PAUL C INTO THE ROARING 20S - Part 17

I am proud of my country. Proud of it's heritage. Proud of its long history. Proud of the contributions it has made to the betterment of the world. I am from West Yorkshire. It was from here that Richard of York rode out to his death and it was in the avenging of his death that Edward IV became king.

This is Wakefield or Sandal Castle

Poem

Castles

Climb once sumptuous walls, the outsides bare
Over crumbling parapets wreathed in mist;
Decayed by the pounding of time's iron fist
Into a decrepitude beyond repair.
Innards rent by greedy fingers
Wherein the reek of battle malingers

Liken this stony shell to flesh;
No longer a beating heart - all is still
Swallowing last the bitterest pill;
An eternal, solitary emptiness.
From this soul of chivalry bowed
Under the weight of a disrespectful crowd.

BOOKS READ FIRST QUARTER OF 2020

January

1. Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift (2016) 149 pp - BAC Challenge
2. Paper Aeroplane by Simon Armitage (2014) 232 pp
3. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985) 171 pp - BAC Challenge
4. The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke (1970) 133 pp - Nobel winner
5. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan (2006) 312 pp
6. Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn (1972) 93 pp BAC Challenge
7. I'm Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti (2001) 225 pp
8. Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding (1931) 252 pp
9. Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminski (2019) 78 pp
10. Talking to the Dead by Harry Bingham (2012) 377 pp
11. James II : The Last Catholic King by David Womersley (2015) 99 pp
12. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) 313 pp
13. The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot (1922) 41 pp
14. England and the Aeroplane by David Edgerton (1991) 172 pp

February

15. Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan (2018) 182 pp
16. The World's Two Smallest Humans by Julia Copus (2012) 52 pp
17. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (1991) 110 pp
18. The History Boys by Alan Bennett (2004) 200 pp BAC Challenge
19. Dregs by Jan Lier Horst (2010) 310 pp
20. On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis (2018) 313 pp
21. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (1993) 280 pp
22. The Roominghouse Madrigals by Charles Bukowski (1988) 256 pp
23. Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane (1996) 233 pp BAC Challenge
24. As it Was by Fred Trueman (2004) 397 pp
25. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell (1973) 314 pp BOOKER WINNER
26. Varina by Charles Frazier (2018) 353 pp AAC
27. A Timbered Choir by Wendell Berry (1998) 216 pp AAC

March

28. Past Tense by Lee Child (2018) 461 pp
29. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (2009) 266 pp NOBEL
30. Over the Moon by Imtiaz Dharkar (2014) 155 pp
31. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) 287 pp PULITZER
32. Witness : Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom by Ariel Burger (2018) 255 pp
33. Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O'Hara (1957) 52 pp
34. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (2013) 183 pp
35. Ivanov by Anton Chekhov (1887) 58 pp
36. Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson (2010) 252 pp
37. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811) 374 pp
38. The English Civil War by David Clark (2008) 154 pp
39. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (1996) 280 pp
40. The Librarian by Salley Vickers (2018) 385 pp
41. The Holy Fox by Andrew Roberts (1991) 414 pp

BOOKS READ SECOND QUARTER OF 2020

April

42. The Females by Wolfgang Hilbig (2010) 129 pp
43. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956) 110 pp
44. Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra (2007) 55 pp
45. Icarus by Deon Meyer (2015) 360 pp
46. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (2019) 452 pp
47. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972) 172 pp
48. Behind the Sofa : Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who by Steve Berry (2013) 216 pp
49. Please Sir! by Jack Sheffield (2011) 336 pp
50. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (2018) 82 pp
51. The Sea Gull by Anton Checkhov (1896) 68 pp
52. The Memoir of an Anti-Hero by Kornel Filipowicz (1961) 70 pp
53. Divided : Why We're Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall (2018) 288 pp
54. Frozen Moment by Camilla Ceder (2009) 378 pp
55. North by Seamus Heaney (1975) 68 pp
56. Cambridge by Caryl Phillips (1991) 184 pp
57. Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott (2017) 456 pp
58. The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers (2017) 363 pp

May

59. The Drought by J.G. Ballard (1965) 233 pp
60. A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt (1960) 163 pp
61. The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories by Amos Tutuola (1990) 115 pp
62. Tales of Long Ago by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1922) 186 pp
63. Fidelity : Poems by Grace Paley (2008) 87 pp
64. Atlantic Fury by Hammond Innes (1962) 308 pp
65. The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris West (1963) 375 pp
66. The War Hound and the World's Pain by Michael Moorcock (1981) 208 pp
67. Boomerang by Michael Lewis (2011) 212pp
68. Field Work by Seamus Heaney (1979) 56 pp
69. The Citadel by A.J. Cronin (1937) 401 pp
70. Unstoppable: My Life So Far by Maria Sharapova (2017) 289 pp
71. Selected Poems by Marianne Moore (1935) 109 pp
72. The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis (2005) 266 pp

June

73. Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot (1935) 88 pp
74. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (1978) 156 pp
75. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (2016) 340 pp
76. The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim (1920) 221 pp
77. Selected Poems of Odysseus Elytis by Odysseus Elytis (1981) 115 pp
78. Zonal by Don Paterson (2020) 68 pp
79. Staying On by Paul Scott (1977) 255 pp

BOOKS READ THIRD QUARTER OF 2020

July

80. Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (1999) 296 pp
81. Serve the People! by Yan Lianke (2007) 228 pp
82. The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon (c370 BC) 225 pp
83. Morvern Callar by Alan Warner (1995) 204 pp
84. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1953) 91 pp
85. The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly Sacks (1970) 399 pp
86. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (2003) 208 pp
87. Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente (2011) 349 pp

CURRENTLY READING

READING PLAN FOR 2020

I always start out ambitiously but not having made 100 books in the last two years I am going all out to read 20 books a month next year and go well past 200 for the first time since my University days.

20 Categories for 2020 which will also give a nod to my other challenges and longer term projects.

The twenty categories are :

1. British Author Challenge
2. British Poetry
3. Contemporary British Fiction
4. World Poetry
5. 1001 Books
6. Plays
7. American Author Challenge
8. Non-Fiction
9. History
10. Current Affairs
11. Booker Nominees
12. Nobel Winners
13. Scandi
14. Series Books
15. Thrillers/Mystery
16. Classic Fiction
17. 21st Century Fiction
18. World Literature
19. Science Fiction / Fantasy
20. Pot Luck

BRITISH ISLES AUTHOR CHALLENGE 2020



The general thread can be found here : https://www.librarything.com/topic/315141

January: Jeanette Winterson & Graham Swift

February: The 1990s - https://www.librarything.com/topic/313878#6991758

March: Jane Austen & Walter Scott

April: Bernardine Evaristo & Caryl Phillips

May: New Wave Sci-Fi : Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard, & Brian Aldiss

June: Penelope Fitzgerald & Patrick Gale

July: Elly Griffiths & Winston Graham

August: The Brontë Sisters : Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte & Emily Bronte

September: World War II - https://www.librarything.com/topic/313878#6999459

October: Joanne Harris & George Orwell

November: Fay Weldon & John le Carré

December: The 2010s : https://www.librarything.com/topic/313878#6999620

Wildcard: Playwrights - https://www.librarything.com/topic/313878#7000002

AMERICAN AUTHOR CHALLENGE



January Charles Frazier - Varina
February Grace Paley - Fidelity : Poems
March David McCullough
April Francine Prose
May E. Lynn Harris
June Jean Stafford
July Wendell Berry - A Timbered Choir
August Robert Penn Warren
September Dawn Powell
October Ward Just
November Ann Petry
December Tony Hillerman

My last decade of reading (probably my worst since I started reading).

Total Books Read : 1,145 books

1 book every 3.2 days

Best Reading Year : 2013 with 157 books

Worst Reading Year : 2019 with 76 books

My Books of the Year on LT:

2011 : Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2012 : The Road Home by Rose Tremain
2013 : Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
2014 : Plainsong by Kent Haruf
2015 : Winter King by Thomas Penn
2016 : The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
2017 : The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
2018 : Country Girls by Edna O'Brien
2019 : The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

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

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

READ 31 of 55 WINNERS

Pulitzer Winners

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

Fiction

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


16 READ
37 ON SHELVES
40 NOT OWNED OR READ

93 TOTAL

NOBELS

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

READ 69 OF
116 LAUREATES

LIT HUB'S 50 CHUNKSTERS & MY 20 ALTERNATIVES

These are the 50 Literary Hub Must Read Chunksters:

1. The Overstory by Richard Powers OWNED
2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco OWNED
4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee OWNED
5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell OWNED
6. The Witch Elm by Tana French OWNED
7. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood OWNED
8. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr OWNED
9. Little, Big by John Crowley
10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides OWNED
11. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
12. Possession by A.S. Byatt READ
13. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel READ
14. The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
15. The Secret History by Donna Tartt READ
16. The Parisian : A Novel
17. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie OWNED
18. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters READ
19. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami OWNED
20. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson OWNED
21. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie READ
22. American Gods by Neil Gaiman READ
23. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon OWNED
24. The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu OWNED
25. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen OWNED
26. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray OWNED
27. A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
28. An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
29. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James READ
30. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson OWNED
31. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe OWNED
32. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara OWNED
33. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin OWNED
34. JR by William Gaddis OWNED
35. Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko
36. Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon OWNED
37. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
38. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett OWNED
39. The Stand by Stephen King OWNED
40. Underworld by Don DeLillo READ
41. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton OWNED
42. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke READ
43. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry OWNED
44. 2666 by Roberto Bolano OWNED
45. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra OWNED
46. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann OWNED
47. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace OWNED
48. Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas
49. Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
50. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth OWNED

& My Alternative 20

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1995) 624 pp
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2001) 544 pp
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005) 720 pp
The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye (1978) 960 pp
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (1980) 656 pp
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) 560 pp
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman (1982) 896 pp
Saville by David Storey (1976) 560 pp
To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield (1972) 672 pp
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (1994) 533 pp
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (1992) 640 pp
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993) 528 pp
Sophie's Choice by William Styron (1979) 656 pp
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (2008) 544 pp
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998) 626 pp
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1989) 656 pp
The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell (1978) 704 pp
Magician by Raymond E Feist (1982) 864 pp
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy (1986) 672 pp
A Chain of Voices by Andre Brink (1982) 512 pp

2020 ADDITIONS

These are the books that I have added this year. My new rule is that any book I buy I should read before the end of the following year!

