Tiffin Two for 2011

First thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/105901

BOOKS READ:



EVALUATION SCHEME
0-1.5* = disgusting use of a perfectly good tree
2-2.5** = meh, don't bother
2.75 = somewhere between meh and ok
3-3.5*** = quite creditable and not a waste of time, liked it
3.75 = just a scritch more of *something* and it would have been really good
4-4.5**** = a really, really good read, enjoyed it thoroughly, would recommend it happily, wish I'd written it
5***** = knocked my socks off, blew me in to the next stratosphere, turned me into a molten puddle, sheer perfection and no you can't borrow it, this one stays right here

JANUARY
1. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
2. The Waters Rising by Sherri S. Tepper
3. Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison My Review of Travel Light
4. A Sensible Life by Mary Wesley
5. The Bells, A Novel by Richard Harvell My Review of The Bells
6. A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland
7. Pepita by Vita Sackville-West

FEBRUARY
8. How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall
9. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
10. Elders and Betters by Quentin Bell
11. The Lost Garden by Helen Humphreys

MARCH
12. Just Kids by Patti Smith
13. August Folly by Angela Thirkell
14. Green Grows the City by Beverley Nichols
15. Henrietta Sees it Through by Joyce Dennys
16. The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns
17. Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
18. Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys
19. The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
20. Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom
21. Sovereign by C.J. Sansom

APRIL
22. Revelation by C.J. Sansom
23. Bachelor Brothers' Bedside Companion by Bill Richardson
24. The Hills at Home by Nancy Clark

MAY
25. Sum by David Eagleman

JUNE
Gardening Season: read Slightly Foxed Spring and Summer editions

JULY
26. Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier
27. Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson
28. C.F.A. Voysey, Architect, Designer, Individualist by Anne Stewart O'Donnell
29. Wait for Me! Memoirs by Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire

AUGUST
30. A Sort of Life by Graham Greene
31. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
32. Still Life by Louise Penny
33. A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
34. Bury your Dead by Louise Penny
35. A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd
36. The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny
37. The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
38. The Murder Stone by Louise Penny
39. A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd
40. A Pale Horse by Charles Todd
41. Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear
42. Heartstone by C.J. Sansom
43. The Murder Stone by Charles Todd
44. An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd
45. One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

SEPTEMBER
46. Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
47. Coventry by Helen Humphreys
48. God's Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado
49. Seasons, the best of donna hay magazine by Donna Hay
50. People Who Say Goodbye, Memories of Childhood by P.Y. Betts
51. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
52. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley
53. An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
54. A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear
55. The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear *note, this was read before A Lesson in Secrets but I forgot to add it.

OCTOBER
56. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
57. A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
58. Kraken by China Miéville
59. Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon
60. The Body in the Gazebo by Katherine Hall Page

NOVEMBER
61. Blow On a Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan
62. In Other Worlds; SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood
63. When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson
64. A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier
65. Death of A Chimney Sweep by M.C. Beaton

Found you - glad the computer's fixed! Have you got Heartstone ready to start?

Yes, Cush! Migosh, it's a doorstop, isn't it! I hope there are more coming after it and that this isn't the end of the line.

I know, I hope not too. I am too scared that there'll be spoilers to go investigating on the internet!

I thought I was going to beat you here, but you're all set up and going strong. I'm about half through Dissolution, and I'm pretty sure that I'll read all of them as I can. Thanks for the recommendation!

Checking in, Tui!

Hi Stasia!

Cushla, check this out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/nov/15/cj-sansom-interview

Huzzah, more Shardlake!

Starred you!

Hurrah. I only skimmed the article for fear of spoilers, but it sounds like there should be at least a couple more Shardlake, as long as nothing happens to the author. This is very good news!!

Hooray, Luna, another fan! No, there weren't spoilers (that I can recall) but he does talk about what areas of research interest him so there is a sense of where we might be going next.

I just ordered #'s 2 & 3 from AMP this morning. #1 is drawing to a close. Thanks for the article!

>8 BookAngel_a:: hi Angela!
>11 LizzieD:: yay Peggy...they just keep getting better, if that's possible.

My reading has ground to a halt...but I have a mostly cleaned up garden out there, with irises coming up, tulips and daffs waiting to explode into bloom. However, there are three thumpers sit around in various stages of completion: Testament of Youth, the last Shardlake and The Hills at Home. Also desperately knitting a baby blanket for our niece, who is due sometime in May. I need more eyes and hands...and hours in a day.

We're gonna have a garden at your house this year!
Hooray! You must be feeling better than last summer to be working with your hands again.

My knitting gets in the way of reading quite often so I understand the feeling. Currently, it is a pair of socks that is causing some problems. Though, your list of books for the year is impressive.

Tui, have I lost your thread or have you been in the garden for 6 weeks now??

Just stopped in to say I've just finished Henrietta's War and enjoyed it too. I don't have the second one (yet) but will look for it.

23. Bachelor Brothers' Bedside Companion by Bill Richardson



From back in April!

24. The Hills at Home by Nancy Clark



Also from April.

25. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman



This is a quirky, funny, enchanting, slightly terrifying and altogether wonderful look at the afterlife from the brain of a very, very, very bright young man with an enormous imagination. I loved it!

Cush, I have been gardening and falling into bed like a dead thing. I woke up at 7 a.m. this morning with my glasses still on, the book flopped on my chest and the light still on! I don't even remember falling asleep. So reading is difficult and I don't have much to say because I can't seem to finish a book.

Gardening is so good and the photos I've seen of yours are beautiful. I used to love it before we had the kids - we can't wait to get home to our vege garden this summer. But it does wear you out! Do you have convolvulus over there? I hope not...

Hey, Tui! *waves*

Hiya Stasia!

Yay! Tui's back!!! Sorry about the exhaustion and reading. Envious about the lovely garden, but not about to do anything to my own. (Bad case of brown thumb)

I am envious of the lovely garden too, but was not going to say so :)

I won't really be "back" until the dog days of July, Peggy. Then I will be forced by the weather to take it easy and read. The last storm we had that ripped down huge limbs left us with a huge clean-up job so the garden work never quite gets done. But it has been lovely to be back at it.

Note: as I was typing this, another huge limb which had been caught on the branches of the beech tree shook loose and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Yet another limb to drag to the back! The poor trees have been awfully stressed by these wild storms and high winds.

26. Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier



I have been reading this slowly, not wanting it to end, but have finally closed the book on the last chapter of Vanishing Cornwall with that bittersweet sense of leaving a friend in both the book and the author. I have only visited Cornwall once, a journey made to explore the roots of my husband’s family, but that once was enough to set an abiding affection in place for it.

I am glad that I read this after I saw Cornwall because the places she names sprang to life for me. I could see Mevagissey, Looe, the moors, St. Michael’s Mount, Portmallon, all of it, each time she mentioned a name. The tang of the salt air was with me as I read of the fishing industry. The vision of the slag hills left from tin mining was sharp in my mind’s eye as she described the alien landscape left by that industry.

Most of all, the Cornish character resonated, whether I was reading about “Religion and Superstition”, “Moors and Claypits”, “The Bronte Heritage” or the “Fair Traders”, that taciturn, cautious personality which could turn to great warmth and welcome when they knew of my husband’s roots as one of them (not unlike the Scots in this).

Du Maurier’s deep love for this country fairly sings in this tribute to her home. There were so many passages I had marked that it became ludicrous to try to include any of them, as I couldn’t choose. But I couldn’t agree with her more about her perspective on those Cornish nationalists , Mebyon Kernow, who would restore the Cornish language, with its own parliament west of Tamar:
The vision is idyllic but hardly practical. Invasion might be stemmed but men must live. If they would turn their genuine enthusiasm to seeking ways and means of preserving Cornish individuality and independence, keeping the coast and countryside unspoilt, with people fully employed, they might in time achieve a greater miracle than restoring a dead language that never, even in olden times, produced a living culture.

