Ursula's Words and Images, 2015 (3)

I got tired of looking at the other thread, so I guess I'll finish out the year here. If you're a new arrival to my thread, here's me in a nutshell: I'm an American living in Padova, Italy, since May of this year. We're here because my husband is a mathematician and he has a one-year research position (that is now a 16-month research position) at the university. I'm an artist and photographer. Although I grew up with a nonna, a zia Lilly and a zio Dino and am part Italian, I did not speak the language before coming here. I am still on the long road to learning, although I can usually understand people and make myself understood.



That was taken in Ferrara.

Currently Reading:

  

White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►January◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - finished Jan. 2 (225 pages) - ♥♥♥½ (review)
Code Name Verity - finished Jan. 8 (343 pages) - ♥♥ (review)
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman - finished Jan. 12 (audio, 23h 52m) - ♥♥♥♥ (review)
Station Eleven - finished Jan. 15 (333 pages) - ♥♥♥♥ (review)
The Book of Disquiet - finished Jan. 16 (262 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2 (review)
I'm Not Scared - finished Jan. 20 (200 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥ (review)
Anna Karenina - finished Jan. 20 (807 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2 (review)
All the Light We Cannot See - finished Jan. 23 (531 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2 (review)
Orlando - finished Jan. 29 (333 pages) - ♥♥♥♥ (review)
A Pleasure and a Calling - finished Jan. 29 (281 pages) - ♥♥♥ (review)
The Red Queen - finished Jan. 30 (audio, 12h 52m) - ♥♥♥ (review)

January Total: 11
January Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►February◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Blood and Guts in High School - finished Feb. 7 (165 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
The Maltese Falcon - finished Feb. 7 (196 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Ice Ship - finished Feb. 8 (316 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
Venice: Pure City - finished Feb. 13 (audio, 14h 1m) - ♥♥♥ (review)
Invisible Cities - finished Feb. 18 (165 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥ (review)
The Two Worlds of Marcel Proust - finished Feb. 24 (252 pages) - ♥♥1/2 (review)
City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran - finished Feb. 26 (audio, 9h 18m) - ♥♥
A Tale of Two Cities - finished Feb. 28 (382 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2

February Total: 8
February Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►March◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
The Italians - finished Mar. 4 (316 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
The Castle of Otranto - finished Mar. 8 (116 pages) - ♥♥♥
Untouchable - finished Mar. 15 (167 pages) - ♥♥♥
The Italians - finished Mar. 27 (352 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - finished Mar. 28 (audio, 14h 35m) - ♥♥♥
Boy, Snow, Bird - finished Mar. 30 (308 pages) - ♥♥1/2

March Total: 6
March Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►April◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Shakespeare Saved My Life - finished Apr. 6 (291 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
Deadline in Athens - finished Apr. 7 (295 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
Ciao, America! - finished Apr. 11 (242 pages) - ♥♥
It's What I Do - finished Apr. 13 (audio, 9h 7m) - ♥♥♥1/2
Two Lives - finished Apr. 27 (375 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Infinite Jest - finished Apr. 27 (1079 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
How Soccer Explains the World - finished Apr. 28 (261 pages) - ♥♥

April Total: 7

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►May◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Corelli's Mandolin - finished May 13 (435 pages)- ♥♥
World War Z - finished May 16 (342 pages) - ♥
The Steady Running of the Hour - finished May 29 (448 pages) - ♥♥

May Total: 3
May Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►June◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
The Pursuit of Italy - finished Jun 1 (474 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
Not My Father's Son - finished Jun 3 (audio, 6h 28m) - ♥♥♥
Ethan Frome - finished Jun 7 (189 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Homage to Catalonia - finished Jun 22 (232 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
The Night Watch - finished Jun 23 (455 pages) - ♥♥♥

June Total: 5
June Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►July◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Gone Girl - finished Jul 6 (419 pages) - ♥♥♥
The Good Soldier Schweik - finished Jul 10 (429 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Descent: A Memoir of Madness - finished Jul 11 (52 pages) - ♥♥♥
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - finished Jul 12 (259 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥
The Postman Always Rings Twice - finished Jul 15 (127 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master - finished Jul 23 (289 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2
Dr. Mutter's Marvels - finished Jul 26 (audio, 8h 54m) - ♥♥♥1/2

July Total: 7
July Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►August◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
The Moor's Last Sigh - finished Aug 3 (448 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - abandoned at 50% (175 pages)
We Need New Names - finished Aug 8 (296 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
American Lion - finished Aug 11 (audio, 17h 17m) - ♥♥♥1/2
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - finished Aug 16 (395 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥
Lonesome Dove - finished Aug 22 (945 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
My Life in Middlemarch - finished Aug 24 (audio, 9h 37m) - ♥♥♥
The Secret History - finished Aug 24 (546 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
The Trial - finished Aug 26 (171 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2

August Total: 8
August Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►September◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
The Bat - finished Sep 1 (331 pages) - ♥1/2
Blood, Bones & Butter - finished Sep 2 (audio, 10h 5m) - ♥♥
Jack Black e la nave dei ladri - finished Sep 3 (189 pages) - ♥♥♥
My Struggle: Book One - finished Sep 4 (441 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥
Dead Wake - finished Sep 5 (audio, 13h 4m) - ♥♥♥
Junky - finished Sep 6 (256 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Basilica - finished Sep 11 (audio, 8h 13m) - ♥♥
The Portrait of a Lady - finished Sep 20 (658 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Girl in a Band - finished Sep 21 (audio, 7h 14m) - ♥♥♥
The Fortune of War - finished Sep 22 (355 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea - finished Sep 27 (423 pages) - ♥♥
In the Heart of the Sea - finished Sep 30 (audio, 10h 3m) - ♥♥♥♥

September Total: 12
September Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►October◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Ready Player One - finished Oct 1 (374 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Rabbit, Run - finished Oct 3 (325 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2
Island of Vice - finished Oct 7 (audio, 15h 24m) - ♥♥♥
A Gate at the Stairs - finished Oct 11 (338 pages) - ♥♥1/2
A Farewell to Arms - finished Oct 13 (324 pages) - ♥♥♥
Se questo è un uomo - finished Oct 16 (209 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2
Eileen - finished Oct 19 (260 pages) - ♥♥
In the Kingdom of Ice - finished Oct 20 (audio, 17h 22m) - ♥♥♥♥♥
The Last Empress - finished Oct 24 (308 pages) - ♥♥1/2
The Day of the Triffids - finished Oct 25 (272 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2
The English Patient - finished Oct 28 (322 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2

October Total: 11
October Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►November◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
The Men Who United the States - finished Nov 1 (audio, 13h 34m) - ♥♥♥
Ripley Under Ground- finished Nov 4 (263 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano - finished Nov 7 (360 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Amsterdam - finished Nov 9 (178 pages) - ♥♥♥
Without You, There Is No Us - finished Nov 11 (audio, 8h 34m) - ♥♥♥♥
Slade House - finished Nov 15 (256 pages) - ♥♥♥
Beloved - finished Nov 17 (291 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥
Special Deluxe - finished Nov 19 (audio, 9h 29m) - ♥♥♥♥
The Man in the High Castle - finished Nov 25 (249 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2
Doctored - finished Nov 27 (audio, 10h 38m) - ♥♥♥1/2
Le avventure di Pinocchio - finished Nov 27 (168 pages) - ♥♥♥♥

November Total: 11
November Statistics

◄╚╧╤╬╧╤╗►December◄╔╤╧╬╤╧╝►
Cranford - finished Dec 1 (194 pages) - ♥♥♥
Istanbul: Memories and the City - finished Dec 2 (400 pages) - ♥♥1/2
The Stepford Wives - finished Dec 3 (123 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
Did You Ever Have a Family - finished Dec 8 (293 pages) - ♥♥♥♥♥
Isabella: The Warrior Queen - finished Dec 13 (audio, 21h 12m) - ♥♥♥
Written on the Body - finished Dec 17 (190 pages) - ♥♥♥♥1/2
Close Range: Wyoming Stories - finished Dec 18 (359 pages) - ♥♥♥♥
A Handful of Dust - finished Dec 25 (288 pages) - ♥♥♥
Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood - finished Dec 28 (audio, 15h 55m) - ♥♥♥♥
A Wild Sheep Chase - finished Dec 29 (364 pages) - ♥♥♥1/2

Total Pages Read: 25072
Total Time Listened: 286h 46m

Male Authors: 67
Female Authors: 32

Fiction: 63
Nonfiction: 36

1001 List Books: 36





Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

2015
Portugal: The Book of Disquiet
India: Untouchable
Czech Republic: The Good Soldier Schweik
Zimbabwe (although never mentioned by name): We Need New Names
North Korea: Without You, There Is No Us
Turkey: Istanbul: Memories and the City

Covered in 2014:
Afghanistan
Australia
Canada
China
Colombia
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Egypt
Ethiopia
France
Germany
Greece
Haiti
Iran
Italy
Japan
Latvia
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Russia
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States
Vietnam

I look forward to hearing about living in Italy. My husband has lots of family and friends there, and even though we love visiting, we think living there would be challenging. My husband and daughters have Italian citizenship and my older daughter even has an Italian passport, so if they disappear one day I guess I know where to look for them.

