SandDune in 2014: February thread

Welcome to my slightly belated February thread. For those that don't know me from previous years, I'm SandDune (aka Rhian), a 52 year old Finance Manager working for a local charity. I live about thirty miles north of London in the UK with my husband of 25 years (aka Mr SandDune), our thirteen year son (aka J), our (almost) 2 year old sweet-tempered Staffordshire Bull Terrier Daisy, and 10 year old cat Sweep, who is not sweet-tempered at all as far as Daisy is concerned and whose life ambition is to drive Daisy out of the house. Mr SandDune is an Assistant Principal at the school that my son attends and so our lives tend to be rather dominated by school issues during term time. I'm half-way through an English Literature degree with the Open University and currently studying the Nineteenth Century Novel module.

My reading tends to be quite varied. Historically, I've read a lot of literary and classical fiction, but in recent years (thanks largely to LT but also my University course) I've been branching out and exploring science-fiction, fantasy, children's and YA fiction, and graphic novels. I read very little chick-lit, thrillers or detective fiction. I haven't read much non-fiction during the last couple of years but I hope to remedy that this year.

My selected painting for this month is:

'Horizontal Dogs' 1995 David Hockney (1937-)



Although originally from Yorkshire, David Hockney is probably better known for his paintings of Californian swimming pools but this is one of a series of prints that he made of his two dachshunds Stanley and Boogie.

Reading Plans for 2014:

This year I'm going to be a little more flexible in my reading plans. Last year I joined the 2013 category challenge but I didn't find that it really suited how I wanted to read, so in 2014 I'm just going to have some general overall goals:

- First World War Centenary. As it's the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, I'm intending to read at least some fiction connected with this period.

- American Author Challenge 2014. I am very poorly read in some of these American greats from the 20th century and so a lot of these authors will be new to me.

- Vorkosigan Year Long Challenge. I read Shards of Honour in 2013 and I'm really looking forward to continuing this series.

- Open University reading. The Nineteenth Century Novel at the moment and then Twentieth Century Writing later in the year.

- RL book group. We read a book a month (mainly literary fiction), as well as the Booker prize short list every year.

In 2013 I read just over 100 books so this plan should leave me plenty of room for random picks and book bullets!

Books read in 2014:

1. The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am Kjersti A. Skomsvold ****
2. Barrayar Lois McMaster Bujold ****
3. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Robin Sloan ***1/2
4. Turned out Nice: How the British Isles will Change as the World Heats Up Marek Kohn **1/2
5. We Need New Names NoViolet Bulawayo ***1/2
6. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth Isabel Greenberg ***1/2
7. Longbourn Jo Baker ***1/2
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie ****
9. Servants A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain Lucy Lethbridge ***1/2
10. Far From the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy ****1/2
11. Germinal Emile Zola ***1/2
12. Death Comes to the Archbishop Willa Cather ***1/2
13. The Lowland Jhumpa Lahiri *****
14. The Testament of Mary Colm Toibin ****1/2
15. William:An Englishman Cicely Hamilton ****
16. Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert ****
17. Instructions for a Heatwave Maggie O'Farrell ***
18. Harvest Jim Crace ***
19. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins ****1/2
20. Tulip Fever Deborah Moggach ***1/2

Books bought in 2014

1. Barrayar Lois McMaster Bujold
2. Longbourn Jo Baker (£7.99)
3. Servants A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain Lucy Lethbridge
4. The Last Runaway Tracy Chevalier (gift)
5. Flight Behaviour Barbara Kingsolver (gift)
6. William: An EnglishmanCicely Hamilton

And the prizes for 2013 are:

My five star reads:

Barchester Towers Anthony Trollope
The Garden of Evening Mists Tan Twan Eng
Tooth and Claw Jo Walton
The Unknown Bridesmaid Margaret Forster
The Lighthouse Alison Moore
The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman
Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky
Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
Northanger Abbey Jane Austen
Salvage the Bones Jesmyn Ward

Least favourite reads:

Narcopolis Jeet Thayil
The Damned Busters Matthew Hughes
Perelandra C.S.Lewis

Favourite new series:

Mapp & Lucia E.F.Benson

Happy new thread, Rhian. I love the Hockney painting!

The reason that I have set up my new thread now is that I have returned home after an abortive attempt to get to work. I didn't even manage to get a mile from my house. the road that I usually drive on is closed due to flooding, the alternative route is also closed (presumably also due to flooding), the road heading south is gridlocked, and the road in the opposite direction into town is also gridlocked and had police cars with flashing lights heading down it. Mr SandDune has just phoned up to say that the situation in town has not been improved by a large bus driving into a flooded part and then getting stuck. I've never seen traffic like it. None of them will be large scale floods (not like they're having in Somerset if anyone has seen the pictures) but they will be big enough to block the road.

Actually, for those that haven't seen the pictures here they are. This is what the Somerset levels has looked like for over a month, and it said on the news this morning that the water levels have gone up about a metre overnight, so since the pictures were taken:





This is the train line to Cornwall dangling in the air as the sea wall was washed away in the most recent storm a day or so ago. More storms to come apparently.

That's serious, Rhian. I'm afraid the storm and rain have reached us last night; we have turbulent weather now :-(

Hi Diana, I have just got back home again after another hour of driving round in circles and being stuck in traffic jams and have given up the whole idea of work for today. This time I got three miles from home! Our office is only open until three on a Friday so I decided that it was just not worth it.

And continuing the stormy theme here are some clips of the most recent storm which are amazing (and also illustrates how stupid people can be when confronted with waves)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26070143

>10 SandDune:: thank you for that clip, Rhian. The force of the waves is really frightening.

Congrats on the new thread, Rhian! Those are some impressive waves. Why people want rush out and get in the middle of them is a mystery to me. There was a poor soul/spectator washed away in a storm around here last year. I'm a firm believer I respecting Mother Nature in all her awesome power.

For some reason I thought Daisy was a black lab. I'm not sure why. So I have to chuckle when I think of a Staffie running scared of a cat.

Found the reason why I couldn't get to work today. There was rather more water than I thought. The picture of the crossroads with traffic lights in the first slideshow (I think it's the 4th slide along) is my usual route to work.

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/Bishops-Stortford/Roads-closed-as-St...

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/East-Herts-villages/Driver-tells-of-...

#11,12 Hi Laura, Marianne. Several people have been killed over the last month or so being swept away by waves - you'd think that people would learn. And we're expecting another storm overnight apparently.

#13 Morphy - not a black lab - she a 100% pedigree staffy but she's such a baby. She's sitting on my feet at the moment crying because she wants her food - it's not actually her meal time for another fifty minutes but I don't think I'll hold out that long!

Rhian, for the old thread: I love Daisy with her innocent glance ;-D.
Happy new thread. I hope the terribly weather will soon turn to better. Gee, it's so awful, unbelievable.

Goodness, at least you managed to not get stuck in the floods. I grew up on the coast as well, the village used to flood regularly on spring tides. Unsurprisingly, we live on a hill... Stay safe & dry.

Violent weather conditions! On the bright side, without making light of the situation, nice to be home on a Friday, Rhian.

Oh my goodness - stay safe with all of that flooding!

And Happy New Thread!

Rhian, the flooding is terrible. We saw a tiny part of the earlier stuff out of the train window in Kent in January, but nothing like those pictures.

#16 Hi Barbara, Helen, Nancy, Amber, Cushla. Unfortunately I've got to go to work tomorrow as well, so I'm hoping it'll be better as it hasn't rained all day. But they're forecasting more heavy rain overnight so the water levels could go back up.

Thanks for the links ... WOW! That's a lot of water! And more coming?

Stay dry and safe, Rhian.

That looks positively terrifying Rhian, I think Judy has the right idea about staying safe and dry.

Hi Marianne, Judy, Ilana - well it's clearly rained overnight but I don't think there was anything like as much rain as the night before. Apparently on Thursday night we had half February's normal rainfall within a few hours. And it was all falling on ground that already had standing water on it and rivers that were full to bursting, as January's rainfall was the highest since records began.

Rhian- Sorry to hear about all the rain. It looks like I missed most of your first thread but I am popping in early for this one. I had problems with the audio of Shards of Honor, a section was missing but I hope to get to it later in the month.
Have a good, hopefully dry weekend.

Rhian, I hope you can despite the awful weather enjoy your weekend

Thanks for sharing that video clip and the pictures of flooded Stortford. I was braced for the weather to be absolutely horrible today but it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought. I think we've been very fortunate and I really feel for those further south who are facing more floods and rain. Hope you manage to get to work and back safely today.

stopping by your new thread, Rhian and amazed by the pictures and videos of the flooding! What a crazy winter this has been, weather wise!

Wow, that flooding is something. That looks awfully like our Great Flood of 1993 in Missouri, when the Mississippi & Missouri rivers flooded after rain, rain, rain. The damage that water can do is just terrible. Stay safe!

#26, 27, 28, 29, 30 Hi Mark, Barbara, Heather, Lori, Becky. Well, the flooding locally has gone down and I was able to get to work without difficulty this morning, although there is an awful lot of water lying about on the fields. Locally, although it's not a hilly area, all the villages seem to be at the bottom of quite definite dips next to their river or stream which means that it's the old houses in the village centre that get flooded whereas new houses like ours are perfectly safe. That's why there are so many old houses in the pictures above. In most other places it seems to be the other way around: the old village centre is definitely slightly above the traditional flood plain and it's the new houses that get flooded.

South-west England is still getting battered by 70-80mph winds and massive waves apparently but fine here.