I don't know if this book would resonate on the level it did with me if a reader hasn't been there. Certainly, as a 'travel' book, it is interesting. But if you have been to Cornwall and you too love the place, do read this. It's wonderful.

p.s. Thank you, Linda, for this beautiful Virago edition.

Beautiful review, Tui! I'm glad to see you back.

Hi Darryl, and thanks. I'm not quite "back" as the garden is demanding an enormous amount of work to catch up with the backlog...it's lavender harvesting time now too. I'm hoping by mid-July to be reading again. If I pick up a book in the evening these days, my eyes are closed after reading two words!

Lavender harvesting - what a fragrant job!

#27: I have never been to Cornwall, but would still like to read about it. Thanks for the review, Tui, I will see if my local library has the book.

27. Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson



A perfectly cosy read for a heatwave. Must try to find the third book in the series, The Two Mrs. Abbotts to polish it off.

#32: I did not realize that there was a third book in the series. Thanks for the mention, Tui. I will see if my local library has a copy.

28. C.F.A. Voysey, Architect, Designer, Individualist by Anne Stewart O'Donnell



My Review for Early Reviewers

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) was, as the cover of this beautiful publication states, an architect, a designer, and an individualist. He was also the father of the modern home, the bungalow. I first became aware of him back in the 60s because a high school acquaintance lived in a Voysey designed house. I thought it was the most unique and charming structure but knew little of its designer until I read C.F.A. Voysey, Architect, Designer, Individualist by Anne Stewart O’Donnell.

Voysey was heavily influenced by his father’s perspective on life. Charles Voysey Sr. was an Anglican minister who was expelled from the church in 1869 and went on to form his own faith, Theism, “The Religion of Common Sense”. As O’Donnell tells us, he was an “outspoken man of faith with a strong reformist bent,” who had “argued against the divinity of Christ, the existence of Hell, the need for clergy as intermediaries between God and His people, and the literal truth of the Bible.” Home schooled by a man of such strong convictions couldn’t help but influence his son.

The period prior to the First World War was a tremendously exciting one in England - all of Europe, really - for innovative designers. William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones were all at work. The young architect began working with George Devey, the architect for the Rothschilds, beginning by building outbuildings for their country homes. This experience of building purely functional structures (stables, staff cottages) taught Voysey to use local materials in the manner of rural builders and formed the basis for the houses he would later design: simple, quietly elegant structures with no superfluous ornamentation, often clad in rough cast.

But getting a career in architecture up and running was no easy task so Voysey had to supplement his income (particularly after he married and had children) by designing textiles and wallpapers. His designs grew to be the most sought after and renowned ones of their day. He showed a real genius for pattern. When he was told that birds weren’t desirable in wallpapers, he persisted, and his stylised bird patterns are still fresh and lovely to the modern eye.

Voysey brought to his designs a “comprehensive spiritual worldview”, as O’Donnell phrases it, which she explores in the chapter “The Heart of the Matter: Indivuality”. She quotes him as saying that human beings share the qualities of “reverence, love, justice, mercy, honesty, candour, generosity, humility, loyalty, order” and these were the qualities he sought to imbue into all of his works.

This is a beautiful publication, with generous prints of his work, as well as sketches and photos of his houses. It revives an artist who might otherwise have slipped into obscurity beneath the better known personalities like William Morris and Rennie Macintosh. My only criticism of the book is that it seemed too short. I could have read more quite happily.

Nice review, Tui. I will see if I can get my hands on a copy of the book.

Thanks, Stas. I think you would have to have a love of design and architecture to really like it (I do) as there wasn't quite a ton of biographical info otherwise. It's a pretty book though, as his textile designs were lovely.

I love the Arts and Crafts look, Tui, which is why I am interested in the book.

29. Wait for Me! Memoirs by Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire



My Review is here

Born in 1920, Deborah Mitford has lived across a span of years which has seen enormous changes in virtually every aspect of life. She captures this in “Wait for Me!”, beginning with her idyllic childhood filled with the joys of country life and ending with the surprisingly busy years of a still active Dowager Duchess in her nineties.

The youngest of the famous Mitford sisters, with their wit, intelligence and beauty, Debo had her turn at the pre-war social scene of coming out, being a debutante and all those required convolutions of the upper crust of English society. But her marriage to Andrew Cavendish led her in a direction which was quite different from her sisters’ lives of extreme politics, failed marriages, lives lived away from England. When Andrew unexpectedly became the Duke of Devonshire, Deborah and he threw themselves into the restoration and preservation of the ancient Cavendish home, Chatsworth. Debo became, somewhat unexpectedly, a farmer on a grand scale.

The book does not shy away from the more well-known aspects of her life, such as her sister Nancy’s books using the personalities (embellished) of their parents or her sister Diana’s infamous affair with the fascist Mosley (and subsequent marriage and imprisonment during the war), but it is Deborah’s passion for the land and what Chatsworth represents which gives the book its special worth for me.

She is also excellent at conveying the period before the Second World War, the effect of the war on life in England, and its devastating loss of life, including the loss of her own brother, Tom. In essence, the war also took the life of her sister Unity, who had formed a tremendous schwarm for Hitler and attempted suicide by shooting herself in the head when England declared war on Germany. Unity lived but much diminished and brain damaged. Their remarkable mother, Lady Redesdale, cared for Unity to the end of her days some eight years later.

Although we occasionally didn’t share the same perspective on things (the beautiful shire horses being killed for dogfood when they were no longer needed, for one), she is a product of her culture and privileged upbringing, and yet she isn't trapped by those facts in her outlook. I liked the “voice” of this book very much indeed. In fact, I couldn’t put it down but read steadily until it was finished because I liked its author so very much. There is something rock solid about Deborah Mitford/Cavendish, something true and honest, as though someone with as profound a regard for every aspect of agriculture, horticulture, animals and the land she lives on almost couldn’t be any other way. But there is also a dry and quite delicious sense of humour, tremendous energy and no little courage. Rich, famous and privileged, yes, but also disarmingly humble. I came away from her book feeling that if I ever had the good fortune to meet her, I would like enjoy the experience very much indeed.

30. A Sort of Life by Graham Greene

{Slightly Foxed edition, plain grey cover}

An interesting look at the process involved in becoming a writer. Greene discusses his life from childhood until he began to take off as a novelist. I didn't find his personality or character very compelling, even to the point of disliking him at times. Have never been very fond of his writing either, including Our Man in Havana and The Power and the Glory. In fairness, I read both of these in my early teens, as my parents had copies so they might sit differently now. Too many unread books that I want to read, however, to go back to them.

#38: Have you read Charlotte Mosley's The Mitfords, Tui? Or Mary Lovell's The Sisters? If not, I highly recommend them both. The Mosley book is a collection of correspondence between the sisters; the Lovell book is a biography.

Thanks for the review and recommendation of Wait for Me!

Yes, I have read the letters, Stasia (think I reviewed it but maybe not a public review...) and I LOVED it! Haven't read The Sisters yet though. I find them so interesting.

I find them interesting too. I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on a copy of Hons and Rebels and Wait for Me!.

I finished Henrietta's War and loved it, Tui. Thanks for the recommendation!

Hi Tad...glad you enjoyed H.W. and good to *see* you.

I'll get back to the Sisters Mitford in the fall, I hope. Meanwhile, you have whetted my appetite, Tui, and if I have to get a copy of Wait for Me! Memoirs sooner rather than later, it's all your fault. I always enjoy your reviews. Thanks!

Thanks, Peggy. I like yours too!

31. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear



Excellent mystery set in the period before W.W. I and during the war, featuring the unusual and gifted Miss Maisie Dobbs. Perfect August reading!