1. Submarine by Joe Dunthorne (2008) 290 pp
2. I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven (1967) 158 pp
3. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W.E. Bowman (1956) 171 pp
4. The Spare Room by Helen Garner (2008) 195 pp
5. Look We have Coming to Dover! by Dajit Nagra (2007) 53 pp READ APR 20
6. Hame by Annalina McAfee (2017) 577 pp
7. The Holy Fox by Andrew Roberts (1991) 414 pp READ MAR 20
8. The History Boys by Alan Bennett (2004) 200 pp READ FEB 20
9. Himself by Jess Kidd (2016) 358 pp
10. Lazarus by Morris West (1990) 375 pp
11. Judith Paris by Hugh Walpole (1931) 757 pp
12. The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope (1864) 665 pp
13. The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers (1942) 398 pp
14. The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers (2017) 363 pp READ APR 20
15. The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich (1985) 331 pp
16. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard (1990) 578 pp
17. Eight Hours from England by Anthony Quayle (1945) 228 pp
18. Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst (2010) 310 pp READ FEB 20
19. Loyalties by Delphine de Vigan READ FEB 20
20. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli READ MAR 20
21. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (1993) 280 pp READ FEB 20
22. War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (2013) 293 pp
23. Deviation by Luce D'Eramo (1979) 344 pp
24. Caging Skies by Christine Leunens (2019) 294 pp
25. The Hunters by James Salter (1956) 233 pp
26. The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya (2012) 310 pp
27. The Memoir of an Anti-Hero by Kornel Filipowicz (1961) 70 pp READ APR 20
28. Darius the Great is not Okay by Adib Khorram (2018) 312 pp
29. The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo (2019) 466 pp
30. Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham (2013) 441 pp
31. Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen by Fay Weldon
32. Selected Poems: 1950-2012 by Adrienne Rich
33. The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
34. Divided : Why We're Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall READ APR 20
35. The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis READ MAY 20
36. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
37. Witness : Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom by Ariel Burger READ MAR 20
38. Lucy Church, Amiably by Gertrude Stein
39. Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
40. The Village Witch Doctor and Other Stories by Amos Tutuola READ May 20
41. After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
42. The Librarian by Salley Vickers READ MAR 20
43. Temple of a Thousand Faces by John Shors
44. Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler (1993) 311 pp
45. The Drought by J.G. Ballard (1965) 233 pp READ MAY 20
46. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker (2012) 391 pp
47. Clade by James Bradley (2017) 297 pp
48. Far North by Marcel Theroux (2009) 288 pp
49. The River by Peter Heller (2019) 253 pp
50. Ivanov by Anton Chekhov (1887) 58 pp READ MAR 20
51. The Sea-Gull by Anton Chekhov (1896) 68 pp READ APR 20
52. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov (1900) 44 pp
53. The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov (1901) 58 pp
54. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (1904) 50 pp
55. The Females by Wolfgang Hilbig (2010) 129 pp READ APR 20
56. The Other Americans by Laila Lalami (2019) 301 pp
57. Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (2019) 350 pp
58. Lanny by Max Porter (2019) 210 pp
59. Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley (2019) 280 pp
60. Murder in the Cathedral by TS Eliot (1935) 88 pp READ JUNE 20
61. The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris West (1963) READ MAY 20
62. Fidelity : Poems by Grace Paley (2008) READ MAY 20
63. The Citadel by A.J. Cronin (1937) READ MAY 20
64. Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (2016) READ JUNE 20
65. American War by Omar El Akkad (2017)
66. Saltwater by Jessica Andrews (2019)
67. Unstoppable : My Life So Far by Maria Sharapova (2017) 289 pp READ MAY 20
68. The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim (1920) 288 pp READ JUNE 20
69. The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford (1969) 488 pp
70. Odysseus Elytis :Selected Poems 1940-1979 by Odysseus Elytis (1981) 112 pp READ JUNE 20
71. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926) 203 pp
72. Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (2015) 199 pp
73. Zonal by Don Paterson (2020) 68 pp READ JUNE 20
74. The Porpoise by Mark Haddon (2019) 304 pp
75. Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila 2014 210 pp
76. 1934 by Alberto Moravia (1982)
77. Blue Moon by Lee Child (2019)
78. A Burning by Megha Majumdar (2020)
79. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (2017)
80. Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan (2019)
81. Woods etc by Alice Oswald (2005)
82. The Death of Murat Idrissi by Tommy Wieringa (2017)
83. The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezon Camara (2017)
84. The Last Man by Mary Shelley (1826)
85. Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton (2019)
86. Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (1860)
87. The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly Sachs (1970) READ JULY 20
88. Not a Day Goes By by E Lynn Harris (2000)
89. Potiki by Patricia Grace (1986)
90. Cane River by Lalitha Tademy (2001)
91. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
92. Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha (2013)
93. Girl by Edna O'Brien (2019)
94. The Princesse de Cleves by Madame de La Fayette (1678)
95. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)
96. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (2003) READ JULY 20

96 books added
29 already finished

Another resolution is to keep up in 2020 with all my friends on LT.

Next is yours

Happy New Thread, Paul!
And the best wishes for the second half of the year.

>18 SirThomas: Thank you, Thomas. I am looking forward to trying to get my best books read numbers in the years I have been in LT.

Happy new thread, Paul!

>1 PaulCranswick: The thought of 10 centuries of history in these ruins.

>20 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita.

In the War of the Roses it featured significantly. 600 or so years ago.

New thread orisons, PC.

Happy New Thread, Paul!

>22 richardderus: Thank you, RD. The site seems to be having glitches today and setting this thread up is taking me ages.

>23 Matke: Lovely to see you always, Gail xx

Happy new thread, Paul. Unlike you, I am not the first. :( I love the photo at the top!

Happy new thread, Paul. Lovely topper

Happy new thread! Love the topper!

Happy new thread, Paul!

What SirThomas said - best wishes for the second half of the year.

Hi Paul! Just wanted to pop by to say hello before this thread gets into high gear. Next thing I know I'll be a hundred messages behind with no hope of catching up!

Happy new thread, Paul.

>Like the picture. What happened to the castle?

Happy new thread!

Hey Paul -

To celebrate the 4th over here in Ex-Freedom Land,

here's this one for your Slavery file:

On July 2nd, 1777,

Vermont

(not one of the original colonies, but soon to become a state, little thanks to Ethan and Ira Allen)

Abolished Slavery!

Happy new thread, Paul!!

Happy new thread!

>25 BLBera: Thanks Beth. I am a bit sluggish this thread. I had a busy a stressful working week and went off to sleep at 10 pm which is almost unheard of for me. Had a good six hours sleep and I am now up and at "em at 4.45 am!

>26 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley. x

Happy new thread, Paul. Nice photo and description.

>27 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda. My threads would not be complete without a visit from the BACs most active challenger!

>28 karenmarie: Thank you Karen. Let us hope that the second half globally is a better one than the rather extraordinary one that preceded it. On a personal level mine hasn't been at all bad although I would have preferred a certain someone to have been here with me during the period.

>29 Fourpawz2: Always lovely to see you here, Charlotte. x

>30 EllaTim: Thanks Ella. As it does to all things; time caught up with Wakefield castle!

>31 quondame: Thank you Susan.

>32 m.belljackson: That is interesting, Marianne. Of course, I was aware that Vermont was not one of the original states and good for them that they abolished the abhorrent practice when they did.

>33 Berly: Thanks Kimmers. I hope to get all round the threads this weekend.

>34 drneutron: Thank you, Jim. I wouldn't have got to 17 threads in any other group and our place in the ether is largely thanks to your continued good work.

>36 RebaRelishesReading: Ha, almost missed you, Reba! I do think that the second quarter of 2020 has been one of constant negativity. Too many people running everything down and finding and seeing only the worst in things. I wanted this thread to start with some positivity and a sincere wish that things can only get better for the vast majority.

Happy new thread!

>42 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita. x

2020 FIRST HALF READING REVIEW

Books Read : 79

Pages Read : 17,071

Daily Average : 91.31

Books Read Written By Men : 61

Books Read Written By Women : 18

BAC Books Read : 13

AAC Books Read : 3

1001 Books Read
(First Edition) : 6

Nobel Winners New to Me : 4

Booker Winners : 3

Pulitzer Fiction Winners : 1

By Genre :

Fiction/Literature : 29
Thriller/Mystery/Crime : 9
Sci-Fi/Fantasy : 5
Non-Fiction : 13
Poetry : 16
Plays : 7

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X -
W
V
U
T
S
R
Q
P
O
N
M
L
K
J
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B
A

Book # 80



Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Date Published : 1999
Origin of author : Spain
Pages : 296 pp

I read this as a memorial to Zafon who sadly passed away in June due to colon cancer.

Not quite to the level of the brilliant Shadow of the Wind nevertheless he had magic in his pen and I was pretty much enthralled by this gothic tale from start to finish.

Basically it is the story of a series of tragic love stories - our narrator, the school-boy Oscar with Marina, Marina's parents and another mysterious ill-starred couple that the youngsters come to unearth.

It is billed as a tale for all ages and it deserves to be more widely known.

Book # 81



Serve the People! by Yan Lianke

Date Published : 2007
Origin of Author : China
Pages : 228 pp

This book was banned in China and I can see why.

Deeply, if a little heavy-handedly, satirical this love story of sorts pokes fun at the Chinese army system and particularly the cult of Mao. Orderly Sergeant Wu Dawang is seduced by the Commander's wife and a dangerously torrid affair ensues with consequences for more than just the couple involved.

Cautiously recommended.

READING UPDATE
.
1. British Author Challenge - 5/12 -
2. British Poetry - 6/12 -
3. Contemporary British Fiction - 2/12 -
4. World Poetry - 5/12 -
5. 1001 Books - 3/12
6. Plays - 6/12 -
7. American Author Challenge 3/12 -
8. Non-Fiction - 5/12 -
9. History - 3/12 -
10. Current Affairs - 5/12 -
11. Booker Winners - 3/12
12. Nobel Winners - 4/12
13. Scandi - 3/12 -
14. Series Books - 4/12 -
15. Thrillers/Mystery - 3/12 -
16. Classic Fiction - 2/12 -
17. 21st Century Fiction - 4/12 - Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
18. World Literature - 6/12 - Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
19. Science Fiction / Fantasy - 5/12 -
20. Pot Luck - 4/12 -

Books Completed July - 2 Year to Date - 81
Pages Read July - 524 Year to Date - 17,595
1001 Books July - 0 Year to Date - 6
Bookers July - 0 Year to Date - 3
New Nobel July - 0 Year to Date - 4
BAC Books July - Year to Date - 11
AAC Books July - 0 Year to Date - 2
Pulitzer Winners July - 0 Year to Date - 1

Daily Reading Ave July - 174.67 Year to Date - 95.63

Gender of Authors 18 Female / 63 male

Currently Reading

The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon

Happy New Thread, my fine friend. New quarters are for new beginnings. The 16th new start for you, the 3rd for me. :)

>50 mahsdad: Thank you, Jeff. Yes I hung back a couple of days before starting this one but mainly because work had done me in.

Happy new thread and happy weekend, Paul. Sounds like you have earned a relaxing weekend!

Happy New Thread, Paul! Enjoy your weekend!

>52 lkernagh: Yes Lori, it has been a hard week work wise but eventually a rewarding one, I think.

>53 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deb. xx

Happy New Thread, Paul!

>55 ronincats: Thank you Roni. xx

Your reading challenges are immense! I love the Z-A one, and also see that your last of June was a Booker winner of old.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Paul! Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. Friday (still "today" here) was a paid holiday for me with the 4th being a Saturday, so I'm off for a long weekend that has almost nothing planned. Bliss.

Good luck on your Z-A reading challenge! I'm amazed that I've been keeping up the steady reading numbers that I have: I read exactly as many books in June as in May.

Happy New Thread, Paul. You are on fire in 2020!

>57 LovingLit: Thank you Megan. Lovely to see you here again. I think Staying On is in the top echelon of booker winners.

>58 bell7: I am pleased to see that your holidays have arrived, Mary. I still believe that this will be your best posting and reading year. You are closing in on 1000 posts already.

>59 msf59: Thanks Mark. You have the most posts to your threads since 2012 when I started really keeping count.

Most posts

2012 Paul
2013 Paul
2014 Amber
2015 Amber
2016 Mark
2017 Paul
2018 Mark
2019 Mark

Happy new thread, Paul!

Thank you, Princess.

Happy new thread and a quiet weekend

Happy new thread Paul!

>64 paulstalder: I think it will be a book filled weekend, Paul. Always great to see you here.

>65 humouress: Thank you neighbour!

I finished my current read which was a nonfiction work for Suzanne's Nonfiction Challenge. Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander

Some might say that this book was written by an angry man. I think he was so bewildered by what happened to Lancaster, Ohio and the election of 2016 that he decided he had to find out why a state like Ohio would vote the way it did. By the time I finished reading this book I was an angry reader. Angry about what happened to Anchor Hocking and to Lancaster, Ohio. The story is simply not-to-be-believed, even though it happened. The author did a good job of tying so many strings together and making the story of Lancaster, Ohio come together for the reader. The demise of Anchor Hocking is a maze of financial shenanigans that should shame every invest banking corporation and make American's force their politicians to shape up and regulate them and stop gutting laws put in place in 2007 to keep this very kind of stock and debt manipulation from happening. Then the author ties all this to the apathy and the drug epidemic in states like Ohio. He makes a good case in many of arguments while showing compassion for people living in the situation; many of whom were his classmates in high school. He did a remarkable job.

