LizzieD: 2012*3 (Marching through March)

Wind sings and dances in a ring by Dmitry Bukhrov (Art Hit Gallery)

That worked out pretty well although I've already put my DAILY DICKENS on the February thread. Stay tuned for more!

JANUARY

(* = review on main book page)

1. *The Invisible Ones - modern Gypsies in England - an O.K. missing-person mystery
2. Fall on Your Knees - relentless and disturbing - beautiful writing - Orange Long List, 1997
3. Sporting Chance - political shenanigans, albino cockroaches, a stroke, stupidity poison - What's not to love? (reread)
4. Molly Fox's Birthday - quiet, thoughtful, elegiac - June 21 in Dublin - Orange Short List - 2009
5. The Tiger's Wife - folklore and modern sensibility in post-war Yugoslavia - really O.K.
6. The Broom of the System - audio - hilarious, intelligent, wild! I love DFW!
7. The Splendor of Letters - books destroyed; books preserved - much to enjoy!
8. 1Q84 - a little detective/murder mystery + a little romance + a lot of weird = a lot of fun in too much book

FEBRUARY

1. Necessary as Blood - mystery series - satisfying continuing characters - pretty satisfying mystery
2. The Chanur Saga: The Pride of Chanur - reread - space opera with the cat-like hani and alien humans - FUN!
3. *Arcadia - very personal story of Bit Stone's life from birth to 50, shaped by the commune, Arcadia - true love for me
4. *Purgatory - magical realism -Argentina's Dirty War - a dark, intellectual wallop
5. Chanur's Venture - a little bridge of a novel with cliff-hanger ending - on to the next!
6. Barnaby Rudge - reread - the Gordon Riots of 1780 - Dickens!

MARCH
1. The Betrayal of Trust - #6 for Simon Serrailler and crew - terminal illness, murder, and well-bred cliff-hangers
2. Christmas Mourning - Deborah Knott #16 - down home N.C. - teens texting, drinking, and driving
3. The Prefect - hard scifi with mystery and adventure!
4. No Mark upon Her - same series as February #1 - I always enjoy the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mysteries
5. The Siege - of Leningrad, 1941 - as stunning as everybody says
6. We Need to Talk about Kevin - the mother of a teen-age murderer confesses - harrowing, worth reading
7. *Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

NEW in MARCH

1. No Mark Upon Her - ✔ ER ARC
2. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains - Thank you, dear Cate!
3. Beyond Black - PBS
4. The Enchantress of Florence - PBS
5. The Intuitionist - PBS
6. Hide Me Among the Graves ✔ - ER ARC
7. Mistress of the House ✔ - AMP
8. Cleopatra: A Life ✔ - AMP
9. The Fabric of the Cosmos - PBS
10. The Space Between Us - PBS
11. The Three Weissmanns of Westport - Thank you, dear friend!
12. The Help - Thank you, dear friend again!!
13. The Forgotten Waltz ✔ - Thank you, dear friend a third time!!!
14. In the Family Way - Thank you dear friend!!!! Amazing!
15. The Magicians ✔ - PBS
16. Gillespie and I ✔ - AMP
17. The Pink Hotel - AMP
18. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens - AMP
19. Anil's Ghost - Ed McKay's Books, Raleigh
20. Santa Evita - PBS
21. Those Who Hunt the Night - PBS
22. Anne of Green Gables - the complete series on Kindle for 99¢

✔ = "read"

FIRST!!!!!!!!! HA!
(Of course all it really means is that I'm hanging about on LT a bit too much probably.....)

Well, I'm happy to have the benefit of your hanging!

Second! Also hanging around.

Really like that painting up top. Not so much hanging as finally eating lunch.

Love the painting too. What a magical picture!

I've never read any DFW, but now I must!

Welcome, Roni, Tui, Pat, and Karspeak. I really like that painting too! It turned up in the google images of "pictures of the wind," and I grabbed it immediately!
I just came by to say that I will receive an ARC of Tim Powers's latest, Hide Me Among the Graves: back to Polidori with the Rossettis this time. I'm really excited! Of course, that means that now I have two ARCs to read if they get here, but I'm up for it!
March has started wonderfully well as I dip into and out of a lot of stuff. I'll have to settle down to see what makes my "currently reading" list. Today it has been Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy (and I can't tell you how long I fidgeted with the Touchstone before giving up and providing a link) which I'm reading for a RL group. The writing is less than inspiring but not actively irritating, and I have a little Dombey and Son and The Betrayal of Trust thrown in for good measure. I don't want to give up my LBJ or Palladian or my current Margaret Maron or Revelation or anything else that I say I'm reading, so we'll see. I'm not Suzanne or Stasia or Heather or Luci or any of our other prodigies, worse luck.

Hi Peggy, just here to check in at your new thread. Even though the star carries over, I still like to check in as soon as possible :)

10: "pictures of the wind" is exactly the thing for March!

HI Peggy! I'll hang around too please :)

It's so much fun to see everybody when the thread is new that I think I'll do another one in a week or two.......... I'm glad to have visits from you, Megan, Katherine, and Chelle. Please, come back! Come back!!

I've found my way here, too!

Peggy, I got the Powers book from ER too, and am likewise very excited. I just finished Firebird, one of the Nebula nominees, which I liked the best of any of the Alex Benedict series since A Talent for War.

Hi, Genny and Roni! Genny, I've lost you lately. I'll look after my shower.
Roni, I'm tickled that you got the Powers, and I'm excited to hear about Firebird. I used to like the Hutch books better than the Benedict ones, but I think he pretty much finished those. I'll also have to check my wishlist to be sure that Firebird is on it. But now - the shower!

Peggy congratulations on the new thread. Looking forward to the continued Dickens in March!

Such a great painting, Peggy!

Here you are! Congratulations on a great ER book! Actually, I am terribly jealous of your Tim Powers acquisition (I love him) but somewhat mollified by the fact that I got the Temeraire book (very excited to read both).

Also, your last comment on the previous thread made me all misty-eyed. I have wished similar things myself. Thanks for sharing that bittersweet thought.

Adore that "wind" image -- really nails a solution to how one might go about painting something that is invisible!

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the Bonhoeffer bio. I'm very intrigued by him as a person living at a time when moral choices seem to us (in retrospect) to be so clear; he and Niemoller were among a handful who had the courage to call it as they saw it. On the other hand, I was kind of wary of the book, I don't recall whether because of the author or publisher -- I didn't want to read one of those Thomas Nelson books that distort the facts to fit into a "Christian message".

My ER book was another debut novel -- oh, no, shades of a recent controversy!!! -- which I'm hoping will be very much better than one that will go unnamed to which I felt compelled to award a mere 1/2 star. Fingers & toes crossed.

Peggy, I picked up the first Hutch book on your recommendation, but it is languishing in my tbr pile (looks shamefaced).

Thank you, Paul. He's coming up! Thank you for affirming my taste, Nancy and Suzanne. Sarah, my thanks for your sensitive comment. I used to think I was a pretty decent young person, but the more I reflect, the worse I see myself. I'm happy that you got one of your two longed-for ARC's. I try to ask for only one, but sometimes they offer many that I want, and I'm happy to get any of them. I haven't read even the first Temeraire, but I intend to!
Suzanne, I haven't read but 20 or so pages of the Bonhoeffer. I think that it's not one of "those Thomas Nelson books," but the writing is not up to the quality of the subject. Good luck with the next debut novel! Nothing to do but tell the truth as you see it - folks count on you for that.
Roni, those first few Hutch books are super entertaining - at least through Chindi. Read it! Read it!

DAILY DICKENS

"Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister's glass, which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his intention) held straight and steady the while, and then regarded with great astonishment, saying, "My dear Paul, what have you been doing!"

You move so fast! I'm following you from your last thread, where I wanted to say:

Re Tomas Eloy Martinez--I added Purgatory: A Novel to my wishlist. I read his Santa Evita a couple of years ago, and can highly recommend it. It is part fiction, part fact, a reimagining of the life of Evita Peron, and, particularly her death and afterlife--her body was missing for many years after her death.

Still enjoying Dickens. I especially enjoyed the quote about the birth of "Son." How true we leave the world as we entered it. Right now I'm debating myself about whether to reread David Copperfield, which I read as a teenager and loved, or to read a Dickens I have not yet read.

I too love the artwork above. So many talented people in this world!