I enjoy the Maisie Dobbs series. I am glad you found the first book to your liking, Tui.

Stasia, without you dropping by I wouldn't have a visitor in the world. Thank you!

Not so !!! Says a wee lurking voice.

32. Still Life by Louise Penny



Read this one in a day! Really enjoyable first book of a mystery series featuring Chief Inspector Gamache and set in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, an area of Canada which I love. Have already started the second book in the series. It's mystery week in August!

>50 lauralkeet:: hello, dear lurker!

33. A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny



I need to get the next book in this series, it's really good! Great summer mystery reading.

Yet another person recommending this series. Maybe next summer.
Have you read the Julia Spencer-Fleming mysteries with Clare Fergusson & Russ Van Alstyne?

Tui i have so many mystery series on the go, but I might have to add the Maisie Dobbs one to my wishlist. It sounds great.

>54 lauralkeet:: Yes, Laura, I've read all but the newest Julia Spencer-Fleming series...have been waiting for over a year for the last book which is now on reserve at the Library. I jumped on each book as it came out!

Cush, I could only get the Dobbs series in big print from the library! It was a piece of cake to read as a result.

I love the ipad Kindle - sometimes I have the print small but when I'm cooking dinner I put it up to enormous, and can read without splattering the screen.

Lurk, lurk, lurk. I feel so dirty, spying on you.

Well at least you're saying something so I know you're there, Chahlie!

34. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny



Much more noir than the first two books in the series, this book splits Gamache and his sidekick, Beauvoir, apart as they each strive to recover from an investigation which went horribly wrong...an investigation we hear about as we experience their efforts to recover, rather than having it as the main action of the book.

Penny weaves in two other investigations, one in Three Pines with Beauvoir, one in Quebec City with Gamache. It was wonderful being in Quebec City in the winter, a city I love.

Really enjoying escaping into this series. Perfect summer reading.

I've got two more of this series to read...when I took the first two back to the library yesterday, someone had brought 3 back in, one of which I read last night. Mysteries are perfect when you are in a reading slump because you don't really have to think, you just follow along and it just flies by. But I must get Vera Brittain finished before the end of August. Really!

You're reading Testament of Youth right now as well? I can certainly understand needing an antidote to that. I loved it, but a summer read it is not !

Back again and 100% with you on the summer reading thing. I really like the heavier (and that's not to be interpreted as "heavy") stuff I'm reading, but I keep picking up chick lit and other stuff, and I'm just not going to worry about it. So there.

Oh Laura, I have been plodding away at it since February or so. I read it years ago and loved it but this time I just can't seem to get on with it.

Peggy, that's the spirit! So there indeed!

#49: Ha! Your comment brought all of the would-be lurkers out of the woodwork :)

Glad to see you are enjoying the Three Pines series, Tui. I enjoyed the whole thing. Penny cannot write them fast enough for me.

I unwittingly read one out of order, Stasia. Think I read one of the latest before 3 and 4. Oh dear.

Uh oh. That kind of thing drives me nutso.

35. A Matter of Justice by Charles Todd



The first of the Inspector Rutledge books I've read, I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery set after W.W.I in England. I hope the series isn't best read in order because I think this was a fairly recent one. We takes what the Library offers, Preciousssssss.

#68: We takes what the Library offers, Preciousssssss.

Isn't that the truth?!

36. The Cruellest Month by Louise Penny



Really excellent interweaving of plots here, with the superb Inspector Gamache and the denizens of Three Pines, Quebec. On to the 4th in the series!

37. The Murder Stone by Louise Penny



There, I've read the whole series (I think). Excellent! I'm hoping that there will be more of Inspector Gamache in the not too distant future.

Two or three more Charles Todds to read and I think that will complete Mystery August.

#71: There are 6 published Three Pines books right now, Tui, so if you have read 6 then you are done. The seventh, A Trick of the Light, comes out in September, I think.

Congratulations on reaching the halfway point of the challenge!

Hmmmm I've only read 5...wonder which one I'm missing? It was getting confusing too because some books had two different titles, one for Canada, one for the U.S.

#1: Still Life, #2: A Fatal Grace, #3: The Cruellest Month, #4: A Rule Against Murder, #5: The Brutal Telling, #6: Bury Your Dead.

Those are the US titles, Tui. I do not know what the Canadian titles are. Sorry.

#1 Still Life, #2, A Fatal Grace, #3, The Cruellest Month, #4 The Murder Stone (Canadian version of A Rule Against Murder), #5 The Brutal Telling ( HERE'S THE ONE I FORGOT!!!) AND #6, Bury Your Dead.

Thanks, Stasia!

38: actually 37, because I forgot to add it...The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny



There! I had taken this one back to the library before adding it, so forgot.

ETA: touchstones not working

Well, I am glad we got that cleared up!

39. A Fearsome Doubt by Charles Todd



An ok read - love the era just after WWI but I'm getting just a bit tired of the voice in Inspector Ian Rutledge's head with the Scottish accent (he's haunted by Hamish MacLeod, a Scot he had to have killed by the firing squad for refusing to obey orders to lead more men into battle and sure death). I've only read two of them now and keep hoping poor Rutledge will get some help for this voice which constantly yammers at him...and sits behind him in the back seat of the car! Och weel... The mystery itself was well told.

>78 alcottacre:: Stasia, I've been using mysteries to try to break the reading block I've had but I think I've read so many of them in a short time that my brain is only firing on two cylinders.

#80: I hope the reading block is gone soon, Tui!

Lost this thread somehow, back when you were still gardening and not reading! I'm glad to see you enjoyed the Maisie Dobbs and Gamache books. Based on your enthusiasm for the series, I may pick up Three Pines No. 3--I read the first two, and wasn't exactly blown away. Something about the style made me cranky---I think the vague references to past mistakes and failures that seemed to be highly significant, but were never explained.
Oh, and you're so welcome re Cornwall--I couldn't imagine that you hadn't already gobbled that one up. Have you read Winston Groom's Poldark series or seen the BBC dramatizations back in the early '70's? That was my introduction to Cornwall, and I absolutely loved it.

OH!! I'm more excited than I can say to see another Poldark fan!!!! It's one of my favorite series (both book and video) ever, and all I have to do is hear the name to want to read all 13 books again. I've promised myself that I'll do it next year.
(And I like 3 Pines O.K., but remain stolidly un-carried-away.)
(Hi, Tui.)

I think re Gamache and past mistakes that she was trying to make him very human and fallible, rather than having him up on a pedestal of police perfection, as in some mystery writing. In the first two books I could see her writing evolving, see her developing her characters. There is also a self-deprecating aspect to Canadians, which non-Canadians might not get (or even like, come to think of it). That was in there as well. Three Pines is very much like a town called North Hatley in Quebec, a place my mother visited quite often when she was young, with her parents. So I enjoyed this series a lot. Some of the scenes set in Notre Dame de Grace in Montreal were where I lived as a kid, so that resonated. And the one where Gamache is in Quebec City for a lot of the book really was a warm and fuzzy for me as I love that city, particularly the old town. So a lot of my enjoyment was situational and cultural.

Linda, I couldn't read the Cornwall book quickly. I had to sip and savour it. I would read a bit and find myself off daydreaming. And yes, I was a huge Poldark fan in the early 70s! By Tre, Pol and Pen, ye shall know the Cornish men. As you know, I'm married to a Pen. But I have not read the books, so there's something to look into. Thanks, Peggy!

40. A Pale Horse by Charles Todd



Another Inspector Rutledge mystery. Interesting for the look at post WWI England, as with the Maisie Dobbs series, so a good period piece. The voice of Hamish was a little less annoying in this instalment. I'm hoping that Ian Rutledge can come to grips with Hamish at some point in the future of this series and will either tame him or dispense with him entirely. Lots of cranking of autos, dashing into London and about the countryside. Not a heavy by any means but good summer mystery reading stuff.

