Paul C's 2016 Reading and Life - 18

Continuing the "mother" theme for August (it was my Mum's birthday on Sunday 14th August) - here is my mum with the mother of my three terrors together with me looking on and pretending to be as tall as Grizzly Adams.

Opening Lines



My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout is another that has made the Booker Longlist. I hope it is better than the first two I have read!

There was a time, and it was many years ago now, when I had to stay in hospital for almost nine weeks.

BOOKS READ FIRST QUARTER

JANUARY
1. Ru by Kim Thuy (2009) 153 pp
2. A Story I am in : Selected Poems by James Berry (2011) 208 pp
3. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (1983) 200 pp
4. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis (2015) 159 pp
5. Clem Attlee by Francis Beckett (2015) 476 pp
6. The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault (2005) 117 pp
7. 40 Sonnets by Don Paterson (2015) 44 pp
8. The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth (2011) 294 pp
9. The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry (2010) 92 pp
10. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (1993) 269 pp
11. Soldier's Heart by Gary Paulsen (1998) 104 pp
12. Coast to Coast by Jan Morris (1956) 238 pp
13. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler (1982) 314 pp
14. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (2014) 688 pp
15. The Perfect Stranger by P.J. Kavanagh (1966) 182 pp
16. The Manticore by Robertson Davies (1972) 255 pp

FEBRUARY
17. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (1934) 347 pp
18. The Zimmermann Telegram by Barbara Tuchman (1958) 200 pp
19. Coventry by Helen Humphreys (2008) 169 pp
20. Selected Poems by Cecil Day Lewis (1951) 158 pp
21. Return of a King : The Battle for Afghanistan by William Dalrymple (2013) 487 pp

MARCH
22. Assalamualaikum : Observations on the Islamisation of Malaysia by Zaid Ibrahim (2015) 200 pp
23. That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo (2009) 339 pp
24. How to be Both by Ali Smith (2014) 372 pp
25. Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally (1989) 320 pp
26. New Selected Poems by Robert Minhinnick (2012) 185 pp
27. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy (1986) 664 pp
28. Around the World ichael Palin (1989) 241 pp
29. Poems of the Past and the Present by Thomas Hardy (1901) 96 pp
30. The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat (1969) 243 pp

BOOKS READ IN 2016

Second Quarter

APRIL
31. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1991) 371 pp
32. What Work Is by Philip Levine (1991) 77 pp
33. Eventide by Kent Haruf (2004) 300 pp
34. A New Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell (2001) 179 pp
35. The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi (1995) 276 pp
36. Demelza by Winston Graham (1946) 521 pp
37. Geography III by Elizabethe Bishop (1976) 50 pp
38. The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855) 142 pp
39. Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell (1957) 259 pp

MAY
40. Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson (1989) 108 pp
41. Ruby by Cynthia Bond (2015) 330 pp
42. The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (1994) 289 pp
43. The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig (1982) 275 pp
44. Make Me by Lee Child (2015) 544 pp
45. Old Filth by Jane Gardam (2004) 290 pp
46. The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin (1964) 46 pp
47. Fault Line by Robert Goddard (2012) 509 pp
48. AWOPBOPALOOBOPALOPBAMBOOM by Nik Cohn (1972) 247 pp
49. Risk by C.K. Stead (2012) 267 pp

JUNE
50. Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (2006) 46 pp
51. The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad (1917) 145 pp
52. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014) 333 pp
53. Crow by Ted Hughes (1970) 89 pp
54. A Zoo in My Luggage by Gerald Durrell (1960) 173 pp
55. The Green Road by Anne Enright (2005) 310 pp
56. Famous Last Words by Timothy Findley (1981) 396 pp
57. Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx (2011) 234 pp
58. Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser (1969) 691 pp

BOOKS READ IN 2016

THIRD QUARTER

July

59. The Pearl by John Steinbeck (1948) 89 pp
60. The Sergeants' Tale by Bernice Rubens (2013) 217 pp
61. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (1895) 106 pp
62. The Orenda by Joseph Boyden (2013) 487 pp
63. The Battle for Scotland by Andrew Marr (1992) 240 pp
64. The Fifth Son by Elie Wiesel (1985) 220 pp
65. Holiday by Stanley Middleton (1974) 222 pp
66. Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich by Barry Turner (2015) 275 pp
67. Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham (1950) 344 pp
68. The European Union : A Citizen's Guide by Chris Bickerton (2016) 230 pp
69. An Event in Autumn by Henning Mankell (2013) 169 pp
70. Bad History : How We Got the Past Wrong by Emma Marriott (2011) 173 pp

August

71. March by Geraldine Brooks (2005) 273 pp
72. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (2016) 289 pp
73. Rape : A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates (2003) 154 pp
74. Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (1992) 174 pp
75. Eileen : A Novel by Otessa Moshfegh (2016) 260 pp
76. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (1986) 429 pp
77. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (2016) 191 pp
78. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (1984) 190 pp

Reading Plans and a little about me

Me?
I am 50 this coming September and have enough unread reading material on my shelves to take me safely into my seventies! I have lived in Malaysia since 1994 and have a long suffering (but never quietly) wife, Hani (sometimes referred to as SWMBO), three children Yasmyne (18), Kyran (16) and Belle (12 - well almost), as well as a supporting cast which includes Saad Yasmyne's Egyptian boyfriend and very much part of the family fabric, my book smuggling assistants Azim (also my driver and a part time bouncer who, despite his muscles, lives in almost as much fear of my wife as I do) and Erni (my housemaid, almost-little sister and the worlds greatest coffee maker). On this thread you'll probably read as much about the vagaries of life, book buying and group related statistics as you do about the actual books themselves.


clockwise from top left: Kyran, Saad, Yasmyne, Belle, Hani & I

2016 Reading

American Author Challenge - Mark (msf59) is on the third year of this great challenge where the task is to read a work by a featured US author each month.

Canadian Author Challenge - This is its inaugural year and I will try to read (and find books for!) as many of the 24 authors featured as I can.

ANZAC Challenge - Set up by Kerry this year. I will try to follow this one alternating between Oz/Nz

Pulitzer Challenge - Bill has created a challenge to read a Pulitzer winner each month in 2016

Chunkster Challenge - Also set up by Bill to take care of that small matter of books over 600 pages!

Non-Fiction Challenge - Suz (Chatterbox) has put this up and I will follow this one too

TIOLI Challenge - Surely needs no introduction!

1001 Books First Edition - I am working my way through these. So far at 262.

Booker Prize Winners - Another one I am wending my way through

Nobel Laureates - I am trying to read something by all the Laureates - so far have read 57 of the 112 winners.

Poetry - I will be trying to read a different collection/anthology each week and at the same time promote poetry in the group (tough one that) which will include my own occasion clumsy scribblings.

Series I have so many I follow Montalbano, Reacher, Hole, Banks, Davenport, Sejer, Allon, Lennox .....and I will be trying to read many of those as I can.

History Another favourite of mine

Political Biography - I am of the left in political terms so I prefer to read more from my heroes than my villains but sometimes it pays to check out what the opposition are up to!

I will try to combine challenges as much as I can to do something in each challenge each month.

Reading Plan for August 2016

I did a little better in July but still failed to hit my _targets. Headed for optimistic failure as usual in August.

I will have primary and then secondary _targets this month so I hope to hit at least the former and some of the latter.

Primary _targets (1) - Unfinished books

1 The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (CAC, 1001) Reading
2 March by Geraldine Brooks (ANZAC, Pulitzer) COMPLETED
3 The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Reading

Primary _targets (2) Main Challenges

4 Rape : A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates (AAC) COMPLETED
5 Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (BAC, 1001) COMPLETED
6 Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (BAC) COMPLETED
7 Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler (CAC)

Primary _targets (3) Booker Longlist
8 The Sellout by Paul Beatty COMPLETED
9 My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout COMPLETED
10 Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh COMPLETED
11 Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
12 All That Man Is by David Szalay

Secondary _targets - Catch-ups and Other Challenges

13 Staying On by Paul Scott (Booker)
14 Warleggan by Winston Graham (Series)
15 Ake : The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka (Nobel)
16 The Heart Laid Bare by Michel Tremblay (CAC)
17 Silas Marner by George Eliot (BAC & 1001)
18 One Bloody Thing After Another by Jacob F. Field (History)
19 Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (CAC)
20 An Imaginary Life by David Malouf (Anzac)
21 Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (Bowie Books, 1001) COMPLETED

BRITISH AUTHOR CHALLENGE 2016

August thread : http://www.librarything.com/topic/227948

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

Round up of Stats

1001 Books First Edition - Read 267 of 1001

Nobel Winners - Read something by 59 of the 112 Laureates

Pulitzer Fiction/Novel Winners - Read 14 of 88 outright winners

Booker Winners - Read 22 of the 50 winners

Bowie 100 Books - 22 read a further 21 owned

1000 Guardian Books - 309

TBR Records Update : (Revised after giving away 114 books in June)

Year reading record to date:

January 1st frozen TBR : 3,600

Books read : 53

Revised TBR : 3,547

January 1st Pages : 1,254,776

Pages read in completed books : 13,359

Revised TBR pages : 1,241,417

Other Books added since 1 January : 174
Pages : 61,338
Read : 11
Read Pages : 3,313
Books still to read from this year's purchases : 163
Pages to read : 58,025

Total Books Read in 2016 - 64
Total Pages Read in 2016 - 16,672

Total TBR Physical Books @ 13 July 2016 - 3,710
Total TBR Pages - 1,299,442

BOOKS ADDED SINCE 1 JANUARY 2016

1. Fifteen Dogs Andre Alexis (2015) 159 pp (Added 6 Jan) COMPLETED
2. Rain by Barney Campbell (2015) 362 pp (Added 6 Jan)
3. Coventry by Helen Humphreys (2008) 169 pp (Added 7 Jan -Secret Santa (Katie)) COMPLETED
4. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (2015) 362 pp (Added 14 Jan)
5. How Good We Can Be by Will Hutton (2015) 250 pp (Added 14 Jan)
6. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (1988) 641 pp (Added 14 Jan)
7. The Chimes by Anna Smaill (2015) 289 pp (Added 14 Jan)
8. Wild Swans by Jung Chang (1991) 669 pp (Added 14 Jan)
9. The Black Moon by Winston Graham (1973) 546 PP (Added 14 Jan)
10. Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford (2014) 238 pp (Added 22 Jan)
11. Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker (1992) 270 pp (Added 22 Jan)
12. Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass (1961) 191 pp (Added 22 Jan)
13. The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino (1969) 129 pp (Added 22 Jan)
14. The Enigma of Arrival by VS Naipaul (1987) 387 pp (Added 22 Jan)
15. Mao II by Don DeLillo (1991) 241 pp (Added 22 Jan)
16. A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham (1990) 343 pp (Added 22 Jan)
17. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe (1958) 189 pp (Added 22 Jan)
18. Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord by Louis de Bernieres (1991) 280 pp (Added 22 Jan)
19. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare (2000) 182 pp (Added 22 Jan)
20. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (1972) 172 pp (Added 22 Jan)
21. Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts (2014) (Added 29 Jan)
22. March by Geraldine Brooks (Added 29 Jan)
23. The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen (1935) (added 29 Jan)
24. Mary Barton by Mary Gaskell (1848) (added 29 Jan)
25. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (1990) (added 29 Jan)

26. White Crocodile by KT Medina (2014) 374 pp (added 8 Feb)
27. A Brief Stop on the Road From Auschwitz by Goran Rosenberg (2012) 331 pp (added 13 Feb)
28. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser (1996) 274 pp (added 13 Feb)
29. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien (1967) 199 pp (added 20 Feb)
30. The End : Germany 1944-45 by Ian Kershaw (2011) 400 pp (added 20 Feb)
31. In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman (2014) 555 pp (added 20 Feb)
32. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (1929) 293 pp (added 20 Feb)
33. Peacemakers : Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan (2001) 500 pp (added 20 Feb)
34. My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner (2014) 224 pp (added 20 Feb)
35. Astragal by Albertine Sarrazin (1965) 190 pp (added 20 Feb)
36. If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (1945) 259 pp (added 20 Feb)
37. The Seven Madmen by Roberto Arlt (1929) 304 pp (added 20 Feb)
38. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (2012) 331 pp (added 20 Feb)
39. Six Days : How the 1967 War Shaped the Middle East by Jeremy Bowen (2003) 373 pp (added 22 Feb)
40. I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane (1947) 164 pp (added 22 Feb)
41. The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery (2015) 258 pp (added 22 Feb)
42. Ostland by David Thomas (2013) 430 pp (added 22 Feb)
43. Trigger Mortis by Anthony Horowitz (2015) 310 pp (added 26 Feb)
44. The Pier Falls by Mark Haddon (2016) 321 pp (added 26 Feb)
45. Assalamualaikum, May Peace Be Upon You: Observations on the Islamisation of Malaysia by Zaid Ibrahim (2015) 200 pp (added 27 Feb) COMPLETED
46. The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan (2015) 293 pp (added 27 Feb)
47. The Children Who Stayed Behind by Bruce Carter (1958) 216 pp (added 27 Feb)
48. Armada by Ernest Cline (2015) 349 pp (added 28 Feb)
49. The Walk and Other Stories by Robert Walser (1957) 197 pp (added 28 Feb)
50. Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette (1977) 98 pp (added 28 Feb)
51. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout (2016) 191 pp (added 28 Feb)
52. The Civil War : A History by Harry Hansen (1961) 655 pp (added 28 Feb)
53. The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo (2013) 420 pp (added 28 Feb)
54. Lindbergh by A. Scott Berg (1998) 562 pp (added 28 Feb)
55. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World by Edward Shepherd Creasy (1851) 380 pp (added 28 Feb)
56. Hitler's Spy by James Hayward (2012) 278 pp (added 28 Feb)