>4 Nickelini: I had suspected before coming here that people who love Italy have never tried to get anything done here, and that's been borne out, pretty much. (I also think the people who say "everyone speaks English" have never been out of the immediate vicinity of their popular hotel, tourist attractions and centrally-located restaurants.) The entire process for our residency paperwork has been a circus, partially because of incompetent/unforthcoming people and partially because of bureaucracy. Four months later, we have supposedly got everything submitted and are "okay", but have no residency cards yet.

There are a million things, large and small, that I could point to that have been confusing, contradictory, "absolutely essential" but then turned out to be completely unnecessary....

But since your family has citizenship, you have a lot of it already wrapped up. :)

It's just a completely different world. There's a reason shrugging and throwing up your hands are stereotypical Italian gestures!

I like it a lot, and I also realize that we're lucky to live in the north, where the chaos is of a somewhat more controlled variety. I love the south and would move to Naples in a heartbeat if we had the opportunity, but we were just there for a few days last week and I was reminded again of how different it is. As an example: Here, the trains run mostly close to a schedule. There, I bought a ticket from the machine for the 9:19 train, which the machine warned me was running 7 minutes late. I got up to the platform at 9:20 just as a train pulled in. After it sat there for a few minutes, the board lit up to say that this was the 9:41 train. It eventually left at about 9:35. What happened to the 9:19 train? Was this actually the 9:41 train, and if so, why did it leave 6 minutes early? Questions that will never be answered.

But I've talked to more people on the street and in businesses in the last 4 months than I have in the last 4 years in the US (and Belgium - I could have gotten by just fine being mute there). Our dog has received more attention and food than she ever has in her entire life. Every morning when we go to the bar for breakfast, I get to teach the owner a couple of English words, and he corrects my Italian.

>5 ursula: I was sort of vague in my comment, but you hit it EXACTLY on the head and mentioned all our top concerns . . . getting anything done . . . everyone speaks English, not . . . circus (or more exact, "casino"), incompetent/unforthcoming . . . BUREAUCRACY! . . . million things large and small . . . the trains . . . Yep, that about covers it. My husband speaks beautiful fluent Italian, and we still have more problems getting things done than in all the European countries we've been to were we don't speak the language.

>5 ursula: Bureaucracy is like that everywhere. It took around five? months for my husband to get his Belgian ID when we moved here, and he's an EU citizen! It then took me another nine before I finally got mine. It was perfectly legal for me to be here, since we were (are) married, but... That's just governments for you.

>7 .Monkey.: In my travels in Europe (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, UK), Italy is off the scales more . . . complex . . . to do simple things. But it's possible that we have that experience because we've spent the most time there, so more time for incidents. However, on my first trip there back in 1992, we had two major incidents in two days, after travelling pretty much hassle free through the other eight countries first. I agree with you that bureaucracy is grim, but Italy takes it to an art.

>5 ursula: I just read my husband your post, and he started laughing heartily at your first sentence and didn't stop until the end. As he says, you nailed it.

>7 .Monkey.: We dealt with bureaucracy in Belgium as well. There is a difference though, in my experience. There, we were told where to go, given an appointment, we submitted our paperwork, the police came and visited our apartment, etc. It was slow and much of it didn't make intuitive sense to us but there was a pretty-much-clear path. For a variety of reasons, I can't get into what has happened here in too much detail at the moment, but suffice it to say, it started before we arrived. We had a lot of back-and-forth with the university office (when they bothered to answer), and much confusion with what we were supposed to tell the Italian consulate in SF and when we should visit them (the answer ended up being "never"...). We therefore arrived without visas, assured it would be no problem to just do it here.

Ahem. Yeah. That resulted in, among many other things, the office blithely telling us "So, you can't leave the country after mid-July because you won't be able to get back in." And then saying they had been pushing the local police station to look at our paperwork but they couldn't push too hard, you know, or they won't do it at all. Also, as for this one piece of paperwork we currently don't have, well, it's supposed to be in the whole packet but we can just "forget" to submit it and then when they ask for it, we should have it by then!

With everything you submit, you have to give repeated copies of just about all the rest of the paperwork that you've already given each time so that it can all stay together, since the immigration office is not to be relied upon to find your previous packet given just your name, passport number, and all the other information and numbers of your request. My husband was told to bring something down to the questura to add to our documents. When he got there, he took a number and waited. When his number came up and he said that he just needed to give them these documents, the guy said no, he couldn't do that then. He had to come back some other day right when they opened to do that.

>9 Nickelini: I'm glad it made him laugh! It really is an experience. I'm gathering an arsenal of stories to tell. ;)

Living in the Southern part of the Continent you have to have the attitude that Things will get done when they get done and if they don't get done .... well its usually not the end of the world.

>11 baswood: This is quite true. Although sometimes it not getting done means you can't leave the country. *sigh*

I will say, though, that the comments I've made here are all true, but it doesn't diminish my positive feelings about the country. There are many things I like, many things I can get or have gotten used to, and a small subset of things that drive me absolutely insane. So, the same feelings that most Italians have about it. :)

Yeah, some things about Italy are somewhat maddening, but it's a fabulous beautiful country and I love it. Except for the summer heat! :P

I finished A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea. It centers around Saba, a young girl in post-revolutionary Iran whose family has been torn apart. Her mother and twin sister are gone, leaving Saba alone with her father in their village. Where did Mahtab (Saba's twin) and their mother go? That is a subject no one really talks about. Saba is sure she saw her mother and Mahtab at the Tehran airport, leaving for the US without her for some reason. The people around her tell her that Mahtab is dead, though, and no one has much to say about her mother. The book is about loss, and family, and Iran, and storytelling. It didn't really work for me. Interspersed with the chapters which follow Saba were shorter ones from her substitute mothers in the village, in the voice of wise old storytellers. These chapters, with their overt comments about the nature of storytelling, bored me and also made me roll my eyes. Much of the rest of the book is told in a sort of dreamlike style, partially because so much of it concerns Saba's memories, real or imagined, and her stories about her sister's potential life. Dreamlike is usually okay with me, but this often bordered on soporific. (I quit trying to read this book before bed because I often couldn't last more than five minutes with it.) In a nutshell: interesting ideas, boring execution.

>14 ursula: too bad, it does sound like an interesting premise!

>15 japaul22: Well, looking at reviews I appear to have a slightly different view on it than most people, so perhaps it just wasn't suited to me.

What Jennifer said. Of course there are a lot of books like that.

September wrap-up:

This month, I read 12 books.
I read 1 physical book, 6 Kindle books and listened to 5 audio books.
Books were by 12 distinct authors, 7 men and 5 women.
My reading totaled 2653 pages and 48 hours, 39 minutes of listening time.
The earliest work was from 1881 (The Portrait of a Lady), and the most recent from 2015 (Dead Wake).
My reading was 58% fiction and 42% non-fiction.
I read 2 books from the 1001 Books list.

For a variety of reasons (travel, illness, weather), this month had not as much running as I'd like, but I managed 29.6 km.

>17 dchaikin: So true. So many promising ideas wasted on sub-par books. :)

I finished my last book of the month, the audio version of In the Heart of the Sea. This is the story of the whale ship Essex, sunk by the attack of a sperm whale, which was the basis for Moby Dick. Although the true story was less about revenge against a whale and more about drifting around aimlessly on the open sea in small boats, starving and eventually resorting to cannibalism. It almost makes me want to make an attempt to actually get all the way through Moby Dick. Almost.

Loved Moby Dick. I took it in as a slow wandering stroll. Not sure if everyone who doesn't like it tries to read it fast, but I have that down as a conceivable hypothesis. I own a paper copy of In the Heart of the Sea. Hoping to actually read it.

>20 dchaikin: I don't know about speed, I had to read it in high school. I seem to remember it was right after The Scarlet Letter, another tortuous experience.

I enjoyed In the heart of the sea. Moby-Dick is a difficult book to read especially for school children, but of course it is a great book and like many great books needs all your concentration.

>20 dchaikin: I read Moby Dick for the first time a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. I was on vacation and read the whole thing in 2-3 days. I accidentally discovered a good pattern -- the book tends to alternate the "boring" chapters about whales with the "story" of Ishmael & Ahab. The first day I was reading, I kept being interrupted by family members that wanted me to socialize just as I was finishing a "story" chapter. So, basically I was putting the book down after the most interesting bits which encouraged me to pick it up again. And then, I was reading a boring section when I was fresh and able to concentrate a little better.

Eliz - that's interesting! The pattern and how it worked for you.

Finished Rabbit, Run. Wow, what beautiful writing. The kind of thing where I just had to stop and savor sentences for a minute and then read them out loud to my husband. But the story - yikes, the story. As I said in my 1001 books thread, it was like reading a beautifully-written account of a slow-motion trainwreck. The main character is not a guy anyone would like (when people wonder why he gets away with things, he replies more than once, "I'm lovable."), and although he may occasionally, accidentally do something redeeming, he doesn't have any redeeming thoughts about his actions. And unfortunately for the reader, we're party to his thoughts. I really, really liked this book but not at all for the content.

>26 AlisonY: Yay - a new Updike lover!!! I think his writing is just amazing. Rabbit is a terribly weak man, but he is portrayed so brilliantly. I'm in the middle of Licks of Love which contains a short novella to complete the Rabbit series (written 40 years after Rabbit, Run. Haven't got to it yet - it's at the end of the book and I almost don't want to reach it as then I'll have no more of the Rabbit series to look forward to.

