Ersatz TLS discussion

Good evening, everyone.

Several of us are back from our travels (Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Spain …), while Andy is still on his in Northern regions. Giveusaclue and I posted some photos from our trips on pages 19 and 20 in Photos.

Good news from Russell about MrsVermontlogger’s bookshop, which has had two successful weeks — long may it continue! It’s always cheering to read about bookshops doing well.

And speaking of Russell, are there any other readers of Alison Lurie here? He was underwhelmed by Foreign Affairs. I really like her books, I’ve got all her novels plus a volume of short stories.

Greenfairy and Fuzzywuzz liked Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. The title is a bit upsettingly reminiscent of school for me, but maybe I should disregard that!

CCCubbon said:

The Craftsman by Sharon Bolton is turning out to be more addictive than expected despite the horror of people being buried alive. Much is set back when there were very few women police - she is always sent to make the tea - shows that we have progressed a little!

This sounded promising, but unfortunately the later part of the book was disappointing. However,

More happily, I finished Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year too. One book that I am sure to return to many times.

AB76 has been going back into London’s past.

Night and the City by Gerald Kersh (1938) is a riot, the underworld of 1930s Soho, in all its misguided glory. Hustlers, prostitutes, crooks and other shabby figures living out their fantasies, some of the slang and dialogue makes me wonder how much Kersh influenced the london novels of Colin MacInnes, two decades later.

He also thinks Orwell’s Collected Letters are brilliant. I’m a great fan, too, I have the 4 volumes of his The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell 1903-1950.

Andy: Killing Auntie by Andrzej Bursa translated from the Polish by Wiesiek Powaga.

This is a coming of age novel with a bite to it...
The sense of rebellion against banality that the young author conjures is worth the read alone. There’s a black humour, but the crime is irrelevant, and it’s a case of what isn’t written and lies between the lines as what is.

Berkeley and FrustratedArtist are taking an interest in the French Revolution. FrustratedArtist mentions Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, and listening to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast - the French Revolution episodes, and Berkeley has read A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution. In a lighter vein, I’m still working my way through the Nicolas Le Floch series by Jean-François Parot set in the years leading up to the revolution. I find the books convincing (just some elements of his love-life are hard to believe for the period 😉):

Voilà que l’on retrouve chez Jean-François Parot des lieux décrits réels, des noms de rues exacts, des métiers peints avec réalisme, le langage d'époque… jusqu'aux recettes de cuisine contenues dans l'ouvrage. (In Jean-François Parot's work, we find real places described, exact street names, trades painted with realism, the language of the time... right down to the cooking recipes contained in the book.)

Scarletnoir found Mick Herron's Slough House series - Slow Horses, Dead Lions and Real Tigers “good fun”. Speaking of the world of Slough House, MK is still on the watch for those yellow cars!
This is not stopping her from investigating a new genre:

I offer a hearty thanks for the poster here... who recommended The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. I had to delay my errands yesterday to finish it.
In the past I have 'turned up my nose' at Westerns but have found there is more to them than meets the eye. Hombre is another instance. It's really a thriller set in the 'old' west. And I look on The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains as a novel with a romantic tinge.

Halloween coming up, time for spooky stories? Robert:

As the days grow shorter, I turned to my volume of Sheridan Le Fanu's supernatural stories. I started with Schalken the Painter, a truly unusual tale. With Le Fanu, who experiences the uncanny event is as important as what happens.

Giveusaclue recommends the Max Craigie series by Neil Lancaster:

I have enjoyed all Lancaster's books that I have read. The fact that he was a serving police officer himself for many years probably helps.

And then, a change of genre, Fatal colours: the battle of Towton, 1461 by George Goodwin. "The bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil."

Finally, NellyBells reminded us that Justine recommended Lion Feuchtwanger’s 1933 novel The Oppermanns.

Last but not least, I hope people's different health problems are being resolved as well as possible.

Happy reading to all!

What a tremendous introduction G.

It’s really interesting to follow the VL’s bookshop. Cheering indeed, as you say.

I’ve been a week now in the Sunndal valley. There was snow on Saturday night which, once the cloud cleared, made the tops look spectacular (not that they don’t always..). It’s not so much the weather that’s driving me south, and eventually home, but the rapidly disappearing daylight. It’s dark just after 6 pm now. The next week will be through Rondane and Jotunheimer, so hopefully get some decent days for walking. Photos at the blog, safereturndoubtful.tumblr.com.

Reading wise, I’ve just made my way though a book of short stories, essays and poetry, put together by the WordsWithoutBorders website, Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers: An Anthology. There’s probably a bit too much variety for me, but it’s was good for bedtimes.

Novel wise, I’ve two to report on, both of which I doubt anyone will have heard of, and have remarkably few reviews here on GR. But both are of real interest, not just to me I hope..

Firstly, The Saint Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires by Eric Stener Carlson.

Tartarus publish the writing of Eric Stener Carlson, an American based in Switzerland, having spent most of his life in Latin America. His novels are influenced by his work in the 1970s with the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team identifying the remains of people killed by the military dictatorship in the 1970s. I originally came across him with his excellent literary horror novel Muladona.

