Challenged to read books first published in 1937 for the #1937Club, I didn’t expect to have much choice. As you can see, I managed to find quite a pile, and searching online gave me even more choice, including the mirror account of an adventurous journey I had read about before.
Sadly, I am once again late posting for one of the inimitable publication year-based club weeks hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon at Stuck in a Book. This time round, I was disappointed to read the year they chose was 1937. I was sure I wouldn’t have many, if any, books from so long ago. I was wrong! And thanks to online sites like Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, there are plenty of options for reading online for books that are long out of print, so that is also a tempting rabbit hole to disappear into.
Books from my own TBR
Unexpectedly, I own more 1937 books than I had time to read, even though I started reading at the beginning of April. Some I had already read before, so they were doomed to be unread this time (marked with an x). The ones I did read are starred and I will link them to my reviews when I add them.
* Sunset House, Winifred Fortescue. A precursor to A Year in Provence.
x Towers in the Mist, Elizabeth Goudge. Read long ago, a historical novel about a cathedral town. Goodreads says 1937, the book itself says 1938.
* Reis bij maanlicht (Journey by Moonlight), Anton Szerb, tr. Györgyi Dandoy. A Hungarian classic, this ex-library book has languished on my TBR for years.
x Out of Africa and Shadows in thne Grass, Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen). Not as romantic as the film with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.
xx The Case of the Dangerous Dowager + The Case of the Lame Canary, Erle Stanley Gardner. These are my husband’s books, so they can stay on the shelf for now.
* The D.A. Calls it Murder, Erle Stanley Gardner. I was intrigued because my husband collects Erle Stanley Gardner’s books, but doesn’t actually read the non Perry Mason ones. I decided to squeeze this one in at the weekend.
x Adventures of the Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton. I saved myself the trouble of reading this out loud to my children by buying them the cartoon series on video. I fell entirely out of love with Enid Blyton when I foolishly volunteered to read an omnibus of The Magic Faraway Tree to the boys, then my daughter insisted on a repeat performance. Yawn!
x On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder. I would love to have reread this, but ran out of time.
x Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck. I really enjoyed this when I read it for the first time a couple of years ago. What a sucker punch of an ending!
x The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (not pictured). I was captivated by Lord of the Rings, but I didn’t read The Hobbit until I was an adult and so it paled into insignificance beside its big brother.
Tempting books online, at the library or elsewhere
Scanning through the Wikipedia list of literature from 1937, I added a few books to the possibles, though I only read one.
* Forbidden Journey: from Peking to Kashmir, Ella Maillart. This should have been available on interlibrary loan, but for some reason it wasn’t possible. Fortunately it is available on the Internet Archive, though it is a pdf of a photocopy and the photos are virtually unrecognisable. I particularly wanted to read this because it is the account of a journey the Swiss photographer Ella Maillart took with Peter Fleming, whose account of the same journey I read many years ago (Travels in Tartary). Too long ago to be able to compare, but I couldn’t resist.
Swastika Night, Katharine Burdekin . Sci-fi.
Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip: the 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers, Ilya Ilf. Doesn’t that sound fascinating?
The Nutmeg Tree, Margery Sharp. Crime. Interlibrary loan possible. Margery Sharp wrote the book The Rescuers was based on!!!!
The Land of Green Ginger, Noel Langley. I’ve always wanted to read this because the title sounds so delicious, but now I’m not sure if it’s this children’s book I’ve heard of (probably) or Winifred Holtby’s novel about a woman in Yorkshire whose husband returns broken from the First World War (less likely, though that sounds good, too).
Capricornia, Xavier Herbert. An Australian classic with insight into Aboriginal life and race relations. Lisa at ANZ Lit Lovers has reviewed it, though she says it was first published in 1938; Goodreads says 1937.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston. A classic of Black literature. Available through interlibrary loan, but on loan at the moment.
Pensioen [Pension], Willem Elsschot. This is a novella, the fictionalised version of the absurd story of what happened to the Belgian author’s own family. In this version, a woman continued to claim her son’s war pension, when it should have gone to his son, who was overlooked when his mother married another man. I would have liked to include a Dutch language book in my 1937 books, but once again, the only library copy was unavailable.
An absorbing tale of Montezuma’s capital in 1521 in an alternate history where Spain remained an Islamic country, making its colonies part of a New Maghreb. I read this last August as one of my 20 Books of Summer, but somehow it got left off the list. A long-overdue review.
This is a beautifully written account of an imaginary period in Mexico at the time of Montezuma. Imaginary because in this alternate history, the Christians never regained control of Spain from the Moors. Instead of Spanish imperial conquistadors, the Aztec kingdom was colonised by Islamic Spanish colonists who established what they called the New Maghreb.
Red Smoking Mirror by Nick Hunt
At the start of the novel, we meet the influential Jewish merchant Eli Ben Abram, married to a headstrong Nahua woman, Malinala, formerly enslaved. Through her stories we learn about the folklore and traditions of the indigenous peoples. Eli is an important man, friends with the emperor, able to closely observe the changes that are afoot.
