Alexi

Ben, that is a total lie. Terry's missed when you wanted him to before Apparently Carroll was 5th in line, which is why he was looking like he was going to pee himself in fright every time the camera panned to him.

Italy had so many chances and somehow failed to score any I thought it might be England's night...then I remembered it was penalties.

I'm typing on the iPad which makes it difficult for me to format the questions so do forgive me I will try and flow my thoughts into the various points! Philieas Fogg... I did like him, but I preferred Passepartout! That's just a personal preference, I love emotional literary characters that wear their heart on their sleeve. Fogg concealed everything too much for me, was a bit too reasoned and analytical! I think my favourite bit though was his rescue of Aouda, a bit of drama and adventure, but showed another side to his character. Aouda... Well she proposes to Fogg, and that made me sit up a bit, because I think even now that would be out of character for a passive woman, never mind one in the nineteenth century! For her time, I think she's quite progressive - I'm guessing at the time a woman knowing her way around a pistol would have been controversial - although no doubt explained by India's savagery As for Fogg's bet - after about India my head was swimming trying to calculate how much he was spending to win the bet. Once I realised he was losing money it was easier to accept he was basically playing for pride. And also probably something to do I guessed the ending as soon as they arrived in Liverpool, but I guess that was quite near the end (I mean the day thing, it was obvious Fogg and Aouda would end up together as soon as she was introduced. I really enjoyed this one, nice pick for my first reading circle participation!

It's a library book I wonder if my library service relax their policy on writing in books if it's the author signature?! Nah, he was rushing, I was meant to be showing great interest in a promotional video.

Completely coincidentally, I bumped into (literally, we were in a confined space...) Stephen Fry today at Tower Bridge. The people I was with (who I'd only just met) had seen his book fall out of my handbag earlier so all knew I was reading it and thought it was hilarious. I've also read a big chunk of Moab and loved it, I love his writing style.

My new work situation has severely curtailed my reading time But I have at last managed to finish All Hell Let Loose, am halfway through Around the World in 80 Days (iBooks) and just started Moab is my Washpot by Stephen Fry which I am already loving!

Oh the pressure The same book you read for Serbia was already on my challenge wish list...

I put real life money on Germany. A whole £3! I'm a dreadful better though so I've jinxed them, sorry Germans. England's draw with France should see them through, emphasis on *should*! I got the Czechs in the work sweepstake

I'm about halfway through but job is getting in the way of reading! I hope to be able to join in soon

I think there are 224 countries on my list, but I'm not sure how that's happened given I think I got the spreadsheet from you! The only edit I made to it was splitting Serbia and Montenegro.

About 60 of my TBR is on the iPad so that's ok. It's the paperbacks I must reduce before I move in September. At that point I guess I'll dump a lot of them, especially any classics I can download for free.

I just counted up my TBR pile which stands at 177, not including the 2 I'm reading. I think I need a lie down.

Finished A Pale View of Hills which I really enjoyed, although probably not your cup of tea if you only like clearly defined endings! I've now started Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. I'm only about 20 pages in but it's not grabbing me yet so I'm devoting more time to chunks of All Hell Let Loose.

Yeah I'd like to read more by him too it's certainly a very clever skill - drop enough hints to make the reader get one interpretation, but also to make them vague enough that several are available depending on how the reader takes it! I wonder if the writer has one particular interpretation that they envisage in their head?!

Book 12: A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (Japan) 8/10 Synopsis: In his highly acclaimed debut, A Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But then as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast. (from Amazon) Thoughts: I have to say, I'd never heard of Ishiguro writing anything but Never Let Me Go, but this was on the quick selection shelf of the library and a quick search revealed it is also on the 1001 list so I picked it up (also noting he has written a great many acclaimed titles, a number of which are on the 1001 list!). This is unlike anything I've really enjoyed before. It's very mysterious and open to lots of interpretation (to the point which, having finished it I Wikipedia-Ed to see if others had the same interpretation as I did! It's enjoyable, short read which plods along nicely with the life of Etsuko in post-war Nagasaki, and her friendship with another woman, Sachiko. However, she is reminiscing about that time from her new home in England where she is middle aged, and so the book does jump between time periods, which can throw you a bit when you get engrossed! At about page 100 the feeling started creeping up on me this wasn't going to end well for the characters I had come to care about and I then raced through the second half of the book desperate to find out what happened...only to find nothing was explained clearly! I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers, but if you enjoy clear cut endings (and to some extent a clear cut plot!) I'd avoid this. Having said that, I'm *often* a clear ending sort of girl and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I suspect that has more to do with the fact the way I interpreted it seems to be widely accepted. I was a but disappointed that although the book is set in Nagasaki, the atomic bomb seems a bit of an after thought. Much is made of a changing Japan - including values and ideas - and the loss a lot of people suffered in the war, but that was the same all over Japan (and most of a war torn Europe!), there didn't seem the significance I was expecting from the city in which it was set. Final thought - treatment of women has been a theme through the last two books. Women treated very much like second class citizens here, expected to jump when husbands say jump. They have the vote, but must vote as their men tell them or suffer a beating - seen as acceptable! Obviously this is indicative of the time, and women certainly didn't enjoy equality in the UK at this point in history, but it's still a little unnerving to read.

