I've got #squirrelmail ! Thank you, Helen @squirrelbrain 😘. I get to smile at it for a week until opening! 🎁
There's also a slender parcel from Book Depository: I don't recall ordering anything and my dear ones are denying all knowledge so my working assumption is that it's from another Litten.

Thus spoke Elizabeth Bennet!
Ha! 😆

Well, that was over-wrought! Granted, Giovanna is a teenager navigating a family break-up. And I've never really got the necessity that most women and girls seem to have, to be considered beautiful in the eyes of others. Given that this is the novel's inciting incident, this book and I were unlikely ever to be a good match. EF writes wonderfully, but so much unnecessary emotional drama gives me a headache. It's good, just not my cup of tea.

I can't say I *enjoyed* this quick read exactly; it made my blood boil (not that endemic misogyny is breaking news...). It's good, though. With its concise, bare facts only, writing style complete with footnotes, was I reading a novel? An academic report? A piece of journalism? It became clear later on! And as for the concluding paragraph! 🤬

How can I put this? The book might be an important document, but that doesn't necessarily make for a great read. It's a book of two halves: short stories (one in particular is gloriously, absurdly funny) and mini-essays recounting MS's experiences of growing up autistic (undiagnosed) and her perceptions of and responses to her daily life now. The chapters started out as blog and Facebook posts: I found them too brief and "choppy" to get into.

I'm going deep! (No surprises there, then.)
Some I bought, some I borrowed from the library.
#bookhaul

This certainly kept me occupied ?. What a fascinating character Thomas Cromwell is! I had moments of confusion (does "he" refer to TC or the person he's talking to? I wonder if HM is deliberately wrong-footing me here.) and felt that something about the writing style was holding me at arm's length throughout (my default position for *people* but I like my books closer!) but it was thoroughly absorbing and I enjoyed it very much.

This book makes me happy! JZ is genuinely perplexed when birds become a source of compelling fascination to her after going through a difficult time in early middle age. (I'd say it happens to the best of us! 😉) She's a witty and self-deprecating companion: she might consider herself a perpetual beginner birder but, as she's based in Canada and I'm only familiar with UK birds, she's given me a lot to follow up. 🦆❤️

I heard Maggie O'Farrell say she'd wanted to write this book for years but couldn't do it until her son was past Hamnet's age. Now I know why. It's very moving. Agnes is a fascinating character, and I appreciated how the playwright is not once named: he's A's husband, the twins' father, the glover's son. I waited *ages* for this book to become available through the library: it was well worth the wait.

I appear to be gathering a shelf of books that might be subtitled "what other creatures taught me about being human". This time it's bees. It made for the perfect bedtime book. I especially delighted in HJ's propensity for consulting the dictionary whenever her perceptions and experiences of the bees and her keeping of them perplexed her.

Wow! I am just in awe of Donal Ryan's ear for voice! Melody is a bitch, frankly, but DR did such a good job of getting inside her head (her loneliness, and the punishment-by-proxy she inflicts on her husband for an awful thing she did as a teenager) that it was impossible to hate her, even if I couldn't like her.
And, oh my word, can he turn a sentence!

A lovely, quiet and beautiful book exploring, amongst more emotive matters, the minutiae (the rhythms, precise bodily gestures, and specific domestic locations) of the various stages of the creative process. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so "birdy": that was a nice surprise! This is a book I will surely and gladly return to, especially if I am needing a moment of calm.

There are books that change how you see the world: every now and again there are books that change how you see yourself. I finished this weeks ago but haven't wanted to talk about it. It is GOOD but the thing is, almost everything she described (that led to her diagnosis of Asperger's) I recognised in myself. It was a shock to the system and I don't know what to think or how I feel about this.

Belated Christmas #bookhaul !
I hope that all who celebrate had a fabulous Christmas: I woke to a migraine so had to spend much of the morning sleeping it off (and was thus late getting the dinner under way). Mercifully I felt well enough by the afternoon to enjoy my lovely presents!