I'm a Rabbit fan too. Each novel in the series really captures the mood of its era. Rabbit Redux is my favorite of the four.

>26 AlisonY: Yes, definitely a fan! Rabbit is a terribly weak man, but he is portrayed so brilliantly. Exactly.

>27 StevenTX: I have seen a number of people saying that is their favorite - I'm already looking forward to it!

I got a tiny addition to my profile today:

Yep, it's my 10-year Thingaversary. Time flies!

>29 ursula: Well done Ursula, I'm five years behind you. Another Rabbit fan here.

>30 baswood: Thanks! Good to hear from so many fans of the Rabbit series. I was under the impression it was disliked.

While in Naples, my husband and I went to the Cimitero delle Fontanelle, an underground cemetery that has an interesting history. In the 16th century, there was a lot of argument about where bodies were going to be buried. People wanted to be buried in their churches, but city government was in favor of locating cemeteries outside the city itself (this reminds me of San Francisco in later years). So, since there was obviously not unlimited space in the churches, they started disinterring old bones and chucking them into the cave that became the Cimitero delle Fontanelle to make room for the new arrivals. Then, they added the remains of victims of the plague in the 17th century and a cholera epidemic in the 1800s. Later in that century a cult sprang up that took care of the skulls and named them and such (this was also the case in a church we visited last time we were in Naples - I don't really get the obsession with skulls but there you have it), and that got shut down when the Catholic church felt like it was getting way too culty. Now you can just wander around and look at bones, a thing I seem to end up doing in many places I visit.

Skulls in an underground cemetery - now that's fairly well up there in terms of creepiness.

My kids are finally old enough. Up until now they've been too creeped out by the very idea for us to be able to visit an ossuary. I'm looking forward to the next one we encounter. There are a lot, all over Europe, so it's only a matter of time.

>33 AlisonY: It's the kind of thing we tend to go see. :) Plus we got a nice walk through Naples to find it, and it was a hot day, so a relief to be in the dark and cool chambers!

>34 RidgewayGirl: My kids have grown up visiting cemeteries with me, although my son was always less of a fan. But he puts up with it.

My daughter and I went to the Golden Chamber at St. Ursula's church in Cologne, where, in a highlight of my life, I got to see my name spelled out in bones on the wall:

How very weird

Well that's all extremely interesting. Great pictures. My kids have grown up doing the cemetery thing with me too. We meant to do something similar last time we were in Rome, but ran out of time. And energy--it was so very hot and our enthusiasm waned.

How was Naples? I was there in 1992 and it was pretty crazy (cars triple parked outside the train station). We had heard that it was dangerous, but didn't feel that. I hear it's grown worse though--dirtier and more lawless. Is that true or just a myth?

>36 baswood: Right? :)

>37 Nickelini: I really think it depends who you ask. Our Irish friend describes it as "a mafia-infested slum," and he doesn't feel comfortable there at all. Me, I love Naples. It is crazy - crowded, traffic is chaos, crossing streets can be terrifying, it's dirty, sprawling, a maze, mostly poor .... In 2013 I walked all over the city for days, alone, and I was never afraid. I was literally just wandering, not going between attractions, not sticking to main streets, just wandering, so I saw a lot of different parts of the city. But I may not be representative; I am not often afraid in cities. It's got high crime compared to the rest of Italy, but my impression is that for people visiting, it's mostly getting a bag stolen (while my husband and I were sitting outside at a cafe, it appeared that someone got their bag stolen in the park by the metro station - there were a number of young men running the thief down to try to recover the bag, though). That was the only time I ever saw that, and I never felt in any imminent danger of having mine taken.

Obviously I can't compare it to the past, but in 2013 it didn't seem lawless, and it didn't seem different this year. On the other hand, it's not a city for everyone, and as much as I love it, I wouldn't recommend it without reservations. You have to be willing and able to find the beauty in a city that is run-down, dirty, and loud. And willing to learn how to cross the streets.

I guess I also never mentioned that I finished Ready Player One. Everyone who wants to has probably already read it so I'm not going to go into the plot, just my reactions to it. In a way, I'm outside the target demographic because I've never been much of a gamer. But in another way, I'm exactly the demographic because I fit the age range for the references. My dad was big into early computers, building his own from Heathkit, we had a TRS-80, and a Commodore-64. We played Zork and other text-based games together. I deposited my quarters into the Galaga machine at the grocery store and always died almost immediately. Anyway, since that's the era for all the clues to Halliday's Egg, I felt strangely pandered to. And then that led me to thinking about the idea of using a conceit like that (some guy dies, leaves a treasure hunt based on all his favorite things) to be able to put recognizable cultural references into a book set in the future. Maybe it is a little bit of pandering to the readership, but what are the alternatives? Make up new cultural references or be mostly devoid of them, I suppose. And both of those options leave the reader with less to hold onto in terms of relatability.

Overall, I liked the book although the ending was beyond predictable (but I suppose there's nothing really wrong with knowing that it has to end a certain way). Parts of it really had me turning the pages, but some of it had me rolling my eyes too.

>38 ursula: Ooooh, I can picture all of that. I'm not often afraid of cities either, especially in Europe. It sounds like you're getting the most out of this opportunity.

I've heard that if Rome is a little too intense for your tastes, then you should not go further south, but if Rome was fun, go for it.

I'll be in Naples in November. It's the husband's birthday and he wants to see Pompeii and Herculeum. I'd like to save the final book in the Elena Ferrante series for that trip, but do not expect to hold out that long.

>40 Nickelini: I'm certainly doing my best!

>41 RidgewayGirl: I haven't been to Rome, but I imagine that's probably a good rule of thumb. I'm sure the trip will be just as good with the whole series under your belt already. ;)

I finished listening to Island of Vice, about Theodore Roosevelt as police commissioner of New York. Or, as the subtitle says: "Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York." Spoiler alert!

Anyway, I didn't know anything about it - this is the time period just after the Boss Tweed Tammany Hall scandal, which I once knew something about for my history classes (although probably not much more than that bribes = jobs, which is a decent overview). Roosevelt came in and vowed to get the city clean of vice, which was a popular idea in theory but not so popular in practice when it meant that there was no looking the other way for saloons serving alcohol on Sundays. The Germans were particularly opposed to this infringement on their freedom to have a beer whenever they wanted. Anyway, Roosevelt's crusade was about more than cleaning up the saloons and brothels - it was also about ridding the police department of corruption. He instituted civil service exams and rules of promotion, and worked to get rid of the old guard. It's an interesting topic, and an interesting look at Theodore Roosevelt before he went dashing up hills into gunfire and before he just generally became the larger-than-life character he was. But it also felt long. Very long. I have no idea if it would have come across that way in print, but on audio I sometimes felt like I was sitting through the world's longest class on the New York City police department.

I finished A Gate at the Stairs, which was on the last edition of the 1001 Books list. It's about a very naive girl, Tassie, who while at college takes a childcare position with a family which does not yet have a child. They're in the process of adopting, eventually getting an African-American toddler they call Emmie (the parents are white). The parents are also very strange, for reasons that eventually come to light. Meanwhile, Tassie has a relationship with a fellow student, Reynaldo, who also may not be quite what he seems. There is also a sort of sub-plot involving her younger brother Robert and his decision to join the Marines.

I didn't like this book much at all. I can point to a few things that bothered me - Tassie is sometimes not just naive, but downright stupid and lacking in any sort of intellectual curiosity to improve her understanding of the world. Some of the plot twists and turns are just patently ridiculous. And most of all, the book feels like it's all sub-plots. Nothing seems to tie everything together except Tassie, and she's not much of anything anyway.

On Saturday, we took a day trip to Treviso, which is just a little bit north of here.



It's a little bit less than half the size of Padova, with around 80,000 people. There was a huge market going on along the city walls (on the other side of this gate), and it was absolutely packed full of people. I bought some lovely yarn with which I'll knit a scarf.

Got through A Farewell to Arms. I wasn't a fan, which honestly sort of surprised me. I read his non-fiction book about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, and really enjoyed it. But either the style was different or the style didn't agree with me in fiction, or something else was wrong. The word repetition just about drove me insane. I mean, you don't have to throw a thesaurus at your book, but it doesn't hurt to come up with a synonym occasionally instead of using the same word 6 times in 4 sentences. I liked the war sections of the story, the perspective of an American with the Italian army, and the events that cause the title "farewell" to all of it. But that was ruined by the existence of some sort of purported love story with a British nurse. Catherine seemed both a complete cipher who just wanted to be and do whatever the narrator wanted, and a crazy person. The narrator was a tough guy who supposedly fell in love with this woman instantaneously, although he wasn't in love at first and in fact never seemed believably in love except when it came to his infinite patience for Catherine's nutty ramblings. If all of that was excised, Hemingway might have had something here.

>43 ursula: on audio I sometimes felt like I was sitting through the world's longest class on the New York City police department.

That's funny. I know that feeling...well minus the NYPD.

>46 ursula: if all of that was excised, how much would be left?

>47 dchaikin: It's what can make audio books just tortuous sometimes, right?

