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Weekly TLS
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What are we reading? 11/09/2023
It’s a little cooler this morning as we had a mild storm ( that sounds like a contradiction in terms but rumbles and flashes but not a lot of rain) and more rain later.One can almost see the roses giving themselves a shake.
I am nearly at the end of the Sandhamn series by Viveca Sten. i think there is one more. This series gets better as it goes on. The last one,
in the name of truth had me fooled completely.
Reading these books has given me a picture of Swedish life for some in Stockholm and in the archipelago which I rather envy although I suppose it’s much the same as if one had a holiday cottage over here. I cannot help having mixed vies about such cottages as having lived in a village on Exmoor for fifteen years seen the effects empty cottages for most of the year have on homes for the young.
Been extremely hot up here in Warkworth where I am on holiday, But cooled down now. Just got myself and my ice cream back into the car yesterday afternoon before the heavens opened accompanied by thunder and lightning.Thanks for the new thread, as ever.
Cooler here this morning after 7 days around 28-29c, though within my house, wonderfully cool, temps never reached over 23c and it never felt warm. Different story doing anything outside the house!
CCCubbon wrote: "It’s a little cooler this morning as we had a mild storm ( that sounds like a contradiction in terms but rumbles and flashes but not a lot of rain) and more rain later."Similar here in Brittany, some thunder showers of short duration - but heavy - and it's cooler, with a lot of cloud today.
As for the Sandhamn murders - not read the books but enjoyed the TV series (on Arte in France). Sandhamn does look lovely... it also looks like a place where the wealthy have summer homes - mansions, in many cases. We are dealing with crime amongst the well-heeled set usually, not a Swedish 'Frost' territory - many of the locals own huge yachts - although a recent episode dealt with a couple of kids from a care home. I do enjoy the way in which pretty much everyone can confidently handle a speedboat, including our heroine Nora.
Under 'learning something new each day' is a book review about wartime London in the Eastend. Here's an NYT gift link - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/10/bo...My something new is - I didn't know there was a London Stationery Office, but I suppose government documents have to be printed by some group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBWpB...As you’re here I will post this here instead of words.
Came across the word crwth in a crossword today - evidently an archaic musical instrument.
Don’t know how to pronounce the word!
Looked on YouTube and listened - seems shame not used more.
Re. sandhamn - they sure have plenty of troubles regardless of their wealth.
AB76 wrote: "Cooler here this morning after 7 days around 28-29c, though within my house, wonderfully cool, temps never reached over 23c and it never felt warm. Different story doing anything outside the house!"Did I report that the box fan is back in its box in the hall closet? Yesterday (Sunday) was probably our last warmish (80°) day as the sun (it seems) continues to move off direct and our days get shorter. It looks like we are heading into an El Nino pattern, too.
I wonder how El Nino affects those of us in spots far away from the Pacific Ocean.
CCCubbon wrote: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBWpB...Came across the word crwth in a crossword today - evidently an archaic musical instrument. Don’t know how to pronounce the word!"
It would be pronounced 'krooth' - with 'th' as in 'thing' and not as in 'the'.
You may be interested to learn of the Welsh idiom "canu crwth" - 'sing (like a) crwth' which means the purring of a cat!
CCCubbon wrote:Re. sandhamn - they sure have plenty of troubles regardless of their wealth."Indeed - like Morse's Oxford, where the crimes often take place in or near stately homes, or the cute country cottages of Midsomer Murders... you would not think that the gritty 'Frost' is set in roughly the same area within the UK!
We’ve had a cooler day here too, thank goodness. At the end of last week it was horrible: heat over 90F or 32C plus high humidity made it feel like 99F or 37C – in a state where not many people have A/C at home, because it has hardly ever been needed, at least till now.
Thanks for the new page, GP. Twice now I’ve thought, this is strange, no one commenting for a day almost, only to realise it is the alternate Monday.
We have a nephew who is in the ship salvage business. He was in touch today to ask for the name of the book I had been telling him about, with a female deep-sea diver working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in WWII – Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, a fine read.
