Arubabookwoman's Sweet Sixteen Year on LT

I joined LT on 1-1-2009, so 2024 will be my 16th year on LT. Lots of good reading, and an astronomically expanded TBR pile. I am approaching my mid-70's, retired about 10 years from my career as an attorney, mostly enjoying our six grandkids. Our 5 kids have ended up with 3 in NYC, 1 in Houston, and 1 five minutes away from us here in Florida, where we moved 3 years ago from Seattle. I was born and raised on Aruba where we lived until I was 16. I graduated from high school in London, then moved to New Orleans, where I met my husband of almost 53 years. We lived in that unique city for 18 years before heading to Seattle, where we lived for 35 years. I am still not loving Florida, which is not my politics at all. My husband had a bone marrow transplant nearly 5 years ago now, and much of our life is taken up with medical stuff. He refers to himself as a "science experiment."
I like to read literary fiction, but not always the latest stuff. I often choose books from the 1001 list, but I am not a completist in that regard. I also like to read translated fiction, but somehow I seem to end up reading from the same countries over and over (France and Japan I'm looking at you). I should try to diversify, but I usually fail geographic challenges. I read a fair amount of crime fiction, and a smattering of science fiction as well. I also read a healthy proportion (20%-30%) of nonfiction.
I try to review everything I read, even if it means, as just occurred in December 2023, writing more than 50 reviews in the last two weeks of the year. I vow, as I do every year, to try to keep up with my threa better this year, and not to get behind on reviews. I welcome visitors, and try to respond to everyone.

1st Quarter

JANUARY

OMS 1.The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (1918) 118 pp 3 stars 1/1 1001 List
OMS 2.Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant 4 stars (1883) 208 pp 1/3 1001 List
LB 3. Baumgartner by Paul Auster (2023) 162 pp 4 stars 1/4
LB 4. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (2023) 244 pp 5 stars 1/7

2nd Quarter

3rd Quarter

4th Quarter

I read 163 books in 2023, which is a lot for me. The best of the bunch:

5 Stars

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (reread)
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (reread)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (reread)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

4 1/2 Stars

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (reread)
The Postcard by Anne Berest
Old New York by Edith Wharton
Apeirogon by Colum McCann

4 Stars

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Drifts by Kate Zambreno
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble
Invisible by Paul Auster
Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton
Nemesis by Philip Roth
In the Heart of the Country by J.M. Coetzee
The Snopes Trilogy by William Faulkner
Barbara Isn't Dying by Alina Bronsky
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
The Feast by Margaret Kennedy
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron
In This House of Brede by Rumer Goden
After Midnight by Irmgard Keun

And the best nonfiction, all 4 stars:

We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian
Apollo 13 by James Lovell
Nine Black Robes by Joan Biskupic
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
Tyranny of the Minority by Steven Levitsky
Fire Weather by John Vaillant
Hold Still by Sally Mann
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall

As always, my star ratings of books reflect a mixture of how objectively good I think it is and how much I personally enjoyed it.

Every year my goals include some form of "Reduce the TBR pile."
a few years ago as the TBR stack reached into the 1000's and I inched into my 70's, I started keeping track, and found instead of reducing the TBR, I was increasing it every year. Between 1/1/2022 and 1/1/2023 my TBR increased by 180 books. I did better in 2023. My TBR went from 2420 on 1/1/2023 to 2536 on 1/1/2024, and increase of "only" 116. I guess it's sort of like the government's spending. They cut the budget. The deficit keeps going up, but a lower rate. Maybe I'll get the rate lower this year, or maybe even reduce the number.

My nemesis continues to be Library Books, most of which I check out after seeing a recommendation on LT. Then the dreaded "Due Date" causes me to read them instead of the many, often more worthy, books on my TBR shelf.

So this year I'm going to try to read one book off my shelf for every library book I read. We'll see how long that lasts. I also want to try to knock off a few more 1001 books, of which I have dozens on my TBR shelf. And I would like to diversify my global reading.

January Plans

Here are the books I currently have out of the library to choose from:

Baumgartner by Paul Auster--newest book from author I like
The City and the House by Natalia Ginzburg--liked the book I just read by her (All Our Yesterdays)
The Hot Rock and Bank Shot--the 1st 2 entries in the Dortmunder series by Donald Westlake, a new-to-me crime writer I've been exploring
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch--highly praised Booker winner
A Perfect Spy by John le Carre--continuing to explore his catalogue
Dinosaurs by Lydia Millett--Just checked out today--I like this author and Beth raved about this book

The following books were checked out after seeing them discussed on LT, though I can't remember where:
The Possibilities by Yael Goldstein Love
Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal (and liked her book The Heart
Cold People by Tom Robb Smith
Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh
Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell

I also have checked out and have read about a third, The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger.

Then of the books I own I began to go through my TBR list on LT (alphabetical by author) and chose the following possibilities:

Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
Fado Alexandrino by Antonio Antunes
Broad and Alien Is the World by Ciro Alegria
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett
The Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Master of the Senate by Robert Caro
The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos
Elin Vere by Louis Couperous
and not a few others.

Any favorites listed here??

Welcome to 2024 Deborah. The postcard and Fire weather are both on my TBR this year. I'm glad you enjoyed them.

>8 arubabookwoman: I too plan to read Prophet Song in the near future. My vote for a January read is Testament of Youth. I think you will like it, but it's quite long. I just bought a new Penguin Classics copy, as my other copy was quite ratty. I should read the introduction.

