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What are we reading? 19 December 2022

My last book of 22 was Angela Carter’s Several Perceptions

In this, Carter's third novel published in 1968, she invents a suitably miserable character with 22 year old Joseph.
He has failed his university exams, lives in a gloomy bedsit, and works as a hospital porter, cleaning the dying and tidying the dead, giving his money away to beggars on the street.
After his girl-friend leaves him he opts to end it all, but to compound his misery, he is not even successful at that.
This scenario gives Carter the chance to do what she does best; write those remarkable descriptions of shabby interiors inhabited by grimy characters, and do it with humour.
Amongst Joseph's associates are a number of other bedraggled characters; the elderly Miss Blossom downstairs, with her frizzed hair and crippled leg; a feral beatnik, Kay; his best friend Viv, and his mother, the voluptuous and seductive Mrs. Boulder who hypnotises him with her ever-weakening charms.
This isn't Carter in her magic realist - fantasy mode, nobody turns into a wolf or sprouts wings, but it is typical of her in other ways; witty, satirical and thoroughly disrespectful.
Despite the best efforts of his entourage to pull him round, Joseph remains uninspired.
It is very much a novel of its time. The decaying homes of the town (Bristol one assumes, as it was where Carter was living at the time) are populated by the young hippie generation in their bright clothes who are, as well as Joseph, appalled at the established order of governments they see to be responsible for the atrocities in Vietnam, but can do nothing about it. Joseph however, struggles to direct his anger.
As is evident from the passages involving Joseph in therapy with his psychiatrist, Dr Ransome, this is a novel about, amongst other things, mental illness. But the question Carter asks, is who is really mad, to which there appears to be no simple answer.


Pause midway through this novel to consider just how much of an unpleasant rogue the protagonist, paleontologist and country squire, Sir Hugo Coal, is. And hold that thought. McGrath has hooked you and is about to wind you in.
This is a very cleverly done gothic story that uses other genres, particularly horror, but not enough to earn its label in full.
Middle-aged Sir Hugo is wheelchair-bound, paralysed after a brain injury, unable to move or speak, or so it seems to others at least.
With its cast of Fledge the butler his wife, the alcoholic maid Doris, Hugo’s quirky wife Harriet and mentally unstable daughter Cleo, and her dimwitted fiancé Sidney Giblet, there is an air of Brideshead or Upstairs Downstairs about proceedings, and certainly plenty of humour.
Sidney disappears, along with his bike, perhaps into the marsh..
Hugo watches anonymously from his wheelchair while Fledge seduces Harriet.
But Hugo has seen Flegde in flangrante with Sidney and suspects blackmail and further foul play.
It soon materialises that Sidney has not only been murdered, but chopped into small pieces and served to Sir Hugo’s pigs, thereby turned into the Christmas ham, and eaten by all, including the delightfully described Mrs Giblet, his mother.
By way of farce and horror, we have shifted, rather pleasantly, into whodunnit territory.
I’ll say no more, other than that moment spent considering the roguery of Sir Hugo now is taken over by the thought that he may just be a homosexual vampire, and had fooled us (as well) all along..
It’s cracking stuff, and makes one wonder how a screen adaptation has not yet been commissioned.

But if they don't, I've uploaded a 'tarot' picture.
PS - Since you don't get to see the whole link - it's all about tarot readings at bridal showers and such. In Florida, of course. 😎
A while ago there was reference to Noel Streatfeild — I don't remember if it was here or on The G ... I realised I was misspelling her name, that it wasn't 'field' ...
Anyway, other people may enjoy listening to the Backlisted podcast on Ballet Shoes as I have just done.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
Anyway, other people may enjoy listening to the Backlisted podcast on Ballet Shoes as I have just done.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...


I was delighted last year to have read a nice rounded number of 40 books, only to realise I copied one twice. I reverted to notebook and pen to document my reading shenanigans as I had got a new phone and was worried that data may have been lost on the switch between old and new phone.
One downside of computer/phone use is that handwriting becomes a bit of a lost art (translation - I can't read my own
handwriting).
December was a bit sparse regarding reading. After finishing the rather excellent Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, I had trouble settling in to something new. As usual, boring adult stuff like working does impact on time/energy levels, but one of my favourite guilty pleasures is lying in bed with a coffee and a book. I really should do this more often.
I finished The Sculptress by Minette Walters. This is one of my favourite crime authors - I had read a lot of her books back in the 2000's and this was a re-read. In my mind, I summed up the story as follows: appearances can be deceiving.
After The Sculptress, I dived into yet another crime fiction book - Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter, so far, so good.
This was the first Christmas that I did not receive books as presents, but did but sneak in a couple as 'presents to myself'. The first was The Terror by Dan Simmons and the other was A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.
Every New Year, I tell myself that I am going to clear my TBR pile and that I won't buy or borrow any more books until then. Then I laugh at myself for being so ridiculous.