A young intellectual, Miguel Ibañez, narrates, who works in a suffocating government office job in order to support his wife Juliet and toddler son Miguelito. He is part of the Ministry of Parks, Public Monuments and Green Areas where he has the unenviable task of coordinating resources for one of Buenos Aires biggest conundrums; should the city parks be locked at night, thereby kicking out the homeless, meaning a likely death sentence for hundreds of the city's men and women.

With this as the backdrop, in a bookstore he frequents, Ibañez discovers a mysterious anonymous diary written as a series of short books, hidden inside a copy of Alban Butler’s 1894 edition of Lives of the Saints. With his daily life a drudge, he sets his mind to solving the mystery that lies in the diary’s pages. Carlson takes on issues such as human rights, and the city of Buenos Aires in good times and bad, and does so with aplomb. He writes with a gentle humour that appeals also.

There is a lot going on here, which is a small criticism, in that it’s not easy to stay on top of the various angles this novel considers, but there’s no question that Carlson’s work is absolutely fascinating. It’s just a pity that, as yet, there aren’t many of them. I thoroughly recommend this, and Muladona which for me was slightly better.
My mission now is to track down his short stories.

and, A Hair Divides by Claude Houghton.

Valancourt have discovered a gem in this psychological study set half in London in 1910, and half twenty years later.

Gordon Rutherford is an aspiring writer with limited success, finding it difficult to settle into the London scene, until he comes across Martin Feversham, a young and handsome American writer who seems to get all the breaks. His latest play has attracted considerable attention. Rutherford develops a sort of love hate relationship with Feversham which is addictive, until a beautiful woman, Sondra, interrupts their relationship. Now he must compete for Feversham’s attention. The two young men take a few days break in Cornwall, and after an argument Feversham is accidentally shot dead. Rutherford has a split second decision to make, whether or not to admit to his part in the accidental death. As the pair had had a recent public spat, he is convinced that he will be accused of his murder.

He decides not to speak, conceals the body, and moves to Paris. For twenty years his undiscovered act takes it toll on him mentally. No matter how hard he tries to flee the memory of the incident, it returns at the worst possible times to haunt him, burrowing into his conscience.
In a fitting climax, he returns to London to rent a room in his old family house in an attempt to confront his demons.
A highlight are his descriptions of the three main characters, who perceive each other so differently, the key theme to the novel.

This is my first of Houghton’s books. He writes about London in a compelling way, here both the pre-War Edwardian society of 1910, and the post-War world of 1930 and the Depression are highly atmospheric. I will certainly be back for more from him.

Thanks for the excellent summary of last month, Gpfr - as I was away for most of it, I had no idea that it was time for a new thread!

And to Andy for two very interesting reviews.

Thought i'd move this into new thread:

Still globally warmed in the shires by day, though the evenings are cooler and mornings too but no sign of a real change in weather since mid sept, summer ended about 16th Sept....

Stegner and Kersh are finished and on the shelves glowing with their brilliance, great reads

Next up are:

Vargas and Brazil:New Perspectives a look at the regime of Getulio Vargas, Brazilian dictator from 1930-45 and 1951-54, who committed suicide. After finding some good books on Brazil from the 1960s in Oxfam, back in the spring, Vargas fascinates me and the Brazil that emerged from WW2 and briefly shined before the military took over in the 1960s. (The story is similar to other Latin American nations, fiddled about with by the CIA and USA big business), however Vargas was in charge before the cancer really set in, behind the facade of Brazilian progress


On Orwell, GPFR, its interesting how i find the letters and essays much more interesting than his diaries, which seemed full of tiny boring details about his vegetable patch and his garden!

Andy wrote: "What a tremendous introduction G.

It’s really interesting to follow the VL’s bookshop. Cheering indeed, as you say.

I’ve been a week now in the Sunndal valley. There was snow on Saturday night ..."

I have started to read Will Dean’s latest Tuva book which is called Wolf Pack and set as usual in northern Sweden. Don’t know if there really are Utgard and Visberg forests as mentioned but looking at your photos gives me a good idea of the landscape. I have enjoyed all the books in the deaf Tuva series and this one is shaping up. I wondered, are there really wolves around where you have been?
Great trip Andy but does it get lonely?

CCCubbon wrote: "Andy wrote: "What a tremendous introduction G.

It’s really interesting to follow the VL’s bookshop. Cheering indeed, as you say.

I’ve been a week now in the Sunndal valley. There was snow on Sa..."

Just in the last few years, 400 wolves have been reintroduced to the far north of Sweden. Part of a wider rewilding project, with more to follow.

I’ve read Dark Pines and enjoyed it well enough. I recall Tom Mooney was a big fan also.

I think a lot of people would get lonely, but I really enjoy just the dog’s company. We do meet a few people, though that’s less now the season has changed.
It’s similar at home, I’m quite solitary.
Quite a contrast to life as a teacher just a few years ago.

Thanks for replying Andy. Most interesting aboutthe wolves and I shallbe doing some searching on the net later to learn as much as I can.
Greetings from one rather solitary, self contained individual to another! Remember when I used to come home from school, not so much uni, after full day’s teaching and all the demands and just crave a few minutes silence but my children wanted to tell me all about their days……….Remember feeling guilty ….
The great compensation for not being so mobile now is that I have time to think.