57. A Cautious Approach by Stanley Middleton (2010) 220 pp (added 2 March)
58. Incandescence by Craig Nova (1979) 297 pp (added 2 March)
59. Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014) 343 pp (added 2 March)
60. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (1977) 337 pp (added 2 March)
61. Love in Winter by Storm Jameson (1935) 407 pp (added 2 March)
62. How I Became a Holy Mother by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1976) 363 pp (added 2 March)
63. On Horseback and Other Stories by Guy de Maupassant (1877) 130 pp (added 2 March)
64. Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (2007) 349 pp (added 2 March)
65. Anything but the Law by Tommy Thomas (2016) 334 pp (added 4 March)
66. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker (2011) 841 pp (added 4 March)
67. Why the West Rules by Ian Morris (2010) 645 pp (added 4 March)
68. Out of Africa by Karen Blixen (1937) 330 pp (added 4 March)
69. Make Me by Lee Child (2015) 544 pp (added 4 March) COMPLETED
70. The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall (2015) 432 pp (added 4 March)
71. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) 984 pp (added 4 March)
72. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy (1986) 664 pp (added 7 March) COMPLETED
73. From Restoration to Reform by Jonathan Clarke (2014) 299 pp (added 7 March)
74. Josephine : Desire, Ambitions, Napoleon by Kate Williams (2013) 303 pp (added 7 March)
75. Britain's Royal Families : The Complete Genealogy by Alison Weir (2008) 331 pp (added 7 March)
76. A Brief History of Indonesia by Tim Hannigan (2015) 277 pp (added 12 March)
77. Max Havelaar by Multatuli (1860) 320 pp (added 12 March)
78. Jernigan by David Gates (1991) 339 pp (added 12 March)
79. Private Life by Jane Smiley (2010) 480 pp (added 12 March)
80. Betrayal : The Crisis in the Catholic Church by Matt Carroll (and others) (2002) 265 pp (added 12 March)
81. The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015) 310 pp (added 12 March) COMPLETED
82. When I was Old by Georges Simenon (1970) 452 pp (added 15 March)
83. The Full Catastrophe : Inside the Greek Crisis by James Angelos (2015) 292 pp (added 15 March)
84. No Highway by Nevil Shute (1948) 325 pp (added 19 March)
85. The Italian Girl by Iris Murdoch (1964) 171 pp (added 19 March)
86. Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki (1961) 177 pp (added 19 March)
87. Most Secret by Nevil Shute (1945) 346 pp (added 19 March)
88. Kathleen and Frank by Christopher Isherwood (1971) 510 pp (added 19 March)
89. The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin (1980) 101 pp (added 19 March)
90. The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen (1948) 330 pp (added 19 March)
91. Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville (2011) 304 pp (added 19 March)
92. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980) 688 pp (added 27 March)
93. Home : A Time Traveller's Tales from Britain's Pre-History by Francis Pryor (2014) 290 pp (added 27 March)
94. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962) 576 pp (added 27 March)
95. Ultimate Questions by Bryan Magee (2016) 127 pp (added 31 March)
96. The Four Books by Yan Lianke (2015) 338 pp (added 31 March)
97. Find Me by Laura Van Den Berg (2015) 278 pp (added 31 March)
98. A Reunion of Ghosts by Judith Claire Mitchell (2015) 371 pp (added 31 March)
99. The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855) 142 pp (added 31 March) COMPLETED
100. The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) 168 pp (added 31 March)

Books bought second quarter

101 The Carpathians by Janet Frame (1988) 196 pp (Added 2 April)
102 Georgy Girl by Margaret Forster (1965) 171 pp (Added 2 April)
103 Great Apes by Will Self (1997) 404 pp (Added 2 April)
104 The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (Added 14 April)
105 My Son, My Son by Howard Spring (Added 14 April)
106 A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin (Added 14 April)
107 Cogan's Trade by George V. Higgins (Added 14 April)
108 The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Added 15 April)
109 Common Ground by Andrew Cowan (Added 15 April)
110 The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard (Added 18 April)
111 AWOPBOPALOOBOPALOPBAMBOOM by Nik Cohn (Added 18 April) COMPLETED
112 Montalbano's First Case by Andrea Camilleri (Added 18 April)
113 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad (Added 18 April)
114 I am Radar by Reif Larsen (2015) (Added 18 April)
115Ruby by Cynthia Bond (2015) (Added 18 April) COMPLETED
116 The Faithful Couple by A.D. Miller (Added 18 April)
117 A Strangeness in my Mind by Orhan Pamuk (Added 18 April)
118 The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens (Added 18 April)
119 How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the FA Cup by JL Carr (Added 18 April)
120 The Outsider by Colin Wilson (Added 20 April)
121 Puckoon by Spike Milligan (Added 20 April)
122 Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell (Added 20 April) COMPLETED
123 Arcadia by Iain Pears (Added 22 April)
124 The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney (Added 22 April)
125 The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Added 24 April)
126 A Whole Life : A Novel by Robert Seethaler (Added 24 April)
127 The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild (Added 24 April)
128 The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie (Added 24 April)
129 The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (Added 24 April)
130 The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (Added 27 April) COMPLETED
131 The Edge of the World : How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are by Michael Pye (Added 27 April)
132 A Heart so White by Javier Marias (Added 14 April)

133 Silas Marner by George Eliot (added 3 May)
134 The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley (added 13 May)
135 Girl at War by Sara Novic (added 13 May)
136 Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh (added 13 May)
137 I Saw a Man by Owen Sheers (added 13 May)
138 The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir (added 20 May)
139 Unknown Soldiers by Vaino Linna (added 20 May)
140 Stop Time by Frank Conroy (added 20 May)
141 What Is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman (added 25 May)
142 Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (added 25 May)
143 S. : A Novel about the Balkans by Slavenka Drakulic (added 25 May)
144 The Angry Tide by Winston Graham (added 25 May)
145 The Master by Colm Toibin (added 25 May)
146 Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (added 25 May)
147 The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani (added 25 May)
148 Love and Obstacles by Aleksandr Hemon (June 16)
149 The Book of Memory by Pettina Gappah (June 16)
150 The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu (June 16)
151 The Four Swans by Winston Graham (June 16)
152 Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert (June 16)
153 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (June 16)
154 SPQR : A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard (June 16)
155 The Sympathizer by Viet Tanh Nguyen (June 16)
156 Black Earth : The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder (June 16)
157 The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry edited by Ruth Dove (June 16)
158 The Hanging Girl by Jussi Adler-Olsen (June 16)
159 The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni (June 16)
160 Laurus by Eugene Vodolazin (June 16)

Books Added Third Quarter
July
161. The European Union : A Citizen's Guide by Chris Bickerton COMPLETED
162. Dust by Elizabeth Bear
163. King John : Treachery, Tyranny and the Road to Magna Carta by Marc Morris
164. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
165. Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
166. Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young
167. The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov
168. One Man Against the World : The Tragedy of Richard Nixon by Tim Weiner
169. The House of Ulloa by Emilio Pardo Bazan
170. Sweet Caress by William Boyd
171. Vermilion Sands by J.G. Ballard
172. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
173. The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
174. The Orphan Train by Christina Bake Kline
175. The Aerodrome by Rex Warner
176. Karl Doenitz and the Last Days of the Third Reich by Barry Turner COMPLETED
177. The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy
178. Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy
179. Bad History : How We Got the Past Wrong by Emma Marriott COMPLETED
180. One Bloody Thing After Another by Jacob F. Field
181. The Ends of the Earth : The Wide World by Robert Goddard
182. Morning Sea by Margaret Mazzantini
183. London Belongs to Me by Norman Collins
184. Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
185. Eileen : A Novel by Otessa Moshfegh
186. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
187. The Sellout by Paul Beatty
188. All That Man Is by David Szalay

Next one is yours

Hi Paul! Happiest of new threads to you!!!
I just brought Lucy Barton home with me from the library. Along with 6 others!

>15 Carmenere: Seven books is quite an ambitious trip to the library, Lynda. Your number here is of course - FIRST. XX

Hurrah!!
I intend to read them in ascending order, Paul. First up will be Lucy so I'll be riding your coat tails.

>17 Carmenere: These last few years my coats are voluminous objects so climb on board. xx

Happy New Thread, Paul! I've not done so well with keeping up, but I'm here now! I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your two first Booker books so far... I've got the Sellout on this month's menu and am hoping I enjoy it more than you seemingly did. I found The North Water was a gripping read and virtually unputdownable, even though the level of violence gave me pause. I have no plans of reading the entire Booker Longlist, but I do want to get to the aforementioned The Sellout and have reserved The Many from the library as well.

>19 Smiler69: Thank you Ilana, dear. I did note on your thread that The North Water hit the spot and I hope to pick it up when I get to the UK at the end of this month.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! Love the topper! Especially the little Paul "smile", not always seen in photos. I wonder if you were coerced...

>21 amanda4242: Thanks Amanda. xx

>22 msf59: They were probably talking about shopping, Mark, and that would have enabled me to get some book shopping of my own done.

Lovely picture Paul. Happy new thread. Hope you're enjoying the Barton.

Happy new thread mate, I have posted a private message with contact details. Well the cricket has been a bit pear shaped this weekend, the Test team performed badly and on balance Pakistan deserved to win and level the series. The batting is the big problem with positions going at 2,4 and 5 and although we have very good bowlers, Broad has not done much in this series and his batting has regressed since he got hit and that is not good.

On the county front I could not believe how Yorkshire let Lancashire off the hook yesterday morning, from 299 for 7 which I thought was good on day one they got to 494. Yorkshire batted steadily to get to 182 for 2 at close and then struggled to 360 all out with Lancs 70 without loss at close of play. Lancashire have a lead of 204 and will try and push on to lunch with ten wickets in hand to try and set us a _target to chase but unless we capitulate I think it will end in a draw. Although we will still have a game in hand, Middlesex had an innings win over Durham. With our game to finish, Middlesex are 36 points ahead but we will still have that game in hand but it is going to be tight unless they slip up and lose a game, will go down to the wire I think.

Hope you have a good week mate, Karen says hi to all.

Sweet photo, Paul. I like the beard.

Great photo up top, Paul. Happy New Thread!

>23 PaulCranswick: Oh so that is really a sneaky smile in your topper. Happy new thread, Paul. Look at you giving away 115 books - you must have been running out of room for new ones.

Happy new one, Paul! Love the topper - so sweet.

Happy new thread, Paul!

I finally got the books I purchased at the Amazon store on July 31st. It cost me $18.75 to mail one box and $13.41 to mail the second box so adding that postage in to the final dollar amount means that the books weren't any cheaper than purchasing them at my local Barnes & Noble.

1. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
2. Glassblower by Petra Durst-Benning
3. Blue Fox by Sjon
4. Meaning of Names by Karen Shoemaker
5. Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails, & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness by Nathanael Johnson
6. Chimes by Anna Smaill
7. Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
8. Hands-On Home: A Seasonal Guide to Cooking, Preserving, and Natural Homekeeping by Erica Strauss

And my cousins gave me three books
1. For Spice Sake by MarketSpice (This is the spice market in Pike Place Market)
2. Exit Wounds by J. A. Jance
3. Failure to Appear by J. A. Jance

I made some purchases at Market Spice in the Pike Place Market and my cousin Sue thought I needed that cookbook to help me use up my hot smoked paprika and my Spanish paprika. The other two books are part of a mystery series set in the Pacific Northwest and the author lives in Seattle. They are indeed appropriate titles to bring back to Alabama.

>24 charl08: Thank you Charlotte. Not really got going on it yet as I am finishing up Howl's Moving Castle first.

>25 johnsimpson: I have quite a few Pakistani friends here and they were cock-a-hoop over the weekend. They did deserve to level the series and we have only three batsmen Cook, Root and Bairstow scoring regularly enough. To be fair Moeen Ali had a good series with the bat and I would be tempted to move him back up the order in Bangladesh to make way for Rashid.
Yorkshire are making heavy weather of things and this Lancashire side has surprised me this year. Apart from Petersen they don't have any names with the bat and the bowling shorn of Anderson appears mediocre but they work well as a unit. I think we are going to fall short this year.

>26 jessibud2: Thanks Shelley. The beard looks much better on me than it does Hani!

>27 jnwelch: Thank you Joe.

>28 Familyhistorian: Hani always says that I am more cunning than smart which I don't think is meant as a compliment and hardly seems fair as she is the one who gets to stay home or socialise with her buddies whilst I have to crack my head to bring home the bacon for the family. I think I have been out-cunning-ed. I can still squeeze more books into the spaces here but I just felt that there was little likelihood in my reading those books so it would be better to provide them with a new home, Meg.

>29 Crazymamie: Thank you Mamie. I like the look my mum is giving Hani and I am so lucky that they both get along so well, because neither is a particularly easy person.

>30 kidzdoc: Cheers Darryl.

>31 benitastrnad: I have number 6 & number 7 on your list Benita and want to seek out Homegoing which seems to be the hottest book across the threads lately.

Happy New Thread, Paul! I hope you are enjoying Howl's Moving Castle--just reading that you are reading it makes me want to pick it up again.

Happy new thread!

>35 ronincats: YA and fantasy are not my normal happy hunting grounds but I have embraced both genres over the last few years, Roni, and am often nicely rewarded. This is one of those occasions.

>36 cbl_tn: Thank you Carrie. xx

Paul - I see you bought The girl on the train, you should race through that one before the film comes out. It's a page turner if nothing else.

Happy new thread, Paul!

What a great photo of you, your mom and Hani.

>38 avatiakh: I have seen plenty of good reviews for that one Kerry. I may take the book to the UK with me as quick reads are what I am best with over there on holiday.

>39 tymfos: Thanks Terri.

>40 Whisper1: Thank you Linda. Hani put the picture on facebook for the obvious reason that it shows her to good effect. There is another one with her and my mum and my sister's kids which I like a lot and will share here soon.

Day 23 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery & Galway Kinnell

Frank O'Hara's poetry was said to read like diary entries. It mixes personal observation with a world view that takes in art and humanity is an accessible yet clearly poetic medium. He was heavily influenced by art and especially music and became a key player with John Ashbery. He was also affected by the central european poets of his time and William Carlos Williams. He was killed after a collision with a vehicle on the beach at Fire Island in 1966. He won the National Book Award posthumously in 1972.

Ashbery is a towering figure on contemporary American poetry and he is one I can admire without really enjoying. One capable of putting phrases together of aching eloquence but also of constructing a poem whose entire import either passes me by or leaves me cold. His long poem Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror was the cornerstone to his Pulitzer/National Book and National Book Critics Circle awards triple crown in 1976 and he remains very active as he closes onto his 90s. Undoubted Doyen of the New York school mixing art, the confessional and an obtuseness with an inimitable flourish.

