souloftherose's 2012 reading journal - part two

Girl Reading by Oliver Ray

I'm not very good with more modern art but this painting caught my eye when I was searching for a new image to use.

This is my third year in the 75 books challenge group and I really appreciate being able to talk about books with the lovely people in this group and I value the visits of everyone who stops by so please feel free to comment or just lurk.

Somehow I seem to read a fair number of books in a year which is good, because I have more than a fair number of books in my TBR pile!

Books read in 2012:



Books read from TBR pile



January

#1 The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan (Library)
#2 Lady Susan/The Watsons/Sanditon by Jane Austen (Reread)
#3 The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (TBR)
#4 One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (TBR)
#5 When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (TBR)
#6 Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick (Library)
#7 A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (TBR)
#8 Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson (Borrowed)
#9 The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (TBR)
#10 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (TBR)
#11 At Mrs Lippincote's by Elizabeth Taylor (TBR)
#12 Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey (Library)
#13 The Awakening and Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin (Free kindle read)
#14 King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard (Reread)
#15 Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (TBR)
#16 Nothing But Ghosts by Judith Hermann (TBR)
#17 Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean (TBR)
#18 The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith (Reread)
#19 The Monk by M. G. Lewis (Library)

February

#20 Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (TBR)
#21 Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith (Reread)
#22 A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (TBR)
#23 March by Geraldine Brooks (TBR)
#24 The Secret River by Kate Grenville (TBR)
#25 Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti and Ian McEwan (Library)
#26 The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken (TBR)
#27 The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths (TBR)
#28 The Heart of MidLothian by Walter Scott (TBR)
#29 Witch Wood by John Buchan (TBR)
#30 Death Masks by Jim Butcher (Library)
#31 Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor (TBR)
#32 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (Free kindle read)
#33 Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (Library)
#34 Perishing Poles by Anita Ganeri (TBR)

March

#35 Timeless by Gail Carriger (TBR)
#36 Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley (TBR)
#37 Room by Emma Donoghue (TBR)
#38 Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (TBR)
#39 Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon (Free kindle read)
#40 Dr Johnson's London: Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education by Liza Picard (Library)
#41 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (Library)
#42 The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster (Library)
#43 State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (TBR)
#44 The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and Her People by Andrew Marr (Library)
#45 A Game of Thrones by G. R. R. Martin (Dan's)
#46 Catharine and Other Writings by Jane Austen (TBR)
#47 Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (TBR)
#48 A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor (TBR)
#49 Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers (TBR)
#50 Troubles by J. G. Farrell (TBR)
#51 Tallis' Third Tune by Ellen K. Ekstrom (Free kindle)
#52 Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers (TBR)

April

#53 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens (TBR)
#54 The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde (Reread)
#55 The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde (TBR)
#56 Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (Library)
#57 Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken (TBR)
Abandoned: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (Library)
#58 The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (Free kindle read)
#59 The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (TBR)
#60 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Library)
#61 Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Reread
#62 Foundation and Earth by Isaac ASimov TBR
#63 Cold Earth by Sarah Moss TBR
#64 A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor TBR
#65 The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle Reread
#66 American Notes for General Circulation by Charles Dickens TBR
#67 Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick TBR

In my never-ending quest to try and reduce the size of my TBR pile, I am going to try and restrict my book acquisitions to 1 book in for every 2 books read from the TBR pile.

So far, I'm not off to a great start as I have read 17 books from the TBR pile and purchased 16...

Books acquired in 2012:



January
#1 River Boy by Tim Bowler (Kindle sale)
#2 At Mrs Lippincote's by Elizabeth Taylor (Book depository) READ
#3 Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor (Amazon) READ
#4 The Conan Chronicles Volume 1 by Robert E. Howard (Bookmooch)
#5 Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson (Waterstones.com)
#6 The Guardian Review: Book of Short Stories edited by Lisa Allardice (Charity bookshop)
#7 Restoration London by Liza Picard (Charity bookshop)
#8 The Secret River by Kate Grenville (Kindle daily deal) READ

February
#9 The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey (Kindle daily deal)
#10 A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny (Kindle) READ
#11 Room by Emma Donoghue (Kindle) READ
#12 Look at Me by Jennifer Egan (Kindle daily deal)
#13 Embassytown by China Mieville (Kindle)
#14 Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff (ebay)
#15 Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd (Bookmooch)
#16 Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill (Kindle daily deal)
#17 A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor (Waterstones.com) READ

March
#18 Timeless by Gail Carriger (Kindle) READ
#19 Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (Kindle) READ
#20 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Charity bookshop)
#21 Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (Charity bookshop)
#22 Troubles by J. G. Farrell (Kindle) READ
#23 On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers (Kindle daily deal)

April
#24 A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor (Waterstones.com) READ
#25 Revelation by C. J. Sansom (Waterstones.com)
#26 The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde (Waterstones.com) READ
#27 The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (Kindle sale)
#28 Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Kindle sale)
#29 The Dickens Dictionary by John Sutherland (Kindle sale)
#30 Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson (Kindle sale)
#31 Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Kindle sale) READ
#32 A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (Elizabeth Taylor day)
#33 The Love-Child by Edith Olivier (Dee)
#34 From the Land of the Moon by Milena Angus (Bookmooch)

2012 reading plans

I'm not going to do a formal 12/12 challenge this year but I do have some reading plans for 2012 which I'm going to list below.

1. Charles Dickens

I'm going to continue with my reread of Dickens major works and also try some of his less well-known short stories and some books written about Dickens.

#1 Barnaby Rudge (1841)
#2 American Notes (1842)

By Dickens:
Barnaby Rudge
American Notes
Martin Chuzzlewit
Pictures from Italy
Dombey & Son

About Dickens:
Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women by Jenny Hartley
Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit by John Bowen
The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens edited by John O. Jordan

2. Other 19th century British authors

#1 King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard (1885)
#2 The Heart of MidLothian by Walter Scott (1818)
#3 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)

Reading more by Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, William Thackery, Walter Scott and anyone else I think of

The Heart of the Mid-Lothian by Walter Scott (1818)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1847)
The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1855)
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (1857)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1859)
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)

3. 18th century literature

#1 The Monk by M. G. Lewis
#2 Catharine and Other Writings by Jane Austen

The more I read from the 19th century the more I realise I need to understand what was written in the 18th century and after my success with The Mysteries of Udolpho I'm going to try some more 18th century literature

The Monk by M. G. Lewis
The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
Evelina by Fanny Burney
A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson

4. Fantasy and Science fiction Masterworks

These are part of a publisher series by Gollancz which is reprinting classic works of science fiction and fantasy. I've collected a few but I'm not very good at reading them.

In the TBR pile:
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke
Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny
Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin
The Complete Enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp
Beauty by Sheri Tepper
The Conan Chronicles Volume 1 by Robert E. Howard
The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

4. Carnegie Medal winners and shortlist

The Carnegie Medal is an award for children's books given by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in the UK. I haven't read a bad book from the awards list and I have quite a few to read.

#1 The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (1946 winner)
#2 Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick (2010 shortlist)
#3 Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean (2001 shortlist)
#4 The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2009 shortlist)

In the TBR pile:
The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly
A Stranger at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston
River Boy by Tim Bowler
The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson
King of Shadows by Susan Cooper
Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick
Stop the Train by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

5. Orange Prize winners and nominees

To carry on reading from the Orange Prize winners and nominees.

#1 A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
#2 Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
#3 Room by Emma Donoghue
#4 State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
#5 Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
#6 The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
#7 Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick

In the TBR pile:
Ursula Under by Ingrid Hill
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Small Island by Andrea Levy
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

6. The Other Elizabeth Taylor

The Virago group are doing a year-long celebration, with monthly reads chosen by the group as 2012 marks the centenary of Elizabeth Taylor's birth and I'm hoping to join in.

#1 At Mrs. Lippincote’s
#2 Palladian
#3 A View of the Harbour
#4 A Wreath of Roses

At Mrs. Lippincote’s (1945)
Palladian (1946)
A View of the Harbour (1947)
A Wreath of Roses (1949)
A Game of Hide and Seek (1951)
The Sleeping Beauty (1953)
Angel (1957)
In a Summer Season (1961)
The Soul of Kindness (1964)
The Wedding Group (1968)
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)
Blaming (1976)

6. Virago Modern Classics

I collected a lot of these last year so I need to get reading!

#1 The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
#2 Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons
A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
Poor Cow by Nell Dunn
Anderby Wold by Winifred Holtby
The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby
Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym
The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville West
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Union Street by Pat Barker
The Glass-Blowers by Daphne du Maurier
The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Children by Edith Wharton

Nice ticker. Why the violin?

A couple of bits from the last few days that are quite trivial in the grand scheme of things but feel like quite major achievements to me.

Firstly, yesterday I finished The Heart of the Mid-Lothian by Walter Scott:



And secondly, I finally finished a pair of gloves that I started making for my friend over two years ago. Everything has been done for two years except finishing them off by sewing in the loose threads and adding the buttons. They're not perfect (they're not the same size for a start) but hopefully they're good enough.

The picture on the pattern:



and my finished snapdragon flip-tops:

Lots of interesting ones, Heather. I thought Diary of a Provincial Lady was a lot of fun.

Whoa! Those gloves snuck in there while I was typing. They look good. Way beyond my skill set.

#4 Hi Judy. No particular reason except it went with the treble clef and stood out a bit more than the musical note option.

#6 Gah - I keep cross-posting. Hi Joe!

Hi, Heather! I think I'm the one screwing you up. I'll be quiet now. :-)

Cute gloves!

Hi souloftherose - love the Oliver Ray pic, and I recognise one or two titles / authors you're reading so I thought I'd say hello. I've got The Monk on my TBR list - does it still have the shock factor after 200 years?

Fantastic gloves!! I am a knitter too but haven't done much for the last 7 years (ok, who am I kidding, for the last 20.) I am terrible at sewing up and finishing and usually Mum has rescued me. I have a cute little book by Vogue Knitting with glove and mitten patterns somewhere.

Great picture, Heather!

>>#5 Whoo! - well done!!

Now we can discuss the novel's very peculiar closing section. :)

Like the gloves--way above my skill level in knitting. I'm a crocheter instead.

Good job on the gloves!
And continuing from your last thread, I love the bookcase chair!

Love the picture at the top of your thread, Heather, and I'm very impressed with your gloves! Were they difficult to do? I've never knitted anything besides scarves so I'm pretty much a beginner.

Heather - congrats on the new thread. Also like the look of the gloves but not too much call for them in Malaysia I'm afraid, although I did once buy a pair of gloves for a chap with 11 fingers who didn't quite get the joke.
Looking forward to your review of Heart of Midlothian, I should read more of my Walter Scotts gathering dust in the house.

Hi Heather!!!!
I'm in awe of your craftiness...want to come to PA and teach me? I tried to learn to crochet by watching youtube videos and decided I need a real live person next to me in order to learn.

Not sure I will ever be caught up but finally I'm here. :)

Hi Heather, just catching up with you. Count me in as another who really wants to pick up The Secret River soon.

Hi Heather congrats on finishing your knitting project. I haven't knitted in ages. Did start two sweaters, one of which was finally finished except that back and front didn't fit together... hmph. Your reading plans continue to impress me.

Heather, I think your gloves look great, I love that style. And the top image is gorgeous!

Heather, count me as another knitter impressed by your mitten-making abilities. I love those flip-top mittens — perfect in this age of iPhones, iPads and other touchscreen devices!

Wonderful mittens and awed respect for your ability to follow directions.....

loving the gloves. I wish I had more time. How do you manage to read so much and knit?

Hello Heather, lovely work on the gloves. Im amazed at peoples ability to do nice patterns like that, they look great.
And great reading too, looks like yo have done well on your lists.

The pictures of those lovely gloves have inspired me to dust off my knitting needles, unearth my supplies of knitting wool and get knitting again. However today has been unseasonably warm here in SE England so perhaps not quite the time to be knitting gloves!

Heather! You are one talented lady! The gloves look great and so special because you made them.
As this is my first visit to your new thread it took me awhile to study your artwork in post #1.
then suddenly, I went, Ahhhhhhhh. Very intriguing painting. I can see why it caught your eye.
OK, what's your next knitting project?

What a great start to your new thread! I love the gloves and the picture and the lists of your Oranges and VMCs. I'm always learning about a new Orange and now am thinking hard about Ursula Under. Maybe I'll be smart for once and see what you think of it.

Lots of messages! Thanks Zoe, feca67, Cushla, Liz, Roni, Chelle, Pat, Paul, Angela, Judy, Ilana, Leonie, Julia, Lucy, Jo, Megan, Kerry, Lyunda and Peggy (phew!) for stopping by and saying nice things about the picture and the gloves.

#10 Hi Zoe :-)

#11"I've got The Monk on my TBR list - does it still have the shock factor after 200 years?" I'm not sure whether it would have the shock factor compared to a modern novel but I read it after having read Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho which is much more restrained, so The Monk felt quite shocking after that!

#12"I am terrible at sewing up and finishing" - me too! I wish I could just knit and then not have to do anything else afterwards but it is worth it once I see the finished product. I've learnt to look out for patterns that say 'all in one piece' too!

#13 Heading over to the thread soon Liz.

#14 I can't crochet at all Roni. I want to teach myself but I'm going to ease myself back into knitting before I try something more adventurous.

#15 Thanks Chelle. There were quite a few images of chairs made of books on the web but that was the only one that looked remotely comfortable!

#16 I don't think the mittens were as difficult as they look Pat. You need to be able to cable and knit in the round which is not as hard as it sounds. I used this website to teach myself which has some really helpful videos. These mittens were my second project with cables in; the first project was simpler. Do you use ravelry? There are lots of free patterns on there that you could try out if you wanted to try a small cabling project?

#17 Thanks Paul. That's one reason why mittens are more practical I suppose!

#18 Glad you made it here Angela! I'd love to come to PA to teach you - maybe when my ship comes home as my Nana used to say (which really confused me - why did she have a ship?).

#19 Hi Judy :-)

#20 " Did start two sweaters, one of which was finally finished except that back and front didn't fit together..." I have a sweater/jumper project I started 6 years ago. The pattern and the wool looked lovely but the wool is a nightmare to knit with and the the bits I have knitted do not look like something I would ever wear. I want to try and finish it just so I can say I did it but I should probably junk it. I am quite wary of trying to knit anything else so large though - definitely going to try smaller projects for a while.

#21, 22 & 23 Thanks Leonie, Julia & Lucy :-)

#24 Well I don't have a 1 year old to distract me - I expect that helps quite a bit :-)

#25 Thanks Megan :-)

#26 Oh good Kerry! The real cold spell we had some weeks ago made me realise I would love to have a matching hat, scarf and gloves set and that's one knitting project I'd like to do this year. But even when I thought it I knew I wouldn't have a hope of getting them done before Spring. It has been nice to have some warmer weather lately.

