Nathalie (Deern) reads on in 2016 - Part 4

Well, let's hope I'll read on and not stop again ... :)

This is my the sleeping part of my living/bedroom with the bed extended to 1,80m. I decided to leave it this way unless I have visitors. In summer it's nice to have some more space in bed.



Sorry, sideways again. My new mini balcony with my happy yellow IKEA chair and my 4 pots with herbs.


Today (14/08) I finally painted my working table in happy blue! Next to it my e-piano (still not playing...) with my favorite blanket.


Housewarming peanutbutter chocolate cookies, anyone?
Don't worry, they're practically health food - only 1 tbsp maple syrup and a banana, oatmeal and almond flour, very dark chocolate. Totally delicious!

Books read and reviewed:

Not yet reviewed:
August:

Old thread https://www.librarything.com/topic/209936:
January:
1. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler - 3.8 stars
2. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill - 2.8 stars
3. Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes - 3.8 stars
4. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon - 4.2 stars
5. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies - 4 stars
6. Die Kraft liegt in mir by Tamara Dietl - 3 stars
7. Und trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen by Viktor Frankl - 5 stars
8. Stiller by Max Frisch - 5 stars
9. Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth - 4.1 stars

February:
10.L'amica geniale By Elenna Ferrante - 4.8 stars
11.Crooked House by Agatha Christie - 3 stars
12.Nate in Venice by Richard Russo - 3.7 stars

2nd thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/218692
13.Wonach wir wirklich hungern by Deepak Choprah - 3.8 stars
14.Storia del nuovo cognome by Elena Ferrante - 4/5 stars

March:
15. storia di chi resta e di chi fugge by Elena Ferrante - 4.2 stars
16. storia della bambina perduta by Elena Ferrante - 4 stars
17. Sunshine Sketches from a Little Town by Stephen Leackock - 3.5 stars
18. The Accidental by Ali Smith - 4 stars
19. Me Before you by JoJo Moyes - no Rating
20. The Vegetarian by Han Kang - 4 stars
21. The Trouble with Women by Jacky Fleming - 4 stars
22. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers - 3.5 stars
23. Sovereign by C.J. Sansom - 3.5 stars
24. Du Miststück Meine Depression und ich by Alexander Wendt - 3.5 stars

April:
25.The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - 4.5 stars
26.Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi - 3.5 stars
27.Adam Bede by George Eliot - 3.8 stars
28.Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek - 4 stars
29.Vanessa and her Sister by Priya Panar - 4.5 stars
30. Ein ganzes Leben by Robert Seethaler - 4.5 stars
31. Traumnovelle by Arthur Schnitzler

3rd thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/222473
May:
32. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
33. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy - 3.5 stars
34. The Book of Ralph by Christopher Steinsvold
35. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
36. Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
37. Letting Go by David R. Hawkins

June:
NIENTE ZERO NICHTS NOTHING

July:
38. The Drifters by James Michener - 4.2 stars
39. Letting Go by David R. Hawkins
40. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson - 4 stars
41. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet - 3.5 stars
42. Generosity by Richard Powers - 4 stars
43. Tales of a Female Monad by Rita Golden Gelman - 4 stars
44. Hystopia by David Means - 2.5 stars

August:
45. The Many by Wyn Menmuir - 3.8 stars
46. The Childhood of Jesus by J. M. Coetzee - 3.5 stars
47. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout - 4.1 stars
48. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy - 4 stars
49. The North Water by Iain McGuire - 3.5 stars
50. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
51. All that Man Is by David Szalay
52. The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
53. Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
54. Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy
55. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

September:
56. Make Someone Happy by Elizabeth Berg - 4.5 stars
57. Nutshell by Ian McEwan - 3 stars
58. The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel - 4.5 stars
59. Il Potere di Adesso by Eckhart Tolle - 4.5 stars

October:
60. Know That I Am by Eckhart Tolle - 3 stars
61. Freedom From The World by Eckhart Tolle - 4.5 stars
62. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien - 4.5 stars
63. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood - 4.5 stars
64. Autumn by Ali Smith - 5 stars
65. Vous n'aurez pas ma haine by Antoine Leiris - 5 stars

Purchases - badly kept up:
January:
- The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke - Kindle - DE
- Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth - Kindle - EN read
- Fifth Business by Robertson Davies - Audio - EN read
- Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes - Audio - EN read
- Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe - Kindle -EN
- Die Kraft liegt in mir by Tamara Dietl - Kindle - DE read
- Und trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen by Viktor Frankl - Kindle - DE read
- The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple - Kindle - EN ==> TA Book 1/9

February:
- Storia del nuovo cognome by Elena Ferrante - Kindle - IT ==> TA book 2/9 read
- Nate in Venice by Richard Russo - Kindle - EN read
- Storia di chi fugge e di chi resta by Elena Ferrante ==> TA book 3/9 read
- Lettera a un Bambino mai nato by Oriana Fallacci
- Oriana una Donna by Christina De Stefano

March:
- Storia della bambina perduta by Elena Ferrante ==> TA book 4/9 read
- The Accidental by Ali Smith ==> TA book 5/9 read
- I giorni dell'abbandono by Elena Ferrante ==> TA book 6/9
- La figlia oscura by Elens Ferrante ==> TA book 7/9
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang read
- "Trouble with Women" by Jacky Fleming read
- The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers read
- Sovereign by C.J. Sansom read
- Du Miststück Meine Depression und ich by Alexander Wendt read

April:
- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood read
- Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi read
- Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek read
- Vanessa and her Sister by Priya Parmar read

May:
- Trying Not To Try by Edward Slingerland
- Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson read
- Let's Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson read
- Letting Go by David R. Hawkins read

Challenges:

1,001 GRs:
- January: Stiller by Max Frisch COMPLETED
- February: The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf - already read
- March: Harriet Hume - not partcipated
- April: Contact by Carl Sagan - book unavailable in IT

AAC 2016:
- January: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant Anne Tyler - COMPLETED
- February: Nate in Venice by Richard Russo COMPLETED
- March: --
- April: Gary Snyder

BAC 2016:
- January: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill COMPLETED, Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth COMPLETED
- February: Crooked House by Agatha Christie COMPLETED, The Age of Kali by Willam Dalrymple
- March: The Accidental by Ali Smith COMPLETED, The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy COMPLETED
- April: Adam Bede by George Eliot COMPLETED, Gabriel's Gift by Hanif Kureishi COMPLETED

CAC 2016:
- January: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies COMPLETED, Kim Thúy
- February: Helen Humphreys, Sunshine Sketches by Stephen Leacock COMPLETED
- March: --
- April: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood COMPLETED

Booker books:
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (Winner 1992)
The Accidental by Ali Smith (SL 2005)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Winner 2000)
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (LL 2016)
Hystopia by David Means (LL 2016)
The Many by Wyn Menmuir (LL 2016)
Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
North Water by Iain McGuire

Others
Series:
Elena Ferrante Neapolitan series - COMPLETED
Knausgaard????
At least 3 more Montalbanos

Booker 2016:

- The Sellout by Paul Beatty (US)
- the Schooldays of Jesus by JM Coetzee (SA/Australia)
- Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy (UK)
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (UK)
- His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) - 3 stars
- The North Water by Ian McGuire (UK)
- Hystopia by David Means (US) - 2.5 stars
- The Many by Wyl Menmuir (UK) - 3.8 stars
- Eileen by Ottessah Moshfegh (US)
- Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves (US)
- My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (US)
- All That Man is by David Szalay (Canada/UK)
- Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (Canada)

Currently reading:

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Happy new thread, Nathalie. I have started The Sellout this morning - the first of my Booker longlist reads.

Hello and thank you Paul! :)
I read the sample this weekend, but then decided to first finish the 3 I had already bought. So The Sellout is next on my list, and I really hope I'll enjoy it more than the first 2 books.

Btw I just checked amazon.uk and interestingly His Bloody Project has an average rating of just below 5. Everyone mentions the excitement I couldn't find in there. So please don't let my maybe reading-funk-induced reviews keep you from the books!! Maybe my brain is still numb.
Opinions are more mixed on Hystopia and quite good for "The Many".

Happy New Thread, Nathalie! Also hope that everything you read for the next little bit is pleasing to you!

>10 LizzieD: thank you Peggy! I hope so too. I notice I'm approaching novels now with too much of a "realistic view". This starts happening with "The Many" as well. Hm... Maybe I should return to non-fiction for a while?

*****
Grmpf. Went to the hospital for my results during lunch break. That thing they mentioned is harmless, but they looked very closely at the sonogram pics and found another couple of mini-thingies, on both sides. They asked me if I'd prefer another 2 biopsies or an MRI first. I'd rather to the biopsies, but if it goes like last year they'll need and MRI later anyway and then maybe have to make more biopsies, so better get this over with. At least it usually shows everything. I hated the MRI, but I'll have a meditation workshop in 2.5 weeks, so I should be well-prepared this time. And I could learn some poems by heart and keep reciting them in my head or something like that.

>11 Deern: Sorry they couldn't give you a clear answer Nathalie.

Do they let you take an mp3 into the machine? I've tried this with the dentist and it seemed to help tune out what was going on. I've not had one, so don't know if it's allowed.

Re the Booker - I value your negative responses as much as the positive ones. You've been making me feel better about not being gripped by the two I've tried.

>12 charl08: No, sadly that's not possible and also makes no sense (also used it at the dentist's already). It's horribly loud in there. In normal life I always flinch when there's an unexpected noise, so lying on my stomach for 25 minutes without moving in that tight tunnel with changing nervous loud beep or baap sounds is really quite the nightmare. Last time I was freaked out for the first 15 minutes because I was so scared of the moment when they'd pump that contrast medium into my arm. Now I know it'll happen after the second sound pattern, that it doesn't hurt, is just cold and that I probably won't die in there. I'll exercise my yoga breathing in advance. :)

Happy new thread, Nathalie.

During my last MRI I put myself mentaly to another place I like most. That helped. I could even ignore the sound.

>14 Ameise1: Thank you Barbara!
That's a great advice, I'll prepare a calming place in my mind! :)
Anyway, I think it'll be much easier this time. Maybe they should give people a sound sample before their first one, it'd be less scary.

Good luck with the tests Nathalie. Both J and Mr SandDune had to have MRI's recently and apparently Mr SandDune nearly fell asleep while J was given headphones and a movie to watch, so neither of them had any problems. Personally I think I would find it quite claustrophobic.

>16 SandDune: Hi Rhian, thank you! I talked to my mum last night who also had MRIs for various body parts. Seems it depends from what they are scanning which sounds they are playing and how loudly and how Long it takes. Sleeping would have been totally impossible. Sadly no movie screen in Merano's machine. :(
I'm a bit claustrophobic and on the stomach I felt less "in control" (as if I had any) than on my back. I don't remember how I had to hold my arms, but it was quite uncomfortable.
Anyway, those 20-25mins will pass as well. :)

****
Finished The Many and restarted The Sellout last night. I read the sample last week, but already forgot everything.

45. The Many by Wyl Menmuir (Booker 2016 LL 3/13) - contains SPOILERS

My new realistic reader’s brain had quite a fight with this short book until the symbolism became so obvious that it gave in and said, “okay, it’s clearly not meant to be real life” and accepted the plot.

I spent a good half of the book arguing with the plot. Timothy, a young man “from the city” moves to an extremely remote village on the coast of Wales. Everything, absolutely everything there is cold, grey and dreary, and I was asking myself over and over again why the **** he decided this would be the place to raise a family. He’s bought a house that has been empty and neglected for 10 years since the owner Perran died, presumably committing suicide. During his first weeks Timothy has no contact at all to the locals – something that seemed totally incredible for me. They might be closed people, but please… at least the women in the shop would try to initiate a chat and find out as much as possible. Neighbors would offer a hand during renovations, just out of curiosity. There’s a wife or partner for whom he prepares the house. Their contact is difficult, because that fantastic place has no cellphone connection.

The second character is Ethan, a fisherman in his 50s. Ethan is in constant mourning for Perran, more so than everyone else. His is one of 4 remaining active fishing boats, after “the state” restricted the fishing grounds and some big company anchored two huge ships in the bay, guarding the exit. There’s also talk about chemicals in the water, and the little fish that’s caught seems mutated and close to death. Enchanting place...

For the locals, Timothy’s arrival brings a mix of hostility (because he occupies Perran’s house) and hope, as if the fish and the good old times might return with him, as if he were a kind of second Perran. But people don’t talk about Perran, and when Timothy asks too many questions, hostility breaks out openly.

There’s repeated mention of text that’s not readable, connections to the outside world that can’t be made…
Well, in the end I got it and I “liked” it as far as it’s possible to like a book that makes you feel like you’re dead inside. Not that the remote place with no obvious way out is a motive never done before, and in the end the symbolism really hits you on the head, but overall it’s well done. The cold really gets you and creeps into your bones and heart.
It’s a first novel by a promising author, I hope we’ll see more of him.

Rating: 3.8 (4) stars

Well, Hystopia gets the Big No from me. I'm glad I read Lucy Barton and Work Like Any other before the list came out or I'd be quite unimpressed at this point.

Happy new thread, Nathalie, and good luck with the MRI.

>19 charl08: I wasn't courageous enough for the Big No, but the book didn't work for me at all. It's rare that a Booker candidate gets less than 3 stars from me, and I'm considering lowering my rating to 2.
I'm now reading the Sellout, but can't yet say if I like it or not. Lucy Barton or the Kennedy are next on my list.

>20 FAMeulstee: Thank you Anita! :)

Catching up on your last thread and this -- I am so happy to see you reading again!

The nomad book looks very intriguing. Too bad that Hystopia just doesn't work.

>22 sibylline: Hi Lucy, thank you! I'm also quite happy, I just wish I'd finally find a really great Booker candidate!
I might buy the sequel of the nomad book, but as a paper copy as it contains a collection of recipes of dishes she cooked with the local women wherever she was.

*****

I took a break on The Sellout and started The Childhood of Jesus, the prequel of the listed The Schooldays of Jesus. As Darryl informed me, the latter will be published earlier, so I wanted to get acquainted with the story. Now Coetzee is an author whose books I never enjoyed so far in the slightest. They are good, okay, I believe the critics and juries of the world. But there's a massive inner resistance in me against his writing and his plots and characters. After surprisingly great 6% (the length of the sample of course) I'm now at 15% and already struggling and not really interested to read a sequel any time soon. It seems easier than other Coetzees I've read, but that's about it. It has a dystopean feel to it.

Next try will be My Name is Lucy Barton. It didn't interest me when it was listed for the Orange prize, but so many people like it... This list must get better at some point, please??

I should have much reading time tomorrow,I'm going to Munich and back with 3 colleagues for a workshop. 6-8 hrs in a car, I hope I won't get car-sick on my back seat. Maybe I should download an audio for the drive.

>23 Deern: I've got my fingers crossed for you enjoying Lucy Barton. And for not being sick in the back seat.

Nice review of The Many, Nathalie. I had no idea why Timothy would have wanted to move there, given his less than enjoyable vacation there with Lauren when they were dating. However, I could understand, at least in part, why he stayed away from the villagers, due to that bad initial reception and the subsequent ones in which they stared at and gossiped about him under their breaths. How did you conclude that Perran committed suicide? I must have missed something. I was hoping for more answers, or some closure, at the end of the book, which didn't happen, and I found it incomplete and unsatisfying as a result.

Oh dear ---- 6 or 8 hours in a car sounds awful at about the same level as 25 minutes getting an MRI. Peace to you, m'dear!
The Booker list isn't looking any better, is it? I'm still interested in the Kennedy though and eager to hear what you think of it.

Back from Munich and back to work h**l. Yesterday I learned that I can quite forget about full weekends between mid-November and mid-January (with exception of the Christmas holidays). I was already considering working Saturdays when needed starting in September. But in the end... I'm working 11 hrs on most days already and am totally drowning in ad-hoc requests and feel like I can't control my workload at all any more. And I did the time-management seminars and try to apply all the positive thinking and auto-suggestion stuff already.

I set myself a goal now. I'll do this warehouse project (which I find really interesting) as well as possible. If then things lighten up - fine. If not... I'll need other options.

The meeting in Munich however was great. I got slightly car-sick, so didn't read and instead listened to Singer some more. It was worse on the way back and I was quite green when we finally arrived in Merano.

We had another bad storm early this morning with such heavy rainfalls that the courtyard where my car is parked was a bit flooded with water and mud. It has kept raining since then, so I might have to look for a different parking place tonight. Glad my appt is so high up on the first floor. The electricity at my neighbor's place went off this time (I noticed because the hallway light belongs to their counter). I switched it on again, but don't know for how many hours the appt was without and I hope their freezer didn't cause any damage. They're on holiday, so I informed the owner.

>24 charl08: Thank you, it helped a bit :)

>25 kidzdoc: Thank you Darryl. :)
That first (or second?) part by Ethan sounded like it. It wasn't proved, but Ethan thought he could have prevented it had he stayed with Perran.
I thought that a "normal" Timothy would on his first arrival seek the contact of the locals - which he didn't. He ate stuff he brought and didn't walk into the village. This was unusual enough for me. And then - in a "normal" village there'd always be some curious people. They might decide not to look for contact, but there'd always be one or two who'd "accidentally" bump into the stranger and ask him questions. So the fronts were there from the beginning on both sides, and at a time when I still thought I was reading something realistic, it didn't fit for me. In the total context it makes sense, of course.

>26 LizzieD: It was basically okay - my colleagues were nice and we talked a lot, but the motorway here in Alto Adige has many bends, so on the way back when it was the last part of the trip, my stomach wasn't happy.

The Kennedy is still quite expensive where I live, that's why I want to wait a bit.
*******

I like the Coetzee prequel better now, although so far as much as I try, I don't get the Jesus thing. The boy is strange, yes. But not Jesus-like at all.

Interested to see that The Sellout wasn't a sell out for you and you have ditched it for a while. I am struggling through it myself - if this is "the most lacerating American satire in years" as The Guardian opined I wouldn't be up for the rest of it. Laid on as thick as a trowel - he reminds me of a black american version of Martin Amis - uncouth, heavy-handed and best avoided. I recognise the sweep of his writing occasionally but this won't be one I will be recommending to the world at large.

Have a great weekend, Nathalie and hopefully your medical tests will be less of a burden than you fear and the end result a positive one (in a good way of course). xx

Happy new thread, Nathalie! have a wonderful weekend!

>28 PaulCranswick: And you know what - if you hadn't reminded me of The Sellout now I'd have totally forgotten that I started it. Not really a recommendation, is it?
The good stuff that's certainly in there is hidden unter too much... don't find a fitting expression.

Thank you for the good wishes, and a very happy weekend to you! :)

>29 Carmenere: Thank you Lynda, the same to you! I hope to find my way to your thread this weekend.

>30 DianaNL: And I hope to get to your thread as well Diana.. Thank you - those hugs are SO needed! :) Hugs back and happy weekend to you!

I'm sorry to read that your work is a never ending task. Glad to hear that there is a project you like. The stormy weather in the mountains can be heavy. I hope the weekend will be better.

Hey Nathalie, wishing you a good weekend. I'm with Barbara in being sorry to read that you are so overloaded at work. Hope that you are able to find more of a balance there. I've abandoned the Booker list for now and am reading a light (maybe cosy? ) crime novel set in the publishing world.

>32 Ameise1: Hi Barbara, it's nice and sunny today and the forecast says we won't have a thunderstorm tonight for once, yay!

>33 charl08: Hi Charlotte, cosy crime novel sounds good, I'll check your thread in a minute. I finished the Coetzee prequel this morning and started Lucy Barton which also seems to be short, I only got an hour of reading time left, but 80% of book. So far it's nice, but not yet exceptional. Still waiting for sth either brilliant or at least different of which there was so much on the LL 2014 (though the SL selection was overall disappointing).

*****
Well, work.... I'm in the office from 7 to 7 now on most days and still my manager thinks it's a good idea that I should learn another couple of tasks to substitute a colleague during her holidays. I like that colleague very much and would helped her out anyway, but my manager didn't even ask, he just ordered. Just one small example. I'm not willing to risk my health on the long run because our processes are old and there's an overall lack of co-operation and organization. I can feel my body beginning to react to the stress with constant anxiety and tension, and I'm sure my blood pressure is up. And that's all caused by tasks that have nothing to do with the project at all, the project work is extra and so far invisible to the management.

Finished Lucy Barton. Wasn't crazy about it until I got to the last third which was lovely and felt sincere. Not a winner in a good year, but I'd be fine with it this year - unless the other 9 are surprisingly and exceptionally great. 4.1 stars.

Read the sample of the Kennedy book. Well, if those two people I met on those many many sample pages (how long is this book?) are meant to meet and get together, their neuroses will make for a happy relationship, I'm sure. How can you get so worked up about a store-bought cake? From the sample I dare to predict that Darryl will hate it.

Meeting my ex-neighbor Ute for a hike, so I'm off now. Weather is lovely, blue sky, no wind, not too hot yet. One of few really nice summer days so far.

HI Natalie

I am woefully behind on threads. Regarding the MRI process, I've had many and I still don't cope with them well. I've learned to ask my doctor for a sedative.

I'm sorry that work is so hellishly busy. I work in a local university. I've been there 32 years and I swear that each year they put us on a treadmill and click the highest speed. Some day we will all fly right off and hit a brick wall. I have a copy of this print hung on the wall right across from my desk. It provides humor because like the Danaides, the water/work goes in the container and out of the container which has holes in it leaking the water/work out to start all over again.

J.W.Waterhouse, Pre-Raphaelite painter, Victorian Art

>35 Deern: I've got the hardback of the Kennedy - over 500 pages. I've not got very far. It's not grabbing me...

Nathalie, I thank you so much for vetting the Booker List. There wasn't much on there that appealed to me. I didn't think Lucy Barton was Strout's best work, but like you, I might be happy if it won. I have Eileen and Work Like Any Other checked out from the library. I chose them because they were available. I hope you are settled into and enjoying your new abode.

>36 Whisper1: I lovelovelove that comparison with the threadmill! Thank you for the picture, I might copy you. :)

>37 charl08: I put it aside to first get done with Hot Milk. So far it hasn't turned into chick-lit yet, but I'm already tired of it.