CCCubbon wrote: "Remember when I used to come home from school, not so much uni, after full day’s teaching and all the demands and just crave a few minutes silence..."

My wife and I used at one time to teach at the same school - she would want to unload in the car on the way home, whereas I just needed time to decompress first... it led to some tension!

Well, I had a lovely Sunday: the FIRST Braemar Literary Festival. Hopefully, that means it will be repeated. But. I am still trying to find out exactly who and what it was meant for. Scratches head. It was not widely advertised, what advertising I did see proposed a fearsomely expensive weekend at the Fife Arms Hotel with a package for all talks but the price was eyewatering. No brochures, no flyers, no posters, nothing even in the local cafes. The owners of the hotel have the biggest arts and antiques company in the world (I was told). The Queen Consort Camilla opened the festival and Kate Mosse was a speaker as her book is the current pick for Camilla’s online book club venture The Reading Room.
Well, the programme was absolutely excellent and I went on Sunday to five events and never paid a penny. There was no one on the door. Given that the organisers are fabulously wealthy, I can’t say I feel too guilty. No one asked. I didn’t offer. So hence my question…what were they trying to do? Make it elite and exclusive by having only hotel residents attend? But even then, I can’t think there would be enough people for that.
Anyway, I got up at the crack of dawn to pick up a friend and have a restorative coffee before my first event which was the main reason for me going. I wanted to hear Frank Tallis talk. I loved the series starting with Vienna Blood, televised a year or so ago, and was interested to hear him talk…… (because of the way Goodreads works on my iPad this is 1 of 2 posts)

Post 2.
Frank Tallis spoke about his books on psychology (Love as a Mental Illness) and he was wise and fascinating and I thought, Frank, you are on my fantasy dinner party list. On the way in and out of the Water Closet (the hotel is so Victorian) I was able to ask him if there would be more Max Lieberman books but no he is enjoying writing his psychology books for now. Shame as I loved reading vicariously about Viennese coffee houses and lush kinds of torte.
Stephen Page of Fabre books spoke about books in the 21st century and was amusing and informative. Jackie Kay was the Scottish Makar, the National poet for several years, and her poems are simultaneously funny and heartbreaking. Justine Picardie, was editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and her new book Miss Dior tells of Christian Dior’s sister, her fight in the resistance, betrayal and imprisonment by the Nazis.
The previous day Ian Rankin was sold out, Sebastian Faulkes, Tom Parker-Bowles, Angela Hartnett and others were on the programme.
So I am fascinated to learn more about the aims of the festival and why it was so hard to find information on it. The organisation of it all seemed to be excellent, but it just seemed they weren’t interested in widely advertising it. Puzzled and baffled but I am on the case and am sure someone locally will shine a light on the whole affair.
To be continued.

The Spanish/Catalan autor Juan Marsé (Carbó) was born in Barcelona in 1933 (his mother died in childbirth and he was adopted), following which he grew up in a working class family of anti-Franco elements during the 1940s; this period clearly marked him and his writing to a significant degree. In the two books I have read, he returns to similar themes and, indeed, incidents - but in somewhat different ways. It seems clear that many of these incidents are either autobiographical or describe news stories or rumours from that period. There is a degree of obsessiveness about his approach to these formative experiences which makes for some powerful writing; judging by blurbs/summaries, the same incidents are revisited in some of his other works (novels and screenplays).

Following The Snares of Memory, I recently completed The Calligraphy of Dreams which - as I say - reflects on some of the same incidents, but in a very different style. 'Snares' tells the tale of the murder of a prostitute, and a writer's attempts to adapt this true story as a screenplay; the chapters are short and some are in the form of interviews, conversations and extracts from the screenplay itself... it is somewhat experimental in style; I enjoyed it very much.

'Dreams' is far more traditional, with longer chapters and no deviations into other forms; at first, I wondered if I would like it as much, but soon I was drawn into the rhythm of the writing, excellently translated by Nick Caistor*. (*I am judging this by the way in which the text flows in English; I have no Spanish and can't comment on the accuracy of the translation.) The story unfolds both in the present and with references to the past.

Our main protagonist is the youthful 'Ringo', a bookish lad who lives in a working class district. He observes his neighbours, including the eccentric Victoria Mir who is distraught at the ending of a love affair with an ageing ex-footballer. At some point, Ringo becomes entangled with the relationships between Victoria and her daughter, the footballer, and Victoria's friend who runs the local bar.

Ringo's father is purportedly a ratcatcher - and maybe is one; it took me some time to understand, though, that the 'blue rats' he complains about so bitterly are in fact the Falangists (on account of their blue shirts) and that the 'spiders' are Falangist symbols:https://www.alamy.com/clothes-detail-...
The father is frequently absent on 'ratcatching' duties, which probably means, in effect, smuggling contraband and people across the border to and from France.

