Dilly Dalley > Recent Status Updates

The book starts in 1910 with the spark (lynching of a Mexican in Texas) that will result in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917). Then in the first two chapters the narrative reverses in time to provide the historical context of that event. Diaz is in power in Mexico and has ruled with an iron fist for 27 years - Mexico has achieved some measure of stability and prosperity but at the cost of US imperialism.

What a nice read. Loving it so far - making me want to join a choir

I am up to 1950 - We are getting close to the publication of Lord of the Rings and there's a bit of back and forth about whether Tolkien wishes to change publishers. He's also acknowledging that it has taken him 12 years to write the requested follow up to the Hobbit. There is much discussion about how big it is - a million words - and he is still keen to publish the Silmarillion.

So far we have walked from Derry > Lifford > Strabane > Castlederg > Lough Derg > car ride to > Enniskillen. It is 1986, the summer after the Anglo-Irish Accord (signed by Maggie Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald) and Colm Toibin is writing about towns bombed out, people leaving for America/London, the Hiring Fair (structural poverty meted out to the Catholic population), and a weekend pilgrimage of self-mortification

The happily married couple (Linden & Oak) are fracturing under the pressure of infertility, the psychologist Adam (Maple) is going to research what personality traits people who swim against the tide have (activists) versus the prevailing wisdom that it is ok to kill trees. The tree scientist, (no single tree because she speaks for all trees) after shaming for her research, is back, wrote a book & made lots of money.

Well, we are moving west into Redwood country and some of our trees/characters (Doug/Banyan, Mimi/Mulberry, Olivia/Maidenhead-Gingko, and Nick/Chestnut) have arrived to defend the trees. Why is the whole story suffused in melancholy? Rhetorical - we know why.

Nearly finished the Second World War letters. At this stage the letters cover Tolkien's everyday life, reading like a diary, his concern for his children in the war (one set covers Michael's war experiences) but the great bulk are letters to Christopher who is the RAF. In the diary like format, you get a sense of Tolkien's academic life during the war. Then towards the end of the war, his novel writing picks up.

I have now been introduced to all the trees, and their people, and the themes and social conditions that they represent. This part of the book is like a collection of beautifully rendered short stories. I have enjoyed it so far and am curious to see what comes next.

Chestnut, Mulberry and Maple have been introduced. The loss of Chestnut trees across the East coast disturbs me everytime I hear about it. Millions of trees dead. Staggering.

I knew I would love this book. That's a bold statement, I know. Its just that it is set at the Widener library in Harvard and it is now 40 years since I was at the Widener library and I really want to go back.

I am enjoying the Asian American aspects of the story but as a person who has grown vegetables for over twenty years, I find the gardening mistakes kind of frustrating to read.

I am about a third of the way in and have not met Harriet yet. I have met the other 4 members of the Nocturnals - Hunter and Nina who live next door to each other, and Cosmo and Beatrice. I am not quite sure what to make of it. It is readable and engaging but I cannot resolve if I am moved by anything. They are teenagers in the final years of school (Y11 and Y12).

Themes of Jeff Chu's Asian family not accepting his homosexuality and marriage to a man, other aspects of Asian culture - superstition. Also the immigrant experience of haphazard application of their Asian cultural practices.

It is the 1980s, the women are not in contact with each other, both are in relationships that are imperfect at best. I suspect the one with dreams and ambitions Is about to be derailed by her current love affair, and the romantic who descended into full blown alcoholism has a reprieve from her behaviour brought about by the relationship she subsequently has to flee from.

In the audiobook, I have finished Autumn and am ready to start Winter. I have adjusted to the non-linear narrative and am interested to see which themes will stick in my memory without a plot. So far, his inexperience in all things gardening is apparent. Clearly though he is spiritual, questing some kind of healing, living with integrity but some familial rejection.

The two girls have met, and had the summer love experience in Paris, the city of romance and squalor and threat. At the end of the summer, the one with plans, a bus ticket, and a home to return to - does just that. The hard bitten but romantic local, falls into a heap of self-destructive misery. Loving it so far.

The letters about illustrations and the US publisher are interesting. Tolkien is just so invested in every part of the process.

I will finish this

Satiny Poppies from the Secret Garden.