Wow, Rhian! I've missed your whole last thread and now get here to see what terrible weather you've been having! Glad you are safe & sound!

Wow--at the flood photos.

^ What everyone else said! (RE: flood photos) Just incredible. I can't even fathom the amount of clean-up everything will need, private residences and public buildings & spaces alike.

Rhian, so sorry about the flooding in your area. I'm glad your house is high and dry. Staying safe is the main thing. Those waves are scary looking!

Isn't it a good job that the UK is not exposed to severe weather all that often as we don't seem to cope all that well. Very good photos Rhian.

Congratulations on your new thread my dear. I have been "darn Sarf" so I missed much of the fun.

Wow - that's a lot of water everywhere. I am so glad your house in set in a safe area.

How often does this happen? I've read several novels over the last few years set - one I just finished - the third volume in the Mary Hocking trilogy, where floods feature, so I am wondering now! In the John Cowper Powys the novel, set in Glastonbury, the implication was it was about a 100 yr. flood. Here, nowadays, we seem to get 100 yr. floods more often than that......

Hi Rhian - I'm so sorry to hear about your flooding. It is so devastating. I hope your weather changes for the better soon.

Hi Tina, Lori, Faith, Donna, Paul, Lucy. A fairly dry day today thanks goodness, but so windy overnight.

Lucy, the Somerset levels do flood frequently I think, as they are a traditionally marshy area that has been drained for agriculture, but apparently they don't usually flood to this extent or for this length of time: some villages have been cut off since before Christmas. There's quite a good article here in the Guardian about the situation around Glastonbury:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/somerset-floods-people-feel-a...

Paul, there is a major political argument going on as to who or what is to blame, enlivened by the local conservative MP calling the Chairman of the Environment Agency 'a little git' and threatening to flush his head down the loo! And the government has really not been managing the politics of the situation well at all.

Apparently today, there are sixteen severe flood warnings in place, which mean that there is an imminent threat to life: two in Somerset and fourteen in the Thames valley west of London where the Thames has already burst its banks in places and is threatening to flood more. And then there are over four hundred lesser flood warnings and alerts around the place elsewhere.

Finished books number 15 and 16:
William An Englishman Cicely Hamilton ****
Madame Bovary Gustave Falubert ****

Not bundles of laughs, either of them.

It's J's 14th birthday today, we haven't done too much but he seems to have enjoyed his presents. We're out for an Italian meal in am hour or so.

7: Oh my.

Madame Bovary is a fantastic story.

Looks like you're due for a "happy" book, Rhian. Happy birthday J!

I finished Madame Bovary with a strong desire to slap someone, preferably the lady of the title.

Happy birthday to the boy and hope the meal is good (and doesn't involve washing up, always my favourite part of eating out).

Hope you all have a good time celebrating J's birthday today. I appreciate your offer to send California your rains, Rhian; I truly wish you could!

Congrats for J's birthday. It must be a perfect day because it's also my younger daughter's birthday :-D

>44 Helenliz: I finished Madame Bovary with a strong desire to slap someone, preferably the lady of the title.

LMAO!!!

I felt something akin to that myself. Can't say I enjoyed that novel, but I'll have to revisit it eventually since it is such a beloved story and I'd like to understand why. I loved the few Flaubert short stories I read, mind you.

Sorry about all that flooding mess Rhian. Sounds like people are having a terrible time of it. Hope the birthday celebrations takes your mind off things for a bit.

Happy Birthday to J!

I've never thought much about what the seas where like surrounding England but mostly I thought of them as calm. Not any longer.

Happy Birthday to J and Daisy! Daisy was sooo cute! I love the staffy ears. Java, who's a mutt, has those ears. :)

15. William: an Englishman Cicely Hamilton ****
I read this now because: it's part of my World War I reading and part of VMC Great War Theme Read



William Tully is a quiet unassuming clerk in an insurance office, when his mother's death leaves him a little money and the independence to please himself as to how to spend his life. A chance encounter turns the easily influenced William into a key advocate of social reform. And with sufficient funds to enable him to give up work, William finds a certain success in the new circles in which he moves, and on meeting Griselda, an ardent suffragette, he finds love in a true meeting of minds:

They believed (quite rightly) in the purity of their own intentions; and concluded (quite wrongly) that the intentions of all persons who did not agree with them must therefore be evil and impure ... They held .,, to their opinions strongly and would have died rather than renounce, or seem to renounce, them -- which did not restrain them from resenting the same attitude of mind and heart in others. What in themselves they admired as loyalty, they denounced in others as interested and malignant stubbornness.'

But although William and Griselda are portrayed by the author with all their faults, there is also something touching about the way that their romance and subsequent marriage is dealt with. While neither of them are initially appealing characters, they are irritating rather than unpleasant, and are clearly very much in love: at the end of the day they are decent human beings. Hamilton deals with their political activism and romance in a light-hearted way which does engender a certain affection for the characters, even if they are not necessarily the sort of people the reader might want to spend a large amount of time with:

'The advanced Press spread itself over the description of the ceremony and - in view of the fact that the bridesmaids, six in number, had all done time for assault - even the Press that was not advanced considered the event worth a paragraph'

But William and Griselda's marriage takes place on the 23rd July 1914, and they set off for their four week long honeymoon in a very remote part of the Belgian Ardennes that afternoon. And deliberately out of the reach of newspapers, not speaking French, and out of contact with any other English speakers, they are completely oblivious that Europe has descended into all out war. So that when the war finds them they are completely unprepared ...

This is a tremendously sad book, as William tries to come to terms with what happens in the Ardennes, and also with the complete destruction of his long cherished beliefs. For the pacifist circles in which William has moved up until that point believes fervently that the workers of Europe would in no way allow themselves to be drawn into a war which was merely required by the machinations of their governments.

There have been mixed reviews of this book on LT, but I found it a rewarding read. Some readers have questioned whether William and Griselda could be so naive as to spent their honeymoon in Europe in a time of such heightened tension, but this seems plausible to me. They are very naive in anything outside their own experience, and with the views of all around them agreeing that a war is impossible, why should they feel the need to change their holiday plans? After all, Britain hadn't been involved in a war in continental Europe since the end of the Napoleonic wars a hundred years previously, so why should 1914 have been any different? So overall I found this a rewarding and poignant read dealing with a very ordinary man caught up in events that were completely outside his experience or even imagination.

Hi Katherine, Barbara, Laura, Helen, Roni, Ilana, Pat, Tamara. Thanks for dropping by.

J enjoyed his meal out yesterday. Italian is by far his favourite food: he could eat pasta and pizza everyday of the week and not get bored. Unfortunately, I am now not feeling too good, but I think this is due to a sickness bug I picked up at work rather than anything I ate, as my boss was off with a vomiting bug on Friday. I'm feeling that 2014 is a bit jinxed so far, what with the chest infection, then the floods and now a stomach upset. Before that I hadn't had a time off work for sickness for two years.

The floods have receded near us now, but concern still around the Thames valley where severe flood alerts still in place and the Thames at its highest level for twenty or thirty years and expected to rise further. And we are due further heavy rain tomorrow and Wednesday apparently.

Pat, rough weather is actually very common around the UK coast, especially on the west, and there will be storms every winter. I've certainly had some pretty rough ferry crossings in force nine gales across the Irish Sea to Ireland and across the North Sea to the Netherlands. What has been unusual about this winter is the severity of the storms and the fact that they have come one after the other in a seemingly never ending procession. My home town made the headlines of the national news at the weekend with pictures of gigantic waves crashing ashore.

Tamara, her ears are lovely, and they are so soft. I was absolutely horrified to discover last year that bull terrier ears were cropped in some places. It had not occurred to me before that that such a thing could happen, and the idea of someone cutting off part of Daisy's ears made me feel sick.

Review of Madame Bovary to follow. This was a reread for my course, and I think I got more out of it this time. But not very likeable characters certainly.

I also LOVE your comment about Bovary. Apt.

Read the article about the flooding with great interest. What a mess - I mean politically.

Hope you read some more fun books soon - when life is being difficult, the entertainment factor in reading is such a comfort.

Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert ****
I read this now because: it's required reading for my OU course.



The wife of a doctor in the small provincial town of Yonville, Emma Bovary finds the ordinary life which she leads tedious and banal. Her reading of romantic novels have led her to long for passion and romance in her life, something which her husband Charles will never be able to give her or even to understand. Charles is rather stupid and dull but overall a decent man who loves Emma wholeheartedly, while Emma herself, although continually striving for love, seems incapable of understanding true love herself. In reality it is the trappings of a rich lover that she seems to crave (money, fine clothes, fashionable furniture), and in the rich Rodolphe Boulanger it seems that she has found what she desires ...

It was interesting to read this novel so soon after Zola's Germinal. Both give a vivid impression of very different parts of French society in the nineteenth century, and Madame Bovary gives a wonderful impression of the constricted and stultifying society in which a woman like Emma Bovary was expected to live. But despite the reader feeling some sympathy for Emma's plight, her evident complete lack of concern for anyone other than herself means that that sympathy is not retained for long. Indeed, there are virtually no likeable characters in the novel at all. While Charles Bovary is well-meaning and truly cares for Emma's welfare, he is also stultifyingly boring, a doctor who is so unsure of his own abilities that he prefers to prescribe no medicines at all wherever possible. The apothecary Homais, who befriends the Bovarys when they first arrive in Yonville, does so in a coldly calculating manner for reasons of business alone. The draper Lheureux deliberately sets out to tempt Emma into debt (not a difficult task) and is not averse to a little blackmail if it will help her to proceed more quickly along this road.

