PolarisBeacon's 2013 read

So my old moniker of PolarisBeacon will linger on here in the thread title for a little longer yet...

CURRENTLY READING

  

A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges
The Coen Brothers by Ronald Bergan

PAUSED



Larry Brown: A Writer's Life (Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography) by Jean W. Cash

2013 books read so far: (bold = FIVE STARS; most recent books first)

Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (Read by Richard Burton & 2003 BBC cast)
All That Is by James Salter
Between Friends by Amos Oz
Jewish Journeys by Jeremy Leigh
1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road to Jerusalem by Uri Avnery
The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
Film Journal by Eve Arnold (re-read - selected chapters)
The Cloudspotters' Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
A History of Britain: At the Edge of the World 3000 B.C. - 1603 A.D. by Simon Schama (re-read - selected chapters)
Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene
Facing The Music by Larry Brown
Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili McConnon and Andres McConnon
Tiny Acts of Rebellion by Rich Fulcher
The Best Australian Trucking Stories edited by Jim Haynes
The Liars' Gospel by Naomi Alderman
Wild Child by T. C. Boyle
The Faber Book of Reportage edited by John Carey
Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb
Indignation by Philip Roth
Saturday at M.I.9: History of Underground Escape Lines in N.W.Europe in 1940-45 by Airey Neave
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi
The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs by Tyler Hamilton
The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia by Bill Gammage
The World From My Porch by Larry Towell
Katherine Avenue by Larry Sultan
Gypsies by Josef Koudelka
Sightwalk by Gueorgui Pinkhassov
Cafe Lehmitz by Anders Petersen
FrenchKiss by Anders Petersen
Based on a True Story by David Alan Harvey
Divided Soul by David Alan Harvey

Welcome one and all! This is my debut attempt at a year long club read thread, I hope some LT'ers may find some interesting reads herein... I usually like to read both fiction and non-fiction simultaneously, but just at the moment I see that I am veering more towards the non-fiction. This is merely a coincidence and not necessarily an indication of my reading habits! I'm not the most prolific of readers, and often find that at times I might go a whole week with only managing a few tired pages before sleep! But I will certainly try to find new writers all the time (I love you LT!) and thanks to the excellent local library service will try to exploit those discoveries as much as possible.

Well, I'm starting my thread good and early - before the new year is even in - as I will be travelling overseas during January and February and cannot be sure how often I might be able to update my thread. I do hope though that I will be able to add new books as they occur. Some of my reads are intended to be slow and ongoing - I've been slowly trawling The Faber Book of Reportage for what seems like ages - while others will be fly-by-night audiobook operations: been and gone within the confines of a lengthy cross-country car journey. I should point out for those who don't know me that I am in the UK so such journeys might only be a few hundred miles - I'm no Dean Moriarty!

I like to think that my tastes are quite varied, but I do have certain biases in favour of specific subject matter. I once lived in Israel for some seven years, so am drawn to books covering all manner of subjects concerning that fascinating part of the world. I am also an especially keen reader of history or historically set pieces of fiction. In addition, I have always enjoyed reading short stories - both as a way to acquaint myself better with new writers or fiction from previously uncharted (well - to me at least!) locations, as well as enjoying the form in its own right. I hope to include at least two or three collections during 2013.

Please take a look at my profile for a bit more about myself and on the sort of books and writers I tend to read the most. I hope that passers-by will find this an enjoyable thread - please say hello!

To the aforementioned Faber Book of Reportage. It is a collection of historical pieces of eye-witness writing that I have been going through a few pages at a time for quite some time. Ok, ok, it's in my bathroom!! From the death of Socrates as witnessed by Plato in 399 BCE, to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 which I most recently read, it is a fascinating anthology of excepts that is quite rewarding to dip in and out of. It isn't all good - some have been a little dull and I'll admit to skipping one or two pages here and there. But then there have been some quite unexpected rewards as well.

It is interesting also to see which episodes in human history have been included and which have been omitted. For example there are a total of three different accounts of the sinking of the Titanic - each from the perspectives of a crew fireman, the wireless operator, and a passenger in a lifeboat. Considering how full this book is with the expected passages concerning wars, revolutions, famines and the like, I was unexpectedly moved by these accounts of the sinking. There was something all so tangible about these poor people's experiences that I felt really resonated somehow. Anyway, it continues to be a worthwhile book to peruse casually.

Ottolenghi & Tamimi's Jerusalem is a very gratefully received Christmas present and I intend to carry on browsing through it as the whim takes me, and hopefully, fingers crossed, actually cook some of the delicious looking recipes from it.

At first glance I must say that it is a beautifully designed book. Not just the cover shown here - which is I think excellent - but the photography on the inside is brilliant. Quite representative of modern Jerusalem with its colourful street life, markets and souks. I can also gladly report that full double page spreads are given to important ingredients and garnishes which crop up again and again in their recipes - the herb Za'atar (Hyssop) for example. Now I have to put this book down for fear of drooling on to my shoes...

I started reading ex-pro cyclist Tyler Hamilton's confessional The Secret Race: Inside the Hidden World of the Tour de France: Doping, Cover-ups, and Winning at All Costs earlier this year, some time before the clocks went back. I've been an avid follower of road cycling, and the cultural and sporting spectacle that is the Tour de France since the late 1980s. So it was with much excitement that this Brit watched Bradley Wiggins' historic first ever British win in the event this past July.

It was with almost as much interest that the launch of Hamilton's book coincided in the same year with the most excellent and dramatic timing imaginable with the very public downfall of the erstwhile 7-time champion and official Texan hero Lance Armstrong. I hurriedly placed a reservation for this book at my local library, while various excerpts from this and other similar books from recent years were broadcast in a bevvy of specials and exposes on the BBC.

Sadly, I didn't quite take into account the massive upswing of interest there has obviously been in cycling and the whole Armstrong affair, coming as it did in this year of many British cycling firsts, and didn't therefore bargain for there being anyone else particularly bothered about checking this (previously unread until by me) book out of the library. So I was somewhat disappointed to learn that with a paltry 70-odd pages remaining to be read, I would be prevented from casually renewing my loan online as I've become accustomed to doing with most of the books I check out... And so, pausing my read, I foolishly returned the book to the library - complete with the kindly librarian's advice "oh you should have just finished it and returned it a few days late and paid the fine..." I learnt that an incredible 8 other readers were waiting to also check the book out. I was advised that the Rhondda Cynon Taff County library service would probably buy at least one other copy of The Secret Race. (Apparently they had just one dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades of Grey until it collided spectacularly with the cultural zeitgeist, and now they have three or four dozen copies. I forget the exact total, but can just imagine them gathering dust in a basement storeroom in the not too distant future.)

This book itself is a riveting read to anyone interested in the sport. It is though - perhaps predictably - somewhat depressing, as the descent into an existence of organised deceit, habitual lying, sessions of illegal doping and blood transfusions, fast overtakes the otherwise well covered routine of a professional athlete in training and competition at the top of their sport. Hamilton is no angel, and does not hide his misdemeanors along his road to rockbottom - he will finally be caught and banned from the sport - but I didn't quite get that far! I will report back if/when I manage to finish reading this engrossing book, for the time being though it remains officially 'paused'.

Currently reading Airey Neave's Saturday at MI9. It is subtitled 'History of Underground Escape Lines in NW Europe in 1940-1945' - which pretty much tells you what's what!

Browsing the copious shelves of a warehouse shop in Hay-on-Wye recently, I found this little wonder in excellent near mint condition (with the cover depicted) for just £1. Well, I can't resist books like this at all!

Enjoyable and interesting so far, if a somewhat dry writing style. The opening chapters see the author (a future Conservative MP & shadow minister in the 1970s under Thatcher - before being assassinated by an IRA bomb in 1979) - explain a little of the setting up of, or rather the lack of, an organised escape coordinating unit in London at the war's start. Neave then subsequently covers, in the most modest of ways, how he managed along with a Dutch officer, to become the first successful British escapee from the notorious Colditz Castle.

Now I find Mr Neave enjoying his freedom in Switzerland and being told by the British Legation there that he is to jump the queue (there were nine other successful British escapees from assorted POW camps ahead of him) and 'escape' again - this time to Gibraltar - via neutral Spain and unoccupied Vichy France...

Wow, some great reads already! I think I have The Faber Book Of Reportage in a dusty box somewhere - must dig it out. I find it quite difficult to get through anthologies because there isn't the narrative drive to get me to pick them up again - I have a big book of music criticism in my bathroom but I probably read about one extract a fortnight.

I always like the look of the Ottolenghi cookbooks, and also love the salads in the restaurants! But the recipes of his that I've seen on the web (eg on the Guardian website) are never that appealing. So it would be good to hear what you cook from the book too...

>5 Polaris-: - I don't know if you've read French Revolutions by Tim Moore? Moore decides to 'do' the Tour, i.e., cycle stages of the race prior to the event itself. It's a humorous travel account. Along the way, though, he makes the observation that he doesn't see how anyone could achieve what the pros do *without* some sort of boost.

I love the Tour, and have followed it for years (I rooted for Laurent Fignon and Andy Hampsten back in the day), but I've learned to hold no illusion about what goes into it, or at least not be surprised or disappointed when someone tests positive.

On a completely different note, Saturday at MI9 sounds really interesting! Hope it gets less dry as you go along.

>7 wandering_star: - Hello and thanks for your comment. It's nice to have a fellow celestially named LT'er along! I know what you mean about anthologies and lacking narrative. Fortunately with the Faber Book of Reportage the passages are usually no more than 2 or 3 pages long and they do at least follow a chronological order. As for cooking Ottolenghi's recipes - I very much hope to, but you must realise that I'm VERY unskilled and new to cooking anything but the most basic of family home dinners... I've gotten into the habit a little bit though over the last year or so thanks to some easy and comforting Jamie Oliver recipes and some very tasty Italian fare courtesy of the charming old Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo partnership. (Their Two Greedy Italians book from their recent BBC tv series has been very well used in my kitchen.) I hope that I can get hold of some of the more obscure ingredients for Ottolenghi's recipes in Cardiff once my life calms down after a busy upcoming couple of months: Family visit to Australia followed by new job in late February and also moving house by start of March!

By the way, I like your profile page a lot - plenty of interest there! - and I like a lot your idea of selected quotes or excerpts from read books. So I hope you won't mind me copying that idea and incorporating it into my club read this year! Happy New Year to you.

>8 ljbwell: - Ahoy - and Happy New Year! Well, yes I have read French Revolutions, and enjoyed it very much (as did the missus). Tim Moore does indeed have a fine sense of humour and his book on the Tour de France is very amusing - as well as being surprisingly informative as well. Did you by any chance read anything else by him? We both read his Do Not Pass Go: From the Old Kent Road to Mayfair as well and really enjoyed that one too.

Wow - Andy Hampsten eh! That's going back a little bit! I remember him storming up to victory on Alpe d'Huez one year back in the mid-90s. He rode for the Motorola team in red and blue that a certain young Lance Armstrong won his first Tour stage for (in '93?) - I wonder what he thought of his young team mate? So you rooted for Laurent Fignon over Greg Lemond in '89? That was a hell of a contest... It was very sad to hear that Fignon passed away at such a young age a couple of years ago. His book We Were Young and Carefree is on my wishlist. If you're interested in other books on cycling you'll find a fair few in my library in the collection marked 'sports writing'.

With a nod in the direction of wandering_star (see comment #9) - I'm commencing my sporadic and irregular club read feature of including excerpts or notable quotes from books I'm currently reading. Please feel most welcome to include any from your own reads if you think they'll add to the conversation!

From The Faber Book of Reportage:

...We were still a good ten miles away when I saw the reflection of Guernica's flames in the sky. As we drew nearer, on both sides of the road, men, women and children were sitting, dazed. I saw a priest in one group. I stopped the car and went up to him. 'What happened, Father?' I asked. His face was blackened, his clothes in tatters. He couldn't talk. He just pointed to the flames, still about four miles away, then whispered, 'Aviones...bombas...mucho, mucho.'

Noel Monks. The Spanish Civil War: Guernica Destroyed by German Planes, 26 April 1937.

To think that very similar events are still going on around the world today, notably in Syria - albeit via artillery rather than aircraft so much, is both heartbreaking and shaming.

Faber Book of Reportage looks fascinating. I'll be putting it on my wishlist. I'm looking forward to following your reading this year.

My pleasure! I really enjoy choosing the selection (usually) as I like to try and make sure it includes at least one of the particular things about the book, whether that is theme or style. Great selection from The Faber Book Of Reportage. Good luck with all the upheavals of the next few months!

Great to see you here, Paul, welcome! The Faber Book of Reportage looks intriguing. I already imagine the directions this book can lead one's reading in! Your quotation reminded me of a small exhibit on Guernica which I saw in September -- eyewitness accounts like the above left images that haunted me long after I had left the exhibit. I agree with you about Syria. I see you're reading something about Vietnam -- looking forward to your thoughts.

The Secret Race looks interesting, but I am always suspicious of a guy that "comes clean", especially when there is some money to be made out of it. It would appear that "the world and his wife" have it in for Lance Armstrong and it may be that forces are at work to damage him because of his political ambitions.

On a positive note Sir Bradley seems as "clean as a whistle" and I was fortunate to see him ride through my local town this year.

Sorry about the clichees but we are talking about sport.

>10 Polaris-:: Frost on My Moustache was actually the 1st of Moore's I read. I've also read Nul Points (Moore sets out to meet and interview all the Eurovision song contest nul-pointers). Do Not Pass Go sounds entertaining.

Never a LeMond or Hinault fan. In retrospect, understanding the sport much better now, I can understand why LeMond was so angry about '85 and '86. At the time, though, he came across as arrogant and petulant. I had the opportunity to watch Fignon's commentating in a few of the years prior to his passing.

>2 Polaris-: I once lived in Israel for some seven years, {...} I have always enjoyed reading short stories
I'm enjoying Etgar Keret's Suddenly, A Knock on the Door and was going to suggest it ... then saw you've read it and liked it, yay.

I'm enjoying your comments already, especially that you're posting them "along the way" of the read instead of just at the end.

Thanks for all your comments. I'd like to respond and engage a bit more with future posts, only right now we're trying to not tear each other's hair out on our way out the door to the airport in a few hours! Off for a bit of a family reunion down under. I hope that I'll be able to log in and check out LT a bit while I'm there. Hopefully I'll finish the Airey Neave and Jonathan Chamberlain books over the next fortnight or so and post up some thoughts. Have optimistically packed Sherman Alexie's The Toughest Indian In The World - I'm a big fan of his writing already...

>17 detailmuse: - I loved Keret's book. I've enjoyed everything of his I've read so far. You might want to check out Amos Oz's recent collection of loosely connected Scenes From Village Life - one of my best reads of 2012.

This is such a fun thread so far, look forward to following along. Noting the Amos Oz..and the Keret.

>20 dchaikin: - Hi Dan! Thanks so much for stopping by, I hope you'll find some interesting items over here as the year progresses.

Well, I'm keeping cool in the Australia heat - coming from Wales where the last proper summer weather was in 2006, I'm still reacquainting myself with how hot sunshine feels on a routine basis! - and the reading has predictably taken something of a back seat... Just checked my emails and Google's advertisements seem to think I'm now suddenly in need of a children's magician in Perth...

Anyway, I LOVE the birdsong in the mornings here! First chance I get to visit a decent book shop I will be keeping an eye out for Aussie writer Tim Winton's books. Would love to get a copy of his collection of shorts The Turning: Stories. Any other recommendations for Australian writers would be very welcome.

In full agreement about Tim Winton. I would also look for Janette Turner Hospital, short stories and novels. Some of her earlier books are difficult to find, but I suspect part of that is publishing rights.

I'm going to try not to get too carried away here. Absolutely agree with SassyLassy, Janette Turner Hospital is well worth seeking out. So are Roger McDonald (The Ballad of Desmond Kale is superb), Richard Flanagan, Kate Grenville, David Malouf, Christina Stead and Steve Toltz. And of course Peter Carey. Nam Le and Paddy O'Reilly have both produced excellent short story collections. Whereabouts in Australia are you visiting, if you don't mind my asking?

>21 Polaris-:, I'm due to visit my in-laws in Neath in February - you're lucky to have escaped the Welsh winter for a while!

22, 23, 24

- VERY lucky to have escaped the Welsh winter's worst, and to be having fun in the sun in Australia. I'm in Western Australia in the southwest corner near Balingup, and as of today and tomorrow enjoying 30 degrees celsius. Will probably half a bit more time to myself and various relaxations such as LT in the 2nd haf of my visit beginning next weekend after Australia Day. Thanks so much SassyLassy and letterpress for your recommendations - I'll be keeping an eye out. My brother's recommended Planet Books and New Editions book stores in Perth, where I'll be next weekend.

Grabbing quick snippets of Saturday at MI9 when I can and loving the weird contrast between dodging the Axis chaps in 1942 or 1943 and visiting places in WA's midsummer. Have bookmarked a couple of gem passages for including here when I get a better chance not so late in the day...

Hi Paul, sounds like a great winter escape you are having at present.
I'll suggest Gail Jones, Kim Scott and Craig Silvey (who lives in Fremantle). I haven't read The Dig Tree by Sarah Murgatroyd but it's on my tbr and might be of interest. It's one of the affordable Text Classics series by Text publishing - http://textclassics.com.au/
Also look out for books published by the local publisher, Fremantle Press, I've read several good ones from them.
One of my favourite Aussie books that is a truly great read is A fortunate life by A.B. Facey, it's also mainly set in Western Australia. You might also like The Hunter by Julia Leigh set in a Tasmanian National Park.
And a good resource for recommendations is The ANZ Lit Lovers blog, Lisa keeps an updated recommended list of Australasian books linked through to reviews. I've followed the blog for a few years.

Hi Kerry - yes indeed I am having a fine old time here in WA. I will soon have a bit more time at my disposal to absorb these recommendations properly. Thank you so much!

In the meantime, while I'm logged in, I just wanted to mention that I returned from a long weekend visit to Perth last night and loved the two bookshops in Fremantle I spent a while in... New Edition on the High Street is a lovely shop and very well stocked - http://www.newedition.com.au/home - although it was a bit pricey for my budget limitations (coming from an economically broken Europe, this country is VERY expensive in all departments except fuel and wine!!), and just along the same road is a very appealing and friendly, cosy-yet-uncluttered, used bookshop called Bill Campbell Books. I scored 2 short story collections by Tim Winton there at a fair price - Scission was his first published collection (1985) and The Turning considerably more recent (2005).

My unintended (but probably predictable) accumulation of new books on this trip isn't yet endangering my baggage weight limit, but I need to keep it in mind...

So far, excluding what I brought out with me, they are:

- Call Of The Wild by Jack London - a lovely gift from my brother in Japan (also holidaying with us but now returned to Japan where he lives) a 1950s paperback in excellent condition. I have read it before and have a copy already at home, so I think I might leave it with my neice for safekeeping.

- In Pharaoh's Army by Tobias Wolff - was on my wishlist and eagle-eyed as ever, clocked it tucked away with the Sidney Sheldons and Wilbur Smiths in an antique/junk shop near here, in unread condition and only $5!

- Common Trees of The South-West Forests by Judy Wheeler.

- The Biggest Estate on Earth by Bill Gammage (borrowed from John next door).

- Scission

- The Turning

From Saturday at MI9 - soon after the author has succesfully escaped from Colditz early in the war and made a safe return to London via Switzerland, Vichy France, Spain, and Gibraltar:

...Crockatt was friendly and relaxed. I could imagine him twenty years earlier. He was of the generation of 1914 and Mons. Behind his smile, there was a look of resignation I had seen before.
He asked me for stories of life in prisoner-of-war camps.
I told him eagerly that in one camp, so it was said, the prisoners tunnelled and emerged by mistake in the Kommandant's wine cellar, which was full of rare and expensive wines. The Kommandant was a connoisseur and often asked the local nobility to dinner.
The prisoners managed to extricate over a hundred bottles, drank them, put back the corks and labels after refilling them - I paused - with an unmentionable liquid.
Crockatt laughed. "We must tell that to Winston".

And this extract - a perfect gem - regarding the intelligence lectures some servicemen were receiving at the time:

...To enliven the lecture period true and sometimes amusing, stories were told of the adventures of others. One, which may be apocryphal, was always a success. A sergeant pilot in the RAF was shot down close to a French convent. Before the Germans could catch him, a number of nuns appeared and spirited him inside. Walking in the convent garden, the sergeant, dressed in the habit of the Order, found himself beside a beautiful nun. After he had made shy advances, she turned and replied in masculine English:
"Don't be a bloody fool, I've been here since Dunkirk."

entertained by those...thinking of those wines...I think I need a glass...

#29 - Hey Daniel, it's a tiny bit early here on a hot and sunny afternoon but I'll join you for one, cheers.

Margaret River book haul the other day:

A Piece of My Heart by Richard Ford
Most Secret by Nevil Shute
The Best Australian Trucking Stories compiled by Jim Haynes
Outback Heroes by Evan McHugh.

I tried to read a lot of Australian authors before a visited about a year ago. A few others: Patrick White (Nobelist), Eleanor Dark, Robert Drewe, Henry Handel Richardson, Miles Franklin, Thomas Kenneally, Henry Lawson, Alexis Wright, A.B. Facey.

Some nonfiction recommendations: Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land by Sven Lindqvist; The Passing of the Aborigines by Daisy Bates; The Rock: Travelling to Uluru by Barry Hill; and of course, The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes and In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson.

Cool, cheers for those tips arubabookwoman! I've read (and liked a lot) Terra Nullius - I think that's one of my early LT reviews...and have In A Sunburned Country waiting for me at home. Will definitely check out these others as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Now for some photography. I've been taking advantage of my brother's excellent photobook collection and spent some hot lazy afternoons here following up the morning's exertions pruning a small citrus grove with some considered leafing through several of his volumes.

Really loved Josef Koudelka's beautiful and arresting photos of Roma in central/eastern Europe in both the early and late '60s, and also completely hooked by David Alan Harvey 's eye whether capturing contemporary Rio de Janeiro or the spread of the Iberian diaspora across Latin America as well as Spain and Portugal for a span of thirty years. But I'm totally bewitched by Larry Sultan's shots of his own family home and upbringing in the San Fernando Valley, California, followed by his parents' retirement in Palm Springs. Beautiful.

I've also enjoyed work by Anders Petersen and Gueorgui Pinkhassov, and am now on the lookout for anything by the wonderful William Eggleston, as well as books by Alec Soth, Jonas Bendiksen or Larry Towell.


Divided Soul by David Alan Harvey (****& a half)


Based On A True Story by David Alan Harvey (****& a half)


FrenchKiss by Anders Petersen (****)


Cafe Lehmitz by Anders Petersen (****& a half)


Sightwalk by Gueorgi Pinkhassov (****)


Gypsies by Josef Koudelka (*****)


Katherine Avenue by Larry Sultan (*****)


ETA book covers.

What a nice way to spend hot lazy afternoons. I share your admiration for the Josef Koudelka photographs of Roma. I saw them some time ago at an exhibition in London

>31 arubabookwoman:

I just gave your great review of Terra Nullius a thumbs up. What a powerful little book that is. I'm a big fan of Exterminate All the Brutes, and Desert Divers is fun and curious. Slightly incongruously hasn't he written something about bench-pressing and gyms? Should I read it?

>34 baswood:

Then you were lucky to see those prints in full size! On the other hand... being a Londoner I know what those long days on foot in town, going to an exhibition, can be like - when you come home knackered... but Koudelka would definitely be worth it after all!

Thanks for the thumb! I've never read anything else by him, but after checking the book pages for Exterminate All the Brutes and Desert Divers I've added them to my wishlist. Not sure if he's written anything about bench-pressing, but if he has, I'd be unlikely to read it--I'm an old grandma here. :)

Bill Gammage's book was kindly leant to me by a new found friend while I was away in Western Australia. Unfortunately, owing to the many wonderful distractions one encounters during a family reunion visit, I was unable to sit down and actually read the whole body of text from start to finish. I did though manage to read significant portions of it - including the many copious illustrations with their very fully detailed and lengthy explanatory captions. In some ways this book reminded me somewhat of Oliver Rackham's excellent Woodlands published not too long ago in the Collins New Naturalist Library series. Both books' authors hold tremendous regard for the methods and traditions used in managing landscapes by the local peoples (be they indigenous Australians or traditional British woodsmen).

Obviously the two books' similarities end there as in the former case the traditional land management techniques were more or less effectively obliterated by an advancing tide of British colonialism, while in the latter case traditional woodland management was effectively ended in significant scale by the industrialisation of forestry that followed the First World War. The book's title refers to the fact that to newly arrived European eyes the lay of the landscape (as controlled pre-1788 by the local inhabitants) reminded them repeatedly of the vast landed estates that the wealthiest in their own societies back home were so earnestly trying to replicate.