It's that time of year when Uhtred, son of Uhtred, comes to visit for a few days! 😆
He invariably brings an exciting plot, told at a cracking pace (and thus pretty much the antithesis of most of the books I choose to read). Good stuff!
(It's probably wise not to enquire into precisely what it is about Saxon-on-Viking sword action that puts me in a festive mood... but there we have it.)

A book, a bake, a bevy, and a blaze: it's become a winter solstice tradition of mine 😄. So here's my naked heathen of a fruitcake, a lovely big #libraryhaul, and a bottle of Stone's ginger wine. There's a goodly fire in the wood-burner, too.
(I believe this means I am now officially stepping into Christmas! 😆)

My sword arm is very tender today: I had my booster yesterday afternoon. Not feeling too bad, otherwise, except for being at half my usual energy level. So I am having tea with Uhtred. 😊

I'm not sure how I hadn't picked this up before now.
JW tells of growing up as the adopted daughter - intended as a missionary - of the fiercely combative evangelist Mrs W... until J falls for one of her female converts. I guess it would be called auto-fiction these days: was it *really* shelved in the cookery section originally?! (That's a great story in itself.) I wasn't expecting the humour. Anyway, I wolfed it down!

It begins by discussing four pleaser profiles: classic, shadow, pacifier, and resistor. Subsequent chapters explore, with numerous illustrative case-studies, various pleaser-roles: as child, parent, friend, partner, colleague etc. What lets the book down is the limited solution offered. It never really gets beyond "Notice how you are behaving. Try to trace it back to a pattern learnt in childhood. Now act differently." (See comment below)

Mature SH rediscovers a journal she kept as a young woman in New York, writing a first novel. Viewed through the lens of male violence (at times physical amongst the everyday micro-aggressions) I'm disappointed not to have found it more gripping. The proto-novel is uninspiring and while I loved the writing at the level of sentence and paragraph, at the level of chapter and book it left me cold. It was - dare I say it? - long-winded and a bit dull.

He's done it again, the old rascal!
Through lively retelling and discussion of two folktales, "The Lindworm" and "Tatterhood", MS invites us to embrace the wild twin, that aspect of ourselves that gets thrown out the window when we conform too strictly to societal norms. Here lies the key to recovering our lost (or at least compromised!) vitality and healing our relationship with ourselves, each other and the planet. Much to ponder. Much to enjoy.

I've not been around recently as I needed to go back to Dorset to deal with personal/family stuff. In Gloucester again now (and feeling decidedly gloomy 😞).

Well, that took a turn!
The problem I have with this book is that it indulges in precisely the kind of workshop-writing it purports to skewer. It's overblown. It has stereotypes in place of actual characters. The plot doesn't make sense. If this is accidental, then it's sloppy. If it's deliberate... well, I haven't the patience for that kind of empty 'cleverness'.
Did I like/enjoy it? No.
Could I put it down? No, I could not.

I never did warm to Mahmood: petty thief, compulsive liar, belligerent, haughty. I bow to Nadifa Mohamed, then, for making a book that it hurt to think about (and think about it I surely did!) as Mahmood's confidence in the British judicial system is eroded and it dawns on him that he is likely to hang for a murder he did not commit.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's the interior monologue of a woman living alone but frequently encountering others (neighbours, workmen, men of uncertain import). Then there's the peculiar light her solitude casts upon ordinary objects. At times it was scarily relatable (the fountain pens; the porridge vs. oatcakes/banana) and I did enjoy it, but all in all it's a bit of a head-scratcher. One to re-read at some point, I think.

