text:
Tag Archives: rereading
Random 2020 Superlatives and Statistics
My top 'discoveries' of the year: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4 books), Octavia E. Butler, Tim Dee (3 books each, read or in progress), and Louise Erdrich (2 books, one in progress).
Also the publisher Little Toller Books: I read four of their releases this year and they were fantastic.
The authors I read the most by this year: Carol Shields tops the list at 6 books (3 of these were rereads) thanks to my buddy reads with Buried in Print, followed by Paul Auster with 5 due to Annabel's reading week in February, then Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with 4, and finally Anne Lamott with 3 comfort rereads.
Debut authors whose next work I'm most looking forward to: Naoise Dolan, Bess Kalb, Dara McAnulty, Mary South, Brandon Taylor, and Madeleine Watts
My proudest reading achievement: 16 rereads, which must be a record for me. Also, I always say I'm not really a short story person … and yet somehow I've read 19 collections of them this year (and one stand-alone story, plus another collection currently on the go)!
My proudest (non-reading) bookish achievement: Conceiving of and coordinating the Not the Wellcome Prize blog tour.
Five favorite blog posts of the year: Love, Etc. – Some Thematic Reading for Valentine's Day; Polio and the Plague: Epidemics in Fiction; Thinking about the Future with David Farrier & Roman Krznaric (Hay Festival); Three Out-of-the-Ordinary Memoirs: Kalb, Machado, McGuinness; Asking What If? with Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld (I had a lot of fun putting the current post together, too!)
The bookish experience that most defined my year: Watching the Bookshop Band's live shows from their living room. Between their Friday night lockdown performances and one-offs for festivals and book launches, I think I saw them play 33 times in 2020!
Biggest book read this year: Going by dimensions rather than number of pages, it was the oversize hardback The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
Smallest book read this year: Pocket-sized and only about 60 pages: No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg.
Oldest author read this year: Peggy Seeger was 82 when her memoir First Time Ever was published. I haven't double-checked the age of every single author, but I think second place at 77 is a tie between debut novelist Arlene Heyman for Artifact and Sue Miller for Monogamy. (I don't know how old Michael McCarthy, Jeremy Mynott and Peter Marren, the joint authors of The Consolation of Nature, are; Mynott may actually be the oldest overall, and their combined age is likely over 200.)
Youngest author read this year: You might assume it was 16-year-old Dara McAnulty with Diary of a Young Naturalist, which won the Wainwright Prize (as well as the An Post Irish Book Award for Newcomer of the Year, the Books Are My Bag Reader Award for Non-Fiction, and the Hay Festival Book of the Year!) … or Thunberg, above, who was 16 when her book came out. They were indeed tied for youngest until, earlier in December, I started reading The House without Windows (1927) by Barbara Newhall Follett, a bizarre fantasy novel published when the child prodigy was 12.
Most As on a book cover: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Most Zs on a book cover: The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi. I haven't read it yet, but a neighbor passed on a copy she was getting rid of. It was nominated for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize.
The book that made me laugh the most: Kay's Anatomy by Adam Kay
Books that made me cry: Writers and Lovers by Lily King, Monogamy by Sue Miller, First Time Ever by Peggy Seeger, and Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of (In)fertility by Myriam Steinberg (coming out in March 2021)
The book that put a song in my head every single time I looked at it, much less read it: I Am an Island by Tamsin Calidas (i.e., "I Am a Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel, which, as my husband pointed out, has very appropriate lyrics for 2020: "In a deep and dark December / I am alone / Gazing from my window to the streets below … Hiding in my room / Safe within my womb / I touch no one and no one touches me.")
Best book club selections: Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale and The Wife by Meg Wolitzer tied for our highest score ever and gave us lots to talk about.
Most unexpectedly apt lines encountered in a book: "People came to church wearing masks, if they came at all. They'd sit as far from each other as they could." (Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. Describing not COVID-19 times but the Spanish flu.)
Most ironic lines encountered in a book: "September 12—In the ongoing hearings, Senator Joseph Biden pledges to consider the Bork nomination 'with total objectivity,' adding, 'You have that on my honor not only as a senator, but also as the Prince of Wales.' … October 1—Senator Joseph Biden is forced to withdraw from the Democratic presidential race when it is learned that he is in fact an elderly Norwegian woman." (from the 1987 roundup in Dave Barry's Greatest Hits – Biden has been on the U.S. political scene, and mocked, for 3.5+ decades!)
Best first line encountered this year: "And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters." (Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf)
Best last lines encountered this year:
"my childhood falls silently to the bottom of my memory, that library of the soul from which I will draw knowledge and experience for the rest of my life." (Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen)
"What I want to say is: I misremember all this so vividly it's as if it only happened yesterday." (Other People's Countries: A Journey into Memory by Patrick McGuinness)
"these friends would forever be her stitches, her scaffold, her ballast, her home." (The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall)
My favorite title and cover combo of the year: A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth by Daniel Mason
The book I wish had gotten a better title and cover: Tennis Lessons by Susannah Dickey – I did enjoy this second-person novel about a young woman who is her own worst enemy, to the tune of 3.5 stars, but the title says nothing about it and the cover would have been a turnoff had I not won a signed copy from Mslexia.
The most unfortunate typos I found in published works: In English Pastoral by James Rebanks, "sewn" where he meant "sown" (so ironic in a book about farming!) versus, in Mr Wilder & Me by Jonathan Coe, "sown" in place of "sewn." Also "impassible" where it should read "impassable" in Apeirogon by Colum McCann. This is what proofreaders like myself are for. We will save you from embarrassing homophone slips, dangling modifiers, and more!
The 2020 books that everybody else loved, but I didn't: The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel, Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, and Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
The year's biggest disappointments: I don't like to call anything "worst" (after all, I didn't read anything nearly as awful as last year's Jonathan Livingston Seagull), but my lowest ratings went to A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom by John Boyne and At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison, and I was disappointed that When the Lights Go Out by Carys Bray was misleadingly marketed.
The downright strangest books I read this year: Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony, A Traveller at the Gates of Wisdom by John Boyne, The House Without Windows by Barbara Newhall Follett, and The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
The people and themes that kept turning up in my reading: Rachel Carson and Henry David Thoreau; curlews and plagues; how we define and relate to history; childhood memoirs (seven of them).
Some of my 2020 curlew reading. (Two more books with curlews on the cover were borrowed from the library.)
Some statistics on my 2020 reading:
Fiction: 57.2%
Nonfiction: 36.8%
Poetry: 6%
(Fiction reigned supreme this year! Last year my F:NF ratio was roughly 1:1. Poetry was down by ~5% this year compared to 2019.)
Male author: 34.1%
Female author: 63.8%
Nonbinary author: 0.3% (= 1 author, Jay Bernard)
Multiple genders (anthologies): 1.8%
(Women dominated by an extra ~5% this year over 2019. I've said this for four years now: I find it intriguing that female authors significantly outweigh male authors in my reading because I have never consciously set out to read more books by women; it must be a matter of being interested in the kinds of stories women tell and how they capture their experiences in nonfiction.)
E-books: 10.6%
Print books: 89.4%
(Almost exactly the same as last year. My e-book reading has been declining, partially because I've cut back on the reviewing gigs that involve only reading e-books and partially because I've done less traveling. Increasingly, I prefer to sit down with a big stack of print books.)
Books by BIPOC: 14.7%
Literature in translation: 6.6%
(Down from last year's 7.2%; how did this happen?! This will be something to address in 2021.)
Where my books came from for the whole year:
Free print or e-copy from publisher: 25.6%
Public library: 25.6%
Free (giveaways, The Book Thing of Baltimore, the free mall bookshop, etc.): 14.9%
Secondhand purchase: 11.6%
Downloaded from NetGalley, Edelweiss or Project Gutenberg: 6.7%
New purchase (sometimes at a bargain price): 6.3%
Gifts: 5.5%
University library: 3.8%
I promised to scale back on review copies this year, and I did: last year they accounted for nearly 37% of my reading. My library reading was higher than last year's, despite the challenges of lockdowns; my e-book reading decreased in general. I bought more than twice as many new books as usual this year, and read lots that I either bought secondhand or got for free.
Number of unread print books in the house: 435
At the end of last year this figure was at 440 after lots of stock-ups from the free mall bookshop, which has since closed. So even though it might look like I have only read five books of my own, I have in fact read loads from my shelves this year … but also acquired many more books, both new and secondhand.
In any case, the overall movement has been downward, so I'm calling it a win!
Posted in: Reading habits	| Tagged: Adam Kay, Anne Lamott, Arlene Heyman, Barbara Newhall Follett, Bess Kalb, book acquisitions, Brandon Taylor, Cara Wall, Carol Shields, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Colum McCann, curlews, Daniel Mason, Dara McAnulty, Dave Barry, Douglas Stuart, e-books, free books, Greta Thunberg, Henry David Thoreau, Hilary Mantel, Ian McEwan, Jackie Morris, James Rebanks, Jay Bernard, Jeremy Mynott, Jessica Anthony, John Boyne, Jonathan Coe, Kent Haruf, Lily King, Little Toller, Louise Erdrich, Madeleine Watts, Maggie O'Farrell, Marilynne Robinson, Mary South, Meg Wolitzer, Michael McCarthy, Myriam Steinberg, Naoise Dolan, Not the Wellcome Prize, Octavia E. Butler, Patrick Gale, Patrick McGuinness, Paul Auster, Peggy Seeger, Peter Marren, plague, Rachel Carson, rereading, Robert Macfarlane, secondhand books, short stories, Simon and Garfunkel, statistics, Sue Miller, Susannah Dickey, Tamsin Calidas, The Bookshop Band, Tim Dee, Tove Ditlevsen, Trezza Azzopardi, Wainwright Prize
Mrs. Shields & Me: (Re)reading Carol Shields in 2020
It's pure happenstance that I started reading Carol Shields's work in 2006.
2005: When I first returned to England for my MA program at Leeds, I met a PhD student who was writing a dissertation on contemporary Canadian women writers. At that point I could literally name only one – Margaret Atwood – and I hadn't even read anything by her yet.
2006: Back in the States after that second year abroad, living with my parents and killing time until my wedding, I got an evening job behind the circulation desk of the local community college library. A colleague passed on four books to me one day. By tying them up in a ribbon, she made a gift out of hand-me-downs: The Giant's House, The Secret History, and two by Shields: Happenstance and The Stone Diaries. I've gone on to read most or all of the books by these authors, so I'm grateful to this acquaintance I've since lost touch with.
The inspiration for my post title.
Starting in June this year, I joined Marcie of Buried in Print in reading or rereading six Shields novels. She's been rereading Shields for many years, and I benefited from her insight and careful attention to connections between the works' characters and themes during our buddy reads. I'd treated myself to a secondhand book binge in the first lockdown, including copies of three Shields novels I'd not read before. We started with these.
Small Ceremonies (1976)
Shields's debut ended up being my surprise favorite. A flawless novella, it brings its many elements to a satisfying conclusion and previews the author's enduring themes in 180 pages. Judith is working on a third biography, of Susanna Moodie, and remembering the recent sabbatical year that she and her husband, a Milton scholar, spent with their two children in Birmingham. High tea is a compensating ritual she imported from a dismal England. She also brought back an idea for a novel. Meanwhile family friend Furlong Eberhardt, author of a string of twee, triumphantly Canadian novels, is casting around for plots.
What ensues is something of a sly academic comedy à la David Lodge, laced with Shields's quiet wisdom on marriage, parenting, the writer's vocation, and the difficulty of ever fully understanding another life. Specific links to her later work include a wonderful dinner party scene with people talking over each other and a craft project.
The Box Garden (1977)
The companion novel to Small Ceremonies is narrated by Judith's sister Charleen, a poet and single mother who lives in Vancouver and produces the National Botanical Journal. I imagined the sisters representing two facets of Shields, who had previously published poetry and a Moodie biography. Charleen is preparing to travel to Toronto for their 70-year-old mother's wedding to Louis, an ex-priest. Via flashbacks and excruciating scenes at the family home, we learn how literally and emotionally stingy their mother has always been. If Charleen's boyfriend Eugene's motto is to always assume the best of people, her mother's modus operandi is to assume she's been hard done by.
The title comes from the time when a faithful Journal correspondent, the mysterious Brother Adam, sent Charleen some grass seed to grow in a window box – a symbol of thriving in spite of restrictive circumstances. I thought the plot went off in a silly direction, but loved the wedding reception. Specific links to Shields's later work include a botanical hobby, a long train journey, and a final scene delivered entirely in dialogue.
A Celibate Season (1991)
"We're suffering a communication gap, that's obvious."
This epistolary novel was a collaboration: Blanche Howard wrote the letters by Jocelyn ("Jock"), who's gone to Ottawa to be the legal counsel for a commission looking into women's poverty, while Shields wrote the replies from her husband Charles ("Chas"), an underemployed architect who's keeping the home fire burning back in Vancouver. He faces challenges large and small: their daughter's first period versus meal planning ("Found the lentils. Now what?"). The household starts comically expanding to include a housekeeper, Chas's mother-in-law, a troubled neighbor, and so on.
Both partners see how the other half lives. The misunderstandings between them become worse during their separation. Howard and Shields started writing in 1983, and the book does feel dated; they later threw in a jokey reference to the unreliability of e-mail to explain why the couple are sending letters and faxes. Two unsent letters reveal secrets Jock and Chas are keeping from each other, which felt like cheating. I remained unconvinced that so much could change in 10 months, and the weird nicknames were an issue for me. Plus, arguing about a solarium building project? Talk about First World problems! All the same, the letters are amusing.
Rereads
Happenstance (1980/1982)
This was the first novel I read by Shields. My Penguin paperback gives the wife's story first and then you flip it over to read the husband's story. But the opposite reflects the actual publishing order: Happenstance is Jack's story; two years later came Brenda's story in A Fairly Conventional Woman. The obvious inheritor of the pair is A Celibate Season with the dual male/female narratives, and the setups are indeed similar: a man is left at home alone with his teenage kids, having to cope with chores and an unexpected houseguest.
What I remembered beforehand: The wife goes to a quilting conference; an image of a hotel corridor and elevator.
Jack, a museum curator in Chicago, is writing a book about "Indian" trading practices (this isn't the word we'd use nowadays, but the terminology ends up being important to the plot). He and his best friend Bernie, who's going through a separation, are obsessed with questions of history: what gets written down, and what it means to have a sense of the past (or not). I loved all the little threads, like Jack's father's obsession with self-help books, memories of Brenda's vivacious single mother, and their neighbor's failure as Hamlet in a local production. I also enjoyed an epic trek in the snow in a final section potentially modeled on Ulysses.
A Fairly Conventional Woman
"Aside from quiltmaking, pleasantness was her one talent. … She had come to this awkward age, forty, at an awkward time in history – too soon to be one of the new women, whatever that meant, and too late to be an old-style woman."
Brenda is in Philadelphia for a quilting conference. Quilting, once just a hobby, is now part of a modern art movement and she earns prizes and hundreds of dollars for her pieces. The hotel is overbooked, overlapping with an International Society of Metallurgists gathering, and both she and Barry from Vancouver, an attractive metallurgist in a pinstriped suit whom she meets in the elevator, are driven from their shared rooms by roommates bringing back one-night stands. This doesn't add anything to the picture of a marriage in Jack's story and I only skimmed it this time. It's a wonder I kept reading Shields after this, but I'm so glad I did!
I reviewed these last two earlier this year. They were previously my joint favorites of Shields's work, linked by a gardening hobby, the role of chance, and the unreliability of history and (auto)biography. They remain in my top three.
The Stone Diaries (1995)
What I remembered beforehand: a long train ride, a friend who by the feeling 'down there' thought that someone had had sex with her the night before, and something about the Orkney Islands.
My full review:
Larry's Party (1997)
What I remembered beforehand: a food poisoning incident (though I'd thought it was in one of Shields's short stories), a climactic event involving a garden maze, a chapter entitled "Larry's Penis," and the closing dinner party scene.
Looking back: Fortunately, in the last 15 years I've done something to redress my ignorance, discovering Canadian women writers whom I admire greatly: Elizabeth Hay, Margaret Laurence, Mary Lawson and especially Margaret Atwood and Carol Shields.
Looking out: "I am watching. My own life will never be enough for me. It is a congenital condition, my only, only disease in an otherwise lucky life. I am a watcher, an outsider whether I like it or not, and I'm stuck with the dangers that go along with it. And the rewards."
That's Judith on the last page of Small Ceremonies. It's also probably Shields. And, to an extent, it seems like me. A writer, but mostly a reader, absorbing other lives.
Looking forward: I'm interested in rereading Shields's short stories and Mary Swann (to be reissued by World Editions in 2021). And, though I've read 13 of her books now, there are still plenty of unread, lesser-known ones I'll have to try to find secondhand one day. Her close attention to ordinary lives and relationships and the way we connect to the past makes her work essential.
Posted in: Fiction Reviews, rereading	| Tagged: Blanche Howard, botany, buddy read, Canadian literature, Carol Shields, David Lodge, Donna Tartt, Elizabeth McCracken, epistolary novels, gardening, James Joyce, John Milton, Jonathan Coe, novella, quilting, rereading, Susanna Moodie, train travel
A Look Back at 2020's Reading Projects, Including Rereads
Major bookish initiatives:
Coordinated a Not the Wellcome Prize blog tour to celebrate 2019's health-themed books – in case you missed it, the winner was Sinéad Gleeson for Constellations.
Co-hosted Novellas in November with Cathy (746 Books).
Hosted Library Checkout each month.
Reading challenges joined:
12 blog tours
Six Degrees of Separation: I started participating in February and did nine posts this year
Paul Auster Reading Week
Reading Ireland month
Japanese Literature Challenge
20 Books of Summer
Women in Translation Month
Robertson Davies Weekend
Women's Prize winners (#ReadingWomen)
Margaret Atwood Reading Month
This works out to one blog tour, one reading project, and one regular meme per month – manageable. I'll probably cut back on blog tours next year, though; unless for a new release I'm really very excited about, they're often not worth it.
Buddy reads:
Crossing to Safety with Laila (Big Reading Life)
6 Carol Shields novels plus The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, Deerbrook, and How to Be Both with Marcie (Buried in Print)
A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Idea of Perfection with Laura T.
Mother's Milk with Annabel
666 Charing Cross Road with Liz
Self-set reading challenges:
Classic of the Month (14 in total; it's only thanks to Novellas in November that I averaged more than one a month)
Doorstopper of the Month (just 3; I'd like to try to get closer to monthly in 2021)
Wainwright Prize longlist reading
Bellwether Prize winners (read 2, DNFed 1)
Short stories in September (8 collections)
Young Writer of the Year Award shortlist reading
Thematic roundups – I'm now calling these "Three on a Theme" and have done 2 so far
Journey through the Day with Books (3 new reviews this year):
Zennor in Darkness by Helen Dunmore
Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen
[Up with the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth – DNF]
[Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer – DNF]
Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell – existing review
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński – read part of
Eventide by Kent Haruf
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler – existing review
Talk before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg – existing review
When the Lights Go Out by Carys Bray
Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
Voyage in the Dark by Jean Rhys
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay – existing review
Sleeping Arrangements by Laura Shaine Cunningham
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Bodies in Motion and at Rest by Thomas Lynch – read but not reviewed
Silence by Shūsaku Endō
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez – read part of
The Four in a Row Challenge – I failed miserably with this one. I started an M set but got bogged down in Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin (also a bibliotherapy self-prescription for Loneliness from The Novel Cure), which I had as a bedside book for much of the year, so only managed 1.5 out of 4; I also started an H quartet but set both Tinkers and Plainsong aside. Meanwhile, Debbie joined in and completed her own 4 in a Row. Well done! I like how simple this challenge is, so I'm going to use it next year as an excuse to read more from my shelves – but I'll be more flexible and allow lots of substitutions in case I stall with one of the four books.
At the end of 2019, I picked out a whole shelf's worth of books I'd been meaning to reread. I kept adding options over the year, so although I managed a respectable 16 rereads in 2020, the shelf is still overflowing!
Many of my rereads have featured on the blog over the year, but here are two more I didn't review at the time. Both were book club selections inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. (We held a rally and silent protest in a park in the town centre in June.)
