Re-posted from Week 50, my 10x10 categories, slightly revised: The Brexit Special: 10 European countries, not including the UKScots Wha' Hae: Scottish booksDon't Mess With Texas: Texas, cowboys, or bothPlucked From the Air: chosen via the atmospheric noise Truly Random generatorLittle Oval on the Spine: published by New York Review of BooksA is for Amy who...: cover art by Edward GoreyBad Catholic: the sort of books they read at that parish you don't go toDramatic, Lyric & Epic: poetry in all its glorious varietyThe Shame List: "Really? You've never read that?" And a new tenth category, because dh wants me to read through English history in drama with him: The Hollow Crown: English history on the stage Currently I'm reading Isak Dineson's Anecdotes of Destiny & Ehrengard, two short works together in one book. One of the stories is "Babette's Feast," which we all remember from the movie version. Middle Girl plucked this from the air for me, and it's also a Brexit Special (Denmark). I hope to read 100 separate books for 10x10 but I'm certainly not above double-counting.

I love Graham Greene! Which of his do you think you'll read next? I also love that you have Dante and Milton and Russians in general on your New Year Goal List. Now I kind of want to cast my careful 10x10 categories aside and read those instead.

That was one phobia-inducing read! Say, what's in that old post there ...?

Well ... I don't mind wallowing in seediness, profanity, degradation, and general grotesquerie, and Celine's vivid description of the communal toilet in NYC is worth the price of admission ... but I think most people would find themselves gasping for air between chapters. But of course, that's Celine's point about life. You remind me, must do more Russian reading this year. I didn't get in anything in 2018 except borrowing one of dh's Strugatsky novels, which wasn't as good as Roadside Picnic. Oh dear, another category.

Just under the wire, finished my 98th book for 2018. Here are the books that didn't make it onto the Brit Trip list earlier in the thread. Joris-Karl Huysmans, The Damned (La-Bas) Jeremias Gotthelf, The Black Spider Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Jean Giono, The Hill Abbe Theodore Ratisbonne, St. Bernard of Clairvaux Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver Blaise Pascal, Pensees Irene Nemirovsky, David Golder Dylan Thomas, Quite Early One Morning Chekhov, The Seagull Irene Nemirovsky, The Ball Irene Nemirovsky, Snow in Autumn Irene Nemirovsky, The Courilof Affair Elisabeth Gille, The Mirador Urban Holmes, Daily Living in the Twelfth Century Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts Gregor von Rezzori, An Ermine in Czernopol Philip Roth, Goodbye, Columbus William Faulkner, The Wild Palms James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Charles Baudelaire, Intimate Journals J. Frank Dobie, A Texan in England A. E. Ellis, The Rack Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, Monday Starts on Saturday Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics Edmund Compton Mackenzie, Monarch of the Glen Heinrich von Kleist, The Marquise of O & Other Stories D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover Elspeth Davie, The Man Who Wanted to Smell Books & Other Stories John Buchan, Witch Wood Iain Crichton Smith, Selected Poems Muriel Spark, The Collected Stories Iain Crichton Smith, Consider the Lilies Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon Louis Ferdinand Celine, Journey to the End of the Night Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Wordsworth & Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads Shakespeare, Othello Edith Wharton, The Custom of the Country Rebecca West, The Return of the Soldier John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion Bernard of Clairvaux, De Amore Dei Aphra Behn, Oroonoko George Orwell, A Collection of Essays Bonaventure, The Life of St. Francis This year featured more countries than usual for me. United States, Russia, Scotland (lots of Scotland), Finland, Switzerland, Iceland, Austria-Hungary, France, ... and, um, Numidia and the Kingdom of Odoacer. More crime/noir than in the past (Cain, McCoy, Hammett); some disturbing or just odd French writing (Huysmans, Giono, Baudelaire, Celine ... though none of those as disturbing as the Swiss Gotthelf's The Black Spider) and four novels by new-to-me writer Irene Nemirovksy, as well as an account of Nemirovsky's life by her daughter, Elisabeth Gille.