Edited to add: Happy New Year! And welcome back for another year of Club Read!

Of your potential books to read, there are three that I loved and they are all on your "owned books" list. Eline Vere, Testament of Youth, and The Blind Assassin are all favorites of mine.

Looking forward to your year of reading!

I did love Dinosaurs, Deborah, but A Testament of Youth was great. I hope to read Prophet Song soon.

A couple of books from your to read list that I enjoyed The Perfect Spy and Anna of the Five Towns

>8 arubabookwoman: well now I want to tell you what to read. :)

The last two years I tried to only buy as many books as I read. :) It worked, sadly. My TBR is down 11 from this time last year. (from 666 to 655)

Happy New Year, Deborah.

Another vote for Eline Vere.

Happy New Year and wishing you and your family much better health and happiness in your newish house.

>14 dchaikin: well now I want to tell you what to read. :)

She did ask! Who are we to withhold our recommendations? lol

>16 labfs39: : ) well, i guess. (Deborah, I loved Prophet Song)

Happy new year, Deborah.

Untouchable is (uh, pun not intended) very touching. Weirdly, it resonates with some recent news here, as the large number of Indian immigrants have prompted some labour law tweaks so that discrimination by caste can be countered (not sure why existing laws weren't good enough but IANAL).

I'm fond of Rosario Castellanos (wrong touchstone alert!)

>8 arubabookwoman: I've only read The Blind Assasin and my comments from over 10 years ago were "I'm not sure how I fell about it. I didn't hate it but I didn't really love it either, and I'm not convinced it was worth the effort."

I don't think I'm helping :-).

I see some common books on our last year's lists! As for your potential reads in >8 arubabookwoman:, I've only read Testament of Youth, but I really liked it.

>8 arubabookwoman: Master of the Senate was an excellent book. It really demonstrates the art (okay, sometimes nefarious) of achieving political consensus across party lines. It should be required reading for today's batch of obstructionists.

I read Testament of Youth, a present from my grandmother, when I was in my teens, and was quite moved by it. It seemed at the time full of idealism, and fitted my teenage psyche. Then, in 2022, I read Testament of Experience and was horrified by how self centred the woman was, even though admittedly she had done many positive things. The relationship with Winifred Holtby was interesting. At the time I read the earlier work, I did not know of Clare Leighton, so her relationship to Roland Leighton was something new to me.

You know I would go with the Russell Banks, which I have yet to read!

>9 markon: Thank you Ardene. I hope you like them when you get to them!
>10 labfs39: I will definitely get to Prophet Song (because of the dreaded Library "Due Date"), but I'm wavering between Testament of Youth and Elin Vere. Both are fairly long, and I don't think I can do both in January. Both are 1001 books. I've liked the other books I've read by Couperous (Dutch author).
>11 japaul22: Hi Jennifer. I don't think I can do both Testament of Youth and Elin Vere in the same month (see above). I really would like to get to The Blind Assassin though, because I started it about the time it came out in paperback many years ago, read about 100 pages, then set it aside, I don't know why because I was enjoying it. Ever since it's one of those books nagging at the back of my mind--"Gotta get to it soon."
>12 BLBera: Hi Beth. I think Dinosaurs is one of the books whose dreaded Library Due Date will compel me to read this month.
>13 baswood: The Perfect Spy is probably short and a quick read, plus it has the advantage of a Library Due Date to compel me to read it, so it is one I will probably get to in January. I'm not sure how long Anna of the Five Towns but it has been calling to me for a long while.
>14 dchaikin: and >17 dchaikin: I remember you liked Prophet Song Dan, so I was guessing that was what you were referring to, but I'm glad you "confessed." I did ask, after all. I have been buying fewer books in recent years (covid, no good bookstores around, so I mostly buy Kindle deals), so I don't think my problem is excessive (at least relatively speaking) buying--it's the extreme prejudice in favor of library books, so there's very little offset against my purchases.
>15 ELiz_M: Hi Liz. Yes I did like the other Couperous I've read.
>16 labfs39: Hi Lisa--Yes I did ask, and see Dan obeyed you at >17 dchaikin:.
>18 LolaWalser: Hi Lola. A recent reread of A Fine Balance plus a couple of other fictional books I've read dealing with caste issues in India caused me to put this on the list. I've had it for a long while (and it is on the 1001 list). Thanks for pointing out the touchstone error--I've corrected it.
>19 rhian_of_oz: Hi Rhian--as I noted above I had started The Blind Assassin years ago, then set it aside for some reason and it got overlooked for years. So I'm thinking I will probably like it when I get to it.
>20 ursula: Hi Ursula--Good to know. I'm debating between Elin Vere and Testament of Youth--both are long and I don't think I can get to both in January. But whichever I read, the other will soon follow.
>21 SassyLassy: Hi Sassy. I read the first two Caro LBJ books several years ago, and a chunk of Master of the Senate, but then it became another book that got lost by the wayside. It's been so long that I will probably have to reread the part I've already read. I do want to read it and the next book this year, and I'm desparately hoping that Caro can finish the last volume before he either dies or becomes incapacitated. (Selfish and ghoulish, I know).
Do you think you would still like Testament of Youth even though reading Testament of Experience changed your view of her as a person? Did it make you think that perhaps Testament of Youth wasn't "true"?
Re Russell Banks, I think that's a fairly short one I should be able to fit in. I recently purchased a Kindle version of Continental Drift, which was the first Russell Banks I read, about the time it was published, and it blew me away. He became an author whose books I always picked up/read when I can across them. I'm thinking of a reread at some point of Continental Drift to see how it's held up.