"Corporate elites said they need free-trade agreements, so they got them. Manufactures said they needed tax breaks and public-money incentives in order to keep their plants operating in the United States, so they got them. Banks and financiers needed loser regulations, so they got them. Employers said the needed weaker unions - or no unions at all - so they got them. Private equity firms said they needed carried interest and secrecy, so they got them. Everybody, including Lancastrians themselves, said the needed lower taxes, so they got them. What did Lancaster and a hundred other towns like it get? Job losses, slashed wages, poor civic leadership, social dysfunction, drugs." page 291

Yo, Paul. Bin here. Hello. Have a weekend, why don't you.

I'll be reading Evicted was soon as I get a chance.

Only in America - for July 4th,
Head Plantation Slave Owner, Thomas Jefferson,
attempts to add Abolition of Slavery to Declaration of Independence.
It is rejected.

Hi Paul, Happy new thread mate, hope you are having a good weekend with lots of reading, sending love and hugs dear friend.

Hi, Paul!

I agree with your sentiments earlier on in your thread, very much so.

So, on July 4th, I’d like to say that I still have faith in my country. Is it a flawed country? Absolutely. But then, what country is not?

America is full of millions of people who are kind, who are generous, and who are doing the best they can do.

So I’d like to encourage everyone, from whatever country, to do their best, too; to work hard to make their country, and the world, a better place.

“Country” isn’t some tenuous, ambiguous term. It’s a huge collection of people—every one of us. Let’s try to work together in as many ways as we can.

>67 benitastrnad: I don't know anything about the subject matter of your latest book read, Benita, but you sure make it sound interesting and disturbing at the same time. The "dumbing" down of the "post-industrial" economies into low grade and low income jobs while the real work gets done in other places like China is a huge concern for the Western world in general and for civic societies in particular. Chump correctly identified this problem and this issue but as usual couches everything in such vituperative language that his prescriptions are either unpalatable or get lost. This is not, for me, an issue of trade war or being "anti-China" but one of the restoration of civic pride. I am not and never will be a laissez-faire free-trader as the poorer in society get hurt whilst the people trading make money. Britain as America should make their own planes, trains and automobiles wherever possible. The whole point of trade was to import something you don't have or can't make - countries should make better and fuller use of their working populations. If that means that the people with the money have to pay a little bit more for the things they want to enjoy so that the money gets distributed more evenly well then so be it.

>68 weird_O: Why, Bill. Thanks chum. Will try to do so. Will drop by to wish you same.

>69 m.belljackson: Marianne - Jefferson was a complex character and looking back at his sins and achievements from the vantage point of almost 250 years is not easy. My reading on the subject is less than complete so I must be careful what I write but as I understand it he preferred a gradualist approach to abolition whereas John Adams would have no truck with slavery at all and wanted it abolished immediately. Apparently it was the cause of occasional rancour between them.

>70 johnsimpson: Thank you, John. Same to you and Karen.

>71 Matke: Nicely said, Gail.

I am outside looking in but I want to re-emphasise here my own admiration of the USA and, despite its flaws and divisions, the contribution made by America and Americans to the modern world is immeasurable.

Things could always be better and there are many injustices to right but there was a reason that so many people from so many places flocked to the States (oppression in their home country being one of them) and tried to make a better world and a better life. In large part most succeeded.

In this difficult year with an unprecedented pandemic and where the ills of the past intrude sadly upon the present there must still be room for positivity. Be rightly proud of your country. To all my American friends, enjoy your 4th of July weekend.

I wrote this in more calmer days. Seems a little naively optimistic these days but on 4th July I should re-post it:

What Johnny Cash sang

Johnny sang from sea to shining sea -
and the ships sailed into Ellis Island
and a melting pot melted
and Armenians, Paddies, Italianos,
and Jews and Poles and Russians
came and placed their stamp on unwashed
city streets;
making a beehive of workers with no Queen.

Johnny sang from sea to shining sea
and the ships sailed into San Francisco
with the Coolies and the Asiatics
and their trade and their actors
sweated on the railways,
not always cross-legged on the casting couches.

Johnny sang from sea to shining sea
and the wagons rolled across the plains
and the prairies -
Germanic and Nordic ploughing a furrow
and energising a rice bowl and a wheat field
from unpromising circumstances.
and the Hamish and the Quakers and
the Mormons and the Shakers
were not shook from their belief
as they trod unorthodox pathways.

Johnny sang from sea to shining sea
and the slave ships entered
chains and locks cutting through skin
into bone
and the cotton fields were plucked
on the backs of unpaid labour
and America awoke slowly through
the paining cannons of Gettysburg
and the white hoods a-burnin'
and the bus seat of Rosa Parks
to a nation to be proud of
and where woman and man
and black and white and yellow and red
could call each other brother and sister.

>73 PaulCranswick:

If you read JOHN ADAMS by David McCullough, as well as the Letters of John and Abigail Adams,
you may be surprised at the depth of Jefferson's betrayal of Adams both professionally and personally.

Despite their reconciliation via letters in later life, Abigail continued to loathe Jefferson,
both for the above mentioned reasons and for the deep Abolitionist feelings of her family.
Jefferson's seduction of a slave child related to his own wife did not further endear her.

Had just wanted to say how much I enjoyed all the positive posts today. Thanks all.

>76 m.belljackson: Yes, Marianne, that was what I was also alluding to in my post. John Adams and his wife have been well served by posterity - I am so much more comfortable celebrating their vision of the world.

>77 mhmr: & >78 mhmr: You are most welcome. Your home page is so intriguing - I am sometimes frustrated with my cataloguing but I couldn't face deleting all my 12,000 books and starting again.

Thank you so much for visiting here.

Book #82



The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon

Date published : circa 370 BC
Origin of Author : Greek
Pages : 225 pp

This is a re-read from what almost seems to me a different age!

Expertly translated by Robin Waterfield (I had earlier read the translation from 1950 by Rex Warner) The Anabasis is one of the original boys-own adventure stories.

Whilst the marching up and down and here and there can get a little confusing at times the action and most especially the intrigue make this a special read. The Persians, Spartans, Greeks and all the tribes thereabouts were such scheming duplicitous characters!

For me however the magic of the book are the parts where Xenophon (if he really was the author) records his speeches. The wisdom and common sense therein transforms this from historical document to literature.

Perhaps of course a mis-titled book given that Cyrus features only in one of the seven "books".

READING UPDATE
.
1. British Author Challenge - 5/12 -
2. British Poetry - 6/12 -
3. Contemporary British Fiction - 2/12 -
4. World Poetry - 5/12 -
5. 1001 Books - 3/12
6. Plays - 6/12 -
7. American Author Challenge 3/12 -
8. Non-Fiction - 5/12 -
9. History - 4/12 - The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon
10. Current Affairs - 5/12 -
11. Booker Winners - 3/12
12. Nobel Winners - 4/12
13. Scandi - 3/12 -
14. Series Books - 4/12 -
15. Thrillers/Mystery - 3/12 -
16. Classic Fiction - 2/12 -
17. 21st Century Fiction - 4/12 - Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
18. World Literature - 6/12 - Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
19. Science Fiction / Fantasy - 5/12 -
20. Pot Luck - 4/12 -

Books Completed July - 3 Year to Date - 82
Pages Read July - 749 Year to Date - 17,820
1001 Books July - 0 Year to Date - 6
Bookers July - 0 Year to Date - 3
New Nobel July - 0 Year to Date - 4
BAC Books July - Year to Date - 11
AAC Books July - 0 Year to Date - 2
Pulitzer Winners July - 0 Year to Date - 1

Daily Reading Ave July - 187.25 Year to Date - 96.32

Gender of Authors 18 Female / 64 male

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X - The Expedition of Cyrus by XENOPHON
W
V
U
T
S
R
Q
P
O
N
M
L
K
J
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B
A

Next Up:

Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

Happy new thread, Paul. I like the idea of doing an alphabetical challenge starting with Z. Good luck with that.

>84 Familyhistorian: So far so good, Meg. I reckon I should finish book number 4 today and I am purposely concentrating on one book at a time this month.

I'll wish you luck with the alphabetical challenge too, but I'll admire you from a distance. It looks too tough for me.

>86 humouress: "W" almost finished, Nina. I'm going like an express train at the moment but hopefully I won't rush off the rails!

>82 PaulCranswick: Looking on in amazement Paul! That is a challenge. But you are doing well, so I'm cheering you on.

>88 EllaTim: Thank you, Ella. For readers like Susan, Anita, Amanda, Suz, Princess, Harold and Stasia it would be a cakewalk but I will have to get close to my best reading month to do it.

Yes, Paul, if only John Adams hadn't delivered The Sedition Act, he would have been darn near perfect -
and would likely not have lost the Presidency to Jefferson.

Keeping things positive (!) for the holiday, I left this one until July 5th:

both The Abolitonist and the Slave Holder died on the same July 4th.

>44 PaulCranswick: Excellent start to the year.

Slavery was not specifically excluded in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution as a compromise in order to get the southern states to side with the northern states in the rebellion from England. It was a much bigger issue than Jefferson and Adams and their animosity and differences.

>90 m.belljackson: I was aware of that interesting fact-let, Marianne. Amazing how those things happen isn't it?

>91 karenmarie: Well whatever the reason, Karen, it took them 90 years thereafter to abolish it and were still practising segregation almost up until my lifetime. On this weekend more than others let us find a way to move forward positively rather than looking back aghast.

Whew, look at you go with your alphabet challenge! Wishing you good luck sustaining that pace reading one book at a time :) I had four going over the weekend, and am hoping to finish one of the e-books today to get it down to a more manageable number.

>93 bell7: I reckon, Mary, that I have been clogging myself up by trying to read too many books at once and I am strictly on one book at a time this month.

>92 PaulCranswick:

Alternatively, from Faulkner, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

>92 PaulCranswick: I don't think segregation really ended, just weakened for the few and the mechanisms changed.

Good luck keeping to one book at a time, Paul. I find that very hard to do. Very smart starting the challenge from the end of the alphabet as that is where those kinds of challenges usually peter out.

Ooh, Morvern Callar! A very good W-author choice. I liked it despite its linguistic challenges. Or maybe because of them, can't be sure.

Happy Newish Thread, Paul.

Lovely photo up top, and nice poem.

It looks like your Z-A challenge is going great. I'll look forward to your comments on Morvern Callar, which I've never read.

Paul, thank you for the nice note you shared to my thread and others. These are upsetting and turbulent times.

Sometimes doing one of these off-the-wall challenges is just the thing to get out of a reading funk. Wishing you success and accomplishment with this one.

I am reading a whopper of a novel - 984 pages of a YA fantasy Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas. I am also listening and reading another sizable novel of over 500 pages Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. My nonfiction book is an academic work Regency Years by Robert Morrison. The upshot is that I am doing lots of reading but don't have much to show for it.

>95 m.belljackson: Faulkner was an old curmudgeon - let's hope that he wasn't right.

>96 quondame: Isn't that sad, Susan, that more than 55 years later that that can still be said with conviction? One of the things I first noticed when I came here in 1994 was how the three main races - Malay, Chinese and Indian - appeared to get along so splendidly. I have to say that it has deteriorated over those 25 years with the various governments professing a rampant pro-Malay agenda but my trips back to the UK did give me some hope for the future as the country (UK) did seem more at ease with itself culturally.

>97 Familyhistorian: I have always found it tough to do as well, Meg. It doesn't help me being surrounded by so many books.

>98 richardderus: It is certainly an unusual book, RD. Even I don't know some of the slang terms used and I worked for a while in the sort of locale described.

>99 jnwelch: Thanks Joe. I think I wrote the poem at about 17 years old and have tweaked it a few times since then. Will put up my review of Morvern Callar later as I'm almost done.

>100 RBeffa: They are indeed, Ron. All the more important then small "communities" such as ours that come together for the shared love of books. Creed, colour, race, gender, age and sexuality doesn't matter - we just turn the pages!