The great joy of the book, though, lies not in its plot - interesting though it is - but in the quality of the writing. The protagonist/author clearly has a love of literature:

He secretly cultivates a nostalgia for the future, and a growing hostility towards his surroundings. He has the time and the freedom to live intensely every word of the books he reads...from Karl May to Balzac and Dostoevsky, from Jules Verne to Edgar Wallace and Papini, Zane Grey, Curzio Malaparte, Stefan Zweig and Knut Hamsun.

and as a result is deeply affected by a book-burning, carried out not by the Falangists but by his father and his friends, for fear of being exposed and punished:

Some of the men are staring into the bonfire with grim, solemn expressions, and the glow is printed on their faces like a plaster mask... The faces pucker and say things he doesn’t understand: they talk in low voices about a surprise police raid on Señor Oriol’s house, of the large number of books impounded, a disgraceful abuse... The thick, swirling smoke reminds him of the genie Djinn springing from the bottle after the sea waves have thrown it up onto the beach, the black smoke against the sky that suddenly turns into a giant, whose booming laughter astonishes the tiny Sabu... He thinks he can see that the fire is separating the words from the pages, which then fly up for a moment before turning into whirling embers, words and embers joined together as they rise into the night.

(The author/protagonist is also very much affected by his love of the cinema - in this case referring to the 1940 film 'The Thief of Baghdad'. The clip included in this link includes the Djinn's appearance: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi12808182...
Sabu's own story is also remarkable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabu_(a... )

To sum up: this is a remarkable and brilliant book, which completely won me over. It has a much stronger finish than 'The Snares of Memory' which despite also being outstanding for the most part, finished rather weakly. It's the best thing I've read this year, and I strongly recommend it.

(I'll make my highlights public so that you may check the writing, its quality, and see if it is for you.)

I read a few more pages about smell from Am Immense World
It was all about snakes.
I have often read about how snakes ‘taste the air’ by flicking their forked tongue in and out. I didn’t realise that this is incorrect they are not tasting but smelling.
The tongues have no taste sensors. When they flick out their tongue they can pick up pheromones etc. , from other creatures, prey, that have passed by and these ‘scents’ are transported via the tongue to a special powerful smell glandlocated above the roof of the mouth. The tongue rests against the roof - no holes to poke the to gue into.
Why a forked tongue? Smell recognition works best when there are two rather like we have two nostrils, one for each side of the head. So the end of the snakes tongue is split.

Reading about Orwell and his fustrations with the left wing press being truthful about communist violence and murder in Spain, i was led on to the list of British communist sympathizers he made in 1940ish, which he was keen to pass on to the authorities.

While i dislike lists like this as they can be compared to the Nazi lists of British notables who they planned to eliminate if the invasion happened, it was good to see that Orwell had spotted the communist menace and was ceaseless in trying to expose it, even while they were our Allies, after snuggling up to Hitler and subjugating eastern poland in a violent, callous manner.

As some of you have figured out by now, I am a sucker for newsletters, especially from bookstores. I don't know how I found this one - link here - https://lesasbookcritiques.com/. Up front I will say that this American librarian often reviews a mass market paperback whose author won't make even into trade sized paperback. But it doesn't hurt to take a gander, especially since she gives away 2 books each week. I am all for free - even though my 'win' record at absolutely anything is dismal.

So imagine my surprise when I saw that one of her giveaways was https://crippen-and-landru.myshopify.... by J. J. Marric (AKA John Creasey) whom I remember of old (one may have to be of a certain age). Of course I asked for it and got it. Arrived today.

It is now next on the pile as I am reading One Lost Soul.

And because I'm curious, I checked on the Wells little train that runs to the beach, only to find it is no more! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_H...

Ah! Letters ...

I've been absolutely racing through the three volume Correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood - closing in on the end of Vol. 2 right now. Such a man; always entertaining, playful, exploratory, kind, sharp, judicial.

Veufveuve wrote: "Ah! Letters ...

I've been absolutely racing through the three volume Correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood - closing in on the end of Vol. 2 right now. Such a man; always entertaining, playful, explo..."

usually i've not been a fan of letters Veuf and prefer diaries but with Orwell i'm getting a better day to day(ish) feel of the 1937-40 period than his diaries(lots of seeds, gardening and boring stuff in the diaries), much more political stuff in the letters

Wedgewood sounds very interesting...are they are they reasonably priced?

I can think of very few diaries I've read. Definitely one of Alan Clark's, but I'm not sure of any others?

The Wedgwood are about a hundred quid for all three volumes (on Amazon, which I've not used in a very long time but was necessary this time).

Veufveuve wrote: "I can think of very few diaries I've read. Definitely one of Alan Clark's, but I'm not sure of any others?

The Wedgwood are about a hundred quid for all three volumes (on Amazon, which I've not u..."

i think the Catalan diaries of Josep Pla would be worth exploring for you Veuf, published by NYRB and covering 1918 and 1919 in Catalonia. Pla spends the first year in his home village as the university has been closed due to the flu pandemic, he spends that time writing about rural Catalonia and his relatives. He returns to Barcelona for most of 1919 and that period looks at society in the city and his experiences

scarletnoir wrote: "The Spanish/Catalan autor Juan Marsé (Carbó) was born in Barcelona in 1933 (his mother died in childbirth and he was adopted), following which he grew up in a working class family of anti-Franco el..."