So, unusually for me, I've already finished my first book of the year, though it was a short one. I started it New Year's Eve, and it's on the 1001 List, The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. I will review it shortly I promise (not wait til November 2024 or so). I'm now concentrating on The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger about a Jewish mercantile family in Berlin (reminding me a little of the Buddenbrooks) as Hitler comes to power, and some of them put blinkers on. It's good, but somehow not fully engaging me yet.

For Christmas I gave my husband (for me too) a book called Another Year of Wonder by Clemency Burton-Hill. The author chooses a piece of Classical music for each day of the year and writes a short essay on it. Spotify makes it very easy to listen to each piece (there are playlists for each month). I majored in music in college, but over the years, I've listened to less and less classical music, and I want to get back into that. So I figured we'd work through this book each morning over coffee. So far we've listened to the first two pieces, a chorus from a Bach cantata, and a short piano piece by Schuman. I was surprised that the essays are not very technical, musically speaking, but are more about the emotional reaction to the music, with a teensy bit of history/biography thrown in. (Each is only a page or so long). So far I'd recommend it.

Over for a visit Deborah and wow, lots of book titles and bb's to get on my list. Wishing you excellent reading for 2024!

>22 arubabookwoman: I've been going back and forth on that question of would I still like Testament of Youth. I guess the only way I can answer it is to just reread it. I loved Continental Drift, like you the first Banks book I read, and I think it would definitely hold up.

Looking forward to your thought on The Return of the Soldier which I read in 2022. There's a lot to think about there .

>23 arubabookwoman: Lovely idea.

>19 rhian_of_oz: I really enjoyed The Blind Assasin which I too read over 10 years ago, but back then I was into anything Atwood.

>19 rhian_of_oz: >26 kjuliff: I read The Blind Assassin in 2006. I remember finding it slow, but still greatly enjoying it. And it comes together nicely. However, I’m not sure how I would feel about it today.

Look forward to seeing where the year takes you and catching some book bullets :).

>27 dchaikin: it’s a shame when books get dated. Which is strange as we accept 19th century fiction for what it is, but somehow books written in the 60s and 70s date easily. Is it because these were years of great chase I wonder. But so were the war years and we just get into those books, accepting the parameters and taken-for-granted outlooks.

>29 kjuliff: not sure. It’s really been too long for me to make a call on this book. But our personal tastes change, and culture evolves such that some things come in and out of style. I feel like there was a literary style, or maybe a sentiment, from 2005-ish that hasn’t always ages well to current. But really that’s likely entirely my imagination. I haven’t confronted myself on this to know.

>29 kjuliff: We expect 19th century fiction to be dated, and there's virtually nothing in it (other than human nature) that feels contemporary. It's practically an alien world, and when everything seems strange, nothing particularly stands out at jarringly strange. But fiction from the 70s or 80s feels close enough to our own world that the differences are more noticeable and jarring. Give it another fifty years; by the time your favorite 1974 novel is a hundred years old, it will have stopped being a dated contemporary novel and it will have become a classic period piece.

>31 KeithChaffee: Ha! No doubt.

>31 KeithChaffee: 🙂

>27 dchaikin: >29 kjuliff: >30 dchaikin: >31 KeithChaffee: Strangely enough, maybe because my young adulthood was in the late 60's through the mid-80's, I feel very comfortable in the books written from that time period. (Because I've always been a voracious reader, I read a lot contemporaneously, though I've continued to read many from then over the years). Where I find myself uncomfortable, or sometimes bored is in current books with a focus on the problems and lives of 20- and 30-somethings. And when I read something from the 50's or 40's, I'm interested because I think I'm learning some "secrets" of what my parents' lives were like.

>23 arubabookwoman: I've been doing something similar with the girls since summer. Each month we get a listening calendar with a link to a short YouTube clip of, usually, classical music to listen to (we do it over breakfast). Each month has a theme, Romanticism, Bach, etc. with January always being musicals and February Jazz. Often the girls get so interested that we watch other clips, for instance during opera month, we would listen to the same aria sung by different artists. In the summer there was a picture book calendar as well as the listening calendar with books with a music theme. The program is called SQUILT (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Listening Time) and offers live zoom lessons, lesson plans, etc. It's been a hit with the girls and has led to them being about to talk about music in interesting ways. I've enjoyed it to!

And that's a double post for some reason, sorry.

Happy New Year, Deborah, for you and your husband. I'll drop my star and will hopefully see you on Litsy again too!

>35 labfs39: That sounds like a great program.

>38 rhian_of_oz: I'm excited to have found SQUILT. It has added to their (and my) understanding and appreciation of music in a very gentle, low intensity way. I will take the 7 year old to a children's program at the symphony in a couple of weeks, and I feel like she is well prepared for it.

Squealing at the SQUILT program. That sounds wonderful!

>35 labfs39: What a great program! There's so much cool stuff out there for kids, mixed in with all the dreck.

>41 lisapeet: SO much. Which makes finding the good stuff even harder.

>23 arubabookwoman: I love the idea behind Another Year of Wonder, but even more than that I love the idea of you and your husband working through the book over coffee each morning. I hope you both enjoy it.

I also love that idea! My husband and I have been listening to best-of year-end lists together for a few years now and it's been really fun and interesting to talk about everything we listen to. Different music, but similar idea!

