Labfs39 resumes reading and reviewing in 2021

Dit onderwerp werd voortgezet door Labfs39 resumes reading and reviewing in 2021, Part 2.

DiscussieClub Read 2021

Sluit je aan bij LibraryThing om te posten.

Labfs39 resumes reading and reviewing in 2021

1labfs39
Bewerkt: mei 29, 2021, 12:23 pm

Currently reading:



The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr

2labfs39
Bewerkt: mei 1, 2021, 8:50 am

Books read in 2021:

January/February
1. Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries by Laurel Holliday (NF, 4*)
2. Baba Dunja's Last Love by Alina Bronsky, translated from the German by Tim Mohr (TF, 4*)
3. The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne (NF, 4*)
4. The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi (F, 3*)
5. The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal (TF, 4*)
6. Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz by Rena Kronreich Gelissen with Heather Dune Macadam (NF, 4*)

March/April
7. Autumn by Ali Smith (F, 3.5*)
8. The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe, translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders (TF, 3.5*)
9. In Search of My Homeland: A Memoir of a Chinese Labor Camp by Er Tai Gao, translated from the Chinese by Robert Dorsett and David Pollard (TNF, 3*)
10. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes (F, 3*)
11. Winter by Ali Smith (F, 2*)
12. The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee with David John (NF, 3*)
13. Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice (F, 3.5*)
14. The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell (TF, 4*)
15. Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano, translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin (TF, 3*)
16. The Note through the Wire by Doug Gold (NF, 3.5*)

3labfs39
Bewerkt: apr 29, 2021, 10:22 pm

Reading Globally:

Books I've read in 2021 by nationality of author:

American: 2
Canadian/Wasauksing First Nation: 1
Chinese: 1
English: 1
French: 1
German: 1
Iranian: 1
Japanese: 2
Korean: 1
New Zealand: 1
Polish: 1
Scottish: 2
Swedish: 1

4labfs39
Bewerkt: feb 10, 2021, 4:25 pm

List of books I've read by Nobel Prize Winners can be found here.

5labfs39
Bewerkt: feb 10, 2021, 6:45 pm

2020 Books in Review:

I read embarrassingly few books in 2020, the fewest by far since I started tracking my reading, so I have little to report.

30% translated fiction
only 10% nonfiction
50% by female authors

  • Longest title and most enjoyed book: Operation Mincemeat: How a dead man and a bizarre plan fooled the Nazis and assured an allied victory by Ben Macintyre

  • Least enjoyed book: The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald, translated from the German by Michael Hulse

  • Most titles read by a single author: Elena Ferrante

  • Title with the most a's: Tea of Ulaanbaatar by Christopher R. Howard
  • 6labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 10, 2021, 4:42 pm

    Welcome to my 2021 thread! Although I've been a member of LT since 2008 and a member of Club Read since 2011, I didn't have a thread last year, and I only ghosted through LT occasionally. Like so many of you, my reading dropped off significantly during the pandemic and the political and social upheaval. To be fair I also moved from Florida to Maine, bought a house, and had Covid. I'm hoping 2021 is going to be a year of reading renewal, however, and here I am. :-)

    7kidzdoc
    feb 10, 2021, 5:27 pm

    Welcome back, Lisa! I hope that 2021 is a much better year for you.

    8japaul22
    feb 10, 2021, 5:44 pm

    Welcome back! So sorry to hear about your difficulties recovering from Covid (and your daughter’s as well). Glad to see you hear and looking forward to following your reading!

    9dchaikin
    feb 10, 2021, 11:17 pm

    I like your 2020 categories. Nice to see your thread. Hope 2021 is a
    much better healthier year for you than 2020.

    10dianeham
    feb 11, 2021, 12:00 am

    Nice to meet you!

    11rachbxl
    feb 11, 2021, 3:04 am

    Great to see a thread of yours again!

    12labfs39
    feb 11, 2021, 8:36 am

    >7 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. I hope you are getting some rest after a hectic couple of weeks.

    >8 japaul22: >10 dianeham: Welcome, Jennifer and Diane

    >9 dchaikin: Hi, Dan. Lol. I was trying to think of some interesting categories, but I read so few books that it was difficult. You'll note that I did read some Elena Ferrante last year, thanks mainly to your recommendation. Unfortunately I got bogged down in the third volume, although it may have been because of external factors.

    >11 rachbxl: Thanks for the encouragement to start one this year, Rachel. I hope I can read enough to make it worthwhile.

    13labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 14, 2021, 6:21 pm



    Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries by Laurel Holliday
    Published in 1995, 409 p.

    “Perhaps it is so painful to think about the impact of the war on children—particularly their mass executions—that we have not wanted to read about it, even when that has meant refusing to hear from the children themselves. Maybe it was as much as we could bear to designate Anne Frank the representative child of the Holocaust and to think, then, only of her when we thought about children in World War II.

    But, in some ways, Anne Frank was not representative of children in the war and Holocaust. Because she was in hiding, she did not experience life in the streets, the ghettos, the concentration camps, as it was lived by millions of children throughout Europe.”

    The Secret Diaries is an anthology of diaries written by children aged 10-18 from a smattering of countries across Europe. Both boys and girls, Jews and Gentiles are represented and their backgrounds include a variety of social classes and a rural/urban mix. Some of the children had been keeping a diary prior to the war, but most started one as a stress release or as a deliberate record of their experiences. The sheer variety makes the author’s point that no one child’s experience can represent the whole. The anthology includes entire diaries or extended excerpts and is organized by the child’s age, youngest to oldest. Each diary is preceded by several paragraphs describing what is known about the child and their fate.

    The first diarist is ten-year-old Janine Phillips who started her diary in May 1939 when her extended family moved to the Polish countryside. She lived in relative comfort, and her diary is newsy and humorous, filling a 1000-page notebook in that one year. The family then moved back to Warsaw, and during the Ghetto Uprising she organized a first-aid station as a Girl Guide. She was arrested and taken to Germany as a prisoner of war. She was 16 when the war ended and she was released.

    Ephraim Shtenkler was two-years-old when he was given to a Polish woman, who was paid to hide him. Unfortunately, she resented him and kept him locked in a cupboard, barely alive. He was rescued five years later and had to learn to walk. He wrote about his experiences when he was 11.

    Another diary that haunts me is that of Eva Heyman. She was thirteen when the Nazis invaded and occupied Hungary. Her family had been active politically, so they knew they would be targets. Eva’s best friend, Marta, was shot by the Nazis, and Eva wrote often of her desire to live. Her diary ends abruptly on the day they were deported to Auschwitz.

    “All I know is that I don’t believe anything anymore, all I think about it Marta, and I’m afraid that what happened to her is going to happen to us, too. It’s no use that everybody says that we’re not going to Poland but to Balaton. Even though, dear diary, I don’t want to die; I want to live even it if means that I’ll be the only person here allowed to stay. I would wait for the end of the war in some cellar, or on the roof, on in some secret cranny. I would even let the cross-eyed gendarme, the one who took our flour away from us, kiss me, just as long as they didn’t kill me, only that they should let me live.”

    Ina Constantinova was sixteen when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. She was determined to fight for her country in a combat role. She joined the partisans as a saboteur and spy and died at the age of twenty covering the retreat of her comrades with a submachine gun. Hannah Senesh, too, was to die fighting. In 1939 she escaped Hungary and fled to Palestine, a devoted Zionist, at the age of seventeen. Over the course of the war, she became convinced that her role was to help organize the escape of other Jewish youth. She parachuted into Hungary in 1944, but was captured by the Nazis, tortured for months, then executed. She became a national hero, and her diary and poems are widely read throughout Israel.

    Other children diarists wrote about the bombings, life in the ghettos, death marches. They wrote from hiding, from concentration camps, from prison. Their age spared them from nothing, yet their diaries were different from those of adult writers, yet it's difficult for me to say how. There is innocence, and yet many of them are exposed to horrors that belie the concept of innocence. Their concerns can be different—school, friends, crushes; or similar to adults—the search for food, a hiding spot, strength to live another day. Perhaps the difference lies in the sense of youth lost, whether acknowledged by the diarist (“29 July 1940 On the Last Day of My Childhood”) or by the reader alone.

    14labfs39
    feb 11, 2021, 8:45 am

    Is anyone else having issues with links to images breaking suddenly and touchstones disappearing, or do I have a poltergeist?

    15kidzdoc
    Bewerkt: feb 11, 2021, 9:51 pm

    >13 labfs39: Great review of Children in the Holocaust and World War II, Lisa. Although that period of history was uniquely horrific, I wonder if the stories contained in this book could have some applicability to children facing more modern traumas, whether personal, cultural or national. I'm a member of the Section for Child Abuse & Neglect of the American Academy of Pediatrics, I and my partners not infrequently care for children who require hospitalization due to physical abuse and neglect, and I'm curious about the ways that these poor kids deal with the traumas they have suffered, often at the hands of their parents or other close loved ones.

    >14 labfs39: I can't say that I've had problems with image links, but the touchstones had been especially troublesome at the beginning of the year, although they seem to be behaving better lately.

    ETA: I noticed that this book in one in a series of books by this author about children experiencing trauma, one of which is Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories Growing Up Black in America. Amazon has the hardcover edition on sale, so I just purchased it.

    16ELiz_M
    feb 11, 2021, 12:04 pm

    >14 labfs39: I think Dan somewhere pointed out a "fix" for the touchstones -- if you edit a post a couple of times in quick succession, the touchstones break. So if you refresh the page and then edit the post (delete and re-add a square bracket to force the system to recheck the touchstones), it seems to fix the links.

    17shadrach_anki
    feb 11, 2021, 12:14 pm

    >14 labfs39: Regarding images, it looks like the two you have in your thread so far are both being served from Amazon, and I have never had much luck with Amazon-based images showing up in threads. I always make sure that whatever images I put into my reading thread are coming directly from LT.

    18labfs39
    feb 11, 2021, 5:28 pm

    >15 kidzdoc: I admire your dedication as a pediatrician, Darryl. Taking care of abused children and working with their families must be especially hard. As a college student I seriously considered going to law school to become a child advocate. But after teaching in Boston and working with severely disadvantaged kids, I realized that I did not have the mental and emotional fortitude it would take. Kudos to all the doctors, social workers, teachers, foster parents, and everyone who works with these kids.

    Trauma is so personal and yet themes must emerge. I should have mentioned that Laurel Holliday went on to write three more books on children in conflict. From what I can tell, Children of the Troubles: Our Lives in the Crossfire of Northern Ireland is also comprised of children's writings, but it sounds like Children of Israel Children of Palestine and Children of the Dream are collections of both children and adults writing about what their childhoods were like. You'll have to correct me if I'm wrong.

    19labfs39
    feb 11, 2021, 5:32 pm

    >16 ELiz_M: >17 shadrach_anki: Thank you for your suggestions. I was able to get the touchstones working by refreshing and being patient. As for the images, I get the image addresses from LibraryThing, but many are imported from Amazon. I guess I could scroll through the covers looking for ones that were uploaded by members, but it seems overly laborious. It used to work just fine; I wonder what changed?

    20shadrach_anki
    feb 11, 2021, 5:46 pm

    >19 labfs39: I always stick with the member uploaded covers for mine. It takes a bit of work, but not much more (and I combine that with making sure I'm using a member uploaded cover on the edition I have shelved). If I had to hazard as guess as to what changed, it would be the switch over to HTTPS. Well, that and the fact that Amazon may have something running to limit/throttle how their images that they host are used on sites.

    21markon
    feb 12, 2021, 1:53 pm

    Great to see you here Lisa. Look forward to following your reading.

    And congratulations on buying a house with a garage - essential in areas with snow & cold winter's.

    22labfs39
    feb 12, 2021, 3:17 pm

    >20 shadrach_anki: That could be. I'll try and monitor which cover images fail to see if I discern a pattern.

    >21 markon: Thanks, Ardene. Even with the garage, the car gets cold, and I have to remember to run out and start it a few minutes before I want to go. The engine thanks me. But at least I don't have to scrape the car off.

    23labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 12, 2021, 3:24 pm

    The Guardian interviewed author William Gibson asking him to talk about books that fit into certain fun categories. I thought I would try to do the same. The original article is here.

    The book I am currently reading: The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi. I had won this book in LT’s Early Reviewer program, but it never arrived. I purchased a used copy and thought I would do a belated review. It’s the story of a young Kurdish boy who fights the shah’s army, is orphaned, and becomes a soldier for the shah. Eventually he is sent back to the Zagros Mountains to fight his own people. I am 45 pages in, and unfortunately not enjoying it much at the moment. It’s clearly a debut novel and overwritten.

    The book that changed my life: The Inferno by Dante, particularly the opening stanza: Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. I was in my first college class, a Freshman seminar on Odysseus through the ages. I had never written a paper before I got to college, and I was struggling mightily. Enter my classics professor, Mr. James Tatum, who castigated, challenged, then cheered as he taught me to write. The paper on Dante was the first one on which I received an A from him.

    The book that had the greatest influence on my writing: I am not an author, but I would say Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style. I’m probably showing my age, but this little book was my first writing guide.

    The book I think is most underrated: Gosh, this is a hard one for me. There are so many novels published by small presses that I think deserve more acclaim. I may have to come back to this one.

    The book that changed my mind: Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. I have read a fair amount of Eastern European history (including Russia) and particularly World War II, but Snyder’s book turned quite a few assumptions I had on their heads. His book came out after several significant archives were opened, and, between the new source material and his own synthesis and analysis, I was enthralled and educated. I took an entire notebook of notes. Similarly, Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum was written after Soviet archives were opened, and changed my mind about the importance of the gulag on Soviet economy.

    The last book that made me laugh: I decided not to list either of the last two books I read, which were quite funny, because I will post reviews of them shortly. Instead I looked through my list of 2020 books. The only book with funny bits was Operation Mincemeat : How a dead man and a bizarre plan fooled the Nazis and assured an allied victory, and as the title suggests, it didn’t exactly come from the humor section of the library. Perhaps this is why I didn’t read more last year? Hmm. Did I choose grim books and not want to read, or did I not want to read and chose grim books that reflected my mood? Note to self: lighten up.

    The book I’m ashamed not to have read: In the Guardian article, William Gibson says he’s never read Moby Dick. He writes, “Actually, I’m more embarrassed by starting to feel as though I have read it, but that only through following an account on Twitter that daily posts some brief and evocative snippet of it. Might this not be the way our descendants, such as they may be, experience literature?” LOL. I, too, have never read Moby Dick, although I’m not ashamed of that fact. I dislike Melville’s writing. I did read the nonfiction account of the whaling incident that Moby Dick is based on: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. That was a great book. I am, however, ashamed to say I’ve never read War and Peace. For someone who studied East European history and literature, that is sacrilege.

    The book I give as a gift: I have no one book that I routinely gift. I always try to match the book and the reader.

    My earliest reading memory: Peg Leg Pete: The Story of a Warm Friendship Between a Wild Mallard Drake and the Family of Mel Ellis. There are two reasons this book has stayed with me for half a century. First, poor Pete’s foot froze into the pond ice, and he lost it. Fortunately he was rescued. Unfortunately, the book was not so lucky. Thus the second reason I’ll never forget this book is that I left it outside on a day for the ducks, and it got rained on. I was horrified! I had ruined a book, and a library book at that. It was a sad day in Mudville.

    My comfort read: I have a couple of cardigan books that I read when in need of quiet thoughts: A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson, and when I want to completely escape, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.

    (P.S. Thank you to Caroline_McElwee who first mentioned the Guardian interview in a post on Avaland's thread.)