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama: Remember when there was a U.S. president who thought deeply, searched his soul, and wrote eloquently? I first read this memoir in 2006, when Obama was an up-and-coming Democratic politician who'd given a rousing convention speech. I remembered no details, just the general sweep of Hawaii to Chicago to Kenya. On this reread I engaged most with the first third, in which he remembers a childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, gives pen portraits of his white mother and absentee Kenyan father, and works out what it means to be black and Christian in America. By age 12, he'd stopped advertising his mother's race, not wanting to ingratiate himself with white people. By contrast, "To be black was to be the beneficiary of a great inheritance, a special destiny, glorious burdens that only we were strong enough to bear." The long middle section on community organizing in Chicago nearly did me in; I had to skim past it to get to his trip to Kenya to meet his paternal relatives – "Africa had become an idea more than an actual place, a new promised land". then/ now
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: This Wellcome Book Prize winner about the use of a poor African-American woman's cells in medical research was one of the first books to turn me onto health-themed reads. I devoured it in a few days in 2010. Once again, I was impressed at the balance between popular science and social history. Skloot conveys the basics of cell biology in a way accessible to laypeople, and uses recreated scenes and dialogue very effectively. I had forgotten the sobering details of the Lacks family experience, including incest, abuse, and STDs. Henrietta had a rural Virginia upbringing and had a child by her first cousin at age 14. At 31 she would be dead of cervical cancer, but the tissue taken from her at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins hospital became an immortal cell line. HeLa is still commonly used in medical experimentation. Consent was a major talking point at our book club Zoom meeting. Cells, once outside a body, cannot be owned, but it looks like exploitation that Henrietta's descendants are so limited by their race and poverty. I had forgotten how Skloot's relationship and travels with Henrietta's unstable daughter, Deborah, takes over the book (as in the film). While I felt a little uncomfortable with how various family members are portrayed as unhinged, I still thought this was a great read. then / now
I had some surprising rereading DNFs. These were once favorites of mine, but for some reason I wasn't able to recapture the magic: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I attempted a second read of John Fowles's postmodern Victorian pastiche, The French Lieutenant's Woman, on a mini-break in Lyme Regis, happily reading the first third on location, but I couldn't make myself finish once we were back home. And A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan was very disappointing a second time; it hasn't aged well. Lastly, I've been stalled in Watership Down for a long time, but do intend to finish my reread.
In general, voice- and style-heavy fiction did not work so well for me on rereading. Autobiographical essays by Anne Lamott and Abigail Thomas worked best, but I also succeeded at rereading some straightforward novels and short stories. Next year, I'd like to aim for a similar number of rereads, with a mixture of memoirs and fiction, including at least one novel by David Lodge. I'd also be interested in rereading earlier books by Ned Beauman and Curtis Sittenfeld if I can find them cheap secondhand.
What reading projects did you participate in this year?
Done much rereading lately?
Posted in: Reading habits, rereading	| Tagged: abandoned books, Abigail Thomas, Anne Lamott, Armistead Maupin, Baltimore, Barack Obama, Bibliotherapy, biracial, Black Lives Matter, Chicago, Curtis Sittenfeld, David Lodge, Hawaii, Henrietta Lacks, Indonesia, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, John Fowles, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kenya, Library Checkout, Marilynne Robinson, memes, Ned Beauman, Not the Wellcome Prize, Novellas in November, popular science, race, reading goals, Rebecca Skloot, rereading, Richard Adams, Sinéad Gleeson, Virginia, Wellcome Book Prize, year challenges, Zadie Smith
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (Blog Tour Review)
Is it possible to capture the complete course of a life, whether looking from the outside or telling it from the inside? What is set in stone and what is fleeting? These are questions Carol Shields addresses in her 1995 Pulitzer Prize winner, which plays with perspective and forms of storytelling as it conveys the extra/ordinary life of Daisy Stone Goodwill Flett. What with the family tree and section of black-and-white photographs, you might expect this to be a family saga; with the chronological chapters proceeding from "Birth" in 1905 to "Death" in the 1990s, you might expect an objective faux-biography. But The Stone Diaries is neither.
The facts are these. Daisy's mother, Mercy, dies giving birth to her in rural Manitoba. Raised by a neighbor, Daisy later moves to Indiana with her stonecutter father, Cuyler. After a disastrously short first marriage, Daisy returns to Canada to marry Barker Flett. Their three children and Ottawa garden become her life. She temporarily finds purpose in her empty-nest years by writing a "Mrs. Green Thumb" column for a local newspaper, but her retirement in Florida is plagued by illness and the feeling that she has missed out on what matters most.
What makes this surprising life story so remarkable is its unpicking of (auto)biographical authenticity: Shields switches between the first and third person, between Daisy's point of view and a feigned omniscience. Some sections foreground others' opinions: Chapter 6 is composed entirely of letters Daisy receives, while Chapter 7 collects short first-person narratives from her children and friends as they speculate on why she has fallen into a depression.
As in Shields's Happenstance and Larry's Party, which I've also reread this year, I was struck by the role that chance plays in any life:
History indeed! As though this paltry slice of time deserves such a name. Accident, not history, has called us together, and what an assembly we make. What confusion, what a clamor of inadequacy and portent.
Talk of bias, gaps and unreliability undermines the narrative:
Well, a childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction. Which is why you want to take Daisy's representation of events with a grain of salt, a bushel of salt.
Daisy herself almost disappears from the parts of the book where she is voiceless, consumed by her roles – by the end she is universally known as "Grandma Flett." This meant that other characters stood out as more memorable to me: Cuyler for his obsessive building of stone monuments and streams of words, Barker for his love of plants and long-deferred sexual fulfillment, Daisy's friend Fraidy Hoyt for her careful chronicling of fast living, and Magnus, Barker's father, who lives long past his 100th birthday after his return to the Orkney Islands.
As in Moon Tiger, one of my absolute favorites, the author explores how events and memories turn into artifacts. The meta approach also, I suspect, tips the hat to other works of Canadian literature: in her introduction, Margaret Atwood mentions that the poet whose story inspired Shields's Mary Swann had a collection entitled A Stone Diary, and surely the title's similarity to Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel (1964) can't be pure coincidence.
Experiencing the novel again after 14 years, I was impressed by the experimentation but ultimately somewhat detached from the story. It was admiration rather than love; I enjoyed earlier chapters more than the last few. But isn't that just like life, to keep going past the point where it's fun? And isn't that the point, that the meaning you long for may not be there at all?
Marcie (Buried in Print) and I have reread – or, in my case for half of them, read for the first time – six Shields novels together in 2020. I hope I'll find time to respond to the rest of them in the next few weeks. It has been so rewarding to observe how her themes recur and interlock. How heartening to see that, 17 years after her death, Shields is still being read and remembered, through the World Editions reissues (three more are coming in 2021) and through the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, a new $100,000 annual award for North American women's writing.
The Stone Diaries was reissued in the UK by World Editions on December 3rd. My thanks to the publisher for the free copy for review.
I was delighted to be invited to help close out the blog tour for The Stone Diaries. See below for details of where other reviews have appeared.
Posted in: blog tour, Fiction Reviews, rereading	| Tagged: autobiographies, biography, blog tour, buddy read, Canada, Canadian literature, Carol Shields, Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, epistolary, Florida, gardening, history, Indiana, Manitoba, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, metafiction, motherhood, Orkney Islands, Ottawa, Penelope Lively, Pulitzer Prize, rereading, retirement, World Editions
Women's Prize Winners Reading Project: Grant, Martin, Shields et al.
By Rebecca Foster on September 22, 2020 | 20 Comments
In this 25th anniversary year of the Women's Prize, readers are being encouraged to catch up on all the previous winners. I'd read 14 of them (including Hamnet) as of mid-April and have managed five more since then – plus a reread, a DNF and a skim. I recently reviewed Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne as part of this summer reading post. This leaves just four more for me to read before voting for my all-time favorite in November.
When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant (2000)
Some settings have been done to death, but here's one I don't think I'd ever encountered before: Israel in the final year before statehood. Grant dramatizes the contrast between Palestine, a doomed British colony, and the Jewish hope of a homeland. In 1946 twenty-year-old Evelyn Sert leaves her home in London, masquerading as a Gentile tourist (though she has Latvian Jewish ancestry) so as to jump ahead of thousands of displaced persons awaiting entry visas. With her mother recently dead of a stroke, she takes advice and money from her mother's married boyfriend, "Uncle Joe," a Polish Jew and Zionist, and heads to Palestine.
After six weeks on a kibbutz, Evelyn sets out to make her own life in Tel Aviv as a hairdresser and falls in with Johnny, a Jew who fought for the British. It's safer to be part of the colonial structure here, so she once again passes as Gentile, dyeing her hair blonde and going by Priscilla Jones. In a land where all kinds of people have been thrown together by the accident of their ethnicity and the suffering it often entailed, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. For Evelyn, who's never known anywhere apart from suburban London and arrived in Palestine a virgin, the entire year is a journey of discovery. Will a place of ancient religious significance embrace modern architecture, technology and government? Grant really captures this period of transition for an individual and for a nascent nation of exiles. I loved the supporting characters and the nostalgic look back from half a century on.
Favorite passages:
In a country with its face turned towards the future, our stories sat on our shoulders like a second head, facing the way we had come from. We were the tribe of Janus, if there is such a thing.
With hindsight it always seems easy to do the right thing, but we were trying to decide something in those days that people don't often get a chance to have a say in and it was this: would we be a free nation after two thousand years of wandering or would we always be a subject race? Would we be ghetto Jews or new Jews?
Property by Valerie Martin (2003)
A compact study of slavery that unfolds through the relationship between a New Orleans plantation owner's wife and her husband's mistress. Manon Gaudet has never been happy in her marriage, but when their slave girl, Sarah, bears her husband a second child, she decides she has had enough of silently condoning his behavior. A slave uprising and cholera and yellow fever outbreaks provide some welcome drama, but the bulk of this short novel is an examination of the psyche of a woman tormented by hatred and jealousy. Ownership of another human being is, if not technically impossible, certainly not emotionally tenable. Manon's situation is also intolerable because she has no rights as a woman in the early nineteenth century: any property she inherits will pass directly to her husband. Though thoroughly readable, for me this didn't really add anything to the corpus of slavery fiction.
A reread (as well as a buddy read with Buried in Print):
Larry's Party by Carol Shields (1997)
"The whole thing about mazes is that they make perfect sense only when you look down on them from above."
Larry Weller is an Everyman: sometimes hapless and sometimes purposeful; often bewildered with where life has led him, but happy enough nonetheless. From the start, Shields dwells on the role that "mistakes" have played in making Larry who he is, like a floral arts catalogue coming in the mail from the college instead of one on furnace repair and meeting Dorrie at a Halloween party he attended with a different girl. Before he knows it he and a pregnant Dorrie are getting married and he's been at his flower shop job for 12 years. A honeymoon tour through England takes in the Hampton Court Palace maze and sparks an obsession that will change the course of Larry's life, as he creates his first maze at their Winnipeg home and gradually becomes one of a handful of expert maze-makers.
The sweep of Larry's life, from youth to middle age, is presented roughly chronologically through chapters that are more like linked short stories: they focus on themes (family, friends, career, sex, clothing, health) and loop back to events to add more detail and new insight. I found the repetition of basic information about Larry somewhat off-putting in that it's as if we start over with this character with each chapter – the same might be said of Olive Kitteridge, but that book's composition was drawn out and it involves a multiplicity of perspectives, which explains the slight detachment from Olive. Here the third-person narration sticks close to Larry but gives glimpses into other points of view, tiny hints of other stories – a man with AIDS, a woman trying to atone for lifelong selfishness, and so on.
From my first reading I remembered a climactic event involving the Winnipeg maze; a ribald chapter entitled "Larry's Penis," about his second marriage to a younger woman and more; and the closing dinner party, a masterful sequence composed almost entirely of overlapping dialogue (like the final wedding reception scene in her earlier novel, The Box Garden) as Larry hosts his two ex-wives, his current girlfriend, his sister and his partner, and a colleague and boss. What is it like to be a man today? someone asks, and through the responses Shields suggests a state of uneasiness, of walking on eggshells and trying not to be a chauvinist in a world whose boundaries are being redrawn by feminism. That process has continued in the decades since, though with predictable backlash from those who consider women a threat.
It seems slightly ironic that Shields won the Women's Prize for this episodic fictional biography of a man, but I found so much to relate to in Larry's story – the "how did I get here?" self-questioning, the search for life's meaning, "the clutter of good luck and bad" – that I'd say Larry is really all of us.
One of Shields's best, and quite possibly my winner of winners.
My original rating (2008?):
My rating now:
Currently rereading: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
A skim:
A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore (1995)
An annoying thing happened with this one: the back cover blurb gave away a central theme. It's one I'm keen to avoid yet feel I have encountered disproportionately often in fiction, especially recently (I won't name any titles as that would give it away instantly). Dunmore writes nicely – from my quick skim of this one it seemed very atmospheric – but I am not particularly drawn to her plots. I've read Exposure for book club and own two more of her novels, Talking to the Dead and Zennor in Darkness, so by the time I've read those I will have given her a solid try. So far I've preferred her poetry – I've read three of her collections.
A favorite passage:
"It is winter in the house. This morning the ice on my basin of water is so thick I can not break it. The windows stare back at me, blind with frost. … I can see nothing through the frost flowers on the glass. I wonder if it is snowing yet, but I think it is too cold. … I look at the house, still and breathless in the frost. I have got what I wanted. A spell of winter hangs over it, and everyone has gone."
And a DNF:
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011)
Patroclus is a disappointment of a prince. He has no chance of winning Helen of Troy's hand in marriage, and exile awaits him when he is responsible for an accidental death. As a foster child in the household of another king, he becomes obsessed with Achilles. The two young men take part in music lessons and military training, and Patroclus follows Achilles away from the palace to be taught by a centaur. That's as far as I got before I couldn't bear any more. The homoerotic hints are laughably unsubtle: (of a lyre) "'You can hold it, if you like.' The wood would be smooth and known as my own skin" & (fighting) "he rolled me beneath him, pinning me, his knees in my belly. I panted, angry but strangely satisfied."
I got a free download from Emerald Street, the Stylist magazine e-newsletter. The ancient world, and Greek mythology in particular, do not draw me in the least, and I have had bad experiences with updates of Greek myths before (e.g. Bright Air Black by David Vann). I never thought this would be a book for me, but still wanted to attempt it so I could complete the set of Women's Prize winners. I read 77 pages out of 278 in the e-book, but when I have to force myself to pick up a book, I know it's a lost cause. As with the Dunmore, I think it's safe to say this one never would have gotten my vote anyway.
The final four to complete my project:
(On the stack to read soon)
The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville – free from mall bookshop
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney – public library copy
How to Be Both by Ali Smith – public library copy; a planned buddy read with B.I.P.
(To get from the university library)
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Read any Women's Prize winners lately?
Posted in: Fiction Reviews, Literary Prizes, rereading	| Tagged: buddy read, Canada, Canadian literature, Carol Shields, David Vann, Elizabeth Strout, feminism, Greek mythology, Helen Dunmore, historical fiction, Israel, Jewish, Linda Grant, linked short stories, Madeline Miller, maze, New Orleans, Orange Prize, rereading, slavery, Valerie Martin, Winnipeg, Women's Prize, Women's Prize for Fiction
Reading Statistics for the First Half of 2020, Including Where My Books Came From
By Rebecca Foster on June 27, 2020 | 24 Comments
Almost halfway through the year: how am I doing on the reading goals I set for myself? Pretty well!
It might not look like it from the statistics below, but I have drastically cut down on the number of review copies I'm requesting or accepting from publishers. (This time last year they made up 43% of my reading.)
I've reread nine books so far, which is more than I can remember doing in any other year – and I intend to continue prioritizing rereads in the remaining months.
Thanks to COVID-19, over the past few months I have been reading a lot less from the libraries I use and, consequently, more from my own shelves. This might continue into next month but thereafter, when libraries reopen, my borrowing will increase.
I've also bought many more new books than is usual for me, to directly support authors and independent bookshops.
I'm not managing one doorstopper per month (I've only done May so far, though I have a few lined up for June‒August), but I am averaging at least one classic per month (I only missed January, but made up for it with multiple in two other months).
On literature in translation, I'm doing better: it's made up 9.7% of my reading, versus 8.1% in 2019.
The breakdown:
Poetry: 6.1%
(This time last year I'd read exactly equal numbers of fiction and nonfiction books. Fiction seems to be winning this year. Poetry is down massively: last June it was at 15.4%.)
Anthologies with pieces by authors of multiple genders: 1.8%
(No non-binary authors so far this year. Even more female-dominated than last year.)
(E-books have crept up a bit since last year due to some publishers only offering PDF review copies during the pandemic, but I have still been picking up many more print books.)
I always find it interesting to look back at where my books come from. Here are the statistics for the year so far, in percentages (not including the books I'm currently reading, DNFs or books I only skimmed):
Free print or e-copy from the publisher: 25.5%
Free, e.g. from Book Thing of Baltimore, local swap shop or free mall bookshop: 16.4%
Downloaded from NetGalley or Edelweiss: 8.5%
New purchase: 7.3%
How are you doing on any reading goals you set for yourself?
Where do you get most of your books from?
Posted in: Reading habits	| Tagged: classics, doorstoppers, e-books, free books, library books, literature in translation, reading goals, rereading, secondhand books, statistics
Adventures in Rereading: The Sixteenth of June by Maya Lang
Last year I reviewed Tenth of December by George Saunders on its title date; this year I couldn't resist rereading one of my favorites from 2014 for today's date (which just so happens to be Bloomsday, made famous by James Joyce's Ulysses), The Sixteenth of June.
I responded to the novel at length when it first came out. No point in reinventing the wheel, so here are mildly edited paragraphs of synopsis from my review for The Bookbag:
Maya Lang's playful and exquisitely accomplished debut novel, set on the centenary of the original Bloomsday, transplants many characters and set pieces from Ulysses to near-contemporary Philadelphia. Don't fret, though – even if, like me, you haven't read Ulysses, you'll have no trouble following the thread. In fact, Lang dedicates her book to "all the readers who never made it through Ulysses (or haven't wanted to try)." (Though if you wish to spot parallels, pull up any online summary of Ulysses; there is also a page on Lang's website listing her direct quotations from Joyce.)
On June 16, 2004, brothers Leopold and Stephen Portman have two major commitments: their grandmother Hannah's funeral is happening at the local synagogue in the morning; and their parents' annual Bloomsday party will take place at their opulent Delancey Street home in the evening. Around those two thematic poles – the genuine emotions of grief and regret on the one hand, and the realm of superficial entertainment on the other – the novel expands outward to provide a nuanced picture of three ambivalent twenty-something lives.
The third side of this atypical love triangle is Nora, Stephen's best friend from Yale – and Leo's fiancée. Nora, a trained opera singer, is still reeling from her mother's death from cancer one year ago. She's been engaging in self-harming behavior, and Leo – a macho, literal-minded IT consultant – just wants to fix her. Nora and Stephen, by contrast, are sensitive, artistic souls who seem better suited to each other. Stephen, too, is struggling to find a meaning in death, but also to finish his languishing dissertation on Virginia Woolf.
Literature is almost as potent a marker of upper-class status as money here: some of the Portmans might not have even read Joyce's masterpiece, but that doesn't stop them name-dropping and maintaining the pretense of being well-read. While Lang might not mimic the extremes of Joyce's stream-of-consciousness style, she prioritizes interiority over external action by using a close third-person voice that shifts between her main characters' points of view. Their histories and thoughts are revealed mostly through interior monologues and conversations. Lang's writing is full of mordant shards of humor; one of my favorite lines was "No one in a eulogy ever said, She watched TV with the volume on too loud."