OK, finally found your thread. For the record, I too read and very much enjoyed the Blind Assassin back in 2010. I gave it a glowing recomendation then. I don't think I can recall anything about the book that might not have aged well, but that's just me.

Well you be reviewing the books listed as read in January here, or your the reviews posted someplace else? I'm very curious to learn what you thought of Baumgartner, as that's a recent purchase and I am a big fan of all the Auster I've read (maybe 3 or four books all told).

I am late, but happy to be joining your thread at last. I always enjoy finding what you are reading and usually stealing some great reading ideas from you§ Belated happy new year!

Hi Deborah, dropping a star here and very much looking forward to your comments on the books you'll read this year. You're always so thoughtful and inspiring.

I can recommend Eline Vere by Louis Couperus too. Back in 2011, I ended my short review with I thought it very interesting to see how Eline developped from a young innocent, slightly spoiled girl to a hysterical wreck and how her surroundings reacted to her. This is a very beautiful, elegant, bitter-sweet study of 19th century mores.

>45 rocketjk: So many books coming out about elderly people having flashbacks and exploring their pasts. I suppose some of our best writers are getting old. Am I just noticing these books. There seem to be so many.

Well even though I've been keeping up with everybody else's threads, I've been ignoring my own. I think I have this idea that I can't enter anything on my thread unless I do a review, and since I wrote 50+ reviews in the last two weeks in December, I was willfully putting off writing any reviews of my 2024 reads--I was all reviewed out. But now that I've read about 17 books, I'm 17 books behind in reviews, and if I don't start writing reviews, I will find myself in the situation I found myself in late last year. (And by the way, like many of you, I write the reviews for myself, so I can have at least some memory of the books I've read, so it's not a guilt thing.) So I've arrived at the point that I feel I've got to bite the bullet, forget about the 50+ review marathon, and get going. But first, to answer my lovely visitors:

>24 mdoris: Thanks for visiting Mary.
>25 SassyLassy: Hi Sassy. My review for The Return of the Soldier will follow shortly (today, if I have time after responding to everyone).
>26 kjuliff: Kate I've been reading The Blind Assassin since early January and I am about half way through. It's going very slowly for me. It may be because I read ebooks almost exclusively now, and my copy of Blind Assassin is a real book, and a rather BIG book at that. I'm simply not used to hold books. In addition, I do most of my reading at night in bed. My husband goes to sleep early, and likes the lights out (insists he can't wear a mask), and this works with ebooks on my Kindle or iPad, but not with a book.
>35 labfs39: >39 labfs39: >40 markon: >41 lisapeet: >42 labfs39: That sounds like a wonderful way to get the girls into music, Lisa. I think they're very fortunate to have you as a teacher. How did the 7 year old like the symphony? She's lucky she got to go at such a young age.
>37 Simone2: Hi Barbara and thanks for visiting. I'm still participating in the Wharton read on Litsy. I really miss the NYRB book club. But I really should get back over there more and follow along. Something happened when I got my new phone and new ipad and suddenly I found I couldn't post pictures the way I used to. I've been too lazy to figure out how to do it. That was one feature of Litsy I really loved--how easy it was to post photos.
>43 rachbxl: Thank you Rachel.
>44 ursula: Hi Ursula. I follow your thread and I've enjoyed seeing your music lists even though I never have anything intelligent to say since I often don't recognize 85-95% of the artists (or if I recognize their names, which I sometimes do, I can't call up the memory of any song by them). I probably haven't listed to music by any of the more recent artists even though I recognize names, Rihanna for example, or Taylor Swift. I think my listening tastes froze around 1970 with the Stones, the Beatles, Donovan, and other British groups. After that I've mostly been interested in folk, folk-rock, alt country rock (or whatever it's called) with Joan Baez, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Townes van Zander, Steve Earle, Mary Gauthier, Nanci Griffith, Emmy Lou Harris, etc. (along with some oldies like Johnny Cash and some older guys whose names are escaping me at the moment.) I'm imagining many of those don't appeal to you, but maybe I'm wrong. I was a music major in college and for many years afterwards I listened mostly to classical music, then mostly dropped the habit. I would like to get back to listening more. When we moved from Seattle to Florida we got rid of many of our CDs in favor of Spotify.
>45 rocketjk: Hi Jerry Yes all my reviews will be posted here. I've just been putting it off, but better late than never. But I have now read Baumgartner and I loved it. It's about a man in his 70's trying to figure out how to go on and live well with the limitations age and circumstances may impose on you. I really related to the opening scene. I, too, am a big Auster fan. Since you have Rosie, have you read his book Timbuktu Its pov character is Mr. Bones, a dog belonging to a homeless man. It's one I love.
>46 raton-liseur: Thank you for visiting raton. I follow your thread, but since I don't speak French, I can't read your reviews. But I at least try to figure out whether you liked it or not, and maybe follow up by checking the book out on LT or Amazon (if it's been translated). I have just, as of 2 weeks ago, started trying to learn French on Duo Lingo, but I'm still at the stage of Hello/Goodbye and My name is, etc. I don't know if I will ever be fluent in speaking, but I hope to be able to read in French, especially since I read so many French novels (translated).

Whew! Thank you all for waiting so patiently for me to respond to your comments. I always love hearing from you. Now, time for some reviews.

Since I am trying to read more of my own books this year (I have arbitrarily decided that 50% of my reads should be books I own) I will mark each of my reads OMS, or Off My Shelf, or LB, Library Book.