#27 Thanks Lynda. Next mini knitting project is a tea cosy.

This pattern with this wool .

So far I've cast on but realised I want to use different needles as the ones I cast one with are horrible so I'll restart it this weekend and hopefully make some progress while the husband watches the rugby.

#28 Peggy, Ursula, Under is one I've had for ages waiting to be read. I picked it up on a whim several years ago and I don't really know anything about it. I'm hoping it's going to be an undiscovered gem - I'll let you know!

I've had a run of finishing books and will hopefully write some reviews tomorrow morning. I was going to do some today but I ended up going to see The Artist at the cinema with my Mum instead. It's a very unusual film but very good and I think it will stay with me for a while.

Wow, knitting. I bet no one has my talent; I can start with 20 stitches, and about 5 lines later (for fear of dropping stitches) have picked up another 3 and a half stitches.

Just checking in; getting Internet access is a bit of a process for me now.

I hate to tell you this, but I did the same thing when I tried to knit -- my brother's scarf just kept getting wider. Fortunately, it only ever made it to about six inches long, so the problem resolved itself: I don't so much knit anymore.

My best effort was probably no more than 5 centimeters. :)

Heather, thanks for the link to the knitting website. I put it in my favorites so I can find it again. I do use ravelry and that's a good idea to try a small cabling project. I don't knit that often but every once and while I get the urge to try something (mainly because I wander into a knitting store and fall in love with some yarn).

#30 - 32 LOL! My husband had the same problem when I tried to teach him how to knit.

A couple of lighter books that I read as a break from the Walter Scott.

Book #26 The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken - 4.5 stars
Source: Bookmooch
Original publication date: 1962



This was one of my favourite books as a child but I never had my own copy. I've been looking out for a copy for ages and so I was delighted to stumble across a copy of this book and the next book in the series at the end of last year.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is set in an alternate 19th century Britain where James III ascended to the throne in 1832 and the recent completion of the Channel Tunnel between Dover and Calais means a great many wolves have migrated to Britain from the Continent.

When I read this as a child I found it a delightfully scary tale of orphans, evil governesses and horrible orphanages, not forgetting the menace of the wolves. On rereading it as an adult I was pleased to find out that it hadn't lost any of its magic for me although I was quite surprised how short the book was at only 190 or so pages. As an adult the book does require some suspension of disbelief; would any parents really leave their only child with a governess they've never met when they travel overseas? But I was perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief, sit back and enjoy the story.

There are some lovely illustrations attributed to Pat Marriott which seems to be a pseudonym for Edward Gorey although I can't find any official confirmation. The illustrations do seem to be drawn in his style.



Book #27 The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths - 3.5 stars
Source: Kindle
Original publication date: 2009



The second book in Griffths' crime/mystery series featuring Ruth Galloway as a forensic archaeologist who works alongside the Norfolk police. I've really enjoyed the two Ruth Galloway books I've read and found them to be gripping reads. I particularly like Ruth as a character as she isn't your typical female lead, but for me there's something which so far has stopped this series moving from enjoyable to great book territory. In theory Ruth is employed full-time at the local university but she seems to be able to spend as much time as she likes assisting the police with their investigation and investigating on her own whenever she gets an idea, to the point where becoming a university lecturer started to seem like quite an attractive career choice! I'd also like to see Griffiths add some more nuances to some of the side characters; Ruth's parents have featured in both books and are depicted as judgemental Born Again Christians (sic) in a sharp but funny caricature but so far that seems to be all there is to them. In this book there is a reason for the more judgemental side of Ruth's parents to come to the fore but I would really like to see their characters developed in later books. That's quite a lot of criticism for a book I did enjoy reading but it feels so frustrating to see good writing and characters spoiled slightly by what feel like minor points. It's quite possible I'm being far too critical but I really want to love these books and I can't.

#33 You're welcome Pat - according to the time stamps I spent over an hour writing my last post so managed to crosspost with yours.

> 34 Hi Heather,
Pat Marriott (1920 - 2002) has been compared to both Edward Gorey and to another Edward, Ardizzone, but was, in fact, a prolific and talented illustrator in her own right who had a long association with Joan Aiken. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that Gorey did do the covers for some of the American editions of Joan Aiken's books but the illustrations were Marriott's.
Joan Aiken's website has this lovely remembrance of Pat Marriott: http://www.joanaiken.com/pages/illustrators.html

Among her other notable works were covers for several of the first editions of the James Bond books.

I only vaguely remember The Wolves of Willoughby Chase(scary historical is all that came to mind before I read you review) but now that you've reminded me of it, I may have to give it another try!

I understand what you mean about Elly Griffiths' books. There is so much that I like about them, yet I find my attention caught, in a negative way, by things that end up irking me no end. So I, too, end up wondering if I'm being too critical about a series that intend to keep reading. Odd, isn't it?

Another fan of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase here, as well as of the other books in the series. I also recently found a copy of it and plan to read it this year. I'm glad it still held magic for you!

I spent months of my life reading and re-reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. My youngest daughter was totally enthralled by this book and would literally bring it home every week from the library! It's hard to believe she's in her 30's now!

I read and enjoyed the first three book of the series several times, but I've never read some of the newer ones.

Heather I have both your recent reads on my upcoming list - note that the Aiken has garnered positive vibes from all our friends but that Elly Griffiths is not so warmly received uniformly. Guess I'll have to make my own mind up soon.

All the reviews I've seen for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase have been nothing but positive. I must get my hands on it someday. Does it matter if I don't understand the historical references?

The only Aiken I read as a child was The Whispering Mountain which I loved but never read anything else suprisingly. Read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase with my son more recently but he didn't quite take to it for some reason so we didn't read any more of the series.

I was Aiken mad for awhile! The other possible illustrator is Edward Ardizzone using a pseudonym? Don't know really, just looking at the style of it, made me think of him. I'll go poke around, I think. Why he would bother using a psuedonym is the real issue.....

Hm. Back to say that while Ardizzone is mentioned no confirmation.

I'm glad that The Wolves of Willoughby Chase stood up well to a re-read, Heather. I never read it as a kid, but sure enjoyed it as an old guy.

#36 Thank you so much for that info and the link Stephen - that's cleared up something that has been puzzling me for a while.

#37 Scary historical is not too far off, but it's not that scary and it's also fun!

Regarding the Elly Griffiths' books, I think after reading the first book I was definitely hoping that the series would go on to become more than just fun reads and I'm not sure that's going to happen anymore. So perhaps that has a lot to do with my critical thoughts and if I can lower my expectations so that I expect an engaging read with some flaws I will feel less frustrated? But I am glad to hear that it wasn't just me :-)

#38 Good to hear Katie - hope you enjoy your reread. Given how many books Joan Aiken wrote I'm amazed I never came across any of her other books as a child.

#39 " My youngest daughter was totally enthralled by this book and would literally bring it home every week from the library! It's hard to believe she's in her 30's now!" - Me too!

#40 I have books #8 & 9 I think so I have a vested interest in making it that far at least.

#41 Look forward to your thoughts Paul :-)

#42 Not at all Ilana. There's really no reference in this book to who is King or Queen or anything like that. It feels Victorian and there are wolves running wild and that's it really. I'll be interested to see if James III is mentioned in the other books in the series because I can't see a need for her to change that from the first book alone.

#44 There is something of Ardizzone to the illustrations Lucy. In the link Stephen posted in msg #36, Aiken refers to Pat Marriott as 'she' so I'm assuming that means Ardizzone and Gorey are both out.

#45 Glad to hear it Joe (pshaw to the old guy comment).

Well, I had all sorts of plans for yesterday. I was going to read the lengthy introduction to Heart of Mid-Lothian, write reviews, catch up on threads, make lots of progress with Barnaby Rudge and then I had the strangest dreams Saturday night after staying up late reading Palladian and felt completely not with it for all of yesterday. Palladian was fantastic but rather gothic-y which might account for the dreams? So I just moped around yesterday, couldn't make anything of BR and started 4 different books in an attempt to find something that would work in my brain-addled state. So, maybe reviews tomorrow?

And finally some book reviews:

Book #28 The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Sir Walter Scott - 3.75 stars
Source: Oxfam
Original publication date: 1818
Category: 19th century British authors



Warning: Minor spoilers but no more than those given by the back cover of my copy. It feels impossible to talk about this book without saying what happens to some extent.

Set in and around Edinburgh during the Porteous Riots of 1736 this book is based on the true story of Helen Walker who walked to London from Scotland to request a royal pardon for her sister who had been sentenced to death under Scotland's strict infanticide laws. What made the story more amazing was that Helen Walker's testimony could have saved her sister in court but she would have needed to lie and refused to do so. In his story, Scott ties together Helen Walker's tale and the events surrounding the Porteous Riots in (I think) an attempt to draw parallels between a guilty man pardoned, then executed through mob justice and an innocent girl sentenced to death who has to rely on her sister to save her.

I found this book a challenging but rewarding read although there are still some aspects of the book that puzzle me. I'm still struggling to work out why Scott used a narrator within a narrator to tell the story and there was an author's note to the ending which left me baffled. But I'll remember the characters and the beautiful Scottish atmosphere the book felt soaked in. It's also sparked a fascination with Scottish history and culture; I'm not entirely sure where this fascination will take me but I might consider more Scott.... next year!

My Penguin Classics edition left me a tiny bit disappointed. It had a very good glossary (essential for understanding all that Scot's dialect) and a lot of historical notes but sometimes the notes contained spoilers (why?) and I found the lengthy introduction largely incomprehensible. Not bad for a second hand copy but I wouldn't want to pay the list price.

Edited, very belatedly, to add a special thank you to Liz (@lyzard) for reading alongside me and helping me get through the book. Our discussion thread is here although it does contain spoilers.

Book #29 Witch Wood by John Buchan - 4.25 stars
Source: Kindle sale
Original publication date: 1927



After reading lots of wikipedia articles on Scottish history for The Heart of Mid-Lothian (THoM) I remembered that I'd bought this novel by John Buchan in one of the kindle sales last year and thought it would be interesting to read something else set in the same time period. It turned out that Witch Wood is set about 100 years before THoM but that was actually helpful because reading about the Presbyterian Covenanters in the 1640s gave me some background to the Presbyterian Covenanters in the 1730s.

Buchan's tale of a young minister who tries to prevent his small congregation practising witchcraft could be read as a straight adventure story with a touch of romance thrown in as the minister, David Sempill, has to battle not only against the villagers but against the very leaders of the church themselves as he struggles to do what he believes to be right. But this story also touches on themes of self-righteousness, self-deception, human nature and the dangers of repressing human nature too much.

"The Kirk has made the yett of grace ower wide for sinful men, and all ither yetts ower narrow. It has banned innocence and so made a calling of hypocrisy, for human nature is human nature, and if you tell a man that honest pleasure is a sin in God's sight he finds a way to get the pleasure, and yet keep the name for godliness."

A thought-provoking and enjoyable read - this certainly doesn't deserve to be one of Buchan's less well known works. Again, a glossary is recommended to help with the Scots dialect.

#47 - Great reviews and lovely gloves up there! I recall using a Scots dialect dictionary when reading How Late It Was, How Late last year and that was modern-day dialect, which I imagine is easier to understand...or maybe not.

The little Buchan I've read I've enjoyed so much!

I've got Witch Wood on my to read shelves - nice to know that is a good one. I'm going to have to try to bump it up the TBR list:)

Love those gloves!

I have similar feelings to you and Dejah about the Elly Griffiths series. There are aspects of them that I love and other parts that I find annoying. I have read the first three in the series and have the fourth on order from the library. I found the second book to have the strongest storyline of the three but to be the weakest with the characterisation. There was one thing that really annoyed me in the third but I won't mention what it is until you've read the book!

Heather I think you've just added two books to my WL in one post. They both sound really good. That's enough for before breakfast - I'd better get off LT!! My Scottish history is non-existent and mostly from Outlander...

#48 Thank you Kerri. I'd never heard of How Late it Was, How Late and scooted over to amazon to have a look. I'm not sure I can cope with a stream of consciousness novel with Scots dialect at the moment but I'll definitely bear it in mind for whenever I do. The Scots dialect Buchan and Scott used was an older form I think; the introduction to the Buchan book mentioned that Buchan heard it used as a child but it had pretty much died out by the time he came to write the book in the 1920s.

#49 Me too Lucy. I've only read 5? of his books but he tells such a good story. I need to get back to his Richard Hannay series and then there are the Leithen books...

#50 Hope you enjoy it calm.

#51 Hi Dee. It's funny that the series seem to have produced the same reaction in quite a few of us. I'll consider myself warned about the third book :-)

#52 Oops, sorry Cushla. I certainly read quite a few wikipedia articles on Scottish history thanks to those books.

I had what feels like it must have been a busy week because I am feeling pretty wiped out this weekend. I had lots of travelling which was tiring but it was all on the train so I did get lots of reading done. And after some milder weather and hoping that meant Spring was round the corner, it is snowing heavily today and rather chilly. I think the ground is too wet for it to settle though.

In exciting news, I managed to snaffle some tickets to see Hilary Mantel speaking about her Wolf Hall sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, at the Southbank Centre in London in May! I think there are still some tickets available (here) if anyone else is interested and in the London area on the 18th May.

The knitted gloves are adorable!

Book #30 Death Masks by Jim Butcher - 3.5 stars
Source: Library book
Original publication date: 2003



I've had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series so far; I found the earlier books in the series to be a mixture of enjoyable and incredibly annoying. After a slow start I enjoyed this one quite a bit and I'm now looking forward to the next in the series. Perhaps the best comparison to give is that of an action film with good special effects; great to sit and munch popcorn to if you're in the right mood but not particularly thought-provoking.

If you haven't heard of this series before then the main character, Harry Dresden, is Chicago's only wizard turned private investigator. There's lots of wisecracks, action scenes and an assortment of demons, vampires, werewolves etc for Harry to combat.

Book #31 Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor - 4.25 stars
Source: Amazon
Original publication date: 1946
Category: The other Elizabeth Taylor



It's difficult to describe this book. There's a sense in which Taylor was inspired by classics like Jane Eyre and Northanger Abbey but although Taylor's Palladian also has a gothic feel to it, I think it's more than 'just' a parody or satire of a gothic novel. The orphaned Cassandra Dashwood becomes the governess at Cropthorne Manor to the young daughter of a widower. Being a dutiful heroine, Cassandra has 'a very proper willingness to fall in love, the more despairingly the better, with her employer'.

