Ersatz TLS discussion

Good afternoon, everyone. The big heat is finally over, here in my part of England. Yay.

This week: I've finished Rachel Cusk's Outline (which I'll review separately), been dipping into the marvellous The Well-Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd (I love a man who makes me feel better about blackspot) and watched the TV adaptation of Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty (greatly entertaining, but just like the book left me slightly underwhelmed when I tried to decide what its significance was).

But right now, chez Anne, it's all about the upcoming summer reading. The schools broke up on Friday and that's when my summer reading season starts, and it will go on until the schools go back in September. I'm obviously lucky to be able to do this because I don't go out to work, and nor am I limited to holiday reading 'cos I holiday in spring and read plenty of holiday books then. Summer reading for me is a project, something meaty to get under my belt. This year it's going to be The Iliad. I'm feeling some slight foreboding about all that manly war glory stuff, but that's outweighed by my excitement about what I see as a window on to the ancient world. Thinking about my summer reading season, it occurred to me that this is how I read in my teens and early twenties, getting through some of those big classics over a summer period. Out of interest, I went back to dig around in my youthful memories and, somewhat disconcertingly, the first two titles that came to mind were The Bell Jar and Bonjour tristesse. I'd just like to point out that I never had a summer as bad as those two young women's …

I wonder what summer reading means to you. Will it partly rescue you from a pandemic-constrained summer and whizz you away to somewhere exotic? Or are you actually going on holiday and have a suitcase filled with beach reads? Do you have a magical summer reading memory to share, or a terrific book you'd like to recommend? (Or maybe your summer started in June and you're wondering what I'm banging on about?) I think we'd all like to hear. (Along with all your regular reading comments, of course.)

Some summer reading lists:

The Guardian's two summer reading lists (2021 new books and what some famous names are reading), first published 5th June 2021:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...

LitHub's Ultimate Summer Reading List 2021:

https://lithub.com/the-ultimate-summe...

And an utterly random list of The 100 Greatest Beach Books Ever. If nothing else, you can count how many you've read (there's more variety there than you might think):

https://www.vulture.com/2016/07/best-...


*With apologies to all our wintering antipodean friends. Please adjust your brains and join in anyway!

Anne wrote: "I'd just like to point out that I never had a summer as bad as those two young women's …"

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.

Bill wrote: "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know wha..."

Goodness, it's been a long, long time since I heard those words. A great opening to the book.

Anne wrote: "Good afternoon, everyone. The big heat is finally over, here in my part of England. Yay..."

Yay, indeed.

Lovely post, Anne, thank you!

Bill wrote: "Anne wrote: "I'd just like to point out that I never had a summer as bad as those two young women's …"

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they executed the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know wha..."

Well, thank you. I'm not much for poetry, so have never read Plath. On the basis of that excellent opening, I've now bought The Bell Jar - I hope it lives up to its beginnings!

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

The third week in June, and there it is again: the same almost embarrasingly familiar breath of sweetness that comes every year about this time. I catch it on the warm evening air as I walk past the well-ordered gardens in my quiet street, and for a moment I am a child again and everything's before me - all the frightening, half-understood promise of life.

Beautiful quotes, Bill, thank you.

Bill wrote: "It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer."

Oh, that's gorgeous (but I'm not surprised). I haven't read this one by Bradbury, but it's definitely on the list, even more so now!

Anne wrote: "And an utterly random list of The 100 Greatest Beach Books Ever. If nothing else, you can count how many you've read (there's more variety there than you might think)

Ugh, 15/100. But 5 from the top 10 (it would have been 3 out of 10 only a year ago). Maybe if the list was a bit less anglo-centric I'd have a few more, but I actually doubt so!

Edit: How rude: thanks MsC for the first post of the week!

Lovely introduction to this thread, Anne, thank you.
I look forward to reading your impressions of The Iliad. I have been thinking about taking it up again as well, as Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls forms part of my TBR sprawl, thanks to a recommend by tony2014.
Reginald Hill, with Arms And The Women, has written an Elliad (named after main protagonost Ellie). Not his best work, I'd say, but it was an o.k. read. https://januarymagazine.com/crfiction...

