Genny's Gramarye 2012: Quire 3

The sun is shining today! But given how little sun we’ve seen so far this year, I fear it may not be here for long, so I’ve posted a bit of sunshine at the top of this new thread.

I’m on holiday, and have been sleeping a lot and reading a bit, and finally found the energy to come and set up my long-overdue new thread and get posting again,

So welcome, visitors and friends new and old. I hope to be updating here a bit more often than in recent months.

Currently reading:

Espresso Tales - Alexander McCall Smith
The World's Wife - Carol Ann Duffy
The Pickwick Papers - Dickens (ebook)
Les Misérables - Victor Hugo (audiobook)

My 'Currently Reading' collection used to contain quite a few books which I started reading but have not managed to finish - not usually because I didn't like the book but because I'm not always good at keeping several books on the go at once, and having been distracted from a book it can take me a long time to get back into it again. So at the start of this year I moved all these (interesting that many of them are non-fiction) into a new collection called 'Stalled', and hope to return to finish them at some point. I'll list the stalled books here, to remind me, and so that I can cross them off once read.

Stalled - to pick up again soon...
Martin Luther King - Godfrey Hodgson (paused in reading because I've mislaid the book!)
Presiding like a woman
The life and death of Mary Wollstonecraft (another mislaid book, but I’ve found it again now!)
The broken sword
Beowulf: a new verse translation
Landmarks: an Ignatian journey
Eating for England
Mysteries
Planet Narnia
We - John Dickinson
If you meet George Herbert on the road, kill him
The God Delusion
Gilead Have brought this one with me on holiday, hope to return to it soon
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
The Picture of Dorian Gray

A picture of Plas Newydd (New Hall) in Llangollen, Wales, where I visited on the first day of my holiday. The interior as well as the exterior was full of elaborate carvings in dark oak – no photos were allowed inside, but there was an art installation on site which reproduced many of the carved oak motifs in white quilting – so I took photos of those instead. The sun above and the fantastical creatures below are some of those images.

Books read - August onwards

69. Remarkable Creatures – Tracy Chevalier – 4.8 - own book
70. Berlin Poplars – Anne B Ragde – 6.8 - library book
71. The Cipher Garden – Martin Edwards – 8.8 - own book
72. Flush - Virginia Woolf - 9.8 - own book
73. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier - 11.8 - own book
74. The River at Green Knowe - L M Boston - 12.8 - own book
75. Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore - Stella Duffy - 14.8 - own book
76. Gladstone - Michael Partridge - 16.8 - Gladstone library book
77. A necessary end - Peter Robinson - 22.8- own book
78. The hanging valley - Peter Robinson - 23.8 - own book
79. Life - Keith Richards - 29.8 - audiobook (own)

September
80. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - 5.9 - audiobook (own) - have been reading this since January
81. Queen Lucia - E F Benson - 11.9 - audiobook (own)
82. Watership Down - Richard Adams - 17.9 - audiobook (own) - re-read
83. The Janissary tree - Jason Goodwin - 21.9 - own book
84. Rules of Civility - Amor Towles - 24.9 - own book - book group
85. Union Street - Pat Barker - 30.9 - own book

October
86. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark - 6.10 - own book
87. Espresso Tales - Alexander McCall Smith - 11.10 - own book

Books read Jan-July

January
1. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil - J R R Tolkien - Audiobook - 2.1 - Reviewed 3.5 stars
2. Mr Ives' Christmas - Oscar Hijuelos - 14.1
3. Betrayal - Karin Alvtegen - eBook - 16.1
4. Hand in Glove - Ngaio Marsh - 21.1
5. The Siege - Helen Dunmore - 29.1
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde - 31.1 - e-Book
7. Letter from Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King - 31.1 - e-Book

February
8. The Winter Sleepwalker - Joan Aiken - 3.2 Reviewed 4 stars
9. Invitation to the Waltz - Rosamond Lehmann - 14.2
10. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell - 15.2
11. Cheerfulness Breaks In - Angela Thirkell - 15.2
12. A Year Lost and Found - Michael Mayne - 16.2
13. The Voice of the Violin - Andrea Camilleri - 16.2
14. Selected Poems: U A Fanthorpe - 17.2
15. A Game of Thrones - George R R Martin - 25.2
16. A Clash of Kings - George R R Martin - 29.2

March
17. Death Comes to Pemberley - P D James - 3.3
18. A Stitch in Time - Penelope Lively - 6.3
19. A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow - George R R Martin - 8.3
20. A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold - George R R Martin - 10.3
21. A fountain filled with blood - Julia Spencer-Fleming - 13.3
22. Revelation - C J Sansom - 19.3
23. The mysterious affair at Styles - Agatha Christie - 20.3
24. Poor Caroline - Winifred Holtby - 21.3
25. Txtng: The Gr8 Db8 - David Crystal - 23.3
26. Foundation - Isaac Asimov - 24.3
27. Dark Vineyard - Martin Walker - 28.3
28. The Coffin Trail - Martin Edwards - 29.3

April
29. Silence of the Grave - Indridason - 2.4
30. The scent of the night - Camilleri - 5.4
31. Black Diamond - Martin Walker - 9.4
32. Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper - Fuchsia Dunlop - 11.4
33. The summer book - Tove Janssen - 12.4
34. Don't Look Back - Karin Fossum - 13.4
35. The Liar - Stephen Fry - 15.4
36. Pure - Andrew Miller - 15.4
37. Grave Mistake - Ngaio Marsh - 19.4
38. The Convenient Marriage - Georgette Heyer - 21.4
39. Fatherland - Robert Harris - 24.4
40. A dubious legacy - Mary Wesley - 26.4
41. Odd and the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman - 28.4
42. The True Darcy Spirit - Elizabeth Aston - 30.4

May
43. Salmon fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday - 1.5
44. Cold shoulder road - Joan Aiken - 2.5
45. Midwinter Nightingale - Joan Aiken 4.5
46. The witch of Clatteringshaws - Joan Aiken - 7.5
47. Raven black - 10.5
48. Gillespie and I - Jane Harris - 15.5
49. Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Christian Speaker - Adrian Plass - 18.5
50. The Weather in the Streets - Rosamond Lehmann - 19.5
51. Indemnity only - Sara Paretsky - 22.5
52. Sheepfarmer's daughter - Elizabeth Moon - 23.5
53. Up jumps the devil - Margaret Maron - 26.5
54. Divided allegiance - Elizabeth Moon - 29.5
55. Witches abroad - Terry Pratchett - 31.5

June
56. Heartstone - C J Sansom - 4.6
57. Writing at the Kitchen Table - Artemis Cooper - 7.6
58. The woman in white - Wilkie Collins - 14.6
59. The crossing places - Elly Griffiths - 15.6
60. On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan - 16.6
61. The Gabriel hounds - Mary Stewart - 18.6
62. Bring up the bodies - Hilary Mantel - 25.6
63. Rounding the mark - Andrea Camilleri - 27.6

July
64. Good Omens - Pratchett and Gaiman - 12.7
65. Night Waking - Sarah Moss - 18.7
66. His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik - 22.7
67. Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik - 24.7
68. The Coroner's Lunch - Colin Cotterill - 28.7

Books acquired

The goal was to add no more than 60 new books to my library during 2012. I’ve already exceeded that, and we’re only 2/3 through the year! Still, I think I have acquired fewer than by this time last year, so will continue to try to be a bit more restrained. (I am counting all books which I acquire, whether bought, received as gifts or through Bookmooch. Library books and other loans do not count, as I will not be keeping those, though I will list them here also, separately numbered)

Books acquired August onwards

August
From Llangollen book shop and café - a good haul of Viragos!
60. Tell me a riddle & Yonnondio – Tillie Olsen (VMC)
61. The house in Clewe Street – Mary Lavin (VMC)
62. The rock cried out – Ellen Douglas (VMC)
63. A pin to see the peepshow – F Tennyson Jesse (VMC)
64. Troy Chimneys – Margaret Kennedy (VMC)
65. My career goes bung – Miles Franklin (VMC)
66. Blue skies & Jack and Jill – Helen Hodgman (VMC)
67. At the still point – Mary Benson (VMC)

from Greenbelt Bookshop:
68. Apparition & Late fictions : a novella and stories - Thomas Lynch
69. Walking papers : poems - Thomas Lynch
70. The lion's world: a journey into the heart of Narnia - Rowan Williams

from Oxfam Bookshop Oxford:
71. The blotting book - E F Benson
72. On the black hill - Bruce Chatwin
73. The grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer
74. The quiet gentleman - Georgette Heyer
75. Cold Earth - Sarah Moss

September

From Amazon marketplace:
76. Rules of civility - Amor Towles (for bookgroup) - READ

From Oxfam Shop Gosforth
77. The track of sand - Andrea Camilleri
78. All the names - José Saramago
79. The broken bridge - Philip Pulman
80. The long song - Andrea Levy
81. The great fire - Shirley Hazzard

From Scope charity shop
82. Broken music: a memoir - Sting
83. The adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

Birthday gifts:
84. Excursion to Tindari - Andrea Camilleri
85. Alice in Sunderland - Bryan Talbot
Home - Marilynne Robinson (duplicate copy so not counting this as I'll dispose of one)

Library sale:
86. Gossip from Thrush Green - Miss Read
87. Cliffs of Fall - Shirley Hazzard
88. Acorna's Children: second wave - Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
89. Touching my Father's Soul - Jamling Tenzing Norgay
90. Van Rijn Sarah Miano

From Amazon marketplace
91. The rough guide to Malta and Gozo - Victor Paul Borg

October

Loans:
Learn Maltese : why not? - Joseph Vella
Top 10 Malta & Gozo - Mary-Ann Gallagher

Oxfam shop, Gosforth:
92. The black book - Ian Rankin
93. Espedair Street - Iain Banks
94. Excession - Iain M. Banks
95. How to be a woman - Caitlin Moran
96. The comfort of Saturdays - Alexander McCall Smith

ebay:
97. Espresso Tales - Alexander McCall Smith - READ

Amazon marketplace:
98. Black water rising - Attica Locke - for bookgroup
99. The game of kings - Dorothy Dunnett

Amazon new
100. Malta and Gozo: Bradt Travel Guides - Juliet Rix

Books acquired Jan-July

January
Bookmooch:
1. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (VMC)
2. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding - Agatha Christie
Oxfam shop:
3. Strip Jack - Ian Rankin
Library
A. Betrayal - Karin Alvtegen - eBook - (for book group) - READ
Loan
B. Death comes to Pemberley - P D James - READ

February
from Oxfam shop - to celebrate 6th Thingaversary
4. In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin
5. George beneath a paper moon - Nina Bawden
6. Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
7. Respected Sir - Naguib Mahfouz
8. Spiderweb - Penelope Lively
from Amazon marketplace - to celebrate Thingaversary
9. Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett
Library
C. Cheerfulness breaks in - Angela Thirkell - READ
D. The Voice of the Violin - Andrea Camilleri - READ
from St Oswald's library sale
10. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

March
from Amazon Marketplace
11. A Fountain Filled with Blood - Julia Spencer-Fleming - to celebrate Thingaversary - READ
12. A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow - George R R Martin - READ
Loan
E. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday - READ
Library
F. Foundation - Asimov - READ
G. Berlin Poplars - Anne B Ragde - READ
H. The Betrayal - Helen Dunmore - returned unread (for now)
from Oxfam shop:
13. Olivia by Olivia=Dorothy Strachey (VMC original green)
Library
I. Silence of the Grave - Indridason - READ
J. August Heat - Andrea Camilleri - returned unread (for now)

April
14. Odd and the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman - (Bookmooch) - READ
from the Oxfam Shop:
15. Liza's England - Pat Barker
16. Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik - READ
from eBay:
17. Writing at the Kitchen Table - Artemis Cooper - READ
Library
K Don't Look Back - Karin Fossum - READ
L Gillespie and I - Jane Harris - READ
M The Crossing Places - Ellie Griffiths - READ
from Kindle Store
18. Pure - Andrew Miller - eBook - READ
Gifts:
19. Every man in this village is a liar - Megan Stack
20. Orgy Planner wanted - Vicky Leon
21. The lake of dreams - Kim Edwards - ALERT - now over my limit
22. Honey from a weed - Patience Gray
From market stall in Sherborne:
23. Half of a yellow sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
24. Winter in Madrid - C J Sansom
From Oxfam bookshop
25. We - Zamyatin
26. Something Rotten - Fforde
27. The holiday - Stevie Smith

May
From Amazon marketplace:
28. Heartstone - C J Sansom - READ
29. The Jewel in the crown - Paul Scott
From Oxfam Bookshop Gosforth:
30. Eco-theology - ed Wainwright
31. Rounding the mark - Camilleri - READ
32. Hearts undefeated: women's writing of the Second World War - ed Hartley
Gift from Luci:
33. Carbonel
34. The kingdom of Carbonel
35. Carbonel and Calidor - Barbara Sleigh
36. The sweet dove died - Barbara Pym
37. The vet's daughter - Barbara Comyns - VMC original green
38. At Mrs Lippincote's - Elizabeth Taylor
39. The man in the queue - Josephine Tey
40. Burger's daughter - Nadine Gordimer
From bookstall at Mantel talk:
41. Bring up the bodies - Hilary Mantel - READ
From Persephone bookshop:
42. The crowded street - Winifred Holtby
From Oxfam Bookshop Bloomsbury:
43. The Tulip - Anna Pavord
- Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel - hardback to replace my paperback copy
- The age of innocence - E Wharton - original green VMC copy to replace my later VMC edition
44. A fine of two hundred francs - Elsa Triolet - VMC original green
- Devoted ladies - M J Farrell - VMC original green to replace later VMC edition
From Bookmooch:
45. Calabrian quest - Geoffrey Trease
From Amazon Marketplace
46. Divided allegiance - Elizabeth Moon - READ

June
47. Oath of Gold - Elizabeth Moon - from Amazon Marketplace
48. The Coroner's lunch - Colin Cotterill - from Oxfam shop Gosforth - READ
49. To darkness and to death - Julia Spencer-Fleming - from Bookmooch
50. Un Lun Dun – China Miéville – from Amazon (gift for Dad turned out to be a duplicate)
From Oxfam shop
51. No wind of blame – Georgette Heyer
52. They found him dead - Georgette Heyer
53. Slowly down the Ganges – Eric Newby
From Gosforth Library
N Pereira Maintains – Tabucchi - returned unread (for now)
O Night Waking – Sarah Moss (for book group) - READ
P River of Smoke – Amitav Ghosh - returned unread (for now)

July
From Oxfam shop
54. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats – T S Eliot
55. Duplicate death – Georgette Heyer
56. The unfinished clue – Georgette Heyer
57. Death in the stocks – Georgette Heyer
From Scope charity shop
58. The river at Green Knowe – L M Boston - READ
From eBay
59. Red, white and drunk all over – Natalie MacLean – for book group

last reserved!

I'm first!!!??? I'm first!!!!
Genny, that quilting is fantastic! I am so handicapped as a needlewoman that my admiration knows no bounds for somebody - or several somebodies - who can accomplish something so intricate. What a beautiful place!!!
I'm glad that you're getting some good downtime, and I admire your new books and wish you good reading.
(The George Herbert title kills me!)

The quilt... wow!

Pretty new thread, Genny! I hope you're having a lovely holiday.

Sounds like a lovely holiday, Genny, and a lovely new thread. Your Stalled collection is a good idea - my Currently Reading collection is large and not accurately named - I may have to copy you!

Lovely start to your third thread Genny. Looking at your photos of Llangollen makes me feel a bit homesick if truth be known.

Love the needlework!

Oooh! We're off on holiday again!
Love the quiliting and what a beautiful place.

I am jumping into your new thread, Genny, with high hopes that we can both keep up better. I love the white quilting. Very elegant. Good luck with those stalled books. You remind me that I should pick up Planet Narnia again. It's been so long that I should probably start over!

So wonderful to see your new thread, Genny! Wow, that is some lovely needlework, and such a gorgeous place. Happy reading!

Hello Peggy, qebo, Laura, Kerry, Paul, Roni, Athabasca, Donna and Eris!

Thanks for visiting. Plas Newydd was fascinating, the person responsible for the quilting is called Jan Wallis. Because she had based her quilting designs on the motifs found in the carvings in the house, it was fun going round her installation and recognising the same fantastical creatures, only transformed from dark black solid carved oak to bright white soft quilting!

The house itself was the home of the 'Ladies of Llangollen', famous in the late 18th/early 19th century for having eloped and set up home together at Llangollen where for 50 years they lived and shared a romantic friendship. They seem to have been an interesting mixture of radical and conservative - and their relationship and way of life is still a source of fascination today.

I'm dithering today about whether to have a day out in Chester. It's only a short bus ride away, but I've already left it quite late to set off, so perhaps I should go tomorrow instead. But it's another sunny day, and I'd like to make the most of the sun - it still feels like such a novelty. So perhaps I should go for a half day out at least...

I finished another book last night - Flush, by Virginia Woolf, her 'biography' of Elizabeth Barret Browning's pet spaniel. I have the Persephone edition, and it was the first Persephone I bought and the first I've got round to reading. The book is short, amusing but with deeper themes hinted at - of the parallels between the fate of cossetted lapdogs and over-protected Victorian women.

I really liked Flush too, Genny. It's easy to just take in what's on the surface (a dog story), but then it's Woolf so there must be something deeper right? I like the parallels you've highlighted.

Hi Genny, lovely to see your new thread. The quilting is beautiful. Despite three visits to Gladstones, I still haven't done Chester. I did read, just before my visit this year, that Henry James took his sister Alice on her Grand Tour of Europe in 1869, and they visited Chester, and liked it, staying in the Queen hotel by the station.

Glad you enjoyed Flush, I've still to read that, Orlando (tho I really enjoyed Sally Potters film), and Between the Acts. I did almost complete my Virginia Woolf collection, finding the six volumes of her letters on Monday. I don't have all the essays yet, one needs always to have something out there perhaps!

A holiday and a lovely new thread! And some sunshine! Marvellous!

What fun bumping into Caroline thusly! I often wonder if I'm passing someone in the street who is an LT-er - especially in a place like the one I am now in - Wellfleet on the Cape in the USA - where everyone reads books at the beach, good ones too!

Oooo! I didn't realize that you were at the Ladies' of L's house! (Thanks for the link!) I downloaded a wrong book about them and haven't read it yet - except to see that it looks poorly formatted and may not be readable....by somebody named John Hicklin about whom there is nothing on LT. I look forward to hearing about the ½-day or day in Chester.

Lovely new thread, Genny! And delightful that you had a meet-up with another LTer on holiday!

Caroline, I'm a massive fan of Woolf's essays; slowly but steadily accumulating the complete series. So thoughtful and elegant and completely individual...

Wouldn't the ladies of Llangollen make for a great subject for a novel??

And I hope you had a fab time on holiday!

Hi Genny! I hope you had a relaxing time on your holiday. I'll just make myself comfortable on your new thread. :)

*waving* at Genny

My favorite of Woolf's essays is A Room of One's Own. I am sure you have probably read that one already :)

#17 The intro in my Persephone edition should be credited with these ideas, rather than me. Sally Beauman wrote quite a bit there about the popularity of Flush and its dismissal by critics as a slight work, but as you say, she reckons there must be more to it coming from Woolf.

#18 Hello Caroline - more on my visit to Chester later... As for Woolf, the only things I've read of hers are A room of one's own, Orlando and now Flush - will have to tackle one of her better known novels one day! I hope you had a good journey home after your stay at Gladstone's, and have not been too swamped with Olympics since then!

#19 Hi Hannah, yes, it has been marvellous indeed to have some sunshine and warmth at last. I even had to put on some sun screen on Friday when I was out for the day!

#20 Yes it was great fun meeting Caroline - and just as well that Laura spotted that our visits were coinciding, otherwise we might not have realised even though we'd already chatted over dinner. I have coincided with several other people I know while staying here this time - some friends (one an LT member but not active on the social side) who were here this time last year so I rather hoped they might be back again, and other friends of theirs who I also met last year - they were here basically for a bit of a relax and read and holiday, like me; then someone I know from women clergy networks, who is an academic church historian in Oxford specialising in the English Civil War period and was staying here while researching 17th century church wardens' accounts in the Cheshire Record Office. So you do get some people here doing serious research, even if they are not actually using the library, but others of us are just enjoying the peace and the facilities and the bookish company.

I haven't heard of Wellfleet, have just looked it up on Google maps and wikipedia - oysters and Marconi station... and very popular summer destination, I can see why, it looks wonderful. You could try walking up and down the beach with a placard advertising an LT meetup in the nearest decent cafe and see if anyone turns up!

#21 Hi Peggy, yes I was glad to visit the Ladies' place, after first hearing of them many years ago (I think it was from reading Wild Wales by George Borrow while I was on a cycle touring holiday of Wales about 30 years ago, but did not get to visit Llangollen then). Wondering what a 'wrong book' is - do you mean one you downloaded by mistake? Poorly formatted doesn't sound very encouraging... I did get to Chester in the end, and decided to walk the city walls, which, with interludes for lunch, ice-creams etc, took pretty well the rest of the day. Tiring, but satisfying - I now have a much better sense of the layout of the city than I've had for years simply going in to do a bit of shopping or to catch the train.

#22 Thanks Terri! And the meet-up was good, although brief - we had one dinner conversation not knowing we were LT friends, and one breakfast conversation after we knew, and then Caroline had to leave that day. This would be the ideal location for an LT residential meet up some time...

#23 Hi Suzanne, yes, the Ladies would make a great subject. Do you fancy having a go at it? Am enjoying my holiday, although it is all too rapidly drawing to a close. I am planning one more day out at least, to Liverpool, before I have to return home on Thursday.

#24 Hi Valerie, thanks for visiting. I'm certainly relaxing, I seem to have been sleeping a lot, and reading most of the rest of the time. Or sometimes walking for 20 minutes along the road to the farm shop and restaurant to have tea and cream scones and then walk back again, just so I get some exercise and fresh air!

#25 *waving back at Stasia* Yes, I did read A room of one's own, long ago now - for me that's the only one of her essays I've read, clearly should look out for more.

Genny, good to 'see' you again and glad to hear you're enjoying your holiday. I've loved seeing the quilts and hearing about Llangollen. Flush has also gone on my Persephone wishlist.

I've finished another couple of books -

Book no. 73
Yesterday I spent the whole day reading Rebecca, for the first time, and finished it in the middle of the evening, then spent a while reading people's reviews on LT. I had somehow managed to get to this age without ever having read it, or seen any film version; I knew the opening line, and the basic premise, but had no idea how the story developed. I loved the way du Maurier seemed to be playing with the conventions and expectations of 'gothic romance' - certainly plays with the sympathies of the reader and pulls you in some unexpected directions - and while many people seem to love it as a romantic story, I agreed with one reviewer who described it as an 'anti-romance'. Well, now I must add more du Maurier to my list...

Book no. 74
Today I read a short children's book, The River at Green Knowe - one of several books by Lucy M Boston in which (as in Rebecca) a house is one of the central characters. Green Knowe is based on Boston's own house, the Manor, Hemingford Grey (in Cambridgeshire), which is about 900 years old and thought to be the oldest house in England which has been continually in occupation. Many of Boston's books involve encounters between contemporary children and those from some of the past eras of the house's occupation. This one was more about the river (as the title suggests) as three children spend their summer holiday exploring all the islands and hidden stretches of the river by canoe, encountering all kinds of natural and not-so-natural creatures along the way.

I read several of these books as a child and loved them, but hadn't read this one before. I had no idea, as a child, that the stories had a real-life inspiration, and so I was completely surprised and delighted, a few years ago, when on retreat in a small retreat house in Hemingford Grey, to go for a a walk along the river one day and find The Manor, and discover that this was Green Knowe. I had a good look around the garden - full of amazing topiary - but was not able to visit the house as you have to make special arrangment to do so. One day I must go back.

I notice that my next book with be no. 75. What is it to be? I'm part way through a biography of Gladstone (I've resolved that I should read something about him every time I come to stay here). This is a straightforward, and reasonably short if not very enthralling account of his life; I'm trying to read a chapter a day so I don't expect this to be completed until Thursday. I've also been listening to (and getting much enjoyment out of) the audio book of Keith Richards' Life - thanks, Lucy, for your enthusiastic recommendation of this which I might never have though of reading otherwise. But I'm only about half way through this, so there are a good 10 or more hours of listening still which I intend to spread over several days. I could try to finish my ongoing eBook, Pickwick Papers - I've read about 85% of that according to my Kindle app, so if I concentrated on that it could be my next completed volume. Or I could make a start on Theodora by Stella Duffy - which I bought last summer after hearing her talk about it at Greenbelt, so it is high time I got around to it.

Choices, choices!



Picture of Eastgate Street, Chester, take from on top the Eastgate, part of the circuit of the city walls (Roman origins, medieval expansions, eighteenth century refinements, and more recent renovations - it is possible to walk all round the circuit of the wall, and from the walls to enjoy views over the city centre shopping streets as above, also of the cathedral, the roman amphitheatre and other ruins, the riverside promenade, bridges dating from different eras, the racetrack where once there was a major medieval port, and the distant hills of Wales (whence came once upon a time the 'marauding' Welsh whom the walls served to keep safely outside).

#27 Hi Heather, thanks for dropping in again. I finally feel a bit more up to date, at least with my own thread. Now I just need to catch up with some other threads too - I feel I've got very out of touch these past few months, thanks to very low energy. Holidays certainly help restore a bit of that!

#28 I read The Children of Green Knowe for the first time a couple of years ago and I've been meaning to read the other books in the series. Thank you also for reminding me about the manor house - I'll have to remember to make time to visit it.

#28 Green Knowe is based on Boston's own house, the Manor, Hemingford Grey (in Cambridgeshire) We go to Hemingford Grey from time to time (it has a really nice gastropub) - might go and have a look next time.

>26 gennyt:: Genny, I was so, so excited when I realized you and Caroline were both at the same place. I'm sooo glad you were able to meet!

We were in Chester a year ago. Our daughter's boyfriend took us for a day out (I think he may have been trying to impress!) starting in Liverpoool - the two cathedrals - and then on to Chester for a walk around. I loved it and was surprised that I had never been there before. Somehow we have had more to do with the east of the country, but since Clare chose to go to university in Manchester we have seen more of the north-west.

I have never read the Green Knowe books, although they have been on the To Read list that I keep in the back of my mind, for a while. Your comments have moved them closer to the front of my mind!

#30, 31. Do try to get to the Manor if you can, Heather and Rhian. It's a wonderfully tranquil setting and an evocative place - you'd want to make up stories about it if there weren't already some written!

#32 Yes Laura it was very good to meet another LTer face to face, albeit rather too short a meeting. Next time longer, maybe, as we both tend to come here. I must remember to let Caroline know next time I'm coming, just in case she will be coinciding.

#33 Chester is well worth repeated visits. I've been going for years and enjoying the atmosphere in the city centre, with the beautiful old shop fronts, the cathedral etc - but hadn't got round to seeing the walls or any of the Roman remains, and wasn't really even aware of the riverside promenade area, which was very fun and festive on a summers day with people out in little rowing boats and on pleasure cruisers.

As for the Green Knowe books, I'm pretty sure you would like them, Kerry. They are of that vintage of good old fashioned children's books - with a strong sense of place and of layers of history superimposed, so that you are never quite sure if the more fantastical events are magic or dreams or just the past being still present to those who are alive to it.

**********

Finally starting to catch up on a few threads - many more to go. I was up VERY late last night, couldn't stop once I got going - I think that's partly why I've been avoiding doing too much reading of and posting on threads in the past few months (my stats page shows me that in July I posted fewer posts than in any other month since Feb 2010 when I first started using the groups),as it becomes so addictive and I have not been able to afford the time or energy to get so hooked into it. But I do want to keep in touch with what my various 75group friends are reading and getting up to... so I'm making the most of this holiday period to get me back into it. Just need some matchsticks to prop open my eyelids today!

Hi Genny - wonderful pictures. Pleased to hear you are having a great holiday.

I vote for Theodora as your 75th read:)

#35 That's just as well calm, as I've started that one!

Good - I hope you like it:)

I have Theodora near the top of a reading pile, will look forward to your views. I read there is a sequel due too.

Good, I was going to vote for "Theodora" as well, especially since the sequel, The Purple Shroud is just out (and sitting on my TBR mountain...) Eager to here what you think of it...

I know the feeling Genny! It's almost painful trying to catch up with everyone, but when you finally noticed that the number of unread threads has diminished and you get to start fresh, that is a magical feeling. :) I hope you don't feel too slogged the rest of the day!

I had a day out in Liverpool yesterday, and thought of JanetinLondon as I set off - last year when I wrote about a similar visit, she noticed that I missed football off my list of interesting things about Liverpool. I'm afraid it is not something I am interested in, but Janet's support for Liverpool football team will mean that I will always associate her with the city now.

Well, I finished Theodora yesterday (reading chunks on the train to and from Liverpool, in cafes and on the steps of public buildings while sitting in the sun) so I've now read 75 books! I should go and find the 'Bragging and Backslapping thread'...

I enjoyed it. Made me want to go back and read more around that era - I did know a little bit but it's a while since I've read either fiction set in early Byzantium, or non fiction about that era. I'm glad there is a sequel from Duffy; I'd assumed till about 2/3 through the book that she would cover T's life as Empress in this book, but it became clear that it was going to end at the start of her reign, so there's a different story to tell about what happens next, and it will be interesting to see how Duffy handles that. More comments to follow, maybe even a proper review. Meanwhile I am meant to be sorting out some bank statements and updating my finance records, having brought the paperwork with me to do in peace but inevitably put it off till my last full day here at Gladstone's.

Congratulations on the 75 Genny.

Well if the weather is anything like here it sounds like a good day to stay indoors, hope you manage to at least make a start on the paperwork. Or maybe just read another good book:)

Yes the weather is pretty wet here, constant heavy thundery downpours since about 10.30. I'm glad I had my day out yesterday not today! Haven't even started the paperwork - I spent all morning still catching up on threads here. MUST do a bit this afternoon... But I do also want to finish the biography of Gladstone which I've borrowed from the library here, since I can't take it with me!

Congrats on hitting 75! I'm on my 75th right now.

Thanks Jim! I hope yours is a good one too.

Congratulations on reaching 75! I am impressed, I truly am. I've gotten 27 books done so far, and four of those were graphic novels, so I'm probably cheating. :)

Congrats on reaching 75, Genny! I have Theodora on my WL, but you make me want to get my hands on a copy of the book sooner than later. :)

Congratulations on reaching the 75 book mark, Genny!

Congrats on 75 books!

Love the photos of quilts up top -- those are amazing. I've always wanted to visit Wales, as my family comes from there on my mother's side.

My kids loved the Green Knowe books -- we have the first couple on audio, and I remember them listening over and over.

Adding congratulations on reaching 75 (books that is!). so far I have only managed 40, I'm definitely a bit behind this year.

Congratulations on 75! And I love all of your photos.

My children discovered the Green Knowe books years ago via audiobooks, and they are now treasured favorites. I just finished reading the first one to my youngest. How wonderful that you stumbled upon the actual Green Knowe!

Congratulations on hitting 75!

I'll third your congrats on the 75 mark!

Thank you Eris, Valerie, Roni, Anne, Caroline, Anne, Lori and Tina for your congratulations. I know the number are irrelevant really, it's all about enjoying the books, but it's nice to mark the tally so far. I expect I'll end up with around 120 or so books read in the year, at this rate - I'm certainly not going to stop just because I've reached 75!

Glad to hear there are other fans of the Greene Knowe books, Anne and Anne! I don't think they were available as audio books in my day! Though with audio books, you would miss out on the rather evocative illustrations done by Lucy Boston's son, which I think are in all the printed editions. It was very magical to find myself standing in the garden of the actual place, not having gone there expecting to find it.

#49 Wales is definitely worth a visit Anne - not least if you enjoy mountains, coastline, castles, greenness, rain or sheep (of course there is plenty more to it than that, but that's just for starters). I have welsh ancestry too on my mother's side, but too far back to know where exactly the family roots are. Whereabouts does your mother's family come from?

*************************

I'm sitting in the library taking a quick break from trying to finish the book I've been reading that is borrowed from the library, since I'll have to leave it here when I go to catch my train in about 1.5 hours. It's a rather pedestrian biography of Gladstone, by Michael Partridge, with a surprising number of typos and sentences that just don't make sense and seem to have a word missing or change direction half way through. But it's throwing up some interesting details about Gladstone nonetheless, and I'll hope to reflect on one or two of those once I've finished, but the priority is getting back to the last 40 pages...

I'm just now working my way through the Green Knowe books, and it's so neat to know that they're based on an actual house! And how cool that you've been there! Did you encounter any gorillas or ghosts?

Congratulations, Genny!

Hi Genny! Congratulations on reaching 75!
Just a few thoughts as I quickly catch up (I also got a little behind)
Firstly, I'm a huge Woolf fan, although I have by no means read all of her work. Mrs Dalloway I think is probably her most highly rated book overall, but my personal favourite is To the Lighthouse, a hauntingly beautiful book ...actually, it might be time for a re-read.
Also, glad you enjoyed Rebecca. I also read it and enjoyed it, though the memory of it is forever entangled in my mind with the sublime Hitchcock film adaptation - worth a look if you don't mind suffering the same fate of getting the two inexplicably linked in your memory. Another vote here for "anti-romance" - there's something deeply troubling about all the relationships in the book.

Congratulations on hitting 75! And I am a long time Green Knowe fan - would love to see that house someday! Ours gets similarly cut off once in a while by flooding!

Ohh Genny! Congratulations on getting to 75 books already!! Great job! I'm enjoying The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and I suspect you would too. I'm still at 82% according to my kindle, but not because the book is not great , just that I have not had a lot of time to read. Pick it up when you need an uplifting, thoughtful and easy to read book. I recommend it!

MOre congrats on finishing 75 wil such a great read. I really enjoyed Theodora ---it's always nice to have ones opinions validated.

>>59 vancouverdeb:. Someone recommended that novel to me today and I went clicking at Amazon.

Genny - belated congratulations on whizzing past 75 - you're right it is just a number - but it is better than my number! Have a lovely weekend.

Thanks for further congratulations! Replies later, but for now I'm having to dash to get ready for three weddings today. I need to do the final notes/paperwork at my desk at home, then get over in time to complete the details in the registers (very carefully, no mistakes allowed, interruptions to be avoided - normally takes 20 mins per couple so that's an hours work in itself) then the first wedding starts at 12 noon, the next at 1.30 and the last at 3pm. Mustn't forget to pack myself a sandwich before I go as there'll be no chance to come home in between for any lunch.

Back from holiday with a vengeance! But looking forward to being away again next week at the Greenbelt festival once more...

Heavens, a hat-trick of weddings. Hope you survived, and didn't get indigestion with a rushed lunch. Your stay at Gladstones seemed to fly by. I don't know anything about the Greenbelt Fest, but hope you enjoy.

I did survive, though was pretty wrung out by the end of Saturday (rushed lunch was the least of it). I must remember not to allow so many to be booked in one day next year, if possible.

What with all that, and Sunday duties, and being very tired as if I hadn't been on holiday at all (the suitcase still waiting to be unpacked in the hall is my main reminder that I've been away), I've hardly done any reading since I got back. I managed to finish the Gladstone book just about (had to skim the several pages of conclusion, as I had to dash to catch my bus to get the train). So that means a total of 8 books read during the 14 days I was away.

I've started on reading Red, white and drunk all over, a non-fiction book about wine for my food and drink book group 'Bon Viveurs'. I know very little about wine, so a lot of the detail of this is completely foreign and I will struggle to remember most of it, but perhaps a small amount will stick! So far I think I've picked up that with French wines, you don't identify them by the grape variety, but by the 'terroir', the land where the wine is produced. Apparently those who know the different regions and terroirs well will know which grapes are associated with those areas, so the grape name is redundant. I do have a problem with the vocabulary of wine-tasting - it always sounds so over-the-top. It might make more sense if one were drinking a glass of what is being described, though even then I don't think I'd be using the same range of language to try to describe it!

3 weddings in one day is definitely a herculean task! Glad to hear you got through it all in one piece, Genny. :)

Genny, hope you survived your wedding-filled weekend -- sounds very busy!

I'm glad my mother was nearby when you asked where in Wales my family is from because, shamefully, I did not know. I do now, though: Blaenau Ffestiniog in Gwynedd. I love all those things you mentioned -- must get there soon!

#67 Strangely enough, I almost included slate mines in the list of things typically Welsh, because they certainly have them in Blaenau Ffestinion, where I stayed on holiday about 7 years ago. So you can add that to the list of things to experience when you finally get there! The mine was interesting to visit, but must have been quite a grim place to work - and that was probably just about the only kind of work going for most people, so perhaps that explains why your mother's family wanted to leave. It's a rather remote and wild location, but there is a lovely steam railway that runs from Blaenau down to Porthmadog on the coast, through Snowdonia National Park.

#66 Thanks Valerie. It was hard trying to make sure I kept enough energy and focus so that the last couple didn't get short-changed. But they had twice as many guests as the first two couples, so there were plenty of people to give lots of energy to the singing at least.

Slate mines. No, not the first thing that comes to mind. There are slate quarries in Southern vermont (also marble) and into New York State - we used to go down that way once in a while to collect slate for free in the heaps of rejects along the road. Those days seem to be over though, I'm sure there are still some secret stashes somewhere.

3 weddings in one day. Golly.

Summer's all too brief arrival seems to be over already. Cool and rainy today, and my feet, having enjoyed being bare or in sandals for almost all of August, are suddenly like blocks of ice again today, even though I've put socks on.

I'm way behind from being away myself, but so glad to hear you had a nice holiday, Genny!

And belated CONGRATS on reaching 75!!!!

#71 Thanks for dropping in Terri. My first holiday was a good opportunity for catching up on LT thankfully (as I got very behind during May, June and July), but this next, shorter break will not give me much free time for visiting here...

****************************

This week back at work has flown by, and I've barely managed to tackle the tasks that had accumulated for me, and now it is time to go away again. I'm off to the Greenbelt Festival - a festival of faith, justice and the arts, which dedicated followers of my thread may remember me mentioning also last year. This year I'm not so excited about the line-up of speakers, as there are no names that I recognise among those in the Literature section: http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/festival/2012/lineup/literature/ - but with several poets among them, I hope there will be something new for me to discover and enjoy listening to, as well as the music, other talks and generally happy festival atmosphere. Greenbelt is also a regular place for me to meet up with quite a few friends from different parts of my life, so even if nothing on the programme much appeals, there will be plenty of rendezvous around the tea tent or coffee stalls.

I have lots of work tasks I'm meant to be finishing tonight, as well as starting to think about packing, and collecting my hire care from the airport - I need to do all this and still get to bed at a decent hour so I'm not too tired for the 5 hour drive down to Cheltenham. As last year, I've decided not to camp, but this time will be staying with friends nearby (one of my god-daughters and her parents) so ideally I want to get down there in time to 'check in' with them before disappearing off to the festival. I shall be taking my laptop with me, in the hope of hooking up with my hosts' wifi and doing a bit of updating as I go along.

I've read and enjoyed some of Mimi Khalvati's poetry. I hope you discover some literary treats, and enjoy catching up with friends. And take plenty of socks!

Off you go again! :)

Hope you have a good time at the festival, Genny!

#73 Thanks Caroline - I'll see if I can get to her talk. I also see that Luci (elkiedee) has given a positive review to Cold Light, a novel by Jenn Ashworth, who is one of the other speakers, so that's another one to look out for.

#74 I know, I'm always going away Valerie :) Well, actually, I save up most of my holiday for August, so it is true I'm away a lot this month, but I've had a long wait for it. It'll be back to the grindstone with a vengeance next Thursday, with a funeral to take, followed by a wedding and a baptism at the weekend (and that's just for starters) so I'm making the most of my last bit of freedom!

Hope you find some treasures at the festival, Genny!

Adding my well-wishes for a good time to be had at the festival!

Enjoy your festival and time off.

Well I made it here after a hellish journey. The drive should have taken about 5 hours, and I left only an hour later than i intended - not bad for me! So I should have been in reasonable time for checking in with my friends/hosts before abandoning them to head off to the start of the festival. But thanks to a bad accident on the A1 close to home, in the first two hours I travelled only 10 miles and the next hour got me only another 10 further on. The journey took 8 hours in the end, and I had to give up on checking in with my friends first and go straight to the festival do as not to miss too much.

The day improved greatly once I arrived. I immediately bumped into good friends who were also very relieved to have arrived after bad journeys. I was too late to get into the venue where they were broadcasting BBC Radio 4's any Questions. But instead I grabbed a tasty pie for supper and went to a panel discussion on the 'New Monasticism', followed by an presentation of the writings of 17th century poet Thomas Traherne with jazz accompaniment, then a mainstage performance by Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn. Then finally drove the 20 minute journey on to my friends' house, and after a welcome cup of tea, it is time for bed.

Bruce Cockburn! Now there's a blast from the past... sounds like this will be an interesting and eclectic event -- but pace yourself!!

#79 Sorry to hear about the bad journey down - 8 hours is quite a drive. Hope you enjoy the festival and get a bit of a rest too!

Eclectic it certainly is, Suz!
Thanks for journey sympathy Heather. Now forgotten in the excitement of being here.

Now waiting for the start of a talk by Diarmaid MacCulloch, church historian and broadcaster. Venue was briefly flooded after heavy rain shower, but they've let us in now. MacCulloch is keen to present church history as more than just a 'tribal history' for Christians. Stopping typing now to listen.

Enjoy the festival. Sorry about the horrible drive.

Ugh, I can sympathize with that sort of awful drive: a couple of years ago, when Charlie was only 3 months old, we were traveling to my parents' house for Christmas, which, at that time was about a 5-hour drive. When we only had 20 minutes of said drive left to go, we hit a traffic jam on the interstate in the middle of an ice storm, and we were stuck there for another 5 (!) hours. *shudders just remembering it*

I typed a message here using my phone, when I'd stopped for a break half way through my drive home. But I must have forgotten to press 'post message', since it is not here!

The message was mainly to register my delight in having read Life by Keith Richards - or rather listened, as it has been my audio-book during these holiday weeks - and to say I am sorry it has come to an end. An unexpectedly fascinating and entertaining experience, with many delightful little moments. I'm in the middle of preparing for a funeral now and don't have time to mention any of the details which struck me and of which I said 'I must remember to mention that when I post about it'. So I hope I will come back to post again about this.

>85 gennyt:: my husband was dancing around the house the other day, having snagged Life for cheap at a used bookshop. Glad to see you liked it, Genny!

Hmmm , I've never really considered reading Life . I may have to take that recommendation under advisement! Sorry to hear about your challenging drive - not fun at all!

Like Deb, I had never really considered reading Life. I will have to give it a rethink.

Keith Richards's library:



I just added Life: Keith Richards to my Amazon basket. I loved Bob Dylan's Chronicles One and am interested in what Richards' take on life will be, but anyone who loves a book and a library will have something to say to me!

Back at work for a week and getting very behind on the threads already. Usual busy work stuff and another crisis to deal with on top of that - I wish I could just retreat into the saner world of books full time, but alas I must try to concentrate on my job.

I have managed to squeeze in finishing listening to The Count of Monte Cristo finally this morning. It's been my audio book since January - yes, it is very long, but also I was not listening very regularly! After interrupting that one for Keith Richards over the summer, I then got back to it, and, the story having reached its climax after many chapters of build up, I found I could not stop listening to the conclusion to this long tale of love, politics, betrayal, imprisonment, justice, revenge and hope. Highly recommended!

Re Keith Richards and his library, one of the memorable incidents in the book towards the end describes how he sustained serious injuries (breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung) while trying to reach a heavy book on anatomy by Leonardo da Vinci from the top shelf, and managed to pull a load of books down on top of himself. After all those years of chemical abuse to his system, to be damaged in the end by a book was unexpected!

When I was in school I read part of The Count of Monte Cristo (only a *very* small part) in French, and now I can't remember any of it. I really want to read it someday, though (in English!).

Loved The Count of Monte Cristo too. A clever setup and revenge-theme.

Also a fan of Dylans Chronicle 1. Waiting for number two....it's been a few years now since the first one.

Like the picture of Richard in his library.

Great picture of Keith Richards. Interesting story about how he sustained injuries trying to get to a book!

On the 'book accidents' front. Years ago I lived in an attic of an old house, and the odd woman in the flat below had one of her 'banging doors' fits, and suddenly I found a three volume set of Will Shakespeare bouncing off my head. Unfortunately, it did not lead to me being able to write priceless drama! But I had a sore head for a while, and not for the usual reason!

I'm hoping to read TCoMC at some point next year since everyone has told me just how great it is! It's just the sheer size of it is rather daunting.

I'm farther behind than anybody, but I want to register my congratulations on your achieving your 75 so early! Congratulations!!!
THREE weddings in one day - sheesh!!!
Festival sounds great!! Are you back to what passes for normal, Genny? (By that I mean that your normal schedule would kill me dead from exhaustion, and I'd throw myself under a falling book just in an attempt to escape!)

Chiming in to say that I too found both Life and The Count of Monte Cristo to be wonderful recent "reads", though like you I listened to both of them.

Surely a major book accident is waiting to happen in my house with all the precarious stacks perched everywhere.

Oh I'm so glad you loved the Richards -- isn't it a marvel? And I love love love the photo of himself in his very loved and occupied library (the chalkboard where some kid has written "Keith Richards Main Offender" just kills me.

The whole scene in the Atlas mountains had me nearly driving off the road. It's astonishing that those lads survived.

I also loved himself reading at the end. I could have started it all over again, and one day I just might when I need a lift.

I'm joining a group read of The Count of Monte Cristo next year in the 13 in 13 category challenge group. I read an abridged version when I was young.

*waving* at Genny

Genny, I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading Life by Keith Richards. I had always assumed he was less than articulate and was certainly wrong there it is everything that a rock n roll biography should be.

On book accidents mine normally result from forgetfulness and damage to the books than the other way round. I remember the picking up the T.E. Lawrence classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom from the mobile library as an ambitious pre-teen and reading in the garden on a glorious summer evening and being distracted away from his views on the Arabian peninsula by my school pals for a game of cricket over the fence in the school fields. After a great game we went home and had our suppers and a night by the telly. When I awoke the weather had broken and the heavy splatter of raindrops on my bedroom window told me that I should spend the day reading. Only then did I realise that the expensive hardback edition of Lawrence was in the middle of the lawn and demonstrating that books can't swim. I had no pocket money for an age after my mum had paid for the book.

Everyone I've seen that has listened to Life has loved it--although I had absolutely no interest originally, now I am going to have to read it at some point.

I hope that things quiet down a bit, Genny, so you can get your feet under you for a while. I know you are coping wonderfully, but it can be so tiring to always be reacting to stuff.

Thanks for all your visits and comments - I'm still struggling to keep head above water, no time to respond fully. Getting ready for a weekend exhibition/display about all the weddings that have taken place in our church since 1904 when the first one happened. THere have been over 5,200! We have wedding dresses on loan from various eras, and lots of photos, and some personal stories, and I've been digging in the old parish registers which will also be on display, and trying to find some interesting statistics by comparing details from 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years etc. All very interesting but I've not finished pulling it all together and getting it in display-ready format yet, and we are meant to be assembling the display this afternoon ready for a 10 am opening. I imagine I'll be putting down some markers for where my material is going, and then burning the midnight oil to get the stuff ready to print out and put on the display boards...

Oh Genny, that sounds fascinating and also a lot of work. Hope that it all comes together for you even if it does mean staying up late.

That sounds a really interesting thing to do - but a lot of work!

Actually looking at the Keith Richards photo makes me think I need a chaise lounge!

The wedding exhibition sounds wonderful Genny.

Wow, that sounds wonderful Genny! Fingers crossed that it all goes well!
I'm another one that probably wouldn't have got Life otherwise, but all these reviews make it sound like a must listen!

That sounds like a marvelous exhibition, Genny! Good luck with getting everything done.

That really does like a wonderful exhibition. Wishing you all the best with that.

It does indeed sound wonderful. Just looking at the different dress styles.....

Genny I hope your weekend is going well - I do know that weekends are busy for you for obvious reasons but hopefully you manage to get plenty of you time too.
btw Darryl is in London and perhaps you should remind him of the promise of the Pudding Club meet-up!

It was a great weekend, but oof! I am so tired. I have a church council meeting tonight so I can't just collapse and do nothing today, which is what I feel like doing... Anyone reading this, please send some waves of energy my way to keep me going until the end of tonight's meeting!

Energy waves heading your way, Genny!!

I'd love to send you some energy but sadly I have none myself after a busy weekend. Perhaps we could find a pot of energy somewhere at the end of a rainbow?!

Hope that you can keep going. There are many days where I just want to go home and "crash." Praying that you'll get a "second wind" so you can make it through the meeting. Let's also pray that your meeting is short!

112,114: Can't say I have much energy to spare either, but maybe little bits from everyone...

Many thanks for your replies, Stasia, Jenny, Lori and Katherine - your replies alone have given me a bit of a boost, and what energy you have to spare is gratefully received!

Off to have some lunch and then force myself to prepare papers etc for the meeting.

p.s. I haven't opened a proper book for what feels like ages (maybe a week), but after finishing first Life then Monte Cristo as audiobooks, I seem to be on an audio roll, and while I've been too busy for normal reading, I've been listening to another audio book in those little gaps in the day like getting up and dressed, making dinner, tidying the kitchen etc, and have nearly finished the very entertaining Queen Lucia by E F Benson.

Hmm, I'm also not glowing with energy but will certainly send positive wishes for energy and health your way.

Then I wil try to muster up the energy myself to get out of bed and finish preparing a training session I will be delivering on Thursday! Why does staying in bed and catching up with LibraryThing sound so much more appealing, I wonder ;-)

I hope the church council meeting went well, Genny.

Hi Genny - just wanted to say hi after a very long absence on your thread (and LT). Sounds like your trips away were great, except for the 8 hour trip to te festival. What was the Diarmid MacCulloch talk like? I have eyed his enormous book several times but sensibly have not bought it. Theodora is on my WL already.

Hope the council meeting was ok.

I hope your church council meeting went OK. My hubby had one this evening . . . well, now that it's after midnight, I suppose I should say last evening . . . I guess it went OK. They can be an adventure sometimes.

Here's wishing you a bundle of energy!

A wedding exhibition sounds like a lot of fun. I imagine it would be fascinating to see how how the dresses have evolved over the years. :)
Hopefully you have some time to rest up a bit before the next wave of craziness begins, Genny.

Whoops! I've strayed into the charity shops on my way home from a meeting, and had a little accident of the book-buying variety. Seven little accidents, to be accurate... I haven't yet added my August acquisitions to my catalogue, so I've some catching up to do! I'm posting this from a café where I stopped to gloat over my purchases; it's too fiddly to list them all here on my phone, but I hope to do a full list and confession of all my acquisition excesses later this evening.

Hi Genny good to hear from you. What's one little slip up ... looking forward to hearing all about it when you get home.

Hehe, can't wait to hear about the slip up. I'm plotting a slip up myself soon. A recent large bill wasn't as large as I thought it was going to be, so despite the fact I should NOT spend more money (see recent large bill!) I am tempted :)

Oh, you naughty lass! ;) I can't wait to hear what your little accidents were. I really do need a book accident myself, and soon.

Those kind of "accidents" I heartily welcome any day of the week and I know I'm not the only one! :D

Well, here are the results of yesterday's slip up:

From the Scope charity shop:
a nice penguin copy of The adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Broken music by Sting - a memoir of his childhood and the early years in Newcastle, before the success of The Police (I'm more interested in the Newcastle aspect than in Sting himself).

From the Oxfam shop:
All the names - José Saramao
The broken bridge - Philip Pullman - I hadn't heard of this one of his
The track of sand - Andrea Camilleri - no. 12 in in the series - a few ahead of where I've got to
The great fire - Shirley Hazzard - (Orange shortlisted)
The long song - Andrea Levy (Booker shortlisted)

Now I'm going to add these and all my other recent acquisitions to the catalogue, and come back and list more of them when I'm done...

A fab. haul there Genny. Winners all.

#127 A good haul! Penguin Classics and Orange longlisters and books in series you're reading should never be passed over and that covers most of them...

I'd never heard of The Broken Bridge either - I've read nothing by Philip Pullman except His Dark Materials trilogy which I loved, so I'm not sure why I haven't read his other books!

Great haul of books Genny. The exhibit re. weddings held in the church sounds fascinating!

All the best to you dear one!

Oh, I am also one that didn't know that Pullman wrote any other books. I liked the His Dark Materials series enough, but the last book did make me a teeny, tiny, bit angry. :)

I've finished another Audiobook - Watership Down, narrated by Ralph Cosham. This was a re-read for me, the first time since reading it in childhood shortly after it first came out, getting on for 40 years ago. I loved it all over again!

Still haven't managed to finish any print books - I've been so busy and tired, when I try to read I've fallen asleep over the book. Am part way through The Janissary tree by Jason Goodwin, enjoying it though it has been slow going - I don't think that's particularly the fault of the book, more of my mood and tiredness.

It's my birthday tomorrow, and tonight I'm going out for dinner with a lovely old lady who is a great friend to me and to my dog (she loves to look after him whenever I go on holiday, and I have to bring him along when I go to see her). Today was my day off, and I've done nothing but sleep a lot and finish listening to Watership Down, rewinding repeatedly to listen again when I'd drifted off and drowsed through long sections. Tomorrow I shall have to be busy with work again, and I have not made any plans for the evening to celebrate my birthday, but maybe I shall just have a quiet evening in, read a bit and catch up on the threads a bit.

Have a good time tonight, Genny. I hope you have a lovely birthday tomorrow, and that you can relax a bit even though you'll be working.

#132 Happy birthday for tomorrow Genny! I hope you enjoy your meal tonight and manage to get a bit of time for yourself tomorrow.

Happy Birthday for tomorrow Genny.

I have the Goodwin books near the top of a pile too. I'm hoping to go to Istanbul next year, so have been gathering together some relevant reading for Winter and Spring.

Happy Birthday, Tomorrow, Genny!!! I'm glad that you're getting a jump on it by having dinner with your friend. Enjoy! Enjoy the day!!! I DO HOPE that you get a book or two!!!

Happy Birthday Genny! I hope you have a great time with the celebrations at dinner and a relaxing time at home. Sitting quietly and enjoying a book sounds like a heavenly way to celebrate the occasion. :)

Happy Birthday Genny - hope you are having a good day, don't work too hard:)

Happy Birthday Dear Genny

Genny, I didn't realize....You and Linda share a birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AGAIN!!!!!