    24SassyLassy
    feb 12, 2021, 4:22 pm

    You did it! You're here! Glad you came back

    >14 labfs39: With regard to images disappearing; this happens with amazon covers if amazon decides to change the cover image, which they seem to do fairly frequently. I've always had the best luck with member uploaded covers.

    Other images from other sources may disappear if the image is deleted from the source, thus breaking the link. I also notice it happening sometimes when I delete cookies from my browsing history.

    I don't usually have a problem with touchstones. I think when I do it is a more widespread problem.

    >23 labfs39: Fun and got the wheels turning.

    25dchaikin
    feb 12, 2021, 4:53 pm

    >13 labfs39: excellent review. I’m afraid your examples are going to hang around with me a bit. They had some impact.

    >14 labfs39: I’m glad you got the touchstone workaround - a new LT “feature”. I have put in a bug request. On covers, i had an issue with Amazon covers (from LT work pages!) but it resolved itself somehow. In the mean time I learned that LT has strict image restrictions. You can’t just link an image, the source has to survive whatever the LT checks are. So sometimes I have to upload a picture in LT (there’s a picture dump through your profile page) and then link to that, typically lower quality image. I find that weird as all my old pages have empty squares throughout.

    >23 labfs39: this is fun. And I’m charmed to see Inferno was so influential, and how it was so.

    26labfs39
    feb 12, 2021, 7:08 pm

    >24 SassyLassy: Thanks! It is fun to have a thread again. I worry I won't be able to sustain it though.

    I didn't have a thread last year, but before that I didn't have a problem with images, I think this has become a bigger problem since I was last a regular.

    >25 dchaikin: When writing the review for Children in the Holocaust and World War II, I started by writing a few lines about each child diarist. I quickly realized that many readers would probably find it tedious and depressing. I deliberately left out the ones written from the ghettos, as they were very hard to read. The last piece in the anthology was written by an anonymous brother and sister and that one was particularly tough. The two are orphans starving in a ghetto. The brother in desperation eats his sister's share of bread and is tormented by it. Then they are rounded up.

    I enjoy these types of category questionnaires from time to time. Yes, The Divine Comedy was an experience as a young whippersnapper. I laugh now to think that I was writing so intently about "Midway upon the journey of our life" as an eighteen-year-old. Years later I tracked down Professor Tatum, he was then teaching at Princeton, and thanked him for teaching me to write. He laughed and said he still remembered me. Ha! I'm not sure that is a compliment.

    He was an interesting fellow. In addition to publishing about Apuleius, Xenophon, et al, he performed “Ragging the Classics,” a piano performance/demo on ragtime and classical music in James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man," and then there's this: “The Aim Was Song” was performed in 1993 at Weatherford College in Weatherford, Texas. It is a the only record of a musical and dramatic collaboration that began in 1974 and spanned more than 30 years. Cook and Tatum performed versions of this many times at Dartmouth, Princeton, Joe Pap’s Public Theater, and many other venues public and private, most memorably when they served as an entr’ acte for a drag show (“The Male Misstique”) in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

    27avaland
    feb 13, 2021, 3:40 pm

    You are definitely off to a good start with this thread, Lisa! Glad you decided to do it. I like your categories in#23 (chased down the Gibson list and made the hubby guess Gibson's answers (he did get one right, and guessed another after giving him a clue. ha ha

    28labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 19, 2021, 9:36 am



    Baba Dunja's Last Love by Alina Bronsky
    Published in 2016, 135 p.

    Baba Dunja is a force to be reckoned with—a matriarch (but whose daughter and granddaughter live abroad), a town elder (but with only the barest of semblance of a town remaining), and an aging widow (but whose husband’s ghost is a matter-of-fact presence in her life). She has returned to her home village in the Ukraine several years after a nuclear reactor accident forced everyone to evacuate. Despite the radiation, she wants to go home and a handful of others join her. The colorful cast of characters include Marja, a hypochondriac whose housemates include a goat and a derelict rooster; Sidorow, an ancient lover in search of a bride; and Petrow, a cancer-ridden romantic. When an unknown father and daughter appear and a death occurs, everyone turns to Baba Dunja to take charge.

    I love the character of Baba Dunja. She is smart, acerbic, and capable, with a wicked humor. I’ve read this short novel a couple of times now and enjoy it as much every time. Great fun.

    29dchaikin
    feb 15, 2021, 2:04 pm

    >28 labfs39: this is a take in Chernobyl? Interesting to learn about it and that you like enough to have reread it several times.

    30labfs39
    feb 15, 2021, 3:03 pm

    >27 avaland: I'm impressed that Michael could guess Gibson's answers to even one or two questions. Which ones, do you remember?

    >29 dchaikin: Sorry, Dan, I didn't realize I hadn't mentioned that. Chernobyl is never mentioned by name in the novel, but that's the assumption. Baba Dunja returns to her village in the exclusion zone, where spiders spin odd webs and some birds' songs have changed, but her garden does well. She likes being self-sufficient and having few people visit. :-)

    I find myself re-reading more these days, either for comfort or a memory jog. This one is short, and I find it funny, so I've read it three times.

    31labfs39
    feb 17, 2021, 2:49 pm

    So, that was interesting. I know LTers who track which books they've read on the 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die list, but I had never done so. I found an interactive list on www.listchallenges.com. It was actually 1306 books long because it combined all the editions. To use the list, you simply click on the books that you've read, and the site tabulates it for you. Some books I couldn't remember if I had read or not (which Rabbit, Run books had I finished, for instance), so I've probably read more than I marked. The grand total? I've read 229 out of 1306 or 18%. Out of the 13,000 people who have taken the quiz, I rank #521 (kudos to our very own Paul Cranswick for ranking #23!).

    What did I think of the books on the list? I was quite surprised. First, there was a lot of odd repetition. For instance, three of John Updike's Rabbit books made the list. Six books by the Bronte's. Nine by Virginia Woolf, ten each by Dickens and Coetzee. Evidently this issue, and the dead white guys syndrome, was somewhat addressed in the 2008 edition when 280 books were removed and replaced, many of which were by English-speaking authors with more than one book on the list. Second, I was surprised by the number of "genre" books on the list, like Dashiell Hammett and John Le Carre. Finally, the choice of books was perplexing. Some titles seemed like flash-in-the-pan bestsellers, others seem to have been chosen simply because they were obscure. It often wasn't apparent to me why a book(s) was chosen over other ones by the same author. To understand this last issue, I would need to read the 1001 book, because evidently the author says why he chose each book. Sadly, I am not interested enough to bother.

    Are there lists that you follow? Nobel Prize for Literature, Orange Prize, Booker? How much do lists impact your reading?

    32labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 19, 2021, 1:34 pm



    The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne
    Published 2013, 291 p.

    I am sometimes a sucker for fun titles, and the title, The World's Strongest Librarian, followed by “Tourette’s” sounded like an oxymoron on an oxymoron. I was not led astray. Josh Hanagarne at 6’7” tall and 260 lbs is a strongman, not only lifting enormous amounts of weight, but rolling up frying pans and throwing cabers. He very well could be the world’s strongest librarian. He also has severe Tourette Syndrome. His verbal tics became so distracting that for a while his doctor injected Botox into his vocal cords to render him nearly voiceless. He began weightlifting as a way to exert control over his body, eventually learning to manage his Tourette’s with it.

    Josh spent a lot of time as a child in the library, but didn’t immediately consider becoming a librarian. He sounds like a splendid one though, and I wish he would consider moving to my branch library. Each chapter begins with subject headings, which is a bit of an inside joke, as well as being a descriptive chapter title. Chapter 1, for instance, is called 808.543—Storytelling, 011.62 Children—Books and Reading. Next will follow some anecdotes taken from his work as a librarian, and then he segues into his life story. It’s a clever and seamlessly done.

    He was raised a Mormon, and part of his memoir is about the interplay between his disorder and the expected expression of his faith, such as his ability to perform his Mormon mission, and about how he struggles with his faith in general. His relationships with his family and his wife are impacted as much by these struggles as with his Tourette’s.

    Not to minimize the effect of Tourette’s on his life and relationships. High school was particularly difficult, as he was newly diagnosed, experimenting with treatments, and dealing with typical adolescent angst about fitting in and dating. Imagine trying to study, work, and date while barking, flailing, hitting yourself, and other unpredictable things hundreds of times a day. Josh often makes it seem funny, but there is also anguish.

    His father encouraged him to start going to the gym, and Josh quickly realized that the focus and exertion needed to life weights helped control his tics. His mentor, Adam T. Glass, helped him take it to the next level, and Josh starting going for days without symptoms. Although stress can make his symptoms recur, there has been a tremendous improvement in his quality of life.

    The World’s Strongest Librarian is a well-balanced blend of workplace anecdotes, personal history, and reflections on life. I found descriptions of interactions with library patrons laugh-out-loud funny and other parts, like his and his wife’s attempt to adopt, touching. I expected to like his literary references, but I even enjoyed his discussion of kettlebells. A fun and interesting memoir.

    33labfs39
    feb 19, 2021, 9:34 am

    >32 labfs39: Grr. I've tried three different images (two from LT, one from Amazon), and none of them are working.

    34japaul22
    feb 19, 2021, 12:02 pm

    >31 labfs39: I read from the 1001 book to read before you die list and you are spot on with many of the problems. Why in the world do all of Graham Greene's novels need to be on the list?!!!

    However, I've found that the way I use it is to expand my reading. Though the list is incomplete and biased (aren't they all?) it has led me down new reading paths and also challenged me to try new genres and read from more countries. I view it as a starting point. If I'm honest, the other reason I've stuck with it is that there is a fabulous group on LT that reads from this list and we have wonderful discussion and group reads. So I really value that group. I don't think I'd still be reading from this list as much if it weren't for them. I've read 335 of the books and only read about 10-15 a year at this point, which is a pretty small percentage of my reading. I have no desire to complete the list, but will keep reading from it as long as I continue to find interesting books there.

    As far as other lists, I've been using a book called 500 Great Books by Women that I've gotten a lot of great ideas from. Even though a majority of books I read are by women, I've read very few of the books and authors mentioned in this review.

    I sometimes consult other lists if I want an idea of books to read, but I don't read intentionally from any other list. I do like the Orange/Bailey/Women's Prize for fiction and often check out those longlists for book ideas.

    I'm going to check out listchallenges.com. I have a feeling I might have used it as some point and lost track of it.

    35labfs39
    feb 19, 2021, 1:32 pm

    >34 japaul22: There are so many good groups on LT. Club Read used to be a lot more active, I should probably join some other groups now too. Like you, I value the discussions and personal recommendations the most.

    Thanks for the tip about 500 Great Books by Women. The List Challenges site had this one too. I've read only 54 of the books (11%), but I found many more that interested me than on the 1001 list. I like that there is a wide variety of topics covered, not just books about women or with female protagonists, but books like The Proud Tower. Lots of interesting nonfiction and memoirs, as well as fiction.

    36japaul22
    feb 19, 2021, 2:45 pm

    >35 labfs39: I am enjoying the 500 Great Books by Women, but it also has some odd selections. Sometimes they pick some pretty obscure books for a famous author. Like I think I remember for Virginia Woolf they picked an essay I'd never heard of instead of any of her novels or A Room of Her Own.
    But, I really like it overall because it has so many books I've never heard of and makes an effort to include not just white American and British women!

    37RidgewayGirl
    feb 19, 2021, 5:07 pm

    >31 labfs39: An interesting list but one overly dominated by the white dudes and authors taking far too many slots. I did enjoy seeing what was there, but I don't have any interest of following it. I do like a list, though. I pay attention to the awards and love to look through a long or short list. My favorite remains The Morning News Tournament of Books, mainly because the competition means discussing the books as they are eliminated from play.

    38shadrach_anki
    feb 19, 2021, 5:39 pm

    >32 labfs39: You've reminded me that I have a copy of this on my shelves, waiting to be read. I'll have to pull it out.

    39labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 19, 2021, 6:24 pm

    >37 RidgewayGirl: I loved how you described your relationship with the TOB on your thread: my interest in the Tournament of Books has grown from mild interest to the sort of involvement characteristic of a Southern man's love of college football when his alma mater is having a good season. How could I resist checking it out after reading that?

    >38 shadrach_anki: I hope you enjoy it too, when you get to it. Did you live in Provo? Hanagarne is in Salt Lake City. I see you currently live in Nashua, did you get much snow in this latest storm? P.S. Do you have a thread?

    40shadrach_anki
    feb 20, 2021, 9:49 am

    >39 labfs39: I did live in Provo when I was going to school, and most of my extended family lives in Utah. One of my aunts actually works for the Salt Lake County Library system, though not at the main SLC branch. We got snow in Nashua, but not nearly as much as they were initially predicting; maybe two or three inches. Basically enough to make things kind of messy. And yes, I have a thread, it's here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/327939

    41dianeham
    feb 20, 2021, 5:41 pm

    >40 shadrach_anki:. I knew a few people in Provo. They all worked for Dynix which was my library's automation vendor.

    42markon
    Bewerkt: feb 20, 2021, 6:32 pm

    Book lists: just in case you need another one, there is the Royal African Society's 50 books by African women that everyone should read .

    43labfs39
    feb 20, 2021, 8:10 pm

    >40 shadrach_anki: Thanks, I'll scoot over to your thread.

    >41 dianeham: Ah, Dynix. That's a name I haven't heard in a while. One of the first libraries I worked at used Dynix.

    >42 markon: Ooh, this is another good list. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I couldn't get the link above to work, but I think it's this one. I bookmarked it for future reference.

    44labfs39
    Bewerkt: feb 28, 2021, 4:25 pm



    The Age of Orphans by Laleh Khadivi
    Published 2010, 304 p.

    It took me a long time to get into The Age of Orphans, the debut novel of Iranian-born Laleh Khadivi. Her writing at first seemed overdone, but as the book progresses, the rhythm flowed more naturally, and I enjoyed it more.

    A nameless boy spends his early years exploring his village from the safety of his mother’s lap. Around the age of eight or so (time is fluid), he goes with his father, uncles, and cousins to a distant cave where he learns the history of the Kurdish people and goes through a rite of passage to become a man. As such, when the village men are called to fight the shah’s soldiers, he rides with them. They are given guns taken from fallen soldiers, but the Kurds are slaughtered in the ensuing battle, in part because they don’t know how to use them. The boy is orphaned on the field and is conscripted into the shah’s army.

    The next few years are grim, but eventually he is sent to a training camp and becomes the model Iranian soldier. He is even selected to go to Tehran and take a modern, educated woman as his wife. Because of his brutal treatment of fellow Kurds on his first posting, he is sent to the base of the Zagros Mountains to pacify and modernize a Kurdish border area. The rest of the book follows his career and relationship with his wife and children.

    Throughout his life, the boy struggles with his identity as a Kurd in the newly created Iranian state. In a pivotal moment after his conscription, he is given a name (Reza Khourdi) and age (11) by a government official. Reza to signify he belongs to the shah, Reza Pahlavi I, and Khourdi, to represent the area where he was taken. The attempt to completely erase his ethnic identity is embraced by the boy at first. He covets the shiny boots and symbolically powerful gun. But the struggle to suppress a part of himself is as difficult as it is to suppress the Kurdish people.

    This book was originally conceived as the first of a trilogy about three generations of Kurdish men, but the others have yet to be written. Instead, Khadivi has written two other novels, one about religious radicalization and one about emigration. I'm not sure if she intends to get back to this arc.

    45rachbxl
    feb 23, 2021, 3:35 am

    >28 labfs39: Baba Dunja’s Last Love is fun, isn’t it? I read it last year. Those characters are so well-drawn, and there’s a wonderful sense of place too.