During my rereading, I was captivated more by the portraits of grief than by the subtle intellectual and class differences. I appreciated the characterization and the Joycean peekaboo, and the dialogue and shifts between perspectives still felt fresh and effortless. I could relate to Stephen and Nora's feelings of being stuck and unsure how to move on in life. And the ending, which I'd completely forgotten, was perfect. I didn't enjoy this quite as much the second time around, but it's still a treasured signed copy on my shelf.
My original rating (June 2014):
Readalikes: Writers & Lovers by Lily King and The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud (my upcoming Doorstopper of the Month).
(See also my review of Lang's recent memoir, What We Carry.)
Alas, I've also had a couple of failed rereading attempts recently…
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
I remembered this as a zany family history quest turned into fiction. A Jewish-American character named Jonathan Safran Foer travels to (fictional) Trachimbrod, Ukraine to find the traces of his ancestors and, specifically, the woman who hid his grandfather from the Nazis. I had totally forgotten about the comic narration via letters from Jonathan's translator/tour guide, Alexander, who fancies himself a ladies' man and whose English is full of comic thesaurus use (e.g. "Do not dub me that," "Guilelessly yours"). This was amusing, but got to be a bit much. I'd also forgotten about the dense magic realism of the historical sections. As with A Visit from the Goon Squad, what felt dazzlingly clever on a first read (in January 2011) failed to capture me a second time. [35 pages]
Interestingly, Foer's mother, Esther, released a memoir earlier this year, I Want You to Know We're Still Here. It's about the family history her son turned into quirky autofiction: a largely fruitless trip he took to Ukraine to research his maternal grandfather's life for his Princeton thesis, and a more productive follow-up trip she took with her older son in 2009. Esther Safran Foer was born in Poland and lived in a German displaced persons camp until she and her parents emigrated to Washington, D.C. in 1949. Her father committed suicide in 1954, making him almost a belated victim of the Holocaust. The stories she hears in Ukraine – of the slaughter of entire communities; of moments of good luck that allowed her parents to, separately, survive and find each other – are remarkable, but the book's prose, while capable, never sings. Plus, she references her son's novel so often that I wondered why someone would read her book when they could read his instead.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith (2005)
This was an all-time favorite when it first came out. I remembered a sophisticated homage to E.M. Forster's Howards End, featuring a biracial family in Cambridge, Mass. I remembered no specifics beyond a giant music store and (embarrassingly) an awkward sex scene. Howard Belsey's long-distance rivalry with a fellow Rembrandt scholar gets personal when the Kipps family relocates from London to the Boston suburbs for Monty to be the new celebrity lecturer at the same college. Howard is in the doghouse with his African-American wife, Kiki, after having an affair. The Belsey boy and Kipps girl have an awkward romantic history. Zora Belsey is smitten with a lower-class spoken word poet she meets after a classical concert in the park when they pick up each other's Discmans by accident (so dated!). All of the portraits felt like stereotypes to me, and there was so much telling, so much backstory, so many unnecessary secondary characters. Before I would have said this was my obvious Women's Prize winner of winners, but now I have no idea what I'll vote for. [107 pages]
Currently rereading: Watership Down by Richard Adams, Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn, Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
To reread soon: Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty & Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
Done any rereading lately?
Posted in: Fiction Reviews, Nonfiction Reviews, rereading	| Tagged: autofiction, Bloomsday, Boston, Cambridge, campus novels, Claire Messud, E. M. Forster, Esther Safran Foer, George Saunders, grief, Holocaust, James Joyce, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Lily King, magic realism, Maya Lang, Philadelphia, rereading, signed copies, suicide, The Bookbag, Ukraine, Virginia Woolf, Women's Prize, Zadie Smith
New Reading Projects! (Join Me?)
By Rebecca Foster on May 18, 2020 | 44 Comments
It's only one week since we announced the Not the Wellcome Prize winner, the culmination of a month-long project that was months more in the planning. I don't think I'll be coordinating another blog tour anytime soon, as it was a lot of work finding participants, working out a schedule and keeping on top of the publicizing via social media. Still, it was a lot of fun, and already I'm missing the buzz and ready to get stuck into more projects.
I'd love it if you joined me for one or more of these. Some could be combined with your 20 Books of Summer or other challenges, too.
Ongoing buddy reads
It would have been Richard Adams's 100th birthday on the 9th. That night I started rereading his classic tale of rabbits in peril, Watership Down, which was my favorite book from childhood even though I only read it the once at age nine. I'm 80 pages in and enjoying all the local place names. Who would ever have predicted that that mousy tomboy from Silver Spring, Maryland would one day live just 6.5 miles from the real Watership Down?!
My husband is joining me for the Watership Down read (he's not sure he ever read it before), and we're also doing a buddy read of Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez. In that case, we ended up with two free copies, one from the bookshop where I volunteer and the other from The Book Thing of Baltimore, so we each have a copy on the go. Lopez's style, like Peter Matthiessen's, lends itself to slower, reflective reading, so I'm only two chapters in. It's novel to journey to the Arctic, especially as we approach the summer.
I plan to take my time over these two, so tell me if you have a copy of either and feel like picking it up at any point over the next few months.
Bibliotherapy self-prescriptions
The other day I got out my copy of The Novel Cure by School of Life bibliotherapists Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin and browsed through the categories for some prescriptions that might feel relevant to the current situation. I found four books I own that fit the bill:
From the list of "The Ten Best Novels to Lower Your Blood Pressure": Your Presence Is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman & The Waves by Virginia Woolf (and I've read another three of them, including, recently, Crossing to Safety).
One of several prescriptions for Loneliness: Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.
The cure for Zestlessness: Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow.
If you have access to one of these, or have a copy of The Novel Cure and are keen on following up on another of the prescriptions, let me know.
And now for two memes that I (think I) have created. Although I'm sure something similar has been done in the past, I couldn't find any specific blogs about them. I don't know about you, but I always need encouragement to pick up books from my own shelves – even though libraries are currently closed, I'm still working my way through a library stack, and I'm tempted to make another order of new books from Hungerford Bookshop. It's great to support libraries and independent bookstores, of course, but there could be no better time to mine your own bookshelves for treasures you bought ages ago but still have never read.
Journey through the Day with Books
I enjoyed picking out 18 books from my shelves that refer to particular times of day or meals or activities associated therewith. Four of these are books I've already read and four are ones I'm currently reading. You can piggyback on my selections if you wish, or find your own set.
Here's my full list:
Up with the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth
Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer
Three-Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell
The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Talk before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg
Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
Bodies in Motion and at Rest by Thomas Lynch
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
The Four in a Row Challenge
I've been contemplating this one for quite a while. It's inspired by Phyllis Rose's The Shelf –from LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading (one of Simon's favourite books – see his review), for which she picked a shelf of the New York Society Library, eliminated duplicates and repeat entries from the same author, and read the remainder – whether she'd heard of them or not; whether they were awful or not. ("Hands down the worst book on the shelf is Le Queux's Three Knots, a mystery that reads as if it were written by an eight-year-old on Percocet.")
This is a variation in that you're looking at your own TBR shelves and picking a set of four books in a row. For many, that will be four novels whose authors' surnames all start with the same letter. But if you organize your books differently (especially within nonfiction), you may find that the set of four is more arbitrary. You never know what they might have in common, though (book serendipity!).
I'm no strict challenge host, so if you want to engineer your shelf order, or if you decide to swap a book in later on, that is no problem at all. My one firm rule is only one book per author.
I've picked out a few appealing sets, all from my fiction shelves. F, G, L and M had particularly rich pickings. I'll report back as I finish each set, while the "Journey through a Day" may well take me the whole rest of the year.
Still ongoing (more here): Projects to read as many Bellwether Prize, Wellcome Book Prize and Women's Prize winners as possible, as well as Wellcome long- and shortlistees.
Can I tempt you to take part in any of these reading projects?
[Journey through the Day: Sunrise in Pieniny, Poland (Pudelek / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)) / Sunset (Alvesgaspar / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0))
Four in a Row: Four pelicans in a row (Sheba_Also 43,000 photos / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)) / Phone boxes, Market Place, Ripon (Tim Green from Bradford / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0))]
Posted in: memes, Reading habits	| Tagged: Anna Quindlen, Anne Tyler, Antal Szerb, Arctic, Armistead Maupin, Barry Lopez, Bellwether Prize, Bibliotherapy, Book Thing of Baltimore, buddy read, Carys Bray, E.L. Doctorow, Elizabeth Berg, Elizabeth Hay, Ella Berthoud, Helen Dunmore, Hungerford Bookshop, Jean Rhys, Jonathan Coe, Kent Haruf, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Lydia Netzer, Maile Chapman, memes, Not the Wellcome Prize, Peter Matthiessen, Phyllis Rose, reading projects, rereading, Richard Adams, Ryszard Kapuściński, School of Life, Shūsaku Endō, Susan Elderkin, Suzanne Rindell, Tessa Hainsworth, The Novel Cure, Thomas Lynch, Virginia Woolf, Wellcome Book Prize, Women's Prize
Soul Food: Rereading Anne Lamott
By Rebecca Foster on May 8, 2020 | 17 Comments
I first read Anne Lamott's autobiographical essays on faith in about 2005, when I was in my early twenties and a recovering fundamentalist and Republican. She's a Northern Californian ex-alcoholic, a single mother, a white lady with dreadlocks. Her liberal, hippie approach to Christianity was a bit much for me back then. I especially remember her raging against George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. But even if I couldn't fully get behind all of her views, her picture of a fumbling faith that doesn't claim to know much for certain appealed to me. Jesus is for her the herald of a radical path of love and grace. Lamott describes herself stumbling towards kindness and forgiveness while uttering the three simplest and truest prayers she knows, "Help, thanks, wow." I only own three of her eight spiritual books (though I've read them all), so I recently reread them one right after the other – the best kind of soul food binge in a stressful time.
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999)
Her first and best collection. Many of these pieces first appeared in Salon web magazine. There is a lot of bereavement and other dark stuff here, yet an overall lightness of spirit prevails. Lamott's father died of melanoma that metastasized to his brain (her work has meant a lot to my sister because her husband, too, died of brain cancer) and her best friend Pammy died of breast cancer – both far too young. A college dropout, alcoholic and drug addict, Lamott didn't walk into a church and get clean until she was in her early thirties. Newly sober and with the support of the community, she was able to face unexpected motherhood and raise Sam in the church, clinging to fragments of family and nurturing seeds of faith.
The essays sometimes zero in on moments of crisis or decision, but more often on everyday angst, such as coming to terms with a middle-aged body. "Thirst" and "Hunger" are a gorgeous pair about getting sober and addressing disordered eating. "Ashes," set on one Ash Wednesday, sees her trying to get her young son interested in the liturgical significance and remembering scattering Pammy's ashes. "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and "Barn Raising" are two classics about surviving a turbulent flight and supporting a local family whose child has cystic fibrosis. Each essay is perfectly constructed: bringing together multiple incidents and themes in a lucid way, full of meaning but never over-egging the emotion.
Like A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas, this was even better the second time around – I can see that the memoir-in-essays is now among my most admired forms.
Some favorite lines:
"The main reason [that she makes Sam go to church] is that I want to give him what I found in the world[: …] a path and a little light to see by. Most of the people I know who have what I want—which is to say, purpose, heart, balance, gratitude, joy—are people with a deep sense of spirituality."
"You really do have to eat, anything at all you can bear. So we had smoothies, with bananas, which I believe to be the only known cure for existential dread."
"most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of people."
"even though I am a feminist and even though I am religious, I secretly believe, in some mean little rat part of my brain, that I am my skin, my hair, and worst of all, those triangles of fat that pooch at the top of my thighs. In other words, that I am my packaging."
My original rating (c. 2005):
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (2005)
Here's the more political material I remembered from Lamott. Desperately angry about the impending Iraq War, she struggles to think civilly about Bush. "I wake up some mornings pinned to the bed by centrifugal sadness and frustration." In the meantime, her difficult mother has died and it takes years to get to a point where she can take the woman's ashes (with a misspelling on the name label) out of the closet and think of scattering them. Sam is a teenager and there are predictable battles of wills but also touching moments as they rekindle a relationship with his father. Lamott also starts a Sunday School and says goodbye to a dear old dog. A few of the essays (especially "One Hand Clapping") feel like filler, and there are fewer memorable lines. "Ham of God," though, is an absolute classic about the everyday miracle of a free ham she could pass on to a family who needed it.
I've been surprised that Lamott hasn't vented her spleen against Donald Trump in her most recent books – he makes Bush look like a saint, after all. But I think it must be some combination of spiritual maturity and not wanting to alienate a potential fan base (though to most evangelicals she'll be beyond the pale anyway). Although her response to current events makes this book less timeless than Traveling Mercies, I found some of her words applicable to any troubled period: "These are such rich, ripe times for paranoia and despair that each celebration, each occasion of tribal love and music and overeating glows more brightly … People are helping one another keep their spirits up."
My secondhand copy has had quite the journey: it has a "The Munich Readery" stamp in the front and has sat text block facing out on a shelf for ages judging by the pattern of yellowing; I picked it up from the Community Furniture Project, a local charity warehouse, last year for a matter of pence.
(on caring for an ageing body) "You celebrate what works and you take tender care of what doesn't, with lotion, polish and kindness."
"Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down."
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace (2014)
This is a sort of "Greatest Hits" collection of new and selected essays. I skipped over the ones I'd just encountered in Traveling Mercies and Plan B to focus on the newer material. I don't have a copy of Grace (Eventually), her third set of essays on faith, so I wasn't sure which were from that and which were previously unpublished in book form. More so than before, Lamott's thoughts turn to ageing and her changing family dynamic – she's now a grandmother. As usual, the emphasis is on being kind to oneself and learning the art of forgiveness. Sometimes it seems like her every friend or relative has cancer. Her writing has tailed off noticeably in quality, but I suspect there's still no one many of us would rather hear from about life and faith. It's a beautiful book, too, with deckle edge, blue type and gold accents. My favorite of the new stuff was "Matches," about Internet dating.
My original rating (2015):
My rating now (for the newer material only):
Currently rereading: Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Considering rereading next: Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty
What books have been balm for the soul for you?
Posted in: Nonfiction Reviews, rereading	| Tagged: Abigail Thomas, addiction, ageing, alcoholism, Anne Lamott, brain cancer, breast cancer, cancer, Christianity, essays, forgiveness, George W. Bush, Iraq War, Jonathan Safran Foer, Mark Doty, memoirs, rereading, single parenting, spirituality, theology
Adventures in Rereading: Julian Barnes and Jennifer Egan
By Rebecca Foster on March 2, 2020 | 20 Comments
My last two rereads ended up being as good as or better than they had been the first time around; these two, however, failed to live up to my memory of them, one of them dramatically so. My increased literary experience and/or the advance of years meant these works felt less fresh than they did the first time around.
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (1984)
Barnes is in my trio of favorite authors, along with A. S. Byatt and David Lodge. He's an unapologetic intellectual and a notable Francophile who often toggles between England and France, especially in his essays and short stories. This was his third novel and riffs on the life and works of Gustave Flaubert, best known for Madame Bovary.
Odd-numbered chapters build a straightforward narrative as Geoffrey Braithwaite, a widower, retired doctor and self-described "senile amateur scholar," travels to Rouen for five days to see the sites associated with Flaubert and becomes obsessed with determining which of two museum-held stuffed parrots Flaubert used as his inspiration while writing the story "A Simple Heart." Even-numbered chapters, however, throw in a variety of different formats: a Flaubert chronology, a bestiary, an investigation of the contradictory references to Emma Bovary's eye color, a dictionary of accepted ideas, an examination paper, and an imagined prosecutor's case against the writer.
There are themes and elements here that recur in much of Barnes's later work:
History – what remains of a life? ("He died little more than a hundred years ago, and all that remains of him is paper.")
Love versus criticism of one's country ("The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonourably, foolishly, viciously.")
Time and its effects on relationships and memory
How life is transmuted into art
Languages and wordplay
Indeed, I was most struck by Chapter 13, "Pure Story," in which Dr. Braithwaite finally comes clean about his wife's death and the complications of their relationship. Barnes writes about grief so knowingly and with such nuance, yet his own wife, Pat Kavanagh, didn't die until 2008. Much of what he's published since then has dwelt on loss, but more than two decades earlier he was already able to inhabit that experience in his imagination.
As a 22-year-old graduate student, I gobbled this up even though I knew very little about French literature and history and hadn't yet read any Flaubert. I wasn't quite as dazzled by the literary and biographical experimentation this time. While I still admired the audacity of the novel, I wouldn't call it a personal favorite any longer. I think others of Barnes's works will resonate for me more on a reread.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)
This makes up a pleasing pair as it shares Barnes's experimentation with form and meditation on time. Before my reread I only remembered that it was about washed-up musicians and that there was one second-person chapter and another told as a PowerPoint presentation. Looking back at my original review, I see I was impressed by how Egan interrogated "society's obsession with youth and celebrity, the moments of decision that can lead to success or to downfall … and the way time (the 'goon' of the title) and failure can wear away at one's identity." Back then I called the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "achingly fresh, contemporary and postmodern. It is, in fact, so up-to-the-minute that one wonders how long that minute can last." I was right to question its enduring appeal: this time I found the book detached, show-offy and even silly in places, and the characterization consistently left me cold.
This was probably the first linked short story collection I ever read (now a favorite subgenre), and the first time I'd encountered second-person narration in fiction, so it's no wonder I was intrigued. "Each chapter involves a very clever shift in time period and point of view," I noted in 2011. This time, though, I found the 1970s–2020s timeline unnecessarily diffuse, and I was so disinterested in most of the characters – kleptomaniac PA Sasha, post-punk music producer Bennie, musician turned janitor turned children's performer Scotty, a disgraced journalist, a starlet, and so on – that I didn't care to revisit them.
The chapter in which Scotty catches a fish and takes it into Bennie's office was a favorite, along with the PowerPoint presentation Sasha's daughter puts together on the great pauses of rock music (while also revealing a lot about her family dynamic), but I found the segment on PR attempts to burnish an African general's reputation far-fetched and ended up mostly skimming five of the last six chapters.
This was a buddy read with Laura T. (see her review); we came to similar conclusions: this may have felt fresh and even prescient about technology in 2010–11, but it didn't stand up to a reread; still, we'll keep our copies if just for the 75-page PowerPoint presentation.
Note: Egan has said that her next project is a companion piece to Goon Squad that uses a similar structure and follows some of its peripheral characters into new territory. Based on this rereading experience, I don't think I'll seek out the sequel.
To reread next: Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer and On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Posted in: Fiction Reviews, rereading	| Tagged: A.S. Byatt, biographies, David Lodge, France, Gustave Flaubert, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Safran Foer, Julian Barnes, linked short stories, Pat Kavanagh, PowerPoint, rereading, Rouen, second person, Zadie Smith