As far as Hemingway ... well, he would have had the starting point of a great war novel. :) And maybe he could have had some of Catherine, but he either would have had to dump her or have the relationship implode dramatically early on. But as it was, I'd be having fun and enjoying the book (reasonably, aside from repeated words), and then Catheriine would appear to suck all the interest out of the next however-many pages.

I finished Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man), Primo Levi's memoir of his time in Auschwitz. I read it in Italian, so it was slow going with my dictionary at hand. But in a lot of ways I think that was maybe the best way to read it and really live with his experiences over a much longer period, with a lot more thought, than I would have had I read it in English.

Cool that you read Levi in Italian. I have Survival in Auschwitz, and a few if his on the wishlist, but I have yet to read him.

>50 dchaikin: I am definitely looking forward to reading more Italian writers in their native language! Levi wrote in a pretty straightforward style, so it was not too hard.

Finished Eileen, which was pretty unremittingly awful. The title character is a completely naive 24-year-old who lives with her alcoholic ex-cop father. Her mother died some years earlier. Eileen works in the office of the juvenile correctional facility, wears her dead mother's clothes, buys booze for her father (and sometimes drinks with him) and has no friends. Her main sources of entertainment seem to be her crush on a guard at the correctional facility, giving spurious "surveys" to the mothers who come to visit their sons, and obsessing over every aspect of her body and its functions, particularly the gross ones. Sounds charming, doesn't she?

Then Rebecca arrives, a pretty young woman who is supposed to teach the boys at the facility. She takes an interest in Eileen, and Eileen is sure her friendship with Rebecca is going to turn everything around. And it turns everything in some direction, definitely. We know that Eileen makes the escape from her town (X-ville, as she calls it) because the book is told by the much older Eileen, and we know that she turns out at least somewhat all right, but the older version of Eileen is so detached from her former self that it's hard to feel any empathy toward her. It was hard to feel anything for her, really, except repulsion, which is what she seems to inspire in those around her. When my opinion of the main character is most closely expressed by her drunken, verbally and emotionally abusive dad, I know something is wrong.

Three words for this book: dark, depressing, and disgusting.

Oh, I just realized that I forgot to mention the big news: last Wednesday, we got our permessi di soggiorno! We are legally allowed to be in Italy, and to leave it and come back, hallelujah!

Great news!

>54 FlorenceArt: Thanks, it is! It's been a long process, but it feels good to finally have the cards in hand. And now the research visit my husband has been wanting to make can be planned.

Finished the audio version of In the Kingdom of Ice, which is about the US polar expedition of the Jeannette. I've read all around this expedition - like the lost Franklin expedition, it's one of those stories that forms the bedrock of polar exploration. This was the first book I've read that was devoted to it specifically. The story has more in common with Shackleton than with many of the other doomed missions of exploration - the careful selection of men and the authoritative style of the leaders probably have a lot to do with that. There are no mutinies, no major conflicts among the men (and this in spite of having a non-stop fountain of puns from one of them). But it is a tough story nonetheless, and it is made particularly poignant by the inclusion of letters from Emma DeLong, wife of the captain, as she waited years for news of his fate. If you like tales of exploration, this is a good one.

Finished 2 more books, one good and one not.

First up, The Last Empress. I read Empress Orchid years ago, which is about the first part of the life of Cixi, the long-ruling Empress Dowager of China. I remember the first book as being well-written, really readable and interesting. This one is like a non-fiction book written in first person, with some attempt at showing people's thoughts here and there, but not very often. The people didn't come across as real, which is quite a dubious achievement when they were, after all! And more than once, the narrative has Cixi comment "future historians said...", which will just take you right out of the book. Once, it is clarified that she read this account of a future historian when she was old, near the end of her life and presumably therefore before she's telling the story, but the rest of the times it just feels like Cixi has been hanging around in eternity reading the press about her. If you find Cixi interesting (and boy is she interesting), you're better off with Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang, which is non-fiction. I read it last year and liked it a lot.

The second book I finished was Day of the Triffids, which was unreservedly awesome. Mysterious comets make most of the population blind, which seems bad enough until some sort of plague starts to befall them. And then as if that's not enough, the triffids (a strange, somewhat-sentient plant that has been farmed for some years) start to present a problem to whatever population is left. I am pretty sure I saw the movie when I was young, or at least part of it, but I didn't remember anything about the story except for giant plants. There's much more to it than that - a great apocalyptic tale in the Cold War style - how humans are creating things faster than they can understand how they can be turned against us.

I enjoyed Empress Orchid several years ago but hadn't made up my mind whether to read The Last Empress. It sounds like one I can skip.

The Day of the Triffids is one of my favorites, too.

>58 StevenTX: Yeah, I'd definitely advise skipping it. It was just so disappointing to have everyone come across so wooden. I remember feeling like it was the exact opposite in Empress Orchid - the whole time period and court came to life.

Your short review makes me curious about reading Day of the Triffids.

>57 ursula:

Empress Orchid annoyed me me a lot a few years ago so sounds like I won't like the sequel either. And I agree - The Day of the Triffids is awesome

>60 edwinbcn: Go for it! In some ways it's a product of its times - the fear of being annihilated by something we'd created was high in 1951, of course, although it took a few decades to die out as the overwhelming worry of humanity. But in most ways it's really timeless, grappling with the big and small issues (practical and moral) of surviving an apocalypse and still having enemies.

>61 AnnieMod: Yeah, if that one annoyed you, I can't imagine this one being an improvement. In fact, I can't imagine recommending it to anyone. Oh well. I like seeing all the Triffids love, though!

>57 ursula: The movie Day of the Triffids is a classic, but it would never have occurred to me to read the book. I added it to my wishlist. Thank you for the review!

>63 FlorenceArt: We're going to watch it soon! There was also apparently a mini-series adaption on the BBC in 1997 or thereabouts. (Also an American one in 1981 but there didn't seem to be much good said about that one.)

Well, we watched the Day of the Triffids movie. They changed pretty much everything! Some things I can understand - there was a lot of stuff that wouldn't be well-explained in the short time period of a movie - but some things seemed to make no sense. Our favorite part was the scientists in the lighthouse trying to figure out how to kill the triffids. They had tissue samples on slides and were trying different solutions of acid, etc. and nothing was having any effect. My husband said, "FIRE! Kill them with fire!" and then, rolling his eyes: "Scientists."

Over on my 1001 Books thread, I mentioned that I finished The English Patient. I didn't really know how to feel about it. The writing was too dream-like and disjointed for me. I can be fine with dreamy, but it needs to be something that pulls me in. I felt like every time that was about to happen, Ondaatje changed scenes or time periods or something and just threw me into something entirely different, where I had to start over on figuring out what was going on. There ensued a discussion about the movie version of this one as well, which I've never seen. Now that I know Naveen Andrews from Lost is in it, I'm a little more interested, but I am not sure it's something I can imagine watching.

>65 ursula: interesting reading this review. The only one of Ondaatje's books I've read is Coming Through Slaughter and it just didn't do it for me. I've stayed away from The English Patient as a result, and from your review I'm still not persuaded to change my mind.

>65 ursula: Now that I know Naveen Andrews from Lost is in it, I'm a little more interested, but I am not sure it's something I can imagine watching.

Imagine this:

>66 AlisonY: I imagine that he might be one of those writers you either really enjoy or ... you just don't.

>67 Nickelini: Yeah... that doesn't really help. I mean, the image is good, but I think about the storylines and the romance and whatever and just - blargh. I guess I'm kind of anti-romantic.

Looking back on October:

This month, I read 11 books.
I read 1 physical book, 8 Kindle books and listened to 2 audio books.
Books were by 11 distinct authors, 5 men and 3 women.
My reading totaled 2732pages and 32 hours, 46 minutes of listening time.
The earliest work was from 1929 (A Farewell to Arms), and the most recent from 2015 (Eileen).
My reading was 82% fiction and 18% non-fiction.
I read 6 books from the 1001 Books list.

This month was another non-event for running: 22.8 km.

I finished listening to The Men Who United the States on the first of the month. I feel like nothing I've read by Winchester has managed to hold my interest like Krakatoa did. Anyway, this one is about the various ways that the United States has been brought together - by exploration, by trains, by electricity, etc. So the men of the title are people like Lewis and Clark, Samuel Morse, the people who built the transcontinental railroad, and so on. The book is supposedly held together thematically by the elements, with Lewis and Clark being part of the section on how water united the states, the train being part of the section on metal ... but that theme is pretty thin and also not super well-established. It's really all just an excuse to talk about some of the cool things that have kept the US from falling apart in spite of the differences in land, population and ideology (aside from that whole mid-19th century war thingy*). There are some really interesting stories in here, but it overall just gave the impression of being at a dinner party sitting next to a guy who knows a lot of things, but just can't stop rambling from one topic to the next.

*He literally calls it "the war between the states." I thought that was something one only said while wearing a hat with the confederate flag on it.

I finished Ripley Under Ground. I read The Talented Mr. Ripley probably about 10 years ago now and really enjoyed it. This one was a little slower to get going, I feel like, but it did maintain what I liked about the first one, which is that you somehow find yourself wondering how Ripley is going to escape justice. Ripley has made a nice life for himself in France, and has even gotten married, to the "amoral" Heloise. They don't talk about his past, and he isn't sure whether or not he should bring her in on the current goings-on, which involve art forgery and the steps that have to be taken to cover it up. Ripley is not a sympathetic or likable character, and he really needs to be stopped, but you still want to see how he's going to manage to get out of his situation when the bodies start accruing. One annoying thing about the book - there's no real ending to it. I guess I'll have to read the next one in less than 10 years from now.