Deborah, I'm really glad that you came by! You confirmed my desire to read more ELoy Martinez, and I was just able to find Santa Evita at PBS. The plot outline and your good review remind me of The Very Rich Hours of Count Von Stauffenberg by Paul West that I wanted to recommend to Suzanne because of the "kill Hitler" plot and now to you because of the corpse-as-character. It is one of the first books recommended to me by somebody here at LT. I really enjoyed it and knew I had found a true home.
I get to reread David Copperfield sometime this year, and I look forward to it. I have to say that unless you pick *Rudge* or maybe Oliver Twist, you can't go wrong with Dickens!!!!

Or maybe The Old Curiosity Shop? :)

Peggy, I can probably fit Our Mutual Friend in whenever it suits you, so why don't we wait until you've finished Dombey And Son, and then figure it out?

(On topic, I must say that, as a character, I infinitely prefer The Second Mrs Dombey to Florence!)

(Agreed - as to Edith Dombey vs Florence)
That sounds like a plan. I'm up for either *OCS* or *OMF*.... *OCS* was my first, but *OMF* is a favorite. I'm not going to push through *D&S* though if that's O.K.

No hurry at all! I've got plenty of other things to occupy me. :)

oooo you both tempt me so much, with OMF!!!!!

I just reread #27. I sort of did it on purpose, but now I'm singing, "LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA....."
Liz, I'm sure that you are well-occupied! I was over at your thread last night and too sleepy to read your fabulous reviews; I'm intimidated is what. That's quite O.K., and I'll be back when I am more awake than I was last night and can concentrate. Lucy, want to read *OMF* with us? I'd be up for both books this year!
I haven't read much in *D&S* today, but here is a description of the Chicks, Dombey's sister and her husband.

DAILY DICKENS
"In their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a well-matched, fairly balanced, give-and-take couple. It would have been, generally speaking, very difficult to have betted on the winner."

30: LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA
Aaaaagh! The Green Dragon has a thread for that: http://www.librarything.com/topic/133577.

Back to thank you, Katherine! I got off scot-free because I'm too old for their brain worms. ("LBJ IRT USA LSD")

"LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA....."

You've lost me there...

Peggy - I am looking at Dombey and Son next month - nice of you to get in a quote that includes me in it!

32: Heh. Me too, most of them.
33: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_%28musical%29

Genny, Katherine very helpfully pointed you to Hair - very, very 60s!!!!
Paul, I'm likely still to be reading *D&S* when you get to it in April. A quote that includes you - HO! HO!!!
Lately, I've been dipping into my Victorian travel book (which dear Helen of the Virago group sent me for Christmas!), Up the Country. Emily Eden is a delight! She and her sister accompanied their brother, Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, on his progress to the mountains for the summer months in 1838. Here's a random quote that made me smile: "People may abuse nautching, but it always amuses me extremely. The girls hardly move about at all, but their dresses and attitudes are so graceful I like to see them. Their singing is dreadful, and very noisy.""

Peggy, I have been unforgiveably behind with your thread, but just stopping by to say that I loved your review of Barnaby Rudge and that although I still have 200 pages to go myself, I am also making March a month of reading what I feel like. I think my brain needs a rest after February. Is it coincidence that we both feel that way and have both been reading the same book?

#10 I'm a prodigy? I never realised :-)

Reading OMF later this year is very tempting.

new word of the day: "nautching"

#35,36 Thanks for the clarification. I thought I was familiar with 'Hair' - I certainly used to sing along with a soundtrack recording in the early 1970s (when I was aged about 7 or 8) without understanding most of it! - but I don't recognise that particular song at all so it must have been omitted from the recording we had. It's thanks to Hair that I know one of the soliloquies from Hamlet by heart - 'What a piece of work is (a) man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable...'.

Hair was the first live stage play I saw, I found it quite full on as a 13 year old! But loved the songs.

Oh yes, Heather! You are definitely a prodigious reader! Maybe there's something in the Rudge trudge that encourages self-indulgence! And I wish you would read *OMF* with us!!! I ought to reread some others before re-re-rereading that one, but I'm not sure why.
Heh. Tui, I was amused by "nautching" too. I tried to find a clip on YouTube, but since I have no idea what is authentic and what's not, I left it alone. There was a tempting one with a lovely n. girl who just sort of knelt there and made hand gestures and turned her body and looked bewitching. And, Genny, there's the difference between us: you learn the quotation from Hamlet and I learn the alphabet song!
Back to *D&S* - here are the various adults greeting each other before little Paul's christening:

DAILY DICKENS
"He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. Mr Dombey took it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness."
and
"Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down altogether like an opera glass shutting-up; she cutseyed so low, in acknowledgment of Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her."

Now that's a handshake!

"exalted politeness" ... I love that! Trust Dickens : ).

Must confess I've not seen "Hair", and the only song I know from it is the title song. Obviously, am culturally deprived!!

Hmm, the Stauffenberg book looks intriguing. Will check to see if it's library-able.

Hi, Lucy, Nancy, and Suzanne. The handshake reminds me of Great-aunt Lena, who would firmly grasp a hand, and fling it down in one quick pump.
I never saw Hair either; I wouldn't in the hinterland. But I had the soundtrack, and I can still sing great wads of it. "I would just like to state that it is my conviction that longer hair and other flamboyant affectations of appearance are nothing more than the male's emergence from his bland camouflage into the gaudy plumage that is the birthright of his sex!" It was an amazing time to be young.

I'm beginning to like Mr Dombey's brother-in-law Mr. Chick a lot even if he does sing nonsense syllables under his breath.

DAILY DICKENS

"---preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a very honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For this gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey (perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now, ---."

THE BETRAYAL OF TRUST by Susan Hill
I am such a fan of this series that I put everything aside almost to read the next one as soon as I get it! That said, I found this one less to my liking, and I'm not sure why. I certainly flipped the pages quickly enough, and I can't wait for her to get the next one to us. I think I've become terminally curmudgeonly.
"Terminal" is the word. This time Cat, Simon's sister, continues her involvement with Imogene House, a hospice, and seeks to treat a patient with motor neuron disease (probably the worst way to die that I've run into yet --- right down there with MS and ALS, and I've seen folks in the last stages of both). Simon is working two cold cases, young women washed from shallow graves in a flood. He also falls in love at first sight. (Oh dear. Sounds like something Simon would do.) The attraction for me in this series is the quality of characterization. Simon himself was almost missing from the first book, but he has grown through the series. He's a social disaster: charming, sensitive, and utterly ruthless. I can't like him, but I'd probably fall for him in real life. At least in this book, he stands back and watches himself interact with Cat with something like horror.
The termination of the book is something of a problem. Although Hill wraps up the mystery quickly and a bit unsatisfactorily, she leaves many other threads dangling. I care about what happens to these people, both the sympathetic ones and the one I quickly came to deplore. I'll be reading #7 for sure!

Snippets from Paul Dombey's christening....

DAILY DICKENS

"Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the amusement of his son. ---exclusive of this incident, the chief difference between the christening party and a party in a mourning coach consisted in the colours of the carriage and horses."
""...the font - a rigid marble basin which seemed to have been playing a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact pedestal, and to have been just that moment caught on the top of it."
"Then the clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young curate, but obviously afraid of the baby, appeared ---"

D&S quotes=LOL. Must reread that one.

Hair--My roommate in college played the sound track over and over and over again. I thought I knew all the songs, but I don't recognize the LBJ one.

Speaking of which, on your recommendation (I think), I purchased the first three volumes of Caro's biography. Haven't read it yet, but husband has raced through them. Am I dreaming that the final volume comes out soon?

Peggy: You have been doing so much good reading. I have got to get to Dickens and Susan Hill this year. And, if that sounds familiar, I'm sure I say it each time I post to your thread.

Deborah, I devoutly hope that the final volume of the Caro bio comes out soon. Since I found out about him, I've been fretting that he wouldn't live long enough to finish.... So I just checked Amazon, and The Passage of Power hits the stands on May 1 . It apparently takes LBJ to the Presidency "before his aspirations and his accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam," according to their description. I guess it's book 5 that I'm worrying that Caro won't live to finish. Book 2 is one that I'm picking up amid all the other welter of stuff I want to read in March - silly, really, but I'm having fun. (We played Hair enough for a lot of it to have stuck with me to this very day.)
Beth, thanks for the visit. Do make time for Dickens and Hill. He takes a lot of time. Today, for instance, I haven't read any, so here's a description I skipped for some reason. *D&S* is not a happy book at all, but it is funny - a great reason for continuing to love Mr. D.
And, yippee! My ER ARC of No Mark Upon Her arrived today, so I'm adding that to my current reading list too.

DAILY DICKENS

"Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities."