Oh yes, I'd really love to see this. There is some really good stuff on TV/Streaming. Christmas University Challenge, Happy Valley, Tokyo Vice/Treason etc.

I was delighted last year to have read a nice rounded number of 40 books, only to realise I copied one twice. I reverted to notebook and..."
As far as handwriting goes, mine wasn't so hot to begin with, but now I find I have to type letters to family because, like you, I cannot read my own writing. And this is called progress.
Bookwise, I am so-o-o close to the end of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West that I'm sure to finish it tonight. (I'd better because it's close to its due date, and I've run out of renewals.) But if anyone here is interested in Mormons including their history from the New York beginnings, their search for somewhere to settle, and recent range issues, I highly recommend it.
Next in the non-fiction TBR pile is Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis by Annie Proulx.
I spent part of the afternoon (not sunny,just grey) doing yard clean-up (It seems I do more of that than dusting, etc., inside.) while listening to The Wailing Wind. These Navajo mysteries are always good whether inside or out. I also was able to do some much needed trimming of the rosa rugosas in the parking strip. After 20-odd years there, one is particularly huge. (For those of you who may wonder at 'parking strip', it's the area between the sidewalk and the street. Mine is about 6 feet wide and is planted with native stuff so I don't have to lug a mower around. Unfortunately though, native plants grow REALLY well and have to be managed to stay off the street and sidewalk!
Bill wrote: "Russell wrote: "The briskest trade has been in tarot decks..."
Which are your best selling decks? I haven't kept up with new designs for some time, but imagine the Ryder-Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith remains pretty popular,..."
Bill – My wife says that the Ryder-Waite deck has indeed been the standard for many years, and that virtually all subsequent decks, while using their own style and interpretation, are based on the imagery of that deck. She says that it still sells quite well but that certain other decks are now more popular, especially the Crow Tarot deck by MJ Cullinane, and the Tarot of the Abyss deck by Anna Tourain. She has been reading tarot for fifty years, using many different decks, and in her opinion the Tarot of the Abyss, with its soft, rounded and mystical lines and expression, and despite being entirely black and white, is stunning,
MK – Thanks for the link. I caught a glimpse of this lady tarot-reader in Boca Raton being engaged for parties and weddings, and then the paywall went up.
Bill – Ayn Rand - From the little I’ve read about her – I’ve seen The Fountainhead but am not sure I’ve actually read anything by her – she strikes me as implacable, which would certainly fit with Stalin and most of the lead characters in Quatrevingt-treize.
Which are your best selling decks? I haven't kept up with new designs for some time, but imagine the Ryder-Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith remains pretty popular,..."
Bill – My wife says that the Ryder-Waite deck has indeed been the standard for many years, and that virtually all subsequent decks, while using their own style and interpretation, are based on the imagery of that deck. She says that it still sells quite well but that certain other decks are now more popular, especially the Crow Tarot deck by MJ Cullinane, and the Tarot of the Abyss deck by Anna Tourain. She has been reading tarot for fifty years, using many different decks, and in her opinion the Tarot of the Abyss, with its soft, rounded and mystical lines and expression, and despite being entirely black and white, is stunning,
MK – Thanks for the link. I caught a glimpse of this lady tarot-reader in Boca Raton being engaged for parties and weddings, and then the paywall went up.
Bill – Ayn Rand - From the little I’ve read about her – I’ve seen The Fountainhead but am not sure I’ve actually read anything by her – she strikes me as implacable, which would certainly fit with Stalin and most of the lead characters in Quatrevingt-treize.
Bill wrote: "Russell wrote: "The briskest trade has been in tarot decks, of which there are 200+ different ones on display."
Which are your best selling decks? I haven't kept up with new designs for some time,..."
I don't have any particular knowledge of Tarot, have never experienced a reading (if that's the correct term). But I have at least three tarot sets, one illustrated by Edward Gorey, one illustrated by Leonora Carrington, and one illustrated by...??? Can't find it right now.
Which are your best selling decks? I haven't kept up with new designs for some time,..."
I don't have any particular knowledge of Tarot, have never experienced a reading (if that's the correct term). But I have at least three tarot sets, one illustrated by Edward Gorey, one illustrated by Leonora Carrington, and one illustrated by...??? Can't find it right now.

