get to Singapore may indicate otherwise!