kidzdoc's Books, Theatre, Music and Recipes in 2015: Act Three

A view of the City Hall (left) and the Dom Tower (rear) in Utrecht from the Oudegracht, the ~1000 year old canal that runs through the center of the Dutch city. This photo was taken after a lunch at Tapaskelder along the canal during a LibraryThing meet up in late June.

Currently reading:

    

Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau
How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/14)

January:
1. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers (TBR) (review)
2. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (TBR) (review)
3. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (TBR)
4. A Distant Father by Antonio Skármeta
5. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
6. The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh (TBR)

February:
7. In the City By the Sea by Kamila Shamsie (TBR)
8. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore
9. I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar
10 Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney

March:
11. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry (TBR)
12. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

April:
13. Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (TBR)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis
15. Nada by Carmen Laforet (TBR)
16. Outlaws by Javier Cercas
17. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal
18. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (TBR)
19. Blank Gaze by José Luis Peixoto (TBR)
20. The Education of the Stoic by Fernando Pessoa (TBR)
21. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi
22. Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé

May:
23. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol
24. Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
25. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
26. The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner
27. Barcelona Travel Guide: A Weekend in Barcelona by Gerry Kerkhof
28. Guide to Troubled Birds by The Mincing Mockingbird

June:
29. The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
30. Edinburgh: A Cultural History by Donald Campbell
31. Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw
32. No Word from Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza
33. Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz
34. Youth by J.M. Coetzee
35. The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis
36. Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano
37. Cologne Marco Polo Guide
38. Everyman by Carol Anne Duffy
39. The Trial (Oberon Modern Plays) by Nick Gill
40. Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

July:
41. When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman
42. Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak
43. A Childhood by Jona Oberski
44. The Outsider by Albert Camus
45. The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
46. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
47. In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan
48. Dearest Father by Franz Kafka
49. Rab and His Friends by John Brown
50. Grey Souls by Philippe Claudel

August:
51. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
52. The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
53. Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe
54. The Green Road by Anne Enright
55. The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
56. Pedigree: A Memoir by Patrick Modiano
57. In the Heart of the Seas by S.Y. Agnon
58. Chelsea Physic Garden by Nick Bailey
59. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
60. The Queen's Caprice by Jean Echenoz

September:
61. The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela
62. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg

October:
63. The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
64. A Man of His Word by Imma Monsó
65. What Is Montserrat? by Maur M. Boix
66. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
67. Girona Cathedral by Marc Sureda i Jubany

November:
68. My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel
69. The Iceberg by Marion Coutts

December:
70. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić
71. Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga
72. Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi
73. African Titanics by Abu Bakr Khaal
74. Dallas, November 22, 1963 by Robert A. Caro
75. King Charles III by Mike Bartlett

Books purchased or received in 2015: (Bold = book purchased this year)

January:
1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
2. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
3. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks (11 Jan, Kindle e-book)
4. A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Faik Abasiyanik (12 Jan, Archipelago Books subscription)
5. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore (20 Jan, LT Early Reviewers book)
6. DownBeat: The Great Jazz Interviews, edited and compiled by Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright (20 Jan, free book as part of 2015 DownBeat subscription)

February:
7. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, (1 Feb, Kindle e-book)
8. Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catharine Arnold (4 Feb, Kindle e-book)

March:
9. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care by H. Gilbert Welch (2 Mar, LT Early Reviewers book)
10. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi (2 Mar, Archipelago Books subscription)
11. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (3 Mar, Kindle e-book)
12. A Man of His Word by Imma Monsó (29 Mar, Kindle e-book)

April:
13. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal (1 Apr, Kindle e-book)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
15. The Bees by Laline Paul (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
16. Selected Poems of Corsino Fortes by Corsino Fortes (3 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
17. The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (3 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
18. Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson (5 Apr, gift from Karen W.)
19. 11213303::Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
20. Things Look Different in the Light & Other Stories by Medardo Fraile (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
21. Tristana by Benito Perez Galdos (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
22. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
23. I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
24. The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (10 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
25. My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
26. Life Embitters by Josep Pla (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
27. 3678008::This Life by Karel Schoeman (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
28. Amsterdam: A Brief History of the City by Geert Mak (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
29. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
30. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol (25 Apr, LT Early Reviewers book)

May:
31. An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century by James Orbinski (1 May, Kindle e-book)
32. The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda (3 May, B&N)
33. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (3 May, B&N)
34. Baedeker's Portugal (3 May, B&N)
35. The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham (4 May, Kindle e-book)
36. Lonely Planet Pocket Edinburgh by Neil Wilson (9 May, Kindle e-book)
37. Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon (9 May, Kindle e-book)
38. The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner (14 May, LT Early Reviewers book)
39. Edinburgh Local Love: Travel Guide with Top 125 Spots in Edinburgh, Scotland by Cristiano Nogueira (8 May,Kindle e-book)
40. Letter to Jimmy by Alain Mabanckou (14 May, Kindle e-book)
41. The Lights of Pointe-Noire by Alain Mabanckou (14 May, Kindle e-book)
42. A Season with Verona by Tim Parks (14 May, Kindle e-book)
43. Baedeker's Spain (15 May, B&N)
44. Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw (15 May, B&N)
45. Barcelona Travel Guide: A Weekend in Barcelona by Gerry Kerkhof (19 May, Kindle e-book)
46. Guide to Troubled Birds by The Mincing Mockingbird (22 May, Kindle e-book)
47. Rick Steves Barcelona by Rick Steves (22 May, Kindle e-book)
48. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh (25 May, Kindle e-book)
49. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner (29 May, Kindle e-book)

June:
50. Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes by Jamie Geller (2 Jun, Kindle e-book)
51. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (2 Jun, gift from Bianca)
52. The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (2 Jun, gift from Bianca)
53. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels (2 Jun, gift from Bianca)
54. The London Cookbook by Jenny Linford (2 Jun, gift from Bianca)
55. Quiet London by Siobhan Wall (2 Jun, gift from Bianca)
56. Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing in One of America's Toughest Communities by Jorja Leap (5 Jun, LT Early Reviewers book)
57. The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (8 Jun, Kindle e-book)
58. Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (8 Jun, Kindle e-book)
59. Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
60. No Word from Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
61. Rituals by Cees Nooteboom (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
62. Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
63. Scars by Juan José Saer (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
64. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
65. Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh (11 Jun, London Review Bookshop)
66. Rough Guides Snapshot Scotland: Edinburgh (13 Jun, Kindle e-book)
67. Youth by J.M. Coetzee (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
68. The Trial by Franz Kafka (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
69. Dearest Father by Franz Kafka (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
70. The Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
71. The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
72. The English: A Portrait of a People by Jeremy Paxman (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
73. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel (13 Jun, Joseph's Bookshop)
74. The Iceberg by Marion Coutts (13 Jun, Blackwell's at Welcome Collection)
75. Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (13 Jun, Blackwell's at Welcome Collection)
76. The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us by Alice Roberts (13 Jun, Blackwell's at Welcome Collection)
77. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (16 Jun, Word Power Bookshop)
78. And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson (16 Jun, Word Power Bookshop)
79. Scottish History Without the Boring Bits by Ian Crofton (16 Jun, Word Power Bookshop)
80. The Motherf**ker with the Hat (Oberon Modern Plays) by Stephen Adly Guirgis (21 Jun, National Theatre Bookshop)
81. Everyman by Carol Ann Duffy (21 Jun, National Theatre Bookshop)
82. The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga (22 Jun, Oxfam Winchester)
83. Cologne Marco Polo Guide (23 Jun, Daunt Books)
84. Quiet Amsterdam by Siobhan Wall (23 Jun, Daunt Books)
85. A Childhood by Jona Oberski (23 Jun, Daunt Books)
86. Grey Souls by Phillippe Claudel (23 Jun, Daunt Books)
87.The Trial (Oberon Modern Plays) by Nick Gill (23 Jun, The Young Vic Theatre)
88. Pocket Rough Guide Amsterdam by Martin Dunford (25 Jun, Athanaeum Boekhandel)
89. A Short History of Amsterdam by Dr. Richter Roegholt (25 Jun, Athanaeum Boekhandel)
90. In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan (26 Jun, Kindle e-book)

Books purchased or received in 2015, continued: (Bold = book purchased this year)

July:
91. This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City by John Rogers (1 Jul, Kindle e-book)
92. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit (8 Jul, Kindle e-book)

2015 Reading Globally Themes and possible reads from my TBR collection:

First quarter: Indian subcontinent



Aravind Adiga, Between the Assassinations
Tariq Ali, Night of the Golden Butterfly
Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
Vikram Chandra, Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
G.V. Desani, All About H. Hatterr
Roopa Farooki, Bitter Sweets
Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide
Intizar Husain, Basti
Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
Uday Prakash, The Girl with the Golden Parasol
Salman Rushdie, The Moor's Last Sigh
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Kamila Shamsie, In the City By the Sea

Second quarter: Iberian peninsula



António Lobo Antunes, Act of the Damned
António Lobo Antunes, Fado Alexandrino
António Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World
Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless
Juan Goytisolo, Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya
Juan Goytisolo, The Marx Family Saga
Almudena Grandes, The Frozen Heart
Carmen Laforet, Nada
José Luis Peixoto, Blank Gaze
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic
Mercè Rodoreda, Death in Spring
Mercè Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda
José Saramago, Baltasar and Blimunda
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
José Saramago, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
Llorenç Villalonga, The Dolls' Room
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game

Third quarter: Nobel Prize winners writing not in English

  

Knut Hamsun (1920), Hunger
Thomas Mann (1929), Death in Venice
Halldór Laxness (1955), Independent People
Albert Camus (1957), 109569::The First Man; Exile and the Kingdom
Ivo Andrić (1961), The Bridge on the Drina
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964), Nausea
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967), The President
Yasunari Kawabata (1968), Beauty and Sadness
Pablo Neruda (1971), The Essential Neruda; Canto General
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), 6222619::Collected Stories, Volume 1
Gabriel García Márquez (1982), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Of Love and Other Demons; The Autumn of the Patriarch
Claude Simon (1985), The Trolley
Naguib Mahfouz (1988), Midaq Alley; Rhadopis of Nubia
Octavio Paz (1990), The Labyrinth of Solitude; In Light of India
Kenzaburō Ōe (1994), The Changeling
José Saramago (1998), Raised from the Ground; Baltasar and Blimunda; The History of the Siege of Lisbon; Manual of Painting and Calligraphy; Journey to Portugal
Günter Grass (1999), The Tin Drum
Gao Xingjian (2000), One Man's Bible; Soul Mountain
Orhan Pamuk (2006), Snow; My Name Is Red; The Museum of Innocence; Other Colors
J.M.G. Le Clézio (2008), Terra Amata; The Giants; 1437767::War; 1437808::Fever; The Book of Flights; The Flood
Herta Müller (2009), The Land of Green Plums
Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), Captain Pantoja and the Special Service; The Green House; The Way to Paradise; The Bad Girl; The Dream of the Celt
Mo Yan (2012), Life and Death are Wearing Me Out; The Garlic Ballads; The Republic of Wine

Fourth quarter: Women writing not in English

  

Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins; She Came to Stay
Assia Djebar, Algerian White; Children of the New World; The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry
Diamela Eltit, E. Luminata
Annie Ernaux, Cleaned Out
Sylvie Germain, The Song of False Lovers
Marlene van Niekerk, Agaat
Miral al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights
Delphine de Vigan, No and Me

TBR Books to Read in 2015:



Tomes (500 pages or more):
      Nicole Barker, Darkmans
      Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins
      Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
      Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
      Ralph Ellison, Three Days Before the Shooting...
      Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí
      David Grossman, To the End of the Land
      Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name
      George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
      A.J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling
      David Macey, Frantz Fanon: A Biography
      Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
      Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
      Patrick O'Brian, Picasso: A Biography
      Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul
      Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
      William Trevor, Selected Stories
      Patrick White, The Vivisector

Non-tomes (less than 500 pages):
      Stuart Altman and David Shactman, Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle
      Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
      Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
      Amiri Baraka, Tales of the Out & the Gone
      Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
      Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
      Jean Echenoz, I'm Off and One Year
      Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
      Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
      Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
      Paul Farmer, Haiti After the Earthquake
      Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule
      Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
      Jerry Gentry, Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital
      Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
      Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
      Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless
      Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
      Jonathan B. Imber, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
      Robert Klitzman, When Doctors Become Patients
      Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One
      Charles Lemert, Why Niebuhr Matters
      David A. Mendel, Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and their Doctors
      Simon Mawer, Mendel's Dwarf
      Claire McCarthy, Everyone's Children: A Pediatrician's Story of an Inner City Practice
      Ian McEwan, Atonement
      Andrew Miller, Pure
      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
      Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
      Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
      Laura Katz Olson, The Politics of Medicaid: Stakeholders and Welfare Medicine
      Brian Orr, MD, A Pediatrician's Journal: Caring for Children in a Broken Medical System
      Orhan Pamuk, Snow
      Roy Porter, Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad Doctors and Lunatics
      Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
      Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir
      Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
      Richard Wright, Black Boy

Books about Medicine:



1. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry
2. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol
3. The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner
4. When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman

Literature from the African diaspora:
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
March: Book One by John Lewis

Nonfiction from the African diaspora:
Wes Moore, The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters
Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped
Darryl Pinckney, Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy

Only one more day to go until this year's Booker Prize longlist is revealed. That normally happens by midday British Summer Time, so by 8 am or so Eastern Standard Time in the US we should know what books are chosen for the Booker Dozen. I may have mentioned that I'm off from work for most of August (my last work day for the month is August 6!) and September, so this should be the year that I read the Booker Dozen in its entirety before the prize announcement on October 15.

Today's issue of The Guardian includes a preview article, which lists books that should be strong candidates to make the longlist. They are, in order of mention:

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
10:04 by Ben Lerner
Pleasantville by Attica Locke
The Shore by Sara Taylor
Neverhome by Laird Hunt
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (the article describes it as the "British frontrunner")
The Green Road by Anne Enright
The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
Acts of the Assassins by Richard Beard
The Offering by Grace McCleen
The Book of Memory by Pettina Gappah
Quicksand by Steve Toltz
Nora Webster by Colm Tóibín
The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan
Amnesia by Peter Carey
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea

The author of the article also mentions "forthcoming titles from Salman Rushdie, John Banville, William Boyd, Margaret Atwood, Pat Barker, Andrew Miller, Tessa Hadley and more", and tells us that the William Hill is offering 33/1 odds that Go Set a Watchman will win this year's prize.

