What Are You Reading the Week of 21 July 2012?

The 21st: Sarah Waters

Michael Connelly

John Gardner

Hans Fallada

Frances Parkinson Keyes

The 22nd: Paul Quarrington

S.E. Hinton

Tom Robbins

Baron Corvo

Emma Lazarus

The 23rd: Hubert Selby Jr.

Raymond Chandler

C.M. Kornbluth

Lisa Alther

The 24th: Lord Dunsany

John D. MacDonald

Barry N. Malzberg

E.F. Benson

Frank Wedekind

Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

The 25th: Elias Canetti

Midge Decter

Ruth Krauss

The 26th: Bernice Rubens

Jan Berenstain

Paul Gallico

Aldous Huxley

Lawrence Watt-Evans

George Bernard Shaw

Carl Jung

André Maurois

Antonio Machado

The 27th: Bharati Mukherjee

Elizabeth Hardwick

Hilaire Belloc

Gary Gygax

Joseph Mitchell

Quite a week!

Following the recommendations here am starting on Marked.

oh dear, wrong touchstone pc cast marked.

Thank you for a terrific start, Richard. It is, indeed, quite a week with a marvelous, eclectic group!

I've just started The Lemon Tree: An Arab. a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan. I'm not far in, but it's interesting account of a friendship, or at least understanding between a Arab who was displaced by the formation of Israel and the Jewish girl who occupied his home twenty years later.

Thank you Richard, great start as per usual. Not sure what we'd do without you!

I finished When Captain Flint Was Still A Good Man by Nick Dybek and it turned out to be one of my favorite fiction reads of the year. Put a review up since I found they were all surprisingly tepid. I wanted to heap some praise on this ambitious writer.

I am now reading A Life Without Limits, A World Champion's Journey by Chrissie Wellington and while it is not written very well, it is a very good life story, and she's a really kind, positive, interesting, humanitarian woman (and not one who was all that talented at sports), who battled eating disorders, and a few other things before she found her groove as one of the best female athletes in the world. Very inspiring!

Thanks, Richard. Maybe I'll read something by Shaw this week. He always makes me smile. Just finished Lament for a maker, a Golden Age mystery I wasn't terribly impressed with. I may read Quiet cities by Joseph Hergesheimer next.

So far I finished the Grace and Favor series by Jill Churchill this week {the last book today}. I love the historical detail in them and always feel like I am getting some good 'gossip' when I read them. I always say History is just really good gossip if you know how to present it right and these books do an excellent job of presenting it as a major part of the plot.

I put Jabin & the Space Pirates to reread and then the beta of her next book to reread. After that I'm not sure. The bad thing is I am a speed reader and a book or two a day is nothing unless it is something extremely large or extremely boring.

Thank you for starting us off again Richard!

I am reading Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland, historical fiction about how the famous Tiffany lamps came about. I just got to the part where the main character, Clara, is trying to figure out how to take their stained glass creations and turn them into lamp shades. Pretty interesting.

Reading Memoirs of Hadrian by Margaret Yourcenar.

I needed some distraction this weekend, so after finishing Lantern in Her Hand, I picked up a newly acquired old favorite, Lochinvar Luck and read it in an evening.

Today a box of Louis L'Amour books came from my dad (he finds used copies, and mails them to me, woo!). So I now am in the process of rereading Crossfire Trail.

Sometimes there's nothing like an old friend to share time with. I'll pick up the new reads tomorrow, maybe. :)

I finished and REVIEWED Linda Grant's 2000 Orange Prize winner When I Lived in Modern Times. Riveting.

Now I'm reading my ER book Juliet in August by Dianne Warren which won Canada's Governor's General Award in 2010 but was just published in the U.S.

Fuzzi, I understand completely about old favorites/friends. Sometimes there's just no substitute.

The old friend I'm currently spending time with is Kidnapped, and when that's finished it's on to the sequel, Catriona.

Today I finished Gillespie and I and am a few pages into Juliet by Anne Fortier.

I'm reading a bit of mindless ya vampire romance Almost to Die For by Tate Hallaway and Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott - under a pen name. I was never able to finish Little Women, but when she writes under a pen name, it's a completely different thing.

Reading Death Comes to Pemberley. I can't say I'm a massive P D James fanin the normal way but this was irresistable. Right now the Pemberley annual ball is about to begin and red herrings are definitely on the menu - delicious!

I finished The Work of Wolves which was excellent and started A Room Full of Bones, the fourth entry in Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series.