Well, given that a typical leadtime for a book of that kind is 9 months, assume that Caro has been working away on #5 for at least six months by now... I imagine he's just as eager to finish the series as you are!!

I agree, I'd probably fall for Simon Serailler too. Or Jackson Brodie. Or someone equally complex and hard to co-exist with.

Oh-- I've been hoarding some Atkinson, maybe that is what I'll start next....

I'm fairly sure I'll never read the LBJ books but I will happily hear about them here!

Peggy I have Susan Hill's Seraillier series in my sights. I will start the series as part of my 12 in 12 challenge on series starts sooner rather than later. Comforting to see it has made so good an impression on you already.

Hi Peggy, I have the first two books in the Hill series so I guess I need to get started, the sooner the better. As for CD, I'm thinking I'll read either Our Mutual Friend or The Pickwick Papers next. What do you think?

The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities. Oh I do like that line.

Hi Peggy

Sorry for neglecting your thread. Yikes 56 messages that I missed. Regarding LBJ, have you watched Vietnam in DVD? It is quite an interesting movie. I confess, I really dislike LBJ...never liked him...never will...Ok, off the soap box.

Hugs to you dear one.

In reverse order>>>> Linda, if you dislike LBJ, you will loathe him after reading the first volume of the biography. That's too simple a reaction, but it's a wonderful biography! I haven't watched Vietnam on DVD - I guess I feel that I watched enough of it on the nightly news as it happened. That's too simple too. I will read Matterhorn this year though --- and I'm glad to see you here and don't feel neglected. (I lurk.)
Isn't that a great line, Tui? I suspected it would get some book lover here! And don't you love the word "glazed" after just reading that the books' idea was a "freezer"?
Bonnie, I have to say that I swore I would never read another Serrailler novel after the first one, but here I am. She writes too well to ignore! As to *OMF* or *PP* --- how much time do you have? They are my 2nd favorites right behind Bleak House. I don't see how you can go wrong!
Paul, Hi! See what I said to Bonnie!
Lucy, I'm a slacker who has read only one Jackson Brodie. I'm sort of saving them because I liked the first one so much. I can't tell you why I read one series as fast as I can and save the other for later.... The first LBJ was a wonderful example of the biographer's art - even better than D. McCullough's Truman, I think, because it goes into so much greater depth. I don't know why I think I can read 12 things at once at my present speed, but I'm nibbling little bits of the second volume just because I can't help it. (My Bonhoeffer bio seems to be picking up stylistically now that we're out of his childhood. That's a good thing because it's 600+ pp., and I need to have read it by early April for a local discussion.)
Suz, I'd be willing to bet that Caro has been working on volume 5 longer than six months. It's been ten years between books 3 and 4. The thing is that Caro is an old man - oh shoot! I just looked it up. He was born in '35, which makes him only 77 or so if my late night arithmetic is any good. I'll quit worrying. He should have a number of good writing years to go, being only 9 years older than I am, and I have a thousand of good reading years yet to go.

Just de-lurking to say hello. I've been following your thread with interest, just haven't had much to contribute. So I'll just wave, and tiptoe back to my corner.

Another regular lurker stepping up to say hi. I'm looking at reading Matterhorn also. The reviews have been interesting.

I love lurkers - especially when they're Laura and Jan!
Polly Toodles, Paul Dombey's nurse, asks her sister for a description of her oldest son in his new charity school clothes....

DAILY DICKENS

"'And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!' faltered Polly.
'Well, really he don't look so bad as you'd suppose,' returned Jemima.
'Ah!' said Polly, with emotion, 'I knew his legs must be too short.'
'His legs is short,' returned Jemima; 'especially behind, but they'll get longer, Polly, every day.'
It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the cheerfulness and good nature with which it was administered, gave it a value it did not intrinsically possess."

Hi there Peggy! You know I'm reading The Betrayal of Trust as you did quite lately. I've read all of the past books in the series -and you know, of all things, I'm enjoying this one most of all! I could dispense with what so far is very little mystery and , as you've noted, ALS, euthanasia, dementia, Parkinson's etc. I'm enjoying the social welfare commentary. I have a dear friend with ALS - though she has far outlived her initial diagnosis. It's a bit of a departure from her previous books in that it seems to focus much more on social welfare aspects rather than the mystery. I'm not to far into Simon falling in love " at first sight" , but I"m so moralistic - I guess!;) I'm having trouble with his romance - if you know what I mean. Behave, Simon!!!! HA!

de gustibus, Deb! This was my least favorite of the series, but it still tops most other mysteries on my list. I think that Simon is constitutionally incapable of behaving. I'll chafe until I get the next one in my hot little hands.
Here is more about Biler (yep....He was named for the boiler on a steam engine, the most amazing bit of technology in the Toodles's life. Dickens does give the introduction of the railroad great play in *D&S*; I just can't bring myself to type the descriptions although I'm pretty sure that they are of vast interest to historians of the era.) I can bring myself to type this typical paragraph that follows. Biler is wearing his school (the Charitable Grinders) uniform...

DAILY DICKENS

"Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing himself upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than an innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud; violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders' establishment, and had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination."

The names he comes up with!

Hi Peggy, I am sadly 64 posts behind :( I wanted to drop in and say hello, and to tell you that I LOVE the picture at the top of your thread. Wonderful!

Peggy, I received the Tim Powers ER book this morning. I have to get through a batch of library books before I read it, though. And I'm wondering if I need to reread The Stress of Her Regard first?

Hi, Lucy, Anne, and Roni. I appreciate the visits!!
Lucy, are you referring to Biler or the Charitable Grinders or both?
Anne, isn't the Internet a great way to expand your art appreciation? I had certainly never heard of Dmitry Bukhrov, and I doubt I'd ever have found him on my own.
Roni, they were good!!! My copy of the Tim Powers arrived this morning too. I absolutely have to finish the January ARC that came about 3 days ago before I can start this one. The blurb on the back suggests to me that this one has little to do with The Stress of Her Regard. Had you heard otherwise? I'm pretty sure I'm not going to reread *Stress* first - it was my first Powers, and it has stayed with me. Let me know what you think, please.

Hi Peggy,
Thanks for keeping the Daily Dickens going. It's such a pleasure to get these little snippets of him everyday. And I, too, adore that painting at the top of this month's thread.

I hate* you people who got the Powers book. I wanted that one! Of course, I got another one that looks pretty good, so I guess I'm ok with it.

*Not really. I could never hate you people! I just wanted the dang book... :)

Both!

Catching up on my Daily Dickens and chuckling over "Hair." A babysitter brought us the soundtrack because my brother loved "Aquarius," and she left it with us for years--long enough for us to memorize the whole thing. Of course, we ranged in age from 5 to 10 at the time, and I don't think we understood one single thing. My sister got in trouble in school (2nd grade, maybe?) for writing down lists of bad words at her desk. I'm not sure which song in particular she was transcribing, but there are several possible candidates.

71: One of my father's college students gave him the album, and my parents had little interest, but us three kids in elementary school played it nonstop. Clueless. The songs are lodged in my neurons.

Greetings to Stephen, Jim, Lucy, Anne, and Katherine! Whew, boy, Anne! I can just imagine the 2nd grade teacher reading the list from "Sodomy." Your sister must have been a pretty good speller!!!
O.K., Lucy. Let me introduce old Joe Bagstock...............

DAILY DICKENS

"Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his journey downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman who had her eye on him........however, the Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more entirely selfish person at heart, or at stomach is perhaps a better expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter organ than with the former."

Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron

I'm a real Maron fan, and this 16th entry in the Deborah Knott series kept me well entertained. It's not the best, but it's pretty doggone good. Three students at West Colleton High School have been killed in car accidents, and Deborah's husband, Deputy Dwight Bryant is investigating the latest death. Two young brothers, often in trouble with the law, are also dead of gunshot wounds. Maron ties all of this together in a bundle wrapped in rural North Carolina Christmas celebrations and the family interactions of Deborah's large extended family. Just good, clean fun.

Chuckles!!!!

Peggy, I probably won't reread The Stress of her Regard first, but both Byron and Polidori are in both books, and I'm assuming the nephilim as well are the supernatural creatures. I've read the book several times, but not at all in the last decade and probably more. I'm just afraid I'll miss some references. Such a completist. But I'm going to refrain, and go straight into Hide Me Among the Graves when I finish my library books which, coincidentally enough, include the third James Asher book by Barbara Hambly (Blood Maidens), of which I had been unaware until very recently. The first two are Victorian vampire tales which are absolutely terrifying and marvelous--no sparkles here!

Huh. There's a third Asher book? And I missed it? *gallops off to the library in a whirl of dust*

Hey, Lucy, Roni, and Jim. Oh dear. Oh dear. I haven't read any Hambly of any sort, much less James Asher books. There's only one pb copy of Those Who Hunt the Night available at PBS, and I guess I'd better snag it before it disappears. Somebody needs to want some of my books soon though because I'm running out of credits quickly!
I haven't read any *D&S* today. Instead, I've had my head in The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, one that I had started some time ago and put aside. Now why did I do that? This is good!!! Anyway, trolling ahead in *D&S* for a quick DD, here's what I found.

DAILY DICKENS

"There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber...She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead - stone dead - and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul."

What a great couple of lines!!!

Love the quote!

PM me your account name at PBS and I'll take a look at your books. I looked at the Peggys from NC and at the Lizzies with no hits.

I just joined PBS, since I keep hearing about it from all of you. Of course, I don't have that many books I can stand to part with... really. But it seems like fun!

#78 That is a great couple of lines, Peggy! Make me smile out loud, hehe!

*fondly watched Jim gallop to the library--a man after my own heart, indeed!*

Stopping by to wave hello and tell you I think you are a super person!

I think that's the best one so far, Peggy. And the name! Miss Blimber - gack!

Peggy -- Maron is great, isn't she? I loved her latest where Deborah meets Sigrid in New York. I always feel like I am catching up with an old friend when I read the latest Knott book.

>74 LizzieD:: I've started to fade on Deborah Knott. I loved the books when they were set in North Carolina because of the sense of place that Maron gave them. Now that Maron has Deborah wandering around, I find that I enjoy them a less...they just blur together in my mind. From your review, it sounds like she's back in Colleton Co., so maybe I'll give this one a try.

Now where in the world does one find a name like Blimber???????? I agree with Tui, this quote is smashing!

Cheers, Roni, Nancy, Sarah, Linda, Tui, Beth, Tad, and Lucy!
Sarah, if you look, you see that most of my "new" books come from PBS. I inherited a library of books in good shape that were either duplicates or things that I didn't want. I got lots and lots of credits, but now the demand has slowed and I will soon find myself in the unenviable situation of having to go back and buy credits for something that I want. Oh well.
Beth and Tad, I enjoy Maron especially since I've met her. In fact, her quality does vary, and I haven't liked some of her travel ones. I did like Sand Sharks that's set in Wilmington since that's a place I know. I'm thrilled to have Deborah meet Sigrid because I really like that series better than the Deborah ones. Sigrid is a much more complex character, and the books aren't quite as close to cozy as some of the Deborahs come.
Nancy and Tui and Lucy, isn't that a winner on all kinds of levels!?!?! I haven't found one for today yet, but I'll be back.
Right back at you Linda, you very dear encourager for 75ers!

Hi Peggy. I'm enjoying the Dickens quotes although I feel like a failed Dickens' disciple at the moment because I haven't picked up Barnaby Rudge for two weeks...

I loved The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers when I read it in 2010 and then I wanted to read everything he'd ever written... and then I didn't and that's still the only Powers book I've read. I think I have a copy of The Drawing of the Dark somewhere but it has a horrible 1970s fantasy cover.

I think I read one of the Sigrid Harald books a long time ago but I don't have a clear memory of it. I'll have to see if I can find one around and give them a try.

Heather, Dickens Disciples don't fail! If I hadn't been looking for quotations, I wouldn't have read it either. The Drawing of the Dark is a Powers I haven't read, nor On Stranger Tides either. I don't know of anybody quite like him.
Tad, so long as Death in Blue Folders is not what you have to read, I hope you'll try a Sigrid H. and like it. I think *Blue* was the second one, and it was just not very good.
I had a pretty good reading day today for a wonder! I'm really enjoying The Prefect and hope to polish it off in another couple of days. The quality of writing in the Bonhoeffer bio is uneven, but it's a fascinating look at Hitler's rise from a Christian's pov. Bonhoeffer's family had his number early and were all amazingly courageous. *D&S* isn't producing anything to come close to yesterday's quotation. I'll make do with what I have.

DAILY DICKENS

"Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had been the death of Mr Pipchin, but his relict still wore black bombazine, of such lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of candles."

Omygolly -- coffee up the nose -- if possible that one is even better than the last one!

Peggy, you've made my day. I'm going to be laughing at this quote for awhile!

It's very good but Miss Blimber digging dead languages up like a ghoul is still number one in my books.

Hi there Peggy! Yes, motor neurone disease is the same thing as ALS or Lou Gehrigs. As I mentioned on my thread , I have a dear friend with ALS, but a slow progressing one. Thanks to her and my husband too - I have come to know the many variations and types of neurological diseases. I think that is part of why I enjoyed The Betrayal of Trust so much - it really resonated with me.

Love the daily Dickens! I remember my grandparents on the maternal side saying " What the Dickens" quite frequently. I wonder if they ever read any Dickens?

Oh - just looked at your books read and I see that The Betrayal of Trust is one that you read just ahead of me. That assisted suicide in Switzerland - to read about it elsewhere, it did not seem all that frightening, but Susan Hill but a realistic and scary spin on that part, I thought.

hehe, I'm with Lucy on the coffee-choker from DD!

Lucy, Jan, and Nancy, I'm so happy that my choices from the myriad available on any page written by CD are making you happy. I'm with you, though, Tui. The graves of dead languages is prime. I hope your grandparents did read my man, Deb. As I've said before, my paternal grandmother was a true disciple and the impetus of my Dickens love. (Deb, I helped a little on a volunteer basis with a woman with ALS until she was completely bedridden. Hideous way to die! And that Switzerland place was appalling.)
So here is the selection for the day. You know how I feel about lists instead of description. That's what CD is doing here in describing the contents of a 2nd hand shop. I think that this is the way it should be done! It's long, but here's how to do it!

DAILY DICKENS

"...a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former owners, there was always great choice in Mr Brogley's shop; and various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of reflection and retraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective of bankruptcy and ruin."

In most Dickens books I've read so far there's mention of 2nd hand shops or pawnbrokers. I've always wondered how those ever made money. Were there really buyers for that old rusty/ dirty/ broken stuff? Just thinking of that Jinkins guy in Pickwick Papers who gave his worn and certainly dirty and terribly smelly clothes to a pawnbroker. What happened to that stuff? Was it used for paper? But then the paper makers surely only bought it for a very low price.

The quote is wonderful.

I don't know that I could take more than a few sentences of CD at a stretch, so I am grateful for your snippets.
Is that it for Miss Blimber, or is there more of her?

Just de-lurking to say hello, Peggy!

What a great question Deern -- and I wonder how many dissertations have been written on Dickens and his fondness for pawnshops...... I do think people used them the way we use secondhand stores more or less, or Goodwill -- but pawnbrokers never seem very well off, do they, anywhere you encounter them - it's a just making it line of work. Charles Stross is fond of them in the Victorian timeline in his Merchants books, eh?

I would guess, and of course we have no opportunity to ask him!, that his fascination and concentration on poverty and its effects, incl pawn shops, was a direct result of his own straightened circumstances growing up and his relief/guilt at rising above the fray whilst not wanting others to suffer as he going unremarked.

Hello, Nathalie, Katherine, Terri, Lucy, and Paul! Great question, Nathalie. I think Paul definitely has part of it, but I also think that all the second-hand stuff-sellers were just a part of the times. This is a place and time where families inherited the right to round up the dog poop of the city; they were called "poor finders" or "pure finders" and sold their scavengings to leather workers. I got that arresting fact from a distillation of Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1851) - my book being Mayhew's London edited by Peter Quennell. His discussion of 2nd hand sellers covers quite a few pages.
There will be more Miss Blimber, I'm pretty sure.
Meanwhile ----

THE PREFECT by Alastair Reynolds
This is a mesmerizing piece of hard science fiction set in the same universe as Reynolds's earlier trilogy which begins with Revelation Space. I'm not perfectly sure of the chronology because it is set mainly in the Glitter Band, tens of thousands of human habitats that encircle a planet called Yellowstone. It has been 55 years since Calvin Sylveste attempted to give virtual life to The Eighty and ended up frying their brains.
The prefect is Tom Dreyfus who is a field agent for Panoply, the law-enforcement agency which keeps the habitats voting on all decisions that affect the Glitter Band. To go into more detail would just be confusing. Suffice it to say that this is a grand mix of loyalty and betrayal, misguided philanthropy, courage and derring-do, and a couple of super-human AIs intent on their own survival and power.
This is actually a more coherent book than Revelation Space, but anomalies don't matter to me when I get swept up into a story and invention like this one. My only warning would be not to read this one first.

>89 souloftherose: & 91: Just to throw it out there -- I've read Tim Powers' The Drawing of the Dark and found it wonderful -- odd and loose, but elegantly made, all the things I admire about his writing. I recommend ignoring the cover and diving in. Also, I'm currently reading On Stranger Tides and enjoying that thoroughly as well.

I love that man. I really do. :)

I'll second Sarah's recommendation of The Drawing of the Dark as well.

An ad for "Hardcore Pawn" just played on the channel where I'm watching NCAA basketball, coincidentally enough. My husband watches a reality show of a family who has a pawn shop in Las Vegas that is evidently very well-known. How much of a non sequitur is all that?

Always glad to welcome T. Powers fans, Sarah and Roni. My favorites so far are The Stress of Her Regard and the Fisher King trilogy, beginning with Last Call. I had almost finished rereading that one 3+ years ago when I joined LT. I'd be happy to welcome Richard Powers fans too. I think that he's Excellent and Wonderful and I need to read him again!
Back to the young Paul Dombey and Mrs. Pipchin....

DAILY DICKENS (Getting in just under the wire)
"'Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin when they were sitting by the fire with the cat.
'Yes,' said Mrs Pipchin.
'Why?' asked Paul
'Why!' returned the disconcerted old lady. 'How can you ask such things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?'
'Because she's very good,' said Paul. 'There's nobody like her.'
'Well!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, 'and there's nobody like me, I suppose.'
'Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in his chair, and looking at her very hard.
'No,' said the old lady.
'I am glad of that,' observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully. 'That's a very good thing.'"

You are picking such wonderful quotes lately, not that they aren't all fun, but especially the last few days, very light and witty.

Thank you kindly, Lucy. I think it's because *D&S* is a better book all around than *BR*!

Peggy: Your thread is always full of information. I'm not familiar with Tim Powers, so another author to check out. And I've got to get to Our Mutual Friend soon...

Beth, I don't know whether you'd like T. Powers, but he's certainly worth looking at.....
Here are typical passages with a typical Dickens character, Major Joe Bagstock, retired.

DAILY DICKENS

"'Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J.B. knows a move or two, Ma'am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir. You'll find him tough, Ma'am. Tough, Sir, tough is Josehp. Tough, and de-vilish sly!'"

"'Joseph Bagstock, sir, was held out of the window by the heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college clock.'
The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration of this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too long."

As long as I'm quoting, I feel compelled to quote a little from my Bonhoeffer biography. I'm now coming down on the "sadly written" side. It's not that Metaxas doesn't know standard usage. It's just that he's clumsy and wrongheaded and cliched and totally incapable of leaving out a solitary detail of his research. That tic leads to non sequiturs. It's a pity because this could have been an amazingly good bio.
(Support for all-inclusiveness) (Muller has just been elected Reichsbischof in the church at Wittenberg Castle over Luther's tomb.) "The always wisecracking Hildebrandt said that Luther must be turning over in his grave."
(Support for clumsiness and wrong-headedness) "So everyone had been willing to stand down and abate their breath until that meeting ..." ..."Bonhoeffer followed every detail of these hemmorhoidal isometrics from England via his mother's almost daily updates."
(Support for clichés) "It was a sermon that applied to everyone with ears to hear, but few could actually hear it."

I don't seem to have marked any of the non sequiturs. I'm just saying that it's difficult to read because all of this stuff gets in the way of the thought. Hemmorhoidal isometrics indeed!

"It was a sermon that applied to everyone with ears to hear, but few could actually hear it."
Nonsensical. Not even going to comment on the hemmorhoidal isometrics.

I'm back to Miss Blimber! Dombey is announcing his intention of sending six year-old Paul there.....

DAILY DICKENS

"'I have been thinking of Doctor Blimber's, Mrs Pipchin.'
'My neighbour, Sir?' said Mrs Pipchin. 'I believe that the Doctor's is an excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to night.'
'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey.'"

Hi, Megan. I'm always relieved when somebody agrees that I'm not just being a tiresome old toot.

NO MARK UPON HER by Deborah Crombie
I love these mysteries. I guess it's possible to read them critically, but they are just right for engrossing my attention for whatever time it takes to gobble one down. I love the continuing characters, and I simply refuse to look closely enough to see the flaws that some other readers seem to have. This was an ER ARC, so my review is on the book page if you're interested.

While I'm here I just as well type up my DD. I've finally reached the chapter where we meet Miss Blimber for real. Dickens may have a lot to say about junk-sellers, but he really really exercises his wit on bad schools. I could copy the whole chapter, but I'll try to choose a sample or two instead.

DAILY DICKENS

"In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other."

"The Doctor was a portly gentleman .... He had ... a chin so very double, that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases."

"Sad-coloured curtains, whose proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves despondently behind the windows."

Oh, those curtains!

I think Math is a gooseberry too.

I may get to the new Crombie before the end of the month. I certainly hope so. If not, I'm sure to get to it in April.

Hi Peggy -- I'm loving your Daily Dickens. I also love the picture at the top of the thread. I know I've said that before, but it makes me smile every time I visit:) Happy Sunday!

The curtains are great, aren't they, Lucy? And I agree completely, Tui. Math has always been a very sour gooseberry to me. Lori, you'll love it!
Thank you, Anne. It was a happy Sunday, and here's more of the effects of education with the Blimbers.

DAILY DICKENS

"Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world."

"Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming."

This has become quite a dangerous thread. When I look at my readings it seems I have dedicated 2012 to the English classics anyway (just started T.H. White and Trollope).
I had already been planning to read OMF, AToTC and Pictures from Italy this year, but now Dombey and Son (of which I had never heard before) is also slowly crawling up mount Dickens tbr. I should start a Dickens tbr Excel list.

How happy that makes me, Nathalie! Have you gone so far as to schedule Pictures from Italy? I haven't read it, and I'd love to......
You can't say that *D&S* was CD's breakout novel, but it does sort of mark the divide between his earlier learning-his-craft work and his later, more organized (!) writing, I think.

#121: I wouldn't know it existed if it hadn't been next after Pickwick Papers in the complete works edition on my Kindle. I thought it might be interesting to read a short travelogue for a change and also to see how he writes when out of his element which is usually London.

I haven't scheduled it yet, so we could read it together if you like. amazon says the print edition has 148 pages, so I should be able to start it anytime.

I'd love to read *Italy* with you, Nathalie! I sort of hoped that you would say that you were saving it for later. Of course, at only 148 pages, I should be able to do it any time, so it's your call.

"Paul sat as if he had taken life unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming." I love that!

I couldn't resist that one, Heather. Poor Paul. And poor Lizzie. I didn't read any *D&S* today, so I'll just copy where I am.

DAILY DICKENS

"'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '
At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an assumption of the deepest interest."

Awww.

Nothing of Dickens this morning, but I had to add a couple to the "hemorrhoidal isometrics" - not as good, but worthy of a chuckle. And it's a shame because this is a look, unique in my experience, at the Third Reich and Hitler from the viewpoint of a committed Christian and theological genius. In a discussion of Hitler's declining star prior to Krystallnacht (I think), I read, "Perhaps they were all on the threshold of the departure of the irascible vegetarian who had been destroying their country for the previous five years." I will swear that he found no other way to get H's vegetarianism into the book and couldn't let it go. Or how about, "In time the bloodthirsty devils with whom they were playing patty-cake would strangle them with the guts of their quaint scruples"? I almost like "---the sinuous Dr. Werner tied himself into a ribbon for the epochal occasion" of Hitler's 50th birthday. Then there are the cliches. I'll have a lot to say when we meet to discuss this brick - it's 624 pages if I hadn't said before - and I'm at the 45% mark.
Shoot. I'm going to read The Siege. So there.

From patty cake to guts in one sentence! Yoicks!

Peggy - "Paul - a life unfurnished"! Poor old fellow should have been born in the internet age because this Paul's life is fully furnishd and the Interior Design burnished with the joys of LT and your thread as one of the particular pleasures - should get to D&S in May and you are whetting my appetite for it tremendously.

Hello, Lucy and Paul. Yep, that Metaxas has some sort of knack, I'd say. Paul, I hadn't put together your being Paul and *D&S* being Pauls. I'd say that your life is quite well-furnished, and I'm proud that you come by here. I'll get a DD added later. Meanwhile, I did finish my book....

THE SIEGE by Helen Dunmore

I won't even bother to write what I thought of it. The reviews from other 75ers are wonderful and spot on. This is a beautiful book and an awful one. If starving is worse than she describes, I don't want to know it. I'm ashamed to spend $ on fun food for my chubby self when people are living and dying through something similar. My friend is sending me The Betrayal, so I'll be able to find out what happens to Anna, Kolya, and Andrei. If I wasn't the last person on LT to read it, I recommend it with my whole, broken heart. (I guess that means I still have the pieces.)

Your not Peggy - I have still the pleasure (and it seems certain to be so) to come. Your further positive review makes an early read even surer.

>129 LizzieD:: oh yes, what a superb book. Glad you enjoyed it Peggy.

Paul, see what Laura says? "Superb" is the word.
O.K. Not much on the *D&S* front today. I chose a sentence that I think shows CD working too hard to be funny. I wonder whether other people read it this way. Anyhow, Paul is given a pile of assignments to read through before breakfast on his first day, and he is totally confused.

DAILY DICKENS

"So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him."

(It reminds me of a poor kid who had been out of school more than in for an entire semester but showed up on the day of the tenth grade state writing test. Tenth graders in N.C. are still supposed to read world literature {!}, and the test essay had to be written about something read in translation. My poor class that year had read both Medea and A Doll's House, so my kid wrote something to the effect that Norah killed her sons because her husband hadn't wanted her to borrow money. Then she walked out and slammed the door. I did not feel like a success.)

I like that quote -- or hic haec hoc was troy weight - the words have a nice mimbly quality to them, flowing along nonsensically.

I do not progress with *D&S* at the moment. Bonhoeffer and We Need to Talk about Kevin are commanding my reading time. I'll get back.

We need to talk about Kevin has been on my shelf for ages. Tried to read it years ago when I bought it, but got distracted by work I think and never picked it up again.

Caught up at last. I'm loving the Dickens quotes - especially those this month from D & S. Feeling rather ghoulish now as a student of dead languages.

I'm slowly working through Pickwick Papers myself - on my mobile phone e-reader, so it's the book of choice for odd moments when I don't have a paper book to hand. Slowish progress, but I'm glad to have finally met Sam Weller - that was a name I knew as a Dickens character but did not know that he belonged in PP. Re discussion on previous thread about the Cockney use of v for w, I was curious about that too, because it's not a feature of current cockney that I've been aware of. I found a note buried somewhere in wikipedia that it was a feature of 19th century cockney which has since died out. Today it's more likely to be substituting v for th - as in 'wiv a little bit of luck'.

BB on The Siege -- and I don't usually like books about the World Wars all that much, but this just sounds too powerful to miss, thanks to your review.

Glad you liked the Siege, I had to put down The Betrayal at the library the other day as just cant fit it in this round. But I will get to it one day.

>134 LizzieD:/135 I loved Kevin, its one that I am determined to do a reread of, and I hardly ever reread books.

#129 You weren't the last - I feel like I will be at this rate though!

At last! Maybe I'll be able to post multiples over the course of the weekend and catch up.

DAILY DICKENS

"Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth, whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing."

Feral fellow!

Peggy a forty year old man with perfect teeth would certainly be something to comment upon in Victorian England. Have a lovely weekend.

From The Siege to We Need to Talk About Kevin? Wow you do like to tear your heart out, don't you Peggy? Two excellent books that personify the term "heart wrenching" in my book.

Hi, Linda! Why don't I ever find cute gifs like that one!???
Bonnie, I know. I'm going to need some earnest sweetness and light when I finish *Kevin*. I read a good amount today - got him up to the 8th grade in her history. The only real criticism I have so far is that I don't believe that the mother of a Kevin would risk having a second child, both for fear that she might do it again and for fear that Kevin would hurt the younger one.
Paul and Lucy, isn't the word "distressing" devastating?!?! I didn't read any further, so I'll have to try to get another DD tomorrow or even Monday. Has anybody ever see a picture of a Victorian person smiling with his teeth showing? I'm thinking that bad teeth and "Live is real, life is earnest" contribute to the closed mouth.

Just de-lurking to say hi, Peggy!

Stopping by to say hi! Deborah Crombie's books seem to be always recommended to me on Amazon.. maybe I'll have to try one after all!

Hi, Terri and Deb. Always happy when you stop by! Deb, Crombie has now jumped to the top of my "Americans Writing British Crime Novels" list. Her characters are more convincing than E. George's, and the gore isn't as obtrusive. If you succumb, I hope that you enjoy!

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver

Somebody said that Fall on Your Knees was a train wreck of a book. This one is a train wreck in slow motion - I couldn't look away! You probably know that it is an epistolary novel in which the mother writes to her estranged husband about their son's high school killing rampage. I'm more than ambivalent about the letters; generally, I simply ignored the fact that a letter was what I was supposed to be reading and read. Oh, I did read!
I had objections to the portrayal of Kevin as an evil, conniving devil from birth. She saw the worst of herself in Kevin. She did not see any of the redeeming qualities that she recognized in herself. Somehow, that rings true to me, and I have no idea how I'd respond. I had trouble with the father as a totally naive, besotted innocent. I had trouble with the mother's continuing romance with her husband and her inability ever to feel anything positive about Kevin except for one week when he was ill. I especially had trouble with the mother's determination to have a second child. She seems never to have thought that she could have a second Kevin or that Kevin might harm the baby. Even with all the objections, the story seemed authentic to me. I don't think that even one humorous moment lightens the load, but I kept reading. Is there redemption possible in the end? Like any clever fourth grader writing a book report, I say that you should read it for yourself and see what you think.

This is a wonderful and very honest review. And I'll read it for myself, but better not now. Not a good time to add another problem book to my currently readings. It has been on my shelf those past couple of years and can surely rest there a little longer. Have you read The Post-Birthday World? Back when I still had the money to just go and buy books without thinking I bought them both and then never felt like reading them.

I checked my library and found that I added We Need To Talk About Kevin back in 2011. I actually bought the book at a local library sale.

Now, if only I could find where I put the book, I could read it asap.

Hi, Nathalie and Linda! Thank you for review praise, Nathalie. This is my first Lionel Shriver, but I don't think that it will be the last. Like you, I'm saying "better not now." The Post-Birthday World and The Female of the Species look good to me. When I pick one up though, I know it won't be lightly or gaily, so I'm sure that you're properly warned, Linda!

#148 Agreed, a very honest review. I'm still not sure whether I want to read that book or could cope with reading it.

Hi Peggy. I can see your points about We Need to Talk About Kevin but I don't remember them bothering me when I read it, which was probably about 5 years ago. I do remember not being able to put the book down and for that reason it's one of my favorite books.

WNtTAK was the first Shriver I read followed by The Post-Birthday World which I also thought was very good. Next I read The Female of the Species which I hated and then finally So Much for That which I found to be a really difficult read about terminal illness and the US healthcare system. SMfT was even more of a train wreck in slow motion than WNtTAK!

Pat, I wonder whether you'd read *Kevin* the same way now? It's another question about the effect of LT on everybody's reading around here. I don't know that I would have had the same objections five years ago. I can almost see myself rereading it someday, but I don't think I could manage a slower, worse train wreck, so I'll keep your caveat in mind. I did order a copy of *Post-Birthday* from PBS this morning.
Heather, I think this is one that you let your personal preference decide. That is to say, often I go ahead and read something that one of you liked but that didn't appeal to me initially. I can be glad I did or sorry I wasted the time, but I'm all for giving a discussed book the benefit of the doubt. Not this one!

Slow train wreck is right. It's an incredible book. I'd like to see the film but can't get any of my family to go with me. And I would strongly advocate reading the book before seeing the film, anyway, and none of them have read it. Sigh. I wish I could magically bring together the LTers who've read this book ...

Linda -- isn't LT wonderful that way? Oh, I already have that. How many times have I said that since signing up!

What a scary idea -- to have a child you can't feel right about.....

Peggy, I sometimes think I'll read WNtTAK again but there are always so many other books calling my name. I suspect I wouldn't like it as much the second time mainly because I've been disappointed in some of her other books and no longer hold her on such a high pedestal.

Laura, I also want to see the movie but don't know anyone else in RL that wants to. I'll probably wait until it's out on DVD and then find a time to watch it when my husband isn't around.

The film is by all accounts a great one. I want to see it too, but the only theater showing it is across town, and I might end up waiting til DVD to see it- Im guessing the slow motion train wreck will be as obvious on screen!