This first read of the year is on the 1001 List:

OMS 1. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West (1918) 118 pp

"I suppose that the subject of our tragedy written in spiritual terms, was that in Kitty he had turned from the type of woman that makes the body conqueror of the soul, and in me the type that mediates between the soul and the body and makes them run even and unhappy like a well-matched pair of carriage horses, and had given himself to a woman whose bleak habit it was to champion the soul against the body."

This is a war novel, but we are never at the front, and the focus is not on the soldier, Chris, but on the three women in his life--his wife Kitty, his cousin and childhood companion Jenny (who is also the narrator), and his first love Margaret. When the novel opens Kitty and Jenny are at Chris's estate, and he is away at the front, when they receive a visit from Margaret, a dowdy, lower-class woman who informs them that Chris has been wounded.

At first Kitty and Jenny refuse to believe Margaret, this drudge they have never heard of--why wasn't Kitty as Chris's wife informed of this by the war office? But it turns out to be true. Chris is shell-shocked and suffering from amnesia--he does not remember his wife Kitty or that they had a child who died. What he does remember is Margaret, his first love, who is now the dowdy woman who visited Kitty and Jenny.

Chris is returned to his estate to recuperate and to recover his memories. Despite various attempts to convince him that he is married to Kitty, he is happy only in the company of Margaret. Though she looks old, worn, and poor, she has an inner peace about her, and Chris sees, not her worn physical appearance but the inner glow that comes through. Kitty never warms to Margaret and wants only to bring Chris back to the present, even though "curing" him will mean sending him back to the front. Jenny wavers between letting Chris live happily in the past with Margaret or bringing him back to the present reality.

Although this is a war novel, we see and experience little of the war; instead we see the devastating effects of the war, what it does to one's senses, both to a soldier and to civilians. There is also a lot in this short novel about the struggle between the classes. It was very much grating on me to read how disdainfully Jenny and especially Kitty spoke about Margaret: "They hated her as the rich hate the poor as insect things that will struggle out of the crannies which are their decent home and introduce ugliness to the light of day...." The book was somewhat different from what I was expecting, but I'm glad I read it.

3 stars

This next book is also from the 1001 List

OMS 2. A Woman's Life by Guy de Maupassant (1883) 208 pp

This is an early work of naturalism, and is a personal rather than a political history. Through the life of one woman, we see life's pitfalls, and the unrelenting pessimism of life itself.

The novel begins as 17 year old Jeanne leaves the convent in which she has been educated to return to the family chateau high on a cliff overlooking the sea in Normandy. Contemplating her future, Jeanne can see no further than meeting the love of her life, marrying him, and living happily ever after. And in fact, within a few months of returning home Jeanne has met and married Julien, the man she thinks is her true love (Ha!). The happily ever after does not happen, however, and Jeanne's life thereafter is one disappointment and tragedy after another.

This seemed to me to be a book very much before its time. The scene of Jeanne's doting parents on her wedding night, with her father having to explain "the facts of life" to Jeanne because her mother was too embarrassed to do so, is both touching and humorous. And the depiction of Jeanne's sexual awakening was more frank than most novels of that day. One warning for sensitive readers: there is one scene of extreme animal cruelty involving a priest and a dog giving birth. It was hard to read, and may have reflected de Maupassant's disdain for the Church.

de Maupassant is known primarily for his short stories, but I've now read three of his novels and enjoyed each one very much. He is a writer into whose works I want to delve more deeply I highly recommend this book.

4 stars

This next is the newest novel by Paul Auster, a favorite author of mine:

LB 3. Baumgartner by Paul Auster (2023) 162 pp

I fell for this book right away. I almost always like books by this author, and in this book I felt such an affinity with the main character right from the opening pages. Baumgartner is a 70-something philosophy professor, and while working in his study one morning he finds he needs a book which is downstairs. As he heads downstairs, he remembers he had promised to call his sister. He goes into the kitchen where the phone is and smells something burning--he had left the burner on under the pot in which he had earlier cooked his poached eggs. He turns off the burner and grabs the pot, thus burning his hand. He drops the pot on the floor and rushes to put his hand under cold water to prevent blistering. He is trying to remember what he came into the kitchen for when the phone rings. It is the meter man to tell him that he is on the way. He hangs up and remembers he is supposed to call his sister, when the doorbell rings. It's the UPS person--he has taken to ordering books he does want because he likes to chat with the UPS person. After their chat, he heads to the kitchen again to call his sister, but before he can pick the up the phone, it rings--a problem with the cleaning lady. He ends the call when the doorbell rings again. The meter man has arrived. As he is showing the meter reader down into the basement, he falls down the stairs and is briefly stunned--did you ever have a day like this??

Anyway, Baumgartner is still deeply mourning the death of his beloved wife Anna ten years before in a freak accident at the beach. "Ten years later Baumgartner marvels at how little has changed for him since those early months of near insanity." In the novel we backtrack from the present as Baumgartner thinks back on his past, "the lost world of then." We learn of his early life and of his life with Anna, including through some of Anna's biographical writings that Baumgartner has retained and reads over.

Arriving back at the present, Baumgartner contemplates moving on--what will that consist of, what does he want to do with the rest of his life? "Time is of the essence now, and he has no idea how much of it he has left. Not just how many years before he kicks the bucket but, more to the point, how many years of active productive life before his mind or his body or both begin to fail him and he is turned into a pain-racked, imbecilic, incompetent, unable to read or think or write, to remember what someone just said to him four seconds ago...."