This lightweight T-shirt has a feminine fit and is made with a long lasting 70/30 polyester/cotton blend. It's travel friendly style, supremely breathable and has comfort of cotton for everyday use. A floral print completes the look.


The Pullman Oceanview Resort and Spa (Sanyawan Haiju Boerman Dujia Jiudian) is located in Sanya Bay, overlooking the ocean and close to Dadonghai Beach, about 7 kilometers from Phoenix International Airport.
Pullman Oceanview Resort and Spa Sanya Opened in 2011, the 17-story hotel offers 413 rooms and suites, featuring satellite televisions, high-speed Internet, coffee/tea makers, mini-bars, climate control and in-room safes. Bathrooms include bathtubs and hair dryers. Cribs, wake-up calls and room service are also available.
The Pullman Oceanview Resort and Spa Sanya property features an outdoor swimming pool, a restaurant, multilingual staff, exercise facility, sauna and massage center, health spa, concierge service, ATM banking, currency exchange, beauty salon, billiards, private beach, babysitting service, tour assistance, limousine service, safe-deposit boxes, free parking and medical care on call. Business facilities include a business center and audio-visual equipment.


Storer Communications Inc., fighting an attempt by dissident shareholders to liquidate the company, signed a merger agreement with the Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. investing firm. Specs: Each share of Storer common stock would be converted into $75 in cash, $25 face value of preference stock, and warrants to purchase common stock in the new company. Before it can be finalized, it must be approved by shareholders, the Federal Communications Commission and cable franchising authorities. Officials at Storer, the nation's fifth-largest cable TV company, say the transaction should be completed by the end of the year. Upshot: Kohlberg Kravis officials say the merger would automatically be terminated if fewer than five incumbent directors are re-elected to the nine-member board at Storer's annual meeting Tuesday.


