JUNE ROOT - Progress Thread

MUSEUM OF THE MONTH - Victoria and Albert Museum, LONDON

Since June was the month of its original opening, June 20th, 1857, the Victoria and Albert Museum will be visited this month.



entry hall


ceiling in the ceramic gallery staircase


Weston Cast court gallery


plaster cast of a pulpit from Pisa


plaster cast after Michelangelo's marble original


Europe 1600 - 1815 Galleries


blown glass chandelier

Hereford screen


gemstone display of rings by hardness


Ballgowns British Glamour Since 1950

Victorian wedding gown

Art gallery

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The V&A covers 12.5 acres and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient times to the present day, from the cultures of Europe, North America, Asia and North Africa. The holdings of ceramics, glass, textiles, costumes, silver, ironwork, jewelry, furniture, medieval objects, sculpture, prints and printmaking, drawings and photographs are among the largest and most comprehensive in the world. The museum owns the world's largest collection of post-classical sculpture, with the holdings of Italian Renaissance items being the largest outside Italy. The departments of Asia include art from South Asia, China, Japan, Korea and the Islamic world. The East Asian collections are among the best in Europe, with particular strengths in ceramics and metalwork, while the Islamic collection is amongst the largest in the Western world.

Overall, it is one of the largest museums in the world.
The museum houses the National Art Library, a public library containing over 750,000 books, photographs, drawings, paintings, and prints. It is one of the world's largest libraries dedicated to the study of fine and decorative arts. The library covers all areas and periods of the museum's collections with special collections covering illuminated manuscripts, rare books and artists' letters and archives.

I have included a few links for videos of the museum. While I was searching for photos, I came across these and was mesmerized by what I was shown.

Overview of the museum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP7ot_CQ_58
This link will give a sense of the size and magnitude of just one area of this vast museum. https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/history-of-the-cast-courts
Here is another video regarding the Conservation: Cast of the Pórtico de la Gloria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDiGVR9nekQ One photo of the portico just didn't do it justice.

Tour the ceramic gallery here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znRUROaUuq8
jewelry gallery https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqmRoDna0Qw
Cast courts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y3dE9hx93c
Furniture collection - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RCjMEBjehg Check out the Bookworm bookshelf!

Password is ROOTS

The percentages will be calculated and a star awarded for those on target to reach their goals. More stars for farther toward their goal. If anyone's number is incorrect, please let me know and I will make the necessary adjustments. So go out there and dig those ROOTs.

several tickers are not working as noted in the May thread. When the tickers are updated or correct numbers are provided, I will update these members