Gammage's fascinating book is concerned with more than traditional woodland uses and management though. The Aborigines' vast understanding of their homelands, accumulated through hundreds if not thousands of years' worth of knowledge passed from one generation to the next, was truly a wondrous thing. They knew every aspect of every facet of flora and fauna in their landscape at a level that very few (if any) learned modern land use professionals would ever approach. Every wild flower, grass type, fungus, tree (and that includes foliage, fruit, bark, root or lignotuber, etc.) or shrub, bird or animal, would be intimately familiar to both men and women of all ages.

Most crucially, the skilled use of fire - whether it be naturally occurring or instigated deliberately - would often determine the cyclical movements and seasonal reactions of various flora or fauna, most notably the right grasses that would attract kangaroos for hunting. Controlling the bushfires would be an integral tool for not only hunting, but also in managing pathways, communications, and woodland regeneration. This knowledge would be all but lost, or rather abandoned through ignorance, by those authorities in power following the transformative year of 1788 and the commencement of systematic colonialisation of Australia. Gammage's book also illustrates wonderfully how various European colonials initially approached the landscape and their interactions with it in terms of surveying, mapping, drawing and painting, writing, and farming.

An extensively illustrated book with a multitude of primary references (together with a very comprehensive bibliography), this is an incredibly valuable and important book - not only for Australians, but for anyone interested in learning about any indigenous people's understanding and management of their own ancestral lands, and the devastating effects that the 'civilisation' of newcomers - be they through farming, forestry, land division, and creeping 'development' into the modern era can have. Books such as this can go some small way in perhaps helping to reverse those effects where those in control of the land have a mind to do so.

Thanks to all those who gave me so many fine recommendations for Aussie reading while I was over there. I am now back in the Welsh winter (thankfully the sun has actually been shining since my return last weekend - though today has turned out pretty misty...) and will in due course adjust to a new home and new job both in the coming fortnight, and hopefully settle into a more regular Club Read contribution. I also hope to join in on the many fascinating threads of other LT'ers that I've been trying to keep abreast of since the year's start.

My last update regarding the book haul from Australia (I somehow made it through the flight baggage allowance!) -

True History of The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
Hunting Tigers Under Glass: Essays and Reports by Mordecai Richler
Going To Meet The Man: Stories by James Baldwin
Isobars by Janette Turner Hospital
Off to The Side: A Memoir by Jim Harrison
Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
Fatherland by Robert Harris.

#37 - A sad history, and an intriguing book.

Did no one push Songlines on you? It takes some heavy criticism for the manipulation of fact (it's published as a work of fiction) and for the apparently limited understanding of native Australians by Chatwin...but it's still a wonderful book. Welcome home.

Paul, the first two on your book-haul list were favorites of mine in the year(s) that I read them. I hope you enjoy them!

The Biggest Estate on Earth sounds wonderful. I will also have to look for Woodlands. I hadn't heard of either of these titles, but your library always provides lots of inspiration for me.

Glad to see you found a Janette Turner Hospital. That's a Mordecai Richler book I don't have and hadn't heard of either. Good haul!

>39 dchaikin:
Thanks Dan, and you're right - Songlines was a bit of an ommission perhaps...determined to make On The Black Hill my first Chatwin book though - On the 'owned but to be read' pile and set as it was in the Black Mountains area very close to where I used to live.

>40 cabegley:
Chris - thank you, both those two were two of the only three 'new' books I bought as they are part of a very attractively designed Vintage Classics reissue series in Australia. As well as looking like very good and quintessentially Aussie reads, they were very reasonably priced. Otherwise new books were just far too expensive for me there. I made an exception though for my other new purchase - The Best Australian Trucking Stories compiled by Jim Haynes as I didn't think I'd ever find a copy of that again outside of down under... I actually went back to Margaret River sort of especially for it! Although Margaret River is a fun and pretty place with lots to offer anyway.

>41 SassyLassy:
Sassy your thoughts are always appreciated! I'm determined this week to catch up with your Club Read - I know there'll be lots of goodies over there! Regarding Woodlands - it is exceedingly thorough if you're interested in the subject, and is copiously illustrated as well. Anything by Oliver Rackham or George Peterken is worth picking up as far as the British countryside and the social history connected to it is concerned.

So, I've had a pretty strange 2013 so far. After spending 6 weeks in the southern hemisphere for the first time visiting my brother's home there, I returned to the UK and began a new full-time job (VERY full-time) with a local municipality AND moved home both within a few days of each other. Suffice to say, the last month has gone by in a cold shivery blur as we've experienced the coldest March since 1963, and struggled to keep the new house warm. My focus sadly hasn't quite been able to rest on my Club Read!

I'm still only halfway through unpacking the books here. It is after all not the sort of thing I do willy-nilly - as there has to be a certain amount of both rhyme and reason to it - at least for my own benefit and semi-compulsive peace of mind!

I haven't been reading too much in the last few weeks, but hope now to try and resume some sort of normal service - which is probably slower than your average LT'er to begin with...

I can though report that I have now happily delved right into Ottolenghi and Tamimi's Jerusalem and can proudly declare that I've made for the first time some delicious falafel (though I'd have liked more of it!) complete with home made Tehini. For someone of my lacking culinary skills this is quite an achievement! They were both delicious - even if I do say so myself!

On a whim at the library the other day - returning a long overdue The Woman In White borrowed by my wife - I took out an audiobook version of Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men. Such a perennial classic of literature, so simple in plot, so superbly told by one of the masters. It is read by the fine actor Clarke Peters and is a total pleasure to escape with on the way to/from work instead of the same old news radio... This version is highly recommended to all.

Saw a beautiful and inspiring documentary this week (thank you BBC) on the American photographer Saul Leiter whose work I am now very keen to take a closer look at. Wonderful stuff indeed.

Welcome back!

Nice to see you posting. I'm now craving falafel with homemade tahini.

Thank you both! I'm gonna use up my left over tahini to make halva cookies! Never done any of this before! Jerusalem is really a very lovely book. Great photography as well as lots of great insights into the food culture of such a fascinating place.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

It got me again! What a wonderfully well written story this is.

Between Friends by Amos Oz.

VERY excited about this forthcoming release (September 2013) and wish I could get hold of a copy now! Oz has been in a rich vein of form over the last three or four years, so I can't wait! As a former kibbutznik whose first book of Oz's was his brilliant early collection Where The Jackals Howl - stories set on a fictional kibbutz in the centre of the country in the 50s and early 60s - I will be particularly thrilled to see him return to this subject matter. Here's an early review I found:

"In Between Friends, Amos Oz returns to the kibbutz of the late 1950s, the time and place where his writing began. These eight interconnected stories, set in the fictitious Kibbutz Yikhat, draw masterly profiles of idealistic men and women enduring personal hardships in the shadow of one of the greatest collective dreams of the twentieth century. A devoted father who fails to challenge his daughter’s lover, an old friend, a man his own age; an elderly gardener who carries on his shoulders the sorrows of the world; a woman writing perversely poignant letters to her husband’s mistress. Amid this motley group of people, a man named Martin attempts to teach everyone Esperanto. Each of these stories is a luminous human and literary study; together they offer an eloquent portrait of an idea, and of a charged and fascinating epoch. Amos Oz at home. And at his best."

47 - Can't believe I just read my first Steinbeck at the age of 64! read Cannery Row a couple of weeks ago and loved it. I have a lot to look forward to! ALso think I need to check out Amos Oz. Thanks for the great info.

Welcome back. I'm in full empathy mode about a weird start to the year: impending major international move, various bizarre back-to-back bouts of illness (including husband's getting chickenpox!), etc. etc.

Of Mice and Men is one of the few books I can read over and over and feel like I'm picking up something new in it each time. The audio version you had sounds like a good one. Have you seen the Gary Sinise/John Malkovich movie version? I was disappointed with it - the casting just didn't work for me.

49, 50,

Thanks both for stopping by!

Merrikay - Oz is well worth giving a try - although I might be biased as he's long been one of my all-time favourites. Hence my excitement at discovering an imminent new publication. I find his writing so rich and rewarding, the characters so vivid and real - these everyday types that live all around us, but with an element of humanity about them that at once both fascinates, attracts sympathy, and somehow repels - all at the same time. Some compare him to one of his big influences: Anton Chekhov. I haven't read enough Chekhov to be in a position to judge to be honest, but that is something I would like to change...

He has also written a fair amount of non-fiction - mainly focusing on the Arab-Israeli reality, but he also wrote a collection of literary criticism The Story Begins, and the more recent Jews and Words co-written with his daughter, on the relationship between Jewish writers and language over the years which I've yet to read, but would love to get a copy of.

ljbwell - The audio version WAS very good - Clarke Peters is pitch perfect all the way through. His Lennie was unforgettable. Between his reading and Steinbeck's brilliant writing it was a very moving listen. No, I've never seen any film version of it - but the casting you mention does sound a little off.

I finally own an Oz book, Black Box, but haven't read it. I'm curious about his Arab-Israeli non-fiction books. Any you recommend?

Ha! Black Box is one of his that I've yet to read - you'll have to tell me how you found it once you read it.

If you want one of his books on the Arab-Israeli 'situation' then you should probably get How To Cure A Fanatic aka Help Us To Divorce. It is essentially two lectures plus an extended interview. Well worth reading and although written a few years back, is still very pertinent to the current reality.

If you wanted something a bit broader by him, you could try the excellent Under This Blazing Light. It's a collection of essays on a variety of subjects, including Zionism, kibbutz socialism, Hebrew literature, and although written mainly in the 1970s, it is still very rewarding and indicative of a fine writer's soul.

Thanks so much. I will look into these.

Paul, I got Between Friends out from the library earlier this week, the hardback edition published by Chatto & Windus came out in February.

Jealous! I hadn't thought of checking if it was out in the libraries already...

I have to confess, I'm a big fan of and user of the local library system, but Amos is probably the only writer, no add William Least Heat Moon and Larry Brown to the elite selection, whose books I kinda have to own. Otherwise I'd get it from the library too.

Just checked you-know-where, and the hardback comes out in the UK on May 2nd - just in time for my birthday a week later! Now Gaynor can choose between Between Friends and the Richard Burton Diaries which I REALLY want (especially as I've been working on my best Burton voice lately...).

ETA - I got both these books!
...And I also treated myself to three more missing from my Larry Brown collection and Jean Cash's biography - Larry Brown: A Writer's Life. Gotta splurge now and then!

I've spent most of my Sunday afternoon casually perusing some very fine other Club Reads. I'd been meaning to catch up with some of my starred threads for quite a while - what with falling behind with so much here on LT owing to the upheval in the first three months of my 2013.

Apart from feeling utterly humbled by the review quantity and quality of others, and consequently somewhat out of my league with my fairly paltry efforts to date, I have to say I'm finding my first year of following the various threads is proving extremely rewarding. As well as so many being so well composed, I'm finding no end of new additions to my wishlist.

What a fine thing LibraryThing is! Long may it continue.

Saturday at MI9 by Airey Neave

Safely home in London after an audacious escape from Colditz early in the Second World War (following his capture during the chaotic British Expeditionary Force's retreat to the coast in 1940), Neave is assigned to British Intelligence School Number 9 (the IS9(d) team within MI9 referred to thereafter in the book as "Room 900"). MI9 was tasked with aiding resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory and recovering Allied troops who found themselves behind enemy lines. It also communicated with British prisoners of war. IS9(d)was its more secret and executive branch. Based in two rooms at the War Office in Whitehall - including Room 900 - it was concerned chiefly with facilitating escape and evasion.

Codenamed 'Saturday', the author recollects how he was tasked with co-ordinating the various means of briefing and training new agents with their missions of establishing escape routes across the Pyrenees to Spain, or through occupied France or Belgium to the coast where clandestine return to England could be arranged.

The book is full of tales of extreme bravery on the part of those resistance workers and all sorts of civilians who regularly would risk their lives to aid the Allied cause. There are episodes of betrayal and deception galore, and Neave includes several helpful footnotes to highlight other relevant books to refer to covering similar material (many sadly now out of print, but not all).

Despite the exciting and fascinating subject matter, Neave's writing style is a little understated and rather dry. The book actually became a less interesting read to me on occasions, and I couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty at reading so casually about the immense acts of courage being described. Overall though a book well worth reading if you have any interest in this lesser known subject area within Second World War history.

I read Of Mice and Men many many years ago. I think that the only movie version I have seen was the one with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. It wasn't awful, but not really memorable either. The book is really wonderful. I had been thinking about a re-read, but your review of the audio version has me thinking I might get that. I listen to audio books when I have long car rides, and I am always looking for books that are well done. The narrator is so important in making it an enjoyable experience.

Interesting, I did not realise that Airey Neave had written about his time in British Intelligence.

>59 NanaCC:

Hi Colleen, thanks for stopping by! You're so right, the narrator is critical. I can only say again how good Clarke Peters is with his narration Of Mice and Men.

Ottolenghi/Tamimi watch:

Last night's supper, courtesy of Jerusalem was a mouthwateringly delicious pearl barley risotto with caraway marinated feta. Today I'm gonna make my first ever pitta bread, 'cos when I make my delicious falafels I don't want them ruined by some supermarket trash.

The best falafel I ever ate was from a cart in Jerusalem, although there are some excellent middle eastern restaurants in NYC.

I was just talking about Ottolenghi the other day when I came across panko breadcrumbs in a supermarket. I always love the idea of his recipes, but sometimes his ingredients can be a bit difficult to find.

Good luck with the pita!

oh Polaris if only you didn't live so far away! We'd all be right there, right people?

So - have you committed any Tiny Acts of Rebellion yet? I'm dying to hear! Maybe you should keep a rebellion log. I've taught my granddaughters to sticker bomb and they think it's so fun. We buy removable stickers and write "You look fine!" on them and put them on the mirrors in restrooms. Just silly but a nice point for my girls I think. I had seen a photo online of a restroom wall with the mirror missing and the phrase painted on in its place. Silly fun.

Paul, I loved Clarke Peters in the HBO series, The Wire.

There appears to be plenty to love about your cooking, and your enthusiasm for the Mediterranean food is catching.

And your review of Saturday at MI9 has piqued my interest.

Thank you all for your comments!

#63 - Rebecca, for me, the best ever was at a small kiosk at the bus station in Afula - although there are MANY contenders (a small Muslim quarter place in Jerusalem ties my own personal Hummus championship with a Yemeni room around the back of the Carmel market in Tel-Aviv. They could televise national Hummus or Felafel contests in Israel and get decent ratings...

#64 - You're right, sometimes their ingredients are tricky to get a hold of (Tamarind in south Wales anyone?) - one of the few things I miss about not living in London any more. Just have to improvise when necesssary (e.g. lemon or lime juice instead of tamarind water) and stock up on the exotic stuff when I get the opportunity! The pita bread actually came out really good - after I thought that the dough hadn't expanded enough... BUT there was way too much salt for our tastes so we were downing litres of cold drinks along with our meal. The bread actually stayed nice and fresh and soft until at least the 3rd or 4th day with no additives or junk thrown in. Suffice to say I won't buy pitta bread again.

#67 - Nana - Thank you. I also love Clarke Peters in the New Orleans set Treme as well. He plays my favourite character - the soulful but taciturn Indian Chief Albert Lambreaux.

#66 - Merrikay, Rich Fulcher's Tiny Acts of Rebellion is a lot of fun, but is a very silly book. It lives in the bathroom for now! Most of his acts are too silly or disgusting to give any modicum of publicity to here, let alone attempt in real life, but I can at least give you a little bit of the flavour ( - yes, I've made myself hungry again with the above ramblings - ) with this extract from Tiny Act, number 28 (titled 'Kara-not-okay', which suggests lampooning 'actual Japanes businessmen' who take their Karaoke a bit too seriously. By the way, the book is good fun, but only really works if you're familar with the UK-based comedian's 'enthusiastic' delivery style):

When it's your turn to sing, botch the lyrics up mightily. Show them it doesn't matter. Life still goes on if you sing 'Wake me up, before you oh-no' instead of 'go-go'. Watch the guys iin the back spew their pints of lard.

Example - 'Gowns to the left of me, chokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with shoes.'

Bearing in mind that this is one of his cleaner Tiny Acts, you get the picture... It's nowhere near as constructive as you and your granddaughters' sticker-bombing!

ETA italics.

ah well perhaps we'll stay with sticker-bombing for now. I'm afraid my karaoke-ing would make people cry.

Well my copy of Tiny Acts of Rebellion arrived today and it is just what I needed. I agree with your assessment, but there is a 12 yr old boy who lives inside of me and is great fun with this kind of humor! Thank for mentioning the book. I wil report back with any results.

Hey that's great Merrikay! I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to your report. Try not to get arrested though!

Indignation by Philip Roth

This brief novel was one that I found poignant and irresistibly compelling. Set in 1951 with the spectre of the distant Korean War overshadowing events, Marcus Messner is a 19 year old sophomore from Newark. A good Jewish boy, and the only child in a family of butchers, he is desperate to escape the cloying claustrophobia yet well meant concerns of his somewhat neurotic father - whose greatest fear is that his son, so clever and full of promise, will do something to land himself in immense danger. After his first year, Marcus switches from his local New Jersey college to a conservative former seminary, Winesburg, out in distant Mid-Western Ohio.

Determined to avoid social frivolities, work hard at his studies and graduate as Valedictorian, the plan is to make sure he gets drafted as an officer in the Intelligence Corps, rather than as a misfortunate Private in the front line. And so, much to his consternation, and accompanied in his head by the Chinese national anthem's dramatic intonation of "In-dig-na-tion, in-dig-na-tion", Marcus' troubles begin... Unable to settle in with his room-mates, unwilling to join in with fraternity life, and unprepared for falling in love with the beguiling and complex Olivia Hutton - the once suicidal and hospitalised 'blow-job princess'- the 'expert'; he struggles to refrain from walking away from it all and heading back to Newark. What with Winesburg's compulsory chapel attendance, the Dean of Men making him physically sick, and the cigar-chomping Republican college President, at least back home he'd only have his father to make his life a misery!

But this is no simple coming-of-age tale, or rite of passage story. Roth's great skill lies with disguising the difficult and the thought-provoking as a basic story, familiar to many of us. There is a cruel twist here that I won't mention, but when it came I was at once both fascinated and saddened. The wonderfully rich portrayal of Marcus' parents is in itself a study of what love means.

After first enjoying Philip Roth when I was about the same age as the young protagonist here (I loved 'Goodbye Columbus'), I'm really enjoying my unplanned for rediscovery of his books in the last year or so. After previously giving 'Zuckerman Unbound' the full five stars, I plan on completing the whole 'Zuckerman Bound' series in due course.

Good review of Philip Roth's Indignation From other reviews of Roth's novels I get the impression he is becoming a bit unfashionable and so it's good to read an enthusiastic review.

Thanks for that Barry.

Nice review of the Roth. Don't see too many of those around.

Cheers Kevin - great to see you here!

I'm not sure why that is really. I appreciate that fashions in literature come and go (as with music and, er, fashion I suppose...), but Roth is such a prolific author that, even taking into account the inevitable dud or two in more recent years, there really are so many good books out there by him.

Really enjoying Crazy Heart so far. Here's an excerpt from an early passage where our protagonist - beat up and worn out faded country star Bad Blake - is out on the road again, gigging from town to town across the dive bars and bowling alleys of the West. Here he is trying to settle in to another sagging hotel room:

Bad's heart lurches as though it's coming loose from its moorings. He blinks and groans. Despite the air-conditioning, he's still covered in sweat - the hair on his chest and belly sweated flat radiates like a thousand needles from his heart.

Ah I didn't know the movie was based on a book.

It was an excellent movie

Yes. I remember that movie too. Jeff Bridges won a few awards for his performance.

Jeff Bridges is my favourite American film actor.

He's The Dude! XD

Hey avid - good to have you here!

Thank you! I've been lurking around for quite a while. Loved your pithy one sentence review of the Steinbeck & am trying to figure out what tiny acts of rebellion I can go out and commit!

ok Polaris - I finished and reviewed Tiny Acts of Rebellion. Thanks for putting me on to that one.

I just thumbed your review - http://www.librarything.com/work/9186669/reviews/98206017 - Although I'm still alternating between it and the Faber Book of Reportage in the bathroom (talk about mood swings!), I'd say you have it about spot on.

Thanks Polaris! Maybe I should start a thread "Tiny Acts Challenge" because today I moved a box of condoms over to the diaper section in the store and put a box of diapers on the condom shelf. Do you have anything to report? Can't really do it cause I gave the book to my grandson, altho I suppose I could make up my own acts of rebellion. I can be really silly.

Thanks! Maybe we should start a thread for "Tiny Acts Accomplished" because today I moved a box of condoms to the diaper aisle. Altho, I gave the book to my grandson so can't start the thread unless I get creative on my own, right? Silly yes but then it did fill a gap in my Dewey Challenge.

>88 mkboylan: Merrikay, you probably didn't have far to go ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arafXoJx5NM

Also, I wouldn't consider moving the diapers to the condom aisle and the condoms to the diaper aisle so much as a tiny act of rebellion but more of a public service. ;)

Wow, in the stores I know in NYC the condoms are behind the counter -- you have to ask the cashiers for them. (I see them when I pay for other things, in case anyone is wondering.) That probably cuts into needed sales as well as theft, I would think.

Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb

I hadn't really planned on reading this when I did. Yes, Thomas Cobb's novel was on my seemingly endless 'to be read' list as soon as I saw the "based on a novel by..." in the credits rolling at the end of the terrific film adaptation, but I don't own a copy. I chanced upon it when browsing the audiobook shelves in my local library and, noticing that it was narrated by the author, thought it would make an excellent accompaniment to the rush hour commute. (I guess that Jeff Bridges wasn't available!)

Audiobooks aren't usually narrated by their authors so I thought that would be interesting as well, after all, nobody should really get the phrasing and timing as right as the person who created those words, right? Well, at first I was conscious of my own mind repeating over and over "...he's not Jeff Bridges, he's not Jeff Bridges...". Bridges plays the story's protagonist Otis 'Bad' Blake in the film, and very deservedly won the 2009 American Academy award for Best Actor. Bridges is also one of my favourite actors anyway, and I really loved the film, so it was always gonna be a tough comparison to measure up to...

Bad Blake is a tired and aging Country musician - "a singer and a picker" - whose star has been steadily fading for quite a few years now. He's been reduced to hitting the road out of his home town of Houston to cover the west's dive bars, bowling alleys, and assorted ropey old joints to make a living. He's become used to playing with sub-standard pick-up bands and sleeping off the night before through the air-conditioned motel room mornings. His trusty old van has seen better days, his agent posts meagre cash advances in towns 2 days away, and with four failed marriages behind him, there's nobody waiting for him back at home. Bad is out of shape and out of condition, and he is an unreformed alcoholic. I love the character that Thomas Cobb created. He feels real. He has a voice that you want to listen to. Yes he can be curt on occasion, and does feel a bit sorry for himself, but he's basically a good guy who is looking back on a life in the business with more than a few regrets. It doesn't have to be the music business, but I like writers who can create such authentic characters. People with their fair share of flaws, people with a bit of grit.

This is on one level a touching love story. While gigging through Sante Fe, Bad is interviewed for the local paper by Jean Craddock - a thirtysomething single mum of 4 year old Bud. Jean, cautious and understandably guarded at first, eventually falls for the undeniable charm that Bad still has. But, as ever in life, things are far from straightforward. Bad has a 24 year old son of his own that he's not seen since he was about little Bud's age - Jean persuades him to consider reaching out. Bad has a connection or two with the press in Houston and suggests Jean come over to visit and check her options...

In the background all the while Bad suffers what he feels is the indignity of needing to sell song compositions to his one time sideman Tommy Sweet - now a big stadium filling star performer. But Tommy hasn't written a hit record of his own for a while, and needs Bad's magic touch when it comes to penning a chart-topper. Bad on the other hand hasn't had a record of any description for many years now and is practically pleading with Tommy , through very gritted teeth, to commit to an album of duets that could resurrect his career. He really needs it. Laid up injured following a road accident caused by not enough sleep, and inspired by his muse Jean, Bad writes two soulful songs that have 'hit' written all over them - "She's Gonna Need Someone To Walk To" and "Is This Gonna Hurt Again?". Through all this there is Bad's obvious dependence on drinking.

Everything is thrown into sharp relief when Jean and Bud finally come to visit Bad over in Houston. Bad's been preparing the ground for weeks... There follows some experiences there that illuminate things once and for all, for all concerned, and the story of Crazy Heart twists and turns a few times before meeting its moving and poignant ending.