Ok SN. I can hear you, as Steven Toast would say.
I have had both on my tbr list for a while. Which would you recommend first?

MK wrote: "As some of you have figured out by now, I am a sucker for newsletters, especially from bookstores. I don't know how I found this one - link here - https://lesasbookcritiques.com/. Up front I will s..."

Was it you who suggested the weekly Daunt 5 books of the week newsletter MK? That’s certainly worth receiving.

I’m signed up for the newsletters of quite a few indie-publishers as well. They are almost always interesting.

Veufveuve wrote: "Ah! Letters ...

I've been absolutely racing through the three volume Correspondence of Josiah Wedgwood - closing in on the end of Vol. 2 right now. Such a man; always entertaining, playful, explo..."

In the early 1980s, we spent a few days on a narrowboat on the Trent and Mersey canal - one stop was to visit the Wedgewood Museum, which was within easy walking distance of the canal itself. I remember it as being a very interesting place... the museum was slated for closure following financial problems in 2012, but was saved in a new form as the 'World of Wedgewood':

https://www.worldofwedgwood.com/conte...

I seem to recall that for many years pottery was transferred by narrowboat rather than by road because the roads were in poor shape and breakages were far fewer during the smoother journeys on the canals.

MK wrote: "As some of you have figured out by now, I am a sucker for newsletters, especially from bookstores. I don't know how I found this one - link here - https://lesasbookcritiques.com/. Up front I will s..."

Lesas blog is a good link also. Thanks for that.
I find with blogs the authors rarely keep them going for more than a few years. Or if they do, the posts are quite irregular.

The ones I use the most at the moment, should anyone be interested, are
Words Without Borders
Book Around The Corner
Speculative Fiction in Translation
Bookmunch
The Indiependent Books Archive
Glen Cole Russell - who I’m friends with here on GR also
4Columns
The Neglected Books Page
for off the wall stuff - zoran rosco vacuum player
and it’s worth following Martin Edwards (the author) on GR, his weekly newsletter is always interesting

Having said all that.. our little group is pretty good as well…

BBC’s Radio Four Front Row will cover the Booker ceremony on Monday evening next week, it’s 9:15 pm for those interested.

In the last few days they have broadcast an interview with each of the short-listed authors. Tonight it was Claire Keegan, and it is worth a listen. She comes over as cantankerous and unhelpful. Could be she was caught on a bad day, or maybe a reluctant interviewee.
At one point she is asked about a comparison to A Christmas Carol, to which she says, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never read it.
At the end the presenter says it has been a pleasure… really?

It’s a show worth listening to as there’s an old interview with Angela Lansbury at the end also.

If you want to catch it on iplayer, they are the last two items.

@AB, thanks for the recommendation of Josep Pia, who does sound very interesting

@scarlet, yes canal was a much more efficient way of moving ceramics, not least for the lessened risk of damage. Schemes to build canals (which required an act of Parliament) are a very prominent feature of JW's letters at times.

After JW, another of my favourite historical letter writers is Charlotte Brontë ... which takes me to Peter Bradshaw's review of the new film "Emily" in the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022...

Wow, some people are very, very upset btl, struggling to understand the difference between a life, a book, and a film.

@Andy
Limnology (your blog) was a new wordfor me too. Mustbe very interesting to study.
Noticed this year that there is an increase in the algae on the rivers this year, turning them that sickly green colour. Don’t know what effect that has on the fish.
Lots of small lakes around here, mostly man made after gravel extraction but there are still points of interest - one can see where there must be some underground spring that has been flooded by the way the surface appears. That small area doesn’t seem to freeze over so much in winter leaving a gap for the otters from the nearby river to visit, dive and catch the carp.

Veufveuve wrote: " Peter Bradshaw's review of the new film "Emily" in the Guardian.
Wow, some people are very, very upset btl, struggling to understand the difference between a life, a book, and a film..."

That struck me, too. People saying they're getting very angry about the film, just from reading the review, not even having seen it. And all the "no way they could have had sex".

Andy wrote: "MK wrote: "As some of you have figured out by now, I am a sucker for newsletters, especially from bookstores. I don't know how I found this one - link here - https://lesasbookcritiques.com/. Up fro..."

One blog that I really enjoy is Tony's Reading List. He reads almost exclusively translated works, with a particular preference for Japanese and German literature

I've just read my last Guido Guerrieri: A Fine Line by Gianrico Carofiglio (with thanks as always to scarletnoir for recommending this excellent series).
This is actually the 5th of 6 books and like the others a very good read. I read the last one before by mistake. I was reassured to discover that I hadn't forgotten as I feared significant developments in the hero's private life! In this one, the defense lawyer is asked to take the case of a judge, head of the appeal court, accused of corruption.
Guido loves books and as usual during the course of the story, he visits his favourite all-night bookshop which I've mentioned before. Earlier in the book, he has faced a problem. On reading an article about compulsive hoarding, he thought

I have a certain aptitude for recognizing in myself the symptoms — or at least the early warnings — of the most varied psychiatric conditions. That web page was clearly about me, and I'd have to run for cover before it was too late... the following Saturday I got hold of lots of boxes and for several hours filled them with books, to be given to jumble sales or thrown in recycling bins. The idea of throwing books into recycling bins may be upsetting, but what else can you do with volumes called things like Meditations for the Bathroom, Practical Manual of Self-Hypnosis, How Proust can Change Your Life ...
I had bought those books. When I go into a bookshop, my inhibitors become deactivated, and I can buy all kinds of things.