Very much loved your review of Wait for me!: Memoirs. I have spent some time this year making my way through the Maisie Dobbs series and have begun the Louise Penny series. I hope to make some progress on it in September and your thoughts regarding Gamache and his Canadian features encourages me even more. I love the two I have read.

We spend our summer vacation in Canada each year, mainly because we have formed an attachment to the wonderful Canadians who rent cottages near the one we rent. Their "self-deprecating" tendencies are not something I put my finger on previously...but yes, I see it now.

Thanks, Michelle. What part of Canada do you visit?

In Ontario, Land'O Lakes region, in Frontenac County, on Kennebec Lake. The nearest kind of populated town is Sharbot Lake. The Canadian Cottagers are all from either Ottawa or Kingston. We have lots of fun. We have taken day trips in the area, my favorite being the town of Perth, lovely little town. Next year we might go to Bon Echo for a day. Often, our biggest excursion is to the chip stand in town for poutine, a treat we can't get here in NY.

aha, to the east of me then. I'm in the Kawartha Lakes district. Watch that poutine intake: artery clogging stuff!

41. Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear



The second Maisie Dobbs mystery I've read. I really like this protagonist and this author's writing. Hope there are more in this series to read.

That one's Number 6, Tui. I hadn't realized there were that many, but there seem to be 9 of them. I think I lost track at 3.

42. Heartstone by C.J. Sansom



I've been holding off on reading this because I knew there weren't any more Shardlakes out yet but finally decided to dive in as part of my self-proclaimed Mystery August reading. Wow! What a thumper of a book in every sense of the word. Two convoluted plots weaving around each other, with murder, mayhem, madness and malfeasance dancing attendance every step of the way. 637 pages of a fascinating look at the build-up to war in the medieval era, which culminates in the loss of the supposedly invincible warship, the Mary Rose (that's not a spoiler...like the Titanic, we know how it ends). There is a third subplot playing like a fugue in the background, as Shardlake must deal with the maggot who is his steward after the death of the stalwart Joan.

I sure hope Sansom is writing his brains out somewhere on the east coast of England because I can happily read a lot more of this wonderful stuff. The whole series is highly recommended for those who love their mysteries set in Tudor England.

I'm happy that Heartstone is such a hit, Tui. I have been hoping not to be let down by Revelation since so many people say that Sovereign is their favorite. Now I can go ahead with it and hope to get my copy of *HS* soon.

I can see how some might prefer Sovereign to Heartstone, Peggy. I just willingly suspend disbelief and elect to believe in the character of Shardlake, that he would take on certain cases or would be obsessive about certain issues. I also find the historical detail fascinating.

*sigh* I will return to the Shardlake series. . .I will return to the Shardlake series. . . some day. . .

43. The Murder Stone by Charles Todd



Another good WWI era mystery from Charles Todd, although not an Inspector Rutledge this time. A twisted personality wreaks havoc on a family through several generations, while the war wreaks a parallel havoc in Europe and England.

Mysteries are a good way to break a reading slump. Apologies to mystery afficionados but I find I don't have to think much while I'm reading them. They just are. The base requirements are a believable plot and characters who interest you enough to keep reading. With the Maisie Dobbs and Ian Rutledge series, there was the added bonus of reading plots set in an era I find fascinating: WWI and just after that war in England.

However, a book I had looked forward to for a long time is proving not so satisfactory. I am not enjoying the latest Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery, One Was a Soldier. Spencer-Fleming shows the damage, both physical and psychological, of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, on the characters in her story, detailing the problems they bring home with them from those conflicts. Fair enough. The problem for me as a reader is that I detest both of these wars so these factors are ruining the book for me. I can see no purpose to being in either of those countries (although I do suspect greed and money being at the root of all of it, ideological posturings notwithstanding). So I am not enjoying much of what is going on in the book so far. I've only read 100 or so pages and will persist until I finish it, but there it is.

So there are two eras of mysteries set with different wars as the backdrop for them: one war, horrific and vile as it was with gas and trench warfare, and the others, far more technologically advanced and yet just as ghastly in their effect on the psyches on the people involved. Am I able to read about WWI because of distance from it or because of some placating notion that as a war it was justified? Are the others so abominable because they are happening now and I can find no justification for them? Interesting thoughts coming out of Mystery August.

>97 tiffin:: oh, dear. I'm sorry you're not enjoying that one and the "war thing" could be a problem for me as well.

>98 lauralkeet:: Laura, you might be able to rise above but it all sticks in my craw. Now J. S-F. is not glorifying the war(s) in any way...in fact, I suspect quite the opposite. But the injuries are ghastly, mental and physical. Perhaps it's designed to make some ask "for what" but I already do ask that so I find it grim to read, at least so far. I suspect I won't enjoy this one much, all the way through.

#99: I suspect I won't enjoy this one much, all the way through.

I suspect I will not enjoy that book as much either. I will be reading it in September nonetheless. I still have to do a review for it as I received it as an ER book.

44. An Impartial Witness by Charles Todd



A Bess Crawford mystery. I like this character. Hope Charles and Todd write more featuring her. A WWI nurse working in France, Bess Crawford runs convoys of wounded soldiers back to England, as well as nursing them in extreme circumstances. She witnesses a woman saying goodbye to a man at a railway station as she is going through London on the train, recognising her as the woman in the photo pinned to one of her patients. When the woman is murdered, Scotland Yard puts her photo in the paper asking for help from anyone who might have seen her and Bess's involvement begins when she speaks up. Lots of London in the war, glimpses of the horror of WWI in France, comforting glimpses into the country life in England at this time. And Bess is an interesting character. Good read.

#97 I find I feel in a very similar way. I have not read any book yet involving the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, except A Thousand Splendid Suns, which only touched on the effects of the Taliban losing power.

Winspear does a fabulous job portraying the long lasting effects of war on a nation as a whole and its parts. There really is much to learn there!

I have not heard of the Bess Crawford Mysteries...but, sounds like something I would like.

45. One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming



It was ok. My qualms about the war stuff aside, I just wasn't knocked out by the book this time. Even the wedding seemed anticlimactic and kind of slapped on at the end. (Oh heck, that wasn't a spoiler, we all knew it was coming!) It didn't captivate me the way earlier ones did to the point where I almost felt bored by it at times. Maybe the series is just too dragged out. That said, I'll probably read the next one, just out of curiosity.

Mystery August is now officially over. And I quite enjoyed it!

#104: Mystery August is now officially over. And I quite enjoyed it!

Good!

46. Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda



I tend to cut first novels some slack. There is always a character who doesn't get quite as developed as one would hope or plot elements that feel unpolished. That said, I didn't have to do a lot of slack cutting with this first novel by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. The author tackled a difficult parallel story of two mothers, one who gave up her child, the other who adopted her, as well as the parallel stories of their families. In addition, she told the story of the daughter herself, of her growing to maturity and understanding of the two mothers in her life.

The one character who could have used more development, perhaps more compassion and depth of understanding, was Asha's adoptive mother, Dr. Somer Whitman Thakkar. I couldn't escape the feeling reading the story that the Indian families were deeply understood but the Canadian-born non-Indian woman wasn't, on a deep cultural level. It made her seem a bit flat at times, her reactions selfish and wooden, when I didn't think she really should be.

But the Indian families were wonderful, especially the character of the grandmother, Sarla Thakkar, whom her grandchildren call Dadima. Kavita, Asha's birth mother, was exceptionally well drawn. The colours, flavours, smells and sights of India were beautifully captured.

On the whole, I liked the story, enjoyed the book. It was very ambitious for a first novel and yes, there were some bumps. But a very respectable first effort.