Thanks for the new page, GP. Twice now I’ve thought, this is strange, no one commenting for a day almost, only to realise it is the alternate Monday.
We have a nephew who is in the ship salvage business. He was in touch today to ask for the name of the book I had been telling him about, with a female deep-sea diver working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in WWII – Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, a fine read.
Russell wrote: "We’ve had a cooler day here too, thank goodness. At the end of last week it was horrible: heat over 90F or 32C plus high humidity made it feel like 99F or 37C – in a state where not many people hav..."i think air-con will be needed in summer for southern england within a few years, the intensity of the heatwaves makes any kind of "oh wasnt that 72 hrs of heat nice" redundant, when you get 7-8 days where it is 30c by day and 20c by night
i often ask friends how we coped as kids with the summer heat and then we all conclude that in the 1980s, summers were a lot cooler, there was always hot spells but 2-3 days not 2 weeks. 1976 was the legendary heatwave year (i was in a pram, so dont remember it) but 2018 almost repeated that, the heat at stages in 2019, 2021 and 2022 has been record breaking and just last week we had 7 days over 30c in sept for the first time ever
Mod
Good to hear — I've got this but not read it yet.
AB76 wrote: "...i think air-con will be needed in summer for southern england within a few years..."
One thing that might become necessary even sooner than A/C is mesh screens on all the windows. Here it is standard, and you would be bitten to death if you didn’t have them. They’re functional but they make you feel closed in. It’s a pity because one of the lovely things about growing up in Lincolnshire was being able to have the windows wide open to the cooler air of a late summer evening, and the only sound a blackbird singing in the garden.
I have very good memories of 1976. No A/C in the office, so you were pouring with sweat just sitting at your desk, but otherwise glorious sunshine, eating al fresco, walks on the Sussex Downs…
One thing that might become necessary even sooner than A/C is mesh screens on all the windows. Here it is standard, and you would be bitten to death if you didn’t have them. They’re functional but they make you feel closed in. It’s a pity because one of the lovely things about growing up in Lincolnshire was being able to have the windows wide open to the cooler air of a late summer evening, and the only sound a blackbird singing in the garden.
I have very good memories of 1976. No A/C in the office, so you were pouring with sweat just sitting at your desk, but otherwise glorious sunshine, eating al fresco, walks on the Sussex Downs…
Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...i think air-con will be needed in summer for southern england within a few years..."One thing that might become necessary even sooner than A/C is mesh screens on all the windows. ..."
how fine is the mesh?
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "AB76 wrote: "...i think air-con will be needed in summer for southern england within a few years..."One thing that might become necessary even sooner than A/C is mesh screens on a..."
I've wondered - when previously in England - about the lack of window screens. They are standard in all parts of the States that I've lived in - Maine, Maryland, Virginia, Washington. I even have screen doors on both the front and back house doors now. Since each has a simple lock mechanism, they are both open now as it is a cool morning.
AB – The mesh is made with a very fine wire and each hole in the mesh is about 1/16th or 1.5mm square. It looks like nothing much but when you add it all up it takes away about a quarter of the light and a quarter of the air coming through each window.
MK – Yes, our various screens all work nicely too. I suspect that the reason for the absence of screens in England is that the UK is much more to the north than one might think looking casually at a map, whereas we here in southern Vermont, for example, are actually on the latitude of Siena, Italy.
MK – Yes, our various screens all work nicely too. I suspect that the reason for the absence of screens in England is that the UK is much more to the north than one might think looking casually at a map, whereas we here in southern Vermont, for example, are actually on the latitude of Siena, Italy.