    46Trifolia
    feb 27, 2021, 2:24 pm

    Hi Lisa, I'm so happy I found you at here last! You might not recognize me but I'm your former reading-sister JustJoey, currently going by the name Trifolia. I have been absent in 2019 and 2020 but decided to become active on LT again, apparently some two weeks before you (what are the odds). If you're interested, you'll find my thread with the 75'ers.

    I know your life has not been a walk in the park these last few years but I hope you and your daughter are doing better now and that you'll rediscover the joy of reading books and sharing book-talk this year. I'll star your thread of course. I'm already looking forward to what you'll be reading this year.

    47labfs39
    feb 27, 2021, 11:11 pm

    >46 Trifolia: I have been looking everywhere for you! I'm so glad you found me. I've missed you. I'll find your thread and shoot you a private message.

    48labfs39
    feb 28, 2021, 12:03 am

    >45 rachbxl: Have you read anything else by Alina Bronsky? I've wanted to read Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine for a while, and now Europa Editions is coming out with her new book, My Grandmother's Braid, also translated by Tim Mohr.

    49rachbxl
    feb 28, 2021, 4:15 am

    >48 labfs39: No, I haven’t, but I would happily do so. I hadn’t heard of Bronsky when I read Baba Dunya, and I read it in French - it was a happy random find when I was going mad with my new access to my local library network’s ebook collection almost a year ago (they love red tape here in Belgium, and I had never managed to do all the steps in the right order before and had given up several times. But then along came the pandemic, and they offered red-tape-free access to all).

    50Trifolia
    feb 28, 2021, 1:04 pm

    >47 labfs39: - Yay, Lisa! I'm so glad we found each other again. When I saw your posts and no less than three yellow notifications from you, I knew it was a happy day! I'm still trying to find a balance between reading, reviewing and posting, but I can already feel the energy coming back.
    I'll get back with some replies to your earlier posts, now that I know you are really, truly back again.

    51labfs39
    feb 28, 2021, 4:21 pm

    >49 rachbxl: >50 Trifolia: Introductions may be in order: Rachel and Monica, do you know each other? Both of you are in Belgium.

    >49 rachbxl: I guess that's one silver lining amongst the pandemic clouds

    >50 Trifolia: I'm excited to pick up our conversations again

    52labfs39
    feb 28, 2021, 4:24 pm



    Rena's promise: a story of sisters in Auschwitz by Rena Kornreich Gelissen with Heather Dune Macadam
    Expanded edition published 2015, 264 p.

    Every Holocaust survivor memoir is a difficult but important read. When she was writing Rena′s Promise, Heather Macadam was asked, ″What′s it to you?″ I find that both an easy and difficult question to answer. To never forget. To honor those lost and those who survived. To try and understand. But I also feel a personal imperative that is difficult to put in words. It′s a self-directed reflection. What would I have done when faced with impossible choices? Where would I have fallen on the moral spectrum? Rena Kornreich′s focus was clear: everything she did and the choices she made were to save her little sister, Danka, and bring her home.

    Rena was the third oldest of four sisters in a conservative Jewish family living in a small village in Poland. Danka was the baby of the family. When Nazi soldiers began harassing the girls, their parents sent them to stay with relatives in nearby Slovakia where conditions for Jews were slightly better. Unfortunately they ended up on the first registered transport of Jewish women to Auschwitz on March 25, 1942. The two sisters spent the next three years first in Auschwitz, then Birkenau. As liberating armies neared, they were forced on a death march to Ravensbruck in January 1945. These two facts—being on the first transport and surviving three years in the camps—make this memoir stand out from others, but the reason as to why they survived intrigues me too.

    In The Train in Winter, Caroline Moorehead discusses how women who were communist were more likely to survive in prison and the concentration camps because they organized for each other. Similarly I think Rena survived in part because she was driven by the thought of bringing her baby sister home to her parents. Protecting her sister gave her a reason to life and continue to fight, when she might otherwise have given up. Nationality also played a cohesive role; several male Polish prisoners were instrumental in supplying the sisters with food and warmer clothing. Finding commonality was key to survival.

    Although Rena′s Promise is of necessity dark, it was not a dismal read. Rena focuses on all the people that helped them: from Andrzej, who guided her across the border to Slovakia; to Emma, the work kapo who protected her; to Malek, the Polish captain who provided food and clothing. She also focuses on the love she found before, during, and after the war. Upon finishing the book, I was left with a feeling of hope and happiness, not despair. That's not always the case with these types of memoirs. Recommended.

    53Trifolia
    mrt 3, 2021, 8:56 am

    >52 labfs39: - Excellent review, Lisa. It's not the type of book I like to read but this one surely seems worth reading.

    >51 labfs39: - No, we don't "know" each other. There are 11 million of us :-) No, seriously, I think Rachel is living in Brussels and as a Brit more focused on the French-speaking part of Belgium? But happy to meet.

    >49 rachbxl: - Hi Rachel, would that be Lirtuel? I wonder if a membership to a library is required to join?

    54dchaikin
    mrt 3, 2021, 1:50 pm

    Stopping by to say hello and catch up. Enjoyed your reviews of The Age of Orphans and Rena’s Promise.

    Enjoyed the talk of lists, but I’m list-shy this year as i’ve managed that mistake where I schedule to read more than is possible. I’m much happier when i do the opposite - a schedule but one that is too easy so I have some free reading time built in. Unfortunately I really want to read everything in my current impossible schedule so I’m not ready to rethink it. So, lists of more titles - i’ll come back to that.

    55labfs39
    mrt 3, 2021, 3:26 pm

    >53 Trifolia: LOL. I meant did you "know" each other on LT. Club Read is a fairly select group. ;-)

    >54 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Although I enjoy lists and seeing what is on them, I never have a reading plan, other than to do more of it. Sometimes I get ideas from lists, but my purchasing is usually completely haphazard depending on what I see. Rarely do I go out and purchase a specific title, although I did do that recently with The True Deceiver. Although my method ensures that my wishlist never seems to drop appreciably, it is spontaneous and often leads to down-the-rabbit-hole reading as one title leads to another. That's fun too. Or maybe I'm just a spoiled reader lacking in discipline. Either way, I'm glad I'm reading more this year and that I am back on LT. I missed the readership.

    56RidgewayGirl
    mrt 3, 2021, 5:03 pm

    >55 labfs39: Either way, I'm glad I'm reading more this year and that I am back on LT. I missed the readership...

    I'm glad you're back here, too. It just hit me that you're unlikely to make it back to the Decatur Book Festival anytime soon. I'm operating under the hope that it will happen this September as I long for both crowds and book people.

    57dchaikin
    mrt 3, 2021, 7:14 pm

    >55 labfs39: Either way, I'm glad I'm reading more this year and that I am back on LT. I missed the readership.

    Your a big part of what makes this group. I’m glad you’re reading and back here too. (Also, i’ve over-planned. : ) But it’s the only way I get through some things. I read too slow to do anything that qualifies as spontaneous...well, besides buying more books.)

    58rachbxl
    mrt 4, 2021, 10:50 am

    >53 Trifolia: I remember you as Justjoey from years back, but I had no idea you were in Belgium too. You're right, I work in Brussels and live in Brabant Wallon with my French-speaking Belgian husband. I see you're in Bruges; I'd be very happy to meet up at some point. Yes, I was talking about Lirtuel (which I love!), and yes, library membership was needed pre-Covid, but that wasn't the problem as I was/am a member of 2 local libraries; I forget the details but I seem to remember that on repeated occasions the system wouldn't recognise my membership so kept rejecting me. I kept meaning to go into one of the libraries and get it sorted...but then along came the pandemic and it was resolved, for now at least (though I still need to go into a library and get it sorted!)

    59labfs39
    mrt 4, 2021, 6:29 pm

    Today is National Grammar Day, and in honor of the day, LT interviewed Martha Brockenbrough, a very funny author and former teacher, whom I used to run into in Seattle. We both worked at the same school for a while. You can read the interview here. Martha introduced me to Mary Norris, author of Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, another very funny grammar pundit. Mary worked in the copy department of the New Yorker for some thirty odd years. Her book is great fun.

    60avaland
    mrt 5, 2021, 1:46 pm

    Just popping in to read your most recent reviews. Hope all is going well; you sound quite chipper ;-) Rumor has it that spring is coming....

    61labfs39
    mrt 5, 2021, 3:07 pm

    >56 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, Kay. No, I probably won't go to the Decatur Book Festival again. I'll have fond memories though.

    >57 dchaikin: Please don't think I'll critical of your reading plans, Dan. I'll in awe. Your reading is inspiring.

    >60 avaland: "Chipper" is a great word, and one I haven't heard outside NE much. Merriam Webster defines it as "sprightly", another great word. MW says chipper was first used as an adjective in 1822, a form of the English slang "kipper".

    I'm not holding my breath for spring. :-/ The ice is 2" thick in my driveway, and my roof still hasn't unloaded. I love the lengthening days though.

    62labfs39
    mrt 5, 2021, 3:11 pm

    I'm taking my niece, Wren, to the library this afternoon. I watch her during the week so my sister can work part-time. Wren just turned one, and her second word was "book", after Dada. She's saying a few other things, but mostly she signs. I did that with my daughter too, and it really helped bridge the gap until she was talking.

    Wren's favorite board books are Zoe and Her Zebra, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Fifteen Animals, and anything with animals or baby faces. Some of her favorite picture books are Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Stranger in the Woods, Clara and Asha, and Pop-up Aesop.

    63dchaikin
    mrt 5, 2021, 7:57 pm

    64avaland
    mrt 6, 2021, 6:09 am

    >61 labfs39: ha! (we are probably a bit inbred in our vocab up here)

    65Trifolia
    mrt 6, 2021, 12:04 pm

    >58 rachbxl: - Hi Rachel, yes I am Flemish but I'm 1/16th part Walloon as my great great grandfather and his ancestors were from the South of what is now Belgium. In Flanders we have CloudLibrary as the counterpart of Lirtuel and it's ok but I think it's a pity that their range of French and German books is rather limited and the focus is mainly on English and of course Dutch books. The literary landscape in the north and south is yet another fact that unfortunately seems to separate the Belgians.

    >59 labfs39: - Timidly walks away...

    66shadrach_anki
    mrt 6, 2021, 1:47 pm

    >61 labfs39: Chipper is a delightful word. Didn't realize it wasn't much used outside New England, though. Language is such an interesting thing. I remember the utter confusion on a waitress' face in Utah when we told her we were all set after she asked if we needed drink refills. That's another phrase that apparently hasn't moved too far out of New England.

    67labfs39
    mrt 7, 2021, 7:43 pm

    >63 dchaikin: I definitely enjoy having a little one to read to. I have a rocking chair next to a bookcase of picture books. She's a little rough on them yet, so she has a shelf of board books that are free grazing.

    >64 avaland: My grandmother was a treasure trove of NE idioms and words. She also spoke with a downeast accent, and when I talked to her on the phone from my college dorm, I would get teased, because I'm told my own accent came out. Ayuh. The Wikipedia entry for Maine accent has a lexicon that made me chuckle. Some words I had only ever used orally and never before seen spelled out (dry-ki, pekid, beetah). Others I had never thought about as dialect (stove up, spleeny), although when I stop to think about it, I guess they do sound odd.

    >65 Trifolia: Nothing to feel timid about, Monica, I guarantee that you understand English grammar far better than most Americans.

    >66 shadrach_anki: I still pause when people don't understand bureau, dinner pail, flatlander, jimmies, etc. What else would you call them? LOL

    68Trifolia
    mrt 8, 2021, 1:11 pm

    >67 labfs39: - Very interesting. I knew that there are different accents in America, but I never realized you also had specific idioms and words. I looked it up on Youtube and see what you mean now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTxJaCFt3fg). I wonder if you consider it a dialect or if you also use it in an official context. In Dutch we sometimes use the same word with a different meaning. If you want to buy a dress, we say "een kleed" in Flanders. But if you buy "een kleed" in Holland, you come home with a carpet. If you wanted a dress in Holland, you'd have to buy "een jurk". In Flanders, you're a bit of a boast if you use the word "jurk". At least it is in my part of Flanders.
    Also in Flanders itself, it can be funny to talk to each other if you're from another region. When my friend visited her daughter-in-law she wanted to compliment her with her dress and she said "wat een schoon kleedje", which in my friend's dialect means "what a beautiful dress" but in her DIL's dialect means "what a clean dress".
    I just don't want to think about how many mistakes I make as a non-native speaker. But if I do, I hope they are funny rather than offensive.

    69labfs39
    mrt 10, 2021, 9:40 am

    >68 Trifolia: Speaking of similar words having different meanings, I remember the terrible gaff I made when I first met my French host family. I was jetlagged, and my dinner conversation was awkward at best. Then when I was offered more of something, I said no thank you, I'm full. The problem was I did a literal translation from English, forgetting that the idiom meant I'm pregnant in French. That was a conversation stopper!

    70labfs39
    Bewerkt: mrt 10, 2021, 9:43 am



    Autumn by Ali Smith
    published 2016, 264 p.

    (I′m not going to write a full review, as the book has already been reviewed so often, so well.)

    Autumn is the story of Elisabeth, a young woman living in Scotland, and her relationship with 100-year-old Daniel. As she sits by his bedside in an assisted living facility, she reminisces about their relationship. There is little in the way of plot, but much in the way of reflection and humor.

    My favorite parts of the book are the scenes between Daniel and Elisabeth when she was a child. I would have loved to have had a mentor/friend like Daniel, who could open up the worlds of books, art, and storytelling. Elisabeth has no friends her own age, is not challenged academically, and receives only cursory care from her mother; but in Daniel she finds all of these.

    I also enjoyed the humor in the depictions of Elisabeth′s everyday adult life. Her efforts to get her passport submitted for renewal at the post office were especially funny. Overall the writing is lyrical, yet sharp and clear, not flowery. It would have been a quick read for me, if not for the references to European current events. Some I understood, like the vote for Scottish independence and Brexit. Others I had to stop and google, for instance, about Pauline Boty, as well as Christine Keeler and the Profumo scandal.

    Overall I enjoyed the book and have requested Winter, the next volume of the quartet, from the library.

    71Dilara86
    mrt 10, 2021, 12:32 pm

    >69 labfs39: Oh dear, not only does it mean "pregnant", it's only used for animals! It's also slang for "drunk", by the way (as in "plein(e) comme une barrique" - as full as a barrel). At least, it must have been pretty obvious you were using using the wrong word...

    >70 labfs39: A reminder that I should also request Winter.

    72SandDune
    mrt 10, 2021, 12:57 pm

    >69 labfs39: Our most embarrassing language experience was in Northern Spain back in the 1990s (which incidentally is the place where we’ve had most difficulty language wise). I had been doing most of the talking, and being as I spoke no more Spanish than my husband (i.e. no Spanish at all) I was getting a bit tired of this. So I insisted it was his turn next time we needed to communicate. So in a quiet out of the way bar in the mountains of Northern Spain he goes confidently up to the bar and in a loud voice announces : ‘A coffee and two toilets please’. What we actually wanted was two beers but he kept getting the word mixed up. The locals thought it was highly amusing.

    >70 labfs39: Well, I’m British and I’d never heard of Pauline Boty either. But Christine Keeler and the Profumo scandal is pretty well known. It’s the sort of thing that gets mentioned from time to time even though it was a long time ago.

    73Trifolia
    mrt 10, 2021, 1:41 pm

    >69 labfs39: - Ouch! LOL. I can't beat that.

    >71 Dilara86: - LOL, poor Lisa :-) On the other hand, the English of the French might not have been perfect either.

    74labfs39
    mrt 10, 2021, 2:34 pm

    >71 Dilara86: I don't even want to think about what other blunders I made that I was completely unaware of!