Nonsense. We're all just reading books. On a serious note, since we have people considering this thread for the New Year.... No one should ever feel bad for not preferring to read more Literary (capital L!) texts. I like my food just fine from out of a can, or a package, or frozen, but have friends who make Food (capital F!) skilfully with fresh, organic ingredients; which I know is objectively better food, but I prefer my shopping, cooking and eating to be quicker and less demanding. I drink instant coffee, watch lowbrow flicks (to dh's dismay) and corny tv shows, and wear cheap clothes from Target or Savers, even though I know that there is better quality coffee, clothing in better taste, etc. If I have literary tastes in reading, it's because in just that particular corner of my life I would rather do the labor involved, and really can't tolerate a poorly written book, just like I have friends who can't drink cheap coffee and so go to the trouble of preparing something tastier. But there's no particular virtue in it.

Ali on OR, good job! Nice list of books. Matryoshka, you are a reading goddess. Well done!

Yes! Are you sure you and I aren't the same person? My HEB stopped carrying Medaglia d'Oro so now Amazon Primes it to me. To the OP: yeah, listen to the people telling you not to start. I did the same thing you did, back in college: started drinking coffee deliberately even though I didn't like it, because that's what my set did. It may not be a particularly harmful addiction, but it is an addiction--I genuinely can't bring myself to quit. Go for decaf, or tea.

Dh recommends Shafer's text for a high school homeschool class: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Ethics-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0190631392/ref=dp_ob_title_bk ETA: He suggests using an earlier and therefore cheaper edition.

I remember enjoying that when it came out. The best investment in my own education I ever made was my compact OED; but somehow it never occurred to me to think about the people who put it together.

After a nine-year gap between AP-level chemistry for Great Girl and for Middle Girl, I need help with high school chemistry. We (okay, dh) plan to use the Whitten/ Davis textbook General Chemistry, following the schedule of a nearby university for Chem 101 & 102, and were wondering if the Apologia Advanced Chemistry lab kit would mesh with it. Or some other kit? I am not a science person. I'm pretty sure I remember that with Great Girl, we started using the Apologia because it had tests and labs, which she liked, but she and dh were frustrated by how creationist it was and the need to frequently amend the text, and so dh did gap-filling with Whitten/Davis. So this time we want to start with that, and use the Preliminary Tests in the Study Guide together with end-of-chapter questions for assessment ... but then we still need labs, and we still have the Apologia lab stuff sitting around. Does this plan seem feasible? Input appreciated.

I was just listening to Sedaris's Santaland Diaries on the radio podcast while jogging. Hilarious! Having just enough time for one more book, maybe, before the end of the year, I can't settle on one, so I may be done. But there'll be three finished quick in the New Year.

Why am I thinking Suzuki? 😉 I enforce daily practice, but as gently as possible. Sundays are practice-optional, but she has to (gets to) put together a little Sunday evening concert for the family. The most fruitful thing I did was to realize that her real difficulty isn't (wasn't) the practice itself, but the transition. So my rule is, you have to set up, rosin, and tune, but then and only then you can quit. She's only twice quit after the transition; both times it turned out she was coming down with an illness. Other things that have helped significantly to ease the practice pain: 1. No threats, bargaining, or options; cheerful enforcement. 2. Lots of positive feedback. My in-laws are always asking her to bring her cello when we visit and gush over her playing. Got to practice for Grandma and Grandpa and uncles and aunts and cousins! 3. Peer pressure. Her bff is her cello teacher's daughter and practices an insane amount. 4. She wrote a fan letter to Yo-Yo Ma, and he sent a big publicity photo with a personal note on it. I framed it and hung it and now Yo-Yo Ma smiles down on her encouragingly as she practices.

I've been hanging out on BaW for five years and I still don't know who Mr. Linky is. I think he might be that obnoxious animated paper clip from Microsoft Office Assistant.

I'm happy to join you in this. I think there's a Bible-in-a-year group, but I'm not interested in working through the whole Bible again; I just want some accountability for the New Testament or Psalms daily.

Kathy, that photo fills me with such joy. May you and those precious children be sources of joy for each other for this New Year and many years to come. No worries to anyone who read less than a book every darn week. Life is busy, and it's important to be able to read long books. My numbers this year will take a hit if I read some of the very long ones waiting on my shelves. (I think my first year I read substantially less than 52.)

Brideshead Revisited is easily his best.

The Maronite Church, an Eastern Rite Catholic Church that has always been in communion with Rome, uses Aramaic as its liturgical language. My oldest daughter worships in a Maronite church when she can get to one. Nothing like hearing Our Lord's words of Institution exactly as he said them. And, yes to American ignorance about languages, liturgical and otherwise. A Catholic acquaintance was incredulous that the liturgy where I worship could possibly be entirely in Latin, because "How can we even know how the ancient Romans pronounced it?" ETA: Regarding the three kings: Of course there were at least three (one supposes there could have been more); otherwise, whose relics are those in Köln Cathedral? Some other Ss. Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar? 😉

Nice! And a happy birthday to your dh.

