Nickelini's Category Challenge 2021

I'm back again this year with an assortment of categories-- most of which I've done before. I guess I know what I like. This thread is a bit of a copy of the opening pages of my physical book bullet journal, and that's my main record-keeping spot. I've also added the lists from my bingo cards.

My main thread is over at the Club Read 2021 group

Just parking this here for now (countries I've physically visited)


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

MEMOIRS


1. Theft By Finding
2. Beyond the Pale
3. Food Floor
4. One More Croissant For the Road
5. Why Should I Learn to Speak Italian
6. In Other Words
7. On Being Ill

CANLIT - Canadian books


1. Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice (First Nations)
2. The Better Mother Jen SookfongLee (Chinese Canadians)
3. Bride of New France, Suzanne Desrochers (Quebec history)
4. We All Fall Down, Daniel Kalla (medical thriller)
5. Feminist City, Leslie Kern (non-fiction)
6. Wildlives, Monique Proulx (Quebec literature, translated)
7. Wave, Eric Walters (middle school adventure)
8. All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews (contemporary, Mennonite)
9. Haunted, Barbara Haworth-Attard (middle school suspense)

SO SWITZERLAND


1. Happisland
2. Fantasviss
3. Volatile Texts: Us Two
4. On the Edge
5. Sanatorium
6. Castle in the Clouds

FRANCE


1. The Chalet, Catherine Cooper
2. Whatever, Michel Houellebecq
3. Bride of New France, Suzanne Desrochers
4. One More Croissant For the Road
5. The Godmother, Hannelore Cayre
6. Devil's Cloth, Michel Pasoureau

FAIRYTALES, ETC.


1. There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
2. A Fairy Tale, Jonas Bengtsson
3. Hansel and Greta, Jeanette Winterson
4. A Castle in the Clouds, Kerstin Gier
5. The Wolf's Secret

BOOK CLUB


1. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
2. Passing, Nella Larson
3. Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
4. Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton
5. Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller

NON-FICTION


1. The Lost Spell, Robert MacFarlane (touchstone goes to the wrong Robert MacFarlane book)
2. The Weather Detective, Peter Wohlleben
3. Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power, Ross King
4. Feminist City, Leslie Kern
5. Imaginary Homelands, Salman Rushdie
6. Fluent Forever, Gabriel Wyner
7. Devil's Cloth, Michel Pastoureau

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD


1. Alpine Cooking: Recipes and Stories from Europe's Grand Mountaintops, Meredith Erickson
2. One More Croissant For the Road, Felicity Cloake

ALWAYS ITALY


Civita di Bagnoregio, between Rome & Florence. I visited in 2009

Venice Rising: Aqua Granda, Pandemic, Rebirth; various
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio
Dreaming of Italy, TA Williams
Garden of Monsters, Lorenza Pieri
Un Giorno Diverso, Matteo Dominci

TRANSLATED WORKS - not listed elsewhere



1. The Gilded Cage, Camilla Lackberg (Swedish)
2. Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, Dimitri Verhulst (Dutch)
3. The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa (Japanese)
4. Anxious People, Fredrik Backman (Swedish)
5. The Emissary, Yoko Tawada (Japanese)

NEW TO ME (new books, new topics) - not listed elsewhere


25th Anniversary Bridget Jones's Diary (And Other Writing)
Bitter Orange, Claire Fuller
The Wanderer, Peter Van den Ende
The Baby is Mine, Oyinkan Braithwaite
Dreaming of Christmas, TA Williams
Murder Most Festive, Ada Moncrieff

BIG BOOKS books that are physically large, not necessarily long



1. The End of Her, Sheri Lapena
2. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley
3. How to Build a Girl, Caitlin Moran
4. Anxious People, Backman
5. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton

BINGO

I created 2 cards for myself (based on my interests), that I track in my physical book bullet journal. Here are the lists of questions:

Card One
1. Written by female Italian author A Girl Returned
2. A physically large book - Theft By Finding
3. A bird on the cover - The Lost Spells
4. Set in BC or author from BC - Food Floor: My Woodwards Years
5. Set in a place I’ve never visited - Dunger (New Zealand, but one day I'll get there . . . )
6. My British women
7. A classic - The Last September
8. About food - One More Croissant For the Road
9. By, or about, Virginia Woolf - On Being Ill
10. Features a forest - Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill
11. Author named Penelope
12. Snow on the cover - The Hunting Party
13. Book published the year I left school - Portobello
14. Set in a country house - The Likeness
15. An Asian author - The Better Mother
16. A retelling - b>Foe
17. From my TBR - The Weather Detective
18. Romance - Dreaming of Italy
19. Features a murder - Six Stories
20. Virago
21. Has a place name in the title - The Essex Serpent
22. A gorgeous cover - The Wanderer
23. 1001 list - Whatever
24. Set in Australia

Card Two
1. A short story collection - There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband and He Hanged Himself
2. Book club – selected by someone else - The Vanishing Half
3. Animal in the title or on the cover - Castle in the Clouds
4. Features bees or beekeepers - Here Is The Beehive
5. Read a book in Italian - Un Giorno Diverso
6. Memoir written by a woman - Beyond the Pale
7. Mid-century modern - The Crysalids
8. Bought in 2021 - Venice Rising
9. Written between 1882 & 1941
10. Set on an island (not Britain or Ireland) -Happisland (Iceland)
11. Author named Sarah - Sanatorium
12. Set during spring - Mothering Sunday
13. Historical fiction- Bride of New France
14. Set in the Alps -The Chalet
15. Translated from French - the Godmother
16. Fairytale, myth, - Hansel & Greta
17. I’ve owned over 10 yrs - Housekeeper & the Professor
18. Bildungsroman - Purple Hibiscus
19. An intriguing title - Moon of the Crusted Snow
20. Europa Editions - Peace Talks
21. Book cover in one colour - How to Build a Gril
22. An ugly cover - The Italian Matchmaker
23. Over 400 pages long -Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
24. One word title - Passing

Lines
1st. May - 13 / 20 lines; 44 squares

Hi, Joyce. I'm looking forward to following along on your 2021 reading journey.

I like your idea of making up your own bingo card. I may have to borrow that idea.

>16 dudes22:

I did it after I looked at about a dozen book Bingo cards and all of them had too many squares that I'd never check off in a million years of reading. "A middle school novel that includes a baseball game," "a science fiction novel where the aliens can read minds," etc.

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy your reading this year.

Have a wonderful time with your 2021 reading!

I love the idea of creating your own bingo cards. Enjoy your reading!

I also like the idea of creating your own bingo cards! Looking forward to seeing what makes the cut for the "ugly cover" square on card 2. Well, also looking forward to seeing the "gorgeous cover" on card 1, but sometimes ugly covers are so bad they're good! Have a great reading year :)

Lovely to find your thread and wishing you Happy New Year, Joyce! I am looking forward to following your 2021 reading.

>17 Nickelini: Wow, those are very specific topics!

Happy New Year! Popping in to follow a few people's threads, but I'm afraid there may be too many to keep up. So, I may or may not continue throughout the year! Happy reading!

The Lost Spells, Robert MacFarlane, illustrations by Jackie Morris, 2020


cover comments: gorgeous

Comments: A stunningly beautiful book with some poetry, all about the natural world, and leaning toward the British and the wintery. I was lukewarm on MacFarlane's prose but the illustrations by Jackie Morris were outstanding



Recommended for readers of all ages who enjoy nature and physically beautiful books

Rating: 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: seemed like the perfect book to read on a rainy New Year's Day

I've seen Lost Spells and agree that the illustrations are great. Best wishes for a fine reading year!

What a beautiful book! It looks absolutely gorgeous!

I keep a physical book journal, too, it's mainly for the dates when I read a book and for beautiful quotes.

>25 Nickelini: "I was lukewarm on MacFarlane's prose but the illustrations by Jackie Morris were outstanding"

This was exactly my reaction to their earlier book The Lost Words.

Welcome back! Good luck with your personal Bingo cards, that's a great idea!

BINGO: Has a place in the title

The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry, 2016


cover comments: Gorgeous perfection How can you go wrong with using William Morris elements for a late Victorian era novel? There were a few copies at the used bookstore and I found the most pristine. And then got home to find that I'd spilled half a bottle of Perrier on it in the bag, and so my copy is rather wibbly and not in any condition to ever display on a shelf.

Comments: An intricate historical novel set in the late Victorian period. (Sorry, I had a death in my family today and I'm just not up to giving a book report on this. Maybe I'll come back later and add one).

Rating 4 stars. Excellent structure, excellent writing, great exploration of themes. But the story was not really what I'm personally interested in at the moment, and so overly long for me.

Why I Read This Now: I recently noticed that the book started on New Year's Eve, and I needed a book to start on December 31st.

Recommended for: people who want to read well-written historical fiction set in the late Victorian period. It reminded me of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. It also reminded me of Once Upon a River, which I slogged through last January, but the Essex Serpent is a much better book.

>30 Nickelini: I'm so sorry that you've had a family loss. I'll keep you and your family in my thoughts.

>30 Nickelini: I am sorry to hear about the loss in your family, Joyce. That is one gorgeous book cover!

>31 scaifea:, >32 DeltaQueen50:

Thanks, I appreciate it.

>32 DeltaQueen50:
Judy, I can't remember what groups you're on but I finally read Dunger, which has been at the top of my massive TBR pile for too many years. It was just the right book for the right time, so thank you! I just posted about it on my main thread - ClubRead2021, and also the ROOTS group. I can't figure out how to fit it into my category challenge.

>33 Nickelini: I am glad that you enjoyed Dunger, Joyce. It's always good to have a couple of those lighter works on the pile to give one a break from the more serious tomes.

Happisland: A Short But Not Too Brief Tale of a Swiss Spy in Iceland, C.H. Roserens, 2015


cover comments: fits the book well

Fantasviss, C.H. Roserens, 2019


cover of the comments: sure, this works

Thank you Thorold for recently introducing me to these two very short books.

Comments: The Swiss government is horrified to have lost their "top quality of life" status to Iceland and so send Hans-Ueli Stauffacher XXI (who had served admirably in Samoa, among other places) as an undercover agent to discover what Iceland is doing better. Told in monthly letters to his mother, he reports that Iceland beats Switzerland with it's tax-payer funded healthcare system, more generous parental leave, and superior status of women and LGBT people.

Three years later, Switzerland has regained its top status, and in Fantasviss, Sigmundur Sig Sigmundsson (of the Icelandic LGBT and Culture Ministry) takes a whirlwind tour of the 26 Swiss cantons. He finds that food in Switzerland is far superior, and also their excellent rail system.

These are both told in a manner that is both humorous and mostly factual (in spirit, anyway). So much fun.

Why I Read These Now: too much fun and too short not to read as soon as they arrived at my door. I'm looking for European books that are lighter than the stuff I've been reading.

Recommended for: on top of what I've already said here, I also thihk Happisland is a fun look at Iceland for someone planning their first trip there; Fantasviss doesn't quite do the same thing for Switzerland although it gives a basic outline of the 26 cantons.

Rating: Both 4.5 stars

The Gilded Cage, Camilla Lackberg, 2019, translated from Swedish by Neil Smith


cover comments: it's fine. The sliced feather is symbolic to the title. There's a language book designers use so that shoppers will have an idea of what type of book they are getting. The book browser will instantly know this is a suspence, thriller, crime or mystery book by the colour combination with the large sans-serif text, and the title and author name taking up almost the same amount of space. I never find these covers particularly arty, but they do express their purpose.

Rating: Well . . . I read this in three sittings over two days, and I did say I was looking for more translated fiction that was fun and compelling, and I particularly wanted to read recent books written by women. So 4 stars. However, when I read 2 star reviews I have to agree with every criticism they offer. But it was the book I needed now, so I'll still give it 4 stars even if it might not be warranted.

Comments: Faye is married to a successful businessman. They live in a spectacular huge apartment in Stockholm's best neighbourhood, and they have a perfect young daughter. In alternating bits, we see her life, we see 15 years ago when she first came to the city and met her friends and husband, and occasionally we see her buried abusive past as a teenager in a village on the west coast of Sweden. And then half-way through the novel, everything caves in for Faye and she plots her revenge. This was a fun, compelling read and the writing was good. I liked the Stockholm setting, and I liked her friendships with Kirsten and Chris.

Right on the front cover, it says "Trapped in a perfect life . . . she would kill to be free." Yes, that is mostly true. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised the the main character, Faye, actually isn't a great person. It's clearly written for her to be sympathetic, but really, when she's awful, she's sociopathic. Yes, her perfect husband was a vile narcissist who deserved his comeuppance, but she went over-overboard. Also, main plot points were improbable, although I can play along with it because this is fiction-for-entertainment. And I guessed the two twists at the end, but that's okay too. The main problem was that the heroine wasn't a heroine.

Apparently there's a sequel coming that's been published in Sweden? I might read it.

This is the sort of book that would be made into a movie, and I'd watch it when it came on some streaming service and it wouldn't make sense to my husband-who-hasn't-read-the-book and would be sort of lousy but okay. And if they moved the setting to the US it would be dreadful.

Why I Read This Now: Oh loads of reasons. One being that I bought a stack of suspence-thriller-psychological thriller-mystery novels at the end of 2020. I usually read only one or two of this genre a year, but I'd like to read more. I don't even know the difference between all of those. This wasn't a murder mystery, but what was it?

I don't know anyone who has read this book and I stumbled on it online. Probably an Instagram post by the publisher.

Recommended for: Appparently the Gilded Cage won the Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2020 - Mysteries & Thrillers category. Kirkus is generally a tough marker, so I think that says something. Lots of 5 star rave reviews by readers online. If this sounds like your thing, go for it. Trigger warning for domestic abuse and also there are quite a few graphic sex scenes.

I have a couple of Camilla Lackberg books from her police procedural series on my stack so I won't rush out and get The Gilded Cage, but I am taking note of it.

>37 DeltaQueen50:

I saw quite a few comments from readers who didn't think this compared to her police procedural series

The End of Her, Shari Lapena, 2020


cover comments: oh look, it's a cover for a crime-suspense-mystery-or-thriller. I don't think clever or arty is the goal with these

Why I Read This Book Now: After the last thriller I read, I tried a couple of other books, but they didn't work on any level, so I picked up this one from my new stack of thrillers.

Comments: Stephanie and Patrick haven't had a decent sleep in months because they are struggling with four month old colicky twins. But other than that, they are living a perfect life in their fictional upstate New York small town. And then evil Erica arrives and demands $200 thousand dollars or she gives the police evidence that Patrick's first wife didn't die in an accident. Patrick can explain everything, but Erica can too, and she's very convincing. There are two subplots where Erica is trying to blackmail other people too.

Suspense and tension are what readers look for in books like this, and The End of Her certainly delivers. With each chapter, new complications up the stakes. The couple aren't making good decisions due to their chronic sleep deprivation. Lots of fun to read.

I didn't think the big twist at the end was in character, and the resolution on the last few pages was a bit of a cop out. Also, Stephanie and Patrick had the money to hire a nanny to give them some relief, and that's what normal people would have done, so this whole mess could have been averted. Finally, the young-white-American-family-suburban setting was a big yawn for me (give me a creepy house in Scotland or sophisticated Stockholm like in my previous two thrillers Turn of the Key and The Gilded Cage). Despiste that, this was a still a worthwhile, entertaining few hours.

Recommended for: a reader looking for an entertianing few hours

Rating: 3.5 stars, which in my books is solidly good but not special

QUESTION: This far into the 20th century, does a Canadian author still have to set her novels in the US in order to make $$? Are all of Lapena's novels set in the States?

Alpine Cooking: Recipes and Stories from Europe’s Grand Mountaintops, Meredith Erickson, 2019


Cover comments: On one hand this is a lovely picture, and iconically “Alps”; on the other hand, a picture of the Matterhorn is cliché. But then the Alps are full of clichés, and the Matterhorn is indeed beautiful, so I guess it’s good enough. I want to add that this is a BIG book – only 350 pages, but it’s 8”x11’ and weighs 2 kilos (4.4 lbs). Every page has interesting photos by Christina Holmes. There are full page maps of each country with all the restaurants and places mentioned. Overall, this book is GORGEOUS.

I thought that Stanley Tucci praising this book was a bit odd – I know he was wonderful as Julia Child’s husband in Julie and Julia, but I didn’t know that was a qualification to write book blurbs. Silly me. Since then, I’ve learned that Tucci has written several books on food and has an upcoming series on CNN where he travels foodie sights of Italy. (Did I mention I adore Stanley Tucci?)

Comments: This is a long post, but I’ve been reading this book for two months and there’s a lot to say.

I bought this thinking it was a beautiful cook book, but then realized it’s equally as much a travel book. Meredith Erickson, a food writer from Montreal, has spent many summers and winters enjoying the outdoor life in the Alps, and enjoying even more the cuisine found at mountain huts, chalets, and hotels. She focuses only on Italy, Austria, Switzerland and France (no Liechtenstein, Bavarian Germany, or Slovenia – the last is supposed to have amazing cuisine, but that’s another book). It’s divided into sections for each of these four countries.

The Recipes: Erickson includes a variety of recipes, from somewhat traditional to eclectic, that she gathered visiting foodie sites in the Alps. There is an abundance of carbs, dairy, and meat.

She rates each recipe using the European ski pistes system – blue for easy, red for medium or intermediate difficulty, and black for expert. I’m a confident cook, but I don’t think there is one black-diamond (as we call it in North America) that I’m even interested in trying. They all include boujee ingredients, equipment and techniques that don’t interest me. The intermediate recipes have some “maybe I’ll try that sometime” recipes, but there are a lot of the so-called easy ones that I’m all over. I’ve made the “Herdsman Macaroni” (traditionally known as Alpermagronen) a few times and I prefer it to the recipe I’ve been using from my Swiss cookbook.

My daughter who has lived in Switzerland for three years rolled her eyes at most of the recipes: “I guess you’d find this at a fancy hotel.”

One recipe that I’ve looked at several times in puzzlement: “A Proper Bullshot,” which is a stolen recipe for the official club drink from the St Moritz Tobogganing Club (founded 1887). It’s a cocktail that’s made from “Van Hoo” vodka (sorry, pleb that I am, don’t know this brand); Campbell’s beef consommé, lemon juice, Tabasco, Lea & Perrins, horseradish, celery salt, and pepper. This grossed me out the first 12 times I read it, but then I realized it was just soup with vodka added to it, which isn’t so terribly awful. Except it’s served cold. Still makes me shudder.

The Travel: The Alps travel parts are equal to the recipes. The author loves to bike and hike in summer, and ski in winter. I knew you couldn’t drive from Italy into Switzerland at the Matterhorn, but you CAN ski there. Who knew? Travel by downhill ski, what a concept. Anyway, lots of yummy travel detail, including asides about helpful wine and cheese info, hotels and restaurants to visit, “Bond in the Alps,” and more. Looks like there are some great travel ideas here. If it’s ever safe to travel again, I’ll look into them.

The Problem: Sigh. It’s a letdown when basic facts are wrong. For me, it destroys an author’s credibility. Here are two egregious examples:

“One apt location to actually see and feel this is Ticino’s village of Lavertezzo, a rocky chasm of a valley where the Verzasca runs down from Alps thousands of miles in the north . . . One afternoon while having a simple lunch on the rocky bank of Verzasca, I followed the river as far west as my eyes could see. . . .” I was at this spot in 2019, so I can picture it easily, but I struggle to understand what she’s saying. Am I reading this wrong? Is it me? But no, the river’s source isn’t one thousand miles away, and the far side of the Alps is barely one hundred miles away. And as for gazing at the river disappearing to the west . . . well, it runs north-to-south, and bends slightly rather frequently, so I suppose her gaze was all of 30 feet?

And then in the Switzerland intro she said there are 25 cantons (no, 26) and “eight lay in the path of the Alps: Bern, the Valais, Vaud, St Gallen, Uri, Appenzell, Ticion, and Braubunden.” To which I immediately scribbled in the margin, “Lucerne, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Schwyz, Zug, Glarus” and then Googled it. LOL- No, it’s not 8, it’s 17. Seriously? DO YOU NOT HAVE AN EDITOR? These are such simple mistakes to avoid.

Another reader reviewer made similar comments about her section on France. I don’t know the French Alps so can’t comment but I’m not surprised. This sort of nonsense just trashes an author and publisher’s credibility for me. If I notice this, what else is wrong? I know facts are out of style, but some readers still care. Despite my disgust at these errors, I still loved the rest of the book.

Why I Read This Now: I’ve owned this for almost a year, and had made a couple of the recipes, but then I started taking a close look at it in December and realized it was actually a book worth reading cover-to-cover

Rating: Such a 5 star book. But I have to deduct at least 1 star for errors of fact that were unacceptable. 4 stars

Recommended for: you know who you are. Alpine Cooking would make a lovely gift for the Alpine-lover-who-is-also-a-foodie in your life.

>39 Nickelini: I've enjoyed The Couple Next Door and An Unwanted Guest, but I agree with you: The setting/character background becomes a bit repetitive, and I don't understand why she doesn't write stories set in Canada. I found both novels really gripping, though!
I have A Stranger in the House waiting on my shelf, but I don't know when I'll get to it. Right now I'm not in the mood for thrillers!

>39 Nickelini: QUESTION: This far into the 20th century, does a Canadian author still have to set her novels in the US in order to make $$? Are all of Lapena's novels set in the States?

That's a good question. I always wondered why Linwood Barclay sets all his in the US, too. :-(

Moon of the Crusted Snow, Waubgeshig Rice, 2018


cover comments: I love this -- it's atmospheric and I love the typeface and how the title takes up the whole space. If I were designing it, I'd probably actually shown a moon, but maybe that's too obvious

I don't know why I had never heard of this book here in Canada, but I learned about it from one of my favourite BookTubers, who is British. I was immediately drawn to the evocative title, and she made it sound interesting.

Comments: Moon of the Crusted Snow opens with Evan Whitsky field dressing a moose as he prepares for a long winter in northwestern Ontario. He's part of a rez community where many are trying to regain some of their traditional First Nations ways and create a balance with modern conveniences. When he arrives home, he finds out that the satellite TV had gone down. Followed by cell phone reception and hydro power. It's inconvenient, but disruptions are not rare in this isolated community. Then winter blows in, and eventually they learn that something has gone very wrong in the south. And then visitors begin to arrive . . .

I dislike a feeling of dread when I read a book, and I had to put this aside a few times and read something else. But I quickly picked it up again each time. I found the ending to be satisfying.

Rating: All through this I thought it was a solid 4 star read, but the last 15 pages or so (after the last twist) I thought were particularly strong. In the end I'm giving this 4.5 stars. Highly recommended.

Recommended for: I think a dystopian novel written from an indiginous point-of-view could appeal to a wide variety of readers

>43 Nickelini: This sounds really intriguing and goes on my wishlist! Your comments really captured my interest.

>44 MissBrangwen:
I look forward to reading your comments if you read it. I struggled to say something interesting without giving too much away

>43 Nickelini: This has been on my library list for a while now, it certainly does sound interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

>46 DeltaQueen50:
Knowing what you like, I think you're going to enjoy this one too

Peace Talks, Tim Finch, 2019


cover comments: this captures the feel for the book -- ooooh, symbolism

Rating: 4.5 stars. I enjoyed the writing in this novel immensely. I"m not alone, as I've found many 5 star reader reviews online.