Russell wrote: "AB – The mesh is made with a very fine wire and each hole in the mesh is about 1/16th or 1.5mm square. It looks like nothing much but when you add it all up it takes away about a quarter of the lig..."interesting, light is an important thing in the UK, winters from Nov to Jan can be lacking a lot of natural light, so that could be a problem
AB76 wrote: "Russell wrote: "AB – The mesh is made with a very fine wire and each hole in the mesh is about 1/16th or 1.5mm square. It looks like nothing much but when you add it all up it takes away about a qu..."Today in the news was the reminder that the Seattle area will not see a sunset after 8 p.m. until March 25th. Such a cheering item. And it is now 10 a.m. with marine air (thank you Puget Sound) blocking the sun. Yesterday, it was afternoon before old Sol broke through the clouds.
I need to remember that there is a PRICE TO PAY for our long days and mostly mild summer temps. When I am morose over the grey days of December and January, feel free to remind me about the PRICE TO PAY.
Gpfr wrote: "Russell wrote: "Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, a fine read...."
Good to hear — I've got this but not read it yet."
I’ll be interested to see what you think. Some scenes are still in my head five years later. It’s also the first modern novel that made me think that a story set during WWII was beginning to feel like historical fiction, separate from our own age.
Good to hear — I've got this but not read it yet."
I’ll be interested to see what you think. Some scenes are still in my head five years later. It’s also the first modern novel that made me think that a story set during WWII was beginning to feel like historical fiction, separate from our own age.
MK wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Cooler here this morning after 7 days around 28-29c, though within my house, wonderfully cool, temps never reached over 23c and it never felt warm. Different story doing anything outsi..."Here in the Great Northwest, the fan went back in the storage closet about a week ago. Mercy!
Magda Szabo is an author who has interested me for a good decade and i have finally got round to starting one of the her novels, The Fawn written in 1959.Hungary is less written about in the communist years than Poland, Czechoslavakia and Romania and was a much smaller country than it had been for maybe 100 years in 1950s. Szabo writes in an interesting way(via this new translation), elements of the 1950s Hungarian political situation mix with personal reflections from the narrator and memories of her youth and WW2. (Szabo was a Calvinist from the eastern city of Debrecen, a centre of Hungarian Calvinism)
Its good to see at least four of her novels translated in the last decade and hopefully there will be more
MK wrote: "I've wondered - when previously in England - about the lack of window screens."You shouldn't be - it's not warm enough or boggy enough for the little buggers to thrive in most populated areas. I am a magnet for blood-sucking insects, and must have had a good dozen bites/lumps since landing in France - but not enough to justify screen doors and the consequent lack of light.
I know that gnats (I think) can be a problem in Scotland and N. Europe at certain times of year... when we went to Iceland, we chose to go in spring before they woke up (for the most part!) I always check on the mossie problem and times of year before heading abroad...
scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "I've wondered - when previously in England - about the lack of window screens."You shouldn't be - it's not warm enough or boggy enough for the little buggers to thrive in most populate..."
Mossies have never been a big problem in the shires at any time of year thankfully, in Norway and Scotland on my visits, much worse and in southern europe, especially at night
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "I've wondered - when previously in England - about the lack of window screens."You shouldn't be - it's not warm enough or boggy enough for the little buggers to thr..."
Well last month I got bitten 4 times one night when I was already ill with a stomach bug. Just to add insult to injury!
AB76 wrote: "scarletnoir wrote: "MK wrote: "I've wondered - when previously in England - about the lack of window screens."You shouldn't be - it's not warm enough or boggy enough for the little buggers to thr..."
It's not mosquitoes that concern me, but flies. I really don't like them.
Meanwhile, on the book front I've just finished listening to A Woman of Influence: The Spectacular Rise of Alice Spencer in Tudor England and, like The Mistress of Bhatia House, I clenched my teeth at the subordination of women - each in separate countries ways. I continue to GRRR! which is not helpful. I'm going to try to avoid similar books in the future.
Meanwhile, I am continuing my review of my shelves and, in the process, have discovered I am willing to let go of some. Fiction through K on one set of shelves has had a minipurge which means the bookcase is shipshape for now.
I've moved on and am wondering why this irreligious person has 30 inches (measured) of religious books - mostly reformation-related. Some are going to go. (I have to strike while this iron is hot!)