Book #45: The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud



My rating:

Who was Musa? He was my brother.

The last day of a man's life doesn't exist. Outside of storybooks there's no hope, nothing but soap bubbles bursting. That's the best proof of our absurd existence, my dear friend: Nobody's granted a final day, just an accidental interruption in his life.

A French graduate student whose main interest is Albert Camus's novel The Stranger and its characters travels to the Algerian port city of Oran, to learn more about what happened to the unnamed Arab that the protagonist, Meursault, shot to death on a beach in Algiers 70 years ago. In a seedy pub he meets Harun, the younger brother of the victim, an irascible old man who still seethes with resentment over the events of that fateful day and its aftermath. Through Harun we learn that his brother's name was Musa, and that his corpse was never found, which prevented his mother from achieving a sense of closure, and led her and her son on an futile and endless quest to find him and to gain both revenge and peace.

As the student, who like Musa in The Stranger is also unnamed and voiceless, listens, Harun shares the story of his own absurd life, which mirrors that of Meursault's in many respects. Although Harun is fiercely critical of Meursault and Camus, who chose to ignore his brother, thus dehumanizing him and, therefore, all Arabs, he knows The Stranger by heart and respects what its author has accomplished in writing it. Through him a portrait of Algeria from an Arab viewpoint emerges, from the colonial days when they were often brutally suppressed by the pied noirs, to the War for Independence, and especially the current state of the troubled country, where the possibility of a restricted society run by Islamic fundamentalists is juxtaposed against the similar restrictions of life under the current government run by the military.

The Meursault Investigation is a superb novel, which both mirrors and expounds upon The Stranger to portray the life of Meursault's victim, critique the actions of Meursault and the limited viewpoint of Camus, and explore the near parallel life of the victim's brother and the absurdity of post-independence Algerian society. I would strongly advise you to read The Stranger before starting this book, as it assumes that the reader is familiar with Camus's novel. You will get much more out of this book if you do so.

Hmm. The touchstones must be on strike this week.

This year's Booker Prize longlist has just been announced:

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Looking forward to your vacation recap, Darryl.

What are your thoughts on the Booker longlist? Have you read many of them?

Hi, Colleen! I'll start posting highlights of my vacation later this week.

I just posted this comment about the longlist on my 75 Books thread:

"I am literally dancing with joy at this longlist! I was hoping that A History of Seven Killings and The Fishermen would make it, and I practically squealed with delight to see The Moor's Account there, as I didn't realize that it was eligible and was thinking of reading it this summer. Alex (roundballnz) will be pleased as punch that The Chimes was chosen, and I'm happy that I'll read his favorite book of the year. I read about The Year of the Runaways yesterday, and I was planning to read it even if it wasn't chosen for the longlist.

"Another laudable feature of this longlist: seven of the 13 authors chosen were women.

"I've been following the Booker Prize closely since 2007, and on the surface this looks to be the strongest longlist since 2009, which featured Wolf Hall, The Children's Book, The Glass Room, Brooklyn, Love and Summer, Heliopolis and Summertime, which were all outstanding. Bravo, judges!"

I was planning to read A History of Seven Killings in August anyway, so I'll start with it and the other book I currently own, The Moor's Account. I'm also eager to get to A Little Life and The Green Road, and I suspect that I'll enjoy the vast majority of the books on this longlist.

BTW, I'm the moderator of the Booker Prize group on LT (http://www.librarything.com/groups/bookerprize2008), and everyone who is interested in this year's longlist is welcome to join the group or follow along.

Here's the current longlist availability in the US and UK:

Did You Ever Have a Family: Sep 8 (US), Sep 17 (UK)
The Green Road: currently available in the US and UK
A Brief History of Seven Killings: currently available in the US and UK
The Moor's Account: currently available in the US; Aug 27 (UK)
Satin Island: currently available in the US and UK
The Fishermen: currently available in the US and UK
The Illuminations: currently available in the US and UK
Lila: currently available in the US and UK
Sleeping on Jupiter: unavailable in the US (no publication date), currently available in the UK
The Year of the Runaways: Mar 1 (US), currently available in the UK
The Chimes: unavailable in the US (no publication date), currently available in the UK
A Spool of Blue Thread: available in the US, Aug 27 (UK)
A Little Life: currently available in the US and UK

Great review of The Meursault Investigation This is one I will definitely explore, having read L'etranger recently, I will be curious to read Daoud's take on it.

>15 baswood: Thanks, Barry. I look forward to your comments about The Meursault Investigation.

Overly ambitious list of planned reads for August (subject to change, as always):

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black Prophetic Fire by Cornel West (LT Early Reviewers book for July)
Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (Wellcome Book Prize shortlist)
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Booker Prize longlist)
The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (Reading Globally)
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Booker Prize longlist)
The Green Road by Anne Enright (Booker Prize longlist)
The History of the Siege of Lisbon by José Saramago
Hunger by Knut Hamsun (Reading Globally)
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (Reading Globally)
The Iceberg by Marion Coutts (Wellcome Book Prize winner)
The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan (Booker Prize longlist)
Independent People by Halldór Laxness (Reading Globally)
The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami (Booker Prize longlist)
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler (Booker Prize longlist)

>17 kidzdoc: I really liked both The Discreet Hero and The History of the Siege of Lisbon.

>18 rebeccanyc: I'm glad that you liked both of those books, Rebecca.

Book #47: In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan



My rating:

After my recent trip to Amsterdam I became interested in the city and its massive (by American standards) number of bicycle riders, so when I saw that the Kindle version of this book was on sale I bought it immediately and started reading it shortly afterward.

Pete Jordan, a self described "bike nut", was born in San Francisco and spent a decade there and in Portland, Pittsburgh and other American cities before he decided to move to Amsterdam with his new wife to pursue a graduate degree in urban planning at the University of Amsterdam. The focus of his studies was an examination of the history of bicycling in the city, the often lawless mind set of its bicyclists and bike thieves, and how they impacted the development and culture of the Dutch capital.

This book starts at the end of the 19th century, when bicycles first became available and affordable to ordinary citizens, and continues through the present. Amsterdam's compact size and consequent lack of space for parking cars, its narrow streets, the high cost of automobiles and gasoline, and the more relaxed pace of life in the tiny country of the Netherlands compared to the massive and spread out United States were all factors that led to the proliferation of bicycles in and outside of the city. Amsterdammers then and now embrace their bicycles as extensions of their own bodies, and any laws or pleas to restrict their usage or their right of way on the roads were met with indifference and were often ignored, most notably during the Nazi occupation in World War II when German officials attempted repeatedly to impose order on the cyclists but failed miserably.

In relating the story of Amsterdam's cyclists Jordan provides an interesting history of the city itself, which, like its cyclists, cannot be separated from its bicycles. He intersperses his and his family's experiences as bicyclists, beginning with his first collision with a bicyclist upon his arrival to the city, and including his son's initiation as a stunt cyclist, his wife's training as a bicycle mechanic, and his own development as a bicycle historian.

In the City of Bikes is a well written and very interesting book, which gave me greater insight into and appreciation of the bicycling culture of my newest favorite city, and enhanced my knowledge of the history of the Dutch capital.

>20 kidzdoc: I've had that one on my list to check out of the library for a long time. Did you ride bikes while you were in Amsterdam? I did, and it was a fun experience.

I didn't ride a bicycle in Amsterdam, Ursula. I only had one completely free day when I was there, as I met up with LTers in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Cologne. I do plan to go back soon, and I'll probably hire a bike at that time.

>22 kidzdoc: I rode a bike in Cologne, too! :) Actually, it was fun to compare how different it was to be a bicyclist in Amsterdam, Cologne, and Gent, which is where I was living at the time. The other two cities were much more structured than Gent, where bicycles pretty much always have the right of way, but without all the bike signals and other officialness that exists in Amsterdam. There are definitely a good number of bike lanes, but more often you're on the streets or weaving through pedestrians in the pedestrian/bike areas. Being in Amsterdam was like driving a car on the highway in comparison!

Interesting! I haven't visited Gent, or any other Belgian city, but I hope to change that as early as September, when I'll return to London.

My head was on a swivel in Amsterdam, as I've never been to a city with so many bicyclists! I've also never had to stop at an intersection until a flurry of them passed by. However, Amsterdam seemed relatively tame compared to Utrecht, especially when Connie (Connie53) and I walked around the university area after we said goodbye to Tad (TadAD) and his wife Julie (jrzymom), who took a train back to Amsterdam early to care for their ailing daughter. I came very close to colliding with a bicyclist, who couldn't have passed more than two feet in front of me, and Connie nearly got whacked a minute or two later.

There were hardly any bicyclists in Cologne as compared to Amsterdam or Utrecht.

Glad to see you back!

The Meursault Investigation sounds really interesting, although the last time I read The Stranger was in high school, so I'd have to review it (I own it but not sure where it is).

I didn't realize Amsterdam was a such a bike-heavy city - great review. Do you have any other planned reads about the city? I have Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City on the library list.

Good luck with your planned August reads - that is indeed an ambitious list!

Bikes! -- wow how interesting -- I wonder if any American city could go that way?

>25 DieFledermaus: Thanks, Stephanie! I'll do my best to be a more reliable member of Club Read for the rest of the year.

The Meursault Investigation was very good. Fortunately it's a quick read, like The Stranger, and you could possibly knock off both books in a day.

I knew that Amsterdam was a city known for bicycling after I read about it in advance of my trip there, but nothing truly prepares you for it, as Pete Jordan mentioned at the beginning of In the City of Bikes. I'd say there were roughly 10 bicycles for every motor vehicle in the central city, and it was tough to initially figure out where I was supposed to walk and where the cyclists were permitted to ride. Actually, the cyclists ride anywhere they want, and insist on having the right of way nearly always. They come from seemingly all directions, and first time visitors have to pay close attention to them, although they seem to have a knack for swerving around clueless tourists like myself.

I've fallen behind on reviews again, but In the City of Bikes was the third book I've read about Amsterdam this month. The others were Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak, and A Childhood by Jona Oberski, which is an autobiographical novel about a young Jewish boy during the Nazi Occupation. I'm very eager to return to the Netherlands, as I loved Amsterdam and Utrecht and met two Dutch LTers while I was there. I'll almost certainly go there early next year if not later this year, and I'll probably read more works of fiction about the city in the fall.

>26 janeajones: Pete Jordan, the author of In the City of Bikes, compared Amsterdam and Copenhagen, another bike friendly city, to Portland, the US city with the most usage of bicycles, and there was no comparison. Bicycling is an integral part of the culture of Amsterdam and the Dutch, and Amsterdam is so small and compact that the roads would be hopelessly congested if even a quarter of the city's residents drove on a regular basis. The city also has an extensive tram system, with far more tram lines than I've seen in any other city (I'd guess at least 20, as the trams are numbered and it goes up to at least #26). I saw far fewer buses than trams, and far fewer trams than bicycles on a daily basis, even though trams were literally everywhere, especially around Dam Square, where my hotel was located. I can't see any American city coming anywhere close to Amsterdam, and the thought of cities like London and Barcelona going that way are equally inconceivable to me.

These are photos from the Internet, but they represent what I'm talking about, and what I saw in Amsterdam.

The bicycle garage at Amsterdam Centraal, the city's main train station:



Bicycles and scooters parked on Dam Square; the hotel I stayed at, the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, would be visible directly behind this photo:



Two typical street scenes during rush hour:





Cambridge (UK) also has a large number of bicyclists, due in part to its narrow medieval streets, and sizable bicycle garages at Cambridge Station and in the center of town, but it's nothing like Amsterdam.

Jealous of everyone's travels through Europe here. Nice to see you back, Darryl.

>29 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Tomorrow will be my last work day of the week, and the month, so I'll be able to catch up with what I've been up to soon. I'll fly to San Francisco on Saturday, then travel back across the country next Thursday to spend two weeks with my parents in suburban Philadelphia. There will be a group LT meet up in Philadelphia on the 15th, and I'll spend the following weekend with Caroline (cameling), one of my favorite LTers, and her husband in Boston before I head back to Atlanta at the end of the month.

I made my first trip to City Lights Bookstore this morning, and purchased nine books:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: This book has received a lot of attention in the US since its release in June, in which the (African American) author writes a letter to his adolescent son, and in it discusses what it means to inhabit and live in a black body, and come to terms with the history of race in the US and free this burden from ourselves. (wish list)

Oreo by Fran Ross: A girl named Oreo is raised by her maternal African American grandparents in Philadelphia, while her mother tours with a theatrical troupe. Her father, a "Jewish deadbeat dad" who disappeared when she was an infant, left a mysterious note for her, which leads her on a quest to find him and claim her Jewish heritage, in the manner of the Greek hero Theseus. (wish list)

The Dream of My Return by Horacio Castellano Moya: A paranoiac and alcoholic Salvadoran writer becomes unhinged after he uses hypnosis to treat his liver pain, and develops an outlandish plan to return to his war torn country and write a narrative of his journey. (wish list)

The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas: A young Spanish writer (who bears a close resemblance to the author) accepts a post as writer-in-residence at a large midwestern university in the US, and while there he encounters a troubled Vietnam War veteran with a mysterious past. The men become friends, and after the writer returns to Spain he seeks to learn more about the veteran, realizing that their fates are linked as his world collapses around him. (wish list)

Brother and the Dancer by Keenan Norris: A coming of age tale about two young African Americans who grow up in close proximity in California's San Bernardino Valley, yet live vastly different lives due to their different socioeconomic backgrounds and circumstances. (wish list)

How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes: This latest collection by the National Book Award winning poet and professor at the University of Pittsburgh explores the way in which visual artists in particular, and all of us in general, see and are seen by others. (wish list)

Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim by Justin Gifford: This is the new biography of Iceberg Slim, the founder of "street lit", whose books written in the 1940s and 1950s were popular in Black America but did not receive widespread attention outside of the African American community, as they were not sold in traditional bookstores. I read a review of this book last week in The New York Times, and added it to my wish list.