Comments: Edvard Behrends is a Norwegian-British diplomat leading a group to resolve a conficit between two unnamed Arabic-speaking factions, sequestered at a resort high in the Tyrolian Alps of Austria. The 171 page novel is told in Edvard's internal monologue to his wife. How he got to this place in life is told in bits, and details are gradually revealed. Peace Talks is both sad and humorous, full of subtle, beautiful passages that tell a story of loss and grief.

This doesn't sound like the kind of novel I'd hurry to pick up, but the Austrian Alpine setting drew me in, and the back story of the peace negotiations was unique and interesting.

Peace Talks is one of four books shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Award.

Why I Read This Now: I had heard so many good things about this, and I love books set in the Alps. And I like to try Europa Editions. I don't like everything they publish, but I find more hits than misses in their catalogue.

Recommended for: In this case it's easier to say who this book isn't for: people who want a strongly defined plot; readers who don't want to read yet another book about the thoughts of an older middle aged white man; readers who don't care for books that refer to other books and art; and readers who don't like books set in a privileged European world.

cover comments: vague photo image in neutral colour, all-caps text in vermillion: could this be a thriller? Why, yes! Also, the picture is fine, but my guess is that the designer read the description of the book but not the book itself, because what we can see of the hunting lodge looks traditional for Scottish Highlands (Balmoral, perhaps). However, in the book the "lodge" was a modernist all-glass building. So a bit of a fail there.

Comments: Every New Years, a group of nine 30-somethings of Oxford friends go away together to recreate their fun university parties. The problem is by December 30, 2018 is that they've mostly grown apart and have little in common with each other. Off they go to a private luxury hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands. From the beginning, we know that 3 days later, one of them has been murdered. It's very close to the end of the book before you find out who it was, although I guessed fairly early on, since there was one character who seemed to be the one that most of the other characters would want to murder. But that didn't spoil anything for me.

The Hunting Party is told in alternating chapters by three of the female guests, plus the lodge manager, Heather, and the gameskeeper, Doug. The premise is good, the setting is fabulous, but the characters are . . . well, at first I really disliked the chapters by the two employees. But then I got to know the guests a bit better, and they were all pretty terrible people. And as the story went on, I grew to like the manager and the gameskeeper. (BTW- I thought the names "Heather" and "Doug" for the two Scottish characters was a bit on the nose. Are there actually baby girls born in Scotland in the 80s named "Heather"? That seems like such a North American idea of a Scottish name for a girl. It's a perfectly nice name and I've known some wonderful Heathers, it just doesn't seem authentic. Please feel free to correct me if you're a Heather from Glasgow) *ETA that on my ClubRead thread, a friend searched it, and yes, Heather was the 31st most popular name for girls in 1985.

Recommended for: Readers looking for a thriller set in a wintery, isolated retreat.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Why I Read This Now: I've been enjoying thrillers lately -- a new genre for me. This one had a great setting

>49 Nickelini: This sounds like a perfect read for winter. It goes on my wish list!

>49 Nickelini: I've wondered how that one is. If I can get through the alternating narrators, it might be a good read. It's already on my TBR list, I believe.

Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, Dimitri Verhulst, 2006; translated from Dutch by David Comer, 2009


cover comments: This is rather nice. You can't go wrong with snowy forests on book covers, and the typeface is perfect. The "coming down the hill" event of the book, however, is set when Madame Verona is 82 years old. So I'm not sure what's with the young woman wearing that bizarre outfit. Maybe it's supposed to be symbolic or something.

I couldn't find a copy of this book from my usual Canadian sources, but Amazon.ca found me a copy from Blackwell's Books in Oxford -- a wonderful book shop that I hope to visit again someday

Comments: Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill, by Belgian author Dimitri Verhulst, is set in the diminishing isolated village of Oucwegne, and in meandering vignettes, tells of its quirky inhabitants. After each bit the book circled back to the widowed Madame Verona, living alone on the hill and remembering the love of her life, Monsieur Potter.

A quiet, unusual novel, written with interesting language that was often so convoluted that I had to reread sentences multiple times. Further, these sentences expressed things in a way that had never crossed my mind. Sometimes this was highly amusing, and other times it just made me scrunch my eyebrows. I think part of my problem with this was that I expected a different book and it took me a while to click with it.

Rating: Although I was unsure for much of the book, in the end I did really like this, and for the most part I appreciated the odd sentences. 4 stars.

Recommended for: I can promise you've never read a book quite like this before. Generally Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill gets high reader reviews. The few low-rating reviews are by readers who weren't in the mood to unravel the weird sentences or who are looking for a more narrative story.

Why I Read This Now: In early December I put all my books that seemed wintery on the top of my TBR pile. I noticed this one was set in February, so saved it for this month.

>52 Nickelini: You got me at quirky inhabitants! On my WL it goes.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of Submission. I'd already read Au Rebours/ Against the Grain by Huysmans, which was useful because Huysmans crops up a lot.

Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2004


cover comments: I love this cover. My edition is part of the limited Perennial Collection that Harper Perennial published in 2008. I own two others from the set of 15. The magenta colour of the flower and the text is foil, and the spine is the same magenta foil. Since I acquired this in 2012, I've taken up adult colouring books, and I'm very tempted to pull out my Faber-Castel collection and get to work on the black and white line drawing-- it would be fun to colour

Comments: Fifteen year old Kambili is the sheltered daughter of a wealthy Nigerian factory owner. She lives, along with her brother Jaja and her mother, under the tyrannical control of his fanatical Catholic ideology-- this man is desperately trying to out-pious any pope. Eugene is beloved by the community for his generosity and integrity, but at home he punishes the slightest infraction of his rules. This is set against the political turmoil of mid-80s Nigeria. Kambili catches a break and goes to stay with her much poorer aunt and cousins, and their home, filled with love, chatter and laughter open Kambili and Jaja's eyes. And then there's the cute young priest she meets there . . .

Note: I appreciate her nod to Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart with her opening words: "Things started to fall apart at home when my brother Jaja did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room . . . " I do love intertextuality in novels.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned this book for 9 years, but although I wanted to read it some day, that day never seemed to show up. Then last summer, a friend at work told me how he took a mandatory English class as part of his math degree, and read Purple Hibiscus, and did so poorly on his essay that he had to meet with the professor. She accused him of not reading the book, but he pulled out a ream of notes to show he had. The problem was that my friend, who I suspect is somewhere on the autism spectrum, did not understand what was going on in the novel. He thought it was about a nice family in Nigeria, but his professor questioned him about all this abuse that he didn't notice. There's a scene where the father punishes Kambili for "walking into sin" by pouring boiling water on her feet. My friend thought it was an accident until his professor told him otherwise. When I told him I owned Purple Hibiscus he asked me to read it and see what I thought. I popped on to LT and quickly found my LT friend VivienneR's 1-star review, and sent him a screen shot: "Adichie describes a religious fanatic of the worst kind. Although her prose is lovely and she evokes the characters quite well, this simple story has not much more to it than a man who savagely assaults his wife and children if they fail to obey his own twisted version of godliness. It was difficult to endure the book. I cannot recommend it to anyone."

He really is a nice young man, and clearly brilliant with things about numbers and airlines, and he is never malicious. I wonder about the value of forcing a math geek to take an English lit course.

Rating: 3 stars. I get why VivienneR gave this 1 star. I get why people liked this more than I did.

I read Half a Yellow Sun in 2008 and gave it 3.5 stars then, and thought it was over-rated. Maybe Adichie isn't the novelist for me.

Recommended for: people exploring African literature.

I've so many comments to make since I last visited your thread.

>43 Nickelini: Great review! I have this on hold at the library but I'm far down the list. I'm looking forward to it more than ever now.

>48 Nickelini: This one is going on my wishlist. It sounds like a book I would enjoy and the added Alpine attraction is a bonus!

>49 Nickelini: I enjoyed this one too but then read the next offering by Foley only to find it is much the same story but the party is set on a boggy island in Ireland. I'll be interested in your opinion if you ever try it.

>55 Nickelini: Excellent review! And an interesting story of your friend's experience proving that we can all have different reactions to the same book. As I mentioned in our pm conversation, I found the abusively "pious" father was repulsive in the extreme. I'm not sure that that alone warranted my low rating but I often think of the family with sadness and I'm sorry I read the book.

>56 VivienneR:

I think I have that boggy Ireland Foley book (The Guest List), which I've heard is basically the exact plot of The Hunting Party. Oh well, I'll save it for next year when this one has faded in my mind.

As for Purple Hibiscus, if you're sorry you read it, then I think your 1-star rating was accurate for you!

Earlier I was thinking of you and your books set in Switzerland as I started Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer. So far it's excellent but not all the stories are from the Alps. I have to admit I get the collywobbles now and then.

>58 VivienneR:

I read his two later mountaineering books. I can't imagine that I'd learn anything from this unless it's particularly Swiss? I'm more interested about Swiss culture (which is bizarre, and more so I find as I dive into it). Into the Wild showed me, without him saying it, that high-mountain climbers are slightly insane. I read that one soon after it came out, and nothing I've read, seen, or heard has ever changed my mind.

Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977 - 2002), David Sedaris, 2017


cover comments: okay, whatever

Why I Read This Now: Never in a million years would I have picked this book up on my own. I have read a David Sedaris book years ago (for my book club) and I liked it just fine, but there are so many other books. Sedaris just isn't on my radar. But a co-worker gave this to me as a gift, and I needed something to read on my breaks, so this fit in nicely. The diary format and his overall tone were perfect for lunchtime reading. Even though--at 514 pages--it's significantly longer than books I voluntarily pick up.

Comments: This is a large collection of some of his diary entries starting in his early 20s. I knew nothing about Sedaris, and was amazed at what a terrible loser he was for so many years -- drug addicted, wandering from one odd job to another, living a pretty seedy life. Then there was a long period where he lived in Chicago and New York, and started to pull himself together. My favourite section was the last part where he mostly lives in France.

I found this sometimes boring, and sometimes laugh out loud funny. In the course of my life, I often think funny observations about things I see, people I overhear, and life in general. This book made me kick myself for not writing them down, getting published, and becoming a successful writer. Can I start now?

Rating: somewhere between 3.5 and 4 stars

Recommended for: David Sedaris fans

The Weather Detective: Rediscovering Nature's Secret Signs, by Peter Wohleben 2012, translated from German by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, 2018


cover comments: lovely.

Rating: This was an interesting and informative read, but it won't stick with me the way the same author's The Hidden Life of Trees does. I gave that one 4.5 stars, so I guess this is 3.75

Comments: I believe this book has been mis-named in its English translation, and it appears that that misleads people into expecting that this book is all about weather, and how to read what's happening outside (and that's what I thought when I picked it up). The original German title is Kranichflug und Blumenhr, which Google Translate tells me says " Flight of Crane and Flower Clock," which this book IS about, but I'm hoping some German readers will enlighten me. To me that could only describe a painting or a poem, and not a non-fiction book. German is such a strange language because I can pick apart those words and make them English, but then doesn't mean anything. Why does that make sense in German but not English? (I follow a lot of Italian, French, and Swiss things on the internet and the Italian & French translate just fine, but I find that Google translate struggles with German. In my job I often try to translate Cyrillic and Arabic, and it pretty much comes out as gibberish).

Anyway, this book is more about how to read signs of what is going on in your garden, and how things like weather affect it. Also bugs and animals. Specifically, it's, for the most part, describing a garden in Germany. As a gardener in Vancouver, lots of it transferred over, but not all of it. Still, interesting enough.

Recommended for : Gardeners in Germany. The further you are from that climate, the less this will mean anything to you, although there is a chapter on the moon, sun and stars that was interesting (also, not weather). People who like nature writing that is neither academic or highly-personal will also find this a pleasant read.

Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a non-fiction read, and I've enjoyed this author previously.

I think Google Translate was right and that it depicts what it says: The flight of cranes and a flower clock. In Germany we very often see (and hear) cranes migrating in autumn and spring (I love seeing them in the skies!), and I think the other part of the title refers to flowers in form of a clock - maybe to see when in the day they open their blossoms? Probably it makes more sense when one has read the book.

German nonfiction books often have titles like that, picking out one or two aspects and referring to those. I noticed that especially with travel books.

One more reason that Google Translate doesn't make as much sense might be that German is strong in compounds and they are written as one word, so it's harder for Google Translate to convey the sense of the word. In English you often need lots of prepositions or at least you write a compound in two different words while in German it's all connected to make one long word (sometimes VERY long).
That's just my idea, though.

Maybe more German speakers will add their thoughts to this!

The Better Mother, Jen Sookfong Lee, 2011


cover comments: I've always thought this was a lovely cover. The art deco font of the book's title is repeated in the section and chapter titles, and the book has an all-round lovely feel. I've owned this book for nine years (I own a lot of books, only so much you can read) and I did wonder why with an author who focuses on the Canadian-Chinese experience would have a cover model that could be Asian, but looked more . . . not. No worries, it's because the character of "The Siamese Kitten" was indeed white. A case where the book designer might have actually read the novel! (the red lips play a part)

Rating: 4.5 stars. This is one of those books that generally gets good reviews but didn't get much attention.

Comments: A historical novel of two intertwining stories set in a somewhat seedy Vancouver, and where the city itself is a character. The city has always sat in astounding natural beauty, but it has a history of being the end of the railway, a port city, and a place to escape from the cold areas of Canada. Also called "Lotus Land", which is a reference to the Odyssey. As someone who's grown up there, and has long lived in the land of the gorgeous Olympic city, the Expo 86 city, and place of always insane real estate prices, I say we complain about the price of living here, but enjoy the upgrade, and forget about the past. In The Better Mother, I was made to remember how gritty a lot of Vancouver used to be.

Danny struggles as a young Canadian-Chinese gay man coming of age in the early years of the early 1980s AIDs epidemic, but this novel focuses on his interactions with a burlesque dancer many years older than him. The first part of the novel shows him growing up not fitting into his world, but then goes into the story of Val, and we delve into her life in the post WWII-1960s. This is basically the description I read of the novel and thought sounded "meh" but I went with it and so glad I did. Val, the "Siamese Kitten" was an engaging character who became increasingly interesting.

The Better Mother seemed simple at the start, but got more complex as it went on, and wound into a satisfying ending. For most of the novel, I thought the title of The Better Mother was odd. Certainly it didn't draw me in. But by the end, I found it rather clever: There are several mothers in this story. All of them have faults (of course). Which is the Better Mother?

This is a book that will stick with me and that I will think about. I enjoyed the same author's Conjoined, and I do remember it, but I think this one will stick with me more.

Recommended for: anyone who thinks this sounds intriguing, anyone interested in novels about gay men at the cusp of the AIDS crisis, or the Chinese diaspora, anyone interested in 20th century historical fiction set in Vancouver, anyone interested in the life of burlesque dancers . . . I feel I could go on . .

>62 MissBrangwen: \
Oh that's all fascinating. I've travelled a little in Germany and I have fun with the language, but it's always puzzling. My parents spoke low German, and I'm blonde, so when I'm in Europe, I can't count how many times I've been approached by people speaking German and I'm always confused because I feel like it's soooooo familiar, yet I can't make any sense of it. Like this book title.

Thank you for your thoughts, I learned something :-). If I could live my life over again I would have learned so many languages. But my German speaking parents didn't even teach me German, so I was raised in that North American world of "all English". Then when I was in grade 5 in Canada, suddenly it was "oh, also, too, French," which was a big fail for most of us on the west coast at that time.

>61 Nickelini: "Flight of Crane and Flower Clock,"
>62 MissBrangwen: "cranes migrating in autumn and spring"

I'd definitely read that as references to seasonal time and possibly also daily time. In England the flower moscatel or clocktower flowers in early spring so I assume the same in Germany (and the wine grape vine of the same name is harvested in autumn). Moscatel is also one of the herbs that gives off scent only towards evening, to attract specific pollinators. We also have dandelion clocks which are the seed heads of dandelion flowers. I bet there's a wildflower in Germany nicknamed clocktower or clock-something. Some flowers, such as daisies (day's-eye) physically open and close with the sun every day and sunflowers turn to follow the sun across the sky!

"One more reason that Google Translate doesn't make as much sense might be that German is strong in compounds"

I think there might be some truth in this. Also perhaps that German expressions are often colloquial whereas western Romance languages tend to be either formal and literary or simple and conversational (but this is probably too wide a generalisation - although written French definitely tends to be more formal than English, and I would say this has been true in literary Italian too).

>61 Nickelini: >62 MissBrangwen: Yes, I was thinking along the same lines. I was curious and looked it up at the DNB, and the summary says that the cranes are an indicator for temperature, and marigolds can be used to tell the time which I find intriguing. It's too bad we can't go down to the bookstore and peek inside.

>66 MissWatson: Or can we.... (sorry for the temporary thread-jacking Nickelini)

"The flower clock

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish natural scientist of the eighteenth century, made an exciting discovery during his nature walks. He realized that the flowers of different species of plants opened their flowers at different times of the day, with impressive reliability. They were so reliable, in fact, that they could rival the accuracy of the church clocks at the time. What better, then, than to create a living clock composed of a variety of flowering plants? Linnaeus put the idea into practice, planting a very special flower bed in the Uppsala Botanical Garden. He arranged the plants in the shape of a clock face, dividing the bed into twelve segments. In each section, the flowers opened at the appointed hour, enabling passersby to tell the time. However, the clock didn’t function quite as intended, since the plants finished flowering after a few weeks and had to be replaced constantly. Moreover, specimens from the mountains behaved differently in the city, because of the warmer climate. Nevertheless, the principle is fascinating, and even without planting a clock-shaped bed, you can still tell the time from your garden with the help of your perennials and herbs.

Pumpkins and zucchini kick things off first by opening their flowers at 5 o’clock in the morning. From 8 a.m., the marigolds spread out their petals, and the daisies follow at 9. When the sun is at its zenith in the south, midday flowers (Mesembryanthemum, also known as ice plants) open their blossoms. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., dandelions start to close up, and by 3 p.m. the gourds have finished for the day. At around 6 p.m., poppies also shut up shop.

But why do plants go to the trouble of opening their flowers at different times? The reason for this is to attract pollinating insects, which risk being overwhelmed by choice. At the rush hour, when many flowers are open for business, the bees can’t possibly visit all of the plants on offer, so some flowers would have to go without a visit. It gives you a competitive edge if you tout your nectar and pollen later in the day, when your rivals are asleep. So it’s a way of improving the chances of pollination. It also helps the bees to take advantage of the available stocks of nectar, to bring as much as they can back to the hive for the winter. The more nectar supplies they bring back, the more bees survive of the next generation, which in turn ensures better pollination chances the following year.

Having said that flowers keep good time, in fact researchers from the University of Göttingen have discovered that even flowers’ internal clocks can be slow. This also appears to be linked to their effort to attract bees. Once the flowers are pollinated, they close on time. But if they’re still waiting for a visit, they extend their opening times, probably in the hope they might still attract a passing pollinator. If you notice distinct changes from the normal rhythm of your garden’s flower clock, there may be a lack of beekeepers and wild bees in your locality. You could take remedial action by setting up an insect hotel or even installing an entire bee colony in your garden."

>67 spiralsheep: Wow. Thanks!

>61 Nickelini: On Google translator.....can't comment on German translations, but the Spanish translations are often way off--sometimes so off that it makes the translation silly!

>65 spiralsheep: We also have dandelion clocks

And here I thought they were named that because they were round. How do you tell time with a dandelion clock?

>69 Tess_W: Have you found that recently? I find that the online translators have improved tremendously over the years. Twenty years ago I had a friend in France who I used to play translation games with, and had hilarious results. But a decade later I studied Italian at university, and my prof told us not to use an online translator, but sometimes I did anyway and never lost any marks. Since then the translators have become quite amazing. My husband speaks fluent Italian, and whenever I double check with him, it's pretty spot on. I am, of course, talking about every day language, and not literature.

I don't have to translate Spanish very often at work, but when I have it's been good enough for me to understand what the person is saying. But the German often comes out quite wonky and nonsensical.

>70 Nickelini: You blow on it and the hour is supposedly the total count of puffs it takes to clear all the seeds. Of course, children are possibly more likely to indulge in this on warm afternoons and it might work then, lol. It's in the same category as divining if someone likes butter by holding a buttercup under their chin to see if there's a reflected yellow spot from the shiny petals acting as a mirror for the sun (which is cool science but useless divination).

>71 Nickelini: "I am, of course, talking about every day language, and not literature."

Although there has been a movement towards less literary language in written Italian, most visibly by novelists from immigrant backgrounds, so this might be changing.

>72 spiralsheep: We did that buttercup thing when I was a kid too. I never really got what it was all about and when other kids showed me I shrugged and said "okay."

>73 spiralsheep:
I have no idea what you mean -- "literary" Italian doesn't really factor into the lives of any of my Italian friends or family, or when I'm traveling in Italy. My entire interest is day-to-day living.

>74 Nickelini: I was furthering the conversation above about why google translate is better at some languages or types of language and worse at others. I didn't mean it to be personal to you. :-)

>71 Nickelini: I had 3 exchange students from Ecuador in my American History Class and they really seemed "lost." So to help them out, I would use Google translator for specific things I wanted to impart to them, and they told me it was worse than trying to understand English. They asked for the material in English and they would attempt to translate themselves. That was 3 years ago.

>76 Tess_W:. Interesting! I wonder how Ecuadorian Spanish compares to what ever the translator uses? I’m guess just standard European Spanish.

The Chalet, Catherine Cooper, 2020


cover comments: I mean, it sort of looks like a thriller cover, but what's with the serif font? How unusual. Anyway, drinking Bollinger champagne in the French Alps is a big yes for me. My aesthetic standards for thrillers isn't very high -- they have their language they need to speak, so artistic options are limited

Rating: I just had so much fun reading this. 4.5 stars.

Comments: The Chalet is told in short chapters that alternate between December 1998 and January 2020 at a ski resort in the view of Mount Blanc in the French Alps. There's also a smaller timeline of one character's childhood living in poverty with a mentally ill mother (this section had some heartbreaking writing, but it although it was a different tone, it worked). Both main timelines, which are told by alternating characters, focus on fraught relationships, and both involve murders. For the most part, the characters in The Chalet were not very likeable people, which created an ample group of suspects, and made me wonder WHO was going to end up murdered, and WHO was going to do the murdering.

I loved the Alpine ski resort setting, which was also a character. When I've stayed at ski resorts I've often thought they'd make a great setting for a novel, and I'm so excited that in the past few months, I can count four (four!) thrillers with this setting: The Chalet, One By One by Ruth Ware, Shiver, by Allie Reynolds are all in the French Alps, and Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse is in Switzerland. I will read them all. Just what I've been looking for!

Catherine Cooper is a British journalist who has lived with her family in France since 2009, and is clearly familiar with the world of skiing.

Why I Read This Now: I needed a new book for my breaks at work and the short chapters made this a good fit. I ended up bringing it home because I couldn't wait to get back to it. Loving the new thrillers I've been reading. Also, it's March, and that's when we used to take our family ski vacation.

Recommended for: people who like books set in the Alps, thrillers, books with alternate timelines and narrators

>78 Nickelini: On my WL is goes!

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya; introduction & translation from Russian by Anna Summers


cover comments: I was drawn to this fabulous title and it's twisted fairy tale promise. This Penguin edition has a lovely tactile feel. Full marks to book design.