Galway Kinnell is the third of today's giants and the one I enjoy reading the most. Born in Rhode Island but considered very much a poet of Vermont, Kinnell mixes social issues, relationships and the natural/bestial world in a very pleasing manner. His Selected Poems, which I have read, won him the Pulitzer in 1982. Galway Kinnell died in 2014.

Surprisingly perhaps my selection is from Ashbery. This is his poem What is Poetry?


The medieval town, with frieze
Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow

That came when we wanted it to snow?
Beautiful images? Trying to avoid

Ideas, as in this poem? But we
Go back to them as to a wife, leaving

The mistress we desire? Now they
Will have to believe it

As we believed it. In school
All the thought got combed out:

What was left was like a field.
Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.

Now open them on a thin vertical path.
It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?

Happy new one, Paul!

Happy 18th, Paul!

Hi Paul! Your thread topper is wonderful. It makes me feel good to just look at it. :)

Hope things are going well this week for you and that you're healthy again.

>42 PaulCranswick: Images in that poem are very powerful. Thanks for sharing Paul. Nathalie has almost persuaded me to try Eileen with her review. Maybe!

Happy new thread! Nice photo.

>37 PaulCranswick: Yay!

Such a gorgeous photo to open this newest thread, Paul. You are a very lucky man surrounded by so many beautiful women in your life! Enjoy your 18th thread! :)

Oh so glad to see you're enjoying Howl's Moving Castle. Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors, and that's one of her best, I think. Happy new thread!

Just checking in :)

#42 Hope you are enjoying the O'Hara - he's one of my favourites. My dissertation was on him and Ashbery & Co.

>32 PaulCranswick:, I agree with your comments mate and would prefer Moeen up the order as Rashid is decent with the bat and is a better spinner, glad to see that Graeme Swann is going to do a bit of work with Moeen on the bowling front.

On the county front we got away with a draw and Lyth and Lees got some valuable batting practice in, we are 26 points behind Middlesex with a game in hand so we need to get back to winning ways and have lost five players to the ODI squad so I think you may be right mate about the championship. We have the Royal London quarter final against Kent on Thursday and then it is T20 finals day at Edgbaston on Saturday.

>43 scaifea: Thanks Amber.

>44 DianaNL: 18 Diana? I do wish sometimes to have that age back again with the knowledge I now have. Would probably have carried on my cycling knowing that GBR was about to breakthrough but I would still have wanted to meet Hani. xx

>45 karenmarie: Even it is not a perfect picture of my mum, I love the look she is giving Hani. There is no falseness about my ladies and it is obvious for all to see how much she loves her daughter-in-law. I worried when we married that, especially with religion intruding, my mum may not accept Hani, but she loved her from the beginning.

>46 charl08: I am not a huge fan of John Ashbery, Charlotte, but that one does strike a chord with me too. It was a readable novel eventually but I don't think it was good enough to make the Booker lists.

>47 humouress: Thank you Nina. Some of my peers including you and Roni have been very encouraging to read more sci-fi and fantasy.

>48 DeltaQueen50: Thanks Judy, I am a lucky fellow - and will openly admit as such. xx

>49 bell7: I find it comical that she sneaks Wales into the story as some sort of fantasy kingdom and that Howl is really the rather more mundane Howell.

>50 BekkaJo: Lovely to see you Bekka - all bronzed and refreshed no doubt - O'Hara is a funny one and possibly never quite reached his full potential due to that strange way he met his maker prematurely. I prefer him to Ashbery as he is easier to "get" - seemingly he was also a very accomplished pianist.

>51 johnsimpson: Makes sense to me mate as I cannot see Moeen Ali bowling out teams in Bangladesh or India without help. I am also sure that the ECB don't want us to win the championship again this year. The selection of Ballance for the test side for example wasn't justified on form at a time when Ballance could have refound his mojo by accumulating runs for us. There was also one Yorkshire bowler too many in the ODI squad.

Day 24 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

W.S. Merwin, James Wright & Donald Hall

A little light relief after yesterday's heavy hitters......

William Stanley Merwin is a much decorated poet winning the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize (1971 & 2009). He also won the PEN translation prize. Probably best remembered for his Vietnam War poetry, Merwin lives in Hawaii where he went to study Buddhism.

James Wright was born in Martin's Ferry Ohio and the place held an annual poetry festival in his honour for many years after his death in 1980. An innovator in poetic forms with his son Franz is one half of the only father and son to have won Pulitzer Prizes for poetry.

Nominated for the National Book Award three times without winning Donald Hall is a prolific writer of criticism, children's literature, memoirs and, of course, a poetry career spanning some 60 years. His second wife was the poet Jane Kenyon and his anthology published on the anniversary of her death "Without" and in homage to her, is one of his most famous works.

This is Merwin's poem Yesterday which is as affecting as Paul MacCartney's version but very different.

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father’s hand the last time
he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don’t want you to feel that you
have to
just because I’m here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don’t want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do

Dagnabit, Paul, I had to stop and reread Howl's Moving Castle today all because of YOU! But you are forgiven because I enjoyed it so much.

>56 ronincats: Hahaha my pleasure Roni. I did at least name check you as a positive influence with sci-fi and fantasy reading for me. xx

Yes, you did, twice I believe! Try it, you'll like it, right?

>58 ronincats: Actually Roni I have decided that I like the fantasy genre more than a little. The stuff that is faux-historical epic is great and books like Wynne Jones' really tickle the imagination. I am still not enamoured of the more technical and "sciency" of SF work but I am not as averse to it as I used to be.

New thread, and I'm already behind! ;-) We have faculty meeting today, and I think everyone is dreading it. The program seems to be repeats of everything we've already covered in the past. I found a Faculty Meeting Bingo card and made copies. I've also got the iPad loaded with books. I'm hoping I can finish The Many and move on to something else.

>55 PaulCranswick: Whoa, those are three great poets, Paul. Poignant Merwin poem there, thanks. They probably have James Wright's "A Blessing" in there, one of my favorites, and I bet you saw Ellen and me warbling about Hall's Without: Poems.

>60 thornton37814: Good luck with the faculty meeting, Lori. I had two meetings this evening one over dinner with the regional Airbus representative and Spirit Aerospace's Head of Supply Chain Asia as we are looking at providing skilled personnel into their facilities on an as-need basis followed by a meeting at my Clients' home to finalise the pitch for 12,000 new affordable homes for the estate workers in Malaysia. I finished up at 1:00 a.m. and Azim, my driver, was fairly satisfied as he got paid overtime for sitting in the nearby coffee shop waiting for me and watching the Olympic badminton mixed doubles on the big screen. Shame that Malaysia lost the final.

>61 jnwelch: Joe, each day is throwing up interesting poets - it really is a fascinating anthology. James Wright's "A Blessing" is amongst the four poems of his included and I specifically mentioned the collection Without : Poems in the post above as I figured it would resonate.
The upcoming three poets include a favourite of mine in the late Philip Levine.

76. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Date of Publication : 1986
Pages : 429
British Author Challenge August

I haven't seen the film and didn't really know what to expect other than it was essentially YA fiction and it was fantasy. And yes both are true but it is a little more - it is a jolly, wise and enriching experience too.

There is no attempt at high literature here but it is pleasingly told and the convoluted plot just about works. I won't spoil the pleasure for anyone who may now want to read it but the story is essentially about wizard's and witches and the magical in the ordinary.

What I do like about the book is the knowing and clever referencing to Wales in the story and that Howl is more properly Howell, there are references to rugby (an institution in Wales) and the famed Welsh ability to turn a tune. As I say, if I am picky there were holes in the plotting and this could have spoiled things if I wasn't quite so busy enjoying myself.

8/10

Hi Paul - Happy new thread. Congrats on reaching 75 -- shall we call it a tie? Great picture at the top.

What other two Booker nominees have you read? The list was not inspiring to me this year.

>64 BLBera: I am proud to declare a tie with a lady of your calibre, Beth!
I have so far read Eileen : A Novel and The Sellout......not overly impressed.

Happy new thread, and hooray! I'm glad you enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle. I'll have to remember to reread some DWJ before the month is out.

>66 foggidawn: Thanks Foggy. It was great fun, I must say.

Day 25 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Philip Levine, Anne Sexton & Adrienne Rich

Another big hitting combination!

Philip Levine was something of a blue collar bard; accessible and hard hitting and one of my favourite American poets. He is probably best known for his telling vignettes of working class life in Detroit. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice won the National Book Award, and he also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He died on Valentine's Day last year.

Some of Anne Sexton's work is painfully confessional in nature just as it is extremely affecting. She won the Pulitzer Prize but suffered from continual and continued mental illness for many years which both informed her work and lead to her death by her own hand. She died by carbon monoxide poisoning and was in many ways a seminal but unfulfilled muse.

Although she never won the Pulitzer Prize Adrienne Rich won most everything else and was a major influence on American poetry in the later part of the last century. She wrote extensively on feminism and sexuality and was certainly credited as a major influence in articulating the LGBT cause. She was also a wonderfully gifted writer whose many collections are stocked full of work which will move you and make you think.

This is Philip Levine's You Can Have It

My brother comes home from work
and climbs the stairs to our room.
I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop
one by one. You can have it, he says.
The moonlight streams in the window
and his unshaven face is whitened
like the face of the moon. He will sleep
long after noon and waken to find me gone.
Thirty years will pass before I remember
that moment when suddenly I knew each man
has one brother who dies when he sleeps
and sleeps when he rises to face this life,
and that together they are only one man
sharing a heart that always labors, hands
yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps
for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it?
All night at the ice plant he had fed
the chute its silvery blocks, and then I
stacked cases of orange soda for the children
of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time
with always two more waiting. We were twenty
for such a short time and always in
the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt
and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.
In 1948 in the city of Detroit, founded
by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes
of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died,
no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace,
for there was no such year, and now
that year has fallen off all the old newspapers,
calendars, doctors' appointments, bonds,
wedding certificates, drivers licenses.
The city slept. The snow turned to ice.
The ice to standing pools or rivers
racing in the gutters. Then bright grass rose
between the thousands of cracked squares,
and that grass died. I give you back 1948.
I give you all the years from then
to the coming one. Give me back the moon
with its frail light falling across a face.
Give me back my young brother, hard
and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse
for God and burning eyes that look upon
all creation and say, You can have it.

Added a few more this afternoon:

206. How Many Miles to Babylon by Jennifer Johnston (1974) 156 pp
Very grateful that Penguin is reissuing several "lost" classics from the 70's recently including this one
207. Embers by Sandor Marai (1942) 249 pp
Part of the same series and which the Times thought as "magnificent, spellbinding"
208. Walking Away by Simon Armitage (2015) 271 pp
Regulars here will know I am a fan of his poetry - this is his second travel book documenting walks around England
209. In the Land of Giants by Max Adams (2015) 426 pp
"An engaging and scholarly journey through Britain's landscapes", the Times Literary Supplement opined
210. A Change of World by Adrienne Rich (1951) 52 pp
This was Ms. Rich's first collection and it won the National Book Award

"We were twenty for such a short time... "
Just heartbreaking. What a great collection of poetry.

I've not read Armitage's prose, have seen it but just not bitten. Any you'd recommend, or is this the first of his you've picked?

>70 charl08: I am thoroughly enjoying wading through the anthology, Charlotte. It is a big book and poetry - especially good poetry shouldn't be rushed, so I thought three poets a day for 2 months or so (there are 177 poets included) would be a nice way to go.
I haven't read any of Armitage's prose but I do like his poetry so it should be fine?

>67 PaulCranswick: How much easier life is when the two main women in your life appreciate and love each other. It can be sheer hell if these relationships are otherwise. I know this for a fact. Sadly, my previous mother in law consistently put her son in a place where he had to choose which family was more important to him. In doing so, she drew a big bold divisional black line in the sand wherein there were two families, not one combined.

Alas, she did that with both sons and their wives. It truly was very disfunctional.

Oh, I *loved* Howl's Moving Castle along with the others in the series. Glad to see that you enjoyed it, too. I need to get round to the movie at some point...

>72 Whisper1: It is indeed helpful that they get along with each other although in truth the last time Hani was back in the UK they did clash a little but nothing too serious.

>73 scaifea: I'll bet the movie is great fun Amber. The book is one for reading out to the kids - I reckon Charlie would love it.

Sweet Thursday, Paul! Hope the week is going well. Glad you enjoyed Howl's Moving Castle. I enjoyed the film, several years ago and now I would like to try the book.

Blonde continues to be excellent. You might really like this one, although it is very dark and raw. She sugar-coats nothing.

>76 msf59: Yes buddy, I noticed Bill's enthusiasm for the book too. You picked a good one for the group in Joyce Carol Oates this month.

>68 PaulCranswick: Love that one, Paul. Thanks for sharing. Hoping that your Friday is full of fabulous when it gets to you.

>78 Crazymamie: Reminded me a little of my own early youth too Mamie. As you know I have a twin and we used to share a bed for a while. Trouble was he was a bed-wetter as a boy and we would regularly be awash - he grew out of it eventually but I was relieved when my mum saw the sense in us having single beds.

Oh, dear! As you know, I have five older sisters, but while I have had to share a room, I never had to share a bed, thank goodness. Which is probably how all of us survived to adulthood. Heh.

>80 Crazymamie: We didn't have much choice in the matter I suppose but from a working class family in Northern England we were considered upwardly mobile and eventually Mum and Dad (when they were still talking) bought their own home and we shared a room but had single beds. I ought to have been an Olympian given my oftentimes nighttime need for a canoe and a paddle.
I think it can help to explain my brother's later problems with panic attacks and even his compulsions that lead to his alcoholism. I am proud of him for conquering his demons - as a real tough guy, nobody would have ever guessed what an insecure young man he was trying desperately to conceal. Peter is charismatic and has made, lost and made money again but, as a twin, I am really DeVito to his Arnold.

Yes, well, I would chose DeVito over Arnold every time. Just saying...

>68 PaulCranswick: Most excellent poem, Paul. I'll be thinking about that one.

I've read other Diana Wynne Jones, but not Howl's Moving Castle. After hearing your enjoyment, I'm adding it to the WL.

>82 Crazymamie: I suppose I have my sawn-off roly-poly charm, Mamie...:D

>83 jnwelch: I remember discussing Levine a few years ago and some smart alec was telling me that "anyone can write like that" - they should go and try to is all I could respond.

>79 PaulCranswick: My boys share a room but have their own beds. Often in the holidays, though, we'll find them in the same bed in the morning.