The Queen's Caprice by Jean Echenoz: A new collection of short stories recently translated into English by the acclaimed French author, which showcase "a terrific sense of humor tinged with existential mischief." (wish list)

Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudine Rankine: This is the only book that wasn't on my wish list; I was looking for Citizen: An American Lyric, which City Lights (apparently) didn't have, but this book was in its upstairs Poetry Room. This poetry collection is a meditation on the bleak times in which we live, which uses autobiography, images, and excerpts from public figures in a unique testament.

Nice haul! I did notice you said your "first" trip!

Right, Rebecca! I usually make at least two trips to City Lights every time I visit San Francisco, and I'll very likely go there after I have breakfast at Caffè Greco, my all time favorite café, which is also on Columbus Avenue in North Beach, about 2-1/2 blocks away. I've become friendly with one of the guys who works mornings there (Scott), and since he wasn't there yesterday I'd like to pay him a visit, both to say hello and also to find out what books he's read and liked, what jazz recordings he's discovered, and which jazz concerts and other cultural events he's been to recently. There are at least two books that I was hoping to buy there but couldn't find yesterday, The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth by Orlando Patterson et al., which was displayed in one of the windows at City Lights, and Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudine Rankine, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry this year and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry last year.

You have such an excellently organised thread, it is a pleasure to just go through it. Your interesting of Kamal Daoud's The Meursalt Investigation has made me curious about the book, and I'm going to add it on the TBR. And coincidentally, I too, am looking (unsuccessfully) for a copy of Rankine's Citizen.

Thanks, Reva! I hope that you're able to find those two books.

I did go to City Lights Bookstore this morning, saw my buddy Scott who works there, and bought four more books:

The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela: The controversial debut novel by the Spanish Nobel laureate is a narrative by Pascual Duarte in which he recounts his impoverished and depraved life and confesses his crimes, including several brutal murders, as he awaits his execution. Richard would call this a "three hankies and a pistol" special. (wish list)

Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe: An 11 year old boy seeks to cross the Niger River to visit the city of Asaba, but lacks the money to pay the ferry ride. With the help of his friend and after several adventures he is able to travel to Asaba, but once he arrives there he finds the grass is not greener on the other side.

Notes on the Death of Culture: This book by the Peruvian Nobel laureate is an examination and indictment of the transformation of culture from a vital consciousness that constantly rejuvenated and revivified everyday reality, to a mechanism of distraction and entertainment in the era of the Internet.

The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth: This collection of essays, edited by Orlando Patterson, the John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard, is an interdisciplinary work which attempts to "explain how culture, interacting with structural and environmental forces, influences the performance and control of violence, aesthetic productions, educational and work outcomes, familial, gender, and sexual relations, and the complex moral life of black youth."

I really liked The Family of Pascual Duarte when I read it last year. Will be interested to see what you think of it.

Thanks, Annie. I'll probably read it in September.

I enjoy Achebe, but hadn't heard of that novel.

Neither had I, Rebecca. It seems to be a children's book, although it didn't say so on the cover, and it was in the World Literature section at City Lights, and not the Children's Literature section (for that matter, I don't think that City Lights has a children's section).

Great book haul!

Also, those bicycle pictures are pretty amazing.

RIP, Julian Bond (1940-2015), the legendary civil rights activist, pioneering politician, columnist, author and public intellectual, who died yesterday at the age of 75. Bond was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and moved to the Philadelphia area in 1945 when his father was chosen as the first black president of Lincoln University. He was educated at the prestigious George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania (which is roughly five miles from my parents' house), and attended Morehouse College in Atlanta in the early 1960s. He left the school to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, and later returned to earn his bachelor's degree in 1971. He was among the first group of African Americans elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act that year, but his predominantly white colleagues voted to deny him the right to his seat, due to his opposition to the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court voted 9-0 to order the House to permit him to take his seat, and he served there for four terms from 1967 to 1975, followed by six terms in the Georgia Senate from 1975-1987. He lost a bitter battle to current US Congressman John Lewis (my congressman) for Georgia's Fifth Congressional District in 1988, which ended his political career. During the late 1980s and early 1990s he taught at several major universities, including American, Drexel, Harvard and Virginia, and he later served as president of the N.A.A.C.P. and the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with its current president Morris Dees. He also wrote several books, served as a newspaper and magazine columnist, and appeared on a number of public and commercial television broadcasts. He remained an active public figure and a leading black intellectual until his death, and his quiet, calm but passionate voice and opinions will be sadly missed.

Thanks, Stephanie!

Four LTers and I met in Philadelphia yesterday, and while we were together we visited The Book Trader, an excellent secondhand bookshop on 2nd Street just north of Market Street in Old City. I had been looking for books by the Israeli author S.Y. Agnon for several months without success, but I found two there: In the Heart of the Seas, which I'll probably read next week, and To This Day, which I'll get to in September.

Book #51: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

  

My rating:

This novel is centered around the attempted assassination of the legendary Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley (referred to as "The Singer" throughout the book) at his home in Kingston on December 3, 1976, two days before he was set to perform in the "Smile Jamaica" concert organized by Prime Minister and People's National Party (PNP) leader Michael Manley. The free concert was aimed at cooling tensions between the PNP and its main rival, the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP), which had been building throughout the year in advance of the contentious election that was held in mid-December. Each party supported gangs in Kingston, which controlled neighborhoods and districts within the capital and used whatever means were necessary to get residents to vote for their candidate, and as JLP gang leaders fought to gain power, PNP leaders fought just as hard to maintain what they had, in a country beset by poverty, corruption and violence. Along with these two factions was a far more lawless segment of brazen young men, who operated outside of the normally accepted boundaries and brutally murdered anyone who crossed their path.

The initial scene shifts from 1976 to 1979 Kingston, to 1985 NYC, when the city was in the middle of a vicious crack epidemic with violent gangs from Jamaica and Colombia who fought viciously to control the booming drug trade, and to its fateful end in 1991.

The novel consists of narratives from numerous colorful characters in the book, including the gang leaders Papa-Lo, Weeper, Josey Wales and Bam-Bam; Alex Pierce, a writer for Rolling Stone who manages to get inside information about the attempt on the Singer's life, but finds his own life in danger as a result; "Doctor Love", a Colombian CIA consultant who is also involved in the drug trade centered in Medellín; and Nina Burgess, a young shape shifting woman who appears throughout the book, in different roles and with different names. The author did a masterful job in maintaining this reader's interest throughout its nearly 700 pages, as the violence and suspense increase during the book's last chapter to its sudden, shocking ending.

A Brief History of Seven Killings is a literary tour de force that tells the story of Jamaican politics and culture in the last quarter of the 20th century, which is filled with interesting characters and details. Reading it was a wild but fascinating ride, and it certainly deserves its spot on this year's Booker Prize longlist, and I think it would be a good candidate for the shortlist as well.

Book #52: The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma

  

My rating:

This novel is set in Akure, Nigeria in 1996 during the military regime of General Sani Abacha, and it is narrated by Benjamin, the fourth child of six in a stable and content Christian Igbo family. The authoritarian head of household works for the Central Bank of Nigeria, and one day he is told that he will be transferred to a branch in a distant city, one which was torn by sectarian violence against the Igbo tribe earlier that year. He decides that it is too dangerous to move the entire family there, so his unhappy wife is left in charge of their five boys and one infant girl in his absence.

Despite their parents' pleas to behave themselves and stay away from the Omi-Ala River in town, which for many years had been forsaken by Akure's residents, who believed that it was an evil place populated by ritualists and malicious spirits, the four eldest boys decided to start fishing in the river after school. On one day they encounter the town's madman, Abula, who was feared for his dark but often accurate prognostications about those who crossed his path. After the boys taunt Abula, he casts his eye on the oldest brother, Ikenna, and he tells the boy what his fate will be.

From that point forward the lives of Ikenna and the rest of the Agwu family are affected by Abula's dire prophecy, as the family's Christian's faith comes into conflict with long held village beliefs, in a topsy turvy version of Chinua Achebe's classic tale Things Fall Apart.

The Fishermen was a well written and enjoyable coming of age story, which would work well as a young adult novel but is a bit too simplistic for the Booker Prize longlist, IMO. It's a worthwhile read, but I'll be very surprised if it is chosen for the shortlist.

Enjoying catching up with your reviews, Darryl. Are you planning to read all the Booker Prize nominees?

>46 rebeccanyc: I am, Rebecca. I plan to read three or four more longlisted books this month, starting with The Green Road by Anne Enright, and hopefully five or six more in September.

Simplistic - Sounds to me as though the Fishermen will win the Booker Prize.

Great review of A Brief History of Seven Killings which sounds like a contender.

I am listening to the audiobook of A Brief History of Seven Killings. It's wonderfully read (several different actors cover all the voices), and the accents and fluency of the patois add to the impact of the book. But I am also worried that I am missing some of the subtleties and based on your review I think maybe I should 'read-along' as well.

>48 baswood: Ha! This year's batch of Booker Prize judges seems to have better taste than those in years past, so I remain hopeful that they will choose an outstanding book for the Prize.

>49 wandering_star: I'd love to hear the audio version of A Brief History of Seven Killings, Margaret. I'll see if I can borrow it from my local library when I return to Atlanta next week.

I'm on an Amtrak train headed to Boston, as I'll spend the weekend with LTer Caroline (cameling) and her husband Edd. After I catch up on LT I'll resume reading my third book from the Booker Prize longlist, The Green Road by Anne Enright, which is good so far.

Great reviews of A Brief History of Seven killings and The Fishermen. Even though you said the latter was a bit simplistic, it still sounds interesting and I added it to the library list.

I keep running into A Brief History of Seven Killings. I may have to pick up a copy.

I just finished The Green Road and loved it. The writing reminded me very much of Colm Tóibín. I loved the structure of the novel with the series of complete-unto-themselves short stories leading to the heart of the story.

>51 DieFledermaus: Thanks, Stephanie. I did enjoy reading The Fishermen and would recommend it, although I think it has no chance to make the shortlist (Barry's prediction notwithstanding).

>52 RidgewayGirl: I'm glad that you loved The Green Road, Kay. I'm enjoying it so far, and I should finish it later today.

Rest in peace, Oliver Sacks.



Guardian: Oliver Sacks, eminent neurologist and author of Awakenings, dies aged 82

In the obituary in Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant Sacks homosexuality was mentioned. This biographical detail came as a surprise to me.

They also printed an interesting photo: "Oliver Sacks in 1961." © Douglas White

>55 edwinbcn: If I remember correctly Sacks disclosed that he was gay in his memoir On the Move, which was published earlier this year. I think I read about that after he announced that he was terminally ill, so the news about his homosexuality didn't register at all (and it was a non-issue anyway, at least for me).

That photo also appears on the cover of the US edition of On the Move.

Book #53: Chike and the River by Chinua Achebe



My rating:

This novella is about an 11 year old boy whose widowed mother entrusts his upbringing to his strict uncle, who believes that children should study and work hard and not waste their time in play. Chike lives in a small village along the Niger River across from Asaba, a larger city filled with wonderful sights that are described to him by his friends. He longs to go there, but he needs money to pay for the ferry ride to Asaba and back, and his uncle refuses to give it to him. After several plans go awry Chike is eventually able to pay for the journey, but after he arrives in Asaba he finds that it isn't what he expected it to be, and he soon finds himself in trouble.

Chike and the River is an engaging children's book that also serves as a moral fable about the dangers of blindly following one's heart, which would best be appreciated by 7-10 year children. I mistakenly bought this book, thinking that it was a adult novella by Achebe, but I'm glad that I read it.

Book #56: Pedigree: A Memoir by Patrick Modiano



My rating:

This brief memoir by Modiano, the most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, concerns the first 21 years of his life, after he was born to an indifferent Flemish actress and a ne'er-do-well Jewish man in Paris who met during the Occupation. He was the unmarried couple's only surviving child, and he was passed on to relatives and friends like an unwanted pet for most of his early years. Although his parents appear to be colorful, if irresponsible, characters and his childhood would seem to have been a chaotically unique and potentially interesting one, Modiano chooses to list the people that entered and exited his life in a droll chronological matter, without analysis or reflection, as if he was filling out a lengthy school entrance or government form about his past, which made this book a mind numbingly dull read. Fortunately it was a short book, but it was worth about 1/100th of the $25 I paid for it.

I think I commented earlier that I enjoy Achebe but hadn't heard of that one, and I've been studiously avoiding Modiano ever since I heard of him -- when he inexplicably won the Nobel Prize.

>59 rebeccanyc: I probably should have realized that Chike and the River was a children's book, but I was thrown by it being in the World Literature section at City Lights Bookstore (I don't think that it has a section for children's books). I'll pass my copy on to my nephew.

"Inexplicable" is a perfect word to describe Modiano's selection as the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. I've read three of his books so far, Missing Person, which I can't remember at all, Ring Roads, which was forgettable, and this useless excuse for a memoir.

I posted this excerpt from Pedigree: A Memoir on my 75 Books thread:

In February 1957, I lost my brother. One Sunday, my father and my Uncle Ralph came to collect me at the boarding school. On the road to Paris, my Uncle Ralph, who was driving, pulled the car over and stepped out, leaving me alone with my father. In the car, my father told me that my brother had died. I had spent the afternoon with him the previous Sunday, in our room on Quai de Conti. We had worked on our stamp collection. I had to return to school at five o'clock, and I'd explained that a theater troupe was going to put on a play for the students in the school's small auditorium. I will never forget the look on his face, that Sunday.

Apart from my brother, Rudy, his death, I don't believe that anything I'll relate here truly matters to me. I'm writing these pages the way one compiles a report or résumé, as documentation and to have done with a life that wasn't my own. It's just a simple film of deeds and facts. I have nothing to confess or elucidate and I have no interest in soul-searching or self-reflection.

That was the last mention of his brother in the book, and his death didn't seem to have much of an impact on him. If I had read the second paragraph on the cover jacket or the book's beginning pages I wouldn't have purchased it.

I was interested to see three books which I have read in recent years on your TBR for August: Hunger, which I liked in the same way that one "likes" Crime and Punishment; The Hunger Angel, which I liked better than Land of Green Plums, but was not overly impressed by for a Nobel Laureate; and Independent People, which I disliked partly because I found the main character so disagreeable. I look forward to your reviews when you read these, as I am sure your take, especially on the last, will differ from my own in well-expressed ways.

>60 kidzdoc: strange. I'll pass on the memoir.

