The Book Thread 2022

[Blip]

First 50 here.

51. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

I'm not sure this novel is entirely sure what it wants to be - it has shades of I Capture the Castle and Charlotte Gray - but I rather enjoyed it.

[UncertainSloth]

1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 -
5. trinity - louisa hall - 8/10
6. the night ocean - paul la farge - 9/10
7. washington black - esi edugyan - 8/10
8. the monsters of templeton - lauren groff - 8/10
9. hystopia - david means - 6/10
10. the bones of avalon ( dr dee #1) - phil rickman - 9/10
11. in a cottage in the woods - cass green - 7/10
12. the devil's larder - jim crace - 7/10 -
13. where the crawdads sing - delia owen - 9/10
14. the book of m - peng shepherd - 8/10

two to add - wasn't capable of posting when i finished the previous one...

14 - woman in the window - aj finn - 6/10 - thriller by numbers, basically...save yourself the time and watch the netflix adaptation...it's only vaguely changed and will only consume 90-odd minutes of your life


15. cunning folk - adam nevill - 10/10 - have loved his book, eldritch and folk-horror in equal droves, since his debut but this is his best so far...absolutely nails the folk horror isolation and themes...loved it so much i tweeted him about it...



the 20 may still be in sight...

[Blip]

[...]
the 20 may still be in sight...

I think you've listed your last two as 14 and 15 instead of 15 and 16, UncertainSloth

[UncertainSloth]

oh my, yes....thanks, blip! one step closer....

[UncertainSloth]

1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 -
5. trinity - louisa hall - 8/10
6. the night ocean - paul la farge - 9/10
7. washington black - esi edugyan - 8/10
8. the monsters of templeton - lauren groff - 8/10
9. hystopia - david means - 6/10
10. the bones of avalon ( dr dee #1) - phil rickman - 9/10
11. in a cottage in the woods - cass green - 7/10
12. the devil's larder - jim crace - 7/10 -
13. where the crawdads sing - delia owen - 9/10
14. the book of m - peng shepherd - 8/10

two to add - wasn't capable of posting when i finished the previous one...

15 - woman in the window - aj finn - 6/10 - thriller by numbers, basically...save yourself the time and watch the netflix adaptation...it's only vaguely changed and will only consume 90-odd minutes of your life


16 - cunning folk - adam nevill - 10/10 - have loved his book, eldritch and folk-horror in equal droves, since his debut but this is his best so far...absolutely nails the folk horror isolation and themes...loved it so much i tweeted him about it...


the 20 may still be in sight...

[Blip]

First 50 here.

51. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
53. Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

The light style belies the serious themes in this tale of Soho nightclubs, exploited young women and corrupt policemen in the 1920s.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton
4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman
5. Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning - Jenefer Philip, Rebecca Adams & Noriko Iwashita
6. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
7. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World - Nataly Kelly & Jost Zetzche
8. English Words: A Linguistic Introduction - Heidi Harley
9. Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives Jan P. de Ruiter (Ed.)
10. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
11. English Prepositions: Their meanings and uses - R.M.W. Dixon
12. Draußen vor der Tür - Wolfgang Borchert
13. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication - Jeannette Liitlemore
14. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
15. Leviathan Falls - James S.A. Corey
16. The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World - David W. Anthony
17. The Unfortunate Traveler and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
18. A Qualitative Approach to the Validation of Oral Language Tests (Studies in Language Testing, Series Number 14) - Anne Lazarton
19. Are Some Languages Better than Others? - R.M.W. Dixon.
20. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollet
21. Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage - Iwona Kraska-Szlenk (Ed.)
22.Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die - Steven Nadler
23. Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain - Tim Moore
24. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction - David Lee
25. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson
26. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
27. Explorations of Language Transfer - Terrence Odlin
28: A war on Two Fronts: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line- Tibe Patrick Jordan
29. Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins (Eds.) (Partial re-read)
30. Rethinking linguistic relativity - John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Partial re-read.
31. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage
32. Cross-linguistic Study of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Cross-linguistic Research to Examine the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Evidence from English, Mandarin and Russian - Ronan Grace
33. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology - Viveka Vellupillai
34. Mysteries of English Grammar: A guide to the complexities of the English Language - Andreea S. Calude & Laurie Bauer
35. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks (Reread)
36. The Linguistics Delusion - Geoffrey Sampson

37. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition - Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis

566. pp

A collection of chapters by different authors (including some of the big names in cognitive linguistics - CG) looking at how an understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of language (mainly cognitive semantics and cognitive grammar) can aid in the business of learning another language. There were some interesting insights and some good summaries of fairly recent research into CG. (The books dates from 2008)

As might be expected from works by some of the leading scholars in this field, the balance was tilted more towards theory than practice. It is clear that these profs haven't spent that much time actually in front of large classes of young L2 learners who are in the earlier stages of their journey towards communicative competence in the L2.

My own view is that GC is a valuable and productive approach to understanding how language words and is one tool among several in the toolbox that teachers have at their disposal in teaching leatners how to acquire a second/foreign language.

A good and often challenging read.

[Blip]

First 50 here.

51. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
53. Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
54. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

One in Atkinson's series featuring a private investigator; undemanding and well-written.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton
4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman
5. Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning - Jenefer Philip, Rebecca Adams & Noriko Iwashita
6. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
7. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World - Nataly Kelly & Jost Zetzche
8. English Words: A Linguistic Introduction - Heidi Harley
9. Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives Jan P. de Ruiter (Ed.)
10. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
11. English Prepositions: Their meanings and uses - R.M.W. Dixon
12. Draußen vor der Tür - Wolfgang Borchert
13. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication - Jeannette Liitlemore
14. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
15. Leviathan Falls - James S.A. Corey
16. The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World - David W. Anthony
17. The Unfortunate Traveler and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
18. A Qualitative Approach to the Validation of Oral Language Tests (Studies in Language Testing, Series Number 14) - Anne Lazarton
19. Are Some Languages Better than Others? - R.M.W. Dixon.
20. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollet
21. Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage - Iwona Kraska-Szlenk (Ed.)
22.Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die - Steven Nadler
23. Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain - Tim Moore
24. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction - David Lee
25. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson
26. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
27. Explorations of Language Transfer - Terrence Odlin
28: A war on Two Fronts: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line- Tibe Patrick Jordan
29. Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins (Eds.) (Partial re-read)
30. Rethinking linguistic relativity - John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Partial re-read.
31. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage
32. Cross-linguistic Study of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Cross-linguistic Research to Examine the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Evidence from English, Mandarin and Russian - Ronan Grace
33. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology - Viveka Vellupillai
34. Mysteries of English Grammar: A guide to the complexities of the English Language - Andreea S. Calude & Laurie Bauer
35. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks (Reread)
36. The Linguistics Delusion - Geoffrey Sampson
37. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition - Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis

38. Where have all the adjectives gone? - R.M.W Dixon

A collection of essays on a variety of different topics, including the titular investigation into the word category of 'adjective'.

Far from being a universal category in the world's languages (like verbs and nouns), it turns out that the way different languages express concepts that would be dealt with by adjectives in languages like English and German is quite varied. Some languages have a very limited class of what we might call adjectives. All the rest is done by using nouns. (E.g. 'He has tallness' if there is no adjective for tall) or through verbs (He talls). Drifting nounwards or verbwards is a common fate for adjectives, it seems. You don't even have to investigate exotic languages to see this in action. In English we say that a shop is open (for business) by using a pure adjective. But the opposite (the shop is closed) doesn't use an adjective, but rather a passivized verb.

My memory of studying German is that one says 'I have hunger' or 'I have thirst' as a perfectly normal way to express what would be in English expressed with adjectives.

(I'm currently working on another project that covers some aspects of adjective use in English. I thought myself terribly clever with some of my 'discoveries' only to find out that it had all been dealt with in this book dating back more than 40 years. I hate it when that happens...)