I'm really enjoying Images and Shadows: Part of a Life by Iris Origo.
"Part of a life" is accurate. In her introduction, she says,

This record will not try to be complete or even chronological; it is merely an attempt to describe certain past ways of living, and a few phases of my own life, taking as my starting point the various houses I have lived in: the country houses of my grandparents both in the United States and Ireland, and the life which they led there long before I was born, and which later on I shared with them; then my mother's house in Fiesole, where I spent my childhood; and finally the Tuscan villa and farm, La Foce, which ... has been, for the forty-six years since my marriage, my own home.

A thought

‘We tend to wrongly equate taste with flavour, when the latter is more dominated by smell.
That is why food seems bland when you have a cold: it’s taste is the same , but the flavour dims because you cannot smell it.’

Ed Yong: An Immense world

Andy wrote: "MK wrote: "As some of you have figured out by now, I am a sucker for newsletters, especially from bookstores. I don't know how I found this one - link here - https://lesasbookcritiques.com/. Up fro..."

I won't say 'thanks' for the list as my book shelves are overflowing as it is. Note though, I have finally one set of paperback shelves in pristine condition and look forward to tackling the next in line.

However, (nothing to do with books here) my time has recently been taken up in anger as the City of Seattle is governed (mostly, we do have a Mayor) by a City Council which is now elected by districts. Because of the census these districts have to be redrawn. This is now in progress. A 'racial justice' group is bound and determined to split the neighborhood I live in, and only recently have I figured out why. My neighborhood is predominately home owners and according to local maps (there are lots) this neighborhood registers to vote and then votes - at a much higher rate than neighborhoods with mostly renters. My evil thought is that the 'racial justice' folks are trying to dilute our votes. So I have been rallying neighbors on line to comment on this.

Back to books and book lists. Here is an ocasional one that I like to scroll through (in hopes that my library will pony up for a few) - https://johnsandoe.com/product-catego...

Gpfr wrote: ""People saying they're getting very angry about the film, just from reading the review, not even having seen it. And all the "no way they could have had sex".

Well, the notion that they could have had sex is clearly nonsense, since as we all know it wasn't invented until 1963!

https://www.wussu.com/poems/plam.htm

Gpfr wrote: "I've just read my last Guido Guerrieri: A Fine Line by Gianrico Carofiglio."

GG is indeed quite the bookworm, and I expect it is a common experience that many of us buy more books than we can read, and are reluctant to be parted from any volumes!

scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: ""People saying they're getting very angry about the film, just from reading the review, not even having seen it. And all the "no way they could have had sex".

Well, the notion that th..."

Thank you for that - it's always nice to have a chuckle!

Well, for the past half-hour I've been scrolling through the John Sandoe Christimas catalog - all 39 pages. There has to be something for everyone - from John LeCarre's letters, to a view of Sussex, and poetry and book for that hard-to-buy for kid in your life.

I found two especially. one about the pogroms in Unkraine in the '20s - Tears Over Russia: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine's Pogroms and Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisisby Annie Proulx

I've stuck Tears Over Russia: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine's Pogroms on my list at Powells. It is especially timely for me as I am listening to A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka: A Memoir in the car which is a higly person memoir of a Jewish family leaving Russia in the 'great escape' during Glastnost. I had no idea how awful it must have been to exist there. People forgot their religion, many spied (and told) on others, and Jews seem to have been targets just because.

And Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis is on order at the library. I am now on the hold list.

PS - I only saw one 🚕 yesterday. I hope to do better today.

MK wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "Gpfr wrote: ""People saying they're getting very angry about the film, just from reading the review, not even having seen it. And all the "no way they could have had sex".

Well..."

Some people do indeed seem very, very invested in the purity (and pure imagination) of genteel Victorian womanhood (and the sisters Brontë especially). Very odd.

Gpfr wrote: "Veufveuve wrote: " Peter Bradshaw's review of the new film "Emily" in the Guardian.
Wow, some people are very, very upset btl, struggling to understand the difference between a life, a book, and a ..."

Emily - reviewed on Front Row tonight, first item. Also an item on the possible return of the Parthenon marbles.

New books started:

Vargas and Brazil is a collection of essays on Brazlian dictator Getulio Vargas, a complex figure who dominated Brazil from 1930 until his suicide, in office, in 1954. Brazilian politics is complicated and regional, Vargas was very much a "gaucho" or a politician from southern Brazil, who introduced various schemes and plans to reform the country, before a brief return as a democrat, ending in suicide.

Death Going Down by Maria Angelica Bosco(1955), is an argentine crime novel from Pushkin. It continues my south american theme in 2022 and so far is an interesting read. She is compared to Agatha Christie

Been laid low for a week or so, but better now.