>38 Donna828: Hi Donna, thank you for visiting. I lurked a bit on your thread, but fear I haven't posted in a while. When I look at the remaining tbrs on that list, there isn't a single one I'm looking forward to read now. LB was a pleasant surprise, I'd read the sample a while ago and didn't expect anything.
I'm quite settled though far from finished. Must de-clutter more... and find the right happy light blue for my old table.

46. The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee

By far my favorite Coetzee yet. Not that this means much. It’s the first book by him that I didn’t hate all through my reading. Actually, I disliked only some parts and found others quite fascinating, so for a Coetzee it really was an agreeable read. However, while I didn’t like his other books at all, I knew I was reading something good, yet difficult and important. I didn’t have that feeling with this book, but if it’s the first part of a series I guess he wants to take this plot somewhere.

It’s a strange world he describes. Most or all its inhabitants are refugees who arrived through a camp where they learned the language (Spanish). They arrive without money and with just the clothes they’re wearing. They get simple housing and quickly find work, and that’s about all we learn here. Also Simón and David arrive this way. Simón is described as an older man, though later it is said he’s just in his mid-forties. David is about 5 years old. On the refugee boat he carried a letter with the names of his parents, but that letter was lost and Simón sees it as his task to find David’s mother, although he doesn’t even know her name. People are “washed clear” when they arrive in that strange country, that means they lose most of their memories, but also their attachments to others. A mother might not remember she ever had a child, while a childless woman might decide to be a mother to a child she never saw.

The most interesting concept for me however was the lack of passion in the people who live in that country. Basically they have arrived at a state of mind most spiritual movements want to achieve: benevolence towards everyone, no hatred, no close attachments that might lead to pain. Unfortunately later in the book this concept seemed to be abandoned again and the focus switched to David trying to understand the world and annoying Simón (and this reader) with endless “why” questions. I guess this is meant to show depth and to prove that David is different from others. Yet as far as I know this is quite a normal phase of development. There are just a handful of indications of David’s “Jesus nature”: He doesn’t want to accept death and believes he could awaken dead bodies if people only let him (but difficulty accepting death is also a typical step I’d say). He asks people to abandon their environments and follow him (though not in a Jesus way, more like the spoiled child he then has become). He asks why foods have to be finite, etc.

For most of the book I wasn’t looking forward to reading a sequel, but during the last 10% Coetzee managed to make me curious, and I’m now quite looking forward to The Schooldays of Jesus.

Rating: 3.5 stars

47. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (Booker 2016 LL 4/13)

I started so many books where the Kindle sample was intriguing and the rest of the book couldn’t hold up. Here it was the contrary case – I hated the title and strongly disliked the sample when I read it months ago for the Orange Prize list. I was a bit annoyed when I saw it on the Booker list, but hey – it was short and I should be done with it quickly.

I admit I didn’t care much for it for about the first half. It was nice, but I kept asking myself how it had made it on any list. She got me in the last third, when the mother is already leaving the hospital and the narrative becomes a sequence of short meditations. Things get wrapped up I hadn’t even noticed as open threads. There are half sentences that tell a whole story. And strangely enough, by the end of the book I loved that woman and just wanted to hug her and thank her for telling her story that isn’t really a story.

A winner for me? I’m not sure, there are 9 left to be read. It has “something different”, it has honesty and despite its construction doesn’t feel constructed. And I think it’ll stay with me. It’s the first book I’d happily put on the SL.

Rating: 4.1 stars

>41 Deern: Adding My name is Lucy Barton to mount TBR, not sure about the Coetzee yet...

>41 Deern: Great review. You've made me want to read it again.

Do not say we have nothing is still ticking all my boxes - sweeping historical novel that is relevant now, how we deal with political change.

So glad you enjoyed the Strout!

48.Hot Milk by Deporah Levy (Booker 2016 LL 5/13)

This was quite a surprise. I liked Levy’s Swimming Home okay in 2012, but it wasn’t perfect and had a disappointing ending. I didn’t expect anything this time after Darryl’s review, but while I was sitting there and reading and waiting that it turned into chick-lit, I realized what Levy was trying to do. I’ve read a couple of books usually by female authors who try to translate the sensation of being into words. The language turns seemingly poetic and the plot disappears behind surreal scenes. The problem is that what works for the author, a combination of images that for her convey the sensation of a certain moment, don’t necessarily trigger the same reaction with the readers. So I constantly fell in line and out of line with this book, but I enjoyed watching the experiment and let the plot go that isn’t really one. Forget about mother and daughter in Spain trying to find a cure for the mother’s walking problems. This isn’t about an illness with a name, this isn’t about actions and rational thoughts. In the end it is also about mourning, not the loss of a person in this case, but the absence of something we always wanted to have, we thought we’d have a claim on. It also has a disappointing ending on its last 2 pages by the way, but I’m ignoring it, the damage isn’t as bad as in 2012.

It’s fascinating that the jury selected this book and also The Many by Wyn Menmuir which I now see a bit differently. I believe he tried the same thing from a male perspective, and interestingly it’s also about mourning (though in that case it’s deaths), there’s also the sea, there are also stinging medusas, but it’s two totally different worlds.
If you read the one, make sure to read the other one as well.

If however you mostly enjoy plot-driven novels where normal people behave half-rationally, and dislike “egocentric” books, both aren’t for you.

Rating: 4 stars

>42 FAMeulstee: I'm sure you'll enjoy My Name is Lucy Barton, Anita!

>43 charl08: Thank you Charlotte! I'm planning to read another one before I get to Dnswhn, but I'll definitely read it soon!

>44 sibylline: I am glad as well, I so often am the one exception with books everyone likes.

>45 Deern: Ooh. Intriguing review. Looking forward to this one, as I heard tantalising bits of the (abridged) radio serialisation, but missed most of it. (I'm not even going near the use of that 'chicklit' word).

I've just started The North Water. It's kind of an 18 rating Treasure Island - treasure (obviously!), dubious characters and I am Unsure Who to Trust on the crew....

>45 Deern: Ha, that's the one I just started as well! :)
I'll try to avoid your review, it'll take me a while to get through it. Not my kind of book I fear, judging from the sample..

>45 Deern: Hot Milk sounds interesting - I was one who did like Swimming Home so I think I'll need to get this one.

Oh dear, Nathalie, I haven't read any of these, and I'm not at all sure that I want to...... Well, I do want to try the Kennedy in a year or 2 when the price has come down. For some reason, nothing that Strout does has appealed to me. I realize that that's an indefensible prejudice, but there it is. *Lucy Barton* doesn't call me at all.

>49 SandDune: I liked Swimming Home and thought the writing was good, the plot development less so. This one is way more "confused" and surreal, I had to let go off the plot thread quite early. Had I tried to hang on to it to get me through the book it wouldn't have worked. Maybe I should reread The Many disregarding the plot from the beginning.

>50 LizzieD: LB didn't call me at all either. There's something about the title that said "80s type book about strong little girl in a bad world". If I wasn't such a Booker list completist... I also had the advantage of not having read any other Strout before. And while I really liked this book because if its last third, I don't feel like reading another one soon. What are they like, too sweetish?

Yesterday I worked from 7 am to 7:45pm. Okay, I used my lunchbreak for yoga and reading, but still... Anyway, seems I don't work enough yet, so today and tomorrow I'll have to learn new tasks to substitute a colleague next week. Yay. At least we have a holiday on Monday, so I'll get some reading done over the weekend.

North Water is fun so far, but I'm only 22% in. I guess it'll at some point develop "relevance", or would they otherwise nominate an adventure story set in the 1800s? Could have done without those seal clubbing scenes though. :((

Finished North Water and am almost at half point, though what I read until now were all quite short books and longer ones are waiting.
I said on Charlotte's thread that it might be this year's brain cleanser, there have always been 1 or 2 easy books on the LL that certainly won't follow you into your dreams. This one might even be SLed, as a take on a classic adventure story. The animal slaughtering (seals, whales, bears) was a bit too graphic for me, but otherwise it was an okay summer read with an easy plot without surprises. Review tomorrow.

Now which one's up next?

>52 Deern: Agreed. The kind of book you could take to the beach and happily leave behind at the end of the trip.

49. The North Water by Iain McGuire ( BB2016 LL 6/13)

While this was quite an enjoyable book, imho it shouldn’t be on the list. What it lacked was (thanks Charlotte) meaningfulness. This is an adventure story set in the 1800s, mainly on a whaling ship. The bad guy is really bad and remains bad, the good guy is quite flawless, even his past despite some bad records. Thanks to a prophetic dream you know early on how it's going to end. Most of the other characters are just that – meaningless. Those that can’t be sorted to the good or bad side are just a number of interchangeable people who in the worst of moments just sit and play cards and the reader wouldn't even notice if they weren't complete anymore.

I realize this sounds more negative than it is. This is a clean-cut homage to books like Treasure Island, Moby Dick, some readers mentioned Jack London books which I haven't read yet. It’s not a “new take” as was Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries or Barry Unsworth’s book I read this year about the slave ship. I guess the author was quite surprised to find his work on this year’s list.

While I think it shouldn’t be there (that’s the German in me who insists on “serious literature”, not in genre, but in execution), it doesn’t make me angry as other listed books did in previous years (Almost English, The Kills, Howard Fry, “Us”, Me, Cheeta). Because this one is unpretentious, it doesn’t try to be more than it is.

I’m glad I read it, it was fun except for all the animal killing and I could have done with a bit less of body fluids. But this is something I’d happily read by the pool or beach and leave (thanks again Charlotte!), not something I’d award with a major literature prize.

Rating: 3.5 stars

>53 charl08: Perfect description I quoted you twice! :)
I thought all the body fluids might have prepared me sufficiently for Eileen, so I'll get through that one now as quickly as possible.

Just about closing on my second Booker longlist in Eileen which is another that hardly sings wonderful from the rooftops to me.

I will hazard that they go and pick something really leftfield this year as winner but I hope it is neither of the two I have read so far.

Have a great weekend, Nathalie.

It's mid August and I finished book #50, this is really bad. Still hoping to get to 75 eventually.

>55 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul, finished it as well about an hour ago. *sigh*
Haven't yet made my mind up whether to rate it with 3 or less. I didn't expect much, but more than I got. Must a book about a miserable childhood/ youth automatically be good? Can't really judge the writing many are praising. It read easily, and the insights were okay though not new. And then such an unexpected twist running into nothing

>54 Deern: Great review (not just saying that because you quoted me. Ha!)

Would an (only) English speaking intern help out at your office? No? Ah well, at least I offered!

Nice Booker reviews, Nathalie. You liked My Name Is Lucy Barton and Hot Milk far more than I did, and I'm glad for that. I passed over your review of The Childhood of Jesus, as I'll probably read it next week.

>56 Deern: Hopefully you pick up the pace and are able to get to 75! I was doing really well at the beginning of the year, but have slumped since then. But there's always next year!

Hi all, before I answer your posts, I added pics to my first post. Welcome to my housewarming party! There's also homemade lemon ginger lemonade in the fridge!

******
Went to the DIY yesterday to have my "Happy Blue" mixed. This morning I sanded the table and filled all the cracks with a special paste. Cleaned and dried it and then painted the first coat. You might notice the feet aren't totally painted, that's because when half done I decided to paint the lowest part yellow!
Can't say how much I LOVE that blue!

So much I had to bake cookies spontaneously to celebrate. The recipe is from Oh She glows, but I reduced the half cup (or was it a quarter?) of maple syrup to 1 tbsp and added a banana instead. Left out the coconut oil, used peanut butter instead of almond butter and just half the quantity, adding more water instead. The recipe says the cookies get too big and flat with peanut butter, but that didn't happen as you see.

As the kitchen was already dirty and I had finally finally found fresh tumeric in my supermarket, I could also make the ginger tumeric lemon lemonade. It's still cooling, but it looks fantastic. My fingernails are still yellow of course despite all the scrubbing. :/

We're having a long weekend, tomorrow is "Ferragosto", Italy's most important holiday. Everyone but me is on some beach, or so it feels. I don't know why Italians love making holidays when everyone else does, but I also noticed at the pool that they don't mind closest towel vicinity with total strangers. Never try to go sightseeing to Italy in August, the towns are totally dead. Not Merano though, here it's high season, the city bursting with Italians tourists. No parking places, no restaurant tables to get.

Anyway, I tried to get a week off end of August and my boss doesn't want me to go, because all of a sudden he needs the half year balance. I could have mentioned that I'm the only person in the office without a complete week off this year, but I reconsidered. If any possible I'll go in September and then travel South. Maybe - if it doesn't cost too much and if I'm courageous enough for more than one flight - I might include a weekend in London.

I'm doing daily yoga again after a short phase in June/ July when due to the move and an overstrained knee and shoulder I had to take a break. As I don't like sweating too much in summer, Im now doing yin yoga classes, and it's just fantastic for my mind. Just what I needed! This weekend I'll try and work through Lacey Haynes' yoga and creativity book I downloaded some months ago. It should be a good preparation for the zen meditation workshop I'm doing next weekend with my yoga friend Andrea.

Oh, and I started Booker #8, All That Man Is. I read 3 of the 9 short stories so far. It's good writing, I just don't like reading short stories.

>57 charl08: Ha - yes please! An English speaking intern would automatically be mine exclusively! :))))

>58 kidzdoc: Thank you Darryl! All That Man Is might be more for you, so far it's all about men travelling. While travelling however they're also navel gazing, so I'm not sure. :)

>59 The_Hibernator: Next year - you're SO right! :)
I still hope to get to 75 also thanks to the Booker which should get me into the mid 50s soon.

Hi, Nathalie! I hope you're enjoying your vacation today. You'll have to let us know if you decide to spend a weekend in London next month, so that we can include you in our plans!

Hmm. The novel I despised the most from the 2014 Booker Prize longlist was To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris, the one about the whiny privileged Park Avenue dentist in NYC who engaged in repeated navel gazing about his miserable life. Hopefully All That Man Is won't be as painful a book to read.

>62 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl, I'm still kind of hoping to get the August week, then I could go somewhere close by car (Garda lake or one of the more Northern beach regions). If I have to wait until September, I'll have to fly anyway and leave the car at the airport, so adding 2-3 days in London might be possible.

I now finished All That Man Is and really liked it. On my short story ranking it's actually quite high. I thought it was good writing and the stories do what short stories are meant to do: make the reader feel sad or uncomfortable. As it all concerns men in various stages of their life, but all confronted with some major decisions, of course there's much egocentrism, but in an intelligent way I'd say.
It's definitely not fluff!

******
Yes, I finished another one and started Do Not Say We Have Nothing. I'm only 5% in, but so far I can say that the writing has some beautiful moments. Looking back on history in form of a family saga is a genre I often don't enjoy, so it isn't a book I'm happily jumping into. We'll see..
High time to physically order the one I can't get as Kindle, Work Like Any Other.

******

I had been planning to LT yesterday, but then the Yin yoga/ creativity book took almost all of my time. For half of it it was a great experience, but then things changed.
Yin yoga, quite in fashion now, is not unproblematic. I tried it before and it went against me, but as the last 2 weeks went so well, I intensified it this weekend. It's a very slow form of yoga with deep breaths and long-held poses. Not power poses, more things like variations of forward bends. The longer you keep a pose the deeper you get into it and the deep connective tissue gets activated. So-called hip-openers are popular for bringing up old emotions, and I did too many of them. Had a bit of a breakdown in the afternoon, but I guess it was okay and important. When it came to the painting experiments (draw your favorite foods with a pen between your toes) I felt better again. But it was late evening when I was done with the program and I slept very badly.

50. Eileen by Ottessa Meshfagh (Booker 2016 LL 7/13)

This is the story of a total miserable youth told in a style that reminds of chick-lit (sorry Charlotte, don’t have a different expression). The narrator is the now quite old ex-Eileen (she mentions she has changed her name) who looks back on those bad years, half mocking her old self. You can’t really say anything against Eileen as a character because old Eileen already does all the “oh yes, I felt SOOO self-important” and “I kind of enjoyed my misery” and “my self-chosen ugliness was an expression of my vanity”. So yes, you can’t like Eileen and Eileen agrees with you. This creates a distance and keeps the reader from developing too much sympathy and to identify while it’s also an extra security mechanism against critics. I can’t decide if I find that smart or not.

Anyway, Eileen lives with her alcoholic father in a messy household. She wears the clothes of her dead mother and does everything to be invisible while dreaming to be saved by young Randy (whom she stalks) who works with her in a detention center for young criminal boys. Eileen herself drinks way too much, it is basically her only way to connect with her dad. In the evenings, after getting his daily gin supply at the liquor shop, she retires to the attic in order not to be confronted with her drunk father. Her life changes drastically when Rebecca starts working at the center. She’s lively, pretty and courageous and immediately makes friends with Eileen.

No, I didn’t like this novel very much. The book has some Jelinek The Piano Teacher moments, but it’s not as smart and witty and the sarcasm isn’t half as biting. The book is full of early and repeated announcements (“until I met Rebecca”, “this would be my last week with my father”, “this gun is going to be important”…). Then there was a really unexpected surprising twist from where the story could have taken a turn into a different genre. And then… disappointment.
I fear to see it again on the SL.

Rating: 3 stars, just so (more like 2.8, 2.9)

51. All That Man Is by Davis Szelay (Booker 2016 LL 8/13)

I don’t like short stories, so I wasn’t happy to see this one on the list. But then I read it quite quickly, in 3 days in bundles of 3 stories. I liked the construction very much. Each story is about a man, starting with 17year old Simon, ending with Simon’s 73year old grandfather (theirs is the only connection). From story to story the men get older. They’re all “away from home” – travelling Europe like Simon, in the holiday apartment in Italy, on business in Switzerland, on business in Germany, a journalist in Spain for an interview, an iron tycoon on his yacht in the Mediterranean, there’s also a British expat in Croatia. And all of them are in some kind of crisis, in some cases existential. About their sexuality, a loss of money and power, the realization that old age means the end of opportunities. I thought all characters were very well observed. Many of them aren’t likeable at all, totally egocentric and full of self-pity and I was happy to leave them where they were. Of others I’d have liked to know more. This is a very mixed bag in a good way, taken from life and served in portions small enough you’d also have some more.

Rating: 4 stars and I hope to see this one on the SL - so I guess they won't select it. :)

Happy Tuesday, Nathalie! Looks like your apartment is shaping up nicely!
I've begun to pay closer attention to the Booker Long List this year and I'm surprised they're not receiving so many 4 or 5 stars. Your comment for All That Man Is "4 stars and I hope to see this one on the SL - so I guess they won't select it. :)" is so spot on. As a late comer to the party, I'm about to begin Lucy Barton today. This is all rather exciting!

Hey Nathalie. You're steaming though the long list. The main opposition I have to the chicklit expression, is what it actually means! Obsession with relationships? Focus on women characters? Avoidance of a substantial meaning or theme? Forgive the ignorance.

>66 Carmenere: Thank you Lynda! Since taking the pics I also managed to hang some light curtains I've had for years.

So far I haven't found a book yet I'd really press on anyone else, not even Lucy Barton. It's more like "hey, this one isn't bad/is quite good", but no love yet! :(
2012 (when I started) wasn't a great year, but it had Bring Up the Bodies, the (pretentiously) smart and difficult Umbrella and the pretty The Garden of Evening Mists. 2013 didn't have much to show, but it had The Luminaries - what a happy and exciting read! And Transatlantic which I listened to as an audio book and never noticed the flaws in the phrasing Peggy mentioned.
2014 was full of fantastic surprises (almost none of them SLed - just think of History of Rain everyone LOVED) which let me forget all the lows like the dentist novel. 2015 already felt like a mediocre year, many 4 star reads, but so much sadness, mourning, suffering. The only book that excited me was the winner. This year is similar, but with more books meandering around the 3, a bit above, a bit below. Less suffering (TG), but less Feeling alltogether. They have extended their focus so much, I can't believe there isn't "more" this year!

>67 charl08: For me it also means a certain style of writing that seperates it from other romance. Dialogues seem casual and out of RL, but in reality you wouldn't find such dialogues in your own life. Good CL writers write like younger women dream, and so it totally resonates. I read a fair share of it in my very early 30s and it gripped my then still very Hollywood romantic soul, it's so addictive!
And OM uses that casual style for a story that should be miserable and mixes in some icky "Jelinek moments" that usually have to do with body fluids or functions and unusual ways of handling them. The drinking was the smallest problem in this story, actually..

Just ordered Work Like Any Other and used the opportunity to add 2 Lileks books, one about horrible interior desing of the 70s and another one about "regrettable food". I need those laughs, can't wait for the delivery!

>64 Deern: Yes, we pretty much agree on that one.

>65 Deern: Now that cheers me up some. I have that one on the stacks and hope it will be my final Booker read of the month.

I just ordered books and samples for the "Not the Booker Prize" shortlist. I joined Kindle unlimited and got two of them for free, the others are all way below 5 EUR. Here's the list:

The Combinations: A Novel by Louis Armand
The Less Than Perfect Legend of Donna Creosote by Dan Micklethwaite
Walking the Lights by Deborah Andrews
The Summer That Melted Everything by Tiffany McDaniel
Chains of Sand by Jemma Wayne
What Will Remain by Dan Clements

>71 PaulCranswick: I read a very positive review for it that says it's perfect noir. I'm quite unexperienced with that genre, I tried one knowingly last year by an Italian author and quite hated it, thinking it was flat and lacking logic, and it was a "milestone work". Maybe there are really genres that have to be learned?

I think the other one could be an interesting book for you, I'll be looking forward to reading your opinion.

I liked Chains of Sand. Look forward to hearing more about the others in your list.

>74 charl08: I'm not in a hurry with those non-Bookers, but I'll keep it in mind and read it soon.

The Schooldays of Jesus arrived on my Kindle this morning and I'll read it next. Read the first couple of pages, and now "the strange country" clearly refers to Australia, and the first book makes much more sense with the overall benevolence and "mateship" under which a certain conformity is hidden. Also the long stretches of desert landscape between towns. I'm quite looking forward to it now.

Well done on plowing through the Booker longlist, Nathalie! Eileen sounds awful, and it will probably be the last longlisted book I read, if I read it at all. I'll buy All That Man Is soon after I arrive in London, and read it while I'm there.