>65 ursula: I was underwhelmed by The English Patient, and then was told to watch the movie, and I hated it. I don't know why, but I was annoyed so much by both. (It doesn't help that I dislike both Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas, so the casting already had me ready to see overblown pretension everywhere.)

I should probably read the book again, now that it's been years. I might end up loving it. I like Ondaatje's writing usually.

>72 RidgewayGirl: I'd definitely be willing to give his writing another try. With different subject matter, I could see enjoying it.

It was a beautiful and warm fall day today.

I didn't realise there was a sequel to The Talented Mr Ripley. I need to get to both of these.

>75 AlisonY: I believe there are 3 sequels in total.

I finished 2 (very different) books off the 1001 Books list: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano and Amsterdam by Ian McEwan.

The Interesting Narrative is a memoir by a man who was kidnapped from Africa as a child and sold into slavery. He had a few people who were pretty decent to him, even while keeping him in slavery, teaching him to read and write and other skills. At the same time, though, pretty much all of them eventually did something sort of awful to him, which was sort of confusing to me. I guess you just have to realize that even people who were somewhat decent ultimately still saw him as an object since they didn't see anything wrong with slavery. But he is eventually able to buy his freedom, although just being free doesn't resolve his problems. His descriptions of what he witnessed in the many places he traveled is very interesting - he traveled to many places in Europe, Turkey, numerous islands in the West Indies, and the US. Less interesting is the extended conversation about his Christian faith, but I understand it was very important to him.

Amsterdam was quite a change of pace. It's a super-short book and went even faster because after a tiny bit of a slow start it really gets going for a while. It starts at the funeral for Molly Lane, which is attended by her husband and, among others, several of her former lovers. It's hard to really get into the plot without giving some things away that really should be discovered on their own, but 2 of the lovers, Clive and Vernon, are friends, and the third (Garmony) is not liked by either of the other two. Their various careers (composer, newspaper editor and politician, respectively) play a huge role in the development of the plot. There's a lot to dig your teeth into as far as how much a career matters, what one's identity really is, how well you can know someone, and what the word "ethical" means, but I still felt very unsatisfied by this book. I felt like it careened to a rather stupid ending in spite of a promising beginning.

I've also read McEwan's Atonement, which I did not like at all.

>77 ursula: Aw shucks. I was hoping you would give me a reason to try another book by McEwan, after being unable to finish Atonement. I guess not.

>73 ursula: Don't give up on Ondaatje or McEwan yet. I'd never really thought of them together until I made that sentence, but they are some similarities which I will have to think about. What I was going to say is that they each wrote so many books, that somewhere there will be one you connect with.

>78 FlorenceArt: The Children Act might work.

>78 FlorenceArt: If it's any consolation, I disliked them for completely different reasons! On the plus side, I enjoyed the majority of the reading experience of Amsterdam far more than I did Atonement. That one, I struggled the entire way through.

>79 SassyLassy: I hope I don't have to wade through too many before I find that one. ;)

Oh no - Atonement is on my list of final reads for this year! I normally really like McEwan - wonder if I'd feel the same about Amsterdam as you did, Ursula.

>81 AlisonY: I loved Atonement. I find that about 3/4 of readers do, and the other 1/4 strongly dislike it. I especially loved the first part -- it felt very Virginia Woolf or Elizabeth Bowen, which I later learned is what he was going for.

I remember liking Amsterdam but I can remember almost nothing about it, and I really don't remember the ending at all! Maybe I need to reread it.

>77 ursula: >78 FlorenceArt: I am so glad to know that there are other people who didn't like Atonement because I have felt very alone in my dislike of it! I also read excerpts of On Chesil Beach in The New Yorker . . . and that did it for me for McEwan.

>81 AlisonY: Hard to say ... I think that if you normally like him, then you'll probably be fine. I have no idea if the two I've read so far are representative of his work since I felt like they were quite different.

>82 Nickelini: I'm surprised you can't remember the ending. It was really eye-rolling.

>83 rebeccanyc: You are not alone! And interesting about On Chesil Beach. I think I remember one of my old coworkers who was a fan telling me not to read Atonement, but to read The Cement Garden instead. Maybe that one would be more to my tastes.

>84 ursula: I'm surprised you can't remember the ending. It was really eye-rolling.

I know! Every time someone comments on this novel at LT they mention the end and I'm just blank. I know I should remember. I think what happened was that I was reading Pride and Prejudice and was really, really in to it, and went on holiday and Amsterdam was the backup read I took along, and then I lost P&P so read Amsterdam. But my head was really in P&P.

>85 Nickelini: I know the feeling ... I often can't remember details of what I've read. I read carefully and am fully on top of it while I'm reading, but .... sometime after that, it mostly seems to dissipate. And I think I remember the books I disliked more clearly than the ones I liked, perhaps not surprisingly.

My daughter remembers everything she reads in minute detail. We'll see if that lasts. :)

I finished listening to the audiobook of Without You, There Is No Us, which is by a journalist who posed as a missionary to teach at an English-language university in North Korea. She acknowledges at the end that she was able to pass herself off and get away with some of her more subversive actions due to the disorganization resulting from the university being brand new and the confusion created by Kim Jong Il's poor health. (Her last day at the university coincided with Kim Jong Il's death.) It is a story of how it affects you to be under constant surveillance and strict rules about conversational topics. It's about what it's like to be part of that world and yet still completely separate from your students (who are again completely separate from the people you briefly glimpse outside the university compound). And of course, it's about the students themselves - people who can know nothing but what they're allowed to know, who are fed stories about their country's supremacy, but who are desperate for external validation of those stories.

I found it all profoundly sad. The lack of everything ("the electricity goes out everywhere, doesn't it?"), the misplaced pride (our national dish is very popular worldwide), the fact that the students in the book are actually among the better-off people in the country. The students, although they were 19-20 years old, sounded like children, unsurprisingly. The author did a good job making them come to life, as well as communicating how the daily environment frustrated her and led to paranoia. The book ends without resolution, of course, because what resolution can there be while the regime continues to keep the country essentially a black hole on the map?

On a personal note, when I was in Prague I visited the Museum of Communism. It was very enlightening about the history of the Czech Republic and eastern Europe in general, but of course all of that is exactly that - history. Then they have a small outdoor display about North Korea, and it is very affecting. It's just a few standing photos and captions that talk about things like the starvation, that show the satellite images of a country at night which is almost completely lacking electric lights, etc. It really puts things in perspective.

>87 ursula: That was one of my favourite reads last year. It really sticks with you.

I've finished Slade House, the new David Mitchell book. I was a little unsure how I'd feel about it since I didn't really connect with The Bone Clocks and this takes place in the same universe, but in the beginning it seemed like this one was going to be a better experience - more ghost-y and less fantasy-y. I liked the idea that there were twin soul-eaters living in a sort of imaginary house, luring people in every nine years. And each set-up was interesting in its own way, but the end of them got repetitive. The first time you read the description of their soul hanging in the air, and how it's devoured by the soul-eaters, it's fine. But the next time, it's a little boring. And then the third time, well ... and let's not even get into the fourth time. This was probably my major problem with the book, that every section started off good and then got boring. It's like the experience of a book that starts out promising and then disappoints you, compressed and repeated multiple times in the same book.

I gave it 3 stars because there were definite positives to it, and I see now that I gave The Bone Clocks 2 1/2, so that makes sense - I think this one was better, if only for being more compact.

On the other hand, I gave Cloud Atlas 4 1/2 stars, so obviously I should just stay away from any more books Mitchell writes set in this universe.

The weather here has been mostly foggy, foggy, foggy. We saw the sun for an hour or so about 5 days ago and it doesn't look like we're supposed to see it again until a week from Tuesday.



Christmas lights have gone up in the town center, and I was hoping they would be lit this weekend but it seems it will probably happen next weekend, when they have a "Black Friday" night shopping event.

Foggy Padova

I've just read through this thread, so much to say, don't know where to begin. First, our reading taste appears to be similar - not just choices, but responses to what we've read. Ready Player One comes to mind - though I'm older, did not play games at all. I disliked Atonement and you are about the first person I've encountered who also didn't care for it. I'm behind on Mitchell now by 2 books, but I was wowed by Cloud Atlas and I liked Black Swan Green a lot, Jacob de Zoet was tolerable. I am mad forMichael Ondaatje. He first came to my attention through a set of essays by Annie Dillard - she mentioned The Collected Works of Billy the Kid so I went and found it and then I had to read everything else. The English Patient is my least favourite of his books, I'd say that In the Skin of a Lion takes that spot. I also liked his memoir Running in the Family. I've never really warmed to Moby Dick but I loved Melvilles's shorter novels--Omoo and Typee. Why do schools have one read the dullest, longest, hardest, or least accessible book by any particular author and nothing else!? -- Hawthorne is a wonderful writer too. It's like starting Faulkner with The Sound and the Fury! Well not quite that bad. But say, The Reivers is a good place to start with Faulkner. Totally accessible.