Thanks for forwarding that, Kathy.

This week I finished Mrs. Humphry Ward's Robert Elsmere (about which more in a later post) and also Dickens' novella The Cricket on the Hearth. Which I would count as a story rather than as a novella if I hadn't just read two Victorian novels for a total of ~1200 slow-moving pages. Before addressing Robin's questions, here's my BritTrip Final! Reading! List! Ermine Street George Gissing, New Grub Street (London)+ C. P. Snow, The Masters (Cambridgeshire) T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets (Huntingdonshire) John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Bedfordshire) John Clare, Bird and Animal Poems, from The Rural Muse (Northamptonshire) Francis Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Nottinghamshire) Snorri Sturlason, King Harald's Saga (East Riding of Yorkshire) Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (York)+ Dere Street Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship (North Yorkshire) Bede, Life of St. Cuthbert (Durham) Geraldine Jewsbury, The Half Sisters (Tyne & Wear) Robert Fergusson, Selected Poems (Northumbria) Ichnield Way John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (Isle of Wight) Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd (Dorset) Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur (Hampshire)+ William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Berkshire)* Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays of Travel (Buckinghamshire) Graham Greene, A Sort of Life (Hertfordshire) Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley's Secret (Essex) David Wilson, The Anglo-Saxons (Suffolk)** Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Passion of William of Norwich (Norfolk) Fosse Way Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes (Cornwall) Anthony Trollope, He Knew He Was Right (Devon)+ Thomas Hardy, The Mayor of Casterbridge (Dorset) Evelyn Waugh, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold (Gloucestershire) C. P. Snow, Time of Hope (Leicestershire) Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (Derbyshire) George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (Lincolnshire)+ Akemam Street Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (London)+ J. H. Newman, Loss and Gain (Oxfordshire) Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (Wiltshire) Richard Sheridan, The Rivals (Somerset) Watling Way Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (Kent)+ Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm (Sussex) Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (Surrey) M. R. James, Casting the Runes & Other Ghost Stories (Spooky London) W. H. Auden, Collected Poems 1933-38 (Worcestershire) George Eliot, Adam Bede (Warwickshire) Henry Green, Living (West Midlands) Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives' Tale (Staffordshire)+ William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (Shropshire) Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford (Cheshire) Herman Melville, Redburn (Merseyside) Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (Manchester) Harrison Ainsworth, The Lancashire Witches (Lancashire)+ Mrs. Humphry Ward, Robert Elsmere (Cumbria)+ Charles Dickens, The Cricket on the Hearth (Christmas in London) +Chunkster *Plus saw performed as '50s situation comedy **Plus saw Sutton Hoo artifacts at British Museum Rebel Ranks Wilfred Owen (book set during WWI and one WWI poem): Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front; var. Wilfrid Owen J. K. Rowling (Robin Hood alternative): Francis Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads Jane Austen (published anonymously): The Anonymous Life of St. Cuthbert Bram Stoker (Spooky October): M. R. James, Casting the Runes & Other Ghost Stories Geoffrey Chaucer: Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales William Shakespeare (attend play): Hamlet* Georgette Heyer (Regency era): Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford Charles Dickens (chunkster): Eugene Sue, The Wandering Jew *Bonus points? Saw it in the actual Globe Theatre in London!

Years ago, one of the Old Guard tv broadcasters--can't remember who--was asked how he managed to read the news, live, that JFK had been shot. He said that his technique with emotional news had always been to say to himself, This isn't about you: you owe a dignified presentation to the American people, and choking up is self-centered.. Sounds severe, but it always works for me.

I'm reading Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth, which is reasonably short, Christmas-y, and in London.

Impressive list Sandy! Well done. A great trip it's been, too, through the English counties. Say, where's your co-conspirator Amy? Penguin and Matryoshka, thank you for the Wollstonecraft/Shelley discussion and reading tips. Now there would be a great 10x10 category: "Shelley and His Circle." Shelleys, Godwins, associated Romantics....

I was going to call it "The Brexit Deal" but I thought that might be edging too close to the No Politics rule. 😄 No Theresa May humor!