Comments: Seventeen short stories over 171 pages that cover life in late- and post-Soviet Russia. These "love stories" all centre on the lives of women--mostly mothers--living in dingy apartments with ungrateful adult children, cheating alcoholic husbands, and difficult older aunts and parents. There's a dark humour to them, but not enough to raise them over the flat voice that kept me from connecting to the stories.

Why I Read This Now: I love a good riff on a fairy tale, and when chanced to look at this on Valentine's Day and saw the "Love Stories" pop on the cover, I thought this was the perfect time. The "love" part of the stories was too tongue-in-cheek for me.

Rating: I can see why some readers like these stories, but they didn't do much for me. 2.5 stars. At least it was a quick, easy read.

Recommended for: Russian lit fans

>78 Nickelini: I love thrillers in a wintery/snowy setting, so this is a big BB for me, as well as the other titles you mentioned!

And another addition to the Google translator discussion: I agree with you that German-English doesn't really work. I teach English in Germany and I can very often tell when my students use it. They do love it and feel like it helps them, but it creates more mistakes and it's so obvious, both because of the syntax and the words. I have no idea why! But I totally ban it from my courses and encourage my students to use proper online dictionary apps if they cannot bring themselves to use a paper dictionary (which is preferable because they have to use those in written tests and exams).

>78 Nickelini:
>81 MissBrangwen:

You could be correct. The Spanish teacher at our school said there are 2 basic types (brogues) of Spanish: Spanish Peninsular (Castilian) and Latin American Spanish. She said the difference was akin to the difference between English spoken in the UK and English spoken in the U.S. Could account for the inaccuracy of the Google translator?

Down By the River, Edna O'Brien, 1996


cover comments: The painting they used for this cover by Karin Littlewood is suitable, but the whole arrangement of the cover is a dog's breakfast. What's with the gold font for the author's name? The whole arrangement is nasty.

Rating: ahhh, almost a 5 star read. 4.75 stars. This is my 4th Edna O'Brien book, and the best of the lot. I finished this a couple of days ago and am struggling to write briefly about it. If I don't write briefly, it will be pages . . .

O'Brien writes in an opaque style where everything is implied (I could use less of that, hence the not 5 star read)

Comments: Although clearly set in the 1990s, Mary McNamara's world seemed closer to O'Brien's 1960s Country Girls trilogy. However, O'Brien showed that people around her had moved on and were living at least in the age of U2 and Enya.

Based on a true story, Down By the River tells of Mary McNamara, a 14 year old girl who has been repeatedly raped by her father. Her mother dies of cancer* so she's isolated in a farm on the west coast of Ireland. She becomes pregnant, and has few resources, is naïve, but knows she can't fathom giving birth to her father's child. She enlists an empathetic neighbour and escapes to England to get an abortion, only to be dragged back to Ireland ("the doctor here will be ruined! HE has a family!"). I was so frustrated to read this story of this young girl's life, struggling to deal with violation after violation. She's forced into the world of anti-abortion pro-birth fanatics, who had no empathy at all and no realistic help on how a 14 year old was supposed to actually deal with any of the realities of pregnancy, childbirth, and being a teenage mom. Mary has no autonomy whatsoever -- at first she's under her father's control, but then the police, the pro-birth fanatics, and the highest levels of government (all men) take control of her. The public opinion is mixed -- many support this victim, but many others assume the worst about her. Utterly heartbreaking.

For my health and wellbeing, I avoid books about realistic tragedy and suffering, but this one drew me in despite that. I read in three sittings (that averages to 100 pages at a time, which in my world means "couldn't put it down")

Down By the River is considered one of three of O'Brien's "state of the nation novels." I've read In the Forest and have House of Splendid Isolation on my TBR pile.

* Irish LTers, please tell me: the doctors didn't tell her the cancer diagnosis, but told her husband?! In 1990s Ireland? This happened to my grandmother in 1972 Canada, but was this shite still happening then? Or is O'Brien manipulating the reader?

Recommended for: I don't know, but I thought this was a great read and I wish more people would read it so I could talk about it

Why I Read This Now: I've liked Edna O'Brien in the past, and it's been in my TBR for ages, and it's Irish-readathon March. Check mark!

>83 Nickelini: I've liked the two Edna O'Brien novels that I have read (Country Girls and Girl) so this one is going on my wishlist.

Venice Rising: Aqua Granda, Pandemic, Rebirth; Various authors, 2020


cover comments: has that self-published look, but it's okay. The back cover has the much-photographed complete double rainbow over Venice, which I think should have been the front cover

Comments: The summer of 2019 was hard on Venice with the mass over-tourism and a cruise ship crashing into a dock. Then in November, the stars misaligned to combine exceptional--but forecast--high tides (called aqua alta ) with sirocco winds from the southeast and bora winds from the southwest, and a heavy rainfall. This resulted in the Aqua Granda with the water's peak height of 187 cm (6'1") and submerging about 80% of the city. This was the worst flooding they've seen since 1966, which was called a 100 year event. After finally drying out and cleaning up, Venice appeared to be in recovery for Carnevale in February 2020. But the grand final days of that event were suddenly cancelled when COVID-19 burned through northern Italy and the city slammed into full lockdown.

Venice Rising is a collection of 31 pieces about these events, all told by Venetian residents. I sought this out more for the pandemic parts, because I remember a year ago as I closely followed the news coming out of Italy and watched in disbelief as their world, and then all of our world, crashed to a halt. I guess there is only so much you can say about quarantine though, and the most interesting bits were about the Aqua Granda of November 2019.

Many of these Venetian writers are wondering if this series of catastrophes is a reset, and that's a nice thought. I'm not sure it's realistic, however.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: readers interested in current events, the pandemic, extreme-weather events; lovers of Venice

Why I Read This Now: I happened across this a month or so ago and thought the one year anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic in Italy was a good time to read it

>85 Nickelini: Definitely a BB for me. Great review!

>86 Tess_W:
If you're really interested, I think you might have to get it from Amazon. I avoid Amazon myself, but that's where I found it and I think they actually publish it. Possibly print on demand?

Mothering Sunday, Graham Swift, 2016


Cover comments: Pleasant. Uninspiring, but pleasant.
This one is really nice, in that sort of classy way:

And this one takes an entirely different approach:


Rating: I loved this. 4.5 stars. I read this in one sitting on a rainy Sunday morning in March.

Comments: Sunday, March 30, 1924 is Mothering Sunday in England, and it's the day when the servants get time off to go visit their mothers. Twenty-two year old housemaid Jane Fairchild is an orphan, so instead she has her last tryst with her lover, the rich son of a neighbour who is soon to be married to a young woman more wealthy than he. This story is told in bits, and continuously circles back to fill in details, until we learn about Jane's life where she lived into her late 90s and was a famous writer. But the focus of this short (177 pg) novel is on the one sunny spring day that was life changing for her.

I loved the 1920s setting, and I loved the descriptions of the unseasonably warm spring day with its bright sunshine. Oh, and it's labelled "a romance," and I'm pondering whether I agree with that description or not.

Recommended for: Readers who enjoyed On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan; The Sense of an Ending, by Julien Barnes; or maybe even The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield, will probably love this one too.

Why I Read This Now: It been high on my TBR for ages, but I thought I'd save it for the actual Mothering Sunday. This year it's today, March 14. I've learned that the day changes each year because it's tied to Lent.

ETA: There's a film of this coming soon The leads are played by two actors who I'm not familiar with -- Josh O'Connor plays Paul (Oh! He was Mr Elton in the latest version of Emma and he plays Prince Charles in the last season of The Crown. I know him after all). Jane is played by Odessa Young and I don't think I've seen any of her films. But when the movie was announced, a big deal was made that Colin Firth and Olivia Colman were to play Mr and Mrs Niven. Colin Firth plays a lot of small roles in big movies, so I can see him in this. But they must be changing the role of Mrs Niven, because I don't think she actually says anything in the novel, and I'm sure they didn't need to hire the Queen and hot property Olivia Colman to stand in the shadows. We will see!

Passing, Nella Larson, 1929


cover comments: I like it, and the more I look at it, the more it grows on me. I'm pretty sure this scene didn't happen in the book, but it still fits. The painting is The Subway, 1930, by Palmer Hayden. I love how this scene doesn't look that out of place today, yet it was painted 91 years ago. Certainly, life on the subway (well, pre-COVID) was the same

Rating: Like my opinion on the cover (above), I started this book thinking it was "okay," but the more time I spent with it, the more I liked it. There were lots of layers of meaning, which was all the more impressive considering this was a book of only 114 pages. I also loved the 1920s setting. Somewhere between 4 & 4.5 stars

Comments: Irene and Clare, both light-skinned African-Americans, were friends in childhood. Years later, on a hot summer day, Irene is lunching at a breezy roof restaurant at a department store in downtown Chicago and hoping that no one will recognize her race. She's married to a black doctor back in New York, and spends her time "passing" as a happily married middle-class wife and mother, involved in the arts and intellectual life in Harlem. But right now, to sit in this luxurious restaurant, she needs to pass as white and not draw attention to herself. Yet someone is staring at her. And here Clare drops back into her life. Irene learns that Clare has married a racist white husband who doesn't know her race, and has spent years in the capitals of Europe where she doesn't meet any other black people. Irene sees trouble, and tries to avoid Clare, but is also strongly drawn to her at the same time. Clare is missing something in her life, and is drawn to Irene's life in New York with its charity balls and diverse crowd. And so their lives twist together toward a surprising end.

I'd love to have studied this book at university when you can really dig into all the variations of passing. This is a good book to reread, I expect.

Side note: As with my last book, Mothering Sunday, I loved the 1920s setting. And as with that book, this one too has an upcoming movie. Apparently it will be on Netflix later this year. Watching that one for sure.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned Passing since 2010, but there it sat. Now my book club is reading The Vanishing Half this month, and the author Brit Bennett was heavily influenced by Passing. So I thought that this was the time (Interesting video of Bennett talking about Passing to the NYTimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtbK8Nufxd4 )

Recommended for I thought it was great. If you have a "I'd like to read more . . . " reading list, I'm sure it ticks off some box.

>89 Nickelini: I really thought Passing was very well done as well. I didn't know there is going to be a film - I will be now be looking for it.

>89 Nickelini: I also have had that book for last least 10 years. Your cover is much more attractive than mine. I will make sure I get to it this year.

The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett 2020


cover comments: this cover tells you at a glance that it's a current novel about a POC. I guess the colours represent the different characters. At a glance I think it's ugly. The actual images of the faces merging is lovely and hint to storylines, but the colours repulse me. I borrowed my copy from a friend and removed the dust jacket, and underneath was just the nice strong blue colour. Much better.

Why I Read This Now: book club.

Rating: somewhere between 3 stars. It started off slowly and not hitting any keys for me, but then it got better . . . and better . . . and even better. It did make me ask a lot of questions, which is a good thing.

Note: the last few books I've read felt like they deserved film adaptations. This one too, and yes, it was bought in a bidding war. No casting yet, but expected to move quickly. So look out for this one on your screen in 2022 or 2023

Comments: So much has been written about this already. Identical twins who go off to lead vastly different lives. I can see the influence of Passing, which I just read, but not a lot. I was expecting more focus on the twins, but the secondary characters where maybe more sympathetic. There were a few "wow" parts of this book, but it was uneven.

Recommended for: One of the top hot books at the moment. I think everyone who might read this has read it.

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 2- Wirrow & Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 2012


cover comments: pretty boring compared to the wonderful illustrations within

Comments: I can't believe it took me 5 years to get around to reading this gem of a book after loving The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1. This is a collection of 62 spreads of very short illustrated stories, done by a variety of artists. Most of the stories are only a sentence long, and it's the art that completes them. The profound little bits are about life, love, and death. I could quote some examples, but with only the text, I couldn't show their true beauty. I do adore an illustrated book.

I'm tired
of being tired
of being tired
of being

Savage mice overran
Mallory's home until she
built a better mousetrap
and attracted a more
elegant class of rodent

Ambiguity lived in a place
with some people
who did some things

Rating 5 stars

Why I Read This Now: I was tired of dusting it every week

Recommended for: anyone with a heart. The is one 1-star review on LT. That person has a miserable empty life.

>89 Nickelini: and >92 Nickelini: Interesting reviews, thank you!

Whatever, Michel Houellebecq, 1994


cover comments: next level awful

Comments: I've seen Whatever described as a "study of contemporary alienation," and that fits well. The 30 year old unnamed narrator goes through life in 1990s France in his stable, but uninspiring, job as a computer programmer. He's incredibly unpleasant and there's no real plot to speak of.

Rating: 3 stars. The first section, which was 50 pages, was pretty awful but it got more interesting after that point. I didn't like this book, but I didn't hate it either.

Why I Read This Now: I've never read this author before, although I've owned three of his books for years. This one was short, and also on the 1001 list, I was in the mood for something French.

Recommended for: readers who like nihilistic short novels

>95 Nickelini: Recommended for: readers who like nihilistic short novels

Yes. Once I get over the disgust, I appreciate Michel Houellebecq's humour. Gasp first, smile later. I recommend Submission, and must get to Serotonin soon.

>96 pamelad: oh good! I own Submission and it sounds interesting

Here is the Beehive, Sarah Crossan, 2020


Cover comments: Gorgeous! I ordered it from the UK because the North American copy is ugly (and wasn’t actually out when I bought this).

Comments: The tagline for this book asks, “What happens when you lose something the world never knew was yours?” Ana and Connor had been having an affair for three years when he is killed in an accident. Ana descends into deep grief, but she can’t tell anyone. This novel is told in free verse, which could come off as gimmicky, but doesn’t here. It made Here is the Beehive an energetic, slightly feverish read, which matches the erratic mood of the narrator, and shows how infidelity destroys lives. As the novel went along, Ana revealed herself to be a terrible person, and the author was artful in how she showed Ana's increasing bad behavior, while still making the reader empathize with her raw emotions.

Rating: 4.5 stars. I thought this novel was amazing.

This was yet another great recommendation from Simon Savidge and Jen Campbell

Recommended for: readers who like unique, interesting books, and stories about secrets

Not recommended for: The most common complaint about this is that people don't like the main character. Readers also say they are disturbed by the subject matter. Others don’t like how the timeline jumps around abruptly. Sarah Crossan is an acclaimed writer of books for young people, and her adult fans seem cross that she’s written this. And I think this would be a tough read for someone currently going through grief.

Why I Read This Now: it’s been on the top of my TBR since I bought it six months ago

>98 Nickelini: I've only read a couple of YA books from Sarah Crossan which didn't impress me much, but Here is the Beehive sounds interesting, and I note that my library has a copy.

How To Build A Girl, Caitlin Moran, 2014


cover comments: I've always found this cover to be ugly, but when I look closely at it, it's a picture of scuffed up Doc Martens and some ripped stockings -- a classic look. What's not to love about that? I guess it's the garish GREEN, and the serif font mixed with the super serif font (I just made up "super serif", so if you're a font head, don't scold me).

Comments: Teenage Johanna Morrigan is struggling in poverty with her family Wolverhampton, England, in the West Midlands in the early 1990s, and feeling like a major loser. So she reinvents herself Dolly Wilde, a name she took from Oscar Wilde's niece, who was "like, this amazing alcoholic lesbian who was dead scandalous, and died really young." Johanna loves to write, and knows she has talent, and ends up writing critical reviews for a music magazine. Dolly Wilde is unleashed on the 1990s English music scene and goes wild. And predictably crashes. And picks herself up again.

How To Build A Girl is one of those humorous novels that touches on serious subjects, but mostly it makes light of Johanna's life as a teenager growing up poor. She has some amazing good fortune, and has some wonderful people in her life, which maybe isn't all that realistic. From the beginning I felt liked I'd heard her voice before. Adrian Mole, perhaps? (Later in the book she reads some of that series.) Or Bridget Jones, if she'd been born poverty-stricken? (I see Helen Fielding wrote a blurb on the back cover.)

And now time to go listen to "For Tomorrow" by Blur . . .

Rating: 3.5 stars. I don't think I'm the target audience for this. At 338 pages, I found it a bit over-long. A good 100 pages shorter and it would have been less tedious. The last section after she picked herself up from her lowest point was well done, with some wise writing wedged into the story. The writing is good, and there are lots of funny bits, but I didn't need so many details of her loser life that lead to Dolly Wilde, and I didn't need so much on her bad drunken shags. I suppose I've read enough of that elsewhere.

Recommended for: people who want to read a humorous novel set against the 1990s British Indie music scene; people who like stories of teenagers exploring who they are

Why I Read This Now: I was cleaning up a stack of books, and I thought this one would be good to read during lunch at work. It was.

>93 Nickelini: I like the reason you gave for reading this. :)

>100 Nickelini: This one has been on my wishlist for a while. I'll remember your comments when I get around to reading it one of these days.

The Wanderer, Peter Van Den Ende, 2019


cover comments: stunning

Rating: 5 stars

Comments:

->To capture the feel of the book, I invite you to watch a 1.5 minute video trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnP9uv7BnDg

-> The artist describing the story on YouTube (also 1.5 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyk7bwBuMCs

A sailor and a "mysterious black-clad figure with a crescent-moon-shaped head" create a paper boat and let it free to sail the vast oceans. It encounters seals and whales and crocodiles, and countless magical sea creatures; it travels over coral reefs and past mangroves, under billions of stars and above thousands of eyes; into the polar regions, and skirts several disasters, mostly man-made. Finally, he arrives at a safe harbour. I think the message is be bold, go out and adventure . . . something like that? The little boat is a character, even without a face or words.

It feels a bit funny counting a book with no words as "a read," but there is so much going on in this sumptuous 92 page illustrated book (it's sometimes catalogued as a graphic novel). This is Belgian artist Peter Van Den Ende's first book, and it's won several awards. The detail in the illustrations is amazing, and I thought he must have used a computer for some of it, but I've researched it and it's done with dip pens and India ink. The crosshatching, for example, is masterful.

Recommended for: people who love detailed illustrated books, armchair adventurers

Not recommended for: people who suffer from trypophobia might be triggered by this. When I learned about trypophobia, I learned that I have the opposite--I'm drawn to these patterns. Trypophilia, perhaps? I didn't know that this book would be so satisfying when I ordered it.

Why I Read This Now: It arrived yesterday.

I came across this while going down some bookish internet rabbit hole, and it was expensive so I looked at my local library, and they said if I put in a request they'd buy it, but then one of my websites put it on sale, so I just bought it. I think I'll request it from the library as well, so my community can also discover it :-)

The Cockroach, Ian McEwan, 2019


cover comments: sure, fits the story

Comments: In a reversal of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, a cockroach wakes up one morning to find he's turned into the prime minister of Great Britain. McEwan wrote this novella in 2019 as a satirical stab at the current political situation in the UK. This is the 13th book by McEwan that I've read.

Rating: 3.5 stars. It was okay. Quite clever in parts, eye-rolling in others. I think others who know the nuances of UK politics better than I will either like it more, conversely, less.

Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a novella for a fun challenge I'm doing this weekend. I tried two others before settling on this one.

Recommended for: you know who you are

>103 Nickelini: the premise is hilarious!

Tales From The Inner City, Shaun Tan, 2018


cover comments: perfectly gorgeous

Comments: This is an illustrated collection of 25 untitled short stories and poems, all about human-animal relationships. I've heard this book described as "surreal", "urban-fantasy", "mesmerizing", "futuristic" and "bizarre." The combination of the astounding illustrations and unusual text packs an emotional wallop. My favourite pieces were these:

- how to avoid imminent tiger attacks (which includes a detailed and prescient case for how wearing a mask is key to survival)
- bears with lawyers
- an orca in the sky
- a secretary's challenge of how to deal with the board members who all turned into frogs
- pigeons as a metaphor for humans
- the beauty of giant snail love
- missing cats
- the last rhino
- crocodiles that live on the eighty-seventh floor of an office building
- dog & human companionship

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: everyone. This was shelved in the teen section of my library, but it's a sophisticated book that is undoubtedly adult. This would make a lovely gift for an animal lover

Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a different book by Shaun Tan at the library. It was out but this one was available.

Some of the illustrations from Tales From The Inner City


giant snail love


the missing cat


the orca in the sky

>103 Nickelini: I think all Prime Ministers/Presidents should spend some time as a cockroach!

>106 Nickelini: Gorgeous illustrations!

Bride of New France, Suzanne Desrochers, 2011


cover comments: It's fine. I think the cover trope of the woman's silhouette was very popular around the time this was published. The lace edge is nice, and appropriate as the main character was a gifted lace maker.

Comments: As a child, Laure was taken from her parents when Louis XIV ordered the poor to be removed from the streets of Paris. She was institutionalized along with other children of paupers and orphans, and in the same building as the mental ill, prostitutes, and petty criminals. Over the years she became an expert lace maker and seamstress. The first third of this novel covers her life of oppression growing up in Paris.

When she came of age, Laure was sent to New France (current day Quebec) as one of the filles du roi (daughters of the king). This was a program financed by the French crown to boost the population of New France and encourage the men that were already there to create a settlement instead of returning to France. She is married off to a rough and neglectful man that she calls "the pig," and the second two-thirds of the novel cover her first few years in Canada. It was interesting to read about Montreal and the surrounding area being a settlement scratched out of the dense forest.

I didn't know much about the filles du roi, and was happy to learn more about them. Starting in 1663, around 800 young women, mostly poor, were shipped off to become baby machines. Apparently there were bonuses from the king for popping out 10 or more babies. The program was successful in more than doubling the population in a decade, and wasn't needed after that. Doing some side research, I learned that most French Canadians can trace their ancestry back to one or more of these women. Hilary Clinton also appears on lists of their descendants.

Note: Desrochers did her Ph.D. thesis comparing the migration of women from Paris to colonial North America with those from London. She also wrote her M.A. thesis on these French women. So the historical detail was probably pretty solid.

Recommended for: readers who want to learn about a period that isn't covered much in historical fiction

Rating: This is a solid novel, but I'm only giving it 3.5 stars, based more on my personal feelings, and not necessarily reflecting its quality. Readers complain that the character of Laure was unlikeable, but that doesn't bother me. The author has noted that she knows Laure is selfish, and thinks selfishness may have served someone in this situation well. I see her point. I was more bothered that some of her actions and choices seemed improbable. My second reason I'm not giving this 4 stars is that I think my tastes have changed and I'm just not as interested in historical fiction as I used to be.

Why I Read This Now: I borrowed this from a friend YEARS ago and I'm determined to return all the borrowed books in my house (I think I only have two left)

>108 Nickelini: Looks like I also gave it 3.5. I didn't mention whether or not I liked Laure, so I don't remember!

>108 Nickelini: I've had this book on my library list for eons! Not sure why I haven't gotten to it yet. Quebec has a history of paying for babies. In the 1960s it found itself with a vastly lowered birth rate so in 1988 it introduced a payment schedule for families having babies. $500.00 was awarded for the first child, $1,00.00 for the second and then each additional child was worth $6,000.00. This did indeed raise their birth rate and eventually (I believe) the government was able to cancel this program.

>110 DeltaQueen50:
I thought about that while reading this too! Some things never change, I guess

Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, 1972, translated from Italian by William Weaver


cover comments: meh. The picture would be nice if it were large enough to see

Comments: Marco Polo visits the court of Kublai Khan and describes 55 cities he's imagined. There is no plot. The cities he describes are dreamlike, contradictory, and mostly impossible. This book is essentially a literary game and writing exercise where Calvino arranges the blurbs describing the cities in a mathematical pattern. There is a chart at Wikipedia to explain this.