>101 benitastrnad: Lovely to see you Benita and I trust that your holiday weekend has gone well. That is some heavy looking reading!

>82 PaulCranswick: Good going Paul. I'm tempted to do this challenge with children's books, though at a slower pace. I'm always noticing a YA book by Suzy Zail on my shelves that I'd like to read.

>106 avatiakh: I'm sure that you would whizz through such a challenge, Kerry! For some reason I have plenty of Z authors too. Zusak, Zola, Zweig, Zafon, Zailckas, Zamyatin, Zelazny, Zentner, Zipes, Zumas being among the fiction writers. Zinn and Zizek being non-fiction writers.

Just can't see to find a YA or children's writer with an 'X' so might have to go for a name like Francisco X. Stork. I want to read from my shelves rather than resort to library books.

>108 avatiakh:
Francis X. Stork is a very good writer and I think that would work really well for that kind of a challenge. It is part of his name.

>108 avatiakh: There are one or two surnames from Chinese Authors and, of course Malcolm X but I had to go Greek! Rules are there to be tweaked, Kerry!

I am only reading off the shelves this month though.

>109 benitastrnad: I am able to do it with all the books in my collection just using surnames, Benita, but then again I have 12,000 books and had to use Xenophon as a re-read.

>109 benitastrnad: Yes, I enjoyed his Marcelo In The Real World and have The Last Summer Of The Death Warriors on my shelves somewhere.

>110 PaulCranswick: I looked at Chinese names but nothing much comes up for children's books. Xinran is worth reading, I've only read one of her books but have heard her speak at an event a few years back.

Your Z-A challenge made me look at the books I have read this year, Paul. Nearly all letters are covered by last names, except Q, U, X and Y. I might go looking for them in the next months :-)

>111 avatiakh: As you know, Kerry, YA is not quite my thing, although I do enjoy reading in the genre

>112 FAMeulstee: Over a year, Anita, it is obviously a piece of cake but I rarely manage 20+ books in a month so it is well worth the effort for me.

Paul, I am so glad you have a thread dedicated to positive thinking. We all need reminders about what is right in our world rather than fall under the spell of the fierce negativity we encounter in the news and social media platforms.

I would do the Z-A Challenge with you, but would be stuck after Z. I have The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon waiting for me at the library.

Hi , Paul. Thank you for your Fourth of July wishes. I hope the upheavals in America result in an even better country, filled with people who have compassion for others. We need to treat each other as worthy individuals.

Hope the one-book-at-a-time method works well for you! Wishing you a wonderful week. : )

>114 Donna828:
You will like Prisoner of Heaven. Especially if you know anything about the history of Spain and the Franco regime. He hated Barcelona and the citizens of that formerly Free City were under a very critical and watchful eye. Zafon writes beautifully. The story just flows.

Oh, Xenophon! I want to read Anabasis ever since reading a quote from it in Watership Down.

What am I lying here for? We are lying here as though we had a chance of enjoying a quiet time...Am I waiting until I become a little older?

Hope you have a safe and pleasant week!

>114 Donna828: Nice of you to say that, Donna. We live in a time of extremes and we live in a time that we have a dissolute and opinionated news media that is insistent upon setting agendas in order to get what it wants. Chump is not my politics and I could not have voted for him but nowadays the media no longer really reporting the news but is generating the story.

Mount Rushmore is a classic example. We can have our opinions about the place and particularly about your First and Third Presidents, but their imprint upon forging your nation is a deep one - one in leading you to victory in your fight for independence and another for helping in the drafting of your constitution which, despite being flawed, was a testament at the time to American freedom as it was then. So for CNN to praise Mount Rushmore when Obama visited it on the campaign trail in 2008 as being "quite a sight" and "majestic Mount Rushmore" but when Trump goes there to state:

"Trump is fighting to preserve these relics of heritage and history that some see as symbols of oppression. And to indigenous people, Mt. Rushmore, with four white presidents, two of whom were slave owners, is one of those symbols."

I don't like Chump but why didn't they say that when Obama went there? Really the news should go back to being the news and stop dictating to everyone how they should think. Mount Rushmore means nothing to me. It means something to some Americans and something else to other Americans. To dismiss Washington and Jefferson as "former slave owners", true as it is, is not to remember why they are carved into Mount Rushmore. America was wrestled from the indigenous peoples and that is a fact. Does that mean that all Americans should cease to have pride in being Americans? I don't think so.

The native Americans and the stain and abolition of slavery are a part of your heritage and part of the story of how America became what it is today - a giant melting pot that does much more good than it does bad - irrespective of who is President or what agendas are spouted by the biased news medias of left and right. America has a long way to go in its race relations but I am proud to call so many Americans my friend and many, many of them - you included Donna - I have grown to know and esteem from this wonderful group.

>115 Berly: Yes that is eminently true, Kimmers. If everyone treated everyone else how they would want to be treated themselves then the world would be a place devoid of hatred, bigotry and intolerance.

>116 benitastrnad: Zafon's stories are wonderful, Benita. One of my favourite authors for sure.

>117 Storeetllr: I would wholeheartedly recommend it, Mary. Enjoyed it even more second time around when I wasn't a student reading it!

Since we are at the halfway mark of the year:

Here are the top 140 threads by posts as of about 10 minutes ago.

1 PaulCranswick 4,667
2 msf59 3,547
3 richardderus 2,945
4 KatieKrug 2,942
5 jnwelch 2,703
6 karenmarie 2,552
7 scaifea 2,089
8 Charl08 1,992
9 FamilyHistorian 1,769
10 Berly 1,671
11 SusanJ67 1,591
12 crazymamie 1,492
13 EBT1002 1,446
14 ronincats 1,273
15 BBLBera 1,227
16 alcottacre 1,214
17 harrygbutler 1,148
18 sandymc 991
19 bell7 983
20 FAMeulstee 936
21 johnsimpson 925
22 lyzard 921
23 jessibud2 916
24 quondame 880
25 thornton37814 871
26 laurelkeet 834
27 rebarelishesreading 783
28 brenzi 781
29 mstrust 754
30 drneutron 725
31 ChelleBearss 702
32 figsfromthistle 676
33 Streamsong 674
34 foggidawn 568
35 storeetllr 566
36 mahsdad 561
37 Whisper1 539
38 cameling 518
39 Weird_O 510
40 vancouverdeb 500
41 Donna 494
42 LizzieD 479
43 Humouress 467
44 swynn 458
45 MickyFine 453
46 laytonwoman3rd 451
47 avatiakh 438
48 mdoris 432
49 sibyline 415
50 PaulStalder 414
51 EllaTim 411
52 curioussquared 390
53 lkernagh 387
54 Carmenere 386
55 Ameise1 378
56 Caroline_McElwee 377
57 SandDune 373
58 Dejah_Thoris 361
59 loving-lit 360
60 ffortsa 341
61 bohemima 336
62 Banjo 334
63 coppers 317
64 AMQS 314
65 witchyrichy 313
66 Sir Thomas 291
67 DianaNL 290
68 morphy 268
69 Chatterbox 263
70 oberon 257
71 klobrien2 254
72 lycomayflower 246
73 hredwards 235
74 SqueakyChu 235
75 The_Hibernator 228
76 coffee.cat 225
77 kidzdoc 220
78 fuzzi 214
79 cbl_tn 213
80 souloftherose 208
81 vivians 203
82 PawsForThought 190
83 dreamweaver529 178
84 SirFurboy 165
85 aktakukac 164
86 norabelle414 164
87 arubabookwoman 163
88 tiffin 155
89 Bekkajo 151
90 lindapanzo 150
91 nittnut 148
92 fairywings 137
93 Ape 130
94 tymfos 130
95 Dianekeenoy 126
96 Rbeffa 124
97 Fourpawz2 113
98 brodiew2 112
99 jayde1599 110
100 SuziQOregon 106
101 Deern 103
102 archerygirl 95
103 CDVicarage 95
104 someguyinvirginia 95
105 amanda4242 93
106 aspirit 90
107 esquiress 90
108 Oregonreader 90
109 BerlinBibliophile 89
110 LibraryLover23 87
111 RandyMetcalfe 87
112 jennyifer24 84
113 London 83
114 torontoc 83
115 dmulvee 82
116 meanderer 82
117 cyderry 81
118 silverwolf28 75
119 Only2yrs 74
120 yoyogod 72
121 HanGerg 70
122 Deedledee 68
123 BBGirl55 67
124 LoisB 67
125 kac522 66
126 crazy4reading 65
127 cariola 60
128 CassieBash 60
129 PersephonesLibrary 58
130 kmartin802 57
131 praisemusictip 56
132 NeilsenGW 55
133 rretzler 55
134 AnneDC 54
135 PensiveCat 53
136 Kassilem 51
137 majel-susan 51
138 Dave-v2 50
139 walklover 50
140 cindystark 48

Books Read :

For this list because it takes quite a time to do I have taken only those with 80 posts or more to their threads. If you didn't update in the last day or so I might not have captured your latest score. Sorry for any mistakes in reading your threads!

1 Dejah_Thoris 230
2 Chatterbox 209
3 quondame 190
4 alcottacre 189
5 amanda4242 186
6 hredwards 183
7 Charl08 159
8 thornton37814 147
9 CDVicarage 133
10 FAMeulstee 127
11 jnwelch 121
12 klobrien2 119
13 dreamweaver529 116
14 FamilyHistorian 108
15 Whisper1 106
16 avatiakh 103
17 storeetllr 101
18 ChelleBearss 91
19 harrygbutler 91
20 morphy 90
21 bell7 86
22 coffee.cat 85
23 vivians 84
24 PaulCranswick 82
25 ronincats 82
26 souloftherose 82
27 swynn 81
28 msf59 79
29 scaifea 79
30 BerlinBibliophile 78
31 curioussquared 77
32 tiffin 77
33 KatieKrug 76
34 lyzard 76
35 SirFurboy 76
36 richardderus 75
37 sandymc 74
38 aspirit 73
39 sibyline 73
40 SusanJ67 72
41 Sir Thomas 71
42 MickyFine 70
43 BBLBera 67
44 bohemima 67
45 arubabookwoman 64
46 karenmarie 64
47 dmulvee 63
48 figsfromthistle 61
49 mstrust 61
50 foggidawn 60
51 fuzzi 59
52 jayde1599 58
53 meanderer 57
54 AMQS 56
55 brenzi 56
56 Dianekeenoy 55
57 Donna 55
58 Streamsong 55
59 PaulStalder 53
60 jennyifer24 52
61 rebarelishesreading 51
62 nittnut 50
63 torontoc 50
64 Berly 49
65 mahsdad 49
66 oberon 49
67 drneutron 47
68 Humouress 47
69 laytonwoman3rd 47
70 RandyMetcalfe 47
71 PawsForThought 46
72 Weird_O 46
73 crazymamie 45
74 aktakukac 44
75 ffortsa 43
76 witchyrichy 43
77 Banjo 42
78 cbl_tn 42
79 laurelkeet 42
80 Caroline_McElwee 41
81 Fourpawz2 41
82 lindapanzo 41
83 vancouverdeb 41
84 Ameise1 40
85 cameling 40
86 jessibud2 40
87 lkernagh 40
88 EBT1002 39
89 EllaTim 39
90 lycomayflower 38
91 coppers 36
92 Oregonreader 36
93 cyderry 35
94 LibraryLover23 35
95 kidzdoc 34
96 Rbeffa 33
97 Bekkajo 32
98 Carmenere 32
99 LizzieD 32
100 archerygirl 30
101 fairywings 26
102 loving-lit 25
103 London 24
104 SuziQOregon 24
105 tymfos 24
106 mdoris 21
107 esquiress 20
108 SandDune 18
109 norabelle414 15
110 DianaNL 14
111 johnsimpson 14
112 SqueakyChu 12
113 brodiew2 9
114 The_Hibernator 9
115 someguyinvirginia 8
116 Ape 1
117 Deern 0

>121 PaulCranswick: I’ve added a few more books in the last few days Paul, but I’m still going to be well down on my normal figures for this year!