I'm sorry that Laura and Pat can't get together to see the movie. If that were possible, I might join them - or maybe I'd just come for the meal later! Lucy, the part of Linda's message that resonated with me was, "Now, if only I could find where I put the book" ---
I've seen a couple of parents who, I could tell, disliked their children. It was a great sadness, but nothing like Eva and Kevin of course!

I like your review. I've been meaning to get around to reading We Need to talk about Kevin & I really should get to it soon!

I haven't read the Kevin book (nor am I likely to) but I wondered, from your review, if it was implicit that the problem with Kevin was that his mother didn't like him, which led to his behaviour, and that she is the one with real mental issues?

Great review, Peggy. I think I'll wait until I'm in a REALLY happy place before taking it on.

Thank you, Chelle and Beth. I have to say that I was in a pretty foul mood the whole time I read it.
Tui, that is the question..........I'll give you a little more info. Kevin and his mother have a lot in common, but it's hard to blame her for the whole thing unless you blame her genes too. She does seem to define herself by what she dislikes, but her rants against fat, ignorant Americans sound pretty familiar to me.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
When he is born, she hears his first cries as rage. He won't nurse. In fact, for most of his life, she has to leave food out for him to eat on the sly. He refuses toilet training until he is six; she has to go to kindergarten several times a day to change his diapers. (He says that he merely did what all other children want to do.) His first words come in sentences, "Turn that off," when she turned on a TV cartoon for him. She goes away for 3 months when he's five or so and comes home to his mocking "nyeh nyees" of everything she and her husband say. (That one would drive me absolutely nuts. "Kevin, please take your feet off the sofa." "Nyeh-nyeh, nyeh nyeh nyeh Nyee nyeh nyeh Nyee-nyeh." His father calls it his special language...) He has no connection to anybody or anything. The only toy that he ever liked was a water pistol that he used to shoot the movers in the crotch so that he could mock them for wetting themselves when they moved into a new house - which the father had bought without consulting the mother. He says that she was the audience for the killings.
So I'm thinking nature and nurture, but she leaves the whole thing ambiguous. Incidentally, the mother shares quite a number of traits with Shriver herself, which sharing may contribute to the believability of the character.

I have but four more words for you or for myself: Anne of Green Gables. While my mother was doing PT this morning, I watched some of the first episode on DVD and was totally hooked again. I have my VHS recorded some years ago and will watch the whole thing over the next few days. I also downloaded the series to my Kindle because I didn't read the stories as a child. When I was the right age for them, I was already reading something more sophisticated - the story of my reading life - and turned up my nose. Now my nose is turned down, pointing to Anne, and poor Bonhoeffer will have to wait yet again. (Hmmm. More than four words, but that's what's going on with me.)

Well, I'm glad that you found Anne of Green Gables . I just loved them sometime in my adolescence, along with most of my friends. I think I read nearly every book written by L. M. Montgomery. My mom was keen on her, so I'm sure that the supply of the books had something to do with that. I enjoyed them very much as did most of my friends. Have fun!

Shrivel is a most interesting writer. She often has articles in one paper or another including one in the Wall Street Journal that I' m going to post part of on my thread because we touched on what she talks about. I think I read Kevin about five years ago too and also couldn't put it down. He was such a personification of evil and I had never read anything quite like it. I have two other Shriver books on my shelf but somehow something else always seems to get in the way. Story of my life.

Deb, I am having fun! I wish I hadn't been such a stubborn young twit. Alas, the regret doesn't do much for my being a stubborn old twit.
Bonnie, I look forward to seeing the Shriver bit on your thread. The interview in the back of my copy of *Kevin* shows her to be an interesting person.
Meanwhile, imagine my surprise and delight this morning when, at 75% of the pages read, I found that I had finished the Bon-fer bio!

BONHOEFFER: PASTOR, MARTYR, PROPHET, SPY by Eric Metaxas
I'm not going to have a lot to say here since I said what I thought several times upthread as I was reading. This is a solid biography and a look at the Third Reich from a contemporary Christian's point of view. I haven't ever read anything like it. Bonhoeffer was something of a saint as we commonly think of saints. His faith was fervent and unwavering. He was also a scholar; also a musician and a very likeable man, always ready to laugh. He and his family quickly saw through Hitler's appropriation of the German church, and Bonhoeffer was a moving spirit in the Confessing Church that sought to worship Jesus rather than Hitler. He was ecumenical in outlook and took pastorates in Barcelona and London as well as visiting Union Seminary in New York. His concern quickly extended to the plight of the Jews. He was involved as a member of the Abwher in the plots to assassinate Hitler. Just before his arrest, he became engaged to an 18 year-old woman. When he was arrested, the Gestapo didn't realize how involved he was. He was hanged two weeks before the prison at Flossenburg was liberated by the Americans.
Metaxas spends some time discussing his theology and gives plenty of quotations from his writing, sermons, and letters. All of this makes for a grand introduction to the man and his thought. This sometimes has the characteristics of a hagiography, but I didn't find the idealization over-bearing in a book of this length.
Metaxas spent way too much of his time over-writing. His characterization of individual Nazis is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, an inappropriate response, I'm sure..... "...pursuing a strategy of double-barreled flatulence..." "In the avuncular tone of an iconic chain-restaurant pitchman..." "...a triple-jointed sycophant..." "Heydrich, the piscine ghoul..." On the other hand, he also too often resorted to cliches - "Hitler had to have his cake and eat it too." Anyone who has an interest in the time or in Bonhoeffer and who can ignore or tolerate these flaws should profit from reading the book.

Hi Peggy, thoroughly enjoyed your remarks on We Need to Talk About Kevin. Can't yet decide whether I'm going to take that one on. On the other hand, your post re Anne of Green Gables makes me want to drop everything and reread the entire series! I recently rewatched the 1985 movie (Megan Follows) and thoroughly enjoyed. It's one I will always come back to.

I love the Anne of Green Gables books and re-read them periodically. For me (a Brit) the only film/TV version is the BBC Sunday tea-time serial with Kim Braden as Anne, which dates from the early 70s (I think). I liked the Megan Follows version and the Story Girl series that followed but the BBC had imprinted me first!

Hi, Peggy! Your last two reviews were good and helpful to this reader, as I'm trying to decide about reading each of them. I thumbed your review of the Metaxas -- would thumb your Kevin comments if they were posted on the book's page, which they don't seem to be . . . ;)

Hi Peggy! Your review of BONHOEFFER: PASTOR, MARTYR, PROPHET, SPY is very interesting, and a book I'm going to put on my wishlist. Thanks for that! Thumbed your review. I don't think I could read We Need to Talk about Kevin. I had an uncle, adopted into the family when he was about ? 14 months old by my grandparents. The foster parents had him on some sort of tranquilers when my grandparents adopted him, and while he was not like Kevin, he was a sociopath, though as he hit his mid forties he kind of settled down. He passed away in the past year at the age of 57 of liver failure brought on by Hepatitis contracted via drug use. He was only 6 or 7 years older than me. Let's just say I witnessed enough to say I think my unfortunate uncle was more genetically challenged and knowing him is all I need to know. Tough subject, that. Very hard on my grandparents who tried very hard to support him in every way that they could.

Nancy and Kerry, I'm watching and then reading; reading and then watching. Thanks for the visits and for sharing the joy! I just checked out Kim Braden as Anne, but I am imprinted on Mean Follows so much that I see her and hear her voice when I read.
Terri and Deb, thank you for your kind comments and the welcome thumbs. I didn't see a sort-of-summary or anything about the writing on the book page for the Bonhoeffer book, so I put mine on there. On the other hand, *Kevin* has many reviewers saying what I could think to say. Deb, my grandparents also adopted a nephew who was not a sociopath but was already an alcoholic at eleven when they took him in. I'm sure that he hastened their deaths. I wouldn't bother with *Kevin* either were I you.

Great review of the Bonhoeffer book. I loved Anne of Green Gables, and, luckily, my daughter did, too. We read most of them together. We have the Megan Follows video and periodically watch it together. We still tend to turn it off when Matthew is about to die!

>171 vancouverdeb: that is certainly rough Deb, nature vs nurture is a big question and I have to say it is always a bit of both. In extreme cases one can really dominate and the other have no effect, so what can you do but your best? I loved Kevin for the questions it raised.

Peggy, I love the discussion that your review of "Kevin" has generated. I read it back in '03, and it is still fresh in my mind. Thank goodness, that is one book I will never have to reread. It sounds like I disliked it. Wrong! It was in my Top Ten for that year.