    >72 SandDune: I've Berlitzed my way into laughable linguistic errors all across Europe. Equal language opportunity for mistakes.

    It makes sense that the scandal made the news in Britain, whereas Boty did not. Sex sells, art not so much. At least I'm not alone in not knowing all the cultural references.

    >73 Trifolia: I'm not sure that my host parents spoke any English, so they were saved from those blunders. Safety in silence

    75labfs39
    mrt 11, 2021, 4:24 pm



    The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, translated from the Japanese by E. Dale Saunders
    published 1964, 241 p.

    An amateur entomologist is wandering the dunes looking for rare beetles and seeks shelter for the night in a village. The elders direct him to the home of a woman whose house is in a sand pit. He′s lowered in and thus begins his captivity, endlessly shoveling to keep the house from being subsumed by sand.

    At first the sand is a scientific phenomena; it′s properties, composition, and movement are discussed in an interesting, academic way. But gradually the sand becomes a character in and of itself, and its weight and endless encroachment seem deliberately menacing. It falls on the house and strains the timbers, it seeps through the ceiling and requires that the man sleep with a towel over his face, it invades every crease of clothing and skin, it gets in his mouth and eyes. It is increasingly claustrophobic both physically and psychologically.

    Equally unsettling is the relationship between the the man and the woman who lives there. She is never named, and it is unclear whether she is there willingly or not. She is an amorphous being who may be a tacit jailkeeper, an ignorant dupe, a fellow prisoner, or a simple villager who has drunk the Kool-Aid. She becomes the target of the man′s anger, defiance, despair, and frustration. Her passiveness is annoying, and because her character is never fleshed out, it is hard to either sympathize with her or hate her. It makes it harder to judge the man′s treatment of her, because we don′t know what she is.

    In turn, it′s not clear exactly what the novel is either. Is it a metaphor for the futility of work and life? Is it a psychological novel about a captive′s changing mindset and emotional state? Is it all a hallucination or schizophrenic nightmare?

    Although I found the book unsettling and tense, I enjoyed the vivid imagery and unusual premise. I haven′t read enough Japanese literature to know how it fits into the canon thematically or style-wise, but I would recommend the book to those who enjoy Kafka or are seeking something different.

    76labfs39
    mrt 12, 2021, 9:38 am

    I just downloaded Litsy and am struggling to find folks (other than Dan, whose name I actually know). Who else is on Litsy? Do you like it? Any hints or suggestions?

    77Dilara86
    mrt 12, 2021, 9:42 am

    I'm on Litsy (Dilara). I don't think I'm using it to its full potential yet, but it's fun.

    78ELiz_M
    Bewerkt: mrt 12, 2021, 11:50 am

    I (and others) put some Litsy tips in this thread in the Category Challenge group:
    https://www.librarything.com/topic/329728#n7437985

    in Club Read = On Litsy
    Eliz_M = Liz_M
    Simone2 = BarbaraBB
    arubabookwoman = arubabookwoman
    japaul22 = JenniferP
    markon = bnp

    79labfs39
    mrt 12, 2021, 12:57 pm

    >77 Dilara86: >78 ELiz_M: Thank you, this is helpful.

    80Dilara86
    mrt 12, 2021, 2:02 pm

    >79 labfs39: I'm following you now!

    81RidgewayGirl
    mrt 12, 2021, 8:45 pm

    I'm on Litsy, as RidgewayGirl.

    82japaul22
    mrt 12, 2021, 9:22 pm

    I saw you and followed you back! I am very inconsistent at using Litsy, but it's fun. I've had the most luck looking for # and then following people who have similar interests. So you can search your favorite books or tags for publishers, lists, or topics like "nyrb", "1001books", "readingwomen", #booker, etc.

    83lilisin
    mrt 13, 2021, 9:56 am

    >75 labfs39:

    Excellent review of one of my favorite authors!
    If it helps, Kobo Abe usually adopts the theme of individual vs society in his books. Usually his characters are trying to escape the oppression of the homogeneous society so his books start off normal within a normal world and then the character finds himself trapped in an absurd situation that grows and grows into chaos; basically society trying to bring the character back into its grasp. That is why the other side characters tend to have no shape, or adopt several shapes, and are usually a representation of something in the character's real life. If it's a woman it's usually the character's most likely wife who most likely left them or something of the sort. Thus the character continues to fight against it throughout the novel until he discovers there is no release.

    84markon
    mrt 13, 2021, 11:56 am

    >76 labfs39: >78 ELiz_M: I've followed you back on Litsy, Lisa. I was trying to post once a day for awhile, now I'm sliding back to occasionally. It's fun, but I still enjoy the longer review & conversation options here. Eliz_Ms tips were helpful to me when I first started.

    85Trifolia
    mrt 13, 2021, 2:40 pm

    >75 labfs39: - Excellent review. I'm tempted to give it a try although usually, I'm not so fond of this type of books. Too unsettling for me.

    >76 labfs39: - I looked into Litsy, but I find it too busy and too cluttered to enjoy it. Maybe I just don't understand the concept and the meaning of it. Or maybe I just don't need another app in my busy life.

    86labfs39
    mrt 13, 2021, 4:26 pm

    >80 Dilara86: >81 RidgewayGirl: >82 japaul22: >84 markon: Thank you for befriending me on Litsy. I will hopefully have time to play with it tomorrow.

    >82 japaul22: I tried looking at a couple of tags to book challenges, but it seemed chaotic. I couldn't find the first posts that would have described the challenge. Perhaps there is a way to reorder the posts? I'll check on the LT thread that Liz mentioned.

    >83 lilisin: Thank you for the background information on Abe's themes. I found it interesting that although Jumpei is obviously being oppressed by the villagers (and the woman?), his life as a teacher was oppressive as well. He was a cog in the educational machine whose colleagues didn't look for him or seem to care that he was missing. Nor did the woman, whom he refers to as the "other" woman, with whom he was in a relationship. He was isolated even before he was put in the pit, although I'm not sure he realized it.

    Were you a Japanese literature major? Do you read in Japanese?

    >84 markon: I'm not sure if I'll be a regular user of Litsy, but I wanted to see what it was about. Much like I have accounts on Instagram and Facebook, but I don't post, only follow family and a few friends. I do like that it's easy to post photos on Litsy though. That would be fun. LT is seriously lacking in that regard.

    >85 Trifolia: I'm not sure I would put it at the top of your pile. I read it because 1) rebeccanyc had talked about it on her thread years ago, and I had wishlisted it then and 2) I was reading stretch's thread and was inspired to read a Japanese novel. Since I owned this one and the premise was intriguing, I picked it up. Definitely different. I liked it though.

    I hear you about too many apps. I have a hard enough time participating in LT and that is definitely my preferred venue for book talk. I do like the visual element of litsy though.

    87japaul22
    mrt 13, 2021, 7:01 pm

    >86 labfs39: I have not found a way to find an initial post easily. I think you just have to be on Litsy a lot for it to work well. I just meant that I've found readers whose posts I enjoy by checking some of those tags. The people who post a lot of memes get annoying to me and that was a way for me to find people who read similar books to me. But so far I've participated for a few weeks and then fallen out of the habit for a few months in a cycle.

    88lilisin
    mrt 13, 2021, 9:22 pm

    >86 labfs39:

    I was a Japanese language major but didn't major in literature at all. All the Japanese lit reading was done on my own accord. And I have read all but one of Abe's books translated into English and then I just have the two left in Japanese that I haven't read. I do read in Japanese but Abe is above my current reading level. Hopefully someday soon!

    89labfs39
    mrt 14, 2021, 10:18 am

    >87 japaul22: I think that will probably be my experience as well.

    >88 lilisin: I envy your ability to maintain or increase your reading level in a foreign language. As soon as I stopped taking classes, my reading level in the languages I studied fell off drastically. I wish I had the time and motivation to study them again, but I'm only now reading more in English after a major slump. Someday..

    90msf59
    mrt 14, 2021, 5:08 pm

    Welcome back, Lisa! Your visit to my thread has been the highlight of my day. And you moved to Maine too? Nice. You will have to let me know how you ended up there. As a bonus, you mentioned that you are also into birds. We are a match, my friend. I also look forward to following your reading through the year.

    91labfs39
    mrt 14, 2021, 5:41 pm

    Thanks, Mark. Remember this?

    92msf59
    mrt 15, 2021, 8:18 am

    >91 labfs39: Yes, I do remember our little Meet Up, Lisa. A nice visit. What year was that?

    Have you been to Acadia National Park yet? That is high on my Bucket List.

    93labfs39
    mrt 15, 2021, 8:29 am

    >92 msf59: Gosh, sometime prior to 2012. I remember hiding my crutches for the photo, so I hadn't had my hips replaced yet.

    Yes, I've been to Acadia many times, although not recently, and it is beautiful. From late March to summer, the trail can be closed due to peregrine falcon nesting. The islands off the coast of Maine are home to the only Altantic puffin nesting grounds. You can take a tour boat out to see them (no going ashore). And there's the Scarborough marsh, which, as I mentioned on your thread, is on the Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die. You should come visit!

    94labfs39
    mrt 15, 2021, 8:32 am

    I am very excited this morning. I was reading In Search of My Homeland and about halfway through I came across the word "crepuscular," one of my favorite words. It may be the first time I've seen it used outside an identification book!

    95msf59
    Bewerkt: mrt 15, 2021, 8:46 am

    I had forgot about your hip problems, Lisa. How are you doing now? I can't wait to get to Acadia. How far do you live from there? I requested Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die from the library.

    And hooray for "crepuscular"! Great birding term.

    96labfs39
    mrt 15, 2021, 1:28 pm

    So, I've unpacked about 2/3 of my books now. I bought the house in September, but the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were only installed recently. The baseboards and crown molding had to be cut, and they had to be firmly attached, as my niece is a climber. History and biography are still packed, as the office isn't ready yet; I'm having bookcases built to fit odd-sized walls. I keep my handyman busy just with bookcases!

    How do you organize your shelves? I keep literature organized by author, but everything else is by subject, then size. Genre fiction is separate from lit. The living room is lit central, with a corner by a rocking chair with picture books for Wren. Den is travel and identification guides. Dining room is art, science, and cookbooks. Upstairs is genre fiction and Judaica. Office is full of boxes, mostly history, Holocaust, and biography. Other subjects are jammed in wherever space is left over. I would send photos, but most come out sideways in LT and it is a royal pain to fix it. I'm happy with how it's coming along.

    97shadrach_anki
    mrt 15, 2021, 5:08 pm

    I have approximately ten times more books than I have shelves to put them on (based on the handy stats page here at LT), so my organization method resembles Tetris more than anything else. Double stacked shelves, piles on the floor, and far too many boxes. I do try to group series together, and I have a rough division of fiction and nonfiction. Probably the only dedicated and separated collections my husband and I currently have are cookbooks (shelves near the kitchen) and our RPG books (a variety of systems) that are all more or less in one place that is easily accessible.

    I dream of having a dedicated library space, but it isn't likely to happen any time soon. We're still in a rental apartment.

    98AnnieMod
    mrt 15, 2021, 5:11 pm

    >97 shadrach_anki: Even when you have a dedicated library space, you outgrow it... :) I moved to a 2-bedroom a few years ago so I can convert the second bedroom into a library (plus most of the living walls have bookcases on them).

    99labfs39
    mrt 16, 2021, 7:15 am

    >97 shadrach_anki: For the last two years, I had the majority of my books in storage while I was in Florida, so I know what that's like. It's very nice to get them back out again. Like greeting old friends.

    >98 AnnieMod: Isn't that the truth? Built it and they will come (books to bookshelves, I mean).

    My Thingaversary is next week, so I'm planning to go to real bookstores this weekend for the first time in a year. I'm very excited!

    100japaul22
    mrt 16, 2021, 7:59 am

    My bookshelves (I have a wall of them in my living room) make perfect sense . . . to me. I have paperback fiction that is read shelved alphabetically by author. But I have separate areas for favorite authors whose books I own a lot of (Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Margaret Atwood, Trollope) and separate shelves for certain publishers (NYRB, persephone, virago, Folio Society). I also have experimented with pulling out fiction from certain regions (Scandinavia and Russia so far). Nonfiction is loosely organized by topic (biographies, the arts, essays, history, etc.). It works for me and I like how my shelves look, which is important to me as well.

    101Trifolia
    mrt 16, 2021, 1:49 pm

    >94 labfs39:->96 labfs39: On this crepuscular evening, I am happy to tell you that I have shelves for fiction and for non-fiction. Within the fiction-section, I have one shelf with unread books, one shelf with my favourite books and the other shelves in alphabetical order (authors). Non-fiction is organized in History / Botany and Gardening / Art / Philosophy & Religion / Politics & Sociology / Travel / Science / Language / Children's & YA.
    I have decided to limit myself to one bookcase for fiction, because it's endless otherwise. So if I read a book and it's better than one I already have, one goes out. I mainly read e-books now, but if I read a favourite, I buy it in paper and add it to my shelf.

    >100 japaul22: - Happy early Thingaversary! I'm already looking forward to what you'll bring home with you.

    102labfs39
    mrt 16, 2021, 2:18 pm

    >100 japaul22: Good point. I too separate out NYRB, Europa Edition, and Folio Society books onto separate shelves. They look much better when shelved together rather than by author.

    >101 Trifolia: On this crepuscular evening Lol.

    I have a shelf I keep on my bureau that usually holds the books I hope to read next, but it's currently empty. Likewise I used to have a half shelf with a few feel-good books in case I needed a quick reread to cheer myself up, but I haven't done that here either. Things still feel in flux.

    I envy your discipline regarding your fiction shelves. I like the idea of having only books I love, but I can't bring myself to do a big weed, especially now that I have all this space. A few books got damaged in the move, and I deaccessioned those, plus a few old hardcovers without jackets that had seen better days. I would like to get better copies of some of my ratty mass market paperback books, but I hate spending the money on replacement copies when I could get something that I haven't read yet.

    103RidgewayGirl
    mrt 18, 2021, 8:39 am

    Happy Thingaversary, in advance! Enjoy your bookstore browsing.

    My Europa Editions and NYRBs are shelved on their own, as is my Soho Crime collection. They do look nice together and it's fun to find new ones to add. Sorry a few books were damaged in your move. I had one move where the movers did a terrible job packing the books and I've taken on the task of boxing them up ever since.

    104labfs39
    Bewerkt: mrt 18, 2021, 9:57 am



    In search of my homeland : a memoir of a Chinese labor camp by Er Tai Gao, translated from the Chinese by Robert Dorsett and David Pollard.
    Published 2009, 259 p.

    Er Tai Gao was a twenty-two-year-old art teacher in 1957 when he wrote an article entitled, ″On Beauty.″ It was published and became fairly well-known in cultural circles. Unfortunately he wrote about art being subjective and individual, a concept that went against Mao′s opinion that art was a reflection of Party values and objective. It, and a denunciation by his roommate, earned him an indefinite sentence of ″reform (later re-education) through labor″ as a ″rightist.″ He was sent to a remote labor camp where 90% of the men died in three years. Fortunately he only spent a year and a half there, then was moved around painting for artistic projects until he ended up at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang. He spent ten years there documenting and preserving the paintings from ten dynasties on the walls of 490 caves. He was finally exonerated in 1978.

    The story of Er Tai Gao′s experience is absorbing, in part because I knew little about what ″reform through labor″ meant. The title is a bit deceiving though, in that his two stints in the camps were relatively short compared to his twenty-one years of punishment. Much of the book is spent describing his ten years working on the caves at Dunhuang. That was very interesting, both the caves themselves and his relationships with the others there. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Thousand Buddha Grottoes, as they are also known, are worth taking a look at: on Wikipedia or the World Heritage site.