Thank you, gpfr, for the intro, as ever, and thank you to everyone for the nice comments about Mrs VL’s shop.

Georg - Picking up from the last thread, thanks for those suggestions. I didn’t know Elias at all. Ditto von Knigge. You could recommend that to NYRB, who used to invite recommendations for their list. I tried once to get them to do the delicious Emily Eden, without success. Thanks also for reminding me of Heine on Don Quixote.

The subjects in my corner are identified simply as: Philosophy, Myth, Poetry, Sagas, Romances. But I’ve interpreted the philosophy brief very elastically, more as philosophy-of-life – broad enough to include on the one hand Physiology of Taste: or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy (in the wonderful MFK Fisher translation) and on the other The Love Affair as a Work of Art. So Montaigne does fit in well, but even with him I have for the moment gone for interpretations (the lovely Sarah Bakewell book, and the Very Short Introduction from OUP) rather than the original text.

I think this approach to philosophy can also encompass connection-to-nature, so – although it may all sound a bit incongruous - The Farm in the Green Mountains and The Harz Journey and Tarka the Otter and The Secret Life of Trees and poetry anthologies nearby with titles like The Echoing Green and Buzz Words: Poems about Insects can, on this broad view, sit alongside The Fox and the Hedgehog and Love, Life, Goethe and Xenophon’s Conversations of Socrates and Myths to Live By and Civilization and its Discontents and Grayling’s universal History of Philosophy and Very Short Intros on Plato, Kant, Hegel etc. I rather like the unexpectedness of it all, as though one were looking along a friend’s bookshelf and thought, oh, that’s interesting.

I would like to mention that, with some 85% of the books in the shop being on tarot, astrology, world religions, mysticism, and new age subjects generally, we are not any kind of threat to the mainstream (and very good) bookstores in the area. One of the other owners came by on the first day to wish us well and to leave a beautiful bowl of flowers.

Storm – Neither of us being very oriented to social media, Mrs VL says she will talk over all your suggestions with her social media manager - there are such people! She’s definitely planning workshops. Most if not all of your earlier book suggestions have been picked up.

Veuf – Diaries – If you’ve never tried James Lees-Milne, the architectural historian, biographer and friend of the Mitfords, you might enjoy them. They’re every bit as lively as Alan Clark, and more cultured. You could pick any from the middle period. They’re full of wonderfully amusing stories about people mainly in the landed classes, some touching, others merciless. His main job was to go round assessing estates for the National Trust. I find them very moreish, like a literary bowl of cherries, and great when you’re feeling poorly.

Veuf/gpfr/scarlet - Sort of apropos Victorian women and sex, JLM records, in a bit I just read, that when in 1975 he was going round Royal Holloway College (“… which I have always wished to see. Gigantic and extraordinary. Tour de force.”) the guide said that the present Principal was the first man to be appointed. Hitherto, only women. And, says the guide, the statutes said they had to be virgins. Do you mean spinsters? asks JLM. No, says the guide, virgins.

Russell wrote: "Been laid low for a week or so, but better now.

the delicious Emily Eden..."

Glad to hear you're feeling better.

'Delicious' is exactly right for Emily Eden.
I've got Up the Country: Letters from India, written to her sister while travelling with their brother the then governor general. Really interesting.
And also The Semi-Attached Couple and the Semi-Detached House. A quote from The Washington Post says "It is the book you go on to when you have run out of Jane Austen."
I recommend all three.

References to the sisters Bronte have me glancing towards both Lucasta Miller’s The Bronte Myth, and Juliet Barker’s The Brontes. A Life in Letters. And yes, I know I’m repeating m’self. Could be on the cards to re-read in the winter months.

On Friday I try to check on what Michael Dirda has been reading so I go to the Washington Post (I used to live there - that's my excuse for subscribing). The headline story was about this book - which I subsquently ordered as there's a substantial line (yet another excuse) at the library and really because it looks like a keeper.

I don't know if others here have ever smelled sweetgrass, but it is a special smell which I've even encountered in indigenous baskets for sale in markets.

The book is sure to be an antidote for the Mormon-related books I've been reading as they appear to have nothing but distain for the land.

A report on my week’s reading from 1100 metres up on the Bøverkinnhalsen pass in the Jotunheimer National Park, on a snowy cold evening..

3 Streets by Yōko Tawada translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.

This is only my second of Tawada’s books, the other being Scattered All Over the Earth. I have appreciated both, and though I know she is praised much in the media, I still will reserve my own judgement.

Though she writes in Japanese she lives in Berlin, where this collection of three fairly long short stories is set.
These are three ghost stories each named on a street in Berlin. These are not the sort of hauntings one would expect with a more usual ghost story, but rather the supernatural hidden along the road, in the statues and buildings, and in the language used by their residents.

It’s cleverly done, but at times a bit smart for its own good. It’s the sort of experimental fiction that earns a degree of admiration whilst being largely unexciting.

Helpmeet by Naben Ruthnum

This is a bold experimental work of horror that manages at once to be grotesque, weird and yet charming. It may have its faults, but it’s wise enough to be short, and is packed with memorable images that make its author one to watch for the future. I believe it’s her first attempt at anything more than a short story in the genre; though she has previously written about curry..