>76 kidzdoc: Not too difficult this year as so far they were all fairly short and not too complex - and most importantly so far there wasn't one I didn't want to end, so I really ran through them.
Be prepared to despise some of the men in the Szelay book, you're meant to. :)

It will be a couple of days now until I finish another one... long work today and then 3 days meditation workshop in Val Venosta with my friend Andrea. I have no idea what to expect.

I do enjoy your faithful reading of the Booker Long List!

Belated happy new thread! House looks lovely :)

Skimmed a bit on catch up mode so hoping all is okay? Trying to have my positive head on lately and was thinking of you - I find it so hard to sit down and break it all out and work out exactly what is making me so low this year. I love the way you have the strength to work through things that are affecting you - I'm trying to take a leaf out of your book (bonus points for book pun please?) but so far it's all a mush.

Back from my very demanding Zen meditation weekend. I didn’t know what I was in for – no-one did. In the end, it was a good experience, but I believe we all mentioned in the validation that the scope should be better explained. Basically, it was a retreat, including total silence. If you know that, it’s okay and a challenge – but then you don’t sign-up with a friend and ask for a double room as Andrea and I did. We decided early that in the room we’d talk as much as we wanted. Had we known it in advance, we’d have booked single rooms and I wouldn’t have done that other program last weekend.

The location Schloss Goldrain is one of those beautiful old medieval castles of which South Tyrol has hundreds. They host lots of seminars, and while we were there also a group of kids for a “medieval holiday experience” – must have been great fun! Very nicely done, clean rooms, a good atmosphere, especially the meditation room with the old rustic ceilings and a wooden floor that was perfect to be walked on with bare feet.

Food was vegetarian for us though I suspect the potato soup was made with a meat broth and I didn’t eat it after the first spoonful. While the dishes tasted very good, I have my doubts that green peas with tomato sauce and lots of onions, green beans and a porcini risotto are a good basis for subsequent long meditation sessions. It got better from meal to meal, so maybe our “master” told the kitchen. Yesterday we had the usual salad bar, then fresh potato croquettes, steamed and marinated zucchini and crespelle (thin pancakes, filled with herbs, baked in the oven), then small apple strudels for dessert. Breakfast was a bit sparse, but okay. We were totally famished all the time although “we were just sitting around”, but something in that meditation must have required lots of energy, stomachs were already grumbling loudly an hour before every meal. 

******
On Friday evening we learned how to do zen meditation and sat for some short sessions until 10pm. The next morning it started at 06:30am with some tai-chi exercises, then an hour of meditation sessions, breakfast (all silent of course), then “work” (I swept the courtyard and some stairs) for 45 minutes. Then a short break, another meditation session, some theory, meditation, lunch. We continued at 3pm with more meditation, then walking meditation for an hour, seated meditation again, dinner, more seated meditation until 9pm and a closing ritual. Basically the same program yesterday until 6pm when he had a final discussion and the program ended. During the last walking meditation outside everyone broke the silence because we at least wanted to know each other’s names.

The first day the silence was a bit uncomfortable, especially during the meals. Yesterday however we already felt so much like a team that the meals were total fun without any words. And when we finally talked it was like being among old friends.

The meditations were very demanding. At the beginning it was 10 and 15 minutes sessions that were then extended up to 25 minutes, with short walking meditations (in the room) in between to relieve the legs. I got to 20 minutes okay, but after 2 trials with the 25 I got a chair. I thought that totally numbing your legs so many times a day can’t be good for blood circulation, and the pain was intense as well. I wasn’t the only one, several of us used a chair from the beginning or later. The meditations were also demanding energetically, I always started sweating like crazy after about 15 minutes of not moving and counting to 10.

Reading was forbidden. I tried to during the pauses, but was too tired. Andrea and I did some yin yoga sessions from the website because shoulders, neck and legs hurt so much.
I myself got out of the strict zen meditation at some point and switched to yoga meditation, thinking of a love mantra instead of counting. While I get the theory, the idea of emptiness isn’t really mine and the procedure is way too strict for me. I prefer the more yogic theory that there’s love beyond, and after my yoga meditations on the second day I felt happy and at ease. I was glad to learn I’m able to just sit and meditate in silence without being guided by a CD or a video. I’ll integrate short sessions into my day when needed to refocus on the present moment.

*******
Why do I want to learn it? Because I grew up with the idea that multi-tasking is a good thing, and I noticed that I’m almost unable to ever be in the moment and to concentrate on just one thing. Not good at all, because there’s constant worry about something I might have done wrong or something I shouldn’t forget to do. What's the use? That's all wasterd energy! As I am very busy at work I started writing down lists a while ago, prioritizing tasks and then really work them off in order. If a new task comes up, I started to ask my boss which other thing I might postpone. I do long hours, but I feel I’m getting less into a panic and stress thinking of everything I have to do. I don’t want to run away from it all constantly as I used to.

In my private life it’s the same, maybe even more important. I want to be with my friends fully when I’m spending time with them and not think of who knows what. One friend once told me I often was present only physically, my mind always occupied with other things.

I also don’t want to hate tasks anymore, I’d like to learn doing them “lovingly” – for example those annoying statistics I do every month are my way to support our agents to better sell our products. I have to do these tasks (also ironing, washing dishes…) anyway, so why not enjoy them?

Of course I’m far from being fully there, but I see improvement. I won’t continue with the zen stuff, but I’m glad I did this weekend.

>78 sibylline: Faithful or obsessive? Hm... :D

>79 BekkaJo: First of all sending you a {big fat hug}! And then let me start with the horrible "when I was your age...". :))

When I was your age I didn't have a family, just my demanding work, and was already totally miserable. So I don't even have an idea what it means to get it all done the way you do all the time! I totally admire you, I would be SO overwhelmed!

I tried yoga in my early thirties and expected miracles which of course didn't come. I went through the occasional breakdown, worked like crazy and thought life had to be that way. On weekends I was ill with stress. I absolutely wasn't ready to accept that I had to change my ways, additionally I felt guilty for not being happy with the great life fate had given me.
It needed two really fat crises in the last 4 years to accept I couldn't do it on my own and that I couldn't continue. They might sound minor, but only you know which events rip your very own world apart. 4 years ago I called the crisis hotline and started therapy, and last April I jumped into the full spiritual yoga experience out of total desperation because otherwise I'd have jumped off a cliff at Positano. I'm still waiting for the point where it gets all easy as in my very old river dream. That point may never come, and there are bad moments like last Monday when I doubt everything, but overall life feels better now than it ever did.

I wish I would have had the Singer book in my thirties, the totally positive yoga teacher I met here, and I wish I would have learned about breathing exercises then.
Of course it's "spiritual stuff", but the audio of The Untethered Soul is really accessible and often so funny, I'm just listening to it again. Should you try it, don't get confused when it gets a bit theoretic about the "seat of conscience", concentrate on the parts that are for you now like the hilarious "inner room mate" and maybe listen to it again later.

Btw. of course those kids at the castle made fun of us silent oldies who swept floors or sat around with closed eyes. I thought that hopefully someone teaches them to follow their heart instead of their ratio as they grow older, so they won't have to spend hundreds of euros in 30 years to "meditatively sweep the stairs".

>81 Deern: I now know that I am going to explain to my dear wife, her with the OCD complex, that the bombsite that is my reading room has been meditatively tidied despite appearances. I am sure that it will get me a "thick ear" and no decent food for a fortnight! xx

>82 PaulCranswick: Hahaha, good luck with that!! :D
I should have added that we were all so happy for an occasion to moce our hurting limbs that we worked anything but meditatively! Those mossy stairs were quite spotless when we were done with them. :)
I sometimes worry a bit about the statics in your reading room. How much weight can the condo floor carry?

*****
My first Lileks book just arrived, the one with the 70s interior designs! While colors and patterns have been returning since that book was published, the pictures are still horrible enough to make me hope those designs will never have a full Comeback.

I also received work like any other in hardback form, so now I own all 13 candidates. I'm not used to reading such heavy books anymore or schlepping them around. Habits change quickly.

Glad you had a rewarding weekend Nathalie. Hope your work week goes well too.

I have been given core exercises to do by the hospital physio to try to improve the support for my back. I got a bit carried away and started adding exercises I remembered from yoga and pilates. Wow! Felt my muscles complaining this weekend. I want to go back to a regular class, otherwise I'll end up with a reasnable core and not much else. Funny that the swimming doesn't seem to deal with those muscles at all.

I loved the writing in Work Like Any Other . For me the tone was perfect for the story told (although not one I would think might win). Look forward to hearing what you think. I am stalled on Booker and international fiction and think my next read will be an undemanding Maigret.

52. The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee (Booker 2016 LL 9/13)

One thing you learn when doing „yoga and all that spiritual stuff“ is looking closely at everything that goes totally against you, because it will tell you something about yourself. Very clearly Coetzee is trying to tell me something about myself, I wish I knew what it is - I hate reading his books so much!

The Jesus books are strangely abstract. They have been compared to Yann Martell’s which I didn't like either. Should I reread Life of Pi?

If you read this book, prepare to forget about the plot or you’ll go crazy. Davíd and his strange parents Inés and Simón have arrived in the town of Estrella. After a short period of fruit picking on a farm they find sponsors for Davíd’s education and he enrolls in a Dancing Academy where he learns to dance the numbers 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11 (1 cannot be learned). Then there’s a crime at the academy and a character named Dmitri, the caretaker of the Art Museum, gets a big role in the second part.

I would never do anything to a child of course, but this not at all Jesus-like Davíd would force me to leave the room, he makes me want to slap him. He makes me aggressive, in this book more than in its prequel, and I absolutely don’t get why so many characters like him. He’s totally spoiled and insufferable. Maybe I’m jealous of him because he claims his place and gets it?
The book is told from the eyes of his stepfather Simón, a rational man in a confusing world, maybe the reader or maybe Coetzee’s alter ego, and we basically see Davíd’s irrational behavior towards him, so of course it’s possible he’s much more likeable with others.

Yes, it is a philosophical book and it has some brilliant moments. There’s deep thinking in it and deep searching. Maybe I’m still too immature for this series, maybe it needs repeated reading as some commenter in the guardian wrote. Sometimes it’s clearly over-constructed, there was that moment when I thought “Are you kidding me? He's totally not Jesus and now you give me a lamb???"”

I could easily tear it to pieces. I could almost as easily decide to convert to Coetzee’s way of thinking and give this book 5 stars. However I feel such a resistance against him and also don’t want to condemn something I don’t understand. So I won’t rate it for now. Strangely I believe I’d read the next one. This has to lead somewhere eventually?

I was wondering if the introduction of “He, Simón” is a friendly or mocking bow towards Hilary Mantel? He didn’t do that in part 1, I would have noticed, it jumps at you.
I was also wondering if Coetzee maybe doesn’t like people, especially women. He doesn’t understand them, so much was clear from the earlier works I read. That’s where I feel with him, so far I didn’t understand any of his female characters. If that’s how he perceives us it might explain something.

My dislike extends even to his pictures (poor man). Whoever he reminds me of must have left a negative impression on me. He definitely triggers something. Maybe I should force myself to read all of his works now to find out?

Okay, Booker: quite a safe SL bet. And I could live with it winning though it won't. At least it’s different, and reading it at various stages of your life might give you some answers. I just told someone that you have to grow into getting help from singing bowls. Maybe I still have to grow into Coetzee, right now I’m not ready for it.

>84 charl08: Those can help a lot, I should do them again as well, maybe while watching TV.
I'll get to WLAO pretty soon as none of the other 3 calls to me. I totally forgot I started Do Not Say We Have Nothing although I liked the sample. No, not a great year overall.

>85 Deern: Ouch. I'm not looking forward to this one.

>87 kidzdoc: I dare to predict that you won't like it. I tried my best to see Davíd not as a real child but as the "pure soul" some are calling him, but he still was mainly annoying.

***
This is just for me, a reminder in case I want to read some German books in the near future (because this thread is also like a diary). It's the LL for the Deutscher Buchpreis 2016. It's a copy of the Booker, but of course 13 books are not enough, it must be 20, the period between announcement of LL and winner is shorter, the books are longer and most will cost about 20 EUR ==> I have no ambiations at all to ever read the complete SL or LL or all winners.

◾Akos Doma: Der Weg der Wünsche (Rowohlt Berlin, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 17 EUR Kindle
◾Gerhard Falkner: Apollokalypse (Berlin Verlag, September 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 20 EUR Kindle
◾Ernst-Wilhelm Händler: München (S. Fischer, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 20 EUR Kindle
◾Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker: Fremde Seele, dunkler Wald (S. Fischer, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 19 EUR Kindle
◾ Bodo Kirchhoff: Widerfahrnis (Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, September 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 15 EUR Kindle
◾André Kubiczek: Skizze eines Sommers (Rowohlt Berlin, Mai 2016) 17 EUR Kindle
◾Michael Kumpfmüller: Die Erziehung des Mannes (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Februar 2016) 18 EUR Kindle, sample ordered
◾Katja Lange-Müller: Drehtür (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, August 2016) 17 EUR Kindle, sample ordered
◾Dagmar Leupold: Die Witwen (Jung und Jung, September 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 17 EUR Kindle
◾ Sibylle Lewitscharoff: Das Pfingstwunder (Suhrkamp, September 2016) NO KINDLE!!!, Hardback 23 EUR!
◾Thomas Melle: Die Welt im Rücken (Rowohlt Berlin, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 17 EUR Kindle ==> sample to be ordered
◾Joachim Meyerhoff: Ach, diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, November 2015) 19 EUR Kindle, part 3 of a trilogy
◾Hans Platzgumer: Am Rand (Paul Zsolnay, Februar 2016) NO KINDLE, hardback 20 EUR after 6 months!!
◾Eva Schmidt: Ein langes Jahr (Jung und Jung, Februar 2016) Kindle 16 EUR
◾ Arnold Stadler: Rauschzeit (S. Fischer, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 23 EUR Kindle!!
◾Peter Stamm: Weit über das Land (S. Fischer, Februar 2016) 19 EUR Kindle after 5 months!
◾Michelle Steinbeck: Mein Vater war ein Mann an Land und im Wasser ein Walfisch (Lenos, März 2016) 13 EUR Kindle, sample ordered
◾Thomas von Steinaecker: Die Verteidigung des Paradieses (S. Fischer, März 2016) 23 EUR Kindle after 5 months!!!!
◾Anna Weidenholzer: Weshalb die Herren Seesterne tragen (Matthes & Seitz Berlin, August 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 12 EUR Kindle ==> sample to be ordered
◾Philipp Winkler: Hool (Aufbau, September 2016) NOT YET PUBLISHED, 15 EUR Kindle ==> sample to be ordered

Five women? Makes the Booker ratio look almost healthy.

Dagmar is a female name, so it's 6, yay. :(
The German "Literaturbetrieb" is a serious and (for me) joyless business. Guess most women writers aren't serious enough.
For years I thought I'd give that list a try, but then I look at the heavy hardbacks in the bookshops, read the blurbs and return to English/ American/ Italian contemporary fiction.
The Kindle edition sometimes even costs more, we have the book price binding and e-books have 19% VAT, paper books only 7%.

But maybe I'm prejudiced. I should select 3 with the most funny titles:

Michelle Steinbeck: My father was a man on the land and in the water a whale (the word order is strange in German as well)
Anna Weidenholzer: Why the gentlemen wear/are wearing starfishes
Michael Kumpfmüller: The education of Man (man in the male sense, not mankind)
I could also wait until November to read Joachim Meyerhoff's "Oh, that gap, awful/horrendous/terrible gap"

I'll check prices and order samples if available.

>88 Deern: I think I'm committed to reading the entire Booker Prize longlist this year, so I'll almost certainly read The Schooldays of Jesus, despite my trepidation about it. BTW, have you read The Childhood of Jesus as well?

I don't think I've heard of any of the Buchpreis longlisted authors.

>91 kidzdoc: Yes, I did, it's in >40 Deern:. It was easier to follow, and Davíd was less annoying in that book. a) he was 5 turning 6, so endless "why" questons are still okay and b) new to that country/ situation and still shy, overall much nicer, less of the screaming "I want" and "I hate".

>92 Deern: Ah, good to know. I'll probably read The Childhood of Jesus this week or next, so that I'll be ready(?) to read The Schooldays of Jesus next month.

Nathalie, your meditation weekend sounds interesting and I love the idea of living in the present! I read The Untethered Soul with my mindfulness group and our leader really made sense of the whole thing. I give you tons of credit for continuing on the yoga/meditation path that you are exploring.

>93 kidzdoc: Enjoy! ;)

>94 Carmenere: oooh, a mindfulness group! I want one! :D
How does it work??

The great thing about this book is that you can grow along. There was so much I didn't get the first time I read it, there are still themes I don't fully get now, but I see a development. And the examples stay in your memory, like watching the crazy neurotic room mate screaming at the TV or the dog leaning into the pain the electrical barrier causes. And the thorn and the house without light. When I read it in spring or early summer last year the whole "being in a seat watching" went way over my head and now I often notice myself doing just that.

I've added publishing information and Kindle prices to the Deutscher Buchpreis LL. Sibylle Lewitscharoff's is one of 2 books not published for Kindle. 2 or 3 years ago she was on the SL with a book I considered reading. Then a comment appeared in a newspaper where she condemned e-books and said that people don't read quality anymore. Her own book then existed as e-book. At least now she's consequent and avoids that evil medium. Unfortunately as a consequence I will never read one of her books!

This is a typical example of what makes me so angry (yes I know: breathe, Nathalie, breathe) about the German literature business. It's joyless, pretentious, elitist. If you look at the Kindle prices I listed you see another reason why people "don't read good books" - they cost way too much. Published as hardbacks for over 20 EUR, the e-book often just 1-2 EUR below. The whole list costs 360 EUR! Oh, and then announcing a LL no-one can read in time because of 20 books 10 aren't published yet. Lovely! :/

Anyway, after reading some blurbs I ordered a couple of interesting sounding samples and thought about dedicating September to contemporary German fiction.

I agree with you about the publication dates. I don't think a book should be eligible that hasn't been published yet. It makes no sense to me that list makers get that prior view!

I hope some of the LL will be translated, so I can read them too.
We have the same with book prices, although some are available as e-book for 10-12 euro, most cost almost the same...

You had two though weekends... I hope the next one is easier on you and your muscles ;-)

Well, I like Hot Milk. Can't say I love it, but it's not fluff by any stretch of the imagination. I think she's trying to do something like Outline, but I liked that book much better.

>97 charl08: I'm okay with the odd one or two that you can then put at the end of your reading list. However they should definitely all be out well ahead of the SL.
If I remember well 10 out of 20 isn't even the worst year yet...

>98 FAMeulstee: The VAT rules are ridiculous - anything printed on paper is 7%, anything that has to do with IT is 19%, so the price adventage that exists is eaten up by VAT and because e-books are still viewed as trash by too many people this isn't going to change soon.

I also hope for an easier weekend, and that it arrives quickly, I'm sooo tired! :)

>99 charl08: Just ordered the sample of that one, thank you!

******
I'm only on page 84 of Work Like any Other so far. Believe it or not, I found myself tipping a page at the beginning to page forward! Somehow English texts and Kindle have become a unit (I read German and Italian paper books this year). I like the book a lot and I can't say why because I don't like the story. I hope to find a bit more time for it today.

The Lileks book is great, but the scary bit is that so much of the design patterns he ridicules (the book was published in 2004) have been creeping back since. While I wouldn't want to live in any of those rooms I find myself thinking "but the curtains are really nice" or "wow, that bedspread has great colors!". I guess his humor is much more timeless with the food pics.

53. Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves (Booker 2016 LL 10/13)

OMG I’m so glad I finally found a book I loved! And it was so unexpected! I hated the cover and disliked the blurb. But this is so well written and so well-crafted in the plot development… there were a couple of occasions where I thought “oh no, now it’s going to take this or that direction”, but it never did, not once!

Starting in the 1920s in Alabama, this is the story of Roscoe Martin. The only son of a miner, he early decided to escape that mining world and to learn everything possible about electricity. But when he met his future wife Marie, a schoolteacher and well-read daughter of a farmer, his life took a turn and now he finds himself on the loss-making farm Marie inherited. Roscoe is no farmer and he loses Marie’s love and respect with the farm of her childhood going more and more downhill. When the book starts he has the idea to tap the electricity line, and by providing farm and thresher with current to get an advantage on the corn market. As you’ll learn in the books first sentence, this undertaking will cost a man’s life, and Roscoe will find himself in prison.

The last part had many occasions for cheesy moments, and even those possible traps were handled very well. I was glad earlier in the book that also Marie was given a voice, at a moment when I thought her behavior was totally exaggerated and unexplainable. I didn’t change my mind much, but I know people like her, and there isn’t much you can do.

By far the best book I read from that list.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Time for a first ranking:

1. Work Like any Other by Virginia Reeves - 4.5 stars
What a wonderful book! Will of course not be SLed. :)

2.My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout - 4.1 stars
The 4th book finished and the 1st I'd put on the SL. Lovely sincere writing.

3. All That Man Is by Davis Szelay - 4 stars
9 men at various critical stages of their lives. Clean, honest and well written.

4. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy - 4 stars
Should be read together with "The Many". The female side of mourning.

5. The Many by Wyl Menmuir - 3.8 stars
Still not a favorite, but the best so far. A very "cold" book, made me feel dead inside in a poetic way.

6. The North Water by Iain McGuire - 3.3 stars
Not a Booker candidate, but likeable in its unpretentiousness. Fun read.

7. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet - 3.3 stars
1st book read. Not bad, but not exciting at all.

8. Eileen by Ottessa Meshfagh
It reminded me how greatly Jelinek dealt with a woman with similar issues.

9. Hystopia by David Means - 2.5 stars
Quite safe SL bet, didn't work for me.

Out of ranking:
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
I'm unable to make my mind up about this book, but I'd place it on my personal SL.

********

Of these 10, I'd guess the Booker jury would pick My Name is Lucy Barton, The Schooldays of Jesus, All That Man Is, The Many, Eileen and Hystopia.
But there's a good chance that 2 of my unfinished 3 will be promoted.