I'm still reading Atlantic.

I finished Excursion to Tindari, the fifth book in the Inspector Montalbano series, last Sunday. My local B&N didn't have the sixth book, so I've had to order it.

I decided to fill the time reading Foundations of Financial Markets and Institutions, which is perhaps the dullest book ever written. Still, I'm trying to educate myself on economics and the financial industry, so I'll keep slogging away at it. But I finally understand what drives stock brokers to step out of high windows.

Finally finished East of Eden last night so will be starting a new at-home book, as requested by the Go Review That Book! crew: E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, by David Bodanis (touchstone wouldn't work, so that's the direct link to the work page).

I'm about to start Matterhorn today.

12> Read Kidnapped for the first time last year and loved it.

I'm finally closing in on finishing Madeleine Albright's history/memoir Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War. Life's been busy and reading time's been scarce.

(21) Kidnapped is on my TBR. How does it compare to Treasure Island?

I started 11/22/63 byStephen King and The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohijian on my Kindle-- both seem good so far

Finishing Death of An Artist by Kate Wilhelm, a pleasant enough mystery set on the coast near Portland, Oregon. Waiting to read The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin. I love books on The Ottoman Empire. And, I have read another of Goodwin's novels on this eunuch detective, Yashim.

I'm still reading The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood and today I just started The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.

In the past 2 days I finished 3 great books. Streets of Laredo was the perfect ending to the Lonesome Dove series. I think I'll have to read the two prequels next year during my read a western month. Finding George Orwell in Burma sheds a little light on the civil war in Syria and how difficult it is to defeat a repressive regime that's willing to spend 50% of it's income on the military (while allocating 4% to education). I just finished Home this morning and am still trying to recover. I am not the type who could ever work with substance abusers. I just wanted to smack Jack upside the head. So now I'm reading:

Nook - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Audiobook - The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
Paper- Girl Walks Into a Bar. . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle by Rachel Dratch

I reviewed the latest Sookie Stackhouse book, Deadlocked. I liked it, where it would seem many did not.

Moments ago I finished the amazing, haunting novel The Kitchen House. Set in the late 1700s and early 1800s, it follows the lives of the families, masters and slaves, on a Virginia plantation, narrated in turn by a white indentured servant and a slave. Brought fresh perspective to the horror of slavery.

Just started Octavian Nothing

The Financial Markets book will have to wait. I found out that Carlos Ruiz Zafon's new book The Prisoner of Heaven is out. Picked it up, started reading, hopelessly hooked.

>22 fuzzi: Fuzzi:

Haven't read Treasure Island in about thirty-five years, but my recollection of it is that it's very exciting. Kidnapped maybe isn't quite as exciting, but it does star one of the great heroes of British literature, Alan Breck. He is the friend of the narrator, David Balfor(sp?) It's a wonderful book, but be aware that it contains a good deal of Scots dialect. You might do better to listen to it than read it visually. My edition, from Blackstone Audio, is very good.

I've reviewed Charlotte Rogan's really gripping first novel, The Lifeboat, in my thread...post #183.

Same for me on Treasure Island. Read it in 7th grade and not since. I'm guessing I'd enjoy it now, too, but I loved Kidnapped and had no trouble reading the dialect.

>23 cdyankeefan: cdyankeefan

I have 11/22/63 but haven't started it yet. Will be interested to hear what you think of it.

Finished Kidnapped and moved on to Catriona on the cassette deck and have just downloaded Villette by Charlotte bBronte and The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham from Audible onto the Victor Reader Stream (an audiobook/MP3 player specially designed for the blind). Was thinking of starting Villette, my second read of this lovely, sad novel, but on the whole I'm leaning now towards The Wind in the Willows, which I haven't read in some forty-two or forty-three years. I haven't yet been disappointed revisiting childhood favorites. Found I loved A Little Princess aka Sarah Crew and "The Enchanted Castle as much as an adult as in childhood. And I found A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door very rewarding to reread as a grownup. I've reread The Chronicles of Narnia countless times since first being introduced to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at age six. So, it is with a good deal of pleasurable anticipation that I'm looking forward to The Wind in the Willows.

I am working my way through Venice Noir but finding out I'm not a real fan of short stories. Decided to read a couple a day but also started Tami Hoag's Lucky's Lady. Love that it's set in the Louisiana bayou. This could end up in my keepers. :)

I could not put The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock down! See why on my thread...post #184.

I'm reading Waiting for Sunrise -- on another one of those rides that William Boyd takes you on. We began in 1913 Vienna and now it's 1914 London and we had a brief encounter with Sigmund Freud and of course there's a war about to start. I read slowly these days but it's certainly not the book's fault.

Started reading The Chaperone last night. It takes place in the 1920s and is about a woman who chaperones Louise Brooks to New York City so that she can take dance lessons there.

Panpsychism in the West (Bradford Books) by David Skrbina
End of Time by Julian Barbour
Radio Free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick
The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort by Charles Fort

Started Memoir of the Sunday Brunch last night just before bed. Not far into it yet, but it promises to be good!

I'm still reading and enjoying Orlando by Virginia Woolf. I believe I will follow it with The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, but I can be very fickle when it comes to reading so I may not.

I finished reading Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau. This was for a book discussion group. I liked it but didn't find it compelling. I found the hero irresponsible, as did his beloved, and therefore his actions inexcusable. They man just lived in a bubble, but the story was good and it was well written. The point of it was about dying languages. Yiddish in particular. And that side of the book was fascinating.

I also finished listening to Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire by Margot Berwin. This was a lighthearted romance novel and as such was only mildly irritating in places. It was a nice summer listen for vacation driving. I am not usually a romance novel reader, but do pick up one at times, and this was one of those times. If you like this genre then this would be a good book.

I started listening to Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. This is his usual excellent fare, and I expect to be as immersed in it as I was last fall in Pompeii by Robert Harris. It is soon to be August and August is known for exploding volcanoes so it is time to read about them.

I started reading Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer. This is translated from Afrikaans and I am very curious about it. So far it seems like the Afrikaans version of Walander, but I am only 100 pages into the book. This will be a BBC production starring Sean Bean so I want to get the books read before I watch them on TV at some point in the future.

I finally finished Madeleine Albright's Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948. My reaction to this book is a bit complicated and resulted in one of my longer reviews, which you'll find on my 50-Book Challenge thread and on the book's work page.

I'm on to Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag. Can't believe I finished Lucky's Lady in less than 24 hrs! Haven't done that in ages!

#39 DMO I am more than halfway through The Chaperone and am enjoying it very much. I hope you do too!

I finished A Life Without Limits by Chrissie Wellington and loved it. She got me all CRAZY inspired for my third marathon (in April), and ever Winter training!

I am now reading The Last Hunger Season by Roger Thurow on recommendation of a friend who is into international global aid/help/policy (cannot recall the exact name of that master's degree she just got). So far I can tell I will like it, even though I am only a few pages in. Written by a fellow Chicagoan too, and I always like to support my local talent!

Wow, I've been seriously tardy over here. Back in the day, this would always be my 1st stop. I have been on a nice book roll: I finished the excellent, Any Human Heart and started both binocular Vision & Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and both begin extremely well. Next up, on audio, The Age of Miracles.

I finished The Yellow Wallpaper and Girl Walks into a Bar . . .: Comedy Calamities, Dating Disasters, and a Midlife Miracle. No on to The Wednesday Sisters on Nook and my last western of the month Indian Killer by the wonderful Sherman Alexie.

Even though I am enjoying the aristocratic antics of the Duchess of Devonshire(Deborah Mitford) and Patrick Leigh Fermor told through their letters in In Tearing Haste, I needed something with fewer footnotes. Every friend has their own footnote so it gets a bit tedious, flipping back and forth to confirm identities. I will take this one at a slower pace and read it more like stories instead a novel and devouring as quickly as possible.
I am currently reading John Boyne's Crippen and it is lovely. Boyne really is a good writer!

I took a little fictional interlude last night and am half way through Peace by Richard Bausch - a novella really. It is great. Wonderful writing.

Not that impressed with Death Comes to Pemberley, I have to say. I have higher hopes for my next read as it's always a joy to me when a new 'Rizzoli and Isles' p/b hits the shelves. Certainly, the first sentence of The Silent Girl - "All day, I have been watching the girl." - alreadu has me as firmly gripped by the throat as I suspect 'the girl' is about to be.

>47 CarolynSchroeder: Carolyn, I went looking for your review on the linked book page...it's an inspirational christian book by TD Jakes. I don't imagine that was intentional!

I've finished The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan, which I highly recommend to anyone looking to gain more understanding of that part of the world.

Now I'm on to Bodies in a Bookshop by R. T. Campbell, which I can't wait to dig into, as it appears to be a wonderful little gem of a book for book lovers. I've only read the first page or so and it has me smiling from ear to ear! Which of us has not gone in search of a specific book, failed to find it, but didn't mind because we've come home with enough books to keep us happily reading for two weeks?

I have to share this quote:

"The trouble with bookshops is that they are as bad as pubs. You start at one and then you drift to another, and before you know where you are you are on a gigantic book-binge. My brief case was full to bursting and I had bundles of books under both arms. I was bowed down by the weight of them."

@54: Great quote! Sounds exactly like what I plan to be doing this weekend :)

Finished The Bishop's Man, by Linden MacIntyre, this afternoon on the bus and started Beast in View, by Margaret Millar. Bit of a gear shift from contemporary fiction to 1950s mystery.

Finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. My wife loved the book and I notice it drew some glowing reviews on LT, but it didn't really do it for me at all. An uneasy mix of Ealing comedy, Nazi brutality and humdrum romance.

Hope to finish Family Britain 1951-57 before the end of the week.

I just started Murder, My Sweet Matilda, a play by Janet Green. For those of you unfamiliar with this work, it is the play upon which the movie, "Midnight Lace" with Doris Day, was based.

I finished and REVIEWED Dianne Warren's novel Juliet in August which was an ER choice a couple of months ago. Terrific read!

Now I'm reading Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden.

>52 Booksloth:, I tried Death Comes to Pemberley in audio and I didn't even make it past that initial info dump.

>56 cappybear: cappybear
I hear you on Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It was a disappointment.

I'm still reading John Boyne's Crippen and I love that Matthieu Zela from Thief of Time and one of the Toms are on board the ship. In the intense heat here, it is nice to pretend that I'm on a transatlantic cruise as well. Maybe my next read could be set in Siberia; that'd be nice too.

Just finished Tom Mueller, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil. Just started Mark Twain, Traveling the Equator and Anti-imperialist Essays

Olive Oil is a fine work of food journalism. The writing is superb, Mueller did his homework, and the book is well-organized and packed with facts about Olive Oil and the food-oil business and the food-quality assurance end of government. The implications of rampant olive-oil fraud is that the same problems are rampant in the food and transportation industries generally.

Anybody who eats for a living and has enough sense to worry about what they eat ought to read Mueller.

I finished Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean which I enjoyed, but wasn't quite in the right mood for. So, on to something light that I know I'll love, Good Omens.

> 22 Anything by RLS is good reading. One about which we hear less than it deserves is The Black Arrow. Be sure to read that one, too. Master of Ballantrae is kind of a drag. The ending is especially bad. Not one of RLS's best works.

#60 Can't quite manage Siberia, enaid, but if you haven't already read it you could always move on to Boyne's The House of Special Purpose, set in the final days of the Russian Revolution. It makes me so happy every time I see you comment on how much you are enjoying his work and this one is definitely a 'cold weather book'.

#54 bookwoman47

I read Lemon Tree a few years ago and liked it. I then gave my copy to my cousin. He loved that book. He talked about it every time I saw him and said that more people should read this kind of book, Including his in-laws who think that everything Israeli is right and good. He thought that the book showed that there is always two sides to a question and that they way out of this dilemma is not cut and dried. I am glad you enjoyed this book.

I am listening to Krakatoa:The Day the World Exploded and really liking it. Simon Winchester is a good narrator.

Well, Richard, it's safe to say I have failed Touchstones 101. That it is linking to Christian literature is just downright hilarious ... all things in life being considered.

I finished Peace by Richard Bausch and thought it was very, very good. The futility and confusion of war, wow.

I am about 1/3 the way through The Last Hunger Season and am loving it ... while sad on some level, there is hope, innovation and solutions for helping small hold farmers in Africa and curing famine, in its pages. Chicago guys do good!

#26 @ Citizenjoyce: I really liked The Lace Reader!

I finished and very much enjoyed Bodies in a Bookshop by R. T. Campbell, and I'm now starting The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, the first in the Inspector Montalbano series. I've heard this series mentioned here quite a bit. It should be fun!

>64 Booksloth: Booksloth
I will definitely read House of Special Purpose! I am so glad you introduced me to John Boyne. Without you mentioning him, I doubt I ever would have picked up any of his books. He was totally off my radar.

>63 dekesolomon: dekesolomon:

Really enjoyed The Black Arrow, especially as a Medievalist by training and inclination. Can't think how I missed it as a kid, but I managed to miss a lot of books as a kid...and later. I also like RLS' short stories, some of which are lighthearted, some spooky.

Less than an hour left on The Wind in the Willows, so I'll finish it tonight. I have no childhood memories of this book whatsoever except loving it, so am coming to it fresh. What an absolutely delightful, lovely book!

On finishing that I'll either return to Catriona on cassette or go on to Villette on the Victor Reader Stream, more likely return to Catriona.

In braille I've started Safe without Sight, which has been on my TBR list for some time. I've been putting it off, and it will be a hard slog, because I don't read braille very well. OTOH I'll never improve if I don't try. Besides, this sounds like both an interesting and an important book.

>54 bookwoman247:, 65 - I'll third the commendations for Lemon Tree - I listened to it on audio a few years back and found it very informative, very good for providing context to the usually-unintelligible situation in Israel/Palestine.

I finished reading Catching Fire: not quite as good as Hunger Games, but a quick chew nonetheless, and I think my number's coming up pretty quick for Mockingjay - yay! Am currently a bit past halfway through A Train in Winter: very much wishing that I was keeping paper and pencil handy to keep track of the cast of dozens, but it's enjoyable enough to pay overdue fines for.

>71 Catreona:, Kudos & congrats for learning Braille, Catreona! I know many never do. (And, while a slog in the doing, it's gotta be cool to be able to brag about it afterwards!)

I thoroughly enjoyed Waiting for Sunrise. Now I'm reading Graham Swift's Wish You Were Here.

I can't get stuck in to any of the 84 books I've got temporary custody of (from the library). Just too much choice? I chose the wrong books? Dunno. Very frustrating.

Just started Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. It is wonderful so far...

I just finished the fabulous Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub, now I'm reading Jack 1939 by Francine Mathews and A Case for Solomon by Tal McThenia.

(63) @dekesolomon
Thanks for the recommendation of The Black Arrow. Maybe I can find that in a free ebook (I've found Treasure Island that way).

Currently am reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, for the first time and really enjoying it.

Wow, where was I when this was on the shelves of our public library?

(66) @CarolynSchroeder: when you do a touchstone, it will list a book on the right side of the page, and there's a place next to the author's name where you can choose 'others' to find the exact book you want to link to. :)

Just finished On Blue's Waters, vol. 1 in The Book of the Short Sun series by Gene Wolfe. Great book by the master.

I am almost finished with The Girl of Fire and Thorns. I would have finished it last night but I made myself go to bed at 11pm. :) Hopefully I will finish it tonight unless the power goes out during the t-storms forecasted for the Boston area.

The next book will be The Hangman's Daughter since I just picked it up from the library.

>74 richardderus: richardderus

You have my sympathy. A few weeks ago I lugged home over 20 books(I encouraged myself by repeating that I was "helping with the library's numbers in circulation. You know, because I'm nice like that.) and only one of them was a winner(a re-read of a Dick Francis mystery!) for me. That was two tote bags of books in this heat. They were all books I'd wanted and written down, at some point. So annoying!

>77 fuzzi: Fuzzi: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a great book.

>80 enaid: enaid: Which Dick Francis? It's been ages since I read any of his, but always enjoyed them.

Finished The Wind in the Willows last night and cannot praise it highly enough. Absolutely delightful.

Still listening to Catriona.

I am enjoying both my listening and reading books this week. Devil's Peak is my reading book, and it was slow at first, but gaining steam. I was annoyed that I couldn't read it during lunch because I had company in our lunch/break room. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is great. It is the one I am listening to and Winchester is a great narrator. I am doing my volcano read for August a little early this month. I noted years ago that both Vesuvius and Krakatoa blew up in August, so August is my volcano month. Last August I read Pompeii by Robert Harris and this year is the Winchester book. Next year will be one about Pele.

@82: I too enjoyed Krakatoa. Winchester writes very well and picks some good subjects! There are a few of his books on my TBR.

On the bus I am reading Hickory Dickory Dock, by Agatha Christie, and at home I am reading E=mc2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, by David Bodanis.

> 77 -- Fuzzi -- for sure you can get it from Project Gutenberg. You may have to settle for etext, but it's free.

#81, Catreona, you might like 2 other books by Kenneth Grahame. They're completely different, but the writing is pleasant and the story (they're a book and its sequel) is charming. They're about the delights of growing up in the English country. The characters are 5 orphaned children who are being raised by aunts, uncles and servants but mostly by each other. The books are The Golden Age and Dream days. They're kind of hard to find as actual books, but they're easily available on Project Gutenberg.

>74 richardderus:: *200* books?! >80 enaid:: 20 books?! OK, so some of us, like richard and enaid, have *Mt.* TBR's; clearly, mine's more of a "Mound" TBR...

>86 Heduanna: Heduanna

Yeah, 20 books and still nothing good to read! It's just like when I look in my closet and have "nothing to wear".

>84 dekesolomon: It happens some days, enaid. I wish it wasn't a peaceful, quiet one!

>86 Heduanna: Goodness, Heduanna, only 84 not 200! If I ever try to break into triple digits at the library, I don't think they'll go along with it.

I'm reading Atlantic atm

fuzzi ~ thank you for the touchstone tip! I'm going to try that now!

As Peace by Richard Bausch is a book that is lingering in my mind days after I completed it, I put up a review. I don't like neglecting a good review where I feel a book really deserves one, especially in works that may be kinda "overlooked" in the scheme of things. (I think I nailed that touchstone!).

I am now reading Rust by Julie Mars, which so far, is great. I'm a BIG fan of reading about artist characters and their processes, especially women (since I can kinda relate to that a bit more than the male experience, but I dig reading about all artists at the end of the day), and this is about a failed NYC artist/bartender who throws fate into the wind and sets up a new life in New Mexico as a sculptural artist and strikes up a friendship with a mechanic, who teachers her to weld (her pieces). I am loving the time, place, journey ... I guess it may be "chick lit", I am not sure. But I love it anyway.

I am also halfway through The Last Hunger Season by Roger Thurow (which I left in my briefcase at the office) and that is an exceptional one too (non fiction).

>>56 cappybear:. I think you summarized succinctly why I disliked Guernsey.

I've finished The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, which was well-written with a very fast-paced plot, and I'm now cracking open Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin.

I just have to say that Devil's Peak is a pretty good book. It was fairly standard police procedural at first, but all of a sudden the plot has gotten all twisty and I am beginning to wonder where it is heading. This book is being made into a BBC mystery starring Sean Bean and at first I was puzzled as to why BBC would do this book when it has already done got Wallender, now I think I know the reason why BBC invested in it. I may have to go to the library and get the second book in this trilogy to take with me on vacation.

Nobody writes mystery like the Brits.

80> 81> I finished Family Britain 1951-57 this afternoon. I enjoyed this book immensely and am only sorry that the next installment (Modernity Britain 1957-63) isn't out yet. Interestingly, Dick Francis was mentioned; in an earlier career as a jockey he had ridden Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National. The horse looked certain to win, but inexplicably fell just yards away from the finishing line.

I plan to start our next book for the reading group this weekend - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

>67 BBleil: BBleil, I finished The Lace Reader and I also liked it very much. Brunonia Barry reminded me of Paula Sharp in her treatment of abused women - a hard group to work with, but rewarding when you can help.

Now I'm on to another Pat Barker, Another World which, surprisingly is also partially about soldier's reaction to WWI - 80 years later! It's also has a character affected by mental illness, as did The Lace Reader, as does my current paper read Indian Killer. I seem to be getting myself into a groove. So far my Nook read, The Wednesday Sisters has women struggling with sexism, racism and physical challenges, but no mental illness yet.

(84) deke, I found it last night! Text or pdf is fine, free is good.

> 97 -- Fuzzi -- that's a wonderful title, isn't it? A person can't NOT read a book called "The Black Arrow." And it's a good 'un, too. I promise.

In honour of the Olympics I'm now reading Gold by the truly incredible Chris Cleave. If it's even half as good as Incendiary and The Other Hand (aka Little Bee) it should prove an excellent way of ignoring the real thing (though I did quite enjoy the opening ceremony). Two weeks of sport, sport, sport - bleagh!

(99) Thanks, deke. I am going OOT on Monday. If I finish my current read, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by then, I might just read The Black Arrow, as it is on my tablet.

New thread exists.

Just not up to doing more on it right now.

Ungh? Richard, your link leads back to this thread. Just as I was getting all excited too. :)

I've finished Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag and am now on to A Thin Dark Line.

Well, blow me down and call me shorty! I hope THIS link won't be wonky.

It's fine, thanks!

Richard, I added the birthdays for you. :)

See you at the new thread:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/140263