Although there were frequent snips of beautiful, evocative writing, overall I found this tiresome and lacking in purpose.

This is definitely a book from the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list that you do not have to read, ever.

Why I Read This Now: I started this for a challenge last week, that I didn't use for the challenge but kept reading anyway. It was fairly short.

Recommended for: people who want to read the 1001 and Guardian 1000 lists

Rating: Ugh. 2.5 stars. There are many 5 star reader reviews (especially at GoodReads), so don't let my disdain for this stop you from reading Invisible Cities. I found it pretentious, but you might find it brilliant.

>108 Nickelini: definitely a BB for me!

A Fairy Tale, Jonas T Bengtsson, 2011; translated from Danish by Charlotte Barslund, 2014

cover comments: what cover? Oh, Lt doesn't have it. I can tell you it's sort of a dusky blue . . .

Recommended For: I can confidently say that I think most of my LT friends would also like this novel. It's one of those books you read and think "why isn't everyone talking about this?" There are scads of 4 & 5 star reader reviews on GoodReads, and only a few little 2 & 3 star reads. I did find it dark, and there where times when I couldn't face it. . . but I think that's me; it was never the writing.

Comments: Wow. Where do I start with this?

I'd never heard of this novel when I found it while browsing at a book store in 2015 (remember doing that?), and the description on the back cover, and the title, and it being Danish, all intrigued me. I had no idea what to expect.

It opens in 1986, with the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme (a shocking crime, unsolved to this day). A father tells his 6 year old son that it's time to go. The first half of the novel covers the next few years of the unnamed boy traveling through the fringes of Danish society with his father, moving from some seedy make-shift housing to the next, being home schooled, his dad picking up jobs, and his being exposed to things that children shouldn't have to see. I could swallow this because throughout the father was invested in taking care of his son. And they had a great bond and a deep love. But so many questions. What happened to the boy's mom? Was the father a criminal, running from the law? Or was he a hero, running from dark forces? This is definitely a realistic novel, but it has fairy tale metaphors.

Anyway, the tension builds as they move between different situations, and just when you think the dad might be settling down, a shocking event happens.

The second half of the book is roughly divided into the boy being a teenager, and living in a stable environment, but struggling, and he finds out more about his father. The final section is him as a young adult and his resolution. Heartbreaking.

I looked up A Fairy Tale on YouTube and found an English interview with the author who said that he ended this novel with the most hopeful note of anything he's written. I watched this before I finished the book, so when I read the end, I laughed out loud. Which was probably inappropriate.

Rating: 4.5 stars. I started reading this in January and I was really immersed in the dark, gritty story. But then my brother died, and A Fairy Tale was just too raw at that time. I've been picking it up now and again, and thinking it was amazing, but then needing to put it down. I can't remember when it's ever taken me so long to read such a good book. Especially since it was written in very short chapters, which I usually find quick to read.

Why I Read This Now: This has always been physically at the top of my TBR stack since I bought it

>114 Nickelini: Another BB for me! I am sorry to hear of your brother.

the Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa, 2003; translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder, 2009


cover comments: lovely!

Why I Read This Now: there were cherry trees blooming outside my window, and I noticed the same trees on this book's cover. How silly a reason is that? Also, I always mean to read more Japanese fiction. Thirdly, it's been on my shelf since 2010. I had picked it up a few times and read the first page, but then always said "later!"

Rating: so many of my LT friends raved about this, but I found it sort of annoying. 3 stars. I predicted that I wasn't going to like it, so not a disappointment.

Comments: An unnamed housekeeper goes to work for an unnamed professor who had once had a brilliant career as a mathematician. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1975 and since then could only remember the past 80 minutes. She brings her 10 year old son to work one day, and the professor takes a particular liking to him, and nicknames him Root. The three of them share a bond and have a lovely relationship. Unfortunately for me, they are also obsessed with mathematics and baseball, two subjects that I find intolerably boring.

Recommended for: People who have more tolerance reading about baseball and math than I do.

>116 Nickelini: I have this book on my TBR; not in any hurray to get to it!

>117 Tess_W:
I don't mean to dissuade anyone from reading anything. It just wasn't for me. I have 52 people marked as "friends" on LT, and 20 of them have this book, and all of them rated it between 4 & 5 stars. I believe that I'm on the edges with this one. However, maybe you'll one day feel like reading it (it's a short book) and you'll join me, over at the edge.

>118 Nickelini: I completely understand, but you are not the first one I've read about that did not care for this book! I will read it, eventually, hopefully!

>118 Nickelini: I think I rated it ok (3 stars). I might have rated it good (3.5).

Checked - looks like I rated it "good".

ETA: I do also remember it being short, so Tess, at least there's that if/when you want to get it off your tbr.

Anxious People, Fredrik Backman, translated from Swedish by Neil Smith, both 2020


cover comments: I like it, especially the colours (oh, I just noticed they are the colours of the Swedish flag, and the colours of national hockey team's uniforms)

Rating: 4.5 stars. For most of this I wasn't rating it that high, but the last quarter really came together, and in the end I loved it

Comments: From the first sentence of the second paragraph on page one: "This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots." In the end, it was about a lot of things, but the characters weren't idiots at all.

In some small city in Sweden, a desperate person fails to rob a bank, and escapes into the nearby apartment building, and runs into a viewing for a suite for sale full of potential buyers. This turns into a hostage situation with "the worst hostages ever." The cops who are called to the scene are a father and his son, and they have baggage of their own. Everyone is anxious, for all sorts of reasons.

I was drawn in right from the beginning. The author Backman, and his translator, write some fabulous sentences that are clever, or funny, or insightful, or unique. But the story jumps in timeline A LOT, and jumps between characters a lot, and there was quite a bit of annoying behavior (in the end, I learned that some of this was purposeful). I started calling this novel "Obnoxious People." But then with all the jumping around, the author pulls it together, and it's really rather amazing and lovely. My patience paid off. In the last bit, I almost teared up twice, and definitely teared up once, so yeah, I almost never cry in books, and I didn't cry here either, but almost.

This was my first Fredrik Backman, and I'll definitely read more. I already own Beartown, and A Man Called Ove is his best seller, so maybe I'll pick that one up too. It appears that people who loved any one of these three doesn't like some other one, so that actually intrigues me.

Recommended for: Not sure. Most reader reviews are great, a few are terrible. I can see both sides, but I think some of the DNFs might have liked Anxious People in the end. I definitely want to read more books of this sort: by that I mean novels in translation that aren't arty or literary or heavy. I read those too, but I'd like to read more of this for a change.

Why I Read This Now: book club

Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes, by Emily Urqhart, 2016


cover comments: Fabulous cover. Love the image, love the colours. I actually ordered this edition from the UK because I preferred the cover to the one available in Canada (this book is by a Canadian author)

Why I Read This Now: Top of my TBR since I ordered it.

I've been interested in albinism since I was a young child and my older brothers brought home albums by Johnny Winter and his brother Edgar Winter ("come on and take a freeride . . . " and the 70s rock classic Frankenstein). My Dutch heritage has given me light blonde hair and alabaster skin (but dark blue eyes), and a few years later, boys I didn't know would approach me on the playground or on the street and ask (in a tone of distain) "are you albino?!". I was treated with disgust by all sorts of other white people well into my 20s for being too white skinned (after that all the sun damage caught up with me and I gained a bit of permanent colour). WTF is it with white people -- obviously don't be brown or black skinned, but guess what! Don't be too white skinned either. It made me wonder what people with actual albinism have to go through.

About a decade ago, I listened to a documentary on CBC radio about what I now know was a N.O.A.H conference (National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation). They talked about people with albinism gathering from all over the world, and how they kept the lights low because of the sensitivity to light challenges, but also sight issues. I didn't know that--I thought they just had even-lighter-than-me colouring. And then they talked about how people with albinism were hunted in Africa, and I was shocked and horrified. And I thought-- "this is an amazing topic for a book. There's a novel in this." But I'm only a hobby writer, so I haven't made it to this topic yet. But then in 2020 I learned about Beyond the Pale and I had to read it.

Comments: Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes is part exploration of albinism, but mostly it's a memoir of giving birth to a child with a visible disability. The author is a folklorist, and I had heard this described as a blend of personal memoir and myths around the world about albinism, and it wasn't really that. So let's look at what it was actually about.

On a late December night in Newfoundland in 2010, the author gives birth to her first child: a daughter who has a shock of white hair. Perfectly healthy at birth, in the next few weeks they realize that she has albinism, which is a genetic condition that results in unusually pale hair, skin, and eyes; and more significantly, lifelong vision problems. Her husband is a biologist, and gives a solid scientific approach to their parenting, while the author--a daughter of two artists*, and a PhD in folklore--explores the cultural and historical side. All while learning to parent, and learning to parent a child with challenges and who looks different from her parents and all the other kids.

The first third of this 268 page book is parenting memoir and learning about albinism, the second third is about her trip to Tanzania with the aid organization who help the people with albinism in Tanzania, and the last third is exploring family history to find the thread of this genetic mutation. I found all of it quite interesting, but although I had heard about the slaughter of people with albinism in Africa, I found the part in Tanzania especially important, even though it was horrifying. Tanzania has a high percentage of people with albinism, but they are often viewed as living ghosts (aka not human), and witch doctors use their body parts to concoct potions to sell for . . . whatever magical thing you want. Also, raping a woman with albinism will cure HIV. Sadly, this trend is spreading through Africa. Urqhart worked with Under the Same Sun, a non-profit ( https://www.underthesamesun.com/ ) that's run by a Canadian with albinism.

*The author, Emily Urquhart, is the daughter of famed Canadian painter Tony Urquhart, and novelist Jane Urquhart (author touchstone is failing, but she wrote Away, The Stone Carvers, The Underpainter, and many others) (which reminds me . . . I haven't finished her oeuvre yet. I do like her when I'm in the mood for a thoughtful novel)

Rating: 4 stars. I have to say about a quarter of the way into this I had to regroup, because I was expecting something different. And it's not the author's fault that she didn't write the book I envisioned. I bought this because the author is an expert on folklore, and thought she'd bring more of that angle into her look at albinism. It also jumps around quite a bit. But otherwise, a really solid, interesting, informative read.

Recommended for: I learned about this book from author and YouTuber Jen Campbell (more touchstone fail from LT) who is a huge advocate for representation of people with disabilities in literature (she actually blurbs my UK edition: "One of the most powerful non-ficton books I've ever read. Read it and buy copies for everyone you know.")

Otherwise, I'd recommend it for people like me who are interested in albinism. And very much recommended for new parents of a child who is "different." Also readers who are interested in inherited genes and tracing your ancestry

Volatile Texts: Us Two, Zsuzsanna Gahse, 2005, translated from German by Chenxin Jiang, 2016


cover comments: On one hand, it fits with the Dalkey Archive look in general. But on the other hand, ugh! This is a book set all over Switzerland -- is this grainy, underexposed photo the best they can do? Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Comments: Zsuzsanna Gahse was born in Hungary and grew up in Austria and Germany. She now lives in Switzerland. The translator Chenxin Jiang was born in Singapore and grew up in Hong Kong and studied at Princeton. Volatile Texts: Us Two is a literary exploration that explores the accents, languages, and landscapes of Switzerland, which is a stand in for all of Europe. The 13 chapters are called "prose miniatures," and they are bits of story and writing with varying degrees of obliqueness.

What I Didn't Like: I'm not in a place in life where I can appreciate high brow literature such Volatile Texts because there is very little narrative. Some of the pieces are more like poetry that anything else.

What I Liked: it was only 121 pages. It takes the reader all over Switzerland, and explores language, and touches on the four national languages of Switzerland (German, French, Italian and Romansch).

Recommended for: readers who love languages -- I admit that quite a bit of the playfulness went over my head. I also think that a knowledge of Switzerland would help picture the author's descriptions (it did for me, anyway).

Rating: 3 stars. At another time of life it would have been more.

Why I Read This Now: I'm always up to try a book from Switzerland

40. The Likeness, Tana French, 2008

cover comments: not terrible, fine, I guess, although with the country house setting, I could imagine a hundred more interesting covers

Rating: 4 stars. I enjoyed this a lot, but it was slow and overly long. Otherwise I found it interesting, atmospheric, and well written

Comments: The Likeness is book two of the Dublin Murder Squad series. I started with Broken Harbour, which I liked very much, and the the first book In the Woods which was a huge disappointment. I think The Likeness is my favourite of the three.

This one follows police officer Cassie Maddox going undercover to solve the mystery of Lexie Madison, a young woman who has turned up dead, and who could be identical twins with police office Maddox, and who is using one of Maddox's discarded undercover aliases. To solve the murder, Maddox goes undercover with the victims room mates, an eccentric group of Trinity College PhD students living in a fabulous rundown great house in the Irish countryside.

To enjoy this book, the reader must completely suspend disbelief and go with the premises. And then it's lots of fun. But slow -- I feel like I've been reading this 466 page book for weeks. The scenes in the country house with the tight knit group of five was wonderfully evocative.

Recommended for : thinking of reading Tana French? I really don't think you have to read them in order. Try this one.

Why I Read This Now: It fell into my "read on work breaks" pile, but then I ended up packing it home every day and just reading it

>124 Nickelini: I always find it interesting how everyone seems to have a different favorite in the Tana French series. My favorite is book number three, Faithful Place and I would put The Likeness at the bottom of the list (still liked it but not as much as her others).

>124 Nickelini: I've only read 2 Tana French and she has scared me away--too long and tedious---but I'm glad you like it better than I!

A Girl Returned, Donatella Di Pietrantonio, 2017; translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein, 2019


Cover comments: I like it, especially after reading the book.
The original Italian cover was also lovely:


Rating: 4.5 stars. A Girl Returned also won the 2017 Campiello Prize, among other awards.

Comments: A Girl Returned opens with the unnamed 13 year old narrator being dumped at her biological family, who she didn’t even know existed. Brought up an only child in middle class urban comfort, suddenly and without explanation, she is living in poverty with parents who hardly notice her, sleeping with her bedwetting younger sister, and dealing with three dangerous older brothers. There’s the mystery to figure out about why she’s here, along with watching her learn to live in this messy, difficult family and mourning her past life.

Under 200 pages, A Girl Returned moves along quickly with clean writing and short chapters. While I was wrapped up in the narrator’s struggles, an Italian reader pointed out to me that in the original Italian, the main point of this book was an exploration of class struggles. The text was in Italian and all the dialogue was in Abruzzo dialect. This theme isn’t exactly a surprise as the English translation certainly captures that idea, but the nuances and subtleties just didn’t come through in the translation. Despite that, I think this is a great read for the non-Italian reader.

I have to add that there are some wonderful characters and relationships. I especially loved her younger, plucky sister, Adriana.

Recommended for: Fans of Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Novels will probably like this book, both of which were translated by Ann Goldstein. Personally, I much preferred A Girl Returned, but I couldn’t get past My Brilliant Friend.

Why I Read This Now: I'm trying to read more Italian literature.

>127 Nickelini: I've added this one to the wish list. I didn't get far into The Story of a New Name, and was waiting for a good time to try again, so will try A Girl Returned in the meantime. I see that it's short, which is a very good thing.

>128 pamelad:
Yes, short and a quick read. Unlike those books that look short, but are still a slog (I'm looking at you, Heart of Darkness, with your 67 punishing pages)

>129 Nickelini: Yes, I gave up on HoD then gave my copy away so that it didn’t sit on the shelf looking reproachful.

>129 Nickelini:
>130 pamelad:

On my WL is goes! I concur HOD is a slog, I probably started that thing 20 times before I finished it. I can only say I finished it----I can barely remember a thing. I may give it another go as it's free at Audible, read by Kenneth Branagh. I also have Lord Jim languishing on my shelf.

On the Edge, Markus Werner, 2004; translated from German by Robert E. Goodwin, 2012

No cover comments because my cover is not available on LT

Comments: Lawyer Thomas Clarin escapes to his second home in Lugano, Switzerland (Italian Switzerland) to write some work-related papers over the Pentecost long weekend. On his first evening, he goes for dinner at an upscale restaurant terrace and strikes up a lengthy conversation with another diner. They drink and chat into the early hours, and then continue the next evening, with their conversation getting more personal as they go on. Sunday noon, Clarin realizes that everything was not what he supposed.

I read Werner's Cold Shoulder last year, and enjoyed it very much indeed. As with that book, this novella started out with paragraphs that sometimes went on for a page or two, and covered the random thoughts of privileged, educated, white men; thoughts that were sometimes interesting, but often navel-gazing nothings. Cold Shoulder had an unexpected twist at the end, and I was promised that On the Edge did too. Unfortunately, the twist came very late in the book, and honestly, I thought it was less than intriguing.

Fun fact 1: On the Edge sent me to google a few times. Most of the novel was set on the terrace at the Hotel Bellevue in Montagnola, which is a real hotel and restaurant: http://bellevue-bellavista.ch/index.php?node=302&lng=4&rif=40f8cd060a (Hmmm, next trip to Lugano?)

The other key location is the Sanatorium and wellness hotel in Cademario, which I googled and found this: https://kurhauscademario.com/en/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&ut... (Hmmm, maybe I want to stay here instead)



Fun fact 2 The original title is Am Hang, which translated into English is "On a Slope". Both of these are a clever play of words on the content of the novel, as well as the three settings of hillside buildings over Lake Lugano. But in French, the title is Langues de Feu, "Tongues of Fire," which I guess also has at least two clever connections to the novel, and ties to what the novel has to say about Pentecost (I never did get why Pentecost was important to this story). But in Italian, it's Quando la Vita Chiama, "When Life Calls," which isn't clever at all, and as my Italian-speaking husband just said, "it sounds like a Harlequin romance."

Rating: Most readers appreciate this more than I did. The writing is good, and I hear it's an excellent reread, but I can't imagine caring enough. I loved the setting in the various hill communities around Lugano. Being generous, I'll give it 3 stars.

Why I Read This Now: it was on my to-read in 2021 list, and I noticed it took place over Pentecost weekend, so I looked up what that was, and this year it coincides with the Victoria Day weekend in Canada, so I saved it for this long weekend. The Pentecost weekend in the book was actually in June (it's tied to Easter, so one of those moving holidays)

Recommended for: Most reader reviewers liked this more than I did. If it appeals, go read it.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton, 2018


cover comments: I think it's terrific. Very simple, but is subltly evocative of the setting and mood of the book

Rating: This wildly popular book just didn't work for me. 2 stars

Why I Read This Now: Book club

Comments: When I started this, it felt like a novelized version of the game of Clue. "Col. Mustard in the library with the knife," "Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with the lead pipe," etc. The cover of my edition says "Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day. Other comparisons include Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson; Downton Abbey, Gosford Park, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Black Mirror. All of that sounds great to me.

Aiden Bishop finds himself in a stranger's body at a country house gathering. He body hops and time travels through eight characters and eight "days", trying to solve (and stop) the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. I really enjoyed the country estate setting at Blackheath House, and vaguely 1920s mood (it's really more of an alternate universe rather than a real time and place).

Readers praise its ingenuity and intricacy. However, I found this to be an overly long, overly manic, overly complicated, and confusing enough to make me not care. What killed this book for me was the overall premise. There were intricate rules to follow, but who was making these rules and who were these characters who showed up to explain them? It made no sense. This book raised a lot of questions and offered flimsy half-answers. I would have DNF'd this early on, or anywhere along the way, actually, but I paid $25 for it, and I've skipped 50% of our book club books this year, so I decided to suck it up. And now I'm so happy to get back to the book I was enjoying previously.

Recommended for: Lots of 4 & 5 star reader reviews, so if you think it sounds interesting, give it a try.

One More Croissant for the Road, Felicity Cloake, 2019


cover comments: tres bein!

My quotation for 2021: "Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are" (M Cooley)

Rating: 5 stars.

This book should automatically be deducted one star for not including a map (or 21 maps), and photos. Apparently the hardcover edition has a lovely hand drawn map, but, alas, my paperback did not. Despite that, I loved this reading experience so I'm in a forgiving mood. It really was so much fun.

To make up for this map flaw, before I started reading, I printed out a map of France, and based on the Table of Contents, marked her route.

Comments A British food writer's personal Tour de France where she cycles around France in search of the best classic French cuisine. A few years ago my husband and I started planning a cycling-food trip in France with friends. My husband and his lifetime friend are avid cyclists, the friend's wife and I are friends who are happy to drive the support vehicle and nosh our way through France. Life happened, and the trip didn't happen, but I still hope to do a version of this at some point. I'll even cycle if I get an e-bike for the hills. So when I went down some internet hole on a January 2021 night and found this book, I had to order it right away. I didn't know the author, but now that I google her, I've probably looked at some of her "How to Make the Perfect . . . " in the Guardian.

Cycling around France! In search of good food! What's not to like about that? I also liked to read how she had a budget, so it wasn't just all nice hotels and grabbing a ride when things got ugly (which would definitely be my plan). She had friends and family show up now and again, but had long stretches alone, and 150km rides in the rain. And then pitched her wet lycra-clad self into a tent. There were train strikes. And arriving in towns to find almost everything closed (I've shared that traveling in Europe experience).

Also there are asides about French food culture, and each of her 21 Tour de France stages includes a recipe, which is influenced by French locals' advice. Yesterday I made the ratatouille, which was easy, delicious, and also vegan. (I googled her online Ratatouille recipe, which is much more complicated. I'll stick with this local version).

Part way through this book, I found this author on Instagram and she's lots of fun. In the last two weeks she's been in Iceland and is now cycling and camping in her tiny tent in Devon. I commented elsewhere that I think if we met in person we'd be great friends (Emma Thompson would really round out this friend trio).

Why I Read This Now:: See my quotation, above. I've wanted to read it since I discovered it in January.

Recommended for: Armchair travelers. Foodies. One More Croissant for the Road is focused. While it was utterly delightful for me, it's not for everyone: My cyclist husband would be irritated at her how ill-prepared she was for the technicalities of the trip (I read him passages, and he had lots of comments); people looking for a French experience--this is very much a British person's memoir (she does speak fluent French, if that make a difference to you); her travel details are not enough to plan a trip based on this.

But if you have a sense of humour, and want some fun, with learning a few things about French food, I think you might like this one.

>134 Nickelini: Thank you for a great review. On my WL is goes!

Wow, cycling and eating one's way across France - sounds like the perfect vacation! I hope you get to go ahead with it!

We All Fall Down, Daniel Kalla, 2019


cover comments: it's a thriller cover. They aren't supposed to be artistic

Comments: Dr. Alana Vaughn, a NATO specialist in bioterrorism, is called to Genoa, Italy where a critically ill patient has a mysterious disease that turns out to be the Black Death. Vaughn and her team race to find out the source of the disease before the plague gets loose and kills billions. There is a connection to an 800 year old monastery and a smaller subplot from a diary kept during the plague of 1348. Parallels to the COVID outbreak in Northern Italy were interesting.

Rating: 3.75 stars. Medical thrillers aren't really my thing, but this one was a solid good read.

Why I Read This Now: Five months ago I had never heard of Daniel Kalla and now he seems to be everywhere, possibly because his last three novels have been incredibly relevant to current events. We All Fall Down has a potential pandemic, The Last High is set against the fentanyl crisis in Vancouver, and his latest, Lost Immunity features anti-vax fundamentalists. I now own them all and may even read all three this year.

Daniel Kalla is the head of emergency at St Paul's Hospital, one of Vancouver's busiest, and he also teaches medicine at the University of British Columbia. In his spare time, he's managed to write a stack of novels. Apparently, the medical details in them are excellent (even if some of the other details are not).