Hi Paul, thanks for posting the reading and posting charts, what a difference between the two for me, 21st in the posting chart and 111th in the reading chart, this must be a record, lol.

I am enjoying the chunksters again and cannot believe i am on my third 1,000+ page book of the year, i must say that Galsworthy loves an exclamation mark, i have never seen as many, i estimate that up to page 358 he must have about a 1,000 already.

Karen has been getting onto me to read the books she has read so she can talk to me about them but she will have to wait. Even though we have only just started July i am thinking about next year and have quite a pile of books to read so watch out, i will not be in 111th position next year.

I hope you are having a good start to the week mate and send love and hugs from both of us dear friend.

Thanks for posting the stats, Paul!

I see that I started my latest thread just in time to go two places up again, last time I was #22, now on #20.
With my readings I am steady at #10.

>121 PaulCranswick: Woo hoo! Top five! Thanks for the stats!

Five hundred posts on my threads ? That's a nice even number!

>122 SandDune: I am sure quite a number have updated their reading in the last day or so, Rhian. It normally takes me a weekend of visiting threads to update the stats which means that those I visit early may be a book or two down on their latest number.

>123 johnsimpson: There is no way I could log pages read, John, but if I did your position would alter appreciably.

>124 FAMeulstee: Pretty good going on both lists, Anita.

If you check who has the lowest total by adding their positions in both lists it is Charlotte with a mere 15 (8th in posts and 7th in reading) and Joe close behind with 16 (5th and 11th)

>125 amanda4242: There is Princess with 3x25; 7 have already got 2x75 and 36 already beyond the 75. Up on last year for sure.

>126 vancouverdeb: And you started a little late as I recall, Deb!

>121 PaulCranswick: Now if we could data mine LT and people updated their LT database in a timely manner, a query for # of books ytd entered by group members would really speed up your statistics gathering.

>13 PaulCranswick: I'm trying this out for myself. So far, I've read 52 of the winners and will be adding another soon with Red Sorghum by Mo Yan. Good luck with this!!

Greg (ocgreg34)

>120 PaulCranswick: Woah, I made the top 20 in posting numbers!
>121 PaulCranswick: And not quite in books read - ah well, either way not too shabby, and certainly posting will be a personal "most" for me.

Fun to see that our overall posting and reading has gone up this year, and I seem to remember that being true even before the coronavirus shut down everything. Speaking for myself, I am doing more of the things that bring me comfort, so both reading and keeping up on LT threads has gone up quite a bit the last few months. That, and I don't have as many things outside of work and home vying for my attention.

>120 PaulCranswick: Whoohooo! The Statman is back!! And I am in the top 10 threads despite my abysmal June. Not quite as good with the actual book reading though. Maybe I should work on that. : )

>113 PaulCranswick: I've collected a pile of books for my Z to A juvenile challenge. Really just an excuse to clear my shelves. Will make a start when I finish my latest read.

>118 PaulCranswick: Thanks for putting the time to post this Paul. I was also shocked by the CNN reporter's comments at Mt Rushmore and agree that the media looks bad when they stop sticking to fact-based reporting. Trump for all his sins has done some decent work such as the First Step Act.
I'm looking from afar as are you so am not so affected by his presidency and the media coverage, though even here in New Zealand there is relentless opinionated coverage of everything he does.

>120 PaulCranswick: >121 PaulCranswick: I'm happy with my position on both these lists. I'm not a prolific poster and my reading stats have suffered these past few years, I don't read as much as I used to.

>130 quondame: I would probably only half welcome that, Susan, as it is fun reading all the threads to try to glean the numbers. It is a shame though that some people drop out or have personal issues that stop them from posting updates. That cannot be helped but generally the group do a good job at updating.

>131 ocgreg34: Sorry Greg, I just realised that I haven't transferred some of my stats and data over from my last thread yet.....very slovenly of me!

>132 bell7: It has been fun to chart your progress this year, Mary. Your reading numbers so often coincide with my own that I can normally gauge whether I am doing ok by looking at what one of my pals from Massachusetts is doing!

>133 Berly: I am glad to see you back posting Kimmers. You know that you'll always be one of my favourites!

>134 avatiakh: I'll be really interested to see what you make of the challenge, Kerry.

In all fairness my comments were meant as an indictment of the so called news media and not meant to be a comment on Trump's Presidency. You are right that we don't have a pig in the poke so to speak but I don't see how the USA can start to heal themselves with him at the helm. As you know I also have sincere and genuine concerns about the mental fitness of Biden for high office. Not a good situation full stop.

Just popping in to say 'hi' Paul.

How's work coping post lockdown, do you still have social distancing?

I still haven't eaten out yet, but make my first tube journey on the 17th to visit a garden, meet a friend, and have a haircut.

We are not expected to work in the office until new year, and I have both dropped to a four day week from next month, and will mostly work from home then anyway.

>138 Caroline_McElwee: Nice to see you, Caroline. Still practising social distancing to a degree but most things are back to normal. Most obvious difference is that you have to register by using QR codes to enter any establishment and there are capacity limits on entrance. I have to say though most things are back to some sense of normal. Touch wood we have had no Covid-19 deaths here for 2 weeks.

Book #83



Morvern Callar by Alan Warner

Date of Publication : 1995
Origin of Author : UK
Pages : 204 pp
1001 Books First Edition

What would you do if you woke up on Christmas Eve and your lover had committed suicide by cutting their own throat in the kitchen?

Of course you would quickly get washed and dressed and go off to work! So begins this strange and compelling novel which charts the shallow, worthless and nihilistic existence of Morvern Callar, a young Scots woman from a fishing village.

A debut novel, this does make an impression and, with the music liberally name checked, is something of a soundtrack to the empty lives of youth in post-Thatcher Northern UK.

READING UPDATE
.
1. British Author Challenge - 5/12 -
2. British Poetry - 6/12 -
3. Contemporary British Fiction - 2/12 -
4. World Poetry - 5/12 -
5. 1001 Books - 4/12 - Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
6. Plays - 6/12 -
7. American Author Challenge 3/12 -
8. Non-Fiction - 5/12 -
9. History - 4/12 - The Expedition of Cyrus by Xenophon
10. Current Affairs - 5/12 -
11. Booker Winners - 3/12
12. Nobel Winners - 4/12
13. Scandi - 3/12 -
14. Series Books - 4/12 -
15. Thrillers/Mystery - 3/12 -
16. Classic Fiction - 2/12 -
17. 21st Century Fiction - 4/12 - Serve the People! by Yan Lianke
18. World Literature - 6/12 - Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
19. Science Fiction / Fantasy - 5/12 -
20. Pot Luck - 4/12 -

Books Completed July - 4 Year to Date - 83
Pages Read July - 953 Year to Date - 18,024
1001 Books July - 1 Year to Date - 7
Bookers July - 0 Year to Date - 3
New Nobel July - 0 Year to Date - 4
BAC Books July - Year to Date - 11
AAC Books July - 0 Year to Date - 2
Pulitzer Winners July - 0 Year to Date - 1

Daily Reading Ave July - 136.14 Year to Date - 95.87

Gender of Authors 18 Female / 65 male

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X - The Expedition of Cyrus by XENOPHON
W - Morvern Callar by Alan WARNER
V
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S
R
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M
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Next Up

Deathless by Catherynne M Valente

Thanks for the stats updates, Paul; they always make for fun reading.

>143 PaulCranswick: Have you read Valente before? It seems as though people I know either love her or hate her.

>143 PaulCranswick: Oooh, Deathless! A second really rich and immersive, though a lot less grim, read. Morvern Callar isn't entirely pleasant...but it is a very strangely compelling read.

>144 Matke: My pleasure, Gail.

I haven't read Valente before and it is the only thing of hers I have on the shelves too. I picked it up instead of some of the other Vs because it has been calling to me for a while and because I am reading far too many more books written by men than women this year.

>145 richardderus: Exactly right, RD. One of my refrains throughout the reading of the book was : "Why would you do that?"

>121 PaulCranswick: I see lots of folks are around and above the magic 75. Congratulations! Even my reading is looking respectable this year.

>139 PaulCranswick: We’re adjusting to the ‘new normal’ in Singapore too including checking into malls and then each individual shop by scanning QR codes. Of course you have to remember to check out when you leave too; the joke is they start to wonder when you’re still ‘in’ the mall a week later.

While my husband is thrilled that we’ve entered phase 2 and has been planning excursions hither and yon, although I agree with the safety measures including wearing masks, it’s such a hassle to remember to do them all that it’s easier not to go out unless it’s essential. I’m sure it’s better for the environment too.

>143 PaulCranswick: - Oooohhhh.... looking forward to your thoughts on Deathless. The only Valente book I have read so far is Palimpsest, which left me really impressed with Valente's world build. Very unique and compelling.

>147 humouress: Yeah, Nina, the numbers are impressive this year.

Good observation on people needing to book out as well as in - I have never seen that happen once!

>148 lkernagh: So far so very good, Lori.

HI, Paul. I tried to catch up last night and couldn't. At least I can stay awake long enough to speak this afternoon.
Thanks for all the stats!

Hi Paul!

>120 PaulCranswick: 6, 2552. 6+2 = 8, 5+5-2 = 8. Thank you, O Keeper of Stats.

>121 PaulCranswick: 46, 64. 46 = 2*23*1 = 2+2+3+1 = 8. (sorta cheating to add the *1, but still legal because 23 is prime, only divisible by 1 and itself) 64 is 8 squared, one of my Holy Grail numbers.

>150 LizzieD: Your welcome, Peggy - I was the one falling asleep early yesterday. xx

>151 karenmarie: Hey presto! both numbers are impressive totals anyway, Karen. xx

>139 PaulCranswick: With things going back towards normal, is there any chance Hani could come back soon and do her quarantaine at home?

>153 FAMeulstee: Yes, she would be able to, Anita, but she is presently being a nurse maid to my mum who contains to keep poor health.

>154 PaulCranswick: Sorry about your mother, Paul.
It must be hard, being separated from Hani for so long and worry about your mother. (((hugs)))

>154 PaulCranswick: Unfortunately we are a little used to it already!

>154 PaulCranswick: I'm sorry to hear your mum is not doing so well again Paul. And of course having Hani so far away.

>157 Caroline_McElwee: Mum has just had another little spell of pneumonia. Her body resistance is pretty low and she is feeling a little sorry for herself.

Need to finish this one up:

Continuing Songs from the Years of My Life

2017

The year that somehow I hit 10,000 posts but an incredibly difficult one personally and professionally as people didn't pay and the embezzlement I suffered left me in a position that I was always taking from Peter to pay Paul! Two of mu major projects a condominium in Kajang and a hospital weren't paying and I was close to the consideration of a major life change. SWMBO and I spent an equal amount of time between love and war but love wins.

Not my favourite year musically but I love Canadian band Arcade Fire and this is from their Everything Now album called quite appropriately for the year - Put Your Money on Me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHC6I7v-1Pc

Hi Paul, so kind of you to drop in on my thread just as the 1,000th post appeared on my 2020 thread.
Did you arrange to time that specially??

I was just reading the recent messages here, and I was sorry to see that your family is so widespread. It's kind of scary isn't it, that your Mother is unwell. These are very difficult times to be apart. Sending best wishes.

>160 SandyAMcPherson: Well, yes, I was keeping an eye on it, Sandy. I am pleased that you have made such a positive impression on the group in your short-ish time with us and it was nice to congratulate you on 75 books and 1,000 posts in successive posts.

Circumstances are a strain on us all at the moment - me and mine included.

Morvern Callar has been on my WL for years, and I don’t even remember why I put it on the WL. It was just a book I would look for every time I visited a used book store. I never came across a copy, so I haven’t read it yet.
Are you looking for a “Q” author? Years ago when I was doing an alphabetical author challenge I discovered 19th century Portuguese author Eca de Queiros who is now one of my favorite authors.

Dropping in to wish you a happy weekend.

Hope you're having a good weekend, Paul!