I still think it's a comparatively "mediocre" and uninspired list. Last year was a suffer feast, this year also the plots are flat, and did I miss the fat political relevance in any of them? It's all mainly personal, there are no statements and only some tame attempts to bring the novel forward. *sigh* I should reread my 2014 favorites and soon!

Nice review of Work Like Any Other, Nathalie. Although I've only read five of the longlisted novels I agree with you completely; it's easily the best of the bunch.

Wow, well done on finishing 10 of the Booker Dozen already! I've read five so far, and since I had hoped to have six read by the end of the month I'm pleased with my progress to date. This will almost certainly be the first year that I'll finish the longlist in advance of the prize ceremony, but it's a shame that it's a "mediocre and uninspired list," as you said.

>103 kidzdoc: they are short this year and not challenging. I didn't have to take breaks yet between books to digest something extra-heavy, or to re-think something or to read a nice harmless palate cleanser in between. I can just read them off the list one by one, and that doesn't make me happy. By now at least I have a long list of books to read after the Bookers, like the Not-the Bookers, some of the Germans and then some newer books from Booker 2014 authors Niall Williams, Siri Hustvedt and Paul Kingsnorth I found today. :)

****
12% into Serious Sweet and skim-reading. The two protagonists annoy me and make me very nervous. This hasn't been good stream-of-consciousness writing so far, those are neurotic tirades playing in those heads. One goes crazy over the decision which cake to buy for the office, because a cheap cake is sad and an expensive cake is pretentious and what if the chocolate isn't fair-trade and the cake has gluten or nuts and someone dies and...
The other one gets all worked up because he remembers a stay in Berlin in a hotel that was newly built after the war on the ground where once was a Jewish building and then some Nazi administration. He can't sleep because he imagines the sound of Nazi typewriters and Nazi staff in the canteen. So maybe better not travel to Berlin? And how big a decision is it to turn back home to change clothes because you've got birds**t on your pants?
I have big doubts this will ever come close to a modern Ulysses, I fear we'll see it on the SL.

I'm 3/4's of the way through my 3rd Booker read, Work Like Any Other, and it's a good story but unless the last 1/4 of the book has something astounding going for it, I'd give it a 3.5ish. (I'll actually read your review after I finish)

The next Booker on my reading list is The North Water. I really love this type of story so I'm really hoping this one hits it out of the park!

Nathalie, I can't really catch up - I'm appalled that I got very far behind! Anyway, I'm glad that you turned your Zen weekend into a positive experience, and I'm noting what you have to say about the Booker list for next year when I'll maybe get to read one or 2 - or maybe not.

>105 Carmenere: Hi Lynda. "Astounding"... hm. Probably not. For me it was an example for a very well written and well edited "conventional" novel with a bit of heart. The plot wasn't exceptional, and I loved just that. Half through the book I feared he'd get to do some wiring/re-wiring for that *** chair and that maybe Ed might return with a death sentence on his back and die in his own chair. Or that sth super-dramatic would happen back home or that some serious racial conflict would be thrown in. Nowadays I'm so grateful if a novel avoids drama and makes the best of a "small" plot. For me(!) it too often feels that writers, when setting a novel in the past, have a list of themes at hand they have to weave in because they're seen as historically significant. This is a bit of an old-fashioned novel that's content with what it is. I don't expect to see it on the SL btw.
I hope you'll enjoy North Water! I sure did.

>106 LizzieD: Hi Peggy, no worries about that. I'll never catch up again in this lifetime I fear.
The Zen weekend: by the evening of the first day I was ready to go home, I was so angry. It seemed like there were only two ways: suffer through it (as it clearly wasn't for me) or leave. Fortunately I came with Andrea, so I had to stay. I considered what I could do instead to make this a positive experience. In the end this wasn't for our "master", it was for us. So why not use that extra day to do a type of meditation that I know makes me relaxed and happy? And smile at everyone instead of looking at the table during meals. It really worked. And when I was done with sweeping those stairs I helped the others who were cutting hedges. And I included that "severe master" in my positive feelings, so even he felt like a friend in the end.

You are doing a great job reading those long listed Bookers, Nathalie. I liked Eileen more than you did but Work Like Any Other is the best of the three I read. I didn't care much for Lucy Barton mainly because I know Elizabeth Strout can do better! I am waiting for the short list to come out before I invest anymore time in so-so books. I've been out of touch for about a week but thought of you when I heard news of the earthquake in Italy. Since you didn't mention it, I guess it is a nonissue for you. Very good. I love how pretty your new place is shaping up to me. You have made good use of space and color.

>108 Donna828: Hi Donna, wise decision to wait for the SL if you're not determined to read them all (= obsessed with that *** list :)). When the list comes out I know I'll read them all anyway, if I had to pick some, this year I wouldn't know which ones to chose.

It's far from being a non-issue, this is terrible and very, very sad. I'm just dealing differently with such things now than I did 10 years ago and don't speak much about them. I got the news site of "La Repubblica" open all day, but I avoid most of the TV news and all videos. I'm planning to donate some money and am looking for organisations where the money will arrive where it's needed, maybe the Red Cross would be best.

Very sadly, those earthquakes happen and will keep happening as I learned those last days from some interesting reports about tectonics in Italy. We can just hope and pray they'll take longer breaks in between or more often hit uninhabited areas. All the long Appenin down to Sicily is at permanent high risk and parts of Friuli (which is close enough to where I live that an earthquake would be very much noticed here) as well. The Bologna region has been hit several times in 2012, TG mainly with damage to buildings, but I remember my office shaking once. We have small local ones here, I'm woken up about once a year (why do they mostly happen at night?). In the end this is something where we are powerless. It's no one's fault, although the authority blaming has already started. At least now we have a prime minister who won't smile into the cameras and tell the people that camping is fun (as Berlusconi did in L'Aquila where 309 died).

I'm glad to know you are safe Nathalie - I'll admit I checked in a few times to make sure you were posting. I suddenly couldn't remember exactly where you were :/ Fingers crossed the aftershocks die off now and they can get to anyone still trapped.

Also re #81 Thank you :)

>110 BekkaJo: It's quite far from where I live and a different mountain range. I'd say a good 5hr drive. I live in one of the 3 regions that are deemed "totally safe", the other two are Sardegna and the North West. Still we have the yearly small earthquake (2-3) here and in 2001 there was quite a big one with a 5.2 right here that caused lots of damage and killed 4. Not what I'd call "totally safe".
No, I didn't know that before coming here. :/
Yes, those aftershocks keep coming and delay the rescue operations. I remember that in 1980 they found a boy alive after 10 days, so I'm not yet giving up hope.

Wow. That's an interesting definition of "safe". We're having big debates about fracking for oil here in my county (after local pressure meant local government opposed the scheme, the national government put it through on the quiet). One of the reasons I'm opposed is that earthquakes have been linked to fracking. I think because we've not experienced them (in this country) they are written off as scare stories.

Having seen the terrible damage in Mexico City many years after a quake (the authorities preserved some collapsed churches) I'm not keen to risk it (at least until we have a bit more data about what's going on).

I've picked up All That Man Is which opens with a depressed teenage tourist. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be laughing!

>112 charl08: Almost all the 9 men will be kind of depressed, the last one brought me to tears. Be also ready to despise some of them. But #2 is a bit more fun.

While reading the first line of your post I thought "strange how everyone was against fracking and yet it's done now everywhere" before coming to the bracket. That's what politics seem to be nowadays, those times when protests lead to consequences are over, aren't they? In how many places of this world are they doing the fracking despite all locals being against it, instead of investing into research for alternative energies. Apart from all the toxic stuff they're pumping into the earth, why should fracking have different consequences than coal mining which let complete villages crumble? :(

>113 Deern: Oh yes, despising away as I read.

Is his really a novel? I like it, but a novel? How?!

Hope you're having a good weekend.

Dear Nathalie, you can be sure I checked first thing to be sure you were not in the quake zone. I'm happy that you're in such a safe (!) zone. We have felt one very small tremor here in the past 10 years. I certainly noticed it although it was short and mild. In fact, I thought it might be the guns at Fort Bragg, which we sometimes hear - except that I didn't hear anything. We deal with hurricanes, so I guess there's no place anywhere free from natural disasters.
Fracking! People around here would be thrilled if we were prime candidates. People around here are not very smart if you ask me.

Interesting thoughts on Coetzee's novel. I've read two of his books Waiting for the Barbarians and Foe, both of which I really liked. But that was a long time ago so I can't say whether any of your thoughts transfer to those books....

>81 Deern: They can be remarkably similar! Would make for an interesting debate, eh?

Your zen retreat sounds hard but thought-provoking. No doubt I could benefit from such an exercise but I've never worried too much about my multi-tasking tendencies although I have kept a firm grip though on keeping some things very simple: I never listen to anything when I take a walk, natural, present sounds only--for example. I got this tip from someone else -- on my walk is to be alert--for that one thing that makes that walk unique--this can be particularly good if you take virtually the same walk every day. And it is amazing. I always see something or hear something worth noting. It can be so very tiny, just a nice spiderweb or the feeling of a summer breeze. My friend described it as an "active zen" and is a poet, and the exercise was recommended by another poet who felt that my friend was not noticing the small wonders. It revolutionized my walks!

Your spiritual journey is inspiring to read about!

And yes, very glad that you are far from the quake zone.

I had a nice and quiet but thanks to a migraine eye-reading-free weekend. The sudden return of heat and humidity might have played a role, but I fear they get more frequent with age.
I left the office early on Friday, feeling quite nauseous, lay on my bed for two hours without moving, then felt better. Saturday morning started quite cool, so I walked into town where I hadn't been for a while and immediately regretted it. Nausea returnd plus dizziness and cold sweat, so I walked back home directly, closed all shutters and didn't do anything much for the day. In the evening when it was cooler I had my first 1:1 German conversation class with a refugee fro Ghana, that went okay.

Yesterday I felt better but couldn't read, so I cooked two of Darryl's latest recipes, the panzanella salad with figs, corn and goat cheese and the famous corn pasta. I ate the salad for lunch and dinner yesterday, and it was really good. It shouldn't be stored however as the bread will lose its crispness. I'm planning the pasta for tonight and tomorrow, and I found I prefer it cold, like a salad. I normally don't like farfalle, but they're perfect for that dish. I considered adding some goat cheese instead of the parmesan, but then found that the recipe really needs no cheese at all (it seems to me that meat-free non-vegan US recipes often use way too much dairy, and in this recipe half a cup of parmesan would give you a very salty cheese sauce, not a delicious corn sauce ).

Pasta pic only - the salad looked less appetizing once I had mixed it. :)


I had another class in the evening, we read a local newspaper together and I explained to him how to read the small ads for jobs and appartments.

I did a bit of easy yin yoga and some meditation and listened to some chapters of the Singer biography. Won't read the whole thing this time, but I was interested in the beginnings as it all started with zen meditation for him. I slept very badly last night with the headache returning and don't feel well this morning. I'm one to avoid pills, but I might need something to get through the day. Starting with some herbal tea now for my stomach.

>114 charl08: No, it isn't really a novel. I was wondering as well. But it won't win and I liked it and I wouldn't have wanted to read about any of the 9 in novel length. :)

>115 LizzieD: thank you {Peggy}! I was a bit surprised that people worried, but then I remembered that I do the same, check up on threads when I hear of some catastrophe to see if people are posting and are well. I'm repeating myself, but I really love LT, and I wish I could meet all you people in RL one day! {hugs} to everyone!

Hurricanes freak me out, just because you know they're coming and can just wait and pray that they're passing you by/ cause no to minimal damage.

Thrilled, really? I never heard of anyone who's pro-fracking, but Germans (and also Italians) generally are very much against anti-environment technologies. Not that politicians wouldn't try their best and often succeed in introducing them through some backdoor. Italy doesn't have nuclear power plants - which makes perfect sense in a country with frequent earthquakes. If the mafia manages to have quake-proof houses built with too much sand in the cement and without the required bracings, I don't want to know what they could do to a nuclear plant....
Anyway, some years ago the Berlusconi government called in a referendum about "finally" building some, and set the date in the middle of summer when most Italians are away on holiday and wouldn't vote. Then Fukushima happened and the proposition was refused with an overwhelming majority.

>116 The_Hibernator: I read Waiting for the Barbarians, Disgrace and err... another one before the Jesus books. I can see he's a great writer, but I don't like his books much. This is okay, I want to be challenged sometimes. I haven't heard of Foe yet, I'll have a look at it.

>117 sibylline: Sometimes I listen to something when I walk, sometimes not. It depends very much on the day, the intention and the stress level. You rarely have lonely walks here with all the tourists around which also means that quiet walks are more a thing of winter. So sometimes listening to a calming audio book is more meditative for me than nothing, especially of course when I walk into town. I've been trying to do housework "mindfully" often, especially washing dishes now that I don't have a dishwasher anymore. At work it's difficult to apply, that's when I'm using lists now instead of jumping from a half-finished task into the next one.
On the occasions when I have a quiet walk I found I love to touch things, flowers, trees... Sometimes I wish it was November already and the tourists were gone. :)

Oh dear... just listening to the Singer again and decided to "improve on my surrendering" (because sometimes I get lazy), and now my friend André has asked if he can visit me for 3 days next week. Of course I said yes. André is the German guy I met in Positano and who spent two weeks at my old place last September - when I still had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a terrace. Well, I have a guest room now, but when the couch is turned into a bed,the room is full. Full-full. And then the warm water in that old house takes forever and runs only very thinly. But for three days we should manage and long-haired yoga men usually aren't discerning... Must warn him that electricity will jump when he tries another cooking experiment like last time and produces pasta with marinara sauce for many days. Might be fun! :)

I'm sorry that your weekend was marred by migraines, Nathalie, but I'm glad that you're feeling better. Well done on making the panzanella and creamy corn pasta, and thanks for giving us your opinion about each of them. I didn't cook yesterday, but I'll probably pick up ingredients for panzanella today or tomorrow, and give this recipe a try on Tuesday.

>120 kidzdoc: I took a paracetamol this morning and it helped me through the day so far. Had an extremely relaxing 25 mins yin-yoga for the spine (mainly laying on my back) during lunch break that took off some of the tension in my neck. I'll see if I can manage the pasta with the onions tonight or better eat it tomorrow for lunch. I'm so happy with these two recipes because they're so quick to make and because (thanks to them being fusion) I can feed to Italian guests whom I wouldn't dare to offer anything Italian they had better at mamma's. :)

****
I'm now trying my best to feel compassion for the two protagonists in Serious Sweet instead of impatience and annoyance. There has been some beautiful writing and some less beautiful. At 40% I'm still convinced they should both get their issues sorted out individually before even considering a relationship, and right now they enjoy their self-pity way too much to change anything, but I guess I'm meant to believe they could heal each other? Please book, don't go there!

>121 Deern: Glad to hear that the paracetamol and yoga worked for you, Nathalie.

Which pasta with onions dish are you thinking of making?

Ugh. Caroline (McElwee) was also not fond of Serious Sweet. Arrgghh...

>122 kidzdoc: "yours", the creamy corn pasta. I normally avoid onions, but I put those scallions in, so now I'm not sure if my wobbly stomach can handle that "onion pasta" tonight. Sorry for the confusion.
I fear (you never know) that Serious Sweet is not going to make you happy, unless you enjoy the writing. :|

>123 Deern: Ah. When I think of onions I have the impression of large white, yellow, red or preferably, for those of us who live in the Deep South of the US, Vidalia sweet onions, which are grown in southern Georgia and are plentiful here in Atlanta. I distinguish those onions from scallions and shallots, which isn't correct, of course.

Sigh. I may skim through the Booker longlisted books I don't expect to like, namely Hystopia, Eileen and Serious Sweet, instead of reading them closely. This has not been a good year for the Booker, IMO.

>122 kidzdoc: / >124 kidzdoc: I read Caroline's review (and thumbed it). I'm now at 66% and she says it quite perfectly. Right now I'd also give the writing 4 stars and some of the observations that clearly aren't invented for the characters but are the author's. The novel/ plot however doesn't work for me. And I feel much resistance in me against the "romance" between two people who are both so damaged and fragile that "not being afraid of the other one" is the main connecting element. I don't see love there, this is going to be total dependency that will ultimately make it worse for both of them - unless something miraculous happens in the next 34%.

54. Serious Sweet (Booker 2016 LL 11/13) - contains spoilers

Okay, I (grudgingly) admit that I liked the writing in this book most of the time. I love stream of consciousness writing, and after a difficult start this got better and better.
The observations of people in the streets, on the tube are great. Many of the thought experiments that clearly are the author’s were at least interesting and I even highlighted some. I also admit that I believe it was written with the best of intentions.

But as someone who can relate to many of the characters’ issues and who fights like crazy to get her own take on life changed, I can absolutely not support this plot. I suffered throughout it. I was at first impatient and annoyed (that cake! Berlin! Those pants!), then creeped out (waaah, those “gentle letters”!!!!), then sympathetic, then confused about Jon’s weird side-plot, and in the end I was just hoping that horrible day would finally, finally end (that bathroom scene!!).

I'm intentionally not spoiling the following, because I'd be interested to know how the book reads with that information - feel free to skip this paragraph:
Something that really angered me was that the reader is first made to believe this is kind of a blind date. This would half justify Meg’s reactions when it gets postponed again and again. But then I learned that hey, they have already met and had coffee. 10% later I learn they had also lunch and kissed. A couple of % later I learn they’ve been on a day-trip to Dorset together and that they have already said “I love you”. So why freaking out because of a delay? On a work day when anything can happen? At their mature age? Not to speak of what sense an ILY makes if you don’t know the other person at all because you’re both too scared of each other to really speak and are clearly enchanted simply by the expectation that this other person might maybe, hopefully not hurt you.

Icky: Throughout the book I was also hoping teeth brushing would at least be mentioned once for someone who’s physically sick with anxiety several times a day before he French-kisses his big love, but no. .

I still have my own weakness for weak and frightened men (they seem safe) with whom every minute is like walking on eggshells, so you forget your own issues and make his your own. Men who in the end will hurt you more than you could ever imagine. So of course I hated that in Meg and that was one reason why I really tried to sympathize with her. But the way Jon is described, the way he talks, to everyone, not just to Meg – so evasive, fearful, constantly ducking, there’s nothing, nothing at all in this man I’d find attractive. I feel sorry for him, sorry that he’s so broken, sorry that he doesn’t function any more at all on any level (which does not fit with that side-plot), but that’s all. He has to get his act together, and not “because he’s in a relationship now”. It won’t work!

Meg’s character however is developing during those 24 hours to a point where I said “Go, girl! You’re doing great!”. So a relationship with Jon might hopefully lead her to the point where she learns she doesn’t need an egocentrically weak man.

I have to contradict the ending: this is not love, this is need.
And yes, a part of me wants it to end badly, because it always ended badly for me. :)

Rating: 3 stars
Will most likely be SLed as a love declaration for London (which I didn't really find in there, although I enjoyed the little scenes)

I'll now pick up The Sellout again and keep Do Not Say We Have Nothing for last to hopefully finish this Booker year with something I'll like.

I'm skimming because I haven't read that one yet! Will be back once I have. Only two weeks to the shortlist announcement. I have no idea which way they will go.

Booker ranking update

Personal list:

1. Work Like any Other by Virginia Reeves - 4.5 stars
2.My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout - 4.1 stars
3. All That Man Is by Davis Szelay - 4 stars
4. Hot Milk by Deborah Levy - 4 stars
5. The Many by Wyl Menmuir - 3.8 stars

6. The North Water by Iain McGuire - 3.3 stars
7. His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet - 3.3 stars
8. Eileen by Ottessa Meshfagh - 3 stars
9. Serious Sweet by A.L. Kennedy - 3 stars
10. Hystopia by David Means - 2.5 stars

Out of ranking, because I still don't know if I liked it:
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee

Right now my personal SL would be the first 5 plus the Coetzee, but I can't say I feel happy with them all.

Guess for Booker Jury SL from the 11 I read:

My Name is Lucy Barton, The Schooldays of Jesus, All That Man Is, The Many, Serious Sweet and Eileen

I assume that both The Seelout ("hey, we get un-pc humor!") and Do Not Say We Have Nothing as the only book that's not toally based in Western culture will also be on the SL, but I'll wait with my final list until I finished them.

>128 charl08: I'd so love to read something else, I have so many new books on my Kindle, not to mention the old ones on my shelves.. but I'll try and finish that list before the SL announcement.

>129 Deern: Interesting list.

I was trying to think of a non-money fun bet for guessing the shortlist, but I guess we should just do it for the pride (or whatever!)

>131 charl08: We post guesses in the Booker Prize group every year, you should join it, you read so many!

Some books I'm looking forward to:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/01/best-books-of-autumn-2016-arts-pre...
Was planning on the Smiths, but that Alan Moore (never read him) sounds intriguing, and even the Danish one appeals to me.

And interestingly, a mention of a book I never finished, as it was one of those JanetinLondon was "currently reading" when she passed away, Staying alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/sep/01/books-to-give-you-hope-s...
I promise, I'll pick it up again.

Stopping by to say hello -- nothing more brilliant to say than that!

#133 oooh a novel by Alan Moore? Interesting. He wrote the graphic novel Watchmen which is BRILLIANT! It sounds like a very exploratory novel. Hmmmmm.

Happy Monday everyone! I was planning to finish The Sellout over the weekend and to get as far as possible with Do Not Say We Have Nothing, and then I didn't read a single page of anything. :(

Met my friend Susi for lunch on Saturday and later gave another 1:1 German class. It was fun: we did all the "pleasure to meet you" stuff in exercises, trying to get that complicated difference between "Du" and "Sie" (informal and formal "you"). Yesterday I cleaned the appartment and made room for André, basically by putting as much stuff on top of wardrobes as possible. Well, for 3-4 days we should be okay. Did yin yoga and meditation, but am still quite freaked out re. the MRI today. Drinking camomila tea, hope it helps.

Had a long phone call with my kindergarden friend Annette, who was 45 on Friday. Lots of updates from my home region, and one old friend has passed away some weeks ago (my parents already told me, but now I got some more background. He was suffering from cancer and died very peacefully with his partner by his side, in his favorite holiday location he'd wanted to see a last time). Annette and I speak very rarely, but the connection is there as ever. Can't believe her oldest daughter is already 16!