The widower, Marion Vanbrugh, shares Cropthorne Manor with an assortment of family and servants and we soon discover there seem to be various secrets surrounding his first wife, Violet. By turns sharply funny and gaspingly tragic, I was once again drawn in by Taylor's impeccable writing. The introduction to my edition, written by Neel Mukherjee, says of Taylor 'I defy anyone to find one dud sentence in her entire oeuvre and based on the books I've read so far I'm inclined to agree.

#54 Thank you!

Hi Heather- I know I haven't been to see you in ages, but I saw your post on Ilana's thread and thought I would drop by to say hi. I recently finished Feynman and it was very good. I had never heard of the GN or the man but what a nice surprise.
I also will add praise for The Wall. And you could knock that one out in one sitting.
Hope all is well, across the Big Pond.

55: I've wondered about the Harry Dresden books but I think your very useful comments have clarified that they're not really for me!

Now, Elizabeth Taylor is definitely more up my street and I also agree with that Neel Mukherjee quote!

I'm going to have to reread Palladian!!!!!

#55 - Oh good grief! Should I have picked Palladian then?! No. I'm sticking with Angel and that's that! (I've spent a ridiculous amount of time choosing my first Elizabeth Taylor novel, which I will read this month.)

Book #32 Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson - 4.5 stars
Source: Project Gutenberg
Original publication date: 1883

""Fifteen men on the dead man's chest
Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!"

Avast, me hearties! What a rip-roaring adventure story! I'm sure I must have read this when I was younger but I don't really remember it. I very much enjoyed this (re)read and although I found I could predict or remember the plot twists that didn't spoil my enjoyment at all. Pirates, treasure, pieces of eight, adventure and a great story - what more you could want in a book?

Treasure Island? I know we have a copy of that around here somewhere, but I have never read that. Palladian goes onto the list - I have never read any Elizabeth Taylor, is it a good one to start with?

Hi Heather: We have a lot of books in common, so I thought I would visit your thread. I, too, am a fan of the Griffiths books. After reading a lot of comments on Elizabeth Taylor, I want to pick up one of her books, too. Is Palladian a good place to start?

Tickets to see Hilary Mantel! wow I hope you have a great time. Now way I'm going to be in London in May but I hope it is an interesting talk.

It's years since I read Treasure Island. I've got a copy around somewhere but I've also got so many other books to read.

I've really enjoyed reading your reviews Heather. I just started A View of the Harbour and am glad I have Palladian to look forward to.

I think I've read Treasure Island but it looks like it's worth it a re-read. Hope you have a nice cozy reading day before you have to go back to work.

Hey Heather - great reviews! I have to say that I've given up on the Harry Dresden series. I've tried them several times, but they just don't do it for me. On the other hand, I love Jim Butcher's Codex Alera books - have you tried them?

Well done on tickets to see Hilary Mantel!!

I am green with envy re: the tickets to see Hilary Mantel! Glad you liked Palladian.
I thought I would hate How Late it Was, How Late but ended up kind of liking it. Not loving it, you understand, but sympathetic to the main character.

Treasure Island looks a good one to buy for the kids library! Thanks for the reminder.

I read (or reread) Treasure Island last year, Heather, and had the same reaction as you. A great story!

I can see that I have a new author in Elizabeth Taylor to look into. It sounds like Palladian may be a good place to start with this author.

Hi Heather - I also enjoyed reading Treasure Island a couple of years ago. I've given up on the Harry Dresden books, I didn't finish book 2 even though I listened to most of it.
The gloves look great, I did a lot of knitting when my children were young, lots of quick easy projects, though my first baby project was a shawl. It ended up taking double the amount of wool than the pattern stated, that shawl did all five of my babies. No way was I ever going to knit another one!

Heather I am also planning for a re-read of Treasure Island for one of my 12 in 12 challenges - great fun, but without this superb tale we probably wouldn't have had Pirates of the Caribbean foisted upon us.

Treasure Island was our english study book when I was in First Form (aged 11-12) quite a lot of years ago and our rather pedestrian english teacher made it quite boring but I recently listened to an audio version and re-read it on my kindle and loved it. I've enjoyed quite a few Ripping Yarns over the last two or three years (including a lot of John Buchan), to my surprise as I would have said they were not my type of reading.

Yowzaa! Lots of good reading going on over here. My fingers itch to wishlist but....oh well, what does it matter.... on to the wishlist for Wolves, Witches and even Mid-Lothian. I read Ivanhoe years and years ago but still remember being enveloped in the story and scenery.

#57 Hi Mark. Thanks for stopping by. Glad you enjoyed Feynman.

#58 Dee, I think the Harry Dresden books are in the guilty pleasure category for me - perfect reading for when I don't want to have to think about anything. I am increasingly excited about the rest of the Elizabeth Taylor year.

#59 Yay - hope you enjoy it Lucy.

#60, 62, 63, 70 Wow, I didn't anticipate stirring up this much interest in Palladian although I'm thrilled to see it!

Kerri - don't worry, I feel sure that Angel will be a good place to start your Elizabeth Taylor journey. In fact, based on what I've read so far, I'd be surprised to find she wrote a bad book.

Maimie and Beth - thanks for stopping by.

Palladian is only the second Elizabeth Taylor book I've read (the first was At Mrs Lippincote's) so I don't really feel well qualified to say whether that's a good place to start or not. On the other hand, I can't see that it would be a bad place to start as all her books stand alone. If you've read Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey and Du Maurier's Rebecca I think you'd be able to pick up the allusions Taylor's Palladian makes so I'd say go for it!

Would anyone who has read more Elizabeth Taylor like to chip in with their thoughts?

#64 Thanks calm - I'm very excited about hearing her talk. The Southbank Centre seem to have quite a lot of literary and other interesting events on so I've asked to be added to their email list.

#65 Thanks Pat. Hope you enjoy A View of the Harbour. I'm hoping to start it soon.

#66 I haven't tried Dresden's Codex Alera books Dejah; for some reason I thought they might be worse than the Dresden books (not sure why). I'll look out for them next time I go to the library.

#67 Thanks Cushla :-)

#68 Thanks for your comments about How Late Laura. It feels like it's slowly working its way onto my wishlist :-)

#69 You're welcome Megan.

#71 Kerry, that's always my fear with knitting projects, that I'll get close to the end and not have enough wool because I've got the tension wrong or something.

#72 Very true Paul, although I have to confess that I enjoyed the first Pirates of the Caribbean film quite a bit.

#73 What a shame your English teacher managed to make Treasure Island seem boring (and how did he manage that one wonders) but glad you've since read it and enjoyed it. I used to get very frustrated with some books we read in English because it felt like we were going through them soo slowly. Of course, I understand now that we needed to go at the pace of the slowest reader in the class but at the time I had a lot less patience.

#74 Wishlist away Lynda (mwah ha ha)!

And at long last my final two books for February:

Book #33 Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - 4 stars
Source: Library
Original publication date: 2011



I'm not always a fan of romance novels and paranormal romances tend to make me yawn. I would normally say that a paranormal romance featuring angels and demons would make me yawn and roll my eyes and yet, I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps it doesn't really go beyond the standard young adult paranormal romance but Laini Taylor tells this story so well that I ended up really enjoying it despite my initial doubts.

Strongly recommended if you are a fan of the genre and also recommended if like me you are a bit of a sceptic. It's not a standalone novel though and there is at least one sequel to be published.

Book #34 Perishing Poles by Anita Ganeri - 3.5 stars
Source: Charity bookshop
Original publication date: 2002



A book about the Arctic and Antarctic, not, as I kept thinking, about Polish people dying. This is part of the Horrible Geography series which is a spin of the popular Horrible Histories series. They're probably aimed at 8-12 year olds and yet I get great enjoyment from reading them when I'm in the right mood. You'll either like the humour in these books or not, but leaving that aside I thought this book covered a good range of topics including brief summaries of the various successful and unsuccessful Polar expeditions, Polar flora and fauna, climate and the current dangers to the Polar regions.

February summary

Overall I read 15 books:

From the TBR pile: 10
Rereads: 1
Free kindle books: 1
Borrowed: 3

Books read for my planned categories: 3 in total

19th century fiction: 2
Elizabeth Taylor: 1

At the end of February I had read 20 books from my TBR pile and bought 17.

March is going to be a reading what I feel like month because my February reading was starting to make my brain hurt too much (I think Scott and Dickens at the same time might have been too much). I'm still going to keep on with Clarissa (100 pages read, 1,400 to go!) but I'm going to pause Barnaby Rudge for a bit. So far, what I've felt like reading has been some fantasy and some VMCs

I enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone too despite the paranormal romance. I think it helped that I was hooked before things got paranormal and mushy!

I must get some horrible geographies for my eleven year old. He has lots of horrible histories which we both like but no geographies at all. Perhaps I should amend that with Perishing Poles, though like you I would keep thinking about Polish people in very unfortunate circumstances whenever I saw the title!

I just looked up Witch Wood hoping to get it for my Kindle in vain. How hard could it be to make Brit titles available in the US and vice versa? The best I can do here is a $17 used pb (that's including s&h), so I won't do anything since I don' t want it that much! I liked reading your review though, Heather.

#78 Hi Dee. I was going to list the Horrible Geography book on bookmooch or return it to the charity shop anyway so I would be happy to send it to you for your son to read if you'd like?

#79 Oh that's a shame Peggy. It seems like Buchan's books are all being reissued in the UK by Polygon, a small Scottish publisher who, I think, also publish Alexander McCall Smith's books. I can't think why they wouldn't be available in the US.

It has been an incredibly busy week for me and I've also felt like I've been fighting off a cold so I'm very behind with threads and book updates but I wanted to quickly mention the 2012 Orange Prize longlist which was announced on Wednesday. Copying from Jill's post over on the Orange group the longlist is:

Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg (Quercus) - Swedish; 1st Novel
On the Floor by Aifric Campbell (Serpent's Tail) - Irish; 3rd Novel
The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen (The Clerkenwell Press) - American; 4th Novel
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Serpent's Tail) - Canadian; 2nd Novel
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape) - Irish; 5th Novel
The Flying Man by Roopa Farooki (Headline Review) - British; 5th Novel
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon (Quercus) - American; 4th Novel
Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (Bloomsbury) - British; 3rd Novel
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (Faber & Faber) - British; 2nd Novel
The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - British; 2nd Novel
The Blue Book by A.L. Kennedy (Jonathan Cape) - British; 6th Novel
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Harvill Secker) - American; 1st Novel - READ
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury) - American; 1st Novel
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (Atlantic Books) - American; 7th Novel
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury) - American; 6th Novel
There but for the by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) - British; 5th Novel
The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard (Alma Books) - British; 2nd Novel
Tides of War by Stella Tillyard (Chatto & Windus) - British; 1st Novel
The Submission by Amy Waldman (William Heinemann) - American; 1st Novel

For the first time ever, thanks to the group read last year and all the hype, I've already read one book on the longlist: Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

I have State of Wonder on my kindle and started reading it yesterday and I've put in bold the other books in the list that look very interesting to me at first glance (which is about half so far and I'm sure will only increase as I start seeing other people's reviews). I'll probably buy Gillespie and I after I've finished the Patchett because I loved The Observations by Jane Harris last year and it would count as a shared read for this month's TIOLI challenge. I've also reserved The Song of Achilles at the library although I'm trying not to go over the top with library reservations; last year I reserved 4/5 from the longlist and then they all came through at once and I didn't manage to read them all on time.

I saw Gillespie and I in the shops today and if SWMBO had been elsewhere I would have pocketed it. The Ali Smith and Esi Edugyan are in my sights too. I have three already on the shelves but unread.... The Night Circus, The Sealed Letter and Island of Wings. Would love to do a Darryl or a Suz and reas all of 'em before the award is out but I know there is no chanceof that so I'll work my way slowly through the list instead and soak up all the reviews in the meanwhile. Have an enjoyable remainder of the weekend.

Heather, I remember reading Treasure Island to my three children many years ago. It was a very different read aloud for us, but once we all got used to the style, it was a hit! I still have the set of illustrated classics it was a part of. I need to pass that along to the grandkids.

I've only read two off the Orange longlist. Lots of good reading ahead.

#81 Paul, I probably won't even manage to get through the titles I've put in bold by the time the winner is announced but it's nice to dream! There are still lots of interesting looking books from last year's longlist and shortlist that I want to read too. Do you have Gillespie and I in paperback in Malaysia yet? I loved the UK hardback but the paperback cover is far too pink for me.

Hardback:

Paperback:

#82 Donna, I just saw on the Bookbag website that there's a sequel to Treasure Island coming out (this month in the UK, August in the US). Normally I'm not keen on sequels by a different author but this one has quite a good review so I might try and borrow a copy from the library.

Heather - that is exactly the copy that I had my eye on today and will buy as soon as SWMBO's vigilance is weaker.

#80 - Hi Heather - I'm thinking about reading There but for the at some point this year. For the others, I think I'll wait to read the reviews from some of my trusted LibraryThing pals before I decide. Have a lovely afternoon!

I have about half a dozen of the Orange Prize list -- and I had not heard of the prize before, I'm sorry to say, so I am so glad you shared this -- but I'm a little confused. This is an annual prize, right, but some of the books -- like The Sealed Letter (2009) -- were published a couple of years ago. I looked on the website but was a bit confused about how they determine eligibility and select their longlist. Great titles, though. Added some I didn't have to the wishlist.

Oh, wait, found it. Apparently, it's all based on when the books come out in the UK, not their original publication. That's funny that Emma Donoghue's novel took two years to be released in the UK. Publishing is so funny sometimes. Apologies for wasting a post.

#85 Kerri, There but for the is one that's slowly working its way into the bold category in the list above. I'll probably reserve it from the library at some point.

#86 & 87 Yeah, the different publication dates can be really confusing. I'd assumed The Sealed Letter had been published in the UK before but apparently not! And I suppose Lord of Misrule must have had a bit of a gap between publication dates too because it looks like it was first published in 2010.

The Arthur C Clarke prize is another one that considers UK publication dates so Tim Power's Declare was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award in 2011 but made the Nebula shortlist in 2001!

Hi Heather,
Thanks for posting the Orange longlist. Lots of great reading there. I'm also curious about the Treasure Island sequel that you mention. There have been others who have tried this over the years. (I even contemplated writing a sequel as a play at one time.) I have a John Goldsmith book called Return to Treasure Island, published in 1985 and "based on the exciting television adventure series" according to the blurb on the front cover. Harold Augustin Calahan's Back to Treasure Island was published in 1935 and recycles virtually all of the surviving characters from TI. Best of the bunch is a 1956 prequel by R.F. Delderfield called The Adventures of Ben Gunn. Delderfield, best known for his God Is An Englishman is far and away the best writer of the bunch and he manages to create a credible and enjoyable back story for Ben Gunn and some of the other pirates that dovetails nicely with Stevenson.

Stopping by and waving hi. I'm so darn far behind on the threads.