I loved this book, which I think may be partly autobiographical, especially in its depiction of aging and the thoughts about the effects of aging. Highly recommended.

4 stars

I've been very reluctant to review this next book, because it affected me so much, it was so powerful, and I think it's a book everyone should take the time to read. It's been around a lot on LT, it was the Booker winner last year, and I don't think any review I could write would do it justice. But as I said somewhere above these reviews are just to help me remember. And as one reviewer on Amazon stated, "Ten years ago this book would have been interesting; in 2023 it's terrifying."

LB 4. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (2023) 244 pp

"The NAP {new government} is trying to change what you and I call reality, they want to muddy it like water if you say one thing is another thing and you say it enough times then it must be so, and if you keep saying it over and over people accept it as true."

One day Eilish, a Dublin mother of four who works as a scientist, finds her husband has been taken, presumably arrested, and officials won't tell her anything. There follows an insidious progression of events, some in the background, some in your face. Some people begin leaving, but Eilish can't get a passport for her youngest child, still an infant. She still can't locate her husband and doesn't want to leave until he returns. There are talks of internment camps as more and more are arrested. Then demonstrations at which the government shoots the demonstrators. The government declares a national emergency; habeas corpus is suspended; the government takes control of the judiciary, as well as the media; listening to foreign stations is outlawed; schools are closed; soldiers patrol the streets. Soon bombs are falling. What they said can't happen here has happened here. It's not somewhere faraway that's happening on the news.

Through it all we are focused on Eilish who is desperately trying to hold her family together. But events move beyond her control ("You cannot put a stop to the wind he says and the wind is going to blow right through this country....") as she and one member after the other of her family are affected in ways that will change them forever. The book is written in long sections without paragraphs, without quotation marks so that it is difficult to know when someone is speaking, and who that person might be, and there is scant other punctuation. This means the book requires close reading, we must move right in where Eilish and her family and the people around her are suffering, and suffer along with them. The style of writing is what makes this book so brilliant.

This was a very scary, and I will say prescient book. I look around at a country in which millions are willing to vote for a rapist and psychopathic con man, a man facing 91 felony counts, and a man who has told us what he will do in a second term, which would turn this country into a banana republic with him as King--starting with jailing his political rivals and anyone who has spoken an ill word of him, and I am terrified. The importance of this book is it shows us that yes, it can happen here, and unfortunately millions of people don't seem to care.

I leave you with these quotes from the book:

"it is vanity to think that the world will end during your lifetime in some sudden event, that what ends is your life and only your life, that what is sung by the prophets is but the same song sung across time, the coming of the sword, the world devoured by fire, the sun gone down into the earth at noon and the world cast into darkness..."

"The world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore...."

and,

"How could he have known anyhow, how could any of us have known what was going to happen, I suppose other people seemed to know, but I never understood how they were so certain, what I mean is, you could never have imagined it, not in a million years, all that was to happen, and I could never understand those that left, how they could just leave like that, leave everything behind, all that life, all that living, it was absolutely impossible for us to do so at the time and the more I look at it the more it seems there was nothing we could do anyhow..."

Highly recommended.

5 stars

>49 arubabookwoman: We didn't make it to the symphony because her parents both had covid and I think I was fighting off a case thanks to my latest vaccine booster. I didn't want to risk that either of us was a carrier, so decided to wait for the next symphony day for kids in March.

One trick that comes in handy when reading posts in another language is to right click and choose, "translate to English". Although the language can be a bit wonky, it's readable.

>51 arubabookwoman: I have only read Maupassant's short stories. This sounds interesting.

>52 arubabookwoman: And Baumgartner sounds really interesting. I have only read Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium, which I liked but was very weird.

>53 arubabookwoman: An excellent and comprehensive review. Yes I am still reeling from that book, and yes, everyone should read it.

>53 arubabookwoman:

American women are already at war:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/64-000-pregnancies-caused-by-rape-hav...

A new study estimates that more than 64,000 pregnancies resulted from rape between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024, in states where abortion has been banned throughout pregnancy in all or most cases. Of these, just more than 5,500 are estimated to have occurred in states with rape exceptions—and nearly 59,000 are estimated for states without exceptions. The authors calculate that more than 26,000 rape-caused pregnancies may have taken place in Texas alone. The findings were published on Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

>51 arubabookwoman: I enjoy reading Maupassant. I loved Bel-Ami and so I am sure I would like A woman's life.
I too am a fan of Paul Auster and Baumgartner sounds great.

>52 arubabookwoman: I’ve read a few Paul Auster novels and was about to get Baumgartner when I saw it was about an old man mourning the loss of his wife. So many good writers who were born in the fifties and sixties, annd made their name in the late eighties are now writing books about old people looking back on their lives; it just has to be at least, semi-autobiographical. Which is fine, but it sort of gives me the creeps, with everyone I know getting old I don’t want to see so many books turning up on the getting-older theme. It also makes me think that the book is their final book, which saddens me.

>49 arubabookwoman: 17 already! Phew. I enjoyed all four reviews

>52 arubabookwoman: this sounds terrific. I need to read more Auster

>53 arubabookwoman: yeah, PS. Powerful stuff. Those last three quotes stuck with me too.

Hi Deborah, I'm enjoying your thread and your reviews. I've added myself to the waiting list at the library for Prophet Song. I'm intrigued by Auster, whom I've never read because everything seems to be so very long. Is there a particular book that you recommend as the place to start with him?