But while none of the characters are likeable, they are all very believable and so overall the novel is a rich and satisfying one.

Superb reviews of both William: An Englishman and Madame Bovary, Rhian.

I read Bovary in my uni days. I liked its "feminist" leanings and thought it brave for its time. But I wonder what I would think of it now -- still a feminist, but an older, wiser, more world-weary one. :)

I surprisingly liked Germinal, Rhian, but I've steered clear of Madame Bovary because of that unlikeability factor. Your conclusion that it's still a good read helps incline me toward maybe giving it a try some time.

Hi Rhian - I've missed a lot, but just did a little catch-up. So sorry to hear about the weather and flooding issues you've been having!

I've not read Madame Bovary yet, but I'm a big fan of Germinal. As you said, I imagine it was a fascinating thing to read them so close together.

To continue the theme of flooding the Thames has now flooded west of London which is causing major disruption, and virtually the whole country has a severe weather warning for tomorrow for more heavy rains and snow. Here are some of the aerial photos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26117373

Rhian, I've seen pictures on the news here in Sitzerland. It's so terrible. I really hope that the weather will change to better soon.

#52 Lucy I'm currently reading Instructions for a Heatwave set in the long hot summer of 1976, as a relief from the wet weather. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the most cheerful book in the world either, so far.

#54 Thanks Nancy

#55 Laura, I'm not sure I see Madame Bovary as a particularly feminist novel. Emma doesn't seem to be searching for the freedom to do anything worthwhile: she wants a love affair for the romance and excitement it will bring to her life, and money for the fashionable clothes and nice things that it will buy. As long as she has those she's happy. And although she's bound by the conventions of the society, in a way her husband is almost as equally bound: both his profession and his first wife were chosen for him by his mother without any input from him. I can't help feeling that if Emma was alive today she'd be still be woman who was on the look-out for a rich and successful man, and she'd be equally dissatisfied once she had caught him.

#56, 57 Hi Joe, Kerri I definitely preferred Madame Bovary to Germinal. But I do want to read some more French literature that I really haven't read much of.

#59 Barbara, I certainly do hope it stops raining soon. They're saying that it's the wettest winter for 250 years.

Rhian - I have been watching the weather news in the UK and the machinations of the politicians with bewildered, black amusement. Chris Smith looks like a fish out of water to use an unfortunate metaphor in the circumstances and the interviews in situ with him whereby reporters are asking him why he doesn't resign seem to be toeing some sort of agenda. His snap back at Eric Pickles (an obnoxious fellow don't you think) was profoundly mirth-making but not really funny as the country slips under the water line. The idiots, whether through bad planning or penny-pinching, stopped dredging the rivers and this has directly lead to the disaster. I have just won a project in Southern Malaysia for river rehabilitation work (including river dredging) as it is clearly recognised that that is the root cause of many rivers overflowing as is improving the integrity of the river banks. Malaysia gets far more rain than the UK but we have much less of a problem with flooding.

Rhian, I am so sorry to have lost track of you two threads ago! I wondered where you had gone but it turns out I was the one missing out. I won't try to comment on everything I missed, but you've done some good reading, love the pics of Daisy as a puppy and today (she's beautiful!) and so sorry to see all the flooding going on in your area. I've lived through two "hundred-year" floods in the past 20 years, and that's about two too many. I hope things begin to get better soon.

>58 SandDune: that is incredible. So much extreme weather going on there, in parts of the US and also Australia. That is a few of the continents covered, isn't it. I am happy to report from here that the weather is clement. :)

#61 Paul, everyone seems to agree now that while dredging the rivers would not have prevented the flooding (in particular in Somerset) given the exceptional amount of rain that has fallen, it would certainly have reduced their intensity and duration. David Cameron suddenly seems to have woken up to the fact that he has a series situation on his hands and is now trying to be all statesmanlike (cynics are saying that the flooding of some very expensive real estate on the banks of the Thames has concentrated his mind wonderfully). I can't say either Chris Smith or Eric Pickles comes out of the situation well - far too much points scoring going on.

#62,63 Hi Julia, Megan. Apparently we are now due for another month's worth of rain in the next few days. And now there is also a red warning of winds with gusts of between 80 - 100mph in coastal areas of Wales and the West Country. I spoke to my mother yesterday, who is in one of those areas, and it has been too windy for her to go out already this week, but a relative has got her some shopping in so she should be all right to sit tight indoors for the next couple of days.

Edited to add: they are now forecasting hurricane force winds to hit the west coast of Wales later this afternoon.

>60 SandDune:: Rhian, thanks for the updated take on Madame Bovary. It might be worth a re-read someday.

I had mixed feelings about Flaubert's portrayal of Emma - on the one hand he was demonstrating how narrow the choices were for a woman of her type and 'class'. He loathed the bourgeois in general. Well, he loathed a lot of things.... I've never thought the book implied that if Emma had been given opportunities etc. that she would have been anything but more or less what she was, shallow, impractical, self-absorbed...... I hated Bovary, to tell the truth. While recognizing that the writing is superb. A very cold view of people and life. Zola is another matter altogether. Big heart. Humanity.

I don't remember very many of the details of Bovary (I read it in college), but I *do* remember being incredibly frustrated by her and thinking her a bit of an idiot. I'm with Helen up there in #44 - I just wanted to slap her silly.

17. Instructions for a Heatwave Maggie O'Farrell ***
I read this now because: it's setting in the heatwave of 1976 appealed as a relief from the almost constant rain we've had over the past few months!

Any British person who is my age will remember the long, hot summer of 1976. The sun shone and shone, the temperatures rose, and the rain kept away for month after month. There were hosepipe bans and water restrictions and standpipes in the streets. And on one of those hot, dry mornings the recently retired Robert Riordan goes out to buy a newspaper from the local shop and doesn't come back. When his wife Gretta calls somewhat confusedly on the support of her two older children, Michael Francis and Monica, they discover that their father has taken his passport and cleared his bank account. But each of the family have their own issues apart from the disappearance of their husband and father. Gretta is trying vainly to preserve the Irish Catholic heritage of her family despite having lived in London for forty years. Michael Francis has an unhappy career as a teacher and an unhappy marriage following an affair with a colleague. Monica is living unhappily in the countryside with her antique dealer husband who despises modern conveniences, and at weekends, with his two daughters who despise her. And the youngest daughter Aoife, commonly held by the family to have gone off the rails, is estranged from them all and living in New York with a secret that not even her closest family know about: she cannot read. And that secret is dragging her into deeper and deeper trouble with her job as a photographer's assistant, the only job that she has held that she has ever actually enjoyed:

over the many months she's worked for Evelyn, the blue folder in the box on top of the filing cabinet has swelled and grown. Every bit of paper she is handed, every letter she opens, every request or application or contract that comes through the door, she puts in there. Anything with numbers and dollar signs - cheques and bills and invoices - she sends straight to the accountant so she knows at least that the money is going into and out of the business. But everything else gets put in the folder. To deal with later. When she can. As soon as she's worked out how to do it. And she will. It's just a matter of time. Any day know she will get down the blue folder, which is bulging, sides straining, and deal with it. Somehow.

As the family, even Aoife, draw together to solve the mystery of their father's disappearance, secrets and lies long hidden start to come to the surface.

I wasn't altogether taken with this book. The Riordans are one of those families where you feel that their situation would be much improved by everyone just taking an afternoon to have a meaningful conversation, which I always find annoying. And the events are supposed to take place over only three days in July 1976, which logistically doesn't seem feasible given the amount of travelling that goes on. But more irritating is that the book left much unexplained: I don't always mind this if there seems some purpose to it, but here it just seems to be a quirk of the authors's style.

So OK but for me no more than that.

Playing catch up here as I've been under the weather. First of all, I hope you and yours are safe and dry. My other friends in England are but certain areas are just a mess. I've been following along with various online news sources. The Thames flood barriers are holding at London but upstream is awful, judging from the photos.

Good review of William. I have that sitting here but haven't got around to it yet. It's funny you read about a heatwave after William because there was a fierce heatwave the summer before the war with people escaping from London to go to pick hops, just for fresher air.

Thing it is worth noting about the Thames barrier is that it is not designed to prevent the water flowing down the river Thames from flooding London, it is designed to stop the tides in the Thames from flooding London. And the way it does that is to divert the tidal surge back the way it has come, meaning that coastal regions of Essex & Kent would get flooded instead. It is an amazing thing to see though.

Ahh, yes, the summer of '76. For me, it conincided with those golden years of childhood, so in my memory there were nothing but perfect summers. Shame the book didn;t quite live up to that.

#66 Lucy, I think we have the opposite opinion as regards Germinal and Madame Bovary. With Zola I can recognise that the writing is superb, but the humanity eludes me rather. I think it's the focus of Zola on the external aspects of his characters rather than their internal motivation which I find less appealing.

#65,67 Laura, Amber, I did find that Madame Bovary is a rewarding read even if it hasn't got any appealing characters!

#69,Hi Tui yes, as Helen says the Thames barrier combats flooding from the other direction. I've just been watching an feature on the news which was saying how some of the flooding is being caused by ground water seepage as ground water is at a record high level, which will mean that the flooding will persist a lot longer than expected.

#70 Helen, I remember when that heatwave broke as well. I walked home from school, the first rain for months was a complete downpour, and me and my friend got absolutely soaked.

I was fascinated by those flood barrier things when we were there, how they rise up out of the river. We got quite a talk about them and what they do but it's nothing to seeing them work.

Hope they take a look at the damage that not de-silting the rivers has caused and put money back into that again. It's a real problem in Cornwall and Devon, I've been reading. What a mess with the ground water situation.