“From my conversations with Moctezuma, who takes an interest in such things, I know that he considers God to be an incarnation of the Feathered Snake, the Smoking Mirror or the Left-Handed Hummingbird, depending on the time of day. I have not told the imam this. The poor man has enough to deal with.”
Then there is the water god, an axolotl: a fish with hands. Malinala tells him of the history of the Seven Caves, when seven tribes emerged from seven rocky wombs in the north and made their way to the south. The Mexica were favoured by the Left-Handed Hummingbird, warring with the other tribes either killing them or enslaving them. For a time they stayed in Aztlan, the Place of the White-Feathered Heron. All these stories flesh out the society that Eli has moved to.
The Jew is haunted by echoes of the past. The past he left behind in the Old World is catching up with him in the New Maghreb. Until now he has been protected as a ‘person of the book’. But all that seems about to change. Suddenly his friend Montezuma is acting strangely, many sacrifices are being made on the stepped pyramid, the volcano is rumbling ominously and there are rumours of new invaders from across the sea.
I really enjoyed the descriptive writing in Red Smoking Mirror, but what I enjoyed most were the snippets of background into society. For instance, the local name for a horse meant fast deer, a camel was an ugly deer and a mule was a strong deer. I also appreciated how Eli’s wife was able to act as a go-between because she could speak different languages and was an independent character connecting people.
“We were two links in a chain, connecting one thing to the next. Arabic to Mayayan. Mayayan to Nahuatl. Nahuatl to Arabic. I freed her. She freed us.”
Drinking chocolate
The ceremony of preparing drinking chocolate is gradually introduced to us. It is one of the things. Malinala does for her husband, a ceremonial task. “Some xocolatl is going round, but from its smell, even from here, I can tell that it is badly made. The beans are burnt. Not enough chilli. Too much tlilxochitl-pod.” It reminds me both of Laura Estival’s Chocolate for Water and either Tracy Chevalier’s The Girl With the Pearl Earring, set in Delft or Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist set in Amsterdam, where a young wife carefully prepares the chocolate for her indifferent husband. If anyone knows which of the latter two it is, I’d love to know.
When is this set? 1521
There were a couple of things I looked up because I wondered if they were anachronistic.
Eli uses lemon-scented oil – Columbus brought seeds with him in 1493, to Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic), gradually spreading to the Caribbean and mainland Mexico…
Eli has a French spyglass. The telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey in 1608, so that was not possible.
Montezuma… which one? There was more than one.
Book serendipity: people of the book
Red Smoking Mirror strongly reminds me of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks about the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a manuscript about Moses leading the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. This is no coincidence as both are at least connected to a Jewish intellectual being moved to safety. Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book imagines the creation, illustration, concealment and further life-story of the Sarajevo Haggadah. Eli also refers to himself as a person of the book.
“The caliph’s law is a guarantee of the protections I enjoy as a dhimmi of Andalus, a person of the book. It extends to Christians too, for our God is the same God.”
Book serendipity: the siege of Sarajevo
Once again there is a link between the Bookcast Club podcast and what I am reading or thinking about. In the second to last episode I was listening to, episode 96, the discussion turned to a fictionalisation of a woman’s experience during the siege of Sarajevo, Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris. The plot sounded extremely familiar as I have read Sarajevo Days, Sarajevo Nights by Elma Softić, the diaries of someone who lived through the siege. In fact, I’m wondering if it couldn’t be considered plagiarism, it’s so similar. And then, of course, there’s Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, about which I was left less than enthusiastic.
With the descriptions of the distant volcano, I was suddenly reminded of a story in the Wide Range Readers, when I was about seven. It told the tale of a barefoot Mexican farmer who noticed that the ground beneath him was getting hotter. Soon afterwards, a new volcano erupted in that very place. From that point on, volcanoes were added to tidal waves in my nightmares. Those Wide Range Readers have a lot to answer for.
“She has mentioned nothing of my missive to the emperor, and I have not questioned her on the sad fate of the water-god. Inside these silences is peace.
All peace is built on silence.
I find myself thinking of the Christian bells of Andalus, stifled by the caliph’s law, of the wars their stifling must have spared in the history of the caliphate. I think of our muteness at what happens in those temples. The things from which we turn away, not watching and not listening. A balance, Abd al-Wahid says. Within our silence we are safe.
How long will we stay silent?”
It’s unfortunate that it took me so long to write up my review because I received a digital ARC from NetGalley, intending to review it before publication. If I’d done it earlier, I would have been even more enthusiastic because it was still fresh in my mind. For what it’s worth, my opinions are my own, not influenced by the free copy.
A personal list of my reading resolutions for 2024, together with a useful summary of all the reading and blogging challenges I hope to take part in. I dare say some of them will fall by the wayside, but it adds a little extra fun to my attempts to lower Mount TBR.