    Unfortunately, the memoir was not written as well as it could have been. I′m not sure if it is the fault of the author, the translators, or the poor editing. The transitions between chapters are awkward with each chapter beginning as though you had not read the previous ones. The endnotes were somewhat helpful, although it was curious what was deemed important to note. I would have found a list of names helpful, as the narrative goes back and forth in time, and I lost track of who was who or what their position was. Overall I′m glad I read it, but it could have been better written.

    105Trifolia
    mrt 18, 2021, 10:05 am

    >102 labfs39: - Hm, an empty shelf, that's unusual :-)
    I like your idea of a feel-good-shelf. I may rearrange my "other" fiction shelves to dedicated ones that would include feel-good.
    I'm not sure if I deserve credits for the presumed discipline. I grew up in a house where books were something you borrowed from the library or from friends and relatives. Our own collection was rather small as was everyone else's. It's not that we were opposed to having books (we did receive them as presents etc. and we read a lot), it's just that we had two libraries and the school-library within walking distance so there was no need to actually buy them. And I'm a minimalist by nature, that helps :-) And of course, I'm cheating a bit by mostly reading e-books.
    I actually got the inspiration to limit my fiction from Dimitri Verhulst, the Flemish author. I'm not sure about the number of books he keeps, but it certainly was a small number for a writer.

    Too bad your books were damaged. But it's a good excuse to buy new ones :-)

    106labfs39
    mrt 18, 2021, 10:20 am

    >103 RidgewayGirl: Since the majority of my books have been in storage for two years, survived a hurricane, and moved across country twice (Seattle to Florida, then Florida to Maine), I consider myself fortunate to have only lost a few!

    >105 Trifolia: I too grew up in a family of readers, but not many books. I borrowed from the library and my uncle, but pickings were slim. One year for my birthday I received a box full of used books, and that was one of the best gifts ever. That desire for books has never been sated, despite access to libraries and owning books, and I continue to collect them, especially used ones. I find the hunt for used books to be very fun and satisfying.

    I've read one book by Dimitri Verhulst, Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, which I enjoyed.

    107Trifolia
    mrt 18, 2021, 11:08 am

    >106 labfs39: - A box full of used books... I can imagine it left a lasting impression.
    I was cured from book-hoarding after working a few months in an academic library where every week truck-loads of used books were delivered and sorted. Most of them ended up in the shredder (horror to most of you, I know) because we already had them in our collection and no one of the large community of other libraries, scholars and other individuals who subscribed to our freely and widely available list of used books was interested. We were allowed to take home all the books we wanted, but very few of us did after working there for a while. But is was fun working there.

    I enjoyed most of the books by Dimitri Verhulst, especially Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill but this one is a bit of the odd one out in his oeuvre. I'm not sure if you'd like his other books.

    108stretch
    mrt 18, 2021, 12:39 pm

    >75 labfs39: Excellent review! I'm getting more and more excited to finally get to Abe.

    I'm also on Litsy as stretchkev
    Very different from club read but I find it a fun place to scroll through.

    109avaland
    mrt 18, 2021, 1:21 pm

    >67 labfs39: My Nana said "ayuh" almost as one syllable, almost "air" -- it wasn't the exaggerated two syllable form.

    I am familiar with 'stove up' not sure I've heard the use of "spleeny". You might one of Jason Brown's most recent short story collections. They are Maine-ish, all the way. I was made fun of for my accent the year I worked for a police department in the San Francisco area. They claimed not to have accents.

    >93 labfs39: The Scarborough Marsh (my hometown). It was not a tourist site when I was growing up. I lived about a mile and half towards the beach from the nature/tourist center on Rt 9 (where you can rent the canoes). There are such wonderful colors in that marsh grass in the fall....

    >96 labfs39: Glad you are settling in. What's the closest new or used bookshop?

    >102 labfs39: Don't weed out any books if you don't have to. It's winter insulation! I'm glad you chose Maine over Florida:-)

    >105 Trifolia:, >106 labfs39:, >107 Trifolia: I'd certainly be interested in anything else Verhulst has in English. Last time I checked, I didn't find anything except the one.

    110labfs39
    mrt 20, 2021, 8:58 am

    >107 Trifolia: I know that situation well, Monica. I was a member of the Friends of the Library group for many years, and one of our activities was managing the for sale bookshelves and the annual sale. Every week we got boxes of books and every day one of us went and sorted through them. In addition to many gross (books mildewy and such) books, we took to the dumpster out-of-date computer books, Reader's Digest, overflow Harlequin romance, highly technical and old engineering books, heavily highlighted books, etc. We tried offering some things (Reader's Digest, etc) to places like assisted living places and prisons, but they didn't want them either. We were able to sell some higher-value items online, but frankly, it didn't pay enough. Patrons sometimes complained when they saw books in the dumpster (we tried to do it unseen to avoid this), not that they wanted the books, but they got very emotional seeing it. I once read an article by a librarian that compared weeding to going through your refrigerator. You wouldn't keep expired items, rotten things, leftovers that had been left over too long. Nor would you try and pawn them off on someone else. You would throw them out. I liked that analogy.

    >108 stretch: Thank you, Kevin. I hope you like Abe when you get to him. I have two Mishima books on my shelves, Sun and Steel and Confessions of a Mask. Which would you recommend?

    I followed you on Litsy.

    >109 avaland: I will keep an eye out for the Jason Brown books. I should stay current on the lingo now that I live here. :-) I saw a Bert and I book (Marshall Dodge) recently and pounced, but the spine was broken, so I didn't get it. I wonder if new words are still being added to the Maine lexicon, or if standard English is replacing the colorful words and idioms?

    With my Thingaversary next week, I plan to visit the three bookstores I know of that are still open. One is in Cornish and is closing next month. It's in a huge old attached barn, unheated, and very dusty. There are thousands of books, pamphlets, and who knows what else. I stopped by once, but the cold was too intense. They did have some Armed Forces editions, which I sometimes think to collect, but they were in poor shape. I will go back, bundled appropriately, but I don't know that I'll find anything. Then there are a few shops in Portland. Unfortunately Longfellow Books (new) is curbside pickup only. I'll try Green Hand Bookshop on Congress St., Letterpress Books, and Nonesuch Books in So. Portland.

    Winter insulation! I love it, and truer words were never spoken. The wall that abuts the garage felt cold, so I put 7' high wall-to-wall bookshelves. That fixed that!

    111SandDune
    mrt 20, 2021, 3:42 pm

    >110 labfs39: I plan to visit the three bookstores I know of that are still open Oh how I would like to visit a bookshop. We have a decent Waterstones in the town where I live and two small charity bookshops, and the next town along has a decent independent book shop, and we are not far from Cambridge which has good big bookshops, so usually I’m able to browse to my hearts content. But with the current lockdown they’ve all been shut since the beginning of January. At the moment, the earliest that they will reopen is 12th April.

    112labfs39
    mrt 21, 2021, 9:33 am

    Yesterday I visited three bookstores! It was very exciting. All of them required masks, hand sanitizer, and limited number of people. I felt sufficiently safe. And I so needed to be out and browsing. >111 SandDune: Fingers crossed your turn will come soon, Rhian.

    Unfortunately, I was only able to find one book from my list, and I only purchased four. But I am happy with this start. Nine to go for my thingaversary. :-)



    Although I didn't know this at the time and despite it not being super well-known, >107 Trifolia: Monica, my Belgian reading twin, has the first one too.

    113labfs39
    mrt 21, 2021, 9:35 am

    I started reading High Wind in Jamaica a few days ago, but have not gotten very far. I am tempted to switch to one of these instead. It goes against the grain to abandon, or even pause, a book once I've started, but I'm mighty tempted.

    114SandDune
    mrt 21, 2021, 10:17 am

    113 I think High Wind in Jamaica is quite a divisive book. People seem to love it or hate it. I loved it.

    115Trifolia
    mrt 21, 2021, 10:25 am

    >110 labfs39: - Very recognizable indeed and I like the analogy of the refrigerator. And the winter insulation. Who knew books can so versatile :-).

    >109 avaland: - At least two of his other books have been translated:
    - The Misfortunates which probably is his "signature-work", i.e. the book Verhulst became famous with here in Belgium. It's more or less his autobiography, at least of part of his youth. It is completely different from Madame Verona though.
    - The Latecomer

    >112 labfs39: - Yay for being able to visit a bookstore again. Here all the shops have been open again for quite a while, but I think that at some point bookstores were categorized as "essential" so apart from a brief period of time that only "absolutely necessary for survival" -shops were allowed to be open, we could always visit our bookstores.
    Good haul, too. And thanks for reminding me of The Girl with Seven names. I did not even remember I had this book :-). Let me know if you would like to co-read it with me. I'm reading at least four books now, so a fifth would be okay.


    116markon
    mrt 21, 2021, 10:48 am

    Congratulations on a bookstore trip! I've recently learned that Charis Books near me has a porch sale on Saturdays. So I'll check that out next weekend as long as it isn't raining. My brave new thing this week is that I'm headed back to the Y today for a yoga class.

    117labfs39
    mrt 22, 2021, 5:53 pm

    >114 SandDune: I finally sat down and read a big chunk of High Wind in Jamaica and am enjoying this part much better. I had a hard time with the language used to describe the Blacks on Jamaica. I know it was not unusual in 1929 when the book was published, but for a modern reader, it's painful. Once the story became focused on the children, which is, I admit, rather quickly, the story becomes very engaging. The way Emily experiences the Earthquake, and how that differs from the way she thinks of the windstorm (hurricane), the farewell between the children and parents aboard ship; the discussion of whether the ship is full of pirates or pilots...It's all very funny, but with an undercurrent of darkness: the disappearance of John, the changes in Margaret. I should finish today or tomorrow.

    >115 Trifolia: Interesting that in Belgium, bookstores were considered essential, and in America, it was gun and ammo shops.

    I have to read a library book after I finish High Wind. It's an interlibrary loan, so I have to read it now or lose it. It's Winter by Ali Smith. But then, yes, let's read Girl with Seven Names. Would that be okay with you? I'm interested to learn how she escapes North Korea at the age of 17. When I'm done, I want to listen to her TED talk.

    >116 markon: I hope your yoga class went well, Ardene, and that you were able to make it to the porch sale. I think I went to Charis Books when I was in Atlanta.

    118msf59
    Bewerkt: mrt 22, 2021, 6:46 pm

    Hi, Lisa. I am a fan of The Sympathizer. I managed to snag an egalley of the sequel The Committed. It will be my next print read. It was published early this month.

    119Trifolia
    mrt 24, 2021, 7:49 am

    >115 Trifolia: - Interesting indeed to see where our governements put their priorities. Many bookshops also delivered books at home during the brief period that they had to close. Libraries were closed for a while too, but staff was allowed to work and lend out books to their members in a sort of library-takeaway system. In some libraries, members could inform staff which books they wanted and in some libraries staff would assemble a surprise-box. Other than that, the new e-book-platform was promoted as were other digital book-related sources. We complain about a lot of things here in Belgium (complaining is our national sports, next to cycling and football), but we certainly were not deprived of books.

    Let's read Girl with Seven Names. I'm pretty excited about this. I'll send you a pm later to discuss the practicalities.

    120Trifolia
    mrt 24, 2021, 9:33 am

    Happy 13th Thingaversary, Lisa!!!

    121labfs39
    mrt 24, 2021, 1:36 pm

    >118 msf59: Thanks, Mark. When I purchased my copy of The Sympathizer, the bookstore owner advised that I have a box of tissues handy. Does that count as a spoiler? ;-)

    >119 Trifolia: Wow. Libraries delivering. And I love the idea of surprise boxes. What a great idea!

    >120 Trifolia: Thank you! My fifth book (of the "required" thirteen) arrived today.



    Thank you to Ardene (markon) for being the first to recommend this book to me.

    122AlisonY
    mrt 26, 2021, 5:58 am

    Very late in catching up with your thread. I'm going to read it again later when I've more time, as I mentally took many, many book bullets that I need to capture in my Amazon list.

    123labfs39
    mrt 26, 2021, 4:12 pm

    >122 AlisonY: Thanks, I'm about halfway through your thread as well.

    124labfs39
    mrt 26, 2021, 4:22 pm

    I received my sixth Thingaversary book in the mail today.



    It was my first ever purchase from Thriftbooks. As you know, I like the serendipity of browsing used bookstores, but in this case I did it online. I carefully chose books marked Like New (or New in a couple of cases). Books in that category are supposed to be: "An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Dust cover is intact; pages are clean and are not marred by notes or folds of any kind."

    So you can imagine I was disappointed to receive an ex-libris edition from the New York Public Library. Has anyone else purchased from Thriftbooks? Is this common, to get copies not in the advertised condition?

    Anyone have a suggestion how to get sticker residue off the cover? :-(

    125stretch
    mrt 26, 2021, 4:38 pm

    >124 labfs39: Over the years I’ve gotten lots of books from Thrifts from various locations. Houston seems to me the best at sticking to the descriptions that a couple on the west coast are good. The rest is hit and miss sadly.

    126SandDune
    mrt 26, 2021, 5:46 pm

    >117 labfs39: I had a hard time with the language used to describe the Blacks on Jamaica. By the end of the book I came to the conclusion that, rather than casual racism, it was the first indication of the self-centredness of the children’s perspective.

    127AlisonY
    mrt 26, 2021, 6:05 pm

    >124 labfs39: Since I can't browse the secondhand bookshops I've also been buying mine online, mostly through Amazon's used sections. Many my books that are supposed to be in very good condition arrive a bit stained or tatty - I think it's a racket they're all at (I've tried many different sellers). I'd love to continue buying from Oxfam online so the money goes to charity, but they don't grade their books at all, and I know in the stores there are many I won't buy because they're just too grubby looking. It's a shame, but really yucky books turn me so I won't risk it.

    128labfs39
    mrt 26, 2021, 6:13 pm

    I had sent an email to Thriftbooks customer service at 4pm describing my disappointment at not getting a book in the condition I was expecting. Twenty minutes later I received an emailed response saying that although they didn't have another copy to send me, they were refunding my money for the book. Wow. That's impressive. Thank you, Thriftbooks. I hope the rest of the books I ordered are in good shape.

    129labfs39
    mrt 26, 2021, 6:30 pm

    >125 stretch: Fingers crossed the others are in the condition described. Interesting that you have found differences in books coming from different parts of the country.

    >126 SandDune: That's an interesting observation, Rhian. I was reading it as descriptive narrative. Hmm, I'll have to think about it some more.

    >127 AlisonY: I like the idea of buying used (reduce, reuse, recycle), but I too dislike grubby or marked up books. I think what bothered me the most was that it wasn't as advertised. I can't complain about the response though.

    130labfs39
    mrt 26, 2021, 6:39 pm



    A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
    published in 1929, 257 p.

    A book about children and pirates? Sounds fun. And on the surface it is. The five Bas-Thorton children are being raised in a haphazard fashion on a dilapidated plantation in Jamaica in the mid-1800s. After an earthquake and a hurricane in quick succession, the parents decide to send their children, along with two other children, to England for safety. Not long after departing, the barque is overrun by pirates. In a comedy of errors, the pirates attempt to use the children as hostages and instead end up stuck with them on their ship. One almost feels sorry for the pirates. But throughout the entire book there is an undercurrent of darkness, which only gets more disturbing as the tale progresses.

    Although the word trauma is never used, the children are exposed to a series of traumatic, life-threatening events, from natural disasters to kidnapping, and they must cope without any emotional support from adults. Left to make sense of the world on their own, they come to decisions that can be funny (are the sailors pirates or pilots?) or cold and deadly. By the end of the book, even the things that seemed funny earlier take on darker meaning.

