UncertainSloth wrote:blimey, that also sounds right up my wotsit

I don't think either will disappoint you.

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
9. The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
10. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
11. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
12. Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy
13. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
14. Gorski by Vesna Goldsworthy
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
16. Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
17. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
18. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
19. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl part translated by Ilse Lasch
20. The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Paul Britten Austin
21. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Thomas Teal
22. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
23. The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
24. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
25. I Is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
26. A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
27. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
28. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
29. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
30. Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
31. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
*My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
32. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
33. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
34. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
35. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
36. Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
37. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
38. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
39. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
40. The Colony by Audrey Magee
41. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
42. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
43. Trust by Hernan Diaz
44. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
45. The Trees by Percival Everett
46. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo

A novel about dictatorship, corruption and revolution, with a pleasing narrative style, this would have been so much better if Bulawayo hadn't attempted an Animal Farm motif, which for me detracted and distracted from an otherwise thought-provoking and timely work.

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

The final entry in Treece's Celtic tetralogy, and the best. The story of King Arthur and his companions told with a little more realism than most; Treece himself says in the preface, "It is not easy now to throw off all the accretions of legend...they were men, yet to see them only as men, stripped of their doom-driven greatness, is to represent them on too trivial a scale. To draw them as massive heroes only would be to recreate them as inhuman cyphers."

So it's the tale of Arthur largely free of magic (excepting a brief, eerie meeting with a mysterious old Druid by the name of Merddin) but with plenty of drama, superb, complex characters, and allusions to Arthurian staples (a sword becomes lodged in a stump of wood, a methaphor is invoked about a lady in a lake of dreams) but told with Treece's uncanny ability to make you think he was there at the time. You could fully imagine most of the events as having happened, historically; even if the reality is likely to have been an amalgam of many different folk tales, Treece dextrously pulls all the threads together with authority. The ending, unfortunately, is something of an anticlimax, but for anyone with even a passing interest in Arthurian legend, it's a terrific read.

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

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

517. pp

What a treat! Although it deals with some fairly technical aspects of linguistics, it does so in a very accessible manner, defining specialist terms clearly and illustrating the points made with examples from a truly astonishing range of the world's languages. I think that it was the inclusiveness of this representative cross-section that is the main strength of the book.

Nothing is wholly exotic, and everything is partially exotic. Reading about the case systems of some languages like West Greenlandic (8 cases) and Lezgian (18 cases!) is just baffling for the Anglo speaker, with our residual case marking on just a few pronouns (I versus Me). But we are reminded that the English vowel inventory (about 20 depending on dialect) makes it one of the most complex vowel systems in the world. (And the inclusion of the 'th' phonemes - (voiced in 'that' and unvoiced in 'thin') places English in a very rare category of pronunciation features indeed.)

I marked the text with a huge amount of post-it notes and also the reference list will serve as a very useful resource.
My god, language can be strange. When I look at some of the other languages out there, the languages I have actually tried to learn seem easy-peasy lemon squeezy. But then, when I think about the many baroque corners of English, I feel pity for my students.

Perhaps not for everyone, but right up my street.

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 - near post-apoc book with an interesting concept and a detailed world...but by god it took me nearly two months to read...i'll be lucky to hit 20 this year at this rate...XD

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
9. The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
10. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
11. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
12. Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy
13. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
14. Gorski by Vesna Goldsworthy
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
16. Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
17. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
18. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
19. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl part translated by Ilse Lasch
20. The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Paul Britten Austin
21. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Thomas Teal
22. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
23. The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
24. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
25. I Is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
26. A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
27. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
28. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
29. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
30. Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
31. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
*My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
32. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
33. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
34. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
35. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
36. Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
37. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
38. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
39. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
40. The Colony by Audrey Magee
41. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
42. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
43. Trust by Hernan Diaz
44. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
45. The Trees by Percival Everett
46. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
47. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

A somewhat rambling account of the dysfunctional family of Lincoln's assassin. For me, the most interesting aspect of the novel concerned the horror of slavery.

The shortlist has been announced since I last posted: I was astounded that The Colony didn't make the final cut. Of those that did, Small Things Like These, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and The Trees stand out for me.

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

176. pp

I nice read about some of the things in English grammar that don't seem to make sense and defy the attempts of linguists to come up with neat categories. The government is or the government are? Me and Tom, or Tom and I? Hot, hotter, cold,colder but not fun, funner. Two coffees or two cups of coffee? The director's fault or the fault of the director?

The authors remind us that all languages are undergoing change and it is often the case that older features which are mostly defunct (e.g. Whom) still linger and newer structures haven't quite settled down yet. My only criticism of the book is that they think like grammarians. Explanations for phenomena can be basically be found in deeper examinations of things like case, gender, heads and predicates, subordinate clauses and whatnot. Sometimes it seems to me that the answer is not based on the grammatical system per se, but on usage, ease of pronunciation, pragmatics, epistemics and so on .

But still, an interesting read, pitched just right. Not too academic, not too 'popular science'. Also a good reminder that attempting to reduce language to elegant formulations and parsimonious models in an attempt to emulate STEM disciplines is probably a fool's errand.