My summer reads tend to be fairly spontaneous, with a few pre-set pieces. (Which is why we will take the car to travel to our Harz holiday destination... can't manage that schlepp.) As to the set pieces: I will savour (I hope) a collection of Stefan Zweig's novellas. This will make a change, as I remember his biographical studies of historical figures best. These studies are brilliant writing, if with niggles for historians. (But I don't want to be niggly just now!)

Also planning to finish reading Flaubert's Salammbô, taking a few related excursions into musical and visual art connections.

I am still a bit vague about which (to me) new literary texts on the Harz region I might explore, as I know quite a few works set in that region already, having read some during each holiday there. Looking forward to rummaging a bit - it's all part of the fun!

Usually, I choose a selection of a few doorstoppers for summer, too. Have not decided on any of these yet. I have been eyeing Her Lover, by Albert Cohen, also known as Belle du Seigneur, and there's Unterleuten by Juli Zeh, too... we will see.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: " I have been eyeing Her Lover, by Albert Cohen, also known as Belle du Seigneur"

Ah, it is brilliantly written, but peopled with two (at least) quite insufferable characters, be warned! (And I thought so in my early 20s, so lord knows what I'd feel about them now, probably even less charitable, ohum...)

Bill wrote: "It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow...."

Such a long time since I read The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I cannot remember why I was so impressed by them. Just that I was.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "The third week in June, and there it is again: the same almost embarrasingly familiar breath of sweetness that comes every year about this time. I catch it on the warm evening air as I walk past th..."

I really liked "Spies". And "Headlong". The former has more merit, the latter was just fun.

Going back to last week' s thread I did comment that Sandya was justified in being offended by a privileged white women' s intrusive remark about her marital status,

The point I was trying to make is that does not entitle her in reply, to name these women here and use offensive and sexist language against them ( the insults of fat, ugly, cow, with issues, are not normally made at men).

Hushpuppy wrote: "Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: " I have been eyeing Her Lover, by Albert Cohen, also known as Belle du Seigneur"

Ah, it is brilliantly written, but peopled with two (at least) quite insufferable c..."

Ha, I consider myself warned then, thanks! Brilliant writing does sound seductive, though...

Stefan Zweig's novella "Confusions of Feeling" was a great start to that collection. I should add, as a corrective to what I posted yesterday, that I did not think it moving at first at all. In fact, there was an inner eye roll movement, as the manipulative behaviour of the professor was so well described as to be almost insufferable. But I was won over by the way the novella describes how someone can ignite, or fan, the passion for knowledge in us. (I have been extremely lucky with some of my teachers (view spoiler)[- though I never had a crush on any of them! (hide spoiler)]
The novella also made me think of LeatherCol and some of the discussions we had in TL&S on Edmund White's writings.
(view spoiler)[The notion that the professor is unable to live his life according to his (natural) needs, and how he compensates, or tries to compensate, is so very sad, and still true for many - just talk to men from Iran or Afghanistan. Or maybe even to men from round the corner! I was grinning (to myself) like an idiot the other day, when sat outside in front of a café next to two young men visibly very much in love. I have not been seeing this often since I left Berlin!
And I thought the passages about the professor still being present in what the protagonist teaches and learns at the time of narration, many years later, very striking, and could relate, too.
Also thought the take on the wife was pretty good, for his time (could have been much worse, as well as melodramatic). (hide spoiler)]
Also, it's brilliant narration.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I should add, as a corrective to what I posted yesterday, that I did not think it moving at first at all."

For me Zweig managed to pull the same trick there as Ishiguro in The Remains of the Day. You find yourself a bit exasperated most of the way through, until it hits you hard, late in the story, how desperately lonely it must be to be the Professor or Stevens. Heart-breaking, but not in a overtly sentimental way.

Georg wrote: "I really liked "Spies". And "Headlong". The former has more merit, the latter was just fun."