Ameise1 6 / 12 ★★ 50.0%
beach85 14 / 36 38.9%
benitastrnad 41 / 62 ★★★ 66.1%
bragan 37 / 85 ★ 43.5%
brakketh 6 / 30 20.0%
ca_dmv 6 / 12 ★★ 50.0%
Caramellunacy★ 21 / 20 105.0%
Carmenere 12 / 25 ★ 48.0%
cecilturtle 24 / 50 ★ 48.0%
clue 15 / 50 30.0%
Coach_of_Alva 14 / 25 ★★ 56.0%
connie53 23 / 50 ★ 46.0%
crazy4reading 8 / 30 26.7%
curioussquared 25 / 50 ★★ 50.0%
CurrierBell★ 14 / 13 107.7%
cyderry★ 205 / 84 244.0%
detailmuse 22 / 40 ★★ 55.0%
DisassemblyOfReason 31 / 100 31.0%
enemyanniemae 41 / 60 ★★★★ 68.3%
FAMeulstee★ 28 / 24 116.7%
Familyhistorian 30 / 65 ★ 46.2%
floremolla 8 / 40 20.0%
fuzzi 29 / 100 29.0%
HelenBaker 21 / 48 ★ 43.8%
Henrik_Madsen 21 / 50 ★ 42.0%
h-mb 3 / 20 15.0%
humouress 10 / 40 25.0%
Jackie_K 33 / 60 ★★ 55.0%
janoorani24 9 / 20 ★ 45.0%
johnxlibris 8 / 20 40.0%
justchris 14 / 100 14.0%
kac522 31 / 50 ★★★ 62.0%
karenmarie 14 / 30 ★ 46.7%
Kiwi_des_neiges 0 / 44 0.0%
Kristelh 22 / 50 ★ 44.0%
Kwharton 4 / 12 33.3%
LadyBookworth 18 / 20 ★★★★★ 90.0%
lepensuer 0 / 51 0.0%
leslie.98 43 / 80 ★★ 53.8%
lilisin 25 / 60 ★ 41.7%
lindapanzo 26 / 72 36.1%
LoraShouse 7 / 15 ★ 46.7%
Lynsey2 17 / 50 34.0%
madhatter22 15 / 50 30.0%
majkia 44 / 65 ★★★★ 67.7%
mandymarie20 1 / 25 4.0%
martencat 12 / 30 40.0%
misscleasia 6 / 20 30.0%
Miss_Moneypenny 54 / 80 ★★★★ 67.5%
MissSos 8 / 25 32.0%
MissWatson 39 / 75 ★★ 52.0%
nebula21 9 / 36 25.0%
Nickelini★ 27 / 26 103.8%
Quaisior 11 / 50 22.0%
QuestingA 25 / 35 ★★★★ 71.4%
rabbitprincess 26 / 60 ★ 43.3%
readingtangent★ 28 / 25 112.0%
Rebeki 9 / 18 ★★ 50.0%
ritacate 1 / 24 4.2%
Robertgreaves 50 / 96 ★★ 52.1%
rocketjk 11 / 30 36.7%
rosalita 29 / 48 ★★★ 60.4%
Sace 1 / 21 4.8%
sallylou61 17 / 40 ★ 42.5%
si 10 / 25 40.0%
sibylline 6 / 16 37.5%
susanj67 19 / 50 38.0%
This-n-That 7 / 14 ★★ 50.0%
torontoc 15 / 30 ★★ 50.0%
Val_Reads 5 / 75 6.7%
vestafan 27 / 60 ★ 45.0%
wandaly 11 / 18 ★★★ 61.1%




We have some avid readers who have reached their goal! Joining cyderry, Nickelini and CurrierBell this month are readingtangent, FAMeulstee, and Caramellunacy!
Our top 3 readers closest to reaching their goals, are:
LadyBookworth 90.0%
QuestingA 71.4%
enemyanniemae 68.3%


The goal for June is 1,561.

Ooooh. A second star. Hope I can keep it this month, but I have some chunksters and some unROOTed books that need to be read.

Ooh, the V&A, good choice, Cheli, and I'm glad to see that I earned a star after last month. I've been missing having a star so far this year.

Reporting ROOT # 24 for the year, # 1 for June

Het laatste offer by Petra Hammesfahr

Only own tickers updated

Beautiful pictures, Chèli.

My first star this year which I can only thank the manga I read this month. The lingering persistence of Covid has made me sluggish as a reader so I'm happy I'm a bit back on track although I have lots of books on my TBR left to get to.

Oh, the V&A! How I loved that, and how much I would like to visit again. Thanks for the photos, Chèli. The one with the gemstones is amazing, such a great idea!

Yep, it's been many, many years, but the V&A has to be my all-time favorite museum! One day I'll get back there....

The V&A is on my bucket list. Thanks for featuring it. Now I will have to find some time to watch the videos you listed.

I've posted my first ROOT for the month for 31 out of 65 but I'm not sure how many more I'll get to in June. The pauses on many of my library holds are up. I went to pick up what I thought were 4 holds at the library and found out it was 7 and there are people waiting on 4 of them.

Reporting ROOT # 25 for the year, # 2 for June

Dorsvloer vol confetti by Franca Treur

Only own tickers updated

>9 benitastrnad: I hope you do take a look at the videos. I felt as if I actually was visiting several of the collections.

Great choice! I am now fondly remembering the scones in the V&A tearoom :)

Relieved to see I kept my star for the month! Hoping to get more reading of all sorts done this month.

Reporting ROOT # 26 for the year, # 3 for June

Ronja de roversdochter by Astrid Lindgren

Only own tickers updated

Eek! I'm in the top 3 for goal reaching?! Oh, the pressure!!! 'Scuse me, I must go read something. lol

Happy reading, all!