Thank you. Happy New Year to you.

Each day is prefaced with how many online orders have been received and how many of those books were actually found on the shelves. It ends with number of customers and total till takings, which I reckon averages about £10 per customer. So far so boring but it does make the pages fly by. The shop also seems to do a fairly good trade online, via Amazon and Abe, but the admin for all that is horrendous.
It’s mostly uncomplimentary anecdotes about the people who work in the shop and the people who visit it. I won’t call them customers because an awful lot walk out without buying anything, Often after having sat and read the stock for an hour or more. If they do buy something they complain about the price and ask for discounts, or disrupt the work of the shop by chatting for ages. I do wonder how he can continue in the job. I’d certainly be wary of going into the shop in case I appear in caricature form in another of his offerings – and it does look as though he has a second job churning out similar stuff. Well, good luck to him, he’s got plenty of five star reviews.
Now I’m feeling a bit better I’ll get back to my usual reading diet – so it’ll be a long time before I finish another book in two days.
PS I do realise that a second-hand (should I say Antiquarian) bookshop solved a problem of mine in 2022, to the benefit of both sides, though I now wonder what they thought of me. Thank goodness they’ve not taken a leaf out of Mr Bythell’s book and written about me for posterity.

Can't seem to even muster sentences together very well. I think I will retreat to picture books for a while. Ol uncannily fetched out the tale of chicken licken from his childhood store of books... so yes it feels like the sky is falling in.. Hope other folks are in better shape. Happy New, and longer, days to everyone...

That stinks Tam, I hope you and Dave feel better soon.

both my parents spent xmas in this state, are recovering now, though i'm not sure if theirs was as bad as flu, just lots of fatigue and heavy coughing fits but both spent a lot of time in bed

Thanks Paul and AB. Perhaps these lurgies are very busy specialising themselves and planning a way to see off the oldies. We have had furry versions of terrible bugs as Xmas tree decorations for many years (Ol has odd ideas about Xmas presents!). Though both the SARS and Covid ones were actually too big too fit easily in with the others on the tree.
The SARS one now rides the (not quite) Tang horse on the mantle piece. At least he gets to stay out the whole year round!.. He looks positively jaunty on his hapless steed... Though perhaps thats the effect of the 'batman' cloak that he came with. I don't know why I think of them all as males. Apologies, if wanted, for me apparently being so prejudicially determinist. Paul perhaps you could elucidate me on sex determinance in bugs?

Which are your best selling decks? I haven't kept up with new designs for some time, but imagine the Ryder-Waite deck, i..."
@Russell - Since we are staying open, I'll offer to send you a 'gift' link of the Tarot lady (you can also see the first picture in the article in our photos). I'd need your email address, so let me know if you are interested and I'd post my address to get the process started.

reply | flag
"
Friend of my has had exactly the same, starting with a cough Christmas Day. Cough and no energy (although this tends to be a state of mind with her!) and just getting better now. Doubt it is flu because that comes on very quickly and is characterised by aching all over. Still not pleasant.

My understanding is, you should be able to post a gift link here, and anyone in the group who are not subscribers can use it to read the article (I did this with the Bob Dylan automated signature article last year).

I hadn’t seen either of these decks before. The Tarot of the Abyss does make some interesting choices: I looked through the Major Arcana here:
https://benebellwen.com/2021/06/13/ta...
A few observations:
• A number of cards, such as The Fool (0) and The Hermit (9) replace traditionally male figures with female ones, while mostly retaining the traditional female figures on other cards such as Strength (8, numbered as in Waite) and The Star (17).
• The depiction of the genders of the mating shown on The Lovers (6) was cleverly finessed, though I ‘m not sure how I feel about the image fitting into the overall design of the deck.
• The startling POV depiction on The Hanged One (12, both the image and the re-titling again avoiding gender specificity) assumes familiarity with the traditional iconography of this card.
• I feel a kind of dissonance between the imagery and title of The Wise One (5) and the traditional versions of this card, The Pope or The Hierophant in versions I’m familiar with. Tourain’s card on the whole seems to carry a more positive and less ambiguous vibe.