I saw an impressive book today, Haverhill in World War Two, an old hardback volume of 700+ pages on high quality paper put together in 1946 by an editorial board, with a foreword by the Mayor of Haverhill, Mass. It had photos and biographies of the scores and scores of men and women from the town who had been killed in the War, shorter biographies of every one of the thousands of others who had joined up, and a large set of essays and memoirs describing the experiences of those who were in the forces and the rigours of life for those who were left at home.
The context was a small gathering to remember an old man who had recently died. This thoughtful man had found and given the book as a gift to one of the persons at the gathering, after hearing years ago the story of how the father of that person had grown up in Haverhill and the day after Pearl Harbor joined up, along with four school friends. Two of the five were killed and had their photos in the book. The father and two others survived. The man who had recently died was not from Haverhill, or from anywhere in Massachusetts. He just happened to know of the book and quietly tracked down a copy.
This is a short version of a moving story.
I’d never seen a memorial volume of this sort, sponsored by the town. Does anyone know if it was usual in the US, or indeed in the UK?
The context was a small gathering to remember an old man who had recently died. This thoughtful man had found and given the book as a gift to one of the persons at the gathering, after hearing years ago the story of how the father of that person had grown up in Haverhill and the day after Pearl Harbor joined up, along with four school friends. Two of the five were killed and had their photos in the book. The father and two others survived. The man who had recently died was not from Haverhill, or from anywhere in Massachusetts. He just happened to know of the book and quietly tracked down a copy.
This is a short version of a moving story.
I’d never seen a memorial volume of this sort, sponsored by the town. Does anyone know if it was usual in the US, or indeed in the UK?
Russell wrote: "I saw an impressive book today, Haverhill in World War Two, an old hardback volume of 700+ pages on high quality paper put together in 1946 by an editorial board, with a foreword by the Mayor of Ha..."that is remarkable for a small town, my town has the usual english war memorial with WW1 and WW2 names of the dead upon it(there is three times the number of WW1 deaths than WW2 deaths)
i havent heard of anything similar to the Haverhill book
I sent six books to great grandchildren yesterdayImpossible Creatures. Rendell’s latest
Wolf Road. Alice Roberts
The Enormous Crocodile. Dahl
Lief the Unlucky Viking
Sherlock Holmes (Easy classic)
The Dinosaur who lost his roar.
Little Ted ( aged four) started school last week. Oldest great grandchild started university, another began Secondary - I feel old!
They all live a distance from me but I hope to be remembered as the one who sent books
Mod
Excellent! Sound like good choices.
I give my grandsons books for birthdays and Christmas, but now that they're getting bigger we usually go to buy them together. I'm lucky enough that they only live 5 minutes away.
Mod
the latest book by one of my favourite writers, Elizabeth Strout. Lucy by the Sea takes us back into the pandemic. She writes so well!
and Les billes du Pachinko by Elisa Shua Dusapin, Franco-Korean, living in Switzerland.
I'd learnt about Pachinko (a sort of vertical pinball machine) and about Koreans living in Japan from Min Jin Lee's book of that name (it's now also a TV series). Dusapin's book is set in the same world but she's a better writer.
The granddaughter of an elderly Korean couple who own a Pachinko parlour visits them during the summer with the plan to take them back to Korea for their first visit since they left.
Her books are short, intriguing, well-written ...
My favourite so far is Vladivostok Circus. I see she's got a new book out, Le vieil incendie. The first is Hiver à Sokcho. I think the first 3 are available in English.
I expect they will treasure those books CC and pass them on to their own children :-)
No danger of being bitten to death by insects in the UK these days. Once upon a time if a window was open on a summer night we would be inundated by moths and lacewings but this year there has only been a moth or two coming in
The mossies manage to find me if we leave the windows open.!
I've got a stack of good books on hand. A copy of Robert Graves' Claudius the God arrived today. It joins a recent Vargas Llosa novel, a suspenseful crime story about a real-life lynching in San Jose California, and the story of a pioneering treatment of post traumatic stress. And Fading Victory : The Diary Of Admiral Matome Ugaki, which I picked up at the local library earlier this week. The problem is which to finish first....