>51 arubabookwoman: I read Une Vie/A Woman's Life not so long ago, and it was a good one.
>57 baswood: And I've read Bel Ami a looong time ago. I feel Bel Ami is really different from his other books. The "plot" is more classic and the way it is written is more classic as well. I enjoyed fairly enjoyed Bel Ami when I was a teen, I would not have enjoyed Une Vie/A Woman's Life. Now in my 40's, I am in a better place to appreciate it.

>53 arubabookwoman: I skipped your review of Prophet Song, as I think I'll read it when it is published in France. So just happy to come across another positive review, but I'll have to come back to your thoughts latter.

17 books within a month, that's impressive, and it's great that you enjoyed most of them!

>53 arubabookwoman: Terrific review. I will definitely have to get to Prophet Song (although the busier life gets, the more I appreciate books with sections and paragraphs that permit shorter bursts of reading).

>60 Jim53: I do not think of Auster books as long? I have six in my library and the longest one is 308 pages. Maybe his newer novels are longer, but his earlier works all seem to be 300 pages, give or take 25 pages.

The New York Trilogy is probably his best known. It's three stories that are each written in a different style. I enjoyed Invisible and Music of Chance more.

Great reviews as always, Deborah. I'll pick up the copy of Prophet Song I requested from the Free Library of Philadelphia later this week, and Baumgartner sounds especially interesting.

I have Prophet Song and Baumgartner lined up—good to see what you think of them. I haven't read a lot of Auster, I think Moon Palace ages ago, so I'm coming to him a bit late in his game.

>53 arubabookwoman: Great review of Prophet Song. It certainly sounds like a very intense read! ( And hello, I'm new to CR and just catching up on your lovely thread)

>54 labfs39: I really like de Maupassant Lisa. I think all three of the novels I've read by him would be books you might like, especially A Woman's Life. As to Baumgartner I think it might resonate with an elderly person more than a younger person, but it's definitely a good book, written in Auster's characteristic style, very flowing and easy to read. I'd really recommend you read Timbucktu since you have an affinity for dogs.

>55 kjuliff: Thank you Kate.

>56 LolaWalser: Yes Lola, that is truly horrifying. My heart breaks every time I see a story on the news about a woman having to bring a court action to permit an abortion (which in most cases won't be timely decided). Usually these are cases where the baby will die shortly after birth or the mother's health is endangered to one degree or another. This of course misses the point. No woman should have to tell anyone why she wants an abortion, whether the pregnancy was the result of rape or not. It's her choice, and a matter to be discussed only with her doctor.

>57 baswood: Hi Barry. I liked A Woman's Life better than Bel-Ami, which I also liked. A Woman's Life seemed more modern, or at least less mired in a particular time period.
Baumgartner was great. Auster is a favorite author of mine too.

>58 kjuliff: While Baumgartner does spend part of the book looking back on his life, particularly his life with his beloved wife Anna who died too young, in my view the focus of the book was on how do we move on, and how do we live our best lives despite the infirmities of age. And the way the book ended made me feel Auster has a sequel in mind, that he wasn't viewing this as his last book, but of course at his age (and mine) you newer know when something is for the last time.

>59 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Auster is one of my favorite authors, and I recommend you read as much by him as you can. Prophet Song is a book that is still with me weeks after finishing it.

>60 Jim53: Hi Jim and welcome to my thread. As I said a few times above Auster is a favorite of mine, but I don't think many of his books are long. Baumgartner is less than 200 pages. I really liked The Book of Illusions, which features a story about the making of silent movies, but mostly set in the modern day, and it's 336 pp. Timbucktu is also very good, and less than 200 pages. It's narrated from the point of view of Mr. Bones, the dog belonging to a homeless man. And The New York Trilogy is 330 pages and is very metafictional with the author playing games with the reader. Another short one I read many years ago (shortly after the Bush reelection) is Man in the Dark which imagines an alternate history in which certain states (those we would nowadays call "blue" states) secede after the election. I still have on my shelf 4321: A Novel, which I have not read yet and which is nearly 900 pages long. That might be the book you are thinking of when thinking that Auster writes long books.

>61 raton-liseur: I guess that's what I meant when I said to Barry in >57 baswood: that A Woman's Life seemed much more modern than Bel-Ami.

>62 AlisonY: Thanks Alison. It was 5 stars for me despite the lack of sections, paragraphs, quotation marks, etc., which I much prefer because it makes for easier reading.

>63 ELiz_M: Hi Liz. I just listed in >60 Jim53: several Auster books that fall within that page category. I'm guessing that he saw 4321 at 900 pages and thought maybe that was normal for Auster. I own that one but haven't read it. It's the only really long one I know about.

>64 kidzdoc: Thanks Daryl.

>65 lisapeet: Thanks Lisa. Auster is a favorite of mine.

>66 rv1988: Thanks and welcome to my thread. Hope to see a lot of you this year.

So even though I am not going to be able to write any reviews today, I do want to report on my January reading and my February plans before it gets too late. I do hope to get some reviews done this weekend. So here goes:

Books finished in January:

1. The Return of the Soldier. OMS 1001 F
2. A Woman's Life. OMS. 1001 M
3. Baumgartner. LB. Literary. M
4. The 6:20 Man. LB. Thriller. M
5. Prophet Song. LB. Booker. M
6. Anna of the Five Towns. OMS. Classic. M
7. The Magic Kingdom. OMS. Literary. M
8. Letters of Note Music. OMS. NF. M
9. Eastbound. LB. Literary. F
10. Dinosaurs. LB. Literary. F
11. The Dream. OMS. Classic. M
12. Holly. LB. Mystery. M
13. The Final Curtain. LB. Mystery. M
14. Day. LB. Literary. M
15. Among the Brothers. LB. NF. M
16. Memories of My Melancholy Whores LB. Literary. M

Still reading:

The Blind Assassin OMS 1001 F
The Virgin in the Garden OMS 1001 F

Comments: Not a bad reading month. I did not do a 50/50 split of books owned and library books, but I am reading a much larger percentage of books off my shelf than last year. I only read 2 1001 books (though I have 2 in progress), so I need to up that to finish 2024 where I want to be. And the percentage of female authors to male authors is dismal.