text:
Federer drops set, wins opener in Australia
Dennis Passa, The Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia – The last time Roger Federer played at Rod Laver Arena, he left in tears after losing the Australian Open final to Rafael Nadal a year ago.
There were no such waterworks Tuesday, just a few tense moments for the Swiss star seeking his 16th Grand Slam title in a 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-0 first-round win over Igor Andreev of Russia.
Federer lost the first set after leading by a break, then saved three set points in the 12th game of the third set before winning the tiebreaker and dominating the fourth set.
It was a far cry from last year when Federer shed tears after having missed his first chance to equal Pete Sampras' 14 Grand Slam titles – a feat he later achieved and surpassed with wins at the French Open and Wimbledon.
"It's killing me …. maybe I'll try later," Federer said last January when he was not able to speak initially at the trophy presentation.
On Tuesday, Federer was all smiles at the courtside television interview with two-time Australian Open champion Jim Courier. Now a TV commentator, Courier reminded Federer that he had not lost a set in the first round of a major in more than six years.
"I did know it was going to be tough, we played five sets in New York two years back and I really had to adjust my game to beat him," Federer said of Andreev. "I think I definitely got lucky to get out of that one. It was a fortunate third set today. I prefer easier matches, but this worked as well."
Top-ranked Serena Williams, the defending champion, had an easy first-rounder, beating Urszula Radwanska of Poland 6-2, 6-1. Her sister, sixth-seeded Venus, cruised past Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-2.
Melanie Oudin, the 18-year-old American who made a surprising run to last year's U.S. Open quarterfinals, lost her first-round match 2-6, 7-5, 7-5 to Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia. Oudin has won just one WTA Tour match since the U.S. Open.
Americans James Blake and John Isner reached the second round, but No. 25 Sam Querrey lost to German Rainer Schuettler. Blake had a 7-5, 7-5, 6-2 win over Frenchman Arnaud Clement, while Isner held off Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-3, 6-3, 3-6, 5-7, 6-4.
Third-seeded Novak Djokovic defeated Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 in a night match. Djokovic won his first and only Grand Slam at the 2008 Australian Open, losing just one set during the two-week tournament and beat Roger Federer in the semifinals.
Hometown favorite Lleyton Hewitt, still trying to win his first Australian Open after losing in the 2005 final to Marat Safin, opened with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 win over qualifier Ricardo Hocevar of Brazil.
Serena Williams' record in the first round of the Slams is even more impressive than Federer's – she has never lost an opener.
"I was a little nervous today because that's always on the back of my mind," Williams said. "Records are meant to be broken. This one means a lot to me … just to have an opportunity to have not lost yet in the first round of a Grand Slam – knock on wood – is really good for me."
Williams' demeanor was also far different from her last Grand Slam appearance at last year's U.S Open. An outburst against a line judge who called a foot fault cost Williams the match, a record fine of $82,500 and a suspended ban. That means she could miss a U.S. Open if she has another outburst at any Grand Slam event in the next two years.
"I always said what I did wasn't right … I don't know whoever got fined like that. People said worse, done worse. I just thought it was a bit much."
The 28-year-old American hurt her left knee at the Sydney International on Friday and later said she's been bothered by a foot problem. She played with her right thigh heavily wrapped on Tuesday, but said it was more for precaution.
Williams' win in 73 minutes contrasted what the WTA Tour said was a record for the longest women's match at a major in the Open era. Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic needed 4 hours, 19 minutes to beat Regina Kulikova of Russia 7-6 (5), 6-7 (10), 6-3.
Meanwhile, No. 8 Jelena Jankovic, No. 11 Marion Bartoli, No. 13 Sam Stosur and No. 19 Nadia Petrova advanced along with No. 26 Aravane Rezai, who beat India's Sania Mirza 6-4, 6-2.
No. 18 Virginie Razzano lost 6-2, 6-3 to Russia's Ekaterina Makarova and American Vania King ousted No. 23 Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-3, 6-7 (5), 7-5.
On the men's side, sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko, No. 9 Fernando Verdasco – who lost an epic five-set semifinal to Nadal here last year – No. 10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, No. 12 Gael Monfils of France, No. 19 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland and No. 21 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic all advanced.
Fabrice Santoro extended his Grand Slam career into a fourth decade, but he lasted only one match – a 7-5, 7-5, 6-3 loss to 14th-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia.
The 37-year-old Frenchman, who started his Grand Slam career at the 1989 French Open, retired last season but returned to Melbourne Park for a record 70th major.
American Donald Young advanced with a 1-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 win over Christophe Rochus of Belgium.
Richard Gasquet, competing in his third tournament since a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport allowed him to return to playing, was beaten by 20th-seeded Mikhail Youzhny 6-7 (9), 4-6, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), 6-4 in a night match lasting 4 hours, 53 minutes.
A doping test provided by Gasquet last March showed traces of cocaine. A panel of three lawyers from the CAS accepted Gasquet's claim that he inadvertently consumed cocaine by kissing a woman in a Miami club hours after withdrawing from a tournament with an injury.
The rain that allowed only 26 of the scheduled 64 matches to be completed on the opening day gave way to sunny conditions Tuesday, allowing officials to clear up most of the backlog.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Bedfont were bigger, quicker and a class above as they cruised into the next round.
The Swans vs Leicester Nirvana – Sat 26th Sept – KO 3pm.
Smell Like Team Spirit? Nevermind. Swans host Nirvana this Saturday.
MK Dons Dominate in an entertaining game !
MK Dons Ladies 1-1 Luton Town Ladies.
The woodwork and goal line clearances came to the rescue of the Hatters.
More players improving their skills than last year!
THE BIG Shave for Jaycee May!
Tuesday 15th Sept – 6pm onwards….
The Swans vs Cogenhoe Utd – KO 7:45pm.
Tues 15th Sept – KO 7:45pm.
Young Swans progress in FA Youth Cup.
Friday 4th Sept – 8pm Kick Off !