Thanks, Georg, Headlong is noted for "just fun". I don't know it yet, but would say the same for his Skios. Spies is a hard one to surpass, I would think.

Right, off to see whether the blackberries have ripened in my absence! And hoping to take some home.
Have a lovely evening, all.

Georg wrote: "Such a long time since I read The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I cannot remember why I was so impressed by them. Just that I was."

I read these two, and Martian Chronicles (my first), which may be my favourite, so I'd definitely recommend it. There was also this short story called "The Lake" that we studied in English in High School (or at least an excerpt of it). I think I've posted it before, but it's available online, here.

I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the Influenza pandemic, the story sees Nurse/Midwife Power and enthusiastic helper Bridie Sweeney trying their best to care for pregnant/labouring women who are also stricken with the 'grippe'.

It is quite graphic in places, depicting labour in great detail. There is great tact in how the author brings in elements of poverty, class, domestic abuse and the care of 'orphans' and young women who had a child out of wedlock - mainly in the 'Launderettes'.

I didn't want this book to end, the characters were believable and were brought alive on the page. Emma Donoghue just finished the book prior to the Covid pandemic. It did make me reflect on things I take for granted - from simple things such as being to eat an orange daily to enhanced maternity care. I might have succumbed to appendicitis if this was 1918.

Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”―Henry James

Anne wrote: "Good afternoon, everyone. The big heat is finally over, here in my part of England. Yay.

This week: I've finished Rachel Cusk's Outline (which I'll review separately), been dipping..."

Hi Anne, I read your post with interest. I don't have a summer reading list per se, but I do love a list nonetheless. I had a peruse of ' The 100 Greatest Beach Books Ever' - of those I've read 15. I read The Beach by Alex Garland in the summer of 2000, the timing of which was probably coincidental.

I'm not going on holiday this year, but the last time I did (October 2019 methinks), I struggled to select a few to bring with me, but then I always want to leave room in suitcase for extra purchases :)

On Thursday, last week, I went to a couple of rather decent second hand bookshops in my local area. I'm going on a bit of a Michael Connelly and Ian Rankin binge at the moment and managed to buy 8 books between the two shops, and I was thrilled.

I got chatting to a guy working on one of the shops and mentioned how I don't always time to read as much as I would like (work and other banalities getting in the way....boo hiss!) and he said his girlfriend was a book hoarder too. I was a little taken aback by this, but Mr Fuzzywuzz nodded his head in agreement.

For a brief moment, I had this image in my head of my house filled to the brim of books to the detriment of anything else. I may even be found somewhere amongst the literary detritus.

I have every intention of reading these books, and the ones already at home on my bookcase. It just might take a while.

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the Influenza pandemic, the story..."

My dad (N Irish farm boy) was born in 1914. He nearly died of a burst appendix, as a young boy. A doctor was called, but the doctor gave up on him by saying it was too late, there was nothing he could do. A local 'health nurse' happened to be visiting just after the doctor left, on a routine round. She got out a large desert spoon from her bag, cut into where the appendix was and scooped out the burst appendix with the spoon. He lived!... What stalwart characters they were... and what randomness there is in life in general...

Missed last week's cut off so:

scarletnoir wrote giveusaclue wrote: "If asked if I am/ever been married I say I am still looking for a 92 year old millionaire with a bad cough, "

You may appreciate this classic question from the estimable Mrs Merton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lj-9l...

Haha, I remember that, now this week the same question is being asked of Kitty Spencer marrying a multimillion/billionaire 30 years her senior!

Hey, scarletnoir, did you read

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...

Don’t think I fancy the lettuce water!
Sometimes I try going through the alphabet with names, or animals or …. but get bored with trying .

Tam wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the Influenza p..."

Wow, what a story! I can't even begin to imagine how painful that must have been for your grandad. Different times, indeed.

Lljones wrote: ""

What a gorgeous picture - I love the universal mania cats have for cardboard boxes.

Russell wrote: "I think it [The Hearing Trumpet] was discussed here 2-3 months ago. I don’t clearly remember if people liked it. I certainly did."