I feel seen (and slightly embarrassed)!
I currently have blue-black, teal, merlot, and saddle brown on the go. Though I use bottled ink rather than cartridges. ✒️ 🖤

It's ok, but not what I thought I was getting. I'd subtitle it "creating a more joyful life through longform journalling and the law of attraction". For those who a) don't consider themselves creative and b) haven't already done a shed-load of soul searching, it's a friendly hand to hold. For those who prefer a clear structure, or generally more to get their teeth into, I'd recommend The Artist's Way instead, which indeed JN frequently refers to.

#libraryhaul
Hurray, I collected my reserved book (tagged) that I couldn't get on Friday. It's the first time I've been back inside the local library since it closed for a major refurb in the summer. So many new books! This is what I picked up after ten minutes of browsing. There are many more to return for!

Friday lunchtime I walked to the library to pick up a book I'd reserved: "Due to unforeseen circumstances the library is closed today". Oh well! I pored over my Kindle for something to tide me over: found this Amazon freebie. The poorly written opening paragraph almost put me off reading any further. The promised Bible verses were somewhat of a red herring. I didn't care for the closing scene. BUT it turned out to be quite the wild ride!

Not for everyone, but it's a strong pick for me. A 260 page single sentence (but a doddle after "Ducks, Newburyport" - which I also loved), in which engineer Marcus Conway sits alone in his kitchen and reflects upon his life and all the tenuous stuff that upholds it. As I've said before, I like thinky books! I wasn't even bothered by the engineering-talk, nor the fact I guessed, fairly early on, the gist of what had brought him there on that day.

Lovely, lovely book! Not that it's all sweetness and light (try "Birding While Black" on for size). It's a natural history of his family, their origins, and their South Carolina habitat that made him an ornithologist and poet. I first encountered J.DL on Krista Tippett's "On Being" podcast and warmed to him at once. It was a delight to "catch up" again with this book.

WTF did I just read?! A young woman has a fling with her failed-musician father's louche friend. The father starts channelling music from an entity called Xstabeth. It reads more like notes for a novel than the novel itself. The faux critical essays between chapters are too similar in voice to be convincing. And it's all a bit sordid. I kept thinking, "What's the fucking point?" Is it me that's missing something here or is it the book? Not for me.

I had my hair cut earlier: my stylist has her first baby due at Christmas. I won't be recommending this to her! Set in a makeshift maternity ward in Dublin during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic this is, in a word, relentless. I'm all wrung out now. Totally worth it, though!

Veggie since my teens & fully plant-based since Lent, I wanted to check I'm not missing anything vital. As ever with such things, the advice conflicts with other dietary systems (notably intermittent fasting). There's a generous section of recipes, based on GL, which sound nice and don't rely on weird ingredients. My main reservation is over the recommended supplements, many times in excess of the RDA. Guess what the author sells via his website!

I like "thinky" books where not much happens, so I like Rachel Cusk. (Though her Booker long-listed one was a chore to read.) The sequel to "Outline", once again her MC is revealed more by the people she interacts with than by what she herself says and does. She buys a decrepit flat in London: cue run-ins with obnoxious neighbours, builders, professional colleagues, old flames... all stumbling along, figuring out what it means to belong. Or not.

"Use the universe's most powerful thinking tool to be more creative and successful than you ever dreamed possible."
Do you want fries with that hyperbole?
I gave it a pick as it's a good refresher (I've used mind maps for study before but not in a while), the use of colour and spacious layout are appealing, and it suggests uses for mindmaps I hadn't thought of. On the downside, I found it relentlessly self-congratulatory and so damn repetitive. ?

Of the Booker titles I've read so far, this is the one I found hardest to put down. (It didn't make the shortlist.) Spirited girl-bride Mehar's story is staggering in its cruelty in the name of modesty and honour, and inevitable in its consequences. The 2nd narrative, of her great-grandson's recovery from addiction, was interesting, and shows the generational legacy of suffering, but felt under-developed and dare I say it, tacked on.