>58 kidzdoc: This book has ratings on both ends of the scale, that's interesting. Maybe those who gave it a 5 star rating were already fans. I only read 3 books by him I think, and they were all based on the same events in his youth. One of the reviewers said that she loved the memoir but he shouldn't have written it because it revealed too much about him. The appeal of his books are mostly the parts that are unsaid, so it sounds like he took the exact opposite with the memoirs, with the same result that he is still a mystery.

I couldn't say whether he deserved the Nobel prize, but I don't see it as totally outrageous. I get the impression that Nobel prize winners are rarely the type of writer who pleases everyone. I like his books. I've got Rue des boutiques obscures in my TBR.

I thought The Search Warrant was excellent. It made me think that his very european writing style which leaves much unsaid (it is up to the reader to fill in the gaps) might not appeal to everybody.

Sorry that I've been out of touch for the past week. I had an intense five day work stretch from the Friday before last to Tuesday, and flew to London overnight on Wednesday for a two week vacation here. I didn't do anything on Thursday, but yesterday I met up with four LTers. I first met Bianca (drachenbraut23) at Southbank Centre, the complex along the south bank of the Thames which is Europe's largest art complex. This weekend the centre is hosting Africa Utopia, a celebration of African art and culture, with numerous free and paid events. Claire (Sakerfalcon) joined us shortly afterward, along with Caroline (Caroline_McElwee). We chatted in the foyer, then we all met Margaret (wandering_star) for the first time. In true LT fashion she fit right in with the group, as she was a lovely person and an enjoyable conversationalist. There is an international food market outside of Southbank Centre on Fridays through Sundays, which hosted roughly a dozen stalls from local African restaurants, and although we had a reservation for a nearby restaurant we decided to pick up dinner from the market and bring it back to the foyer in the Centre. Margaret and I had Eritrean food from Adulis, a restaurant in Brixton, and Bianca, Caroline and Claire stopped at a stand operated by an Ethiopian restaurant. All of the food was fabulous (Bianca and Claire let me sample their plates, and vice versa); I had chickpeas, spinach and curried chicken with a bread that is similar to the ones served in Ethiopian restaurants. The spinach was excellent, with a delightful and unique mix of spices.

Photos of the group; from left to right, me, Bianca, Claire and Margaret:



Caroline replaces me in this photo:



We were all too hungry to take photos of our plates, but I found these photos of the stand from Adulis's Facebook page:



The chicken was in the first pan, and the spinach and chickpeas were in the third and fourth ones, respectively:

I said goodbye to Claire, Bianca and Caroline (although I'll see each of them again during this trip), as Margaret and I had tickets to see Orchestra Baobab, a world renowned Senegalese band that plays Cuban music with an African twist. They performed at Royal Festival Hall within Southbank Centre, after a nice opening set by the Cameroonian artist Blick Bassy and his trio. The Orchestra was fabulous, and by the third tune half of the audience, including Margaret and I, were standing up and dancing.

I took two short videos of the Orchestra in performance, and posted them on my Facebook timeline. Here are the links; please let me know if you can't see them:

https://www.facebook.com/darryl.morris2/videos/10206529786497144/

https://www.facebook.com/darryl.morris2/videos/10206529814097834/

I'll see Margaret again the week after next, as several of us are planning to meet for dinner in Cambridge the week after next.

Debbi (walklover) and her husband Joe (jnwelch) from the 75 Books group are also here from Chicago. We met in London last year for the first time and made plans to meet up again this year. We'll meet in Hyde Park later this afternoon, as we have tickets for the BBC Proms in the Park, also known as the Last Night of the Proms. I'll see them again on Monday, as I was able to purchase tickets for Dismaland, the dystopian amusement park designed by Banksy and other street artists in Weston-super-Mare, a seaside town on the Bristol Channel in the west of England.

>61 labfs39: I probably won't get to Hunger or Independent People this year, unfortunately, but I'll probably read The Hunger Angel for the fourth quarter Reading Globally theme, Lisa. Bianca gave me a copy last year, as it's her favorite novel by Herta Müller, and we were talking about that book and Land of Green Plums over dinner last night.

>62 dchaikin: Good idea, Dan.

>63 FlorenceArt: Interesting comments, Florence. We were talking about the difficulty of reading books in translation over dinner yesterday, as at least three in the group can read books in multiple languages (not counting me, as I'm not yet fluent enough in Spanish to read literature, although I can read newspapers and magazines with only minimal difficulty). We didn't talk about Patrick Modiano specifically, but I suspect that he may be a writer whose work is far better in French than it is in English.

>64 baswood: Thanks for mentioning The Search Warrant, Barry. I'll look for it when I go book shopping with Claire tomorrow. Did you read it in English or French?

Sounds like you're having an absolutely wonderful time with great people.

I've really enjoyed several of Bianca's recommendations, so I may have to join you in in reading The Hunger Angel.

But, no, sorry, I can't get into the facebook videos. :-(

>68 streamsong: Definitely so, Janet. I love London, and I would be happy enough to be here on my own, but meeting up with good friends here makes trips like this one much more special.

I'll let you know when I start reading The Hunger Angel, which will likely be in November.

I changed the settings of those Facebook videos from "Friends" to "Public", so you should be able to view them now. Let me know if you still can't see them.

Ah, got it now, thank you. I can see why you and Bianca were dancing! Wonderful!

What a wonderful way to start your vacation! I hope you stay healthy. Can't wait to hear what you think of Dismaland. The reviews have been interesting. Are you going with Joe and his wife?

It was lovely to meet everyone - and such a great concert. Looking forward to the next round in Cambridge!

I don't think there is anything special about Modiano's writing, in terms of language. I think rather that >64 baswood: is right about what is left unsaid. I had never linked it to nationality, but it's possible that American readers are less comfortable with that. And also, that being French helps with "getting" it.

I'll be waiting for your report on Dismaland!

Great photos Darryl. Glad to hear that you enjoyed Orchestra Baobab, they have been around the world music scene for a long time now and so its good hear they are worth going to see.

I read The search Warrant in English. Had I read it in French then I would have probably found even more unsaid.

Yesterday was another great day in London. I stayed in all morning, and in the early afternoon I visited Shepherd's Bush Market, as I wanted to get a Union Jack flag, a picnic blanket and snacks to share with Debbi & Joe while we watched the Last Night of the Proms in Hyde Park. It's a very nice market, with halal meat shops and Muslim owned clothing stalls along with others that sold trinkets for tourists, household items and fabrics, and I was quickly able to find everything I wanted, particularly a very nice picnic blanket with a built in handle and waterproof insulation for only £15. It seated the three of us comfortably, and it was perfect for the concert.

After I left the market I saw a nice looking café, the Liz Café on Goldhawk Road, so I stopped there for lunch. I ordered a mozzarella, avocado and tomato salad, which tasted as good as it looked:



I met Debbi and Joe shortly afterward in Hyde Park, and we and 60,000 others merrily made our way to the concert area.



The concert was divided into three sections: the Early Evening Entertainment section, which featured the American band The Mavericks, the stars of the musical Memphis, and the very talented four man swing group Jack Pack; Part One of the Main Concert, which was led by the BBC Concert Orchestra, with performances by vocalist Caro Emerald, trumpeter Alison Balsom, soprano Danielle de Niese and tenor Russell Watson, and ended with a performance by the Jacksons (the Jackson 5 minus Michael); and Part Two of the main Concert, which was relayed by video from nearby Royal Albert Hall, and featured the BBC Singers, the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who performed a medley of British patriotic songs, including "Land of Hope and Glory", "Rule Brittania", and "God Save the Queen", the British national anthem (you may know that Americans use the same tune in our patriotic song "My Country 'Tis of Thee"). We stayed from the beginning until midway through the Jacksons performance, leaving well in advance of the vast majority of the audience.

The atmosphere was polite, friendly and spirited, and the three of us enjoyed the company of our neighbors, including a group of moderately wine fueled young women who danced and sang together with infectious enthusiasm, the couple that sat next to Debbi and had us laughing intermittently during the concert, and the family with an adorable and irresistible baby seated behind us.





We had a great time, and we plan to return next year to see it again.

I'll meet Debbi & Joe at noon today in Islington, and we'll take the Underground to Golders Green in London, where we'll meet Claire and have brunch at Café Also and shop for books at Joseph's Bookstore next door. Paul (Polaris) took me there in June, and I vowed to return there this month.

>70 streamsong: Margaret attended the Orchestra Baobab concert with me, Janet. Bianca wanted to come, but she had to work last night and needed to catch up on sleep.

>71 labfs39: Thanks, Lisa. Yes, I am going with Joe & Debbi to Dismaland tomorrow, and I'll take plenty of photos while we're there.

>72 wandering_star: It was great to meet and see the concert with you on Friday, Margaret! Fliss (flissp) is going to investigate restaurants in Cambridge this coming week. Debbi & Joe won't be able to join us, unfortunately, as they have other plans for that night.

>73 FlorenceArt: Thanks, Florence. It may be that I didn't give any of the books I read by Modiano sufficient attention, or maybe as an American and/or as a non-Frenchman I couldn't appreciate it fully. I'll look for The Search Warrant when we go book shopping this afternoon, and give it a try while I'm here.

I don't know of any other LTers who have gone or managed to get tickets for Dismaland yet, so I'll give a full report of it when I can, hopefully on Tuesday.

>74 baswood: Orchestra Baobab was well worth seeing, Barry. I understand that they are coming out with their first new album in nearly 30 years soon, so I'll mention it here once I learn more about it.

Sounds like a really fun trip so far! Enjoyed the pictures at >65 kidzdoc: and >75 kidzdoc:. That looks like a very tasty salad in >75 kidzdoc:. But you left the Last Night of the Proms before seeing Jonas Kaufmann get pelted with knickers!

Looking forward to your review and pictures of Dismaland - that should be interesting.

Your trip to London sounds like it is going very well. I'm glad you're having a great time.

Svetlana Alexievich is the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, which was awarded “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”. I own two of her books, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, and Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, but I haven't read either one yet. I'll bring Voices from Chernobyl with me when I go on holiday this month.

Has anyone read anything by her?

I've fallen way behind on this thread again. I had a great time in London, and returned the Saturday before last. I was given an extra 14 days of vacation this year, and I have to use all but 5 days of it before the end of the year, so I'll spend eight days in Barcelona starting on Sunday, and five days in Madrid. I'll be by myself for this trip, so I'll have more time to post about my London trip as well as that one.

>79 kidzdoc: I had never heard of Svetlana Alexievitch before I saw her name on the list of possible winners. I'll look up her books, Voices from Chernobyl sounds interesting.

Enjoy your trip Darryl.

I've enjoyed catching up with your thread, as ever, and I'm intrigued by The Mersault Investigation, which has gone straight on my wishlist.

Have a great trip to Spain!

My library has Voices from Chernobyl. I'm 11th on the waiting list. Amazon has nothing on Kindle, and only lists Voices & Zinky Boys in physical books.

>81 FlorenceArt: I didn't bring Voices from Chernobyl with me to Barcelona, but I'll plan to read it next month, and hopefully I'll read Zinky Boys in December.

>82 NanaCC: Thanks, Colleen! I've decided to stay in Barcelona this week instead of traveling to Madrid. So far I've visited the Sagrada Família and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona, gone to the monastery in Montserrat, visited the Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, and spent a half day in the fabulous medieval town of Girona. I also fell victim to a pair of attractive female pickpockets across the street from the Sagrada Família after my visit there, who filched roughly 100€ from my wallet (but thankfully nothing else) as I foolishly gave a 5€ "donation" for the rights of Muslims living in the city. I didn't realize I had been robbed until long after I left the area, and when one of the thieves gave me a European style greeting by touching cheeks as they departed, I absent mindedly kissed her on the other cheek, which probably makes me the only person in this group who has ever smooched the person who pickpocketed them! I'm in the process of posting photos and travelogues on my 75 Books thread, and I'll do the same here, although there are many more photos and descriptions on my Facebook timeline.

>83 rachbxl: Thanks, Rachel! It's been a great trip so far, and I look forward to another five days here.

>84 dchaikin: I bought those two books either last year or the year before prior to the Nobel Prize in Literature announcement, as she was mentioned as a strong candidate for the award by several sources. Hopefully they will be widely available in the US soon.

Here are some photos from Barcelona and Catalunya, as promised. First, the Basílica de la Sagrada Família (the Basilica of the Holy Family), the most famous building in all of Barcelona. Its origins go back to 1866, with the founding of the Spiritual Association of Devotees of Saint Joseph by Josep Maria Bocabella i Verdaguer. In 1874 Bocabella and the Association began to campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to the Holy Family, and in 1881 it purchased a plot of land to build the temple on. Constrution began in 1882, based on a design by the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano. He resigned the following year, due to disagreement with the Association, and in 1883 Antoni Gaudí became the basilica's chief architect.

Gaudí initially followed Villar y Lozano's original design, but after a substantial donation provided sufficient funding for the project he proposed a much grander building, and obtained approval for his bold design. In 1914 he dedicated his entire efforts to the construction of the basilica, and he lived on the site until he was struck and killed by a tram in 1926.

The Sagrada Família remains a work in progress, as an extensive team of architects, artists, researchers, and construction workers continue to complete Gaudí's grestest creation, and it is expected to be completed in 2026, 100 years after Gaudí's death. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in 2010 it was officially consecreated as a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI, providing it with even greater status.

The basilica is an active construction site, and portions of it are not accessible to the general public. The current funding comes primarily from tickets sold to the thousands of visitors that come to the Sagrada Família daily, along with private donations.

I mentioned on my Facebook page that trying to describe the Sagrada Família is akin to the old story of the attempt to create an elephant based on the descriptions of a handful of people positioned around it. Here are a few photos I took on Tuesday:

I had another enjoyable day in Barcelona yesterday. I took the Metro to the Plaça d'Espanya, one of the main squares in the city, and bought an ArTicket BCN from the Barcelona Turisme office there. It's a great bargain, as it permits one entry to each of six major museums in Barcelona for 30€, roughly half of the cost of the individual entrance fees, and using it permits you to skip the general entrance lines, especially the usually long one at the Museu Picasso. I walked from there along the Avinguida de la Reina Maria Cristina to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), which has resided in the Palau Nacional since 1934. The Palau Nacional (National Palace) was originally built in 1929 for that year's International Exhibition, and it sits part of the way up Montjüic, the Mount of the Jews (where the city's Jewish community mainly resided in the medieval era before it was eradicated at the end of the 14th century). I visited the Museu last year, but on that visit I spent my time viewing the Romanesque and Gothic Art sections, along with a temporary exhibition of Modern Art. This time I viewed the Modern and Contemporary Art section on the first floor, along with a temporary exhibition on Catalunyan Art from 1950-1977. Photography wasn't permitted in those sections, so I took photos of the building itself and the surrounding views from it as I walked back toward the Plaça d'Espanya.