In many ways, January 2024 has not gone to plan and yet I have managed to spend a lot of time reading. We won’t mention how little time I have spent writing reviews about what I’ve read. And we won’t even think about how many digital ARCs I had last year and failed to write decent reviews for. Hopefully I will redress that balance soon and catch up on some blogging. Time will tell. And a lesson learnt: I need to be much more selective about what I request on NetGalley and Book Sirens. Not to mention the authors that contact me via my blog. I had no idea of the temptation it would be.
Beautiful old books
Reading resolutions
Read more of the physical books I have on my shelves already.
Top priority to BookCrossing books registered and rated by other people.
Second priority to BookCrossing books passed on by others without reading.
Try to read as many 1001 List books as possible; I have plenty!
Read the World as I go: books by authors from different countries if possible, but set in the country is also acceptable.
Read according to monthly themes set by the BookCrossing Ultimate Challenge (even if I forget to post them on the forum): January: Light and Dark / February: Family / March: Colours / April: Climate and Weather / May: Occupations / June: Clothing / July: Olympics / August: Movies, Plays, and Shows / September: Aquatic Life / October: Containers / November: Mail / December: Time.
Challenges, tags, memes and other madness
Serious About Series, a challenge on Goodreads to read at least one book in a series per month
Goodreads A-Z by title challenge
A-Z by author challenge on the Dutch BookCrossing forum
Oldest BookCrossing books on the Dutch forum
Personal 60 Years of Reading challenge to read at least one book for each year of my life, 1963-2023
#LibraryLove – post, 3rd Monday of every month (Rebecca at BookishBeck)
#ReadIndies (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings & LizzySiddall)
Dutch short story week (week van het korte verhaal) 14-21 Feb. 2024 and J.M.A. Biesheuvel Prize (now every 2nd year, in 2025)
March:
Reading Ireland Month (Cathy at 746Books)
April:
1937 Club Week (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Simon at Stuck in a Book)
June/July/August: 20 Books of Summer (Cathy at 746Books)
August:
#womenintranslation #WITMonth
September:
Short stories in September?
October:
19?? Club Week (Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, Simon at Stuck in a Book)
AusReadingMonth (Brona’s Books)
Black History Month UK
November:
#NovNov – Novellas in November (Rebecca at Bookish Beck, Cathy at 746Books)
#NonfictionNov – Nonfiction November (Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home + others)
Challenges in practice
If you think this all sounds completely bonkers, it probably is, but it’s really not that complicated in practice. At the start of the month (or if I’m honest, towards the end of the previous month), I list the books that fit my themes for the month. This is made much simpler by the fact that I have all sorts of appropriate tags for my books on Goodreads (or shelves, as Goodreads calls them). Sometimes I put them all together on one shelf, but I’m trying to stop doing that as it’s time-consuming. It does makes it possible to take photos of TBR piles or shelves. And I do so love handling books! As for the reporting on forums and blogging about all these challenges, I’m always behind. It’s 10 o’clock on 1 February and I haven’t posted about my January challenges, NordicFINDS and Japanese Literature yet. C’est la vie!
Nonfiction wishlist – ongoing plans for the TBR, without breaking the bank or building more shelves. My TBR collection is huge. Can I convince myself not to buy the nonfiction books on my wishlist? An update of a draft post I started writing in August 2022.
In a flash of what may be short lived inspiration one morning while perusing the Guardian’s book reviews, it occurred to me it might be a good idea to keep an easily skimmable list of the nonfiction books I would read if I had unlimited time, money or access to a library in Britain with free interlibrary loan (ILL).
Reading reviews of nonfiction books on the Guardian website is an exercise in futility and frustration. So many fascinating books are published that will never cross my path. What’s more, if they are being reviewed in the paper, that means they are brand new and only available in hardback, i.e. they are usually in the £20 to £30 price bracket. This means I will invariably wait until they come out in paperback, by which time they will have sunk so far down my Goodreads wishlist, I will probably have forgotten them. Added to which, I can usually only buy nonfiction in English either online, which I try to avoid, or in England, where I rarely go. Hence the advisability of a list that I can consult in a bookshop.
Cutting down the wishlist
When I looked at my nonfiction shelf on Goodreads I realised that (as of August 2022), of the 202 books listed, only 40 of those are actual wishlist books; I’ve already read another 39. In other words, I have 123 unread or partially read nonfiction books sitting on my shelves already, often covering the same subjects. Things that make you go hmmm! Let’s see if I can talk myself out of some of them or find an alternative on my TBR shelf.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Malcolm Gladwell. Maybe I should read his Outliers first, on my TBR since 2014. Read TBR book Outliers
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2001), Eric Schlosser. I have already read a similar book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (2003), Greg Critser this would just be a refresher course. My husband also has a book I haven’t read yet that discusses solutions, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease (2012), Robert H. Lustig. I’ll read that instead. Maybe. Update 2023: I will also try to hold my fire on Chris van Tulleken’s new book, Ultra-Processed Food: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food. The trouble is, I really do want to read that. I wonder if my husband would appreciate it as a gift… Read TBR bookFat Chance
Het geluid van vallende sneeuw [The Sound of Falling Snow] (2006), Jannie Regnerus. An investigation into the Japanese belief that objects have a soul, an idea that Marie Kondo uses when she thanks objects for their service before discarding them. One to borrow from the library. Library
Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013), Deborah Levy. The first part of Levy’s living autobiography. Having read her Hot Milk and various interviews with her, this is a book I am curious to read, but probably only if it crosses my path secondhand. Stays onWishlist
Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City (2013), Russell Shorto. I should read Geert Mak’s De eeuw van mijn vader [My Father’s Century] (1999) first, a book I had planned for April 2022 [Well, that didn’t happen!]. It examines a century of Dutch history through the lens of his own family history. He has also written a book about Amsterdam that I could borrow from the library. In fact, I have no shortage of books on my TBR on Dutch history. I can probably give Shorto’s book a miss, though a book by a knowledgeable outsider can be interesting, if only to trigger rants that may inspire a blogpost. Read TBR bookDe eeuw van mijn vader
The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found (Ver-geet-mij-niet) (2018), Bart van Es. A Dutch academic investigated this true story of a Jewish girl who was taken in during the war by his grandparents, treated like a daughter and asks why she later lost contact. Written in English, then translated into Dutch by someone else. This one is still firmly on my wishlist. However, I do have a book about Anne Frank to read, De achtertuin van het achterhuis [The back garden at the Annex] (2018) by Gerard Kremer on my shelf already. Dutch history will always interest me, especially 20th century history. Read TBR bookDe achtertuin van het achterhuis
The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History (2018), Aida Edemariam. Ethiopian history and tradition. This book won the 2019 RSL Ondaatje Prize and has been compared to an Ethiopian Wild Swans. I’ve added it to my online wishlist (one up from the Goodreads wishlist; I might actually order it). But wait! I have an acclaimed novel that covers the same ground: The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste. Update 2023: reader, it seems to have appeared on my shelf. I obviously couldn’t resist the urge to order it. Whoops! Read 2 TBR books: The Wife’s Tale + The Shadow King
Mr. Kaor Yamamoto, Lex Boon. A Dutch journalist investigated why a Japanese man sent four letters per week to a hotel in Volendam, every one the same. One to borrow from the library, just for fun. Library
The Better Half: On the Genetic Superiority of Women (2020), Sharon Moalem. This comes under the heading of sounding absolutely fascinating, but I probably wouldn’t read it for years if I bought it. I should finish Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (2019) first. I suspect The Better Half piggybacks on the success of Invisible Women; Sharon Moalem is a man, by the way… Finish currently reading TBR book Invisible Women
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013), Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is remaining firmly on the list of books I think I would love, unless it’s too airy-fairy and tending towards spiritual mumbo jumbo. Having a quote on the front cover by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love isn’t helping convince me, even if I did love that as a light summer read. I’m looking for more depth from Braiding Sweetgrass. I’d prefer to borrow it or browse it before buying. It’s available on archive.org. The Dutch Online Library has also added it (in Dutch). After a brief glance, I’m convinced I’ll love it. But there are other nature books awaiting my attention on my shelves: Wilding by Isabella Tree (now finished), Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald (half-read) and The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane (TBR) as well as various gardening books. I also have to buy Entangled Life: How Funghi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures (2021) by Merlin Sheldrake for my April book club (I didn’t!). Ironically, it has quotes from both Helen Macdonald and Robert Macfarlane on the front cover. Why don’t authors say “This book is nearly as good as mine. Read mine first!”? Braiding Sweetgrass will have to go on the back burner. Remains on wishlist / to be read online
My Name is Why (2019), Lemn Sissay. Autobiography of a Black British boy, adopted, then fostered, neglected, but turned into a renowned author and broadcaster, against all the odds. I will read it if I come across it. I have plenty of other books about the consequences of British colonialism to read, including one about the Windrush generation. Remains on wishlist
The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah:The Autobiography (2018), Benjamin Zephaniah. I have enjoyed some of Zephaniah’s poetry and he has led an interesting life, so I will keep an eye out for this, but wouldn’t buy it new. Sadly, he died a few days ago, far too young. Remains on wishlist
Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People (2020), Kasia Body. I’m attracted as much by the cover as the subject, but I already have substitutes on my shelves so won’t order it. Read a different TBR book
The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, Sisonke Msimang. I already have an older book about Winnie Mandela, so I should make myself read that first. I also have the half-read 1001 book Burger’s Daughter by Nadine Gordimer, about the life of a dissident’s daughter in South Africa. I planned to read it in this month (2022) (theme: family members) or give up for good. Skim read?
Between the Stops: The View of My Life from the Top of the Number 12 Bus (2019), Sandi Toksvig. I would love to read this because Sandi Toksvig is a delight and I’ve loved a couple of her YA books, but am unlikely to order it. Stays on wishlist
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), Amitav Ghosh. Before I think of buying this, I need to read Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide to see if I like his style. Then I should read Resetting Our Future: What If Solving the Climate Crisis is Simple? by Tom Bowman and George Monbiot’s Amazon (now half-read), all gathering dust on my bookshelves. Read TBR books: The Hungry Tide + What if Solving…
Homesick: Why I Live in a Shed (2019), Catrina Davies. I believe I read about this book in a Guardian review, then saw Davies interviewed in Simon Reeves’ depressing documentary about how difficult it is for young people in Cornwall to find meaningful jobs or anywhere to live. This is high on my list of books to buy, if only for the satisfaction of paying the author for her work. I grew up in a seaside resort with high unemployment on the other side of the country and it wasn’t uncommon for families running guesthouses to sleep in the garden shed in tourist season, but at least they could go back inside once it got colder. Update 2023: I bought this on my Kobo app and have read 69%. Finish reading!
The Road to Somewhere: Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (2017), David Goodhart. This sounds so fascinating that I might just have to buy it as it has to do with rootedness and whether you have an Anywhere or Somewhere outlook. As someone who thought they were internationally oriented but actually likes staying in one place, and in the light of Brexit, this sounds like it may just be worth buying because I don’t think it will ever be available in the library here. Update 2023: This is now lurking on my Kobo. TBR!
Venice: The Lion, the City and the Water (2019), Cees Nooteboom. This is really on my wishlist because I had a blogging friend who loved both the English translation of Cees Nooteboom’s travel books and Venice. So far I have only read two of his novels which I find overly philosophical and my only connection with Venice is the beautiful and intriguing descriptions in Cordelia Funke’s The Thief of Scipio. I will have to peruse it in a bookshop before spending money on this one, but it is also a coffee table book in collaboration with his photographer partner. I may well borrow another of his travel books from the library, however. Check the library
Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain (2021), Padraic X. Scanlan. First I should read the books I already have on this subject: Empireland (Sathnam Sanghera), Black and British (David Olosuga) and The Windrush Betrayal: Exposing the Hostile Environment (Amelia Gentleman) for starters. 2023: Finish Empireland and The Windrush Betrayal (both half-read)+ Read Black and British
Stroika With a London View (2010), William B. Foreignerski (translated from Latvian by the author). An overqualified Latvian moves to London to work in the construction industry. A humorous look at pre-Brexit Britain from the viewpoint of an immigrant. I’m considering buying this as an ebook, but in 2022, I could only order through Amazon on Kindle, which I prefer not to do. It would have cost me €17.94 with a delivery time of about 6 weeks if I ordered it through Amazon.nl; if I was in England it would have cost me £6.99, 2-day delivery! Update 2023: I can now buy the e-book for just €4.42 on bol.com (Dutch online retailer). I may treat myself. It’s not often you come across a Latvian book. Buy Stroika With a London View!
Foreign Devils on the Silk Road (1980), Peter Hopkirk. All about six men who led archeological expeditions to areas in China to dig up ancient artifacts covered by sand. They are now in various museums around the world and China would like them back. This is one of those books that’s worth noting on a list, but I doubt I’ll ever find it. There are more modern books about the history of the The Silk Road, notably by historian Peter Francopan, so that might be worth looking for in the library. 2023:The New Silk Road was on special offer last year, so I couldn’t resist. TBR: The New Silk Road
Loved Clothes Last: How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can be a Revolutionary Act (2021), Orsola de Castro. This fits perfectly into my life philosophy. The main problem is actually doing the mending. Before I treat myself to this book, though, I am going to see what they have in the extensive selection of craft books at the library. Reading reviews online, I think my time might be better spent watching some videos on YouTube and then actually trying to put it into practice. Check the library
The Art of Repair (2021), Molly Martin. This sounds like the practical manual for mending clothes that I am looking for! It may be more of a gift book than a practical one, however. Check the library
Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes (2019), Dana Thomas. This sounds fascinating, but perhaps I should explore the subject via the library rather than using up resources by buying my own copy. This sounds more inspirational than Loved Clothes Last because it concentrates more on high tech solutions to environmentally unfriendly textile production as well as small scale sharing, recycling, etc. but the problem is price and scalability. One to borrow from the library, if possible. Library?
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (2019), David Epstein. Being a generalist myself, I’m very interested in this subject, but when a reviewer I trust says I’d be better off reading a summary or watching a TED talk about the subject, then my conclusion is: watch the TED talk first.
Kindertijd (1967), Tove Ditlevsen. This is part of an autobiographical trilogy that I want to borrow from the library. As it’s a translation from Danish, I feel perfectly happy reading it in Dutch. Library
Laat voor de thee in het hertenpaleis. Een familiegeschiedenis in Baghdad (Late for Tea at the Deer Palace) (2009), Tamara Chalabi. Available from my library
The Disappearing Spoon. And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (2010), Sam Kean. One to keep in mind when looking for a popular science read, but not a must-have. I’ve been reading Jay Ingram’s collection of short articles, The Speed of Honey for the past 12 years, I believe, and Bill Bryson’sA Short History of Nearly Everything has been on my bedside table for years, hoping the knowledge will somehow be absorbed into my brain as I sleep, perhaps. I did read the first couple of chapters once and recall one fact: up until some relatively recent date (the crusades?), the concept of zero did not yet exist in western mathematics. I also have Ian Stewart’s What Shape is a Snowflake? to read before I add anything new to the science pile. My husband also has an extensive shelf of space and mathematics-themed books if I’m desperate, though nothing much about chemistry or medicine, which interest me more than physics and space. I’ll leave it on my list. Wishlist
Love in the Blitz: The Greatest Lost Love Letters of the Second World War (2020), Eileen Alexander. I would read this if I had it, but I wouldn’t go put of my way to find it. On the other hand, I might re-read Joyce Grenfell’s Dear Ma whose letters were funny and informative about wartime London. Remove from wishlist
Ramble Book (2020), Adam Buxton. I didn’t know anything about Adam Buxton when I discovered his podcasts a couple of years ago. In the first one I listened to, he was talking to Louis Theroux and I’ve also listened to him interviewing Philip Pullman and others. I’m probably more likely to selectively listen to more of his podcasts than to buy the book. Listen to podcast occasionally
The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World (2020), Luke Keogh. Mention of these mini greenhouses has cropped up a couple of times in my reading and television viewing in the past year or two, so I’d like to know more. However, I have to read the nature and gardening books I already have first. Read TBR books
Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self, Julie Sedivy. A meditation on bilingualism and language learning. It would jump off a shelf at me if I saw it in a shop, but doubt I will buy it. Remove from wishlist
The Electricity of Every Living Thing (2018), Katherine May. The personal cogitations of a woman who was given a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome as an adult and decides to walk the South West Coast Path, in sections. I have a personal interest in autism, so this definitely appeals to me. I can borrow it from the library, as well as her book Wintering, about accepting dark, quiet times in your life as normal because life has recurring seasons too. Library
Sentient: What Animals Reveal About Our Senses (2021), Jackie Higgins. One for the science reminder stack. Wishlist
Extreme Economies: What Life at the World’s Margins Can Teach Us About our Future (2020), Richard Davies. I’m still interested in reading this after Ian’s excellent review, but first I have Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists to read. I’ve been promising my son I would read this ever since he got it. Perhaps I should buy him Davies’s book as a present. TBR: Utopia for Realists
Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills (2007), Abigail R. Gehring. This sounds like a great guide for apocalyptic times, assuming one can get the supplies one needs at that point. Apart from that, I’ve always been interested in learning traditional skills, but have never had anyone to teach me. I’m still highly attracted to this title as well as the one about which food it’s worthwhile making yourself, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese. Keep on wishlist
The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway and the Northeast Passage (2017), Erika Fatland. I added this to my wishlist after I read Colin Thubron’s book about his travels in Kazakhstan and the other Stans, Into the Heart of Asia, shortly after the collapse of the USSR. Fatland’s journey is much more recent and covers more ground. She has also written a book called Sovietstan: Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan, and Uzbekistan, which I would also like to read. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes me even more interested in the region and it’s relationship with Russia. I’m very tempted to buy it, but am worried it would take up a lot of space and just sit for years on the neverending travel memoir bookshelf. After all, I have other books covering this region, both fiction and non-fiction: Colin Thubron’s In Siberia and Paul Theroux’s The Iron Rooster, humorous To the Baltic With Bob by Griff Rhys Jones, a fantasy book by an Estonian, The Man Who Spoke Snakish, a book about the ex-Georgian president’s Dutch ex-wife. I also recently added Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between about walking across Afghanistan to my TBR. Maybe I should catch up on those books first, though I am intrigued by her perspective as a woman travelling alone in the region. Read 5 or 6 TBR books instead
The Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919), W.N.P. Barbellion. I have to admit I added this mainly because of the name Barbellion, which cropped up elsewhere (in The Quincunxby Charles Palliser), but when I found out more, it still intrigued me. Perhaps when I’m reading Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy or something else set around that period, I will read this as a companion piece. It was written by man who couldn’t go to war because he had MS. Stays on wishlist
East Side Voices: Essays Celebrating East and Southeast Asian Voices in Britain (2022), Helena Lee (ed.). I really ought to read one of my oldest books that covers the same ground, but was first published in the 1978 and focuses on women, Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain, edited by Amrit Wilson. It was updated last year to add a chapter from the point of view of young British Asian women today, comparing their lives with those of the women interviewed in the 1970s. I’ve read about half. Read TBR book Finding a Voice
When the Dust Settles: Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster (2022), Lucy Easthope. This is particularly timely in the wake of a global pandemic and a war in Ukraine. It’s one to bear in mind once my glut of books has thinned out a bit. In fact, when the dust has settled. In 2023 I also picked up a book about pandemics, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic (2012) by David Quammen.Leave on wishlist + read Spillover
Added to my wishlist in 2023
The Long Weekend: A Social History of Britain 1918-1939 (1940), Robert Graves. Wishlist
No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working Class Reader (2022), Mark Hodkinson. I read an excerpt from this in the Guardian and was intrigued. Wishlist
The Great Explosion (2015), Brian Dillon. In 1916, an explosion at a munitions factory in Kent killed 108 people. The book also explores the Kentish marshes (which ones?). Curious only because I hail from East Kent, but I would only buy this secondhand, where I am extremely unlikely to find it. Wishlist
The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines That Divide Us (2020), Nick Hayes. A vast proportion of Britain’s landscape is privately owned. Investigates past trespassers and the right to roam. One to look for whilst in England. Wishlist
Sea People: the Puzzle of Polynesia (2019), Christina Thompson. Recommended by a friend. Borrow?
Weggooien? Mooi niet! [Throw it Away? Absolutely Not!] (2015), Martine Postma. Spotted in the library. Borrow from library
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics (2015), Tim Marshall. Wars and politics often come down to border disputes. This book tells you why they are where they are. Wishlist
There is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century (2021), Fiona Hill. A British working class woman’s education led to her studying in Russia, Harvard, working under three US presidents, including Trump. A warning against populism. Wishlist
It’s a Continent: Unravelling Africa’s History One Country at a Time (2022), Astrid Madimba. Remove from wishlist because I bought Africa is Not a Country (2022) by Dipo Faloyin instead. Read TBR book Africa is Not a Country
Tussen de Himalaya en de hemel (2022), Maggie Doyne, translation of Between the Mountain and the Sky by De Vertaalzusjes (Inouchka & Charlaine Kreuning). Spotted at the library. When Maggie Doyne was backpacking in Nepal, she saw a child breaking rocks on the riverbank and decided to take action by setting up a children’s home, school and a charity. Borrow from library
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity (2015), Steve Silberman. History of autism and a plea for more inclusion. Apparently the DSM3 contained a typo, meaning many children were unnecessarily diagnosed with PDD-NOS (an autism spectrum disorder). I don’t suppose I shall ever read this, but I’m leaving it on my wishlist as I have a personal interest in autism. In the meantime, I have read I Will Die on This Hill by Meghan Ashburn and Jules Edwards that gives an own voices and parental perspective of autism. Wishlist: Neurotribes
Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology (2022), Chris Miller. A supposedly entertaining history and future of the semiconductor industry we all depend upon. I am very tempted to buy this, especially as my husband is heavily involved in the industry. Tempted to buy!
In summary
I’m not sure if I made much impact in reducing the number of books on my wishlist, but I have more than enough nonfiction lined up to keep me occupied. I would also like to point out that the wishlist books that listed above are not my only nonfiction books. If there didn’t happen to be a wishlist book on a similar subject, the ones already in my possession are not even listed here! My wishlist is very much pie in the sky, but lists can be useful when I don’t know what to look for in a bookshop or the library. It will be interesting to check back next year during Nonfiction November to see how many of them I have actually read.
To be read:
Read TBR bookFat Chance
Read TBR book Outliers
Read TBR bookDe eeuw van mijn vader
Read TBR bookDe achtertuin van het achterhuis
Read 2 TBR books: The Wife’s Tale + The Shadow King
Finish currently reading TBR book Invisible Women
FinishVesper Flights by Helen Macdonald (half-read)
ReadThe Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
Skim readThe Resurrection of Winnie Mandela, Sisonke Msimang
Read TBR books: The Hungry Tide + What if Solving the Climate Chris is Simple
Finish readingHomesick: Why I Live in a Shed (2019), Catrina Davies
ReadThe Road to Somewhere: Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (2017), David Goodhart
Finish Empireland and The Windrush Betrayal (both half-read)
Read Black and British
TBR: The New Silk Road
FinishThe Speed of Honey
ReadBill Bryson’sA Short History of Nearly Everything
ReadWhat Shape is a Snowflake?, Ian Stewart
Read Utopia for Realists
Read Colin Thubron’s In Siberia + Paul Theroux’s The Iron Rooster + To the Baltic With Bob by Griff Rhys Jones + The Man Who Spoke Snakish (fantasy) + a book about the ex-Georgian president’s Dutch ex-wife + Rory Stewart’s The Places In Between
Read TBR book Finding a Voice
Read Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic (2012) by David Quammen
Read TBR book Africa is Not a Country
Borrow from library:
Het geluid van vallende sneeuw, Jannie Regnerus
Mr. Kaor Yamamoto, Lex Boon
Venice: The Lion, the City and the Water (2019), Cees Nooteboom (ILL?)
Loved Clothes Last: How the Joy of Rewearing and Repairing Your Clothes Can be a Revolutionary Act (2021), Orsola de Castro (or something similar)
The Art of Repair (2021), Molly Martin
Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes (2019), Dana Thomas
Kindertijd (1967), Tove Ditlevsen
Laat voor de thee in het hertenpaleis. Een familiegeschiedenis in Baghdad(Late for Tea at the Deer Palace)(2009), Tamara Chalabi
The Electricity of Every Living Thing (2018), Katherine May
This is the second part of my post for Liz Dexter’s prompt, ‘Pair a nonfiction book with a fiction book’. This post is about the colonial policy of sending indigenous children to residential schools so they could ‘integrate’ into the white colonisers’ society, thus suppressing and destroying indigenous cultures, languages and family structures. I’ve read so many accounts of this, fictional and biographical, that I decided to make it into a separate post.