Edit for clarity

[NamelessFaceless]

Audiobooks in Italics

1. Hope of Heaven - John O'Hara
2. Pal Joey - John O'Hara
3. Invitation to a Beheading - Vladimir Nabokov
4. Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever - Bill O'Reilly
5. Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salman Rushdie
6. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie
8. The Innocence of Father Brown - G.K. Chesterton
9. The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle
10 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
11. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway
12. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
13. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky
14. A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
15. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (a re-read, this time listened)
16. Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Vernes (I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this!)
17. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (another re-read, this time listened)
18. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde (another one I previously read and have now listened)
19. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
20. The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins
21. The Forward Collection: The Last Conversation (Paul Tremblay); Emergency Skin (N.K. Jemisin); Summer Frost (Blake Crouch); Ark (Veronica Roth); Randomize (Andy Weir); You Have Arrived at Your Destination (Amor Towles)
22. Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
23. Sarah - J.T. LeRoy
24. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
25. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
26. The Arabian Nights - Andrew Lang
27. The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli
28. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
29. The Europeans - Henry James
30. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin
31. Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories - Shirley Jackson
32. Hush Collection: Snowflakes (Ruth Ware); Treasure (Oyinkan Braithwaite); Slow Burner (Laura Lippman); Buried (Jeffrey Deaver); The Gift (Alison Gaylin); Let Her Be (Lisa Unger)
33. Rachel Ray - Anthony Trollope
34. Battlefield Earth - L. Ron Hubbard
35. Summer - Edith Wharton
36. Disorder Collection: The Best Girls (Min Jin Lee); Loam (Scott Heim); Ungirls (Lauren Beukes); Anonymous (Uzodinma Iweala); The Beckoning Fair One (Dan Chaon); Will Williams (Namwali Serpell)
37. All the Lies They Did Not Tell: The True Story of Satanic Panic in an Italian Community - Pablo Trincia
38. Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley
39. A Rogue's Life - Wilkie Collins
40. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
41. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
42. A Head Full of Ghosts - Paul Tremblay
43 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
44. Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

I feel a little guilty that I didn't LOVE-LOVE this one like I'm supposed to. The story was good, and I really did like the writing for the most part. But the dialogue. It was the WORST! It almost felt like two different authors. The narratives were so descriptive and beautiful, but then when characters started interacting it was just rank amateur - like it was written by a sixth grader. I'm looking forward to the movie though.

[UncertainSloth]

the movie handles it very well, i thought - i know what you mean about the dialogue

[Blip]

First 50 here.

51. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn
53. Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
54. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
55. Lessons by Ian McEwan

World events since the mid-20th century refracted through the life of a victim of child sexual abuse. I thought it stunning, although very uncomfortable reading at times, and expect to see it on next year's Booker list. McEwan doesn't always cut my mustard, but this is up there with Atonement and Enduring Love.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton
4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman
5. Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning - Jenefer Philip, Rebecca Adams & Noriko Iwashita
6. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
7. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World - Nataly Kelly & Jost Zetzche
8. English Words: A Linguistic Introduction - Heidi Harley
9. Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives Jan P. de Ruiter (Ed.)
10. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
11. English Prepositions: Their meanings and uses - R.M.W. Dixon
12. Draußen vor der Tür - Wolfgang Borchert
13. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication - Jeannette Liitlemore
14. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
15. Leviathan Falls - James S.A. Corey
16. The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World - David W. Anthony
17. The Unfortunate Traveler and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
18. A Qualitative Approach to the Validation of Oral Language Tests (Studies in Language Testing, Series Number 14) - Anne Lazarton
19. Are Some Languages Better than Others? - R.M.W. Dixon.
20. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollet
21. Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage - Iwona Kraska-Szlenk (Ed.)
22.Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die - Steven Nadler
23. Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain - Tim Moore
24. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction - David Lee
25. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson
26. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
27. Explorations of Language Transfer - Terrence Odlin
28: A war on Two Fronts: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line- Tibe Patrick Jordan
29. Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins (Eds.) (Partial re-read)
30. Rethinking linguistic relativity - John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Partial re-read.
31. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage
32. Cross-linguistic Study of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Cross-linguistic Research to Examine the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Evidence from English, Mandarin and Russian - Ronan Grace
33. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology - Viveka Vellupillai
34. Mysteries of English Grammar: A guide to the complexities of the English Language - Andreea S. Calude & Laurie Bauer
35. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks (Reread)
36. The Linguistics Delusion - Geoffrey Sampson
37. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition - Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis
38. Where have all the adjectives gone? - R.M.W Dixon

Copulas: Universals in the Categorization of the Lexicon - Regina Pustet

263 pp.