*****
I realized that for whatever reason (not just the MRI) I'm back in a light panic mode, not as bad as 2012, but it's there. It's very much noticeable when I go into town. On Saturday morning I forced myself to walk another round, and then another, very quietly, concentrating on regular breathing and watching my reactions. Then I sat on a bench by the river for a while before my friend called and we met for lunch. The problem isn't crowds, it just manifests in that typical Saturday activity. I see the roots more in the work situation, and in the weekends it breaks out because the concentration on work tasks isn't there. I'd also quite suppressed my fears about the possible results of those check-ups which was a mistake.

So instead of Booker reading I listened to some more Singer yesterday, especially the complicated chapter 14 about "letting go of false solidity" and 15 about "the decision to be happy no matter what". It's all very true, but sometimes really hard to follow. There are days when it all "flows", and sometimes so much courage is required, and so much trust, ...
>134 sibylline: Hello Lucy! :))))

>135 BekkaJo: I never read any of his graphic novels. Got some samples last week and saw I don't want to read them on Kindle. I might add 1 or 2 to the basket next time I order paper books.

Found in the Guardian, a (to quote the forum) p***take by John Crace on The Schooldays of Jesus. I actually found it quite harmless, but it contains spoilers: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/04/the-schooldays-of-jesus-by-jm-coet...

I am sorry you are in "panic mode" again, Nathalie, at least you are aware of it...
Sending comforting thoughts & hope all goes well with the MRI today.

>138 FAMeulstee: Thank you so much, Anita :)
The MRI went well, but I thought I'd go crazy all day and didn't even know why, because it wasn't my first and what could happen? Once in, it was okay, but before... I'm wondering if it isn't a typical anti- reaction to change, combined with being overworked. The mind has a surprising ability to resist changes, and throwing in some panic can be very successful.

Glad the MRI went ok. Hope you are feeling calmer.

>140 sibylline: Well, calmer is relative.... No, the week is not a good one, but I knew that. It could be worse. About the MRI I hope to get the results today, if I can leave work for 2 hours, that is.

****
Waaah.... I did quite well with the Bookers and now I'm too busy to read and still have 2 to finish with only 6 days left. and I'll have to work on Saturday and maybe sunday or I'll have to say goodbye to the idea of a holiday this year. why are there people who get their work done in eight hours and make 4-6 weeks of holidays without thinking twice? I'm not completely disorganized, I'm just taking on way too many tasks because I always feel like I'm not good and some day they'll find out, so I have to work more. Why don't I get over that, finally? *sigh*
And of course, "too much work" is always a good excuse if you don't know what else to do with your life... :/

André has been here for 1.5 days and it's as chaotic as last year. A good test once again for my handling impatience and rage. I managed not to wash his dishes last night when I came home after 12 hrs and all the breakfast stuff was still on the table (he'd gone climbing). I just left it there, had my coffee in the office this morning and thought "either he'll eat of the dirty dishes again or he'll have to wash them, and if he piles on some more I'll make sure he washes them all before he leaves". What I don't get - when I'm a guest in a household where I don't even know the host very well, I don't pay a cent, find a fridge full of stuff I can just eat. Plus I'm 36 years old and have been living on my own for many years, so I'm not a housekeeping-idiot, why don't I make the slightest effort? He's a nice guy, but three days will be enough this year.

Last night we met with some of the yoga people and had a nice dinner in Schenna near Merano. I had an interesting (not too great) beetroot burger, but bread, sauce and fries were good, and the other food looked delicious. Unfortunately my RL yoga classes won't start again any time soon, Marion had to leave the old rooms for safety reasons (basement without emergency escape) and had just found a new place, but now the owner decided not to give her the contract as she wants to sublet to her partner who does thai massages.
While I'm happy with my website, it would be nice being with the group again once a week.

Okay, back to work now. Have a nice day, everyone! :)

Got my MRI results, not yet a 100% clear, I'll have a biopsy in 3 weeks as I had already expected. That's okay, so far I quite "liked" my biospies because I can watch on the monitor what they're doing. Looks much like last year and while I'm happy for everything that's detected and identified early, I hope this time I won't need surgery.

Finished The Sellout while waiting for the results. I liked the middle part best, it quite lost me again towards the ending. didn't get the Supreme Court scenes at all.

55. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Booker 2016 LL 12/13)

I don’t have much to say about this book. I liked it, but didn’t like reading it and needed over a month for it. Of course I didn’t “get” most of it, too many of the certainly sharp cultural references were totally lost on me. What I enjoyed most was almost all of Hominy (and that “Little Rascals” theme has since not left my brain, a real “ear-worm”) and the mention of all the delicious fruit. What I liked least were the childhood memories and the Supreme Court scenes at the end (those at the beginning were quite funny). The middle part about re-introducing segregation had some very funny moments like career day or Hominy’s birthday party, but it was all too much for me.

Rating: 3 stars. It might well be SLed if the judges this year want to show their understanding of un-pc satire. I’m disappointed because it’s a genre I like and because the plot idea was great. I understand however that I’m not the intended reader.

12 down, one to go! One which I’ll hopefully like! 

>142 Deern: Hoping with you, Nathalie, for no surgery needed.

Oh, dear Nathalie, little wonder that you're in panic mode with health and work AND André! The only wonder is that it's not full-blown.
Give yourself some kudos for managing yourself and not demanding that you be perfect all the time. I too am hopeful that more surgery will not be needed. Peace, my dear! Do find time for yourself!

>144 FAMeulstee: Thank you Anita! I already joked with my colleagues that if I don't get that week off, I might still get a bed and full board for a couple of days in hospital, but I'd prefer the surgery-free option of course! *

>145 LizzieD: Work right now is simply way too much, my body isn't happy at all. At least André washed his dishes yesterday and returned from another climbing trip so late that I could keep him from cooking (and causing the next chaos). :)

*edited to add that this was how the Merano hospital was described to me last year before I checked in, "you'll feel like on an all-inclusive holiday". Not because it's any fun being there, but because their services really still work well compared to so manyother places. The food was really good and so much that I put on weight despite the pre-surgery fasting and post-surgery nausea.

Crumbs Nathalie. I think you deserve a holiday after putting up with Andre as a house guest. Is there any Air B & B near you in case he asks again?!

I'm not in a rush to read any of the Booker ones I have left! Run out of umph / none of them really appeal to me.
Hope you have the weekend off. Time to recharge is so important.

Yikes. André sounds like a thoughtless house guest. Hopefully he's gone by now.

I'm not sure who the intended audience for The Sellout was. I didn't care for it, either.

I hope that you have a relaxing weekend in store. You deserve it.

Ugh. I agree with Darryl. Andre doesn't sound like a great guest.

Hi Nathalie! Glad to see the MRI went well! Your feelings regarding The Sellout are quite similar to mine. Firstly, I'm not quite sure who his intended audience could be but it certainly wasn't me. And it's a shame, I hoped this book would be a venue for races to open a discussion, but I don't see that happening.
Hope you're having a restful or fun, Sunday! Whatever suits you should be the plan for the day.

>147 charl08:, >148 kidzdoc:, >149 The_Hibernator:, >150 Carmenere: Hi Charlotte, Darryl, Rachel and Lynda, thank you for visiting!
The thing with André is that he always shakes me a bit out of my old ways, and I need that. Okay, I wouldn't be able to house him for 2 weeks anymore, simply for a lack of space (where to put the washing?). But my reactions are also a bit over the top - I hear my mother's voice in my head, and I force myself to relax through my total resistance. Because in the end, what are some dirty dishes? This year (contrary to last year) I didn't clean up, and it helped. On Thursday and Friday the dishes were clean. :)

I don't think I'll be able to finish Do Not Say We Have Nothing before the SL. I know it's a good, one, but it doesn't call me. Again I had a weekend free of reading. On Saturday I took a walk with André before he left, then I returned home and slept 2 hours, then went to give my German lesson and afterwards chatted some more with some refugees. Yesterday... I went to work. Couldn't help it, wouldn't get my stuff done otherwise this week. The Italian IT consultant who has been here 3 days last week (I always feel like ageing 7 years in the usual 2 days he's here, now it was 3) comes back today for another 2-3 days and after that I know I'll walk on my "dental gums" (1:1 translation for a German Expression of being totally mentally exhausted).

I'm totally undecided what to do with next week. I have 2 options basically:
- Garda Lake which I know well and which is just 200kms from where I live. There are free appts in the place where I have been 2 years ago, and I really loved it there. It's clean, spacious, has a nice big pool, I can get breakfast, they have their own wines. Supermarket and pizzeria are close by. I could rent a bike again and not move my car all week. I could do day trips to Verona. Mantova, even to Milano by train. That's the easy option, and I feel very tempted, because I'm so tired.
- in Sicily, near Catania, I found a lovely place near the beach, 10 mins from the airport. I'd have to book a flight, rent a car, and drive in a place where I have never been before. It's a great location for day trips as well, it has great Reviews, they have free bikes and the owners seem to be very nice. It just means more organization effort, a bit less of "safety feeling", and maybe more loneliness - after all I've been to Garda Lake on my own twice before, but in Sicily I might get frustrated not being able to share my impressions with anyone.

The cost will be similar, Sicily will probably cost a bit more, but then food prices would be lower.
Aaargh.... what would you do? Also given that it'll be another 2-3 days until I know if I can go at all.
Maybe I should do GL now and already plan the other place for 10 days or so in spring?

Both your holiday options sound lovely to me. I think I'd go for the local option if I was making that choice - just to have the most relaxing time, without the longer travel time and arrangements. Bet you'd enjoy either though!

I'm wondering whether to start The Sellout this evening, or just hope it doesn't make the shortlist.

I have no idea what the Coetzee was about. I thought I got the previous one of his, but this one? Nope.

>152 charl08: While my heart says Sicily, my head screams "Garda Lake". I forgot to mention that I'm invited to a wedding Saturday evening, so if I'm still tired on Sunday morning I could just leave an hour or 2 later, while the Sicily option means getting up at 5 to be at the airport by 8. Travel time including waiting would be a good 7 hrs compared to 2-3.
I think I'll try and find someone who'd come with me in May next year and then book for 10 days. Makes more sense...

I also liked the first Coetzee better, it had some brilliant ideas (like the question if you'd rather be happy or passionate), though those were never picked up again or brought to an end. I quite liked David in book 1 and found him just annoying in book 2. I wonder where he wants to get with it?

Here is the very disappointing shortlist with my personal comments:

The Sellout by Paul Beatty
I feared they wanted to show they "get" un-pc satire

All That Man Is by David Szalay
Totally happy with this one, but I don't think it'll win.

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
So far no-one could tell me what was so special or surprising about this book.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Haven't finished this one, but I hope it wins. This or the Szelay.

Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Happy with the SL, but for a winner it's too flawed imo.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Well.... Given that the far better US entries aren't SLed I fear it has a chance to win

Not particularly unhappy (though a bit surprised) that Lucy Barton isn't on the list. Not at all surprised that the wonderful debut book Work Like Any Other didn't make it because that always happens. Glad that Serious Sweet was left out.
So of the US authors there are only Moshfegh and Beatty left? Then it'll be the one or the other... :(

*****
Holiday update: the consultant just announced he can't finish this week. With that, I guess my holiday has died. Drinking camomile tea to keep my nerves under control.

Nice comments about the shortlist, Nathalie. I also hope that the two remaining American novels fall by the wayside, and, based on comments from Rachael and several others, I hope that Do Not Say We Have Nothing comes out on top.

I'm sorry to hear that you won't be able to go on holiday. Will you be able to go later in the year?

The jury was quoted in the Guardian:

As a group, we were excited by the willingness of so many authors to take risks with language and form. The final six reflect the centrality of the novel in modern culture – in its ability to champion the unconventional, to explore the unfamiliar, and to tackle difficult subjects

The most unconventional one was the Coetzee. And "unconventional" was the word I had been looking for when writing my thoughts about The Sellout - that's what the jury wants to look like by selecting it.

I'm not angry with the SL, I'm still disappointed with the overall selection. I often wasn't happy with the SLs, but there were at least some really exciting ones on the LL. This year however?

I'm planning to read the "Not the Man Booker"s SL to have a comparison and some of the new ones that come out this fall (McEwan and the two Smiths).

I'm also sorry about your holiday. Hope you might be able to take it when the consultant is done, er, consulting?

Guardian quote on the shortlist is interesting. I agree with you about HBP. Too dour and bleak for my taste.

Hi Nathalie,

I'm so enjoying your thread and your in-depth consideration of the Booker nominees. I liked Eileen more than you did but your comments make me very interested in reading The Piano Teacher so I have added that to my wish list. I was also disappointed but unsurprised that Work Like Any Other didn't make the list and I was rather glad that My Name is Lucy Barton didn't make it. I am still working my way through the list and will now turn my attention more fully to the short-listed finalists.

"I'm planning to read the "Not the Man Booker"s SL to have a comparison..." Is that an "official," i.e., published list?

I also appreciated your description of the Zen meditation retreat you went to. I have considered exploring this terrain for a while, for similar reasons as those you outlined, but I feel some trepidation that I don't even fully understand. Your descriptions of the physical discomfort surprised me and gave me pause.

Sorry the holiday has been axed and I hope the chamomile tea (and perhaps some reading) helps!

Great comments about the short listers, Nathalie, especially The Sellout! "to explore the unfamiliar, and to tackle difficult subjects" Ohhhh, if that's the case, I wish the author would have presented The Sellout in a way that was also more accessible to an outsider. Maybe, then it could be considered groundbreaking. sheesh!
Of the SL I Unfortunately, only read Hot Milk which I liked and almost done with Eileen which holds some promise.
:( sad the North Water didn't make the cut but it offered none of the unfamiliar, difficult subjects or unconventional. I think that's why Work like any Other didn't make the sl.

another :( for your trip cancellation before it even got off the ground although fun to imagine.

>157 charl08: Unfortunately that won't be possible, because a) he will never be done (we've had him for 2 years now, and I have no idea why he was called at all, nothing was ever finished) and b) then the BIG Project of the year starts that definitely means no holidays except for the Christmas week plus weekend work because we have to train 25 people to a new software and warehouse work processes.

I just realised I had my last full week off (not counting Christmas which is never relaxing) in April 2015. And this year I postponed and postponed always because something happened, someone left, I had to substitute someone else.... and now summer is over and I feel like I haven't seen the sun at all and I'm just really, really tired. So while I don't want to play the "poor me" victim card, I'm seriously worried that I might not get through fall/winter without a couple of days off and away from here.
Should it not be possible, I'll tell my boss that the 12 hour days and voluntary weekends are history now. I feel "not healthy" right now despite the yoga and vegetarian food, and I don't like it.

>158 EBT1002: Hi Ellen, thank you so much for visiting! :)
Beware of the piano teacher - everyone I know who's read it in English really detested it. I'm not sure, but I assume that the very elaborate word plays she uses and that builds the indispensable counterbalance to all the really ugly stuff, got lost in translation.

It's published on the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/aug/15/the-not-the-booker-prize...
I don't know exactly, but I guess it's a readers' prize, invented when so many people complained about books overlooked by the Booker jury.

I'll write something about the zen later.

>159 Carmenere: I thought it might maybe be "automatically" more accessible to US Readers who understand more of the references, but it seems not. I loved the plot idea, but it all peters out without getting anywhere. I mean what happened in that last part? he sits in Supreme Court getting high, and then it's 3 years later and all's fine and they're watching the unpublished Rascal movies?

Phew... the consultant has left! :)))
And while his work isn't finished and he has to continue next week, it was decided half an hour ago that.... I can take the week off, YAY! *happydance*
I worked through lunchbreak and will stay late because my boss gave me a fresh list of things to do late this morning, but it seems even he could see that I really really need those days.
Now of course I haven't booked anything. The weather is getting bad, so I'll decide tomorrow or on Sunday where and how long I'll be away. In any case it shouldn't be far and it should be a "lazy" place with a pool. Indoor in case of rain.

Whereever it is, I hope to get through some books and to have a good wi-fi, because in those last two weeks haven't had much time for LT.

Tomorrow I'll go to the hairdresser and then have to decide what to wear to that wedding - I haven't even had the nerves for that yet! Fortunately we colleagues are invited for the evening only, for the cake cutting and the music, so in the worst case I have time to buy something new.

HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE! :)

Edit: just checked Garda Lake - and guess what: it'll rain very heavily from Monday to Wednesday and then rain continuously for the rest of the week. :D
Maybe I should stay in Merano and read and eat healthily and go to the Therme...

2nd edit: other forecasts say the contrary... I'll wait until tomorrow.

Happy Friday!

Boo on the weather forecast but Hooray! for the week off. I do hope you get to go somewhere nice. A change of scenery does wonders for burnout.

Happy vacation, Nathalie, wherever you go ;-)

Hooray for a week off, Nathalie!

How annoying that the weather is uncooperative for your vacation week.

I'm glad your "strategy" with Andre worked and he got the message and cleaned up after himself.

Hi Rachel, Donna, Anita, Darryl and Lucy! Thanks for stopping by and leaving holiday wishes!

I was very busy all weekend, first with house cleaning and the wedding, then I looked desperately for places to go all Sunday. It was weird, as if the universe didn't want me to find something. Wanted to buy a travel magazine with an article about Sicily on Saturday, but there was no price on it, the shop owner couldn't sell it. Then on Sunday I went to the supermarket, knowing they have a good selection of travel magazines, but guess what? That part of the shelf was totally empty!
Then Saturday night during the wedding party, my boss told me after a couple of prosecchi (I had just one, had to drive) that I should stay away 10 days, that I really needed some time off! So... :D

Well, late Sunday evening I finally googled benessere italia (wellness in italy) and a hotel turned up I'd already seen 2 years ago, but then decided against as it was a July holiday. It's near Rimini - one of the places you don't want to be in July and August, unless you're a small child or a teenager looking for first romance and lots of disco dancing.But now in September almost everything is closed, prices are low and the heat is gone. I remembered the hotel also for its vegetarian food offerings, and I booked 3 treatments, a body scrub, an oil massage and a thai facial.

I used Monday for packing and other preparations and started Tuesday at 6 am.

Well... the hotel is nice, but the surroundings are quite ugly, mainly empty half-ruined buildings. The restaurant closed last week (no, it didn't say so on the website) and after a stroll into the centre of Igea Marina I saw that there's nothing interesting open nearby. Season here is June to mid-September, and that's it.

At least the bar serves nice salads and other snacks during dinner and lunch time. The beach service has been stopped as well, but sunbeds are still available. Since I arrived it has been too windy however, it's nice for walking, but on a sunbed you'd be covered in sand within minutes.

The spa area is a bit disappointing, very small, the Turkish sauna doesn't work and everyone wears swimming costumes. As a good German, I can't go into a sauna room with clothes on. A towel to sit on, that's it. I wonder where the sauna clothes border is running... Trento maybe? Or south of Garda Lake? The Merano therme sauna area is strictly clothes-free (and always mixed), as are all hotel spas I've been to so far in South Tyrol.

Just had my facial, sooooo lovely!

My room is great, big balcony, 2 queen size beds, big bathroom with tub, even a kitchenette. Very nice service, and yesterday I had a piadina (typical sandwich of the region) for lunch and an orange fennel salad for dinner, both very good. Breakfast this morning was delicious, they even had vegan croissants.

So today after breakfast I went to Rimini. What a nice Italian city! It has lots of Roman ruins and a working Roman bridge. If you're wondering: it's the settlement Caesar had built before he crossed the Rubicon (which is nearby) and said his "alea iacta est (sunt?)". And that's where my memory of Roman history ends....

Anyway, I only visited the old town, not the doubtlessly impressive seaside part. Might do that tomorrow. Saw the Augustus arc, the small amphitheatre, the Tiberius bridge and the ruins of a Roman town house of which the mosaic floors have been beautifully preserved.

Had cappuccino with almond rice milk and two delicious small cookies in the lovely "Bar Lento" and later a lunch of falafel, hummus, roasted chickpeas, salad and curcuma bread in the equally lovely "Love Hut", both found thanks to the Happy Cow website. Rimini is a student town, so there's no lack of original and cheap restaurants and bars. Nothing beats Padua so far, but Rimini outside the season is a place worth visiting.

Also planning a trip to San Marino, one of the 5 or so mini states in Europe, just 15 km from here.

Edit: one of the 6, forgot Malta.

Books: finished the lovely, endlessly heartwarming Make someone happy by Elizabeth Berg, recommended by Linda on her thread. Just what I needed!
Yesterday I read the surprisingly mediocre and undecided new McEwan, Nutshell. Not that I totally disliked it, McEwan writes brilliantly as ever. But it seems either like an exercise, or it was rushed (to make it in time for the Booker?). Great idea in theory, but I don't know where he wanted to go with it. I'm glad it wasn't on the LL.
Then I started finally with the not-the-Bookers and am now quite convinced that 2016 simply is a bad year. 10% in, The less than perfect legend of Donna Creosote is the worst take on Don Quixote I've ever read. Okay,90% left that might be better. But also the writing. It reads like modern sparse German literature that wants to be original translated into English. It's a style I'm not used to find in English books and I hope it's not the start of a new trend.

I might reread How to be both as I'm considering a stop-over in Ferrara on my way back home to finally see those frescoes by Francesco de Cossa! :))

I'm unable to post pics from the ipad, so I saved some in my gallery. caesar is on his side, but the others are upright. No pic-worthy food yet, everything was tasty, but salads and hummus don't make for god pics..

I'm glad you're enjoying a holiday, Nathalie. We had an off-season experience about this time last year, in the New York Adirondacks region. The scenery was beautiful, our hotel was fantastic, but the town it was situated in was completely closed up and some of the hotel's activities/services were on a reduced schedule (also not on their website, what is it with hotels anyway?). Despite this disappointment, we had a lovely time and it sounds like you are making the most of it as well.

I love the idea of re-reading How to be Both -- maybe in reverse order the second time?

So glad you got a holiday! I've just picked up Nutshell, so will pop back with some comments in a bit.