I'm really glad you liked this Russell. I highly recommend Carrington's Complete stories as well. I'm always looking for similar sorts of books, but they are very rare.

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read..."

I think I just found my summer read. I'll ask our library if they can find a copy.

In the meantime I'll keep going with a re-read of Possession. I'd forgotten it opens with a scene in the London Library. Justine surely knew it.

@Tam - Heck of a story.

Georg wrote: "Such a long time since I read The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. I cannot remember why I was so impressed by them. Just that I was."

Bradbury was the first writer by whom I read an extensive number of books; this back in 7th grade at a time when I had just started reading what could be considered adult books. I re-read Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I recall as being among my favorites, two years ago. On the re-reading the novel impressed me as being grossly over-written, with almost every paragraph stuffed with poetic metaphor and simile, but as I said in my review, at the time I was also reading Poe and Lovecraft, so Bradbury probably came off as pretty low-key in comparison. The story itself is a good tale of horror-adventure.

Russell wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read..."

I think I just found my summer read. I'll ask our library if they can find a copy...."

And within five minutes they were on it. We are SO lucky.

Machenbach wrote: "an obsessive liking for the books published by Picador"

Those orange ones look like old penguins - I bet they smell magnificent. You threw up on someone's cat? Go on, you can't leave us with that. I only vomit in sensible places, eg. on trains, off balconies, etc.

Tam wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the Influenza p..."

I wonder how this became family lore. Considering that nowadays a scalpel is needed to open the abdomen and cut off the appendix, and then some catgut is needed to close the hole in the colon, and a suture to close the abdomen: doing all that with a desert spoon without anaesthesia is nothing short of a miracle.

Just back from a sunny, windswept coastal day of blue skies and great views...so zero reading done and lots of walking

face feels a bit sunblasted...will update my reading tommorow

first time i've travelled more than 50 miles since Jan 2020!!

Georg wrote: "Tam wrote: "Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the..."

I think that the health visitor probably doubled as the local midwife as well in those days. I assume that she only happened to be there because they had a (normative in those days) large family and that a sibling had been recently born, or indeed, or perhaps!, at least one of them, that I know of, had recently died. Most children were born at home in those days, so she would have been supplied with whatever was necessary for repairing vaginal tears, which I think would have included a scalpel for tidying up, and some cat-gut or whatever, for sowing up the tears!... But I am not a medical historian... merely passing on the account from my father, himself... down the family line... and elsewhere... I'm just amazed that it worked...

Did you read my 2nd/3rd/4th wave 'magical realism' feminism story. 'On The Beach', on the blog? Not many comments back from that one sadly. I wondered if I had gone too far (?!...), but its hard to tell these days where cancel culture seems to polarise people so much. Hope things are good with you...

Fuzzywuzz wrote: "I finished yesterday. This was a gripping read that left me emotionally mangled by the end. Set in Dublin in 1918 during the Influenza pandemic, the story..."

this sounds v interesting....

I see that Anne Sebba’s Ethel Rosenberg has been recommended. It’s on my TBR list. I can highly recommend her Les Parisiennes. How The Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s.

Lass wrote: "I see that Anne Sebba’s Ethel Rosenberg has been recommended. It’s on my TBR list. I can highly recommend her Les Parisiennes. How The Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in the 1940s."

that book Les Parisiennes is on my pile

SydneyH wrote: "Russell wrote: "I think it [The Hearing Trumpet] was discussed here 2-3 months ago..."

I'm really glad you liked this Russell. I highly recommend Carrington's Complete stories ..."

Thanks. I'll follow that up.

SydneyH wrote: "What a gorgeous picture - I love the universal mania cats have for cardboard boxes."

Boxes and paper bags...recently purchased a new cat bed for Mario.
He absolutely refused to get into it until I lined it with a paper bag.

Machenbach wrote: "I know I threw up on your cat, but that’s no excuse for theft..."