The exterior of the Palau Nacional/MNAC:



The interior of the Principal Dome:



Wall painting by Joan Miró:



The Great Hall:



Looking down the Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina from the steps leading to the Palau Nacional. The four Columns in the foreground represent Catalunyan independence, which are followed by the Great Fountain, the two Venetian Towers, and the circular Plaça d'Espanya, with its central sculpture:



The Arenas de Barcelona, the city's former main bullring, which is now an enclosed indoor mall. It was built between 1889 and 1900, but bullfighting was never a popular sport in the city, and the last slaughter of bulls there took place in 1977:



The central fountain of the Plaça d'Espanya, which was designed by Josep Maria Jujol, a contemporary of Antoni Gaudí:

Your pictures of the exterior of the Basílica de la Sagrada Família remind me of the interior of the Asam Kirche in Munich - not a lot of negative space. The Asam Kirche is Rococo taken to its extreme, though.

>88 RidgewayGirl: I looked at photos of the Asam Kirche on the Internet, and I see what you mean, Kay!

On the reading front, I did finish one of this year's Booker Prize shortlisted books on Friday, The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota, which I'll review later this week (the hotel's previously reliable WiFi has been dodgy so far today, so I may wait until I return to Atlanta to do so). I'm currently reading A Man of His Word by the Catalan author Imma Monsó, a novel narrated by a woman whose love of her life recently and suddenly died, which goes back and forth between the beginning of their love affair, and the aftermath of his death 16 years later. It's very good so far, and since it's a gloomy and rainy day in Barcelona I may finish it today.

Glad you're having a great time in Barcelona and I'm enjoying your photos. When I was in Spain (some 25 years ago!), I never made it to Barcelona.

>85 kidzdoc: what a crazy pickpocket story.

Also, Voices from Chernobyl is now available on Kindle and I've started reading it.

>90 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca. I returned to Atlanta on Saturday night, and I had a great time there. I started posting more travelogues and photos on my 75 Books thread yesterday, so I'll do that here, as well, starting with my trip to Montserrat two Thursdays ago.

>61 labfs39: Crazy is right, Dan. I have no idea why I fell for that scam, especially toward the end when it started to become a bit strange.

I found my copy of Voices from Chernobyl, so I'll add it to my list of planned reads for November.

Last week I traveled to Montserrat to see the famous Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, located 2395 feet above sea level on Montserrat, the serrated mountain that is to the north and west of Barcelona. The origins of the site go back to the year 888, when the hermitage of Santa Maria was established on the site by the Monastery of Ripoll, courtesy of Count Guifré el Pelós. In 1025 Oliba, Abbot of Ripoll and Bishop of Vic, founded a new monastery at the hermitage, and it soon began to receive visitors. It became an independent abbey in 1409, and it gained a wider reputation during the 17th and 18th centuries, due to stories about the miracles performed by the Virgin of Montserrat. The monastery and the surrounding campus were nearly completely destroyed during the French War between 1808 and 1811, but monks returned there in 1844 and the monastery and its supporting buildings were rebuilt. The monastery suffered more losses during the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939, as 23 of the monks were killed by nationalists, as the Church supported Franco's efforts to gain control over Catalonia and all of Spain. The monastery was reestablished under fascist Spain, and it has thrived since then, with thousands of visitors and pilgrims making the journey by foot, automobile, bus or public transit to visit the site daily.

The easiest way to visit Montserrat is to purchase an all inclusive ticket, either online or from the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC) booth at the Plaça Espanya station in Barcelona, which is also where you receive any tickets purchased online. From there you take a R5 FCG train to the Monestir de Montserrat station, then transfer to the Montserrat rack railway (Cremallera de Montserrat) that takes you to the monastery. The trip takes roughly an hour and a half, and is quite scenic, particularly once you leave the immediate northern suburbs of Barcelona and begin the slow ascent toward Montserrat on the R5 train, and the steeper one on the rack railway.

This is the R5 FCG train approaching Monestir de Montserrat station from Barcelona, and the Montserrat rack railway train:

  

I was originally planning to go two Mondays ago, the first full day of my vacation, but because it was a foggy and cloudy day I decided to go three days later, which was a good decision, as the weather was nearly perfect that Thursday.

First views of the abbey:



About 1/3 of the way to the left you may be able to see a line that goes straight to the top of the section of Montserrat. That is the Funicular de Sant Joan, which I took after I visited the monastery and had lunch:



This funicular is seen better in this photo:



This image shows the Funicular de la Santa Cova, which travels down Montserrat to a cave that is an important religious shrine:



ETA: If you look very closely you may be able to see the small, yellow Montserrat cable car above the furthest funicular in the middle left of that photo. I didn't notice it until this morning!

After I took in the amazing natural beauty of the mountain and took numerous photos I made my way to the church. I noticed that a group of people who were waiting just outside of it were all entering en masse, so I decided to join them without knowing what was happening. After I entered and sat down I realized that the 11 am mass was about to begin, so I decided to stay for it, as the other tourists left. The service was conducted in Catalan, so I understood about every 10th word of what was being said or sung. However, it was a deeply moving experience, and the congregants seated to the side and behind me seemed to appreciate that I chose to join them, even though I clearly wasn't part of their culture.

The exterior of the church:



Some interior views (needless to say I stopped taking photographs once I realized that mass was about to take place):



In the center of this photograph the barely visible image of the Virgin of Montserrat can be seen. She is one of the Black Madonnas of Europe, so called because the Virgin appears to be of African descent. She was not created as a black figure, but with time the sculpture has turned dark, due to the smoke from candles burned in the church over the centuries.



This is a closer image of the Virgin, taken from the Internet:





I should have stayed to take more photos of the church, but I decided to exit with the congregants at the end of mass.

After mass I visited the Museu de Montserrat, which contained a surprisingly rich collection of art work from the medieval period to the modern day. A visit there was included in my all-in-one ticket, and I would highly recommend seeing it.

I had lunch after the service (although I mistakenly went to the main cafeteria instead of the free self service one a bit further away), and then took the Funicular de Sant Joan to see the top of Montserrat. The funicular takes you close to Sant Jeromi, the highest point of the mountain, which is 4055 feet above sea level. I hiked nearly to that level, before realizing that it was getting late and that I needed to return to Barcelona if I was going to make it to that evening's concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana (which I did miss). The views from there were spectacular, and these photos do them no justice at all.







This is the Ermita de Sant Onofre, which was built at the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century to honor Saint Onofre, who lived in the desert area of Asia Minor during the 14th century:



Another view of the Ermita, from the point where I rested. As I walked past it I received an audible alert on my cellphone, and realized, to my great surprise, that I had great phone service there! So, I decided to call my parents, and we had a very pleasant and clear conversation nearly 4000 feet above sea level, and nearly 4000 miles away.



Sant Jeromi, the highest peak of Montserrat:



Looking down at the monastery (which is visible in the bottom middle of this photo):



Needless to say, this was an almost indescribably beautiful, breathtaking and deeply spiritual experience, and I definitely plan to go back to Montserrat on my next visit to Barcelona.

Barcelona is a true enchantress, to speak with Robert Hughes. I have been back several times since I lived there in 1991, for short and long visits. It is such a pleasure to see how you are taken in by the beauty of the city, its surroundings and the cultural scene as a whole. Thanks for sharing your photos.

>95 edwinbcn: You're welcome, Edwin!

As much as I enjoyed spending the Thursday before last in Montserrat I had an even better time in Figueres, and especially Girona, the following day. Figueres (Catalan for "fig trees") is the last major town in Catalonia before the Spanish-French border, less than 25 miles to the north and east, and it can be reached by train from Barcelona via two routes. I took a Renfe AVANT train, the medium distance train of Spain's national rail system, which runs on the high speed line connecting Barcelona with southern France. It departed Barcelona Sants, the city's main station at 8:25 am and arrived at Figueres-Vilafant station at 9:20 am, making a single stop in Girona. Figueres-Vilafant is a new station, built in 2010 along the high speed line. The downside is that it is 2 km from the center of Figueres, and to get there you have to walk, take a bus, or hire a taxi. (I chose to hire a taxi, as I had missed the train I was originally supposed to have taken, and the Teatre-Museu Dalí opened at 9:30 am (which was the time that the advance ticket I purchased was timed for). The ride was a quick and relatively inexpensive one (less than 10€), and I arrived at the museum a few minutes before it opened.) The other way to get to get there is to take the R11 Rodalies de Catalunya train to Portbou, which departs from Barcelona Sants, stops at the Passeig de Gràcia and Clot stations in Barcelona, and arrives at the Figueres station (not Figueres-Vilafant!), which is a 10 minute walk from the town center. The upside of taking that train is that it is cheaper (12€, versus 21€ for the high speed train) and closer to the museum. However, it takes anywhere from 1 hr 50 min to 2 hr 10 min to make that trip, as it is a slow train that makes numerous stops along the way, and if you wanted to arrive at the museum in time for the 9:30 am opening you would have to get a train that leaves Barcelona Sants at 6:46 am (ugh). (I'm mainly posting this information for anyone who plans to visit Barcelona in the near future, as I know of at least two LTers who are thinking of traveling there next year, and I had to find out this info on my own.)

The Teatre-Museu Dalí is housed in the former 19th century Municipal Theatre that Dalí visited as a child. It was partially destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and was left in ruins from then until 1960, when Dalí and the mayor of Figueres decided to refurbish it and turn it into a museum, after the mayor asked the artist to donate one of his works to the city's Museu de l'Empordà. It was inaugurated in 1974, and it is the most visited site in Catalonia.

The museum is about three blocks from the town square, with easily marked signs. I only took a couple of photos of the exterior, as I had no more than three minutes before the line started to move. The first thing that strikes your eye as you enter the courtyard is his 1941 Cadillac, with its most unusual and unwieldy hood ornament:



Behind and above the Cadillac is a ship, balanced on the head of a sculptured man seated on top of a pillar:



Another view of the walls of the courtyard, with its golden statues:



Here are a few of my favorite works. I was particularly struck by his paintings that showed the horrors of the Holocaust:











Two views of the main garden, which was a quiet place to spend a few minutes after I completed my visit of the museum:





Hmm. Although I enjoyed visiting the Teatre-Museu Dalí, as I'm a fan of his work, I wasn't as blown away by it as I somehow expected to be, and my visit to the old portion Girona, its two main churches and the Jewish Historical Museum was a far better experience.

Great to see the photos, Darryl, and to read about what you saw. I'm glad you had such a wonderful trip.

Thank you for sharing those great pictures, Darryl.

Catching up - and wonderful pictures :) Thanks for posting them!

Darryl, I'm loving seeing these photos. Barcelona is on my all time bucket list!

Barcelona is a lovely city. We were in a soccer riot there in 1992. It was mild compared to the hockey riot I found myself in the middle of in Vancouver.

Oh, those pickpockets are clever. Barcelona is the only place I've ever been done too (a different method though). The craziest thing is that I knew exactly what they were doing, and they STILL succeeded!

Terrific pictures. I had never seen a Dali painting on the Holocaust.

>97 rebeccanyc: Thanks, Rebecca. I thoroughly enjoyed this second trip to Barcelona in two years, and I plan to return to Spain next year.

Now that my overseas holiday travels have come to an end, at least until March, I'll go back to reading and commenting about books more regularly!

>98 NanaCC:, >99 AnnieMod: You're welcome, Colleen and Annie!

>100 janemarieprice: Given your career I think you, as much as anyone else, would be completely enthralled with Barcelona, Jane. The architecture there is amazing, and the cuisine, particularly the paella and the seafood, is outstanding.

>101 Nickelini: Barcelona is lovely, Joyce. I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy being in the midst of a soccer riot, though, especially if it was in the midst of an El Clásico match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. I had a ticket to see FCB play against Rayo Vallecano at Camp Nou, their home stadium, two Saturdays ago, but I felt under the weather at the time I should have left my hotel for the match and missed it. I should have toughed it out, as Barça's striker Neymar put on a show, scoring four goals in a 5-2 FCB win.

>102 rachbxl: I had absolutely no idea that I had been robbed until I went to the tienda near the Museu Picasso, pulled out my wallet, and noticed that it was nearly completely empty of bank notes! Those young women were good.

>103 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. I hadn't seen or heard of one either. There was an entire section dedicated to World War II and the Holocaust, and those three paintings are only a few of the 20 or more works that I saw.

As I mentioned earlier, Girona's railway station is on the Spanish high speed rail line from Barcelona to Cerbère in southern France, and it is served by the high speed AVANT and AVE trains from Renfe (the Spanish national passenger railway operator) and TGV trains from SNCF (the French equivalent to Renfe), and by the local Rodalies de Catalunya commuter rail service. The high speed trains make the journey from Barcelona Sants to Girona in 38 minutes (contrary to the time mentioned on the city's Wikipedia page), whereas the Rodalies R11 train takes anywhere between 1 hr 15 min and 1 hr 45 min. I traveled to Girona from Figueres-Vilafant on a Paris to Barcelona TGV train after my visit to the Teatre-Museu Dalí, and the journey took about 15 minutes.

Girona railway station is located in the center of town, to the west of the River Onyar, which cuts through the heart of the town in a north-south direction. I had a map with me and a general idea of where I should go, but I followed the very helpful Oficina de Turisme signs, as they were pointing me in the direction of Barri Vell, the city's old quarter, which is where I wanted to go. It's about a half mile walk from the train station to Barri Vell on mostly flat terrain, although the old quarter is built on a moderately steep hill. The Oficina de Turisme is on the east bank of the Onyar on the Rambla de la Libertat, a smaller and more charming version of La Rambla in Barcelona, and the office provided useful information in all languages.