#106: I have seen rather mixed reviews of that book. I will be interested in seeing what you think, Tui.

47. Coventry by Helen Humphreys



The evening of 14 November 1940. The city of Coventry, England, is bombed by the Germans and virtually destroyed, including its famous cathedral. This is a story set in that evening, the story of Harriet, Maeve and her son, Jeremy. The ultimate in impersonal hatred and destruction is played off against deeply intimate and personal human interaction and creativity, capturing this moment where people - and animals - were caught in the fire and death raining down from the sky. What they did and what they made of it after are perfectly conveyed by Humphreys with her spare prose. She has created a compelling story that will have me thinking about it for days to come.

Making a note of that one.

>107 alcottacre:: It's brief but it's now posted, Stasia.

>110 tiffin:: Posted where? I can't find it!!

Edited to say, ah, you've edited your post above. I was looking on the book's main page! Interesting review, Tiffin. This is one that I was initially really drawn to but then reading an extract made me wonder if I might find her writing style annoying.

#111 in the edited post #106 above--originally it just said "review to come", or something like that.

Thank you LW3rd. I spotted it right after I posted!

48. God's Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado



Well I just don't know about this one. Not quite Dan Brown-like but secret Vatican society, really messed up priests, pedophilia, gruesome murders, knifings, stuff of that ilk. Paola Dicanti, whose specialty is profiling, is the head of the investigation into a spate of murders of highly placed cardinals taking place just before the selection of Ratzinger as the new pope, after the death of John Paul II. Not really my taste. I don't read enough of this kind of thing to even know if it is well written for its genre or not. Moving right along...

*note to self: ticker isn't working tonight. Don't forget to add this one in.

49. Seasons, the best of donna hay magazine by Donna Hay



What a beautiful cookbook! I have been meandering, drooling and wandering through this for over a week now. The photos are utterly perfect. The only complaint I would have with this as a cookbook is its size (perhaps 10 x 12, and very thick), which would not lend itself to easy reading while cooking. I would have to scan a recipe to have it at hand, I think. Apart from that, a beautiful book to read and daydream from.

The book is laid out in the four seasons, with recipes following the produce and inclinations of those seasons. Very sensible.

I just love cookbooks. I have several I would never dream of allowing in the kitchen....spatters and spills would be a sin.

I think this would be one of that ilk, Linda. It's food art! Or food porn, whichever way you look at it.

50. People Who Say Goodbye, Memories of Childhood by P.Y. Betts



My LibraryThing Review here

Phyllis Y. Betts wrote for Graham Greene's magazine, "Night and Day", as well as producing a novel in the 30s,"French Polish" (no touchstone). Then she disappeared for 50 years until she was refound by Christopher Hawtree, living alone on a small-holding in Wales. The circuitous result was that she wrote again, her memories of her childhood: People Who Say Goodbye.

An extraordinarily precocious and opinionated child, she was the product of very unusual parents. Her mother had what Phyllis termed a "learn as you burn" policy of keeping her kitchen knives wickedly sharp and allowing her children to use them as needed. A succession of maids went through the house, leaving to "better themselves", some becoming extended family, some returning after being bettered. Her mother believed in the efficacy of lots of fresh greens and the consumption of animal fats. She also did not believe in education for her daughter until she was about ten or eleven. Consequently, Phyllis had to play a bit of catch-up with private tutors to be accepted into a decent school. She was also a direct woman who didn't beat around the bush when questioned:
Phyllis: "What happens to all those dead people who are put into graves?"
Mother: "They rot," she replied, spreading dripping on toast.

Her mother came from a wealthy family, her father not so. But he had a keen intellect and an inability to suffer fools gladly, as well as a peppery temper. Phyllis was convinced that he loved her best, that her mother loved her brother best. P.Y. hated visiting her mother's family as they were stuffy, snobbish and odd. Her grandfather had made his wealth by his wits and ability to seize an opportunity. He had blue eyes of the kind which impaled you with their look. She hated him but was told by her mother that she was just like him. There were two sisters of her mother's, the aunts, and an assortment of odd sub-characters.

Her father's family were not wealthy but her grandfather had been a famous chef, even cooking for the King, and was the chef for the Duke of Westminster. However, he loved to play the horses so in his old age had little to show for his days of glory and success. He had taught his wife all his cooking secrets, and still adored her, so it was to a happy home with glorious food that the young Phyllis was taken when diptheria was suspected in the family (her older brother came down with it and probably lived because of his mother's nursing of him). Phyllis was sent away for safety - the wealthy family would have nothing to do with her for fear of infection but the poor one took her in gladly. It was one of the happiest times of her life, sleeping up in the loft in a feather bed and eating the food of kings.

It isn't the details per se which enchant as much as Phyllis's incredible power of observation about them for one so young, as well as her ability to remember and describe events covering the end of the war, the post-war streets with more than their fair share of the maimed and wounded, schoolteachers, the quasi quack doctor who looked after their family. all manner of relationships, animals, insane asylums, religion, and the mysteries of life as they appeared to a child. Best of all were the things she thought about.

At times I wondered if the adult writer was putting an adult overlay over the memories of the child but mostly it didn't matter as the life being described, the events and emotions taking place, were so very interesting. Acerbic, at times cocky, very funny, boundlessly curious, she was an altogether fascinating child who wrote an equally fascinating book of her childhood memories. I am so glad that Slightly Foxed Editions saw fit to reprint this. Recommended.

51. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley



My Review Here

Flavia de Luce has my vote! Flavia is an eleven year old chemistry genius with two equally gifted sisters (Ophelia, music, and Daphne, literature) who live with their widowed father in a rambling house in Oxfordshire, England, along with her father's aide de camp, Dogger, and a cook whose food is not particularly enjoyed by most of the family.

Flavia is odd girl out in the trio of sisters. She and Feely (Ophelia) in particular have it in for each other. Extract of poison ivy in her sister's lipstick in retaliation for a series of tit for tats is just one example of young Flavia's chemical expertise. Chemistry was a coup de foudre for her, creating a passion which is fed by having full access to an ancestor's superb chemistry lab in one of the upper rooms of Buckshaw, the family manor. One might have to suspend disbelief that her knowledge would be so arcane and advanced at the age of eleven but I had no trouble with this whatsoever. It's part of the charm of the book that she's a genius.

When a body turns up in the cucumber bed under her bedroom window, Flavia gets swept along in the chain of events involving rare stamps, suspicious deaths, a long suffering police inspector and her bicycle, Gladys. Flavia is one of the best amateur sleuths I've come across in a long time. She, like her deceased mother, is apparently blessed with the gift of being able to cogitate. And cogitate she does, a hair's breadth ahead of the police much of the time - and at times, to her peril.

Great good fun! I am diving into the second book immediately to see what she gets up to next.

>119 tiffin: Betts sounds like a real treat!

>120 tiffin: Aha! Caught in the deLuce snare! The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag is next, can't wait to hear what you think of that.

I haven't gotten past the lid of the pie yet, but the Betts book sounds like just my thing! Thanks for a great review, Tui.

Thanks, Richard. The Weed is in at the library. Must scoot over for it. I'll finish that Pie summary sometime today.

ho ho ho Richard, just nabbed The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag! Tally ho!

52. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley



Oh my, just devoured this one in one sitting, all 343 pages of it. Flavia, you are quite wonderful. This was an excellent second book in the series. More of the awful sisters, the village of Bishop's Lacey, Buckshaw manor, and the redoubtable Flavia de Luca. Very intelligent, literate writing but best of all, great good fun.

WOW! You powered through that one! More review soon?

>125 tiffin:: 343 pages in one sitting?! Oh my!