Obviously the book has several chapters and scenes in it that didn't make it to the film adaptation. There are frequent flashback scenes of Bad's past - days on the road as a young man, as a boy growing up in Judy, Indiana, his time as a famous star of Country when he was rich and gave away Cadillacs to strangers, his marriages - especially his second to the mother of his son Stephen. All of which go some way to considerably building the life of Bad Blake in the reader's mind. Cobb's story is essentially a doomed love story of an alcoholic. It is not really a story about Country music per se, but it is about people and relationships and lives. That though of course, would be what Country music really is anyway - Bad himself would certainly have it that way, he says more or less the same in his first interview with Jean in his clammy hotel room - so perhaps Cobb did write a Country novel after all? Where this book is really elevated above the level of the ordinarily 'decent' or 'accomplished' though, is with the author's superb realisation of Bad Blake. I've tried in a feeble way to highlight some of the flavour of that characterisation. It is what makes this a very memorable novel. I recommend it to all who love a good story, well told.

>87 mkboylan:-88
Ha!! Keep up the good work!

>89 avidmom:
Thanks for the stand-up - funny!

And ain't it funny the twists and turns a club read can take? I like it!

Nice review on Crazy Heart. You've totally sold me on it.

Glad you liked the stand up. We're big Gabriel Iglesias (aka "Fluffy") fans here.

Cheers Avid! I'd not heard of Fluffy before, but it's a funny bit - I liked the punchline.

Excellent review of Crazy Heart. Like you Polaris I would be hard pushed to picture anybody else than Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake. It seemed that that role was made for Jeff Bridges. Still there does seem to be more in the book than made it into the film and if this went towards filling out the character of Bad Blake then all to the good. I will keep a look out for this one.

Very nice review of Crazy Heart. My experience has been that authors do not necessarily make good readers. There are a few favorite exceptions - Neil Gaiman and Sarah Vowell. It sounds like once you got past the "not Jeff Bridges" he turned out to be a good reader for the book. (I love Jeff Bridges!)

>95 baswood:
Thanks Barry!

>96 NanaCC:
Thank you Colleen, and yes, in the end I thought that Thomas Cobb did do a good job. He's no Bridges of course (or Clarke Peters...see the Steinbeck above...), but he did well enough for me to only hear Bad Blake talking.

Paul, Where did you find the audiobook Of Mice and Men narrated by Clarke Peters? Audible and iTunes both have it, but narrated by Gary Sinise.

I got it from my local library, but it is available on Amazon.co.uk - and probably other finer book selling establishments. Published by Clipper Audio.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mice-Men-John-Steinbeck/dp/1405509120/ref=sr_1_1?s=books...

ETA:
I just learnt today from my missus that apparently Clarke Peters has been living in the UK since the 1970s!

Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

Well, it just wasn't meant to be. I've only fairly recently started reading John le Carré's books - I really loved The Spy Who Came in From The Cold (a five star read for me) and also enjoyed Call For The Dead - the first in the George Smiley series. I've since added several others that look good to the wishlist, including the new one that just came out A Delicate Truth, as well as picking up the odd charity shop bargain like The Little Drummer Girl. So it was with some confidence that I checked out a library audiobook of Our Kind of Traitor. It's narrated by a fine British Shakespearean actor called Michael Jayston. One of his best known roles was as Tsar Nicholas II in the 1970s film 'Nicholas and Alexandra'. He even played Peter Guillem opposite Alec Guinness' Smiley in the fantastic tv adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. So far so good.

The voice of the narrator is pretty critical with an audiobook, so it was with some disappointment that I realised, as it dawned on me while paying attention to the opening tracks of the story, that there was something about Jayston's voice that really bugged me. It is utterly irrational, and quite inexplicable - but I think he did a lot of advertising voice-overs through the years - and I can weirdly now only associate his voice with an innocuous, though somewhat annoying, hand cream advert from the 1980s that has evidently lodged itself deep in my memory - only to be disturbed by the seemingly cultured pronounciations coming out of my car stereo speakers some quarter of a century later...

That and the fact that I really disliked an Aussie accent for one character - it sounded almost South African to me. Anyway, when I put the second disc (of ten) in to play, my CD player just would not read it. I checked again and again, and it was THAT particular disc, not my machine - all the other discs working fine. I felt I was just reaching the point where I could forget about the voice and just concentrate on enjoying hearing the intriguing plot unfold, but fate had intervened to prevent me from dwelling on Michael Jayston's smarmy voice any longer.

Abandoned.

ETA - Just learnt this from the net: British LT'ers will know him as the voice of the long running Annadin ad during the 70s and 80s - featuring the opening gambit "Tense, nervous headache...?"

Oh, well, I guess they can't all be winners!
Sounds like you need some Annadin now. ;)

Oh, that happened to me with A Test of Wills, an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery by Charles Todd. The narrator for the first 4 or 5 books is Samuel Giles. He just put me off listening to the rest of the series until Simon Prebble takes up the 10th book. I will need to read the paper copy until then. The book was quite good. But the reader.... Ugh...

I've only attempted one audio book and didn't get very far with it. It's one of my goals for the year - listen to an audio book. Question though, does it take more time or less time to listen to a book than read one?

It really depends on the book. For most of the mysteries I enjoy, in paper form I could probably read in a day or two at most. The audio books I listen to in the car, and at 12 or more hours of reading time, it takes me a while. And sometimes they are much longer than that. The reader is really important. They can make or break the enjoyment.

Sometimes a multi reader book can be excellent. The Help was fabulous.

If the reader's voice is annoying, then it just won't work. All very subjective of course.

103 -

I would've thought that audio was always quicker than reading no? Or maybe I'm just not a very quick reader... I usually listen when I'm driving, and if I've had my fill of bad news and trouble on the radio...

Occasionally I do need to skip a track back to its beginning - and they're usually only 2 or 3 minutes so that's no big deal - especially if I've just been negotiating some heavy traffic or an unfamiliar street layout and have to concentrate on road signs and such, but generally I find it really easy to get into the flow of things if the book is decent (and the reader doesn't annoy...).

I personally wouldn't enjoy them as much If I was just at home on a sofa, I'd rather read a regular book.

I was disappointed by Our Kind of Traitor too; I think le Carre just can't match what he did in the Smiley series and my all-time favorite, A Perfect Spy, which is about so much more than spying.

Thanks for mentioning A Perfect Spy Rebecca. It looks excellent and I like the reviews... I just added it to the wishlist.

The Faber Book of Reportage edited by John Carey

This was a fascinating collection to dip in and out of in small doses. Reading too much of it in one sitting would have been a bit overwhelming and - certainly in the latter 20th century chapters - also somewhat depressing. Such is the perhaps unfortunate emphasis on military history and various violent episodes, particularly in the modern era, that it loses a star for my rating. There are many chapters here though also of a social history bent - including pieces from historic medical notes, notorious crimes, and also several great natural events such as Pliny the Younger on the eruption of Vesuvius, a 1724 solar eclipse, and Jack London on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

There are many gripping and unique perspectives given throughout this book to much of human history. That said, there is precious little from African, Latin American, or Asian history (unless there is a colonial, pseudo-colonial or ex-colonial war going on...). But if it's battles, assassinations, plagues, historic firsts, executions, exploration and great acts of derring-do, advancements in technology, ritual practices, prisons, mutinies, revolutions, and sporting occasions you're after - then this is the book for you!

Many excerpts stood out, making the collection well worth it if you can find a used copy online or happen upon one in a used bookshop. There were also a fair few less memorable pieces. With just a handful shy of 300 contributions, totaling 686 pages that is inevitable. Some of my personal favourites were: Plato on the death of Socrates; 3 different eye-witness reports of the sinking of the Titanic; Dinner with Atilla the Hun in about the year 450; Oskar Kokoschka with Austrian cavalry on the Eastern Front in 1915; Noel Monks' report from Guernica - just before AND after the German bombing - incredibly moving; Cecil Brown's ship-borne report from the Japanese air & submarine attack (read sinking) of HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse, in Singapore just a few days after Pearl Harbor - shocking in its rapidity; and Charlotte Bronte inside the Great Exhibition's Crystal Palace.

Now that sounds interesting!

Interesting ... and depressing. But that's history for you. Sounds like quite a tome too!

I'm glad to have read it, but I'm also glad to have it out of my bathroom at last (it's been in there for months)!

>The Faber Book of Reportage sounds very interesting!

I agree that the reader on an audiobook is key. I tag each audio with "Read by {x}" and if I especially love or hate the voice I'll add a :) or :( .

As for speed, I think it's faster to read than speak (listen); I'm a slower reader because I tend to sub-vocalize. On the other hand, I can listen to an audiobook (especially when captive in a car) longer without a break than I can read.

Hi Paul, I picked up a copy of The Faber Book of Reportage at a bookfair for a few pennies and will also make it a 'slow read'. I want to read Carey's biography of William Golding first though.

Audiobooks are slower than actual reading but the narration when good sure makes up for that. One I can recommend if you haven't read the book yet is Michael Oren's Six days of war. You still need the actual book for the extensive 70+pages of source notes but I really enjoyed listening this one.
My favourite narrator is John Lee, I found him in scifi but have recently listened to him narrate The Count of Monte Cristo - bliss.

I agree, John Lee is a wonderful narrator. I first heard him narrating Birds Without Wings by Louis de Berieres. The story was wonderful, and his narration made it more so.

>112 detailmuse:
Great to have you here DM!

I think my problem lately with reading as opposed to listening is that I'm just so tired whenever I sit down (or lie down) with a book that I rarely manage more than 2 or 3 pages at a time - however good the read is! Maybe that's why my audiobooks seem to go much quicker - as I have no choice but to be wide awake while I'm driving!

>113 avatiakh:
Watermelon it's really nice to see you!

I noticed you gave Six Days of War five stars - and I've read plenty of good reviews of it. I reckon I will read it sooner or later, but as I read Tom Segev's brilliant 1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East not all that long ago, I'll probably leave it for a little while. Although I don't like to plan my reading too much, I have been thinking that I'm gonna pick my copy of The Seventh Day off the shelf very soon.

>114 NanaCC:
Colleen, I will keep an eye out for anything I come across narrated by John Lee. Who knows, that way I might just pick something up I mightn't of otherwise...

Oh yes, I want to read The seventh day too, I think reading Amos Oz's In the land of Israel got me motivated to read that one.

Kerry, I meant to say that I'm catching up with your 75-er thread right now (parts 1 AND 2!). Enjoying it very much, as I expected. Just seen you mention (back in January if you can recall...) your brother driving the road trains in WA. Wow! There's a job I might have fancied if things had worked out a little different...

I'm making do at the moment with my Aussie trucking stories anthology by Jim Haynes. I just read the Nullarbor Kid's account of crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the 1950s. Talk about hard! And I love the name 'Nullarbor' as well! When I was over in WA back in January/February I kept nagging my brother to come with me on a road trip out as far as Norseman - he kept on telling me that it was really REALLY far - and we never did it. (To be fair, I was on holiday, and he was very busy getting together a book project.) Perhaps the next time I'm over under...

Glad to hear you are wide awake when you are driving

I don't know how I lost track of this thread but.....

Avid- yes thanks for the link. I had never heard of him and I am hooked. SO funny!

90 Rebecca Michael Moore did a bit on his old tv show where he had a man go around to different stores in NYC and ask for small condoms. It was pretty funny watching the clerks, who said they had no such thing. Finally one kind clerk said "Oh you mean snug-fitting." and sold him a box. What crazy obsessions we have. Sheesh!

I also liked Crazy Heart and Bridges was perfect.

The Faber book sounds pretty interesting.

Also, I don't know why, but I want to read the Australian trucking one.

It's always nice to hear from you Merrikay!
I'm enjoying the trucking stories. They make me want to go on a road trip...

Reading Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili McConnon and Andres McConnon.


Gino Bartali in the race leader's Yellow Jersey (1938)


Bartali (in white cap) attacks the race climbing up the monstrous Galibier in the Alps

Mussolini's Fascist regime had actively attempted to manipulate Gino Bartali's career, in an attempt to reflect favourably on their policies. (A publication entitled Manifesto of the Racial Scientists - espousing Italian 'racial' superiority would appear during the victorious 1938 Tour). Bartali was a religiously observant Catholic, at the time when Il Duce's Rome and the Vatican were increasingly at odds with each other. He was a proud and famous member of 'Catholic Action', and Pope Pius XI had publicly criticised the Manifesto...

The Fascists directly warned Gino away from defending his Giro d'Italia title earnt in 1937 - he was effectively forced out of his home grand tour - so that he would bring honour to the nation by winning the French race instead.

Upon winning the world's most prestigious race (only the second Italian ever to do so) ...some reporters used Gino's victory as an attempt to praise Mussolini, with one journalist referring to Gino as "Mussolini's Sports Ambassador" and another declaring that Gino had obeyed Mussolini's command to win."

The climax for the propaganda machine should have been the victor's acceptance speech...it was the perfect opportunity to try to transform an athletic success into a political one. Gino would have been aware that Fascist officials were expecting him to praise and thank them.

In the end, Gino spoke as he saw fit. In his address to French radio listeners, he made a completely apolitical statement thanking his fans in France and Italy, his voice at times nearly drowned out by the spectators screaming in the stands. As one modern Italian historian explains it "In 1938, {when Italy won football's World Cup} everyone knew that they had to thank Il Duce. So if Bartali didn't do it, it was a definite political gesture."

His address to Italian radio listeners remains more of a mystery because the recording no longer exists... In a secret report about Gino maintained by the regime's political police...Gino 'mumbled' instead of praising the regime...


Triumphant Bartali - Winner of Tour de France, July 1938

(ETA - I'm only 95 pages in of 316...this story has a way to go yet. I'm rivetted by it so far. If only I could keep awake longer at night to read it quicker!)

Great pictures Polaris

You've got my attention. I've never heard of this guy before! Sounds like a great story. Are those pictures in the book?

Bartali sounds like a brave soul at a time when so many were afraid to stand up.

123>
Thanks Barry! I think that pretty much most photos of cycling in the black and white era tend to look great. I'm a little disappointed though that nobody's mentioned the guys cheating on the motorbikes...

124>
No Avid, they're not. But there are plenty of other good photos in the book in the photo pages in the centre (what are those pages called?).

125>
He was Colleen. It's a great story that I know in general, but am learning the specifics from this fine book. I know that he has since been posthumously honoured with a dedication at the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles in Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Fascinating story.

Just returned yesterday from a great weekend in Amsterdam. A stag weekend for seven, and yes, we all had a very fine time! For those who've never been - it's a small and beautiful city. Full of lots of friendly people, there are plenty of things to do there to interest a wide variety of tastes.

A personal highlight for me was finding the Hotel Prins Hendrik near the station where jazz musician Chet Baker sadly died. Baker has long been one of my favourite trumpet players (I used to fancy that I could play a bit like him when I was a cocky 20 year old) and he had a beautiful voice. He sang how he played and played how he sang. Laid back, lyrical, romantic, sun-kissed - all in all the epitomy of what became known in the '50s as 'West Coast Cool'. Anyway, sadly Baker was an habitual heroin user, and this blighted his life and career to say the least. He fell from his modest Amsterdam hotel window in 1988.



The memorial says:

Trumpet player and singer
CHET BAKER
died here on May 13th 1988
He will live on in his music
for anyone willing
to listen and feel



We dodged the showers on Saturday morning and took in the Dutch Resistance Museum. I thought it was very good - pitched just about right to cater for a range of possible visitors. I did though find that the path you're meant to follow through the narrative of wartime resistance was a bit of a warren at times.
I managed to score a good book there for just 2 Euros - The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 by Alistair Horne. It was the only English language book available on the used shelf in the museum shop. Luckily for me, it's a subject I'm interested in, and it was a nice old 1970s Penguin Classics in very good condition.

Mini-haul today when I nipped into a charity shop in Blackwood in between site visits, all for just £1 each!

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
(long on the wishlist)
The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
(another old wishlist job!)
The Accident by Ismail Kadare

The last I didn't previously know, but Kadare is an author I've been meaning to read. I thought it looked an interesting plot, then I get home and see on LT some very 'mixed' reviews to put it kindly... Oh well.

ETA:
Also picked up a few pre-ordered audiobooks from the library:

Wild Child by T. C. Boyle (read by the author - I like those) and The Liars' Gospel by Naomi Alderman.

Hey! I have Pretor-Pinney The Cloud Collector's Handbook. Let me know how this one is.

and by the way - I just finished a book about the French Resistance and you had to go and report on the Dutch Resistance. I was planning to take a break and read something light but now.........thanks a lot!

I stayed in Haarlem when I was over there and woke up one morning to find the square filled to overflowing with books - a surprise to me book fair. It was amazing! I couldn't believe my luck! Also while I was there, the fire alarm in the hotel went off. We are so used to false alarms we couldn't decide whether to go out or not but decided we should. Got a nice whiff of someone's marijuana smoke on the way out. An hour or so later we were having an ice cream down the street and the firefighters were sitting at a table there. I asked if I could take their picture for my daughter (ha!) and they said yes, if I answered one question. "Why is it you Americans are the only ones who get out when a fire alarm goes off?" He was actually pretty cranky about those who stayed inside. I thought that was pretty funny. I don't want to talk about what it says about Americans, thank you very much.

Glad you had a good time.

ETA Thanks for the great pic and jazz story!

That sounds like a great weekend.

I too have fond memories of Amsterdam, I love the brown café culture. Nice tribute to Chet Baker; one of the greats. I am hoping to get up to Amsterdam later in the year for a long weekend, it's just the place for a l--oooong weekend.

>122 Polaris-: - Can't say I had heard of that tour but I had heard of Bartali before, as he won the first Tour where the leader wore a yellow jersey.
Does it mention anything about pre-war doping? I have read places that they used to use strychnine and ether, not to mention alcohol.

>129 Polaris-: - I can imagine that Boyle is a good reader. I saw him at the Edinburgh Book Festival a couple of years ago and he was excellent. It was a surprise when he then said he felt very uncomfortable doing (live) readings and usually avoided them.

Sounds like fun; I'd love to go to Amsterdam some day. I have to confess I gave up on The Cloudspotter's Guide a few years ago. I was really interested in learning more about clouds, but Pretor-Pinney's wordiness and "humor" drove me nuts. Hope you like it better (and that you like your book better too, Merrikay).

Thanks everyone for the contributions. I'm hoping to catch up this weekend with some of the other Club Reads, and a sprinkling of 75'ers... There are so many I'm trying to follow - but they're all so good. I genuinely think I'd suffer major withdrawal symptoms if LT were to vanish tomorrow!

130>
Merrikay - I think the cloud spotting book will be next in the bathroom once I've finished the trucking stories... I also only recently finished a resistance-linked book with my Airey Neave memoir of wartime escape routes in NW Europe (see post #58), so the Dutch struggle was still quite fresh in my mind. It was fortunate, as the museum visit had not been planned, we'd just all been on a bit of a bender the night before and needed something quiet to do that we all had some interest in while it was raining. It was well worth it. Oh, and trust me, when I hear a fire alarm in a hotel - I'm outta there. No matter how inebriated I might be! Oh, and a book fair - very nice too!

131>
Colleen it really was thanks. We went pretty easy on the stag...he's a gentle soul. Though we did insist on him wearing some mildly comedic false moustaches as our conditions progressively worsened. He ended up looking like a mid-20th century RAF officer with every single one of them though! Very much like Peter Seller's Group Captain Lionel Mandrake from Dr Strangelove!

132>
You must Barry, if you can. You'll be pleased you did.

133>
Jargoneer - there's not been much reference to doping so far in this particular book, but I've read enough cycling history books to know that it certainly did. It was pretty widespread, certainly at the very top of the sport of course. There have been countless accounts of early rouleurs using all manner of stimulants - including as you say alcohol (brandy, cognac even!!), and even cocaine and amphetamines. British World Champion (and 1st Yellow Jersey wearer) Tom Simpson died during 1967's Tour while in the saddle. I think it was an amphetamine cocktail of tablets that did him in. Very sad. Cycling is riddled with many a dramatic and sad tale, not just to do with doping: suicides, alleged murder, cheating in non-dopage related ways, and assorted political propaganda - as with the Bartali book I'm reading.

It does make me laugh though, the ridiculous attempt by the authorities to right past wrongs by scratching Lance Armstrong's name from the record books - when it remains known that many other past winners of the Tour also doped, and that probably includes a certain famous Belgian who most fans agree is probably the greatest all-round cyclist of all time...
Nobody's suggested removing their names as well...

T. C. Boyle IS a good reader. This is my first book of his and I'm really enjoying it so far.

134>
Rebecca, with so much good reading to catch up with around the message boards, and with all the fine things you're usually reading, I'm flattered that you stop by to add something here - thanks!

>135 Polaris-: - the Armstrong case is a farce. No-one believes that the riders he beat were not on drugs which levels the playing-field again. (Naturally there will have been a few who were clean but that was probably the minority, the only thing that therefore distorts the competition is that some teams have better drugs than others). Some of the treatment Armstrong has received is due to payback - he wasn't particularly liked by the press and he set lawyers on any reporter who doubted his honesty - and that fact he traded so effectively on his being clean.
I think the Tour organisers are partly to blame - they wanted each tour to be more demanding but faster, the feats of endurance and speed more incredible.

136>
Not just the Tour organisers, but all of those executives at the top of professional cycling have been to blame. Some of those bosses are still in place. But cycling's not unique - just look at the way Sepp Blatter runs world football like it's his own private empire.

Polaris, if you like T C Boyle, you might like his Water Music, one of his earliest books, but I think one of his best. It's the book that got me reading most of the rest of his works.

I read Wild Child last year, but it would be interesting to hear it read by Boyle himself. I tried audio books recently on my road trip to Vermont, but suspect I was paying too much attention to what was happening around me for it to be successful. Maybe indoors in winter would work.

>135 Polaris-: I genuinely think I'd suffer major withdrawal symptoms if LT were to vanish tomorrow!

Definitely! LT vanish...
What a horrible, horrible thought!

>128 Polaris-: Thanks for sharing your Amsterdam experience. What a sad story about Chet Baker.

> 129 I would really love to read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee one day too.

>135 Polaris-:
Jargoneer, you're right - it is a farce - underlined by the fact that only this week the 1997 'winner' Jan Ullrich confirmed what we all knew that he had doped on several occasions in the past. I'm no fan of Armstrong's - he came across as too arrogant and charmless, and it always annoyed me that he barely rode other non-TdF events in the cycling calendar - but I think his name should remain in the record books. Put an asterisk next to his name (and all other winners known to have cheated) by all means, but otherwise, to be consistent we'd end up with a half empty record book. It is a part of the sport's dark history and should not be swept under the carpet.

>138 SassyLassy:
Sassy, thanks for the tip. I'll certainly keep an eye out for others by him, including Water Music.

>139 avidmom:
Thanks for stopping by again Avid. Dee Brown's book has just been one of those I knew I should read, and would keep on seeing - in varying conditions and prices - in used shops. So when I saw what looks like an unread copy for just a quid, in a charity shop, I had to buy it. Sadly, in this part of the south Wales valleys charity shops seem to be the only physical shops around with books for sale. (I'm excluding the supermarkets as they don't sell books I want - except for maybe some cookery books - and I'm trying to only buy used, and I also don't like them undercutting the independents anyway...)

Wild Child by T. C. Boyle

My first read of anything by T. C. Boyle and I liked it. Unfortunately my library copy only had the title novella and there were no other accompanying short stories. It would have been good to have other stories to balance the feel of this particular story.

I was put in mind a little of the story of - The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser - in that the reader is introduced to a feral child with no language, no education, no self-awareness, no shame, no family, and so on. The story - based on the early 18th century true story of Victor of Aveyron - tells of how one man of inexhaustible patience attempts to 'civilise' a 'savage' child.

Abandoned by a parent who bungled their attempt to slit the child's throat, Victor had grown up alone in woodlands, living in nature, eating uncooked vegetables, fruits, and occasional tastes of raw meat. Eventually, as rumours of occasional sightings grew in number, the boy is captured and taken in to post-revolutionary French life. What follows is a catalogue of incidents, some progressive, some regressive, which retell how he is passed from one institution to the next until he eventually arrives into the care of a young and ambitious academic at the National Institute for the Deaf in Paris. Efforts to impart some form of belated education on Victor are largely unsuccesful, although there are momentary breakthroughs. It is an interesting and ultimately tragic tale.

The writer narrated my audiobook and that was a big plus. I'd certainly like to read other stories by T. C. Boyle.

Big brother came over for a flying visit (my sibling, not the big meanies reading your emails) - on his way back home Down Under, and I found myself browsing a small but perfectly stocked used book shop on the edges of Brighton as I was on my own way back home.

I got to the counter with about 12 paperbacks balanced in my hands - had to put a few back - but ended up with a nice mini-haul of stuff on the old wishlist:

The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
From Here To Eternity by James Jones
A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
Dirt Music by Tim Winton
and
Demonology - a collection of short stories by Rick Moody.