Sorry Mary, I missed your reply! Thank you for those, The Slum in particular sounds really intriguing so I'll keep an eye out for that one for Brazil

I'm about 70 pages in and enjoying it so far. Keen to find out how it all fits together! I've just finished reading a scene in which a man's friends ask him if it's true he hit his wife with a golf club because she refused to vote for the same party as him. One of the friend's father is there and he acts all shocked about it, so the man clarifies he didn't actually hit her. But the father isn't at all concerned about that, he's shocked at the woman refusing to vote how she's told! Ita obviously very indicative of the time in post-war Nagasaki, where this man is blaming the lack of Japanese sense of duty and obligation on the Americans and their damned democracy!

This wonderful sunshine coupled with me having 2 weeks off is doing wonders for my reading! Going along nicely with All Hell Let Loose and now starting A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Thanks to the nice sunshine today I sat in the garden and read another fifty pages of All Hell Let Loose. I can only read a bit at a time because of the large amount of information I'm swallowing! I also started The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie to read alongside it.

Oh, all sorts! (that's not helpful is it....) I'm trying to steer away from biography/non fiction for this challenge, but otherwise anything is going. I'd prefer it to be set in Brazil as well as being written by a Brazilian author I guess what I have mainly been reading is "general fiction" (terrible term) about ordinary people and their lives in each country. But ultimately, this challenge was designed to get me reading things I might not have done otherwise, so I'm keen to try anything you've enjoyed really

Finished A Thousand Splenid Suns this morning. It was fabulous, best thing I've read in months! I'm currently reading All Hell Let Loose (rather hefty tome!) as non fiction alongside other fiction but I think I might stick to it exclusively for a few days because when a book is that good I'm reluctant to start a new one which won't be as good immediately afterwards. I'm weird.

Book 11: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Afghanistan) 10/10 Synopsis: A Thousand Splendid Suns is a breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years, from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding, that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives, the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness, are inextricable from the history playing out around them. Propelled by the same storytelling instinct that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once a remarkable chronicle of three decades of Afghan history and a deeply moving account of family and friendship. It is a striking, heartwrenching novel of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love, a stunning accomplishment. Thoughts: Wow. I've been putting off reading this for various reasons, but chief among them was how much I loved his previous novel, The Kite Runner. I was a bit concerned that despite the positive reviews it wouldn't live up to it's predecessor (and that's a theme the author himself mentions in his postscript). I really wish I'd read it sooner. I think its actually better than the Kite Runner. The 30 years the book covers were/are an extremely turbulent time in Afghanistan, but my favourite bit of the story is how the author weaves the relationships through that. I did shed a few tears on two occasions - but they were both associated with the human relationships in the book, rather than the horrors we witness as a result of the fairly constant war. But those atrocities never lost the power to shock me. Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, it really does! It's frightening to see how these women are completely at the mercy of the men who govern their lives, whether that be their husband or the "government" in power at the time. They can have their freedoms and rights stripped of them basically on whim. The scene outside the hospital, when a group of women in serious pain are being told that no hospitals in the city bar one will treat them, and that is the one without basic facilities, broke my heart. And Laila then having her stomach cut open with anaesthetic! It's amazing what the human body can go through if forced. the complete disregard of women was frightening, both by the national leadership and on a more domestic level. I raced through the last 150 pages because I was desperate to find out what happened to Mariam and Laila, and then when I got to the end I was disappointed the story had finished! Wonderful, from start to finish.

I mainly post on iPad and I only use the basic emoticons because they're all I can remember The other issue is if I have a really long post (my countries list in the around the world challenge) it won't let me edit the bottom bit without deleting enough of the post so that the bottom bit comes up to the top (sorry, that is so badly worded but my brain is mushy today). I have to use the computer to edit it properly. However, that is probably the very definition of a first world problem, so I've learned to cope with it.

Hi Mary, loving the list coordination!! Is there a particular Brazilian author that has been translated to English you'd recommend? I'm doing a round the world challenge and it's nice to get recommendations from people in the country itself

I loved Vegas too Brian, and this book sounds fascinating - although like you I'm more caught up in the Bellagio than Mandalay Bay. One for the wish list anyway! Have a great time