Was amused that you listened to Island of Vice. I picked it up at our library about five years ago and was gobsmacked to find my own great grandpa in it. Do you remember the rather priggish young man on the board of police commissioners who worships TR -- Avery D. Andrews? He is described somewhere as being attached to TR like a 'wet bandaid'!! I did know he'd been a commissioner, but nothing else, I had no idea it was under TR, etc. He did some good things and some bad things. He went around enforcing closing the pubs on Sundays, oblivious to the fact that this was the only time families could go out. But he also instituted taking photographs at the police station itself and using the new-fangled (french) methods of identifying criminals (which evolved mainly into finger-printing) and also, he was a mad bicyclist and fitness freak and instituted a bicycle squad to chase down runaway carriages (successful too.)

It took reading this book for me to put two and two together about the rest of his life -- he ended up being the president of an asphalt company, but duh, that's the best surface for bicycling on, it finally occurred to me. He was extremely good-looking which never hurt him, and he lived to be about 98, but he was also a perfect racist and snob even though his own grandparents were swamp yankees who made good selling hardware in the uplands of New York State and sent smart sonny-boy off to West Point. I expect he is just the sort of person that James and Wharton would have found quite appalling.

>91 baswood: Thankfully, we're out of the foggy cycle for the moment. Of course, it's just gloomy and overcast now. It would be nice to see the sun sometime this month.

>92 sibylline: I haven't yet read Mitchell's earlier works, although I have The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet on the library wishlist. I don't think Black Swan Green is available there, but I've heard good things about that one so I'd like to get around to it eventually. I'd love to have another Cloud Atlas-type of experience with him.

I've been convinced to try another Ondaatje eventually ... again, availability will make the determination.

As for Melville, I guess I can accept that we were reading it because it was an "honors" class - I don't think the regular classes had to suffer through it. But I do blame myself, too, for not skipping the chapters the teacher suggested we skip. I kind of did myself in there.

I love the story of your personal connection with the story of Island of Vice! I definitely remember the part about the push to implement the French methods of identification - the photos and the however-many-points of observation. That's fascinating stuff about his life, thanks for sharing it!

I finished listening to Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars by Neil Young. I like Neil Young, and I'm mostly indifferent to cars, but I enjoyed this. Partially I liked having it read to me by Neil himself, because I have to wonder if anyone else could have come close to the right reading of some of his dry jokes. He says in the introduction that he'd thought about calling it a book about cars and dogs, but then was afraid that would attract dog people, and maybe they wouldn't like what happened to some of the dogs, and then they wouldn't like him anymore, so he took "dogs" out of the title. (Some of his dogs die, but he is clearly a real dog lover so I don't think he would have had much to worry about.)

Neil Young was always around the edges of the area where I lived for a long time. I never ran into the guy or anything, but I knew plenty of people who had, and I lived essentially between his ranch and Santa Cruz, where he seemed to always be popping up to do an impromptu show. I've only seen him play once, at his Bridge School Benefit (a charity show for the school founded by his (ex-) wife Pegi for children like their son Ben, who is severely disabled). He is a Presence with a capital P onstage. In a lot of ways, he's the same on paper. He doesn't do the chronological thing, but jumps between stories of his childhood, his time in Buffalo Springfield, his business ventures that didn't work out, etc. And every story is grounded by the car he bought at the time, or the one he was driving. Just about all of it held my attention, although at the end when he really gets into the details of his crusade to get cars running on something other than fossil fuels and specifically his years-long effort to convert his '50s Lincoln to electric power, it got a little yawn-inducing. But I can forgive him - it's a good cause, and he's a guy with a passion (and he mentions more than once that he knows he can get obsessive). It was also a little odd to hear him talking about his soulmate Pegi as well as the experience of meeting Daryl Hannah for the first time since I believe he was still with Pegi when the book came out but very shortly thereafter left her and started dating Daryl Hannah.

Anyway, as with most celebrity memoirs, you probably know if you want to read it. If you do, and you like audio books at all, I'd suggest letting Neil tell you his stories himself.

Neil Young one of my all time favourite singer/songwriters and rock musician, but I also have no interest in cars. I read Shakey:Neil Young's biography By Jimmy McDonough a few years back which I thought was quit good.

>95 baswood: I don't really think a lack of interest in cars would make this one a no-go; it didn't for me. On the other hand, maybe his first memoir Waging Heavy Peace would be more up your alley. (I haven't read it, but I'm interested.)

>94 ursula: I really like the idea of Neil Young tying cars to his life. The city where he grew up is all about cars: long flat straight four lane in each directions roads at the start of the Canadian prairie, 10 to 12 hours by car from the three nearest cities. Cars are an absolute necessity there, even with their need to be plugged in at every winter stop. Cars are also a peculiar part of identity. As another Canadian famously put it "Life is a Highway". I don't usually read books about musicians, but this sounds intriguing.

If it wasn't for driving Northern Ontario roads, this song may never have been written. Backup vocals by Joni Mitchell, another western Canadian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2z7LXpAX3Q

It also makes me think that her song "Coyote", also in this concert, may also owe a lot to driving through those long nights.

It also makes me think that her song "Coyote", also in this concert, may also owe a lot to driving through those long nights.

Just want to say that "Coyote" is one of my all-time favourite songs (an admittedly long list, but still). That's all.

>97 SassyLassy: And Young talks vividly and relatably about what it was like to see a cool American car up in Omemee when he was a kid. I think even people who aren't really into cars can relate to seeing someone come to visit with a cool one. Thanks for the link to the video, as well. I had to look up the context - that sounds like a pretty amazing show.

>98 Nickelini: I'll confess that I don't think I know that song (I'll check it out later). I've never really listened to Joni Mitchell.

Harking back to the Ian McEwan discussion, I think his work has really gone downhill. While I did like Atonement, I have not liked most of his more recent work, and have kind of given up reading him. While I read it ages ago, I remember loving The Cement Garden, so I agree with you that it might be a good alternative.

I liked The Bone Clocks more than you did, but haven't read Slade House yet. I loved Mitchell's first three books, Number 9 Dream, Ghostwritten, and Cloud Atlas (the first two are similar, but I think less complex than Cloud Atlas. I've liked the other two books I've read by him Black Swan Green and The Thousand Lives of Jacob de Zoet.

I'm loving the photographs you are sharing--they were taken by you, right?

>100 arubabookwoman: Interesting. I will do my best to approach the next McEwan with caution but an open mind. (Which reminds me that I apparently didn't post about having read Beloved - will remedy that in a minute.)

I think that if you enjoyed The Bone Clocks, you'll probably like Slade House? I actually can't be sure because I think that Slade House lacks the finesse of The Bone Clocks, but on the other hand, it's got a more pervasively creepy atmosphere.

The photographs are all taken by me, yes! I'm glad you're enjoying them. :)

As I just mentioned, I somehow forgot to post after finishing Beloved. I tried to approach this book with as little mental baggage as I could manage, considering that I read The Bluest Eye in college and hated it so much that I have pretty much avoided Toni Morrison solely on that basis (for 25 years!). At least I don't hold a grudge, right? ;)

Anyway, I was floored by this book. I loved the writing - the kind where you are sometimes pulled out of the moment just to admire how well-crafted something is, but it's not distracting. It's more like those moments in a movie that make you realize what a perfect directorial choice was made for a scene or how beautiful the cinematography is. Even when the narrative got a little challenging (and there are a few spots where Morrison makes some choices that sort of dare you to take her hand and follow along), I appreciated what she was doing. The story itself was also great. I didn't know anything about it because I'm the last person on earth to read the book - I knew it had something to do with slaves and a child and a ghost and that was it. Much to my surprise, this was a 5-star read for me.

>102 ursula: You're not the last person on earth, I haven't read the book yet! I did see the movie which didn't leave a lasting impression on me. Beloved is on my wishlist, and I keep meaning to get to it some day. I even bought it a few years ago, but made a mistake and got a huge large print book from Amazon, which I returned. I think I'm a bit reluctant to read that book, for several bad reasons. Thank you for your review!

I'm also a Toni Morrison virgin! I haven't actively avoided reading anything of hers to date, but I haven't made a point of seeking her work out yet. Beloved certainly seems to be the most liked of her books from the reviews I've read in CR.

>102 ursula: / >103 FlorenceArt: I haven't read any Morrison yet. She is of course on my radar and I will eventually get there, but, yep, hasn't happened yet!

>103 FlorenceArt:, >104 AlisonY:, >105 .Monkey.: It's nice to find out I'm not really the last one on earth to have read it. :)

Interestingly, although I'd agree that it seems to be the most-liked book of hers, it's on the "most controversial books" in my stats, with a standard deviation of 1.03 in ratings. So I guess maybe the best thing to say is that it seems to stir up strong reactions.

Today I finished The Man in the High Castle. This was one of the few books my husband opted to bring with him to Italy. As it turns out, it was a good choice because there is now a tv series (made by Amazon, I think) and we want to check it out, but after having read the book. It's an alternate history, where Germany won World War II and they and Japan have divided up the United States. (And there was an advertising campaign that got pulled in NY after it became clear that perhaps outfitting subway cars with Nazi imagery was not going to go over well.) I've read a few PKD books before, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (liked it a lot) Valis (was equal parts intrigued, amused and bemused), so I knew it was possible I was in for a weird ride with this one even if the premise seemed pretty straightforward. And indeed, the book is less straightforward than it might seem.