Big brother came over for a flying visit (my sibling, not the big meanies reading your emails)
LOL

Glad to see that the T.C. Boyle did not disappoint. All I can think of when I see From Here to Eternity is the clip from the movie I've seen over and over and over ....

Nice review of the Boyle. Too sad to read.

Don't you think just the titles alone of those books you bought are excellent?! I have to go click on them all. Look forward to your reviews.

Glad you got to be with your brother. and me too LOL at the Big Brother comment. AND the stupid movie clip Avid!

Too bad about your edition from the library, as the full book has quite a range of themes, however, I'm glad you've decided to follow up on Boyle.
Nice haul at the bookstore. I'll be interested to see what you think of Dirt Music.

So, we've had a few days to digest the LT re-design, and I've still not totally decided whether I like it all... I liked the old design very much - especially how my Home page appeared.

Today, just as I'm thinking that I like the new colours (although I liked the LT salmon in the top bar just fine too...) and a lot of the customisable options for the dashboard are nice... but something was bugging me about the white space at the sides. You see I use a teeny tiny laptop most of the time at home - just a 10 and a quarter inches from corner to corner - so I wasn't getting as much of an LT 'hit' whenever I landed on my favourite website. Suddenly this evening I had the idea to just adjust the display size ('CTRL' and '+' or '-') and that has got things just how I want it: smaller font sizes = more 'hit' on my screen; with a 'large' size setting for my recently added shelves (x3) at the top of the Home page - means I get a nice display of beautiful and readable book covers. Which is pretty much how I like it.

All in all I'm definitely warming to it. Intrigued to find out what other changes Tim and the gang have got in store....

ETA - And I'm wondering how others are customising their home pages, and how most people use LT in general? At home with a laptop, or a desktop PC, a tablet, or a smartphone?? On the run from place to place, or settled down for a good session with a glass of something nice?

I am ok with the Dashboard changes, I think. I haven't played with it too much yet. When I was working, they were constantly changing the interfaces to some of the programs that we used, so I think I am used to things changing.

I spend way too much time on LT reading threads, instead of reading the books I want to get done. :-) but if I wait too long, I get so far behind that I feel it is a chore to play catch up. At home I use a laptop, but when I am traveling I use my iPad. I can use my iPhone in a pinch, but the screen is too small to use it too often. A glass of wine is always nice, but definitely with my coffee in the morning.

I like the changes and have played around with reorganizing the stuff that's on the homepage; my favorite thing is the "shelf" or "shelves."
Just like NanaCC, I usually start my day with a cup of coffee and lurking around LT.

Thanks AvidMom, I hadn't seen all the ways you could customise your dashboard until I read your post! Now I am a fan of the new design....

I am still playing around with my home page. I do like the options and I have already forgotten what the old format looked like.

I'm afraid if I try to change anything my page will explode.

You really can't break it, Merrikay. Play a little. You can always "restore default" if you don't like it. :)

LOL Nana! Yeah yeah! I'll try it out eventually! Altho, I'm not sure I really care that much.

Hey Tree Man! If you have a minute would you please look at m review of Book 71 and talk to me about trees?

Thanks.
Merrikay

The Best Australian Trucking Stories, hmmm. Have you seen Peter Weir's The Cars that Ate People (touchstone is incorrect), originally titled The Cars That Ate Paris? Is it like that?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071282/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast

Then there's the John Sayles short story: "I-80 Nebraska"

Finished The Liars' Gospel at the weekend, but haven't had time to write a review yet... still considering it all... but I definitely liked it a lot.

Catching up from way way back. I once read a terrible entry in a literary journal by T C Boyle and have been unwilling to read him since. Maybe I should give him another chance...but there are so many other authors to try...

And I was suprised to find myself interest in Indignation after reading your review. Philip Roth is another author I had kind of written off...

Oh, and I use whatever is at hand. Right now an I-pad as I wait for my son to fall asleep. But I'll use my phone, the big machine (lately a Mac), whatever is easiest...

And cool picture of you in#138

Anyway, Paul, enjoying your thread. I would like to know what Gino Bartali did to get on the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles.

Thanks Dan. Great to have you pop in again. I appreciate your comments about Indignation. Cheers for the comment on the photo and the thread and all... I'm still plugging away with the Bartali book - like the mighty grimpeur ascending the Galibier bit by bit. It's a very good read, but I'm just so worn out with this new job that I'm barely managing 2 pages a night before zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.................................

I want to know too! The story is gradually unfolding and I'll be sure to review it eventually.

The Liars' Gospel by Naomi Alderman

I thought I was going to like this - that's why you checked it out of the library Paul you dumbdumb - but I REALLY liked it! A piece of historical fiction set in the time of Roman occupied Judea, early in the first century CE. Before the first of four parts begin there is an introduction that perfectly sets the tone for much of what lies ahead: The ritual sacrifice of a lamb in the Jerusalem temple (that's THE Temple of course, Herod the Great's rebuilt version of King Solomon's earlier destroyed Temple) is accounted for in considerable detail. A twice daily performed ceremony of utmost importance in the Judean (or 'Jewish') religion, the description is at once something that made this reader feel simultaneously queasy and awe-inspired. The slaughter is given the context of the daily ceremonial life of the Temple, and the various sacrificial offerings large and small made by the faithful visiting pilgrims rich and poor alike.

Then the Romans arrive...General Pompey's forces occupy Jerusalem and eventually take control of the Temple. Under his command the conquering army is obviously tough, but actually is reasonably considered and fair. His orders are to not desecrate the temple. The Roman Empire permits the occupied Judeans to carry on with the worship of their God Yahweh.

With this setup complete the story begins. It is broken into four parts - each telling a story from the point of view of (in order) - Miryam (Mary), a mother in Nazareth whose eldest son Yehoshua (Jesus) was crucified in Jerusalem a year earlier; Yehuda Ish-Karyot {man of Kariot} (Judas Iscariot), a former disciple of the same Yehoshua, who was thought to be dead, but is actually living as a reinvented and Romanised gentleman in the regional port town Caesaria; Caiaphas, the Cohen HaGadol or High Priest of the Temple; and finally Bar-Avo (Barabbas), an anti-Roman rebel leader.

Alderman does a superb job at convincingly portraying 1st century life in Roman Israel as it really might have been. The sights, sounds and smells of various markets, villages, bath-houses, and homes of the rich and poor, Roman and Jew, really come across. The food and drink is lavishly accounted for - a good selection of olives, fresh figs, white cheeses and a nice glass of wine will go well with this book!

{SPOILERS AHEAD}

Gideon, a youth escaped from an anti-Roman riot in Jaffa, and one who it turns out both knew and followed the crucified teacher Yehoshua, turns up frost-bitten and nearly dead one winter up in the high hills of Galilee that surround Nazareth. Once nursed back to health he becomes a goat herd and domestic help in Miryam's household. We learn that her husband Yosef is estranged. The Romans are hot on the trail and come looking for the escaped one from Jaffa, while Miryam risks the whole village's safety by uncharacteristically lying about how long Gideon's been staying with them. At first Miryam is resentful of the fact that this boy seems to have known her son in a way that she could not in the last year or two of his life, (since when Yehoshua had stopped coming home) and doesn't really want a daily reminder that he went off the rails so to speak and was killed in punishment by the Romans. But at the same time she is glad to have someone in the home who is interested in her recollections of her departed son as a boy. Gideon's stated love for her son's teachings somehow seem to keep his memory alive for her.

Yehuda Ish-Kariot is portrayed as a very complex and sensitive man, and one who thinks quite deeply. Living as an 'enslaved guest' in the home of a wealthy Roman citizen and merchant, Yehuda's party-piece, at his host's behest, is to "tell that funny story of the one in Jerusalem who thought he was the King". As with Conrad's Marlowe, Alderman has her character tell the story as a sequence of past events. Yehuda tells how much he loved his dearly departed wife, and that he almost didn't recover from her sudden death. Once he has encountered a small group of men banded together on the road in the company of their Nazarene teacher, he throws his lot in with them and becomes an especially passionate believer in his ministry. As the group grew and attracted increasing attention, Yehuda finds himself somewhat at odds with Yehoshua's seemingly carefree attitude to those proclaiming him the 'Annointed One', the Messiah.

The episode of Lazarus' sister Mary annointing Jesus' feet with a pint of very expensive spikenard oil (John 12:1–10), just before the Passover in Bethany, is reworked by Alderman with considerable verve. (The village where she has it happen is called Beit-Ani {in Hebrew the 'house' or 'place of the poor'} and it is Yehoshua's head which is annointed. Alderman seems to loosely base her retold parables on a sort of amalgam of the different canonic gospels familiar to many.) Yehuda doesn't understand why such an expensive ointment (worth a labourer's annual wage) wasn't sold to feed the poor, and doesn't understand his teacher's vague response. He becomes increasingly disillusioned...

Caiaphas' story is interesting in that it is told in almost complete isolation from the story of Jesus. We learn of the daily comings and goings of a privileged and powerful family. The High Priest is in effect the 'spiritual leader' of the local Jewish population, and has a pseudo-political role. As such, it is fascinating to see the portrayal of the relationship between the occupied and the occupier. (I couldn't help but draw my own clumsy analogy with the ongoing situation in modern Israel regarding the 'autonomous' Palestine Authority... but that's another conversation for another day.) His concerns are primarily with the purity of his own soul (and by extension the soul of the nation as a whole) - which extends to the purity of his wife's soul - as every year on the holy Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur - he must proffer himself before God in the Temple's inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. This is where God lives and only the High Priest must ever step foot there, and only ever on that day. A Rope will be tied to his ankle so that he may be pulled out should the Lord smite him there and then as has happened before. Understandably he is preoccupied with his own suspicions of his wife's infidelity as it can truly be a matter of life and death.

The events surrounding the arrest and crucifixion of a strange and apparently rabble-rousing teacher from Galilee are told from Caiaphas' perspective almost as an aside in his ongoing struggle with the Roman Prefect Pilate over the supply of Temple monies for civic projects - forbidden by Jewish law. There is the disturbing episode of a mob disrupting the Temple routine one year in the days before Passover, upsetting the tables and assaulting the money-changers... Nevertheless, the simmering atmosphere of pending rebellion, disorder and faithlessness is brewing all the time.

Which leads the story of The Liars' Gospel nicely to Bar-Avo's tale. His name (not his given name) means "His Father's Son" in Hebrew, and we learn why that is so, and why his actual name is never used. Alderman tells Barabbas' story almost as though he were Mario Puzo's young Vito Corleone on his way up through the ranks of hoodlums and made men who run the black markets and smuggle the weapons around Jerusalem under the eyes of the Roman garrison. There are several episodes of {graphically} violent revolt which lead to Bar-Avo's arrest and his subsequent encounter with Yehoshua/Jesus we're familiar with. His place on the Roman cross is taken by the 'King of the Jews' who doesn't appear to have as many friends in town as the king of the wise guys... A long career in increasingly political anti-Imperialist rebellion unfolds for Bar-Avo, yet somehow he prospers, seeming to live a charmed life. He finds himself on occasion thinking back to his moments in the same cell beneath the Prefect's house when he talked with the Nazarene about God and faith, and is thankful that it was not he who died on the cross that Passover.

I'd be giving this the full five stars if it wasn't for the slightly heavy-handed way that the epilogue explains why it is that the gospel may well be the liars' gospel of the title. I thought it would've been wiser to leave the reader to decide for themselves. On the whole though, this was a very believable and enjoyable imagined story of some of the major figures in Jesus' days, and how we should always be wary of history's perspectives. Recommended.

(Edited to correct typos and improve grammar.)

That was an enlightening review of The Liars' Gospel. All of those story lines sound most intriguing. Thanks for the great review.

Thanks Avid! I wasn't quite sure how to review The Liars' Gospel as it was one that is based on a story that most people will be at least reasonably familiar with already... and I'd already finished it a week earlier (just been too busy/tired mid-week to get it together until now - but ideally I like to write a review when everything's super fresh in my mind). In the end I just decided to try to recount the basic structure of the book, which is probably why it's too long and a bit waffly. Not my best effort, but I'm glad you were enlightened a little.

The Best Australian Trucking Stories edited by Jim Haynes.

A lively and informative collection of tales and essays on the subject of trucking down under. With humour and pathos, these stories will give you a vivid picture of life on the (mainly) dry and dusty roads of the Aussie outback. From the earliest days of the 1930s trailblazing and World War Two era Government Road-train, through to the mega-logistics of the 58 truck U2 '360 Degree' tour in 2010 and beyond, this is a pretty comprehensive look at what it means to live a life behind a wheel of these transport beasts.

I particularly enjoyed Ray 'The Nullarbor Kid' Gilleland's account of his earliest crossings of the fierce Nullarbor Plain in the 1950s. A vast treeless desert (hence the name!) that spans the gap between the rudimentary civilisations on the edges of Western and South Australia, the plain was no place to be if you weren't the self-reliant type:

...Things like scorpions and snakes worried me most. If a death adder bit you, you were a goner. You would be dead long before the next traveller who ventured over the east-west track found you.

Out of the truck I always wore Leathernecks. They were like sixteenth century pirate boots that came up to the knees and had a folded top. The Death Adder was well camouflaged and had a habit of lying still and striking directly at the ankles. I felt fairly safe in my boots but I constantly surveyed the ground around me when out of the truck, and I always carried an old 1911 model Colt .45 pistol. If you had come across me out there back then you would have seen a tall, slim young man, brown from the sun and wearing a battered old Stetson hat and a pair of swimming trunks, with a pistol hanging from his waist, walking around in pirate boots. It was quite a sight!



Ray Gilleland's truck in the 1950s

Liz Martin's chapter on the pioneering AEC Government Road-train (operating on little more than dirt tracks between Adelaide, across the dry interior via Alice Springs, to Darwin) was pretty staggering in terms of the hardships faced by the tough teams of drivers manning the usually three trailered vehicles.

The wet season would though play havoc with the waterways of the north. Tracks that had been blazed the year before were totally washed out and often the drivers and the offsiders would have to walk for kilometres up and down the creeks looking for a suitable place to cross, up to six times a day:

When there were four trailers the road often had to be repaired several times during the process as the weight of the trailers caused them to bog. Sometimes, massive tree trunks and other river debris had to be sawn up and moved out of the way of the path of the best crossing. Drivers always carried a supply of dynamite in case an obstacle had to be cleared or the road had to be blasted through. Some drivers said they felt like blowing up the truck instead of the obstacle.



A very early Australian government road-train

This collection was pretty much what I expected and hoped it would be - fun, interesting and dusty! Thirsty reading!

If you had come across me out there back then you would have seen a tall, slim young man, brown from the sun and wearing a battered old Stetson hat and a pair of swimming trunks, with a pistol hanging from his waist, walking around in pirate boots. It was quite a sight!

LOL! Picture of that please!!!!

It's amazing to me that they had to carry their own supply of dynamite. That sounds a wee bit dangerous, doesn't it?!?!

Gutsy people, those Aussie truck drivers!

Excellent review of The Liars' Gospel Can't see myself reading this one, but I can see it's appeal for many people. I definitely will not be reading a book about Australian Truck drivers, no matter how tempting you make it sound.

Great review of The Liars' Gospel, which I have now put on the wish list and will look for on my visit to Amsterdam, next week.

Avid, they certainly must be pretty gutsy! Unfortunately, although the trucking book is pretty well illustrated, there isn't one of Ray Gilleland in his budgie smugglers with his knee high boots, Stetson and Colt .45!

Thanks Barry - yes, I think it is a book that will appeal to many now that I come to think of it. However, I think it will probably have some mixed reviews as, although I enjoyed it, I am not a Christian nor an observant Jew, and I think either of those could potentially take offence at some of the passages (or for that matter some of the 'fruity' language) if they happened to egregiously read such a book.

Edwin, thanks so much for your comment. I'm glad you liked the review, and have a great time in Amsterdam.

The Liars Gospel does sound pretty interesting. I especially like what you said at the end, about letting people decide for themselves.

So how does the same man who likes Gospel like trucking stories?

Haha Merrikay!! Errr... probably the same way I like blue collar southern lit as well as natural history, for example? I dunno - everyone on here probably has very wide-ranging tastes, I don't think I'm that different. Variety is the spice of life right?

Hi, Paul. Just catching up a bit. The Liars Gospel sounds quite interesting. I might have to check on that one. Loved your review of the Australian Truck Drivers, although I can't say I will read it. :)

>162 Polaris-: Great review! My husband's sister has trucked the western U.S. much of her adult life. Tough girl, but no Leathernecks, pistol or dynamite as far as I know...

Colleen and MJ - thanks both for your comments! MJ, if your sister-in-law likes a fun read to dip into when she's resting from behind the wheel, then it might be a good gift idea?

Colleen - I don't blame you. If I hadn't of been on holiday down under at the time I saw the trucking book - and taking copious pictures of assorted trucks as I passed them on the highway (I sort of became obsessed with getting the perfectly framed shot of them as they passed towards me at speed...) - then it would never occur to me really to read such a book. When I saw it in the shop I thought "I have to get that, won't find it anywhere else...". So I did! And I'm glad I did - it's the real slice of uncomplicated modern Australiana that I was looking for.

If I can remember where I saved them all I might post one or two of the better photos up here...

What to make of The Liar's Gospel? Although I've read some interesting Bible-based fiction, I'm always worried the author will lose me as their imaginings diverge from my own. Anyway enjoyed review...and very entertained by your review of Australian Trucking stories.

Tiny Acts of Rebellion by Rich Fulcher

I'm not going to say anything that Merrikay didn't already say perfectly well in her review of this silly, but fun, but VERY silly book. I think it will suffice to merely insert here a choice extract to give those who may be curious an oddly flavoured sample of the British-based American comedian's prize nonsense:

Act.62

My Name Is...My Name Is...

You know those moments when strangers in public feel comfortable asking you point blank for your name? Situations like getting a dinner reservation or being called on by the comedian at a standup club. I mean who cares if your name is Frances with an 'e' or your last name has an umlaut in it? This is a primo opportunity to be creative and make up a fake name destined to shock and awe everyone in the vicinity. It is name-telling with absoulutely no consequences.

What does the comedian care if you call yourself 'Crumpky the Magician'? Why should the hostess bat an eye if you say 'The Tits McGee family would like a table for four, preferably that red booth in the corner'?...

...~Saying you are 'blank' from 'blank' is always fun. Try it. I am Dave from Sweden, or Ian from Stability Cottage. I am Ronald from Sucko.

~Another good option in this vein is volunteering your name when it has not been solicited. For example: 'Hi, I'm Nibbles, do you have the time?'

~You might also consider adopting a fake name for the entirety of a social event. Imagine roaming around a party with the name 'Fancy Wonderchuck'. Feel free to add an MD or Esq. to the end of it as well. Knock yourself out...

...The possibilities are endless. Remember, the more strangers are involved the better. It takes an extra pair of stones to invent a name in front of someone you already know: 'Oh, sorry Mum, I thought you knew that I'd changed my name to Speedballs Pocketflaps. My bad.'

As Simon Pegg says on the jacket blurb: "Rich Fulcher is hands down one of the funniest men on the planet and I'm not entirely sure he's from Earth."

Three stars, and I'll keep it in the bathroom...

172 - Thanks Dan!

>173 Polaris-: Paul, I am amused by your examples. I have a friend who went to a cocktail party. He wrote Peter Wimsey on his name tag, and no one was ever the wiser; although many said they thought they must have met before, as his name sounded familiar. He and his wife had a great laugh about it afterwards.

Colleen, I'm glad you're amused! I particularly liked Crumpky the Magician. Mmm, Peter Wimsey you say? Yeah that does ring a bell, sort of... So I just looked it up - aha!!

I still have an urge to put condoms by the diapers and vice versa when I'm in a store, but I am VERY easily amused. It's rather nice actually.

It was fun reading excerpts from the book, Polaris!

My mom's old boyfriend once said he wanted to get a T-shirt, get a picture of himself printed on it, and print "Have you seen me?" under the picture.

And then there's the high school girl in the classroom I work in who told me she went into a fast food joint and ordered a "diet water."

Guess I'm easily amused too. XD

Just found out the sad news that J J Cale has died. One of my favourite 'under rated' musicians, and a great songwriter.

Magnolia was a romantic favourite many summers ago...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6FnMKx5crs .

'Naturally' and 'Okie' are brilliant albums. His 1976 album 'Troubador' is a great place to start if you're unfamiliar with his fine music - it's one of those albums where there ain't no duds, from the opener 'Hey Baby' to the closer 'You Got Me On So Bad' - they are all good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvyLJdTPNWM .

Call Me The Breeze, Crazy Mama, After Midnight, Cocaine, Cajun Moon, Travellin' Light, were among some of my other favourite songs of his, and covered by many a star act across the genres. I loved his laid back style, his understated earthy voice, and his soulful bluesy guitar playing. Rest in peace.



John Weldon 'J J' Cale - 1938-2013

Yes sad news

That's terrible. I always liked his songs best when he was performing them.

Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili McConnon and Andres McConnon

This was a book which I was eager to read following its 2012 publication. As a long time fan of road cycling's Grand Tours and the many fascinating characters who've risen to the top of that sport over the years, as well as always having an interest in history, especially that of the 20th century which is within living memory (or at least perhaps only at one generation's distance), I thought that this intriguingly titled book would be a certain winner. Please forgive my lengthy comments here - I found it too difficult to sum this one up with much brevity...

Gino Bartali was already a hero of mine. He won the Tour de France in 1938, and then again - an almost professional career's worth of ten years later in 1948! To win cycling's greatest race twice is some achievement, but to do so after such a long gap between the victories is something extraordinary. It had never been done before and hasn't been done since. I doubt it ever will. No doubt, if it weren't for the war interrupting his career when at its peak, he would have won several more Tours. I had also heard a little about his anti-Fascist persuasion before and during WWII, but really knew nothing of it. And finally, there was his fierce rivalry with compatriot Fausto Coppi. Some consider Coppi the greatest cyclist of all time... their rivalry probably was.



Fiercest of fierce rivals Bartali (in green Italian champion's jersey) & Coppi share drinking bottle at the height of the race

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Road To Valor tells the story of Gino's conservative and traditionally Catholic upbringing in the Florence district of Tuscany. Together with his brother he becomes an avid fan of cycling and loves the independence that owning his first hard-earned bicycle gives him. He has a job in a local bike workshop. Here he makes the acquaintance of a Giacomo Goldenberg. As the sibling authors tell of Gino's rapid rise through the ranks of Italian semi-professional and then professional cycling, we learn a little more of life under Mussolini's Fascist regime. Gino isn't particularly affected by it until he starts to compete in Italian national colours in the Tour de France. When in 1938 he is denied the chance to win his third Giro d'Italia in a row, the Fascist cycling authority insist he is kept back so that he will compete for the more international honour of winning the Tour. Honour for the regime of course - as seen when the Italian football team wins the World Cup in both '34 & '38, for which the Fascists claim an integral role in the success.

After his beloved brother's earlier untimely death in a car accident, Gino had devoted himself increasingly to the church and is quite involved with Catholic Action - one of the few non-Fascist organisations permitted at the time. He counts Bishops and Monsignors among his friends. Upon managing to succeed in the 1938 Tour with only the second ever Italian victory in that event, Gino's victory speech is seen in the Fascist press back home as a thinly disguised anti-regime attack - after all he thanks the church and of course God for his achievement, but neglects to praise Il Duce at all. Gino's card has been marked in some quarters.

As the war spreads, and Italy joins the battle against the western allies, professional cycling fizzles to a halt. In 1940, aged 26 and at what should have been his professional peak, the war is brought home to Gino when he receives the call-up notice:

As part of Gino's mobilisation, he was first required to undergo a routine medical checkup to determine his specific assignment...The military doctor listened to his heart and found it was beating irregularly, a condition that Gino was unaware of, but that had never seemed to impede his cycling. Still, the doctor was puzzled, and called in a colonel for a second opinion. The colonel looked at the heart rate and rejected Gino as unfit for military service, unaware that he was evaluating one of the nation's cycling stars.

The irony - a Tour de France winner only two years earlier rejected as unfit for active service in Mussolini's forces! Gino is assigned to serve as a bicycle courier rider in the Tuscany region where he lived. One could say this was a fairly cushy option, given that there were no longer competitive races, he could at least stay fit as he could carry on the lengthy training runs so crucial to maintaining his stamina and fitness.