I almost want to put this twice here as I read and then immediately re-read many of the sections of this book. A highly technical and specialist description of how different languages in the world use copulas. (That is, the words that would be translated in English as 'be', 'is' 'am' 'was' etc.)

It is kind of hard for native English speakers to fully appreciate the range of meanings that this word has for English. Existence, location, nominal and adjectival predication and so on. Other languages take a range of very different approaches. Russian omits the 'be' verb in the present tense (Ivan teacher = Ivan is a teacher) German can use the verb 'give' for existence statements, Spanish divides between 'ser' and 'estar' based on a variety of criteria such as temporary versus permanent qualities. Thai has an extremely complex system with 'khi' and 'phen' sometime being equally acceptable but sometime one rather than the other being preferred. (E.g. Nominal predicates like 'this is a bird' prefer khi, but occupations like 'he is a teacher' prefer phen.) Japanese divides existential statements between iru for animates and aru for inanimates. (There is a dog = iru versus 'there is a chair' = aru.) Tagalog apparently manages fine without any copulas at all...

All of this is then examined with some pretty heavy duty linguistic theorizing, looking for patterns and underlying consistencies.
Way too involved to even summarize here...

As I said, I had to read over many sections a few times to get the full meaning. I was definitely at the fractal edge of my ability to understand some of the concepts. But then I reflect that I probably wouldn't have been able to start this book a few years ago. There is progress of sorts.

[UncertainSloth]

1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 -
5. trinity - louisa hall - 8/10
6. the night ocean - paul la farge - 9/10
7. washington black - esi edugyan - 8/10
8. the monsters of templeton - lauren groff - 8/10
9. hystopia - david means - 6/10
10. the bones of avalon ( dr dee #1) - phil rickman - 9/10
11. in a cottage in the woods - cass green - 7/10
12. the devil's larder - jim crace - 7/10 -
13. where the crawdads sing - delia owen - 9/10
14. the book of m - peng shepherd - 8/10
15 - woman in the window - aj finn - 6/10
16 - cunning folk - adam nevill - 10/10
17. the english monster - lloyd shepherd - 7/10 - well written but somehow unsatisfying...the research and creativity is there but i felt disappointed somewhat at the end...apparently the first of a series of 4, i may try the second sometime

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton
4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman
5. Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning - Jenefer Philip, Rebecca Adams & Noriko Iwashita
6. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
7. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World - Nataly Kelly & Jost Zetzche
8. English Words: A Linguistic Introduction - Heidi Harley
9. Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives Jan P. de Ruiter (Ed.)
10. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
11. English Prepositions: Their meanings and uses - R.M.W. Dixon
12. Draußen vor der Tür - Wolfgang Borchert
13. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication - Jeannette Liitlemore
14. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
15. Leviathan Falls - James S.A. Corey
16. The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World - David W. Anthony
17. The Unfortunate Traveler and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
18. A Qualitative Approach to the Validation of Oral Language Tests (Studies in Language Testing, Series Number 14) - Anne Lazarton
19. Are Some Languages Better than Others? - R.M.W. Dixon.
20. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollet
21. Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage - Iwona Kraska-Szlenk (Ed.)
22.Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die - Steven Nadler
23. Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain - Tim Moore
24. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction - David Lee
25. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson
26. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
27. Explorations of Language Transfer - Terrence Odlin
28: A war on Two Fronts: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line- Tibe Patrick Jordan
29. Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins (Eds.) (Partial re-read)
30. Rethinking linguistic relativity - John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Partial re-read.
31. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage
32. Cross-linguistic Study of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Cross-linguistic Research to Examine the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Evidence from English, Mandarin and Russian - Ronan Grace
33. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology - Viveka Vellupillai
34. Mysteries of English Grammar: A guide to the complexities of the English Language - Andreea S. Calude & Laurie Bauer
35. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks (Reread)
36. The Linguistics Delusion - Geoffrey Sampson
37. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition - Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis
38. Where have all the adjectives gone? - R.M.W Dixon
39. Copulas: Universals in the Categorization of the Lexicon - Regina Pustet

40. Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain - Pen Vogler

480 .pp

A thoroughly entertaining (and also very informative) overview of food in Britain over the centuries. (Actually, mostly England.)
The author details what was eaten and by whom, drawing on social history, medieval recipe books, literature, letters, diaries and so on.

I well recognized the way that class and snobbery have informed attitudes as to what should and should not be eaten, how it should or should not be eaten, or when it should and when it shouldn't be eaten. The subtle markers of class and status that infuse almost every aspect of eating. Dinner or lunch (or luncheon)? Milk in first or last? Scone (rhymes with gone) or scone (rhymes with stone)? The baffling maze of dos and don'ts that lie in wait for the unwary and the uneducated (or the mere foreigner.) I realize that much as my egalitarian and cosmopolitan outlook may be on show, I am still subject feeling to that sniffy disapproval when unspoken rules are broken.

Don't even get me started on some of the gross breaches of manners and decorum I detect in the Japanese style of eating....as seen from my British perspective of course! How easy it is to fall into comfortable truths.

Anyways, a good, funny and accessible read. Recommended for those interested in culture and history and how they affect the quotidian in often surprising ways.

[UncertainSloth]

1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 -
5. trinity - louisa hall - 8/10
6. the night ocean - paul la farge - 9/10
7. washington black - esi edugyan - 8/10
8. the monsters of templeton - lauren groff - 8/10
9. hystopia - david means - 6/10
10. the bones of avalon ( dr dee #1) - phil rickman - 9/10
11. in a cottage in the woods - cass green - 7/10
12. the devil's larder - jim crace - 7/10 -
13. where the crawdads sing - delia owen - 9/10
14. the book of m - peng shepherd - 8/10
15 - woman in the window - aj finn - 6/10
16 - cunning folk - adam nevill - 10/10
17. the english monster - lloyd shepherd - 7/10
18. winterset hollow - jonathan durham - 8/10 - a slightly bonkers slice of folk violence...felt slightly empty narrative-wise, otherwise would have scored more

[Kaleid]

1. The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
2. The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain - Ian Mortimer
3. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
4. The Golden Strangers - Henry Treece
5. White - Marie Darrieussecq
6. Villette - Charlotte Brontë
7. The Dark Island - Henry Treece
8. Fat Chance - Simon Gray
9. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollett
10. Red Queen, White Queen - Henry Treece
11. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
12. The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
13. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (re-read)
14. The Great Captains - Henry Treece

15. Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Well, all I can say is, it's no wonder they had a revolution.

[UncertainSloth]

1. the long take - robin robertson - 8/10
2. the gatekeeper - russ kane - 5/10
3. dr potter's medicine show - eric scott fischl - 8/10
4. just one damn thing after another - jodi taylor - 8/10 -
5. trinity - louisa hall - 8/10
6. the night ocean - paul la farge - 9/10
7. washington black - esi edugyan - 8/10
8. the monsters of templeton - lauren groff - 8/10
9. hystopia - david means - 6/10
10. the bones of avalon ( dr dee #1) - phil rickman - 9/10
11. in a cottage in the woods - cass green - 7/10
12. the devil's larder - jim crace - 7/10 -
13. where the crawdads sing - delia owen - 9/10
14. the book of m - peng shepherd - 8/10
15 - woman in the window - aj finn - 6/10
16 - cunning folk - adam nevill - 10/10
17. the english monster - lloyd shepherd - 7/10
18. winterset hollow - jonathan durham - 8/10
19.the vessel - adam nevill - 9/10 - another of his 'experiments' and he pulls it off again...filmic and brief, leaving much to the reader...dark, intelligent and rooted in folklore, love his stuff

[The_Metatron]

Finally read a library copy I picked up some time ago of Satori, by Don Winslow.