Hi Peggy,
I'm just catching up with threads after being away for a while. Your reviews are, as always, a pleasure to read.

There's something about We Need to Talk About Kevin, that seems to always generate conversation. It struck me how applicable the title is in that way: you read it, and you need to talk about it.

HI! Beth, Megan, Donna, Stephen, and Laura!!!
I aim a grateful curtsy to Mr. K.
I soldier through when Matthew dies, but that part was cast perfectly. In fact, so far (and it's not very far at all) I'm watching and tearing up at her getting to stay and getting the dress with the puffy sleeves. This is apparently a perfect time for me to be watching.
Megan, Donna, and Laura, I love the fact that *Kevin* is ambiguous in so many ways. Life's a lot like that. And Laura, the title is apt. I think this is one case when the Orange committee got it right, and not just because the book is so dark.
For somethings completely different, I've spent today getting into my ARC, Hide Me Among the Graves with an occasional foray into The Magicians. Fun stuff!!

I can't believe I missed this whole thread! I looked for it via your profile and found the red ignore cross had been clicked- certainly not intentionally. I blame the i-pad, it leads me to click all sorts of things I don't mean to!

Well I have skim read the posts I've missed and am now going to back to read a months worth of daily Dickens! I do like those book summaries at the beginning, by the way. I had a little chuckle at "well-bred cliff-hangers"!

Well, Dee, I must say that I'm relieved that you haven't been avoiding me on purpose! And I promise to get back to *D&S*.
I just read this in Emily Eden's letters from India in 1838...
"I have been writing to R. to send out 'Nicholas Nickleby' overland. Does not that book drive you demented? and I am sure it is all true. I remember years ago a trial about one of those Yorkshire schools, where all the boys had the ophthalmia and one boy had his bones through his skin, and none of the boys were allowed a towel; and these atrocities put us all into one of those frenzies in which we used to indulge in youth. I dare say Dickens was at that school, I wish he would not take to writing horrors, he realises them so painfully."

Great quote. I'm still slowly reading through the Pickwick Papers, and read some comment about how many people regretted that he never wrote anything so light-hearted and comic after that, he was so busy taking on what Emily Eden would call 'horrors'.

Hi, Genny. I love the reactions of the people that he wrote for. *Pickwick* is unique. That's all there is to it. You nudge me to get back to *D&S* and also into my *Dickens Companion*. Thank you, ma'am.

Excellent quote there, gives a contemporary angle.

More of the Honorable Miss Eden....
She rewards an uninterrupted hour or so. I laughed pretty much as she did (although the word has a different meaning now!) when she speaks of a baby elephant given to her for her dog Chance to ride..."Jimmund came with Chance under his arm to make a salaam, and when I asked what was the matter, he said he came to say he was very glad that his Chance had got a Hotty. You are of course aware that we habitually call elephants Hotties, a name that might be safely applied to every other animal in India, but I suppose the elephants had the first choice of names and took the most appropriate." (A note says that the word is Hathi, "the beast with a hand.")

That's hysterical Peggy. I'm sure I somehow missed it but what book is Miss Eden in?

Bonnie, it's a Virago/Beacon Traveler, Up the Country: Letters from India, Emily Eden's letters back to England while she accompanied her brother Lord Auckland, who was the Governor-General of India in the late 1830's. She's witty, and probably because she was a painter, she sees everything. She is also perfectly representative of her class and time as far as I can tell. Without question, this is one of the good ones!

I have that one on my TBR pile - I'm glad to hear it's good.

Another winner!

Stopping by to say hi, Peggy! I saw on Lit Chick aka/ Nancy's thread that you have a line of Oranges planned! Which are they, pray tell! :) I read and LOVED Island of Wings , and currently I am reading The Translation of the Bones, which I am enjoying but not nearly as enthused about. Then, because Dee suggested that she thought Painter of Silence might be really good Orange Material, I purchased the book and I blame her for the $$! ;) Kidding! Poor old Dee, I love to tease her a bit. I have several other in my TBR pile. but they will have to wait a bit.

Added the letters from India book to the wishlist... Bunch of India books around and about these days, and I hope someday to get to them.

Adding my recommendation regarding a book about India -- I highly recommend Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins. It is superb!

191: Apparently I have that, says LT... Ah, yes, here it is on the shelf, purchased in Srinagar says the stamp on the inside cover... So that would've been 1988. Did I read it? I have no memory one way or the other.

Greetings and thanks for the visit! to Genny, Lucy, Deb, Katherine and Linda! Miss Eden continues to entertain. She says, "There was never such a man as Dickens!" I agree with my whole heart even if I'm not reading *D&S* right now. (I confess that I got into a difficult place with young Walter Gay followed by Son himself. I'll press on and get back into it..) Linda and Katherine, I have read something by Larry Collins on India, I'm pretty sure....or maybe not. My catalogue says that I don't have anything that he wrote. O Jerusalem! must be in the attic, and I really thought that he wrote City of Joy, but I now see that's not the case, so never mind. I haven't read any Larry Collins. I have a couple of Penguin/Pelican volumes of Indian history by a Woman Tharpar (not right but close). I read in the first, and it was very good. (Ah. Found her --- Romila Thapar) Anyway, my thanks for the recommendation, Linda.
Deb, I have been busily acquiring the new Orange long list - the ones that are cheap first. I already owned Lord of Misrule and The Night Circus. I got a copy of The Forgotten Waltz by serendipity from a dear friend who had a duplicate copy. From AMP I got used copies of Gillespie and I (which I'm reading and liking a lot) and The Pink Hotel. I broke down and ordered Foreign Bodies because I love The Ambassadors so much. AND today AwesomeBooks sent me the code for a 20% discount, so I immediately ordered from them used copies of The Sealed Letter and Half Blood Blues at about $5 apiece! I'm feeling VERY set-up. I know that I want The Song of Achilles and Painter of Silence and Island of Wings and whatever wins if I don't have it, but otherwise, I think I'm good. Oh --- and I'm interested in Blue Book, and it's not readily available anywhere in my price range..... Thank you for asking!

Great book shopping, Peggy! Woot! You'll have your Orange reads all in a row in no time. Can't wait to see which one you'll choose to read first : ).

I'm going to add Up the Country: Letters From India to my PBS wish list Peggy. Nice haul of Oranges.

Hi Nancy and Bonnie! I'm over the top as a book buyer, but it gives me a great deal of satisfaction! Bonnie, Miss Eden just grows more charming. Now she has adopted a baby flying squirrel that hops and glides along behind her everywhere she goes. She says that she feels be-ratted. She has also just bought a couple of little girls (!) whose father had abused them all their lives and then died. Her plan is to put them in an orphanage when she returns to the plain, but she is happy to see them thriving in the encampment. Such a time!
The Knopf Poem-a-Day was a particularly wise one, I thought, by Marie Ponsot who is 91 and of whom I know nothing else!

A Rune, Interminable

Low above the moss
a sprig of scarlet berries
soon eaten or blackened
tells time.

Go to a wedding
as to a funeral:
bury the loss.

Go to a funeral
as to a wedding:
marry the loss.

Go to a coming
as to a going:
unhurrying.

Time is winter-green.
Seeds keep time.
Time, so kept, carries us
across to no-time where

no time is lost.

I just read that poem in my email! Same thoughts.

Wow - now that's some poem.

Oh HO!!!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/starinterviews/the-boy-with-dickens-in-his...

ooooooooooooooo

>199 tiffin:: fun fact!

MANY thanks, Tui! He really is quite good-looking to say the least. I'm oooooing with Lucy and having fun like Laura!
Now off to bed with Miss Eden. We're closing in on the end!

How fascinating! Although how difficult to have to live up to an ancestor dead for more than a century... One of my editors is related to Teddy Roosevelt and has the same last name, which is v. uncommon. I sometimes think (a) how sick he must get of the questions and (b) how weird it must feel, to know that you are related to the guy whose name is on the road you're driving down (the FDR drive in NY). My father's name is the same as that of a Canadian politician who was one of the founders of Confederation in 1867, and was then famously assassinated on Sparks Street a short while later -- Canada's only political assassination for more than a century. But there is NO relationship there.

One of my uni chums was Kierkegaard's granddaughter. She WAS good and sick of the questions, plus she wasn't all that fond of her grandfather.

(Hi, Suz and Tui!) I frankly can't imagine being so closely related to somebody who belongs to the world. I would think that Kierkegaard would certainly have been hard to know and love.....
My DH claims - or at least his grandmother claimed - descent from Pocohontas. Me? I'm just folks.