The parallel story of the Jewish Goldenberg family in Florence is told over the same period. Giacomo had been kept in an internment camp early in the war, but subsequently released. As the war progressed, and Mussolini's regime eventually collapsed in 1943, the Nazi Reich took a direct role in controlling the puppet Salo regime - with the mighty Il Duce at its head of course. After his earlier release from the camp Giacomo no longer heard from his cousins and feared they'd been re-arrested by the newly revitalised German-backed police state. Fearing for his family's safety he arranged to split them up, and sent his 11 year old son to a religious boardinghouse which covertly cared for Jewish children on the Archbishop of Florence's request. But what for the rest of his family? After reaching out to his old friend Sizzi (the bike mechanic where young Gino had once worked) who wished to help, but lacked any resources, Giacomo was put in touch with Gino himself.

At a time when informing on Jews' whereabouts could be rewarded by four times as much money as could be 'earned' by doing likewise with an escaped Allied prisoner, it had become potentially punishable by death to shelter Jews. After a fairly lackadaisical attitude towards their Jewish citizens early in the war, the new regime was now actively deporting people to the death camps. With a young wife and baby son to support, Gino didn't know what path to take. He wanted to help, but the danger involved was certainly overwhelming. He sought counsel with his friend the Archbishop of Florence, and contemplated the choice before him in the peace he could only find at his brother's graveside. Without involving his wife, and without implicating her at all, he came to a decision: He would hide them in the cellar of a downtown Florentine apartment he was the co-owner of.

Gino didn't stop there. His unique position as a friend of the Archbishop and other high ranking church officials, as well as his privileged courier role in the Army, allowed him the rare opportunity of acting as a valuable go-between. He was carefully brought in by other brave men of the church to act as the courier of vital papers and photographs for the purposes of forging life-saving identification cards and other documents. With the confidence of a local Florentine family printers' firm, Gino would collect the valuable papers from a given safe house or other location, stash them inside the frame tubing on his bike - beneath the saddle post - and then (via the forger's printing press to produce the required items) ride several hundred kilometres (as only a Tour de France champion could!) cross-country to the ring's HQ at the Abbey in Assisi where the other end of the operation would pass the documents on to the desperate Jews waiting to get out of the country to safety.

For Jews in Italy like the Goldenbergs, life had entered a new nightmare phase. The Germans and their Fascist collaborators ratcheted up the intensity of their persecution, even as it became increasingly clear that they would be defeated in the war. In addition to raiding convents and monasteries, Nazis invaded old-age residences and hospitals looking for Jews. The numbers soon illustrated the results of their murderous zeal. By the spring of 1944, little more than six months into the occupation, more than 6500 Jews (both foreign and Italian) had been carried by train from Italy to Auschwitz alone.

Gino Bartali was directly responsible for saving at least three Jews from certain death, and was indirectly responsible as an integral cog in a machine of brave and selfless individuals for saving up to eight hundred other Jews who were in hiding. Think of that - eight hundred of whom presumably many went on to have families and roles in society in various different ways...

This alone would be enough material for many a fine book, but Gino's story didn't end there. With his resurrected career in seemingly terminal decline
after the war's end, Gino was beaten by the younger Fausto Coppi at the 1947 Giro d'Italia (although Gino was King of the Mountains and won two stages - even dismounting once mid-stage to punch an anti-Catholic slurring spectator, before remounting to claim the day's victory!) and did not even enter that year's Tour de France - the first since the end of hostilities. In the build-up to the '48 Tour his chances were written off by the press.

Post-war Italy was a very volatile place, and the country was split down the middle in support for either the Communists or the more conservative Christian Democrats. This at the time of Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, and the fast-emerging Cold War, Italy's role in Europe was central in more ways than one. When in July 1948 an unstable Fascist shot the Communist Leader of the Opposition the country, and all of Europe, held its breath. There was even a bomb threat at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. There were riots and demonstrations in the big northern Italian cities. With that year's Tour at it's most crucial stages in the mountainous Alpine passes, the Christian Democrat Prime Minister rang Gino in his hotel, and begged him to win the Tour if he could - for Italy.

What follows in the book is a very well written passage of chapters concerning the dramatic victory Gino achieved, against the odds, in the worst cold and wet altitude conditions that the notorious Col d'Izoard and Col du Galibier passes could throw at him. The glory was his, and back home in Italy the country collectively exhaled, the wine was brought out, and everybody danced!

The Tour director, who had also doubted Gino, offered his own poetic account of all that had passed. "From snowstorm, water, and ice, Bartali arose like a mud-covered angel, wearing under his soaked tunic the precious soul of an exceptional champion."

In the calmer years following the end of his glorious career Gino would avoid discussing what had happened during the war for much of his life.

Gino justified his silence as a matter of respect for those who had suffered more than he had during the war: "I don't want to appear to be a hero. Heroes are those who died, who were injured, who spent many months in prison."

Overall, I enjoyed this book tremendously, though I admit I am a tiny bit disappointed that certain aspects weren't given more pages. For example - much of Gino's career was either not ever mentioned, or possibly edited out. Apart from the early rapid rise to the top, we only really get discussion of his two Tour wins and little else. Not enough was made of his great rivalry with Coppi. It would seem that the authors made a conscious decision to focus on the wartime exploits of this fascinating man, and that is understandable. On the whole, it is very well-written, and a truly enthralling story of a genuinely impressive man.

Some of his associates during the war, who'd helped orchestrate the rescue/escape of hundreds of Jews-in-hiding, have since been given the highest honour by the State of Israel - each made a 'Righteous Among the Nations'. There is an avenue of the righteous at Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial, where beautiful trees commemorate those brave souls who risked their lives to save others. In 2012 a Cycling News article reported that Yad Vashem was now formally investigating the evidence, and considering awarding the honour of 'Righteous Among The Nations' to Gino:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/bartali-honoured-for-saving-jews-during-the-holo...

Gino Bartali would tell his son Andrea -
"If you're good at a sport, they attach the medals to your shirts and then they shine in some museum. That which is earned by doing good deeds is attached to the soul and shines elsewhere.



Gino Bartali's 1948 Tour de France victory lap in the Parc des Princes, Paris

Wow! That is some fascinating stuff about Gino Bartali. That last quote is beautiful. I always like stories of real people who lived through these "great" (or not so great) moments in history; it makes it more real. Thanks for the link to the article too.

Great review. I was happy to read the spoilers of a fascinating and brave man. Some great pictures too.

Wow! That's quite a story and a great review. And quite a man, too!

Road to Valour does sound fascinating. What an amazing man Gino Bartali was. Excellent review!

Awesome review.

Thanks everyone! I admit that the review is longer than what I'd normally consider an 'ideal' length - I found it hard to be concise! I just wanted to try to convey just how extraordinary his achievements were.

Yes what a very excellent review! It is a wonderful and fascinating story. I also love the quotation. I would love to see the movie if they ever make one. Wow! Thanks.

Love the review of Road to Valour - it's a great story, and interesting to hear about the focus beyond the Tour.

For those interested in the Bartali-Coppi rivalry, there's this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZD_2x80qa0

Wow! Ljbwell - thanks so much for your comment, and thanks a lot for the link to the Coppi-Bartali documentary (Veteran broadcaster Phil Liggett is THE voice of British cycling coverage, so it's nice to hear his narration as well!).

I've not seen this before, so I'm enjoying watching it too. Just seen the first ten minutes of the film, but will have to watch the remainder a bit later... The production is a little scratchy and lumpy - but the archive newsreel footage of these two cycling legends (some of it pre-World War II) makes it well worth watching.

There is a book by Italian author Dino Buzzati which covers their rivalry - The Giro D'Italia: Coppi Vs. Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy - I now need to get this!

As for my review - I'm not quite sure what constitutes a 'hot' one, or if mine really warrants is, but this has now officially become my first ever 'hot review'!! And there was I thinking that it was far too long and all! So, thanks all again for the nice comments.

Fabulous review of Road to Valor, Paul! And what an amazing story. Thanks for sharing your comments with us.

Thanks Daryl! You're very welcome.

Facing The Music by Larry Brown

A truly striking collection of disparate and desperate characters from the back lanes and dive bars, and the woodlands and cotton fields of North Mississippi.

***

1) Facing The Music -

In with a bang. One husband contemplates his fidelity while his wife hopes to distract him from watching the late movie on TV... A very powerful opening salvo you won't easily forget.

2) Kubuku Rides (This Is it) -

A heartbreaking portrayal of secrets and lies, and addiction within the family.

3) The Rich -

A revealing moment in the life of Mr Pellisher, a travel agent who is poor, but who associates with the rich...

4) Old Frank and Jesus -

Devastating and possibly a quintessential Larry Brown short tale of one man's life lived hard. Opening lines:
Mr Parker's on the couch, reclining. He's been there all morning, almost, trying to decide what to do. Things haven't gone like he's planned. They never do.

5) Boy and Dog -

Prose poetry in the form of short simple phrases, sequenced statements of fact tell how a boy's lunch is ready - but he's not coming in. His dog has been hit outside on the road, and is already dead. But then the killer Mustang comes back - It was hunting its hubcap. - and the boy picks up a brick...

6) Julie: A Memory -

Brown in slightly more experimental mode with this one. A series of interlocking and overlapping narratives are told in almost rhythmically alternating sentences. It feels like 'cut-up' technique - only it works! You can sense exactly what's been going on as the tale of two young lovers unravels. Violence and tragedy pervade the scene once again - but it's never gratuitous, just real.

7) Samaritans -

A lonesome barfly one hot and bright mid-afternoon does what he can for a pathetic and peripatetic family out in the parking lot. He could end up ruing their acquaintance. This reader was entranced.

8) Night Life -

Gary's a bachelor mechanic who doesn't find meeting women that easy. Connie is a married mother whose just left her husband she's been with since the age of sixteen. Their stop-start liaisons have an edge of black humour about them, but ultimately are full of aching pathos as the sad realities of their unfulfilled lives emerge.

9) Leaving Town -

All of Brown's stories have something about them that could lend themselves well to film adaptation, but THIS really is the one that leaves you with that feeling at its end that you've just experienced something truly memorable. Using the alternate viewpoints technique he later uses to such good effect in his excellent post-Vietnam novel Dirty Work, Brown tells of a blue collar brief encounter between a hard-working handyman and his fragile customer. He will do everything he can for his own partner's disabled little girl, while his female client is alone and recovering from an abusive relationship. If this 'movie' had a theme tune, it'd probably be written by Jimmy Webb.

10) The End of Romance -

"Just go in and get some beer," she said. "We got to talk." So begins the closing story in this collection. A couple are out for a drive and it's clear that they both have a lot to get off their chests. Their talk is interrupted in the most unexpected way. Brown's final lines somehow manage to leave you with a smile on your face, despite the most awful of circumstances.

***

Hard to believe that this was Brown's first published collection back in 1988. While it's clear that he is evidently trying his hand at a few different approaches with the method, the accumulative effect is somewhat akin to a series of well-landed body blows. The punches hit hard and you find yourself waking up still almost dazed - thinking of an ending, or seeing the characters all around you out in the world: clocking in at the depot, eating lunch, shopping in a supermarket, driving home. A superb book of short stories from the late and much missed prince of the 'Rough South'. Five stars.

You have mentioned Larry Brown with such praise, but I have never read him or heard of him, that I know of, outside your thread. So, very nice to see a review and get a sense of why you like so much.

Terrific review of Facing the Music, onto the wishlist.

edited for touchstone and while doing so I noticed Paul Auster has also written one with that title; hmm it's poetry, must take a look.

Sounds like a great collection of short stories with a dark bite to 'em.
I've never heard of Larry Brown either.

Wow that sounds like a great collection! I haven't read short stories but am starting to check them out. NICE review!

Thanks so much everyone for the kind words.

Dan - I'm truly glad to hear that you got that sense of why I like his stories. He's certainly worthy of wider recognition.

MJ - Yes, I noticed that there were quite a few books with the same title. I'd like to hear how the Auster poems are if you ever read them. Great to have you here!

Avid - "...with a dark bite to 'em" - that's a perfect expression for what his stories have. He might just be one of those great writers that not enough people have heard of. He died suddenly in his 50s back in 2004, so sadly there is only a fairly limited and finite amount of work to enjoy by him - this was my fourth book of his read, but I'm trying to pace myself and string them out!

Merrikay - If you go there, you could certainly do a lot worse than try this collection. It's short and punchy - just what a short story collection should be I reckon. You will get an intimate sense of a place and the characters who populate it. The characters aren't too quirky or extraordinary - they're just real. But the way Brown writes is something that I find so arresting and authentic. He makes me want to write.

I wasn't familiar with Larry Brown, but this sounds intriguing.

Larry Brown is new to me too, but your short description of his short story collection makes him sound intriguing.

I am looking forward to your review of A History of Britain by Simon Schama. I bought all three volumes, but have not come round to read them.

Finally getting round to posting on your thread after long months of lurking.
Going back a few posts, I'm glad to hear that you liked Liars' Gospel, I have it on my to-read pile. Last year I read My name was Judas and I'm currently reading The testament of Mary. I'm not religious but am interested in these types of novels which re-look at the life and times of Jesus.
Road to Valor sounds fascinating, a great tribute to a brave man and formidable athlete.

Brings me to The Best Australian Trucking Stories which I'll have to suggest to my two brothers who both drive long distance trucks over there. I love these types of books.

Sad about J J Cale, I was also a fan. And further back, I also took a photo of that Chet Baker plaque in Amsterdam, pretty sure it was a lucky chance find. I love his music.

Great review of Facing the Music, Paul. I hadn't heard of him either, so I'll have to keep an eye out for this book.

Rebecca, Barry, Daryl - sadly he didn't live long enough to write too many books - there's only about half a dozen novels, two or three short story collections and his non-fiction fireman days memoir/essays on becoming a writer (On Fire) - but everything I've read by him so far has made a lasting impression on me. Lot of soul. Thanks for your encouragement as well.

Edwin - the Simon Schama is a re-read for me - I just spontaneously picked it up the other day and started leafing through it as we have a BBC series on the Anglo-Saxons at the moment and I wanted to compare what Schama has to say with Michael Wood who is the writer-presenter of this latest programme. I probably won't read all of it again, and don't think that I'll write a review of it I'm afraid. I've just left it out on the sofa arm in the back room and will dip in and out. Rest assured though that it is well worth diving into. Schama is always erudite, engaging and memorable - everything that a good historian should be. The TV series that the 3 volume set accompanied was superb.

Kerry - Thanks so much for stopping by! Great to have you here. I'm glad you've got The Liars' Gospel on the TBR - I found it really enjoyable, and an interesting break from the type of books I usually go for. It's really whetted my appetite now for other biblical fictions. This one had just enough of the necessary detail to give everything that authentic air that a book like this really needs. I'm gonna hopefully read Testament of Mary one day. Your brothers might just really dig the trucking stories - they'll probably have plenty of their own right? The thing with Chet Baker that struck me when I saw his hotel in Amsterdam - was just how relatively low-market it all was - not even a nice part of the town, a small hotel, an average room (probably - I didn't go up) - and I realised that if he fell from the window - he couldn't have even reached the street - he must have landed on top of the canopy thingy... so sad, and unnecessary. If only he could've gotten straight...

Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene

Um..bit awkward this. I'm not going to review this one. It's a pretty well known story, but that's not why. I enjoyed Graham Greene's pre-revolutionary Cuban-set espionage satire, but unfortunately listened to an horrendous audio-book production. I try to pick off a few extra books if I can while driving from here to there, and most of the time I really enjoy it. Those following my thread though, might remember that I had to abandon a Le Carre novel recently owing to the very annoying smarmy tone of the narrator... This time the reader - British actor Jeremy Northam - did a first class job. He injected the perfect balance of drama and mischief into the characterisations that Green's novel deserved.

What Greene's novel doesn't deserve though is the cringeingly awful modern studio synthesised effort at 'colourful Cuban' music that totally unnecessarily punctuates the end of every chapter of the book. It (almost) ruined the whole listening experience. Don't get me wrong - I love Cuban music - there are so many ways that a small dash of tasteful musical accompaniment might have added something to this production.

The story of a Havana-based British vacuum cleaner dealer turned half-hearted secret agent who supplies his 'superiors' in London with made-up fantasy reports and dossiers of bogus sub-agents is set in the 1950s. If, as an audio-book producer, you're going to insert musical accents here and there to help 'flavour' the setting (though why Greene's writing needs this is beyond me!) why on earth wouldn't you at least use something authentic from the period the book is set in? What a botch job. I liked the story itself though, so I was willing to wince in aural pain at this travesty against good literature which could be suffered at the end of each chapter/part/disc...ad nauseum...

On completing the book I took a look at other reviews on LT as I sometimes do on finishing a title. I was at least sort of gratified to see that Ilana (Smiler69) had listened to the exact same production in 2011 and already written a review that summed up the positives of the author's work, but also expressed her similar horror at this musical gaffe. So I'm not going to add anything else except to recommend her review which is here: http://www.librarything.com/work/7175/reviews/70856923 , it expresses 100% what I felt about listening to this audio-book.

Larry Brown: A Writer's Life by Jean W. Cash

On a more positive note, I'm currently really inspired by a very well written critical biography of Larry Brown.

I've devoured the opening chapters which have covered his childhood and family background in rural north Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee, and then his enlistment in the Marine Corps at the time of the Vietnam War, and later experiences as a fireman in Oxford, Mississippi. All the while Larry is teaching himself to write, and putting as much effort into it as he can muster outside of his family and work commitments.

After a few magazine acceptances, and several hundred rejections, undaunted, Brown finally has his own collection of short stories published in 1988 (see Facing the Music reviewed at post 194). This is then followed the following year with his debut novel Dirty Work - a superbly told and unforgettably powerful story of two wounded Vietnam veterans, previously unknown to each other - one black and one white, both dirt poor - lying in beds next to each other. My review of Dirty Work, written in 2011 when I'd just discovered LT, can be found here: http://www.librarything.com/work/155333/reviews/69306024 .

And now...I'm going to stop reading it. For the time being. The book is first class but I don't want to read anymore of it until I've filled in the gaps of my reading of his other works. He only lived long enough to have ten separate books published, but I've yet to read half of them. Jean Cash's thoughtful and detailed book is arranged more or less on a title-per-chapter basis (once we've reached the stage when he gets published), and she goes into considerable detail on the conception of, and writing of each of those titles, and the life of a published author on the book circuit at the time.

So, so far it's heading for the full five stars, but I won't rate it of course until I've finished it. I want to read all the unread titles in the order that they were written and/or published. Now, all I need to do is get me a copy of Big Bad Love as a matter of urgency...

>206 Polaris-: I have also been turned off by music that has been added to audio books. I think the first one I listened to that had added music was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The book was wonderful, but the addition of the music was painful.

I have never listened to an audio book, but sound effects or music would put me off.

Barry, very few audio books have the addition of music. I have found that for the most part if music has been added, it detracts from the book. There have been very few exceptions.

Sorry about that painful music...haven't read Graham Greene yet despite all the positive and intriguing Club Read reviews through the years.

And thanks for the little blurb on Larry Brown's life. The name should stick (care of the famous basketball coach with the same name). Hopefully I'll get to him someday.

Barry, I'd have to echo Colleen's comment - you probably get music in audio books about 5% of the time. Usually where it does creep in it's unobtrusive and not a problem. This Graham Greene was an exception.

Colleen - shame about that Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I don't think a piece of really bad music would ruin a great book, but it would probably shoot an average one down in flames...

Dan - you're welcome of course. I really want to carry on with the Brown biog, but it just would be wrong now that I've reached a point where the author is covering books I know I am going to read, but just haven't reached yet...

Caught in a strange reading place at the moment:

Following a brisk and entertaining start I am floundering somewhat with The Cloudspotter's Guide. Mired in the section covering the 'mid-level clouds' - it sits half-finished on the bathroom window sill. Four star book becomes a three most probably, though it may take me until Christmas to find out.

At the other end of the spectrum - my current "A" book being Amos Oz's Between Friends is so good, and so streamlined, spare, and perfect. Being a collection of only eight short stories set in a world I can picture all too vividly (albeit one from the 1950s - my kibbutz life was in the 1990s, although the already-by-then perhaps "quaint" and debatable principled ideologies of my community had a somewhat early 'pioneer' vibe about them...) - put simply, I don't want to finish them too soon. I cherish his stories and must ration them out with care...

Enjoying once again the beautiful and revealing work of the late Eve Arnold's reportage photography from the studio lots, sound stages, and location sets of mid-20th century Hollywood. Her Film Journal is a casual re-read which sits happily on my coffee table. The chapter on "The Misfits", and Marilyn Monroe in particular, is worth the book's price alone.


Montgomery Clift and Marilyn go over their lines in their minds before their big scene. Nevada, 1960. (The Misfits)

And then, enjoying a few days' break from work, I re-watched the star-studded 1966 film 'Cast A Giant Shadow' on TV. Kirk Douglas plays retired Jewish American Second World War Colonel David 'Mickey' Marcus - who finds himself helping the nascent Israeli Army through its difficult birth under fire at the time of the 1948 War of Independence (AKA 'Naqba' in Arabic). Although based on the truth, the tale as retold with Kirk, ably assisted by Yul Brynner (not as Moshe Dayan - I'm sure that's another film though...), Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Angie Dickinson, and Senta Berger (cudos to the casting director - they even have Michael Horden as the British Ambassador to Washington, and Topol himself as a Palestinian Arab sheikh...), is a somewhat glossed over and obviously simplified account of the controversial and troubled and ultimately stalemated battle for Jerusalem.

Uri Avnery is a former Member of Knesset and left-wing activist-journalist-intellectual, well known in Israel as an advocate of the 'peacenik' camp, and often speaks from outside the consensus. He met with Arafat when it was still against Israeli law to do so. Avnery was there in 1948 and fought as a combat infantry soldier. He took part in many of the same battles briefly depicted, though integral to the plot, in 'Cast A Giant Shadow', including the battles for the old Ottoman fortress at Latroun which controlled the Jerusalem corridor. I've had his memoirs (originally written as columns from the front for the Ha'aretz newspaper evening editions, and published as two best-selling volumes in 1949-50 - recently published as one volume in English translation for the first time in 2008) of those times on my shelf for a while and felt suddenly that now was the time to take a look at that momentous war through his eyes in 1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road To Jerusalem.

I hope that my next review will be the start of my Club Read's 'B-side'...

In the late 1960's, I read Exodus by Leon Uris. It is historical fiction published in 1958. I am pretty sure that the writing is not the best, but the story is good. (not sure I realized at that time that the writing wasn't the best :-) ) I had seen the movie starring Paul Newman, which pointed me to the book. He was my fantasy crush. I seem to remember seeing 'Cast A Giant Shadow', but not 100% sure.

There are no reviews for 1948: A Soldier's Tale on the work page. I hope that you will add yours once you have finished.

I will Colleen. I never read Exodus, but have seen the film more than once. I don't think you were alone with that fantasy crush! He was so handsome that I would've fancied him!

I did read The Haj though by Uris not too many years ago and found it a well written and satisfying read. It stays very true to the sad history of the 'Naqba' - the first Arab-Israeli war told predominantly from the Palestinians' perspective.

Great now I want to read both of those. I've been wanting to watch the movie again.

>213 Polaris-: I love that photo! I'll have to see if my library has Film Journal.

>213 Polaris-: In the book I just read about Marilyn Monroe, it talks about how the movie "The Misfits" was pretty much the end of her marriage to Arthur Miller. He had written the script for her, and she hated the scene where she persuades Clark Gable and his friends not to kill the horses. "I convince them by throwing a fit...a screaming crazy fit....If that's what he thinks of me, well, then I'm not for him and he's not for me." After the filming, she was blamed for the heart attack which took the life of Clark Gable. Her lateness and drug use prolonged the arduous filming that had to be done in the Nevada desert. In that picture, she may have had more than memorizing her lines going on in her head. :)

Thanks Colleen for the extra insight. When you reviewed that book on your thread I meant to jump in, but don't think I did, and compliment your review. What was the title again? I'd like to keep an eye out for it. She was a fascinating woman. It's certainly interesting that the three lead actors in that film all suffered sudden premature ends. Arthur Miller also strikes me as a very interesting fellow, of whom I know nothing really. Is there a recommended book on Miller in particular?

Merrikay - now you know what it's like when I'm on your thread!

Avid - Film Journal is a really nice book to own - if you can find a nice copy of it you won't be sorry. But if not, it's still well worth loaning from the library if they have it as the text is a very interesting read in its own right.

Paul, the book I read was Marilyn by Gloria Steinem. And you did pop in on that one, thank you. I'm afraid I don't know any books about Arthur Miller, but agree that he does seem interesting. My daughter, Chris, has recommended that I read Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. She said it was "really good, and messy, just like Marilyn."

yes messy is a good way to describe Blonde, A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates; it was too messy for me.