What did you think of The Night Circus? I've heard good things about it.

I'll have to read up on the others.

You got me all inspired to read Treasure Island for the first time, but our e-reader broke. I'm thinking about getting a kindle to replace it - what do you think?

80: That's very kind of you, Heather, thank you!

Any chance of you attending the Elizabeth Taylor event in Reading on 21st April? I should be going as long as my sister gets me a ticket tomorrow and it would be lovely to have librarything company!

Luci, if you're out there, could you make it?

Link here.

I'm with you on Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Heather - surprisingly good.

#89 Hi Stephen. I had no idea there had been so many sequels to Treasure Island. I have to confess I'd never heard of Delderfield before but the library has a copy of The Adventures of Ben Gunn which I might try.

#90 Hi Linda - thanks for stopping by.

#91 Hi Jo :-) I really enjoyed The Night Circus. I didn't think it quite lived up to the hype (it wasn't my favourite book of the year) but it was still really good. The Guardian had a good summary of the longlist with pictures here.

Re the kindle, I really like mine and they released a cheaper edition last year although the disadvantage is it doesn't have a separate keypad which makes adding notes more fiddly. As far as I know all ereaders can only read one particular type of ebook so whichever type you buy you're limited as to where you can get the ebooks from. The out of copyright books like Treasure Island are all available in most, if not all, formats from sites like Project Gutenberg and girlebooks. The e-ink technology on the kindle is superb and most of the time I forget that I'm reading on a kindle; I thought it would feel more like I was reading a book on a computer screen but it doesn't strain my eyes at all. The battery life is also really good so I only need to charge it once a month (and I use it quite a lot).

The other differences between a kindle and the other ebook readers at the moment are that you can't borrow kindle books from the library (if your library does ebooks) in the UK. You can in the US so it's possible this feature might come to the UK at some point. Otherwise I think it comes down to how you feel about being locked in to purchases from amazon which I feel slightly guilty about (because they're becoming so big no-one else can compete) but they do better in terms of delivery and pricing than any other online bookstore I've tried (especially since they now own bookdepository) and their customer service re the kindle and ebooks has been of a very high standard.

There's a comparison site for UK ereaders here.

Is that too much information?!

#92 Dee, I just booked my ticket - so excited! I'll bring the Horrible Geography book(s) along (I have a few more that I probably won't want to keep after reading).

#93 Yes, I'm definitely interested in reading more by Laini Taylor now.

Well, I have finally succumbed to the cold today despite lots of fruit juice and clementines over the last week. Bleugh. I have lots of reviews to write but I also have several library books to return today so I'm going to write up the library book reviews first and then come back and fill in the gaps for the other books.

Book #35 Timeless by Gail Carriger - 4.5 stars
Source: Kindle
Original publication date: 2012



This has been one of my favourite series over the last couple of years and I thought Timeless was a fitting conclusion. These books won't appeal to everyone, they contain a lot of intentional silliness, parasols, dirigibles, vampires and werewolves but they are great fun to read if you enjoy Carriger's sense of humour (and I say that as someone who normally avoids books with werewolves and vampires). If this does sound interesting then don't start here; pick up Soulless instead.

Book #36 Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley - 3.5 stars
Source: Bookmooch
Original publication date: 1978



This was an enjoyable retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley which I liked but didn't love. My expectations might have been too high as I think a lot of people have recommended this to me as one of their favourite books. As a retelling I didn't think it diverged that much from the original story although that might just show how much of the original I'd forgotten.

Book #37 Room by Emma Donoghue - 4.5 stars
Source: Kindle
Original publication date: 2010
Category: Orange prize



Last year it felt like everyone on LT read this book and despite all the rave reviews and the literary prize nominations I wasn't convinced that it would be a book I'd enjoy reading. So when my reading group selected it I was surprised by how completely absorbed I was by the story Donoghue told. I've read on the train almost every day for the last 9 months and this has been the first book that made me forget where I was and how many stops were left before I had to get off. I thought Donoghue handled a potentially very disturbing storyline very well; the narration by a child was well done and used to good effect to question some of the things we take for granted in our society. Emotionally compelling without being too emotionally draining.

Opinions at my reading group were completely divided though with one person saying that it was 'the worst book they'd ever read'. I think the main problem people had was in finding the story and the characters credible.

And I know I've been really cryptic about what the book's actually about but it's almost impossible to discuss without giving away most of the plot.

Book #38 Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym - 4 stars
Source: @Soupdragon :-)
Original publication date: 1953
Category: Virago Modern Classics



I've really enjoyed discovering this type of domestic fiction (as I think it's called) or women's fiction through the Virago Modern Classics series. There are quite a few similarities between Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor at first glance; particularly with respect to the time period and perspective they're writing about and from. At first I struggled with the similarities because I kept finding myself thinking 'Elizabeth Taylor wouldn't have written it like that' (after reading just two books I think I'm an expert). Once I'd had strong words with myself a couple of times I managed to get over it and enjoy Barbara Pym for writing like Barbara Pym.

At first glance, Jane and Prudence are unlikely friends. At 41, Jane is, not very competent although well-meaning vicar's wife who still dreams about finally writing a book about the 17th century poets and is apt to quote 17th century poetry to members of her husband's parish at inopportune moments. Prudence, just 29, is unmarried although prone to unsuitable love affairs with a job and a very elegant flat in London. So, of course, Jane decides to do some match-making.

It's a comedy, a gentle satire, a commentary on the class structures in place in the 1950s, and probably lots of other things that I haven't picked up on. Despite the description above, it's really not a romance. I think I could reread this book many times and come away with something new each time. And yet, having said that, I'm really struggling to think of anything to say!

I like the covers Virago have given to their reissues of Barbara Pym's books although I'm not sure whether they give a good idea of the type of book this is or not. They're not really as sweet and fluffy as the cover might seem to indicate.

So happy you'll be there at the Elizabeth Taylor day, Heather! My sister just texted to say she'd bought my ticket so I'm definitely going. And thanks for the horrible geography offer, I know Matthew and I will enjoy those books.

Do you have any interest in a Virago green edition of The Love Child by Edith Olivier? I found a duplicate in Oxfam and couldn't bear to leave it there. It's in very good condition and a book I enjoyed very much. I think you would like it. I'll bring it with me to Reading on the day if you're interested.

Edited to say: smiling to see my name as a source!

Hi Heather- You've been knocking out the books. I picked up a copy of Timeless from the library yesterday, for my wife. She was very pleased. I read the 1st one and liked it but a bit light for me.
Glad you liked Room. I was a fan too!

Hey Heather, I think I really do need to sample those Gail Carriger books.

Have a great day!

Book #39 Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon - 3.25 stars
Source: Baen ebooks (free)
Original publication date: 1988



Sheepfarmer's Daughter is the first book in a trilogy which has since had a couple of prequels and a further three sequels added on (with another couple to follow I think). Paksenarrion, the main character in the first trilogy, is a sheepfarmer's daughter who runs away to join a a mercenary group rather than become a farmer's wife. I was warned before I read this to expect a lot of detail about mercenary life and training, marching and formation details are mentioned frequently but I actually found all the detail strangely fascinating although if you'd asked me before I read it, I would have said I would probably find it dull.

The reason this just dipped below a solid 3.5 star rating was because I felt the pacing was sometimes a little off. There were parts where the story seemed to leap ahead a few weeks or months and it felt rather clumsy and jarring. Otherwise it was a solid pig-farmer fantasy story (or sheepfarmer in this case) with an interesting heroine. It felt refreshing to have a heroine who wasn't interested in romantic relationships; not because she was emotionally scarred but just because she wasn't interested. This type of fantasy novel is firmly in my comfort zone so I would like to read the sequels and prequels.

Book #40 Dr Johnson's London: Coffee-Houses and Climbing Boys, Medicine, Toothpaste and Gin, Poverty and Press-Gangs, Freakshows and Female Education by Liza Picard - 4 stars
Source: Library
Original publication date: 2000



"When a man is tired of London he is tired of life;
for there is in London all that life can afford"
Samuel Johnson

Liza Picard is a lawyer by training who, since retirement, has written a series of social histories of London. As far as possible she uses primary sources for her books rather than other people's research (although this is unavoidable to some extent). Dr Johnson's London covers the period from 1740-1770 and focuses on the life of ordinary folk at the time; the lives of the poor and the middle class (known as the 'middling sort' at the time) take up the majority of the book with only a few brief chapters at the end devoted to the rich and upper class. This tries to cover a lot of ground in a relatively short book so it reads more like a collection of fascinating facts about the period rather than a more analytical work but Picard's style is often dryly humourous and I found the facts contained in the book very fascinating so I didn't really mind the lack of depth. Reading about the life of everyday folk in the mid-eighteenth century also made me feel very grateful that I was born at the end of the twentieth century!

A couple of minor criticisms: firstly a map of London at the time would have been wonderful; secondly, 75% of the endnotes printed at the back of the book were just references to her sources but about 25% of them contained amusing comments or anecdotes and there's no way to know which one a particular footnote will be without flipping to the back of the book. So, of course, I had to check every single footnote. It would have been so much better if the footnotes containing further information could have been incorporated into the main body of the text in some way.

I'd recommend this as an introduction to the period but not if you're looking for something with a lot of depth and analysis/commentary.

Book #41 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin - 4.25 stars
Source: Library
Original publication date: 2009



This is a beautifully illustrated children's book by American-Chinese author Grace Lin which draws on traditional Chinese folklore and fairy-tales to tell the story of Minli and her quest to change her family's fortunes. The story is as lovely as the illustrations so I would strongly recommend this.

A selection of the illustrations from the book




Book #42 The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster - 3.75 stars
Source: Library
Original publication date: 1997



The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen is a selection of essays on Jane Austen's works in 'the context of her contemporary world, and of present-day critical discourse' according to the back cover. (And is that an Oxford comma on a Cambridge University Press book?)

I haven't read much literary criticism before and I haven't studied literature since my GCSE's at 16 so I don't really feel qualified to do a proper review, instead I'm going to comment on the accessibility of the book and some of the individual essays that I found particularly helpful. As with any book of essays from different contributors, I expect someone else reading the same book would find different essays interesting/helpful so I'm not going to comment on the essays which I didn't find interesting or that went completely over my head.

It's also worth noting that there are two editions of this book. The first edition (which I read) was published in 1997. The second edition was published in 2011 and I think roughly a third of the essays have been removed and replaced with different essays between the two editions. You can use the look inside feature on amazon (on the UK site anyway) to see the titles of the essays. I think the majority of the essays I enjoyed are in both editions (so I may buy the second edition at some point).

Jan Fergus wrote an essay on 'The Professional Woman Writer' which compared the way Austen published her novels and the amounts she received for them with other popular female novelists of the time (mainly Frances Burney and Maria Edgeworth, two authors on my wishlist). She also wrote about how female authors were perceived at the time. I found it very interesting to see how little Austen earned for her novels compared to authors we would consider less well-known now (although they weren't less well-known at the time).

John Wiltshire wrote an essay on 'Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion' focussing on the narrative techniques Austen uses in each novel, in particular, the changing narrative voice in Emma and Mansfield Park which was both not a concept I'd heard of before and not something I'd noticed in my reading of either novel. I felt he supported his arguments well to reach his conclusion that MP was 'a milestone in the English novel' and it made me rethink how I viewed what is often one of Austen's less appreciated novels.

Juliet McMaster (also editor) wrote an essay on 'Class' which I found helpful even though I am fairly familiar with 19th century novels. I hadn't realised that there was a difference between being Lady Bertram and Lady Catherine de Bourgh; the inclusion of the first name shows that the title is one Lady Catherine was born to (i.e. she is the daughter of an earl) and she would retain that title irrespective of the rank/class of whoever she married. Lady Bertram however, only has her title because she married Lord Bertram; if she remarried a commoner after Lord Bertram's death she would become plain, old Mrs Someone. This essay also uses Emma to explain the social orders of the day in more detail by ranking all the characters or Emma in order with an explanation.

Edward Copeland (the other editor) in an essay on 'Money' explains women's rights with regard to money at the time (very few) and an idea of the spending power and social status at various incomes which helps put the £10,000 a year and so on into context for a modern reader.

Margaret Anne Doody wrote an essay on Jane Austen's short fiction as contained in the OUP's Catharine and Other Writings (also commonly referred to as Jane Austen's Juvenilia). I think her theory is that the short fiction should not be viewed as 'chaotic and childish' but rather as a style of writing and a path Austen may have chosen to explore if it hadn't been for the changes in culture and literary expectations during the early 19th century. This was an essay that I enjoyed but didn't feel as if I had completely grasped what Doody was trying to say so I may be wrong but I think she was saying that Austen may have wanted to write novels that were more satirical and subversive (based on the style of her juvenilia) but had to mask this with within the more acceptable and traditional framework of domestic fiction which contained a romance to conform with the more decorous early 19th century.

"In her early fiction, Jane Austen could write with zest and confidence. She had inherited a taste for irony, paradox, and 'sparkle' from the eighteenth century. Her early writing is rough, violent, sexy, joky. It sparkles with knowingness. It attacks whole structures, including cultural structures that had made a regularised and constricted place for the Novel, as well as the very workings (in stylized plot and character) of the English novel itself....

The elements that we find in Jane Austen's early short fiction are what kept her later works from dwindling into comfortable prosy little comedies of upper middle-class courtship, with didactic elements carefully inserted. Yet, to a certain extent and not in trifling ways, Austen had to pretend - in order to get published at all - that her mature novels were such innocuous and didactic things."

The Companion also includes a detailed chronology of Jane Austen's life by Deirdre Le Faye and a chapter with suggestions for further reading.

#96 Do I have any interest in a Virago with a 4.2 star rating on LT that you think I'll enjoy? Erm, yes! Thank you for thinking of me :-) I was thinking of going to my favourite Oxfam shop between now and the Elizabeth Taylor day to search for duplicates to bring, even though going to that Oxfam shop always does serious damage to my TBR pile.

#97 Hi Mark. The Gail Carriger series is quite light but I love her sense of humour and the characters so it's one of my easy-reading/comfort-reading favourites.

#98 I think they're definitely worth a try Lynda - the humour might not be for everyone and they are silly but they're knowingly silly (if that makes sense) which I enjoy.

Right, off to the liberry to return books. I think I may have just booked our holiday :-) Just need to double check I can get the time off work tomorrow (normally I do it the other way round but I was surprised how booked up the holiday place is and I was worried someone else would book if I left it a day.)

Thanks, Heather, for the detailed description of the Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. I've thought about this book more than once, and it's great to have a better idea of its contents. Those essays sound like my cup of tea.

Sadly I can't make it on 21 April, I have a prior commitment.