It is set in 1900 and Louise Wilk is a devoted wife who is caring for her dying husband, playing the part of a ‘helpmeet’. Dr. Edward Wilk’s body is slowly being eaten away from a mysterious disease. As he nears the end of his life, he is beyond my help from medics, and they head from Manhattan to an orchard in upstate New York. Dr Wilk has been far from a devoted husband, having had many affairs that his wife is now aware of. As they spend his last days together, she the thought crosses her mind that it may not be a sickness, but a transformation.

These days in the horror genre so much ‘new’ stuff that is produced return to a template first used, in some cases, hundreds of years ago, and use tropes we are familiar with. That is not to say that they are unwelcome, but it is really encouraging when fresh ground is trodden within the genre, and this is a good example of that.

and, my book of the week, Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson

William Bowling is a thoroughly unpleasant customer. He is an insurance agent living with his wife in London during the Blitz. After one air raid he and his wife, Ivy, find themselves partly buried under masonry. Ivy won’t stop screaming. As Mr Bowling frees himself he silences his wife permanently. Thanks to the life-assurance pay off he is able to give up work, but killing has become an addiction, and anyone who crosses his path is likely to go the same way.

Unlike other murderers, but like many hooked to a habit, and only too aware of his addiction, he is desperate to get caught - until, that is, he meets the woman of his dreams, and suddenly has something to live for, and so is desperate not to get caught. But, in an outstanding scene, he has a problem, a body in his own flat he needs to get rid of.

Published in 1943, this was highly thought of at the time, not least by Raymond Chandler and George Orwell, the latter at the time, a BBC producer. It’s easy to see why. Murder, stirred in with black humour, so the blend is just perfect, is something many have tried to imitate, but few with such entertaining results. Very much ahead of its time, it also has a really good twist in its last pages.

Here’s a clip..

First he must spend a few very gloomy minutes washing up the blood, it was on Mr Farthing’s ugly mouth and had dried all over his broad nose, and it was on his hands, backs and fronts. Mr Bowling went and got his flannel and some hot water and a basin and some soap. He returned with it to the bathroom. When he had completed this singularly unpleasant task to his satisfaction, and brushed Mr Farthing’s clammy hair, he proceeded to pare Mr Farthing’s nails. They were sure to be full of bits of his murderer’s skin, or clothes, and would betray him under the microscope. Mr Farthing’s frightened eyes were wide open the whole time, watching him, and looking as if it was rather painful, having your nails carefully pared after you were dead. When he had finished, Mr Bowling shoved Mr Farthing’s dead head to and fro, rather fascinated by his broken neck, you could get it back an incredibly long way.

Then he lugged Mr Farthing up and sat him into the low chair in the bedroom, by the dressing table. He wanted to test his weight, and to see how he sagged. He sagged very badly when he tried to hold him upright, his toes hanging down, and his great head flopping forward. Mr Bowling got his own brown felt hat and shoved it on Mr Farthing’s head. It was a little too big, and Mr Farthing looked extremely grotesque in the deep chair there, with his knees all cock-eyed, and his shoulders sagging forward, and the brown hat bent in prayer. Mr Bowling looked at his watch again and hurried out.

and,

On an impulse he opened the front door and peeped out. There was nobody about, ‘No’, he thought, ‘but the moment I ruddy we’ll start my act, the bally passage will be alive with people!’.

@Andy
Another question for you.
Have you had any problems with ticks, you or the dog? I was reading that they are becoming rather a problem in Scandinavia. The dogs used to pick them up in Somerset, particularly on the Quantocks, especially if they had run into the bracken.
In An Immense World I picked up that ticks really sense heat with the front two of their legs. They wave them around - it’s called questing - they can sense heat from 13 feet away and use these front legs to check that they have landed on bare skin for blood sucking . These questing legs have tiny pits in them with a neuron at the base and it all works with infrared. Clever stuff! Mine of boring information! But I wondered whether you had taken tick precautions because I know bite can make you very ill.

CCCubbon wrote: "@Andy
Another question for you.
Have you had any problems with ticks, you or the dog? I was reading that they are becoming rather a problem in Scandinavia. The dogs used to pick them up in Somerset..."

I have never had a problem CC. Though I have had friends who have. It’s almost winter now here, so I expect it would be more of a problem earlier in the year.

The dog does get them. I’ve pulled several off him. But for half the year he takes a very expensive pill, Bravecto, which works well, and he doesn’t get them any more.
It’s a big job getting him to swallow the pill though. Smothered in cheese, whatever I try, he finds it and spits it out. They must give off a scent he detects.

Andy wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "@Andy
Another question for you.
Have you had any problems with ticks, you or the dog? I was reading that they are becoming rather a problem in Scandinavia. The dogs used to pick th..."

my brothers lab, which i was dogstting in august, takes some medecine that is anti-tick, not sure if its Bravecto but it spares the tick removal that the three family labs we had when i was a kid

in the late 90s we had three special tick removal gadgets and Poppy, the last family lab, would welcome removal as she knew it would signal a dog biscuit or two, she used to get lots of ticks (and biscuits!)