With a Girona city map in hand I walked along La Rambla to the Barri Vell. The journey to there from the train station is an interesting one, as you quickly and progressively travel back in time from 21st century shops and streets near the station, to 19th century plaças and buildings, to the 11th to 14th century buildings in the old quarter, and finally to the old Roman walls, portions of which date back to the 1st century AD. As I walked on the Carrer dels Calderers I was suddenly treated to a fabulous view of the bell tower of the Basílica de Sant Feliu, the first cathedral of Girona until the Catedral de Girona was built in the 11th century.





The basílica dates back to the mid 4th century and was built in honor of Felix of Girona, a Catholic saint who was martyred in the city in 304 AD. The first basílica was replaced by the current one, but sarcophagi and other items from the original basílica are incorporated into it, such as this one:



More photos taken in the basílica:

I proceeded to walk through the Barri Vell after I left the Basílica de Sant Feliu. Included in the old quarter is the Call, the former Jewish neighborhood that thrived in Girona from the 9th century until the community was decimated and ultimately eradicated in 1492. Many of the buildings in the area date from the 12th to the 15th centuries, and are multistory buildings, as the Gironans who moved in after the Jews left added levels to the original structures. The neighborhood's old buildings, its small streets and alleyways, and the relative lack of people on them made it easy for me to imagine what it must have been like to live there 500 or more years ago (especially if I ignored the occasional street sign and car).

As I walked along the Carrer de la Força, one of the major streets in the Call, I passed by and visited the Museu d'Història dels Jueus, the Museum of Jewish History. It is contained with the last of the three synagogues in Girona, which was built in 1435 and closed after the Jewish community was eliminated in 1492. The museum was almost completely empty when I was there, and I spent a good two hours slowly exploring its collections, and the extraordinary former synagogue in itself.

My last major stop was a visit to La Catedral de Girona, which has been the city's major cathedral since the 11th century. Its construction began in 1010 and it was consecrated in 1038, with further additions made over the next 500 years or so. I bought a combination ticket at the Basílica de Sant Feliu for 7,00€ which permitted entry to both cathedrals, and allowed me to bypass a group of 40-50 French visitors who were ahead of me. The cathedral sits relatively high on the hill in the Barri Vell, on the site of a fomer Roman temple, and it looks down on the Plaça de la Catedral.













I ended a most enjoyable day with an excellent dinner of paella and tapas at a restaurant on La Rambla de la Libertat, before I took an evening Renfe train back to Barcelona. I was completely enthralled with Girona, as my visit there was the top highlight of the trip. Since it is so close to Barcelona I definitely want to return there on my next visit, and explore more of the city.

Thanks again for all the photos. I was especially interested in the synagogue that is now a museum because I visited several former synagogues when I was in Spain 25 years ago, including one in Toledo that had become an army (or cavalry, I forget) barracks (or stable) for a while. I am somewhat cynical about restoration efforts (not just in Spain but in Eastern Europe when I was there) because i think they are hopeful about having Jewish tourists, rather than being respectful about their past.

>109 rebeccanyc: Interesting comment, Rebecca! I certainly wouldn't have considered that as a possibility, and I can't say that I detection any manipulation or disrespect toward the former Jewish community when I visited the Museu d'Història dels Jueus. I learned a lot while I was there, and being in the restored last synagogue in Girona in a quiet setting with almost no one else around gave me a chance to appreciate the museum and the story that I was told.

After two failed attempts, I finally saw a concert at the fabulous Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) in Barcelona last Thursday. The Palau was designed by the famed architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the Orfeó Català, a choral society that was founded in 1891 and is still in existence today. The Palau was completed in 1908, and it stands as one of the leading architectural works of the Renaixença, the Catalan Rebirth that took place in response to the effects of the Spanish Civil War on the city. The Palau is centrally located just east of La Rambla, and a short walk from the Universitat Metro station.

I saw the Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas, the Youth Symphony of Caracas, from the capital of Venezuela, which was touring Europe. I hadn't heard of them before, although two of my close Latina friends were very aware of them and are fans of theirs. The Sinfónica played three set pieces: the Suite "Margariteña" by the Venezuelan composer Inocente Carreño, Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. I love Russian classical music in general, these two composers, and especially these two works, so seeing those pieces performed was more than enough to get me to go. The Sinfónica was brilliant, and the Palau was a perfect place to hear them perform, with its rich acoustics and spectacular settings. The audience gave the Sinfónica a 10+ minute standing ovation, and in response it performed two popular pieces that had the crowd laughing, clapping, and cheering in sheer joy. I don't know the name of the second piece, but the first one it performed was Tico-Tico no Fubá ("Sparrow in the Cornmeal") by the Brazilian composer Zequinha de Abreu, which is a piece of choro music that was made famous by Carmen Miranda in the 1947 movie Copacabana, which also starred Groucho Marx (without his brothers). I recorded two minutes of this piece on my cellphone, which I posted on my Facebook timeline.

Here are some photos of the Palau de la Música Catalana, and the Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas. I took those photos during the encore performances, after the formal program had intended, and only because practically everyone else was doing the same thing, including the members of the Sinfónica during the last piece.

The exterior:







The café:





The main symphony hall:





The Sinfónica:

Prior to the concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana I visited the Basílica Santa Maria del Mar. This church is the focus of the book Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones, and it was built between 1329 and 1383. I took photos of the Basílica last year, but I didn't go inside of it at that time. This is one of the photos I took in 2014:



I took these photos last week:



















Needless to say I was very impressed and deeply moved by this cathedral as well.

Enjoyed all these pictures. I'm interested in the Jewish museum in the old synagogue, and found myself wishing I could read the Hebrew. It's strange having pictures from there juxtaposed to pictures of the insides of these gigantic cavernous churches. I don't want to take away from the beauty of the cathedrals, (or of your posting them here, of which I'm thankful). But the affect brings out thoughts darker aspects of history.

Anyway, I think we can see why you fell for Girona.

Great photos, Darryl! I love the funicular. We rode the much shorter one in Quebec city a few weeks ago.

I've never been to Spain and found myself wishing I could stow away in your camera bag! Beautiful pictures! Thank you for sharing.

Finally: a book review!

Book #68: My Age of Anxiety: Fear, Hope, Dread, and the Search for Peace of Mind by Scott Stossel

  

Shortlisted for the 2015 Wellcome Book Prize

My rating:

Scott Stossel has had a rewarding and successful life on a superficial glance. He graduated from Harvard, wrote a well regarded biography of the politician and JFK aide Sargent Shriver, previously served as the executive editor of The American Prospect, is currently the editor of The Atlantic magazine, and is happily married with two young children. However, this brief summary does not reveal his all encompassing struggle with anxiety disorder, which has been a constantly disturbing and occasionally crippling problem for most of his life. In his search to tame his inner doubts and fears by disclosing them openly, and in an effort to learn more about this malady and how it has affected him and his relatives, he has written a comprehensive history of anxiety disorders, from ancient times to the modern era.

In the opening chapter of My Age of Anxiety Stossel provides the reader with some basic facts about the disorder in the US, and the Western world. It is the most common form of mental illness, which affects nearly one in seven Americans (40 million) at any time and has a lifetime prevalence of nearly 25%. It is an affliction of affluent societies, particularly those in which freedom of choice and the potential of upward—or downward—mobility can be liberating to some, but disabling to others. Anxiety disorder and related conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, chronic abdominal pain or headaches, palpitations, shortness of breath and fatigue, are common causes of visits to primary care providers (physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners) and mental health professionals, and trillions of dollars are spent annually on medications to chemically alleviate these symptoms, often with only modest benefit. Anxiety is not limited to humans; numerous studies have demonstrated that higher animals also experience these symptoms, whether they roam independently or are members of hierarchical societies led by alpha males or females.

The book provides a detailed history of anxiety as it was understood by Hippocrates and Aristotle, who viewed it as a medical illness; Plato and Spinoza, who believed that it was a philosophical problem with no organic basis; Kierkegaard and Freud, who viewed anxiety as a result of existential uncertainty; and researchers in the middle of the 20th century, who discovered that imbalances in neurotransmitters such as serotonin, glutamate and GABA and their receptors on neurons played a major role in mood disorders and discovered effective medications that allowed millions of the afflicted to lead normal or vastly improved lives. Stossel also discusses the controversies throughout history, including the difficulties in accurately defining anxiety and other mood disorders, the differences of the psychoanalytic, the cognitive-behavioral and the biomedical approaches to the disorders, the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to widen the use of these medications for their own benefit and the associated overuse of these medications by clinicians, and the harms that they have caused, including the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Jimi Hendrix and countless others from barbiturate overdoses.

Stossel's book is at its best when he describes his own struggles with anxiety, and how it has affected him and his family, as he traces the roots of the disorder in his family tree. His great grandfather Chester Hanford was the popular Dean of Harvard College for 20 years and a professor at the university for four decades, but his worsening anxiety led to his premature retirement, hospitalizations at the famed McLean Psychiatric Hospital, multiple medication trials and several rounds of electroshock treatments throughout his later years. Sadly, his daughter is demonstrating some of the same anxious behaviors that he had as a child, which correlates with the body of evidence that mood disorders can be inherited.

My Age of Anxiety is a valuable contribution to the field of psychiatric disorders, similar to books such as The Noonday Demon: An Atlas Of Depression by Andrew Solomon and An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison, which were also written by authors who suffered from depression and bipolar disorder, respectively. Readers with little interest in the development of pharmaceutical agents for mood disorders or the different treatment models can skip over those sections without missing much, and focus on the far more compelling personal accounts and struggles of the author, who deserves praise and credit for discussing his illness so openly in this book. It is written for a general audience, and I would highly recommend it to everyone.

>112 dchaikin: Thanks for those comments, Dan. I didn't think about the juxtaposition of the synagogue with the two Catholic churches.

>113 avaland: Thanks, Lois. I couldn't see much during the funicular ride, as the car was full of people going up and down, but the views from the top of Montserrat were spectacular. Pittsburgh also has two funiculars going up Mount Washington on the city's south side, which I think are the only other ones that I've ever ridden.

>114 labfs39: You're welcome, Lisa! I hope that you get to visit Spain in the near future.

Regarding funiculars -- there is a funicular that looks like an ordinary elevator in the Berlin U-Bahn. I almost passed out for a second as it abruptly moved diagonally instead of vertically.

And I will look out for a copy of My Age of Anxiety, as well as the other two titles you refer to. It's always useful to be able to understand a bit of what other people live through.

>115 kidzdoc: As an anxious person, I feel anxiety about even reading about a person who suffers from anxiety more than I do! But I enjoyed your review. (I did read An Unquiet Mind when I had a boss who was bipolar.)

>117 RidgewayGirl: That sudden change in direction of the funicular in Berlin would have made my heart skip a beat or two if I wasn't expecting it! Fortunately the funiculars I rode in Montserrat and Pittsburgh were vertical ones.



You should be able to find My Age of Anxiety without much difficulty. The UK Kindle version is available for £5.49, and I saw copies of it at the bookshop in the Wellcome Collection building in London this spring. The other two books are also excellent, especially An Unquiet Mind.

>118 rebeccanyc: Anxiety disorders are common in my family, as at least four of my closest relatives are on anti-anxiety medications, and I can be a bit anxious at times. Reading My Age of Anxiety was actually comforting, though, as I realized that my level of anxiety was a pittance compared to the author's, and even with his degree of anxiety he has had a successful and productive life.

ETA: Speaking of Kindle sale books, the US versions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel are on sale today for $4.99.

>119 kidzdoc: Good to know it was comforting!

>119 kidzdoc: Reading My Age of Anxiety was actually comforting, though

I agree, I'm always glad to talk/hear about other peoples' anxiety issues, it makes it feel much less a "me" problem rather than a real thing that others deal with as well. This sounds like an interesting book.

I don't suffer from anxiety - but I am a bit worried about that.

Excellent review of My age of Anxiety. Perhaps less civilised people suffer from fear rather than anxiety

115/118 – Agreed Rebecca, the book sounds fascinating but just reading Darryl’s review stressed me out. I'd like to think it would be comforting to read but I don't think I'll make it. :)

>120 rebeccanyc: Right, Rebecca.

>121 .Monkey.: My Age of Anxiety is an interesting book, Monkey. My partners at work and I are seeing many more inpatients who already carry the diagnosis of anxiety disorder or are diagnosed as having anxiety disorder and/or mood disorder during their hospital stay, and often times the cause of the hospitalization is a direct result of that (anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders, chronic abdominal pain and/or headache, intentional medication overdoses and suicide attempts, pseudoseizures and other factitious disorders, etc.). Years ago we rarely treated patients with eating disorders in the hospital, but it's now become a routine cause for admission to our service (General Pediatrics), and for the past year or more we've almost always had at least one such patient in the hospital at any given time.

>122 baswood: Be thankful that you don't have anxiety disorder, Barry! Although I've never had to take medications for anxiety, I do experience occasional bouts of irritable bowel syndrome, which tend to flare up when I'm stressed or very busy at work.

Perhaps less civilised people suffer from fear rather than anxiety

Exactly. The author made that point in the book as well. Anxiety is far less common in Second and Third World countries, and in those where religious beliefs like Catholicism dominate everyday life. However, when people from those countries migrate to more "civilized" First World countries, their rates of anxiety soar.

>123 janemarieprice: Sorry, Jane! I don't remember anyone ever saying that one of my book reviews stressed them out. :-)

Yep, I know both from reading it and from my own interactions with people online over the years, that those with general anxiety tend to be dealing with other things as well. It's like you never find someone who is "just" dealing with GAD. :| It's social anxiety disorder for me, ugh dealing with people, or thinking of having to deal with people...like phone calls?! Nope, can I go crawl in a hole somewhere?! Haha. But I know I'm lucky that it's not the super bad have trouble leaving home sort, not severe enough to have had any panic attacks or such. I know two people on different sites who actually have service dogs to help them cope with leaving their homes, can't imagine how hard that must be.

>125 .Monkey.: Right. Significant anxiety almost always leads to organic manifestations, and it can certainly affect a person's perception of and ability to overcome their illness, even if it's unrelated to anxiety, as it did for a patient that I took care of last week.

I sympathize with anyone who has social anxiety disorder, including a couple of dear friends of mine. One of them rarely leaves her house anymore as a result. I haven't heard of anyone needing service dogs, though; that is sad (no pun intended).