Your holiday sounds lovely. I like visiting touristy places out of season, though it is annoying that restauranteurs need to take holidays.

Hi Laura, Charlotte and Kerry, greetings from the adriatic coast! :)

i'm fully fine with restaurants closing for well-deserved holidays in the lower season (as they do in Merano in November, February and sometimes June). But this is a closing down from mid-September to June while the hotel is open and advertising and no alternative in walking distance (and given the surroundings I wouldn't walk here in the dark). It should at least have been mentioned on the website. Tbh, I wouldn't have booked it if I had known it, I would have gone more central. And a salad in the evening isn't always satisfying, especially when you're craving sth warm. I'd be perfectly happy here if they had a soup or pasta dish on their menu. Or a pizza delivery flyer. :)

The town Igea Marina itself (10 min walk from the hotel) is a mere holiday seaside resort. It's really a strange ghosttown atmosphere there. Shutters down everywhere, most people you see are builders, removing the beach huts, and then the odd street vendors, still trying to sell cheap sunglasses and straw hats. Some cafes are open, but they offer the same food I find at the hotel bar. I still have to find a supermarket.

I don't feel like going to San Marino today, instead I have that idiotic idea to go to another fun park (the child inside me wants to go) that's called "Italy in miniature". Gardaland last year was strange enough, and I ended up buying all kids of pirate themed souvenirs.

*******
Gave up on the Donna non-Quixote book for now and started The summer that melted everything. Quite a good read so far. Not necessarily Booker material, but captivating and clearly bowing to To Kill a Mocking Bird (which is mentioned as being read by one character, and even the cover looks like it) and all things Stephen King. Checked the guardian reviews this morning: thumbs up for the Donna book, thumbs down for this one, and then a succession of readers on total contradiction to the reviewer's opinion (like me).

I had a glance at the monster book The Combinations, and don't think I'm in the mood for 880 or so pages of wannabe Pynchon/Joyce. I'm sure it's as brilliant as people say, but it's difficult to read on Kindle (only fire or reading app on other devices, not adapted to classic Kindle) with the font growing and shrinking, and then I got only every other word of the 5 pages I read.

McEwan: rethinking, my main complaint is that it felt rushed, not really complete, not worked over enough. It was quite a fun read which was a first for me with a McEwan. I prefer his older ones with the darker atmosphere and the icky element. I get what he is doing here, I just wish he'd taken some more time.

I've never caught the McEwan bug. Everything he writes feels to me like an exercise - the writing itself is amazing, but underneath?

Oh you lucky duck to get to see the del Cossa murals in person!

Now I have to go look at photos of roman ruins in Rimini and also at San Marino.

Oh dear... SORRY (for the umpteenth time this year)! I was "away from the world" and most importantly "away from too much rational thinking" - see review #3 in the following post. I wanted to think as little as possible, so turning my experiences into half-rational posts and translating them into English was somehow a step too many.

To make it short for now:

>174 sibylline: I am so sorry, I did not see the frescos yet! Because a) I was so deep into other books that I didn't reread the AS, b) the only nice B&B with parking place near the museum was sold out and c) the museum is closed on Mondays (why do museums close at all? I usually see pensioners working/watching there, and I'm sure there would be some willing to come in on Mondays as well)

But as I'm determined to return to Igea Marina/ Rimini soon, now I know what's on my way, and that B&B close to the museum is one worth waiting for!

So... when I saw on Saturday that I wouldn't get the room I wanted in Ferrara, I also realized that what I really wanted was staying right there for another 2 days. It cost me a lot as there was a trade show in Rimini, but since my last post something like "bliss" had come over me and I just wanted to stay, take long slow walks on the empty beach and swim (yes!) in that lovely water. And read and do yoga and meditate and eat salads from the bar and too much Ciambella cake from the bakery. :)

Drove back yesterday and am back in the office today. TG the weekend is close already..

56. Make Someone Happy by Elizabeth Berg

This was a BB from Linda’s thread, and it was a lovely, heartwarming book. I’m very happy to have read it and I’ll certainly return to it and its little meditative scenes of everyday life. I understand it’s a collection of the author’s facebook posts and that would almost (!) be worth re-activating my dead account.
Seriously, I don’t know what else to say – it’s just lovely! And it's also about dogs and about a cat... I mean can that woman be any nicer?

Rating: 4.5 stars

******************
Added 30.09.2016:

57. Nutshell by Ewan McEwan – contains SPOILERS

The most recent McEwan I read was On Chesil Beach (which I liked) and then some of his older ones, mostly listed in the 1,001 book. Reading his works has never been a happy experience, but the writing has always been great and very atmospheric. Atmospheric in a way that you want to be anywhere but in the story. Usually something small happens that leads to a bad/stupid/idiotic decision, which again leads onto a path that ends in misfortune, unhappiness, sometimes death. Very often the reader will think “if people had only talked…”.

Now here the protagonist is a fetus, so interaction with his environment is very limited from the start. This is meant to be a modern Hamlet story, where mother Gerti and her lover/brother-in-law Claude plot the murder of husband/bother John. John is an unsuccessful poet who teaches writing classes and inherited a fortune in the form of the old family mansion where he lets Gerti live while “she is finding herself”. Brother Claude has spent most of his own inheritance and now wants to turn the mansion into cash as soon as John is dead.

The nameless fetus “Hamlet” listens to all the ongoings while enjoying the more than occasional expensive wines Gerti drinks and while suffering through her daily sexual encounters with Claude. He hopes that at some point, either Gerti or his visiting father John will remember him, but it’s clear that however it’s all going to end, no-one really cares for him.

In between listening to the world outside, he ponders in Hamlet-like self-doubting ways if he even wants to be born or if it would not be better to kill himself by asphyxiation with the navel cord. There were some funny moments actually, but in the end this all sounded like the ramblings of an old disillusioned man. Hamlet’s wisdom about the world outside is explained by Gerti’s constant listening to Radio 4, but well…

McEwan tries to get the old atmosphere in, mainly through detailed description of the dirt and rot and overall neglect of the mansion. But while this worked well with The Cement Garden, it didn’t work here. This is all somehow superficial, undecided and as I said earlier, feels very rushed. When Hamlet finally does what he maybe should have done a day or two earlier, the book ends abruptly and without a conclusion.

There were also plot elements that made no sense at all and that should have been changed during the editing process like why should Claude put the mansion on the market before he officially learns of John's death?

Glad that this didn’t make it onto the Booker list. However, there are readers who loved it very much and it’s short, so I don’t want to discourage you from giving it a try.

Rating: 3 stars for the writing

Swimming and being relaxed sounds wonderful. Hope the weekend comes quickly!

58. The Summer that melted everything by Tiffany McDaniel

This debut is the first of the not-the-Bookers I liked enough to finish. Actually, I liked it so much that I prefer this one over 11 of the 12 Booker candidates I read. It was a strange read – at first I raced through it, but then my reading got slower and slower to the point where I considered not picking it up again, because you know from the beginning that very bad stuff is going to happen, and still you’ll be hoping against hope for a happy ending.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Fielding Bliss, looking back on his 13year old self in the summer of 1984, when his father, a lawyer named Autopsy Bliss, invited the devil via newspaper ad into the small town of Breathed in Ohio. The devil promptly appears, in the body of the young African American boy Sal, who brings the heat with him that makes not only chocolate melt instantly, but also brings out all the worst in the people.

The “today” part is set in the future, in 2055, when Fielding is a very old and hopeless man, weighed down by guilt and remorse about things that happened in 1984. My first connection with young Fielding was simple – he is just 3 days younger than me. Then I noticed that the book is very much influenced my Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (maybe also by Go Set a Watchman which I haven’t read yet) and by Stephen King books like Stand by me and Needful Things. In an interview with the author in the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/22/tiffany-mcdaniel-the-novel-was-there-saying-let-me-out) I read today that she likes gothic literature – that fits as well. Some readers will lament the similarities with existing works and find flaws in the writing and plotting as the Guardian reviewer (different article) did. I didn’t care at all. This is imo an important book, a political book, not at all subtle, that uses the familiar to get its message through.

What the book does is to say “DO NOT HATE, no matter what happens in your life. Do not get paralyzed by fear, don’t get seduced by those promising any easy solutions, do not listen to those who hate and above all NEVER under no circumstances start hating!”

The plot is exaggerated and the message would have worked with one or two twists less, but then again the experience of loss rings so true that it balances it out. The “devil” of course is way too wise for a boy of his age and background, but he’s just a device. The stranger from outside, the welcome scapegoat, the voice of love and wisdom no-one wants to hear.

Rating: 4.5 stars

>177 charl08: It was!! I'll post more pics tomorrow! :)

59. Il potere di Adesso/ The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

You know what it’s like with self-help books: you find a great one and then you press it onto all your friends who either won’t read it, or they do and don’t get what it’s all about. This is a book my friend Karin has been pressing on me after my break-up last year. Something in me however absolutely didn’t want to read it – and then the Singer was great and very helpful. Now I was in that bookshop in Rimini and thought “hm… I’ll see if something catches my eye in the self-help corner” (I already had a novel, a book about writing and a cookbook in my basket). And there it was waiting for me on extra display, and I decided this was a sign I should finally read it. And that’s what I did for the next 3 days, wherever I was – by the pool, on the beach, in bed, during breakfast. It’s full of dog ears because I had no pen, and there’s also some sand and salt I’m sure.

It goes very well with the Singer, but isn’t a beginner’s book. The idea of giving up resistance and trying to focus on the now should be grounded in the reader, otherwise it will get totally confusing. It’s a how-to, written in the form of questions and answers – and good questions I admit, many of those everyone will ask while following the process. It’s repetitive, but this is part of the SH game, as is re-reading of passages or the whole book several times.

The main focus is on the concept of “killing the ego” and living in the moment. Sounds brutal, but is basically the only option for people who are themselves being “killed by their ego”, by the inner resistance against reality, by the struggle to keep up a façade that doesn’t work anymore. By using your mind for the practical things in life or learning to partner it with the “real self” to be more creative, but cutting it off from the constant worrying about future or past (Singer’s constantly blabbing inner voice), we will become more peaceful, compassionate, and our lives will be so much easier, no matter what happens.

Which brings me back to my very old (pre-Italy) river dream where after a long struggle under water I had to accept “death” (drowning) before realizing I was able to breathe under the water and that I could swim with the fishes. It isn’t easy in RL and I’m far from breathing freely, but there are moments, sometimes even hours when I feel like gliding through the world, and during those times I receive an amazing echo - like total strangers greeting me, smiling at me, even starting conversations out of the blue.

I will certainly re-read it and soon.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Okay, first those pics I already had in my gallery:


That was on the first day (Tuesday), by Thursday the sky was a clear blue.

Second day in Rimini (still cloudy) - the Augustus arc:


Caesar (who founded Rimini) sideways:


Mosaic floor in "the doctor's house in Rimini, it's Orpheus in the middle, playing for the animals:


Last not least - the (Augustus &) Tiberius bridge

Nice holiday photos, Nathalie!

On Thursday I took a long walk from the Rimini town centre to the sea side. Here's the old light tower - who was collecting those, Charlotte?





I made some pics of the broad Rimini beach, but the light was wrong and they didn't come out well.

The best veganized pasta I ever had: homemade ravioli stuffed with tofu and radicchio, served with a walnut sauce:


Later I had a body scrub and a fantastic massage - and then I was so oily and relaxed I didn't want to get showered and dressed, so I had roomservice salad - my favorite with fennel, oranges and black olives:

>182 kidzdoc: Thank you Darryl! :)

So... Friday and San Marino. It was only 20kms to the border and then 13 km to San Marino town, but it was quite a long drive, interrupted by countless red traffic lights an a speedway - never seen that before. I didn't have much time up in the old town because that stupid machine at the parking place near the cable car took only coins. But that was okay - while I loved the view and the old cobbled streets, it was also (of course) over touristy with busloads of Germans, Swiss and Dutch people. Every house had either a souvenir shop or some super-expensive designer store. I didn't want to eat there, so I returned before my parking time had run out and had a lovely piadina with squacquerone cheese (like burrata) and rocket salad.

View from the old town towards Rimini and the sea:


View of the hills:


Steep ascent to one of the towers:


The second tower - too far to get there with my little time:


I really must give up taking pics sideways - that's the town hall:


And what did I do with my limited time? I went to the Vampire Museum of all places!! And yes, it's exactly as sad as you're thinking now!

Saturday I went back to Rimini where I had a lovely vegan sandwich and a chocolate brownie in the place where I had been on Wednesday. I bought a couple of books, drove back to the hotel, went to the beach and had my first swim! And then I decided to stay 2 days longer and spend as much time as possible near and in the water:

No more service, but the chairs were folded and placed neatly every morning:


In July/ August you can't move here:


On Monday I took a last walk in the empty Igea Marina - really strange, only the bakery was open and all the shops selling beach toys, usually owned by Pakistani people. An old woman approached me and told me her story - that she'd been cleaning in hotels for 40 years, but that now the seasons were cut too short, only June to mid-September, so that the locals couldn't make a living of work in tourism any more. She said that during the season there are way too many people and that you couldn't get a single sunbed on the beach without pre-booking. It wasn't really a lament, she seemed happy to see me and to have someone to chat. She wished me all the best and almost gave me a hug.

I found an open restaurant near the beach and had my long-planned vegetarian breach - spaghetti alle vongole, SO good! As it was the only restaurant open nearby, it even had some other customers, also Italians eating huge plates of seafood which is always a good sign. This time I was able to stay away from the fritto misto di pesce... the scampis and squid wouldn't have been local anyway and slowly even those dishes lose their appeal. If anything I would have loved another portion of that stuffed vegan pasta.

The good life: book and aperitivo in one of the few beach huts in Igea Marina that were still open:


Last morning - there was not a single other person! :)

Forgot the Nutshell review which shows it wasn't a significant read. Will squeeze it in tomorrow.

Love the empty beach pic - I am a fan of winter walks on our local beach, me and two dog walkers usually!

I was underwhelmed by Nutshell too - will probably not pick up McEwan again. It was OK, but nothing I wanted to spend time ordering or thinking about particularly.

What a lovely holiday, Nathalie. Your photos really give a sense of the magic being there in the "shoulder season". I'm glad you fell into a relaxed rhythm and stayed the extra days.

>187 charl08: I always thought I'd end up living by the sea one day because I love beach walks so much. Well, who knows what the future brings? And yes, among the few other people I saw there were several with very happy dogs. And the air was so good, fresh and cool and salty! *sigh*

>188 lauralkeet: "shoulder season" - thanks for that new expression! :)
Yes, it was great! After 2 days I didn't hear the road anymore and after 3 days I walked much slower. I wish I could have added a couple more days.

*****
No Nutshell review yet, sorry. Somehow my memory of it is fading quickly, so I'll try tomorrow.
Had my biopsies this morning and don't feel very good. Last time it was 1+1 (2 different dates), this time she had planned two on one side, but in the end did 3, and on both sides "just to be safe", because last year's findings were so "rare" according to her that she didn't want to make a mistake. Which is very okay of course, but it was also much more painful once the local anaesthetics wore off. Fortunately no nausea, but dizzyness and a feeling like having a fever for a while, and I only dared eating something about an hour ago. I wonder why all the pain is in the back, ribs and stomach though. Now I'll have to wait a week or so for them to call to give me an appointment. They won't say anything on the phone. I hope it's all fine again, but of course I'm a bit worried.

>181 Deern: What lovely images!

Ow! Take it gently for a few days please...

I also want a house by the sea. Near here it would take several million. Ouch again.

Added the Nutshell Review to post >176 Deern:.
Can't believe September is over and I haven't even read 60 books. It's really likely now I won't make it to 75.

Edit: I just checked - I only read 4 books in September and all of them during my holiday?!? Oh dear, what a month. But I don't remember having read anything else, so it might be true... :(

>190 Whisper1: Thank you so much, Linda! :)

>191 charl08: You're right, I should. Last night when I came home I took my temperature and saw that I wasn't just feeling feverish which also explains the pain in bones and stomach. Temperature is down now but still not feeling well today, I hope I'll be able to leave early.

Several million?!? Ouch indeed... :(
Houses near the Rimini beach are comparatively affordable (which still means I couldn't afford them ever), but you'd need a different place to go during those 10 bad weeks in summer.

What a nice place to be, Nathalie, I like the beach too. My dream of retiring near the beach would cost way too much. Winning the lottery might be needed...
Near Rimini sounds good and I would be off to Norway or Iceland in the summer ;-)

I hope you feel a bit better now, taking biopsies doesn't sound nice and waiting a week neither...

Nice review of Nutshell, Nathalie. I bought it last month, and I'll probably read it in November.

I hope that you're feeling better, and that you're enjoying your weekend so far.

Dear Nathalie, I was far, far behind. I'm happy that you had a good break and thank you for the pictures. I hope you're feeling 100% today!
Take care!!!!!

Hi Anita, Darryl and Peggy and everyone else, happy Sunday!

I managed to go home early on Friday and found I really had a bit of a temperature again. Slept through the early evening and most of the night. I don't know if I caught a little cold on my last day in Rimini when it was actually a bit too windy to swim, but as it was the last occasion... or if it was a little infection from the biopsies or both. The stomach issues on Thursday might have been caused by the 3 doses of local anaesthetics.

Anyway, yesterday I felt good again. So good that I went grocery shopping at the organic supermarket early and then went on a big cooking/ baking spree.

I had a 2 week old organic pumpkin Karin had brought me from a farm that really needed processing now. TG Angela Liddon (Oh She Glows website, my favorite for vegan recipes) just recently published a how-to-prepare pumpkin on her app, and so I ended up with an oven tray of roasted seeds and two huge freezer containers of pumpkin ready-to-use without much physical effort.

While the pumpkin was in the oven I made a batch of "Glo Bars" (snack bars with cereals and dried cherries) most of which are in the freezer. They are delicious, but a bit too sweet for my taste. Unfortunately I couldn't reduce the rice sirup as I'd usually do because it holds those things together.

Then I baked a banana bread (and ate way too much of it over the day). But the absolute winner was the big jar of granola I made last, my first home-made granola ever, and it was so easy that I hope never to return to the aromatized store-bought stuff. It's made with lots of vanilla and those big cocos flakes, pepita seeds and sunflower seeds and I reduced the sirups.

Cleaning the kitchen, the rest of the house and giving my weekly German lesson filled the rest of the day. No plans for today, how wonderful! Started the day with pumpkin pie oatmeal (nice, but I prefer carrots) and might prepare some more recipes for next week, all with pumpkin I fear. :)

>193 FAMeulstee: Going to the Northern countries in summer is a great idea! I'll add that to my "should I ever win the lottery" plans! :)

>194 kidzdoc: I'm already looking forward to that review, though I fear it might not be a nice one. Haven't read any of the more recent McEwans, but some readers said "finally a good one again" about Nutshell, so I'm in no hurry to read those I missed.

>195 LizzieD: Thank you Peggy, I will! :)

Wow, you did s lot o cooking. Sounds like some good treats!

So glad you had a great holiday, Nathalie! The pictures are gorgeous.

>197 drneutron: Thank you Jim. I wish I could stop eating them all at once. :/

>198 The_Hibernator: Thank you Rachel, yes it was a great holiday! :)

Took some pics on Saturday in the midst of the kitchen chaos:

"Glo Bars" -they look dry on the pic, but aren't at all:


Banana bread:


Vanilla coconut granola:


Nothing pic-worthy in the pumpkin, and I'm sure no-one wants a pic of pumpkin oatmeal... it looks totally anti-appetizing. :)

*****
Bought two more Tolle audios. His voice needs a bit getting used to, he chuckles a lot and often in strange places ("time's running out for the planet" *chuckle*). Maybe also his accent, but as he's German I don't notice that much. The 'z's are certainly there. :)

I got problems with my audible app after the latest update on my iPad mini and now have to listen from the phone, not my preferred device. First the app told me there wasn't enough space to download anything, so I cancelled some audio books. The message still came up, so I cancelled 2 of my bigger apps. Still nothing, so I restarted the iPad and then the audible app was gone completely. Downloaded it again and now it doesn't open. I'm not the only one with problems, hoping for a quick bug fix. I feel more like listening at the moment, not making any progress with my other books.

I'm not happy about the possible identification of the real person behind Elena Ferrante. If they really checked salary payments and other things that aren't publicly accessible, this is just dirty sensational journalism. It isn't that we didn't get interviews and that she was totally secretive, there was just a picture missing.
There are countless things that should be seriously journalistically investigated, in Italy and elsewhere. But an international secret co-operation (and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung among them!) to find the real name of an author "because we have the right to know"? I'd say we have the right to know POLITICAL STUFF FOLLOWING why there's no progress at all in Syria and how moderate "moderate rebel groups" will be once they are in power or why we still deliver weapons into the world but never see pictures of how they are used against the own or foreign populations? And how it can be that certain hidden organizations with world influence make so much money with the refugee trafficking and illegal work that also that misery isn't going to stop anytime soon? Or why every time some state leader confirms that "we will not get intimidated by whatever threads and stand in for our freedom and our values" the next thing they do is introduce a bunch of new laws to further restrict personal freedom? Just to mention a few...

However, now that it's all out anyway and that we can say goodbye to any new works - one thing was interesting from the literary point of view and maybe I should have noticed because my reactions to both authors' works were so similar. If it's really the person they say, she is an expert translator of German books and was especially influenced by Christa Wolf. Nachdenken über Christa T. is about a strange friendship between two girls (the not very likeable and "different" and rough Christa T. and the narrator). Kindheitsmuster however (5 stars - great book!) had a very original way of dealing with time levels, memory, decisions and consequences and regret. I got two unread Ferrantes on my shelf, but maybe I should read some more Wolf first, I always meant to.

Hey Nathalie - not sure why the journalist felt the need either. Seems like people thought it could be her for a while. So what? A bit like the J K Rowling pseudonym (although I also was suspicious the publishers had something to do with that one! ) The justification using the 'fake' autobiography she wrote doesn't work for me.

Hope you have a good week.