text:
Norwood shooting victim laid to rest Saturday
Benefit planned for Friday, Dec. 14, at Woodlawn Armory
Adrianne Kelly
Digital Editor
Officers said Porshia Lynn Brooks, 20, was found in the driver's seat of her car. Aron Martin, 21, was found in the street next to the car.
Funeral services were held Saturday for a woman killed in a robbery in Norwood.The viewing for Porshia Brooks was held Saturday morning, followed by services at Crossroads Church in Oakley.Brooks and her boyfriend, Aron Martin, were shot in front of a home on Carthage Avenue last month. Brooks died a few days later from her injuries.Martin was still recovering.A benefit and memorial fund have been set up to assist the family with funeral costs and hospital expenses.The benefit is planned for Friday, Dec. 14, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Woodlawn Armory.Donations can be made to the Porshia Brooks Memorial account at any Fifth Third Bank location.
NORWOOD, Ohio —
Funeral services were held Saturday for a woman killed in a robbery in Norwood.
The viewing for Porshia Brooks was held Saturday morning, followed by services at Crossroads Church in Oakley.
Brooks and her boyfriend, Aron Martin, were shot in front of a home on Carthage Avenue last month. Brooks died a few days later from her injuries.
Martin was still recovering.
A benefit and memorial fund have been set up to assist the family with funeral costs and hospital expenses.
The benefit is planned for Friday, Dec. 14, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Woodlawn Armory.
Donations can be made to the Porshia Brooks Memorial account at any Fifth Third Bank location.