MOT for my car today in Talgarth...Book haul for me while-I-wait in a bargain used store/marquee/shaky old tent on the road to book town Hay-on-Wye:

Outerbridge Reach by Robert Stone (wishlist)
A Dove of the East and Other Stories by Mark Helprin (wishlisted author)
Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith
Devil In A Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Four Meals (AKA The Loves of Judith) by Meir Shalev (wishist)
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kis (wishlist)
October Earthquake: Yom Kippur 1973 by Zeev Schiff
Persian Brides by Dorit Rabinyan (wishlist)
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander (wishlist).

These nine books for £6.
I didn't get to book town...and my car won't be ready until Wednesday, so I'll be going back there to pick up the other half dozen or so titles that I stashed in an obscure corner in the hope that nobody takes them!

Nice book haul. Boo that your car won't be ready until Wednesday. Hooray that you have to go to the book store again.

A great looking book haul and I've been hit by a couple of book bullets, but will wait for your review of the Avnery book before I totally succumb, same with October earthquake. Hoping that my library has A Tomb for Boris Davidovich. I'm quite unread on the Lebanon Wars and apart from Beaufort haven't really read much. I've seen a few movies such as Waltz with Bashir & 'Cup Final'. Have you read anything significant?
I haven't seen 'Cast A Giant Shadow' so that now goes on my 'to watch' list. A young adult novel that I enjoyed, A bottle in the Gaza Sea by French Israeli, Valérie Zenatti, has been made into what looks like a fairly thoughtful film.

Sounds like you had to have some work done on the car, but at least you could compensate by buying books. My car broke down yesterday and today I learned from the garage it was terminal. Shopping for a new second hand car today, alas not a book shop in sight.

Nice haul; A Tomb for Boris Davidovich is great (if chilling).

Wonderful book haul! LOL at stashed in a corner!!!

Thanks all for the comments!

Colleen - The car is STILL in the sick-room but ready for collection on Monday thankfully. (Mainly airbag sensor problems - what a pain!) - I will have to leave work early enough to pick up the car AND pop back to pick up my stashed 2nd haul from the bargain tent...;)

Kerry - Zeev Schiff's book that I picked up the other day is on the '73 Yom Kippur War, but he also wrote Israel's Lebanon War which I will snap up if I ever come across a copy. Other books on Israel's conflict in Lebanon? As you say Beaufort is superb - if others aren't familiar it is a contemporary 'fiction' by a young author set in a notoriously remote mountain-top outpost in the closing stages of Israel's occupation of south Lebanon (circa 2000). It reads like a tense thriller rather than a conventional 'war novel', full of dread atmosphere and claustrophobia as the doomed reality of the soldiers' existence reaches a breaking point. Beaufort is one of the best books on modern combat I've read. Otherwise, I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I have the film Waltz With Bashir on dvd, it brought me to tears, and I think is the one of the finest films to ever come out of Israel, but didn't read the graphic novel. The Illusion of Return by Samir El-Youssef is not specifically about that war but is a very touching portrait of a youth's life in the Palestinian refugee camps at the time of that conflict. The story develops by reflecting his impressions as an adult emigre living later in London. I haven't read it but a lot of people think very highly of From Beirut to Jerusalem.

Barry - I sympathise massively with your experience. I was very close to suffering the same this week, and was panicking somewhat at the prospect of such an unplanned for and burdensome task. I hope it's worked out alright for you in the meantime.

Rebecca - Your review of Danilo Kis' work earlier this year is a big part of why I ended up adding that one to my wishlist - so thanks!

Merrikay - A very selfish and small scale act of rebellion!!

Very lucky to pick up a nice mini-haul - while actually at work - for the grand total of 60p (sixty pence!). I was early for a joint site meeting with an architect at an industrial history museum in Risca - and as luck would have it they had a bargain bookcase of old paperbacks and (surprisingly for 20p a go!) quite recent hardbacks... I swooped down on:

The Old Patagonia Express by Paul Theroux (wishlist)
Smith's Gazelle by Lionel Davidson (wishlist)
Dirty Story by Eric Ambler (wishlist author, and very luckily the sequel to the only other Ambler I have - The Light of Day
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson (wasn't sure at the time, but turns out I already had it...)
and
The Best of Mrs Beeton's Puddings and Desserts

#228 Thanks!

The Best of Mrs Beeton's Puddings and Desserts sounds just too dangerous.

Thanks for your comments regarding Israel in Lebanon. I'll also look out for the Schiff book, I usually have to buy from abebooks.com, incredibly even with postage to NZ it is cheaper for me to buy used nonfiction books from the UK than from used bookstores here, even though I love going in for a proper browse from time to time. The selection on abebooks for out of print stuff is fairly amazing. I have a lot of nonfiction to read at present, I bought a couple of books by Efraim Karsh that I'm eager to get to.
I also thought Beaufort was an excellent read (and a good movie), as was Haim Sabato's Adjusting Sights. There was a humorous army story, 'The Last Commander', by A.B. Yehoshua in The Oxford Book of Hebrew Short Stories that I chuckled through and still remember a few years later. I haven't read The Illusion of Return but did read El-Youssef's short story in Gaza Blues which was set in a Lebanon refugee camp. From Beirut to Jerusalem is also one I should read, I think I got to chapter two a few years back.

Your latest mini-haul looks good as well. I've got a copy of Smith's Gazelle gathering dust and rising slowly through the great Mt Tbr.

what Baswood said

Car collected at last...and part two completed of the Bookends bargain tent book haul (got there at about 5.30pm - relieved to see them still open - told proprietor I'd be about 2 minutes collecting a stash from the right-hand corner of the tent - they were all still there! Hooray!):

The Successor by Ismail Kadare
Football Against The Enemy by Simon Kuper
Under The 82nd Airborne by Deborah Eisenberg
Close Quarters by Larry Heinemann
No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories by Miranda July
The Road To Ein Harod by Amos Kenan
Resist Much, Obey Little: Some Notes On Edward Abbey edited by James Hepworth and Gregory McNamee
Vicious Circle by Robert Littell

All were either wishlisted or wishlisted authors with two exceptions. Kenan's The Road To Ein Harod was a 1984 bestseller in Israel. Described as an Orwellian political thriller set in a post-coup neo-fascist Israel - it's a slim novel that looks just about wacky enough to be of interest to me. Then there's the Abbey essays - apart from a great title, it looks like an interesting collection of pieces, impressions and recollections by those who knew him. It includes entries by the wonderful nature writer Barry Lopez (a favourite of mine), and poet Gary Snyder. My edition is a 1989 re-issue published just after Abbey's passed away.

The lot for 8 quid!

Another nice haul. Glad you got your car back finally!

The Cloudspotter's Guide is an interesting premise, and one that I hoped would equip me ably to glance heavenwards and confidently see what was what, working as I do outdoors in all weathers - and yes - even perhaps "amaze my friends" (as neat tricks in my childhood always promised)!

The book starts well: copiously illustrated and nicely laid out with good summary introductions of each major cloud type encountered chapter by chapter. The author's style is necessarily informative and somewhat entertaining, though this latter trait becomes a trifle tiresome in places as I got the impression he was trying just a bit too hard to be funny. I enjoyed these early chapters (on the low altitude clouds) as I genuinely felt I was learning something (as was my hope) and the subject matter was all quite digestible. But as I progressed through the book, I felt by the midway point that it was all becoming a bit of a blur. I felt bogged down with the confusing explanations of physics, and convection, and.... other stuff. It seems that one cloud began to roll into another, and I found it challenging to tell my Nimbostratus from my Stratocumulus.

I think it's probably me - physics and chemistry were never my strongest subjects, and pretty much all of the science I've learnt as an adult has been tree-related. (But I have read popular science books with trees as the main subject matter that were well-written and not too bamboozling... So I know it can be done - see Trees: Their Natural History popular science fans!.) Finding myself becoming increasingly bored and/or confused with the book, I've abandoned it to the bathroom window sill, where it will doubtless remain until our next epic storm or other freak weather event pushes me to reconsider just why Cumulonimbus occur!

Hovering between a 2.5 or 3 star rating - I think the fact that it remains unfinished speaks for itself. 2.5 stars.

PS - Don't think I can be bothered starting a new thread after all. I don't think I'm likely to post so many reviews or miscellaneous ramblings between now and Christmas...and besides, I thought for an inaugural Club Read it would be nice to have just the one thread and see how many posts it can reach by year's end.

so do you know when it's going to rain? I to think it would be useful to learn about clouds, after all they are always there, but I think like you I would not get very far with it.

I found it challenging to tell my Nimbostratus from my Stratocumulus. Are you trying to tell us it was over your head? ;)
(Sorry, that was too easy.) Sounds like that book would be over my head too! Science, with the exception of Anatomy & Physiology, was never my thing.

I should have included in my review that I did find myself frequently pondering the clouds whenever I had the chance. IN the early chapters I was confident: "Ah, that'll be Nimbostratus ahoy! - persistent drizzle lies ahead" or "Cumulus humilis - good day for a picnic" - to cite 2 entirely made-up examples.

But by the middle of the book - I started thinking to myself "Ahh, they all look the bloody same" like some kind of bigoted ignoramus cloud-ist!

Yes, in a sort of fairly uncertain way, I think I can tell when it's going to rain... but I'm not sure how much that's related to absorbing the facts from the half-book that I read, or from just being British!

Well, you got farther than I did with The Cloudspotter's Guide, which I had high hopes for, probably for much the same reasons that you did (not that I work outdoors, but I look out at the weather a lot). What turned me off was that particular kind of British humor that I find not only not funny but really grating, and I don't think I got past the first couple of chapters.

Funny's funny, and he just isn't half as funny as he thinks he is. I think there's a good book in there among all the fluff, but I don't have the patience to sift through it all. Surprised it was such a best-seller over here.

Paul, I'm sorry The Cloudspotter's Guide was such a letdown. I love taking walks with the kids and making up stories about the things we see in the clouds. I used to know the difference between cumulus, stratus, cirrus and nimbus clouds, and probably still do. But it sounds like that book isn't what it was cracked up to be.

I don't think it's badly written - and I'm sure it would be a good book for the right person. I just didn't enjoy it sufficiently to finish it. Too many books, etc...

Hey Paul I haven't read Burning Rainbow Farm yet, but wanted to tell you I just finished another book by Kuipers Operation Bite Back and it was so good I couldn't put it down. My husband felt the same way so he beat me to Burning Rainbow and is reading it now.

(You were wanting to know how Burning Rainbow was)

Thanks for the update Merrikay, you'll have to post some comments on Burning Rainbow when you get the chance.

Try Extraordinary Clouds -- it's mostly visual and non-technical; I read it a few years ago and the images were so striking that I still remember a bunch of the formations.

Looking forward to your thoughts on No One Belongs Here More Than You -- Miranda July is uber-quirky that's for sure, but I've been interested in her work since her book trailer for that collection.

MJ, thanks for stopping by and I'll check out that recommendation for sure.

Going way back (I've been away), The Best of Mrs Beeton's Puddings and Desserts reminded me that I hadn't added my copy of Mrs Beeton's Cookery & Household Management. Absolutely indispensable if you need to know Where a butler or responsible manservant is required, he is usually interviewed and engaged by the master of the house, rather than the mistress.. She advises me that she is a wise woman who seeks to keep her own interests and personality alive, and not sink them in the needs of the home and that one can tackle even a thankless task so much more readily if one is looking one's best. No wonder poor old Isabella died at the age of twenty-eight.

http://writingwomenshistory.blogspot.ca/2010/06/real-mrs-beeton.html

bas and mk, not really that dangerous... by the time you convert gills and drams to whatever measures your kitchen uses, bring out your scales and UK measuring cups, sort out a dessertspoon from a tablespoon (the kind that goes on the table) and pound the macaroons, you won't really be making too many of her recipes in the same week, although I do love her steamed puddings.

Polaris, I'll be interested in seeing what you think of The Successor. It was one of my favourites from last year.

Hi Sassy, thanks for stopping by again. Thanks for the link about Mrs Beeton. Very interesting stuff. I missed the BBC dramatisation and had no idea about her really at all...yes, I pictured her very much like a stodgy old Mrs Bridges type...I've just learnt a little bit there, so thanks! I did not know that she was buried in West

Haven't made anything from the puddings book yet...will report on Club Read when I do. For the time being I'm sticking with my Ottolenghi and Carluccio recipe books. They have enough in them to keep me interested!

I am looking forward to reading The Successor as soon as I get the right mood to pick it up. I've read so much good commentary about Ismail Kadare.

I've got so much that I want to read soon up on Mount TBR that I'm currently trying to devise a good bookcase>shelf>title random generation method that will satisfactorally provide me with a short-list of three. Naturally I will have the right of veto if I just ain't in the mood for any of the titles served up.

248 - Well, as I read somewhere online the other day, maybe it was here - when I finish reading a recipe it,s the same as when I finish reading SF. I think well, THAT's not going to happen!

Paul - I can't remember where but somewhere on LT there is a thread that gives nudges:

You post a pic of a stack of your books where we can read the titles and we suggest what you should read next.

From The Country Under My Skin:

In reference to an NPR reporter stationed in Nicaragua, calling his dad on the family farm in Virginia:

"Every weekend he talked to his father and asked about the trees, as if they were family pets."

Not sure about the pet part, but the man sure loved his trees!

Merrikay, thanks so much for your visits, and your suggestion for helping me to make my reading choices. I think I know what my next meaty read is going to be - the Richard Burton Diaries, but as for the others that I'll doubtless read along the way: audio-book for the commute to work, bathroom book for - 'ahem, well... and perhaps a short story collection, I'll probably leave it to the vagaries of my mood on the day in question. I do take a certain pleasure in pretending to agonise over what to choose from the TBR shelves...

Thanks also for mentioning The Country Under My Skin - if it was your plan, you've succeeded in bringing to my attention a very interesting looking memoir! Another one for the wishlist.

A recent period of chaos at work followed by some very welcome time with visiting old friends from Israel has waylaid my reading of late. I am though near the end of the very enjoyable Teleportation Accident and have been rationing out the beautiful and spare stories in Oz's Between Friends. Uri Avneri's 1948 is quite spellbinding and I am also nearing its end. I look forward to soon reviewing all three.

I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying The Teleportation Accident and Between Friends, Paul. I'll probably read both books before the end of the year.

The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman

In the words of The Mighty Boosh - "Come with us now on a journey through time and space!" Well, this is not exxactly a book about time-travel, though it does bounce to and from the 1930s and '40s, the 1670s, brief forays to both a prehistoric time and several millenia into an imagined future. And it's not a book about space either - though it takes the reader to Berlin, Paris, Venice, a New York City hotel suite, Los Angeles, and a Washington DC committee room, among other places. Neither is this a book of any one style or genre. This one's a tad tricky to categorise. But it certainly is good fun!

So what's this book about? I really have no idea actually! I did though enjoy arriving at that realisation. Ostensibly this is a story of an unlikeable and selfish young experimental theatre set designer of late Weimar-era and early Nazi period Berlin - Egon Loeser - who has two main obsessions in life: The beautiful young Adele Hitler ("no relation") and a visionary 17th century set designer, Adriano Lavicini. It is a comedy, of sorts, (it helped me at times to picture our Loeser as a sort of whiny wannabe who might be played on screen by a young Rick Mayall, or perhaps Richard E Grant of 'Withnail' era...), and is definitely full of fun and frolics, (mostly) recreational drugs and booze, and sex, or at least Egon's desire for and lack of it... While all along the off-stage presence of the Nazis is felt - somewhat fuzzily (he even gleefully joins in with the book burning as a Nazi happens to thrust a copy of his nemesis Rupert Rackenham's book into his hands) - as Loeser chases his obsessions seemingly oblivious to the fate of the world around him. At one point, while reading a letter from a Jewish Berliner friend, describing an horrendous encounter with an SS man on a tram, Egon screws up the letter, unable to maintain an interest in anybody else's suffering - such is his self-absorption and general misanthropy.

The plot twists and turns and incorporates many a scam, caper, and devious turn. We encounter a cast of many artfully drawn characters that feel like ones you've seen somewhere before: the ever-so-charming British cad, the shmoozy American-in-Paris con-artist, the German radical playright, the wealthy author's beautiful socialite wife, the cut-price neighbourhood porn and sci-fi dealer who has principles but no friends, and there are countless others. Replete with bohemian hedonism, literary figures of pulp fictions, mid-century mass transit schemes, spying and the Cold War, antiquarian pornography and rare books, experimental cellular biology and at least three if not four counts of apparent teleportation - and yes, as the title implies there are several accidents. There's murder, affairs, jealousy, madness, a dash of romance, ghosts, and even a dead skunk.

Unfortunately, I can't write a real review of this book, it's just one of those books that I'm lifting my hands up in surrender to. It's a romp and a half alright, and at times it is more than a little bit baffling, but I actually found myself enjoying it increasingly as I neared the end. Not really sure if it deserved a Booker short-listing (but who's to say?), but it certainly is fun and suggests an author with an awfully grand imagination and much promise. Four stars and probably quite unforgettable.

Paul, The Teleportation Accident sounds like fun. Not sure if it's my kind of fun, as the description "sci fi" usually makes me turn away, but your review makes this sound much different.

Polaris, I've added The Teleportation Accident to the list of books I want to read. Your review sounds like it is fun.

It sounds incredibly off the wall and fun. Loved your review!

Daryl - Thanks for stopping by again. Not sure what you'll make of The Teleportation Accident (I'm not really that sure what I made of it and I've just finished it!) - it is a little perplexing overall. Definitely fun, and there's some very rewarding prose in there, as well as some richly drawn characterisations and fine moments of comedy...but it is quite unusual. It will possibly repel some while others will revel in the quirkiness. Between Friends is though faultless, and for me is a collection of perfect short fiction. I really hope you'll like it, as I think it is Oz near the top of his game.

Colleen - Hi! Yes it is fun - and the kind of book you let wash over you, rather than trying to fathom the meaning of each fine detail. The sci-fi element is really only quite tangential and doesn't really drive the plot in particular. It is rather that there are episodic 'flights of fancy' shall we say, that are at times quite fantastical, though somehow almost believable. They certainly don't spoil the book. (Not the biggest SF fan here either by the way!) On the other hand though, there are these moments of 'magic un-realism' that are sort of integral to making the book work. Oh dear - I'm not making much sense at all!

Vivienne - Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you got that impression, as that is the overall sensation from reading this undoubtedly original book that I wanted to convey.

Avid - off the wall is exactly what it is! Thanks for the compliment as ever.

The Teleportation Accident Excellent review of a book that sounds like a lot of fun. Is there a teleportation accident anywhere in the book?

I won't be adding this to my wish list as I can't stand too much fun, especially if it just a romp. Sounds good Booker prize material though.

Paul, While I say I don't usually like sci-fi, there are books that I think fall into a "magical" place that I do enjoy. For example, I have loved the Neil Gaiman books I've read. I am guessing "flights of fancy" fall into an area that I will enjoy.

Today I reserved from my library an audio book version of the 'play-made-for-radio' Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. Famously narrated by Richard Burton, I'm getting excited because I'm about to get in to Dylan Thomas in time for next year's centenary celebrations. Seeing as I've lived in Wales for five and a half years now I thought it was high time I 'discovered' his work a bit better. I've seen the wonderful filmed version of it before and love it, but really want to hear Burton reading it as I drive through the valleys on my way to and from work.

Barry, there are at least 2 teleportation accidents if I think about it, and also a third which was sort of an accident but ended up being pure cold-blooded murder. I don't read enough Booker prize material to really know what they're like, but perhaps this is that after all?

Colleen, if you're after a book that is not much like anything else, well written, and really quite diverting, then as long as you don't take it too seriously it will probably be an enjoyable experience. Perhaps I should have included reference in my review to the fact that it is also quite vulgar. Lots of emphatic swearing of a very Anglo-Saxon nature!

>262 Polaris-: "as I drive through the valleys on my way to and from work"

That sounds lovely. And the audio book sounds good too. :)

Fun review. It makes me think of Kurt Vonnegut or Tom Robbins...not sure either author really matches. Anyway, I will keep The Teleportation Accident in mind.

Cheers Dan.

Well, there's a very large storm coming across the Atlantic towards the southern portion of Britain, and its forecast to hit tonight in about another 7 hours or so, blowing through until well beyond the Monday morning rush hour. The trees are still mostly in leaf, and the recent rains have made the ground very sodden and the rivers are high... I'm pretty certain that my phone is going to start ringing at about 2 in the morning. We've got all our tree teams on standby to get out there to keep the roads, railways and power lines clear, so all though my climbing days are well over (thank God) I'm gonna have to lend a hand with the clear up.

If I was in private practice at least there'd be some extra dough in it for me, but as I work for the county it's just all part of the job... If I'm not on here for a while it'll be because things will be just alittle bit crazy around here...

(Hope it misses!)

I heard on the news this morning that winds up to 80 mph are expected. YIKES! Stay safe over there!

Holy moly! Good luck and take care!

Good luck tonight Paul.

We had cyclone Klaus hit us in 2009 with winds of 160 km/h with gusts of 180km/h. The thing I remember most about it was the tremendous roar of the winds, it really was very noisy. Word of advice - don't go out when the storm is at it's highest, there will be plenty of time to clear up afterwards.

Goodness, good luck Paul and stay safe.

Yes, what they all said! Hope at least the storm is over by now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24712975

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/28/us-britain-weather-storm-idUSBRE99Q07R...

This is horrifying.

Let us know how you are Paul.

All clear! Thanks for all the nice thoughts and words of advice. We definitely dodged a bullet over here in Wales - the worst of the gusts passed up the English Channel along the south coast and then clipped the south-east of the country in the early morning. They had 99mph winds on the Isle of Wight. Looks like most of the damage was done in the Greater London area. Probably because trees are either under-managed (read: under-resourced in some quarters) or too compromised by their environment (witness the many failed trees in the news photos where the pavement has been tarmac'd right up to the trunk's base. It's no wonder these stressed trees fail, what with the suffocated or compacted root systems and the multiple cases of adjacent trenching by utilities... It was just another normal busy Monday morning for me in Caerphilly thankfully. I'm grateful.

Sadly four people died in England - two from falling trees, and two more in a gas explosion believed to be caused by a falling tree. Strangely, this latter incident was in the same west London borough where I used to inspect the trees! Weird! Though the pictures I've seen so far suggest that it was a tree in a private garden and not one managed by the local borough (honest guv!!) - and I haven't worked there since 2008...

Now back to the books - where's my Under Milk Wood audiobook? (Should have arrived by now!)

That second article said the 1987 storm downed 15 MILLION trees in England. I just can't even comprehend that. Glad you are well.

We saw some video footage of the storm on the "Today" show this morning. It looked awful! Glad you are OK.

I'm glad to hear that you weren't adversely impacted by the storm, Paul.

Thanks for all the kind messages. The power of nature and the power of LibaryThing - two wondrous things!

1948: A Soldier's Tale by Uri Avnery

War is a sandwich - a thin slice of danger between two thick slices of boredom.

Uri Avneri is now 90 years old. He has lived a very interesting and full life, and is well known in Israel as a leftist, a 'peacenik' or an 'agitator', or more cruelly among those more bigoted circles (of which there's no shortage in Israel) as an 'Arab lover'. To some he is a beacon of rational optimism and wisdom, a passionate proponent of a secular Middle East consisting of nations working together towards a prosperous and peaceful future, where taxpayers' money is spent on improving the lives of its citizens, rather than on anachronistic tanks and unaffordable jet fighters; while to others he is at best a naive romantic, a perpetual thorn in the backside of those sensible and wiser types charged with the heavy responsibility of keeping the State of Israel safe from harm, and its people free from the risk of terror.

He has lived a truly remarkable life. Born in Weimar Republic Germany, his family left in late '33, when he was ten, for a new life in Palestine. As a young man Avneri witnessed the 1948 re-birth of Israel from the most intimate observation post - he served in a front-line infantry unit which saw the awful and bloody nitty-gritty of battle in some of the most significant and decisive engagements of that strange war. A war between Jew and Arab which began in earnest in late 1947 (after the UN voted for partition into two states) while the occupying British mandate forces were in chaotic withdrawal. An undeclared civil war between Jewish and Arab paramilitary undergrounds ensued while the British inconsistently feigned neutrality. By May '48 the British withdrawal was complete and they exited clumsily stage-left into the Mediterranean with the setting sun of their empire. David Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel's independence and the armies of several surrounding Arab states joined the ad-hoc forces of their Palestinian cousins in taking the fight to Israel.

Avneri's engrossing book is a recent publication which joins together in one volume for the first time the two separate titles which were published in the immediate aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli war. The first book - "In the Fields of the Philistines" (ITFOTP) is a compendium of the regular column which Avneri dispatched from the front to the evening edition of 'Ha'aretz' newspaper. They are exhillirating, to the point, and obviously very dramatic. I was reminded at times of the writing of Isaac Babel in Red Cavalry such is the immediacy and adrenalin-fizzed freshness of his dispatches. He has inserted commentary which links the chapters, explaining the context and those developments away from the front which the simple squaddie is typically oblivious to.