My sister and I used to share a room but with our own beds. We lived in Africa and had to use mosquito nets, though, so getting out was a rather more complicated affair.

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Paul.

Great Philip Levine poem.

I shared a room most of the time with at least one sister, usually my older sister. On my father's sabbatical year in Rome (I was five-six) we shared a room on the ground floor of a big old villa (this was 1960 - it was dirt cheap, believe me, and verging on derelict) and she would get up in the night to turn on the light for me because lines of cockroaches paraded around the room's perimeter. It's a huge piece of how I feel about her, some folks think she is a bit on the cool side, but I know better!

>85 humouress: Mosquito nets are an experience aren't they? Never used them over here but I did "enjoy" their protection during my recent trip to Sao Tome.
My sister who is six years younger than Peter and I was a bit of a scaredy cat in days gone by and would like to get in with me on a night if she had had a bad dream. Unfortunately she is one of those people who cannot keep still when they are sleeping so I would get kicked from pillar to post. She did get in with Peter due to the obvious urinary pitfalls.

>86 Ameise1: Thank you, Barbara dear.

>87 sibylline: Thank you for sharing that Lucy - great anecdote. It is remarkable how those small kindnesses from our siblings stick with us into our older years isn't it? The image of the big old Roman villa is a vivid one. xx

Added two more books at lunchtime because I took my SIL to lunch and she wanted to go book shopping:

211. The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (2016) 450 pp
So many in the group have fallen under the spell of these short stories...............
212. Written Lives by Javier Marias (1999) 193 pp
Short essays on a number of writers by an excellent writer in his own right.

Oh! I am reading and liking The Paper Menagerie. Hoping Friday has been kind to you.

Greetings, Paul! How nice your SIL enjoys book shopping! I bet she didn't need to twist your arm :}
I've got The Paper Menagerie on my iPad but like all good books dropped into my black hole of an iPad they usually languish in cyberspace. I'll try to bring this one back to light after I finish the Booker long listers I've brought home.

>87 sibylline: I love it when older siblings look after younger ones. My boys do that (though my younger one rather takes advantage of his brother).

>88 PaulCranswick: I have 3 of them, Paul. My younger one can have his feet on the pillow at one point and back again by morning; fortunately, his brother has grown out of that habit.

>89 PaulCranswick: She wanted to, Paul, or you put the idea in her head?

Hi Mate, a good win in the Royal London quarter final and now a home semi final against Surrey. Hope the boys do well tomorrow in the T20 blast finals day.

There are always interesting subjects on your thread, Paul - bed wetting, mosquito nets, and cockroaches since I was last here.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

And now Ted Hughes. I found this on my Writer's Almanac that is on my local NPR station each morning at 9:00 a.m. This was actually on August 17, his birthday, but I didn't get around to posting it until today.

It's the birthday of poet Ted Hughes, born in West Riding, Yorkshire (1930). He became noteworthy as a poet in 1957 with the publication of his first collection, The Hawk in the Rain. During a time when most poets were confining themselves to quiet, domestic verses, Hughes wrote about dramatic mythological themes, and often tried to write from the point of view of animals, especially Crow, who features in several of his books. He married poet Sylvia Plath in 1956; she committed suicide in 1963. He administered her literary estate, but didn't talk about her publicly until Birthday Letters (1998), his collection of poems about Plath and their relationship.
Hughes said: "The inmost spirit of poetry, in other words, is at bottom, in every recorded case, the voice of pain - and the physical body, so to speak, of poetry, is the treatment by which the poet tries to reconcile that pain with the world."

>90 Crazymamie: The overwhelming weight of positivity for this one meant I couldn't resist it Mamie. Even bought it in hardback.

>91 Carmenere: In all fairness she did bring the matter up, but I hardly discouraged her! She is a huge fan of historical fiction especially from Philippa Gregory

>92 humouress: Nina we were very close all three of us growing up which makes it more sad that when my brother had his huge problems with my father when he was cheated out of his share of the business he broke with my sister at the same time. I was very happy to note that Peter is intending to invite her to our joint birthday party and bury the hatchet.

>93 johnsimpson: It could be the year John for different silverware for Yorkshire. We have without doubt the best team in the country but things haven't fallen for us in the Championship and not helped by the selectors disrupting the side more than was ever necessary.

>94 karenmarie: Hahaha Karen bed wetting and mosquito nets seem strangely in tune as topics of conversation don't they?!

>95 benitastrnad: Happy birthday Mr. Hughes and Rest-in-Peace oh bard of the West Ridings! Hughes' career as a poet was sublime and I would say that he was the greatest of English post-war poets - I say English instead of British because Heaney, from Northern Ireland, was his contemporary and at worst near equal. Hughes was a sublime poet but a less than sublime father and husband by all accounts.

Happy weekend, Paul! Yours is the third thread tonight where I have read about Howl's Moving Castle. Definitely a sign!

I remember reading Embers years ago. Hope you enjoy it.

>99 AMQS: I suppose that the BAC has something to do with it too Anne, as I probably wouldn't have read it myself otherwise.

Embers caught my eye on the shelves in the bookstore.

Days 26, 27 and 28 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, Derek Walcott, Miller Williams, Etheridge Knight, Amiri Baraka, Ted Berrigan, Audre Lorde & Sonia Sanchez

A bit of a slugfest today for several reasons.

Firstly the inclusion of one who does not fit the definition of an American poet as set out elsewhere in the anthology. Secondly because I need to catch up a bit and thirdly because of the inclusion of several poets here with only one or two poems.

Gregory Corso was an interesting character. Considered as the baby of the inner group of the Beat writers, he was self taught and from a deprived upbringing. After a stint in Clinton Correctional he became a writer of some renown and his most famous poem "Marriage" is included in full here.

Gary Snyder is an award winning poet having taken the Pulitzer Prize for Turtle Island. He was another Beat poet and Dharma Bum. Probably the nearest of the American poets to DH Lawrence's style of poetics.

Derek Walcott - Nobel winner and undoubted writer of brilliance is not an American poet in the sense it is used elsewhere in this anthology. It may be arguable about Auden and Eliot - it is not about St. Lucian Walcott. I have read and reviewed his Collected Verse elsewhere and won't comment on it here.

Arkansas native and father to the famous singer Lucinda Williams, Miller Williams wrote extensively both translation and contemporary poetry. He suffered from spina bifida and finally Alzheimers.

African American poet Knight hailed from Mississippi. He was incarcerated for the ridiculous period of 25 years (serving 8 years) for stealing a white woman's purse. After initial troubles inside he spent a few years absorbing literature before making himself a fully fledged poet. He married Sonia Sanchez briefly and became known as a leading poet in the "black vernacular".

Amiri Baraka was born LeRoi Jones and was a controversial figure - his time as Poet Laureate of New Jersey being marred by allegations of anti-Semitism and a reading of his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?" almost causing a riot. He was however an undoubted talent.

"The Sonnets" is what Ted Berrigan will be most remembered for and it was hailed a masterpiece by Frank O'Hara. From Rhode Island Berrigan died short of his 50th birthday due to complications arising from hepatitis.

Audre Lorde was an activist and feminist as much as she was a poet. She was virtually blind via near sightedness and spent the last years of her life fighting cancer. It was a battle she eventually lost in 1992.

A writer of very musical verse, Sonia Sanchez has had a long and distinguished and varied career as a poet and activist. Frenetically married to Etheridge Knight with whom she had three children she wrote many poems on the theme of motherhood.

This is the beginning of Gregory Corso's poem Marriage

Should I get married? Should I be Good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky--

When she introduces me to her parents
back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,
should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa
and not ask Where's the bathroom?
How else to feel other than I am,
often thinking Flash Gordon soap--
O how terrible it must be for a young man
seated before a family and the family thinking
We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!
After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?
Should I tell them? Would they like me then?
Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter
but we're gaining a son--
And should I then ask Where's the bathroom?

Loving all the poetry selections. You're really on fire, Mr. C!

Belated happy new thread and very belated congrats on reaching 75!

>68 PaulCranswick: I like the Levine poem :-)

>102 laytonwoman3rd: Thank you Linda. xx I am enjoying myself with the anthology too which makes it even better.

>103 FAMeulstee: Thanks for both Anita.
Levine is a great second language poet because he cuts straight to the heart of things.

A weekend away in lovely Pinang for me as we went up there for a family wedding. No hotel as we stayed in a relative's house as one of Hani's cousins married a young Frenchman from Lille. Poor chap's family had not made the trip so I was pressed into action as the other "mat salleh" in the family to guide him on his entry into the family. In truth I don't know that strand of the family overly well but they were very welcoming and the wedding food was delicious!

Arrived back late last night and had two of Hani's other cousins stop by on the way from Pinang to Johor Bahru for a pit stop and we spent a few hours chatting over family anecdotes. My father in law is the last surviving subling of 12 and he was something of a star turn this weekend.

Hi Paul. I see you have long passed number 75 while I was galavanting around the waters and tundra of Alaska.

Howl's Moving Castle sounds intriguing although not in my usual terrain. So much love for it by you and others in these parts, though.

I hope you have a good week ahead, dear man!

Paul, I thought you might be interested in this short article Tor published for DWJ's birthday last week.

http://www.tor.com/2016/08/16/diana-wynne-jones-on-this-day/

>106 EBT1002: Good to see you back safe and so obviously sound, Ellen. As you know Howl's Moving Castle is not my usual comfort zone either so it is a fairly safe recommendation to read.

>107 ronincats: Thanks for that, Roni. Wit, charm and light describes her very aptly.

Hi Paul sounds like you've had a good weekend at your family wedding. Nice to get away from the emails and Internet for a bit!

I loved Howl's Moving Castle - I need to get round to the movie at some point...

That sounds like a good wedding weekend, Paul. I hope you'll have a nice week.

Awe, what a great guy to have the privilege of being the grooms "mat salleh"! (I just googled the translation). It appears you have the credentials :0}
Hope your week is off to a great start!

>110 scaifea: I will get Kyran to find the film for me since Japanese animation is something of a speciality of his.

>111 DianaNL: It was a pretty good weekend and I hope to finally get my tickets to UK this week, Diana.

>112 Carmenere: Week was going swimmingly until I fell foul of my bank. They are closing all SME accounts (Small & Medium Enterprises) and this includes one of my companies. I instructed my secretary to transfer the money today to the company which will take over all the accounts of the previous company only to have it blocked by the bank. They informed me that they wanted to refund the account via a Banker's Cheque in favour of the company (which now has no account and which will not be trading henceforward). I had an argument with the bank officer as I then insisted they refund the amount to me in cash (it is about $50,000) as I am the sole signatory of the account. I am going to the bank in the morning to resolve it.

Good luck at the bank this morning, Paul. Love the topper!

Hi Paul, weekend away in Pinang sounds lovely. Makes up for unpleasant visits to the bank? Almost? Hope all goes well.

>114 Berly: Thanks Kimmers, I remember smiling!

>115 lit_chick: It is a great place to go for food, Nancy. Of course the wedding involved fairly traditional Malay food which was scrumptious I must say.

>113 PaulCranswick: Eweee, Banks can be so difficult to deal with no matter the continent! Good luck and hope it all sorts out so you can go back to swimming through the rest of the week!

>117 Carmenere: I hope so Lynda. Would spoil my holiday plans actually.

Fingers crossed for the bank. Also >109 charl08: cough cough....

>119 charl08: Thanks Charlotte; and >109 charl08: How did I miss that?! xx

Ooof. Best of luck at the bank, Paul!

I hope that your visit to the bank goes well, Paul, and that it doesn't affect your vacation plans next month.

Hi, Paul! Glad you had a good time, on your island getaway. Good luck with the banking situation. Fingers crossed for my pal.

>121 scaifea: Not really resolved Amber but I had a good discussion with the bank manager after frankly losing my temper with his staff. I hope to be able to resolve it this couple of days so that I can go back to the UK without the worry of it.

>122 kidzdoc: One way or another I will be there dear chap. I am looking forward to meeting you all just after the 8th and re-jigged my schedule to make sure our trips coincide.

>123 msf59: Thanks mate. Sometimes I do get a bit frustrated; it is as if you open one door only to have another close in your face.

Hi Paul! I hope the bank kerfuffle is resolved quickly to your satisfaction.

Thank you so much for setting up my Great Expectations group read!!! I do so appreciate it. We'll start in September.

>125 karenmarie: aaah, I had great expectations for Great Expectations, and I can't say I was disappointed!

>125 karenmarie: I set it up months ago for you Karen and I seem to recall you were going to do it again! I am in for the read anyways. xx

>126 LovingLit: Now my expectations are a known quantity already as it is a re-read - Great Expectations Revisited!

Oh so sorry about all of the hassles at the bank. Business for you lately seems to be a hair puller, to say the very least. I hope everything gets sorted out properly. I've read Lucy Barton and very much enjoyed it, and now am onto Work Like Any Other. After you review of The Sell-out I returned it to the library unread. It did not appeal to me . I am wondering about the Booker judges selection of books this year.

77. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Date of Publication : 2016
Pages : 191
Booker Longlist 2016 : 3/13

Is it enough to be able to write sublimely to have an award nominated piece of work?

I say "piece of work" decidedly because I am not sure that this exercise in gossamer silken prose quite constitutes a novel. It is more like a series of sketches that could become a novel.

Lucy Barton is hospitalised for several weeks and part of which is taken up by a visit from her mother. Lucy and her siblings were somewhat dragged up and she explores that upbringing and its impact upon her relationship with her parents whilst recuperating from her illness. There are plenty of strands here that ought to be developed in a fuller context - the war experiences of her father that damaged him and its impact on the children, the sexuality of her brother, the upbringing itself - but all were treated to a very slight exploration that was as ultimately unsatisfying as it was tantalising.

It would be churlish to mark down this book too much given that the writing was stylistically so well delivered but ultimately style over substance doesn't a Booker winner make. It was more sophisticated and was better written than Eileen but lacked its punch. A combination of both would have been formidable but singly I fear they will not pass muster or make the shortlist.

7/10

>128 vancouverdeb: It has been a very difficult year Deb but I will soldier on as usual. I read the reviews page of My Name is Lucy Barton and noted that it resonated with many. I really appreciated her writing but was left wanting a little more. I also agree with Darryl (who should know) that her illness was not well explained and seemed to make little sense. I will certainly read her other books though based on this one.