On a completely different note, now that I've finished with my vacations for the year and cold weather is approaching (along with our busy season), I've started to cook in earnest again. I'll make two new dishes shortly, and I wanted to post some recent recipes that I was very fond of. First is the Pasta and Zucchini Salad from Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty, which I made on Sunday:



Here's the recipe, courtesy of The New York Times:

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Pasta and Zucchini Salad

Ingredients:
Salt
black pepper
⅔ cup sunflower oil
3 medium zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar
¾ cup frozen edamame
2 cups basil leaves, shredded coarsely
¼ cup parsley leaves
⅓ cup olive oil
9 ounces strozzapreti or penne pasta
Zest of 1 lemon
1 ½ tablespoons capers
7 ounces buffalo mozzarella, torn into chunks

Preparation:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In a medium saucepan, heat sunflower oil over medium-high heat. Fry zucchini slices in batches (do not crowd them) for 3 minutes, or until golden brown on both sides. Transfer to a colander to drain. Tip zucchini slices into a bowl, pour vinegar on top and stir, then set aside.

2. In the hot water, blanch edamame for 3 minutes; drain, refresh under running cold water and set aside to dry. Keep boiling water in pot.

3. In a food processor, combine half the basil, all of the parsley and the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and process until smooth.

4. In boiling water, cook pasta until al dente; drain and rinse under cold water. Return pasta to pot. Pour zucchini slices and their juices over pasta. Add edamame, basil sauce, lemon zest, capers and mozzarella. Stir together gently, then taste and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Before serving, stir in remaining basil.
_______________________________________________________________

I couldn't find strozzapreti at Publix, my local supermarket, so I used Barilla mezze penne pasta instead, and I used a couple of splashes of lemon juice in place of lemon zest (I hate grating and zesting). The NYT article mentions that this salad is "dead simple to make", which is a bit of an overstatement IMO. It wasn't exceptionally hard, though, and this salad tastes fabulous.

The previous weekend I made Artichoke Chicken Skillet, courtesy of the web site Budget Bytes:



Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Pinch salt & Pepper
2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic
1 (15 oz.) can petite diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz.) can quartered artichoke hearts
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp lemon zest (about ½ medium lemon)
¼ bunch fresh parsley
12 oz. cooked pasta of your choice

Instructions:

Place the chicken breasts on a cutting board and cover with a large sheet of plastic wrap. Use a mallet or rolling pin to pound the chicken out to an even, ½ inch thickness. Cut the chicken breasts into 6 pieces, each about the size of a deck of cards. Season lightly on both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken pieces and cook until golden brown on each side (about 5 min. per side). If necessary, cook the chicken in batches to avoid over crowding the skillet. Remove the chicken to a plate once browned.

While the chicken is browning, mince the garlic, drain the artichoke hearts and give them a rough chop. Chop the fresh parsley leaves and zest the lemon (use a small holed cheese grater or a zester to remove the thin, yellow layer of the lemon peel).

After all of the chicken has browned and is removed from the skillet, add the second tablespoon of olive oil and the minced garlic. Cook the garlic for 1-2 minutes, or until soft and fragrant. Add the chopped artichoke hearts, diced tomatoes (with juices), dried basil, lemon zest, and about ⅛ tsp of salt. Stir to combine.

Return the browned chicken to the skillet and nestle it down into the tomatoes and artichoke hearts. Allow the skillet to come up to a simmer, then let the chicken simmer in the skillet for 15 minutes, flipping it once half way through.

Sprinkle the chopped parsley over top, then spoon the chicken and chunky sauce over a bowl of pasta. Top with cheese if desired.

Notes:

If you can find frozen artichoke hearts in your area, they are often less expensive than the canned counterparts and have better flavor. You'll need about 1.5 cups to replace the 15 oz. can.
_________________________________________________________

I liked this when I made it two Sundays ago, and even more so when I had it for leftovers later that week. I divided the contents of the skillet into five different containers and put them in the freezer, and made linguini pasta to have with it.

The last new recipe I tried and loved was a vegetarian Mexican tortilla casserole from Savory Simple, which Claire (Sakerfalcon) gave me when I went to London in September:



Ingredients:
*1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
*1 large yellow onion, chopped
*1 medium garlic clove, minced
*1 teaspoon ground cumin
*1½ teaspoons chili powder
*1 can (14 ounces) fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained, ⅓ cup juice reserved
*¼ cup tomato paste
*2 cans (15.5 ounces) black or pinto beans (or a mix), drained
*1½ cups frozen corn
*3 cups coarsely chopped spinach
*Salt and ground black pepper
*8 corn tortillas
*2 cups (8 ounces) Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese (I used both)
*Optional toppings: chopped fresh cilantro, chopped fresh jalapeño, sour cream, salsa

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray an 8x11 or 9x9 inch baking dish (or a similar sized pan) with cooking spray.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large skilled over medium low heat and the onion, garlic, cumin and chili powder. Stir for a few minutes until the onions are soft and the spices are fragrant. Add the tomatoes, reserved tomato juice, tomato paste, beans, corn and spinach. Stir and cook for another minute or two until the spinach has wilted and the corn has thawed. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Place two corn tortillas in the bottom of the prepared pan and top with ¼ of the bean mixture, spreading the mixture evenly. Sprinkle evenly with ½ cup of the cheese. Repeat until all of the ingredients have been used up, finishing with the cheese.
4. Bake until the tortilla casserole has cooked through, approximately 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before cutting.
5. Serve with garnishes, if desired (I highly recommend them!).
_______________________________________

I used a large Vidalia onion in place of a yellow onion, and kale in place of spinach. I used one can of pinto beans and one can of black beans, and I added a few dashes of Tabasco habañero sauce, to bring out the flavors. I didn't use the optional toppings, as I thought that the casserole tasted great on its own. I had two servings, and wanted a third one because I enjoyed it so much. This is an easy and quick recipe, and I'll add this one to my list of favorites.

Today I'll make Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Quiche with Oat Crust, which a co-worker highly recommended, along with the Wild Mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts recipe that was featured in last Wednesday's New York Times. I found chestnuts at my local Whole Foods store, so I have everything I need for that dish.

*snorts at the unintended pun* XD

Oooh yummy food! I make a tortilla casserole that's the combination of two recipes from one of my cookbooks plus my own adaptations. I oil a dish, rip up tortillas, line the bottom, mix up chopped onion, garlic, beans, salsa, and Quorn, use a shake of taco seasoning, pinch of salt, some coriander, a little lemon or lime, spread a layer on the tortillas, cover with sliced mushrooms, spread some cheese, cover with ripped up tortillas, repeat mix, mushrooms, tortillas, top with cheese, bake, eat with sour cream. :D

That quiche sounds amazing!

Dinner here the past few nights has been a balsamic Brussels sprouts dish I do, yay leftovers, haha. Sprouts browned in a pan & set aside, onions sautéed till near caramelizing, adding garlic after they've been on a bit, put them aside and fry up slices of potato (I toss the onion back on top of the potatoes after getting them in), let them cook, then add mushrooms & kidney beans & Quorn, stir things up, let mushrooms start cooking, then toss in a bunch of balsamic, thyme, salt & pepper, little water, olive oil, toss sprouts in, let balsamic seep its way into the food, and happily nom it up! Oh and we toss on some grated Grana Padano when dished up.

Yum! All those sound pretty good though the Pasta and Zucchini Salad sounds particularly good at the moment. I'd like to start tracking my cooking a little better - at least have a good system for tracking recipes I end up liking a lot.

>130 .Monkey.: Those recipes sound good, Monkey! I'll have to give them a try; thanks for sharing them with us.

The Caramelized Onion, Mushroom and Gruyere Quiche with Oat Crust turned out great, despite a couple of minor mistakes:



I didn't mix the egg custard as well as I should have, as you can probably see, and I forgot to add the thyme until the quiche was ready to be cooked in the oven. Despite that, my partners and office staff enjoyed it (I brought some to work today for everyone to try). Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

For the crust:
Cooking spray
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons cold, lowfat buttermilk

For the filling:h
4 teaspoons olive oil
1 large onion, sliced thinly into half moons
8 ounces sliced mixed mushrooms, such as cremini, oyster, shiitake
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dry)
3 large eggs
3 egg whites
1 cup evaporated fat-free milk (not condensed milk)
2/3 cup grated Gruyere cheese (about 1-ounce)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9-inch pie dish with cooking spray.

To prepare the crust, put the oats, flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse 3 times to combine. Add the butter and pulse about 12 times, until you get a pebbly course texture. Add the buttermilk and pulse 3 to 5 times more to combine. Form the mixture into a ball and place it between 2 large pieces of waxed paper. Roll out into a circle about 10 inches in diameter.

Remove the top sheet of waxed paper. Transfer the crust, still on the other piece of waxed paper to the pie dish, then remove the waxed paper from the top. Press the crust gently into the dish. Bake for 9 minutes, then let cool.

To prepare the filling, heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a large nonstick pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and caramelized, about 20 minutes. Transfer the onions to a bowl. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil to the pan and heat over a medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have released their water and begin to brown, about 6 minutes. Add the onions back to the pan, stir in the salt, pepper, mustard and thyme.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, egg whites and evaporated milk.

Sprinkle the cheese into the pie crust. Top with the mushroom-onion mixture and pour the egg mixture on top. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Bake for 35 minutes or until knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into 6 wedges and serving.
___________________________________________________________

If anything, this quiche tasted better on reheating than it did when I first made it. It may seem like a labor intensive recipe, but I found it easy to make, and I may make it again during Thanksgiving Week when I visit my parents and family. Very highly recommended!

On the other hand, the Wild Mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts recipe from last week's New York Times was very disappointing in comparison to the quiche:



Ingredients:

1 pound wild mushrooms, cut into large bite-size pieces (a mix of chanterelles, oyster mushrooms and maitake is nice)
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt, more as needed
½ teaspoon black pepper, as needed
1 pound brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
2 large shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
1 2-inch piece cinnamon stick
6 ounces roasted and peeled chestnuts (1 cup; jarred, vacuum packed or freshly roasted), crumbled
¼ cup brandy
1 ½ tablespoons cider vinegar, more as needed
¼ cup chopped soft herbs, such as dill, tarragon, chives and parsley

Preparation:

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Spread mushrooms on one rimmed baking sheet; toss with 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. On a separate rimmed baking sheet, toss brussels sprouts with 2 tablespoons oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper.

Roast both pans of vegetables, tossing occasionally, until vegetables are brown and tender, 20 to 25 minutes. (The mushrooms may be done first, so keep an eye on them.)

While the vegetables cook, heat remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots, cinnamon stick and a pinch of salt; cook, tossing occasionally, until shallots are caramelized and tender, 5 to 10 minutes.

Toss chestnuts into pan and brown lightly, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and stir in brandy. Return pan to medium-high heat and cook until liquid has evaporated. Discard cinnamon stick.

In a large bowl, toss together vegetables, chestnut mixture and vinegar. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Toss in herbs and serve at once.
________________________________________________________________

I was out of olive oil, so I used peanut oil instead; otherwise I followed the instructions to the letter. I thought that this recipe would knock my socks off, but I found it to be quite bland, and the dish left a strong and unpleasant after taste in my mouth for several hours after I ate it. I won't make this again, and I may throw away the rest of it.

>131 janemarieprice: Jane, we do talk a lot about recipes at work ("we" being the nurses and other health care providers I work with, along with my partners and office staff). Most of them, especially the nurses, use Pinterest to post their photos and recipes, but I mainly post mine on Facebook for now (I'm Facebook friends with most of my friends at work, so they are able to see what recipes I've tried, and I post links to the recipes in my posts). I'll look at Pinterest more closely next week, during the days that I'm off from work, and see how well that works for me.

I had the Pasta and Zucchini Salad for lunch yesterday at work, and I thought that it tasted better reheated than it did when I first made it.

Great pictures and travelogue-- obviously I'm late to the party. Recipes sound yummy.

Hi Darryl, hope you don't mind me going back to My Age of Anxiety, but I wondered if it mentioned anything about the link with obsessive-compulsive behaviour?

My brother has suffered from this most of his adult life and it has affected his quality of life.

I'd also like to thank you for posting those recipes. As a vegetarian I'm taking note of a few of those, particularly interested in the tortilla casserole.

I noticed that with the quiche we had a couple months ago, that the leftovers were a bit better. It happens with certain things, the flavors meld together more and whatnot. :)

If you want any specifics for those recipes I can try to provide them (standard casserole baking temp of ~180°C for that, for one), but I tend to not bother with much measuring for most things once I've made it once before, if it's a bit different than things I've done and so don't have an idea of the flavor balance and whatnot beforehand, and pretty much never for the actual veg going into it. :P I would definitely suggest trying the sprouts one, not bland at all!

ETA
>136 zenomax: I'm veg as well, if you ever need suggestions I'm glad to help! We eat only home cooking, from scratch, every night. :)

>135 janeajones: Thanks, Jane. My thread has been quiet until the past week or two, so you haven't missed much.

>136 zenomax: Stossel mentions obsessive-compulsive disorder and its link with anxiety disorders throughout the book, but he doesn't focus on OCD for long.

You're welcome re: the recipes. I'm not vegetarian, but most of the meals I've been cooking this year are ones that contain no meat, or use chicken, fish or turkey. I'll continue to try new recipes, especially in the next 3-4 months, and I'll post them on my threads.

>137 .Monkey.: Agreed, Monkey. Several of my favorite homemade dishes taste better when reheated, including this week's pasta & zucchini salad and the quiche.

Thanks for providing the cooking temperature for your recipes. 180 C is ~355 F, so I'll use 350 F for them. That was the most important piece of information I wanted, so I think I can take it from there.

BTW, the 75 Books group has a thread called The Kitchen, where members post new and favorite recipes. It started out very active in the first half of the year, but it has fizzled since then. Would there be enough interest to create a similar group in Club Read?

Yeah I figured the rest was a bit, your own tastes/notions/etc, and the sprouts are done on the stove, so the only vital thing was oven temp! :)

I think a cooking thread sounds awesome, and will definitely remember to toss one up next year too! :D Trying one out now could be a good trial run to see how many folks might join in. Even if it's just a few of us, nothing wrong with that!

>138 kidzdoc: Would that include books on things like farming or social history of food rituals?

I'd be interested in a cooking thread.

I'm not up to .Monkey's level of cooking from fresh every day, but I like to cook on the weekend. I'm doing a lot of Indian and Thai cooking, and some vegan.