>162 arubabookwoman: If we can ever meet up, I will pass you my copy. Vintage Classics version and well looked after.

I am planning to read Anthony Quayle's war time memoirs for Q.

>163 amanda4242: Thank you dear Amanda.

>164 bell7: So far so OK, Mary. Worked yesterday and then went out to celebrate a friend's birthday. The food doesn't seem to have agreed with me though.

You will be pleased to know that you are well past 1,000 posts already.

Hey, Paul. How you progressing with Evicted? Yeah, me neither.

I trust that we both will conquer it. In the meantime, I'm starting some Wendell Berry. I have half-a-dozen TBRs to choose from.

>167 weird_O: It is down as my "D" read this month, Bill, if I can get that far!

I have read some Wendell Berry already this year for the challenge; A Timbered Choir.

Continuing Songs from the Years of My Life

2018

I took a momentous decision in 2018 to cease my company activities (other than by trying to collect its many dues) and return to my old tried and trusted work of advising big Korean firms. I had found satisfaction with Ssangyong and Lotte in particular in the past and some little recognition and so I was approached in early 2018 by a previous colleague in Ssangyong now working in a high position on a project in Malaysia. That project was Sapura Tower and had need of a Senior Contract Manager, the Company was Samsung C&T and I turned down offers from two firms from USA and Japan to join them. In September of 2018 I increased my responsibilities by also taking over in a similar role on their PNB118 building which will be the 2nd tallest building in the world when completed. It enables me to slowly come out of debt.

Music for this year has to be from A Star is Born - the remake with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. This is "Shallow"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo_efYhYU2A

>169 PaulCranswick: Watching those videos from A Star is Born made me cry and more than a little emotional. 2017 to 2019 in particular were the toughest years of my life - professionally, emotionally and fiscally. I had kids I was trying to put through University and bills I had to pay and nowhere near enough coming in. I found out who were friends and who were not. I was screwed over and knocked down but often picked up again by people I will always remember.

A Star is Born contains songs that really touched me. Sad but somehow hopeful. I was never a fan of Lady Gaga but, boy, what a performance. Listening to it just now brought back some of the achingly good moments from those terrible three years.

Reminds me. Patrick and myself were returning from lunch on Friday by Monorail. We were approached by a chap, I took to be Persian. Said that he had lost his wallet and needed to go to the police station and wanted to buy a bottle of water. There was a desperation in his voice and manner that touched me somehow. He requested RM34 to do the things he needed to do and I gave him RM50. (That is about $12.50). He said "Paul, how do I return the money to you?" (My name is printed on my work jersey). I know full well that having already gotten the money he didn't have to ask me. I said : "there is no need, just take care of yourself" and he burst out crying.

I got a call from our reception in the evening and he had left a note saying thank you and amazingly a book! I always carry a book of course. It was The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (which I have somewhere, I think in the UK) and he said "I met one of mine today" inside the cover. I was deeply touched.

Happy weekend, Paul! I am finally taking a vacation week. My first one since last September. I was intending to take off only one week this year, before retiring and that was going to be for Bree's wedding and since that got canceled (most likely until next year), I decided to take one now, for a bit of a break.

>172 msf59: Have a great weekend, Mark. A long deserved rest.

>171 PaulCranswick: - What a wonderful story, Paul. Wow. Good on both of you. Proof (much needed, in some quarters) that there is still good in the world.

>174 jessibud2: I had goosebumps a little Shelley to be truthful.

>171 PaulCranswick: How sweet of you, Paul. It sounds like the man was desperate, glad he walked into you.

>171 PaulCranswick: That’s a wonderful story, Paul. I’m glad you were able (and willing) to help him.

>176 FAMeulstee: I just got a sense from him that he was desperate and genuine. Looked like he had had a shock - I think he had lost his ID. Looks like it managed to get it back otherwise I wouldn't have "heard" from him later.

>177 Matke: Always nice Gail if someone is able to say or think something good about you. If it was Kyran or Yasmyne or Belle in such a situation I hope someone would help them.

>171 PaulCranswick: Very touching Paul. I'm glad he met you. How nice it must have been to receive that book with his note.

>179 humouress: It was indeed - I had better go and read it now! Probably my A read if I get to it this month!

>180 PaulCranswick: Even better!

>171 PaulCranswick: More blessings for your sensitivity and kind generosity, Paul! I expect nothing else from you.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

>171 PaulCranswick: How lovely!

>166 PaulCranswick: I am pleased, thanks for letting me, Paul. I'd completely lost track and was wondering the other day if I was close, so your note of it made my day :)
What a lovely story in >171 PaulCranswick:, and how cool that he left the book and "thank you" note.

Hi Paul, what a wonderful story, your generosity knows no bounds my friend but what a lovely return, we have both read this book and loved it and Karen has now read a few of his books and they are awaiting me when i get back to 'normal' sized books in 2021.

I hope that you have had a good weekend mate despite your poor mum's ongoing health problems, have a really good week ahead my very dear friend, sending love and hugs to you all from your beloved Yorkshire.

P.S. it looks like it is going to happen for your beloved LUFC mate but sad news about Big Jack.

That is such a great result to a generous act, PC, that I hope you'll carry in place of the perfidious poltroons who dropped you when you most needed lifting.

>171 PaulCranswick: Lovely story. Paul. I came to your thread to ask if you had read Comrade Jim: The Spy Who Played for Spartak.

>181 humouress: It is also on a lot of those lists in that list challenge website which will improve my numbers!

>182 LizzieD: I didn't really think about it, Peggy. It is often a ruse to get money for drugs here but I didn't get that vibe at all.

>183 RebaRelishesReading: Thank you Reba. Your are indeed lovely.

>184 bell7: Now 1,018 posts if that helps, Mary! I reckon you'll add 400 at least to your best total this year. I got a shock when I saw the book.

>185 johnsimpson: Thanks John but in the scheme of things it was not even £10.

Big Jack was always his own man and often not appreciated for the great footballer he was. Brian Clough once said that if he had needed a centre-half to play for him to save his life he would have picked Jack Charlton. World Cup winner and our all-time record appearance holder as well as being an exceptional man-manager and tactician. We have lost Norman Hunter, Trevor Cherry and now Jack in quick succession and it doubles up hope that my beloved and oft-cursed club can get back to the top level.

Mum's health continues to trouble but every day is a blessing even though she sometimes doesn't agree with that point of view!

>186 richardderus: RD, one of the few ways of staying positive is trying to forget the bastards who tried to grind me down but, so far, failed. Plenty of people showed me their good sides too including most of you here who by lending a virtual ear gave me a safe place to come and occasionally wallow!

>187 avatiakh: I haven't read it but straight onto the wishlist it goes - looks tremendously interesting. xx

>171 PaulCranswick: What a sweet story!

And wishing you a great week ahead!

>192 banjo123: Thank you, Rhonda.

Book #84



Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Date Published : 1953 (first performed)
Origin of Author : Irish
Pages : 91 pp
Nobel Prize Winner 1969 (68/116 read)

Irish critic Vivien Mercier famously and somewhat accurately described this play as a play in which "nothing happens, twice".

Read and watching as a break from my current read, I saw the 2001 film version with Irish actors Barry McGovern (as Vladimir) and Jonny Murphy (as Estragon).

The power of words to transcend plot. Humour and wordplay are always going to be something I appreciate but I did come to this a little apprehensively.

I get the existential and philosophical tropes about futility and the acceptance of it, but I took from this the feeling of brotherhood. The blathering, bickering, maudlin and hilarious, of the relationship between the two central characters makes this eventually a profoundly hopeful play. I will watch it again but I can see why it is so highly lauded.

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X - The Expedition of Cyrus by XENOPHON
W - Morvern Callar by Alan WARNER
V
U
T
S
R
Q
P
O
N
M
L
K
J
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B - Waiting for Godot by Samuel BECKETT
A

>194 PaulCranswick: That was precisely my take on it.

>196 Matke: It is something to appreciate rather than enjoy!

>195 PaulCranswick: Another month, another challenge? Good luck, Paul.

Hi Paul - Hope you are soon an Orang Kaya so you can help even more people in need!

(from today's Atlas Obscura on The Bandanese)

>194 PaulCranswick: Ah I was wondering about that novel. Thanks for the review.

>171 PaulCranswick: That’s a generous story Paul.

Mr SandDune is upset about Jack Charlton as well, for me he was just a well-known personality, but he was one of Mr SandDune’s heroes as a child, apparently.

>198 charl08: I won't manage it of course, Charlotte, but it will be interesting to me to see how close I do eventually get.

>199 m.belljackson: Hahaha, Marianne, that would be baik sangat!.

>200 figsfromthistle: It is a play, Anita, but it has had me wondering about it for the longest time. Needs good actors to bring it to life, I think.

>201 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian.

Mr SandDune and I have lost a number of heroes from that great Leeds team this year - Norman Hunter with Covid-19, Trevor Cherry and now Big Jack. I am sure that there is an air of excitement in your living room, however, as Leeds close in on a return to the top league. I am a bag of nerves listening to the games from here. If we do get promoted and I am back in the UK, my brother has an executive box at Elland Road - I will invite you and Mr. SandDune up for a game. He would love it as there are always some of the old players hanging around for a chat and the three course meal is excellent. Don't tell him though in case we blow it at the death as is par for the course with Leeds United.

Continuing Songs from the Years of My Life

2019

A tough, tough year fighting off creditors. A year of dislocation and squabbles, but a year that ended strangely on a high. My mum given two days to live and still fighting on eight months later and the debts gradually being ground down by sheer hard work. A year in which my eldest and beloved daughter graduated from Edinburgh University (Heriot-Watt) and for which I paid 36 hours before the deadline for her to take the certificate! A year in which I listened to virtually no new music but I cannot leave this retrospective without name-checking Mumford and Sons who are possibly my favourite present band. Their latest album is far from their best but this is still affecting. "Woman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iWYdkcJBo4

This is Mumford and Sons in more impassioned form from 2013 and "Babel"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWza_On7ajs

Some additions:

Librivox and E-Pub Download
86. Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (1860)

Open Library
87. The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly Sachs (1970)
88. Not a Day Goes By by E Lynn Harris (2000)

Kinokuniya
89. Potiki by Patricia Grace (1986)
90. Cane River by Lalitha Tademy (2001)
91. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

The Trollope is for Liz's group read and a book I have wanted to read for a good while also a 1001 Books (First Ed) read
Nelly Sachs is for my Nobel challenge (she was a joint winner in 1966; the year of my birth)
E Lynn Harris is for the AAC and his books are not available in Malaysia.
Patricia Grace was a rare opportunity to buy a NZ author in the bookstores
Cane River was on a stand in the store under the banner "BLACK LIVES MATTER" along with many other books that I already owned
The Trent Dalton caught my eye as a new author from Australia and it has good reviews

2019 was rough for you, Paul. I wonder how 2020 will be looked back on? Love the stats but I knew I should have kept up with my reviews. Still lagging in that department.

>207 Familyhistorian: 2019 It was a strange, strange year for me, Meg. The marvellous high of Yasmyne graduating, SWMBO being away most of the year in the UK and the two of us bickering in between but leaning on each other incessantly at the same time. The loss of my driver, the wonderful Azim, who left me in a tiff over additional money during the holiday period which I couldn't honour as I was rushed to hospital with testicles the size of goose eggs. Thankfully we have since made up. My health issues generally with the prostate cancer indicator and then the successful treatment. My club, Leeds United, playing wonderful football but imploding and missing out on promotion. My son doing so well in his first year at Portsmouth but then hating the second year and his best friend accidentally falling to his death from an apartment car park. Having good friends who stuck by me and help me keep up and others who looked the other way. LT and the 75ers being their usual support group but my reading and posting mojo dropping to my lowest ebb ever. My mum being at death's door only to have it closed to her and a sort of recovery ensue. A tough year of work on two difficult projects but a rewarding one and one which kept me sane. A move from our tranquil home of 17 years - a home where aircons couldn't work any longer and where the relationship had broken down with the landlord (more than partly my fault trying to juggle money) into the city a close work from work. Essentially a year of endings and new beginnings. Essentially a year of travelling through darkness but seeing the spots of sunrise on the distant horizon.