On Tuesday, October 9, the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) hosted a tribal leader's reception at the 2018 Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The theme of the reception was honoring the outstanding leaders and advocates of the tribal government gaming industry. Among those being honored was Commissioner Chairman of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe Gaming Commission, Rudy Wambsgans III.
The National Indian Gaming Association is an inter-tribal association of federally recognized Indian Tribes united with the mission of protecting and preserving tribal sovereignty and the ability of Tribes to attain economic self-sufficiency through gaming and other forms of economic development.


text:
Le dihydrojasmonate de méthyle ou Hédione (nom commercial) est un composant utilisé en parfumerie et aromatique alimentaire.

Origine
Le dihydrojasmonate de méthyle a été découvert dans les  par la société suisse Firmenich, breveté en 1962 sous le nom de « Hedione ». L'Hédione a été élaborée sur le dihydrojasmonate de méthyle, un composé découvert dans l'absolue de jasmin. Sa note linéaire capture le côté frais du jasmin.

Issue de la synthèse organique, l'Hédione a été mise en vedette lors du lancement de l'Eau sauvage (Parfums Christian Dior) en 1966. Ses notes fraîches et aériennes de jasmin ont, dit-on, révolutionné la palette du parfumeur. Aujourd'hui, l'Hédione est un des produits les plus utilisés en parfumerie, aussi bien dans les parfums masculins que féminins.