CCCubbon wrote: "I sent six books to great grandchildren yesterdayImpossible Creatures. Rendell’s latest
Wolf Road. Alice Roberts
The Enormous Crocodile. Dahl
Lief the Unlucky Viking
Sherlock Holmes (Easy classic..."
What a wonderful gift, I'd want to read those too!
It never fails to amaze me how quickly time flies by. I had a wonderful 9 days off work which coincided with the heatwave. Even here in Norn Irn temperatures reached a rather lofty 26 degrees with high humidity.Most of that time was spent converting the front garden weed- infused mess to a gravel area. Initially, I was just going to try and weed it out again, but gardening is not agreeing with my fitness levels/aging joints and muscles. So, after 4 mornings of clearing, digging and raking and multiple trips to the local recycling centre to drop of the garden detritus, there is now and tidier front garden.
I can also see why garden centres are so appealing - all those pretty plants and flowers and my own newly found aspirations of having some potted plants to adorn the gravel.
It was not how I intended to spend the week off, I really wanted to attack the TBR pile.
The only book I manged to start, and finish was 'The Premonitions Bureau' by Sam Knight - a true story of the people involved in foreseeing certain events in history, such as the assassination of Bobby Kennedy and the Aberfan disaster during the 1960's. It also depicted the life and efforts of the psychiatrist John Barker who set up the bureau.
It was an interesting enough story, but felt like reading fiction, rather than fact. However, the retelling of the Aberfan disaster in Wales was particularly harrowing (although I laughed out loud when the Red Cross sent cigarettes to the town - different times, I suppose).
I'm having trouble settling on something new. I've started a couple of new books but not getting hooked an any of them. I might go and sit in a coffee shop for a couple of hours and try reading there.
after the rather dissapointing and oversexual Han Kang novel, i have moved on to a Martin Amis novel as my next "modern" readTimes Arrow (1991) deals with a life lived backwards, from death to birth. Only 40 pages in and i'm intrigued by the style and the premise, my first Amis read for a long time
Fuzzywuzz wrote: "CCCubbon wrote: "I sent six books to great grandchildren yesterdayImpossible Creatures. Katherine Rundell
Must confess to buying this one myself - think it will be super collectible.
I had never heard of Richard Cobb till a few months ago, he is a distinguished british historian who focused on the modern history of France and the longee duree school of historyHisFrench & Germans Germans & French
studies the two German occupations of France in 1914 and 1940(of course in 1914 it was just the industrial Nord region, in 1939, it was the entire country). It appears he will focus on the Nord region in both wars which will be fascinating, though the book is only 20% WW1 and 80% WW2
Mod
I can't remember if I've read anything by him, but while checking what he'd written, I came across this beginning of an article from a French magazine of 1986, which I thought might amuse.
The Extravagant Mr Cobb
That's enough from Richard Cobb, an attractive, fascinating but rather 'dangerous' historian. This sixty-nine year old Englishman, who speaks French with a Belgian accent, is readily iconoclastic, if not provocative. He has a pleasant, invigorating manner. ...
When he travels around France, he is quickly spotted. Firstly, because Richard Cobb is tweed made man; and secondly, because it is rare for his outspokenness not to leave a lasting impression. Yet nothing in his biography betrays such singularity. Mister Cobb is greatly appreciated by some of his peers and detested by the majority.