The action takes place mostly in the Japanese-controlled west coast, and things are definitely different in this version of the world. The I Ching has become an important resource for people in the western US, everyone has an uneasy relationship with the Germans, and there is an active trade in American historical items. I'm not going to say too much about the actual development of the story because there are some things that really should be discovered just by reading it, but there is an interesting part of the story - the title refers to a man who has written a subversive book (banned by the Germans) which is an alternate history where the Allies won the war.

Immediately after finishing this one, I felt like I didn't get it at all, but after some further thought I think I am understanding the deeper layers of the story a little better. At the very least, I'm still thinking about it, so there's obviously something there my mind has been turning over in the background.

Oh, that's what that advertising campaign meant. Wow, it was ill-conceived.

>108 RidgewayGirl: Yes, I think "ill-conceived" is the nicest thing that can be said about it.

I finished Pinocchio in Italian. I'd actually never read the full, non-Disney version of the story before, so it was very interesting. Pinocchio comes off as more of an amoral brat than just a naive, easily led kid. We keep being told he has a good heart, but I'm not sure that's demonstrated very much. Most of the characters and events in the Disney movie bear only a passing resemblance to the actual story (Jiminy Cricket, or the "grillo-parlante" (talking cricket) whapped into nonexistence by a hammer-wielding Pinocchio early in the story), but you can see where they took the outlines of it and bent them into a different shape.

Here's how November shaped up:

This month, I read 11 books.
I read 1 physical book, 6 Kindle books and listened to 4 audio books.
Books were by 11 distinct authors, 8 men and 3 women.
My reading totaled 1765 pages and 42 hours, 23 minutes of listening time.
The earliest work was from 1794 (The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano), and the most recent from 2015 (Slade House).
My reading was 55% fiction and 45% non-fiction.
I read 3 books from the 1001 Books list.

This is the first month I haven't run at all. It's just too cold; I need some new clothes to be able to run in this weather.

Notable changes this month: a lot more non-fiction than usual, because I got through more audio books than I have in previous months. On the other hand, all the print books I read were short, which makes for a not-very-impressive total of pages on the month.

I've been posting a daily Christmas-related picture on Facebook, but I just realized I hadn't posted a single holiday-themed photo here yet! So ...



This is an absolutely gigantic star sculpture they put up every year in Verona (they started about 40 years ago). It kind of sprouts out of their Roman arena. The arena was built in the 1st century, and is actually a little bit older than the Colosseum in Rome.

Looks much better than Christmas decorations in my neighborhood. And in the city I work in, they have these truly horrifying installations. Last year it was a family of marsupilamis (they probably have a different name in English). This year it's Santa Claus with his reindeers and it's slightly less hideous. They probably look better at night with the lights on, but I only pass them by on the way to/from lunch, and I'm not going out of my way to see them one more time!

>113 FlorenceArt: I think the Marsupilami is the same in English, it doesn't seem to have any translated equivalent. But either way, after looking them up I know I've never seen or heard of them before. :)

I kind of like Verona's big star. I was there a couple of years ago when they were putting it up and didn't really understand that it was a Christmas decoration. The star was sitting in the middle of the piazza and the other pieces were laying on the ground and/or up on cranes, so it was hard to tell if it was just a run of the mill art piece or what.

Padova has some nice lights as well, though not all of them are on yet - the tree in the center and the rest don't get officially lit until the 4th.

I've finished 3 books in the first 3 days of December.

Cranford - which I didn't get into for some reason. There were fits and starts where this tale of small-town English life, dominated by women, really drew me into it, but mostly I was easily distracted while reading it. And when I finally felt like I was really starting to enjoy it, it ended. (It was a surprise because I was reading a kindle version from the library and didn't realize there was another novel(la) included.)

Istanbul: Memories and the City - nonfiction by Orhan Pamuk. I picked this up because we were supposed to go to Istanbul in November (trip fell through, unfortunately). While it started off promisingly, discussing the sense of melancholy that pervades the city and its people (huzun) caused perhaps by a feeling of loss from the long decline since the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, it just felt like it lost steam. (Even as it gained length.) This is a long meditation on Pamuk's life and the city of Istanbul, as well as his extreme attachment to the city and whether that's beneficial or detrimental - or if it can even be helped at all. I think it might have been improved somewhat if I had actually made the trip to the city, being able to see and familiarize myself with some of the neighborhoods and sights, but a book like this should really be readable either way and I felt like it wasn't. The historical photos were fabulous, though.

The Stepford Wives - really a novella. I was surprised to read in the introduction by Peter Straub that people have read this book as a satire on the wives themselves. I mean, I know we use phrases like "she's a real Stepford Wife" to say that she's kind of perfect beyond belief, perhaps brainwashed into being so, but I guess I've just never taken that to be a judgment on the woman exactly. Anyway, reading the book it seemed clearer to me than ever that the indictment is on the men who are so willing to give up their lively, intelligent, interesting wives in exchange for a housework-doing, smiling, bland, sex robot.

The audiobook reader for Isabella: The Warrior Queen has been pretty terrible throughout, but she just took the cake by insisting that the King of Naples was named something that sounds like Fah-dree-kay. She is referring to King Frederick. Or Frederic in French, or Federico in Italian or Spanish. But none of those sound vaguely like Fahdreekay.

I had the same reaction to the Pamuk. I read it awhile ago, what has stuck with me is a bit on the wooden summer houses? (Worried I'm confusing it with something else!)

>117 sibylline: Yeah, the yalis (? I think that was the word). It was one of the most evocative parts, really - talking about how they would all gather to watch the spectacle of the last bits of history burning, but with excitement rather than sadness. I'm not sure I can think of an equivalent experience to compare it to.

>102 ursula: this is a nice post...and also it's nice to read some positive comments on Beloved. So glad you liked it.

>119 dchaikin: Thank you! I was pleased that it clicked so well for me. Definitely one of the best reads of the year for me.

Catching up a bit - I finished Did You Ever Have a Family? which I loathed putting down every time I had to. It's an oddly-structured book, since the "action", such as it is, took place before the beginning of the book. The main characters are nominally two women - June and Lydia. June's daughter Lolly, Lolly's fiance Will, June's boyfriend Luke (who is also Lydia's son), and Lolly's father (June's ex-husband) Whatshisname (I can't remember his name offhand and I'm not going to go look it up) all die in a house fire the night before Lolly's wedding. The story is told through chapters from the point of view of people associated with the dead - some are obvious choices, like June and Lydia, but others are more tangential. Sometimes it's confusing trying to remember who is telling the story or who the person is, how they're tied in, but I decided not to worry too much about it and it got clearer as the book went along.

The effects of grief are an obvious theme, but also the tangled intricacies of families and relationships in general. It's hard to understand other people's actions, and even hard to understand our own a lot of the time. Sometimes it doesn't all come together in a larger, clearer picture until it's too late to be able to say, "I understand." Even in that case, though, the understanding itself can set you free.

I also finished listening to the audio book of Isabella: The Warrior Queen. I didn't know a lot about Isabella of Castile - Columbus, Catholicism and the Inquisition pretty well covers it. She was considerably more multi-faceted than that, of course, and this book manages to bring the details of her life and character out. Although she and Ferdinand were considered a power couple, it appears that she was the real force behind their decisive moments. I had some complaints about the book - one being that so much time is spent on explaining things well outside its scope. I understand that the Borgias were important because they were Spaniards and one of them became Pope while Isabella was queen, which directly influenced her ability to get papal dispensations for various marriages and of course to also get the papal bull that divided new discoveries in the world between Spain and Portugal, but I don't know that we needed an entire chapter dedicated to Rodrigo Borgia's life and exploits. And he wasn't the only side player that we had whole sections devoted to, either. The other is that I am suspicious of how some things were presented - I understand that an author will have an opinion about their subject, but it seemed like there was a lot of glossing over or one-sided presentations to some aspects, such as the expelling of the Jews and Muslims from Spain, and what Muslim rule had actually been like. Then there's also speculation about child molestation among the men in Isabella's family, presented as likely fact based on the behavior of the boys being similar to how today's experts say victims of today tend to react. I don't know, it didn't feel like a lot to hang serious allegations on.

Overall, it's a pretty readable book, which may be good or bad depending on how biased you think the author is. Either way, I'd advise against the audio version because the reader is abysmal.

You liked Did You Ever Have a Family? a lot more than I did. I did like the inter-connected stories, but I thought the author got side-tracked into solving the mystery of how did the fire start instead of remaining with the examination of what grief does to people.

>122 RidgewayGirl: I guess I felt like the cause of the fire was part of it - so much of the angst centered around where blame was to be placed, which affected everyone's grieving process. I think that when people die, sometimes there are so few answers to be had to the interpersonal questions you might have that if you add questions about more concrete issues to that, you might just lose your mind.

I finished a couple more books.

Written on the Body is first up. I described this on my 1001 books thread as the literary equivalent of submerging yourself in body-temperature water. The writing was so vivid that it just surrounded me and occasionally made me worry that I could drown in it. It's the story of love and sacrifice and loss, nothing terribly profound but certainly universal.