Avneri was in the 'Burma Road' convoys that kept the lifeline to the besieged Jerusalem open (see Amos Oz's remarkable Tale of Love and Darkness for a young boy's perspective to that particular trauma of this war between neighbours). He was sent in futile wave after futile wave against the Arab Legion stronghold at Latrun's old Ottoman/British police fortress, while the Egyptian forces squeezed them from the flanks.

Later -
...While we are marching through the dunes toward the south, the rumble of our artillery meets our ears. One shell after another explodes in the Egyptian camp. Our hearts leap. That is our revenge for Latrun...

Perhaps most horrifically of all, he was one of the courageous few that withheld the brutal Egyptian assault against the paper-thin defences at Kibbutz Negba on the southern front. At times it was literally a few dozen fighters with rifles, the odd machine-gun, and a jeep or two, which kept the might of the British equipped tank regiments and mechanised infantry of the Egyptian Army from breaking through to an unchecked onslaught on Tel Aviv.

...The defenders of Negba - the men who lived in stifling bunkers and threw back assault after assault of tanks and infantry, who were bombarded twenty-four hours a day by artillery and aircraft, soldiers and 'civilians'...behind the cover of destroyed houses and burning barracks...

Along with his celebrated unit 'Samson's Foxes', he was at every major battle of the central and southern fronts until he was made a casualty late in '48 by a serious shrapnel injury to his stomach after a year of fighting. Despite the fact that it pulls no punches, and is often quite graphic in the description of the harshest of battlefield conditions, as well as the blunt reportage from the seemingly disconnected home front and the smart-pressed uniforms of those who 'organise' themselves 'key roles' at HQ in the rear, ITFOTP was an instant success and bestseller with the jubilant post-war Israeli public.

Avneri was asked to publish more writing. But as he explains in the modern introduction, the first book was written in the heat of the battlefront, often from the back of a jeep, or in the ruin of an abandoned Arab village - brief snapshots of a young man exhilarated to be alive and to be surviving... The second book - "The Other Side of the Coin" (TOSOTC) - was written in very different circumstances. Avneri tells how he wrote it in a burst of energy over a two or three week period as he convalesced towards the war's end. It is straight form the heart, filled with passion, honesty of feeling, and a lot of raw emotion from the perspective of one who has lived through the horrors of war, and been right to the edge of losing his life, and witnessing many others who did. Most of the local publishers wouldn't touch it. When it was eventually published (by a different publisher to the first book), it was a big flop. The reviews were bad and the public turned on him. The Israelis of the early 1950s weren't ready to read first-hand impressions of the horrors of war, or of any compassion for the enemy, or about the terrible and brazen waste of life.

Some accused Avneri of betraying his nation, and of propagating Arab myths of Jewish violence. TOSOTC is indeed full of some very jarring experiences as Avneri weaves a series of flashback episodes into his convalescence at the casualty ward. For what seems an almost intolerable length of time, he must share his room with an unnamed dying soldier who is refused the soothing water he craves by the nurses with their orders. Weaved through the 140-odd pages of TOSOTC this poor soul's suffering punctuates Avneri's escapes to the recent past: memories from the battlefield, home leave, nostalgia for lost comrades, and even his teenage pre-WWII years in the right-wing nationalist underground 'Irgun' movement. It feels like he's in that stifling room for weeks and weeks and weeks. Only at the book's end is there a revelation that confirms for the reader that this has all happened in the space of a mere eight days.

The episodes that Avneri recalls are very memorable, and written with a tenderness that almost jars with the often grisly subject matter, but somehow doesn't. One episode tells how the unit's radio operator - an immigrant from Egypt - reaches out to a nearby enemy radioman he's listening in on. Their 'conversation' consists mainly of a series of mutual cursing and exchanged insults of the most depraved nature. This fast becomes a daily 10 O'clock morning ritual for the two signallers:

...His highest ambition is to formulate the ultimate, final curse. The one that will shake Ibrahim and shock him so much that he won't be able to find an answer and will have to admit defeat. But Ibrahim also has talent - and time. Every morning he has a newly prepared list...

...And amid all these insults Jamus and Ibrahim are telling each other about their lives. If they ever happened to meet, they would surely recognize each other.

After five days Jamus has a day's leave. Under a smokescreen of filthy barbs Ibrahim makes a personal request: His sister in Jaffa.

He hasn't heard anything from her since the war started... When he {Jamus} returns the next day, his face is grim.

Avneri asks Jamus what he learnt

- "I went everywhere. There are new immigrants living in the house. The Arabs can remember seeing her in the town after Jaffa was already taken. They think she is dead."

Jamus can't face another exchange with Ibrahim - whose unit is now surrounded - despite the Egyptian's calls and hope for news of his sister.

On the third day Ibrahim's voice sounds like a distant echo. The batteries of his radio are nearly dead. For a few moments we hear his weakening calls, until they get mixed up with the atmospherics and fade away beneath them. There are no spare batteries. The invisible bridge between the fronts has collapsed...

In the years following the war Uri Avneri pursued a career of campaigning journalism, fighting on with his pen and typewriter against the bigotry of ultra-nationalism which still permeates the region. He would go on to enter the Knesset as an opposition MP in a tiny leftist party. By the late 1970s, as the era of Menachem Begin and the new Likud government's expansion of the settlement project within the occupied territories entered full swing, he was one of the early spokesmen of the Peace block. In 1982, during Israel's seige of Beirut at the height of the war in Lebanon, he even manages to become the first Israeli to meet with Yasser Arafat. To this day he is a vocal opponent of Israeli oppression of her Palestinian neighbours, and still campaigns for peace and reconciliation.

I've deducted half a star for the lack of adequate maps in this edition. Why do publishers doubt the significance for the reader of comprehending fully the landscape and distances concerned in a memoir such as this? Especially a military memoir which concerns a relatively small area geographically, albeit one where the front-lines are constantly shifting and very tightly interwoven. Shame, as it spoils a little what is otherwise an extremely valuable and important book, as well as a very moving account from a first-hand witness to one of the 20th century's defining events.

Overall this is a very powerful and important piece of writing. The imagery and sense of feeling that Avneri gets down on paper will remain vivid in my mind for a very long time.

(Edited to remove unwanted touchstone & correct typos.)

Moving review. I feel for Avnery and I think I would love the book.

Wonderful review, Paul.

Excellent review of the life and times of Uri Avnery Your background information to the books was brilliantly done.

That was a wonderful review. I will be on the look out for this one.

That is a great review. I'm adding it to my wishlist though I have many Israeli history books to read already.
And thanks for the recommendation for the film Ajami, I got to see it a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you Dan, Colleen, Barry, Avid and Kerry for your kind comments. This is one that I hope will become better known, it certainly deserves to be.

As brilliant as many of the fine historians' efforts covering this conflict are, Benny Morris, Tom Segev, Ilan Pappe to name three, and even future politicians like Chaim Herzog and Menachem Begin themselves, there's nothing quite like reading commentary straight from the front. Avneri was one who knew how to do his fair share of dirty work as well as writing very well.

Kerry, I'm really glad you managed to see Ajami. It is quite a violent film, but very well directed and acted I thought. It's one that shows a side of Israel/Tel Aviv/Jaffa/Palestinians that is rarely considered by those outside the region, and also has nothing to do at all with 'the situation' (not directly anyway...you know what I mean...).

Wonderful review, as everyone has said, and I'll look for the book. It also reminds me I need to find and read my copy of Red Cavalry and also A Writer at War by Vasily Grossman.

Fabulous review of 1948: A Soldier's Tale, Paul!

Oh I definitely need to read 1948! Thanks for the very excellent review. I watched the movie Exodus last night which was an interesting and sad experience. I first watched it in junior high school so about age 12 or 13 and felt very pro-Zionist when I saw it. Very young and impressionable and still believing whatever my govt told me, thinking the U.S. were the good guys, which of course implied the existence of bad guys. So sad so many people who want to get along but just can't pull it off. I guess I am speaking of humanity in general! I would love to have heard Gandhi on this issue.

P.S. Newman was so horrible! I had no idea.

Hi Paul, I just found your thread, thanks to your latest review, and have starred it, but am only on post 5 at this point. I will try to catch up, but in the meantime, I thought I would say hi.

Hi Lisa! You're very welcome of course. Thanks for starring the thread.

Thanks Rebecca. You've just gone and reminded me too that I've got to get to Grossman sooner rather than later. Avneri's book reminded me in a few places of Babel's Red Cavalry - more the tone than the content.

Thanks also Daryl and Merrikay for your kind words. Merrikay - your comment is sort of a snapshot of my own Zionistic upbringing. I saw things differently when I moved to Israel. Some change this way, and some change that way... I guess that's humanity too.

(By the way - do you mean Newman's character (Uri Ben Ami was it?) or his acting?)

I meant Newman's acting.
It was so interesting tho seeing the Irgun and the Haganah positions, especially while I am reading Gandhi's spiritual biographers's ideas (or reportage of other's ideas) about room for both (schools of thought - violence vs. nonviolence) within the idea of redemption. It reminds me of Eldridge Cleaver talking about 5 ways people learn but unfortunately I can never remember them anymore: religion, education, money, violence.

ETA: I'm not saying I am pro or anti Zionist by the way. I'm saying that the more I learn, the more I know I cannot judge anything anyone else experiences.

Let's just all take this excuse to look at those eyes one more time...



What was that about his acting?

LOL Made me want to see one his newer movies when he was more experienced for comparison. I just can't remember. But like my husband said -Butch Cassidy. Great in that one!

I liked his jarred spaghetti sauce too. :)

LOL avid. and his wife. When I was a little girl I thought she was the most wonderful woman and so beautiful. Think I was about 10 when I saw her in The Three Faces of Eve.

Paul Newman's eyes and smile always did it for me. :)

CALLING ALL PHOTOGRAPHY FANS:
Well, I'm just a little bit proud of this, but -

My brother Sam Harris has just gone taken over London's excellent Photographer's Gallery Instagram feed for the week ahead...

From Western Australia that's some long range remote control!

Photographers Gallery - Instagram Takeover

That is awesome! I will check it out for sure. Congrats to him.

Reading - make that listening to - James Salter's All That Is at the moment in the car. It's my first experience of Salter's books and I'm really loving it so far.

Philip Bowman, a young Navy Officer veteran of the Pacific campaigns, is demobbed to post-Second World War New York City. He finds himself a job in publishing and meets Vivian Amussen.

I had to pull over earlier to jot this line down from an early chapter:

It was love - the furnace into which everything was dropped.

I'm captivated... and I've got site visits all day tomorrow so I might just have to stretch the car time in between them!

Congratulations to your brother Paul.

The photographers gallery used to be one of my favourite places to hang out when I lived in London.

Drive slowly.

Very cool about your brother. I got to remeber audio books for field work.

I have often taken the long way home if the book I am listening to is really good. :)

I love those pictures!

Thanks all for the kind words - I'll pass them on to big bruv.

He was a quite succesful music/fashion/editorial type photographer years ago in the London and Tel Aviv of his 20s and 30s (mid-80s to early 2000s), and then after a few years of travelling with his wife and young children, and jumping through a LOT of Aussie immigration hoops (including a two year detour as a chef) has made it back to doing what he's best at - taking good pictures.

There are links to his website and stuff about his self-published photobook 'Postcards From Home' (I have to add his work to LT...). The second book 'Middle of Somewhere' is in the making. I'm just a little bit proud...as I've believed in him since he started when he was an 18 year old going nowhere fast on one of Thatcher's 'Youth Training Schemes' - and I gave/lent/gave him the money for his first camera from my barmitzvah stash...

You have every right to be proud... :)

Congratulations to your brother and great photos!

I am a big fan of Salter, but haven't read All That Is yet; at this point, I think I'll wait for the paperback. I believe it is thinly disguised autobiography, or at least as autobiographical elements.

I'll have to check out the instagram thing - congrats to your brother and kudos to you for believing in him.

Jewish Journeys by Jeremy Leigh

My heart is in the East and I am in the depths of the West

Living out here in south Wales as I do, on the western edge of Europe, and in Israel as I once did, the mediaeval Jewish poet Yehuda HaLevi's words struck a chord as I picked this book up in a reflective and I suppose 'Jew-ish' mood this last Yom Kippur. London-born Jerusalemite Jeremy Leigh is a guide and educator of Jewish history and literature. This well-written and thoughtfully compiled anthology is his own personal take on the subject of Jewish journeys through the ages. It was first published in 2006 and is nicely presented in a small hardback format, with a nice fold out map in the front pages.

Divided into three sections the book examines the subject that is at the heart of the Jewish experience. Those sections are "Self: Personal Reflections on Jewish Journeys", "Context: The Idea of Journey in Jewish Experience", and "Voices and Places: Literary Jewish Journeys Through the Ages".

The first of these dragged a little, with a few too many pages given to autobiographic recollections; though it does serve in giving the reader a good idea of the type of man the author is, and perhaps a sense of where he's coming from and what he wants to express with this book. In the second section - the book definitely picks up as the author explores a variety of themes that emerge in common across the years:

One can only speculate what was going through the minds of those Jews leaving Roman Palestine. Did they know that this journey would define the character of Jewish life for the next 1900 years? Did they have any conception that the notion of 'home' was changing forever and cultural readjustment, by no means new to Jewish experience, was soon to become a permanent feature of life?

As the book progresses in small nicely digestible chunks of text, convenient for slow readers such as myself to dip in and out of, Leigh uses a wide selection of sources (there is a concise though thorough section of 'Endnotes' at the rear) to illustrate his themes:

In a different and more widely-known legend, the wandering Jew finds Poland as the antidote to wandering. There are numerous versions of this story, including three renditions by Nobel Prize winning writer S. Y. Agnon, one by the great Yiddish writer I. L. Peretz and others. All are variants of an oral folk tale {this is circa 17th century} that present Poland as {a} type of promised land for Jews:

If you want to know how it suddenly occurred to these Jews in Germany to seek refuge in Poland, legend has it that after the Jews had decreed a fast and beseeched God to save them from the murderers, a slip of paper fell from heaven. On it was written: 'Go to Poland, for there you will find rest...' The Jews set out for Poland. When they reached it, the birds in the forest chirped to greet them 'Po lin! Po lin!' {which means 'rest here' in Hebrew} The travellers translated this into Hebrew, as if the birds were saying: 'Here you should lodge...' Afterwards, when they looked closely at the trees, it seemed to them that a leaf from the Gemara was hanging on every branch. At once they understood that here a place had been revealed to them, where they could settle and continue to develop the Jewish spirit and the age-old Jewish learning.

The book's final and third section was the most enjoyable one for me, coming as it does replete with great examples and excerpts from literary sources, centred geographically. It approaches some of the many 'settings' for the many memorable dramas in my people's history: 'Leaving' (here Leigh references the biblical departure of Jacob in particular, and how it differed from that of his grandfather - the patriarch Arbaham), 'Jaffa' (and the endlessly beguiling story of Jonah and the whale), 'Rome' -The rabbis of the Talmud decided to write the history of the city by revisiting a previous moment of time.

Rab Judah said in Samuel's name: When Solomon married Pharaoh's daughter, Gabriel descended and planted a reed in the sea and around gathered around it, on which the great city of Rome was built...

From the eternal city we cover sections on 'Damascus/Baghdad', then 'Jerusalem/Girona/Toledo' - this section looks to Benjamin of Tudela, the mediaeval Jewish traveller from the Kingdom of Navarre. I'm very keen to read Benjamin, if for no other reason than when I visited Toledo in Spain some years ago it reminded me of Jerusalem more than anywhere else. But I digress.... (Digression is actually something this book does very nicely - in a sort of structured way.) From Spain we move to 'Naples/Venice', 'Berlin', and 'Paris'. The book is by no means meant to be comprehensive - it is a personal selection after all - but I liked the way Leigh linked theme to theme and place to place with a certain logical progression.

And so to Poland again. No birds with heavenly messages this time, but to Krakow, and Oswiecim. As Leigh puts it:

The guide's dilemma: how does one speak at sites of the Holocaust? ... maybe I should just withdraw? In relation to the 'great Auschwitz field' the Polish Jewish poet, Henryk Grynberg in his poem 'Poplars' says the following,

I don't try to understand anything

nor say anything

what else can one

have to say here

I come here to add my own

to the growing silence

Grynberg, together with his mother, were the sole survivors of their entire extended family. I am only a tour guide. Some guides bypass the problem by rushing straight to the conclusions, keen to emphasize what they believe the site means. In some cases this can be meaningful, in many cases it sounds crass. I am suspicious since no amount of hyperbole ever seems to transmit the power of the event itself. And yet, words must be spoken, victims must be recalled. Maybe it is the easier option, but the words of the victim often seem more appropriate.

From the middle ages Islamic and Christian worlds of Yehuda HaLevi's poetry or Benjamin of Tudela's travelogue, to the 19th century shtetl of Shalom Aleichem's Railroad Stories, and the 20th century semi-assimilation of Joseph Roth's Wandering Jews, this book ably conveys the sense of a people's grand journey through time. A journey still underway of course - the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai's moving poem 'Sandals', and the Algerian-born Erez Biton's poem 'Zohra al Fasiya' round out the book. Biton speaks through the experience of the legendary Jewish Moroccan singer of that name. Her journey to Israel has come at the expense of the fame and status she enjoyed in Morocco and is now a sad shadow of herself, bereft of her glory and living through her memories.

As the final words of the book's epilogue state: Not all journeys yield great riches. Paradoxically, journeys are sometimes required to appreciate this.

Reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas.

From 'The Peaches' -

We drove into the farm-yard of Gorsehill, where the cobbles rang and the black, empty stables took up the ringing and hollowed it so that we drew up in a hollow circle of darkness and the mare was a hollow animal and nothing lived in the hollow house at the end of the yard but two sticks with faces scooped out of turnips.

'You run and see Annie,' said uncle. 'There'll be hot broth and potatoes.'

And from 'A Visit to Grandpa's' -

I broke my sling and returned for the midday meal through the parson's orchard. Once, grandpa told me, the parson had bought three ducks at Carmarthen Fair and made a pond for them in the centre of the garden, but they waddled to the gutter under the crumbling doorsteps of the house, and swam and quacked there. When I reached the end of the orchard path, I looked through a hole in the hedge and saw that the parson had made a tunnel through the rockery that was between the gutter and the pond and had set up a notice in plain writing: 'This way to the pond.'

The ducks were still swimming under the steps.

Jewish Journeys sounds like a very interesting book; thanks for your review.

Agreeing with Rebecca. A thumb worthy review.

And a thumb from me too

Great review of Jewish Journeys.

Especially loved: I come here to add my own to the growing silence.

Thanks all for the kind words and kind thumbs!

It was a very rewarding book to slowly pick through.

I went off and looked up the "Poplar" poem. Beautifully sad.

It is Avid. The poet Henryk Grynberg also has a collection of short stories - Drohobycz, Drohobycz: and Other Stories which has been on my wishlist for a while now. I've not come across it yet...

Reading All That Is by James Salter -

"You have to have loyalty to things. If you don't have loyalty you're alone on earth."

I'm really enjoying the beautiful writing and memorable characterisations in Salter's semi-autobiographical novel. It's definitely up there for one of my best of the year. About three quarters read now, and I'm trying to not finish it too soon!

Took the car for it's 10000 mile service today - and that means another trip to Hay-on-Wye for books while I'm waiting!

Today's haul was a mixture of Castle Bookshop (with its outdoor shelving and honesty box on the old castle wall) 50p cheapies and Hay Cinema Bookshop hardbacks and good quality paperbacks at slightly above what I normally spend (about £3-£5 a book). I even got a Folio Society Robert Louis Stevenson in great nick for only £4!

The Amateur Emigrant & The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson (wishlist)
Yasmine by Eli Amir
Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (wishlist)
The March by E. L. Doctorow (wishlist)
The Floatplane Notebooks by Clyde Edgerton (wishlist)
CrocAttack AKA Almost Dead by Assaf Gavron (wishlist)
Exposure AKA Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua (wishlist)
Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell (wishlist)
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu (wishlist)
All Other Nights by Dara Horn (wishlist)
DelCorso's Gallery by Philip Caputo
The Song of Salome by Deborah Mann (lurid cover - couldn't resist!)

I justified all these to myself because the car's service came in at costing less than I expected - for a change! I could probably use a garage closer to home - but then nowhere's quite like Hay!

Well, that's me done for now until my Thingaversary in January.... in theory anyway....

ETA - It seems to be easier for me to find in Wales Israeli/Arab literature than that from the American South (who knows....) - so I was particularly chufffed to find The Floatplane Notebooks in hardback. £4!

What a good haul of books!

Nice haul, and how pleasant to be able to combine the car's service with book-shopping. My dentist used to be one block away from one of myfavorite bookstores, so I used to be able to combine a visit to the dentist with a visit to the bookstore. Alas, he's moved, and more alas, that bookstore has been out of business for many years.

Nice you lucky man! Hope you enjoy Exposure.

Always good to see someone reading Robert Louis Stevenson and a Folio version at that.
Will this be your first Caputo book?

Thanks Alison! I thought so too - though this was a bit of an extravagant one by my standards.

No Sassy - I read A Rumour of War last year, which I thought was very good. DelCorso's Gallery has some very mixed reviews on Amazon - but I'm not too put off. I have a few more of his on my wishlist too. Quite looking forward to the Robert Louis Stevenson - as I've not really read much by him and he was so prolific. The Folio editions are so lovely aren't they? - so well illustrated as well.

Rebecca - I had the dentist this morning as well :) (trying to get all the pain out of the way in one week I suppose...) No bookstores anywhere near though... Sad to hear the one by your dentist's old place has gone as well.

Merrikay - thanks - I've wanted any of Sayed Kashua's 3 books for a while now - more or less since I joined LT (which seems like AGES ago, but in fact was only just under 3 years ago...pffft..), and I've red a few articles about him in the Israeli press too. I remember your enthusiasm for 'Exposure' as well, so as soon as I saw it on the shelf - it was a no-brainer!

Another great book haul. I've got Kashua on my tbr pile too. I've read a couple of his Haaretz columns, though I don't subscribe so only get access to very few articles before the paybar is enforced.
I'm keen to start with his debut, Dancing Arabs.

Between Friends by Amos Oz

On our kibbutz, Kibbutz Yekhat, there lived a man, Zvi Provizor, a short fifty-five year old bachelor who had a habit of blinking. He loved to transmit bad news: earthquakes, plane crashes, buildings collapsing on their occupants, fires and floods.

With these opening two sentences I am there. I know exactly who Zvi Provizor is, and I know who we're dealing with in the opening story of Amos Oz's latest collection of short stories. These are a series of eight vignettes set in a fictional collective settlement of late '50s or early '60s Israel. It's a place that the reader will come to know surprisingly well for so slim a volume. The tales are above all about humanity.

I lived on a kibbutz once for several years, and no one of those communities is quite like another. That said, there are though certain traits and themes and character types that do tend to crop up in every one I ever encountered or heard about. Oz has captured with an amazing economy of words, and a clarity that is so satisfying, precisely who might live there and what preoccupies them.

In "The King of Norway" our blinking bachelor Zvi and Luna Blank, a widow, fall into a new routine - talking every evening. "Two Women" exchange letters - Osnat the launderess has recently become separated, and Ariella, who works in the chicken coop and heads the culture committee, is the tall, slim divorcée to whom her husband Boaz has run. The title story sees Nahum, a widower of about fifty, approaching the subject of his only remaining child, Edna, having moved in with David Dagan, a teacher and one of the kibbutz founders and leaders - a man his own age.

(A Tale of Love and Darkness SPOILER ahead - next paragraph)

"Father" is a story which I think is the most autobiographical: Sixteen year old Moshe is a 'boarder' newly arrived at Yekhat after his mother has died, and father and now uncle have both fallen ill. With the greatest poignancy we see Moshe finish work early one day and make the difficult trip to visit his ailing father. To anyone who has read Oz's 'A Tale of Love and Darkness' - this is a glimpse of what might have happened next. I was extremely moved.

"Little Boy" is another heartbreaker: The emotional volatility of the shared children's housing hits dad Roni in a way that doesn't quite affect mum Leah the same way. "At Night" sees Yoav the kibbutz general secretary turn night guard for the week. Nina needs his help with a problem that won't wait until morning. In "Deir Ajloun", Yotam the young adult son of another widow, Henia, receives an invitation from Uncle Arthur to study in Milan. Whatever will the general assembly have to say?