Recommended for: readers who enjoy medical thrillers

>103 Nickelini: McEwan's book is definitely going on my wishlist!

>105 Nickelini: I really enjoyed this one too and set off on a search for more by Shaun Tan.

>134 Nickelini: Oh, I'm a fan of Felicity Cloake's column in The Guardian - even though I don't cook much anymore since my husband developed strange food preferences along with Parkinson's disease.

>137 Nickelini: Kalla must be a human dynamo to accomplish so much. As you know, I didn't care for Pandemic but enjoyed Blood Lies and look forward to reading more.

>138 VivienneR:
I look forward to your comments on The Cockroach.

I'll let you know how I get on with the Daniel Kalla books.

I'm wondering what your husband's new food preferences are -- is this a Parkinson's thing? Share as little or as much as you're comfortable with.

>139 Nickelini: My husband eats very little now and just snack food. I don't know how he survives. The only vegetable he eats is a leaf of lettuce or a pickle - not at the same time of course! We've both been vegetarian for decades but now he buys those little cans of flavoured salmon that look like Fancy Feast cat food. :( One can for two meals, maybe more, I don't count. The only thing I can cook that he will eat is cake, any kind, preferably plain. My son and I have both given up trying to tempt him with tasty treats. I'm assuming this is related to his Parkinson's because prior to the diagnosis he was such a health nut. I know there is loss of taste and smell with the disease but pound cake doesn't taste or smell better than say, pizza, or a juicy piece of fruit. I'm still trying to adjust my shopping and usually buy far too many vegetables and fruit.

>140 VivienneR:
Oh that sounds really challenging. I'm sorry you're having to go through that. Thanks for sharing, I didn't know about that side effect.

Spring, Ali Smith, 2019


cover comments: I think the covers on the Seasonal Quartet series are lovely. This one is a 1922 painting by Boris Michaylovich Kustodiev called Summer, which I find amusing

Rating: There were a few interesting parts in this, but overall I found it more of a muddle than anything. 3 stars

I rated Autumn (read Sept 2019) and Winter (read Dec 2020) 4 stars. I'm hoping to read Summer later this year, and hope the series gets back on track

Comments: This disjointed tale of a has-been filmmaker, a detention centre worker, a magical refugee child, and Alba (what even was she?) covers all the hot-button issues in 2018 Britain. I did not get on with it, but it wasn't all bad. Most of it wasn't even set in spring, and that made it even worse. So much can be done with a spring theme, but this book just wanted to be dark and grumpy.

Why I Read This Now: I think the Seasonal Quartet is written to be read as close to publication as possible.

Recommended for: completists of the series

>142 Nickelini: The cover is beautiful!

>143 Tess_W:
Yes, the whole series is beautiful, and look so nice on the shelf. I think I'll trade them in at the used book store when I'm done though, as I can't imagine rereading these, so no reason to keep them.

Why Should I Learn to Speak Italian?: The Strugglers' Guide to La Bella Lingua, by Gerry Dubbin, 2016


cover comments: this is lovely, especially for a self-published book

Why I Read This Now: I stumbled across this one night this past January when I was clicking around the internet. The title, "Why Should I Learn to Speak Italian?" is really dumb, but I was drawn to "the Struggler's Guide" part. I had been struggling, but winning!, with learning Italian in late 2019-early 2020, but then my classes shut down in March 2020, and my May 2020 trip to Italy was cancelled, and I completely lost all my steam. I was hoping that this book would inspire me to get back on the Italian learning track.

Rating: 1.5 stars . . . terrible writing, says almost nothing, so 1 star, but I added half a star because as bad as it was, I flew through the 209 pages and was consistently amazed at the atrocious sentences.

Comments: The author fell in love with Italy over his career as an Australian businessman selling wool to the fashion producers in Italy. He wanted to be able to speak to the Italians in their language, but was frustrated by his lack of progress. The fact that he's writing a book tells me that he's figured it out and is going to share how he can help you avoid some of the inevitable struggles. I was also hoping he'd include a few tips specific for English speakers learning Italian.

I have never read so many words saying so little.

He's crazy repetitive. I'm not talking about an author saying the same thing 2 or 3 times, but actually countless times. I'm sure he said the "learn a language in 2 weeks programs don't work" at least 20 times. Yes, we all know that. He'd explain concepts at the highest and vaguest levels. No evidence he did any research at all about language learning. Clearly he'd never head George Orwell's advice to "never use a long word when a short one will do." Nothing in this book began, instead it always commenced. Why use something when you can utilize it? He made footnotes out of information that belonged in the text. He described a website and quoted paragraphs from it, twice, but not only did he not give the URL, he didn't even give the name of the site. He went on a page and a half rant against people who go on cruise ship vacations (fine, but it nothing to do with helping people learn Italian). It made my editor-self twitch. No exaggeration: if I deleted all the repeated info, deleted all the paragraphs that said absolutely nothing, rewrote the ridiculous wordy sentences, deleted all the comments added by Captain Obvious, and reorganized the material so it made sense, this book would be 20 pages long maximum.

As for helpful info, he missed a wide variety of tools available to the language learner who has a smart phone and the internet. Info that's easily found over an evening of searching.

I'm not sorry I read this. Sometimes it's fun to read absolute garbage. If you're still here, enjoy some random excerpts that I marked. Keep in mind that he's trying to help and encourage people thinking about or starting out learning Italian:

On Italian verbs, he didn't give much past: "The different ways in which various verb forms need to be linked when discussing a variety of differing situations is more advanced and can prove difficult to remember which combinations to use, and where, during conversation." (yeah, thanks man. That helps a lot)

"As a learner, it is not recommended that you even attempt to read works written by Dante Alighieri, Italy's claimed equivalent to England's Shakespeare."

"....I was to some extent lucky in my Italian studies at the time, in that the then lady in my life was a Melbourne-born lass of Italian extraction, the daughter of dialetto-speaking Italian parents." (Ew, of all the ways you could have said that, this was what you came up with? This was probably the icky-est worst tho -- he didn't seem like a complete creepoid otherwise).

Ah, the beauty of self-publishing: you don't have to worry about those pesky editors with their "ideas." As I said above, but have to repeat: I have never read so many words saying so little.

Recommended for: absolutely no one

>145 Nickelini: It's unfortunate that the book was a flop as, you are right, that is an eye-catching cover.

>145 Nickelini: I laughed out loud at Sometimes it's fun to read absolute garbage. Hope your classes will start back up again soon!

>147 rabbitprincess:
Happy to entertain. Somehow I can write more interesting comments about a lousy book than an excellent one

>145 Nickelini: Wonderful review! When "was consistently amazed at the atrocious sentences" rated a half star, that says it all, but I'm glad you said more.

>147 rabbitprincess: I always find that writing and polishing a really snarky review is a good way of working off my disappointment or fury over a bad book. It is therapeutic to get it off your chest.

Dreaming of Italy, T.A. Williams, 2020


cover comments: this is the style of cover that I've walked past in drug stores for most of my life without blinking. I was not a reader of these sorts of "little" books. But a couple of weeks ago I had about two and a half minutes to pop into a mall book store to pick up a baby book gift, and as I trotted past the $6 table, this one jumped out at me. Who doesn't want to ride in a red convertible in Vernazza on the Cinque Terre? (this scene did not happen in the book, but close enough. The lone woman in the car is more a suggestion of where this book will take you). I scanned the description and I thought, "I'm taking a $6 chance."

Rating: 4 solid stars for a light but satisfying book.

Comments: As Dreaming of Italy opens, we meet Emma, a 35 year old English woman with a successful career as a location scout working in Hollywood. She's assigned a project to scout locations for a historical romance set in pre-WWI Italy. She's told that everyone has already seen Rome and Florence on film, and the touristy places are logistically prohibitive for filming anyway, so she's tasked to find fabulous filming locations that are 1914 Italian eye candy where a film crew can go. I ADORE this premise. One of my dream jobs in another life is to be a location scout. I live in Vancouver, where zillions of movies and TV shows are filmed every year, so this could be a realistic career for me. But I only want to do this job if I'm driving around Shropshire looking for that perfect country house for the adaptation of some 1920s novel (not interested in finding zombie locations back here at home).

The catch is that Emma has to take along the boss's 28 year old son who just got out of rehab. They meet up with their Italian expert, Marina, in Turin, and off they go driving around Italy, with a generous budget. They soon meet up with the English-Italian historical advisor, Mark, and then along the way, the big name actors and director. All very light and fluffy and clearly a romance is building between Emma and Mark.

The story was fine. No big stakes, no melodrama, fairly predictable but nice to ride along and enjoy. What really made this was all the locations they visited -- some that I've been to, and some I've never heard of. I certainly took notes for my future trips back to Italy. For interested travelers, I skimmed over the novel at the end and pulled out these locations (clearly I missed some others): Turin, Valli di Lanzo, wineries in Alba & Asti, Bordighera (on the sea, near France), Hanbury Botanical Gardens, Rapallo, Monterosso & Riomaggiore on the Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca (where my husband's family lives), Certaldo, Staggia, Siena, Orvieto, Gubbio, Umbrian villa, Bologna, Ferrara, Padua & Venice. That's one sweet Italian tour!

The author: surprised me. First, T.A. Williams is Trevor Williams, who lives in Devon with his Italian wife. He has a degree in modern languages and has lived in Switzerland, France, and Italy. Back in the UK, he runs a prestigious language school. His hobby is long-distance cycling. Not your usual "romance" book writer. I found that he's written a bunch of these sorts of books, several of which I've now ordered, including La villa dei sogni (The Villa of Dreams), which he wrote in Italian. I bought it to give to my mother-in-law (she adores Nora Roberts, and also Danielle Steele, who she reads in Italian). Now I'm wondering if I might be able to read it after a bit more study.

Recommended for: someone looking for pure escapism that includes beautiful but nice people exploring Italy and falling in love. Heavy on the dream trip through Italy aspect. The romance was of the "will they, won't they" genre, where of course they always will. Sex eventually happens off screen with no cringy descriptions. Sorry if that's a spoiler, but if you don't know that going in, well I don't know what to say to you.

Why I Read This Now: I always promise myself I'll read more light books. I think I'm getting a bit better at it. Especially when "reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are." (My COVID motto)

Sometimes light reading fits perfectly.

I love armchair travelling and I also like light reading for my audios so I picked up one of this author's to listen to on Audible. I went with Under A Siena Sun and hopefully I will pick up more at a later date.

>151 Nickelini: I've read 12 books over 500 pages this year and some were real stinkers. I'm on the quest for lighter, shorter, but still "good" books. I'm taking a BB for this one!

Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power, Ross King, 2007


cover comments: lovely, but why is there a picture of my father-in-law on this cover? Since my father-in-law looks so much like Machiavelli, and he was born about 60km away, I've decided that my husband is a descendant of the famed Renaissance political philosopher. (Machiavelli's descendants live on, so technically we could do a DNA test. Or I can just decide it's true)

Comments: Pretty much a just-the-facts telling of Machiavelli's life, with a discussion of his legacy in The Conclusion. I've actually read a lot about this time period. It was a bloody, violent series of conflicts between the Borgia, Medici, and Sforza families, the French, Spanish, and Popes. I heard this described as reading a game of snakes and ladders, and that's a perfect description.

This is part of the Eminent Lives series.

Why I Read This Now: I've enjoyed this author before and I like reading about Renaissance Italy.

Recommended for: readers interested in the politics of Renaissance Italy.

Rating: 3 stars. I think I'm done with non-fiction from this time period. In the future I'll look for historical novels when I want to read about this period.

The Godmother, Hannelore Cayre, 2017, translated from French by Stephanie Smee in 2019


cover comments: I like it. Blue covers are generally pleasing. I wonder if it looks too chick lit though. This book isn't chick lit.

Why I Read This Now: I can't remember what book-net rabbit hole I was down when I discovered this book a few months ago, but I had to order it right away. I'm interested in reading more non-literary translated fiction

Comments: I'll share the description that hooked me:

For 25 years she has toiled honestly, translating police wire-taps of north African drug gangs. She knows she's just a footsoldier in a senseless politicians' war against high-grade hashish, a tiny cog in the state machinery of racism and repression. But it's always paid the bills -- until now . . . With her mother's extortionate care home eating her savings, a lonely and impoverished old age lies ahead.

So when Patience gets the chance to take possession of a vast stash of top-quality Moroccan Khardala, she doesn't hesitate long. Exit the grey-suited civil servant. Enter "the Godmother." Life in the banlieues will never be the same again."

Rating: A quick, fun read, and most unique. 4 stars

Recommended for: Readers who want to see an unglamorous side of current day France.

Feminist City: A Field Guide, Leslie Kern, 2019


cover comments: I like it! There is black on black writing that says: "public space is not designed for women. My fear is not irrational. Headphones on--don't talk to me. City space is my space. The city needs to hear my voice." and on the back cover, "I am not public property. Don't tell me to smile. I can't take a shortcut home. A woman's place is in the city. Dude, really--two seats? Whose streets? Her streets."

Why I Read This Now: a few months ago I heard the author interviewed on CBC and I ordered this book the same day. I've been reading it in bits and pieces over the past few months.

Comments: Leslie Kern has a PhD in women's studies and teaches geography and environment, and is the director of the gender studies program at Mount Allison University. In this readable fairly short book, she shows how western cities are built to maintain traditional gender roles and assist cis white middle class males. She uses many personal stories to illustrate her points. The sections are City of Men, City of Moms, City of Friends, City of One, City of Protest, City of Fear, and City of Possibility.

Overall, it was an interesting read and pulled together various issues into one narrative. Although focused on women, she also included all groups that aren't cis white middle class males. I was hoping for more solutions, rather than just describing the problems.

Rating: 4 stars. When I heard her interviewed, she gave an example of the Cornell University Library:



Apparently this architectural marvel was designed to showcase the books. And no one ever thought about usability. Women with skirts and thin heels have trouble using this space, as do people who use canes or crutches. I'm sure this cost jillions of dollars to design and build, and no one thought about usability?

I was hoping for case studies like this in the book, and more detailed urban design, and less at the high level problem identifying.

Recommended for: you know who you are. I'm passing my copy along to my daughter who is in 3rd year geography and thinking of doing a masters in urban planning.

Wow, that library is very eye-catching until you start to think about the accessibility!

>157 Nickelini: I agree with you, it probably cost a jillion dollars! In addition to the problems you mentioned, it's just downright cold and ugly, imho!

>157 Nickelini: Eye-catching, as >158 DeltaQueen50: says but I think it is just ugly and I can't help wondering what the acoustics are like. Libraries like to have standout designs with photos all over the internet making them famous and I can imagine the designers promoting this one with that idea. I am willing to bet Cornell regrets going along with it. I hope your daughter keeps it in mind in her urban planning studies.

I also think it's ugly. It looks very industrial. It doesn't look comfortable or inviting.

25th Anniversary Edition Bridget Jones's Diary (And Other Writing), Helen Fielding, 2021


cover comments: I'm a huge Bridget Jones fan, so I don't care what the cover looks like, and this could be so much worse. But! I'm not crazy about this, to be honest. Obviously they had some fun with it, by combining the granny panties with the motif of Penguin Classics hardcovers, but I just find it cheap looking. That said, I'm not sure what a better motif for BJ would be if not the giant granny panties. Maybe a wine bottle? But that could apply to a lot of literary characters. And the granny panty scene in the movie still makes me laugh out loud, even after about 70 viewings. Perhaps it's that the execution could be better.

Lots of words, and I haven't made it to my book comments yet . . .

Comments: I adored Bridget Jones's Diary when I read it in the 90s, and then I loved the early 2000s rom-com film version. It's one of my top go-to comfort movies. When I heard they were releasing a 25th Anniversary Edition Bridget Jones's Diary, I didn't think I needed it until I heard there was over 100 pages of new material. And that's what I'm reviewing here-- the 126 pages of content outside of a reprinting of the novel. (If you want to know my thoughts on that, see my review from 2015 https://www.librarything.com/topic/184941#5050106)

25 Years of Bridget Jones

These are the extra wobbly Bridget Jones bits that I'll review here. Each has a half page introduction by the author, and then the rest is in Bridget's voice. These author introductions put the pieces in context and were gold:

Life Before Bridget: How Helen Fielding ended up writing BJD. At some point, she got a gig writing restaurant reviews for the Sunday Times and she included a few, starring her mum and her aunt, who turned into her mum and Aunt Una in the novel; and in another, her friends Sharon and Tracey, who became Shazzer and Jude.

The Diary of Bridget Jones: some of her newspaper columns that became the novel, not all of which made it to the novel. (There are alternate Bridget universes)

Bridget Becomes a Thing: After the novel became a best seller, one of Helen Fielding's highlights was when the Independent arranged for her to meet up with Colin Firth (her muse as Mr Darcy/Mark Darcy/himself) in Rome. They had lunch with a bottle of wine in one restaurant and because they were having so much fun they went to a second restaurant and a second bottle of wine and then did an interview of Fielding being in character as Bridget interviewing Firth. There is a version of this in The Edge of Reason and another version on YouTube of Renee Zellweger in character (search Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth), and this is the original.

Bridget in the 21st Century : This might be my most favourite of the sections.

First, Fielding's goddaughter asked her to contribute to an edgy collection of essays about feminism. She wrote this: Bridget on attending the 40th Anniversary viewing of Saturday Night Fever with her friends. Shazzer loudly loses her shit over the insanely sexist script. I found this funny because a few weeks ago my 21 year old daughter told me that she'd just watched and hated Saturday Night Fever. She was very puzzled about how it could be a "classic." I said, "oh, that's a terrible movie." (I was too young to see it when it was a phenom, but I was old enough to babysit for couples going to see it. Saw it 25 years later. I was bored). Anyway, Shazzer's take on it was spot on. And why IS it a classic? Ugh.

Then March 2019 on freaking out about impending Brexit (among many lists, "Are we going to run out of wine?" was my fav entry, to which I say, with global warming, England will return to producing wine as it did in the 1200s)

This was followed by 29 March 2020 - Britain in full lock down, and then 24 May 2020, being allowed to maybe gather outdoors, with all its variations.

Finally, some pictures to suggest a self-help book written by Bridget Jones.

Why I Read This Now: it arrived in the mail 2 days ago

Rating: 4.5 stars. BJ has been a big part of my life. And I still relate to her. I think it's because she's always striving to do her best, and tries to meet society's or culture's expectations and mostly not making it. And being so human about it. Probably a few of us can relate to that, although over the past 25 years, I care a whole lot less! (and when I met Bridg in my early 30s, I already cared less than she did). But her character has grown, and she's a good person, and also, Mark Darcy!

Recommended for: anyone who has read this far has some warm spot for BJ and should probably read this. If you're here, and haven't read Bridget Jones's Diary, and it sounds good, go read that, but take it in context. As the author says in one of the introductions:

I tend not to read my own books (once I've written them, obviously) or re-watch the movies, but a couple of years ago I took my children, Dash and Romy, to see a screening of the Bridget Jones's Diary (event) . . . I was shocked at the casual sexism in every scene, which an unenlightened Bridget just put up with as part and parcel of having a job. Honestly, in this day and age all of Bridget's bosses would have been fired and shamed on the spot. Solemn Feminists could get angry about what Bridget put up with, but the fact is, I didn't write the diary as a sociological treatise. It became widely read because there was recognition. It was reflecting a reality, not creating it. .

I saw the movie opening weekend, and in my corporate experience, we all knew it was exaggerated for comedic purposes.

Comfort read.

Just catching up on your thread, very enjoyable browsing. Who are your favorite BookTubers?

>162 Nickelini: Have never read or watched Bridget Jones. Will place it on my WL!

>163 VictoriaPL:
My very favourite YouTuber is Simon Savidge from SavidgeReads, followed closely by Jen Campbell. I listen to a bunch of others, and * e m m i e *, Audrey at Chapter and Converse, and April at Getting Hygge With It are the ones I listen to most often (after Simon and Jen)

>164 Tess_W: - If you do read it, make sure you put on your 1990s glasses

>165 Nickelini: thanks! I just dipped a toe into BookTube and it's a bit overwhelming. The only one I’ve really watched consistently so far is Olive from abookolive.

>166 VictoriaPL: I watch Olive sometimes. Our book tastes aren’t very similar or I’d watch her more often. I think she writes reviews for the Christian Science Monitor, which is pretty impressive

>165 Nickelini: Simon is my fave too!
After Simon, my other favourite is Jean from Jean Bookishthoughts, particularly if you like ancient literature.
Olive is great for nonfiction.
Lauren and the Books is just super fun.
For classic literature, Books and Things is the best - she always finds the more obscure classic literature.

>168 JayneCM:
I've watched all of those . . . I don't follow Jean anymore though because we don't read ANY of the same books. I follow her on Instagram though because she posts nice pictures.

For classic literature, Books and Things is the best - she always finds the more obscure classic literature.

I watched her today and she says she's read over 100 books so far in 2021. That's crazy!

>167 Nickelini: Olive also mentioned Harvard Review in a recent video.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Bitter Orange, Claire Fuller, 2018


cover comments: This is gorgeous and drew me right in. The background pattern is "Bird and pomegranate' wallpaper from William Morris. I always love William Morris on a cover

Why I Read This Now: When I was browsing in Munro's books a couple of weeks ago, I was considering the same author's Unsettled Ground (which sounds excellent), and then I noticed this, and I was drawn to the title and the spine art. I have a thing for books with fruit in the title, don't ask me why. The blurb on the back sounded irresistible, especially this bit, "hot summer rolls lazily on", as I was very hot when I read that. (We're having a lengthy heat wave here in Western Canada.) Bitter Orange bypassed my massive TBR pile and I started it right away.

Comments: It took me about 10 days to read Bitter Orange because I was absolutely savoring it. It just dripped with stifling summery atmosphere.

Thirty-nine year old Frances arrives at the decaying Hampshire country house in the summer of 1969 with the job of cataloguing the garden structures for the new owner. Also staying there are bohemian Cara and her spouse Peter, who is documenting the house. Frances has spent her adult life in isolation caring for her ailing mother, who has recently died, and she is socially awkward and naïve. The three form a friendship of sorts, and spend the sultry summer drinking wine and smoking cigarettes, and slowly secrets seep out.

Bitter Orange is compared to: Daphne du Maurier, Anita Brookner, We Have Always Lived in a Castle, and A Month in the Country. I could list a lot of other books it reminds me of, but I think it's just that the English country house in summer setting is one of my favourites.

Rating: Absolutely loved this, perfect summer read. 4.5 stars.

Recommended for: There isn't enough action in Bitter Orange for many readers, but if you like an atmospheric, intriguing and elegant novel, check it out.

>171 Nickelini: I also love the cover! Am putting it on my WL.

>171 Nickelini: Great review! I just put this on my wishlist at the library. Glad to hear it's so good. "Atmospheric, intriguing, and elegant" sounds like it's just right for me.

>171 Nickelini: I have Unsettled Ground here to read, and just looked and my library has this one on shelf. Hopefully I will get to it soon!

>171 Nickelini: This is an author that I need to get to! I have her Endless Numbered Days on my shelf and both Bitter Orange and Unsettled Ground on my library list.

>175 DeltaQueen50: Ooh, Our Endless Numbered Days looks good too - I think I'll just have to read all her backlist!