Heather - another great spell of reading - and jealous that you have an LT meet up coming up with Dee. (Photos please)

Hey Heather --

Thanks for the great review of the Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen. I'm a big fan of her works, but it's not something I probably would I picked up. I'll be on the lookout for it now. BTW, you should post your review to the work -- the other two reviews are lame and your would really help a prospective reader.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Beauty more. As a kid and teenager I absolutely loved that book. I still reread it occasionally when I need a comfort read.

Very interesting review of the Cambridge Companion--thanks for elaborating on that for us! Also looks like you've been doing some great reading elsewhere--wasn't Timeless fun? And done with book 42 already--girl, you are steaming!

Great looking borders on those pictures up there.

>99 souloftherose: I haven't read much literary criticism before and I haven't studied literature since my GCSE's at 16 so I don't really feel qualified to do a proper review
pft, anyone can review anything I say. And good job you did too.

Reviews/summaries now up for everything in msg 95 above.

#101 Hope you enjoy it Jo - I certainly feel that I gained some insights into some of her writing that I wouldn't otherwise have had.

#102 Oh that's a shame Luci. Hopefully you'll be able to make the Oxford day. Did you see the Hilary Mantel talk at the Southbank Centre?

#103 Certainly Paul. Dee and I will make sure we take lots of photos of lovely Reading! :-P

#104 Thanks Dejah - review duly posted. I hope you can find a copy of The Cambridge Companion and find the essays helpful. Of course, now I've read one Cambridge Companion to Lierature, I keep finding myself looking at the incredible list of titles they have in the series and imagining a bookcase filled with them...

I enjoyed Beauty but didn't fall in love with it - I wonder if I would have done if I'd first read it when I was younger? I'll definitely try some more of Robin McKinley's books one day.

#105 Thanks Roni. You're not too far behind me yourself!

#106 I couldn't really find a picture of the Grace Lin book that I thought did it justice. The first page in each chapter also has illustrations around the text and there are stories within the story marked by different illustrations and a different font - it's a very well produced book. And thanks for the kind comments about the review :-)

#95 - Jane and Prudence sounds fantastic. I had another Barbara Pym on my Virago list for this year - Excellent Women - but might read this one too. I'm a fan of stories of female friendship. My favorite movie of all time is Career Girls (the Mike Leigh film). Most people are probably not as touched by it as I am, but I watch it once a year and cry like a baby.

I forgot to say how much I loved the Grade Lin book. The illustrations were marvelous, as you said, and the book faithfully follows the conventions of the Chinese tales while going beyond them to offer turn around the conventions. Delightful!

Lots of book news here! I'm sorry to hear about your cold though. :(

I have a copy of Room which I haven't read so was glad to see you really liked it. And those pictures from the Grace Lin book will be moving that up on my TBR pile.

Looking forward to vicariously attending your LT meetup in Reading.

ETA: What a fitting place for an LT meetup!

Heather: Get well. My goodness, you have been doing a lot of reading. The Grace Lin books is beautiful. I have a weakness for picture books, so I might have to pick it up. The Jane Austen companion also looks interesting; I love reading essays about books. Earlier this year I read one by Fay Weldon Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen, which I quite enjoyed.

Lovely reviews as always, Heather. Your LT meetup with Dee in April sounds like a fun time centered around a book event...in Reading no less!

My granddaughter loves Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and I was so thrilled to find such a beautiful book to give her for Christmas.

I'm chiming in on the great reading you've been up to lately, puts me to shame with all my graphic novel reading. I have a few nonfiction books about fantasy literature that I really should read but being on LT keeps me grabbing the new and shiny.

I think the Grace Lin book in hardback is a perfect gift item for girls, such a beautifully produced book to cherish.

The Cambridge Companion looks marvelous. Thanks for the detailed review!

So many good books discussed here. Regarding the Orange Long List, my attention has been captured by Half Blood Blues and Tides of War, of course, I probably won't get to either of these for ages.

I recently heard about Elizabeth Moon over at Roni's thread and have added that series to the wishlist.

Just chiming in with thanks for the Guardian page with synopses of the Orange listers and to say that Sheepfarmer's Daughter is not the best of the Paks books, so do keep reading!
I just broke down and bought The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, so we're almost on the same page.

Hi Heather - just wanted to say hello. You are racing through the books! I haven't even looked at the Orange longlist, but will try to catch up with what's on it soon.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is exactly the type of book I enjoyed as a child. Beautifully illustrated books like these till makes me feel all giddy!

Thanks for all the visits - I will reply properly at some point over the weekend. I haven't been sleeping very well this week for some reason and my brain feels very foggy as a result - it's very frustrating. It's a lovely sunny day today and I have a day off work so I'm going to go for a walk this afternoon and hope that it will tire me out a bit (not that I don't feel tired already) so that I can sleep...

Enjoy the sunshine. Where did you go? I miss Tring when the weather is like this.
We've been to the park this afternoon but then I got worried in case Reuben sunburns so I didn't want to stay too long. I think it's time we got him a hat, but how to make him wear it?

Hi Heather, sorry to hear about the sleep troubles. I cannot function at all when I don't get proper sleep, so understand your difficulty. Hope you're all better by now.

I've been hit by a couple of book bullets, as was far behind here and most everywhere else. I'm glad that I actually have my own copy of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. I keep on wanting to pick it up... someday I actually will!

#121 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a beautiful book - I think the fact that you'd listed it for a TIOLI challenge last month was the final push I needed to reserve it at the library so thank you. I think my brain is less fuzzy but it feels like a good night's sleep is still eluding me to some extent. I've almost decided to sign up to a gym membership because I think I've got to the stage of getting better where regular exercise will help with my energy levels.

#120 We went to Wilstone reservoir and had lunch at the farm shop and then walked part way round the reservoir - may not have been the best timing as we were engulfed by swarms of midges walking round but lunch was very nice. Can you get hats for little ones that tie on? And would that work if you could?

#118 I hope you can find a copy of Where the Mountain to enjoy Porua.

#117 Hi Cushla - thanks for stopping by.

#116 Thanks Peggy - I'd heard Sheepfarmer's Daughter wasn't the strongest so I will continue with the series (but when?). Let me know what you think of the Oxford Readers' Companion.

#115 Hi Judy. I thought Tides of War sounded interesting because I think it's the first novel by an author who usually writes biographies or histories from that period.

#114 Thanks Lucy.

#113 "puts me to shame with all my graphic novel reading" - not at all! I think I've been reading the Jane Austen companion since before Christmas and I felt like I wasn't making any progress with my non-fiction reading and then this month I suddenly finished three non-fiction books. It goes in phases.

#112 Reading does seem apt doesn't it?!

#111 Thank you for the recommendation Beth. I've heard of that book before and it does sound good. Perhaps I could treat myself next month...

#110 Thanks Pat - I think the cold is gone now.

#109 It was a lovely book Roni. I didn't really know any Chinese folkstories/fairytales before reading it so I enjoyed the fact that Lin included those. That's a really interesting point about the way she turned the conventional stories around (which I didn't notice whilst I was reading it). It would be a lovely book to own.

#108 Hi Kerri. I've had Excellent Women wishlisted for a while. I think I would like to read all Barbara Pym's books but I really shouldn't buy anymore until I've read the other Pym in my TBR pile, No Fond Return of Love. I don't think I've ever seen Career Girls - perhaps one for my DVD rental list.

And a quick note of some book acquisitions and library loot before I try and get some reviews out.

On book acquisitions I was doing astoundingly well with only one book acquired for the whole month and then this week I bought another three books - but that's still only four books! I might also download Troubles for my kindle to join in with the Janet memorial read.

Books acquired:
Timeless by Gail Carriger (read)
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (read)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Library books to read:
Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (for RL reading group)
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

And a review of Dr Johnson's London has been added to msg 99 and the work page. Now I'm only five reviews behind....

99: Good point about footnotes - I tend to feel I have to look up footnotes, and it can be particularly tricky on the Kindle. I have 3 Liza Picard books somewhere, bought from the BookPeople years ago.

Passing through. Footnotes! I think Infinite Jest wins hands down. I don't mind them but they are in TINY PRINT!!!! Argh!

#125 Yes, I tend to avoid non-fiction books on the kindle if they look like they will have footnotes. I've got Restoration London by Picard in the TBR pile and I will definitely be looking out for her other books. Some seem to be out of print at the moment which I think is a shame.

#126 Tiny print is frustrating. I admire you for attempting IJ though.

Book #43 State of Wonder by Ann Patchett - 4.25 stars
Source: Kindle sale
Original publication date: 2011
Category: Orange prize



When Marina Singh's colleague, Anders Eckman, dies whilst investigating the work of a research team out in the Amazon rainforest, Marina is sent out as a replacement to find out what happened to Anders and to report on the progress of the research team. As Marina mourns the death of her colleague and retraces his steps she finds that being in the rainforest changes her more than she would have thought.

Whilst I felt Bel Canto had a fairytale feel to it, State of Wonder is a more dreamlike book. Marina struggles with nightmares as she takes her antimalarial medication (larium) and this blurring of the division between dreams and reality continues throughout the book. I've seen a few criticisms of this book saying that parts of it were unrealistic but I'm not sure Patchett intended it to be realistic. Parts of this book are still a puzzle to me: what did the ending mean and what is the state of wonder the title refers to? In fact, the more I think about this book, the more complex I realise it is and I think it would merit rereading.

Book #44 The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and Her People by Andrew Marr - 4 stars (published in the US as The Real Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II)
Source: Library
Original publication date: 2011



The Diamond Jubilee (60 year anniversary) of Elizabeth II this year seemed an appropriate time to read a biography and as there are hundreds to choose from I chose Andrew Marr's (which was written especially for the occasion) as I've wanted to read his History of Modern Britain for quite a while now.

This is not a gossipy biography of the Queen, as Marr makes clear in the preface (and in that respect the American title is rather unfortunate - it's not really an intimate portrait of Elizabeth II). Rather, it's an explanation of what monarchy means, how the British constitutional monarchy works and operates, the way the Windsor dynasty changed during the 20th century and what exactly the Queen does and how it's all paid for. There's also quite a bit of history and politics thrown in as it would be impossible to talk about the Queen's role throughout her reign without mentioning the various governments and ministers who have been in power.

As you might expect, this is a pro-monarchy biography rather than a republican one. It's unlikely to convince any republicans to change their minds but as someone who's always been a bit of a fan of our current Queen it made me admire her more for what she does on a day to day basis (and bear in mind that most people her age would have retired and been enjoying Saga holidays for the last twenty years). Marr is a very smooth writer and I found this to be a very engaging read and a good introduction to the British monarchy of the 20th century.

Heather you seem to be having a very productive weekend! Looking forward also to grabbing hold of the new Ann Patchett although your review does intimate that it may be a touch heavy going in places.

I am not a Royalist by any stretch of the imagination, unlike my mother who still belongs to that select group who plan their Christmas Day around the Queen's Message. I must say that there is much to be admired about QEII. Andrew Marr is a good journalist as I recall but it is a shame he has such wispy hair.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Two very nice reviews - and they both look interesting. I have not read Bel Canto, so I think I will start with that.

OK, I am going to keep my eyes open for State of Wonder now - I keep seeing it in bookshops but I am being good this year. I liked Bel Canto but didn't love it, but 4.25 stars from you is pretty good.

And I am an ardent republican but I will also look in the library for the Andrew Marr book. I like his writing and like you I think the Queen does a lot of great work. (I also think there are big differences between NZ and England, and would be much less of a republican if I were English. And I confess to having a Princess Di scrapbook when I was 9 and 10 - it must still be in Mum and Dad's garage!)

>99 souloftherose: - a footnote at the end is an endnote. I like that word.

>122 souloftherose: - he wears his cycle helmet ok, so a hat with a string would probably work. Time for a shopping trip.

Heather, the book about the Queen sounds like it's worth seeking out. As one of those rebel Yanks, I could use a good grounding in the British constitutional monarchy! :) I know Andrew Marr from a BBC podcast that I listen to regularly called "Start the Week." Even when I'm not sure the topics are quite my cup of tea, his guests are so intelligent and thoughtful that I find myself riveted in spite of myself.

#128 & 129 I wonder if I would feel less pro-monarchy if it weren't for Queen Elizabeth II. I could imagine feeling differently if I'd lived through the Hanoverian or Stuart monarchies. From what I've read in Marr's book and from some recent BBC documentaries, the Windsor dynasty starting with George V really changed what monarchy was in the UK and established a strong work/service ethic which I think our current Queen has carried on. Admittedly, they did that to survive whilst their cousins across Europe were being deposed during and after WWI.

One of the many interesting points Marr makes is that a lot of the Commonwealth countries (and I can't remember which ones off the top of my head) have only promised to stay within the Commonwealth whilst the current Queen is its head. Given that Prince Charles doesn't seem to generate the same level of respect as his mother does (Marr is not a fan either), I'm not sure what that will mean once the current Queen dies.

Anyway, Royalist meanderings over! :-) Although Cush, just to warn you, Marr is not a fan of Princess Di either...

#128 Paul, I didn't mean to give the impression State of Wonder was heavy-going. I found it quite an easy read, it was more that after I'd finished I realised there might be more depth to it than I thought at first. It doesn't give you all the answers at the end though.

#129 I liked Bel Canto even more than State of Wonder Mamie so I hope you enjoy it.

#131 Oops, thank you - I will correct my review :-) Good luck with the shopping trip - I think it's supposed to stay quite warm and sunny for the rest of this week which is lovely but I have to keep reminding myself that we really need rain!

#132 Oops, took too long to type my last post and missed yours Julia. I hope you find the Andrew Marr book interesting - it's definitely made me want to read his other books on 20th century Britain because I really feel like I know very little about the history and politics of the last 100 years and, if this book is anything to go by, he's very readable.

I've seen The Real Elizabeth on the library shelf - you review has made me more interested in picking it up. Thanks!

Long overdue catch up... what a lot of reading and other things I've missed. I'm glad you enjoyed your re-read of Willoughby Chase. I've been slowly reading my way through the more recent books in that series once I discovered thanks to LT that she'd written so many more.

I'm tempted by the idea of a trip to London to hear Hilary Mantel speak about her new book. I'd have to find somewhere to stay over as I wouldn't get a train back by the time the talk was over, I guess. I'll check out some options. There are still lots of seats free in the cheaper seats. Are you on the upper/cheaper or lower/more expensive ones?

Would be nice to see Mantel talking about her new book and especially her fairly unique way of writing historical novels which she started so splendidly with A Place of Greater Safety which I still view as her best work.