New reading is:
Trinityby Frank Close, about Communist spy Klaus Fuchs, it has started well, not as i thought it might and Close writes well, about this fascinating traitor. I expect to be suprised and appalled by equal measure when reading this.
Am about to start Sybil by Benny Disraeli, i enjoyed Coningsby a few years ago and found it to be a very good read, so i have high standards of what i may find when reading Sybil
A Susan Hill short novel A Change for the Better is also going to be read and Arthur Ransome's Six Weeks in Russia,1919
@Russell - Since we are staying open, I'll offer to send you a 'gift' link of the Tarot lady...
Thanks, MK, very kind. If you tell me what to do, I will follow.
Thanks, MK, very kind. If you tell me what to do, I will follow.
AB76 wrote:"...Am about to start Sybil by Benny Disraeli, i enjoyed Coningsby a few years ago and found it to be a very good read, so i have high standards of what i may find when reading Sybil.
AB - Personally I found Sybil a bit below the standard of Coningsby. It does have some great passages. I went on to read Tancred, to complete the trilogy. I thought it started well enough but it fell away badly. We should be grateful for the first two, which show a scintillating talent. His achievement as a novelist went down as his prominence in politics went up.
AB - Personally I found Sybil a bit below the standard of Coningsby. It does have some great passages. I went on to read Tancred, to complete the trilogy. I thought it started well enough but it fell away badly. We should be grateful for the first two, which show a scintillating talent. His achievement as a novelist went down as his prominence in politics went up.
Bill wrote"...The Tarot of the Abyss does make some interesting choices..."
Some insightful comments there, Bill, thanks. I am unqualified to comment myself, but will pass them on to Mrs. R.
Some insightful comments there, Bill, thanks. I am unqualified to comment myself, but will pass them on to Mrs. R.

Thanks, MK, very kind. If you tell me what to do, I will follow."
@ Russell - @Bill said I could do it here - this is what NYT gave me. Let me know if it works. You could start a cottage industry in your neighborhood! Be aware that it a very long link.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/fa...

First a little background. Now that I have mysteries and most fiction in hand, I had to go back and take a look at non-fiction (primarily history). To my dismay, I found a duplicate. This has happened before, but not too often. However, this one broke this particular camel's back.
So for 2023 and beyond, I have decided that I will not buy any book without checking my catalog! So there.

A..."
thanks for that info Russ, reading it last night, as the narrator moves accross the 100 years before 1837 in politics, i realised that Dizzy must have been a child around the end of the Pitt administration and the French wars of 1792-1815. It shouldnt suprise, i know when he was born but sometimes you forget how much of a memory you have of the politics of your childhood and how he bridged the pre-victorian and victorian era with his writing

It's often a question of British or American titles."
Very likely - I do wish that someone in the bookselling process would take responsibility for pointing out when books have been published under multiple titles, though. I only found out about the Markaris duplication by reading the reviews on Amazon, which saved me a few quid.
No marks to Amazon, though, for allowing the fake/second Amir Mukherjee to sell his books on their website without making it clear that he is NOT the same person as the 'Wyndham and Banerjee' author. I know that actors have to 'register' a name to avoid confusion; maybe the same should be done with authors!

Few people (in the UK) seem to wear masks now, even though the advice is to do so for anyone with a respiratory infection - and, I'm sure, for anyone in a 'vulnerable' category. Good advice, I think.

Both books have cops with unhappy marriages as their protagonists - Inspector Haritos in Athens and DC Laidlaw in Glasgow. So far, Markaris has provided a much clearer and more detailed explanation for the marital tensions than has McIlvanney; the narrator Haritos also includes humorous setups and descriptions as opposed to the wisecracks delivered by Laidlaw, and overall the Athens-based book feels better written. More on this when I finish them.
I also received an ex-library copy of Lie In The Dark by Dan Fesperman, set in war-torn Sarajevo during the Bosnian conflict (1992-96). I read a sample in ebook form, liked it and got the book.

i have a steady cold emerging, my first for maybe 18 months
Mask wearing in the UK was a disaster as soon as the tories turned it into a personal choice, overnight the % seemed to fall from around 60-70% to barely 5% and masks have a stigma attached in the UK which will never go away
i wear a mask in any indoor public setting since feb 2020 and shops, insee no issue with a small bit of cloth worn for less than 10% of the day but the raving backbench tory goons did. (I noticed Sunak never wears a mask at international events, when other world leaders do)

It's often a question ..."
its a real issue when this happens, i last saw it in my local waterstones(not their fault) where it looked like a new untranslated Zweig was on the shelves, in fact it was Beware of Pity with a different title, i pointed this out to the bookseller, he didnt seem aware

I wonder what that percentage of cops with unhappy marriages inhabit the world of fiction?