Lovely museum- went there 46 years ago. Can't tell you a single thing I saw. Maybe I should go again to refresh my memory. *shifty eyes*

Reporting my first ROOT for June (#34 for the year), Asterix in Corsica. I've added it to my ticker but left the group one alone.

Hi all!
So I just made my goal of 20 books!
And the month isn't over yet!
Only my personal ticker updated.
Happy reading everyone.
ps love the V&A !

Congrats LadyBookworth. Well done.

I'm happy to have read another excellent nonfiction, Barbara Demick's Eat the Buddha which is about a Tibetan town as it modernizes through a kingdom, British colonialism, Mao's China, and the current Chinese government. I had been awaiting this one to come out in paperback and so I pre-ordered it and read it as soon as it reached my hands.

Am I on a good reading sprint right now? I hope so!

>17 LadyBookworth: Good Job!

Robertgreaves and cyderry, thank you! :+}

Added my first ROOT of June to my personal ticker: A Tapping at My Door, by David Jackson.
Then I bought the other three books in the series, so those will be future ROOTs :)

>2 cyderry: Congratulations!

>1 cyderry: Ooh, the V&A! I haven't been (although my graduation was in the Royal Albert Hall nearby); I'm addicted to the Natural History museum and Science museum.

There were several impressive looking Hungarian libraries featured in the Straits Times (Singapore's national paper) today; let me hunt down the links for them.

Hungarian Parliament
Eötvös Lorand
University of Technology & Economics

I've added my 2nd ROOT for June (#35 for the year) to my own ticker only. It was excellent - Arlie Russell Hochschild's Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right.

Still pacing slowly along having finished the very short Child of Fortune by Yuko Tsushima.

I've finished: Les oiseaux vont au Pérou pour mourir by Roman Gary
Un peu de soleil dans l'eau froide by Françoise Sagan from that same box in 2017
F-bomb: dispatches from the war against feminism by Lauren McKeon which I picked up when it was first published in 2017
Nous les dieux by Bernard Werber which I bought in March... not a ROOT but the prequel to a book I read a long time ago and I want to finish the trilogy.

The tickers have been updated.

Finished another one One Summer by David Baldacci. It was my first novel from him. For some reason I expected something more sophisticated. This will be my last from that author - wow was it predictable and cliched!

tickers have been updated

Reporting ROOT # 27 for the year, # 4 for June

De weg naar Callisto by Torsten Krol

Only own tickers updated

A productive weekend. I am happy to report two books, Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline,
The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens, both books I would recommend. Lori Lansens books, in particular, a consistently very good.

I finished a ROOT during the last week. Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon. This one was number 24 of the Guido Brunetti series.

I've added ROOT #3 for June (#36 for the year) to my own ticker only.

Added my third ROOT for June to my personal ticker: The Doorbell Rang, by Rex Stout.

I finished a ROOT for the NonFiction challenge. The June challenge was Discoveries. I read the book Singing Whales and Flying Squid: The Discovery of Marine Life by Richard Ellis. This was an encyclopedic overview of what is in the world's oceans and what the future of those things might be. It concentrates on the discoveries of the last 100 years but does do a quick references to previous discoveries. The author is not hopeful about our oceans and the state that they are in and believes that fish stocks of all kinds are in a state of collapse from which they will not recover. It believes it is already to late to restore fin fish stocks. The undersea life of coral reefs is collapsing and even the abyssal life at 30,000 feel down is endangered. This is a fascinating but gloomy look at the oceans and the author does make people feel guilty about eating any protein from the water except for perhaps some farmed protein.

ROOT #4 for June (#37 for the year) added to my own ticker. This one is excellent - Katherine May's The Electricity of Every Living Thing.

Another root finished ,Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole, halfway towards my goal, 25/48.

Reporting 8 ROOTS for June so far and 32 for the year

This week
I've finished The Stud by Jackie Collins which I surprisingly really liked; and The Bones of the Lost by Kathy Reichs which was a great thriller. I found both of these books in my building's Little Free Library two years ago (if memory serves)

Ottawa Rewind 2 by Andrew King which was a great way to learn more about the city I live in. I bought this copy last year while on a mystery trip in Almonte, Ontario.