    131ELiz_M
    mrt 26, 2021, 8:30 pm

    >128 labfs39: I buy a fair number of used books through Better World Books and AbeBooks. I also am careful to read the descriptions and avoid former library books at all costs. I've my fair share of books arriving in much worse condition than advertised. Most places are good about refunds & telling to keep the book, rather than bother to send it back. I've learned to avoid books for Ohio (OwlsBooks?) is the worst and I've had bad luck with another Ohio store, so I just avoid them.

    Non-acetone nail polish remover will dissolve the sticker residue.

    132SassyLassy
    mrt 27, 2021, 9:58 am

    >130 labfs39: Liked your review of this book. I came to the book after seeing the film back when there were still movie rental stores (I'm a fan of swashbucklers). The film itself was even older than rental stores (1965). It did show Emily's dilemma really well. However, I just watched the trailer on imdb and there is so much wrong with the film today, it would be difficult to recommend it.

    >124 labfs39: I've found that the stores through Abe are very good at replacing on the rare occasions when a book hasn't been as advertised. The only unresolved problem I've ever had was when the wrong book arrived, then after being in touch with the vendor, they sent me that book again. They then told me they didn't have the requested book. I believe the incorrect inventory number had been assigned to the book I didn't want, or else to the book I did want. Unfortunately, I was left with two copies of a book that had no interest!

    133labfs39
    mrt 27, 2021, 11:54 am

    >131 ELiz_M: I will definitely try Better World Books next time. I like their mission. And thank you for the tip on the nail polish remover.

    >132 SassyLassy: My. That is quite the trailer. Describing the Fernandez girl as "old enough" was disturbing. At least the actress looked older than the book character, who was 13.

    >131 ELiz_M: >132 SassyLassy: I used to use AbeBooks, but haven't since they were bought by Amazon. I will keep them in mind for future purchases.

    134labfs39
    mrt 27, 2021, 11:54 am

    The following is a passage from High Winds in Jamaica describing the heat as the children ride ponies down to the beach. I love the imagery.

    The morning advanced. The heated air grew quite easily hotter, as if from some reserve of enormous blaze on which it could draw at will. Bullocks only shifted their stinging feet when they could bear the soil no longer: even the insects were too languorous to pipe, the basking lizards hid themselves and panted. It was so still you could have heard the least buzz a mile off. Not a naked fish would willingly move his tail. The ponies advanced because they must. The children ceased even to muse.

    135labfs39
    mrt 27, 2021, 12:17 pm

    And here is a longer passage describing babies and children as unknowable entities:

    ...Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies of course are not human—they are animals, and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates.

    In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.

    It is true they look human—but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys.

    Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals—why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely.

    Possibly a case might be made out that children are not human either: but I should not accept it. Agreed that their minds are not just more ignorant and stupider than ours, but differ in kind of thinking (are
    mad, in fact): but one can, by an effort of will and imagination, think like a child, at least in a partial degree—and even if one′s success is infinitesimal it invalidates the case: while one can no more think like a baby, in the smallest respect, than one can think like a bee…

    When swimming under water, it is very sobering thing suddenly to look a large octopus in the face. One never forgets it: one′s respect, yet one′s feeling of the hopelessness of any real intellectual sympathy. One is soon reduced to mere physical admiration like any silly painter, of the cow-like tenderness of the eye, of the beautiful and infinitesimal mobility of that large and toothless mouth, which accepts as a matter of course that the very water against which you, for your life′s sake, must be holding your breath… Contact with a small baby can conjure at least an echo of that feeling in those who are not obscured by an uprush of maternity to the brain.

    Of course it is not really so cut-and-dried as all this; but often the only way of attempting to express the truth is to build it up, like a card-house, of a pack of lies.


    The humor reminds me of some of Twain′s writing, and the plot at times of The Ransom of Red Chief. But the undercurrent is definitely Lord of the Flies.

    136labfs39
    mrt 27, 2021, 4:18 pm

    Over on Kay's (Ridgewaygirl's) thread, the question was raised as to why we keep more books than we could ever read. Lois (avaland) was teasing me that now that I've moved to Maine I need to keep my books for insulation if nothing else. It started me thinking about the different roles books play in my life. My shelves are not only TBR storage units, or even insulation. They are an intellectual photo album of where I've been and with whom I've spent time, a walk down memory lane, a jog to a not-so-perfect memory, displays for my most attractive books, talking points, a hobby, and something so integral to my identity that my daughter has asked on more than one occasion if she will get all my books when I die. She did not want me to weed before we moved, as though it would be giving away bits of me. I don't own nearly as many as some folks here on LT, and I have read the majority of them, but it's still far more than I need. But then what is need when it comes to books? Yesterday I was sitting sleepily staring blankly at some bookcases and realized that I was going along and identifying by spine color/shape/magic which book was which. It was quite enjoyable. Either I'm going nuts, or I get a lot of pleasure simply being surrounded by books. Probably both.

    137SassyLassy
    mrt 27, 2021, 6:32 pm

    >136 labfs39: A pleasure indeed.

    Have you read any other Richard Hughes? If you can take another hurricane, In Hazard is excellent.

    138labfs39
    mrt 28, 2021, 8:03 pm

    >137 SassyLassy: A hurricane would be welcome reading at the moment. I'm reading Winter by Ali Smith, and I've got to say that I'm not loving it. I liked Autumn quite a bit, especially the relationship between Daniel and Elisabeth and the funny bits about dealing with local bureaucracy. Did everyone else like Winter?

    139SassyLassy
    Bewerkt: mrt 29, 2021, 9:58 am

    >138 labfs39: Winter was a disappointment for me too. Like you, I thought Autumn, with Daniel and Elisabeth, was much more successful. Winter sort of stopped me on my way through Smith's seasons, although maybe now that it is spring I can pick them up again.

    ---------
    edited for touchstones

    140Trifolia
    mrt 30, 2021, 3:04 pm

    >129 labfs39: - I'm not a fan of buying second hand books. Ever since I saw a documentary on the health-hazards of used and library books, I'm very wary. I used to think that it was an urban legend and I'm usually a bit sceptical about "doom & gloom", but the tests on library-books were executed by a university-lab and by a famous and serious professor, so I'm not so keen to have second-hand books in my home.

    >138 labfs39: - Hm, that does not sound good...

    Btw, I sent you a pm :-)

    141labfs39
    mrt 30, 2021, 3:21 pm

    >139 SassyLassy: I don't think I'm going to read Spring right now either. I'll finish Winter, then move on to some of my new finds.

    >140 Trifolia: Yikes, I may prefer to remain ignorant of that study... One exception is that I have a phobia about silverfish. Just the thought is terrifying. I'm not sure why, I'm not usually squeamish.

    Thank you for the heads up about the pm. I wish the little number indicating a message were bigger. I need to get in the habit of checking when I log on.

    142Trifolia
    mrt 30, 2021, 3:40 pm

    >141 labfs39: - I'm sorry but you are right to be phobic about the silverfish. You really do not want them in your house.
    Another pm's headed your way.

    143labfs39
    mrt 30, 2021, 7:57 pm

    So four more books arrived yesterday: books 7-10 of my thingaversary. I haven't bought this many books since.... my last thingaversary plus one!

    144labfs39
    Bewerkt: mrt 31, 2021, 9:10 pm



    Winter by Ali Smith
    published 2017, 322 p.

    I'm not going to write a review for Winter, because as much as I liked Autumn, I didn't care for this one. I was uninterested in the characters and what bits of art were included seem to have been pasted in at random intervals. I missed the humor of the previous book as well. Just didn't do it for me. I'll take a break from the quartet for now. Maybe someday I'll try another.

    145labfs39
    apr 3, 2021, 5:13 pm

    Monica and I are doing a shared read of The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee. It's the memoir of a young woman who escaped from North Korea in 1997 at the age of seventeen. Feel free to join in with comments, even if you aren't reading this particular memoir.

    I have read a few other accounts of North Korea and memoirs of defectors. The best was Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. After extensive research, she chose to write about the lives of six defectors from different levels of North Korean society: their lives before their decision to defect, their escape, and what life was like for them in South Korea afterward. I highly recommend it.

    I read Demick's book shortly after reading The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam. I knew very little about the Korean War prior to that--Vietnam eclipsed it in my history classes. This book was also very good, if you are interested in military history.

    I have read three memoirs of North Korean defectors, of these I liked the first the most.
    Escape from Camp 14 : one man's remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
    Ten years in the North Korean gulag : the aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-Hwan
    Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim

    And finally, The orphan master's son, a novel by Adam Johnson. That sums up my reading about North Korea.

    146AlisonY
    apr 4, 2021, 7:27 am

    I also loved the Demick book. A great read.

    147japaul22
    apr 4, 2021, 11:22 am

    >143 labfs39: I loved To the Bright Edge of the World! Don't know the other two, so I'll be interested to hear your thoughts whenever you get to them.

    148Trifolia
    apr 4, 2021, 11:36 am

    >143 labfs39: - What an intriguing and diverse batch of books, Lisa. I'm already looking forward to your reviews. I read one book by Modiano. He's one of those writers I'd like to read more of. The other ones are unknown to me.

    >144 labfs39: - Hm, I think I'll wait till next winter to give Winter a try. I liked Autumn but your comments make me fear I might be disappointed with the next one. I wonder if these books are related, since they are part of a quartet?

    >145 labfs39: - Yes, we are!
    I have not read any memoirs or other books on North-Korea, but I saw a few documentaries which made me curious to find out more about how North-Koreans actually think about their situation. It seems this book will be a good start.
    I have read till Chapter 21, so let me know when you arrive in China :-)

    149labfs39
    Bewerkt: apr 4, 2021, 12:32 pm

    >146 AlisonY: Now that I'm thinking about Nothing to Envy, I want to read it again.

    >147 japaul22: Did you read To the Bright Edge of the World recently, Jennifer? I might have gotten the book bullet from you. I loved The Snow Child, but hadn't looked to see if she had published anything since.

    >148 Trifolia: Thanks, Monica. I've had fun browsing for my Thingaversary books. I found The Nakano Thrift Shop by searching "Europa Editions" in Thriftbooks. The others had been on various wishlists.

    I didn't find much to link Autumn and Winter, except towards the end, it might have been Daniel that had been in one of the character's pasts, but it wasn't explicit. And nothing in Autumn linked him to this character. I was disappointed because I liked the Daniel-Elisabeth story line; I was hoping to learn more of Daniel's backstory.

    150labfs39
    apr 4, 2021, 12:32 pm

    BEGINNING OF DISCUSSION OF The Girl with Seven Names:

    I finished the first part where she just crosses over into China. I must say I found it anti-climatic, if this is her defection: a schoolgirl crossing over on a self-dare because "everyone" does it. I'm curious to learn why she decided to stay.

    There were a couple of things right at the beginning of the book that I found interesting, for instance her description of songbun. It blows my mind that there are 51 strata within the three social classes: loyal, wavering, and hostile, and that everyone knows who's above and below them. And that even today, a family's position is determined in large part by whether their ancestors fought the Japanese occupation and what they did in the Korean War.

    As for person anecdotes that I found interesting:
    -The fact that her father ran into their burning house, not to save valuables or prized possessions, but the two Kim portraits. And that this was common, to risk your life to protect the pictures, and if you didn't it could result in censure.
    -The level of indoctrination that began in kindergarten, such as hatred of the "Yankee imperial bastards," the exact same term that Demick cites. I'm not sure what it is in Korean, but it's interesting that that seems to be a widely used and excepted term.
    -The amount of back and forth there was across the border with China. Not just trade, but her brother used to play with Chinese boys all the time. I thought it was much harder to get out.
    -I can't imagine seeing my first public hanging at age 7. It was interesting that people were more likely to go to the hangings of people they knew, that it was like going to their funeral.

    What do you think so far?

    151Trifolia
    apr 4, 2021, 1:49 pm

    >150 labfs39: - You seem to share quite a few of my issues with the book.
    It struck me that she defied her mother and that she decided to just cross the border for a few days (a bit like we went on a school trip), knowing very well what the consequences could be.
    I noticed that people can be punished so severely and mercilessly, but that they still dare to cross the border, set up businesses, smuggle, etc. as if it were a game. And that all this is more or less overlooked as long as the "great leader" is not offended or enough bribes are paid.

    The things that you mention are also the things that I noticed. The internal control, the indoctrination, the corruption and the hypocrisy are things that occur in any dictatorship, but of course that doesn't make it any less bad. It was striking when she said that at home there was never any discussion of work or matters other than normal household affairs and the family. As if they were living a separate life within the state. I liked how she described her uncles and aunts, by the way. So striking. I found Uncle Opium and the story of the black woman especially funny (well, that might not be the right word) and tragic at the same time.

    I believe the story will develop into a more complex situation as she will be confronted with another world.

    152japaul22
    apr 4, 2021, 2:21 pm

    >149 labfs39: I checked and I read To the Bright Edge of the World in 2017, I think close to when it came out. I really liked it so I went back and read Snow Child in 2018 which I loved even more.

    153AlisonY
    apr 4, 2021, 4:19 pm

    Snow Child was much stronger for me - I wasn't blown away by To The Bright Edge of the World. Snow Child was such a fantastic first novel - really affecting.

    154labfs39
    Bewerkt: apr 4, 2021, 6:29 pm

    More discussion of Seven Names:

    >151 Trifolia: I get that for some people smuggling was a way to survive, but the way it is described in the memoir does make it seem like a game, although that could be the 17 year old's perspective. Obviously it doesn't turn out to be just hijinks, and she realizes that finally.

    That her parents never spoke of the outside world in front of the kids sounds so much like life under Stalinism (or China during the cultural revolution), where children were trained to report on their parents. I read a great book on the public/private tension in the Soviet Union called The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes.

    The difference in the standard of living even within her family was striking. Uncle Opium was rich, Uncle Poor was, well, poor. One a drug dealer, one married to a woman with lower songbun and lived on a collective farm. The latter an example of how it was easy to go lower on the totem pole, but not up (she did not increase her songbun by marrying up, he just went down). Poverty and the famine seemed to strike the rural areas harder (ironically where food production happens) as well as inland areas. Living near the borders had the advantage of smuggling and in coastal areas fishing. It was interesting that she didn't become aware of the famine for quite a while.

    It will be interesting to see what revelations come to her as time passes. Right now she's a self-absorbed teenager.

    155labfs39
    apr 4, 2021, 6:28 pm

    >152 japaul22: Hmm, maybe it was Kay/ridgewaygirl's thread that I saw it on. I see she has it too.

    >153 AlisonY: It would be hard for Ivey to top Snow Child in my estimation. Even so I'm looking forward to reading Bright Edge.

    156RidgewayGirl
    apr 5, 2021, 12:45 pm

    >155 labfs39: Yes, probably me. I loved To the Bright Edge of the World. I was given a copy of The Snow Child a few years ago and I really should read it soon.

    157lisapeet
    apr 5, 2021, 1:08 pm

    I have both of those Ivey books... hoping to get to at least one this year, but you know how it goes...

    158rachbxl
    apr 6, 2021, 4:33 pm

    I’m just as behind with everyone else’s threads as I was with my own (you saw how many reviews I just posted today!) so I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. I read The Mountains Sing last year and liked it a lot. It’s really stayed with me, and actually I think I’m more positive about it now than I was straight after finishing it.

    I was reading The Snow Child when my daughter was born (not literally! I mean that’s what I had on the go at the time) - a lovely book to read whilst pinned down by a cluster-feeding newborn. I’ve been meaning to get to To the Bright Edge of the World for a while.

    159labfs39
    apr 6, 2021, 7:23 pm

    >156 RidgewayGirl: I hope you like The Snow Child when you get to it, Kay. I'm excited to read something else by Ivey. I'm glad your review alerted me to it.

    >157 lisapeet: LOL, I do know how it goes. I received The Snow Child as an Early Reviewer book. Even though I had absolutely nothing to do with it, I always feel proudly parental when a book I was able to review early does well.

    >158 rachbxl: I'm glad to hear that you liked The Mountains Sing. I haven't read much Vietnamese literature and now I have two such books on my chair-side table (this and The Sympathizer).

    Indeed a lovely book for the occasion. Your comment made me pause though. I thought, Rachel doesn't have a child that young. Then I looked and realized the book was published in 2012!

    160rachbxl
    apr 7, 2021, 7:31 am

    >159 labfs39: I’ve read The Sympathiser too, and though I think I enjoyed it well enough at the time, I can remember nothing at all about it. I just looked up a synopsis, and that has barely reminded me - enough to be sure that I did actually read it, but no more. Whereas distinct scenes from The Mountains Sing come back to me regularly (to be fair I read it more recently, but The Sympathiser only came out in 2015, so it’s not as if I could have read it years ago).

    161labfs39
    apr 7, 2021, 8:42 am

    >160 rachbxl: That's a good reason for me to read The Mountains Sing first. I have both in my "read next" pile as I purchased them both during my Thingaversary splurge.

    162labfs39
    apr 7, 2021, 8:53 am

    Meanwhile back to The Girl with Seven Names:

    I'm enjoying this second part of the book with... what do I call her, she's on her sixth name now? It takes place in China and is an aspect of North Korean defection that I am less familiar with. She is finally realizing that her joy ride across the river has serious consequences for her family. Although I'm sorry she had to go through some awful experiences, she manages to avoid the worst and is maturing. She is lucky to have had such supportive family living in China, especially after how poorly she treated her father (and then them, and yet they still support her). It's sad, but not surprising, that she had to save for four years to earn enough to find and contact her family. I was shocked, however, that she was able to talk on cell phones with her family; I didn't think that was possible. She was also extremely lucky to get ID and translation jobs.

    What do you think, Monica? I'm up to chapter 35.

    163labfs39
    apr 9, 2021, 5:29 pm

    The Girl with Seven Names continued:

    I finished the book today and enjoyed the third and final section the most. It was the story of how she brought her mother and brother to South Korea. Their journey was more typical of the defection memoirs I've read, in that it was long and difficult, going through China to Laos. Their difficulty in adjusting to South Korea was more typical too, I think. I would love to know more about Dick Stolp and his motivations in helping them so generously.

    Overall, I found the memoir surprising in how easy it was for her to both leave North Korea and to succeed in first China then South Korea. Not that her life was a bed of roses, but I do think it was unusual. I found her motivations at times baffling, but she is clearly very intelligent and tells her story well. Reading this has made me want to reread Nothing to Envy.

    164labfs39
    apr 9, 2021, 5:41 pm

    My ILL of Moon of the Crusted Snow came in today. Thanks to Kay and others for bringing this one to my attention. I'm looking forward to the change of pace.

    165avaland
    apr 9, 2021, 7:30 pm

    >112 labfs39: Three bookstores! I'm impressed!

    166Trifolia
    apr 10, 2021, 6:23 am

    >163 labfs39: - I also finished the book. I liked the story, but I sent you a pm with my personal thoughts...
    Apart from Dick Stolp, I'd also like to hear the mother's and brother's side of the story.

    167msf59
    apr 10, 2021, 8:19 am

    Happy Saturday, Lisa. I also enjoyed The Snow Child & To the Bright Edge of the World. It doesn't seem like she has written anything in awhile. She is due.

    168labfs39
    Bewerkt: apr 10, 2021, 11:32 am



    The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee with David John
    Published 2015, 304 p.

    Hyeonseo Lee grew up in a fairly privileged family in North Korea and was semi-insulated from the horrors of the North Korean regime. Although she witnessed a hanging and saw some effects of the famine while travelling to visit relatives, she was preoccupied with dancing to illegal South Korean pop music and wearing foreign clothes to school rather than her uniform. Because her family lived on a border town, her mother made some extra money smuggling Chinese goods and her brother played with Chinese boys on both sides of the river separating the two countries. She decides that she too wants to experience the excitement of crossing into China before she turns eighteen and is no longer protected by being a minor. So without telling her mother, she heads out for some adventure.

    Thus begins Lee′s life as a defector. After a couple of close calls with human traffickers and a Chinese gang, she settles down in Shanghai into a comfortable life translating for South Korean executives. One day she boards a plane for Seoul with her Samsonite luggage and seeks asylum. A few years later she arranges to bring her mother and brother to Seoul as well. They have a much more harrowing, and seemingly more typical, experience. But thanks to a wealthy stranger, they too make it to South Korea.

    Lee′s story is smoothly told, and she is clearly intelligent as well as lucky. She has become a voice for North Korean defectors, has spoken at the UN on human rights abuses, and given a TED talk. But despite its polish, or perhaps because of it, I found myself questioning parts of her narrative.* Is it really so easy to cross the border into China? Why wasn′t her family punished for her disappearance? Is it possible to call on a cellphone and talk to relatives left behind? And that leads me to a conundrum. As a reader, do I have an obligation to accept an earnest account of escape as fact, for after all, what right do I have to question another′s experience? Or do I have a responsibility to look for accuracy and veracity, and if so, how?

    As it turns out, I am not alone in asking these questions. Other North Korean defectors have recanted parts of their narrative, perhaps most famously, Shin Dong-hyuk. Journalist Blaine Harden wrote Shin′s story of life in labor camps, torture, and escape in his book, Escape from Camp 14, but had to publish a revised version after Shin admitted lying about some things. Even Yeonmi Park′s story has been found to have inconsistencies. I wonder to what extent it is to be expected that defectors exaggerate or otherwise distort the truth of their narratives out of the necessity to protect people still in the DPRK or out of the vagaries of memory. I can also see how it would be easy to take advantage of someone who knows nothing of the world outside North Korea, and how a defector might feel compelled to say what others want to hear.

    So where does that leave me? I choose to err on the side of believing until proven otherwise. But I also read with a grain of salt and compare each memoir with those of others I′ve read and with nonfictional accounts. I think memoirs are a sticky wicket compromised by human desires, time, and memory. Maybe that′s why we call them life stories.

    * ETA: My official review ends here with "Compared to the memoirs of other North Korean defectors, her experience does not appear to be the norm. Interested readers might also check out Nothing to Envy which relies on interviews with dozens of North Korean defectors."

    169labfs39
    apr 12, 2021, 10:04 am

    >165 avaland: I was surprised to find so many bookstores, too, Lois. Soooo much better than the Florida panhandle in that regard.

    >166 Trifolia: I agree that the perspectives of her mother and brother would have been interesting, Monica. What was it like when the daughter left? Did people accept that she had died or moved or what? Why did they want to leave? Did they really think they could go back? That the brother went to Columbia was astonishing.

    >167 msf59: Hi Mark, yes, I too hope that Eowyn Ivey keeps writing. I hope to read To the Bright Edge of the World soon. I wasn't up for it right after Moon of the Crusted Snow. Too much cold wilderness survival in a row.

    170labfs39
    apr 12, 2021, 3:13 pm



    Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
    Published 2018, 218 p.

    Evan Whitesky is out hunting moose when the cell phones stop working. Soon after, the reservation loses electricity, sat phones, and all other contact with the outside world. Then the blizzards begin.

    I enjoyed becoming immersed in this dystopian novel and quickly sped through it in a day. The author is from Wasauksing First Nation, and the novel is set on an Anishinaabe reservation. Without being heavy-handed, some history of the tribe is included as well as native words and customs. It made for a very interesting read.

    171labfs39
    apr 12, 2021, 3:18 pm

    I found the setting of Moon of the Crusted Snow both familiar and not. I grew up in rural Maine, and my grandparents had a camp ″up north″ that my grandfather had built. In my mother′s time, the logging roads were terrible; narrow, muddy, and extremely dangerous, as the logging trucks had the right of way. The family drove in by jeep in the summer and snowmobile in the winter. By the time I used to go up with my grandparents, The Golden Road (a dirt highway) had been built and fewer people died in log spills, although a good many would hit moose that were kneeling in the road licking the salt. I would play on the shores of the lake where ox teeth were numerous (ox having been used to haul lumber in earlier times), pretend my grandfather′s ice shack was my house, and was teased about sticking to the seat in the outhouse in winter. A handpump brought water from the lake, propane ran the stove and refrigerator, and kerosene lamps lit the main room in the evening. By the time I was a teenager, electricity had been brought in, and after that things changed rapidly. Reading Moon of the Crusted Snow reminded me of life when things like electricity were not to be relied upon as it frequently went out, snowshoes were a must, and in the fall deer hung in the shed. For me, life at camp was romantic and exciting, but for my grandfather, it was where he was most comfortable and happy. Self-reliance was not something to strive for, it was. The camp has passed out of the family, as have my grandparents, but ironically this scary, dystopian novel brought back vivid, happy memories of that time and place.

    172avaland
    apr 12, 2021, 4:45 pm

    Gotta ask, where was the family camp? I’ve been reading late 19th century news columns for the town of Wilson Mills published in a larger Oxford County newspaper. An older genealogy friend has been transcribing them.

    173AlisonY
    apr 13, 2021, 8:24 am

    Great reviews. Love the story of your own winter adventures in Maine in your youth - there's a book right there.

    174labfs39
    apr 13, 2021, 9:14 am

    >172 avaland: The camp was in township 2, range 13, if memory serves. The nearest "town" was Kokadjo, population 3 until their son went to college. Now it's a little bigger with cabins for rent and a little restaurant. The sign into town reads "population, not many."

    >173 AlisonY: Thanks, Alison. I was feeling nostalgic after reading Crusted Snow. Funny how our reading can sometimes take us to whole new worlds, and other times back into our own pasts.

    175labfs39
    apr 17, 2021, 1:10 pm

    I owed myself three books for my thingaversary, but the library book sale today was selling books for $5 a bag, so what could I do but buy two bags full? One bag was children's board and picture books, but the other was for me.

    First, the odds and ends:


    Although not usually my thing, I thought I would try it because many of my LT friends have raved about it


    Because Darryl (kidzdoc) gave it five stars


    I like reading about WWII espionage and thought I would try something different


    I read and really liked The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam and thought I would try this memoir which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

    176labfs39
    apr 17, 2021, 1:23 pm

    And then World War II:


    I'm always curious about the German perspective of WWII, and this memoir about life on a U-boat should be interesting


    Paratroopers in the 101st Airborne, 'nough said


    Fighter pilots usually have good stories to tell


    Another general D-Day book probably wouldn't have grabbed me, but the subtitle "Voices from Normandy" made me think there would be interview transcripts, diary excerpts, those types of things, but I'm not sure there is.

    And that sums it up!

    177sallypursell
    apr 17, 2021, 4:02 pm

    178sallypursell
    Bewerkt: apr 17, 2021, 4:24 pm

    >15 kidzdoc: >117 labfs39: *acutely ashamed and embarrassed* Please don't remind me! Think about who made these decisions--it's a lot of people but by no means all of us. Oh, America, after such bright hopes! At least our Public Library was open for take-away, and our orchestras and dance companies met by Zoom.

    From the papers of Thomas Jefferson
    "The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

    179sallypursell
    apr 17, 2021, 4:19 pm

    >175 labfs39: But three bags full is traditional!

    180msf59
    apr 17, 2021, 4:25 pm

    >175 labfs39: Great picks, Lisa. I loved Becoming & Being Mortal. Both were also great audio picks. Just sayin'...

    181labfs39
    apr 17, 2021, 5:21 pm

    >177 sallypursell: The Ransom of Red Chief is fun, isn't it?

    >178 sallypursell: The nearest large public library, in Portland, ME, is still doing curbside only. I've plenty of books to keep me busy, but I have missed browsing during the past year.

    >179 sallypursell: Ha, the librarian said they were putting more books out on Monday, so I will have a chance for that third bag.

    >180 msf59: It's been a long time since I've listened to an audiobook. When my daughter was younger, and we had a long commute to and from school, we listened to them almost every day. The Redwall books, read by the fabulous author/narrator Brian Jacques, the Anne of Green Gables books, and Louise Erdrich's The Birchbark House series were all favorites that we listened to multiple times. I've listened to few adult audiobooks, however. I need to take up a handcraft, so I have something to do while listening.

    182labfs39
    Bewerkt: apr 18, 2021, 10:58 am



    The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell
    Published 2005, 229 p.

    The Nakano Thrift Shop is not a book to be devoured, but savored. There is no driving plot, no urge to flip quickly to see what will happen next. Instead, it is a series of vignettes set in a small, quirky thrift shop in Tokyo with a small cast of characters. The result is intimate close-ups of specific moments in time. Dust motes might be mentioned, but the characters′ pasts are not.

    Hitomi is a young woman in her late twenties who works at the shop, and the story is told from her perspective. She seems to have no relationships outside of those with the owner, Mr. Nakano; Takeo, the other employee on whom she has a crush; and Masayo, Mr. Nakano′s artistic sister. The four seem almost familial, yet in a vague way, nothing overly sentimental. The conversations are mostly gossip about one another and their customers. The language is crisp without wasted words or flowery descriptions, with a deadpan humor, and the dialogue captures the casual and abbreviated way that people well-known to each other speak.

    Each chapter is titled after an object, but the item is not the focus, rather it′s a prompt to sketch aspects of the characters′ relationships. Sometimes it′s an item from the shop, but not always. For instance, the opening chapter, Rectangular #2, refers to the envelope that is needed for some photographs a customer has brought into the shop. The chapter is an introduction to the main characters and how they interact with each other as they view and decide how to dispense with the photographs.

    ′Do you like art, Hitomi?′ Mr. Nakano asked, his eyes widening when I pointed to this photograph. In his hand, he held another photos of the man and woman, completely naked, seated in front of a dressing table.
    ′I think I prefer classic ones like this,′ he said. The woman sat on the man′s lap with her eyes tightly shut, her hair perfectly coiffed.
    ′The man and woman aren′t too pretty,′ Takeo said, putting the photos back in order and setting them on the table after carefully examining all ten.
    ′What should we do with them?′ I asked.
    ′I′ll return them to Tadokoro,′ Mr. Nakano replied.
    ′You think you could sell them here?′ Takeo asked.
    ′They don′t really seem finished, do they?′
    The conversation ended there, and Mr. Nakano placed the photographs between the cardboard again and put them back in the envelope, which he set on top of a shelf in the back room.


    Later Mr. Nakano singes the envelope with his cigarette, and Takeo runs out to buy the customer a new one.

    Got a rectangular #2, Takeo said as he returned. Tadokoro (the customer), ever calm and composed, moved away and slowly pulled the new envelope out of its cellphone wrapper before carefully sliding the cardboard inside.
    ′See you,′ he said and left the shop.
    Immediately afterwards, Mr. Nakano came in, muttering, ′You know what I mean—Takeo, the price was too high today.′ Takeo and I both found ourselves staring at Mr. Nakano′s beard.
    ′What is it?′ Mr. Nakano asked with a blank look.
    Neither Takeo nor I replied, until a moment later, Takeo said, Didn′t know that envelope was called a rectangular #2.
    ′Yeah?′ Mr. Nakano asked in response, but Takeo didn′t say anything more. I remained silent, starting at Mr. Nakano′s beard.


    And the chapter ends.

    I enjoyed reading this novel. The slow pace was relaxing, the characters quirky yet endearing, and the overall tone was funny and sweet. It was a nice palate cleanser between heavier books, and I have put the author′s most popular book, Strange Weather in Tokyo, on my wish list.

    183kidzdoc
    apr 19, 2021, 1:43 pm

    Nice review of The Nakano Thrift Shop, Lisa. I do want to read Strange Weather in Tokyo at some point.

    I'm glad that I influenced you to buy Being Mortal. I look forward to your thoughts about it.

    184cushlareads
    apr 22, 2021, 1:17 am

    Hi Lisa,

    I've found your thread at last - I was here in January then vanished with a large dose of real life. Have just started a 2021 thread and nearly plonked it over here, but decided to stick with the 75 group again because that's where I've always been.

    So nice to read that you could get back to some real life bookshops in March. I have almost forgotten what lockdown felt like - we are so lucky and taking a lot of normality for granted. There was one day last April (during our Level 4, extremely shutdown, lockdown) when I walked up to Marsden Books and just took a photo of their window to feel better.

    I had never heard of The Girl with Seven Names till today, when I saw it in the local op shop (um, word blank...charity shop?) on my walk. In an act of extreme virtuousness I didn't buy it. I'm trying so hard to stick to library books and e-books. Then I opened your thread and found a whole discussion about it, so I'll go back tomorrow and get it!

    185labfs39
    apr 22, 2021, 2:38 pm

    >183 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. Although as one reviewer said, nothing happens in Nakano Thrift Shop, I enjoyed it. The understated humor worked for me.

    186labfs39
    apr 22, 2021, 2:45 pm

    >184 cushlareads: Hi Cushla! I'm so glad you stopped by. I looked for you both here and in the 75 group a couple of times and was sad not to find you. I will go there next and star your thread. I hope since you are back on LT, things are looking up for you.

    You are lucky indeed to live where you do during the pandemic. I heard on the news that New Zealand and Australia are forming a travel bubble. Nice. We Americans are not wanted in anyone's bubble, and I don't blame them.

    How serendipitous about The Girl with Seven Names! I think you are meant to read that book. ;-)

    187cushlareads
    apr 22, 2021, 8:57 pm

    Hi Lisa,

    Yes I am now the happy owner of The Girl with Seven Names - bought it for $4 this morning after my walk and coffee + cheese scone (hmmm can you tell it's school holidays?). Will let you know when I start it. The only book I've read about North Korea is Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick, which I really liked. And I've just finished Pachinko about 4 years after the rest of the reading world, after I found Min Jin Lee on Twitter. Have you read it? I really liked most of it, and learnt heaps about the Korean migration to Japan and the community there.

    Things here are ok. My Dad is really sick with terminal cancer, which is one of the reasons I haven't been on here much - not that I am really doing that much to help him and Mum. They are just always there in my head. But Dad has just moved into permanent care last week, which seems to have given him more energy and enthusiasm for life, even though he is very tired. And school is good but very busy during term time, even though I've cut my hours a bit this year because of Dad. I'm still flat out when I'm there, but less crazy outside of school hours, and I'm trying to read more and go for lots of walks. I know being back on LT is good for me!

    188Trifolia
    apr 23, 2021, 4:51 am

    Excellent review of The Nakano Thrift Shop, but probably not the sort of book I'd go out of my way for. Or maybe I would if I were in the mood for "vignette-like" literature which I sometimes am.
    I sometimes wonder if there is a book that I (or whoever) would like to read in all times and circumstances. I often find myself in the mood for plot-driven stories sometimes, sometimes character-driven stories, sometimes I prefer style over substance, sometimes I prefer psychology, humor, atmosphere, ... But would there be a common denominator that brings everything together? I suspect that my favorite books score high on all these characteristics and that is why I like them so much. But why are the algorithms that give recommendations so often wrong? I suspect that those algorithms take too little account of the quality of the books. Maybe it's a matter of getting the right book at the right time because I think I liked some books because I read them at a specific time, while I just didn't like similar ones another time.
    Or would there be an intrinsic quality that makes us always enjoy reading certain books because they resonate with one's personality?
    What do you think?

    189labfs39
    apr 23, 2021, 8:38 am

    >187 cushlareads: I too really liked Nothing to Envy. I was thinking of a reread, but since it was published eleven (!) years ago, and I'm wondering if it might be dated. Perhaps there is something more recent? As for Pachinko, well, that's a book bullet. For some reason I thought it was about a guy in a huge house that wanders around looking for other people or something. Perhaps it's a book with a similar name? In any case, I was avoiding it for that reason. Off to find a copy today. I see Apple TV is making a K-drama of it, starring Lee Minho. Interesting. During covid, I started watching k-dramas, and I even know who Lee Minho is. Lol

    I'm really glad you are back on LT!

    190labfs39
    apr 23, 2021, 8:56 am

    >188 Trifolia: Excellent, thought-provoking questions, Monica. I'm going to keep thinking about them, but my first reaction is that my mood is the biggest predictor of whether I will like something. Sometimes I wander around and nothing seems to suit, other times I have piles of books I want to read right away. But even then, I will pick and choose depending on how I feel. That is why I can't plan my reading. At all. And why I rarely join group reads. I think it's also why I sometimes give a high rating to a mediocre book—it suited my mood at the moment.

    That said, I am drawn to certain genres of books, although that's not exactly what you are getting at. It's easy to say, I like WWII memoirs, translated fiction, espionage novels. It's harder to pinpoint intrinsic characteristics like concise writing or strong characters*, although those are two that popped to mind. My favorite books are ones that take me outside of myself, so much so that I lose track of the real world, and it takes me a minute to reorient once I stop reading. I'm not sure what does that for me, but I'll keep thinking.

    *I dislike weak characters who get the strong partner based on their what? Mediocrity? Bridget Jones comes to mind.

    191Trifolia
    apr 24, 2021, 2:26 pm

    >190 labfs39: - Indeed, I can relate to what you say. Group reading is also not for me and planning does not work for me either. It has proven to be the best way to make sure I won't read the book.
    I also recognize myself in being drawn to certain genres, although your choices are not mine (strangely enough :-)). I also enjoy books that take me out of myself, but my focus is on a solid story and strong characters (good or bad). And I hear you on weak characters. Unless their weakness is an intrinsic part of the way the character is portrayed, but I guess then it's not a weak character but a flawed one.
    I guess we have to keep on reading to define our preferences :-)

    192labfs39
    apr 25, 2021, 7:18 am

    >191 Trifolia: And yet we read and like so many of the same books. An interesting venn diagram

    193torontoc
    apr 25, 2021, 7:50 am

    Ah, weak characters1 I really don't like main characters who do something incredibly stupid in order to advance the plot of the book! I have stopped reading a few books because of this.

    194Trifolia
    apr 25, 2021, 1:31 pm

    >192 labfs39: - Venn diagrams... that's been a while :-)

    195labfs39
    apr 26, 2021, 1:18 pm

    I received my first early reviewer book from LT today, the first since Nov 2019. I'll start it as soon as I finish Dora Bruder.



    The Note through the Wire: The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine by Doug Gold

    It's the fictionalized account of a WWII Yugoslav partisan fighter, Josefine Lobnik, and a POW solider from New Zealand, Bruce Murray. The author is from Wellington.

    196labfs39
    Bewerkt: apr 28, 2021, 2:08 pm



    Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano, translated from the French by Joanna Kilmartin
    Published 1999, 119 p.

    Five years after publishing Dora Bruder, Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is renowned for his atmospheric writing, especially of the streets and neighborhoods of Paris, and for exploring issues related to WWII and the German occupation of France. His writing often blends memoir, archival material, and fiction. Dora Bruder is an exemplar of all that makes Modiano distinctive.

    In 1988 Modiano read a small missing persons ad in a 1941 Paris newspaper and became obsessed with finding out what happened to the girl. Dora Bruder was fifteen years old when she ran away from her Catholic boarding school. Her parents placed the ad after going to the police, a dangerous thing to do in 1941 Paris when you are Jewish and non-French. Piecing together the fragments of her story from police reports, maps, old photographs, and the dossiers kept on Jews, Modiano recreates a time and place that is both specific and universal. Interwoven with her story is his own. He grew up walking the same streets she did, he too was taken to the police station in a Black Maria, and his father was nearly deported for not wearing the mandated Star of David in 1942, the same year Dora′s father was. The result is a metafiction where the author is as much a part of the story as the protagonist.

    I find the experience of reading Modiano to be like reading with cotton balls in your head. Everything is slightly blurry with a muffled quality that makes me want to whisper. It′s a singular experience that leaves me unsure as to whether I liked the book or if that′s even the point. Others are much less vague in their reviews, and I would invite you to read Baswood′s for a much more eloquent one.

    Edited to fix baswood's name

    197stretch
    apr 26, 2021, 11:00 pm

    >168 labfs39: >170 labfs39: and >182 labfs39: Been neglectful lately, so many good reviews and books to catch up on. Certainly want to get to some of these soon.

    198labfs39
    apr 26, 2021, 11:35 pm

    >193 torontoc: Thanks for stopping by, Cyrel. I've been meaning to tell you that the lists on your profile of your favorite books is a treasure trove of book bullets for me. As I read through I'm either nodding in agreement or thinking I should get a copy. I'm glad for my sake that you take the time to type those lists!

    >194 Trifolia: I hope you had a relaxing weekend, Monica. Back to the grind, although hopefully with a little lighter workload?

    >197 stretch: Have you read anything by Hiromi Kawakami yet, Kevin? I enjoyed Nakano Thrift Shop, but found it hard to convey, even with excerpts, why it was humorous. I definitely want to read more of her work.

    199rachbxl
    apr 27, 2021, 5:19 am

    >170 labfs39: I was already tempted by your review of Moon of the Crusted Snow...but then when I read your memories about your childhood in Maine (which answers a question I just asked you somewhere else!), I was sold. And what do you know? My library had an e-book available so I borrowed it.

    200avaland
    apr 28, 2021, 11:30 am

    >174 labfs39: ha ha (re: the sign)

    >175 labfs39: Great haul. You deserve as many books as you are allowed on your budget.

    >190 labfs39: I'm with you; these days I choose my reading according to my mood. I usually have at least three different books ongoing at any time. One is usually a nonfiction. And one book is usually a bedtime book which is usually a novel. I also may have a volume of poetry or volume of short stories ongoing. It certainly wasn't always so, but it's how I live now in retirement.

    >196 labfs39: I love that last paragraph! I think it made my morning! (I read it out loud to the hubby, too)

    201baswood
    apr 28, 2021, 1:40 pm

    >196 labfs39: Thank you for the reference. I have also read La petite Bijou by Modiano fairly recently and the atmosphere is very similar. I like your idea of reading with cotton balls in your head when reading Modiano: that's a good simile.

    202labfs39
    apr 29, 2021, 7:44 am

    >199 rachbxl: I hope you like it when you get to it, Rachel. I don't read a lot of dystopian novels, but every once in a while they hit the spot.

    >200 avaland: I envy the ability to keep several books going simultaneously. I've often thought that it makes sense to alternate between a novel, nonfiction, and collection as the mood strikes. Unfortunately I rarely manage it. I tend to focus on one thing at a time or else I don't finish everything. I've learned to even write the review before I start another book, or else that doesn't get done either. One track mind I guess.

    >201 baswood: I like your review of La petite bijou, Baswood. The only other Modiano I've read is Suspended Sentences. From what I gather, his style is distinctive and pervasive throughout his oeuvre. Like you, I wanted a map of Paris beside me as I read, although I wanted two, modern day and 1940s, as he talks about neighborhoods that no longer exist.

    203avaland
    apr 29, 2021, 8:27 am

    >202 labfs39: I used to write a review immediately after I've finished a book, but things get backed up these days....

    204kidzdoc
    apr 29, 2021, 9:26 am

    Nice review of Dora Bruder, Lisa. I purchased my copy of it in London, which is titled The Search Warrant. Based on your comments I'll look for it and read it soon.

    205labfs39
    apr 30, 2021, 7:56 am

    >203 avaland: In a new resolution, I'm trying to not panic if I need to skip reviewing a book in order to keep moving. The completist in me gasps at the thought, but I experimented with skipping a book, The True Deceiver, and discovered the world didn't end.

    206labfs39
    apr 30, 2021, 9:50 am

    >204 kidzdoc: When I was looking at the reviews already on LT for Dora Bruder, I was surprised to see five reviews by the same person, all five star. I wondered how he managed to publish so many reviews of the same book, but come to find out he has fourteen editions and could review each. He really loves that book!

    207labfs39
    apr 30, 2021, 7:56 pm



    The Note Through the Wire: The Incredible True Story of a Prisoner of War and a Resistance Heroine by Doug Gold
    Published 2019, 325 p.

    Bruce Murray is a twenty-five year-old ANZAC soldier who is captured after a battle in Greece and interred in a German POW camp in Slovenia. Josefine Lobnik is an eighteen-year-old Slovene partisan, ferrying documents and weapons across the Austrian border and helping escaped Allies. They first meet when she passes a note through the camp fence seeking information about her missing brother. The two meet again when Bruce is a forced laborer on her cousin′s farm, and they fall in love. The story is both a familiar wartime love story and something a bit different, and I think the difference is in how it is told.

    ″A story can be interesting, but the way in which it is told determines whether it enthralls the reader and does justice to the subject,″ writes Doug Gold in his acknowledgments, and in The Note through the Wire, I think he succeeds. He starts with the dashing story of how Bruce and Josefine meet. Bruce′s story includes best mates, daring escapes, and derring-do. Josefine′s includes a family of partisans, heroic deeds, and defiance even when tortured. It could easily have become a caricature, an over-the-top swashbuckler. But in Gold′s hands it becomes the story of two people, whom you might meet at a pub and swap stories with over a pint. Nothing too heavy or maudlin, a little righteous indignation, a few jokes and exaggerated swagger. The result is a story that feels intimate, yet not all-knowing.

    The author was privy to Bruce and Josefine′s stories, as well as those of other family members, because he was their son-in-law. The anecdotes he heard over the years lend vivacity, and he corroborates what he can with primary sources. But the story remains theirs, as they experienced and remember it. In this way, I think Gold succeeds in writing an enthralling story that does justice to its subjects. It′s a warm family story that kept me turning the pages, and a glimpse into their sliver of the war on the Slovenian-Austrian border.

    208AlisonY
    mei 1, 2021, 4:54 am

    >196 labfs39: Interested in Dora Bruder too - I'm intrigued by the writing.

    209lisapeet
    mei 1, 2021, 9:01 am

    >196 labfs39: I have a number of books by Modiano, and since cotton balls in my head is a pretty usual state I might like them, eh? Dora Bruder sounds interesting too, thanks.

    210stretch
    mei 3, 2021, 10:39 am

    >198 labfs39: I read a single short story of hers in a colection a long time ago, I've kept her on my to read list. It was so delightfully werid so I'm excited to read some of her longer works.

    211torontoc
    mei 3, 2021, 5:33 pm

    >198 labfs39: Thank you! I wrote out those lists to remind me of the books that I really liked. I found that listing my books on LT helps me remember what I had read and what I liked.

    212labfs39
    mei 8, 2021, 11:44 am

    >208 AlisonY: I liked Dora Bruder more than Suspended Sentences, but perhaps that was influenced by my ambivalence toward short stories.

    >209 lisapeet: Lol. I'll be curious to see what you think when you get to them, Lisa.

    >210 stretch: I enjoyed Nakano Thrift Shop and look forward to reading more by Kawakami.

    >211 torontoc: I have definitely come to rely on LT as a memory keeper.

    213avaland
    mei 9, 2021, 5:49 am

    >205 labfs39: Yes, I have discovered that also. Usually, I will get around to them sooner or later.
    Dit onderwerp werd voortgezet door Labfs39 resumes reading and reviewing in 2021, Part 2.