I KNOW, Laura! I started while I was cooking supper and then sat down after and just read, the way I used to read when I was a kid. It was wonderful to just turn myself right over to the book that way....but I can't do that often any more. The book has to suck me right in and these books do. Flavia and her family are right up my alley, as is England. Me old eyes won't let me do this kind of thing very often, however!

What a wonderful reading experience! Obligations and responsibilities hinder my reading time. How wonderful it is to just let life fall away for a while. I am looking forward to this series, maybe in the winter for me.

I can see that I'm going to have to make the acquaintance of Miss Flavia. I remember reading some reviews of the first book a while ago, and then it dropped off my radar.

Michelle, I think you might like it. Linda, you too!

I wish someone would come and clean the house for me, including the ironing, and just let me loll about with a book. Oh, cooking would be lovely too. Picked up 3 Maisie Dobbs books at the library this afternoon. Very different from Flavia but equally good.

53. An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear



Another Maisie Dobbs mystery, this time set in Kent during hops picking season. An aura of strangeness hangs over a small Kent town where Maisie is sent to investigate mysterious happenings prior to a company purchasing land there. WWI is over but its residue lingers. The gypsies are in town, as well as the hops pickers, and Maisie with her fey gifts moves among them respectfully. A fun read.

Just catching up on your thread--so many good mysteries!

Hiya Carly. Yep, I went mental over mysteries in August and it's lingering into September.

You're a very lucky woman, Tui, not going mental until August. I went mental in August too, but I believe it was 1953 or 54.

Charlie, you are quite wonderful, you know that.

Although I love Maisie Dobbs, if I recall correctly, this one was the one I liked the least in the series. I think I might have missed all her old haunts around London and her connections in the police department. But, as usual, Winspear excels at depicting the long lasting effects of that awful war.

54. A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear



Ah, the last of the Maisie Dobbs until January of 2012. As England skirts nearer to WWII with Hitler in ascendancy in Germany, the British Secret Service is scuttling around behind the scenes to keep an eye on things in Blighty, as well as abroad. Maisie is conscripted to help them keep an eye on things in a private college in Cambridge. As usual, there is a secondary plot going on, in the person of Sandra, whom Maisie has hired to act as secretary for herself and Bill. This was a good one, with Mosley's fascists and all of that crew fomenting, not to mention Maisie's romance with James Compton.

I feel that I can't say too much about these stories, as every piece is locked into the next one, so to say more than the bare bones is to give something of the plot away.

Hello :) De-lurking to say you have read some great books! I've added another whack of books to my wishlish from your thread!
Chelle

#54 I liked that one very much, so much going on. Maisie has come so far! Can't wait for the next one.

Hello Chelle, thanks for dropping by. Thanks for the kind words!
Michelle, I almost felt sad to finish it because it's the last for a while. Yes, she HAS come so far. Excellent writing to keep the character so alive and growing. And there are hints that things with James might not be permanent and that the ex policeman might be in the wings somewhere. Did you get that sense?

Gosh, I think I'm going to have to start over with Maisie. I only read the first one, and wasn't fired up over it. But it sounds like there is more to this series than I appreciated.

I liked the first Maisie Dobbs book more than any of the others I've read. I don't dislike most of the others, but I just didn't like the way her character developed.

Was it the development of that almost gypsylike sixth sense, thornton? I just did a "willing suspension of disbelief" with that aspect, accepting it as part of her training with Dr. Blanche to integrate and listen to parts of herself which we usually ignore. With her Rom background, it was possible that she had a touch of "the sight".

What I like about her character has been watching her unfold as an independent woman in that era between the wars when that's exactly what was happening with women, particularly those who had also served in the first war. She came back from the war more damaged than she knew, with shell shock eventually revealing itself. Now our library is missing books 2, 3, & 4, so I've missed that transition. From 5 on, she is finding her feet and becoming a woman who cherishes her independence, who enjoys exercising her intellect. Perhaps if I had read 2-4, I might have had a different opinion. I also like books which look at England reeling out of the damage and loss of WWI, only to find themselves headed into WWII in a very short period of time. I think Winspear captures this era very well.

And thanks for dropping by!

I think it's the espionage element that I don't like. There's also almost too much going on in the novels.

I have a feeling we're going to get into more of that with Maisie as things progress towards WWII. I understand...it takes it away from the usual almost cosy mystery. But I love the double and triple threads in the plots. I think Winspear is really good at keeping the main tune going, while the descant and bass notes weave in and out of the song.

Oh crumb, I forgot a book! This is actually the one that comes before A Lesson in Secrets. This should actually be 54 but I'll number it 55 just to keep things sane.

55: The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear



Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, is asked by an American family to discover who might have been their deceased son's love interest during the war. They are in possession of her letters which were found when an underground bunker was discovered with their son's body in it. Of course things are never simple with Maisie's cases and this one proves no different as Michael Clifton was murdered. What follows is an investigation that follows two threads: that of the hunt for the murderer and the search for Michael's lost love. And Maisie has finally healed over the death of Simon to consider the possibility of falling in love again. Good one...but it should be read before A Lesson in Secrets. Maisie is best read chronologically.

ETA: I do like these 30s covers!

Revisiting Maisie Dobbs last night, I discovered that, in fact, I gave it 5 stars when I read it originally. What was I thinking, when I said I wasn't "fired up" over it? In any case, I've started over, and it sure is good the second time around! I have No.s 2 and 3 on hand. We'll see if I get in marathon mode with these.

I am so glad, Linda. I think there are hours of lovely autumn reading ahead for you here.

@ 148 Send 'em on to me when you finish 'em?

Ok. I am buying the first one Tui!!

#150 Yup. I think you'll enjoy Maisie.

#157 Of course, you know I am a huge fan of Maisie Dobbs and Winspear. They are complicated novels with great depth and the setting is my favorite place and period. I am just sad that I have read them all! When I finish the Three Pines series, I might need a reread. Maisie is one of my favorite characters anywhere.

You're right, there is a lot of depth to her character. I love how Winspear ties all the threads together at the end so you never feel that something got dropped or forgotten.

A new Slightly Foxed landed in, so I've been reading myself to sleep with it of late, although I am still reading A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier as well. Slightly Foxed riches galore!

Tui, based upon your recommendations, I just picked up an audio book of Maisie Dobbs for the car ride. The reviews seem to say that the first book is, by far, the weakest so I'll grab #2 as well even if this first doesn't wow me.

#155 They do improve as they go along, but reading them in order is preferable. The first one sets the stage.

#154 I am not familiar with Slightly Foxed, what is it?

>156 mks27:: Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle, Slightly Foxed is a superb quarterly review produced in London, England, with some of the best writing in it. It is also a wicked inducement to buy more books. Many of the books reviewed are older, perhaps out of print, or else put back in print by Slightly Foxed editions. The reviewers are wonderful writers themselves. I've been a subscriber for 3 or so years now. Here is their link: http://www.foxedquarterly.com/

Good luck with Maisie, Tad. Yes, the first book sets the stage indeed, so it's a necessary read.

I've only read book 1 in the Maisie Dobbs series, but I enjoyed it. I have to get back to those books one of these days!

Have been tempted by Slightly Foxed for so long now! One day soon I am going to succumb...

Thanks for the link to Slightly Foxed as it looks like a great resource. I am commited to find some more time to read the articles on line and become more acquainted with it.

I keep forgetting to visit Slightly Foxed, the second hand bookshop that publishes this magazine. It's on Gloucester Road near the Gloucester Road tube station in the Kensington district of London.

Oh, Darryl, please visit Slightly Foxed for all the rest of us! And take pictures, and buy things. It would have to be on my list of Musts if I ever made it to London.

56. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny



The latest in the Three Pines mysteries by Louise Penny. A very satisfying Thanksgiving Day read. Tantalising segue into the next instalment at the end of this one, so I can't wait! The Quebec art world features largely as Clara Morrow finally has her vernissage in Montreal and ends up with a body in her garden at her celebratory party back home. Some wonderful insights into human nature here. Keep writing, Louise!

57. A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley



Oh Flavia de Luce, I do love you as a character! The third book in the Flavia series, this one continues to delight. This wild child with her brain the size of London is just a treasure. The only thing I wonder is how long she can remain at eleven? The poor child has had to deal with quite a few murders in one year. Greatly looking forward to the fourth book, "I am Half-sick of Shadows".

I need to read that one so that I'll be ready for the 4th one which will arrive next month. So many books, so little time.

>160 Soupdragon: & 161: Soup and Michelle, Slightly Foxed is a real luxury that I have given to myself as a retirement gift. It is the most perfect bedtime reading because you can read it in sips, a review or two at a time. I haven't read a review of a book in all of the issues I have received that I haven't liked and I have read a good many that I've loved. Some articles have sent me on the hunt for books from my past. Many have introduced me to new and wonderful readings. What a joy to read something of such good quality, with such superb writing. I've moved on to collecting their "editions" as well, books which would have been sadly out of print if they hadn't revived them. At Christmas they put out little Christmas specials as well, called "The Christmas Fox": "Ghost Writer" by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and "The Reluctant Biographer" by Jeremy Lewis were two of them. In our time starved world, any time I have spent reading SF has felt like time well spent.

>163 laytonwoman3rd:: Linda, when we are two elderly ladies, let's book a flight and go there together.

>164 tiffin:: Lori, I almost can't wait for book 4!

#168 That's a good idea, except that "elderly" is always at least 20 years older than I am at the moment, so...

58. Kraken by China Miéville



here's me review

I was in exactly the right mood for this book - love when that happens. Billy Harrow is a curator in the Natural History Museum in London, England, taking his turn at guiding a tour through the museum when the unthinkable happens: the giant squid which is the star of the show, preserved in its tank (the preservation work done by Billy), has disappeared, tank and all.

At this point, Miéville turns the floor to jelly and starts pulling rugs out from under you for a moment. When I realised where we were going, after that initial wait-a-minute moment, it was with a delighted 'whoa ho, let's go' that I took off into the rest of the story. I love how Miéville uses words and language, how his characters talk and communicate. Unlikely heroes, bloody awful baddies, gods and cults, strange police, talents and knacking, whatever his fertile imagination could come up with (what on earth was he like as a child, I kept wondering), all playing out in the streets of a London you kind of suspect might be true.

Great good fun!

I'm totally delighted that you enjoyed Kraken, Tui. You got through it in record time. How on earth are you going to follow it up? (Might I suggest Perdido Street Station?)

Very nice review of Kraken, Tui. I've been wanting to try a book by China Miéville, and this book sounds like a perfect one to read first.

Darryl, I've heard that Perdido Station is really good although I haven't read it. But I will, Peggy! It's buried in the shelves here somewhere, so I'm going to dig it out.

I've not tried anything by Mieville either. Nice review. I'd heard of Kraken but no idea that it starts in the Natural History Museum - though clearly it goes other places before long. I'll have to get around to it soon!

59. Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon



Not my taste.

60. The Body in the Gazebo by Katherine Hall Page



Meh.

I was in a hurry and just grabbed 59 & 60 off of the library shelves. The Karon just isn't my kind of book and the Hall Page bored me. But I'm loving the new Atwood that I picked up at the same time.

At last, a brilliant read!

61. Blow On a Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan



My Review

Mari Strachan has the gift to make her characters rise fully fleshed and alive from her writing. I believed them in “The Earth Hums in B Flat” and she has made me believe them again in her second book, “Blow on a Dead Man’s Embers”. She knows these people in this small town in Wales, knows them, lives with them, and speaks their Welsh language. She knows their hearts. I do enjoy a story where the characters ring so true.

The time is just after World War I, that devastating horror which sent men home maimed, shell-shocked, useless and unemployed, if it didn’t bury them in the mire of France. It was a war which still forced armies to shoot their own men for cowardice or abandonment. And it was the war which killed forever the myth that war was any kind of glory. Rhiannon “Non” Davies has had her husband return in body but his spirit has been damaged by what he has seen and experienced. She repeatedly finds him under the kitchen table, going through a ritual with an imaginary rifle, looking through her with what they call in the psychiatric hospitals “the thousand-yard stare”.

Non has “the sight”, a gift which enables her to see sickness in others but she can’t see what it is that has damaged her Davey so. When a letter falls into her hands by chance, she begins to see how she might unravel the mystery but it isn’t easy and the way certainly isn’t clear.

Woven into this tale are the various threads of neighbours and family, wonderful characters like the snooping Maggie Ellis and the wise, tough Lizzie German. Her mother-in-law Catherine Davies is a horrid woman, yet Strachan manages to engender a pity for her despite all her terrible ways. Women with “the sight” are given respect as befits a Celtic culture, the old ways peeping from behind the walls of science and the encroaching modern era. Yet science is given its due as well. A beautiful balance is maintained throughout.

In another writer’s hands this material could be unrelentingly grim and dour but Mari Strachan loves her characters so she imbues them with tremendous kindness, powerful honesty , stoic courage and a deep sense of honour. Non Davies is a wonderful character but so is her husband, and the members of her family. I had to read this book in one sitting for, believing in them so utterly, I couldn’t leave them until I knew how it would end.

This book gives us hope and humour, optimism and a view of that wonderful courage that faces down life’s slings and arrows, but without a drop of anything maudlin or syrupy. Strachan also gives us some wonderful twists and turns, to keep us fascinated and wondering. This was a splendid story.

Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of toads...

>177 tiffin:: ooh, I liked The Earth Hums in B Flat (and read it because you loved it), so will be interested to read your review!

Stopping by to say hello here means adding books to my pile. So, I will say hello and then go add some Mari Strachan and Kraken.

Linda, you are so right. Thanks, Laura. It's posted now. Thanks, Michelle!

And I'm nearly finished with In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood. I kept getting sidetracked in the last part. Off to finish it off now.

62. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood



Time spent with Margaret Atwood is never time wasted, in me 'umble opinion.

I have no objectivity about this book as reading it was an intensely subjective experience for me. She's slightly older but judging from what she revealed in this book, we share so much of an understanding of growing up as females of the species in Ontario from the 40s on, both raised in families which didn't put any restrictions on what we could read or talk about, both stumbling across similar books - even, dare I say it, reading them in similar ways. We also share a similar academic experience, even down to the quirkiness of our theses and of having had a class with Northrop Frye (although not at the same time). So I can't say if it's a worthy contribution to the literature about the SF genre or not because I was relating to her thoughts on a very personal level. I found myself saying "Yes!" out loud several times or sitting nodding, as though she could see me. The last time she did this to me was in The Edible Woman.

I can say without qualification, however, that I enjoyed it immensely. Part memoir, part philosopher queen, and entirely wonderful writing, it was a careful read if only because she took me gallivanting off down dusty roads of memories or out into the galaxies in a rocket ship of thoughts and ideas. Yet again, thanks, Maggie A.

How wonderful to come upon a distillation of yourself like that in a writer you admire! The only thing of Atwood's I've read is Alias Grace, which I thought was wonderful. I don't care for dystopian literature or science fiction, and so have avoided much of her more well-known stuff. Maybe you could recommend some other titles that might fall outside those genres?

>184 laytonwoman3rd:: The only thing of Atwood's I've read is Alias Grace, which I thought was wonderful..
WAIT: you haven't read The Handmaid's Tale? Is it because of the dystopian nature? Because I think you would relate to the feminist themes.