2016 BOOKER LONGLIST - PAUL'S RATINGS

1. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
2. Eileen : A Novel by Ottessa Moshfegh
3. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

I would be astonished if I had read the winner already.

Day 29 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Mark Strand, Russell Edson & Mary Oliver

Mark Strand was born on Prince Edward Island in Canada but was very much an American poet in the sense it seems to be meant in this anthology (the strange inclusion of Derek Walcott excepted). Strand led a cloistered and academic life with nostalgia being a key theme of his work. He received overdue recognition by receiving the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004. He died in 2014.

One of the more obscure inclusions in this anthology, Edson was an exponent of what he termed prose poetry. There is only one poem included and it will appear below.

Mary Oliver needs little introduction here in the group as she has become a favourite with poetry lovers across the 75ers especially. Her concerns are the workaday and the environment that she is grounded in provincial Ohio and especially her adopted New England. Her work is immersed in the locale - the natural locale and with a sure touch she paints delicate images of that locale in her subtle work. Whilst openly gay it is not a subject that takes any primacy in her writing and this doesn't make her a better or lesser writer as a result. It is part of her, it is not a part that she shares overly but it helps define her writing as subtlely as the other influences upon her do and makes her a better, less obvious writer as a result. She has won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize & shares (possibly with Billy Collins) the mantle of being the most read living American poet.

This is A Stone Is Nobody's by Russell Edson

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the
rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is
captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know
whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old.
The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are
conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me,
he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as
the stone is to you, she said.

There are approximately two months to go until the next Nobel Prize winner for Literature is announced and so I thought I would get out my crystal ball and see who may be the contenders this time. The last two winners, both European have been slight surprises and I think in terms of body of work slight winners.

The USA has not won the Prize since 1993 when Toni Morrison won. Many feel that the USA is overdue an award (although I would have thought Africa have as much cause to grumble). So who would the contenders be if the US were to be considered this time?

Fiction.
Is there an outstanding candidate? Possibly not really but:
1. Philip Roth has his supporters. Some would feel that his writing can tend toward the misogynistic but his body of work is solid if perhaps slightly too popular.
2. Cormac McCarthy. He may be felt to be too regional in his concerns but his prose is startling and experimental which could appeal.
3. Thomas Pynchon. &
4. Don DeLillo are both exponents of pretty difficult prose. Just the heady stuff that normally appeals.
5. Joyce Carol Oates. Huge, huge body of work may actually count against her.
6. Marilynne Robinson needs to publish a few more books perhaps.
7. John Irving - I would be astonished if the picaresque was sufficuently appreciated.
8. Lydia Davis for her short stories which are cutting edge for sure.
9. Alice Walker would be for my money the leading African American candidate and surely a laudable choice
10. Barbara Kingsolver - her work has plenty of scope but is it "serious" enough for the difficult to please Academy.

Those are my five men and five women most likely in fiction.

Poetry

A topic dear to my heart as many know and the question has to be whether the USA has presently a poet of sufficient gravitas coupled with universal concerns that might appeal to the Swedish Academy. What about?

1. John Ashbery. I start with a poet I don't really like but recognise his capability. Far too "American" to win though I fear.
2. Mary Oliver would be a hugely popular winner but that may count against her. Her simplistic seeming constructions may not have the technical flourish they are looking for but she remains a favourite of mine.
3. Sharon Olds would be a deserving winner IMO but I would be surprised if she gets nominated.
4. Richard Wilbur deserves recognition for all round excellence. Wonderful in translation, free verse and structured, formal poetry. He won't get too many more chances!

Drama

It is difficult to look beyond Edward Albee if a USA dramatist was to get the award.

History and Biography

I would have thought that David McCullough may warrant a mention.

There are my sixteen possible USA candidates - what do you think? Any others sing to you?

>129 PaulCranswick:
It is more like a series of sketches that could become a novel.
and
ultimately style over substance doesn't a Booker winner make

say it perfectly. It has been a couple of weeks since I read it and while I have fond memories, still would like to give the author a good hug and wouldn't "die" should it win, I wouldn't be happy either. Usually my "I'm touched and want to send hugs to the author" Booker books didn't make it on the SL, and most (all?) of them felt "better", like History of Rain, Lila or Did you ever have a Family?. This one quite certainly will, there isn't much competition around.

Wishing you all the best for the dealings with the bank!!

>133 PaulCranswick: Oooh, food for thought! I can't see Barbara Kingsolver winning....DeLillo or McCarthy maybe, and Roth? Sure? He has Nobel written all over him!

>134 Deern: I have seen some reviews of the book which were frankly rapturous and, whilst she must be given credit for caressing the pages with her words, there simply wasn't enough to the book to make it a viable winner.

>135 LovingLit: Tomorrow I will consider the rest of the American continent and see if I can come up with some possibles. I would like to see Oates win as no-one since Balzac has her propensity to turn out quality so voluminously but it is the poets I feel the most for. There seems to be a feeling of disparagement for US poetry that is entirely misconceived by a snooty Europhile group. Why Frost never won given his obvious qualities, or Langston Hughes for that matter is a question difficult to answer. I don't think Oliver is heavyweight enough but her polished gems shine so brightly; I think Sharon Olds is wonderful but is she the best American poet? Richard Wilbur's work is exceptionally mature and varied but he perhaps lacks an opus whilst Ashbery is so obtuse that even I would be a little miffed if he won.

A couple of days back on Trivia Crack and it is already annoying me. I have lost two questions for crowns when it offered me cards and went straight to an advert that timed me out of the question - WTF?!

On a happier note I did add three books today whilst waiting for my company resolution to be done so that I can get the bank to pay to me my own money (the world has gone mad!)

213. The North Water by Ian McGuire (2016) 255 pp
The dust jacket proclaims this "enthralling and brutal" - the seventh of the Booker longlist added to my collection
214. Hystopia by David Means (2016) 336 pp
"The bitter end of 1960s" - alternate history by the looks and the eighth of the Booker longlist is added (5 to go)
215. Victim Without a Face by Stefan Ahnhem (2014) 550 pp
The latest Scandi sensation by all accounts

Good morning, Paul.

I'd throw in Kent Haruf (what a surprise, right?) and Tracy Kidder for the U.S. Haruf would have to be posthumous, and he has the Marilynne Robinson problem of not that many books. Tracy Kidder may have the problem of being somewhat uncategorizable,

>139 jnwelch: As I understand the rules Joe Kent Haruf would be ineligible as he passed away on 30 November 2014 and nominations for this year's prize were deadlined on 1 February 2016. Technically therefore if a writer passed away between February and October of the award year they could win posthumously. Tracy Kidder would be an off the wall selection but there have been a few of those in the last couple of decades. I haven't read anything by the Pulitzer winner - do you rate him so highly?

I would be interested to see who you would put forward for poetry.

I don't think that there is an American author worthy of the Nobel at this point other than JCO. I think that Murakami should win. Worldwide his influence on literature is stupendous. As far as I am concerned, Roth can't write his way out of a paper bag with anything that interests me and the same goes for DeLillo.

As for poets - what the heck is wrong with Billy Collins? I love almost everything he has written. And for my money, and my reading time, the only American poet I read with any regularity is Ted Kooser. Oh I forgot, both of these poets, and most certainly, JCO, are much to popular to be considered for a Nobel.

>141 benitastrnad: Benita, I have several collections of Billy Collins and I always enjoy their reading, as I do the British poets such as Wendy Cope and Roger McGough but I don't humbly consider any of the three great poets. It is in Collins' lack of originality that we often find comfort and familiarity; he strikes a chord with most of us, I think - I am not knocking him as I always look out for his books but a Ted Hughes or Seamus Heaney or even a John Berryman he is not. I must admit that I haven't read anything yet by Kooser.

I agree with you about JCO and I do fear that her prodigious output may somehow count against her. I don't enjoy DeLillo, Roth or Pynchon and would much prefer her to win then them.

I do hope that Murakami's time will come - this year or some other. I have not read him widely but his originality is startling. I am hopeful that the Middle East or Africa will gain some recognition but I'll come to that over coming days. xx

>140 PaulCranswick: I do rate Kidder that highly, Paul. I'd start with Mountains Beyond Mountains (Dr. Paul Farmer) and Strength in What Remains (Burundi genocide survivor), although every one of his is topnotch.

Poets - I like your Sharon Olds pick very much, and Mary Oliver of course. I like Benita's picks of Billy Collins and Ted Kooser, too. I'd add Natasha Trethewey, Charles Simic, and Naomi Shihab Nye.

I suspect that Tracy K. Smith, Terrance Hayes and Danez Smith will be up there some day. And a lot of people love Louise Gluck, but I haven't yet read enough of her to say.

Just following along here. Happy Wednesday, Paul!!

I don't understand the Nobel criteria - they seem to be so obscure most of the time.

>138 PaulCranswick: Look forward to hearing what you think about those two Booker nominees. And new scandi? Sounds great.

Howdy Paul! Your review of My Name is Lucy Barton was pretty much consistent with my thoughts. Yeah, I do agree, those short, yet intriguing story lines (father and brother) would have made a more interesting book.

I'm about to start The North Water just as soon as I finish Work Like Any Other.

>143 jnwelch: Thanks for that Joe and especially for your forecast on the next wave of greats. I also thought of Charles Simic and Natasha Trethewey and Louise Gluck. I especially like the middle one but I do think that she is still a little young to win.

>144 Berly: And always lovely to have you along, Kimmers. xx

>145 charl08: Charlotte, I would agree with you especially in the last two years. I frankly hadn't heard of either of them. Patrick Modiano seems to write mood pieces on a theme and, despite a sophistication in tone his win is as off the wall as it is euro-centric. Svetlana Alexievich has written wonderfully on Chernobyl but seemingly little else - bizarre.

>146 Carmenere: Yes, Lynda, I just don't think an ability to write justifies not telling much of a story. There was a simply wonderful novel in there waiting to be explored and emerge and she didn't give us that IMHO.

>133 PaulCranswick: I really liked Oliver's Felicity when I read it this past year.

I agree with the book jacket: The North Water is indeed *enthralling and brutal* in equal measures, I'd say. Looks forward to seeing your reaction to it.

>149 thornton37814: I do think that Oliver's concerns, whilst seemingly prosaic, are universal and this makes her an exceptional poet. Collins' poetry shows wonderful touch and observation but has less depth IMO and therefore possibly the most readable of poets is not necessarily its best exponent.

>150 Smiler69: Ilana, I have high hopes for that one to be honest. After finishing three of the 13, I don't think it is a particularly stellar selection thus far. I am reading Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien at the moment and this promises to be the best so far by some distance.

Day 30 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Charles Wright, Lucille Clifton & June Jordan

Born in the wonderfully name Pickwick Dam in Tennessee, Charles Wright wears the South on his sleeve and in his languid and lyrical work expounds its concerns. Winner of both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize he is the only poet today I was previously familiar with.

Lucille Clifton is an interesting poet. Proud of her Dahomey heritage (Benin), she traced her ancestry back to the first African American to be hanged for manslaughter (via judicial process) although a slave. Her family has a trait of polydatyly which is being born with excess fingers. Her two extra ones were surgically removed and possibly explains the consistency with which body parts get mentioned in her work. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer she died in Maryland where she had been Poet Laureate.

Possibly more renowned as an activist and essayist for feminism, race and LGBT rights, Jordan was nevertheless (judging by the work included here) a writer of striking and visceral poetry. She died of breast cancer in California in 2002.

This is Wright's short poem Reunion

Already one day has detached itself from all the rest up ahead.
It has my photograph in its soft pocket.
It wants to carry my breath into the past in its bag of wind.

I write poems to untie myself, to do penance and disappear
Through the upper right-hand corner of things, to say grace.

Ah, Paul. I can't catch up, but at least I'm here trying.
Not reading Booker nominees.
I'd support JCO anytime, but I agree with Benita about Murakami.
Hope the bank find somebody in charge with some common sense, not to mention common decency.

>153 LizzieD: Peggy, most people say that I am very trying! I have the feeling that Murakami is too popular for them to succumb and give him the honour I think most feel he deserves.
I have submitted the ridiculous paperwork to the bank that they requested and I hope that it will suffice. The officer told me that she would revert to me tomorrow.

Yesterday I considered possible winners of the Nobel Literature Prize from the USA but what about the rest of continent.

1. Canada

The nearness of Alice Munro's win legislates against Canada somewhat but it never seemed to stop the French winning!

Margaret Atwood (whom I don't always enjoy) is considered a very likely winner one day and has the added advantage of also being a severally published poet and essayist.

Rohinton Mistry would be my favourite author presently from Canada but he is nowhere near active enough - when is he going to publish something new for heaven sake?

Anne Carson would possibly be Canada's leading hope for recognition in poetry.

2. The Caribbean

Antigua - Jamaica Kincaid's writing attracts some and repels others. Her writing is sufficiently broad and emotional however to make her a contender.

Barbados - Kamau Brathwaite is probably the leading poet in the region and much decorated already.

Dominican Republic - Julia Alvarez may be able to satisfy two nations at once as she is nowadays perceived as an American (as in US) writer. Her poetry is certainly on a par with her prose work.

Guyana - Fred D'Aguiar is a unique and lyrical voice and that often counts.

3. Latin America

Some greats have won from here Neruda and Marquez notably but some famously overlooked Borges, Amado, Multis and Fuentes most notably. From the current crop some are far too populist and some pretty obscure but these are some tips.

Mexico

Sergio Pitol - Novelist, memoirist, short story writer and renowned translator.
Laura Esquivel - Despite the popularity of her most famous work, there is apparently plenty of depth to her work

Puerto Rico

Giannina Braschi - her post modernism and innovation make her a major contender

Brazil

Rubem Fonseca is a major influence in Brazilian writing and very dark.
Paulo Coehlo is far too widely sold to have a real chance, surely

Argentina

Cesar Aira is possibly the novelist leading the way in Argentina currently.

Chile

Isabel Allende for all she is admired in the west many spanish writers are critical of her writing so I doubt that she is a really strong contender.

>132 PaulCranswick: LOVE the poem!

Hoping that Thursday has been kind to you, Paul. And that Friday is full of fabulous.

Hello, Paul! It seems you have thrown another good poet my way. Russell Edson's poem is lovely!

>152 PaulCranswick: Pickwick Dam is about 11 miles from my brother's house. It is on one of the TVA lakes we used for recreation. Lots of boating and fishing there. There are state parks on both the Tennessee and Mississippi sides of the lake. Fun place! Now I'll have to go read a few of Charles Wright's poems, hoping for a "taste of home."