But I'm always on the lookout for something new, and it would be good to try out things recommend d by others.

Well it is every other day, yay leftovers! :P (And sometimes there's even enough for 3-4 times of leftovers, too! :D)
But, a) eating out/buying premade is expensive, b) you don't know what all is in it in restaurants and processed has a bunch of sugar/glucose/fructose/salt/preservatives/junk in it, and c) it tastes better! Okay, good restaurants can be rather tasty too, haha, but not the processed junk! You'd be surprised how simple it is to make all your own sauces and things, and how much better they taste! Also, if you work or whatnot, you can prepare a couple things on the weekend that can go in the oven (or a crockpot, if you do that) during the week! :))

I'd definitely be interested in a food thread. Looking for any excuse to cook more interesting recipes.

I've only just realized the updated threads were sparse on my homepage because I'd spaced on following the new ones!

Wonderful to see your travel photos and the food. Though right now I'm living on roasted veg and cereal it feels like. Definitely putting My Age of Anxiety on my list.

>139 .Monkey.: Great! I'll definitely participate if there is a Kitchen thread in Club Read 2016.

>140 SassyLassy: Would that include books on things like farming or social history of food rituals?

I don't see why not. Good idea!

>141 zenomax: Same here, Z. I usually cook on weekends, especially if I'm working busy Monday-Friday work weeks as I have for the past two weeks, and store most of what I've made in single serving Tupperware containers in my freezer. That way I have food to bring for lunch on workdays (to avoid eating in the hospital cafeteria or the doctors' lounge, where the food is mediocre at best) and I don't have to cook dinner from scratch after I get home. I'd love to try Indian, Thai, and vegetarian/vegan recipes that you and others recommend.

I made the caramelized onion, mixed mushroom and Gruyere quiche again for Thanksgiving, and it turned out even better:



It didn't last long, as my mother and I finished the rest of it the following morning. I made another one this afternoon, and it still knocks my socks off.

>142 .Monkey.: Exactly. Most of the meals I cook on weekends make 4-6 servings, and I usually cook at least two or three different meals on Saturdays and Sundays.

Now that cold weather is approaching I'll use my slow cooker more. I made a very tasty (though decidedly non-vegetarian) chili last weekend, and I'll probably make another batch of Irish lamb stew next Saturday.

>143 janemarieprice: Excellent! Based on our past conversations I'd be very interested in seeing some of your favorite recipes, Jane.

>144 mabith: Thanks, Meredith!

I've looked at my TBR collection for unread books that would fit next year's first Reading Globally quarterly theme, Writers from the Caribbean, and these are the ones I've found so far:

Alejo Carpentier, The Lost Steps
Patrick Chamoiseau, Solibo Magnificent; Texaco
Edwidge Danticat, Claire of the Sea Light; The Farming of Bones; Krik? Krak!
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks; The Wretched of the Earth
Frankétienne, Ripe to Burst
Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Selected Poems
Oonya Kempadoo, All Decent Animals
George Lamming, The Emigrants
Earl Lovelace, Is Just a Movie; Salt
E. A. Markham, The Three Suitors of Fred Belair
Paule Marshall, The Fisher King
Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies; North of South
V.S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival; The Loss of El Dorado; India: A Wounded Civilization;
The Writer and the World: Essays
Orlando Patterson, The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth; The Ordeal of Integration
Caryl Phillips, The European Tribe; The Lost Child; The Nature of Blood
Claudia Rankine, Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric
Monique Roffey, Archipelago
Simone Schwarz-Bart, The Bridge of Beyond
Lyonel Trouillot, Children of Heroes
Derek Walcott, Omeros

You've convinced me to try out that caramelized onion, mixed mushroom and Gruyere quiche.

I'm interested in seeing how your Writers from the Caribbean reading turns out Darryl, as I've not read much from that list. I read a bit of Linton Kwesi Johnson back in the day, and I have had Alejo Carpentier on my list for a long time without doing anything about it!

Of your listed books I have only read The Wretched of the Earth. I read it at university and it influenced me quite a bit. I remember that I read Huey Newton about the same time and the two books definitely reinforced the way I saw the world at that time.

Oooh that quiche looks amaaaazing!

I have plenty of veg recipes I can share, I have a whole shelf of veg cookbooks and a TON of bookmarks (though technically not all are veg, because lots are easily adapted, so I still save meat things that look good and just change as needed :P)!

I tossed up the thread for the 2016 group here, use as you will! :D

>147 zenomax: Excellent, Z. One of my closest friends at work, a nurse practitioner on the Psychiatry service, raved about that quiche after she made it last month. We share recipes and have similar taste in foods, so I decided to try it the weekend after Erin told me about it. I think it's my favorite of the recipes I've tried so far.

I'm eager to get started on Caribbean literature, as I have enjoyed the books I've read from that region. I'll also post a list of favorites later this month. I met Linton Kwesi Johnson several years ago, as he and Caryl Phillips appeared together at the flagship Foyles on Charing Cross Road (the old bookshop, not the new one) after Phillips' historical novel Foreigners: Three English Lives was published. Phillips was a bit prickly when I spoke with him as he was signing my copy of his book (although he was gracious in answering the two or three questions I had during the group session, as I was one of the few who had already read his book), but LKJ was far more engaging, especially since I seemed to be the only American in the audience. When I told him that I lived in Atlanta he told me a hilarious story about his arrest in Atlanta for urinating in public. He was "peein' in the dyam bushes" downtown after he couldn't find a public bathroom, and thought that he was out of sight; he was seen by an APD (Atlanta Police Department) officer, arrested at the site, briefly detained at the local police station, then released. I can't do justice to the story, but he had those of us who heard it in tears of laughter, including Caryl Phillips.

I haven't read anything by Alejo Carpentier, and I plan to read The Lost Steps next month. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't read anything by Frantz Fanon yet. I also own Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey, and I'll plan to read it in February during Black History Month in the US.

>148 .Monkey.: Thanks, Monkey! The quiche I made yesterday didn't look as good, although it was better in appearance than the first one I made (it still tastes great, though). I think my mistake was adding the evaporated fat free milk to the eggs and then mixing the custard, rather than mixing the eggs first and then adding the milk. I bought ingredients to make another quiche earlier this morning when I went to the supermarket, so I'll try making another one during Christmas Week to see if I'm right.

Thanks for setting up Club Read 2016 and Club Cucina! Now that the Reading Globally theme for the first half of the year has been announced I'm ready to set up my first thread of the year, and I'll certainly be an active participant in Club Cucina, especially since I want to get recipe ideas from y'all. I'll make another pan of Mexican Tortilla Casserole now, followed by Crispy Gnocchi with Mushrooms, Asparagus, and Brussels Sprouts, which I haven't had since spring. I'll create a Club Read 2016 thread and check into Club Cucina after I'm done.

I haven't read much Caribbean lit, but I read the Oxford short story collection several years ago, and the authors I really loved from it were Jan Carew, Olive Senior, Frank Collymore, and Ismith Khan (most of whom have next to nothing here in LT, how sad!), as well as the super popular Jean Rhys, Gabriel García Márquez, and V.S. Naipaul, who of course you're already well aware of. Couple more names for ya! ;)

No problem! I'm hoping it'll help me experiment with more new things rather than doing the same old all the time. Not that I mind the same old, which is the problem, so easy to keep doing the tasty things I'm well familiar with! But it's good to try new ones, so others posting, and having a reason to try new ones to post about myself, ought to be good motivation for finding other dishes to add to the repertoire! :D

>146 kidzdoc: Thanks for adding some names to my list of Caribbean authors. (I'm co-leading the Caribbean read with thorold).

>146 kidzdoc: Great TBR pile for the Caribbean quarter. I've read some of them, and have The Bridge of Beyond on my TBR. Luckily my pile is much smaller, so I have far more excuse to add books to it than you do to yours! I think I will do some rereading though, especially The Wretched of the Earth, which made a huge impression, to see how it holds up, and The Lost Steps. Carpentier's Explosion in a Cathedral might also be a good one. It also just occurred to me that I have several books by Reinaldo Arenas that I should read. I was waiting to get all five of his Pentagonia set, to start, and did not succeed. Now that there is online ordering, that shouldn't be a problem.

>146 kidzdoc: >152 SassyLassy: I loved The Bridge of Beyond and The Lost Steps, partly what led me to suggest a Caribbean theme read. I enjoyed Explosion in a Cathedral and other books by Carpentier too.

>150 .Monkey.: Thanks, Monkey! I haven't heard of Jan Carew, Olive Senior, Frank Collymore, and Ismith Khan before, so I'll be interested to see if any of the Reading Globally participants read any of their works for the theme read.

I'm hoping it'll help me experiment with more new things rather than doing the same old all the time. Not that I mind the same old, which is the problem, so easy to keep doing the tasty things I'm well familiar with!.

Exactly. I'm constantly on the lookout for new recipes and ideas, especially since I only started to cook on a regular basis early last year. I do have a nice collection of foods that I love making, but it's a relatively small one, so I want to expand my repertoire, and not get tired of my favorite recipes.

I made crispy gnocchi, cremini mushrooms, Brussels sprouts and asparagus for the first time in months on Sunday. I don't think I've posted a photo or that recipe on LT, so I'll do so in Club Cucina shortly. I have a four day weekend (Sat-Tue) coming up, and I'll probably try one or two new recipes this weekend, although I haven't decided which ones yet.

I just had another large slice of the caramelized onion, mixed mushroom and Gruyere quiche for dinner. I love the amazing chicken and Andouille sausage jambalaya recipe that my group's former business operations coordinator gave me last year, but this quiche is out of this world.

>151 rebeccanyc: You're welcome, Rebecca. I'll look through my shelves this coming weekend to see if there are other books by Caribbean authors that I haven't included in that list.

>152 SassyLassy: Thanks, Sassy. I'll probably read The Bridge of Beyond and The Wretched of the Earth in February, along with Frantz Fanon: A Biography. I'll look for Explosion in a Cathedral, which I don't own but would be interested in reading this coming quarter.

>153 rebeccanyc: I'm all but certain that I bought The Lost Steps and The Bridge of Beyond after I read your reviews of them, Rebecca.

Cooked the Mexican tortilla casserole yesterday evening, and it was a big hit.

Had a few changes from your recipe in 129, based on what was available here, eg red kidney beans in chilli sauce, rather than pinto beans (not as common here in UK), couldn't find a can of roasted tomatoes so did my own roasting, and sweet corn instead of frozen. Added jalapeños and sour cream and it was an excellent meal.

I'm glad that you liked the Mexican tortilla casserole, Z. I got this recipe from Claire (Sakerfalcon), who also lives in the UK, so I'd be interested to find out if she uses pinto beans, roasted tomatoes and frozen corn when she makes it.

I've finished cooking for the weekend, and yesterday I made one new recipe that I was very fond of, Indian-Spiced Tomato and Egg Casserole. I posted my photo and the recipe in Club Cucina in Club Read 2016, along with the Red Cabbage and Sausage Soup that I made and had for lunch not long ago.

Book #72: Vauxhall by Gabriel Gbadamosi



My rating:

This novel is narrated by Michael, a young boy living with his Nigerian father, Irish mother and siblings in Vauxhall, a former working class neighborhood in South London whose respectable council homes have become decrepit in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As the homes deteriorate so does the neighborhood, which is increasingly populated by poorer Londoners, homeless people, and immigrants of color who are denied housing in more desirable neighborhoods, and Michael's own life and that of his family also progressively unravel. The book takes the form of a series of events in Michael's life told through his eyes, in the rushed manner of a child excitedly telling his parents what happened in school that day. Unfortunately that style of storytelling, although an accurate reflection in the eyes of a young boy who doesn't understand what's happening to and around him, made it difficult for this reader to sympathize with the narrator, his family members, or the people in the neighborhood who entered and exited his life before I could get to know or understand them.

Vauxhall is presumably an autobiographical novel, as its author is also of mixed Nigerian and Irish heritage and grew up in impoverished South London neighborhoods. The book is most effective when it describes the racial slights that Michael and his siblings experience, particularly when he and his siblings are out in public with their mother, who walks separately from them to avoid harassment of them or herself by those who disapprove of her having a black husband. Michael's mother is the most sympathetic character in the book, as she keeps the family together despite her own poor health, external pressure from her relatives and neighbors, and an often indifferent and unromantic husband.

I found Vauxhall to be a mildly interesting but ultimately disappointing novel, as it could have been a far more interesting book had it been more reflective and less rushed, and if its potentially interesting characters had been better developed.

Bummer Darryl. Sounds like there should be a good story in there somewhere.

That doesn't make me want to read Vauxhall. Even though I used to work there. However that is a great cover and immediately made me think of Vauxhall

>158 dchaikin: There should have been a far better story in Vauxhall, Dan.

>159 baswood: You shouldn't read this book, Barry. I bought it two years ago from the London Review Bookshop, while I was waiting for Rachael (FlossieT) to join me for lunch, as she works nearby. (Rachael is the first LTer I met in person, back in 2009, and I always meet up with her once or twice in London or Cambridge whenever I visit the capital.) She looked at the books I was planning to buy, and when she saw that book she advised me to put it back, as she didn't like it. I stubbornly bought it, even though our tastes in books are quite similar. As she said yesterday, it needed more time in the oven, as it wasn't thoroughly "baked".

As she said yesterday, it needed more time in the oven, as it wasn't thoroughly "baked".

Perhaps the recipe wasn't right either.

>161 baswood: Ha! Sticking with the food analogy, Rachael and I both felt that all of the ingredients were there for a great novel, but the "cook" didn't do a good job in combining them.

>156 kidzdoc: I use black beans (in tins from Waitrose or tetrapacks from Sainsburys), frozen corn and ordinary chopped tinned tomatoes when I make tortilla casserole. I do tend to play fast and loose with recipes to make them as convenient as possible. I suspect that all three of us get quite different end results!

I'm about to hop over and read your other thread, Darryl, but in case my internet dies I will take this opportunity to wish you a happy Christmas. I hope you get some time to relax and enjoy tasty food and some good books even though you will be working.

Happy Christmas to you too, Claire! The next three days should be relatively easy ones, as I won't be on call until Sunday and I have two very good pediatric residents working with me. I have to stay at work until 5 pm today and tomorrow, which will give me time to do a bit of reading if I don't get too many admissions from my partners.