>184 laytonwoman3rd:: Linda, I don't know how to answer this because I've read her since her early days as a poet and kept following along. She just keeps progressing. Books like Surfacing or The Edible Woman were ones I loved at the time but I haven't gone back to them, so I don't know if they would hold up now. I feel that The Handmaid's Tale should be compulsory reading because, as she said of it herself, she hasn't written anything in it that humans haven't already done but more, because the potential for it to happen is so very real, especially where fundamentalist viewpoints have taken root. She is ultimately a philosopher with a deep love for our planet and a hope, I believe, for us not to totally screw things up. She writes from that hope. And, for me, she writes so wonderfully well.

#185 No, I have not. And yes, it is. I know that word (dystopian) covers an awful lot of ground, and I have certainly read and enjoyed things that do fall under that umbrella, but I have always shied away from The Handmaid's Tale for some reason. Maybe because, as Tui says, I fear it will strike me as all too possible and I don't want to go there. ( For many years I simply could not watch any movie about the Vietnam war or its consequences -- too close, too close.) Maybe now that I know Atwood's writing style appeals to me, I will give it a try.

This past Wednesday three classes came in for book talks. Amazingly, even though they probably have all read dystopias, the students don't know the word dystopia. I pulled a cart-load of books that we had starting with the classics like 1984, Brave New World, Animal Farm, and Lord of the Flies. The teacher said she loved coming to my book talks since she never knew what I would come up with for her classes. It was a nice compliment.

mamzel, some of them can be grim but sometimes they can be surprisingly hopeful as well...thinking of Gulliver's Travels here where love and hope do survive (although Gulliver aka Gullible has a hard time seeing it). And you can't underestimate the influence of a good librarian!

Linda, I know exactly what you mean about not being able to read certain things. There is a degree of separation for me in The Handmaid's Tale because I know I could never accept thinking like that. But I can see it happening in the American south and parts of the mid-west Bible belt, so it's a sliver thin separation because it could happen not so far away. All you can do is try it and see, I guess. With the older dystopic novels, there is enough separation for me to read them for their social commentary. However, like you, I simply can't read certain things because I just can't separate myself from them. As you well know, with my inability to read anything where an animal is hurt, abused or dies!

63. When We Were Bad by Charlotte Mendelson



My Review

How's this for an opener: Rabbi Claudia Rubin's carefully maintained facade of a blessed and perfect family slides sideways like an unset cake off the plate of her aspirations when her eldest son, Leo, leaves his wedding with another woman just as his bride arrives at the door of the synagogue. With this start to the book, Mendelson had me hooked. Claudia fights to hold the family together as her latest book is coming out, which just might save them from financial ruin, but even with the force of her formidable will and personality, she can't stave off a long overdue family implosion.

At times I was almost wincing as the dysfunctional Rubins stumbled and blundered from one near catastrophe to the next. But they won my heart (with the exception of the youngest son, Simeon, who I could never warm up to), especially the sensitive and intelligent Frances trapped in an awful marriage to the dullard Jonathan. I became fond of the sexually fraught Leo, and Norman, Claudia's husband, who has written his own book which he desperately tries to conceal from his wife. The whole family tiptoes around Claudia's wishes while trying to remain true to their emerging selves, with the exception of the youngest two who seem unable to grow up (at 28 and 30). Toss in some sexual and religious ambivalence and you have quite a stew!

This is a fine piece of writing by Charlotte Mendelson. Bittersweet humour vies with moments of deep poignancy. We ache for these people but occasionally want to kick them in the duff as well. As the self-made woman, Claudia can be perfectly awful at times and yet we can't help but admire her as she fights to maintain the position in London's Jewish society that she has fought her whole life to attain. And we see that she does love her family, however imperfectly she expresses it.

It was a book for the senses as well, particularly smell. I could almost smell the fetid second floor of their home where the two youngest Rubins hang out, with Simeon's constant dope smoking and herbal teas. I could see and smell the seder foods as Claudia cooked them. The scent of Claudia's bedroom, of her perfume, of the back garden, of Max's hair - Mendelson brings us into each room, each office or bar with her use of sight, sound and smell. It creates a living connection for the reader so that these people become very real and we wish along with them for some kind of redemption or resolution.

This book will catch you by surprise with how it will wrap itself around your heart and mind. Highly recommended.

It has been awhile since I visited here! As usual, there are great books and reviews found in the posts. I've added When We Were Bad to the tbr pile.

All the best to you!

Hi Whisp! Thanks for dropping by. I haven't visited around the way we all used to either....just too many peeps at 75 now.

>190 tiffin:: fabulous review, Tui! I couldn't warm up to Sim either. And I love your "book for the senses" paragraph. That is so true! Your review is so all-around eloquent and captures many points I couldn't figure out how to work into mine. I'm delighted you enjoyed this book so much. Off to thumb now.

Well thank you! It was you and your sizzlin' review that pointed me to this book in the first place, so double thanks, Laura.

ETA: I've just ordered Daughters of Jerusalem, Laura!

64. A Late Beginner by Priscilla Napier

Plain green Slightly Foxed Edition.

My Review

I hardly know where to begin with this book. It was so dense, so full of sharp observations and incredible detail, so personal and yet so broad in its scope. Priscilla Napier spent her childhood in Egypt, leaving forever at the age of 12 to be sent to school; this is her memoir of this period. It was the end of the Edwardian era and encompassed the First World War, with the British Empire still maintaining some colonial hold on parts of the globe although that power was waning. Her father, Sir William Hayter, was a legal and financial adviser to the Egyptian government, supportive of Egyptian aspirations to self government. Priscilla acknowledges her father's liberal and egalitarian views throughout the book, his belief in the purpose of his work, particularly as the English in Egypt were replacing the brutal regime of the Turks. She also bows deeply to both of her parents' superb parenting skills.

She begins with the experiences and world view of a small child, centred around nursery and Nanny, the house servants, and her parents. The perspective grows as she does, the child's voice and viewpoint reflected so well in what she saw, smelled, ate, heard. Napier loved Egypt and resented the return to England during the Egyptian summers, when it was too hot and potentially dangerous disease-wise to stay. But with the advent of the War, that resentment turned to raw terror as their ship had to navigate mined waters and the very real fear of being torpedoed by the German submarines. She describes this fear so well, evoking the terror of a child trapped over deep water at the mercy of what might lie below that I felt it as well, praying with her that she would reach Southampton intact on each trip.

Napier also does a brilliant job of evoking the tension and horror of the war itself, watching the faces of the adults in her world, seeing her cousins left fatherless, or the change in the men who do survive. Her descriptions of Egypt are incomparable, as are her portrayals of the life they lead there. She isn't sparing of herself when she is obnoxious or messes up either, so this isn't a cloyingly sweet story but an honest one, whether dryly funny or achingly sad. I particularly liked her description of the young Churchill, who wasn't highly regarded after his escapades in India.

This is social history at its best and most intimate. It took me a while to work my way through this book but it was never for lack of interest that my reading of it was slow and careful. I read it in sips, letting each bit settle and become absorbed before going on to the next sampling. Napier has written something rare and unique about a period which my grandfather would have known and was a remnant of, so that traces of it were felt in my own life. And yet it was so exotic, so wildly different from any experiences of my own that the book captivated me as something fresh. Highly recommended.

Hmm....may have to add that one to my small but growing SF collection.

I would never have discovered this book if SF hadn't brought it to my attention. I have a small but growing collection as well!

65. Death of a Chimney Sweep by M.C. Beaton



Light, simple, fast, Hamish Macbeth. Not quite fluff but no challenge here. Sometimes you want that.

>65 alcottacre:: indeed! I just finished Miss Pettigrew and will be reading Pym next. Total comfort.

Amen to that. And Hamish probably is fluff...who am I kidding?

Thanks for dropping by too, Laura. I sometimes feel like I'm out on the back forty here.