much easier here, no mods to contend with
Bill wrote: "I hadn’t seen either of these decks before..."
I don't know much about Tarot, have never experienced a reading. But I have two decks: one illustrated by Edward Gorey, and the other by Leonora Carrington.
On a different topic, I thought of you last week while I skimmed through my latest breakfast-table book: The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler. A few names I've seen you mention in the past, and I imagine you'll recognize others that were new to me.
I don't know much about Tarot, have never experienced a reading. But I have two decks: one illustrated by Edward Gorey, and the other by Leonora Carrington.
On a different topic, I thought of you last week while I skimmed through my latest breakfast-table book: The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler. A few names I've seen you mention in the past, and I imagine you'll recognize others that were new to me.
AB76 wrote: "i loathe posting on WWR when the mods then vanish your post, just composed a quick summary for WWR and its gone, no sign of it and i have no clue why it would need wiping...how boring...what a wast..."
If you don't see a "your message has been removed" signal from the mods, it wasn't removed deliberately. Sometimes there is a delay while it is being reviewed. More likely you're experiencing what looks like a bug: posts don't always show up in 'threaded' view. Look at the page unthreaded, or check your own profile and see if it appears there.
If you don't see a "your message has been removed" signal from the mods, it wasn't removed deliberately. Sometimes there is a delay while it is being reviewed. More likely you're experiencing what looks like a bug: posts don't always show up in 'threaded' view. Look at the page unthreaded, or check your own profile and see if it appears there.
Last year's resolution came to an end on Sunday, when I visited Powell's for the first time in over two years (don't think I'd been there since COVID). It was delightful, and I didn't go too crazy - just four books purchased. Two were gifts, two for me...Devil House by John Darnielle and A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley.

thanks LL!


Pause midway through this novel to consider just how much of an unpleasant rogue t..."
I've been made curious once or twice before by looking at or hearing about one of McGrath's books, this might tip me over into finally trying one, if I can find a copy around here.
AB76 wrote: "i loathe posting on WWR when the mods then vanish your post, just composed a quick summary for WWR and its gone, no sign of it and i have no clue why it would need wiping...how boring...what a wast..."
I'm just seeing a post from you from 3 hours ago.
I'm just seeing a post from you from 3 hours ago.

Browsing the GR reviews, it seems like Fowler has convinced a number of people that they want to read The Great Victorian Collection, which I came to through Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels: in English Language Selection, 1946-1987. I found it pretty disappointing. It skirts Magic Realism in its opening event, the sudden appearance out of nowhere of a vast assemblage of Victorian artifacts, but as I recall nothing else particularly fantastic happens after that, and in fact nothing else especially memorable or interesting.

I've put Lie In The Dark aside - I hope momentarily. It's a little on the bleak side. Perhaps I need to wait for a sunny day.
I will say, though, that I'd not paid much attention to the post-Tito Balkan Wars, but from the book it doesn't seem that the UN troops were worth a whole hell of a lot.
I've picked up Arthur Upfield's The Mountains Have a Secret in its place. If you want to see different scenery, Google Grampians where this book is set. Not my usual vision of Australia.

Note that Powells has a couple of copies in store (they have a lot of stuff in warehouses) so I hope one will still be there when I next visit as I want to take a look before I buy.

yes it finally got through....lol

I thought today might be a good day to go to the city, thinking that the schools would have reopened and most people who were off over the holidays would have returned to work. The city centre was bustling, but at least we got book to go for coffee in a quiet place.
I went to a shop selling art materials and almost recoiled at the ridiculous price of marker pens (£180). I bought an A5 sketch pad for £7. The idea, some time back was to draw book covers and create posters to display at home. I have seen framed book posters in some cafes/bookshops, but there seems to be limited variety online of decent prints.
I did, of course buy some more books (three), but I'm really going to have to stay out of bookshops and stop reading the lovely reviews here because I have ran out of bookshelf space.

I'v given up on posting since I am still on pre-mod as a result of an innocuous comment I made about Daniel Radcliffe. So stuff them.

Oh, an awful lot! However, if you are going to use this situation, the writer owes it to the reader to explain in full, as Markaris does.
There are exceptions - Maigret seems settled, on TV The Barnabys in Midsomer Murders both seem fine... and of course there are the unmarried cops or PIs such as Marlowe etc.

Indeed... I only read the free sample so far, but was intrigued by the fatalistic attitude of one character to the risk of being shot in 'sniper alley'. I remember the war as being especially cruel, but even so was shocked by the number of massacres committed by one side or the other, which I looked up just now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
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It's often a question of British or American titles.