I am not doing quite as well at my one book at a time plan as I was but I am at least making reading progress.

I'm reading (on my phone! - never done this before) and simultaneously listening via my Macbook and Librivox Castle Richmond

I am struggling through Deathless which is good but a bit heavy going for me and not really my genre. This is my bedtime reading.

I am reading Sitting Bull by Robert M Utley by day at lunchtime and to and from work

I am reading the poems of Nelly Sachs : The Seeker and Other Poems

and I cannot help but read :

The Five People You Meet in Heaven which was given to me in rather splendid circumstances last week by the mysterious "K".

Finishing Songs from the Years of My Life:

2020

I will include this year and what a year so far. The year of Covid-19 and social distancing. The year of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. A year which has so far been kinder to me despite the absence of SWMBO in the UK looking after my mum. A year which has seen me get back some reading mojo and posting more like my old self. Thanks to everybody who has helped me back to that path and who have enjoyed this self-indulgent trawl through 54 years of music. We'll finish up with Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds with "Come on Outside". Noel is a tremendous songwriter but occasionally his lyrics jar badly. "When your problems are the size of a cow"?! Still the tune is good and upbeat and right for now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq2RnbbW9EA

Oh I did a little bit of shopping at lunchtime:

92. Diary of a Murderer by Kim Young-Ha (2013)
93. Girl by Edna O'Brien (2019)
94. The Princesse de Cleves by Madame de La Fayette (1678)
95. The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2019)

and I forgot to include Friday's gift

96. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (2003)

Kim is Korea's hottest writer by now and even my Samsung colleagues were excited by my haul today!
Edna O'Brien is a safe bet and this was longlisted for the Women's Prize
The Princess of Cleves is a 1001 Book First Edition I didn't yet own and a nice new version of it translated by Nancy Mitford
Colson Whitehead's book of course won this year's Pulitzer and I am supposed to be reading all of them.

>208 PaulCranswick: 2019 was certainly quite a year for you Paul.

>212 Caroline_McElwee: Yes, Caroline, I don't mind eventful but last year was simply ridiculous!

>208 PaulCranswick: It was a rough year, Paul, and we can't say 2020 is much better :-(

>214 FAMeulstee: For me, at least and despite everything, it is much better, Anita. I am more optimistic about the human condition than I was too. For all the pandemic - communities have come together and there has on the whole been more compliance than defiance in the common cause. For all the violent prejudice - a large swathe of the world have been united in recognising the should-be-obvious that Black Lives Matter.

I loved the story of the book gift Paul.

>208 PaulCranswick: Last year was such a tough year for you! Glad of those spots of sunrise, Though 2020 is a difficult one as well.

>216 EllaTim: I appreciate life's blessings now much more than I did before, Ella and I think that makes this year better for me.

>206 PaulCranswick: I loved the Trent Dalton book, it is based quite a lot on his own childhood. He has another one due out later this year, All our shimmering skies (I'm #54 out of 78 in the library queue). The Grace is a classic, times have changed since it was written but books like these possibly are an underlying reason for the change.
>211 PaulCranswick: I thought Girl was an excellent read.

Hoping that 2020 turns out better by the end than it currently seems to be.

>218 avatiakh: Not surprisingly, Kerry, you normally cross my mind when I am buying books by Anzac writers as you are my main source of information on what is coming up. Pleased to see thumbs up for my buys as that is a pretty safe guarantee that I shall enjoy them likewise.

Just checking in Paul - for me, despite it's near constant put downs, the glimmers of light in 2020 are all the more important.

Hi Paul! 69 posts to catch up on. Sweet story about the RM50 and The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

I'm sorry to hear your mum had another bout of pneumonia. I'm sure having Hani there is a blessing for her, even as it's hard on you and Belle.

>220 BekkaJo: I am a glass half-full guy but I honestly do see some reasons to be optimistic about the near future.

>221 karenmarie: Got sent a picture of her from SWMBO today and she was painfully thin, Karen.

>208 PaulCranswick: What ups and downs you went through, Paul. I hadn't realised your son lost his best friend too.

>195 PaulCranswick: I had thought the plan was Z-A straight through; but of course you do have five books on the go at the same time so it's a bit harder to co-ordinate when you finish them, I suppose.

>223 humouress: Yes it was a tough old year 2019 for me and mine.

I started off in that mode but the time stuck with V encouraged me to get cracking elsewhere too.

Spots of sunrise on a distant horizon is a good description for 2020, Paul. Strange but heartening that humanity (or much of it at any rate) can be brought together by shared horrendous experience through a pandemic and then take the power of that togetherness to advocate for positive change.

>225 Familyhistorian: Yes, Meg, I think we do have to take or make the best out of what obstacles are put before us.

Paul, Mr SandDune informs me that Leeds need one more point! Best of luck!

>227 SandDune: That's right, Rhian, but we made very heavy weather of beating Barnsley last night. I am a nervous wreck!

Ooh, Potiki! I hope you'll bookhorn that one in soon. Don't take the identity of the Big Baddies personally.

>229 richardderus: Hahaha I think I know you you mean, already, RD.

2019 was definitely a difficult year for you, Paul. Do you anticipate Hann i coming home soon? Or is she stuck in the UK owing to the pandemic? I know in Canada, at least, close family , like a wife or son or daughter can travel into Canada, as long as they have a 2 week self isolating plan. A family friend has her son and DIL and grandchildren visiting from Denver ,USA. They set out there self isolating plan at the Canadian Border, and have been " self - isolating " at their mother's home for nearly two weeks. The RCMP calls randomly to ensure that they are home and occasionally stops by the house to ask the family to step out into the yard to see that indeed the family is there. They have been having drop offs of food etc for the past two weeks. I think the two weeks is nearly up , and thus they are then free to visit around the area as they please. ( We are encouraged to stay within our province). Is that happening in Malaysia as yet? Or perhaps Hani is staying in the UK to look after your mum.

Do let me know what you think of Girl.

>231 vancouverdeb: We got more bad news concerning mum in that they have discovered more cancer now in her bladder. She had some tests to see whether she is up to yet another operation and I am waiting to hear. She is keeping SWMBO close by her and my distant angel distinguishes herself more daily.

There are restrictions still here but not so much in truth.

My football team could be a maximum of three days away from a return to the top league (the two teams behind us have games tonight and tomorrow night respectfully which if they don't win we will be promoted without playing).

We have one of the biggest fanbases in world football but an amazing capacity for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. In the early 70s we had the best team in England if not Europe but a combination of ill-luck, terrible officialdom, an establishment that hated us and often our own self-destruction button often left us as bridesmaids instead of brides.

We now have our own "Messiah" Argentina's Marcelo Bielsa - a cross between El Loco and The Professor who has us playing football also unheard of but we have two games left and a draw from either takes us up and it doesn't matter what the rest do. He is a folk hero in a city going mad!

Come on Leeds!!

The is the brilliant Leeds comedian (Micky P. Kerr) who has a series of great songs and videos for children's charities.

This is his "That's Entertainment" - originally a Jam song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In_PjqoZmh4

The lyrics if you know anything about the club wonderfully encapsulate the essence, the joys and despairs of being a Leeds fan.

>232 PaulCranswick: So sorry to hear about your Mum, Paul. Best wishes for all of you at this difficult time.

>234 RebaRelishesReading: Thank you, Reba.

>233 PaulCranswick: Congrats for your team's progress toward the top. Here in the US, you may have heard, sports are nutzo.

The Washington NFL team no longer has a name, but its management and staff have more than a dozen accusations of sexual harassment to address. Close on the traditional start of training camps, 70-some players have tested positive for The Virus.

Baseball is poised to start play, except some top players who are (sensibly) acknowledging cold feet: Risk ending a career in order to play a few meaningless games in empty stadiums.

Pro basketball wants to start playing in an empty arena in Orlando, FLA, a state that's arguably the world's hottest spot for The Virus.

Outside of sports, we humans learn that all virus data from hospitals is being drained into a black hole in the department of Health and Human Services to prevent the CDC from putting it up on line for just anyone (even the Russians) to see.

And speaking of the CDC, its headquarters is in Atlanta, the capital of a state whose governor has banned any county or municipal government from mandating the wearing of masks. And to emphasize his order, he's suing the mayor of Atlanta, who has tested positive, for flaunting his decree.

In Portland, Oregon, the streets are being patrolled by federal agents in camo, hustling "protesters" into rental vans and spiriting them to detention in the federal courthouse. No coordination and/or communication with state and local authorities. American Gestapo?

Here and there, fools and morons are going berserk 'cause Walmart won't let 'em in unless that strap on a mask. One of them opted to end it all by charging a police officer whose pistol was drawn with a knife.

Hey! How are things in your corner of the world, Paul?

Hi Paul - Your Mum has had more than her share...

>228 PaulCranswick: I understand congratulations are now in order!

>232 PaulCranswick: Sorry to hear about your Mum!

>236 weird_O: There is an element of the surreal, Bill, as the games are being played in empty stadiums. I am good to be honest, I got up early to see a different teams results tonight.

In 1919 the owner of Huddersfield Town wanted to amalgamate his club, which was losing him money, with a new club being formed in a neighbouring city as the club there had been ejected from the Football League for financial irregularities (they were caught making payments to their players in an era of amateur sports). The Huddersfield supporters erupted in wrath and raised the princely sum of £21,500 to buy him out of the club. Hilton Crowler went on to be the first Chairman of Leeds United instead.

In 2020 Huddersfield Town beat West Bromich Albion 2-1 sending Leeds United back to the Premier League after 16 dreadful years - oh the cycle of history!!!

>237 m.belljackson: Spoke to her this evening and she was actually in reasonably good spirits.

>238 SandDune: Give MrSandDune my salutations and tell him our 16 years of pain are over!

I have to say that with so many times having fallen short, I do feel very sorry for West Brom who are in grave danger of being overhauled after spending the entire season in the top two with us.

When I am back in the UK, I will let you know Rhian and I will arrange for the two of you to have a day out including the executive box that my brother keeps at Leeds.

Apologies to Freddie Mercury:

This is the Bielsa Rhapsody by Micky P Kerr

Thank you to Marcelo Bielsa from myself and from every Leeds fan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSqw6vSVFVU

{{hugs}} to you and your mum, Paul. It really is a blessing for all of you that Hani is there.

Someday I and my wife want to visit England. We love all the history and everything PaulCranswick.

Your pulitzer challenge looks interesting. I'm attempting to read the Caldecott and Newbery Award winners, because I like children's literature.

>242 jessibud2: It is a blessing indeed, Shelley. Virtually every day she will drive over from Sheffield and bring her shopping, sit with her, comfort and cajole - I don't deserve such an angel but my mum probably does!

>243 hredwards: I would love you both to visit when I am back there, Harold as it would be great to meet you and share some of that history with you!

>244 hredwards: I am not covering myself in any glory with that particular challenge, Harold, but I will get there eventually!

>232 PaulCranswick: Oh, I am sorry to hear that about your mum, Paul. I am very glad that Hani is there with your mum, but I'll bet you miss Hani very much. (((hugs))) I do hope the circumstances allow you to visit the UK later on in the year.

>247 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deb - it could be more than a visit!

>248 PaulCranswick: Fabulous if you can actually make the move! Fingers and toes crossed, Paul. It's so hard to have family far away.

>249 vancouverdeb: I love my job here right now, Deb, and the money it has given me has helped me to turn things around a little, but I am restless for home.

Sorry to hear about your Mom. Even though I know it's hard for you and Hani to be apart, I'm sure you are glad she is there with her at the moment.

>251 thornton37814: Actually she was in fairly good form, Lori, last night. All of us are grateful that she was spared in December when the doctors had given up and every day we have her with us is a bonus and a blessing and make me realise what she gave to us and what she sacrificed so that me and my brother and my sister could all be successful.