Felicem diem natalem!! I hope it's the best one yet!

Happy Birthday, Genny! I hope the work is not too onerous and that you have time to enjoy yourself, and maybe do a little pampering.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday from me as well.

Happy Birthday, Genny!

Happy Birthday!

Hope you had a lovely day!

Happy Belated Birthday, Genny!

Late with the Happy Birthday, but I hope that your day yesterday was good :)

Thank you Kerry, Heather, Caroline, Peggy (twice!), Valerie, calm, Linda (Birthday-fellow!), Amber, Roni, Rhian, other Kerry, Katie, Katherine, Dee, Darryl and Jenny for your Birthday greetings, whether sent before, during or after the day. Good wishes are always welcome, and with all our time zone differences, who knows when the day begins and ends in any case?

As birthdays go, mine ended far better than it began! I had all these meetings to go to which kept me busy till nearly 3pm, but these were greatly improved by the chocolate birthday cake I brought along and shared out. My immediate colleagues had not remembered that it was my birthday, which I suspected would be the case (hence bringing my own cake), but a good friend was at the lunchtime meeting and she had certainly remembered me, with a lovely gift and card. What's more, she invited me to join her family in the evening for supper if I had no other plans, so I happily laid aside my rather solitary plans to read a book, as these are dear friends whose company is an even better prospect than an evening of reading!

And while I was at home in the afternoon, intending to do more paperwork/emails but really too tired to do much, the doorbell rang twice to reveal bouquets of flowers from my churchwardens (the senior lay representatives), and the phone rang twice with calls from my mother and father. The evening with friends was lovely - the family includes my nearly-grown-up goddaughter who gave me big hugs, and who wants to be an architect, her big sister who's just finished her A levels and looking to go to uni next year to study drama, and their parents, both priests. One was my 'training incumbent' when I served my 4 year curacy (a kind of apprenticeship period) and his wife has also more recently been ordained and serves in the parish next door to mine. The poor girls, having two clergy for parents! One must be bad enough - but they bear it very well!

Birthday was nicely rounded off with the arrival in the post today of a card from my mother with a voucher for Pizza Express, and a parcel from my sister via Amazon with two books!.

I had received a number of presents yesterday, from the comforting:

hot-water-bottle-shaped cosy lavender-filled heat pack for aching back

to the beautiful:

two lengths of probably Indonesian batik fabric with appliqué
and

small, perfect raku pot

to the practical but rather bizzare:

salad servers with a diving/swimming theme!

As none of the above were book shaped, it was very good to have the addition, therefore, of
Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri
and
Alice in Sunderland - Bryan Talbot - (an amazing graphic novel celebrating the culture of the North East mixed in with various literary references).

What with all the lovely messages on here, and on Facebook too, I feel I have been well blessed for my birthday, despite feeling a bit ambivalent, and lacking the energy to do much about arranging any celebration.

So pleased that you had such a good day. Interesting and beautiful gifts you received and the evening with friends sounded fun as well.

Fabulous birthday gifts and greetings, Genny! I'm glad that you had such a lovely day.

Wow, those gifts are lovely, and I'm so glad to hear that you had such a good birthday!

What wonderful gifts - and good to hear that your day improved dramatically :)

Sounds like a wonderful day!

I really loved Alice in Sunderland.

I've had Alice in Sunderland on the wishlist for ages!

Happy Birthday a bit late. I like that hot water bottle.

OOh lovely pressies, I love the turquoise raku pot, I have some in a slightly paler vturquoise by a potter called Rob Solis (who now works in Portugal).

Glad you had a more companionable celebration that expected.

Oh, sorry I missed the birthday celebrations! I'm glad your birthday day turned out nicely, and with some lovely gifts as well! I think the fabric is my favourite. To me it looks like those.....here I need a word I don't know. Pieces of material that members of the clergy wear around their necks and down their fronts for special events.

#160 Hannah, you had the same thought as my father! The fabric was from him and my stepmother - she does a lot of creative stuff with fabric among other things, and they were visiting a kind of textile swapshop where all kinds of interesting bits of fabric were available to purchase, and they spotted this - two matching long narrow strips. Apparently it was made to line the edges of a jacket, but never used - anyway, my Dad thought of me and wondered if I could have it made up into a stole (that's the word you were searching for). I was very impressed that he knew the word - he's not at all a churchy person. Anyway, I shall be consulting some folk who are good at needlework and see if anyone has a pattern - the fabric is too thin as it stands but would fit well mounted onto a slightly wider and longer backing to make a stole.

#159 I think the pot is my favourite too Caroline - I love raku. Years ago I did a week-long pottery course and we had a go at building a raku oven as well as mainly working in stoneware. I did have several pieces that I made then, nothing very refined or elegant but it's an amazing effect with the blackened clay.

#158 Thanks Lucy, the hot water bottle is great, I've had it nestling in the small of my back warding off chills and wafting lavender scent at the same time. The heat lasts longer in one of these than in an actual hot water bottle too.

#156, 157 I saw Alice in Sunderland at a friend's house locally about two years ago, and was fascinated. Put it on my Amazon wishlist and eventually my kind sister has bought it for me. I gather that even those who have no knowledge of Sunderland and of the local history of the North East of England find it fascinating. Myself, I don't know much about contemporary Sunderland, though I have become aware, since moving up here, of the strong rivalry and antagonism between Newcastle and Sunderland (based mainly around football). I do know something about its older history though, as Monkwearmouth near Sunderland was one of the two monasteries where the Venerable Bede, early Anglo-Saxon scholar and historian, was based, and that monastery and that early medieval culture in the North East was one of the central parts of my doctoral thesis. So I'm looking forward to see how bits of Lewis Carroll get woven together with recent and older local history of this part of the world - and much else besides. How did you both hear about it, Kerry and Rhian?

#161 How did you both hear about it, Kerry and Rhian? I've been getting more and more interested in graphic novels (of the non-superhero variety) over the last year and I've seen Alice in Sunderland recommended on a number of lists of graphic novels over that time.

#151, 152, 153, 154, 155 - Thanks calm, Darryl, Amber, Jenny and Laura - yes I'm glad I was able to move from feeling slightly sorry for myself at the start of the day (with only one card & gift from Dad having arrived in the post to show that anyone had remembered me) to feeling well loved and treasured by the end.

Still wondering about the plastic swimming people salad servers though!

My latest news is that I have booked a holiday - my remaining week of annual leave, which I planned to spend somewhere warm but off-season. Last year it was Portugal in October, this year it will be Malta in November. Actually I'll be going to Gozo, which is the smaller island next to Malta (I'd never heard of it before researching and booking this, I never knew there was more than one island). It is apparently quieter, with lovely scenery and much history, from neolithic temples to associations with The Odyssey - Gozo is thought to be Calypso's island. Gozo has also been used for some film locations, including the 1981 TV series of Brideshead, the 2002 Count of Monte Cristo and most recently it was used in season one of Game of Thrones for some of the southern/eastern scenes (I think the Dothraki wedding was one of them, while a city on the main island of Malta was used for King's Landing) - but apparently sadly some environmental damage was done so they were not allowed to return for season two.

I've found a very reasonably priced family run guest house furnished in traditional Maltese (or Gozoan) style rather than a modern anonymous hotel - it has very good reviews online from previous guests, as does the restaurant run by the same family, so I hope it lives up to its reputation. So I'm glad I've got that booked and have something to look forward to after the next busy six weeks (we have more special services and events to conclude the 125th anniversary celebrations which have been keeping me extra busy this year).

Meanwhile, I've started another audiobook - won't be finishing this one very quickly, as it is about 60 hours of listening! It's Les Misérables. And I've managed a bit more of The Janissary Tree. I need to get hold of a map of Istanbul. This is the second book I've read in the past couple of months set in that city - Theodora was the other one, though of course it was not called Istanbul then - so I keep seeing references to some of the same places, but I've never visited the city and cannot picture the layout at all.

#162: Rhian, @petermc brought it to my attention a couple of years ago when he was in the 75ers group, he's now in the Club Read group. He lived in Sunderlund for a while years ago & raved about the GN when he came across it. Earlier this year I read Dotter of Her Father's Eyes which is a collaboration by Bryan and Mary Talbot.

#162, 164 - For someone living in Sunderland itself it must be an especially worthwhile read, but clearly it worked for you Kerry too without that background. Was Dotter of also good?

I haven't read many graphic novels yet, but enjoyed Maus a couple of years ago.

What great photos of Wales. My ancestors hailed from Bangor Wales. They left that country and a life of mining coal to settle in NE Pennsylvania to mine slate.

I hope to visit there some day.

Wow, I love the sound of your holiday, and I can't wait to see pictures, especially of the neolithic temples (how incredible) and other historical locations.

Book no. 83: The Janissary Tree - Jason Goodwin



Own book, off TBR pile (pre 2012)

This is a historical mystery set in Istanbul during the 1830s, a time of change and tension in the Ottoman Empire with modernisers and traditionalists vying for power, while foreign powers are poised to exploit the situation for their own advantage. The protagonist, Yashim, is summoned by a senior official at the Palace to solve the mysterious disappearance of four young guardsmen, while the Sultan's mother seeks his help on the matter of a murdered girl in the harem. Yashim in his methods and his interests seems very much a modernising Turk - he is happy to befriend foreigners and loves reading French novels - but he is also a eunuch, literally embodying one particular aspect of tradition which also serves make him feel set apart from his fellow men.

I knew almost nothing about the history of the Ottoman Empire or of Istanbul during that period, and have never visited the city, so there was plenty in the geographical and historical setting which was entirely new to me. It may be for that reason that I found this book rather slow to get into - it took me a while to absorb enough of the names and events being referred to, to make sense of the politics and history which are an important element in the plot. The Janissaries of the title, for example, were just a name to me; I have now learned that they were an elite military group that served the Ottoman Sultan and Empire for centuries, becoming increasingly corrupt, and were eventually overthrown and abolished in 1826 (ten years before the time-frame of this novel) in what was known as the Auspicious Incident. What happened to the survivors after the Janissaries were suppressed, and whether they were plotting a comeback, are important questions thrown up by Yashim's investigation.

Jason Goodwin has apparently written a couple of non-fiction books about Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire before this, his first novel - I'm sure I'd have found this book easier reading if I'd read those first. I now appreciate a bit better what it must feel like for someone with no knowledge of Tudor England reading Wolf Hall! I wouldn't put Goodwin quite on Mantel's level as a novelist, but nevertheless the writing is interesting and the necessary background information is fairly skilfully woven in rather than feeling like a lot of clumsy information dumping as happens in less well-written historical fiction. After about 100 pages I found myself reading more easily - perhaps I was simply in the right mood and less tired than I have been - and found myself unable to put it down towards the end.

The descriptions of the sights and smells of Istanbul are well done, and there are lovely descriptions of cooking (Yashim enjoys his food and preparing meals for his friend the Polish ambassador over a simple fire in his rather humble room). I found myself wishing for a map of the city to try to locate the different landmarks and areas mentioned, and eventually satisfied this need by keeping Google Maps open on my phone while reading, managing to find at least some of the places mentioned. About half-way through the book, maps of the city also began to play a part in the story too, which was a strange coincidence. I would have loved it if one of those maps had been reproduced at that point in the text!