Tickers are updated

I have finished 5 ROOTs so far this month, but have to finish a loan from my sister before tackling the next.

I finished up listening to a recorded book that was a ROOT. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman. This one was a Prinz award honor book - a rarity for a work of YA nonfiction. I have had it on my list for a long time for that reason. Joe also read it some time ago and thought it was very good. The author uses the letters of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo as the basis for this biography of the two men. It makes for a unique perspective and insights into their lives. The recorded version was very well done, and the narrator had a great voice for reading. This is a good one folks.

I've added my 5th ROOT for June (#38 for the year) to my own ticker - group tickers left alone. I'm hopeful I'll finish another couple of books before the end of the month.

Wow, how is it the last week of June already?! I'm clocking in with 10 ROOTs for the month but am hopeful I can squeeze in another couple over the weekend.

I finished listening to Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman and it was very well done YA biography. This book was a Prinz Honor Award winner and that is highly unusual for a work of nonfiction. It is a biography of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh told through the letters that they sent to each other. Unfortunately, we only have the letters from Vincent to Theo. Those from Theo to Vincent were lost after Vincent's death. What we have is due to the diligent preservation efforts of Theo's wife. It is a different perspective on the lives of the two brothers and well worth the time to read it.

#6 for June (#39 for the year) just added to my ticker. It was another good one - Simon Barnes On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet.

I have finished #6 for this month, a 600-page non-fiction book in French. Don't know yet if I can manage one more until Wednesday.

Managed one more root for the month, The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.

ROOT #7 for the month (#40 for the year, so I'm 2/3 of the way to my goal) added to my ticker. I won't be finishing any more books before the end of the month so that's my final June total.

>46 HelenBaker:
I really liked Giver of Stars it was a very enjoyable work of historical fiction.

I finished another ROOT over the weekend. This one was French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain. Laurain is a French author and I find his books to be really funny and great mind candy while at the same time they poke fun at many French cultural and political mores and customs. They are just fun to read.

I finished the very good Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward.

Here is my report for June 2021:

UpROOTED books: 7
ROOTless books: 5
Added to the treebook TBR shelves: 1

The ROOTs were:

Music: A Very Short Introduction by Nicholas Cook
Caligula by Allan Massie
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies
Vita Brevis by Jostein Gaarder

ROOTs in YTD: 57

(Group tickers not touched)

Rooting goes much better than expected. I read 10 more this month, making a total of 38/24.

Group tickers updated.

I am not going to finish a book today so will make my report. I had 8 ROOT's for the month. It helped that I had the return trip from Kansas so I was able to knock out two books that were recorded books instead of my usual one recorded book per month. I also read some big books this month. Two of them were 500 pagers, so I am very happy with my reading performance this month.

Here is the breakout for my ROOT's for the month.

Recorded Books
Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh
Vincent and Theo by Deborah Heiligman
Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson
Smoke in the Sun and Empire of Dreams finish out series that I had started.

NonFiction
Singing Whales and Flying Squid: The Discovery of Marine Life by Richard Ellis - this one was for the Nonfiction Challenge with the June category being discoveries.

Fiction
Waters of Eternal Youth by Donna Leon
French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain
Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

I just posted my 8th ROOT for the month. Not as good as last month but not bad. I'm now at 38/65.

Two ROOTs for June. Personal ticket updated...

My personal ticker is up to date. I'm just under halfway to my goal, at 29 of 60 ROOTs read.

5 more this month for a total to date of 46. Personal ticker updated.

My personal ticker is also up to date.

On the 30th of June my ticker stood at 45, I have just now added my first for July.

Sorry, everyone, running a bit behind. won't have July thread ready until tomorrow.

>61 cyderry: horrors!!!!

(take your time)

>61 cyderry: Oh, we'll be ROOTing, no need to hurry!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/333440#

July thread up!

>2 cyderry:

My final total for June was 38. Personal ticker updated (although now it's gone past that, because I completed another book once we were in July...)

I've added 2 ROOTs to my personal ticker and am now at 12 for the year - although I should have been at 20 to be on target.

I've updated my personal ticker (but not the group one) up to the end of June.