Just a quick hello, Paul. Banks do everything they can to hold our money as long as they possibly can. For me it's taking 401K distribution checks from a highly respected mutual funds organization to my bank. The bank lets me have 10% in 24 hours, another 40 percent in 3 business days, and the last in 7 business days. And even though it's nominal these days, they are getting the interest and use of my money.

>156 Crazymamie: Kyran also found it very profound, Mamie. June Jordan's poem was a polar opposite called "Poem About My Rights" - very angry, very impassioned with race and rape as its themes spread over several pages. She is worth a read for sure too but I couldn't quote from the poem easily without losing some of its impact.

>157 Thebookdiva: I had actually never heard of Russell Edson before this anthology Abby and that short poem was all it gave me. I think that you would agree that it is worth looking to find a bit more of his work.

>158 thornton37814: That is great detail, Lori. It is a very suggestive place name I must say and your descriptions of it are in tune with my vision of it. Charles Wright's poetry is quite easily available, I think.

>159 karenmarie: Yep Karen, I am not a fan of the banks as I think you can tell and they have left me scrambling with wages to pay, trips to UK to organise, school fees for the tribe to settle etc etc etc. Hani is a little stressed about everything and she doesn't know the half!

>161 PaulCranswick: Sometimes spousal ignorance is bliss!

Excellent review of My Name is Lucy Barton. I haven't yet read Eileen (or any of the other Booker long-list nominees) but your description of the silken prose of the former and the punch of the latter make me think that this year's list might be less than fully compelling. I should get Work Like Any Other from the library in the next week or so and several people have warbled about it. So, maybe there is hope.

>162 karenmarie: For both of the blithely happy couple, Karen!

>163 EBT1002: I also think that all is not lost, Ellen. The Madeleine Thien book is pretty good so far.

>161 PaulCranswick: I went downstairs to pull a couple of books that I needed to withdraw since we'd received newer editions. I brought up a volume of Wright's poetry. I've read about 2/3 of it so far, mostly while waiting on something to process.

Hej Paul. Very interesting ideas about the Nobel prize 2016. I don't know many of the authors you mentioned. I am not in the position to make any suggestions here. But I am looking forward to reading some new author who won the prize.

>161 PaulCranswick: This year has been a spectacular year for poetry in the group Lori. Mark's AAC April by showcasing American poetry has given a tremendous boost to the reading of poetry in the group and I think many have realised that it is not as daunting or obtuse or boring as they thought. There are a few of us in the group who write too which is starting to blossom given the warmth and the forum given - Joe clearly has considerable talent and a great eye and Diane too whilst I scribble verse in my ad hoc hit and miss (usually miss) manner.
I am so pleased that you uncovered a volume of Wright's poetry and I hope you take plenty from it - is there a sense of place in it?

>162 karenmarie: I am a little Anglophile in my reading tastes, Paul, so it will be the British Isles and their possible Nobel winners today followed by Europe over the weekend. I have no idea of course who will win but there is fun in speculation.

>168 PaulCranswick: Unfortunately the sense of place is more for the Blue Ridge of Virginia than for the Mississippi part of Appalachia around Pickwick Lake.

>169 thornton37814: He was a Professor at Virginia, born in Tennessee and brought up mainly in North Carolina. His "Southern sensibilities" are meant to be a hallmark of his work. This is an interesting article by Time on Wright after his selection as US Poet Laureate.

http://time.com/2864086/who-is-charles-wright-the-new-poet-laureate/

I will start off today with some good news as I managed to get the right Banker's draft this morning and am at least partially solvent again!
Later this afternoon I have a crunch meeting on my nemesis project from last year and for which I still have on paper around $750K outstanding. Keep fingers and toes crossed for me that this will work out ok.

Day 31 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Frederick Seidel, C.K. Williams, Diane Wakoski

Seidel came from a monied family - they provided the coal that fuelled the breweries - and can trace his influences to Ezra Pound and Robert Lowell but his poetry is particularly hard-hitting, violent, politicised and full of sexual imagery but strangely readable. His latest anthology was released this year and he appears to have lost little of his fervour.

C.K. Williams is a favourite poet of mine. I copied his style in a few poems of my own in my late teens and early twenties (to understandably less result). He is a storyteller in blank verse sharing little slices of his life in a very readable style. He won the triple crown of American poetry prizes - Pulizer, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award each one for three different anthologies showing the strength and consistency of his work. He died in September of last year.

Diane Wakoski is from California and associated with the "deep image" poets, supposedly resonant, stylized and heroic in tone.

This is the first section of C.K. Williams' poem Blades

When I was about eight, I once stabbed somebody, another kid, a little girl.
I’d been hanging around in front of the supermarket near our house
and when she walked by, I let her have it, right in the gap between her shirt and her shorts
with a piece of broken-off car antenna I used to carry around in my pocket.
It happened so fast I still don’t know how I did it: I was as shocked as she was
except she squealed and started yelling as though I’d plunged a knife in her
and everybody in the neighborhood gathered around us, then they called the cops,
then the girl’s mother came running out of the store saying “What happened? What happened?”
and the girl screamed, “He stabbed me!” and I screamed back, “I did not!” and she said did too
and me I didn’t and we were both crying hysterically by that time.
Somebody pulled her shirt up and it was just a scratch but we went on and on
and the mother, standing between us, seemed to be absolutely terrified.
I still remember how she watched first one of us and then the other with a look of
complete horror—
You did too! I did not!—as though we were both strangers, as though it was some natural disaster
she was beholding that was beyond any mode of comprehension so all she could do
was stare speechlessly at us, and then another expression came over her face,
one that I’d never seen before, that made me think she was going to cry herself
and sweep both of us, the girl and me, into her arms and hold us against her.
The police came just then, though, quieted everyone down, put the girl and the mother
into a squad-car to take to the hospital and me in another to take to jail
except they really only took me around the corner and let me go because the mother and daughter
were black
and in those days you had to do something pretty terrible to get into trouble that way.

I have everything crossable crossed that it will work out ok, Paul. Thanks for the Nobel Prize talk, it's interesting to read.

>170 PaulCranswick: The religion/God theme was present in much of his work, but I consider his theology to be flawed.

>172 PaulCranswick: Woo. Didn't see that coming. Thanks for posting "Blades", Paul. I'll have to think about why he chose that as the title; increasing the scope, I guess.

>173 DianaNL: Well the meeting went well Diana but I had a bit of a surprise. I had been planning on giving him a hard time for not pressing the consultants of the project to come out with finalised measurements of the works done. When I met my Korean client he had lost something like 20 kg and informed me he had spent a week in ICU and several weeks in hospital as a result of a viral induced kidney failure. Despite my differences with him over the project I was extremely saddened by his state as I have known him the best part of twenty years and he was always such a robust man. I gave him a bit of a hug and we promised to help each other - life is put into perspective sometimes when you least expect it.

>174 thornton37814: I see Lori. I am not aware of his religious persuasion to be honest.

>175 jnwelch: I would have expected CKW to be a favourite of yours Joe. There is another splendid poem in the collection too. I had a look in Kino for some books by him but not surprisingly perhaps there were none. There were a few recent anthologies by writers I admire which I will add when Hani is not watching so closely.

Added a solitary book today whilst waiting for Hani to look the other way.

216. The History of Modern France by Jonathan Fenby (2015) 484 pp
The BBC History Magazine reckons this "a great read".

>176 PaulCranswick: The Time article mentioned the God aspect. I somewhat suspect he is a Deist, based on the few poems I read, but I'm not certain I have him pegged correctly.

>176 PaulCranswick: That must have been a shock, Paul. We tend to think of people as being the same as we left them and not realize they could be dealing with their own life problems. I hope everything turns out well for the both of you.

>178 thornton37814: Lori, I am not the best qualified in the group to peg him on something like this. I did note the article quoted him as saying that his poetic concerns were "language, landscape and the idea of God". The idea of God is a universal theme of course and that of a Supreme Being meaning different things to many of us.

>179 Familyhistorian: It was a bit of a shock I went there expecting to lose my temper just a little bit and came away horribly saddened and remembering my friendship with him rather than recent work related antagonisms.

Continuing series looking at potential winners of the Nobel Prize this year. I have covered the American continent and will start scouring Europe by looking at the British Isles (Britain and Ireland)

Novel / Short Story
1. Ian McEwan - Not everyone's cup of tea but he can sure write.
2. Salman Rushdie - I am not sure that he has sustained the brilliance of his earlier work and his selection would cause consternation with radical islam but then again a man shaking a woman's hand does that.
3. Colm Toibin - Sublime writer of prose
4. John Banville - Not one of my absolute favourites but hugely lionised by critics
5. Hilary Mantel - Will her historical masterpieces make history?
6. William Trevor - My personal choice
7. Edna O'Brien - Can be a difficult read but an intellectual challenge always

Poetry
8. Geoffrey Hill - Widely regarded as the leading living British poet
9. Paul Muldoon - The Irishman is very influential and technically adroit.

Travel

10. Colin Thubron - His travel writing is wonderfully observant; his novels possibly less so.

Drama
11. Tom Stoppard - He appears in the bookmaker's lists every year and rightly so.

History
12. Simon Schama - History should be evocatively written and put you in the time and place, Schama is a good historian but an excellent writer of history.

Day 32 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Michael S. Harper, Charles Simic & Paula Gunn Allen

New Yorker Harper was very much influenced by jazz and black american history. His work is moving and moves with a seamlessness that in part is because it has a reduced reliance on grammar to drive it forward.

Charles Simic, though born in Belgrade, is now regarded as one of the greatest living American poets. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and has been shortlisted several times too. He is a versatile poet who can vary from the surreal to an extraordinary frankness. His best work also utilises black humour extensively.

Paula Gunn Allen was a feminist important in emphasising the woman's role in Native American society. Part Sioux, part Scots, part Lebanese and part Laguna Pueblo indian she did a lot of work and study in tribal anthropology and her poetry of course draws on the traditions that she studied.

This is Simic's short poem Fork


This strange thing must have crept
Right out of hell.
It resembles a bird’s foot
Worn around the cannibal’s neck.

As you hold it in your hand,
As you stab with it into a piece of meat,
It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:
Its head which like your fist
Is large, bald, beakless, and blind.

> Paul, for history, would Simon Winchester qualify here? I know he lives in the USA now but he is British by birth and his writing, in my opinion, is excellent

>183 jessibud2: He would qualify for journalism, travel, history and (1 novel) fiction, Shelley. Not someone I am overly familiar with but greatly respected. I read William Dalrymple for the BAC earlier this year and he has a similar background and is also wonderfully interesting to read.

Paul, I love all your Nobel speculations. I'm not widely read enough to add pithy remarks to the conversation, so I'll just pull back a chair and spectate.

>183 jessibud2: I love Simon Winchester and have read 4 of his history books. His most recent one, Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers takes 10 events related to the Pacific Ocean and creates a book where the sum is greater than the individual pieces.

>185 streamsong: I haven't read everyone I am speculating about either, Janet but I have read a goodly amount of them, I suppose.

>186 karenmarie: I have seen the reviews for it Karen and since he comes so well recommended by two ladies whose judgement I value, I better keep my eyes skinned for some of his books.

>186 karenmarie:, >187 PaulCranswick: - I read and reviewed Pacific earlier this year and and also read several others by Winchester, including The Professor and the Madman, The Meaning of Everything, and The Men Who United the States. Some I read as books, some I listened to Winchester himself read to me in the audiobook format. He is a good reader, too. I would recommend him, Paul, if you get the chance. I still have 3 titles by him on my physical shelf, as yet unread: Krakatoa, The Map that Changed the World, and A Crack in the Edge of the World

(Not sure why one of the touchstones leads to Lois Lowry and another to the Iliad but ...whatever...)

Hi Paul - I love your continued discussion of the poetry anthology.

Interesting discussion of Nobel candidates. I am always surprised that Rushdie hasn't won it.

As to US writers, Louise Erdrich should go on the list, I think.

Have a lovely weekend.

>188 jessibud2: You two ladies have convinced me utterly! Don't be at all surprised to see some Simon Winchester books making it into Chez Paul Hani sooner rather than later. xx

>189 BLBera: Erdrich is a good call Beth. I really enjoyed The Roundhouse. I have a couple of anthologies each by two of the three poets coming up tomorrow in the Penguin anthology.

>190 PaulCranswick: Excellent call on Winchester! Besides Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers - which I also reviewed - I've read Krakatoa, The Professor and the Madman, and A Crack in the Edge of the World. I still have The Men Who United the States in Mount tbr.

>188 jessibud2: When looking up The Map That Changed the World, I realized how many books Simon Winchester has written. A combination of depressing and exhilarating.

I hope your weekend is going well, Paul! Chez Hani indeed. Ha.

>191 karenmarie: It is astounding how many apparently wonderful writers whose company I am still awaiting the pleasure of.

"I would be astonished if I had read the winner already." Heh - from pottering about on Librarything today, I've not found much enthusiasm for the Booker longlist. But hola Paul, long time no visit. I was interested to read your Nobel Prize ponderings.

I listened to Simon Winchester read Map That Changed the World an Krakatoa and enjoyed both of them. Some of the Winchester critics say that he writes "history light" but he is a darn good storyteller. As a reader he is excellent. He ranks right up there with Philip Pullman in that regard. Authors who are good readers of their works are rare and Pullman and Winchester are the exceptions.

>194 benitastrnad: - I am in 100% agreement that not all great writers are great (or even decent) readers. A few that are, that I can highly recommend are Malcolm Gladwell, Elizabeth Berg in addition to Winchester. I'm sure there are others that I am forgetting but those are the ones that come to mind immediately, for me.

I'm not opposed to Winchester, but I'd award Schaama first. (Hi, Paul.)

>195 jessibud2: Neil Gaiman is another writer who makes a good reader. But I generally try to avoid books read by their authors because they generally don't have the professional voice for reading. The nice thing is that they know exactly what they MEAN to say, but they might not do a very good job of saying it! :)

The only Simon Winchester book I've read is Professor and the Madman. It was fantastic. :)

Hi Paul! Happy Sunday morning to you (Saturday night to me)!

#196
I think Schaama is an excellent writer but authors of non-fiction rarely win the Nobel. The Russian author who won this last year was a real anomaly.