So although it was a slow start, I'll happily give this four stars, and will look out for more stories involving Yashim and his investigations.

That's the first time I've managed a book report/review for ages. It takes me so long... I'm not going to attempt to go back and do all the missing ones, though I do regret not having made myself record more of my thoughts and reactions to some of the great books I've been reading this year.

#166 Linda, I hope you do get the chance to visit Wales one day. I'm sure you'd find it fascinating to retrace the steps of your family.

#167 Yes, Jenny, I'm very excited now about the prospect of my visit to Gozo, even though I'd not heard of it before three days ago! I started looking at Malta because I knew there were direct flights there from Newcastle, and that it would be warm and sunny even in November - and after this year of such a miserable summer in the UK I really need to soak up a bit of warmth - and I knew in broad terms that Malta had an interesting history, but I had no idea there were historical remains going back quite so far. I've ordered a guide book so I shall try to read up a bit before I go.

Please ignore this post - it's just that I've only just worked out how to insert stars, and in order to save myself time in future, I've put the relevant codes in this message which I'll save to favourites for future use.

How do you do them?

#163 Gozo sounds lovely - I'd never heard of it before either.

#171 I've seen how to do it now on Lunacat's thread.

You add them the same way as you add any other image, so you need the URL code for the image, which is what I've only just discovered.

The code for half star is
http://static.librarything.com/pics/ss1.gif

and to get the other stars you just increase the number accordingly (one digit per half star), so
http://static.librarything.com/pics/ss2.gif = one star

all the way up to
http://static.librarything.com/pics/ss10.gif = five stars

To add images, for anyone who has not yet mastered this, you simply type
(img src=URL)
inserting the particular URL for the image you want where I have typed URL, but use pointy brackets instead of round brackets.

Edited to add: cross posted with you, Rhian, but I'll leave my answer here in case anyone else is wondering.

#165: The Dotter book was split between Mary Talbot's father's obsession with James Joyce and also on James Joyce and his family. So it was interesting to learn about Joyce's life and his children growing up and also Mary growing up with her father in a different generation, but overall not the greatest graphic memoir out there.

Your holiday destination sounds really interesting. 16th century Malta (including Gozo) was one of the main locations in Dorothy Dunnett's The Disorderly Knights which I read earlier this year.

I'll be interested to see what you think of Gozo. We've been vaguely thinking about Malta / Gozo for a holiday destination at some stage.

I see you have added Bruce Chatwin's On the Black Hill to your library. One of my favourite books, and the film they made of it honours the book. I was at the Premier at the London Film Festival, but although Chatwin was there to hear the response, he was too ill in the end to join in the discussion afterwards.

I love his other work too, especially the essays and photography. He was a great self mythologiser, which has put some people off him, but I've always been a fan.

#175 Kerry, thanks for the info on the Dotter book - I may look out for that once I've read Alice in Sunderland. And thanks too for the mention of the Dorothy Dunnett book - I have not read any of hers, or (as far as I can remember) any fiction with a Maltese setting. I promptly added The Disorderly Knights to my wishlist, and did a tagmash on Malta, fiction and historical fiction to see what else came up. Nicholas Monserrat's The Kappilan of Malta looks like a good one for getting a broad sweep of Maltese history while focussing on the WWII period.

#176 I'll be sure to report back, Rhian! The place I'm staying apparently has free wifi, so I should even be able to post about it while I'm there.

#177 Hi Caroline, yes I've just got round to adding the Chatwin along with several other acquisitions from the end of August - more details below. I have not yet read any of his, but am looking foward to trying him. I also have a copy of In Patagonia on the TBR pile.

Back in post 127 I listed my haul of books from two charity shops last week. I was going to go on to list other recent acquisitions, but as usual ran out of time and/or got distracted. I've finally finished cataloguing all the recent arrivals from August and September. The top of the thread has the lists in full, but here I shall just mention the August acquisitions:

In LLangollen at the beginning of my holiday, I found Maxine's Café and Bookshop. I only had one hour left on my parking ticket, which is probably just as well, because I would have bought even more if I'd more time to browse this vast collection of used books. There seemed to be very few recent publications in the stock - it was as if they had acquired a large number of used or remaindered books some 20 years or so ago, and were still slowly selling that stock. The prices were quite high - but they had a 50% off everything offer that looked semi-permanent, and made everything more affordable. I concentrated on scanning the huge fiction section for original green Viragos, and found many, often with multiple copies of the same book looking almost unread. I restricted myself (!) to eight of them, most of them previously unknown to me:
Tell me a riddle & Yonnondio – Tillie Olsen
The house in Clewe Street – Mary Lavin
The rock cried out – Ellen Douglas
A pin to see the peepshow – F Tennyson Jesse
Troy Chimneys – Margaret Kennedy
My career goes bung – Miles Franklin
Blue skies & Jack and Jill – Helen Hodgman
At the still point – Mary Benson
Two of these are volumes containing two novellas (the Olsen and the Hodgman. The only author among them that I've already read is Miles Franklin - I'm glad to find My career goes bung to follow up My brilliant career which I read years ago.

At the Greenbelt Festival later in August, there was as usual the Book tent. They have lots of signings of books by the various speakers, but I missed the signing for the one speaker whose books I bought this time. This was Thomas Lynch, American poet and undertaker. His talk was one of the best I heard this year at the festival - it was partly a reading of some of his poems and partly his reflections on what makes a 'good funeral' - not a particularly cheerful topic for a festival, but one which he addressed with insight, wit and wisdom. I was drawn to the talk because the programme notes mentioned that his book The Undertaking, reflections drawn from his experience of being part of a small family-run undertaker's business, was apparently the inspiration behind the HBO series 'Six Feet Under', also about a family of undertakers, which I loved for its head-on facing of issues of death and mortality with integrity and a fair bit of humour (and a fair bit of religion and sex too, being HBO). Anyway, the book tent didn't have copies of The Undertaking, but I did buy two others of his, one a collection of recent poems, and one containing some short works of fiction.
Apparition & Late fictions : a novella and stories - Thomas Lynch
Walking papers : poems - Thomas Lynch

Rowan Williams, the (not for much longer) Archbishop of Canterbury was NOT speaking at Greenbelt this year (he has done so in the past, but not since he's been Archbishop and not in my time of attending). However, I couldn't resist buying his recent publication, a literary/theological study of Lewis's Narnia stories. It was at Greenbelt a few years back that I came across Michael Ward's Planet Narnia, arguing for a coherent thematic scheme underlying the chronicles based on the medieval planetary system. This book is much shorter and less academic, but knowing Williams if anything it will probably be deeper. It also has lovely illustrations!
The lion's world: a journey into the heart of Narnia - Rowan Williams

The day after Greenbelt was over I pottered around in the Cotswolds, visiting the town of Cirencester, before ending up with friends in Oxford that night. I was sure I'd stumble across a second-hand bookshop or two in Cirencester, but despite wandering around for over an hour, I couldn't spot any. The next day in Oxford though, having a spare half an hour, I knew just where to go: my old favourite haunt from when I lived just next door - the Oxfam Bookshop on St Giles. There I found the following five to add to my library (I could easily have added more, but again was prevented/saved because my parking ticket was about to run out!):

The blotting book - E F Benson (having tried a couple of the Mapp and Lucia books (and loved them) I'm glad to have the chance to try some other E F Benson
On the black hill - Bruce Chatwin (still haven't read In Patagonia yet)
The grand Sophy - Georgette Heyer
The quiet gentleman - Georgette Heyer
Cold Earth - Sarah Moss (I enjoyed her second novel, Night Waking, earlier this summer - this is her first).

So, what with a copy of Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (what kind of name is that??) ordered earlier in September from Amazon Marketplace for a bookclub read, and the other September books already mentioned, my total number of books acquired this year now numbers 85. That's two more than the total number I've read, and well over the limit of 60 for the year which I'd set myself in January. IF I can curtail the book buying for the rest of the year I should end up reading a few more than I've acquired, but I won't have made as big an indent in the TBR pile as I'd intended. Oh well, there's always next year!

Genny - very belated birthday wishes - so sorry that the last couple of days have been so hectic here that I was momentarily unable to keep up.
Alice in Sunderland reminds me of the Geordie Elvis living in a council flat in Newcastle who christened his pad DisGraceland!
My brother is going to Malta next week on business and he seems to have thankfully turned the corner after his difficulties with my father have left him effectively devoid of income this year.
Have a wonderful weekend.

Happy Belated Birthday, Genny!

I'll have to recommend that you read the Dunnett books from the start to fully appreciate who Lymond is, The Disorderly Knights is the 3rd book. Great reading. Another book set in Malta at around the same time period that I haven't read yet, but was recommended by a 75er a few years ago is David Ball's The Sword and the Scimitar (alt title: Ironfire). The Kappillan of Malta sounds interesting, I have a hazy memory of either reading Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea or someone close to me reading it when I was young.
The Narnia book, Lion's World, also sounds interesting though I'll wait for someone to mention it again as I still have to read Planet Narnia.

I'll add my recommendation of the Lymond novels, Genny. I've been in love with Francis Crawford since I first read them as a teenager, many years ago. I've re-read them many times and her other series about Nicholas van der Poele, set in an earlier period. You've reminded me that I have an audio version of The Disorderly Knights waiting to be listened to.

Love hearing about your book acquisitions. And oops about the number bought! Fingers crossed for lots of time spent reading so that you might come in under the wire for books read vs books bought.

I fear with all the splurges I keep reading about here, Paul and Darryl in particular, I might be about to succumb to one of my own. Wish me luck resisting!

#180 DisGraceland sounds like my house most days, except just after the cleaner has been... Glad to hear things are looking up a bit for your brother. Has he been to Malta before?

#181 Thank you kindly, Stasia - great to have you pay a visit. Hope the new school term gets off to a good start for you.

#182 I feared you might say that about reading the whole series in order, Kerry! That's another potential blow to my attempts to limit book-buying (though I should check out the library first I guess). I saw The Sword and the Scimitar too in the tagmash list; from the slightly mixed reviews on LT, I made that one less of a priority. Yes, The Cruel Sea rings bells for me too though I think it was because my Dad read it; he has an LT account and when I added the Kappilan it showed up as being in his library too. I hope to read the Narnia book sooner rather than later; it is short, and there are not many copies yet on LT so it would be good to give it a review.

#183 And another Kerry is telling me to read the whole series too! There's no escape! Perhaps I should check out the audio versions - I somehow don't count audio acquisitions in my tally, because they are not physically adding books to shelves, and I have some spare credits...

#184 I'm sorry to add to the temptation to splurge on books, Jenny. You won't get much help in resisting if you keep reading 75ers threads though!

My latest read, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, is for my book club meeting on Wednesday, which I hope I'll get to - I've missed quite a few meetings this year due to last-minute busyness at work, though I've nearly always manage to read the book. It's set in late 1930s New York. I'm not yet sure what I think of it, but the 1st person narrator, Katey Kontent, has one habit we can all approve of, according to her best friend Eve:

--Katey's the hottest bookworm you'll ever meet. if you took all the books that she's read and piled them in a stack, you could climb to the Milky Way.
--The Milky Way!
--Maybe the Moon, I conceded.