Just popping out to speak. Hi, Heather! I haven't gotten into the *Dickens Companion* really, but it looks quite interesting. I was wondering where historians would say he came down in the gamut of Victorian morality, for instance....and behold! There it is! Dickens & Morality. I haven't read the entry yet, but there it is along with composition, Dickens's methods of, Garrick Club, novelists and the novel during Dickens's lifetime, and royalty. I think it's quite a reference! Nor have I been reading *D&S* for the past week or so.............my favorite aunt died, and for reading, I've been flipping pages through We Need to Talk about Kevin. I've been mesmerized, but I'll be glad to finish and get on to something a little more upbeat.
Hearing H. Mantel - gosh oh golly!

Stopping by to say hi, Heather. I picked up a copy of State of Wonder because everywhere I go it's featured and now it's on the Orange List. I don't think I'll get to it right away, but it's in the TBR pile.

I'm a big fan of the British Monarchy, and followed every step of Kate and Will's visit to Canada, even watching live streaming on the computer in the middle of the night. I too am keen to read a book on the Queen's Jubilee. The Diamond Queen sounds very good ! Thanks for the review!

#135 Hope you enjoy it Dejah (and it's thanks to a discussion on Paul's thread that I now know where your moniker comes from! Must read some Edgar Rice Burroughs one day)

#136 Hi Genny! It would be lovely to see you in London - I got one of the more expensive seats when I booked. I've been thinking about making a day or half day trip of it and going to an exhibition and/or the Persephone bookshop again (which would be very dangerous for my book buying resolutions) but haven't really decided yet.

#137 Paul, A Place of Greater Safety is one of the many books by Mantel that I own and would like to read this year. With your recommendation I'm looking forward to it even more!

#138 Peggy, the Dickens Companion sounds fascinating but I'm so sorry to hear about your aunt. I've been taking a break from Dickens for less serious reasons but hopefully I will get back to BR soon.

#139 Hi Deb. Hope you enjoy State of Wonder and The Diamond Queen. I didn't really follow Kate and Will's wedding but I've been quite interested to read about the charitable work she's been doing since they got married (and inevitably the clothes she's wearing). She seems like she has her head screwed on.

Book #45 A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin - 4 stars
Source: Spousal unit
Original publication date: 1996



"When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

After all the discussions on LT about this book and the accompanying HBO TV series, I have finally read it and can only really echo what everyone else has already said. This is a truly epic, brutal and occasionally disturbing tale with so much backstabbing and plotting amongst the characters that I had to read it in quite small sections so that I didn't get overwhelmed by the darkness and the detail. But despite that, I can already feel the second book in the series calling to me. A dark fantasy soap opera? Yes, but a good one and once you start reading you have to keep going to find out what happens next.

And cross-posted from the children's/YA thread, the 2012 Carnegie Medal shortlist was announced this morning.

Shortlisted books include

My Name is Mina by David Almond
Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans
The Midnight Zoo by Sophia Hartnett
Everybody Jam by Al Lewis
Trash by Andy Mulligan
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I've only read A Monster Calls so far and thought it was superb but Trash, My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece and Between Shades of Gray are all on my wishlist and I just got The Midnight Zoo out from the library.

And now I need to do the next few steps in my attempt to make a chocolate beetroot cake. Back later!

Chocolate beetroot cake sounds amazing. One of my local cafés makes a wonderful beetroot cake, moist and pinkish with a pink butter icing. I would imagine the addition of chocolate could only improve it further!

I've just sent you a PM about the possible trip to London to hear Mantel.

Heather, the cake looks delicious! Eagerly waiting to hear how it turns out because it even sounds healthy (as cakes go).

Interesting looking cake Heather - hope it turned out nicely.

We went shopping today and I found a hat he didn't mind wearing. We spent the afternoon playing at he park and I didn't have to worry about the sun

Hi Heather, making my way around a handful of threads this evening and enjoyed catching up with you. I'm glad you liked the first instalment of The Hunger Games. I can't wait for season 2 to start... that'll be this Sunday. Very very exciting.

I didn't realize I'd encouraged you to read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Only fitting that you should in turn encourage me to actually pick it up.

I haven't read any of the books on the Carnegie Medal list, though I know many people loved A Monster Calls on LT. I'm curious about My Name is Mina because, if I'm not mistaken it's about one of the characters from Skellig, which I didn't like very much, and Mina was probably the one person in the story that made it all more bearable for me.

I'm very curious about Gillespie and I and may have to borrow it from the library soon. I'm glad you enjoyed State of Wonder, another book I look forward to picking up. I downloaded The Song of Achilles this week so we might get to it around the same time. Finally, I'm looking forward to your comments on The Dovekeepers, another title I'm very intrigued by.

Heather, I loved Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. The illustrations and story were incredible and well deserving of a Newbery award.

I hope your sleep patterns are improving...As you know, it is so darn frustrating when you cannot sleep and then need energy the next day.

>142 souloftherose:/143 that cake sounds delicious....moist I bet. Looking forward to hearing how it turned out!

eta: just copied recipe out, now I have to bake it

Hi Heather, I noticed you listed Rose In Bloom for TIOLI Challenge #20, so I joined in. I have been planning to read it ever since I read Eight Cousins earlier this year, so thanks for the memory jog. :)

Heather, I want to thank you again for mentioning the Carnegie shortlist of books. Last night I read



You might give it a try.

Ah -- another innocent falls under the allure of GRR Martin!!!!!

#143, 144, 145 & 149 The final verdict on the cake from me and my husband was yummy! The chocolate meant that you couldn't really see the pinkness from the beetroot. It was quite an intensive/complicated cake to prepare and as I have another recipe for a chocolate potato cake which follows a similar method but produces (in my opinion) a nicer cake, I'll probably make the potato variant if I feel like making something that involved again. Still, cake is cake.

#146 Hooray! It's cooled down quite a bit here but hopefully there will be more sunshine to come.

#147 Hi Ilana. Hunger Games? Game of Thrones? I would like to see The Hunger Games at the cinema now you mention it. I also can't wait for season 2 of GoT but I'm going to - although I'm tempted to subscribe to satellite TV (I think you would call it cable in North America?) to watch it, it's really not worth it for just one show. Unfortunately HBO seem to wait a year to release the DVD which is very canny of them but frustrating... I will watch season 2 on DVD in 2013 (sob, sob).

I think you're right about My Name is Mina. I haven't read Skellig although it's sort of on my planned reading list because it won the Carnegie Medal itself in 1998.

I loved Gillespie and I and 'favourited' Jane Harris after finishing it. I'm looking forward to Song of Achilles but slightly less keen on The Dovekeepers now after Kerry said she was struggling with it. The cover is gorgeous though.

#148 Hi Linda - Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was a lovely book. I think my sleeping is better but I'm still tired. It's a mystery.

#150 You're welcome Judy - I think we read Eight Cousins as a shared read last year too!

#151 I'm glad you enjoyed it Linda - that was one I picked up on my last library visit so I'll read it this month.

#152 :-) Well, if I was innocent before watching the TV series I'm certainly not now! I'm going to space them out...

Well, I had all kinds of plans for catching up on reviews and threads this weekend and instead I felt so tired that I just curled up into a little ball yesterday and read. So now I'm even more behind.

A quick March wrap-up:

Books read in March but not reviewed/commented on yet:




Total books read Jan-Mar: 52 (!)
Books acquired: 23
Books read from TBR pile: 31
Net reduction in TBR pile!!!
ETA: I have also read nearly 300 pages of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. That's only 20% of the way through the book though.

However, thanks to a Waterstones deal and a kindle books sale on amazon, April is going to be a tougher month...

Reading plans for this week include some Dickens (try to finish Barnaby Rudge and dip into American Notes for General Circulation), Tuesdays with Morrie for my reading group (worried I'm not going to like this one) and starting Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy with The Knife of Never Letting Go which I am very excited about. And, of course, Clarissa.

Only two days at work this week due to some well-timed annual leave and the long bank holiday weekend. Feel like I could sleep for the whole of next weekend but hopefully I can do some reviews and catch up on here at some point.

Oh DUH! Yes, I did mean Game of Thrones of course. Games, Game... same thing really, right? ;-) Maybe I've got them confused because I did see the Hunger Games movie on Monday last. It was quite true to the book and well done. I even liked the last song by Taylor Swift and got it on iTunes (that's no doubt the first and very last time you'll read me saying I like anything by that singer!)

I've looked up The Midnight Zoo and Gillespie and I at the library and they don't have either at this point. Which isn't so bad considering I've got over 25 books borrowed at the moment, which I can barely make time for...

Glad to hear you're getting some time off this week.

I'll be joining the group read of David Copperfield this month. I think I may have read it as a child, but that would no doubt have been an abridged version if I did. I'm off to try to write one-line reviews to get my March reading sorted out. Wish me luck!

#155 I just managed to get up to date on your thread to find you'd been over here whilst I was over there! I'm going to be lurking on the DC threads I expect but not reading it this month - if I stick to chronological order I think I might squeeze it in at the end of this year but so far we're a quarter of the way through the year and I still haven't finished Barnaby Rudge!

Have you splashed out in the Kindle sale, or what are you tempted by so far?

25 library books borrowed?! I hope you get more than one renew on those... haha. I'd be clutching them at the end of six weeks going "nnoooooo, my precioussssss", but perhaps you read faster than me...

31 books read from your tbr pile, I'm impressed!
See people, we can do it if we try :)

#158 The nice part about the library books is I get to renew the original 3-week loan twice, for a total of 9 weeks, which usually gives me plenty of time. But not always. :-\

My library is very kind - a 4 week loan period, and indefinite renewals, unless someone else requests the book. It encourages bad habits though - some of my current loans I've had for many months, reading more recently acquired ones first and neglecting the older ones simply because I can keep on renewing. I really must target those next...

Well done on the net reduction in the TBR pile, Heather!.

154: Heather, I think it's great that you "curled up into a little ball yesterday and read." How else are you going to keep up with the pace you've set for yourself? 52 books already. Phenomenal!

I have Gillespie and I waiting for me at the library. I can hardly wait to see the cover on my edition. The one you posted is quite different from the black and white one I've seen. I like both of them, but I'm more interested about the inside of the book! It sounds intriguing.

Nice Stats - 52 books read and 31 out of your TBR, IMPRESSIVE!! Way to go!

Hello Heather! I hope your days off are lovely and relaxing!

Enjoy your time off!

I like your description of A Game of Thrones as a dark fantasy soap opera :-)
I just finished book 4 A Feast for Crows, yes I kept on reading, book 5a and 5b are waiting on the shelf.

160/161: Oh, that would do it! We only get one renewal here, so I have to be careful about what I borrow. I wish we got more renewals!

Hi Heather. Like the march book cover wrap up. Reminds me that I have to read a Dorothy l. Sayers crime soon.

Impressed by your first reading-quarter. I can understand that you are getting behind on the reviews :)

I too want to read more Dickens this special year. Can recommend David Copperfield. Loved it!

#154 - Very impressive March statistics! And that reminds me that I have to get some Dickens in this year - I'm planning on Little Dorrit. Have a great weekend!

Waveing hello, and thanks for the comments on State of Wonder. I have yet to read any Patchet, but she's on my horizons.

Hi Heather- I really like the Chaos Walking trilogy. A friend of mine at work is already on the 2nd one, after I recommended them. Enjoy!

Heather: You've had a great start to the year -- not only have you reduced your TBR pile, but you have had some great reads. I'll be anxious to hear about your thoughts on your most recent reading.

Happy Easter/Passover/Pesach/long bank holiday weekend everyone! I've had a very quiet few days off which was what I needed: mainly reading and knitting with occasional bits of sorting around the house. I have also had a bit of a splurge on books this month thanks to a Waterstone's online offer and a kindle sale.

So, in answer to Luci's message (#157) above, so far I've only bought three books in the kindle sale:

The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (book #2 in the Chaos Walking trilogy of which I've started book #1 so very well timed)
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
The Dickens Dictionary by John Sutherland - not quite sure if this is serious or humerous but I do like John Sutherland

However, I have my eye on another 6 books in the sale which doesn't end until Thursday so it could get worse. I'm also considering (and will probably end up purchasing):

Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson - this won the Costa First Novel award for 2011
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick - 2012 Orange longlist
Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich - also published as Bright-Sided in the US
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee - won the Pulitzer Prize and the Guardian First Book Award
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - I have read this before but it was so long ago that I don't remember much about it other than finding it fascinating so I'd like to reread it
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine

And my Waterstones order contained:

Revelation by C. J. Sansom (for holiday reading later this month)
A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor (group read)
The Song of Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde

#158, 160, 161, 167 The library system here is similar to Ilana's except I think I get one additional renewal so in theory I could keep a book for 12 weeks. In practice, most of the books I request are hot books and there's normally a reservation queue after me so I need to return the book at the end of the three week period. However long I'm allowed to keep the books for I seem to end up rushing to get them finished before they have to go back...

#159 Thanks Megan :-)

#162 I hope you like Gillespie Donna. The black and white cover was used for the hardback edition in the UK (perhaps with a bit of brown added?) but for the paperback they went for the bright pink cover I used. I'm really not a pink person but it's on my kindle so it doesn't matter.

#163 - 165 Thank you Mamie, Dee and Dejah!

#166 Glad to hear you're enjoying the Martin books so much Anita. My husband has just started rereading them after we finished watching the HBO series together and he's enjoying them at least as much as he did the first time on this reread.

#168 Hi Carsten - thanks for visiting. David Copperfield is very good - it used to be my favourite but I haven't read it for absolutely ages. I know there's a group read of DC this month but I'm trying to reread Dickens in publication order and DC won't be up for me for a while.

#169 Hope you enjoy Little Dorrit Kerri - that's another good Dickens :-)

#170 Hi Ardene. I hope you enjoy Patchett when you get to her.

#171 Hi Mark. I'm halfway through the first book and I think it's going to be a great trilogy. I had to stop and read something else for a bit because I was so tired last week that I was getting a bit too emotionally caught up in it, but then in a way that just shows how good the writing is if it can have that effect.

#172 Thanks Beth - hopefully thoughts coming soonish.

Going back to my Jan-March summary back in msg #154, I realised I hadn't done a list of my favourite reads so far this year. Looking back at my list I haven't rated anything as 5 stars so far this year but there have been quite a few that I considered ranking 5 stars and ended up giving 4.5 stars to:

Children's/YA:

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken

Adult:

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Room by Emma Donoghue
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor
Troubles by J. G. Farrell

Now catch up on reviews here or catch up on threads? Decisions, decisions...

I am reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase right now and loving it. I wish I had known about this one when the kids were younger because it would have made a great read aloud book for them. How did I miss it? The Little White Horse and A View of the Harbour are both in my TBR.

Looks like a good haul on books up there, and some good ones in the list that you are still thinking about. Glad you some down time; hope you are having a great holiday weekend!

The prequel to the Ness trilogy is available free on Kindle or was when last I looked. I got a Vine review copy of The Emperor of all Maladies and recommend it, though it does have lots of footnotes. I've bought 4 of the other 5, not the Dawkins, and hope to get to Ozick this month, maybe after Mockingjay.

I like your list of favorites from this year, there some great ones on there!
Hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend!

#175 Yay - so glad you're enjoying The Wolves of Willoughby Chase Mamie. I finished the sequel, Black Hearts in Battersea, this weekend and also enjoyed it - they are such fun books.

#176 Oh yes, thanks for the reminder about the Ness prequel Luci, I do have that on my kindle as well. I had a look at the preview of The Emperor of Maladies and it looked as if the endnotes/footnotes were linked in the kindle version - decisions, decisions.

#177 Thanks Chelle!

Black Hearts is another great one - Dido Twite is a wonderful character.

#179 Dido Twite is wonderful - I struggled to resist immediately buying the next book, Nightbirds on Nantucket, to find out what happens to her.

I'm still in a reviews funk and feeling rather tired today. We went out to lunch for my dad's birthday and now I'm about to snuggle up on the sofa with The Enchanted April (because it's definitely not an enchanted April here at the moment - it's cold and grey and raining) and then do some knitting in front of Grease on TV later on.

I sympathize with the review funk - I'm in one, too. I'm another who'll be reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - it's always great to be reminded of an book from childhood!

I hope your evening was restful - and that your April improves. Maybe the May flowers will be spectacular....

The Enchanted April is such a lovely read for a miserable day. I really envy you. We've been decorating all day - which hasn't been much fun at all.

Hi Heather

My notes indicate that back in 2009, Stasia recommended The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Thanks for your excellent comments. I'll try to read this soon.

I really enjoyed The Wolves of Willoughby Chase recently. It probably was Stasia who got me on to it.

Heather: This is a dangerous thread. I have all of your favorite books for the year on my wishlist -- must get to them soon. Decisions, decisions!

As far as reviews, while I would love to hear your comments on the books you have read, I also believe that LT should be fun, so you shouldn't HAVE to do anything you don't feel like doing :)

Ohh Between Shades of Grey is on my wishlist. I saw it at the bookstore and it looks to be very good! You've got some great reads. I love Black Hearts in Battersea, as well as Nightbirds on Nantucket. I had so hoped to share those books with my kids, but I have two sons - so, well we enjoyed many books together, Joan Aiken wasn't one of authors! :)

#181 Thanks Dejah - we have sunshine today, although it's been interspersed with some heavy showers, but sunshine always makes me feel more cheerful.

#182 Ugh, decorating. Hope it went well.

#183 Lynda, I hope you enjoy The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I get so many recommendations from this group that books often linger on my wishlist for years before I manage to get to them. Sometimes it just takes another recommendation to remind me why I wanted to read it.

#185 Hi Beth - sorry to hit you with so many book bullets! I've done one review and I think it was the one that was causing the review blockage so hopefully I will be able to catch up with some more later today.

#186 That's a shame your boys weren't interested in Joan Aiken Deb. I'm so looking forward to being able to introduce my friends' children to some great children's authors when they're older but so far they've all had boys - I'll just have to wait and see what sort of books they like when they're older.

Book #46 Catharine and Other Writings by Jane Austen - 4.5 stars
Source: Birthday present 2011
Original publication date: ? This edition 1993
Category: 18th century literature



This Oxford World's Classics edition contains the contents of three notebooks Jane Austen filled with writings as teenager (commonly known as her juvenilia) as well as some verses and prayers found amongst her later writings and the Plan of a Novel, according to hints from various quarters.

The most well known of her juvenilia pieces are Catharine, or the Bower which is an unfinished novel and Love and Freindship (sic), a novel told through a series of letters. Love and Freindship was my favourite of this collection; I thought it was outrageously funny and a brilliant parody of the over-sensibility shown by heroines in books at the time.

From Love and Freindship:
"My beloved Laura (said she to me a few Hours before she died) take warning from my unhappy End and avoid the imprudent conduct which had occasioned it... Beware of fainting-fits... Though at the time they may be refreshing and agreable yet beleive me they will in the end, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove destructive to your Constitution... My fate will teach you this.. I die a Martyr to my greif for the loss of Augustus.. One fatal swoon has cost me my Life.. Beware of swoons Dear Laura.... A frenzy fit is not one quarter so pernicious; it is an exercise to the Body and if not too violent, is I dare say conducive to Health in its consequences—Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint—" (all spellings as per Austen's manuscript)

Overall, I was struck by two things whilst reading these early works. Firstly, that Jane Austen was not just incredibly well read as a teenager (which would be a not inconsiderable achievement on its own) but also how well she understood the structure of novels at such a young age to be able to turn that structure on its head in her own writings and what an accomplishment that was.

Secondly, how different these early pieces feel compared to her later writings. I saw someone comment somewhere that Jane Austen's juvenilia reads like Monty Python and I think that sums up the surreal humour of these early works very well. When I say they are outrageously funny that's because the characters in these stories so often do behave outrageously: they lie, cheat and steal, sometimes murder and any marriages that take place in the stories are not done legally. These are stories written to be read aloud to friends and family, not to be published, and they are often shocking; the Austen family must have had a very well-developed sense of humour to allow and encourage their teenage daughter to write such things. They are very different in style to her published writings (although most similar to Northanger Abbey), and this is why Margaret Doody has theorised (in the Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen) that Austen had to change her writing style in order to get her works published in the more strict early 19th century.

From Margaret Doody's introduction:
"She could not laugh so loudly in the later works. She could not be as wild as she had been in the notebook volumes. She had to become genteel and act like a lady."

I was bowled over by the skill Austen shows in these early works (some written when she was half my age). They're not subtle, they're surreal rather than realistic and they are very different from her published novels but I don't think they should be considered as immature writings or failed attempts at her later books. I think they stand alone on their own merits if you can accept them as something very different from the Jane Austen you may be familiar with.

If you enjoyed Austen's humour and sense of fun in Northanger Abbey and Lady Susan then I think you will find those characteristics present in these early stories too. If you've not been that keen on Austen because you think she just writes nice romance stories where the hero and heroine always live happily ever after then these early works might give you a different perspective on her as a writer.

If you're not familiar with 18th century fiction then I'd recommend reading an edition with notes to help you spot the references. I thought the Oxford World's Classics edition edited by Margaret Anne Doody and Douglas Murray was very good: the notes don't just tell you which novels are being referenced but also explain what the editors think Jane Austen was intending with the references which I found very valuable.

And from Margaret Doody's introduction and the endnotes I have wishlisted another difficult to find reference book on Jane Austen: Jane Austen's Beginnings edited by J. David Grey (currently only one copy available second hand for £25 plus shipping from Japan) but I think I can get a copy through inter-library loan. I've also wishlisted The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar which I've seen mentioned before and looks really interesting.

Just dropping in to say hi. Finished The Wolves book and loved it. Now I need to get my hands on the sequel.

My son is 17 now, but when he was little he loved dinosaur books - and we read hundreds of them! Then as he got older, say 3rd to 5th grade, he loved survival stories and books with spies in them - so authors like Gary Paulson, Jean Craighead George, and Anthony Horowitz. From middle school on he has loved fantasy and science fiction. Lord of the Rings is his very favorite.

Great, great review, Heather. I gave you the first of what should be many thumbs up.

Heather - what a lovely and informative review! A thumb from me, too. We must have been cross posting as your review was not there just a moment ago.

# 180 I am not a fan of The Enchanted April but I am glad it helps you out on a rainy day. It's grey, cold, windy AND rainy here too.

I love Grease! I have its soundtrack album that I inherited from my mom who fondly remembers it from when she was a teenager. Now I listen to it and love the songs!

#188 - Excellent review! However, I should probably tackle one of her published novels before trying this.

Very interesting review of the Austen work, Heather. I am intrigued! And off to thumb now.

you're in the hot reviews on the home page!

Hi, Heather...I'm passing through, but you got me with a couple of your recommendations--Wolves of Willoughby and State of Wonder. Thanks!

Karen O.

Hi Heather
Congratulations on reading 46 books thus far!

Linda - don't you mean 57 books so far? In any event Heather congratulations on some great reading.

188: Oh, I loved that review (and I'm not alone judging by all those thumbs)! It's good to hear that Austen's early writing is worth reading too.

Heather: Wonderful review. It makes me want to pick up Catherine and other writings again.

Wonderful review of the Austen. Have you read the Tomalin bio? She suggests that a lot of Austen's early efforts were influenced by living in a house full of rowdy boys (her father's students).

Thank you for all the kind comments about the review (and the thumbs - I don't think I've ever had a review with even half as many thumbs before!) :-) So thank you to Dejah, Mamie, Kerri, Laura, Jo, Dee, Beth and Lucy.

#189 Mamie, I loved dinosaurs when I was a little girl. I wanted to be a palaeontologist (I didn't know that was what it was called then) and my favourite outing was to the Natural History Museum in London. Most of the dinosaur books I read though were non-fiction ones.

#192 Grease was good fun Porua. One of the standard TV channels seemed to be doing some nice feel-good films over the long bank holiday weekend. We watched the most recent film of the musical Hairspray too. I will watch and enjoy almost anything with singing and synchronised dancing (but not if it's a reality TV show).

#196 Hi Karen - hope you enjoy those two!

#198 I'm sure Linda was just trying not to draw attention to the fact that I am 11 reviews behind Paul :-P

#201 Lucy, I read the Tomalin bio last year sometime I think. I can't remember if it was Tomalin or something else I read which made a point about the Austen family expecting James Austen, her eldest brother, to be the writer and speculating that Austen was trying to keep up with her brother at first, the way younger siblings do want to do whatever the older ones are doing. Interestingly, her family were still apparently referring to James Austen as the writer of the family even after Austen had published some of her books and he hadn't published anything - must have been quite hard for him to see his little sister become more successful even if she was a woman and did write novels! But yes, perhaps there is an argument about her boldness in her early writings being partly due to the influence of all those rowdy boys!

Book #47 Gillespie and I by Jane Harris - 4.5 stars
Source: Amazon kindle purchase
Original publication date: 2011
Category: Orange Prize



"It would appear that I am to be the first to write a book on Gillespie. Who, if not me, was dealt that hand?"

In one sense, this should be a more straightforward book to review because I think you get the most out of reading it by knowing as little as possible about what happens! Told by the elderly Harriet, this is the story of Harriet Baxter and her friendship with the Gillespie family in Glasgow in the 1880s. Like Jane Harris' first novel, The Observations, this is another intriguing Victorian tale with an unforgettable main character that draws you into its world. One of those books that made me want to go straight back to the beginning and start again once I'd got to the end.

#186,#187 I hadn't realised Joan Aiken was particularly considered a girls' writer but saying that she wasn't one of my son's favourites either. He quite enjoyed The Wolves of Willoughby Chase but wasn't keen to read anything else. Luckily our tastes in books overlapped quite a lot and generally I found that he liked a lot of my favourite books.

I do think that books are marketed far too much as either girls' books or boys' books now. My son recently read The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding which he really enjoyed and I was looking out for the next book in the series. But the covers have changed and rather than having a fairly unisex design they now look clearly aimed at girls so there's no way he's going to read any more.

I hope my two might at least read Black Hearts in Battersea, centred on Simon - Dido wasn't originally planned to be a series character - the book about Owen and the Felix storiies. And perhaps Midnight is a Place.

Heather...

I'm excited! I found a great book on the bookcloseouts.com site and could not resist purchasing it!

It arrived today and I hope to spend time reading it next week when I am on vacation.

Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett

>202 souloftherose:: I'm planning to read both Harris books in the next couple months. I can't wait!

Just got The Observations off of PBS. I am looking forward to it and now will be looking for Gillespie and I. Book bullets! Argh!

PS: Your Austen review just got a thumb from me too -- it was absolutely excellent. I've read Lady Susan and the partials, but not her juvenalia, so there's another thing that must move up the list.

Nice review for Gillespie and I; adding it to the WL.

Going back to the dinosaurs for a moment- those books were ALL nonfiction. He was completely obsessed with dinosaurs through first and second grade. I was reading, eyes rolling to the back of my head, and he was soaking up every word. He knew every name; he was like a walking encyclopedia, and I kept saying each time he came home from the school library, "Did you check out that fiction section I was talking about? I've heard good things about those books!" But alas, he just wanted the "true version". Anyway, I lived through it, and I must say, I learned quite a bit about dinosaurs.

#204 & 205 I don't think I'm a very good judge of which books are boys' books and which are girls' (if there are such divisions). I read pretty much anything as a child and my brother refused to read anything! I hope your boys do enjoy Joan Aiken when they're older Luci.

#206 That sounds great Linda - although I have to admit I wasn't sure who any of the people mentioned in the books title were until I googled them but now that I've done that it looks like a fascinating story. I'd love to hear what you think of the book.

#207 Ooh, what a treat you have in store Laura. Hope you enjoy them!

#208 Thanks Sarah and I hope you enjoy the Harris books (sorry for the book bullets - it was definitely friendly fire!)

#209 Great story Mamie. I wonder why children are so fascinated by dinosaurs? You've reminded me that I have a grown-up book about fossils in my TBR pile which I picked up to see if I would still find the subject as fascinating. I should bump it nearer the top of Mount TBR.

Hi heather, 11 reviews behind just means you are reading reading reading. Id love to be 11 reviews behind :)

Heather - enjoyed your review of Gillespie & I and am pleased that it is waiting on the shelves for early attention. Nice to see you have the same gaudy cover as I also.

I haven't started Gillespie and I but it is home from the library. Mine is a trade paperback with the darker cover. Never mind what it looks like...I just want to clear the decks a bit so I can give it my undivided attention.

Thumb from me too for Catharine and Other Writings. As you may remember, I wasn't all that happy with my first experiences of JA's published novels, precisely because I found them too genteel and flowery for my tastes. On the other hand, I really liked Northanger Abbey and found the humour in that book quite refreshing, so it goes on the wishlist as well.

As for Gillespie and I, it landed on the WL from your first mention of it here. They have two copies at the library, but I'm not sure I'll be able to resist purchasing it. Same with The Observations, which they only have... in French translation. Always get royally on my nerves when they only have a work in translation and no original version. Argh!

#211 Hi Megan. I have been reading, reading, reading some more and now I'm even further behind! I need to spend some time reviewing, reviewing, reviewing!

#212 That cover is certainly gaudy Paul! Mine's on my kindle so I don't really mind but I admire you for buying such a pink book in a bookshop :-)

#213 "I just want to clear the decks a bit so I can give it my undivided attention." Gillespie was a difficult book to put down Donna - hope you can clear the decks soon.

#214 Thanks for the thumb Ilana. How frustrating about the library only having The Observations in translation!

Hi Heather- Opinion seems to be divided on Gillespie and I, but the people who love it, REALLY love it! I'll have to give that one a try.

Heather, thanks for another enticing endorsement of Gillespie and I. I haven't read it yet, but I LOVE books that initiate the amount of discussion/division that this one has. It's on the list!

Hi Heather, I have been swinging back and forth on Gillespie and I, but I think I will now add it to the wishlist.

The Jane Austen books are going on my wish-list.

I read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase late last year, with the intention of continuing with the whole series - when I finally get my hands on it. Thanks for the reminder!

Thanks Mark, Nancy and Judy - I hope you all enjoy Gillespie!

Well, I am now n reviews behind, where n is an increasingly ridiculous number so I'm going to try and blitz through some today.

Book #48 A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor - 4.5 stars
Source: Waterstones.com
Original publication date: 1947
Category: The other Elizabeth Taylor



Another wonderful novel from someone who is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. I made the mistake of reading everyone else's reviews and joining in the discussions in the Virago group before writing my own thoughts down and now I'm not sure whether the thoughts I have are mine or whether I'm borrowing other people's. I'm going to quote a couple of sentences from Sarah Waters' introduction to my edition which particularly struck me:

"There is certainly little melodrama in Taylor's novels; there are no heroes, and no improbable villains, only flawed, likeable characters negotiating the ordinary, small crises of marriage, family and friendship."

"...her fascination is with the collision of personalities and the deceptions and and self-deceptions practised between them."

There are a lot of excellent reviews on the book page if you're interested in finding out more about this book.

Book #49 Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers - 3.5 stars
Source: Bookmooch
Original publication date: 1932



I've struggled a little bit with the last two full-length Sayers' novels I've read (Have His Carcase and Five Red Herrings). I think, in each one, Sayers has been trying to write not just a crime/mystery novel but a novel that says something about crime/mystery novels whereas I read them as 'just' a crime/mystery novel and was left feeling slightly baffled about what was going on.

I felt Have His Carcase started well: Harriet Vane is on a walking holiday somewhere along the coast of England and stops to rest for lunch on a deserted beach. After falling asleep (thanks to Tristam Shandy) she wakes up to discover a corpse whose throat has been cut on a solitary rock on the beach. There are no footsteps on the beach other than those of the corpse and Harriet, the body is still warm, the blood hasn't clotted and the tide is coming in and will cover the rock and the body within the next few hours. Harriet is an author of crime novels herself and I found the first few chapters very interesting as Harriet muses on the differences between the imagined crimes and the imagined detective she writes about and the reality of the grisly murder scene she's discovered but although I enjoyed the book, the solution to the puzzle felt too complicated. So complicated, that even now, I would struggle to explain exactly what happened and why. I suspect that if I'd read more early crime fiction and had approached this book expecting more than a standard crime novel, I would probably have got more out of it.

"I have seen unpleasant cases, difficult cases, complicated cases, and even contradictory cases, but a case founded on stark unreason I have never met before."

Also, I have a lovely old 1960s Penguin edition of this book but I have no idea what Penguin thought they were doing with this particular cover.

Book #50 Troubles by J. G. Farrell - 4.5 stars
Source: Amazon kindle
Original publication date: 1970
Category: @Janetinlondon memorial read



I'm always slightly intimidated by the Booker Prize but Troubles was a joy to read even though I never did get round to commenting on the group read thread. I found Farrell's novel about the slow fall of the British Empire and the troubles in what is now the Republic of Ireland after WWI to be eminently readable and far more humourous than I expected. I sometimes struggle with magical realism and similar techniques but the metaphor of the decaying hotel for the decline of the British Empire worked really well.

Book #51 Tallis' Third Tune by Ellen Ekstrom - 3 stars
Source: Free ebook from publisher
Original publication date: 2011



Given the size of my TBR piles and wishlist, I don't normally feel the need to take risks on books that I haven't received recommendations before but I decided to join a couple of other members of the 75 group who were reading this one because I was struck by how well the author has been engaging with the wider LT community.

As I mentioned above, I often struggle with books that incorporate magical realism or similar literary devices where strange/impossible things happen which aren't explained within the context of the book. For this reason, I think I didn't enjoy Tallis as much as other readers did, but I was pleasantly surprised by both the quality of the writing and the quality of the ebook I was reading.

Alice Martin is given the chance to relive certain sections of her life, particularly certain relationships she has had. Famous historical characters are on hand to drop hints and provide advice in a typical English country village setting.

My problem (and I should stress that I think this is my problem and not the book's) is that I wanted to know what the rules were (why certain historical characters and not others? can anyone go back and change things? what were the rules about changing things?) and either I didn't pick up on the clues the story was giving me as to why things happened this way or it just wasn't that sort of book. There were a lot of touches I liked, particularly the way the author wove the music that was significant to Alice through the story (Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is also one of my favourites), Alice's interest in history and the relationship between Alice and Quinn. Unfortunately for me, I just didn't seem able to get over the fact that I didn't feel like I understood why things were happening.

Book #52 Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L. Sayers - 3.75 stars
Source: Bookmooch
Original publication date: 1933

(another weird stickman cover from Penguin)

A collection of Sayers' short stories, some featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, some featuring her salesman detective Montague Egg and some standalone's. I enjoyed all of these, all of the stories had a slightly sinister or spooky element to them and I fell in love Montague Egg and his quotations from his salesman's handbook.

And, at long last, that brings me up to the end of March!

#219 You're welcome :-)

Always interested in your reading and your write-ups, Heather. As a long-time Sayers fan, I must say that you now have the worst of Lord Peter behind you. I hope you'll continue with the really good ones now! Tallis' Third Tune is appealing, and I can get it for very little on my Kindle. Since I just splurged on a couple from the Orange short list, I'll wait - or maybe not.....

Well done for getting to the end of March's reading!

I recently picked up a second hand copy of a J G Farrell book- the one about India - and am quite intrigued by him. He sounds an intelligent and entertaining writer.

A View of The Harbour was just wonderful, wasn't it? I seem to love Taylor's writing increasingly more, the more I read it. Can't wait till Saturday :)

Wow! You have been busy. Nice reviews. I need to get to Elizabeth Taylor, as I have not read anything by her before.

I hadnt realised Troubles was a Booker Winner. Will add to my list.....however improbable it is that I will get to it this century :)

*waving* at Heather

Nice reviews! Troubles has been on my wishlist for a little while -- now it's quite a bit nearer the top. :)

Wow, you've blasted through a bunch of books...... I can't seem to finish anything much lately, but I'm very distracted. Troubles is on my 'short list' too....

I don't know how you do it, Heather, but you've been a reading machine, really chugging them out! And there are many very good books!
I like your source for some of your books: Spousal unit. Cracked me up :0)

What a lot of good reading and wonderful comments. I want to read or reread everything you wrote about.

I was a dino-freak as a child, not like some boys, but deeply deeply fascinated. Certainly more interested than all but one of my three brothers. (Two could have cared less about them.) My daughter was too - I took her to the Academy of Natural Sciences all the time when she was little so she got a lot of exposure. She liked everything there, actually, no surprise she loves science. There was a tour going around a few (uh, like twenty?) years ago of the bones they've dug up in China - Supersaurus and all - I was so thrilled by it. My spousal unit's a dino man too (even lived in a commune named Dimetrodon for awhile! here in good ole' counterculture land) so we were like Hansel and Gretel.

Anyhow, I always wonder about that -- is it entirely 'genetic' these kinds of interests? What do they mean? Or do some girls and boys shut down some of their interests early on out of some kind of social osmosis??? When it came to interests my parents were, however hopeless in other areas, completely open-minded. And I was socially oblivious enough that I never noticed how weird I was until too late!

#222 Peggy, I will definitely be continuing with the Lord Peter stories. I've already pulled Murder Must Advertise off the shelf to read, although there are a lot of other books competing for my attention at the moment so who knows when I'll get to it.

#223 Hi Dee. Was it The Siege of Krishnapur? I'd like to read that as well as The Singapore Grip. I think they're loosely referred to as a trilogy but I think it's a trilogy of theme rather than of continuin characters.

"I seem to love Taylor's writing increasingly more, the more I read it." Oh yes! I've been saving A Wreath of Roses. I tried starting it earlier this week but felt that I was slightly too tired to appreciate it and didn't want to waste any of that wonderful writing.

#224 Thanks Mamie. I hadn't read anything by Elizabeth Taylor before this year either but now, thanks to the Virago group, I'm a convert!

#225 "Will add to my list.....however improbable it is that I will get to it this century :)" I know that feeling Megan! Troubles won the Lost Booker Prize which was only awarded in 2010 (I think). It was because the eligibility rules for the Booker Prize changed sometime in 1970/1971 so that books published at certain dates weren't eligible for the prize at all. Not sure why it took them 40 years to get round to correcting that oversight but I'm glad they did because all the discussion about this book and the award on LT prompted me to read it and it was great!

#226 Woo hoo - it's Stasia! *waves back*

#227 Thanks Sarah :-)

#228 I'm sure Posey must still be quite a distraction Lucy, and your new harp!

#229 Glad it made you smile Lynda. It's nice to have a book-loving spousal unit although it does increase the likelihood of the floor collapsing under the weight of all the books.

#230 Ah Beth, thank you :-)

#231 Fascinating questions Lucy and, of course, I don't know any of the answers. I think I remember my parents saying they tried to make sure that my brother and I were never told we should be playing with a particular type of toy because we were a girl or a boy which must have worked to some extent because we had loads of toy cars and a garage I loved playing with (although I did give all the cars names and tell stories with them - is that a girl thing to do?) I can't remember where or how I got interested in dinosaurs.

Today I'm celebrating not having to go to work until the 9th May(!), feeling like I got everything to a good place before leaving work today (never possible in my old job) and going to Reading tomorrow for a day of talks about Elizabeth Taylor to celebrate her centenary and meeting Dee and others from the Virago Group. I have my train tickets and my bag is packed, now I just need to brace myself for the 8am train tomorrow morning (on a Saturday?!)

And then this week I will catch up on my April reading here because the week after, we are going to (a probably very rainy) Exmoor for a week.

Heather: Enjoy Elizabeth Taylor and your time off. I am jealous. I look forward to hearing about your upcoming books.

Heather, sounds like you're off for some fun times! Enjoy every bit of it!

I just received The Observations today, which I ordered from an independent merchant on Amazon for a great price, and as I was saying on my thread just now, now I'll have the hard decision as to which of the two books I should start with, since Gillespie and I is on it's way to me from BookDepository.

As for reviews, I think I'll have to put a couple (or more) hours aside tomorrow to catch up with my own reading because I've fallen more behind than I've ever been I think.

Your Dorothy L. Sayers covers looked very familiar, so I just looked through my Postcards from Penguin collection, and sure enough, there's a postcard with the cover of Busman's honeymoon (no cap on the "h" on the cover) from the same green & black + stickman series. This one is from 1963 and I think they're all by the same artist, Romek Marber.

# 233 Have a good time! :-)

Catching a 8am train on a Saturday morning sounds tough. I'm going to be having a lousy weekend. I have caught a cold (complete with a nasty cough) and even though I am feeling soooo tired I need to work this weekend. So much for a restful weekend! :-(

#231, #232 I think I was the same in that my parents never directed me towards certain toys because they were 'girls toys'. My favourites were certainly things like Meccano and other construction toys. I've been quite shocked since having my son at how traditional attitudes can be as to what interests boys and girls. I remember having a conversation with another mother and mentioning that my son was very interested in Astronomy, and her commenting that that was such a boy thing to be interested in. As I'd always loved astronomy myself I was quite surprised that it was considered a gendered interest for children.

I was also really interested in dinosaurs and maps, also considered 'boy' things.

Heather - have a lovely break. What an apt place to discuss books - Reading?! Enjoy the relative peace of Exmoor and see if you can get us all some moody views of that striking part of the world.

> 231, 232, 237 : I don't think I've only picked out gender-specific toys for my boys, or at least, I didn't start off that way. However, in a playgroup, mine will generally pick out cars and trains - and now, unfortunately, anything that looks like a gun, even if it's only a pen. Having said that, they also like to push round toy strollers and shopping trolleys - but probably more because tose have got wheels.

They're not deeply into dinosaurs, but they do show an interest; a couple of years ago, we accompanied my husband on a business trip to Chicago and NYC, so the three of us ended up spending quite a bit of time in the museums, and more than a little in the dinosaur sections. We ended up bringing quite a bit of paraphernalia back with us, and (consequently) my eldest's last birthday party had a dinosaur theme to it (meaning more paraphernalia!). Plus, there do seem to be several different dinosaur-related TV shows for my (no longer) toddler to watch.

There's an article about gender stereotyping in toys in the Guardian today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/21/girls-are-not-pretty-in-pink

I'm trying not to follow the boy/girl divide. We're looking for a toy kitchen for Reuben because he loves playing with them wherever we go. My friend's husband refused to let their son have a baby doll. I think it's a real shame, as it could have been a great way to get him used to the idea of a baby sister on the way.

> 240: Pink doesn't suit me, but my husband looks pretty in pink ;-)

#240 I've come across Pink Stinks before and I must say that I agree with them. I like pink as much as the next person but it certainly didn't use to be as all encompassing for girls as it is now. I definitely remember having a couple of pale blue party dresses when I was five or six in the 1960's.

Pink is my husband's favourite colour and the only pink room in our house is his study.
I'm also against this colour / gender divide which is mostly a marketing gimmick for plastic toys and clothes. I can't believe there is now standard makeup for preschool girls when there can be so much fun derived from facepaint. Role play is an important part of children's learning, but is much more fun when left for them to devise most of their own props doing 'junk play'. Bought toys usually have only one specific role, yet by using 'junk', children are continually adapting and using their own imaginations - but of course there is no profit in a few cardboard boxes, newspaper and a pile of blankets etc etc.

>232 souloftherose: that Lost Booker is sounding very familiar, makes sense to me now why is isnt on the printed list I refer to usually.

Enjoy your time off!

Great article!

Have fun, Heather!

#237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243

Wow, some great comments. Thanks for the link to the article Jo, I hadn't seen that before. I'm obviously fairly out of touch with the latest children's toys and advertising - I had no idea they were marketing make-up to children of pre-school age. That's quite scary.

This discussion and the article have reminded me that I have Natasha Walter's Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism published by Virago press lingering in my TBR pile which I think covers these issues - it's definitely getting bumped up nearer the top of the pile.

The Elizabeth Taylor day on Saturday was fantastic. Since then I've had my usual start of holidays extreme tiredness so I have not done a lot so far except finished a couple of books. Might try and catch up with some reviews tomorrow.

Hi Heather. :)

*wanders through, waves hello, catches up, vows to re-read the entire works of the brilliant Dorothy L. Sayers at the earliest possible opportunity*

Hi Heather - sounds like a good Saturday. Enjoy the rest of your time off.