Utilisations
L'Hédione est fréquemment utilisée dans les parfums. Elle apporte une note jasmin d'eau, fraîche et fleurie aux accents citronnés. On la trouve aussi dans :
 Diorella de Christian Dior (1972) ;
 Chrome de Azzaro.

L'Hédione est Fema GRAS (numéro 3408) et est utilisée comme composant d'arôme.

Notes et références

Articles connexes
 Parfum
 Arôme

Ester de méthyle
Cyclopentanone
Composant de parfum
Arôme

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
LEGAL PRACTICE DIRECTOR (Acc. Spec. Fam.)
PO BOX 116 Mackay Q 4740
ifield@familylawyersmackay.com.au
https://www.familylawyersmackay.com.au
Accredited Specialist Family Lawyer
Ian Field is a highly experienced and Accredited Specialist Family Lawyer in Mackay and Brisbane with a wide range of knowledge in many aspects of Family Law and Children's matters holding certifications in mediation and collaborative practice in Australia and the UK.
Using his first degree in Sociology, from the University of Warwick in England, Ian commenced working in the voluntary sector in the UK. His managerial skills were quickly identified and he became manager of an organisation that ran a community centre that engaged with older people living on the White City Estate in West London. It was during this time that Ian did the heavy-lifting and by night and at weekends he completed a law degree through Middlesex University while juggling a young family.
A promotion ensued and Ian moved to a national UK charity that provided a variety of services for older people called Age Concern in Harrow, an outer London Borough and home of the famed Harrow School (of which Winston Churchill was an alumni). The heavy lifting continued with Ian successfully undertaking the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in central London, 2 years part-time.
The charitable sector's loss was the legal professions gain and over the next 6 years Ian ascended from the ranks of a trainee Solicitor in a small practice in Surrey, to becoming a valued solicitor at Barlow Robbins which at the time was the largest firm in Surrey. For the uninitiated Surrey is the stockbroker's belt and perhaps accounts for Ian's taste for the finer things in life.
True to his word from 25 years ago, Ian moved to Australia with his young family in 2006 and worked at Connor Hunter, Cleveland for 4 years before joining Mark as a partner at Aylward Game in September 2011.
Apart from his extensive trans-equatorial legal experience, Ian brings sound commercial acumen to the table (and for a Pom is a pretty good bloke).
As for his outside interests Ian is inexplicably obsessed with football – the version that's actually played with feet! He was educated in Twickenham and has only attended one rugby union match, but has been at all of the Grand Final wins for the Brisbane Roar and he stays up in the middle of the night watching Arsenal games ('The Gunners') in the English Premier League. It takes all sorts!!
Ian also enjoys running, cycling, and would like to learn to play golf.
Ian Field commenced his legal career in the UK, where he was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 2000. Ian worked in the Family Law department of one of the largest law firms in Surrey, just to the South of London. Having moved with his family to Australia, in 2007 Ian was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland and also of the High Court of Australia. Ian now brings his wealth of legal experience to Family Lawyers Mackay.
Ian takes a sympathetic and practical approach to Family Law matters. He will assist you to consider what options are available to you, and the pros and cons of each, and then work with you to achieve the best possible outcome.
As an Accredited Specialist Family Lawyer, Ian is experienced in negotiation, mediation, drafting agreements, conducting matters through the Courts and he is also trained as a Collaborative Lawyer. Ian is a member of the Family Law Practioners Association of Queensland, and he has recently completed the training program for Independent Children's Lawyers. He has also acted in some of the first altruistic surrogacy applications to be made in Queensland.
In addition to his practice in Family Law, Ian is also experienced in the preparation of Wills and Enduring Powers of Attorney and the Administration of Deceased Estates. This is another area of the law that requires a sensitive and practical approach.
New legislation makes Employment Law a complex and evolving area, and Ian can help to guide you through the various complexities. Ian can assist in the drafting of employment contracts, advise on the terms of a contract at the time it is signed, or in the circumstances of a contract being brought to an end.
Before commencing legal practice in the UK, Ian spent ten years managing a number of charities, particularly in the field of providing advice and support to older people. Outside of work, apart from spending time with his family, Ian has recently discovered the joys of attempting to play golf.


The tech industry is one of the fastest moving in the world. In just a handful of years, products can become redundant, and the supply chain in the tech industry is, by definition, more fluid that in others. New technologies require a plethora of new parts, all of which require their own sourcing process with price, ethics, and efficiency at the forefront of the developments.
2016 was as tumultuous a year for the supply chain as it was for any other industry, with anti-trade political decisions - from Brexit to Trump - bringing in an era of protectionism and unpredictability. Factor into this the need for a 'clean label' and supply chain managers are operating in a difficult landscape. Ethical issues can plague major companies and supply chain managers have a responsibility to ensure that all products are ethically sourced.
For AncestryDNA our challenges are focused on building a robust, processed driven supply chain that can meet a hyper growth unpredictable industry within a long-time, tech-only driven company. It has taken years of work and internal education to help the business understand the needs that come from having a full hard goods supply chain.
Another challenge is building a strong team of seasoned supply chain experts that can deliver in our high tech first environment as well as they have in their more formal supply chain businesses of the past. It takes a unique set of skills and AncestryDNA has worked hard to meet these needs.
For Boeing the two biggest supply chain challenges are cost and production risk management. One of the main leverage areas we have is scale, but as Airbus has gained market share over the last decade we have lost a large portion of this advantage and need to be much more rigorous in our pursuit of cost reductions within the supply chain. At the same time as driving cost out of the system we are ramping up to meet unprecedented production increases. Assuring our suppliers are capable of making these production increases without affecting quality or delivery schedule are critical to our success in the coming years.
In short it's the ability to determine and adapt the right Supply Chain model to suit your business strategy and the holy grail for Integrated end to end visibility. The Supply Chain ecosystem is constantly having to adapt to customer needs, resource / inventory constraints or overages. Businesses and their customers are always striving for 'faster, better and cheaper', but is that really possible as a supply chain strategy? Factor in a tech company's desire to maintain low operating costs, innovate and develop home grown tools and the rate at which technologies evolve and you are quickly faced with legacy products and tools that don't scale. Integrated end to end visibility grants a business the information to assess, execute and course correct its supply chain.


Office management very unprofessional, black lady in office told me I had 14 days to provide all of my paperwork to be considered a resident & she only gave me 6 days & I received a letter in the mail saying I had to reapply because I failed to complete my information. When I called the manager he said whatever she say goes & to reapply. Their attitudes are very nasty also.
I'm interested in Retreat at Dry Creek Farms. Please send me current availability and additional details.


text:
(g) B3-0153. 0182 and 0218/92
on the political rights of minorities in Albania
A. having regard to the provisions or the Paris Charter, the decisions of the CSCE bodies and its own earlier resolutions on the observance of the human and political rights of minorities in Europe,
B. whereas the Greek minority in Albania is officially recognized in International Treaties and by the Albanian Government itself,
C. whereas the organization `Omonia' party, representing the Greek minority, participated in the first free parliamentary elections in Albania and five members were elected to the Albanian parliament,
D. having regard to the commitments to human rights made by the Government of Tirana in order to be accepted as a full member or as observer in many European organizations and, in particular, the European Community.
1. Expresses its grave disquiet at the recent modifications to the electoral law, which have resulted in the exclusion of political minority organizations from the electoral process
2. Calls upon European Political Cooperation to make strong representation to the Albanian Government and Parliament, to ensure that the new electoral law being drafted allows political parties to form and operate freely without discrimination against minorities
3. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, EPC, the governments of the Member States and the Albanian Government.
Published: Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 67/147, 16.3.92


Genes are the focus of a joint study at Bentley University and Gravity Diagnostics into how genetics affect a person's likelihood of becoming addicted to opioids.
The National Institute of Health was looking for corporate academic partnerships to explore if a person's genetic makeup can predict their risk of abuse.
The research will explore individuals' DNA to see how susceptible they may be to becoming addicted to opioid and whether those already addicted will respond to therapy, according to Christopher G. Skipwith, Assistant Professor of Biotechnology at the Department of Natural & Applied Sciences for Bentley University.
"One of the things that I have been doing for a while is looking at biomarkers that are related to disease and then establishing those biomarkers as valuable tests for diagnostic devices," Skipwith said. Among the research, the scientists will look at genetic markers and the ability for someone to break down a specific drug, including prescription medications.
"It does have a lot of functions and a lot of things that can relate to how physicians treat various disorders based on how drugs can interact," said Skipwith. That could have a great impact on decisions made by doctors when prescribing opioids, including how much to prescribe.
How susceptible is someone on becoming dependent on opioids? What's the best response to a patient following a course of treatment, including post-surgical treatment?
This collaboration is about more than genetics since much of the information is already known.
"What we are doing is taking a lot of existing clinical results and then combining them into something that makes sense clinically," said Skipwith.
The study could have an economic as well as a health impact, including financial savings for providers and insurance companies.
"How many lives does it save? How many trips to the emergency department does it save?" asked Skipwith. Only time will tell how the research will help.


Use of technology in biofeedback systems has a great potential, but it also faces many limitations and challenges. Technologies used in biofeedback systems and applications are numerous and diverse; therefore, only some of the most challenging in terms of their properties and limitations are studied in this chapter. MEMS inertial sensors and wireless communication are without doubt good examples of technologies that are requiring more attention. MEMS inertial sensors are studied through their properties in terms of their inaccuracies induced by biases, noise, and bias variations. Their bias compensation efficiency is tested against the highly accurate professional optical system and results of mass measurements of inertial sensors integrated into smartphones are presented. In addition to sensing and processing, communication capabilities of biofeedback systems are also of great importance for their correct and timely operation. Guidelines for the most appropriate choice of wireless communication technologies for different implementations of biofeedback systems and applications are given at the end of this chapter.