Rhian, the national news tonight is showing aerial views of the Thames, Severn, Avon and other rivers tonight showing all the flooding. It is overwhelming!

#72 Tui I've never actually been to the Thames barrier (J went on a school trip once) despite it not bearing very far away. One thing I've always wanted to do though, is to walk the Thames Path, which ends at the Thames barrier. It's one of the few long-distance paths that I feel I could actually work up to (in stages) as it has no hills! Hills are always my weakness when it comes to walking!

#73 Roni, another major storm this evening, with torrential rain and gale force winds. A lot of coastal flooding on the south coast from what they were showing on the news, and still bad along the Thames valley.

J is poorly at the moment: came home from school with a vomiting bug yesterday and still unwell today but seems to be slightly on the mend. Daisy has been a poor nurse: she keeps bouncing all over him in an attempt to get him to play, which I think she sees as J's main purpose in the family (I'm good for cuddling up to; J is good for playing; and Mr SandDune does the best walks). Sweep has been much more comforting apparently, curling up next to him on his duvet.

Rhian, I've fallen behind again. How does that happen? In any case, must come back for your reviews, but wanted to leave my though of the day here before signing off:

Another big storm overnight and several biggish road-blocking trees blown down nearby. More torrential rain yesterday as well. Apparently my nephew had to abandon his car yesterday when he went to get his daughter from school: he made the mistake of driving through a road which was being overtaken by tidal flooding. Car gave up the ghost and daughter had to be lifted out through the window. I get the impression his wife isn't overly impressed.

>76 SandDune:: oh my that's scary Rhian.

Rhina, you are having such extreme weather -- those photos you posted up top are incredible and heartbreaking. I'm thinking good thoughts for you and yours. Colorado had flooding last fall, but it was the fast and furious kind, not the long, sustained kids you're having. Stay safe and dry!

#77 Laura, their house is very near the sea and the only road to it goes along the coast for a hundred yards or so. It is a very sheltered piece of coast, so from what I can tell there was no real danger (at least I hope not) but the car is not repairable as the salt water has got in the engine.

#78 Anne, they are saying the weather is going to improve next week, at least as far as average February weather. At least it hasn't been cold, I haven't had to de-ice the car more than four or five times all winter.

Oh my goodness, Rhian, thank heavens your nephew and his daughter are safe. No matter how many times the news and weather folks around here remind people not to drive through flooded roads it seems there are always some who just don't realize how deep the water really is. A ruined car is not fun but better cars than people!

Okay, that sounded really scary. I'm glad your nephew and your grand-niece are safe.

When we were in Cornwall, I thought how much I would love to live in one of those old stone houses crowded right up against the shore. With this last rash of awful storms with waves going umpteen metres high, I'm concluding that this is the last place I would want to live! High and dry and sheltered, please! As I hope you are, Rhian.

Rhian, I wish you a dry Sunday

#75 Ilana, sorry I missed replying to your post! Hope you're having a great weekend.

#81 Morphy, I think the trouble with flood water is that if it's not too deep some cars will usually get through so people think it's OK. But then every so often there will be a little bit more movement in the water, or the car will be just a little bit lower, and it'll stop. And I get the impression that where the engine has become completely flooded it can cost more than the value of the car to fix. Friends of ours did the same thing with their car a few years ago, and it was a write-off as well. In both cases it was the husbands who drove into the floods - not sure if that is saying something!

I am hopefully going to start a flood mitigation project soon in Johor for the Ministry for Sewers and Drainage. If the rivers are cleaner, they will flow better and it will mitigate the impact of flooding without question. If the rivers are cut deeper they are less likely to burst their banks. It is not rocket-science. The riverbanks also need some work for sure.

Hope J is feeling a bit better.

The counter arguement is that if you speed the water flow up, you cause more damage further down stream when it arrives at the next pinch point with more force. Now, I'm no expert, but I doubt this is anything like as simple as is being presented in the media.

Hope J's over the bug and hasn't shared. And getting caught in a flood can't be much fun. I suppose if he got out OK, he thought he could get back OK, but the tide had risen in the meantime.

#82 Tui I always used to think that as well. Having been brought up by the sea, retiring near the sea is something that I've always wanted to do. But perhaps somewhere just out of reach of the waves would be nice! And they really have been reaching up quite high in the last couple of storms.

#83 Barbara, it has been dry today, and sunny as well, which hasn't happened for quite some time. Really quite pleasant - I saw a butterfly. I don't think it is supposed to last but they are saying that the weather won't be as severe next week.

#85 Paul, a lot of the problem seems to be that we allow houses to be built on flood plains without ant consideration at all to what is going to happen if it floods. There seems to be some fairly straightforward adaptations that could be made to prevent houses flooding or mitigate the consequences if they do, but the present government is all about removing restrictions on building.

#86 Helen, J is much better today although he was still very groggy yesterday. My nephews house is in a bit of an odd location: it is sort of in the middle of a park and is only accessible by this one road next to the sea, but if I was him I'd have gone round to a friends house for an hour or two until the tide had gone out a bit rather than risk the car.

Rhian, those are fantastic news. I'm so happy for you.

As it has been so nice today we were finally able to take Daisy for a nice long walk where she could have a bit of a run around. And she met an Alaskan Mamalute to run around with, so she got plenty of exercise. I don't think I'd ever seen one of those before.

We had friends round for a meal yesterday and I tried a new pudding recipe which I can strongly recommend - sticky ginger pear pudding. A sort of traditional baked pudding with pears and preserved ginger that turned out very well. The recipe is here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8786/sticky-ginger-pear-pudding

Apart from that I have been doing my 2000 word essay on Germinal and Far From the Madding Crowd . Nearly finished now - I have written 2000 words but it needs tidying up a bit in parts.

Oooh, that ginger pear pudding sounds wonderful! Thanks for posting the recipe!

I'll have to look into that recipe. Glad you've had a good day of weather. Sounds like you are in dire need of lots more days like that.

Rhian that flooding story from your nephew is awful - I hope they have all got over the shock. Glad J is on the mend now, and also that you enjoyed William: An Englishman.

The pudding recipe looks excellent. I'm going to print it out and substitute the milk, butter and eggs (for F) and give it a go soon.

#90,91 Amber, Ilana I don't often make puddings but when I do I always wonder why I don't make them more often as I do like them. The recipe says to serve with custard, which is what we did, but I think it would have been better with creme fraiche.

#92 Cushla, what do you substitute the milk, butter and eggs with? They seem quite fundamental to the recipe but are there successful things that work? We have a friend coming round quite soon who doesn't eat dairy products and I was wondering what to do for dessert. All my normal desserts have dairy products in there somewhere.

Conversation with J this evening:

J: how do leaves work?

Me: What, you mean like photosynthesis?

J: No, you know leaves. How do they stop flooding?

Me: (somewhat perplexed) How do leaves stop flooding? I don't think they do.

J: Yes, leaves and weirs and things.

Me: (even more perplexed) ummm

J: Yes LEAVES L-E-V-E-E-S

He'd obviously never heard the word 'levee' pronounced before.

Just lovely. Wish you a wonderful evening :-D

Ah, LEAVES L-E-V-E-E-S, of course! Great story, Rhian.

Great story, Rhian. I hope you get some extended dry weather.

Wonderful story, Rhian! I hope things are starting to dry out over there.

Great day out in Oxford today (J and Mr SandDune are on half-term holiday this week). We spent a bit of time wandering round Mr SandDune's old college, Queen's, then a nice pub lunch, a wander round the back streets, a look at the river to examine the floods, and a major browse in Blackwell's Bookshop. And then tea and cakes!

I bought:
The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break Steven Sherrill
The Islanders Christopher Priest
The Scent of Dried Roses Tim Lott
A Death in the Family Karl Ove Knausgaard
Orkney Amy Sackville
(The first two were on a display for people who'd enjoyed Kafka on the Shore).

Mr SandDune bought:
Emma Jane Austen
Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man Claire Tomalin
God's Dog Diego Marani

J bought:
Geopolitics: A Very Short introduction Klaus Dodds
The First World War Hew Strachan
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 Mark Thompson

A very successful shop for all concerned!

I've read The White War - most informative seeing I went into it knowing (just about) that italy were on the allied side in WW1. Not exactly a comfortable read, though. Mind you, what WW1 reading is comfortable.

Great book haul Rhian! Tea and cakes too - sounds like a lovely day out.

#99 Helen, it is quite alarming how adult J's reading has got all of a sudden. He's been reading Mr SandDune's history books for a while (at least I frequently find them under his bed so I assume he is) but he's only just started getting his own adult ones. And he probably has got a rough overview of the Italian campaign already: we were in the area where a lot of the fighting was a few years ago (now in Slovenia) and he has got a map showing the major features of the campaign around somewhere.

#100 Heather, I hadn't been to Oxford for ages. The last time was when J was in a quiz competition there about three years ago, and we didn't have time to look around at all on that visit. I took some pictures which I'll post when I can get at the computer: I really wanted to take a photo of the library at Queen's College which is beautiful but I wasn't sure if it was allowed. Downstairs they have the more normal workaday library (although still pretty fancy) but upstairs they have all the original leather bound books in their carved bookcases. Imagine sitting next to those doing your studying! And students were doing that, sitting there with their laptops.

I couldn't take a picture, but there's one on their website here:

http://www.queens.ox.ac.uk/library/

Nice haul(s) Rhian. J. is very much the non-fiction type I see. I have had my eye on Strachan's book too.