Breath, Tim Winton, 2008


cover comments: I really like this cover, but I don't think it fits the book

Rating: for most of this, I thought it had great atmosphere, but perhaps lacking in story, and then in the last third, bam! It turns and everything comes together. I was wowed. It went from 3.5 stars to 4.5 stars over a few pages.

Comments: Bruce Pike, a paramedic, looks back on his early teen years growing up in the 1970s in a small town on the south coast of Western Australia. Before extreme sports were a thing, he makes friends with Loonie through their mutual interest of risk taking. While out surfing, they are swept into the world of Sando, a retired pro-surfer, who becomes a guru to them. Together, and then apart, they take on increasingly bigger risks.

Winton writes beautifully, and I enjoyed more pages about waves and swells than I would have thought possible. The story flowed nicely, even if I wasn't completely invested in it. Then Winton steered the proverbial surfboard of this novel sharply and pulled me in. Lots of layers on the theme of "breath" were handled beautifully. After finding this author's In the Winter Dark to be forgettable, and Dirt Music to be better but a bit "meh", I thought I was done with him, but now I will definitely pick up at least Cloudstreet.

I see in my 2015 comments on Dirt Music that I complained about the lack of quotation marks around dialogue. Oh my, how things change. I was 3/4 of the way through Breath before I noticed they were missing.

Recommended for: I'm not sure. Would someone with no interest in surfing still like this? Surfing is minor in my life, but it's always been out on the periphery -- whether through my older brothers surfing in SoCal in the 1970s, or watching surfers in Australia and Hawaii. There is something mesmerizing about watching them, especially in bigger surf like the North Shore of Maui. And I've had enough body surfing mess ups to relate in some small way to what Pike was talking about. I guess if Breath sounds remotely interesting, give it a try.

Why I Read This Now: a beachy Australian book sounded like a good summertime read, even if my own summer is spent mostly in an air conditioned office

>177 Nickelini: Do not watch the movie of Breath, it is terrible!
I think Cloudstreet is, by far, his best novel - hope you enjoy it. I also loved Blueback.
I have The Shepherd's Hut on my list to read for BingoDOG soon.

>178 JayneCM: lol I’ve seen the trailer for the movie and it didn’t look great

Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, Salman Rushdie, published 1991


cover comments: why is he leaning against a wall with two graffiti scrawls. I don't really get this. Not the worst; could be better

Comments: A collection of non-fiction writing by Rushdie during the Thatcher years. Main themes are immigration, politics, religion. There were many pieces that I didn't care about, so I read selectively--53%, or 235/439 pages. When Rushdie is good, he is very, very good. But not going to read about EL Doctorow, or Rian Malan, or all sorts of other 80s topics. I couldn't tell from the title of a piece whether I'd be interested or not. For example, "Hobson-Jobson" was one of my favourites, although starting it I didn't have a clue what it was about (which was Indian words that we use in English, such as "shampoo" or "muddle"). There are many reviews of other writers' works, and he tells us how he feels. Rushdie did NOT like Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, for example.

Many times Rushdie make precise and exact comments about politics, racism, immigration, and religion. The years in-between have provided many examples to show that he was spot on. The only thing that really stood out different today is that he wrote during an AIDS crisis. I was surprised to be reminded how progressive Rushdie was.

Recommended for: you know who you are. If you've been wanting to read Rushdie but don't know where to start, I think his non-fiction is more accessible than his novels. Get this from the library and read what interests you.

Why I Read This Now: I've owned this since university, when I read several things by Rushdie, including the title essay "Imaginary Homelands." I wanted to read more, but never found a time to fit it in until now.

Rating: Based on the 35 essays I read, 4 stars.

ETA: 20 years ago, Salman Rushdie was the guest speaker at a professional conference I wanted to attend. When I submitted my request to my employer, my spell checker changed Salman Rushdie to "salmon residue". He'll always be Salmon Residue to me. (I promptly changed jobs and didn't attend the conference)

>180 Nickelini: LOL to salmon residue!

>180 Nickelini: LOL 😂

After Hannibal, Barry Unsworth, 1997


cover comments: Another disjointed 1990s cover where none of the elements go together. It really looks like it was created on 1990s software, rather than something a renowned publisher such as Norton would produce. The photo is grainy. The elements suit the story, but the execution is poor. A much nice cover:



Comments: This was an interesting read, although I had heard it was "light" and I thought, humorous. I didn't find it funny at all, and once I got past that expectation, I enjoyed this story of a group of neighbors living on a country road in Umbria, Italy. There is the Italian family who has been there forever, the English couple who fight with them, an American couple who dreamed of restoring a house in the Italian countryside for their retirement, a professor from Turin who is wrapped up in the Renaissance history of the area, a German who is wresting with his childhood spent in Italy with his Nazi father, and the gay couple, Fabio & Arturo. (The names of this couple make me laugh because my husband's name is Fabrizio, but shortened to "Fab", and most Canadians assume he's a Fabio; he has a close friend from childhood who for the past 5 years, he has gone on 75km-100km bike rides with a couple of times a month, and his name is Arturo.) There is also an English "property manager" (aka con-artist) and his wife who dreams of starting a medieval-style restaurant, and an Italian lawyer who stirs things up.

In each group of characters, there is betrayal. It's interesting, and sometimes frustrating, and often heartbreaking.

Recommended for: #1 - if you know anyone who watches films set in Italy, or reads fantasy memoirs such as Under the Tuscan Sun, or dreams of Italy after their 2 week trip there, and now wants to buy a house in Italy . . . put this book in their hands immediately. Other than that, I think most people who read my thread on LT would enjoy After Hannibal.

Why I Read This Now: I'm always up for a novel about the Italian-dream (for foreigners) gone wrong. COVID is still blocking my travel to Italy, so I might was well read a book set there.

Rating: probably a hair under 4 stars

The Garden of Monsters, Lorenza Pieri, 2019; translated from Italian by Liesl Schillinger, 2020


cover comments: I like the bright colours but the image puzzled me. Now that I know it's taken from an actual art work in "the garden of monsters," I get it. I like the font. 3.5 out of 5 stars, but much nicer than most Europa Editions (I think they have been doing better the last few years)

Comments: An Italian family drama, set in the 1980s Maremma, which is the southwest corner of Tuscany. Until the 20th century, the Maremma was a malaria-infested swamp. The Garden of Monsters begins after the swamp has been drained, Italy is recovering from the devastation of WWII, and money and investment is starting to flow into the region. The Biagini family are local ranchers, and the head of the family, Sauro, goes into business with the wealthy Roman politician Filippo Sanfilippi. Together they create rustic retreats where wealthy Romans can come to ride horses, enjoy the beach, eat high quality local food cooked by Sauro's wife, and drink a lot of local wine.

The book blurb describes this as a "war between families," but I'd say it was more a novel about two families who were frenemies, with the lower class famiglia Biagini usually getting the short end from the upper class famiglia Sanfilippi. If there is a main character, it's Sauro's teenage daughter Annamaria--intelligent, observant, anxious and so naïve. Filippo has a daughter the same age--thin, blonde ballerina Lisa. There is a cast of other family members, some with sizeable story tangents. But of the other characters, none is more important than Niki de Saint Phalle, a French-American artist who is creating a garden of massive sculptures nearby. This is the "Garden of Monsters" in the title, named thusly because the locals saw this as a folly and didn't recognize as having value. Annamaria visits this garden while it's under construction, and gets to know the artist, and these encounters spur her self-confidence and growth.

The Garden of Monsters has been described as a bildungsroman, and I agree it would be if only the novel were tighter and focused on Annamaria. However, it wandered off on tangents about several other characters, so maybe I'd call it a bildungsroman with tangents about adultery, discovering sexuality, disappointing sons, bribing politicians, anxious parents, historical background, and so on.

I found the Italian details to be authentic and insightful, and helped me understand my husband's Italian family and culture better. I say that because many Italian novels I read do that old school thing of not naming the place and trying to make it universal.

Let's Get Personal: 1. Part way into the book I realized that even though it wasn't a name I recognized, Niki de Saint Phalle was a real person, and her Tarot Garden in SW Tuscany is a real place. http://ilgiardinodeitarocchi.it/ I wanted to know how to pronounce her name correctly (my French really stinks) so I searched her in YouTube and came across an hour long documentary about the artist that was fascinating. And who would have guessed? She created one of my all time favourite sculptures! I just hadn't taken note of the artist. And I even wrote about this sculpture a few years ago here on LT, because the statue was discussed in the book Hausfrau and I saw it in real life the same week I read the book: https://www.librarything.com/topic/245600#6302058


You can find "L‘ange protecteur" hanging in the Zurich train station, blessing all the passengers who rush past underneath her. Turns out, this is one of Niki de Saint Phalle's "nanas" . . . I just adore them, and now that I know more about the artist, I'm amazed that such happiness and feminine joy came out of such a traumatized and sometimes angry woman. Off on a tangent to learn more about Niki de Saint Phalle . . .

2. The main characters, who are from SW Tuscany, have the surname "Biagini," which is my husband and daughter's surname. My husband is from NW Tuscany, and we do know there are other Biaginis in the area who we don't know . . . but it's a fairly uncommon surname. There is a baseball pitcher named Joe Biagini who plays for the Chicago Cubs (maybe? I don't follow baseball at all and people started reaching out to my husband when Joe played for Toronto). (Oh, I just googled him and he comes from San Francisco, and there's a branch of the Biagini family who went to San Francisco and were disowned, so maybe this is second cousin or something? I digress). Anyway, I've only found my surname once in a novel (main character Naomi Nickel in A Complicated Kindness) and this is the first time I've found my husband and kids' surname, and it's even for a main character. That's the kind of thing that I like. I guess if your surname is Smith or Lee or something your experience is different.

Why I Read This Now: Europa Editions always sit close to the top of my TBR piles; this seemed like a summer read (set on a beach and all); the main characters are Biaginis (see above); August is "women in translation month"

Rating: 4.25 stars. The writing was good, the detail was excellent, the characters were interesting, unique, sometimes sympathetic . . . but it just rambled from here to there too much.

>184 Nickelini: kismet!

>184 Nickelini: Well, I don't know about the book but your review was excellent! Very interesting.

>185 VictoriaPL: Indeed!

>186 VivienneR: Thanks!

In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahari, 2015, translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein, 2016


cover comments: it's okay I guess but not very interesting

Comments: This is Jhumpa Lahari's memoir of learning to speak, and then write, Italian. Unlike me, she has no good reason to learn Italian, but finds herself inexplicably drawn to the language. This was significantly better than Why Learn to Speak Italian, which I earlier this summer.

Rating: 4 stars. As someone who is struggling to learn Italian, I found this super interesting. However, by the end I was finding it repetitive and self-indulgent. She oddly seemed to only care about Italian language, and not Italian people or culture.

Recommended for: readers interested in adults learning a new language.

Why I Read This Now: one of the challenges for Women in Translation month is to read a work of non-fiction. This is the only book I own that qualifies.

The Italian Matchmaker, Santa Montefiore, 2009


cover comments: The type of cover I’ve walked by without a glance for decades. Gag. What makes this especially awful is that this book is firmly set on the Amalfi Coast, and this is clearly not the Amalfi Coast. Italy, maybe, but not where the book is set for sure. Also, the title font is ugly.

Comments: Last year I knew I needed to read more light and fun books and found The Temptation of Gracie by Santa Montefiore. Much to my surprise, it was fairly well written, with good sense of place, interesting characters and an engaging storyline. I was expecting mediocre and it wasn’t. So this year I tried The Italian Matchmaker that the same author wrote a decade earlier. Unfortunately, this one could be better described as mediocre.

The main story involves Luca, a mover and shaker in the London finance world, recently divorced, and finding his life pointless. Lucky for him, his parents have recently restored a villa in a village on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, so he quits it all and goes to the palazzo to recoup. And falls in love. I guess it’s nice to read a love story from a guy’s point of view.

The problem with The Italian Matchmaker is that there were too many characters and little side stories, and too many odd connections between people. I didn’t really connect with any character, although Luca was drawn interestingly enough. The author did write his two small daughters very well. There were many phrases that were lovely, and she captured the feel of a small Amalfi village quite well. The characters in the novel were distinct enough, but all their inter-tangling and their ties back to history (a previous novel set many years in the past) were terribly confusing and not interesting at all.

As I said, many lovely bits of writing and world building, but ach! My red editor’s pen was twitching. This needed an overall story arch rewrite. But also, so many tiny details were eyerolling, wrong, or silly. The tall, dark, handsome Luca did not have to be 6’4’ tall in southern Italy! That’s monstrously tall in that world, not attractively handsome. Make him 6’, 6’1” tops to be better suited and accepted. And don’t get me started about naming the mafia boss “Lupo Bianco.” Groan. (It translates to “white wolf”). Silly mistakes, those are the first two that come to mind. An abundance of silly mistakes.

And then! There’s a whole supernatural element. Oh my. Just no. I’m not opposed to supernatural, and I love me some magical realism, but this was just a ghost story wedged into a normal escapist romance novel.

Rating: Generous 3 stars. At least 1.5 of those stars are because the author did the setting quite well. I don’t regret the time I spent with this. I was engaged and entertained. Just so many flaws. But her later novel was much better! I will read this author again

Why I Read This Now: I make myself fit in a frothy novel every few months because it’s a healthy thing to do. Romances set in Italy are good fits for this purpose.

I think reading books such as The Italian Matchmaker and the one I just read called The French for Always really depends on one's mood at the moment. My book was certainly not special in anyway, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, probably as I was just coming off a couple of really dark books so it was nice to read something light and easy.

>190 DeltaQueen50: I saw your The French For Always post -- it sounds like a better book than the one I read this time. Yes, these types of books are nice breaks when I've been reading too many serious, grim or literary books.

The Emissary, Yoko Tawada, 2014; translated from Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani, 2018


cover comments: I love this. I had never heard of this novella when I came across it in my favourite book store last summer, and the cover drew me right in

Comments: It's Japan, sometime in the future, and something has gone terribly wrong. The land is completely poisoned, and the children who are born are very weak and delicate, whereas the older people are in comparison, thriving. Yoshiro is over 100 years old and still rents a dog for half and hour and goes for a run every morning. The rest of the time he takes care of his great-grandson Mumei. Their world of future-Tokyo is a struggle, and Yoshiro remembers before . . . before Japan went full-on isolationist, before the internet went down, and before all the foreign words and ideas were outlawed. The world building was extremely inventive and memorable, and the characters of Mumei and Yoshiro were fully sympathetic.

Unfortunately, this 137 page novella has no chapters, sections or breaks at all. It's all one go from the beginning. There is no plot to speak of, and it's a disjointed read, abruptly going from one character to another, sometimes in first person, more often in third. This would have been so much better if they had thought to give it some little ~~ or *** breaks to help the reader along. And also, more of a story would be better.

I was surprised that this dystopian novel has many science fiction tags, because scifi is a genre I usually want nothing to do with. Good to be reminded that not all scifi involves robots on space ships.

Rating: Glad I read this, liked it more than I disliked it, but the pages-long paragraphs, total lack of plot, and abrupt head jumping lands this at 3 stars.

Recommended for: dystopian fictions fans looking for a lighter, not disturbing read.

Why I Read This Now: it's been top of my TBR pile since I bought it last year, but it was a must-read for "women in translation August"

Wildlives, Monique Proulx, 2008; translated from French by David Homel & Fred A Reed, 2009


cover comments: just gorgeous, especially when you turn the book and see the spine and back cover. Captures the feel of the book rather beautifully.

Comments: Wildlives covers the lives of a handful of people staying the summer in cabins and cottages around a lake in the Laurentians of Quebec. The forest, hills and waterways are another character in this novel. The writing is lush and unique. Unfortunately, the middle third of the book bogs down with too many characters and too little story. It picks up again for an interesting ending.

Rating: Wildlives had some of the most beautiful writing I can remember reading, and then I grew bored with it's seeming lack of purpose. At times I thought of this as a 5 star read, but in the end I'm giving it 4 stars. A strong edit of the rambling bits mid-story is needed.

Recommended for: people who love to read about nature and who appreciate a solid representation of summertime. Readers who like a clear plot shouldn't bother

Why I Read This Now: I've owned this for a decade and finally picked it up months ago, and then realized it's clearly set in the summer, so I put it aside for a summer challenge read

Interesting note: This was originally published in French with the title "Champagne," which I don't really understand. I'd like to know more about that. Maybe time to go and google . . .

>192 Nickelini: What a beautiful cover! That would attract me too. Too bad the story didn't live up to the cover.

>194 VivienneR: Too bad the story didn't live up to the cover.

Sigh. I really struggled writing my review. The first 100 pages of this book were AMAZING. The last 75 pages were very good. It was just the middle mush of the 318 pages. But when it was good, it was very good. I still gave it 4 stars and I plan to reread it.

Wave, Eric Walters, 2009


cover comments: absolutely love this - great design, Jennifer Lum & Eyestalk

Comments: Every year, Sam Brooks, his older sister Beth, and their parents would spend Christmas holidays at a beach resort in Thailand. In 2004, Beth stays home to train with her university swim team. On Boxing Day 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the resort. The first half of the book is Sam's story of being in Thailand and the tsunami, and the second half is Beth's story of the aftermath and trying to find her family.

Recommended for: the target audience for this novel is middle school readers. I think Walters has a gift of writing realistic style books that will appeal to both boys and girls. This should be in all the libraries for this age group.

Rating: A solid book that I read mostly in one sitting. 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a short break between some other, slower reads. This was the last book I bought when I used to organize the Scholastic Book Fairs at my daughters' school, so it's been in my TBR for over a decade for a someday read. Today was that someday.

Note: Eric Walters is a prolific Canadian writer who has won many awards. I guess his publisher wanted to sell more books in the US, so they had the family come from New York instead of Toronto. You know, because kids in Iowa or Indiana can't possibly relate to any characters from other countries. I really hate that :-(

>196 Nickelini: That is an eye-catching cover!

>196 Nickelini: Wave by Eric Walters sounds better than the book of the same title by Sonali Deraniyagala which ended up being self-pitying. Although having the family come from New York instead of Toronto to get more US sales is an annoying trick used too often.

>198 VivienneR:

Oh, I thought Wave by Deraniyagala was *amazing* . . . she was self-pitying for a big chunk of it and went down some dark holes, but I remember her pulling out of it by the end, I thought. I listened to it on audiobook. I would be boring if we all liked and disliked the same books though!

>199 Nickelini: You're right, the first part was amazing but towards the end her thoughts and reactions became self-pitying and much too dark for my liking. For example when she sat outside the house her parents had lived in and wished ill for the new residents. I remember it to be a lengthy section and I thought some therapy was definitely in order. But I am really sorry that her loss and experiences were so awful that they took her to that spot. She suffered a terrible tragedy.

>200 VivienneR: Oh, I don't remember that . . . maybe it didn't seem so long on audiobook because I'm always doing other stuff when I listen. I can't even imagine losing my husband, children and parents all in one tragedy. No words for how awful that would be.

The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen, 1929


cover comments: Rather nice, suits the story well. These Anchor classics, with their gold spines, are nicely printed books that feel lovely to hold

Comments: It's 1920 and eighteen year old Lois Farquar is living with her uncle and aunt at their large country house in Cork, Ireland, wondering what she's going to do with the rest of her life. Learn Italian? Or German? Go to art school? Get married? This what occupies her mind, while the adults around her go about their privileged traditional Anglo-Irish lives, mostly ignoring the uprisings in the background that will forever end their way of life.

What I Liked About This: I'm a fool for a novel set at a country house or villa. This novel had beautiful atmosphere, and Bowen can pull off some lush, gorgeous sentences. I liked the obliviousness of the characters while clearly bad things are happening right outside. Great use of foreshadowing.

What I Didn't Like About This: I've read that Elizabeth Bowen was really into Henry James when she wrote this, and his influence shows. Sometimes her sentences confuse me . . . she uses words I know, but the way she puts them together make me scratch my head. With other books by Bowen, I've been frustrated at the unnatural sounding conversations; I didn't think this as much here because it is set in 1920, so it seemed more natural. But still, I occasionally thought "who talks like that?"

Previous Books I've Read By This Author: I once believed that Elizabeth Bowen was an author who I was going to fall in love with. After four books, I can confidently say that I do not love Elizabeth Bowen. But I do like her, and I have two more on my shelves that I will eventually read. The first Bowen I read was her last novel, Eva Trout (1968) which I enjoyed but thought was really strange. Then I read the Heat of the Day (1949), a book that is supposed to be the quintessential novel about the London Blitz. I super hated it. It felt like watching a bad Joan Crawford movie. Next was The Death of the Heart (1938), a book I knew about from trusted sources who raved about how amazing it was. I liked it, but it was ssssllllooowww with lots of weird dialogue.

I'm still looking forward to reading The Hotel (her first, 1927) because it's set in Portofino, Italy. I'm all over that. And then I have the classic, The House in Paris. I know nothing about this, but "house" and "Paris" sound good to me.

Why I Read This Now: Not every September, but often in September, I like to take on a book that is historical or classic. This seemed to fit, and also "September" was right there in the title like an instruction. (Some epic-September reads from past years: Tess of the D'Ubervilles, The Story of Lucy Gault, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Possession, the Children's Book, Howard's End. I didn't note the authors because I think most people who read my threads are a little familiar with each of these).

Rating: 3.5 stars

Recommended for: Henry James fans, people who generally like these sorts of books

>202 Nickelini: I remember being very disappointed by Bowen's The Heat of the Day, and I haven't read any of her other books yet. Seems like maybe I got a dud, but I'm not terribly eager to try anything else by her!

>203 christina_reads: I think she's a bit of a challenge for the 21st century reader . . . her style is not a particularly rewarding read for most

All My Puny Sorrows, Miriam Toews, 2014


cover comments: This is fine but doesn't inspire me

Rating: 5 stars

Comments: Wow. Can I just leave it there? I find it difficult to write comments about a book when I loved it so much. I feel like I'm going to gush like a 13 year old talking about her favourite boy band.

Yoli is a 40-something author of middle school novels about rodeo girls, and she has a messy life with two failed marriages and a child from each. Her older sister Elf has it all together -- beautiful, polylingual, intelligent, world class pianist, but she suffers from debilitating depression. For most of the novel, Elf is in the psych ward, wishing for death. Minor characters are their fun-loving mother, mom's sister Tina, and Yoli's teenage kids. This is a novel that exudes empathy and love, and brought me from tears to laughter.

I don't know when I last bent down so many page corners and penciled in happy faces in the margins. Loved. This. Book.

My favourite quotation, because I could picture this in my family too: . . . One day at dinner, a few weeks before she was due to leave, Elf casually mentioned that while she was in Europe she might as well go to Russia to explore her roots and my father almost stopped breathing. You will not! he said. Yeah, I might, said Elf. Why not?
My grandparents originally came from a tiny Mennonite village in Siberia in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution. Terrible things happened to them there in the land of blood. Any hint of the place, the slightest mention of anything Russian, and my parents would start clawing the air."

I can just picture this air clawing, because that's exactly what my parents would do when the topic of Russia came up. Toews then goes on to talk about how trauma is passed down through generations, an idea that fascinates me. Last year I read a German book that was about this, and I looked back at my comments and saw that I surmised then that this might explain my family after surviving the Russian Revolution. Who knew that Miriam Toews had already written about this?

Recommended for: People with empathy. I think fans of Heather O'Neill would like this. Both writers tackle dark, serious subjects but inject a sense of humour into their stories.