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Apparently, Winslow got approval of the Whitaker (Trevanian) estate to write a novel about Nicolai Hel, the protagonist in Trevanian’s most excellent novel, Shibumi. Satori is a prequel, expanding on Hel’s life as a young adult.

And, Winslow did an excellent job at it! Satori will stand on its own, it’s a great story. I would say it’s probably better because I know Hel from my well worn copy of Shibumi.

We also get to meet De Lhandes (the Gnome) from Shibumi, as well as Major Diamond. Though, I was disappointed Winslow didn’t have Hel dispose of Diamond and his friends in this novel. I also thought it strange that he gave De Lhandes the gift of poetic metaphor used often by La Cagot, Hel’s Basque friend in Shibumi.

I recommend Shibumi first, then Satori.

[don't get me started]

1. Cognitive Discourse Analysis: An introduction - Thora Tenbrink
2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender And Identity- And Why This Harms Everybody – Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay
3. A History of the World in 12 Maps – Jerry Brotton
4. Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language – Patricia T. O’Connor & Stewart Kellerman
5. Peer Interaction and Second Language Learning - Jenefer Philip, Rebecca Adams & Noriko Iwashita
6. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
7. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World - Nataly Kelly & Jost Zetzche
8. English Words: A Linguistic Introduction - Heidi Harley
9. Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives Jan P. de Ruiter (Ed.)
10. Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey
11. English Prepositions: Their meanings and uses - R.M.W. Dixon
12. Draußen vor der Tür - Wolfgang Borchert
13. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication - Jeannette Liitlemore
14. Tiamat's Wrath - James S.A. Corey
15. Leviathan Falls - James S.A. Corey
16. The Horse, the Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World - David W. Anthony
17. The Unfortunate Traveler and Other Works - Thomas Nashe
18. A Qualitative Approach to the Validation of Oral Language Tests (Studies in Language Testing, Series Number 14) - Anne Lazarton
19. Are Some Languages Better than Others? - R.M.W. Dixon.
20. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker - Tobias Smollet
21. Body Part Terms in Conceptualization and Language Usage - Iwona Kraska-Szlenk (Ed.)
22.Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die - Steven Nadler
23. Vuelta Skelter: Riding the Remarkable 1941 Tour of Spain - Tim Moore
24. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction - David Lee
25. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson
26. An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West - Konstantin Kisin
27. Explorations of Language Transfer - Terrence Odlin
28: A war on Two Fronts: Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line- Tibe Patrick Jordan
29. Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity - Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins (Eds.) (Partial re-read)
30. Rethinking linguistic relativity - John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (Eds.) Partial re-read.
31. A History of the World in 6 Glasses - Tom Standage
32. Cross-linguistic Study of the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Cross-linguistic Research to Examine the Principle of Linguistic Relativity: Evidence from English, Mandarin and Russian - Ronan Grace
33. An Introduction to Linguistic Typology - Viveka Vellupillai
34. Mysteries of English Grammar: A guide to the complexities of the English Language - Andreea S. Calude & Laurie Bauer
35. Against a Dark Background - Iain M. Banks (Reread)
36. The Linguistics Delusion - Geoffrey Sampson
37. Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition - Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis
38. Where have all the adjectives gone? - R.M.W Dixon
39. Copulas: Universals in the Categorization of the Lexicon - Regina Pustet
40. Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain - Pen Vogler

41. Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies - Edward O. Wilson

153. pp

A short and eloquent description of the ways in which altruism and social cooperation can serve as the basis of evolutionary sucess. The author details the ways in which social creatures organize themselves, drawing on examples from throughout the animal kingdom, with especial focus on the social insects. (Lots and lots of Linnean binomials to deal with here. An inordinate fondness for beetles indeed!)

The hypersociality of Homo Sapiens is a central feature of our evolutionary success. (And the use of language to enact this socialty is the central feature of this.) There was a lot of interesting and insightful commentary here. I especially like the quote (p.87)," Within groups, selfish individuals win against altruists, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals."