LizzieD: 2012*6 (June: A Dress Rehearsal for July)

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

~ E. E. Cummings



O.K. It's not really May, but I couldn't resist. And soon it will be much too hot to be only spring, but for right now it really is Just- spring!

SIGNIFICANT IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2012
Fall on Your Knees
The Broom of the System
A Splendor of Letters
1Q84
Arcadia
Purgatory
The Siege
We Need to Talk about Kevin
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
Up the Country
Lord of Misrule
Loitering with Intent
The Bone People
Bring Up the Bodies
Means of Ascent
Doc

* indicates a review on the book page

JUNE
1. Thirteen - hardboiled action in scifi setting - Morgan hasn't been bad yet, but this is not his best
2. Doc - MDR reclaims the life of Doc Holliday so that he lives again in all his complexity - LOVE
3. The Magicians - adult fantasy, coming-of-age with magic - O.K.
4. *My Cleaner - the African erstwhile maid cleans more than house - funny, wise - I loved it
5. Honor Among Enemies - #6 military/space opera, Honor Harrington - back in Mantie uniform - fun stuff (reread)
6. Dombey and Son - family and pride; love and indifference; London alive! (reread)
7. James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon - biography - fascinating life, fascinating reading!
8. Among Others - contemporary fantasy - total entertainment - totally brill!

JULY
1. Half of a Yellow Sun - the short-lived life of Biafra as lived by five characters - LOVE!
2. Revelation - Matthew Shardlake #4 - another fine entry in a fine series

NEW IN JUNE
1. Maps and Legends - Kindle Daily Deal
2. Lovely Green Eyes - Kindle
3. Norwegian Wood - gift from a friend who didn't want it - I DO! Thank you!!
4. Among Others ✔ - a gift from a friend! Thank you!!!!
5. My Cleaner ✔ - PBS
6. James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon ✔ - AMP
7. Alone in Berlin ✔ - AMP
8. A Discovery of Witches ✔ - Kindle Daily Deal
9. JR - PBS
10. History: A Novel (Aventura) - PBS
11. A Compass Error - AMP
12. Spinsters of This Parish - AMP
13. The Gospel of Judas - PBS
14. The Black Flower - PBS
15. Started Early, Took My Dog - PBS

NEW IN JULY
1. The Floating Book - PBS
2. Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free - Kindle Daily Deal
3. Music Upstairs - AMP
4. The Book of Human Skin - PBS
5. The Chaperone ✔- Kindle Daily Deal
6. As Far As You Can Go - AMP

Peggy: Happy new thread. One of my favorite poems -- I love spring. And great pic of the dog. It all fits.

Another thread for me to try to keep up with Peggy. EE Cummings was a stylist wasn't he?

Lovely new thread--recognized the e. e. cummings immediately!

I'm assuming the New in June is your acquisitions--hurrah on Among Others and the Tiptree bio.

Hi Peggy, nice way to start a new thread, and cute little dog too, what kind is he? Or is that a black lad up to his thighs in water....at first glance he looks like a dog of the short-legged variety!

Poem and dog, perfect match.

Hi Peggy--one of my favorite poems, and I even thought about posting it, but I wasn't sure I could get the spacing to work out. I am so impressed!

Welcome, Beth (You're #1!), Paul, Roni, Megan, Lucy, and Anne. The dog in the mud and the poem are pure serendipity. I'm glad that you like them. And, yes, Megan, I'm pretty sure that's a Lab knee-deep in it.........and I'm glad it's not mine.
Yes, Roni, New indicates new acquisitions - I'm hopeless. And, all of you, I realized that DH really loved me when he gave me the collected Cummings for Christmas in 1972 - not a thing that he valued at the time.

DAILY DICKENS
"And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this, it was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the instability of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so direfully impressed upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him. Sometimes, thinking of the baby question, he could hardly forbear inquiring himself, what could it do indeed what had it done?"

(Mr. Dombey almost gets a clue about the importance of his fortune, but the Major's regard prevents his examining it.)

Oh good, a short new thread to jump on. Love the muddy pup in the puddle.

I love the pic, too. Labs do love water don't they?

Hi, Genny and Laura! I'm really glad I didn't have the cleaning of that mud-luscious dog!

When labs (and cocker spaniels) see some water, and a muddy smelly pond or a puddle fully qualify, nothing can hold them back.

Happy new thread, Peggy!

Great to see May the dog back even though it's now June and hope she will be a regular feature!

May wags hello to Nathalie and Dee; I'll just speak......"Hi!"

DAILY DICKENS

"The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled grill and kidneys tightening his cravat --- got --- into his great-coat with immense difficulty, and buttoned --- up until his face looked staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a barrel."

(Actually, it was his servant that did the bundling and buttoning, but I had left him out earlier.)

Give May a hug for me--Labs are wonderful. Enjoying the daily Dickens, looking forward to OMF in July.

Yay for a new thread and a happy lab. My son has two of them and they are just the most sweet, loving dogs Peggy. We always had Springer Spaniels until our newest little fur ball arrived. They're all wonderful. What would it be like w/o our dogs?

Less furry, and there's no point to that!

May thanks you for the hug - like all labs, I expect - she's a huggy puppy. Bonnie and Lucy, I won't imagine life without pets. Meanwhile, the cats are demanding equal screen rights with May. Looks like I'll have to make more pictures.

DAILY DICKENS

"Mr. Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if a man like that would make his very eyesight dirty."

"'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of people, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It always fails!'"
*****************************************************************************

As for my reading, I'm half through Doc and really enjoying it and also half through The Magicians and enjoying that although I can put it down for weeks at a time and not feel deprived. And I dip into all the new books on my "currently reading" pile with joy and anticipation. I think I'm really going to like My Cleaner. I read Maggie Gee's memoir from ER and liked it very much. Somehow, this one is calling my name louder than The White Family - at least right now.

I'm slowly working my way through threads. So my comments here hie back to February!! LOL and apologies.

Well, I guess it's clear why Richard doesn't lurk here -- he loathes Dickens and that's pretty unavoidable (or at least it was in February).
I love Cherryh -- My favorite must the Cuckoo's Egg. I always wanted (and still want) a sequel. I just really wanna know what's next!!

Musing on the title of your thread, I really hope that June is not a dress rehearsal for July over here - the weather recently has been so cold, wet, windy and miserable, I've had to put the heating back on (2 weeks away from mid summer!) and need my heavy waterproof jacket whenever I go out. Brrrrrrrrrr, where did summer go? (We did have a week of sun about 2 weeks ago, I suppose that was it).

I really must get myself a copy of Doc - it goes seem to be one that everyone recommends, and I've enjoyed M D R's other books I've read.

Susan, you are most welcome in February or June or any other time!!! No, Sir Richard has never darkened my door for whatever reason. When I have ventured to browse on his thread, I have thought, "Name a book and I'll disagree with you about it." Chacun à goût and all that. I haven't read a lot of Cherryh - that is to say, I think I've read a lot, but I haven't scratched the surface. Cuckoo's Egg is one I got from PBS, but there it sits on the shelf.
Genny, we are having an extraordinarily cool June so far. I'm just anticipating the heat and humidity. Wish it were possible to send you some when it arrives. Turning the heat back on is amazing!
I can barely put Doc down at this point. As usual, it took me quite a long time to be gripped by it, but now it seems at least as good as the other MDRs that I've read. If I read tomorrow as I did today, I'll have this one finished.

Name a book and I'll disagree with you about it.

I always have opposing views to Richard too. His reviews are so entertaining but not a guide to what to read for me. Maybe a guide to what not to read...

Hmm, we will soon find out if he does secretly lurk here I think ;)

I agree, Heather. He is the master of the one-liner. I seriously doubt that he lurks here. (Those two statements have nothing at all to do with each other.)

Richard may not lurk here, but I sure do. I love the not-May picture of the dog in the mudpuddle. My Yellow Lab (who is really cream colored) would love to do that. We have trained him to stay out of our murky backyard pond but sometimes a bullfrog will tempt him in. We've also trained him to stand still while he gets a hose bath!

Peggy, I like your 'Significant" book list and its title. I may change my "Best of" lists for the 2000s and 90s from Best Books to Significant Books. After all, who am I to judge the "best" books? I only know what I like...and that can change from day to day. ;-) I'm still loving Bring Up the Bodies, though.

#25 No, I'm Heather :-)

I love the photo of May in the puddle.

Oh SHOOT!!! Of course you are, and of course Dee is Dee and of course I'm - Befuddled.
(May thanks you, but it's not really her, just a stand-in.)
And, Dee, I decided that I really like some books that aren't very good and some books that are very good were not enjoyable. If they stay with me, I consider them significant. I'm glad that *BUtB* has another fan. I'm interested to hear what somebody doesn't like about it.

if they stay with me I consider them significant Ezackly.

And it is fascinating what sticks and what doesn't.

#28 "but it's not really her, just a stand-in" Doh, I completely misread your reference to May in the first message. I thought you meant the month but it makes a lot more sense now... I think I'm befuddled too :-)

.....hence, the endless fascination of LT. Hi, Lucy!

DOC by Mary Doria Russell

This one will stick. I loved it. Doc Holliday becomes a complex living, breathing human being - a Southern gentleman, intellectual, well-trained, sensitive to slights to others as well as to himself, desperate to hold onto life, alert to the possibility of death, determined to live well as long as he can, always defined by the tuberculosis that kills him by degrees and always refusing to be defined by the disease. I was fascinated by him and by the Earp boys, who grew up without his privileges and who also took people as they found them and respected them as they deserved. And I was totally fascinated by Kate Harony, yet another complex character whose early expectations failed, but who did not fail to grab a life for herself as she was able.
This is a big book with big ideas even for a less than thoughtful reader. For a thorough review, read Katherine's (qebo) on the book page. Then read the book, Genny and anybody else who has put it off this far.

30: I thought that too though I can see a difference between the dogs, now that I'm looking properly!

#31 MDR is very near the top (if not the actual top) of authors I am ashamed to admit I still haven't read....

Well, Dee and Heather, since you both came back, I will conclude that you have both forgiven me. That stand-in looks a lot like May, maybe broader at the bridge of the nose. Heather, MDR is very, very, very good.

(Here's another of May, the one I meant to use last month, in fact.) (The cats are really going to be jealous now.)

Oh good Peggy, Doc is another book we can agree on. Do you know that she is working on a book that will take Doc and the Earps on to Tombstone and the OK Corral? If you don't subscribe to her newsletter you should. She's hysterical.

Havent heard about Doc Holliday, looks like it has a high average star rating on the book page though. Glad you liked it, I am almost tempted.... ;)

We do agree, Bonnie, we do! Megan, you should read this book! I didn't think I'd like it at all, but I couldn't put it down.
Thanks for the tip about the newsletter, Bonnie. I've signed up and am waiting. Her blog's awfully good! I'm happy to learn about Doc 2!

Ah, I've found your new thread! Nice poem, cute dog photos, Daily Dickens . . . what more could one want?

#31 MDR is very near the top (if not the actual top) of authors I am ashamed to admit I still haven't read....
I haven't read her, either. Doc sounds interesting . . .

I love Russell. Must get ahold of Doc! :) May is lovely - thx for the pic.

What noble dog!

That's what I think too, Lucy!! Susan, May and I think you very much.
Terri, you're most welcome here. No shame attached to not having read MDR, but you are in for a real treat.
I hope everybody is having a good Sunday. We just waved 51 kids from underprivileged homes away to church camp. They were excited and scared and will have a wonderful, wonderful time. We've sent them for nearly 60 years.

DAILY DICKENS
"The Major, more blue-faced and staring - more over-ripe, as it were, than ever - and giving vent every now and then, to one of the horse's coughs, not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion of importance, walked arm-in-arm with Mr Dombey up the sunny side of the way, with his cheeks swelling over his tight stock, his legs majestically wide apart, and his great head wagging from side to side, as if he were remonstrating within himself for being such a captivating object."

ETA: Alert! ALERT!! Adult fantasy fans, the Kindle Daily Deal is Deborah Harkness's A Discovery of Witches. I do believe I've seen some pretty good conversation about it. At any rate, I spent $2.99 on it because it looked good to me when I saw it in a trade pb at Sam's Club. I'm very proud that I didn't get it then.

(Mr Toots is a rather simple school mate of Paul Dombey.)

DAILY DICKENS
"Nothing seemed to do Mr Toots so much good as incessantly leaving cards at Mr Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British Dominions - that wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular and persevering in his calls than Mr Toots."

Peggy: I'm not into the supernatural, in general, but a friend of mine who loves it urged me to read A Discovery of Witches, and I enjoyed it. She has a sequel coming out this summer; I think it is supposed to be a trilogy.

Beth, I think they made the first one a daily deal because the second one has just come out. I didn't know how many she had planned. Anyway, it's encouraging to me that you enjoyed it. I'll get to it, but I have to finish The Magicians first. I obviously don't mind the supernatural at all. In fact, some of my comfort reads are Dean Koontz's early monster books. I don't care much for his later psychological ones, but I'm quite happy with his goblins and ancient enemy and the lab-created monster in Watchers - and I love Einstein, the golden lab in that book.

I have this feeling I have the Harkness already...... somewhere..... oh dear!

Whisking back: Yep, apparently I do have it. Hmmmmmm I may have given it to hubster or daughter for xmas which would mean it rates as a tbr...... which means....... maybe I'll go hunt for it.

35: Do you know that she is working on a book that will take Doc and the Earps on to Tombstone and the OK Corral?
Oh? Maybe I'm glad I didn't know this or I might've waited to read Doc.
23: As usual, it took me quite a long time to be gripped by it, but now it seems at least as good as the other MDRs that I've read.
What others have you read?

Hi, Lucy and Katherine. Lucy, I can't read it yet. I'm committed to Among Others, and I have to let *Magicians* disappear a little first.
Katherine, I loved and love The Sparrow yet have never gotten into Children of God; I'm sure that I will. I also loved A Thread of Grace. Both those books have stayed with me, and I know that Doc will too.

THE MAGICIANS by Lev Grossman

I don't quite know what to say. When I remembered to read it, I liked it well enough, especially the first and last 100 pages or so. I could very easily put it down though, and then I'd be surprised when I came across it looking for something else. Edgeworth, whoever he may be, wrote quite an interesting review of it on the book page. I just can't take it that seriously although I do agree with the dissatisfaction he/she felt in the last 3 pages. I'm not sorry that I put the time into it, and I'm sure that I'll get to the sequel eventually, but I'm not excited enough to search it out. Oh well.

DAILY DICKENS

"'...which really,' said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn, 'puts me out of patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am not a camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a moment's consideration, 'if I know myself, a dromedary neither.'"

Nor a wombat neither.

What a fabulous quote!!!!

awww... wombats - so cute!
Great quote, I fear I'll have to read D&S at some point. But OMF comes first!

Thanks for pointing out the Edgeworth review, Peggy--that's new since I read the book and so I would have missed it, and it is very interesting and brings up some excellent points. I also liked the first 100 and last 100 pages best--got very, very tired of the teen angst and stagnation in the middle. But I thought the ending is what saved the book for me. Again, I'm just a child at heart, though, as far as fantasy is concerned.

People I respect, such as Suzanne (chatterbox), have liked the second book well enough that at some point I will probably give it a try.

Interestingly enough, it was Grossman who was interviewed on the PBS Newshour regarding Bradbury's influence last week.

I've read the first in the Lev Grossman 'magician' series, and The Hunger Games, the first in another trilogy. It's fascinating how the dreaded Victorian three-volume novel has been resurrected by thriller and YA writers these days. I imagine it gives them more room to work - and of course, sells more books.

But I'm always reminded of Miss Prism, in The Importance of Being Ernest, who misplaced a baby and found her three-volume novel in the bassinet instead.

HI, Lucy, Nathalie, Roni, and Judy! I'm interested in looking at thriller, scifi, and YA writers as descendents of the Victorian 3-volume novelists. And if I could jump on any stage in the world and play a part, right now it would be Miss Prism in *Ernest* - with a Southern accent!

One of my favorite plays! I liked the Grossmans better than you did, I think. The second book has a lot about his friend ... Julie(?) who doesn't make it into the school but becomes a magician anyway.

Julia is right: the hedge witch... I'll read it; I just won't actively seek it right now.

Here's a prime example of why I love Dickens so much. He's introducing a new character, and I don't know when I'll be able to stop copying..........

DAILY DICKENS

"Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames, which was one of the most desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and shrubbery.
Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once. Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. Like a heavy body dropped into water - not to disparage so worthy a gentleman by the comparison - it was in the nature of things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever widening circle about him, until there was no room left."

Oh snort and chuckle and guffaw. Priceless!

Love it!

Hi, Lucy and Roni. I love having you enjoy what I enjoy! I definitely enjoyed my latest book.....

MY CLEANER by Maggie Gee

The more I think about this one, the more I love it. I did a review on the book page since there was only one and it didn't really give any hints as to what the book is about. I didn't even try to give an idea of the tone or the fun or the depth of the book, but I could at least say a bit about the plot and the two main characters. There is a sequel of sorts, My Driver, which I suspect I'll be compelled to start in the next couple of days or minutes.
I wonder why this one didn't make the Orange longlist and suspect it's because Gee's The White Family was shortlisted the year before...so unfair!

My Cleaner sounds interesting. Hmm...another to add to my list.

Hi, Beth. I think My Cleaner is well worth reading!

DAILY DICKENS

(Mrs. Skewton, mother to the beautiful Edith Granger, who is being courted by Mr. Dombey, is called "Cleopatra" by Dombey's hanger-on, Major Bagshot. I haven't tired of her yet.... Mr. Carker is Dombey's office manager.)

"...really now, this is one of the most enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The idea! My dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that really one might almost be induced to cross one's arms upon one's frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no What's-his-name but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet."

"'Those darling, byegone times, Mr. Carker,' aid Cleopatra, 'with their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'"

(on Henry VIII)
"'So bluff!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'wasn't he? So burly. So truly English. Such a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy eyes, and his benevolent chin!'"

!!!!!!

I've just read your full review of The Cleaner and the book sounds fascinating. It's gone onto the wish list but I really should get to my copy of The White Family first.

I slightly remember reading something harrowing by Maggie Gee, years ago and being impressed by it but also slightly scared of reading anything else by her!

Thank you for reading the review, Dee. I'm feeling more and more like a cheerleader for this book. I have The White Family waiting too.
I don't really want to make Judy gag every time she comes here, but I can't resist this sentence in commentary on poor, poor little Florence's earest wish to win her father's love..... (It it's too much for you, go back and read about Henry's "dear little peepy eyes"!

DAILY DICKENS

"---and hope that patient observation of him and trust in him would lead her bleeding feet along that stony road which ended in her father's heart."

#47 Another thank you for pointing out the edgeworth review. I think I liked Magicians more than you did but I can understand the angst being too angsty (though not as angsty as the 5th/6th HP book!)

I'd like to read Grossman's sequel although I feel like he might have said everything in the first book. I'm hoping the price will come down at some point.

#56 :-) Keep posting the DD - I'm hoping it will inspire me to start Chuzzlewit...

#61 My Cleaner sounds much more appealing to me than The White Family for some reason.

Hi, Heather! To go backwards, *MC* was certainly the one I felt more like reading first after having read Gee's memoir.
I don't have *Chuzzlewit* in my line-up this year; I reread it awhile back...... If you can get over Ruth Pinch and America, I'd say you'd be good to go. I love Merry and Cherry and Sairey Gamp!
I'm not sure that it was the teen angst that made the Grossman forgettable - I can't quite remember. I do think that I'm going to like Among Others better although I guess I'm not far enough into it to say. I do have the last HP lined up for sometime this summer, I guess. I wish the series could have coincided with my childhood.
My mother and uncle and I go to the Triangle (Cary) tomorrow for a family mini-reunion. My cousin's children and grandchildren from Texas and California will be here. Good times if my 87 year-old uncle will just let me drive there and back without argument!

I think Henry VIII has piggy little eyes and an anything but benevolent chin, but I do love the quotation.

Good luck with the drive!

Peggy all caught up. Trust you are having a lovely weekend. I continue to enjoy your Daily Dickens and long may it continue. I am not sure either if RD is a lurker here but this poster remains an avid follower of your thread. Doc looks a winner and despite not enjoying The Ice People I should get to some more Maggie Gee at some stage.
Tui there were a large number of courtiers who lived and died to rue the falling under the piggy gaze of Henry VIII.

Tui, I think that piggy eyes are a given, and that's why I enjoy Mrs Skewton so much. She's about as wrong all around as a person can possibly be - as you know.
Paul, I'm terribly tempted by The Ice People. That's very early Gee, right? It sounds like a dystopian novel that I might really like, and I don't remember anything at all about it from her memoir, so I'm resisting for the moment, especially since you didn't like it. My Cleaner is completely different, and if you liked her writing at all, you would probably enjoy this riff on "wise African pokes holes in Western pretensions." Doc is a winner - it has great lasting power, and I really, really hope that you read it. AND I am very happy that Dickens makes you happy too!
I'll have a DD before I leave tomorrow. I read *D&S* today and also in Revelation and James Tiptree. I'm feeling particularly happy with the books I have going now - a blessed situation to be sure!

Hi Peggy, My Cleaner sounds like just the kind of book I'd like especially since I was a fan of The White Family. Benevolent and Henry VIII same at odds with each other I'm afraid although you never quote a bad Dickens observation and I am really enjoying the DD:)

I'm about to get ready to go, but I couldn't do without my dose of CD. Hi, Bonnie....you'll see the woman who calls Henry "benevolent" also refers to "delightful places of torture," and we know that she is a bad character! I liked this description of Miss Tox's canary, like its mistress, of a certain age...

DAILY DICKENS
"...her bird - a very high-shouldered canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled, but a piercing singer..."

Belated enjoy the family reunion wishes - hopefully you're safely there now.

Hopelessly behind here but I have already added My Cleaner to the WL, though like Dee feel I really ought to get to The White Family first, especially since it's sitting on my shelves.

"dear little peepy eyes" indeed--having just finished Bring Up the Bodies I find the image especially timely

Where is your family reunion?

Hi, Heather and Anne. I am happy to be home again, but the mini-reunion was wonderful. It was in Cary, a part of N.C.'s Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. We remembered and laughed and cried and ate and ate and ate and sang and were silly. My uncle let me drive, but his feelings were hurt and I'm sorry. It's done though, and I got us safely there and back AND he has another 2½ driving hours ahead of him, so if makes perfect sense to me that he shouldn't have had to drive the rest of the way

DAILY DICKENS
(Cousin Feenix, the titled relative of Edith Dombey)

"--- still, you know, I feel that a duty devolves upon me. And when a duty devolves upon an Englishman, he is bound to get out of it, in my opinion, in the best way he can."

(He is not advocating shirking the duty, but just getting through it, I think.)

Glad you made it there and back again and had some good time!

So many wonderful CD quotes. I especially love the one with the 'much rumpled canary'. Poor little thingy!

Thank you, Lucy. I'm glad you like my choices, Nathalie. Here's a typical one.

DAILY DICKENS

"Mr Towlinson's rejoinder, pregnant with frightful meaning, is 'Oh, can't she though!' and sensible that a mere man can scarcely be more prophetic, or improve upon that, he holds his peace."

g'morning peggy! Awaiting today's quote eagerly!

Morning, Lucy. Here it is!! Mr. D's sister is not happy at the first reception of the newly-weds...

DAILY DICKENS

"'But I hope I know what is due to myself,' said Mrs Chick, swelling with indignation, 'though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am not the dirt under Mrs Dombey's feet, yet - not quite yet,' said Mrs. Chick, as if she expected to become so, about the day after tomorrow. 'And I shall go. I will not say (whatever I may think) that this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed!'
Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr Chick, who escorted her from the room after half an hour's shady sojourn there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not missed at all."

stopping by to say hi!

snort! Oh my, I feel I know Mrs. Chick.......

LOL Me, too!

Just wanted to let you know Peggy that I am well into The Pickwick Papers and thoroughly enjoying it. I think I'm falling for Sam;-)

I'm positive I know Mrs. Chick as well.

DD is making me chuckle - thanks Peggy :-)

Maybe what I need to do is go out of town more often - then I get visitors!!! A delighted greeting, Cheli, Lucy, Roni, Bonnie, Tui, and Heather!
I drove my friend to Durham today for a dr's appointment at 2:00. He had an emergency and got to her closer to 4:00 than 3:30. She's doing very well and doesn't have to come back for a year, this following heart valve repair. Meantime, I read about 80 pages of *D&S*, so I'm much more sanguine about my ability to finish it this month and be ready for *OMF* in July! And I have picked out several dynamite DDs!!!

Hi Peggy,
Just popping in to see what you are reading lately, could I be forgiven for thinking it is Dickens Dickens Dickens? hehe
Hope you are well.

Hi, Megan! Dickens! Dickens! Dickens! is right with a few other little things tossed in here and there. It takes a long time to read Dickens.

DAILY DICKENS

"But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile; and as he rode away upon his white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such was the dazzling show he made."

>88 LizzieD:: hahahahahahaha!

No, no, no, no, no! Carker's teeth are not to be laughed at! {*shudder*}

Well, Mr. D. dropped the ball a bit on that one then. The people taking him for a dentist is funny, and I think CD just couldn't resist.

I guess those teeth are funny out of context, but in context...brrr!!

aha--haven't read Dombey and Son yet, so didn't know the teeth were actually sinister.

I think it's fair to say they start out as comical but grow sinister over time... :)

Hi, Liz and Tui. You know, I still think that the teeth start out sinister and that CD just couldn't resist throwing in a joke. They are not pleasant teeth!

DAILY DICKENS - a selection

"They were assembled in Cleopatra's room; The Serpent of the old Nile (not to mention her disrespectfully) was reposing on her sofa, sipping her morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon..."

"But some people will die. They will do it. Damme, they will. They're obstinate."

"'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I never do I hope, but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and nothing less.'"

"'I may not be Meethosalem, but I am not a child in arms.'"

Dropping by for a bit of Dickens. Maybe someday I'll read a book (well, I have in the past, but too long ago for memory). (Hmm, should I believe you or richardderus?) Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the characters.

I am having a great, good time with Honor Harrington again, but I'm also working in a little *D&S*. Here is the man with the teeth judging the rest of the world by himself. (And, Katherine, I leave you to your own discernment of whether RD or I am reading CD correctly!)

DAILY DICKENS

"'I tell you,' said the Manager, 'that your hypocrisy and meekness - that all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place - is not worth that to me,' snapping his thumb and finger, 'and that I see through it as if it were air! There is not a many employed here, standing between myself and the lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn't be glad at heart to see his master humbled: who does not wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favour, the nearer to his insolence; the closer to him, the farther from him. That's the creed here!'"

My brain is stretched to the limit working that out!

I'm sorry. I didn't give enough background. The man with the teeth is the Manager of Dombey's vast mercantile empire. He assumes that all the employees are as envious and vindictive against their employer as he is.
I have - yesterday and today pretty much without gagging - gotten through the worst of the worst sentimental marriage proposal and acceptance on record and am making pretty good headway. I dare not quote any of that, but here's a bit of CD on the aftermath.

DAILY DICKENS

"BLESSED SUNDAY BELLS, RINGING SO TRANQUILLY IN THEIR ENTRANCED AND HAPPY EARS! BLESSED SUNDAY PEACE AND QUIET, HARMONIZING WITH THE CALMNESS IN THEIR SOULS, AND MAKING HOLY AIR AROUND THEM! BLESSED TWILIGHT STEALING ON, AND SHADING HER SO SOOTHINGLY AND GRAVELY, AS SHE FALLS ASLEEP, LIKE A HUSHED CHILD, UPON THE BOSOM SHE HAS CLUNG TO!"

(Sorry. I hit the caps lock and am too lazy to go back and retype. Actually, Sunday calm and peace sound pretty good. The child bride is still pretty distressing.)

the worst of the worst sentimental marriage proposal and acceptance on record

Which is saying something... :)

My brain is stretched to the limit working that out!
Mine too!! But it's my brain's fault.

the worst of the worst sentimental marriage proposal and acceptance on record
And now I feel I have to read D&S.

*D&S* remains firmly in my second rank of Dickens, Nathalie. How say you, Liz?
Anyway, here's a description of a death by train that, in at least one phrase, leaves me as chilled as anything written by a modern horror/noir/realist.

DAILY DICKENS

"--- saw the red eyes, bleared and dim, in the daylight, close upon him - was beaten down, caught up, and whirled away upon a jagged mill, that spun him round and round, and struck him limb from limb, and licked his stream of life up with its fiery heat, and cast his mutilated fragments in the air."

Wow

yep, that's as graphic as anything. Even Wallace and those mad train jumpers in IJ.

Remarkably enough, that may be only the second-most dramatic train-related death in 19th century English literature. I'm partial to the one in Trollope's The Prime Minister, myself.

Peggy, D&S is another I need to re-read. My memory is that it is rather curate's-egg-ish - I enjoy the Edith / Carker parts, but on the other hand there's, well, Florence. :)

Eta: By the way, Peggy, was that passage written before or after Dickens' own train accident?

Hi, Judy and Lucy and Liz.............
Wait. Anna's K's death isn't #1? I confess that I don't remember the death by train in *Prime Minister*. Another series to reread - and I haven't made it to Barchester yet. I have to live to be 110.
I'm pretty sure that this was before the train accident, Liz. Let me check..... *D&S* was published in '46-'48, pretty much midway in his career, "the first novel of his artistic maturity," according to my *Dickens Companion*. I think that his own accident was later, but I'm too lazy to chase it down tonight.
Absolutely, the Edith / Carker parts make the book.

Now, I did say English train deaths, so AK wasn't included. :)

A quick check confirms that the Staplehurst crash was 1865, so many years later.

If you're interested the Barchester series, in August I will be tutoring Heather in The Warden - and possibly onwards, according to how that goes.

ooops. Can't read.
Oh my, Liz, I may sign on for the August *Warden*. I've tried a couple of times and just haven't been bitten.
Young women in Dickens --- and one young and one old man.

DAILY DICKENS

"Still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire, and the fire shining on her ruined beauty and her wild black hair, one long tress of which she pulled over her shoulder, and wound about her hand, and thoughtfully bit and tore while speaking, she went on."

The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and regret with which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and a every such once, raised her head to look in the young face and kiss it, and then laid her head again upon her mistress's shoulder, caressing her and sobbing, was as womanly and good a thing, in its way, as ever was seen in the world."

"'I feel,' said Mr Toots, in an impassioned tone, 'as if I could express my feelings, at the present moment, in a most remarkable manner, if - if- I could only get a start.'
Appearing not to get it, after waiting a minute or two to see if it would come, Mr Toots took a hasty leave..."

""'...Wal'r and sweet-heart will be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings is over,' whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear."

Mr Toots! That is priceless! Of course, I never have that particular problem myself.....

Hi, Lucy. Neither you nor me, of course, of course. The difference is that I don't expect it to come anymore.

HONOR AMONG ENEMIES by David Weber
I love my Honor! This is a good outing. Honor is back in her Manticore captain's uniform, but she's taking a fleet (!) of four Q-ships on what amounts to a suicide mission: protecting Manticore shipping from pirates in the gigantic Silesian Empire. Of course, Honor manages to pull it off, and we get a lot of in-ship business with raw recruits and the dregs from other ships and Honor's increasing communication with her tree cat Nimitz, who has a romance of his own.
I just let Weber's politics slide over me and enjoy everything from gravitics to Warshawski sails to grasers and LACs.

Hi Peggy, closing in on the end of The Pickwick Papers. I'll soon be marrying Sam Weller. Would you like to be invited to the wedding? I'm preparing a list of "Sam-isms."

Oh, Bonnie, I guess if I married Sam, you can too. By all means invite me to the wedding!! Meanwhile, I finished *D&S*!!!!! I even have four days to recuperate before diving into Our Mutual Friend!

DOMBEY AND SON by Charles Dickens

Have I read this twice or three times? It's been close to 40 years since the first time, and I'm not sure. I didn't like it as much this time, I don't think, but that doesn't mean that I don't think it's great or that I didn't love it. We have the great merchant, Paul Dombey, who adores at least the idea of his little son and ignores his little daughter. I missed this quotation the first time through, and it's too good not to quote: "Those three words {Dombey and Son} conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey's life....Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to them. A.D. had no concern with anno Domini, but stood for anno Dombei - and Son." Little Florence is left to bring herself up as she can, and she has many loving friends from the lower classes to love and help her.
This novel particularly evokes London in the 1840s when the railroad is reshaping the city and society. Dickens does some of his best description with details of what it is destroying and what it is creating. The comic characters are represented in Major Bagstock and Captain Cuttle. The most interesting character to me is Edith Granger, who becomes the second Mrs. Dombey. Her pride is as vast as her husband's own and as vast as her contempt for herself and for him. There is a villain. There are reconciliations. Sometimes the abrupt character changes (Miss Tox, once an object of fun for her ambitions, becomes compassionate.) There is the wonderful writing and the laugh-out-loud wit in observations. I'm glad to have made my way through it again, and I look forward to *OMF*!

Hi Peggy...stopping by and waving hi. When I read The Sparrow years ago, it stuck with me. Nice to know that her book Doc has the same reaction.

Hi, Linda! I love *Sparrow* too, but this is nothing like it!
I came back to say, "Look for OUR MUTUAL FRIEND coming to a thread near you on Sunday or thereabouts!

You enjoyed Mrs Chick and the party so much that I thought I'd give you another look at her philosophy...

DAILY DICKENS

"Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had not made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the day of that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said so, at the time."

Now I REALLY have to find my copy...... I feel a trip to the storage unit coming on..... it is sort of like a visit to someone else's tag sale at this point..... stuff has been there so long. You'd think I'd get the message!

Well done on finishing DS! I succumbed to the lure of OMS so will hopefully be joining you next month.

I think I have the first couple of Honor Harrington books as freebie ebooks from Baen but I want to finish the Vorkosigan series before I start another.

Heh Heh Heh..... Hi, Lucy and Heather! I'm delighted that you are both going to read *OMF* again with us. It should be great!
Heather, in my mind Honor has less Quality than Miles, but I frankly enjoy almost everything about the earlier books. It's harder scifi, but I lap it up whether I can approach understanding it or not. Even a pacifist type like me apparently needs some military violence from time to time.

D&S, a Dickens I never heard of before you started posting the DDs, is now firmly fixed on my Dickens tbr list. After OMF and A Tale of Two Cities. I'll join or at least follow the GR in July.
There are two more GR books waiting for me, both are long and difficult, so I don't know yet if I can manage a >1000 pages Dickens as well, but I'll try.

Golly, Nathalie. You'll still have the thread if you decide *OMF* is too much, and with two other GRs I can see how it would be. We'll welcome you if you can come!
And a last look at Diogenes for his fans ---

DAILY DICKENS

"Captain Cuttle patted Diogenes when he made allusion to him, and Diogenes met that overture graciously, half-way. During the administration of the restoratives he had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the Captain or to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed that conflict of feeling by alternate waggings of his tail, and displays of his teeth, with now and then a growl or so. But by this time, his doubts were all removed. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable of men, and a man whom it was an honour to a dog to know."

This reminds me of my then four-year old brother meeting a dog who growled while wagging his tail. He won't hurt you, Dad said, he's wagging his tail. "I don't know which end to believe!", said my young sib. I like this one, Peggy.

That's another neat story, Tui. Dickens was such a fine observer!

I enjoyed the early Honor Harrington books a great deal. They have become so expansive and political that I slowed down tremendously after her escape from the prison planet. In fact, I have but haven't read the last three, including the one with "Mike" as the POV character.

Still enjoying the Dickens quotes. Am working my way through my library books to be in position to start OMF with you. Is there going to be any pacing guide?

Roni, I don't really think so. Liz has a more organized mind than I do, and you may want to look at her post about the reading on her thread. Since some of us will be rereading, we think we'll get along faster than new readers may. We have determined that we will note spoilers and chapters so that folks will know what comments not to read. I'm guessing that I'm good for 50 pages a day, which will mean that I can finish it in July. I don't know for sure.
As to the Honorverse, I have liked some of the political books, but I agree that the early ones are the most satisfying. I have the prison planet up next, and then my ardor may cool. I also have the very last one yet unread. We'll see.

Peggy, I'm happy to let you set the pace of the discussion with your reading, if you're comfortable with that? I don't know how fast I'll go - I've ended up with a copy of OMF with teeny-weeny print. :)

I hope, by the way, that you will continue your "Daily Dickens" for this project!

Liz, let's see how it goes. I'm not organized any more. My Penguin has teeny-weeny print too. I use it for its notes and for when I'd have to turn Kindle off too quickly. I love making K for highlighting and notes......
I will certainly continue the DD and hope for participant input!
This past couple of days I've been reading the Sheldon/Tiptree bio that Lucy and Roni read earlier in the year. I think they've said it all, but I'll say that the more I read, the more I'm fascinated by the woman. I think that I'll probably try Claire Tomlin's The Invisible Woman next month since CD was already involved with Nelly Ternan when he wrote *OMF*. I should have remembered that she and her mother were on the train with him when it wrecked at Staplehurst.

CD was already involved with Nelly Ternan when he wrote *OMF*. I should have remembered that she and her mother were on the train with him when it wrecked at Staplehurst.

Yes, I had a 'duh' moment about that, too! :)

Honestly, with a book as long and complex as OMF, I'd be hesitant to impose any kind of "pace" on anyone. I think everyone should go as they like, and as long as we're careful with our chapter identifications and spoiler warnings, we should be fine.

Good! That's what I was hoping too. People who aren't making it their #1 priority can always catch up and comment where they are --- I tend to do that often. The good thing is that this book is so big that plenty of us will be checking and posting so that late remarks won't be lost.....

DAILY DICKENS
(breaking up housekeeping)

"'Now, those that choose, can go about their business,' says Mrs Pipchin, 'and those that choose can stay here on board wages for a week or so, and make themselves useful. Except,' says the inflammable Pipchin, 'that slut of a cook, who'll go immediately.'
'That,' says Cook, 'she certainly will! I wish you good day, Mrs Pipchin, and sincerely wish I could compliment you on the sweetness of your appearance.'
'Get along with you,' says Mrs Pipchin, stamping her foot.
Cook sails off with an air of beneficent dignity, highly exasperating to Mrs Pipchin, and is shortly joined below stairs by the rest of the confederation."

50 pages a day! Oi!

Well, yes, Lucy....... I didn't say I'd do it, but it's a realistic goal if we want to read the book in a month - and it gives a little lee-way for the days when we don't read any. I'm mostly blowing smoke, but I hope that rereading will go faster than being a first-timer. I'd also like to say that we'll help the first-timers any way we can. I was thinking, for instance, of starting a character list near the top of the thread. Ambition!

Peggy - I think I'm coming in on OMF - it is a long long time since I read it and it will be fun reading it in the company of fellow travellers such as Liz and yourself. Have a great weekend and keep the Daily Dickens coming - love it.

OMF reading sounds helpful and encouraging, Peggy. How awesome that you and Liz are taking this on! I see at the top of your thread you've listed Started Early, Took My Dog as "new in June." I hope you will enjoy! Must love Jackson Brodie, hehe!

Peggy, how many pages has your edition? I will be reading on Kindle and have a page calculation excel somewhere that translates locations into pages, but on amazon I found editions with >1 LizzieD:,000 pages and with 800something pages.

Paul, we'll be excited to have you reread *OMF* with us. We won't even make you responsible for the "male pov"! Nancy, I wish you could join us - it's an act of love for what that's worth! I really enjoyed JB#1; I was just waiting until I got the other 3 to keep going.
Nathalie, my older Penguin edition has 849 pages of actual text. That makes it a bit shorter than *D&S*, which weighs in at 942 - a surprise to me.
So here's the last DD from *D&S*. The timing worked out very well, and I'll end in sentiment!

DAILY DICKENS

"'To Wal'r and his wife!' exclaims the Captain. 'Hooroar!' and the Captain exhibiting a strong desire to clink his glass against some other glass, Mr Dombey, with a ready hand, holds out his. The others follow; and there is a blithe and merry ringing, as of a little peal of marriage bells."

JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips

I eventually became a convert both to the biography itself and to Alli Sheldon. If you want good reviews, Lucy, Katherine, and Roni have all put theirs on the book page. I'll just add my little musings here....... In the first place, I didn't realize how complete a mystery the existence of James Tiptree was. I had imagined that his publishers and friends in the industry knew, but in fact, nobody knew that Tip was a woman. He had very dear friends by correspondence who trusted and were trusted by him, so much so that when his identity was revealed, nobody who mattered felt betrayed. Being Tip allowed Alli to write bold, speculative fiction. Even before she came out, though, the Tiptree persona was wearing thin. I am fascinated by where the creative spark lives. Her later work (her second novel is the only one I've read; more about that in a minute) after Tip was gone, simply was not as alive as Tip's writing. One friend expressed the opinion that she would have worked herself through that blank period and gone on to write better and better. She didn't believe it though. My other speculation is to wonder what the availability of the Internet would have done for her and her writing. I think about us and our personas in this friendly place. What we give each other is real and true - I've never, for instance, read of anyone coming away from a meet-up saying, "__________ was really not as I expected at all" - but I wonder how complete we are for each other. Of course, I could wonder about that in RL relationships too. Near the end, Alli talks about Tip peeling away the layers like an onion until there was nothing left at the core, and then finding something. Reading about her conflicts and difficulties makes me grateful beyond saying that I am as sane and normal as I am!
I don't know that I will ever read any Tiptree beyond "Houston, Houston, Can You Hear..." I remember that I loved the aliens in Brightness Falls from the Air; they were lovely, fragile, tragically exploited. I can't remember, though, if I finished the book. I think I did, but details are obscure. That very uncertainty speaks a slim volume about my reaction to it. Even so, I'm delighted to have read this bio and join the praise!

Yay! Terrific write-up Peggy, I can always count on you to choose an angle that is fresh and interesting.

I Love what you say about our LT friendships - I read somewhere that people are more honest on the internet than anywhere else, which is interesting. The most lying goes on, I think, on the phone, with in person running a close second!

I can't wait for the day when we drive into Lumberton and I can hug you in person! Hooroar, indeedy.

Now that's a lovely thing to say, Lucy, and I can't wait for the day either!!

Very thought provoking review of the Tiptree bio Peggy. I'd like to read something Tiptree wrote someday but perhaps not right away.

#135 "I read somewhere that people are more honest on the internet than anywhere else, which is interesting." And strangely that's the opposite to what a lot of people assume about online friendships. When I told one friend about LT and the groups here her reaction was: "What if some of them are only pretending to women?" which I was pretty much flabberghasted by. Who said they all claimed to be women anyway? I think if you haven't experienced it it can be hard to believe that online friendships can be real.

Can I confess I sometimes try to plan a completely over the top US holiday using google maps where I can somehow visit all the US LTers from the group in 10 days?

Ah, Heather. Thank you for kind words. If you make it to the East Coast, I think that I can promise that many of us will make a real effort to meet you - and then you could tour where you desired!
O.K. I'll confess. Back in the late 90s when I first joined an online community, Ancient Sites, Rome, to be exact, my user name was male. That was because I absolutely could not bring myself to put a feminine praenomen with a masculine nomen. So I was Primus Horatius, instead of Prima Horatius. I chose that as a hint that I was female since women didn't really have real given names in their birth family, being called "First Girl" (Prima), "Second Girl," etc. I never tried to fool anybody, but I have been bemused here sometimes when a user name isn't gender specific. I truly can't feel whether a conversation about books is being conducted by men or women most of the time if the book itself isn't a clue.

I'd love to join you for OMF Peggy but I just finished The Pickwick Papers and am committed to other books for July. But I will star the thread and refer to it when I get to OMF later this year.

Hi, Peggy (and other interested parties) - the thread for Our Mutual Friend has just gone up - you will find it here.

134: He had very dear friends by correspondence who trusted and were trusted by him, so much so that when his identity was revealed, nobody who mattered felt betrayed.
She said everything she'd told people was true except the signature. I'd think a different reaction otherwise.
I've never, for instance, read of anyone coming away from a meet-up saying, "__________ was really not as I expected at all"
Though people who go to meetups are self-selected...

Oh, what excellent timing--wrapping up Dombey just in time to start up Our Mutual Friend. I am planning to join in and read along with you--it will be a first reading for me. I'd best get started on it right away though.

Just to let you know, Peggy, I snapped up the new Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. I stayed up too late last night reading the thing, but I couldn't put it down. Love the Dickens on your thread-- "One of these days"--haha.

True for you, Katherine! The 65 year-old women who are posing as 30 year-old models would probably not show up. I know that I try to present myself as well as I can, but that's not exactly the same thing as lying about gender! Obviously, Alli presented a consistent personality or her friends would have said, "If she lied about her gender, she's not going to hesitate to lie that everything else it true." I'm getting out of this!
Anne, it's going to be great to have you with us on *OMF*. It's such a rich, variety of stuff!!
Becky, I'm so envious that you're reading the new Caro. I'm holding of on #3 sort of so that I can snap up #4 when it comes out in pb. Aren't you tempted to go back to #1? WONDERFUL biography!!! We'll wear you down and you'll read our man CD yet!

DAILY DICKENS ~ from Our Mutual Friend

"Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London.... ...all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings--the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky."

AMONG OTHERS by Jo Walton
Once more, I don't feel any driving need to post a review since lots of people have read and talked about this little book. It is as engaging as everybody says! It's a fantasy in which the young heroine tries valiantly not to perform any magic except to protect herself and other people from her witch of a mother. Instead, she gets to know her father and his father through the love of books and reading which they share. Reading about reading is always fun, and this book definitely was!

Yes, Heather, I do something very similar - mostly I think about what B&B's might work for a gathering...... I get myself quite worked up about it -- checking out B&B's and then proximity to good bookstores, and then I just get overwhelmed and don't do a thing. I guess I should pitch the idea or just try it and see if anyone signs up sometime. I have a friend who runs a place in Maine - she mentioned too that there is a nice motel nearby for when she has overflow (she runs retreats) - so if more than five people signed up..... oh lord..... but I can't do anything really until my daughter is gone to college...... I do so many music weekends and my family is nice and tolerant about that.... I can't push it......

ANOTHER fabulous quote. The Veneerings.

I don't indulge those fantasies because I know I ain't going.

DAILY DICKENS

"No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot."

Fabulous Daily Dickens, Peggy! Indeed!

Peggy, your DDs are really making me look forward to starting OMF!

146 Aha! I recognize that one! :)

Hi, Nancy, Heather, and Anne! I too am off to read *OMF*!!!

Hello to you!

Hello, Linda!

Okay, I LOVE that DD! Just thought I'd pop out of the woodwork to say so. :)

Peggy, you may not have felt the need to say much about Among Others but I found it helpful that you said something as I've wondered about that book and have a lot of respect for your opinion. Further up the wishlist it goes...

Sarah, I'm happy to have hit you with a DD - so much easier than a BB!!
Dee, thank you! Lucy and Joe both have very insightful reviews on the book page.

DAILY DICKENS

"'Bought him at a sale,' said Mr Boffin. 'Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to keep the place where you leave off. Do you know him?'
'The book's name, sir?' inquired Silas.
'I thought you might have know'd him without it,' said Mr Boffin slightly disappointed. 'His name is Decline-And-Fall-Off-the-Rooshan Empire.'

Sigh.

*sigh* :-)
So far the whole OMF is quotable.

*sigh*
You are so right, Nathalie! Since I can't choose, I'm offering a mixed appetizer.
Happy Independence Day!

"When R. Wilfer returned, candlestick in hand, to the bosom of his family, he found the bosom agitated."

"Mrs Boffin reclined in a fashionable manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audience if she found she could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn't."

"Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed together, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like her one aquiline nose that the bran-new jewels on them seem necessary for distinction's sake."

"'Our Language,' said Mr Podsnap, with a gracious consciousness of being always right, 'is Difficult. Ours is a Copious Language, and Trying to Strangers. I will not Pursue my Question.'"

"Such a black shrill city, combining the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife; such a gritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the leaden canopy of its sky;..."

Just a note to say that I didn't read *OMF* today. Instead, I made some progress with Half of a Yellow Sun, which is yet another wonderful book about an atrocious civil war in Africa - this time Biafra. This one won the Orange Prize, and many of us are sure that The Memory of Love should have done. This may be a better book since the key relationships are not such amazing coincidences.
I've also had some time (and fun) with Revelation. And every day I read a page or two of the diaries of James Woodforde, currently in my progress a curate in 1765. He writes a lot about the money he spends, especially on food and drink, and beyond that appears to be quite a decent human being. All good stuff! Tomorrow, back to *OMF*.

I loved Half of a Yellow Sun, and I'm pretty sure it's the book that piqued my interest in the Orange Prize.

Laura, now you're making me try to remember how I first learned about the Orange Prize. It wasn't that long ago, but memory fails completely. It was in 2008, but I found the first prize nominees that I read because of the prize - i.e. I didn't read the book and learn about the prize from it. The Keep was my first, followed by The End of Mr Y. How glad I am that I didn't read Septembers of Shiraz first, for instance! Of course, my need of a prize list has diminished since joining LT, but it's still a great game to second-guess the judges.

DAILY DICKENS
"A certain institution in Mr Podsnap's mind which he called 'the young person' may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of demarcation between the young person's excessive innocence, and another person's guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap's word for it, and the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all flaming red to this troublesome Bull of a young person."

Peggy, I love the DDs from OMF. Anyone else reading that statement would think I'd gone completely bonkers! As you know, I read and loved Our Mutual Friend a few months ago. I'll be lurking on the GR as well to refresh my memory.

I'm not sure how I became acquainted with The Orange Prize, but I'm certainly glad I did! Half Of A Yellow Sun may be tied with The Lacuna for my favorite out of the 13 winners I've read.

Hi, Donna! I'm mighty happy to see you here. Oh, I love The Lacuna too!!!! I think that The Road Home remains my favorite winner, but that may just be loyalty. As I was just looking back over the list, I see that I haven't read many winners. I've also thought that something else was better than a great number of the winners I've read. Don't know what that's about.

I've also thought that something else was better than a great number of the winners I've read. Don't know what that's about.

I have a suspicion that even some of the judges of the prizes think this occasionally and that the final decision is sometimes a bit of a compromise. I read an interview with one of the Booker judges (can't remember who) the year that The Gathering won and got the impression that it was the one which nobody objected too strongly to rather than one that everyone loved the most!

I'm another one whose lurking on the OMF thread, but not reading it right now. Appreciate all of your input, Peggy, as well as the DD.

#164 Dee, that is very interesting about the Booker judges/decisions. Makes sense to me.

Now you've got me trying to remember how I first discovered the Orange Prize Peggy and I really can't recall but my favorite winner (too many good ones to count) remains Kate Grenville's The Idea of Perfection.

I'm wondering what you meant up in #161 about The Septembers of Shiraz which I will finish reading very shortly.

Hello Peggy,
I learned about the Orange Prize here on LT, only last year. In glad I did as I have read a few oranges, and liked them.

Oddly I think the first book I read on purpose because of the Orange Prize I didn't even like that much--it was The Ventriloquist's Tale by Pauline Melville (in 97 or 98). It's not the first Orange book I read, but it's the first one I read knowing it was nominated for the Orange Prize (I picked it up in a London bookstore when I was attending a conference.)

My favorite Orange winner is either Small Island or Half of a Yellow Sun. I really can't choose.

Peggy, I finished Half of a Yellow Sun last night and loved it too. I'm trying to cut down on 5 star ratings but I keep failing! Can't remember how I heard about the Orange Prize. I think it might have been when I read Small Island.

Hi, Dee and Nancy. I agree that the compromise candidate makes perfect sense. It's too bad though that a lesser book takes the prize away from two really good ones if that happens. I'd favor co-winners if that were the case....
Bpnnie, when we agree, we really agree! Sometimes we differ, and I suspect that we read both *Idea* and *Shiraz* differently. I liked them both - especially *Idea*, but they were not great for me - especially *Shiraz*.
Megan, did you find that you had already read some Oranges when you learned about the prize? That was my experience.
Anne, I've looked at and rejected *V'sT*, and you confirm the choice. It's easily gettable both at PBS and AMP, but "first novel" is starting to be a cautionary description for me. Hi, Cushla. I'm a bit over half through *Yellow Sun*, and I don't think that you can afford not to give it the 5 stars. I'll hope to finish today or tomorrow, and then I'll know whether it's 4½ or 5 for me; 5 if she keeps up what she's done so far. I really like Kainene and wish that Adichie had given her a larger part.

DAILY DICKENS (On appeals by charities for donations - not much changes)

"And then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly in difficulties, yet mostly lavish too, in the expensive articles of print and paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet."

Hi LizzieD,

this is so great because Kainene is my favourite Character also, and I wished Adichie would have given her a larger part.
I just can't wait until everyone's finished.

Orange Prize: I think I discovered it back when Amy Tan's book, The Hundred Secret Senses was up for the prize. Our little village library always made a note of books nominated for prizes.

>170 LizzieD: yep, thats exactly what I found. And now I look out for them, and ask my mum (an avid op-shopper) to keep her eyes peeled for orange winners, as I have few enough of them that her taking a chance on one will probably pay off.

Hi, DB! I'm sorry to tell you that I've slowed down a little with *Yellow Sun*, but I'm about to get back to it. We will all finish, don't you worry!
Tui, you're fortunate to live in a place where librarians know that literary prizes exist and that people might like to have access to them. Here, they do get in National Book Award winners maybe, but Orange? Forget it.
Megan, it's a great huge list. Enjoy!

DAILY DICKENS - (ending the description of Bradley Headstone)

"It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect that had toiled hard to get what it had won, and that had to hold it now that it was gotten. he always seemed to be uneasy lest anything should be missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assure himself."

Hi Peggy, just thought I'd drop by and say hello here, as I'm catching up with as many people as I can instead of packing for a family reunion out of town tomorrow...

It's been fun hanging out at the OMF thread. I want to scribble down so many quotable lines of his at every turn, and there's probably enough good stuff to keep you well stocked in daily quotes for a long time to come!

Peggy - wishing you a lovely weekend and enjoying the Daily Dickens as always especially as I am slowly digesting the same book.

Ilana, I was very glad to see you on the OMF thread, and I'm glad to see you here! CD is absolutely quotable!!! Even in *B. Rudge* he's quotable.
Paul, I wish you'd join us on THE THREAD!!!
I haven't read any today - I'm getting into the Bradley Headstone section, and that's my favorite plot line in the whole novel. I'm such a romantic!
Instead, I've been reading Half of a Yellow Sun. If I read it exclusively tomorrow, I'll finish it. I really need NOT to read another book about a war when I finish this one.
And I'm enjoying 4 or 5 pages a day in my 18th century English country pastor's diary. I just read that he traded somebody a journal that I had never heard of for the 6 volumes of Tom Jones. He got the better part of that deal!

AAaagh! Peggy! I just finished The Various Haunts of Men. I really couldn't put it down and now I must go find the next one. But why did the one thing happen to the one person who is central to the whole story? That was really upsetting.

I mean, Thank you very much for the book recommendation. I quite enjoyed it.

Just a quick wave, as I've been AWOL for too long!! mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...

Jenn, I never know what to say about that book beforehand.... I had nothing to go on, and I was so angry that I swore I'd never read another one. Of course, I did - she's too good to ignore. Nothing else so far is quite that !!!
*Waving back to Suz* You're always welcome!!

HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This one is the equal of Memory of Love, which was one of my best books from last year's reading. Set in the part of Nigeria that became Biafra for three years, the story of that revolution is seen through the eyes of five characters; two sisters, children of wealthy parents, their two men, one revolutionary college professor and the other a British writer, and the servant of one family.
I ended up giving it 4½ stars, just as I did with *Memory*. In the latter case, I took off a star for the coincidences on which the relationships among the characters hung. In this one it is because the writing was only "very good" as opposed to "spectacular" - wholly a matter of taste. I loved it and recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it and isn't already reading it for the GR going on right now!

DAILY DICKENS
"'My political opinions,' says Veneering, not previously aware of having any, 'are identical with Lord Snigsworth, and perhaps as a matter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigsworth would give me his name.'"

You see Peggy, we both liked Half of a Yellow Sun. And I thought The Memory of Love should have won the Orange last year. There are probably only a few that we disagree more than a half star.

I do see, Bonnie! That's why I'm always eager to see what you review that I haven't read!!!
(I definitely think that *Memory* should have won last year.)

Peggy, enjoyed your comments on Half a Yellow Sun. Cushla has just read this, too, and also loved it. As for Memory of Love - fantastic read! I gave it 4.5* too.

OK, you are all making me go and find The Memory of Love - I bought it last year but still haven't read it!!

Very nice review of Half of a Yellow Sun. I read this last year and loved it. Your observation about the quality of the writing is interesting and I can't say whether I agree or not because I listened to this rather than read it. I'm never sure I can really judge writing when I'm listening to an audiobook. In this case I was completely drawn in by the storytelling and literally couldn't turn the thing off. I often have an urge to go back to the print book to see if it reads as well as it sounds.

I read The Memory of Love just a month or two before Half of a Yellow Sun--and it was a heavy dose of brutal civil war. (I too wanted Memory of Love to win last year.)

>186 AnneDC:: a heavy dose of brutal civil war.
I agree Anne! I'm glad I read them a couple of years apart. Both books are fabulous.
Cushla, what are you waiting for? :)

I'm glad I read them a year apart too, Laura, so I don't know whether I join in the Push Cush movement right now, but don't forget it, Cushla. Anne, it's a minor miracle these days to find a book that's decently written, so I shouldn't complain. I just didn't find anything really praise-worthy in the style; the story was the point, and that's O.K..
Nancy, you could go right away and read *Yellow Sun*, couldn't you? You'll be glad if you do!
Meanwhile, I have tentatively placed Larry's Party next for my Orange July. As Laura said somewhere else, I may insert an E. Taylor between them, or I may not. And I'm very attracted to The Floating Book, so that may supersede everything but *OMF*, which I have shamefully neglected these past couple of days.....but not so much that I'm lacking a DD.

DAILY DICKENS

"Mr Podsnap, for his part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with patronage of the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should respectfully grasp at the hem of his mantle; that they, when they could not bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the pale reflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quite natural, becoming, and proper. It gave him a better opinion of the discretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that they appreciated the value of the connexion."

"the Push Cush movement" - LOL!

Hi Peggy: Stop tempting me; I want to get to Half a Yellow Sun soon, but I really want to finish Our Mutual Friend first. I'm loving your daily quotes; I find many such sections in this book. I'm just through with Book 2 -- halfway.

Hi, Beth. I think I have some catching up to do. Doggone it.

I'm here. I'm reading your posts. Not a darn thing to add.

I'm here, I'm here..... except for OMF we're a bit on different tracks which is why I'm so quiet.

I'm glad you're here, Tui. I don't have anything to add either - not really - except a quotation from my country parson that amused me: "He visits the Octagon Church in Milsom Street and does not approve; 'It is a handsome building, but not a place of worship, there being fire-places in it, especially on each side of the Altar, which I cannot think at all decent, it is not liked.'" Time has not improved our grasp of essentials. This is entertaining and informative in its way to pick up for a page or two; at five or six pages a day, I will eventually finish it.
Lucy, I'm flattered that you think I'm on a track.

DAILY DICKENS

"Fledgeby.....was the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we all clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on two, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on two."

Do tracks have to be straight? No --- let's say --- Posey out chasing chipmunks kind of tracks!

Great DD, Peggy!

I just read that section of OMF last night, Peggy!

I'm glad somebody is back there with me, Roni - unless you've forged ahead. I hope to do a little forging this afternoon.
CD and I bow and curtsy to Nancy!
Those tracks sound much more like me, Lucy. I'd love to follow you on the P. Freeman fantasy track, but the book still hasn't come!

I'm back there with you--but even further back I'm afeared. I will try to get back on track tonight.

I rather like the idea of fireplaces on either side of the altar, in an octagon. Kind of like asking their Creator to have a seat, rest for a spell, take a load off, cup of tea?

"It is not liked". Masterful use of the passive voice, in a passive-aggressive manner!!

I wondered, Tui and Suzanne, whether anybody had insight into why fireplaces were so objectionable. Sounds pretty comfortable to me! And I also liked that solemn, non-personal pronouncement of RIGHT!
Today I've frivolled - read a little Nelly, a little The Floating Book, and rather more Shardlake in Revelation. What a pleasure those books are!

DAILY DICKENS

"'You reproach me with my origin,' said Bradley Headstone; 'you cast insinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I have worked my way onward, out of both and in spite of both, and have a right to be considered a better man than you, with better reasons for being proud.'
'How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge, or how I can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a problem for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove,' returned Eugene."

Half of a Yellow Sun: another to read.
Another good reminder to do so too, thanks Peggy, and HI!

Hi, Megan. You won't be sorry. I don't make any progress in *OMF*, but Revelation is heating up quite nicely.

DAILY DICKENS

"...Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most determined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that cardinal virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him, and held her by main force."

(And I just can't bring myself to make a new thread right now either. oh well...)

All I can think of vis a vis fireplaces is that it was a sign of ..... indulgence? to put comfort before spiritual effort???

Maybe, Lucy....

REVELATION by C.J. Sansom

Book #4 pits Matthew and his friends against a religious maniac in Henry VIII's London in the year that the king marries Catherine Parr. I love these books! Sansom provides enough fair play to make a reader like me feel like a clever boots at figuring things out before Matthew. On the other hand, he provides enough misdirection to keep that reader plunging ahead. Good solid mystery based on good solid research!
This one is especially readable right now in polarized America because the radical fundamentalists vs the conservative traditionalists have as little to say to each other as we seem to.
Meanwhile, the question remains: Is Matthew ever going to have a woman friend?

Oh, Peggy, great review of Revelation! Sansom provides enough fair play to make a reader like me feel like a clever boots at figuring things out before Matthew. On the other hand, he provides enough misdirection to keep that reader plunging ahead. Perfect! Sansom's series is on my l-o-n-g list of books to get to.

I've only read the first two Shardlakes but Matthew strikes me as a bit of an Inspector Morse with women. Destined to gaze sadly after love interest who has proved to be a lesbian, a murderer, from the wrong class or unavailable in some other equally irreversible way.

>208 Soupdragon:: so true!

Ah, Dee and Laura, I fear you're right. (Of course, I was in love with Morse too.....)

DAILY DICKENS

"'Your mother has, throughout life, been a companion that any man might --might look up to--and--and commit the sayings of, to memory--and-form himself upon--if he--....or perhaps I might say, if it was in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would find your mother an inestimable companion....Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won't say with a companion, but we'll say to a tune. Very good. Supposing that the tune allotted to him was the Dead March in Saul....'"
Take it for all in all, it was perhaps the happiest day he had ever known in his life; not even excepting that on which his heroic partner had approached the nuptial altar to the tune of the Dead March in Saul."

Matthew Shardlake and Inspector Morse?? Hmmm, interesting concept. I have Revelation Peggy and will get to it sometime before the end of the year. Of course you've managed to tempt me to read it now.

My job is done for the day, Bonnie. I can now retire.