Why I Read This Now: I just never seemed to get around to it, and I hadn't read anything by Toews for a few years. Before I buy her newer novels, I should probably read the ones I already own.

>205 Nickelini: A great review and a BB for me!

>205 Nickelini: I agree with >206 Tess_W: above, that's a great review. I haven't read anything by Miriam Toews yet, but obviously need to!

>206 Tess_W:, >207 DeltaQueen50: Hope you can both find a copy and that you enjoy it!

Judy - I thought you'd read everything! I think All My Puny Sorrows is a good one to start with. A Complicated Kindness is also excellent.

On Being Ill, Virginia Woolf, 1930


cover comments: Paris Press copied the original Hogarth Press edition of this book as best they could. It's a lovely edition. As for the art, of course it's designed by Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell. Not my favourite of hers, but it's fine.

Comments: This edition includes the 1930 version of Woolf's essay. She first wrote this essay in 1925 and edited it over the next 5 years. Here it's 28 pages long. There is also an introduction by Hermione Lee that is 34 pages. I find that rather amusing.

In this piece, Woolf asks why literature ignores illness, when it's just as important in our lives as the prime themes of love, battles, and jealousy. This is her opening sentence, except the way she puts it takes 184 words. The then rambles on for the next 27 pages in the way that only VW can do.

Two bits I liked a lot:

"We float with the sticks on the stream; helter-skelter with the dead leaves on the lawn, irresponsible and disinterested and able, perhaps for the first time for years, to look round, to look up . . . "

"Meanwhile, with the heroism of the ant or the bee, however indifferent the sky or disdainful the flowers, the army of the upright marches to battle. Mrs. Jones catches her train. Mr. Smith mends his motor. The cows are driven home to be milked. Men thatch the roof. The dogs bark. The rooks, rising in a net, fall in a net upon the elm trees. The wave of life flings itself out indefatigably. It is only the recumbent who know what, after all, nature is at no pains to conceal--that she in the end will conquer; heat will leave the world; stiff with frost we shall cease to drag ourselves about the fields; ice will lie thick upon factory and engine; the sun will go out. Even so, when the whole earth is sheeted and slippery, some undulation, some irregularity of surface will mark the boundary of an ancient garden, and there, thrusting its head up undaunted in the starlight, the rose will flower, the crocus will burn."

It felt great to read Woolf again.

Recommended for: oh who knows

Why I Read This Now: it checks off a box in my reading bingo challenge

Rating: 4 stars

Fluent Forever, Gabriel Wyner, 2014


cover comments: fitting cover for the topic

Comments: A step-by-step how-to guide for learning a language. Because we all know the way they teach high school French doesn't work ;-)

Lots of good tips here, some that I hadn't heard yet. One of these is called back-chaining, or as he says, "How to Get Ridiculous Words into Your Mouth." In 10 minutes he taught me how to pronounce vzdrognu (Russian for "flinch"). The basis for his technique is a flash card system. I won't adapt it 100% because I already using a different flash card app, but he gave me some great tips on how to improve my flash card game.

Recommended for: anyone who wants to learn a language. It's not a magic bullet -- following his technique will take lots of time. There are other ways to learn languages too, and they all take time. However, by pulling out the best techniques, you can stop wasting time on things that don't work. And delete DuoLingo from your phone.

Rating: 4 stars. I found the organization confusing at times because he will steer the reader to other places in the book and then as I read along I wasn't sure if I'd already seen that part. A bit repetitive in parts.

Why I Read This Now: Fluent Forever was one of the language books I discovered this year, and I wanted to read it so I could stop wasting time, and also I wanted it read before I started working with my Italian instructor.

Note: The author has a Ted Talk about adults learning languages (yes, it is possible)

Life On The Refrigerator Door, Alice Kuipers, 2007


cover comments: suitable for this story

Comments: This is told entirely by notes that Claire and her mom leave for each other on their fridge. Mom is a busy doctor and Claire is a busy high school student with a baby sitting job and boyfriend. Then mom gets breast cancer. I admit I finished this with a tear in my eye, which was unexpected.

Why I Read This Now: This was a quick dish of sorbet between my end-of-summer course of reading, and the upcoming Spooktober.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: This YA novel has wide appeal. However, I don't recommend it to a teen who has a parent with cancer. Don't use this one for bibliotherapy

Note: Life On The Refrigerator Door won a bunch of awards, was published in 28 countries, and is blurbed by Joanne Harris. Pretty good for an under-30 yr old from Saskatchewan.

>211 Nickelini: unique presentation!

>209 Nickelini: I forgot to add in my comments of Virginia Woolf's On Being Ill that somewhere I saw a summary of her complete works that went something like:

Life is beautiful and tragic. Let's put some flowers in a vase

This summary captures On Being Ill perfectly.

>212 Tess_W: Yes, it was unique. It might have come off as gimmicky, but I think it worked. It was obviously written pre-texting and snapchat

>205 Nickelini: That's a BB hit for me. I've only read a couple by Miriam Toews and really enjoyed both.

Six Stories, Matt Wesolowski, 2016


cover comments: overall I like this, but I do have mixed feedback on it. I'm always a fool for a forest on a book cover, and the reflected image is lovely. The colours are a bit . . . weird. The forest itself, to me, looks like forests I've been to in Northern Canada (BC, Yukon, Saskatchewan). Looking at the latitude, I guess they would have skinny tree forests like that in Northumberland, where the book is set, but that's not what I think of when I think of NE England. Anyway, at the same time, the forest shape mimics the shape of sound waves, which is very clever indeed. I don't love it, but it's a solid cover for sure.

Comments: The novel Six Stories is structured around the transcripts for six episodes of a "true crime" podcast, broken up by 1997 and 2017 text by one of the characters, Harry Saint Clement-Ramsay, adult son of Lord Ramsay, the owner of Scarclaw Fell, where all the action is set.

In 1996, a teenage boy disappeared from the outdoor centre at Scarclaw Fell, and his body didn’t surface until a year later. With little evidence to go on, the police deem it a death by misfortune. Over six episodes, podcaster Scott King interviews people who were closest to the event. Each episode deepens the mystery, while also providing clues to the boy’s death. There are two twists in the final episode. One didn’t make much sense to me, but I think was minor, and the big twist made everything fall into place and wrap up the story. A satisfying ending to the novel.

After the success of Six Stories, Wesolowski wrote several other novels using the same format. The podcaster Scott King has minimal personality, he’s more of a featureless narrator than a character, so I imagine these books could be read in any order. I’m not one to read series, but if I come across any other the other books, I’ll scoop them up.

Rating: 4 stars. A good, solid read. My biggest complaint about it was that the various voices and time periods were represented with different fonts, and some were difficult to see (for example, very fine print, in Italics. Egads).

Recommended for: If you're still here after reading all this, maybe you. Trigger warnings for bullying. A lot of bullying.

I don't see many of my LT people reading this one, so I wondered who pointed it out to me and I think it must have been Simon Savidge. I have to say, although I'm not interested in every one his recommendations, over the years, when he mentions something that sounds good, I almost always like it.

Why I Read This Now: It was on my Spooktober list, and the format looked like a suitable book to read on my breaks at work.

>215 VivienneR: That's a BB hit for me. I've only read a couple by Miriam Toews and really enjoyed both.


I hope you like it. She's definitely one of my favourite writers, although I don't rush off to buy every one of her books.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, 2019


cover comments: Absolutely gorgeous. I loved this from when it was published, even though I assumed the book itself wasn't for me.

Comments: Socialite Noemi is sent from 1950s Mexico City to rescue her cousin who married an Englishman, disappeared to a mansion on a remote mountaintop northeast of the city, and then wrote a bizarre letter crying for help. Once at the rotting, dilapidated High House, Noemi struggles to makes sense of the strange world and the family who live there. Mexican Gothic drips with creepy atmosphere, and hits all the major Gothic tropes, and uses them to critique colonialism, misogyny and racism. And lots of mushrooms. Powerful, magical mushrooms.

There have been long lists of Moreno-Garcia's influences here. The one that stands out most for me is The Yellow Wallpaper. I've also heard this described aptly as "Jane Eyre meets Pan's Labyrinth."

Initially, I was a bit confused by the foggy, chilly English world that was physically in Mexico, but the author explains that she was inspired to write this after visiting silver mining ghost towns high in the mountains of Hidalgo. Mexico isn't all deserts and jungles, I learned.

It took me a year of ignoring all the hype around Mexican Gothic before I realized I wanted to read it. I decided to give it a try after hearing more about it, and then I found out that the author is Canadian and lives here in Vancouver and has a MA in Science and Technology Studies from the University of British Columbia (yes, was born in Mexico and is Latina). So I thought I'd give it a try and support a local writer.

Why I Read This Now: I didn't have this on my Spooktober TBR list, but then one of my favourite podcasts, Overdue, is reading it this month, so I did too so I can listen without spoilers.

Rating: 4 stars. Mexican Gothic gets a lot of 5 star reviews, and a fair number of 2 stars.

Recommended for: It's not for everyone, but if you like a Gothic novel that has more to it, give it a try. It appears that readers who are expecting a real horror novel find this one slow.

Also: Mexican Gothic is being made into a TV series for Hulu by Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa. I expect this will be beautiful on film.

Unsettled Ground, Claire Fuller, 2021


cover comments: well how gorgeous is this?

Rating: 4.5 stars. Unsettled Ground was short listed for this year's Women's Prize. I know this is a new book, but I'm surprised there are only 186 LT members with this book. This author is on my radar for sure!

Comments: My subtitle for Unsettled Ground is "Thomas Hardy Meets Brexit" (or Thomas Hardy in modern Britain).

Unsettled Ground opens with the final minutes of 70 year old Dot in her cottage in Wiltshire. She leaves behind her 51 year old twin children, Jeannie and Julius, who have always lived with her. Due to a serious childhood illness, Jeannie has always stayed close by her mother, and is functionally illiterate, but can handle money and is talented with tending chickens, growing a vegetable garden, and basic sustenance home life. Julius can read, and has a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, but is unable to travel in any motorized vehicle, so gets around by foot and bike. He also has an entrepreneurial spirit, but no follow through (or ability to follow through). This has limited his career to casual labour near their little patch of farm. After their mother's death, J & J discover they have even less money than they thought and things go seriously downhill. If you can roll lower than treading water at sea level, that is (does that metaphor work? Probably not, but I'll carry on. . . ). Things go from proverbial bad to proverbial worse, but the ending has some threads of hope. Anyway, it's a satisfying and interesting read. There are family secrets that are revealed, but the reader becomes one of the townspeople who can figure out most of the secrets, and it's Jeannie and Julius who are in the dark. It's sad, but not make-you-cry sad, and sometimes it's beautiful.

Also: I know it's 50 min long, but I really like this conversation that Eric Karl Anderson had with the author, Claire Fuller about this book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV4URc6FtBU

One of the lovely threads in the book was how Jeannie and Julius loved to play music. Illiterate, and without TV, they played instruments and sang. In the interview (above), the author talks about how her folk musician son helped her with all the musical bits.

She also talks about how she had to figure out how to navigate the world being functionally illiterate. How do you get a job in 2018 if you have never touched a computer? How do you shop for groceries with 5 pounds 35, cover the necessities, make a meal and also feed the dog? (I can relate to that . . . my first grocery shopping trip on my own when I was 18, I came home with two bags full of stuff and realized I'd bought . . . milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, pop, and soup. Basically, I'd put myself on a liquid diet. Jeannie was MUCH smarter than I was!).

Maybe the most interesting thing she talks about is what inspired her to write this: her son took her to this abandoned, wrecked caravan in the middle of the English countryside. There was no drive going up to the caravan, it was stuck in some bushy area, and someone had obviously made it a home for a while, and it had since been wrecked by vandals. She wondered what would have to happen in someone's life for them to end up living in such a trailer. In Unsettled Ground, she describes this trailer to perfection-- at a visceral level-- and I was IN that trailer. I mentioned this at book club last night and got a mixture of responses . . . one friend turned to me and asked if I had some past trauma to share, and at the moment I couldn't say where I'd been in that same trailer before, but now I remember, that when I was a child and spent summers in the far, far north of British Columbia and the Yukon, these trailers were common on the outskirts of the little settlement I was at. Nothing bad ever happened to me in them, but they were pretty sad and sometimes a bit creepy, and mostly disgusting. And that was in the 1970s, and not 2018 when this book is firmly set (Clair Fuller says this is set pre-Covid).

The last interesting thing I remember from this interview is that Clair Fuller says that she couldn't find any books about rural poverty in England set in current times. She says there is a wealth of rural poverty set in the US, but not the Uk. (If you know of any, she wants you to contact her). So "rural English poverty" is a theme.

Why I Read This Now: I suggested Unsettled Ground for my book club this year, which runs October - June. Having read and loved the author's Bitter Orange this summer, I thought this sounded like a good selection. I didn't expect to be reading another Claire Fuller book so soon, but everyone wanted to read this, and they wanted to read it now.

Anyway, we had a great discussion (I think some of that was fueled by the excitement actually meeting in person), and of the 8 book club members, 6 of us finished the book. One member got confused and read a random book that we aren't even reading, and the woman who is the de facto leader of our book discussions read the November book by mistake. Much hilarity was had at their expense, and then our discussion centred around the six of us telling them about the book. It was a different format, but turned out to be quite fun. The de facto leader took someone's copy home because she still wanted to read it even though we told her pretty much everything.

It's not a bad format -- my favourite book podcast, Overdue, is two guys discussing a book. One reads the book, the other does some background research and then the reader explains the book to the other. They swap back and forth and have a discussion. They read widely, so if I'm not familiar with their selection, I don't listen, but when they read books I know it's always a lot of fun. Sometimes they team up with various female readers (I somehow discovered them via their Are You There God, It's Me Margaret episode.) Anyway, they're two geeky white straight American 30-something guys, so I sometimes yell at them, but they mean well. And that was a big tangent that had nothing to do with Unsettled Ground.

Recommended for: it's a bit sad for some readers, but the writing is gorgeous and the story is interesting. If that sounds like the kind of thing you like, this may be the book for you.

>219 Nickelini: A great review! A BB for me.

I haven't read anything by Claire Fuller but I have Our Endless, Numbered Days on my Kindle and I have both Bitter Orange and Unsettled Ground on my library list. Guess I better get going!

Haunted, by Barbara Haworth-Attard, 2009


cover comments: the ghost image is some pretty clumsy photoshop, but I love the idea of a haunted forest, so this is a "yes" for me

Comments: Here I sit on a Sunday Halloween night, listening to It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown soundtrack ("The Great Pumpkin Waltz" is a masterpiece, ah, when the flute comes in my heart melts every time, and the little piano thrill. And I also adore the haunting background of Snoopy crawling through WWI France) ,,, and I'm occasionally opening the door for Trick or Treaters (I live on a hill, so the smart kids go to the flat neighbourhoods to make better time). I have the window open and can hear a constant barrage of firecrackers.

It's a lovely, crisp evening, and a perfect time to talk about Haunted, a book I recently finished. I picked this up a decade ago when I volunteered at a huge book sale that my daughters' school held. I'd come home with a car full of books every time. None of the books were sorted, and no one there had to knowledge to do it other than me, and I couldn't sort 10,000 books in 7 hours so . . . I didn't realize this book was YA. Which is okay, I don't mind reading YA once in a while.

What The Book Is About: It's 1920 in a village on the Bruce Peninsula, an area that juts into Lake Huron in Ontario, and 14 year old Dee lives with her grandmother, who is a local midwife and sometimes healer. There are men who have returned from the war, and families who lost men, and families who lost people to the flu pandemic. Everyone had experienced loss, and most were poor. Bones of Dee's friend, who had disappeared four years earlier, were discovered on a hilly forest nearby. Everyone had assumed she had run away. Then there's another murder in the same area, and a history of dead teen girls, and it's clear there's a serial killer at work. Dee also sees dead people, so using that gift, she solves the murder mysteries.

A nice blend of historical fiction, paranormal, and murder mystery. I did guess one of the twists immediately, and figured out who the serial killer was, but that was fine. A bit predictable, but probably not so much for the target age group.

Why I Read This Now: Spooktober

Rating: for a book of it's type, a solid 4 stars

Recommended for: a great book for middle school readers. Although, from their reviews I read, some of them think it was set in the olden days when no one had a phone and had only been in an automobile twice . . . like the 1990s or even the 1960s (said one articulate reviewer who was otherwise spot on)

AND ON THAT NOTE: I just realized we are out of milk, and my husband needs it for his coffee in the morning and he comes home from the Bahamas late tonight. And even though he went to the Bahamas without me, he did leave me his car with a full tank of gas so I guess I'll go for a walk on a Halloween night. The trick or treat traffic has been slow . . .

Living in an apartment means that Halloween just slips by. One thing I really miss is going out and walking around on Halloween night. I used to take my kids out and then I went with the grandchildren but they've all outgrown Halloween. I guess I could just go out and walk around but it's more fun when you are involved in the actual trick or treating!

The Chrysalids, John Wyndham, 1955


cover comments: I like this whole Penguin Wyndham series, and this is very nice

Comments: Clearly John Wyndham is reacting here to the nuclear fears of the 1950s. Hundreds of years in the future, people are living in a world that seems vaguely somewhere between the 1600 and 1800s, and is strictly religious. Every religious age has its focus, and theirs is on genetic purity. They don't know what brought on the "tribulation" generations earlier, but they know that man was made in god's image, and they've defined exactly what this means. Any deviation is intolerable and needs to be removed. Clearly the radiation fallout has caused not just humans, but also plants and animals to mutate. None of it is acceptable.

David Storm lives in a farming community with his family in Labrador. One day he befriends a girl, and it's soon found out that she has six toes, and so her family flees to the Fringes to live with all the other deviants. David realizes that he too is a deviant because he can communicate with a few other children through mental telepathy. They lay low through their teens, but then things bubble up when his much younger sister is revealed to have much stronger powers, and can communicate with another group in Seeland (New Zealand) where this deviation is looked at as superior to regular humans.

It took me a bit to get into The Chrysalids, but then it took off. I think this was a clever novel that stands up in 2021. There are some parts about religious fundamentalism and genetic purity that are as spot on today as they were almost 70 years ago (can we never learn?). The acceptance of others who are different is still good, and there are several strong female characters.

The Chrysalids has been on my mental-TBR for at least 40 years. One year, a bunch of the other English classes in my grade read The Chrysalids and some of my friends made it sound interesting, and an unusually high number of kids actually liked it. I don't know if this is still read in high school English class, but it sure should be! (I guess the fundies and racists wouldn't like that)

Why I Read This Now: I bought almost all of these Penguin editions of the John Wyndham books, and I try to read one each year. It seemed like a good October book, although it didn't fit into Spooktober

Rating: 4 stars . . . I liked it about the same as Day of the Triffids, maybe a bit more. But I liked Chocky the best, and I gave that one 4.5 stars. I liked it better than The Midwich Cuckoos, and I gave that 3.5. So maybe 4.25. Every time I read a Wyndham I think about how I would have been obsessed with his books if I'd read them when I was 19.

Recommended for: If you're even vaguely interested, I think you should give it a try.

>224 Nickelini: I think I will give it a try--put it on my WL anyway. I have also read the other 2 Wyndham's you mentioned.

>224 Nickelini: Your review reminded me of how much I enjoyed The Day of the Triffids when I re-read it, so I've bought both The Chrysalids (read before) and Chocky (never read) on Kobo for less than $5. I thought The Day of the Triffids was a recent re-read, but it was 2009! Goes to show: the older you get, the faster the time goes.

>225 Tess_W:, >226 pamelad:
If you get around to reading them, I look forward to reading your comments

I was one of the lucky ones that studied The Chrysalids in school and it really stayed with me. I reread it a number of years ago and still thought it was great. I also really liked both Chocky and the Day of the Triffids but found The Midwich Cuckoos didn't hold up as well.

>218 Nickelini: Nice review of Mexican Gothic. I agree that this book isn't for everyone, but I did enjoy it myself. I just found out that it won this year's Aurora Best Novel award (a Canadian award for science fiction and fantasy) a couple of weeks ago.

Eight Ghosts:The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories, various, 2017


cover comments: great cover for a book of ghost stories (sorry for the grainy picture)

Comments: English Heritage commissioned these ghost stories, each set at one of their 400 properties.

"They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek", Sarah Perry - inspired by Audley End, Essex
An inventive retelling of Sir Thomas Wyatt's 1535 poem, and probably my favourite poem from my university studies. Good and creepy.

"Mr Lanyard's Last Case", Andrew Michael Hurley - set at Carlisle Castle, Cumbria
The only story set in a historical period

"The Bunker", Mark Haddon - set at York Cold War Bunker
More SciFi-time travel than ghost story, this was interesting but too confusing for me

"Foreboding", Kamila Shamsie, set at Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire
Khalid, a new night security guard at the castle, is warned about the ghosts but it's the ghosts from his wartorn past that haunt him

"Never Departed More", Stuart Evers, set at Dover Castle, Kent
An American actress prepares for her role in an upcoming film, "Ophelia," by staying alone at Dover Castle. Things don't go as hoped.

"The Wall," Kate Clancy - set at Housesteads Roman Fort, Northumberland
A mother worried about her troubled teen plans a family outing at Hawesteads. Some readers found this predictable, but I was swept up in the emotion of the story and didn't predict anything. My personal favourite in the bunch

"As Strong As Death," Jeanette Winterson - inspired by Pendennis Castle, Cornwall
Tamara and Jamie's wedding at the castle is joined by ghosts

"Mrs Charbury at Eltham", Max Porter - set at Eltham Palace and Gardens, London
An elderly woman returns to Eltham in search of her sister who she left there 70 years earlier

I enjoyed each of these stories in its own way. They are all different from each other, as are the locations. The stories are followed by "Within These Walls," by Andrew Martin where he outlines the conventions of the classic English ghost story, and then "A Gazetteer of English Heritage Hauntings," which details a slew of English Heritage properties that have reported hauntings. The only one I've visited is Old Wardour Castle, Wiltshire. I have photos of the staircase where a ghost has been seen, but no misty apparition showed on my summer's day pictures.

Rating: 4.5 stars. Not a literary masterpiece or anything, but I loved everything about this

Recommendations: readers who like ghost stories set in England. None of them were scary, but there were a few creepy moments

Why I Read This Now: I started this for my Spooktober read, and didn't finish it before Halloween.

>219 Nickelini: What an entertaining review! Love it. I have a couple of Claire Fuller's book on my library list and have recommended this one to the library based on your comments (strange that they didn't have it already).

>219 Nickelini: Sounds like a book for me! I'm not a reader of that genre, but I never have anything to read when it appears in challenges. Perhaps this book would give me some choices. Off to get it!

The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes, Michel Pastoureau, 1991; translated from French by Jody Gladding 2001


cover comments: it's okay I suppose, but I don't particularly like the colours, and if I was designing a cover based on "stripes," I'd come up with something more interesting and aesthetically pleasing

Rating: 2 stars. I considered not finishing this several times, but it's such a small book that I made it to the end.

Comments: In this small, short book, Pastoureau argues that stripes, particularly in clothing, but also in decorating and nature, were originally considered transgressive and this "dark side" carries forward into current times. Basically this long essay is his view on stripes through history, starting in the medieval era.