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

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
9. The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
10. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
11. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
12. Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy
13. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
14. Gorski by Vesna Goldsworthy
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
16. Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
17. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
18. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
19. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl part translated by Ilse Lasch
20. The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Paul Britten Austin
21. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Thomas Teal
22. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
23. The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
24. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
25. I Is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
26. A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
27. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
28. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
29. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
30. Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
31. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
*My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
32. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
33. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
34. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
35. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
36. Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
37. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
38. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
39. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
40. The Colony by Audrey Magee
41. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
42. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
43. Trust by Hernan Diaz
44. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
45. The Trees by Percival Everett
46. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
47. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
48. The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

A man awakes one morning to find, not that his body is covered with scales but that his skin has turned from pale to dark. I love Hamid's writing but I don't think this is his best work. It makes some telling points though.

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
9. The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
10. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
11. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
12. Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy
13. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
14. Gorski by Vesna Goldsworthy
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
16. Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
17. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
18. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
19. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl part translated by Ilse Lasch
20. The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Paul Britten Austin
21. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Thomas Teal
22. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
23. The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
24. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
25. I Is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
26. A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
27. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
28. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
29. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
30. Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
31. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
*My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
32. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
33. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
34. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
35. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
36. Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
37. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
38. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
39. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
40. The Colony by Audrey Magee
41. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
42. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
43. Trust by Hernan Diaz
44. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
45. The Trees by Percival Everett
46. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
47. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
48. The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
49. The Island by Victoria Hislop

Another in the series of novels recommended by new friends, this is set mainly in a leper colony before, during and after the second world war, just as cures were being developed,* and the story telling is good. Rather too much romance for my taste though.

*Sorry Thérèse.

1. A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson
2. The Expectation Effect by David Robson
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Road Ends by Mary Lawson
5. A Brief History of Earth by Andrew H Knoll
6. Roseanna by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Lois Roth
7. The Man Who Went Up in Smoke by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
8. The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
9. The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
10. Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
11. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Alan Blair
12. Monsieur Ka by Vesna Goldsworthy
13. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
14. Gorski by Vesna Goldsworthy
15. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
16. Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
17. The Abominable Man by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
18. The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak
19. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl part translated by Ilse Lasch
20. The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Paul Britten Austin
21. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Thomas Teal
22. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
23. The Terrorists by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö translated by Joan Tate
24. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
25. I Is Another: Septology III-V by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
26. A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse translated by Damion Searls
27. God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
28. A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch
29. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
30. Ruth & Pen by Emilie Pine
31. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
*My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
32. The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
33. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
34. On Green Dolphin Street by Sebastian Faulks
35. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
36. Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
37. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
38. After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz
39. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
40. The Colony by Audrey Magee
41. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout
42. Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
43. Trust by Hernan Diaz
44. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
45. The Trees by Percival Everett
46. Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
47. Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
48. The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
49. The Island by Victoria Hislop
50. The Great Captains by Henry Treece

Intrigued by Kaleid's comments and always up for reinterpretations of the Arthurian legends I gave this a go; I made it to the end but the violence and barbarity were too much for me. I know life was like that in those times: maybe I'm a little fragile with all our contemporary vicissitudes.

congrats on the 50, blip!

Thank you, UncertainSloth

Congrats Blip.

An inspiration indeed. Gotta get cracking if I'm gonna have a hope of reaching 50 this year.

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)

Decided to give myself a break from the academic stuff and reread a Banks S.F. novel. I really love the books in the Cuture series and have read and reread the main ones several times (Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons are my favorites).
This is not a story set in the Culture universe, but it has many of the typical Banksian themes. I reckon I read this about 15 or so years ago and had only the vaguest recollections of the story. Interesting and entertaining stuff; bleak, darkly humorous, philosophical and political by turns. It is such a shame that Banks died so young...

First 50 here.

51. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

What can happen if you don't have enough to do.

don't get me started wrote: Congrats Blip.

An inspiration indeed. Gotta get cracking if I'm gonna have a hope of reaching 50 this year.

Thanks, don't get me started

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

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

I first heard about this book from a short story collection I listened to earlier this year. The introduction described this book as the "scariest book he's ever read," so, naturally, I was intrigued. I loved it. It was definitely creepy, and scary, and I loved it even though the ending made me want more. Definitely recommending this if you liked "The Girl With All the Gifts."

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

221. pp

The author is a retired academic with a very extensive history of respected academic work. In this book he takes aim at some of the nonsense that underlies the academic discipline known as 'linguistics'. His basic idea is that since the 1960's there has been an intellectual current that has held that language can be rigorously studied by applying the scientific method. But language is not physics or chemistry and the approach to the study of language using the scientific method ( which he describes as 'scientism') is inadequate and wrongheaded.

I'm in agreement with several of his core arguments here. The tendency of the some schools of 'the scientific study of language' to rely entirely on data from one language (usually English) and then make sweeping statements and propose grand theories that apply to all languages is a central point of critique by Sampson. Added to this is the realization that the 'data' that often underpin these grand theories are almost always concocted John and Mary sentences summoned up in the mind of the 'researcher'. Hardly the scientific method as STEM practitioners would understand it. The baleful influence of a certain former MIT professor is spelt out with some fairly forceful language.

That is not to say that I agreed with everything in this book. I would have liked the author to have discussed cognitive linguistics in a bit more detail. The field of conversation analysis, (which has a reputation for being the most austere in its reliance on carefully collected real-life data and for rigorously eschewing grand theorizing about what is going on 'in the head' of participants in talk) was not mentioned at all.

Still, a valuable and interesting book. For those outside linguistics the name of that former MIT professor probably springs to mind as an unquestioned genius and great thinker who has basically invented the modern discipline of linguistics. This is very far from the case and there is widespread disagreement and even contempt for the turn that the study of human language has taken since the 1960's under the influence of the "linguisticians" as Sampson calls them.