#103 He goes in phases. Since Christmas he's been reading pretty much all fiction but he's been watching a fair few WWI programmes on the TV and they've obviously been having an effect. He's probably read less non-fiction over the last couple of years than he used to, because it's been difficult to find non-fiction (especially history) aimed at a teenage market. Loads of stuff aimed at younger children, but much less aimed at teenagers, apart from books intended to be used in schools. And his historical knowledge is really very good, so he really needed adult content, but broken down into shorter more manageable chunks. But before Christmas he was reading some of my Jared Diamond books and Richard Dawkins as well, so he seems to have firmly reached the adult stage now.

Finally caught up here Rhian and I got immediately caught up in the pictures of the flooding. Simply awful! We don't experience anything like that around here.

I liked William: An Englishman and although I questioned their naivete at traveling to the Verdenne just before the start of the war, I've kind of decided that they really weren't particularly naive. After further reading (Margaret MacMillan's The War that Ended Peace and H. G. Wells' Mr. Britling Sees It Through) it became apparent that most of Great Britain's average citizens were taken by surprise by the war.

Bonnie, we've had no more major storms this week and the floods are going down now, albeit very slowly. Because the groundwater levels are at record levels in much of the south of England, they say that in places they may take months to clear.

I think that with William: An Englishman it's very difficult to look at their decision to holiday without our knowledge of the horrors of WWI butting in! But WWI was so different from anything that had gone in before in Europe that even those people in 1914 who were expecting a war must have expected something very different and less appalling.

Currently listening to The Woman in White (which is taking a while) and reading Harvest. I'm having the same thoughts as on my first read of The Woman in White: slightly appalled that the hero falls in love with the pretty, sweet (but oh so boring) Miss Fairley, rather than her resourceful, interesting (but uglier) half-sister.

Announced today that it is officially the wettest winter in the UK since records began! Why am I not surprised.

LOL. Tonight in Switzerland they announced that it is the warmest winter ever. Well, I always had the feeling that after autumn, a never ending spring started. :-D

Some records one doesn't want to see broken. *sigh*

#108, 109 Barbara, Marianne, the best that can be said about this winter is that it hasn't been cold. No snow, and very little frost.

Hi Rhian, all caught up with you again. Not sure what to say about the ongoing weather situation... truly dreadful. Hope things improve very soon.

From the little I know about the situation in Europe pre-WWI, people were expecting the conflict to be resolved in a few days, or a couple of weeks at most. They didn't at all anticipate it would become the protracted bloody mess we know it ended up being. *

I really loved The Woman in White, which I also listened to (had two narrators, a man and a woman). Men are forever falling in love with pretty and dull women. Think what state the human race would be in if they fell in love with the clever ones... *sigh*. Count Fosco completely stole the show. I hope you enjoy it.

eta: * ack! Just realized my comment above makes no sense! I was making it in answer to the discussion about William: an Englishman Cicely Hamilton, and the couple's decision to honeymoon in Europe at the onset of the war.

Keep in mind (and the subtext) that Walter may eventually change his mind, but not until it's too late... :)

Hi Rhian! Finally got internet and getting all caught up. Crazy flooding you've had. Wow.

I struggled with The Woman in White. It ended up being a good read - but it was a little bit of work for me.

I'm another fan of The Woman in White. Loved it. It's The Moonstone that so far I can't get going on.

Hi Rhian. Just came back to see what was up here and edited my last comment.

Hi Rhian, it sounds like you had a lovely day in Oxford, and what a great book haul for the whole family! Both of my girls are reading adult books more and more, and it happened *poof* just like that. It's fun to share books with them, but wonder where the time went.

#111, 115 Ilana don't worry your comment made perfect sense to me before the additional explanation! The weather is improving: we're still having occasional bursts of very heavy rain, but this morning the sun is shining and there's a perfect blue sky.

#112 Liz, I do think Laura comes over almost as one of Dickens's sweet and incredibly dull heroines. At least Collins created a fair more vibrant character in Marian.

#113,114 Hi Jenn, Joe - I am enjoying The Woman in White a lot. I have read it before but I think I read it very quickly to get it finished for my RL book club and I don't remember it well. I think I have read The Moonstone but a very, very long time ago if I have. But on the basis on this book I'd certainly be prepared to give some other Wilkie Collins books a go.

#116 Anne I have similar feelings. It's so nice that he's remaining a fairly avid reader in his teenage years. But it does seem that is was just a year or so ago that we were reading Paddington Bear and The House at Pooh Corner! I've read a report recently that was saying that teenagers (especially boys) tend to read books that are well below their reading age once they hit secondary school. J's definitely not doing that: he's making good progress with The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front and seems to be enjoying it.

Finished Harvest by Jim Crace and not overwhelmed to be honest. I struggle with Jim Crace's work: I always like the sound of the premise but it never works out for me in practice. I usually come away feeling rather dissatisfied and that is what has happened with Harvest as well.

Edited to add: I've just looked at the reviews for this and most people clearly loved it. But I just don't get it.

Here are some pictures of our trip to Oxford, from when we looked round Mr SandDune's old college, Queen's.

This is the outer quadrangle:





The student refectory:



The library:



The chapel:

Love the photos of Mr SandDune's old college, Rhian. The student refectory is impressive! We have a Queen's University in Kingston, ON, which I strongly suspect was named after this college.

>99 SandDune:: Oh, what a great haul, Rhian! I've read the Minotaur book, and liked it very much.

Rhian, I love those Oxford photos. They are wonderful :-D

Love the pictures of Mr. SandDune's old college! I love old buildings, the amazing stone/mason work and the detail that went into their construction. I cry when I encounter one that has fallen to wreck and ruin. Buildings today are not make like they were in previous centuries.

87: I saw a butterfly
Hope it wasn’t overly optimistic!

99: That’s a serious bunch of books for J.

I was in Oxford for about a week 15 years ago, would love to return some day. I most enjoyed wandering along the canal.

Love the photos!

Rhian, I wish you a lovely Sunday

#120,122,123,125 Hi Nancy, Barbara, Lori, Jenn. The refectory is amazing isn't it? And that is where everyone eats on a day to day basis, with all the original paintings on the walls. I particularly like the library building: you can see all the old glass in the windows by the way the light reflects back.

#121 Amber, the Minotaur book has certainly got an interesting blurb:

the Minotaur, or M as he is known to his colleagues, is working as a line chef at Grub's Rib in North Carolina, keeping to himself, keeping his horns down, trying in vain to put his past behind him. He leads an ordered lifestyle in a shabby trailer park where he tinkers with cars, writes and rewrites to-do lists and observes the haphazard goings-on around him.'

#124 99: That’s a serious bunch of books for J.

It is rather isn't it? He wandered off and chose them with no input from anyone else. But his knowledge of history has always been fairly astronomical for his age, and so he grew out of history books aimed at children and teenagers years ago. He's been able to cope with the content in history books aimed at adults for quite a while, but it's only recently that he's that the perserverance to get through a whole one, as they do tend to be rather dense.

#128 I'm impressed, too. He is well read, J! That's so wonderful to see in a young person : ).

18. Harvest Jim Crace ***
I read this now because: I'm reading the 2013 Booker short list for my RL reading group.

This is the third Jim Crace novel I've read (Continent and Quarantine were the other two) and I've come to the conclusion that Jim Crace just isn't for me. But I can't quite work out what exactly it is about his writing that I find so unsatisfactory. I can appreciate that he writes well, clearly many people find his books very satisfying, but his writing just doesn't resonate with me at all.

The events narrated in Harvest take place over seven days in a remote village somewhere in England. So remote that it has no name. So remote that there's no church, and it's a day's journey to find one. The villagers awake one day to find two plumes of smoke that should not be there. One from the burning dotecote belonging to the manor house, and the other belonging to a hut built by squatters who claim the right to stay. But despite the suspicions of the villagers that the dovecote was set alight by two of their own young men, it is easier and safer to blame the three squatters. The two men are captured and put in the pillory for seven days by Master Kent, the local landowner, while the woman has her head shaved and is released: this action will have consequences far beyond the expectations of any of the participants.

But the villagers have troubles of their own from another quarter. For more years than anyone can remember they have ploughed their land to grow barley and wheat, but as they celebrate the end of the latest harvest Master Kent discloses that the fields will not be ploughed for sowing new seed. He intends to bring in sheep and enclose the land...

Harvest has the uncertainty of the other Crace books that I have read but I like a sense of a time and place in a book (well in one that is clearly set in the real world anyway) and I couldn't pin down either here. Where in England even in medieval times would be so remote to be completely out of reach of church or priest? Possibly somewhere mountainous, but the village is not in a mountainous area. And the time period was similarly ambiguous. There is talk of burning witches, so the period of enclosures of the eighteenth century would be far too late. Maybe the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, but it seemed too feudal for that in the relationship between villagers and master. So medieval ... maybe ... I don't know. I realise that this ambiguity is deliberate, but I didn't like it, rather than creating a sense of timelessness as I think might have been intended, I just found it annoying. And the characters never really came alive for me either: the narrator Walter Thirsk, an outsider still despite 12 years of living in the village, is a strangely flat character, and none of the other characters really came alive either.

So overall not a brilliant read for me. Three stars because I can recognise the quality of the writing in places, rather than because of my enjoyment.

19. The Woman in White Wilkie Collins ****1/2
I read this now because: it's requires reading for my Open University course.