I had two major problems with this book. The first is that I just don't buy his premises. He references his claims, but I remained unconvinced of his conclusions. The second is that this text demands lots of clear illustrations to explain what he's attempting to say, and this only had a few grainy black and white photos. However, if this book was made into a documentary, I think it could be fascinating. Showing what he's trying to describe would make so much more sense than this sad little book.

Why I Read This Now: it ticks off lots of boxes for me including Non-fiction November. I have a slew of books by Michel Pastoureau and I hadn't read any of them yet. This was the shortest. I hope his longer works are better!

Recommended for: textile historians, documentary filmmakers

Un Giorno Diverso, Matteo Dominici, 2008


cover comments: oh how do I even comment on a book of this genre. This is what Italian language learning material looks like in 2008

Comments: At the end of last year, I made myself a personal reading Bingo card, and one of my squares was "read a book in Italian." There was no doubt in my mind that this would be the most difficult square to complete, since on Jan 1 2021, I read Italian at (??) seven year old's level? But all year I've kept in mind a certain Italian fairy tale book that I own and planned to read in December (and still plan to read in December). However, in September, I did actually start studying Italian again with a private teacher and a couple of weeks ago she gave me this book to try. And I read it! And understood it. All 24 pages.

BTW: I have 2 personal Bingo cards for 2021. I now have 8 out of 48 empty squares. So "read a book in Italian" was not my last square! Good job, me.

Most people on LT, okay, absolutely everyone else on LT, would not include this in their "books read", because it's so short and so basic. But to me, this was an accomplishment. I realize that other LTers in this group read Proust in Russian, or Shakespeare in Mandarin, or Nabokov in Arabic, and many of my LT friends can comfortably read in multiple languages. But I'm in my 50s, and I'm monolingual (maybe not anymore?), and I've struggled for 40 years on and off to learn French and then Italian. This is the most progress I've ever made, so even though it's small and rather pathetic, I'm proud of myself. Dismiss me, or scorn me, I don't care.

Anyway, the story . . . . and yes, it wasn't "Dick and Jane. Jane sees Dick. Dick looks at the dog." Someone (Matteo Dominici), put his name on this. It was a cute story about a guy who had a sorry life (if you know Italian culture, he sounded like a mammoni, or as my husband likes to call them, bambocchioni . . . mama's boys or big babies . . . always men, your choice of the two descriptions) and then he changed his life in one day and everything is happy. I laughed, I learned. Two thumbs up.

Why I Read This Now: my Italian teacher handed it to me, and she rarely speaks English to me, but she said "don't kill me, ecco" It was a good challenge for me. The level was A2-B1 and I forget what I need to qualify for Italian citizenship, but it's either B1 or B2, and my teacher tells me they've taken the writing out of the test (I don't know that this helps me . . . I'm okay with writing I think . . . I struggle most with understanding spoken Italian). Anyway, I feel like I'm making progress.

Rating: OMG how do you rate a language learning book? I think it was great, I was interested. Best Italian book I've ever read! Obviously 5 stars.

Recommended for: a must read for Italian learners at the A2 - B1 level

>234 Nickelini: And I read it! And understood it… Best Italian book I've ever read! Obviously 5 stars.

Love the word bambocchioni.

Congratulations! I could use a book like that in French.

I am in absolute awe with anyone who can speak or who is learning another language. I struggled with French in school and had an episode where a teacher chose to mock me in front of the class - all that did was totally shut me down and I gave up on languages. It sounds like you are enjoying the learning experience as well which is great.

>236 DeltaQueen50: Oh the way we were taught French was awful, and I just found the whole thing embarrassing, and that's with kind teachers. How nasty of that teacher! I remember mocking teachers too. Beasts!

I guess I'm enjoying it. Like you, I'm in awe of people who speak multiple languages, especially when they function at a high level in their second or third languages. I just want to speak well enough to get my Italian citizenship so we can take longer trips to Italy.

>237 Nickelini: That sounds like the perfect reason for learning Italian!

Great job on learning a new language! I once spoke and read fluent Spanish, but with not using struggle to read sentences.

Foe, JM Coetzee, 1986


cover comments: ugh

Rating: ugh 2 stars

Comments: This is a post-modern retelling of Robinson Crusoe, with an added female character, Susan Barton, washing up on Cruso's desert island where she finds him and Friday. After a boring section of their boring lives on the island, they are rescued and Barton and Friday are taken to England (Cruso dies on the voyage). Themes of who owns a story, silencing, and slavery.

Recommended for: many people find this masterful. I was bored throughout. Thankfully it was short, and the pages were small.

Why I Read This Now: Novella November and I had "a retelling" as a square on my bingo card

This is the third book I've read by Coetzee and they were all quite different from each other. I understand why Disgrace is considered a fabulous book, but it repulsed me. The Life and Times of Michael K was definitely my favourite of the 3, and I gave it 4 stars, but it's not a book I'd reread or that I think of often. I'm going to say I'm done with this author.

>240 Nickelini: Oh dear, I am one of those people who thought Foe was really good. So far I have liked the two Coetzee books that I have read - Disgrace was the other one. I guess he just resonates with me for some reason.

>241 DeltaQueen50:
Oh well, it would be boring if we all liked and disliked the same things

Portobello, Ruth Rendell, 2010


cover comments: not ugly, but wow, how boring

Comments: I wasn't exactly sure what to expect here, but I thought maybe a moody thriller. It wasn't that. There were crimes, but no mysteries to solve. Instead this novel was about a assorted group of people who all live in the Portobello Road area of London in the rainy summer and then autumn of 2007. The connections start out loosely and then slowly tighten toward the ending that ties everything up neatly. Some are criminals, some are struggling with mental health, and the others are just trying to live their lives. An art and antique dealer develops an addiction that borders on the ridiculous, and some of the connections near the end stretched credibility, but it was a novel and I just went with it.

I found the middle bogged down a bit, but around the 60% mark, this started coming together nicely. Also, for most of the book, the characters were not very likeable except the doctor, Ella. By the end of the book, most of them showed change, or even growth, which I wasn't expecting. What kept me reading, and probably the best part of this is the author's subtle and wise humour that she peppered throughout.

Although Ruth Rendell has written something like 50,000 books, this is the first one I've read. I will look for her in the future.

Recommended for: LT recommendations on Portobello's page include Kate Atkinson novels, and I agree with that. However, what this reminded me of more strongly were A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks and Capital by John Lanchester, because all three of these are about a disparate group of people living in a specific area of London. Definitely recommend this for people who like to read novels with a prominent London setting.

Rating: 4 stars

Why I Read This Now: I thought this might be a moody autumn read, and although most of it was set in summer, it was raining most of the time, so that was almost autumnal, and then it ended in November, so . . . I wasn't entirely wrong.

The Baby Is Mine, Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2021


cover comments: sure, fits the book just fine

Comments: This novella opens with the first person narrator, Bambi, being thrown out of his girlfriend's luxury apartment in Lagos, Nigeria because she discovered he had been cheating on her. Unfortunately for our lothario, COVID lockdowns are in place. He ends up at his recently deceased uncle's house, expecting it to be empty, but finds his uncle's widow and his uncle's younger mistress, and a baby that both are claiming to be theirs. Pointing out that it's not 1000 AD, he suggests the drama will stop with a DNA test. Unfortunately for him, he's told that this will be put to the bottom of the pile under the COVID tests. Also, he oddly seems to know his uncle's girlfriend. So we have three liars and a baby locked in together. Drama, growth, it moves quickly, and has a fun end.

Why I Read This Now: Simon Savadge recommended this, I like novellas, and I loved the author's My Sister the Serial Killer. It was under $5 Canadian from the Book Depository UK (but only one pound in Britain). When it arrived, it was so small I just had to start it immediately.

What Even Is This One Pound Book?: This novella was published by The Reading Agency - Quick Reads. The front page says:

"Thanks to your help, we're getting the nation reading!

1 in 6 adults in the UK struggles with reading. Buying this Quick Read could change someone's life. For every Quick Read sold, a copy will be donated to someone who finds reading difficult. From mental health to social mobility, reading has a proven positive impact on life's big challenges. Find out more: readingagency.org.uk"

**

These books are designed to appeal to both reluctant readers, and book lovers. I would say it succeeded. The format was a small book with larger print and lots of chapter breaks, but the story and language were not simplistic. Braithwaite just told her crazy story. Other books in this series are written by Caitlin Moran, Louise Candlish, and many others.

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: see everything above. COVID novella, Nigeria, crazy people, readers who liked My Sister the Serial Killer, reluctant readers

I'm sad, because 2 weeks ago my husband and I decided that I should go to Switzerland before Christmas and visit our daughter who has lived there since 2018, and who has recently broken up with her boyfriend who we all loved. Also, the reason I was going wasn't for fun, but because she's struggling (not just the break up, lots of other stuff). A week ago I booked a good flight on Lufthansa for me and her younger sister, and then applied for our Swiss COVID travel certificates which we need for all public places, hotels, restaurants, etc., and then Swiss train passes, and 3 hotels. Got the COVID passes . . . and then later the same day, Switzerland closed down due for us due to Omicron, and we aren't allowed to enter (there is a website . . .we were good to go in the morning, but big NO in the evening). So yesterday I cancelled everything so that's big disappointment. She can't come home for Christmas because of work, but there's a small chance she can come home before. Anyway, it's been very stressful. It probably seems pretty minor, but having an adult child that I can't get to when she needs family, well that's pretty tough.

I find reading books helps right now. Sitting and being stressed doesn't help at all. I choose to escape into a book.

>245 Nickelini: That is very sad news, to be cut off so suddenly. Keeping fingers crossed for you that you may be able to see her soon.

>245 Nickelini: So sorry to hear about your travel plans being canceled! Hopefully things will be better soon and you'll be able to see your daughter.

I'm very sorry to hear that you had to cancel your travel plans, I can only imagine how difficult it must be that you can't get to your daughter. Hopefully she will be able to come to you, or, even better, this Omicron turns out to not be a bad as predicted and travel becomes possible once again.

Sorry to hear of your daughter's troubles and yours in getting to her. Hopefully travel will become possible again very soon!

So sorry to hear you won't be able to visit your daughter in Switzerland just when she needs you. This pandemic has created some very difficult situations. I hope you are able to meet up soon.

>246 MissWatson:, .247, >248 DeltaQueen50:, >249 Tess_W:, >250 VivienneR:

Thanks so much for your compassion and understanding. Guess what? Had I not been responsible and cancelled everything, I'd be good to go as planned tomorrow! The ban has been lifted. So now I'm looking at booking the trip over again, leaving next week. So many mixed feelings, but I need to do this. But I don't really want to be out there travelling right now ..... so happy that my younger daughter is coming along to buoy me up

Glad you are going to see your daughter and have the other as a traveling companion.

>251 Nickelini: That is one of the most difficult things about this whole pandemic, that we are always on an emotional rollercoaster, never knowing what will happen tomorrow, next week, next month. I am very happy for you that you will be able to meet your daughter after all.

Great news but boy, one really needs to be ready make adjustments these days as things are constantly changing! Travel safely and enjoy your trip and the time you get to spend with both your daughters.

Sanatorium, Sarah Pearse, 2021



cover comments: This has all the signs to tell a reader that it’s a thriller, but especially well done and intriguing. Unfortunately, the hotel in the book does not resemble this picture (it's all glass and flat roofs), so not accurate. Still, it drew me in. There were lovely hardcover editions where the same yellow is on the page edges. I have the paperback, so no yellow sides for me.

Why I Read This Now: I adore a book set in the Alps, especially Switzerland. When I picked this up, I thought I could get it read before my trip to Switzerland, but then Switzerland wouldn't let me in, so I had to cancel everything, and then they said "never mind" so then I rebooked, and in all that hubbub, I didn't have time to read it, and so lugged this huge book along with me and left it there.

One of the reasons I wanted to read Sanatorium was I learned a few years ago that many of the grand historic hotels in the Swiss Alps were originally built as TB treatment centres for the wealth. A thriller set in one of these turned into a high-end hotel sounded like a great setting. There are viewers who say "sanatorium-turned-hotel-is-a-fail!", but they have no idea what they are talking about. Maybe they think a sanatorium is a mental institute, and the author indeed blurs this line and doesn't explain that sanatorium-turned-resort is a thing in Switzerland.

Comments: I call this point "comments" and not "review" because sometimes what I have to say is more about me than about the book. In this case, I finished this book about 5 days ago while I was traveling, so here are my foggy thoughts on this book:

Elin is a British police detective on leave due to PTSD from a case gone wrong. She travels to an exclusive high Alpine hotel with her boyfriend to meet up with her estranged brother and his fiancé for their engagement party. Not sure why no one else was invited to this party. Anyway, there is an avalanche, and people disappear, and show up murdered. The murders are too gruesome for my tastes. The Swiss police can't get to the resort due to the weather, so Elin attempts to control the serial killer and investigate the murders. She's hapless, but I don't think she's meant to be.

Sanatorium was published in early 2021 with a bang. It was picked for "Reece Weatherspoon's Book Club". I knew I needed to read this, because “Switzerland.” After it was published, so many 2-star reader reviews flooded in . . . and most of them are 100% right. By the time it came out in trade paper, my expectations were low but, I still wanted to read it. And it started out fairly okay . . . but then just collapsed. This is book one can endlessly pick apart.

Recommended for: writing instructors teaching how NOT to write thrillers. (If a thriller in the Alps is your thing - look for The Chalet by Catherine Cooper).

Rating: 2.5 stars. One of those stars is for the setting.

Question: Why do lousy books get published and promoted, and other quality books get no mention, anywhere?

I learned about 4 thrillers set in the Alps all published early winter 2021: Sanatorium; One By One, by Ruth Ware; Shiver, by Ally Reynolds, and The Chalet by Catherine Cooper. . . okay, Ruth Ware is an established thriller writer, so knock her off the list. Shiver, by Reynolds has been slow to get to paperback, but I did see an English edition in a Swiss bookstore this week (not in Canada yet). I haven't read those two. But I've read The Chalet (which I can't currently find the touchstone for because Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's touchstones bully all the others) It was sooooo much tighter and more interesting and better written than Sanatorium. And yet, no one has heard of the Cooper, and Sanatorium, a book with uncountable flaws, makes the bestseller list? Baffling.

The only explanation I can find is that before Sarah Pearse wrote Sanatorium, she worked in PR. All aspiring authors: get a job in PR first, only then do you try to publish your book.

Edited to fix Catherine Cooper's name

Dreaming of Christmas, TA Williams, 2018


cover comments: This cover says "light" and "happy," so the reader knows exactly what to expect. I have to say that the woman's outfit is on point for 2018 (and wouldn't look wrong now in 2021)

Comments: On Christmas Eve, Zoe's boyfriend for the past decade announces he's leaving her for another woman. Fast forward to the next Christmas, and Zoe is invited to an all-expenses paid Christmas in the Austrian Alps for a 10-year reunion of a group of friends who shared a house during university. The host is one of the flatmates who has become fabulously wealthy. Unfortunately, the cad ex-boyfriend is also included.

As expected, this was a breezy, fun read with just a bit of drama. I was expecting a little romance, and in the end, there was a bit. But half-way through the book, the only choices for Zoe are the jerk ex-boyfriend or any one of several happily married men. The author does bring it around in a satisfying way, but it took too long for me.

My other criticism is the amount of repetition. Zoe goes skiing, Zoe has the cute puppy sleep on her feet, Zoe talks to the cute child. Replay.

Why I Read This Now: I needed a light wintery book and I knew this would be a stress-free fantasy

Rating: 3.5 stars. This is the second book I've read by this author, and I preferred the first.

Recommended for: someone looking for a Hallmark Christmas movie in a book

>255 Nickelini: Before reading this review I had no idea that I wanted to stay in a Swiss sanatorium converted to a hotel. The Schatzalp Snow and Mountain Resort was the setting for Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.

Best wishes for your trip to Switzerland.

>257 pamelad: One day I'll get to The Magic Mountain, but I'm not into the old Swiss white guys so much. I'm noting the resort for a future trip . . . maybe?

I'm back from my trip, and everything went well, although traveling during the time of COVID is trying

Murder Most Festive, Ada Moncrieff, 2021


cover comments: these vintage poster covers continue to be popular, and I continue to love them

Comments: Murder Most Festive is a recently published take on the type of English mysteries written between WWI and WWII. The author has a lot of fun with the plumy conversations and a slightly 21 century take on an old trope.

Fairly typical set up - a group of upper crust and not-so-upper crust friends and family meet for Christmas at Lord and Lady Westbury's manor house in Sussex. One of the guests is murdered, and one of the guests acts as amateur sleuth and solves the mystery.

Rating: not amazing, but fun. 4 stars. Some readers who rated this poorly missed the humour or had pet peeves that are irrelevant to me.

Recommended for: you know who you are

Why I Read This Now: something fun to read over Christmas

How I Discovered This: browsing the shelves at Munro's Books

I'm so glad you made it to Switzerland - eventually. And now your trip and Christmas is all over. Wishing you the best for the new year.

A Castle In The Clouds, Kerstin Gier, 2020; translated from German by Romy Fursland


cover comments: meh. It looks very middle school, which this novel is not

Rating: 4.25 stars for this utterly charming novel

Comments: Set over Christmas and New Years at a faded luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, A Castle in the Clouds is about seventeen-year old school dropout Sophie Spark who has been working as an intern at the hotel. This novel has a little bit of everything - mystery, adventure, a love triangle, and many winks and nods to Cinderella.

I loved the atmosphere of this aging hotel over a snowy Christmas, and there were some lovely characters; on the downside, the irrational hotel owner and bullying coworkers were cartoon villains. But overall this was a cozy, escapist Christmas read.

How I Discovered This: I've been looking for non-literary books in translation, and earlier in 2021 I was deep down some internet rabbit hole and came across this German YA novel. I ordered it and set it aside for this time of year.

Why I Read This Now: I've never read Christmas books much in the past, but this year I was full on for the light wintery reads. Also, I'm always up for a book set at a hotel, and also anything set in the Alps

Recommended for: most people who read my threads would never read YA, so I probably wouldn't recommend it to you ;-) - But if you don't mind the occasional YA, and it sounds like your kind of thing, track down a copy. I can see myself rereading this next year.

>260 VivienneR: I'm so glad you made it to Switzerland - eventually. And now your trip and Christmas is all over. Wishing you the best for the new year.

Thanks, Vivienne! You too!

>261 Nickelini: I certainly read the odd YA novel so I am taking note of Castle in the Clouds as a future Christmas read.

Have a lovely New Years!

>259 Nickelini: That is a very appealing cover indeed! I love Christmas mysteries and will have to keep this one in mind for the next holiday season!

>263 DeltaQueen50:, >264 mathgirl40:

Judy, I did think of you when I wrote that sentence, because I know you read some interesting YA. Anyway, if this piques either of your interests, I encourage you to find a copy. Thinking about it leaves me with warm fuzzy nice feelings

The Wolf's Secret, Myriam Dahman & Nicolas Digard; illustrated by Ju'lia Sarda' (touchstone fail)


cover comments: gorgeous

Comments: Stunningly illustrated picture book about a lonely young woman who lives deep in a forest, and a wolf.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Recommended for: readers of all ages who enjoy fairy tales and beautiful art

Why I Read This Now: I keep a stack of short reads for when the mood strikes. This one was a lovely note to top off my year of reading.

Where I Discovered This: Jen Campbell - she knows all the best picture books

READING STATS 2021

Total books read: 83
Different authors: 80
New to me authors: 60
Fiction - 69 (83%)
non-fiction - 7 (8%)
memoir - 7 (8%)

Nationality of author:

UK - 29 (34%)

Canada - 15 (18%)

Italy - 5 (6%)

Switzerland - 4 (5%)
Ireland - 4
USA - 4

Australia - 3 (4%)
France - 3

Nigeria - 2 (2%)
Germany - 2
Sweden - 2
Belgium - 2
Japan - 2

New Zealand - 1 (1%)
Russia - 1
Denmark - 1
South Africa - 1

It's complicated - 2 (2%)

Female/male authors:

Female - 46 (55%)
Male - 33 (40%)
Mixed - 4 (5%)

Original language:

English - 62 (75%)
Italian - 5 (6%)
German - 4 (5%)
French - 4
Swedish - 2 (2%)
Japanese - 2
Dutch - 1 (1%)
Russian - 1
Danish - 1
No words - 1

Year published:

1929 x 2
1930
1955
1972
1986
1991 x 2
1994
1996
1997
2003
2004 x 2
2006
2007 x 2
2008 x 4
2009 x 3
2010
2011 x 3
2012 x 2
2013 x 2
2014 x 4
2015 x 2
2016 x 6
2017 x 4
2018 x 5
2019 x 14
2020 x 11
2021 x 5

Travels in reading (where my books took me) :

Victorian-era Essex / Marlborough Sound, New Zealand 2013 / Iceland 2012 / Switzerland 2017 / Stockholm 2018 / fictional upstate New York town 2018 / foodie places in the Alps 2018 / dystopian Northwestern Ontario 2018 / Austrian Alps 2018 / Scottish Highlands over New Year's 2018 / village in Belgium / Nigeria 1980s / Sedaris's world 1977-2002 / Vancouver 1948 - 1982 / French Alps 1998 & 2020 / Soviet Russia & Post-Soviet Russia 1972 - 2002 / Ireland 1992 / Venice, Italy 2019 & 2020 / Berkshire March 30, 1924 / Chicago & NYC 1929 / Louisiana & SoCal 1958 - 1986 /France 1990s / London & Cork 2020 / Wolverhampton & London 1990s / oceans of the world / UK 2019 / Paris & Quebec 1600s / Invisible Cities / Denmark 1986-1999 / Japan 1992 / Sweden 2019 / Canada & Tanzania 2010-2015 / Vancouver 1890s - 1990s / Switzerland 2015 / Ireland 2005 / Italy 1976 / Lugano, Switzerland, 2003 / France 2018 / Genoa, Italy 2018 / England & Scotland 2018 / Pretty places in Italy 2019 / Renaissance Italy / Paris, 2017 / Hampshire 1969 / SW Ausralia 1970s / Umbria Italy, 1995 / Maremma, Tuscany, Italy 1980s / Amalfi Coast, Italy 2008 / Japan The Future / Laurentians, Quebec 2008 / Thailand, 2004 / Cork, Ireland, 1920 / Winnipeg & Toronto, 1974 - 2014 / Northumberland, UK 1990s & 2017 / Hidalgo, Mexico 1950 / Wiltshire 2018 / Bruce Peninsula, Ontario 1920 / Labrador, the future / Eight English Heritage Properties, various times / Rome, 2008 / South Atlantic & England, 1700 / Portobello Road, London, summer & autumn 2007 / Lagos, Nigeria, spring 2020 / Crans-Montana, Switzerland, January 2020 / Austrian Alps 2018 / Sussex, Christmas 1938 / Swiss Alps, Christmas 2019 - New Years 2020 / Fairytale northern forest

Author's nationality 2021


Create Your Own Visited Countries Map

DNF -- abandoned books: 3

>14 Nickelini:
I made my own personal Bingo cards in my reading journal (didn't know how to reproduce them here, so just lists)

2 Bingo cards, 48 squares (+ 2 free middle spots = 50 squares)

I got 43/48 squares; 11/20 lines. Interesting for me, the squares I didn't get are ones that I thought were easy, while some of the more challenging squares I actually got! Hmmm. Anyway, this was FUN. Like a bunch of 1 book challenges. I have a new list of 48 squares ready for 2022

Come over to

https://www.librarything.com/topic/338256#n7703407