This was done in the former British colonies of Canada and Australia up until relatively recently and also in the USA. I am no expert, but I think this was sometimes done only to mixed race children with the excuse that they would never fit in fully with indigenous society, so should be educated to be useful citizens who could adapt to western norms, training boys to work in agriculture and the trades and girls to work in domestic service, often on farms. To achieve this, they were forbidden to speak their native languages and indoctrinated in the Christian religion. If you think about the way English has become a world language in the wake of colonialism, you can see that this policy was used throughout the colonial world, but not necessarily by removing children from their homes. For this post, I’m
INDIGENOUS BOARDING SCHOOLS IN CANADA & USA
NF: Wiijiwaganag: More Than Brothers, Peter Razor. An account of a Native American Ojibwe boy and his immigrant European friend in the repressive residential school system.
NF: In Search of April Raintree – Critical Edition, Beatrice Cullerton Mosioniet, Cheryl Suzack (Ed.). Many years ago, this was the first book I ever read about suppression of cultural identity in colonial residential schools. The original story tells of twin Metis girls (with First Nation and white parents), separated, but staying in contact, and their different experiences. In addition, the book contains critical essays. The story was told in a plain, non-literary style, but for me it was only important as a springboard for the critical essays and further discussion.
Fiction: I asked some Canadian friends on Facebook if they had any suggestions and one came up with this amazing article about residential schools in Canada by Book Riot with both fictional and nonfiction representations of the destruction of culture that the residential school system attempted. Another friend told me about a CBC list of 48 books by Indigenous writers to read to understand residential schools.
ABORIGINAL BOARDING SCHOOLS IN AUSTRALIA
For many years there was a similar policy in Australia to remove mixed race children from their Aboriginal families and communities and take them to boarding schools to teach them white culture and prepare them to work in service or as labourers on farms. They are known as the Stolen Generation. There is a longer reading list on Goodreads.
NF: Rabbit-Proof Fence, Doris Pilkington/Nugi Garimara. Aboriginal author. When three young mixed race girls are taken from their homes by the government and shipped away to a boarding school in the south, it doesn’t take long for the eldest to decide they will never thrive under the strict discipline, so unlike their calm and loving home environment. She knows that if they follow the fence that runs from the south of the continent all the way to the north, they will eventually reach their own country. The author was the eldest girl’s daughter and grew up hearing the true story from her mother and aunt. It is interesting, but lacks detail about the school and the trip to make it really come to life. However, it did bring the plight of the Stolen Generations to the foreground when it was filmed.
Fiction: The White Girl, Tony Birch. Aboriginal author. An aboriginal grandmother does her utmost to protect her teenaged mixed race granddaughter from being sent to a boarding school. For years this has been possible due to the lackadaisical local policeman. When a new hard-line officer arrives, life becomes much more dangerous. This was beautifully written with great characters. As this has now been published in America, and has even been translated into Dutch and Danish, it is now readily available, unlike many other Australian books.
Fiction: The Song of Wirrun, Patricia Wrightson. This one is not about Australian government boarding schools, but I wanted to include it because it strongly reminded me of Rabbit-Proof Fence. It is a fantasy trilogy based on Aboriginal legends and mythical beings. The main character is an Aboriginal teenager who notices that there has been a spate of unusual frosts reported in the newspaper. On a trip into the bush, he wakes covered in frost and from that point on, he is engaged in a struggle against elemental beings that are being displaced by human (white Australian) activity. Various different spirits and beings appear across the trilogy. It would appeal to anyone who enjoys Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea books. However, I believe it is now out of print and I don’t expect it to reappear because it was written by a white Australian who used myths and legends that were not her own. The continent of Australia is so huge that the original inhabitants had a huge range of languages, traditions and stories and she muddled them together as if they all came from one people. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the descriptions of landscapes and the physical process of survival in the bush. Wirrun and friends frequently stop in the bush to drink tea and eat dampers (simple flour and water bread) cooked over a fire. I’ve recently been watching a documentary series about Western Australia, presented by comedian Bill Bailey. In more than one episode an Aboriginal guide brewed bush tea and cooks dampers, bringing the book to life. He also explained about how Aboriginal workers used to be paid for their labour in flour, tea (presumably black tea) and sugar, something that is also mentioned in either Rabbit-Proof Fence or The Song of Wirrun.
All these revelations about how my country and other Western people have treated and do treat indigenous peoples make me feel ashamed. At least own voices are now able to make themselves heard. Reading the stories of their ancestors and their own lived experiences is one way to foster understanding for what they have had to endure in the face of colonisation and to open the eyes of those of us who were brought up with visions of a glorious empire. Nary a word spoken about how that was achieved. Educating myself about this is an ongoing process.
Market Garden Reader 