This was so much fun! The archetypal 'sensation' novel from the nineteenth century and still a page turner today, with a great villain in the shape of Count Fosco, a larger than life Italian character of dubious morals, and a resourceful hero and heroine in the shape of Walter Hartright and Marian Holcombe. Unfortunately, for the perspective of a twenty-first century reader, it isn't Marian that the hero falls in live with, but her rather insipid but pretty (and blonde) half sister. And not very politically correct either: foreigners are either amusing or evil, and a woman who marries one is clearly suspect. But ignore all that and you have a great read.

On his way back to London from a visit to his mother's cottage in Hampstead Walter Hartright encounters a strange woman dressed completely in white in the middle of the night on Hampstead Heath. He helps her on her way, only to discover that she has escaped from an asylum. In his new position as drawing master at Limmeridge house in Cumberland to the half-sisters Laura Fairlie and Marion Halcombe, he unexpectedly encounters the woman in white again, as she attempts to warn Miss Fairlie about her impending marriage to Sir Percival Glyde. But what connection does the woman in White have to Sir Percival, and does she have real reasons to provide as to why Laura should not go ahead with her marriage or is her mind indeed deranged? The marriage goes ahead, but as might be expected there is substance behind the warnings that Laura will discover to her cost...

Highly recommended!

I think I'll hold off on Crace. Always a big fan of Wilkie Collins. So glad you enoyed!

Oooh! Must come back for those reviews, two books I'm keen to hear your views about. Coco is crying on my lap right now (well, more like discouraged from waiting), so I'll do the humane thing and take him for a walk while there's still sun outside and come back later.

What did you think about Quarantine? I have that one sitting on my TBR bookcase so I was thinking of reading it to find out if Crace's writing works for me as a reader.

#134 Lori - I didn't particularly enjoy Quarantine but I have a feeling it's just me. Lot's of other people seem to enjoy his work. Anyway here's my review from last year:

I really struggled with this book. I just couldn't get up any enthusiasm for it at all - it's very well written - I can see that - and looking at other people's reviews I can see that a lot of people have liked it but it really didn't do it for me.

In the Palestine of 2000 years ago the sadistic (but successful) merchant Musa has been abandoned by his family and the rest of his caravan as he lies dying of a fever in his tent. Despite his success and riches he is not liked and will not be missed - his pregnant wife Miri who remains with him out of duty is already looking forward to her widowhood. The tent is pitched below a series of caves used by pilgrims coming to pray in the wilderness and as Miri waits for Musa to die they are joined by four pilgrims: a Greek man who sees god in everything; an old Jewish man looking for a cure for the cancer that is killing him; a Jewish woman looking for a cure for her childlessness (as usual she is being blamed and about to be divorced by her husband when it is obvious that it is he who has the problem); and a 'badu' seemingly a Bedouin who speaks a language that no-one can understand. A fifth pilgrim follows - a Gallilean boy called Jesus who is obssessed by prayer and is determined neither to eat or drink for the forty days of his quarantine - unless something is miraculously provided by God. Before starting his fast Jesus asks for water at Musa's tent where he lies delirious with his fever while his wife is digging his grave - when Miri returns Musa has recovered and feels convinced that he has been miraculously healed by Jesus.

As Musa becomes obsessed with reconnecting with Jesus and simultaneously with fleecing the other travellers of every penny that he can get out of them, it becomes clear that he is the Satan of the gospel story, providing Jesus with temptation to break his fast. But who is Jesus? Crace's presentation of Jesus is not a particularly appealing one: he is an immature boy who although he wants to heal the sick and do good works seems to be motivated by a desire to prove himself to his family rather than anything else. It is never clear whether Musa's recovery is miraculous or not so it is equally unclear whether Jesus's desire to heal is merely the dream of a religious fanatic. Jesus's insistence on his absolute fast seems obsessive and ludicrous rather than divinely inspired.

Depsite my overall negative opinion of the book, it did have some redeeming points. Without putting in any spoilers I can say that the ending is ambiguous but very thought provoking. The descriptions of the wilderness, which I pictured as the hills above the Dead Sea, were very atmospheric and evocative. I've been to that area and it really brought back some of the scenery to me. As often happens the cover illustration on my edition bears little resemblance to the description in the book - it's a mountaineous, desperately dry rocky area - not at all the rolling sanddunes pictured. But overall the book was more of a slog than anything else.

Great review, Rhian! Thanks for posting it here. Not sure what I will think about Quarantine but at least it is a short book. Seems like it will be as a good a test as any to see if I want to acquire any more of Crace's books.

#132, 133, 134 Hi Mariane, Ilana, Lori. I wouldn't want to put anyone off Jim Crace as he clearly is an author who I just don't get. The best I can say is the way I started my review for Quarantine: looking at other people's reviews I can see that a lot of people have liked it but it really didn't do it for me.

Sorry to hear Harvest did not resonate, Rhian. I think we all have those authors.

#129, 138 Nancy, sorry I didn't reply to your post further up. From a very early age, J has had his nose in a non-fiction book, history books in particular, which have frequently been read and read until they fall to pieces. If I tell you we have nine historical atlases of which seven belong to J you will get the idea! Having a history teacher for a father obviously helps, and so it's not unknown for dinner time conversation in our house to be about some obscure battle or historical personage of which I have only vaguely heard (if at all)! I can see J studying History at university in a few years time unless his interests change dramatically.

Hey Rhian... Sorry to see you didn't enjoy Madame Bovary more ... I have been wanting to get to that one for ages, but won't rush now, hahaha!

Hope your weather improves!

#140 Tina I enjoyed Madame Bovary - I gave it four stars which is a definite positive rating - well it's not very cheerful but I liked the book.

I've just finished Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach and quite enjoyed it. I'm a bit surprised to be honest as I'd read it before (although quite a while ago) and my recollection was that it was OK at best, so when it was chosen for my RL book club I was quite disappointed. But I was pleasantly surprised - I listened to this one on audio and that may have made a difference as it worked well in that format. And I think originally I'd read it quite soon after A Girl with a Pearl Earring with which it shares quite a few similarities, but which in my opinion is a much better book, so Tulip Fever probably came off worst in the comparison.

Rhian. I enjoyed Madame Bovary and A Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Catching up here...I'm glad that monsoon season is apparently over in England. Hopefully you'll have some nicer weather in the weeks to come.

Great photos of Oxford, and a nice book haul at Blackwell's! I might try to go there next month, on my way to or after I visit Stratford-upon-Avon on the 26th.

I definitely liked Harvest more than you did. I bought Quarantine in London last year, and I'll probably read it soon.

#142 Thanks for the bear, Barbara! We have seen the original painting of the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' in The Hague a few years ago which was beautiful, but then I really like the Dutch genre paintings from that period.

#143 Darryl, I'm just going to put Jim Crace down as an author who doesn't work for me. It's actually a beautiful day here today, sunny, relatively warm, and with a definite signs of spring in the air!

It's coming up to J's time for choosing GCSE's at school. They had an assembly on their possible choices yesterday which seems to correspond quite well with what he wants to do. We need to make a decision over the next few weeks. They choose to do 10 GCSE's and the following eight subjects are compulsory at his school:

Maths
English language
English literature
2 languages (J will do German and Italian)
Double science
1 humanity subject (he will do History as his first choice)

So he has two subjects left to choose. At the moment we are assuming that he will do a third science which will give him three individual GCSE's in Chemistry, Physics and Biology. And the last subject will be a second humanity, he's thinking about geography at the moment, but with R.E. as a strong second choice.

I think that will give him a nice rounded base which doesn't really eliminate any career choices. It eliminates anything remotely practical but J is most unlikely to choose a practical career! His main aim has been to give up art, music, drama, design and technology as soon as is humanly possible.

Pardon the dumb American :) but what does GCSE stand for? Something something secondary education? And what is RE?

My main aim in school was to drop math as soon as possible...

#146 Katie sorry - it stands for General Certificate in Secondary Education - and is the exam that British children take at age 16. I meant to say that but obviously forgot. They study it for the two years leading up to that point, so years 10 and 11 here (I think that is Grades 9-10 in US?). R.E. is Religious Education, which surprisingly J quite likes, despite not being very religious at all.

Generally here Maths, English and Science (I think) are compulsory until age 16. Because J's school is a language school they have to do two languages as well (unless they really struggle with languages in which case they can get away with doing one). And they have to do a humanity as that will get the school higher up the appropriate league table. So at the end of the day they aren't really left with much choice: a lot of secondary schools here would offer much more freedom about choices. But to be honest it suits J down to the ground. He was dreading having to do something more creative. Last year they did eleven GCSE's rather than ten, with the options skewed to encourage them to take something more creative or practical as the eleventh choice. With J we'd have been really stuck trying to find the least worst option if that had still been the case.

Very interesting! I love the language requirement. It is unfortunate US schools do not place as much emphasis on acquiring proficiency in other languages.

#148 Marianne - it's very unusual here as well. I think less than half of all 16 year olds in England do a foreign language for GCSE so the requirement to study two is not common at all. But as J's school is a language college they do offer a variety of languages (French, German, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin and Japanese I think) and there's an expectation that they will study at least two of them. This year J has to do both History and Geography in German (and he'll have to do at least one in German next year as well I think). At the moment he's doing the end of WWI in History so he's busy writing about the Treaty of Versailles in German as I type.

Very interesting. Thanks for the explanation. Not having children, I have no clue what is required in schools here. I went to boarding school for my secondary education, and those aren't subject to state requirements so I don't even have that for comparison.

#150 I have no clue what is required in schools here
I get the impression that we specialise earlier in the UK than in the US, maybe not so much at GCSE level, but certainly post 16.

That's a similar arrangement to mine (many many years ago I was first year through GCSE). We only took 9 though. Although we had to take an art, one science and one language. I can still reel off my grades and subjects. In some ways I envy him the choice, and the anticipation, but not the exam pressure again...