Greenfairy wrote: "No danger of being bitten to death by insects in the UK these days. Once upon a time if a window was open on a summer night we would be inundated by moths and lacewings but this year there has only..."You don't have to mention moths to me I have severe case of mottephobia, which I accept is illogical but that is what phobias are I suppose
Robert wrote: "I've got a stack of good books on hand. A copy of Robert Graves' Claudius the God arrived today. It joins a recent Vargas Llosa novel, a suspenseful crime story about a real-life lynching in San Jo..."Don't eat the figs! Anyone else remember that - Sian Phillips as Livia
I am sometimes seduced by a new mystery which I have seen touted somewhere, and one that the library buys (this is important to have someone else pick up the tab every so often). Last night I finished Broadway Butterfly and found it unsatisfactory. The library says mystery on its spine, and it is touted as 'a thriller' on its front.I don't know about any other mystery readers here, but neatness counts - this means an answer at the end, even if it is not the answer one expects. Not so with Broadway Butterfly. It is based on a real murder with a cast of likely characters, but it is left hanging at completion. This does not satisfy.
Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I had never heard of Richard Cobb till a few months ago, he is a distinguished british historian ..."I can't remember if I've read anything by him, but while checking what he'd writt..."
very amusing..lol
The Fawn
by Magda Szabo(1959 reminds me a little of the Ferrante novels of Naples but better and in a Hungarian Plains setting.Cold and quite unsettling in places, it is a narrative of the life and lives of an actress and her friends, her poor upbringing and her loathing for a beautiful girl she knows. The style is unusual in that it mixes traces of whimsy with lacerating, harsh events.
Hungary is everywhere in the narrators reflections, the capital Budapest, the Great Plains where she grows up and the traditions and culture of the country. Outside historical events, as yet(i'm about 90 pages in), remain un-mentioned but it would seem her youth is set in the 1930s going into WW2
MK wrote: "I am sometimes seduced by a new mystery which I have seen touted somewhere, and one that the library buys (this is important to have someone else pick up the tab every so often). Last night I finis..."My late wife, an avid mystery reader, became a fan of Julian Symons, who played by the rules. After she finished The Plot Against Roger Ryder, she immediately went back to the beginning, and leafed through it. And then: "Yep. He gave me the clue right here." She thought it once of the most ingenious mysteries she'd read in a long time.
MK wrote: "It's not mosquitoes that concern me, but flies. I really don't like them."Well, we don't get plagues of those either in the two areas I'm familiar with - west Wales (small town) and Brittany (farming country). Several possible reasons:
1. climate - too cold most of the year (the odd one sneaks indoors);
2. predators - here in Brittany ATM, we have bats to eat them at night and swallows during the daytime... the flies must be 'drying up', as the swallows are starting to gather for their migration on the telephone wires; and maybe
3. modern farming methods(?)
The only time they can be a bother is in the day or two after the farmers spread muck on their fields, but then we close the windows because of the smell, too!
I do wonder if a lack of (insect-eating) birds is a problem? When we stayed near a lake north of Ottawa for a few days, we were surprised to only see a loon or two during 3-4 days. Pine (?) forests do not seem to be bird-friendly! There weren't even any waders (that I saw) to eat the thousands of frogs.
AB76 wrote: "after the rather dissapointing and oversexual Han Kang novel, i have moved on to a Martin Amis novel as my next "modern" read."As you nay recall, I was also disappointed by 'The Vegetarian'.
I don't like Amis either - or not the silly and unfunny 'London Fields', in any case.
Death of a Lesser God by Vaseem KhanThe fourth instalment of Khan's 'Persis Wadia' series, where our intrepid female police inspector must overcome not only the cunning of the evildoers but also the misogyny inherent in the cultural practices of her country. She is tasked to review the conviction of a white Englishman for murder; this involves a trip to Calcutta where she is in considerable danger...
The first three books in the series had puzzles to be solved - codes and riddles etc. - which although not uninteresting always seem to be a bit contrived to me. This one is a more straightforward police procedural, with the usual snippets of history included, and is my favourite of the series to date (I hope there will be more).
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I hope that for those who like me have been suffering from the heat, temperatures are going down. Here in Paris it's maximum 29° today, which is a drop, with storms forecast leading to cooler weather, though still warmer than average.
As Greenfairy said of herself in the poetry thread, I've been a couch potato over the past few days which has meant lots of reading time.
So I wish you all many good books and happy reading!