I'm considering reading that autobio that isn't one. I don't mind if it's fictional or not and I don't see it as a justification either. Everything about Ferrante was always a mystery, so how could anyone believe she'd publish a totally truthful bio? Maybe the bio is real, it's just not hers? :)

Since I once read what "marketing your book" means I thought I'd never want to be an author. I wouldn't want to be confronted with my readers, even if they liked me and were all nice, and I wouldn't want to do all the travelling. I'd also happily stay away from all the celebrity stuff. Writing is often such an introverted activity, I assume that for many successful writers the marketing must be quite a painful element. On the other hand I'm also not someone who cares much to attend to authors' readings or read their bios unless they're crucial for the understanding of their works. But that's just me. I know I'm missing out (on a deeper understanding), but I always preferred not knowing too much about the creators of art. Makes me uneducated, but I can live with that. :)

Hi, Nathalie! Sorry that I missed "seeing" you yesterday. I'm glad that you're feeling better, and that you had a productive weekend in the kitchen; your food looks fabulous!

I'll have to pay more attention to Oh She Glows, and sign up for her e-mail list and/or Facebook page.

I'll look through my latest cookbook, Rose Water & Orange Blossoms by Maureen Abood, a Lebanese-American chef, and probably try one or two recipes this week. I already have ingredients to make another batch of her eggplant, lamb, tomato and pine nuts recipe, which I'll start later today if I'm feeling better, or tomorrow.

>200 Deern: I share your strong disapproval of the apparent unmasking of the author who writes as Elena Ferrante, and very disappointed that the article about this event was published by The New York Review of Books, a journal I subscribe to. I won't read that article, or look to see who the author is, in support of her (or his) wish for anonymity, which vastly outweighs the public's "need to know", a completely invalid statement. Maybe someone should do a similar investigation of the author of this sordid article, so that we can learn all about the personal details of himself, and presumably his wife, children and other family members. I'm sure that he won't mind.

Thought this guy put it well:

"Does anyone believe that knowing Ferrante’s secret identity will offer unexpected insights into her books? She’s not a superhero—or, for that matter, the presidential nominee of a major party who refuses to release his tax returns. "
http://lithub.com/leave-elena-ferrante-alone/

>203 kidzdoc: thank you Darryl, it also tastes very good. Having the last bit of the banana bread today (it was small - 3 bananas and just 200g flour).
The title of your cookbook sounds delicious and reminds me that I have a totally unused cookbook on my shelf with vegetarian middle east recipes. I should add that I sometimes buy cookbooks just because they look great and totally forget to cook from them. I collected them for a while.

re. OhSheGlows: I got both cookbooks and the app, but mostly cooked from the recipes on the website so far. As on most vegan websites the emphasis is on snacks/drinks and sweets (it sometimes seems all vegans are chocolate addicts), but there are some great spicy soups and casseroles as well. I tried some of the burgers and the lentil "meat"balls, but those didn't work for me. I loved everything where she uses cashews instead of cream and found it way better digestible than the dairy originals. I often prefer the older recipes over the most recent ones as she's usually 1-2 years ahead of Italian supermarkets with the ingredients she uses, this year she was on a turmeric roll which I found exactly once. Also, the older ones are often easier to realize, haveing less elements. It's a great website, also the blog part.

>203 kidzdoc:, >204 charl08: Well, at least we can be sure that Gatti's doubtlessly overblown ego is suffering from the overall negative reactions. I fear he will still be invited to talk shows.
There was no doubt she would be unmasked one day, but this was just dirty work from someone who for whatever reason is angry about her success. I hope she keeps writing.

Me too on the writing. It would be awful if she let someone stop her this way. I also wondered if she would face criticism from some of those she was inspired by.

>206 charl08: I was wondering if it might have been team work of two authors all along. I personally wouldn't mind at all, even if there was a whole group contributing to the books - or to any book I read and liked. Whoever it is/ they are, I hope books will keep coming. Not too quickly and not too similar to the quartet - the older Ferrantes are different as well. Darker and sadder.

*******
I had a very busy work week and didn't eye-read anything. I listened to a series of lectures by Eckhart Tolle called "Freedom From The World" and really enjoyed them. He actually has a good humor and I was sometimes chuckling along (like the audience). Comparing Singer, Hawkins and Tolle, I'd say Singer is the basis, to be revisited as often as needed. Hawkins does some things I don't like, especially in comparison with the humble and distanced Tolle approach. Distrust whoever talks too much about physical healing, I'd say. Tolle's anti-ego approach goes into the zen direction without the severity. Unlike Singer, there is no emphasis on "love" (in the spiritual sense). It's all about acceptance, peace and inner stillness, and as he answers many questions and gives many RL examples, it's not too difficult to follow.

Food-wise it was full pumpkin week - I had smoothie and (in the restaurant) spaghetti with pumpkin pesto on Monday, and then every day either pumpkin with oatmeal or with rice, or both. I'm quite addicted to the taste and creamy texture now and fortunately I still got half of my "harvest" in the freezer.

Now that it's cooler I switched back to easy Vinyasa yoga and also started an online Hatha class. After all the physically easy (but emotionally intense) Yin yoga all through summer my muscles feel weak and my joints rusty, but I found I don't mind. The Yin phase has removed the ambitious streak that shouldn't be part of any yoga practice. So what if I can't do a full split by the end of the year?

Haven't heard from the biopsies yet, but I remember last time it also took them forever.

No special plans for the weekend yet, I'm so tired that all I'm looking forward to now is my bed. And another bowl of rice and pumpkin with fresh apple and some pesto of course. :)

Hope you have a relaxing weekend. I've been eating butternut and feta pasta - so lovely.

I also don't really see what the fuss about the identity of Elena Ferrante is either Nathalie. I suppose if it turned out to be Tony Blair or George W or Silvio Berlusconi, I would choke on my nasi goreng but really in the scheme of things it does not alter the quality or otherwise of the books published in her/his name.

Have a lovely weekend - am I right in noting that you have only the Madeleine Thien to go for a full house of the Booker longlist?

I finally caught up here, Nathalie and I'm glad you had a lovely holiday. Myownself has been absent from LT several week and I try to do better in the near future.

I wish you a lovely week ahead.

Hello Charlotte, Paul, Diana and Barbara! Thank you for visiting, weekend wishes and the lovely pics! :)
Oh dear - if Ferrante turned out to be Berlusconi or Blair, I'd trash my paper copies. :/

Can't believe a week is over again and we're half through October.
My life since returning from the holidays is work work work (between 11 and 12.5 hrs daily this week), a bit of yoga at home and the odd no-thinking-required TV show, and then as much sleep as I can get. No reading at all, not even news sites. I learned only 5 mins ago that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel. I doubt I'll get through the Thien (or anything else) this month, simply because my eyes quite refuse to read when they're finally freed of excel tables.

My mind however is surprisingly okay. I'm re-listening to the still unreviewed Tolle lectures, and while I'm clearly working too many hours, I feel strangely unstressed. Let's see how long that continues.. :)

Yesterday I finally got my biopsy results. The thingies again are benign (2 papilloma, one fibrowhatever) , all 3 of them, but one has "atypical cells". That one and another one have to be removed surgically. I asked if it can wait 4 months - because the REALLY big work is going to start in November and continue far into January. Of course if it was something dangerous I'd have it done right now, but I want to make sure that this time I won't return into total work hell when I'm still feeling bad, like last time when I had to work long hours directly.
So on Valentine's Day 2017 I'll check in and the surgery will be on the 15th which is the same calender week as in 2015. I hope I'll have as nice a room mate as last time and will tolerate the anaesthesia better.

Tomorrow will be busy as well, I'm hoping for a very quiet Sunday. Maybe a rainy one where I'm forced to stay in?

HAPPY WEEKEND and {{{HUGS}}} to you, I miss you !

>212 Deern: Thanks so much about the biopsy update. I'm glad that you can wait until mid February. Sorry to read that you have such terribly busy work hours and no end in sight. Take care, please. Thinking of you and happy weekend, too.

>212 Deern: Yay for benign, Nathalie, sad for a-typical that needs to be removed...
Looks like vacation did you good, as too much work isn't stressing you like before your break.

Wishing you a very quiet (and rainy) Sunday :-D

>212 Deern: That is good news Nathalie. Of course any surgical procedure is to be taken seriously but at least you have a little peace of mind going forward.

Have a lovely weekend, dear lady.

>213 Ameise1:, >214 FAMeulstee: Yes, I'm very happy too! I wasn't that scared this time as I knew everything was very small, and whatever they'd find, it would be quite new.
I think it's funny that it's Valentine's Day. Last time it was carnival Monday and some of the nurses wore fancy dresses or wigs. Next year I know I'll have dinner served to my table or even bed side, almost romantic. :D

>215 PaulCranswick: Cross-posting with a delay - had that above post written, but then a colleague came in to discuss a statistic. Thank you Paul! :)

>217 Deern: I do that so often myself, Nathalie. xx

Thinking of you Nathalie. Hope you have a relaxing weekend.

(I love that the nurses dress up for festivals - I had heard of that for kids wards but not for the grown ups)

60. "Know That I Am" / 61. "Freedom From the World" by Eckhart Tolle

By now you know me well enough to expect more self-help titles by a certain author when I found the first book helpful. I got that first short audio lecture directly after my holiday and listened to it several times. It felt too short and incomplete and a bit out of context (it’s just one hour recording of a longer retreat), so I looked around and found the second title – a complete 4 or 5 day retreat with 9 or 10(?) lectures. I liked this second audio very much, as it builds up from day to day and there is a bit of interaction with the audience. The jokes and chuckling made more sense here as well. Despite being German myself, I sometimes struggled with the understanding of some expressions. For a while I wondered what an eagle estate might be (and if I wanted one), till I got he was talking about the egoless state. I wouldn’t recommend the first audio necessarily, but the second one is a great addition to The Power of Now and a wonderful listen especially because it’s lectures.
I had so many credits I got another one, A New Earth, which is a normal book read by the author, and after the very lively lectures just having the book read to me is a bit of a letdown (entertainment wise - I keep waiting for the jokes).

Rating: 3 and 4.5 stars

62. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (Booker LL 2016 13/13)

Of course this review reflects only my personal opinion. And that is, very strongly this year, that this is the only book from the shortlist (and also the longlist) that should win the Booker. I’m also quite convinced that it won’t. My guess is The Sellout (we’re SO unconventional AND we can show this way that we care about all those racially motivated crimes in the US (better not talk about our own issues, especially since Brexit) and isn’t it time that an US author wins?).

Anyway, there was much in this book here that went against me, especially in my current tired state of mind. Several levels of narration, historical fiction, family epic. And yet, once I had finally picked it up again at 12% on Saturday at the hairdresser's, I was almost unable to put it down again, especially once I was over the 40% point and the historical events reached a time I could half remember.

I don’t think we learned anything about Chinese history at school. While it’s a good thing to be overfed with WWI/II and the Holocaust as a German, other regimes – in the 1980 still very actual – shouldn’t have been left out. Russia at least got some mentions – after all there was a border in the middle of our country that needed some explanation, but China was a big taboo. Sometimes I wonder if the generally leftwing teachers left out the crimes of communism because they still had so much sympathy for it. A sympathy I can understand when it comes to the theory, but even they should have seen that the realizations were as far off the utopic dream as they could be.

Actually, I was shocked. There was much I didn’t know yet, especially about the famine and the cultural revolution, and it is told in a way that the reader can’t escape. At times I thought the narration was confusing and not free of flaws with strange jumps between characters, but that didn’t matter much. This is another example of the horrendous things humans can do to other humans – and not to strangers, to neighbors, friends, relatives – to either make themselves feel superior or to save their own lives. The struggle sessions, the self-criticisms, the denouncments (the memory where Sparrow helps his little daughter writing her accusations of her father as a “demon” and a “snake” because she doesn't know all the characters yet!) – this is much closer to 1984 than everything I know about the Third Reich. Okay, it also lasted much longer. And then I was very moved when the student protests of 1989 began and the very people who had taken an active part in the cultural revolution and felt guilt for it, at once took the side of the students and supported them.

For once this was also a historical family story where I cared about most of the characters, even about Kai. Imo this is not a book about the failures of communism at all, this is a very relevant book for our times that shows what happens when fear rules and when false enemies are created.

Way too political (in contrast to The Narrow Road to the Deep North that was really just closed history and therefore could win the price in a year full of brilliant and very relevant books), and so I dare predicting that it won’t win.

Rating: 4.5 stars

>218 PaulCranswick: :)

>219 charl08: Well, it was in the department where people get pre-surgery checks, so there were also some kids that day. That might explain it - or they did it just for fun.

>221 Deern: Well Nathalie you're right and then I hope you are wrong. Do Not Say We Have Nothing is easily my favourite of the shortlisted books (I only have All That Man Is) to go and The Sellout was standout the worst novel I have read this year by a country mile. I think Thien will win.

>223 PaulCranswick: I gave The Sellout a higher rating than I thought it deserved because it was one of those cases where I had both language and cultural issues and often had no idea what was going on. Seeing that so many native speakers don't like it as well at least returns some of my confidence. I hope Thien wins (I could also live with the well written non-novel by Szelay), but sometimes I have to remind myself that the Booker isn't the Peace Nobel and my personal "serious literature" requirements don't apply. :)

So yes, I finally finished a real book again, but honestly I don't know yet when I'll be able to start the next one. I wanted to be done with the Bookers before they announce the winner, but this last book demanded much time and concentration, all Sunday and several hours of Saturday. I read and read (not to forget that it was a great read) but the "time to finish book" display on the Kindle almost didn't move. I'm also finding that I'm in a state of mind where I can't deal well with emotionally difficult books. With all the presence training I don't want to be drawn into the misery of fictional characters. I found I can deal okay with mysteries, but not with lifelike stories. I know I could use novel reading as a training to keep a sound distance to the plot, but it seems I'm not there yet. I never had that sound distance and used to "enjoy" the emotional ups and downs, but way too often I took the emotions from a book into RL with me and somehow made it about myself, drew conclusions for my life that weren't really there. There were books that got me into a paranoia for days and that's not how it should be. So for the next months it might be all easy-peasy feelgood reading, maybe some graphic novels, I'll see. Maybe some harmless classics?

Edit: not to forget books that aren't totally plot driven like the new Ali Smith that's out this week, yay! the Guardian review sounds very inviting: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/12/autumn-ali-smith-review

Hi Nathalie!
So you will be reading the remaining of the year cozy mysteries and a bit of Chick-lit?

Well, I'm biased (because I totally want Thien to win) but I loved your review of Do Not Say We Have Nothing . Like to, I remember the tv shots of the protestors in Beijing and the shock that they were so brutally crushed. So it was a rich experience to feel that I was being shown behind the scenes - the chaos, the hope, the disagreements - behind the protest and the aftermath.

Wishing you a good week at work. Back to the applications for me.

>226 FAMeulstee: cozy reading sounds good to me, Anita, though I'll stay away from the chick-lit! :)
And maybe that way I'll get to those 75 eventually... :)

>227 charl08: I also want her to win! :) When I look at the complete longlist, it stands out, although I also loved Work Like Any Other. I wonder why I remember so little of that time. Of course it was in the news every day, but the relevance was somewhat played down and at no time real hope was spreading. Cold war was a strange time and I don't want it back.
Added: the "too political" meant probably too politically relevant to be selected.
Best of luck with the search!!

I bought two books I have been waiting for and that shouldn't overload my brain although they're "serious" literature: "Autumn" by Ali Smith (out today) and, finally, Hag-Seed, now that it is available here. Started the latter yesterday and am loving it so far. The first Atwood that for me isn't just "good" in the more serious sense like The Blind Assassin, but also a real joy to read. But "The Tempest" is also one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Still hesitant about the other books of that series.

Another eytremely busy work week. We're doing the first software tests for the warehouse project, and at this early stage, most of it looks good.
I'm also very tired as every year when the weather changes in October. I could easily sleep 10 hours, and as I don't get those, I often carry a headache through the day. Tonight the project team is out for pizzas and beers (alc-free for me as I'm driving), but I'll leave as early as possible.

As I'll supervise the training of the warehouse employees, we decided to build a "mini warehouse" in my office to simulate the new picking process. We can't do it in the real place, it's way too cold there. I'll try to make the learning as fun as possible though it's going to be quite a challenge with people who are totally unwilling to learn a new process, also because they'll have to do extra hours for the training (paid ones, but still..).

Hope the testimg process goes well Nathalie. It sounds like a complex process convincing people to do things a new way - and change is always so hard to deal with!

You have reminded me to dig my lightbox out. I'm never completely convinced it makes much of a difference but I'll keep to it nonetheless.

Glad the Atwood is good - I can't wait to read this one. Waiting impatiently for my library to get it in stock.

>230 charl08: I managed to get to 50% yesterday by reading on my iPhone while waiting we were waiting for software fixes. Everyone was reading their mails - or pretending to - so I guess no-one noticed. * The easy thing about this book is that it isn't exactly a new idea, so even my tired brain adapted to the setting at once. So far it's more brain candy than "serious", but that's okay.
There have been so many movies and books about "awakening the musical/literary/acting talents in a group of prisoners/ghetto kids (can I write that?)/ difficult cases of any kind". Shakespeare is a winner anyway, and Atwood adds some nice extras like the swear words, and the never boring revenge theme.

*****
totally insignificant, but fond memories following:

*which brings back a memory of my old job when the company had merged with (or taken over?) a British investment bank and at once we got project management teams from London over who insisted on daily written status reports by everyone (I wrote them for all the colleagues who couldn't write English then) and daily status meetings which meant about 2 hrs extra work every day.
Anyway, I always took a book into the meeting and read until it was my turn to give my status (which I had already handed in in written form but which no-one had bothered to read), and then continued until the meeting was over. No-one ever said anything and I got through a couple of books that way.

I have to add: I LOVED the Brits, we had much fun together, and I learned much from their way of working, but that exaggerated status tracking was a big annoyance and made the project much slower. As today, I was already overtasked before they arrived and as many of my colleagues then spoke almost no English, they came to me with every little business process question in the first weeks. Their constant tracking once got me into such a stress that I hid under a desk when I saw one of them approaching once again. But we were good friends and when the project ended well, he got me a big Delia Smith cook book because we had discussed British cooking on several occasions. :)
Yep, I miss them - but they all disappeared long before me. When the first bigger crisis hit (2003?), most of their 2 year expat contracts not only were not extended - they also didn't get local contracts in their London base anymore. I hope they're all well.

63. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

Oh, this one was so much fun to read! Not super-serious, often exaggerated or bent a bit too far to make the story fit in with the play, but obviously written with such joy and with such love for the original The Tempest!

Many years ago I got an audiobook with a selection of the sonnets, spoken by mostly famous actors (I then bought it only for Alan Rickman's "My misstress's eyes"). The AB starts and ends however not with a sonnet, but with a speech from The Tempest, spoken by Joseph Fiennes if I remember well. It’s “Be not afear’d, the isle is full of noises” and of course “our revels now are ended” which I then both memorized. I read The Tempest only once, but it is among my favorites, and I can’t even say why. After seeing all the glowing reviews for this book I couldn't wait to get my hands on it!

Margaret Atwood is using the not really fresh idea “let’s a group of prisoners play Shakespeare and get a new grip on life” and a classical plot of revenge that’s almost too close to Prospero, and manages to make this not tired and annoying, but totally entertaining and sparkling. I need to add some of those swear words to my vocabulary! There was one element that did in fact slightly annoy me, Felix’ dream Miranda, but the way that was resolved in the end even made me cry a little.

I wish the others were as good, but this one is always mentioned as a stand-out in a mixed bag.

Rating: 4.5 stars – on a fun level with last year’s Slade House (which I must re-read). It’s great when “serious” authors use their skills to do something that’s pure fun!

It seems like Walking the Light by Deborah Andrews will win the Not The Booker by a landslide, so I bought it today for under 5 EUR and started it. The sample was nice, but the "on the dole and using drugs" premise isn't terribly inviting.

I have a copy of Hag-Seed but have never read The Tempest. Do you recommend I do that first?

>234 amcheri: You don't have to to enjoy HS, but knowing the basic story helps to notice where the plot goes all Tempest/ play within a play. In the Kindle version there's a chapter "The Tempest: The Original" that tells the plot in detail, I'm sure it's in your copy as well. I thought this was so thoughtful, but maybe they do that for the whole series.

Ah! There is! I'm so glad I asked. Thank you!

I tried to post this this morning, and the site suddenly went wonky. Hope it's O.K. now....

So glad you have joined the troop of *Hagseed* lovers, Nathalie! Your review is just right!
I'm also much relieved that your biopsies turned out benign and glad that you don't have to rush surgery.
Peace to you as you work more than your share. I wish you a happy weekend if you get it!

>232 Deern: I must go and buy that one, Nathalie. I don't always get along with Atwood but that one sounds like fun.

Have a wonderful weekend.

>236 amcheri: you're welcome, I hope you'll enjoy the book! :)

>237 LizzieD: Same here, I was home early yesterday and wanted to LT a bit, and then that message about too many deviations kept coming up. It scared me a bit as I get the same message when trying to access an archived old favorite site, and I hoped LT had not suddenly disappeared forever. :/
I'm wishing you a happy weekend filled with further improvements and good news. So glad that things are getting fixed and I hope your mum will be better soon!

>238 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul, sorry I haven't visited this week, I only opened threads during work where I knew I'd be able to read all the missed posts before I'd get interrupted again. Will check your thread now.

I'm not a big Atwood fan either. I like her writing, but don't enjoy her stories very much. And while The Blind Assassin got a high rating from me, it wasn't exactly a joy to read. It feels like she wrote this one for fun.

That's why Slade House came back to me which gave me a similar experience last year, Mitchell without the over-complicated constructions and apocalyptic fears was like high-level brain candy.

I am a fan of Eckhart Tolle - our whole family is, we actually listened to him on audio -- he has a rather terrible (but endearing) voice and a weird little laugh snicker, but it was also so very very genuine. We have a saying now in our house, in his Dutch accent of course, "We must be aware of being aware." (which can be repeated ad infinitum). His story is interesting too. He was studying philosophy at Oxford, had a breakdown, spent a year sitting on a park bench somewhere in London, and came to his "philosophy" through hard meditation. I still find him very helpful, keep the books around and dip in and out. I agree though it is not for beginners, new to these ideas.