>193 evilmoose: Lovely to see you have time to get off your bike for a short while, Megan! My present read by the Malaysian-Canadian Madeleine Thien is the best of the Bookers I have read so far.

>194 benitastrnad: Very good point Benita about writers not often being necessarily the best readers. I know from experience of the group that most of those amongst us who like audio books (I have never "read" such a book in truth) extol the virtues of the late Alan Rickman as reader/narrator.

>195 jessibud2: Shelley would the writer only read their own work or would they venture to try someone elses? I can just imagine the scorn in Martin Amis' voice being paid to read something by Julian Barnes!?

>196 LizzieD: Yes, Peggy, it is after all a literature prize. There are some excellent historians with fantastic, relevant and accurate historical or period detail, facts and data but my judgement was based on who in my experience writes the best history in purely qualitative writing terms. Historians more of the right like Bernard Lewis and Andrew Roberts also write well but I would be loathe to nominate one who belittled the Armenian massacres and another who still believes Britain should police the world.

>197 The_Hibernator: Hani often tells me that she fell in love with my voice over the telephone and that this was enough to overcome the disappointment of me being a short guy wearing spectacles! She herself has an enchanting voice which all too often these days has tended towards the shrill!

>198 benitastrnad: Also quite right, Benita, and I think it a shame. Excellent non-fiction can be just as compelling as something realised solely from the author's imagination don't you think? They are different skills but both almost as worthy as each other. The fact that Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida or Isaiah Berlin never won fails to recognise their importance and contribution over some of the frankly more trivial selections.

Just skimming through and waving. *waves*

>201 humouress: Lovely to "see" you as always Nina. I am pretty determined to get to Singapore in October and finally get a meet-up with my nearest LT neighbour done. xx

I tried to listen to The Dark Tower by Stephen King as read by the author but had to put it down. I thought he was doing a hatchet job. I just finished Where God Was Born by Bruce Fieler and I think a professional reader would have been better there, too. And I am seriously in a minority, I'm sure, but I generally will not listen to female readers. The only two exceptions to that rule are My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (yes, I know..... but it was a really good book!) and the one I'm listening to right now, To Kill A Mockingbird read by Roses Prichard.

So Hello Paul! I hope your Sunday is going well.

>203 karenmarie: Stephen King gives me the creeps at the best of times, Karen! I would like to listen to the Hobbit sometime on audio as I remember watching it narrated on British TV when I was a boy on a programme called Jackanory and I loved it. xx

I've been following your Nobel Prize speculation with interest, Paul. It's a bit too far out for me to pay close attention yet, though. Despite the long American drought I can't think of any authors who warrant consideration for the literature prize, with the possible exception of Philip Roth, and maybe Ha Jin. I fear that Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's time has come and gone, as he hasn't written a novel since Wizard of the Crow a decade ago, which is probably my all time favorite African novel. I think that Cees Nooteboom would be a worthy choice, along with Hilary Mantel, William Trevor, Amitav Ghosh, Javier Cercas, Juan Marsé, and Antonio Lobos Antunes, off the top of my head.

If I could cast a vote, it would be for Cercas.

Happy Sunday, Paul! Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Have you picked up a copy of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers? If not, this is a Most Own. You encouraged me to read Ted Hughes recently and that led to this one. Not a poetry collection but it hits like one and it has Hughes stamped all over it.

>199 PaulCranswick: - Interesting thought, Paul. As far as I know, authors who read books for audiobook production usually read only their own works, I would think. But there are tons of professional actors who read audiobooks, and you can imagine that, as trained actors, they usually do a good job. There is one such actor who comes to mind for me and that is Sunil Malhotra. He read Abraham Verghese's *Cutting For Stone* and was outstanding. His mastery of accent, and nuanced speech was so excellent, that I knew which character was speaking all the time regardless of whether or not the character's name was mentioned. I am currently listening to another book narrated by him (The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda , not as good a story as Verghese, truth be told, but Verghese is in a class of his own, in my opinion). The two actresses who read Tracy Chevalier's *Remarkable Creatures* was also wonderful, as were the 2 actresses who read Sue Monk Kidd's *The Invention of Wings* (not the same 2 actresses!).

You really ought to give audiobooks a try!

Happy Sunday, Paul!

Love that Corso poem.

Love the idea of Pynchon and the Nobel, but he's a bit too irreverent, eh?

I've become a mad audiobook fan. Apparently they are selling far better than e-books. This does not surprise me one bit!

The book publishers should have a policy of say, a 50% reduction in the cost of a subsequent paper back if you have already bought the e-book and decide you want to own it after all. It would be a game changer for me. I'm not going to buy a book twice, so I'd rather buy the real thing, thank you very much.

Just stopping by , Paul! Hope you have had a lovely Sunday . I had a great time at the BBQ yesterday and Alex, my nephew escaped unscathed such that he is returning to university in the UK in just a couple of days. I think he really enjoys it at Cambridge and Britain in general.

>205 kidzdoc: Good calls Darryl. I will be looking at Western Europe today actually and some of your suggestions are bound to feature.

>206 msf59: I haven't seen that one about mate to be honest but I will keep my eyes open for it. Crow is a difficult read but once Hughes gets under your skin he is difficult to ignore.

>207 jessibud2: I think that they should make them read someone else's work and nominate say three authors to read their own. Can you imagine the fun you would have by having someone read out of genre.

>208 scaifea: Same to you Amber, dear.

>209 sibylline: Well to be fair if Jelinek can somehow win the prize then Pynchon should be a certainty! I like that idea on the discount if you have the audio book, Lucy. I have a few books on Kindle - Infinite Jest say that I know full well I won't read in that format so I bought "the real thing" but at full price of course.

>210 vancouverdeb: Glad your nephew survived the barbeque (hehehe) and I trust that he has a safe return to England and prospers at Uni there. xx

>211 PaulCranswick: - You have a wicked mind, my friend! I love it!

>213 jessibud2: China Mieville reading Joanna Trollope and vice versa for example.

>212 PaulCranswick: I think one of the non-fiction publishers gives you a bundled deal - buy the hard copy get the free ebook.

As Paul (S) said, it's nice to hear about new authors through the Nobel. Great to read the discussion here too. I don't really have any favourites amongst the candidates.

>215 charl08: I would like William Trevor to win Charlotte. To have the e-copy as a back-up is a good idea certainly.

78. Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

Date of Publication : 1984
Pages : 190
Bowie Book Challenge
1001 Books First Edition : 267/1001
Guardian Books : 309/998

This is a book which is difficult to classify. It is neither a novel in the traditional sense nor is it biography nor is it a work purely of literary criticism, but there are elements of each entwined in this clever piece of writing. It is a piece of writing that illuminates, that resonates and that fascinates but ultimately is still neither one thing nor the other.

Flaubert is a writer whose masterpiece Madame Bovary appears on many lists of the best works of French or World literature and Barnes does a good job of displaying him warts and all for our delectation and disputation. Someone who can describe his best fried as "his left testicle" is obviously worth knowing at least as dinner company.

Barnes is a writer adept of playing with the concentration of the reader as he did (I think a little better) with A History of the World in 10.5 Chapters. This is good and indeed exceptional in parts but the scattergun approach to book creation occasionally jars too. Barnes too with his obvious wit and playfulness would be another prized asset at the dinner table.

This is a book I appreciated rather than gloried in. I book I can say I admired rather than one I adored.

7/10

I tried to read Crow more than once, because something in it appeals to me, but I find contemporary poetry in English difficult to access, I often miss the important nuances I fear. Got the collected poems on my shelf and the letters... oh dear *readingpanicsettingin*

I enjoy your NP speculation though I myself don't have much of an opinion there. Except for thinking that The Piano Teacher is disgusting but brilliantly written (which certainly gets lost in translation as does all the bite) and very important - but you know that already. :)
Haven't read any JCO yet (the shame!) or William Trevor (don't even know what he wrote...) and only one Pynchon with Lucy's help. How can I still feel so unread after 8 or so years on LT?!?! *morepanic*

>218 Deern: Hahaha Nathalie no need to panic! I have about 3,800 physical books unread in the house and, on the cusp of 50 I am wondering whether there'll be enough time!

>217 PaulCranswick: I finished Flaubert's Parrot yesterday and I think I have the same feelings about it, that you have. That said, he is sure a dazzling writer and incredibly smart and inventive. I definitely want to read more of his work.

I wonder if I had read Madam Bovary or was more familiar with Flaubert, I would have appreciated it more?

Western Europe Nobel Speculations

I covered the British Isles but what of the rest of Western Europe and Scandinavia? France, Germany and Sweden have had disproportionate success in this Prize perhaps but it is no reason not to consider any of them again.

France (surely not)

Novelists
Michel Tournier
Michel Houellebecq
Marie N'Diaye
Jean Echenoz
Andrei Makine

Poetry
Yves Bonnefoy

Holland

Cees Noteboom

Belgium

Leonard Nolens

Denmark

Peter Hoeg

Finland

Eeva Kilpi

Norway

Jon Fosse

Austria

Peter Handke

Switzerland

Peter Stamm

Germany

Martin Walser

Spain

Javier Cercas
Javier Marias
Enrique Vilas-Matas
Juan Marse

Portugal

Antonio Lobo Antunes

Italy

Dacia Maraini

>220 msf59: Erm, I don't really think so Mark. I have read it but a while ago. It didn't really help me in enjoying or otherwise Barnes' off the wall musings.

Good day, Paul!

Your review makes Flaubert's Parrot intriguing. I have read Barnes' A Sense of an Ending but nothing else. Maybe I'll be able to find other books by Barnes at my semi-annual book orgy, aka The Friends of the Library Sale. It is in 17 days (but who's counting?) and, as always, I'm really looking forward to it.

>223 karenmarie: Orgies and books seem to fit together nicely in a rather unnerving way Karen. I am sure that you will indulge yourself both modestly and with perception. xx

Day 33 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Frank Bidart, Carl Dennis & Stephen Dunn

Bidart is from Bakersfield, California and his work has been nominated for many awards and he has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his last collection. He is well know these days for collaborations with the actor and writer James Franco. He is an accessible and affecting poet.

Midwesterner Dennis is often unfairly pegged as a middle class poet. His ditties of middle America often have a way of getting a message across that you may not expect at first read. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Practical Gods.

Mary Beth recommended Stephen Dunn to me a few years ago as he was a tutor of hers previously. Have two of his collections and enjoy his work although I would say it is slightly below the very top drawer. That said he won the Pulitzer Prize for Different Hours.

This is the first part of Bidart's long poem about anorexia Ellen West



I love sweets,—
heaven
would be dying on a bed of vanilla ice cream ...

But my true self
is thin, all profile

and effortless gestures, the sort of blond
elegant girl whose
body is the image of her soul.

—My doctors tell me I must give up
this ideal;
but I
WILL NOT ... cannot.

Only to my husband I’m not simply a “case.”

But he is a fool. He married
meat, and thought it was a wife.

I had the same opinion about Flaubert's Parrot as you did, Paul, and I gave it 3½ stars out of 5, the same as your 7/10 rating. I'll read his latest novel, The Noise of Time, this week.

Nice list of European candidates for this year's Nobel Prize in Literature. Fosse and Handke come up regularly on the list of potential candidates. Hopefully the award won't go to another French writer anytime soon, after the committee awarded it to the lightweight Patrick Modiano two years ago. They did redeem themselves by choosing Svetlana Alexievich last year, though.

Oh, that reminds me; I meant to include Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl on my reading list for September.

Hiya, Paul.

Lots of authors I don't know in >221 PaulCranswick:. Kudos to you for being able to put that together. I was a big Peter Handke fan, but haven't seen anything from him in ages.

Your post numbers are mounting up on this thread. Feel free to come to Chicago to start a new one if you like.

P.S. I enjoyed your comments on Flaubert's Parrot.

>219 PaulCranswick: That is a large number, Paul. But do you think you really want to read all of them? I look at my shelves and often wonder why I bought particular books.

>221 PaulCranswick: I've not read many of these - but your French comment made me snort. Would be good to have a candidate outside western Europe I think.

>226 kidzdoc: It is a sort of "brilliant but what is it?" type of rating Darryl. Can recognise the talents of Barnes without being totally sold on the product he produced. I hope that Africa gets a turn this time for the Nobel prize but as my Eastern European trawl will show there are still a fair few candidates in Europe awaiting their turn too.

What Svetlana Alexievich did with Voices from Chernobyl was exceptional but whether that alone was enough to justify the award is a moot point. I certainly agree about Modiano.

>227 jnwelch: Joe, I am probably listing all the candidates bar the winner!
The offer of a trip to Chicago is tempting buddy but let's meet up in Old London Town first and foremost.

>228 Familyhistorian: If you ask me today I do plan to read them all Meg, but how I am going to find the time is another thing entirely!

>229 charl08: If I had to choose from that lot Charlotte it would probably be Cees Noteboom, but I share with you a wish that a non-European will win this time.

Yup. I hear what Darryl says about Ngugi's recent fiction rate, but having just read his second memoir I'm still hoping.

Paul, is your eldest daughter off to University in the UK soon? I seem to remember that is on this fall's menu. Not that it is fall yet..

>232 charl08: Charlotte, I do hope that he wins at some stage, if only for Darryl's sake! I do like him too, I must say.

>233 vancouverdeb: Yes she is going to Edinburgh God willing, Deb. We are supposed to arrive on Friday in the UK (the date I am 50!!) but are still trying to confirm tickets.

I have had a very tiring last 18 hours.
We had word that my wife's cousin had passed away in Johor Bahru yesterday afternoon. My FIL is the youngest of 13 siblings and Othman was the eldest son of the eldest sibling. He was a fortnight older than my FIL and Hani was his cousin although he looked to all the world like her uncle. His four children and my wife and her three siblings all grew up alongside each other as relatives and next-door neighbours.

We therefore drove down the 200 miles or so from Kuala Lumpur to my FIL's house arriving at 2.30 a.m. We spent the time from then until about 10 at Othman's house saying prayers for him and consoling his devastated widow. Othman was buried in the evening before we had arrived. At 10.00 a.m. it was back in the car and the drive back as I needed to settle wages before the public holiday here tomorrow (Malaysia's Independence Day). No food and no sleep and I am flagging a little having signed the salary payments!

The eldest daughter of Othman is also our travel agent and I had the surreal experience of her discussing sorting out the tickets in the middle of the funeral gathering of her father.