>151 SandDune:: I get the impression that we specialise earlier in the UK than in the US, maybe not so much at GCSE level, but certainly post 16.
Yes, I think that's true. Here our students take a distribution of courses similar to what you described for GCSE, but they do this for all four years of high school (grades 9-12, ages 15-18).

Typical US High School Graduation Requirements might look something like this:
4 years English
4 years Math
3 years Social Studies (aka History)
3 years Science
Health/PE

This is from our local school district in Pennsylvania. Note there is no language requirement, which is a shame. University-bound students usually exceed these criteria (i.e.; take 4 years of everything, and a language).

#152 Helen I took O levels rather than GCSEs, so that was a very, very, very long time ago. I can't really remember how our options worked but I know I really wanted to do Art but was persuaded out of it, as it was not 'academic' enough. I think I quite wanted to do Geography as well, but I couldn't do that and history.

#153 Laura - we don't really have the idea of 'graduation' from secondary school - it all comes down to the individual qualifications. I think it's at 16-18 that there's more difference. Most teenagers here would do three or four A levels and there's no pressure to do a balance of subjects: the more specialised the better often seems the case for university entrance. So I did Biology, Chemistry and Physics with no arts subjects at all. J's school does the International Bacclulareute instead of 'A' levels so they have to do six subjects: I think English, Maths, a foreign language, a science, a humanity, and one other subject, which gives a much better balance in my opinion.

Nice balance of courses for J's GCSE. RE is a great humanities choice. I am not very religious but I took a couple of religious studies courses in University (for my area one humanities requirements for my degree) and found them to be really fascinating, especially the course on world religions.

Interesting discussion around graduation requirements. Back in my school days we had two graduation streams available to students - basic matriculation to graduate from high school or, if you wanted to go on to college or university you had to meet the advanced matriculation requirements. I cannot remember what the requirements were or even if they remain unchanged today, it was some time ago since I was last in school.

Lori I suppose the equivalent of graduating here might be for students to get the three A levels at 18 which would get them into university. But which university very much depends on the individual grades that they get. We don't have any separate tests that are purely designed for college entry.

Schools are a bit of a hot political topic here at the moment as the current government is going around making changes at a very rapid rate, without much evidence that they are changes for the better. They are very enamoured of learning from the Far East and are looking at what methods countries like Singapore use to get such good results. I'm very dubious: I don't think you can cherry pick elements of another educational system without looking at the wider picture of why that works in the social and cultural background of that particular country. And they don't seem to be doing that just picking random elements here and there.

>145 SandDune:: That looks like a great selection of courses - very nicely balanced!

Very tired this evening as an evening meeting meant that I didn't leave work until 8.15pm and then found that my normal route home was closed because of overnight road works. The one consolation was that I had longer to listen to my latest audio book which is wonderful so far: The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. I hadn't heard of this book before yesterday and am so pleased that I chanced by it on Audible yesterday.

Oh, what a LONG day, Rhian. How nice that you could see the best in it by enjoying a longer listen to The Wall. I was downloading from Audible yesterday. I tend to let my credits collect and then go download-crazy from my WishList!

GCSE's that takes me back! I had too do English Lit(which I loved) & Lagnuage (which I did not), Maths (YUCK), Double Science (Biology was my thing, Physics more maths) & French. Then we had the choices. A humanitiys I chose RE, A tecnology I chose Textiles. We then chose 2 open opisons Art and Drama. My geography teacher at the time really wanted me to take geography as a second humanities but I could not stand another 2 years of volcanos and earthquakes!!!!

>146 katiekrug: good question! I knew what GCSE was, but not what it stood for. Not that we have it here, but I have heard it enough to have figured it out.

Rhian, glad you liked The Woman in White. I discovered that book all by myself and was very pleased with the small-sized little cloth-bound copy I found second hand once when I was on holiday. I really enjoyed the reading of it.

>157 scaifea: that's what we are aiming for. J hasn't really got much idea what he wants to do career wise ad yet so I want to make sure that he doesn't drop anything at this stage that may have a detrimental effect on his future career choices.

>160 BBGirl55: Last year he would had to do a creative and/or practical subject as well so we were busy thinking about which one he would hate least. Music, Art, Textiles, Resistant Materials (woodwork, metalwork etc) and Graphics were no-goers from the start as he really hates those. He'd decided on Food Technology or Drama as the least bad options. I loved Art at school and spent a lot of my spare time drawing but J didn't inherit that interest at all. And he hates Music, so my mother's long held ambition for at least one grandchild to be deeply musical has been finally thwarted.

>159 lit_chick: the advantage of getting home late is that I get a wonderful welcome home from Daisy, as she isn't used to me getting home much later than five. She goes into a sort of licking frenzy which is slightly soggy but does make me feel loved.

By the way I've discovered a new Eco-friendly use of Daisy's desire to lick. I'm getting her to give our plastic containers a once-over before they go in the recycling bin. Saves washing them: there might only be two or three crumbs left in the bottom of the biscuit container but she is determined to get them out.

I continue to be transfixed by The Wall (by Marlen Haushofer - touchstones don't work). I was listening in a traffic queue this morning with tears rolling down my face. This doesn't normally happen to me. I am not a teary person.

>162 SandDune:: I want to make sure that he doesn't drop anything at this stage that may have a detrimental effect on his future career choices.
That's the general strategy in our 4-year high schools, at least for those intending to go on to university. The admissions process encourages students to take the most challenging curriculum available at their school, and maintain balance similar to J's choices. So it is considered better to take 4 years of math (even if only 3 are required), than to take a less challenging elective in the fourth year. Most high schools offer Advanced Placement courses which are ostensibly university-level coursework (i.e.; calculus) and also a plus in the admissions process. If the student fares well on a standardized test at the end of the year, they might earn university credit, or at least not have to repeat material they have already mastered. (can you tell I am currently in the middle of the admissions process with daughter #2?!!)

>163 SandDune:: I'm getting her to give our plastic containers a once-over before they go in the recycling bin.
That's brilliant, Rhian. I'll have to see if our pooches would enjoy being eco-friendly. I suspect they would.

>139 SandDune:: it's not unknown for dinner time conversation in our house to be about some obscure battle or historical personage
How excellent for MrSandDune that J shares his interest!

>156 SandDune:: I'm very dubious: I don't think you can cherry pick elements of another educational system
Yeah. Too much is dependent on background and assumptions and style. Education fads are often eye-rolling, and the effect is to mess up the parents trying to help with homework.

There, caught up! Bravo, J, for your reading choices.
I went through high school in Ontario shortly after the discovery of fire, so I know things have changed greatly since then. I don't know what compulsory subjects are for kids now but back in the day having to take what was then termed "New Math" was a nightmare for me. No part of my brain could comprehend it. I remember asking our teacher what possible application this would have in my life (we were doing something nasty with parabolas) and he said I could measure shock waves in a ballistic missile. Not ever going to happen, said my young pacifist self. I would have loved to have been able to take two languages instead of one (French). Lucky J!

>161 LovingLit: Megan - The Woman in White was a reread for me although I didn't remember it all that well. I read it previously for my RL book group and it was one of those books that was universally popular.

>165 lauralkeet: I can't say that I'm particularly looking forward to the university application stage. Or the exam results stage either come to that. J has his first external exam at the end of the next academic year, as he'll take German a year early.

And it's not like the recycling has to be clean, clean! It just has to be clean enough to stop the recycling bin getting smelly in between collections.

>163 SandDune: One of my friends used to get her Jack Russell to do that with ordinary dishes before they went into the dishwasher! And I survived to tell the tale :-)

<166 Well Mr SandDune telling him interesting and bloodthirsty tales from history from an early age might have something to do with it! You can definitely see elements of J's character and interests that he inherits from both of us. We share very similar tastes in fiction and a similar sense of humour. And the two of us can chat all day.

>170 SandDune:: Mr SandDune telling him interesting and bloodthirsty tales from history
I bet MrSandDune is a popular teacher. What age level does he teach?

>167 tiffin: J is quite good at maths but it's not his favourite subject. That would be English, History and Science. I've had the question about what is the point of maths from J as well..

>169 susanj67: Susan it is Daisy's life's ambition to be allowed to lick the plates in the dishwasher. We spent ages training her to sit nicely while we were loading the dishwasher, and these days she usually behaves as long as there is someone in the kitchen. I wouldn't trust her left on her own with the dishwasher though! The longing is still clearly there.

Rhian, I think there should be two kinds of math taught: everyday practical useful math (including budgeting and managing one's finances) which every human being needs, and then the more advanced stuff involving arcane formulae and measuring shock waves in ballistic missiles stuff for those who enjoy playing with that kind of stuff. If a student quite firmly showed talent for English, History, Languages, the Arts, then the basic math would meet societal requirements for paying one's bills and balancing one's bank statement. On the other hand, if a student showed a decided bent towards being an applied mathematician, they could do the heavy duty stuff. Science could be split in two quite nicely as well. When I'm Queen of the World...

Trouble is, one fields' irrelevant is another fields' basic. It’s difficult to answer the “when will I ever need this?” question to a kid who isn’t aware of all the options available in the world, but also difficult for adults to go back and learn what they missed when they realize it’s necessary. In an ideal world, math would be integrated with other things, e.g. business and construction and science and art, and some schools / programs do this, but then the question becomes what other things would be engaging, and the answer to this differs for each kid. So then the question is, what’s a good enough foundation as a kid to allow many directions as an adult.