Close Range: Wyoming Stories. I'm not the hugest fan of short stories, but I enjoyed these, mostly. I've been to Wyoming, and I don't remember everyone having a bizarre name like the people in these stories, but then, I didn't spend time in the rural areas among the hardscrabble ranching types, so who knows, maybe they are all named things like Ideal, Pet, Varn, Ritter, Diamond, Pearl, etc. My major complaint was really the same-ness of the landscape of the stories, but I guess that one person's sameness is another person's cohesiveness. And now I've finally read "Brokeback Mountain." (I haven't seen the movie, either.)

>124 ursula: didn't realise Written on the Body was a Jeanette Winterson book. Sounds great.

>125 AlisonY: I've never read anything else by her, but I'm looking forward to more.

I have been remiss in posting holiday-themed photos here, but I have a ton of them. We took a short overnight trip up to Bolzano to see the Christmas market. It's German-style, since it's in the Sudtirol (Alto Adige in Italian) autonomous region of Italy, which has a preponderance of German speakers. It's quite a dramatic location, nestled among the mountains. Of course, that meant that the sun seemed to rise at about 11:30 and start to set around 2 pm.

Great photo.

Beautiful!

>128 dchaikin:, >129 kidzdoc: Thanks, both of you! I was so glad when it started getting dark because it had been a day of pretty 'blah' light up until then. Bolzano was a funny place. We went into a bar and ordered beer - she asked me, "Kleine?" and when I hesitated for a second, trying to see if I could see which glasses might be small vs. large, she added, "Piccolo? Small?"

I still haven't finished any of the books I'm working on (although I'm getting close and will be through with a few by the end of the year) - but I wanted to stop in and wish everyone a very merry Christmas if you're celebrating. Here's our dog wishing you all the best.

Every time you post a picture of your dog, I remember how much fun we had living in Germany with our own cattledog. One December, we went to the Salzburg Christmas market and stallholders were eager to give her treats. And she was perfectly eager to gracefully accept all offerings. She'd charm children in strollers into sharing whatever they had. She had a trick of taking food very carefully with her lips, which made everyone want to give her more. They aren't stupid dogs.

>132 RidgewayGirl: Sounds about right - as you said, they're certainly not stupid dogs. Next time, I want a stupid one. Not running-into-sliding-glass-doors stupid, but dumber than this one. Having a smart dog is overrated. :)

>133 ursula: : ) I'll lend you mine.

>134 dchaikin: Ha! What kind of dog is it?

I finished A Handful of Dust, which is a satirical look at the British upper class in the 1930s. Our main characters are John Beaver, a layabout who spends his time figuring out how best to get invited to lunch and dinner or weekends in the country so that he will never have to spend any money; Brenda Last, a married woman whose main characteristic is that she's bored with her life; and Brenda's husband Tony, whose main characteristics are that he is clueless and sentimentally attached to his country home, which is expensive to maintain and impractical. Also in play are Mrs. Beaver, John's mother, who is forever trying to use her and John's acquaintances as customers for her interior decoration business, Tony and Brenda's young son John Andrew, Tony's friend Jock Grant-Menzies, and an English woman married to a Moroccan prince. It's all rather madcap at the beginning while we see John Beaver's machinations and the results that Brenda's boredom and subsequent distancing from Tony have on everyone. And then things take a serious turn when an accident happens - although the reaction is used for black comedic effect, to show just how callous these people really are. It was a bit jarring for me, though, because while I felt that up to that point the book had been a somewhat sharp-tongued take on these people, suddenly it got downright nasty. That was okay, just a bit surprising.

But then the story took a hard turn into what felt to me like a completely different story as one of the characters takes a trip into the jungles of Peru (didn't see that coming, did you?). And then it pretty much stays there for the rest of the book. It was like the second reel of the movie was from a completely different film. I enjoyed both halves in their way, but they didn't seem to go together at all. I was left feeling like I'd somehow missed who I was supposed to be focusing on in the first half, which is a very strange feeling. So I'm left feeling neutral about the book overall, although I would read more Waugh (and would even if I didn't really want to, since there are at least a couple more on the 1001 Books list).

Afterward, I read that the second half of the book is essentially a short story that Waugh had published elsewhere, although the ending was changed for the book. That certainly explains why it feels like a finished piece on its own, but it doesn't entirely explain how he arrived at thinking the first part was the right lead-in to that story.

Ours is a mutt whose mother was a rescue and looked like a corgi husky mix, and my wife wanted a corgi. We got what looks like an incomplete German Shepard. She has the coloring, webbed paws, and the anxiety, but maybe not so much the German Shepard intelligence. She is not as big as a GS either, but she's still pretty sizable at 60 lbs.

>137 dchaikin: Hilarious! Our cattle dog is only about 40 lbs and I think that's too much dog already.

Today I finished listening to Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood. The book is sort of about the murder of William Desmond Taylor, a director of silent films. But it's pretty clear that the author found the surrounding times and stories irresistible (the murder happened around the time of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and when Hollywood was being threatened with censorship), so he wanted to throw in every interesting thing he had learned. If you go along for the ride, it's true that it's pretty intriguing stuff. If you ever thought that times were simpler in the 1920s and that in the beginning, movie stars weren't into drinking, drugs and general debauchery, you'll see that idea is totally wrong. There was plenty of vice going on and people like Adolph Zukor, head of Paramount, were determined to cover up as much of it as they could so as not to inflame the conservative members of the public, who were all too willing to boycott movies or seek government censorship.

Generally, I would have liked somewhat less of the "everything else" - it seems like it should have either been a true crime book or a book about the scandalous beginnings of Hollywood or a book about the power players behind the scenes, but it really shouldn't have tried to be all three. It's just too much. And for long periods of time we completely forget about poor William Desmond Taylor, the corpse laying on his own kitchen floor. With a little bit of reining in, this would have been an excellent book but as it stands it's just better than average.

Finished what will be my last book for 2015: A Wild Sheep Chase. This was not my favorite Murakami. It's an early novel, and apparently the third in a series that involves the character "The Rat." I haven't read the others (at least partially because the first one, Hear the Wind Sing was also Murakami's first novel and he only recently allowed it to be translated into English), but I don't think it really matters. I never had the feeling that I was missing any back story. The book is exactly what the title promises - our narrator gets mixed up in something due to a photograph The Rat sent him of sheep grazing. One of the sheep pictured is a very special sheep, with a specific marking on its back. And of course, because this is Murakami, there's more to the sheep than meets the eye. One of the things I didn't enjoy as much about this book is that it took quite a while for things to get seriously weird. I'm used to Murakami novels that are waving their weird flags almost from page one. Once things really got going, I liked it much more.

I suspect the details of this one will stay with me more than some other ones, though, so I have to call it a success in that way.

I've previously read a bunch of books by Murakami:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Kafka on the Shore
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
1Q84
Sputnik Sweetheart
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Norwegian Wood

♦♦♦Year-end Roundup!♦♦♦♦

Books Read: 99 (22 on audio)

Last year I read 112, so this is down a bit but I'm not unhappy with it.

Books by Women: 32

Before this year, my overall percentage by women was 29%, so I've increased it by a few percentage points. Hoping to do better next year.

Nonfiction: 36

A little over 1/3 - that's probably about right for me.

Books in Italian: 3

It's slow at this point, but it's an important part of my language learning process, so I'll keep at it.

Books by Author Nationality (fiction):

American: 26
British: 22
Italian: 3
Canadian: 2
Czech: 2
Norwegian: 2
Russian: 2
1 each of French, Greek, Indian, Japanese, Turkish, Zimbabwean and unspecified African. (That last one is Olaudah Equiano, who was born in the early 1700s in what is now Nigeria, but kidnapped and taken to the US as a slave.)

That makes about 25% of my fiction from somewhere other than the US, UK or Canada. It's probably always going to be a little skewed because I'm still getting through a lot of the earlier classics on the 1001 Books list

Publication years (fiction):

1764
1794
1796
1848
1851
1859
1864
1877
1881
1883
1911
1923
1925
1928
1929
1930
1934 (2)
1935
1947
1951
1953
1960
1962
1970
1972 (2)
1978
1979
1982 (2)
1985
1987
1991
1992 (3)
1994
1995 (2)
1996
1997
1998
1999 (2)
2001
2006 (2)
2007 (2)
2009 (2)
2011
2012 (2)
2013 (2)
2014 (4)
2015 (4)

A pretty good spread! I managed to read from 4 centuries (I made an effort this year to get to some written in the 1700s). 15% were from the last 3 years.

I read a lot of books I liked quite a bit, but looking back, I'd say the two big standouts for me were The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and My Struggle: Book One.

Onward to 2016!

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of my favorite books.

Have a Happy New Year! Do Italians set off fireworks in the streets like in Germany?

>142 RidgewayGirl: Thanks, happy new year to you as well! And I guess we'll find out tonight, although I suspect the answer is yes. They've set off fireworks for a number of holidays or other obscure reasons in the time we've been here, much to the dog's dismay.

Yes, the cat has already been told that he will be in from sundown to sunrise tomorrow. Last year, they went off for hours. We're having people over for dinner. Is it wrong that I hope they are all too tired to want to stay until the wee hours? Turns out the traditional New Year's Eve dinner is fondue. We have aimed to conform to expectations.

Fondue! Man, I wish I was at your place! (And may your guests be the type to retire gracefully and early.)

And I guess that's a wrap on this year! If you haven't found it yet, follow me over to my 2016 thread!