February Plans:

Finish The Blind Assassin and The Virgin in the Garden

Sort of Committed To:

The Mother's Recompense--Litsy Wharton Buddy Read
Nina Balatka--Trollope group read on 75 group. I haven't signed on but I own it and I like Trollope.
Headstrong--The topic for the Nonfiction group read for February is Women's Work, so I might tackle this which has been on the TBR forever.
The Beast Within--I only have 3 novels left to finish the Rougon Macquart cycle, so after finishing THe Dream in January, I'd like to push on. This would be a reread.

Library Books I have checked out now to choose from:

Kitchen Confidential
The Oppermans--I'm 36% through and I've now renewed it several times. I'm liking it, I just need to buckle down and finish it.
Dead Man's Walk-Prequel to Lonesome Dove, which I loved.
These Women--LT recommendation. Crime.
The Spark--NF autism 36% read.
People Collide--LT recommendation. Not sure why I checked it out.
The General in His Labyrinth--This would be a reread.
The Great Reclamation--LT rec. epic novel set in Singapore.
How We Disappeared--LT rec. Another Singapore novel.
Mobility--LT rec.
The Children's Bach--LT rec. Australia.
Three Floors Up--LT rec. Israel.
Solitary--LT rec. Life in Angola Prison.
Forest of Wool and Steel--LT rec. 50% read.
Closed for Winter--Scandi-crime.
Then the Fish Swallowed Him--Iranian bus driver arrested.
Absolute Power--The 6:20 Man was so awful, but reviews said this one was good so I thought I'd give it a try.
A View of Empire at Sunset--52% read. Fictionalized life of Jean Rhys, not sure how accurate it is.

Then of the books I own, I think I'll try to choose from these (some carried over from last month):

Elin Vere
Untouchable
Fado Alexandrino
Master of the Senate
Book of Lamentations
Just Kids
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Hangover Square
Praxis
The Grandmothers
Travels in Vermeer

And now the entry where I list my January acquisitions--many, many more that I thought I made, and many more than I intended. Will try to curb this next month:

1. The Constant Nymph by Margaret Kennedy
2. Jenny by Sigrid Undset
3. Christ's Entry Into Brussels by Dimitri Verhulst
4. One Last Time by Helga Flatland
5. American Midnight by Adam Hochschild
6. Year of Plagues by Fred D'Agular
7. Dregs by Jorn Lier Horst
8. Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
9. Riambel by Priya Hein
10. The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry
11. Domestic Darkness by Julie Farnham
12. Retribution by Max Hastings
13. Diary of A Void by Emi Yagi
14. Voting Day by Clare O'Dea
15. King's Row by Henry Bellamann
16. Bekka Lamb by Zee Edgell
17. Son of Singapore by Kok Seng Tan
18. The Causarina Tree by W. Somerset Maugham
19. The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds by Selina Siak Chin Yoke
20. And The Rain My Drink by Han Suyin
21. The Geography of the Imagination by Guy Davenport
22. King Rat by James Clavell
23. Honore de Balzac the Complete Human Comedy
24. Don't Let Go by Michael Bussi
25. The Black Snow by Paul Lynch
26. The Anvil by Christopher Coates
27. After the Fire a Small Still Voice by Evie Wyld
28. All the Birds Singing by Evie Wyld
29. Nina Balatka by Trollope
30. Killing For Country by David Marr
31. A Friend of the Family by Stuart Field
32. Taking Down Trump by Tristan Snell
33. Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas

>49 arubabookwoman: I love Townes Van Zandt, although I'm not familiar with his entire catalog yet. And I've been hitting the Leonard Cohen albums through the lists, although I had never listened to him before. I also listen to a good amount of country rock, folk rock, folk, indie/alt/avant folk, americana, and flat out country. I like old country and recent country, with a very large gap around the 80s-00s. Love the old stuff - Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, etc.

I like classical music, I used to play the piano. But I don't listen to it much and most of what I hear gets recognized as "oh yeah, that one!" but I have a hard time placing the actual piece.

>68 arubabookwoman: Looking forward to your comments on Eastbound, which is on my wish list, and Memories of My Melancholy Whores, which I found interesting. Have you read Hrabal's Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age? I liked it a smidge more than the GGM.

>69 arubabookwoman: What dark streak must run through my mind that the first title I clicked on was the one about prison. I don't think the link goes to the correct book though, I think it is Solitary. I read How We Disappeared for Paul's Asia Challenge a couple of years ago and thought it was okay, but not great.

>68 arubabookwoman: >69 arubabookwoman: > 70 - well, of all these, I’ve only read four. And i can only tell you about Just Kids. It’s a special book.

>69 arubabookwoman: I’ll recommend Garner’s The Children’s Bach. I read it some time ago, and remember it being set in my part of Melbourne and she had it down pat. The people who lived there ack in the 1980s, that is.