Oh Katherine, I know. I just wanted to do the bare minimum when it came to math. Sorry for the threadjacking, Rhian.

Hi Rhian! I'm so glad you enjoyed The Woman in White -- I've had my eye on it for awhile.

Good luck to J as he plans his future courses! Callia just close her courses for next year, as did Marina, who will join her at her jr/sr high school next year. I feel like this is such an exciting time for them -- the doors are wide open!

It's both fun and stressful to see the kids choosing the things they want to study - as much as they are able. I know it made my parents crazy when I chose work experience instead of extra math and science my last year of HS. I had to learn on my own what a mistake that was. LOL.

Finally caught up...

J's curriculum sounds a bit like that on offer at the European School in Brussels. It was restricted to kids of EU officials, but with each leg up in the school, you had to add another language to your list, first as a studied language and then, later, by taking classes in it. So you'd automatically become bilingual and eventually fluently trilingual, with at least some knowledge of two other languages. My mother's closest friend & our neighbor had two kids there, younger than my brother and I, who spoke English, Dutch and German fluently by the age of 11, and who were studying French and Italian. Scary what you can learn while you're young! I did a few years in a bilingual program in Ottawa (English/French), which was what put me over the top with French, but nothing else has stuck as well. I put it down, in part, to geographic isolation in N. America.

Back in my day it was still O Levels and A levels! Which explains why I have such a vivid memory of the summer of '76, which was the summer we moved to Belgium and stayed in a hotel with NO A/C.... I thought I was going to die. We went to visit an artist friend of my father's in Monte Carlo (he'd started painting for the Saudis & become a tax exile -- like you, Rhian, he was Welsh originally) and I got the worst sunburn of my life. Soles of my feet, the creases in the elbows & backs of my knees, the parting in my hairline...

Utterly horrified by the sight of the floods. The picture of the train track almost made me cry. I know exactly where that is, because I've taken that train to and from Par/Fowey so many times over the last few decades. That's my fave spot, just S. of Dawlish, where the train almost floats along beside the sea with the road and walkway on the other side. I guess it's literally floating now...

Great book haul; tell J. I'm impressed & that he'll need to tell us his thoughts on the WW1 tomes. It was about his age that I became fascinated with that era. I was lucky enough to meet a handful of WW1 veterans in my teens, though...

20. Tulip Fever Deborah Moggach ***1/2
I read this now because: it's the March choice for my RL book group.

In the seventeenth century the price of tulip bulbs skyrocketed and then fell dramatically in what some believe was the world's first economic bubble. Not only were people trading for single tulip bulbs at astronomical prices, but they were trading in tulip futures with bulbs that they had never seem or possessed. This is the background to Deborah Moggach's Tulip Fever set in Amsterdam in 1636.

Sophia is a young woman married to an old husband, Cornelis. But in the social mores of the seventeenth century this is considered a good match: Cornelis is a rich merchant who can provide her with a comfortable home and she is a young woman who can provide him with a son, his two children from his first marriage having died young. And Sophia is relatively content with her lot: Cornelis is a kind man who sincerely loves his wife and who treats her with consideration even though she has not provided the son for which he longs, But into this seemingly stable household house comes the artist Jan van Loos, engaged by Cornelis to paint the couple's portrait. There is an almost instant attraction between Jan and Sophia, and their affair, once started, spirals out of control as they attempt to find the means to start a new life together.

This was a reread for me as it is the March choice for my RL Book Group and it was a pleasant surprise for me that I enjoyed the reread so much. I'd read it a long time ago and while I remembered quite enjoying it, I didn't recall it as a book that would warrant rereading. But reading it at a rather older age my point of view has perhaps changed: certainly there are elements that I think I have appreciated more on this reading. In particular the details of the day-to-day life in seventeenth century Amsterdam captured my attention (I think from what I have read here and elsewhere, if I had to go back in time to any country in the seventeenth century it would have to be the Netherlands - it just seems more comfortable, relatively speaking, than anywhere else). And the details of the place that painting played in the lives of people was also fascinating, especially as Dutch genre paintings as some of my favourites. So all in all a recommended book.

>171 qebo: He teaches secondary school which is age 11-18, but he doesn't do as much actual teaching as he used to as he is Assistant Principal now so a lot of his time is taken up by managerial duties, but he still loves the actual teaching.

>173 tiffin:, >174 qebo: I think it is difficult to say what maths someone will need until they are clear in their career choice, and even then it's quite likely that even in careers where maths isn't apparently necessary a greater need for it will come to light as people get more senior in their roles. As the Finance Manager of a charity where it's common for senior managers to have a care background I really struggled in explaining financial issues to one particular manager who just didn't have the maths to understand it. She'd gone through twenty years of her career not really needing any maths at all and all of a sudden she was expected to look at the cost implications of decisions she was making and she just didn't have the tools to deal with it. With maths, I do think a lot of the problem is down to bad teaching - Mr SandDune's view is that maths teachers are usually very good or very bad. Because there are so many other more lucrative options to people with a maths degree, his experience is that you either get people that have a real vocation or people who struggle to find work elsewhere. I do think it's an area where more use can be made of the internet as well. When working through stuff with J I've found some great videos on YouTube on topics that had confused me completely when looking at his book, but which clicked into placed after two minutes when watching the video.

Even when they are clear in their career choice, the mathematical tools you use over that time will change. I took double maths A levels because I knew I wanted to do science. Pure & Applied maths, as I was going to need to do calculations and derivations, I wasn't going to need complex stats.
How wrong can you be.
I now work for a manufacturing company and a good part of my job is looking at capability of processes, predictive failure rates and confidence in safety margins of devices. I probably use stats more than any other function of maths. All I can say is thank heavens for packages like Minitab that actually "do" the stats for me.

Rhian,

Interesting math discussion. My older daughter is currently studying English at university. She did very well in math but we could not convince her to take calculus her last year of high school. Fortunately there was an Advanced Placement statistics course she could take instead, so she still had 4 years of math. At her university, all students are required to take one "quantitative reasoning" course regardless of their field of study (obviously math & science majors would take more). Still, she got by with a "statistics in psychological research" course. I'll be highly amused if her career experience turns out like >181 Helenliz: described.

My younger daughter loves science and likes math, so this is her opportunity to look down her nose at her sister. Ah well, the youngest doesn't get to do that very often.

>179 SandDune:. Interesting comments about Tulip Fever, Rhian. I'm putting this one on my wishlist.

Tulip Fever is going on the wishlist. And I heartily agree with Mr. Dune about poor teachers. That was the crux of it for me. Almost all of my math teachers taught to the ones who grasped things easily, not to those of us who needed better explanations and more patience. The irony is that at the end of my working days, I was managing a budget in excess of $2 million and didn't need those parabolas once.

Trying to catch up and being a bit superficial..... Loved the photos of your Oxford visit!

Hi Rhian - Lovely Oxford photos. I've had my eye on The Woman in White for some time. I'll have to move it up on my list. My reaction to Tulip Fever was similar to yours; I did like Girl with a Pearl Earring more.

>181 Helenliz: I didn't actually do any formal maths exams post- sixteen but we did do a statistics course at university which I did enjoy. There was something about the logic of it which appealed to me.

>183 lauralkeet: In the UK there doesn't seem to be much emphasis on keeping any breadth in university courses at all. So someone doing an arts degree is quite likely to not have done any maths since 16 if they did Arts A levels. I had the problem that I did Biology, Chemistry and Physics for A levels but I struggled with the Physics without doing Maths A level as well.

>182 Ameise1: Hi Barbara, hope you're having a great weekend too!

>184 labwriter: Hi Becky - it's well worth a read.

>185 tiffin: When I was doing my maths O level we has to do calculus. The teacher just spent about half an hour explaining it and then left us to get on with past exam questions for the next few weeks. But none of us had understood it and we just didn't know where to start. I was in the top set, but my friends who were in the second set could all do it as they had been taught properly. Shows what difference a good teacher makes.

>186 sibylline: Nothing wrong with being superficial Lucy. Sometimes it's the only way to catch up.

>187 BLBera: Do try The Woman in White it's great fun.

Well I've finished The Wall die Wand and it was absolutely wonderful. Review on next thread.

>178 Chatterbox: Sorry Suz I'd put your message to one side as there were a few things I wanted to reply to, and then got so tied up reading my book that it went out of my head.

J's school calls itself an Anglo-European college, so probably shares similarities with your school in Brussels, and similarly the pupils are expected to become bilingual in at least one language, if not two. They do immersion teaching, and history and geography are taught in their first foreign language (apart from the year when they actually sit their exams). It tends to attract a lot of children who have lived abroad and already have language skills, and also, as a boarding school, a decent proportion of students from the EU and further afield. All of which gives it quite a different atmosphere to your average UK comprehensive. Having learnt languages (albeit not to a very high standard) later in life, I've come to the conclusion that I would have loved languages at school if only I'd been taught properly. But when I did 'O' level French the idea seemed to be that actually 'speaking' the language was rather beneath the 'O' level set - it was what less academic children needed to learn but we needed to learn to write. Consequently, I only discovered how to pronounce some very common French phrases as an adult, which seems ridiculous now.

On the train line situation, Mr SandDune read somewhere that Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who constructed that coastal line, originally wanted to take it through a tunnel further back from the sea, to avoid the likelihood of erosion. That idea was apparently vetoed because of its high cost, but that cost pales into insignificance compared with the fortune that continues to be spent in maintenance every year to stop the sea from washing it away. A case of do the job properly in the first instance I think.

J has finished his book on the Italian front and is half way through the more general WWI history. Both seem to have gone down well.