I'm not sure what I expected from my first Western, but am fairly confident a camel train wasn't it! ?
This tells the (alternating) stories of homesteader Nora and outlaw Lurie, the connection between them being that they are both aware of the spirits of "the other living". I found Nora's story the more interesting of the two. Would I have liked more made of the supernatural theme? Possibly. It's a good book but it never quite takes off.

Library haul!
I think I overheard one librarian telling another that yesterday they had over 100 reservations of the new Richard Powers book: I am no.18 in line.

I've been trudging through this for ages. I anticipated its being quite the TBR expander, but that's not how it turned out. I found it rather dry, while some of the book choices were just plain bizarre: The Celestine Prophecy? G.K. Chesterton's "Life of St. Francis" but not the saint himself? It reads like it was devised (commissioned?) as a project, rather than through genuine feeling for the genre. By no means terrible, but rather disappointing.

It's very good, though the glorious opening chapter is tonally very different from what follows. I enjoyed the format: nicely observed slices of life down the years of Jo, Val, Alec, Ben and Vern. I don't think the premise adds anything; the lives they'd have lived had they not died as kids in the Blitz (in chapter 1). Oh, so, *imagined* lives, you mean? Of made-up people? Like they're characters? In a... what's it called now? A novel, perhaps?

A climate crisis parable, in which the parents' generation whoop it up like the last days of the Roman Empire and abdicate all responsibility for, you know, having to find a way to actually live with it, to their precociously mature kids. Yeah, it's as subtle as a tank blasting out Wagner at max volume, and the characters are from a privileged demographic, but I enjoyed it (and had fun playing 'spot the Biblical references').

Very Booker-ish!
I'm happy with minimal plot. I am so here for philosophising about desire, yearning and memory, how they are acted upon by time. But. The juxtaposition of Krishan's romantic infatuation with a charismatic activist, and Rani's civil war trauma and funeral, did not sit well with me. Because I perceive the one as "real" suffering and the other as rather lightweight? (But then who made me the judge of the worth of another's pain?)

My ancient kindle rides again!
I recently met the author, and then the 5-book series was #99ponkindle so I was curious... . I'm not really into easy reads but (a few pacing-related frustrations aside) this was fun, and I even learnt a bit about the Plantagenets!

Dante haul (with Virgil, naturally)! 😍
It took me thirty years to pick up Dante for a second time and now, less than a year later, I've gone all out. 😆
God, I'm middle-aged!

Of the Booker Prize titles I've read so far, this is the one I've most enjoyed. Goodness knows what it's doing on the list, though! It's a straightforward, good honest story written with compassion for it's characters: troubled 7 year old Clara, her elderly neighbour Mrs Orchard, and newly-divorced Liam. The sort of book that does a heart good. (That said I'd have skipped the formulaic romance: let's just leave after the ice-cream next time, yes?)

Thank you for this @Caroline2 !
Nuri and Afra are refugees from Syria, newly arrived in the UK and hoping to be granted asylum. I could call this book a necessary corrective for the headlines and rhetoric with which we are encouraged to harden our hearts against one another, but that would be to do CL a disservice. She hasn't written a polemic but a damn good story: compassionate, profoundly sad, hopeful.

I was recently at Swanwick Writers' Summer School where my highlight of the week was Roy McFarlane's course "Eliciting the past, present and future through poetry". On the last day he treated us to a 20 minute set: mercy, can that man deliver a poem!
This collection addresses institutional racism and black deaths in custody. It is a book of outrage (his sonnets buckle and threaten to break under it) but also of love and even hope.

Sorry, sorry, sorry! I haven't forgotten you, dear Littens: I've just been so damned exhausted. 😴
Mr K had an appointment in Bath earlier this week so I tagged along for an extensive browse in Waterstones. Look what I found in the poetry section. I have a poem in that handsome yellow one. Seeing it there on the table was a slightly surreal experience.

The women of an extended Iranian family "ventilate their hearts" over glasses of tea. In other words, they talk about sex. It's sharp, funny and subversive. (And put a different spin on my own tea break, that's for sure!)