Timely post. I'm on a waiting list for a new flat, planning to get my books out of storage very soon. Shopping for bookshelves, dreaming of organizing them. I don't have any white Picadors.

Booker Prize Longlist

I had no idea that Richard Powers had published another book (hint as to why: Expected publication: September 21st 2021). I recognize a few titles; I wonder how many others have yet to be published.

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam (Sri Lankan)

Second Place by Rachel Cusk (British/Canadian)

The Promise by Damon Galgut (South African)

The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris (American)

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (British)

An Island by Karen Jennings (South African)

A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson (Canadian)

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood (American)

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (British/Somali)

Bewilderment by Richard Powers (American)

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota (British)

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (American)

Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (British)

Lljones wrote: ""

Delightful. The absence of nap space will break this one up.
May I share this?

Robert wrote: "Lljones wrote: ""

Delightful. The absence of nap space will break this one up.
May I share this?"

Yes, of course.

"Summer Morning," Jonathan Richman

I was walking around on Sunday morning
A summer breeze was in the dawnin'
And those smells--summer smelled great to me
Those are the kind of smells that I wait all year for
Summer's so beautiful to me
I like 'em all but...
Listen to this summer morning
Those big trees are up there
By the side of the road, they're lining the road
The sun is comin up over 'em, and those trees are dark and cool still
The ground is still wet
The smell of the pollen and flowers
The breeze is so neat, so sweet
Bees buzzin', and flies not yet flyin', well there're little nits nittin' and gnats gnattin'
See, I was just...
I was just walking around on a summer morning
Bop-she-bop-she-bop-hey-hey
Enjoying the breeze and these smells of the dawnin'
Bop-she-bop-she-bop-hey-hey
As the sun rose above the trees
So wet still and cool in the morning breeze
I love the life so on summer mornings
Bop-she-bop-she-bop-hey-hey
These smells make me feel so fine
Bop-she-bop-she-bop-hey-hey
You know, when the sun rise above the trees
They still cool, they still dark in the morning breeze

A poem from memory:
Clip and lip and long for more
Mortal men our abstracts are
What say the hands on the great clock's face
All that living wretches crave
Prerogatives of the dead that have
Leapt heroic from the grave
A moment more and it tolls midnight.

Crossed fingers there in pleasure can
Exceed the nuptial bed of man
What say the hands on the great clocks face
Exceed all boys at puberty have thought
Or sibyls in a frenzy sought
A moment more and it tolls midnight

What's prophesied? What marvel is
Where the dead and living kiss
What say the hands on the great clock face
Sacred Virgil never sang
All the marvels here begun
But there's a stone upon my tongue
A moment more and it tolls midnight.
From W. B. Yeats, "The King of the Great Clock Tower.

Greetings VV. I hope all is well with you.

By coincidence I thought of posting a Yeats poems to go with your summer one but Robert did so first with the Clock Tower.
Oh, I will post it anyway

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.


My fiftieth birthday present was a bee hive and bees of course. They used to live at the top of the garden ,we lived on a hill, next to the chickens. I would go and talk to them everyday and, oddly they protected the chickens for the fox stayed away until they swarmed.
I kept them for more than a dozen years - even though I dislike honey. I still have the hive but no bees here.

Chickens are fascinating to keep, there is a hierarchy strictly observed but that's a tale for another day.

Bill wrote: "Booker Prize Longlist ... I wonder how many others have yet to be published."

Hard to believe it's that time of year again. The one by Powers and An Island by Karen Jennings (you know I like an island) are the only ones I can't find a preview for. From a quick look at the others, the ones that look the most promising to me are The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed and Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford.

In answer to Anne's excellent post, i wont be holidaying this summer, i planned to do some trips in June(for August) but now its a free for all of relaxed restrictions, i am not going to be mixing with people in resorts or anything

Good reading to comment on:
The Red Collar by Jean Rufin
Holiday by Stanley Middleton
The Fall of Heaven (about the Shah of Iran)
Poesie sur Alger by Le Corbusier

The heat has gone in the Shires and its cloudy with drizzle forecast...superb news