I have always thought that Ian McEwan's ability to write has obfuscated the fact that the stories are often terribly constructed. The content/ structure, whatever you want to call it. Doesn't flow from who the characters actually are or where the story wants to go. He has to control it all. Can't do that and have a living piece of fiction.

>240 sibylline: Yay, another ET fan! My friend is so happy I finally jumped on the power of now train, she has all his books.
But I told her yesterday that she should know best we'll get to things when we're ready. :)

She was here to look up expressions in my Italian edition as all her books are in German and her husband is Italian. She brought her own book that was full of removable stickers, because she still had to lend it to a friend. I had to laugh because there we were, obviously several women in our 40s/ early 50s, trying to get better and in part trying to get through things with the partners' pain bodies.

ET makes me see many situations with my ex with different and milder eyes. Also that I very often did the right thing/ was developping into the right direction, he just wasn't ready. Actually, yesterday I finally was able to throw out most of the stuff I'd kept from our time together - letters, theater tickets, hotel brochures. Somehow I'd always been aware we were not meant to last, so I'd kept every little bit as a proof we once existed. Now I was not only able to throw it away, I really wanted to, which I guess is a good sign.

I went through a chapter on creativity in The New Earth last night that I loved. I've had phases in my life with much creative energy, mainly in writing but in my early years also in painting, and it always stopped the moment I thought "but what if others hate it and hate me or if I'm good just once and then never again?" (negative ego obviously). When I rarely came out with the results, people usually loved it, and that put extra pressure on future projects, so I stopped again.

What I love about the training project now, is exactly the creative part, building the mini warehouse, finding mini incentives for the people to make them want to learn. For the first time I'm quite looking forward to something relating to my work here, although it'll mean many extra hours.

Yes, the voice and the German accent... funny thing is once I got used to it, I didn't want to return to the written books. There's a total lack of arrogance in him, he's clearly not looking down on people, and he still likes making a bit of fun of himself.

Happy Sunday, Nathalie. I ho9e it's a relaxing one.

>241 Deern: So happy you found some fun in your work, Nathalie, with the training project!
Enjoy the rest of your Sunday :-)

>242 Ameise1: Hi Barbara, thank you - happy week to you. It was very Relaxing, but totally book-free. :)

>243 FAMeulstee: Thank you for visiting and enjoy your week! :)

64. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

This is basically the 9hr lectures from my book #61 (>220 Deern:) turned into book form. It was a nice recap and it had some more details on creativity and life’s purpose. As always, Tolle differentiates between the outer level and the inner level. The purpose on the inner level is always the actual moment, while of course on the outer level a bit more planning is required. However, he claims that if you focus on the inner level, the solution that you’re looking for on the outer level will come up by itself. If you’ve got rid of a good deal of your “I want more and now” or alternatively “I want to do good and be visible while doing good” ego, you might find that you’re actually perfectly well situated already and that you’re able to do your job with much more contentment. Or you might really leave and do something completely different, but then not with the goal to “shine”, but to reach an inner/outer harmony.

I’m sorry, but there will be another Tolle review coming soon, my friend Karin threw one of his books at me yesterday before rushing to Switzerland to see her mother. This time in German, I fear my head is going to be confused balancing the main ideas in three languages and getting it all together.

Rating: 4.5, just like #61

I didn’t read anything this weekend, I felt like my eyes needed a break. Spoke to several friends on the phone that I haven't seen in a while, and Karin visited twice. Went into the new shopping center that on its third Sunday was already totally empty. Clearly Merano people are either not yet used to shopping on Sundays, or still prefer the big Interspar supermarket over the not so exciting offers of this center. Got new simple headphones and a new cover for my iPhone.

Foodwise it was an interesting weekend. I’ve had a craving for vegan sausages all week, that usually means I’m short of protein and/or iron. Before I turned vegetarian, that was the time when I got half a pound of sliced roastbeef and ate it without bread. I was always more the fruit/veg/cereal person, so low iron has always been an issue. Tried to imagine the roastbeef, and it's no longer appetizing. Clearly veg producs have taken its place. However, I’ve really been neglecting my eating since my move and I need to get back on track. Too much white bread, too much cheese, lately almost no fruit. So I decided to start on 7 high-protein vegan days with the planned exception of 4 yogurts in my fridge that reach their best before date this week. I also want to cut out the simple flour and sugars.

On Saturday I didn’t yet feel like cooking and just filled up on protein and iron by eating lots of my favorite smoked tofu (there’s one brand - Taifun - I already bought often when I still ate meat), some rye bread with chestnuts and some tomato hummus with carrot sticks and bellpepper. For dinner a small portion of store-bought vegan ravioli made with barley flour and filled with seitan and herbs. Interesting, but not great. Yesterday after a breakfast of yogurt with my granola and pomegranate seeds I made what I call birdseed crackers (pepita, sunflower, sesame and chia seeds mixed with water and salt, flattened out on an oven tray and dried/baked for 1.5 hours). They're ultra-high in protein and extremely filling. Perfect for being dipped into hummus.
I also made a thai-style salad with quinoa, red beans, carrot, bellpepper, cilantro (I found fresh cilantro!) and a lemon-tahini dressing that brought even more protein and iron. That turned out really delicious and will be made more often in winter. I took the leftovers to the office today.

In the evening I cooked a red lentil soup with spinach that turned out okay, but not great enough to be made again though maybe the problem was that I didn’t have canned tomatos, only passata, so the whole thing tasted like tomato soup. I’m planning it for tomorrow's dinner. All recipes from the OhSheGlows app. Fortunately also found some vegan chocolate cookies with cane sugar and spelt flour in the store, so my sweet tooth wasn’t totally frustrated. Feel much better this morning, craving is gone and I'm less tired.

Called my physician this morning who hasn't seen me yet since I live here, because after more than 8 years it's probably time to have a blood check, and I should have my moles examined. I have hundreds if not thousands of them plus freckles, and it's been years. And I found a strange lump on my big toe weeks ago that's not going away.
I also arranged for my car to get winter tires and the expensive check-up I've been delaying for months, because I need to go to Germany/Bavaria in November/December to get the bi-yearly inspection done (aargh - more money to be spent!). Time's running, can't believe it's already 2 years.

Finished Ali Smith's Autumn and LOVED it! She is always bringing art back into my life. I just read up a bit on the British pop art artist that plays an important role in the book, Pauline Boty. I scrolled through the pictures and here's a link to the one that's described in minute detail in the book, the one Daniel (the old man next door) makes Elisabeth (the child new in town) imagine during one of early first encounters: http://e-kalejdoskop.pl/Data/Sites/1/InfoglobImages/Thumbs/pauline-boty-ms2-012m....

I should add that it might be more fun reading the book first (and imagining the painting along with Elisabeth).

Review will be difficult. There's a surface plot yes, but as usual with AS the plot isn't the book. :)

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Just saw that Tiffany McDaniel's The Summer That Melted Everything (>178 Deern:) has won Not The Booker. I'd noticed that a high number of similar looking votes came in quite late that looked much like the earlier similar looking ones for "Walking the Light". It has been discussed early during the voting process that there were many votes from newly opened accounts and my guess is that TMD's publishing house maybe then smartly decided to do the same as it was the only serious contender.
The winner is the only book of that shortlist I managed to finish so far and I liked it very much, although it's quite flawed technically (but whatever else I started was even more so). Hers got the worst review in the guardian and the best reader reviews, so in the end the win is in the sense of most readers I guess..

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Edited to add a link to a Guardian article on Ali Smith. It's worth reading and it's also full of interesting links: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/16/ali-smith-autumn-interview-how-can...

I just test-read and bought the not-really-sequel to Small Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit. I thought I wasn't ready yet for a sequel, but it follows the path of a character that left the other story, and it's sideline that I found very interesting then. The last one fit the smart brain candy category perfectly well, I hope the new one will be as good.

Didn't sleep well last night and did some more test-reading. Loved them all, and have many more samples left (all of the Hogarth Shakespeare series among them). Now all I need is more time!
If I manage to read all those I should get to 75 without problems.

Ooh your test reading sounds like fun. Hope you find something(s) that work well for you.

I do fancy A Closed and Common Orbit. I liked her writing in the earlier book.

Hope your sleep improves too.

Exactly what Charlotte said!
(Hi, Nathalie!)

err.... Placeholder for the unreviewable #64 by Ali Smith.

65. Vous n'aurez pas ma haine (You Will not have my Hate) by Antoine Leiris

I read this very short and very moving book by Antoine Leiris yesterday after following a Guardian link. It tells about the time between the night of the Paris attacks and the funeral of Leiris' wife Hélène who was shot at the Bataclan. We're with him when he searches the hospitals, when he turns back home to face this 17 months old son Melvil who's waiting for his mom. We're with him at the morgue, at the first meeting with a friend who saw Hélène dying, at the day nursery picking up Melvil, receiving little pots with food from the various mums. We're with him when he has to chose clothes for the funeral which he sprays with Hélène's favorite scent and puts them out for a last embrace. We're with him when he writes the famous (I didn't know it which of course means nothing as I avoid getting emotionalized by the news) open letter on FB to the terrorists, claiming that although they killed the love of his life, he's not willing to give them the hatred they're hoping for.

The title caught my eye because this was what I tried (without any success) telling my parents after the Paris attacks - if ever anything really bad should happen to me by the hands of others (and there is no real safety in this world), they should not get themselves caught by hatred, rage and the wish for revenge. They didn't listen - just the way they didn't listen when many years ago I tried to tell them about my dream about the total bliss that death is for the dead. For me, it was an extremely comforting dream, but they're among the many people who avoid any thought of death and the possibility that it can happen to anyone at any time, until it's there. Losing someone beloved in such a way is more than enough reason to give up on the world for most people, to lose faith in everything, to fall into darkness. Leiris doubtlessly was helped by the presence of his little son who required that a strict daily rhythm was kept. But there's also a deep conviction that love doesn't die when the beloved person isn't there anymore. The last chapters were especially strong. He's also a very accomplished writer.

If it were (was?) just some novel, I could list some flaws, but given what it really is, who am I to crticize anything?

Rating: 5 stars

>248 charl08: They ALL work well for me right now, I'll have to calculate an 150EUR (or more) budget for books for the next weeks I fear.
But more important is that reading is getting enjoyable again. :))

>249 LizzieD: Hi Peggy, good to see you! :)

I totally forgot about the Booker last night, but I had guessed correctly on the Booker thread. Not personally happy about the win of The Sellout as I didn't like the book much, but I'm getting better at guessing what the jury is going to chose. The book ticked too many boxes on the "hey, we're unconventional AND politically aware and it's not about racism in Britain - let's celebrate" scala, plus in the third year it was time to let an American author win.

What surprises me are the many positive readers' voices in the comments on the Guardian. I accepted that the book wasn't for me personally, but many US readers here on LT who I thought would get the humor and the references better, felt the same. The Guardian readers however quite loved it, actually they loved all the books I didn't like too much. So where did I miss something this year, I'm wondering?

Ali Smith needs an own post, so #64 comes after #65:

64. "Autumn" by Ali Smith (grrr... touchstones! Scrolled through all the list and didn't find it)

I can’t review Ali Smith anymore, just like I can’t review Virgina Woolf, and that’s a good thing! It means that plot and construction have now receded behind the more (introduce the smart word here that I can’t find – I tried visceral and ethereal and according to my dictionary they don’t exactly mean what I want to say. A mix of both?).

So. This is Britain post-Brexit referendum, and AS has really, really greatly worked this in. There are simple scenes that show the alienation in interpersonal contacts/ dialogues, but there are also scenes like paintings. AS is finally able to paint with words, and you don’t see the canvas anymore. I’m SO happy!

Elements (some of them): autumn, friendship, independence, backward thinking, political lies now and then (Profumo affair), feminism, love, imagination, pop-art, the small daily abstrusenesses, civil disobedience, hope.

I rated earlier AS books with 4.5, and this one is my new favorite, so yay for 5 stars and I can't wait for the other 3 paintings in this new series!

Oh lovely review Nathalie. I so liked Autumn - the art descriptions she had her characters speak were lovely, and worked so well alongside the creation of images from her observations of community after Brexit.

>251 Deern: Well predicted on The Sellout.
Guardian readers eh? There's no explaining it. They're just a law to themselves. ;-)

>252 Deern: Hmm, that's intriguing. I like Ali Smith and thought How to be Both was excellent.

>253 charl08: Thank you Charlotte! :)
I'd like to read all Ali Smith books now, however she's clearly getting better and better, so I'm not sure if I really should read the older ones.

>254 lauralkeet: Same here. HTBB is among my favorite books and made it into my "inspiring books" collection.

Hey Nathalie! I just spent the last 1/2 hour catching up on your thread. Wow! lots of good stuff starting with your holiday to Rimini and environs. I'm sooooo envious that you can drive a few hours and walk in the footprints of Romans. So awesome!!

More ET love! I was introduced to him through a Oprah series which covered A New Earth step be step. Tolle is elflike in appearance and giddiness. There is a tremendous sense of awareness and calm in his demeanor that one says "I'll have what he's having". I've been wanting to order the Power of Now but been too busy. Perhaps "now" is a good time to do so.

Thumbs up to your spoiler comments on current affairs being pushed aside for the silly stuff. Do journalists think we're stupid and wouldn't be able to grasp complicated thoughts?! And this is what's bugging me about the US presidential election. Can we please talk about the issues, the ones like you mentioned. I'm so sad and disgruntled with this election, I'm choosing not to vote on the President and let the cards fall where they may.

Yeah, your comments on The Sellout are also stellar! When I read it, I thought perhaps Beatty was going overboard hitting all the political talking points but apparently not.

>256 Carmenere: Hi Lynda! I know what it feels like. When I was still living in Germany and went on a holiday in Italy, I couldn't believe that once you got nearer to Verona all those fantastic places appeared on the motorway signs and were suddenly in reach: Venezia, Roma, Milano, Bologna, Firenze... Verona is the doorstep to real Italy, and real Italy breathes history, culture and lifestyle wherever you set your foot. That doorstep is now 800km closer and I enjoy it!

Another ET fan, how lovely! :) Elflike is a good expression, I saw a short YouTube Video. He's also quite ageless, he's almost 70, but could be anything. I really like his humbleness, especially in contrast with Singer. He constantly reminds his listeners that what he's telling them is not new and that it's not "his" method. I've read so many of those "abundance from the universe" books in the past maybe 15 years (it started when I had a bit of a breakdown back in Frankfurt, and there was a long pause before my bigger breakdown here 4 years ago). I feel like I've finally arrived at some literature that doesn't promise me happiness and wealth and leaves me more frustrated than before. That whole "optimistic thinking" approach didn't work for me, focussing on the moment and not constantly forming wishes for the future in your head is so much easier and nicer.

I promised a while ago to write more about my zen experiment, but the Tolle lectures gave me a new perspective on it and I don't really know yet what to think. He's easy zen, and that's much more doable than all those strict rituals that I felt weren't for me.

Pre-weekend reading update: I caught lots of BBs this week, mainly from the Guardian/ Charlotte's thread, but so far I also liked all of my Hogarth Shakespeare samples. I had to start using my glasses again at work and for reading, interestingly after my holiday I hadn't needed them for some weeks. This week I started:

- Walking the Lights by Deborah Andrews - the one I bought thinking it would win Not The Booker. Good writing, but so not my type of book. I'm too old for stories about broke young people in ever rainy Glasgow, spending the dole on drinks and drugs and waiting for a breakthrough as an artist
- A Closed and common Orbit by Becky Chambers. I didn't read much more than the test chapter yet, and I'm in no hurry with this one. Easy reading for more stressful times
- Practicing the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, the book Karin lent me. Nothing new in there of course, so I'm skim-reading it and might not review. Not a great translation (German), sounds way too technical and old-fashioned. At least I know I won't have to buy it for any of my friends, it doesn't read well.
- Another Day in the Death of America by Gary Younge - started today. This might be another slow read. I don't think I can read more than one chapter (=1 violent death by gun of a kid under 20) per day

Weekend plans: None, except for the usual cleaning/ cooking/ teaching. Monday is a bridge day, but I'll work, I like those quiet days in the office.

I got through my vegan high-protein/iron-no-wheat week (I'd personally prefer a vegan all-bread week) without any issues and feel way better than a week ago. I tried some great new recipes and have some on my list for this weekend. I didn't eat cheese because dairy slows the iron resorption from food and because I'll soon have my cholesterol checked. I also avoided white sugar, but ate too many substitutes. I ate all my hummus with carrot and fennel sticks and must re-stock, also on smoked tofu.

Next Wednesday my RL yoga class finally starts again after my teacher has had to leave the old place for safety reasons (no emergency exit). I'll have to drive a bit to the new place, but I can't wait to see some of my yoga friends again.

I only realized Wednesday night when I came home and pulled the empty trash bin from the sidewalk into the courtyard that I really threw all those ex-bf-souvenirs away. When I had put the bin out in the morning, I had totally forgotten what was inside among all the kitchen waste. It has taken me very long, but I believe we have to take our steps at our own pace, and I feel good now without them.

Hi Nathalie, just read Italy had another round of earthquakes. Everything alright with you?

Glad your thingies are benign. That's always a relief. Hopefully you're alright with the earthquakes and all!

>259 Carmenere: Hi Lynda, yes I'm fine - but I felt this last one as I was awake already. I'm worried however, this time they don't stop. How terrible to live in that area and being scared now all the time!

>260 The_Hibernator: It's strange - of the big one that killed so many we all felt nothing. The last ones however were felt here as well, though only lightly. We've had light local ones, and given how much the earth then shook and the scary sound, I hope I'll never be anywhere near a bigger one.

I hope that it will quiet down again now for many, many years.

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This has again been a non-reading and almost inet-free weekend.
Saturday was crazy cooking, followed by crazy cleaning, then language class and the day was over. The extra-long Sunday was filled with a “Friends” series 3 TV marathon – I woke up at 3am, and that was about the only non-violent/ non deadly stupid TV show I could find. I cleaned some more and much more washing needed to be done. Then I took a long brisk walk in the sunshine (it was hot as long as the sun was there!) and after that I still had so much energy left despite my lack of sleep that I went for a short but fast bike ride. I’ll leave early today when there’s still some daylight, so I took the bike to work this morning as well. On normal days it’ll now be way too dark in the evening however, there's a scary bit of track under the motorway and in a tunnel.

This isn’t the first time I’m experiencing this, that my body and my muscles wake up within days of changing my diet to very balanced. I wasn't even happy about that - I wanted to sit and read yesterday and not run around! The first time it happened many years ago in Frankfurt when I had a very healthy phase (with meat and dairy then of course, but with loads of fruit, veg, nuts and seeds as well), and I ran through the corridors and up the stairs instead of walking normally. I wonder why I always lose that again and fall back on those cheese sandwiches. Probably because those are made in a minute and making a salad with all the washing, cutting, preparation of dressing takes much longer and then you have to clean the kitchen as well...

I’m considering throwing out the terrible old fridge in my new home and buying a new one. This would however also mean throwing out one small drawer, so I’ll have to ask permission. Stand-alone fridges with an A*** energy certificate don’t cost much, and I really need a good freezer again. That fridge in my kitchen is at least 30 years old, the freezer is tiny and the stuff in there goes bad within 2 weeks. With a bigger freezer I could prepare more healthy food again in advance. Right now I can only prepare for Mo/Tue/Wed and then I’ll have to cook again for the next two days. I’d also love to replace the stove and the oven as they’re just as old and use way too much energy and the oven isn’t built in well - it almost falls out when I remove a tray. But then I could as well replace the whole kitchen with its paint stains and water damage, and in a rented place I don’t know if it’s worth the effort.

This weekend I cooked a large batch of a vegetable soup which will feed me until Thursday I guess. It’s good, but not great, actually quite a normal minestrone (bellpepper, carrots, sweet potato, celery, tomatos, chickpeas + cashew cream instead of dairy cream and a “10 spice mix” that turned out quite bland). It’s rustic and hearty, but not special in any way. I also made another batch of the coconut vanilla granola, with even less rice sirup than last time, so it’s more like a muesli now, no clusters. And I made half a batch way too delicious cookies with oatmeal, roasted and blended sunflower seeds and a bit of strawberry jam. Again much lower in sugar than the recipe and therefore so good I almost ate them all. Also made and ate my new favorite Brussels sprouts recipe: pan-roasted with tahini-lemon dressing and topped with pomegranate seeds. One of the most satisfying dishes I’ve tried lately. Like cauliflower (and all cabbages I guess), Brussels sprouts are often so horrid and smelly when boiled and so exciting (yes!) and crunchy when pan-fried. They don’t even need salt and pepper.

This was Saturday's lunch (and then I had lots of my ugly crumbly cookies...): orange-fennel salad, some of those sprouts, a carrot and some celery with coriander hummus and one of my "birdseed crackers":

Well, you had me with you on the recipes right up until you mentioned the Brussels sprouts. No thanks! Interesting about your diet and the impact on energy.

I finally read Eileen and was just not sure what the fuss was about. Seemed pretty ordinary to me. Still not sure if / when will get to the Sellout. Maybe next year I'll agree with the judges?!

It's school holidays this week so I am reading my book listening to the kids playing in their garden a few doors down. Sheer joy at being off school!

>262 charl08: Haha, I know BS are a big NO for many people. :D
I hated them so much as a child, like many of those long-boiled cabbages in white sauce. The smell alone! And aren't they your typical "healthy side dish" on Christmas (we have red cabbage with sweetish spices with our traditional geese which is nicer)? No, I totally understand the dislike. Still, they are way, way better roasted. They actually taste of mustard. The first time I threw a savoy cabbage into a wok and seasoned with a bit of soy sauce was like food enlightenment. I had it in my organic box I then received every week and at first had no idea what to do with it.
The only greens I still dislike and never make at home are green beans. And I'm not much keen either on the watery white asparagus my fellow Germans go all crazy over every spring. Maybe because I don't eat the hot butter or the hollandaise they soak it in. I quite like the green ones though.

"Eileen" gave me nothing, and among the debut novels it was maybe the last one I'd have SLed. But well, as you said - we're going to have a different Jury next year.

I know I should start a new thread, but I have no interesting pics... Well, it'll have to go without then for a bit.