>235 PaulCranswick: I am sorry for your and especially Hani's loss, condolences to all...

Ah, Paul! I am so sorry for the loss of Hani's and your cousin. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

Surreal indeed. But eminently practical, eh?

>236 FAMeulstee: I was sad looking at his widow this morning with her stare off into the middle distance and heaven knows what going through her mind. I gave her a cuddle as we were coming away ( a little unusual as Malays especially their ladies as normally so undemonstrative) and she broke down a little.

>237 karenmarie: I am hoping that she'll get the tickets organised soon as I have a party to attend!

Condolences, Paul, to you and Hani. I hope sunnier days are ahead and things sort themselves out soon

BTW Karen's post in >237 karenmarie: above was the 5,000th on my threads this year (I am the fourth to do so after Mamie, Mark and Amber). I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has posted here this year or who has visited and read the posts and may post in future.

>239 jessibud2: Thank you Shelley. Malay funerals are strange affairs in so many ways with the event being conducted with such seeming alacrity and the life celebrated rather than the passing mourned.

I'm very sorry to hear this bad news, Paul. My condolences and thoughts go out to you, Hani, and your families.

Sorry to hear about Hani's cousin, Paul. Hugs to you and your family.

Hooray for 5,000!!

Celebrating a life well lived sounds worthwhile. Condolences to the family.

>242 kidzdoc: Thank you Darryl.

>243 msf59: Gratefully accepted Mark. Looks like there is a strong possibility of my meeting up with plenty of the gang in the UK next month but I still keep in mind the need to get to the Windy City and gas over a few chilled ones with the Postie with the Mostie.

>244 charl08: It is a good take on things, I think, Charlotte. The fact that the formalities are done with great despatch is something that is quite "foreign" to me although I can see the sense in so doing. Prayers of remembrance are carried out regularly for the souls of the departed in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Sorry to hear about Hani's cousin mate, hope you are all as well as can be expected. It seems like you are going to have a hectic week dear friend and we look forward to seeing you on Saturday.

Big news yesterday about Dizzy leaving Yorkshire at the end of the season so hope the lads give him the send off he deserves with another Championship Pennant. Sending love and hugs to you all from the pair of us.

>246 johnsimpson: Thanks John. It is a little hectic and Hani in particular is a bit frazzled with the self imposed stress of getting her daughter ready for University.
I saw the news about Jason Gillespie and he will be a hard act to follow.I have a feeling we will just about get the championship done.

My condolences to you and Hani over the passing of her cousin, Paul. I did get the good news from Darryl that we're likely to see you soon in Londontown. Looking forward to it, mate.

>248 jnwelch: It is such a happy coincidence that we will all be in the UK at the same time, Joe so we really ought to take the opportunity to meet-up.

I am looking forward to it too.

I am sorry for your loss, Paul. Keeping you and Hani in my thoughts.

This is very sad. I'm sending condolences to you, Hani and the family.

You share your bday with my friend from kindergarten times who'll be 45 that day, so hopefully I shouldn't forget it.

Nobel Prize Speculation - Eastern Europe

Since that region sported the winner last year I do think it unlikely that 2016 will see a winner from Eastern Europe but there are certainly more than one candidate deserving of attention.

Czech Republic - Milan Kundera

Hungary - Peter Nadas
Laszlo Krasznahorkai

Romania - Mircea Cartarescu

Croatia - Dubravka Ugresic
Slavenka Drakulic

Slovenia - Slavoj Zizek

Albania - Ismail Kadare

Poland - Jerzy Pilch

Russia - Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Victor Pelevin
Vladimir Sorokin
Lyudmila Ulitskaya
Mikhail Shishkin

Ukraine - Andrey Kurkov

>250 Crazymamie: Thank you Mamie, dear. He hadn't been too well for a while and his kidneys had failed so it was a blessing that he passed so quickly and peacefully. He died with his wife holding his hand which is as good a way as I could imagine departing this earth.

>251 Deern: You have a good memory Nathalie if you can remember the birthdays of your kindie buddies! xx

Day 34 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Robert Pinsky, James Welch & Billy Collins

Robert Pinsky is another poet to be influenced by jazz and whose ear for rhythm is almost the equal of his ability to tell a story in poetic form. He has missed out on the big poetry prizes and is one of the strongest poetic voices without such honours.

Born, raised and died in Montana, James Welch was a Native American writer of some renown but possibly better known for prose than poetry. His novel Fool's Crow was a major critical success in the 1980s.

Billy Collins is possibly the most popular and well known living poet. As such he is possibly subject from critical snobbery. His work is prolific, it is proficient, it is consistent and it is always engaging. If there were more poets like Billy Collins nobody would be talking about the death or dearth of poetry and it would be so familiar that series such as this on my thread would be rendered nugatory. I have elsewhere questioned whether he is a great poet, I don't think it matters as he is undoubtedly the leading poet of his age in terms of public recognition.

This is Collins' The Dead



The dead are always looking down on us, they say.
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a long afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

>254 PaulCranswick: Good Billy C. poem, Paul, and astute comments. I got to meet Robert Pinsky, and it is odd that he hasn't won more awards. Maybe Lifetime Achievement some day, like the Academy Awards do?

He was a very good U.S. Poet Laureate, and his Americans' Favorite Poems project, in which regular folks identify the poems that mean the most to them and explain why, is a fun read and moving. I loved his The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation, too (can't get the touchstone to work; here it is on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Inferno-Dante-Translation-Bilingual-Italian/dp/03745245...

I don't know whether they have it in the anthology, but his "From the Childhood of Jesus" from The Figured Wheel is an absolute knockout: https://thepoetryplace.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/from-the-childhood-of-jesus/

>255 jnwelch: That one by Pinsky is not in the anthology but it is a pretty powerful bit of work isn't it? I will look out for more books by Pinsky as he is certainly someone I have found here that I want to read more of.

Paul, my condolences to you, Hani and family on the loss of her cousin.

Glad to read your bank problems seem rectified.

I enjoy scrolling through your possible Noble prize winning authors. Such a vast amount of authors to consider!

>257 Carmenere: Thanks Lynda. I was relieved to get my own money back indeed. Tomorrow I will look at the Middle East and Africa for the Nobel Prize.

Sorry to hear about Hani's cousin, Paul, but glad he passed away peacefully. Get thyself some rest!

>256 PaulCranswick: Jesus hit his stride in his 30s, but (accepting the story), one has to wonder what happened beforehand. Did he need to learn? One of the things I like about this poem is, at age 5, he didn't understand the consequences of his actions. At 33 (if I have that age right), he understood better than anyone. .

>259 ronincats: Had a good sleep thanks Roni.

>260 jnwelch: Pinsky impressed me immensely Joe. He is very perceptive and one of the best "finds" for me so far going through this anthology.

Hi Paul. Sorry to hear about your co-worker and Hani's cousin passing. Glad you were along for the ride on the Parrot and your Nobel prize speculation is interesting. Congrats on the 5,000 post!! Hope you sleep/slept well tonight.

>262 Berly: Thanks Kimmers. I did enjoy "The Parrot" not that the book was much about it!

Very sorry to hear about Hani's cousin passing. I hope you soon secure your tickets to the UK.

>265 PaulCranswick: Thanks Deb. Still awaiting confirmation. Hani is panicking as she always does.

Sorry to hear of your loss, Paul.

My sympathy, Paul, to you and to Hani and her family.
What a hard time! I hope you get some rest soon and that your trip goes well AND that Miss Yasmyne has a wonderful year!
Meanwhile, the lists of authors outside the English-speaking world are humbling!

>266 amanda4242: Amanda, thank you. Hani was close to "Abang Man" growing up. I never knew him when he was particularly well. He alternated in the early years of my marriage between driving a taxi without seemingly any sense of direction and sitting on his porch soaking up the village atmosphere and complaining of ill health.

>267 LizzieD: Yasmyne is the only one packed, Peggy! I am a little intimidated by the gamut of writers who are in the main not even really translated yet.

Hi Paul! I have been AWOL, and just skimmed your thread. My sympathy to you, Hani and family. I hope you have a wonderful, safe trip to drop off Yasmyne.

And I LOVE your opening photo!!!

Sorry to hear about Hani's cousin. Condolences to you all. It is especially wearing when events crowd in on top of each other, it doesn't matter if they are good or bad. Take care of yourselves and enjoy your trip to the UK.

>269 banjo123: Lovely to see you Rhonda. I will be in UK for fourteen days so it won't quite be a case of dropping her off!

>270 Familyhistorian: Thank you Meg. To be fair the passing of Othman was not a surprise to us as he has been ill for a while.

WE HAVE THE TICKETS FINALLY AND NOT WITHOUT A LITTLE DRAMA. The travel agent called at 3:30 and suggested that Yasmyne and I flew on the 2nd and Hani, Belle and Kyran on the 5th (missing my birthday). Hani was close to tears. She came back and had found one through Singapore to Manchester tomorrow evening arriving on 2nd September in Manchester in the early morning.

Glad you have the tickets, Paul! Hope the drama is over or is greatly minimized. Are you going to be able to meet up with Joe on this visit?

>273 msf59: I can confirm my intention to get to London on either 9th or 11th to meet up with Joe, Debbi, Darryl et al. I am really looking forward to it.

That is great, Paul! Hope those intentions bear fruit. And yes, I am very jealous.

>274 PaulCranswick: - I expect lots of photos (here, on LT; I am not on facebook!).

Now that everything seems settled, I wish you all a safe trip and a wonderful birthday. I hope the 2 weeks will be worry-free and fun-filled!

>275 msf59: One of my dreams Mark involves the two of us in your favourite watering hole in the Windy City and I will make it happen as soon as I am able buddy.

>276 jessibud2: I shall do my utmost Shelley, promise. It will be two weeks for me and three for Hani as she wants to make sure her eldest is settled in Scotland. My comment that she'll settle better without us does not seem to meet with maternal approval.

>277 PaulCranswick: - I'm sure Yasmyne will let Hani know when she feels *settled*.... ;-). But I can certainly understand her (Hani's) anxieties... Kyran and Belle may well benefit later from her worries this time...

Nobel Speculations Africa and the Middle East

Isn't it time that this part of the world got some recognition. Two South Africans have won fairly recently in Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee but it seems a long time since Wole Soyinka and Naguib Mahfouz were winners.

1. Kenya - N'gugi Wa Thiong'o (Drinks will be on Darryl if he brings home the bacon in October)

2. Somalia - Nuruddin Farah must also have a strong claim

3. Mozambique - Mia Couto is on the rise critically but this may be too soon

4. South Africa - Karel Schoeman is a historian, fiction and travel writer of some renown writing in Africaans
Mongane Wally Serote is a poet writing in English and internationally feted

5. Nigeria - Ben Okri now carries the mantle of Achebe as the leading man of letter from Africa's most populous state

6. Algeria - Boualem Sansal a voice against Islamic intolerance in difficult circumstances

7. Egypt - Nawal El Saadawi leading female candidate from Africa I would guess.

8. Morocco - Tahar Ben Jelloun writes mainly in French but is very much of his place

9. Tanzania - Abdulrazak Gurnah - His elegant novels make him a candidate surely?

10. Syria - Adunis - Has the poet and activist been mentioned too often to win? Given the world situation it would be a little piece of good news for the world's most troubled place.

11. Israel - Amos Oz would be another popular winner for Darryl
A.B. Yehoshua the Israeli Faulkner

>278 jessibud2: Yes, I think it is one hand-me-down that they are keen doesn't catch on!

Your upcoming trip sounds marvelous except for the return without eldest daughter. I still remember the pangs I felt each time one of my three left the nest. It's definitely a healthy thing, though, and learning to fly on one's own is part of the growing up process. Best wishes for Yasmyne as she embarks on her new life!

Oh, and I'm seriously envious about the London meetup. I know you will supply us with lots of tidbits about the event, Paul, to make us all feel included.

Thanks Donna. I think you are right about growing process as I distinctly remember my own departure to University and the sudden realisation that I was going to be riding solo.

I will certainly share as much of my trip as I can. xx

Day 35 of 59

Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry

Toi Derricotte, Stephen Dobyns, Robert Hass

Derricotte hails from Michigan and has worked hard to foster new poets especially African American ones as a teacher and through the Cave Canem organisation she founded. Her blank verse musings are entertaining and often profound.

Stephen Dobyns is another favourite of mine. Very accessible and very versatile with a string of fiction and a lengthy journalistic career to boot, but it is as a poet that he stands out.

San Francisco poet Hass hit pay dirt with Time and Materials which won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award but it was no fluke as he has been turning out solid work for a considerable period.

The poem by Dobyns I want to quote from Lullaby is one I cannot find online so I will copy the last section. It is obviously about the end of the 20th century and showcases his easy touch.

My father, my grandparents, my cousins,
your faces slide away into the vapour. How
difficult to see you in memory anymore. You
are the frames from which a photo was stolen.
Or my friends, I have left behind too many -
their stories stopped before mine, their
straight lines banked up at black conclusions:
Goodnight Ray, goodnight Betty, goodnight Dick,
the century is going to sleep. And those ideas,
the glad ones, the young ones - integration,
human rights. Goodnight, goodnight. The twelve-
tone scale, abstract expressionism. Sweet dreams,
sweet dreams. A chicken in every pot, two cars
in every garage, three TVs in every house.
Sleep tight, sleep tight. We are retreating
to books, electronic texts, some get paragraphs,
some sentences, some footnotes, most get silence.
Shouldn't we walk on tiptoe, shouldn't we whisper?
Do you have sand in your eyes, little fellow?
Let's take a breather. A baby's about to be born.
I won't see much of this one. Maybe a morsel,
if I'm lucky, of it's infancy. This next one
belongs to my children and their children. What
Auschwitzes and Hiroshimas are already being
prepared? What will be the carnage of tomorrow?
What dumb ideas will be used to erase human breath?
But also the good stuff: what jokes, what
laughter, what kisses, will there still
be kisses? Better not know, better let it come,
like always, as a surprise. Feeling frightened?
Are you scared? Blow out the light, goodnight,
goodnight, the century is going to sleep.

>283 PaulCranswick: Nice excerpt from Dobyns, Paul.

Toi Derricotte's Natural Birth is a standout volume, IMO.

>284 jnwelch: I could have easily and happily used something by all three poets today, Joe. Top stuff. For me though the pitch of Dobyns' poem was absolutely on point.

Skimming through. Condolences to your family, Paul.