The final story, "Esperanto", is about an older member of the kibbutz - Martin, a holocaust survivor who hid from the Nazis in Holland. Martin is the community shoemaker and is a former Esperanto teacher; he has trouble breathing and is dying. He is an anarchist to the very end:

And once, when two brisk nurses came in to change his pyjamas, he grinned suddenly and told them that death itself was an anarchist. 'Death is not awed by status, possessions, power or titles; we are all equal in its eyes.'

All of the characters we've met are present in this final tale, though they crop up here and there in the other stories - maybe on the path, or making a speech in a meeting - just as they do on any kibbutz. Amos Oz has written a first class and moving collection of interwoven stories. The final mosaic is a piece of art to behold. I had to pace myself to read this book as slowly as I could, I wanted to savour its quality for as long as possible. (Perhaps I should have just torn through it and reread it immediately?) Five stars and highly recommended.

Edited to correct touchstones and add spoiler alert.

You've sold me on Between Friends.

Thank you Alison! That helps to make writing a review very gratifying.

Me Two!

Me three!

Very sad to hear today - I'm a bit out of touch already - that one of my favourite ever singers - certainly in the Hebrew language: Arik Einstein has died.

He was the voice of Israel personified, had an appeal across generations, classes, ethnic background, you name it... A very loved performer, whose songs embodied for many a soundtrack to their lives, and with his passing a little piece of Israel has died too.

Thoughtful Israeli broadsheet Ha'aretz has published many separate obituaries from her leader writers and various columnists - here is one that expresses more or less how I feel.

I have many many favourites, as do most Israelis, and it's impossible to just name one or two, but one of his that is quite beautiful is "You and I" ("Ani v'Atah") which is listed in the Ha'aretz page of ten of his most beautiful songs here. (It's the third song.)


Arik Einstein
Born Tel Aviv 1939
Died Tel Aviv 2013

Great review of Between Friends, Paul. I bought a copy this summer, as I love Amos Oz's writing, and I may read it as early as this week.

All That Is by James Salter

I thought that this is a small masterpiece. Reading/listening to this book while commuting to work for the last week or so, so completely consumed me that I didn't want it to end. The language Salter uses is so exquisite, without being flowery; so memorable, without being a distraction.

With an end as the beginning - that of the world war - Philip Bowman has returned to New York after serving in the Pacific campaign as a young Navy officer. He enters the world of book publishing as an editor, and we start to follow his life. We meet his colleagues, his small but supportive family - only child, father left when he was a boy - and soon enough his loves. Then the relationships -

"It was love - the furnace into which everything was dropped."

- and the friendships, dinner parties and business trips - London, Paris, and Frankfurt. Virginia WASPs and English greyhound trainers; southern gentlemen, publishers' wives and European playboys - this is a life, no - a collection of lives. East coast America, it's conurbations and backwaters alike is another character in the narrative - artfully drawn and vital.

As we witness the ebb and flow of Bowman's life, as well as that of Neil Eddins - his erstwhile colleague and friend - we come to know their innermost thoughts and desires, fears and regrets. Perhaps appropriately, given Bowman's and Eddins' vocations, but the cultural references abound as we steam through the fifties and sixties. Before we know it the 'post-hippie' era is upon us and our main protagonists' lives have taken several twists and turns, as you'd expect. Nevertheless, this book still manages to shock at turns most unexpected and heartbreaking. Bowman is not a perfect man, and at times his actions gall. But through it all you can see the humanity. Perhaps it's heavily autobiographical, I wouldn't quite know, but it certainly is a life of a character I shall not forget.

"You have to have loyalty to things. If you don't have loyalty you're alone on earth."

Almost as a bookend to our start, a chance encounter one evening sends the reader tumbling back, back through Bowman's lifetime in an instant and perhaps we realise together that that's 'all there is'? But that it is enough.

This is a beautiful read, written with passion and tenderness, and a lightness of touch that is to be treasured. It made me think about things and ponder the decisions we make in life, and the people we meet, and some that we leave behind. I'm so glad I've found James Salter and have his other books ahead of me to read. Five stars.

PS: My library audiobook is narrated by Joe Barrett. His work is superb - a real joy to listen to his warm and expressive tones. I'd happily listen to him read anything North American.

All That Is sounds lovely.

Thanks Daryl - I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Colleen - it was a very pleasurable read, on several levels. I've now added several of his books to my wishlist, and can't wait to get to the short stories as well. He is a master of economical expression.

Lovely review of between friends and sad sad news about Arik Einstein. I have listened to his music so much over the years.

I wasn't familiar with Arik Einstein but I'm playing his music from the link you provided as I type this.

I'm encouraged by your review of All That Is; I've read several other books by Salter and especially recommend Light Years and The Hunters. I will definitely read All That Is now, as I was worried it would it come out too semiautobiographical.

Excellent review of All that Is Paul.

Thanks for the intro to Israeli music.

Wonderful wonderful review of All That Is. I look forward to hearing about Salter's other books as you read them.

Thank you all so much! I enjoyed writing it.

Rebecca - I've wishlisted those recommended Salters.
Kerry - I'm chuffed you of all people like the Between Friends review. And I think I'll be having an Arik-a-thon on the stereo this weekend :(

Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

This was a totally immersive pleasure. I savoured every word - and they're in abundance as they come at you almost without pause for thought or breath in this extended prose poem - 'a play for voices'. The tempo and rhythm matches that of a day's span: gentle and deliberate at times, busily frenzied at others. I don't know if this is Thomas' masterpiece as I'm only at the beginning of reading his work, but it must surely have been hard to better. It is a small piece of perfection - short in length but leaving a lasting impression. A day in the life of the backwater seaside town of Llareggub. I should say that it is a fictional town, but that almost seems ungrateful on my part - such is the power and vivid impression of his rendering of that place. It is a place alive with spirit and flavour, sounds and smells, tones and tastes. There are ghosts and poetry, dreams and gossip. Hopes and memories abound. At times I was struck by an almost Chagall-like sense of imagery. There are equal parts tragedy and wonder, as well as the fantastic and the banal; and a fair dollop of fruity humour to boot.

I had the pleasure of listening to the audiobook version remade by the BBC in 2003, featuring the pitch-perfect original recording of Richard Burton as 'First Voice', together with a new all-Welsh cast of many wonderful voices - including Sian Phillips as 'Second Voice'. I've seen the 1970s film adaptation before but this audio recording was superlative. Now I want a printed edition - and I hope there'll be a suitably designed commemorative one out in 2014 for the Thomas centenary - as I know that I will want to savour this all again, line by line, over and over. As soon as I finished it I put the first disc back in and had to listen to it all over again. It is a magical and beautiful thing.

You certainly made it sound wonderful.

Thanks Avid!

Looks like I'm not alone in thinking of Marc Chagall sitting well with Dylan Thomas - I found this image on the net up with a Thomas poem - "Fern Hill".



Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Sitting here loving the imagery.... :)

I've always loved Under Milk Wood but haven't read - or heard - Fern Hill before. Beautiful, and accompanies the painting so well..

Marc Chagall is a goodie in my book - especially his crucified Jesus and paintings he did of biblical stories.

Lovely poem and painting.

Thanks for the comments people!

Colleen, Rebecca - He really does paint beautiful and memorable imagery.

Vivienne - great to see you here again. "Fern Hill"'s a new one for me as well. I like it lots too - and it would sound great read aloud of course - what a shame Richard Burton died so young, his voice was beautiful.

Jonathan - really great to have you here - welcome! I really love Chagall's work as well... I could gaze at his pictures for ever. I'd like to read his biography by Jonathan Wilson soon enough. I was lucky enough to see his incredible stained glass windows of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in Jerusalem a few years ago - a wonderful thing.

Enjoying reading about your Foray into Dylan Thomas; you are not too far from Dylan Thomas country although the Welsh have possibly never forgiven him for writing in English.

Nice to see and read Fern Hill.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas

With a title nodding at James Joyce, Thomas' first prose collection (after several volumes of poetry) was published in 1940. Also autobiographical, these ten somewhat bittersweet stories cover different periods in the author's childhood, later youth and early adulthood. These stories are tenderly written, though they have more than a fair share of humour and are definitely written with a twinkle in the eye. They give an interesting insight to the lower-middle class childhood and coming of age Thomas had in 1920s & '30s south Wales. Here is a little flavour of the stories:

The Peaches -

Young Dylan is staying with Aunt Annie, Uncle Jim and older cousin Gwilym at their farm. The dusty and snug summer country routine is broken when arrangements are made for the apparently posh Mrs Williams' son Jack to come and play.

'Is Mrs Williams very rich?' asked Gwilym.
I told him she had three motor cars and two houses, which was a lie. 'She's the richest woman in Wales, and once she was a mayoress,' I said. 'Are we going to have tea in the best room?'
Annie nodded. 'And a large tin of peaches' she said.
'That old tin's been in the cupboard since Chistmas,' said Gwilym, 'mother's been keeping it for a day like this.' 'They're lovely peaches,' Annie said. She went upstairs to dress like Sunday.

A Visit to Grandpa's -

It was the first time I had stayed in grandpa's house. The floorboards had squeaked like mice as I climbed into bed, and the mice between the walls had creaked like wood as though another visitor was walking on them.

Dylan's eccentric (and probably senile) Grandpa proceed's to behave very strangely - in a way that alerts a well-drilled corps of villagers to prompt action: 'Dai Thomas has been to Llanstephan, and he's got his waistcoat on' is the uncoded cry that goes up shop by shop...

Patricia, Edith, and Arnold -

A winter scene this time as young Dylan is witness to the family help's despair. The reality dawns on her best friend (the next door girl) and her that their beau-in-common has been a cad. Tears and snowball sodden letters.

The Fight -

Two boys have a fight and end up the best of friends. Dylan visits Dan at his house later that day and they decide to start a magazine called 'The Thunderer'. Dylan reads some of his poetry at the family dinner table.

Extraordinary Little Cough -

One afternoon, in a particularly bright and glowing August, some years before I knew I was happy, George Hooping, whom we called Little Cough, Sidney Evans, Dan Davies, and I sat on the roof of a lorry travelling to the end of the Peninsular.

So begins an entertaining tale of adventure and girls as the boys go on holiday in the Gower.

Just Like Little Dogs -

An off-season seaside town. Three men shelter from the rain under a railway arch one windy and dark evening.

Families sat down to supper in rows of short houses, the wireless sets were on, the daughters' young men sat in the front rooms. In neighbouring houses they read the news off the table cloth, and the potatoes from dinner were fried up. Cards were played in the front rooms of houses on the hills. In the houses on tops of the hills families were entertaining friends, and the blinds of the front rooms were not quite drawn. I heard the sea in a cold bit of the cheery night.

One of the strangers said suddenly, in a high, clear voice: 'What are we all doing then?'
'Standing under a bloody arch' said the other one.

Where Tawe Flows -

Mr Humphries, Mr Roberts, and young Mr Thomas knocked on the front door of Mr Emlyn Evans's small villa 'Lavengro', punctually at nine o'clock in the evening.

The four men proceed to sit and discuss their collaborative attempts at writing a novel together chapter by chapter and week by week each Friday at nine o'clock sharp.

Who Do You Wish Was With Us? -

Dylan and his friend Ray embark on a walking trip - once again it's the beautiful Gower Peninsular, so close to Thomas' Swansea.

Old Garbo -

Now Cub reporter at the Tawe News, just before Christmas, Dylan is reviewing a performance called 'The Crucifixion' on his Saturday afternoon off. A masterful character study follows where we see the young writer observing the comings and goings in various local drinking holes.

One Warm Saturday -

Possibly the strongest piece in this collection, it's well suited closing out the collection as it's atmosphere and imagery really linger long after the reading. In a seaside-set story, a young man falls heavily for a girl he sees briefly sitting on a bench reading a book. By chance they meet again later in a nearby pub. An ensuing 'party' sees the frustrated love-struck couple accompanied by a bevvy of other drinkers, chaperones and assorted hangers-on. In an unexpectedly Kafka-esque denouement they somehow manage to lose each other.

Overall, this was an interesting collection I'm glad to have read. I didn't like all of it, but there was enough here to make me want to read more of Thomas' short stories. I particularly liked 'The Peaches', 'A Visit to Grandpa's', 'Just Like Little Dogs', and 'One Warm Saturday'

I really liked your review of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. I might try that one.

Thanks Colleen.

Portrait of the Artist as a young Dog deserves to be read for the title alone.

Nice one Barry!

I love the cover illustrated above in my review post as well as the title. Unfortunately my own copy is a very plain 1940's paperback (I usually use covers in LT that are either the exact ones I have, or just ones that I like the look of) - this one with DT and the dog is a classic!

Love the way you summarized each short story. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of this one.

Popping by to get caught up again. Lovely thread, both words and art. Between Friends sounds good, although I really did not like the linked story format in Olive Kitteridge. I'm not a reader of short stories in general, but this sounds interesting. Same goes for the Dylan Thomas. I enjoyed listening to him read his A Child's Christmas in Wales on YouTube. The stories in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog sound as though they were written in a similar style.

Thanks for coming by again Lisa. Your comment's a really nice one. I can't recommend Between Friends enough - definitely one of my books of the year - even if you're not a big short stories reader normally - he really sets the tone 100% right for the feeling that goes with life on a kibbutz (in the past at least, though I'm sure the 21st century versions haven't changed all that much deep down inside) - some people are friends, some are not, some are mere acquaintances passing by on the path, and some are idiots. All life is there.

"The King of Norway" is the Amos Oz story that got me immediately. The Mr. Negative old man who only talked about all of the bad, sad, horrible things that happen in the world. No one wants to hear only that negative stuff and sometimes that seems like all I see. It makes me feel like an old crank. Then when sweet Luna said to him, "You are so sensitive. You carry the sorrows of the world on your shoulders." It was such a sweet and insightful reframe. Hit a little too close to home and pierced his angry armor, threatened to open up his sadness, and scared him to death.

Hey Merrikay! I didn't know you'd read it! Did you read the whole book or just some selections? I'd love to get your impressions.

"The King of Norway" is amazingly tender really. And it's a good opener in the book I thought. You've caught the essence of Tsvi Provizor's 'relationship' with Luna so well. Oz is good at writing these characters who are sort of unlikeable or even contemptible, and then another character's sensitivity will unveil an aspect of the first character you might have initially not considered.

Catching up, but not quite there yet. And i need sleep. But some terrific reviews I just read. You have made me want to read Jewish Journeys and something by James Salter. If I manage to carry on with Oz, hopefully I'll get to Between Friends. Between Love and Darkness should be next for me.

I just finished it Paul and posted my review, altho it was more about my personal reading experience than about the book....wait........oh whatever!

I had a hard time holding the names in my mind because they are all unfamiliar to me so it took me awhile to pick up on the connections between characters. I have to go back and check on that.

Yes! Just read it and thumbed! I love your review - I wish I could write a bit less 'about' a book, and a bit more on how it made me feel...

Thanks Dan for your compliment. I HAVE to read more by Salter, and very soon! It was some of the best writing I've read for a long time. Definitely a new favourite.

I seem to have punctuated my Club Read with occasional obituaries of people I admire... Sadly here's another - the Irish-born actor Peter O'Toole has passed away.

A great great actor and the star of one of my all-time favourites 'Lawrence of Arabia'. I really dislike this newpaper but the Daily Mail's obituary has an interesting obit headline:

"Last man standing: How Peter O'Toole outlived Hollywood's biggest hellraisers"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-566034/Last-man-standing-How-Peter-OTo...

I'd like to think that his acting ability extended beyond his reputation as a hellraiser, but it cannot be denied!

On a slightly more personal note - my brother (in the days when he was a photographer in 'the business' in London) took a fine portrait of the great actor - it was always one of my favourites of Samuel's - and I encouraged him to use it as his calling card image for a while.



Peter O'Toole - RIP

Born Connemara 1932
Died London 2013

What a wonderful actor he was. Who will ever forget Lawrence of Arabia or Mr Chips?

Glad you have a personal story to remember. Thanks for posting.

Those eyes in Lawrence of Arabia made me melt. Loved him.

Sad about Peter O'Toole, although I'm not enough of a movie person to have seen him in any role I can think of (outside Ratatouille).

Great stuff on Dylan Thomas, who is still a mystery to me. Glad you posted Fern Hill.

And I'm caught up now. :)

Peter O'Toole has been #1 on my list of actors for a long, long time. I think it started when I saw "My Favorite Year" as a teenager.

Wow, the stories in Tenth of December by George Saunders are really original and satisfyingly unsettling. Just had to sit in the car for ages when I got home just now - I couldn't get out until the story I'd been listening to had finished. Four down, and really enjoying them so far.

I heard good things about Tenth of December. Looking forward to your review. I am pretty sure I have it on my Kindle.

That's interesting, Paul. I've been avoiding Tenth of December because it got so much hype, but maybe I'll have to break down and read it.

Sitting in the garage listening is the best recommendation for an audio book.

>372 labfs39: As long as the car is turned off, or the door is open. ;)

Car off and usually the garage lights go off because they are motion sensitive, so I'm cold and in the dark--it must be really good!

...Mmm, a little less certain now how I feel about Tenth of December now, as the last two I listened too left me feeling a bit nonplussed...

Still, can't fault the originality, that's for certain.

Well, I doubt I'll finish any more books now in 2013 - so I just want to say "a very Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" to all of you out there in LibraryThingland who've helped me to really enjoy this year's reading even more. For all the comments and conversation and recommendations throughout the year - thank you all, and see you in 2014!

My new Club Read thread will be over here.

So here is a farewell to my 2013 reading with a mosaic of cover images:



...and on it goes!

Your mosaic is beautiful. Lovely to be reminded of all those wonderful books. And a reminder: I have to look out for Simon Schama's book.

See you in Club Read 2014...

Thanks Vivienne! I'll see you too... Seasons greetings!

Love the mosaic

Will see you in Club Read 2014! Neat book cover mosaic.

Thanks Bas and Avid - happy new year - and see you in 2014!

Nice montage!

Thanks Rebecca!

I meant to sign off with this - a summary of my best reads of the year, and some duds too:

Best fiction:

1) Between Friends by Amos Oz

- Moving and atmospheric interconnected shorts set on a typical late 1950s kibbutz in Israel. I wonder why I liked this one...

2) Facing the Music by Larry Brown

- Original and powerful voice of the blue-collar south. Fantastic debut collection of grit, misfits and pathos from the gone-too-soon Mississippian.

3) All That Is by James Salter

- A life - beautifully told. From the WWII Pacific to a career in Manhattan publishing, Salter's protagonist makes his way through the twentieth century. Masterfully written and truly lasting.

4) Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas

- The classic 'play for voices' of a night and day in the life of the Welsh seaside village of Llareggub. Wonderful imagery and fabulous language - best heard told by Richard Burton and the wonderful all-Welsh BBC cast.

5) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

- The classic depression-era tale of migrant workers George and Lenny in their search for opportunity in California. Beautiful and heartbreaking. Expertly read audio version by Clarke Peters.

Best non-fiction:

1) The World From My Front Porch by Larry Towell

- Gorgeous photo-book of life on an Ontario family farm across twenty-odd years. Home, history and life are here.

2) Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

- A Christmas present in 2012 and I've enjoyed making many tasty dishes from throughout the year - and will continue to in the future! Superb Levantine recipes of a mixed Jewish (Sephardi, Ashkenazi AND Mizrachi origins) and Arab background.

3) Katherine Avenue by Larry Sultan

- Photo-book: Domestic landscape of childhood and adolescence is explored with photos of his parents, their home, and their experience of the American Dream. Later we see suburbia serving as sets in the pornographic industry. It culminates in a series of Latino day labourers undertaking prosaic tasks on the suburban periphery.

4) 1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road to Jerusalem
by Uri Avnery

- Hard hitting memoir of Zionist pioneer at war for Israel's independence. Overall, a very powerful and important piece of writing. The imagery and sense of feeling that Avneri gets down on paper will remain vivid in my mind for a very long time.

5) Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation by Aili McConnon

- Amazing and inspiring tale of one of the greatest ever professional road-racing cyclists of all time become an anti-Fascist with the advent of WWII and risk his life to help hundreds of Jews escape into hiding.

Most disappointing:

1) The Cloudspotters' Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

- Nice premise. Started well - became repetitive and dull.

2) Our Man In Havana by Graham Greene

- Great story, lots of fun. AWFUL, and I mean AWFUL audio-book production almost ruined it. Do NOT go there.

3) Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

- I'm a fan of le Carré, but I hate Michael Jayston's smarmy voice - so I had to abandon this audio-book. Will start again with the book itself one day.

Well, I was wrong. Turns out there was time for one more audiobook, and it would seem wrong to enter this one as a completed read on the 2014 thread...



Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders

Contrary to the claims of The New York Times Magazine (and other similarly minded reviewers) I found that this was not "the best book you'll read this year".

This collection of ten (mostly) biting short stories was a somewhat mixed bag. It started strong ('Victory Lap' - a powerful combination of violent drama with the protagonists' own emotional self-doubt as the micro-parented geek-next-door reacts unexpectedly to innocent all-American Alison's nightmare encounter with a disturbing individual; 'Sticks' - poignant flash-fiction on a father's peculiar way of expressing his innermost feelings; and my favourite: 'Puppy' - as we witness a middle class family's visit to collect an unwanted puppy from another family whose life is altogether less 'together') and ended very memorably with the resonant title story of a suicide plan complicated by a daydreaming loner of a boy on a harsh snow-muffled winter's day.

In between were an array of tales which left me either feeling cold, nonplussed, or downright annoyed. There are visions of a disturbing future dystopia of lab-humans testing mind controlling pharmaceuticals ('Escape From Spiderhead'), or the subtlest of disturbing twists on a parallel reality of present day suburbia ('The Semplica Girl Diaries'). Saunders shows real skill at using modern day vernacular in a way that conveys an immediacy of sorts authentic, but on too noticeable an occasion I found it jarring and affected. In 'Exhortation', a boss sends a supposedly motivational memo to staff - this story was pointless and added nothing to the collection.

In 'Al Roosten' the reader is privy to the inner thoughts of a seething employee, low on self-esteem, as he considers his main rival at work - someone who isn't even aware of Al's correct name. 'Home' was a depressing story of a dysfunctional family brought to its knees by seemingly self-inflicted circumstances - usually the kind of setup that I'm drawn too and intrigued by, but this time I had no empathy and found myself wanting it just to be over; and 'My Chivalric Fiasco' was another work-set tale that didn't really say anything much too me. I suspect that the ones that left me cold were those which others call 'biting satire', whereas I just didn't get the point.

A disappointing collection if I'm honest - but perhaps because I expected so much after all the hype - although there is definitely enough here to confirm his promise as a talented writer worth keeping an eye on. I am surprised though that so many have included this in their best-of-the-year lists. I did enjoy the way that Saunders so comprehensively suggests a world with such economic and contemporary language, but I just didn't respond in any particular way with some of the plots and characters he creates. 3.5 stars.

Excellent review of Tenth of December.

hey, just noticed you on the Club Read 2014 and you were from Wales. Seems your just down the road in Llantrisant :) I currently live in Tonyrefail.

An alternate view on this. Enjoyed your review, but wondering if the hype killed it for you. I have have had that experience with other books before.

I enjoyed your review of Tenth of December, Paul. I think I disliked this collection even more than you did and seeing Saunders speak about it in person did not change my mind. All the praise this book has received makes me feel like I must be missing something. It is interesting how our views on the same book can be so diverse.

But if we all felt exactly the same, I think it would be a little boring after a while. Maybe?

How many books covers proclaim that this will be the best book you will read all year, perhaps it will be if you don't read anything else. Nice review Paul.

Avid - thanks for that!

Hi Bridgey - nice to meet you here ! You're probably one of the closest people to me geographically on LT being just up the Rhondda Valley a bit. Are you gonna be on CR in 2014?

Dan - you're probably right, although to be honest I only really became aware of more of the hype once I'd wishlisted it. Originally it just looked like a good collection by an original writer with a quirky style. I've now read some other reviews and it looks as though there are some that just love it, and others who have more mixed feelings about it. More than one reviewer has said that they think it is one of his weaker collections.

Linda - thanks for stopping by, and your kind words. I thought that some of the stories were really well done, and he has some very original ideas, I just felt that overall there were too many that could have been excluded if the collection had been that bit more selective, or stories that just didn't do anything for me one way or the other. I enjoyed enough of his style though to go back for other collections of his stories - I'll just be more prepared to not necessarily like them all - and that's okay.

Sorry - Colleen and Barry - our posts just crossed in the post... Thanks as well!

Happy New Year, Paul. I'm looking forward to your reviews in the new year. :)

Wishing you a happy new year, Paul.

Enjoyed your review of the Tenth of December. I read it earlier this year as part of the ER program. I think Victory Lab was the only story I actually liked. I mean the rest are well written but there flat. Nowhere near a best of the year kind of read in my opinion. Anyway happy New Year!