The love and devotion between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is a beautiful thing and humbles me constantly.

I am still pumped about the fact of my team getting promotion after 16 long years and here is another of Micky Kerr's wonderful Leeds re-hashes of famous songs - improvements certainly according to the thousands of Leeds United fans.

Here he takes on Elton John and in fondness to our Head Coach who watches every game sitting on a purpose built bucket he has changed Rocket Man to Bucket Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKBskQosXw0

>245 PaulCranswick:

Is Sheffield close to Hampshire?

Today, my UK copy of THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE arrived.

It's so beautiful - "A new edition with engravings" - a hardcover book with a soft rich red cover with tiny white birds -
and expands from the excerpts
I read a few years ago at the beginning of THE NORTON BOOK OF NATURE WRITING.

Hampshire is where Gilbert White did his observations and writings, including his adoption of a Turtle,
Timothy, or Notes of an Abject Reptile made famous by Verlyn Klinkenborg.

>254 m.belljackson: No Marianne it isn't. Hampshire is the county of the south coast but it is where Kyran is situated in Portsmouth. About 4 hours drive north is Sheffield.

Lovely place is true. xx

>254 m.belljackson:

Any chance Kyran is studying Science or Environmental History or Nature so he would also enjoy
a copy of this "English Literary Monument?!"

>256 m.belljackson: He is studying International Relations, Marianne but he has one of the most enquiring minds or as you Americans would say a most inquiring mind. xx

>60 PaulCranswick: I think Staying On is in the top echelon of booker winners.
Really! That is high praise indeed...already being on my list, I can hardly simply WL it, but I can bump it up :)

>194 PaulCranswick: Waiting for Godot is a play, right? I have only ever read the Crucible, at school, and Hamlet (ditto). How does the reading experience differ, would you say?

Sorry to hear about your mum, Paul, but it sounds like she is in good hands with Hani. It would be good if you could make the move to the UK. I think you have been wanting that for a while now.

>258 LovingLit: I liked Staying On, Megan - it was entirely unpretentious and told a good story, well.

Yes, it is a play and your question is a good one. I don't think I could just sit and read the plays and enjoy them. I have got into the habit of tracking them down on YouTube or elsewhere and watching & reading them at the same time.

>259 Familyhistorian: I have indeed Meg.

Even the London press seem to have forgotten how much they hate us:

Just a drive by wave :)

Happy weekend, Paul! I'm glad for you that your team is back in the premier league - I don't follow football, but I certainly know the ups and downs of following a team and caring about their results. It's been very surreal not having sports to watch, as hockey and tennis just got cut off entirely and baseball never got off the ground. The NFL is talking as if the American football season will happen, but I don't really see how at this point. Too much traveling and close contact, even if there aren't any fans in the stands.

I'm sorry to hear about your mum as well, but it sounds like everyone is in a good place if it is her time to go, so I'm glad for the peace and the love that your family has. Lovely to see that she and Hani have such a good relationship.

And I see your reading is still progressing steadily despite not sticking to one book at a time (I very seldom can, myself). I thought it was funny you said you often measure your progress through the year by me because our reading numbers are so similar, because I do the same to you! While I never really keep track of my exact number of posts, I do the number of threads and since this year I'll be most likely starting thread #6 in August if not sooner, I think this year will blow past years out of the water in terms of total posts. I'm not quite up to a thread a month, but the last three threads have gone by very fast for me where it's usually closer to a new thread every quarter or so.

>262 BekkaJo: The world is good as my favourite Channel Islander saunters by!

>263 bell7: Leeds fans often believe we are cursed because of the sheer scale of bad luck and injustice (some real and more imagined) that we have collected over the years. We got promoted playing simply breathtaking football that has boosted the entire city and I even feel the reverb in Kuala Lumpur!

I hope you make it to 2000 posts this year but you'll surely manage 1,500 for the first time. You are edging me out steadily on the reading front (we are both doing great!) but I have chalked another one off just now!

Book #85



The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly Sachs

Date of Publication : 1970
Origin of Author : Germany
Pages : 399 pp
Nobel Prize Joint Winner in 1966 (69/116)

Two books in a row have been new to me Nobel winners and my sixth of the year.

This famous collection is a retrospective of her work and is overwrought and elemental in style - I lost count of the number of poems where the words "sea", "sand" and "salt" made an appearance.

That said some of the poems were very moving and would surely have been much more appreciated in their original and intended language of German. It is obvious that her themes and the tonal weight of her work is conditioned by the German-Jewish experience in the Mid Twentieth Century and in particular the holocaust (although these poems make scant direct reference to the horror itself). The work is elegiac and tinged with a deep sadness.

This is the poem "Hands" from the collection:


Hands
death’s gardener,
you who from the cradle-camomile of death
growing on the hard paddocks
or hillside,
have bred
the hothouse monster of your trade.
Hands,
what did you do,
when you were the hands of little children?
Did you hold a mouth organ, the mane
of a rocking horse, did you cling to your mother’s
skirt in the dark ….
You strangling hands,
was your mother dead,
your wife, your child?
So that only death was left for you to hold in your hands,
in your strangling hands?

Strong stuff but some of it weighed me down - there was too much of it - too much grief and too much repetition of themes; I think that the collection would have benefitted from some pruning.

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X - The Expedition of Cyrus by XENOPHON
W - Morvern Callar by Alan WARNER
V
U
T
S - The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly SACHS
R
Q
P
O
N
M
L
K
J
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B - Waiting for Godot by Samuel BECKETT
A

>264 PaulCranswick: Funny you say that, I just added one more that I finished last night! This has truly been a stellar reading year for me, made possible in part by everything outside of work being canceled from March to June. I had expected to slow down this month, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all, so I should really leave off trying to predict my own reading/posting haha.

>267 bell7: We'll just urge each other on shall we, Mary. If you could beat both posting and reading this year that would really be something.

Sending hugs all sorts of ways, to you, to your mom, and to Hani.

>269 scaifea: Thank you, dear Amber. I shall endeavour to get round to all my friends' threads tomorrow. xx

Paul - Hope you can read the words online that John Lewis used to describe his life...

another man who should have been our President.

>271 m.belljackson: Very sad always to see of a great man's passing.

>271 m.belljackson:, >272 PaulCranswick: What a life John Lewis led, fighting the good fight to the end. Thank goodness he left behind the March Trilogy for generations to come.

Hiya, Paul. I hope your mum can have an uneventful stretch, but I see you feel lucky she's hung in this long, and that the family is in a good place.

Congratulations on Leeds re-ascending to the Premier League. That coach sounds like something special. I enjoyed the Bielsa Rhapsody; clever and it sounded good.

I hope you're having a relaxing weekend.

Hi Paul, sorry to hear about your mum and the cancer in the bladder mate but it must be a comfort to know that Hanni is looking after her, she is truly an angel. The bad news apart, congratulations to Leeds not only getting back into the Premier League but now as Champions of the Championship, 16 years of hurt laid to rest.

It will be nice to have the friendly rivalry and you will have a local derby with Sheff United to look forward to as well, i don't think Bielsa will spend silly money to add to his squad as he will choose players to fit into his style of play.

Sending Yorkshire love and hugs to you all dear friend.

Hi Paul. I'm sorry to hear of your mom's cancer. It's good that she isn't completely isolated at this time.
Having no attachment of my own to any footballers I'm happy to rejoice with you for Leeds.
It looks like you're headed for a new thread before I can blink!

>273 jnwelch: Lovely to see you, Joe.

John Lewis was one of the leaders of peaceful but meaningful protest against the iniquities in society and particularly those on race. You are right that his trilogy is a legacy that ensures he will always be remembered.

>274 johnsimpson: I wish the rivalry with Manchester United could be more friendly, Joe. It will be interesting to see how Bielsaball copes with the EPL but on their day they will still be able to sweep certain teams aside. I am a little torn about our future. Radz has delivered for us and if he still proceeds as the majority owner (the San Francisco 49ers own 10% of the club too) then prudence will be the watchword. If the Qatari's come in as many expect then we will probably adopt the Manchester City model. Both will be interesting.

Thanks was the good wishes mate. Love to you and Karen.

>275 quondame: Thank you, Susan. I think she is a little frightened and having company certainly helps her get through her days.

I had rather hoped that my enthusiasm for Leeds United would rub off on one or two of my pals!

Book #86



The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

Date Published : 2003
Origin of Author : USA
Pages : 208 pp

"I today met one of the five.
Thank you
K"

I read this for K. I don't know his name. I did him a small service. He, in return, made my day and made me think about life.

I thought this was a self-help book and in a way it is, because it makes you ponder meaning and weigh the good and the bad you have done so far in your life. It is also a novel. A simple but effective and affecting novel. Eddie is a 83 year old war veteran who works keeping the rides safe at the fun fair. His last act is to try and save the life of a small child in danger.

This story tells us that things have a purpose. That they happen for a purpose and that often our past will determine our future. It was occasionally a bit cheesy and homespun but none the worse for either really.

Thank you K.

July Reading Challenge Z - A Authors:

Z - Marina by Carlos Ruiz ZAFON
Y - Serve the People! by YAN Lianke
X - The Expedition of Cyrus by XENOPHON
W - Morvern Callar by Alan WARNER
V
U
T
S - The Seeker and Other Poems by Nelly SACHS
R
Q
P
O
N
M
L
K
J
I
H
G
F
E
D
C
B - Waiting for Godot by Samuel BECKETT
A - The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch ALBOM

Oh no, not more tribulation for your mother and family! It's obscene how much 2020 is taking from you and yours. I'm so very sad about this burden and fear. You'll bear up, you always do, but it costs more and more. That's what's so bitterly unfair.

>232 PaulCranswick: Crossng my fingers for your mum Paul. I missed this earlier, as I don't read all the replies. How about doing what Ellen does, and important info in replies in bold.

>280 richardderus: My mother never appears stoic, RD, but she is still around. Spoke to SWMBO today and she doesn't think that she will be up to being too much on her own when she returns here.
My friends hugs and support goes a heck of a way for me - especially when, like your goodself, times have also doled out more than the normal tests.

>281 Caroline_McElwee: I will think about doing that, Caroline! I don't want to appear too whiney though, although I do know that my friends concern is genuine and is much appreciated here. xx

Another one late to hearing the news about Mom - praying for her.

>283 drneutron: Thank you, Jim

So sorry to hear about the downturn in your mum's health Paul. Good for Hani, to stick by her side and be there on your behalf.

>285 humouress: Even though I suppose she is a proxy for her husband, Nina, her love for the old girl and vice versa is quite palpable.

>286 PaulCranswick: Absolutely; I meant, it must ease your mind, since you can't be there in person.

>287 humouress: Yes, dear neighbour, I understood your meaning - I know the wishes were well intended and I am surprised actually how well they do get along nowadays!

>288 PaulCranswick: Better than I got on with my husband's mother, definitely.

These days I lurk more than post on LT; I'm not feeling very loquacious, so when I do post it's a bit truncated.

>289 humouress: There is definitely a mid-year ennui creeping in to the posting, Nina.

Sorry to hear about your mother's health- take care!

Paul, so sorry about your mother's health. Sending positive thoughts.

More positive wishes for your mum from me, Paul.

I don't follow much football news, but the pictures of your manager being congratulated outside his flat (above a sweet shop??) were just lovely. Such a contrast to Mourinho et al.

>291 torontoc: Thank you, Cyrel. Lovely to see you stop by.

>292 banjo123: And gratefully received, Rhonda. xx

>293 charl08: Thank you, Charlotte.

Yes, Bielsa is a very different animal to Mourinho and absolutely adored in Leeds. I hope he doesn't walk away from the job now he has fulfilled his promise to get us back to the top flight. He stays in the one bedroom flat so that he can walk to the training complex daily.

Dropping by to congratulate you on Leeds United Paul.

>296 Oberon: Thank you, Erik. As you can imagine I am absolutely thrilled.

Sending healing wishes, thoughts and prayers for you, your mom and family.

>298 lkernagh: Thank you, Lori xx