If you want to know how your own bookstack compares to Katey's, you can look on the Pages, Dimension and Weight subsection of the Statistics page. My books only stack up a little higher than the Sphinx and rather less than the Statue of Liberty (at least, the ones I've got round to adding to the catalogue). Right at the bottom of the page you can see how close to the Moon you would get if you laid all the pages in all your books end to end: in my case, only 0.0087% of the distance, so Katey Kontent must be some reader indeed!

Help! I'm procrastinating massively. Spending far too much time updating my thread and posting a bit on other threads for a change, and feeling good about being more in touch here - but it's one way of avoiding a mass of work I'm meant to be doing and for which I'm running out of time.

I think I need to reward myself with just 5 minutes of LT time for every hour spent working today...

Procrastination is the answer to everything.

At least, that's the motto I live my life by. It's a wonder I ever get anything done (she says as she combines tidying her room that should have been done two weeks ago, with watching tv shows and being on LT on her laptop).

#185 Alas you won't get out of it by reading the audio versions - I have only found the first and the third, I don't think the others are available.

What a great book haul you've got! Both On the Black Hill and In Patagonia are favourites of mine and The Grand Sophy is definitely up there as one of the best Heyers. I very much liked Cold Earth as well, although I think the ending let it down slightly - I think some people found the main character irritating, but I definitely share sufficient characteristics to be able to empathise! I like the sound if Rowan Williams book about Narnia too, I think that will have to go on the Wishlist.

>186 gennyt:: I think I need to reward myself with just 5 minutes of LT time for every hour spent working today...
Oh yes and reward yourself in advance. As in, I'll work 6 hours today so I'll just spend another 30 min on LT before I start working ...

Well I've managed about three hours actual work plus some errands, so I'm due at least 15 minutes catch up now! (I only took the briefest of peeks since my last post).

I've been to my local library to return six very overdue books - I somehow forgot that they needed returning or renewing, and by the time I remembered, I could no longer renew them online, but I've been too busy/disorganised to return them. So I ended up with a fine of £18, which I was happy to pay because we get such a good service from the library, all free.

Then on my way out I spotted a trolley of ex-library books for sale, at only 20p each, so I did my bit for library funds by buying 5 of them. So much for curtailing my book acquisitions for the remainder of the year. The woman at the desk told me there's a much bigger sale at the central library next weekend - I told her I didn't want to know, as I really can't justify any more. It's not the cost (especially at 20p each!) it's the storage space and the ever-increasing TBR pile...

The haul this time was:

Gossip from Thrush Green - Miss Read
Cliffs of Fall - Shirley Hazzard
Acorna's Children: second wave - Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Touching my Father's Soul - Jamling Tenzing Norgay
Van Rijn Sarah Miano - a historical novel about Rembrandt (seems to have very low ratings here on LT, so may be a dud)

My sister gave me Rules of Civility and I enjoyed it more than I expected. Even a whiff of Fitzgerald (F Scott) I thought.

Genny, I've gotten way behind on your thread!


glitter-graphics.com

#191: Another book haul?! Congrats, Genny!

Hi Genny. Enjoyed your detailed notes on your recent book hauls. I've had my eye on the new Rowan Williams book about Narnia too, despite the fact that I haven't made any recent progress in the book of his I was trying to read earlier this year. I still need to read Planet Narnia so if I do go ahead and buy the Rowan Williams book then I could set aside a month for Narnia reading next year...

I'm so glad your birthday turned out so nicely! I can't think of anyone more deserving.

Love the swimming people salad servers! How fun.
Heppy belated birthday, and the array of gifts is quite a spread!

I love buying books from the library sale shelf - it helps me to feel less guilty about buying more books because I'm helping out the library, plus I get lovely old library copies of books, which I love. Looks like you got a nice haul!

I really didn't need to add more books to this month's tally! But I'd never seen a library sale at my local library before, so I felt I had to support it, especially as the staff had just kindly reduced my very large overdue fine!

The local library here has an annual book sale, but then they also always have a shelf of books for sale, which I *love*. I check it out every time Charlie and I go (essentially once a week), and pick up anything new. It's a mix of old library books and books that people have donated, so there are usually at least a few new ones every time. It's a great place to pick up large print editions for my mom, too. And, they're really quite cheap ($.50 for paperbacks and $1 for hard covers).

Speaking of old library books ... last week my husband received 5 gardening books from Betterworld Books, all ex-library and he paid all of $15. He's still walking around the house crowing about it. It's nice being married to someone who appreciates the finer things!

GOZO!!!! I'm thirding the Kerrys' admonition that you need to read the whole Lymond series in order!!! (Better start now.)
All the warmth you give is sure to bring you warmth in return, Genny, whether lavender scented or otherwise. I love that raku pot too!!!!
And all the books!!! I am currently trying to wait until October to put the big Juliet Barker bio of the Brontes on my Kindle because I've spent my September allowance. And I'm thinking, "Isn't that annoyingly arbitrary???" We'll see.
I did download Rules of Civility, but I got sidetracked before I even started it. Anyway, it's safely on my Kindle. Your VMCs are great! A Pin to See the Peepshow is really, really hard to find over here in original green. You also got two of my best-list Heyers. Yay! Neither have I read On the Black Hill, but I loved In Patagonia. It's lovely to see so many good books mentioned. I do love LT!!!!!!!

Just checking in to see that you haven't been washed away by all the floods or blown away by all the wind. The weather in your part of the country looks truly dreadful!

Oh my gosh! You had a surprise meetup!!! Fabulous and I do love serendipity!!
It looks like your holiday was a good one, and I was so happy to see you popping in, I have gotten to be quite disgraceful about keeping up... I am sorry, but catching up on your thread is always so much fun :) and beautiful too!

#200 Amber, I think it's just as well my local library does not seem to have a regular shelf of books for sale; it's the one consolation when I visit and come away with another 4 or 5 borrowed books, that at least I won't have to find shelf space for these too. If I were tempted to buy a few each time I visited in addition to the borrowed ones, where would it end?! The ones the other day were even cheaper than yours, only 20p for paperbacks - that's about 32 cents I believe.

#201 Five gardening books at a snip! No wonder your husband is happy, Laura! Does he appreciate other kinds of books too, or is it mainly the gardening variety?

#202 I hear you, Peggy! Although I am wondering whether, rather than rush to read them before I go, I should aim to read them in a more leisurely fashion after I return, when I will be able to picture the setting as I read when I get to the Malta/Gozo bit. Thanks for your kind comments about warmth; I'm currently in danger of being in hot water because I'm so behind on essential tasks and running out of time, and people (not always aware of the fatigue issues which are partly to blame) get very frustrated with me because things are done so late in the day - so that's a bit too much of the wrong sort of warmth!

#203 Yes I'm still here Rhian, many waters cannot quench me, nor the floods drown me! My lawn has a moat all the way round the edge but I can walk on dry land along the path from my door. But I'm on high ground relative to other parts of the city - there have been blocked roads and traffic chaos and some buildings including several schools closed due to flooding for the third time this year, so it is pretty chaotic at present. At least weather like this is not so unexpected at this time of year - it's the fact that we've had something similar so often throughout the 'summer' that makes it so depressing.

#204 Hi Kath, thanks for returning the visit, yes the surprise meet-up was great fun! I don't think any of us should apologise about falling behind on visiting threads, it is just impossible to manage all of them, so we drop in when we can and enjoy it when we do!

#194 Stasia, I really need scolding, not congratulating, but I know I've come to the wrong place in this group for stern admonitions about excessive bibliophilia - or a splendid word I read on an old thread of Lucy's just recently: 'bibliotropism' (a quotation from Among Others, which went something like 'As heliotropic flowers are drawn to the sun, so bibliotropic people are drawn to bookshops'.

#195 Hello Heather! A month of Narnia reading next year sounds good. The Rowan Williams book is really very short, and looks straighforward - I think that, from the little bits I've dipped into, it will be an easier kind of read than most of his works, more like (if you know them, or Dan does) the two small books about icons which certainly have depth to them but also a kind of simplicity.

#196 *Blushes at Roni's kind comment*.

#197 They are fun - I think they will come into their own for summer buffets out in the garden, rather than formal meals indoors - that's if we ever get any summer ever again, which after this year is hard to believe.

#192 Caroline, I did enjoy it too - and for me that was despite not because of the hints of Fitzgerald. We studied Gatsby for A Level and I'm afraid I really did not like it - could not identify with any of the characters and the world of 1920s NY high society was so very alien to me, I just did not get it, it made me feel empty. It has made me a little wary of books with a similar setting, and indeed I have read very little about/set in New York (until some Edith Wharton* in the past couple of years). I might feel differently if I re-read Gatsby now, but I'm in no hurry to. So I was surprised to find myself drawn into Rules of Civility so easily. Perhaps the focus on a young woman as the protagonist rather than an object of desire, and one looking to advance in her career rather than gain acceptance through marriage helped make it more appealing as a story - while the fact that Katey is such a bookworm, and the importance of certain books in the story, is also very appealing.

* Edited to add: which I loved!

#193 Terri, no apologies needed - we all struggle to keep up on the threads! And how could one not forgive those beseeching puppy eyes? Belated greetings happily accepted!

Genny I had the same experience with Gatsby at school and I read it again last year thinking that being older would lead to a different reaction. It didn't!

Rules of Civility does look promising though:)

#208 I'm glad I'm not the only one, calm - most people seem to love it!

Yes I know - can't see it myself and I doubt very much if I would ever pick up another Fitzgerald book. Wouldn't have re-read GG except I got sent a copy through Santathing.

>205 gennyt:: he's a reader, Genny, although not as voracious as I am. He likes a challenge -- has read all of Proust as well as Infinite Jest. But he also really loves PG Woodhouse and Henning Mankell. He often laments that he doesn't know any men who are "serious readers," and I keep telling them they're all on LT!

Going out tonight to a folk-music class followed by informal session. Dusting off the guitar which I've not played in ages, remembering to trim my fingernails on my left hand so I can hold down the strings on the fretboard, and looking forward to learning a new song or two and some nifty arrangements.

I've far too much work to do, and I've already been to my real life book-group this afternoon, so have had some 'time out' already today, but I need this particular kind of time for me, I've stopped being involved in music making particularly in the last three years since my chronic fatigue problem began, and I've really missed this opportunity for singing (which is when I feel most fully alive) and meeting folk outside of the work/church setting.

Genny, that sounds lovely. I really like folk music and my favourite group, The Unthanks, are from Newcastle. I don't know if you're familiar with them but maybe they're an acquired taste - when we went to see them in Cambridge my husband said he felt like cutting his wrists after two songs - not because he didn't like their voices, but because he found the songs so depressing.

That sounds really fun, Genny. I haven't done anything "music-making" for several years and I miss it. It's very restorative, and in your case I think it's pretty important to have connections outside work/church.

Now that sounds nice, enjoy!

I hope you have a lovely time :)

Yes I'm in the 'love' group where The great Gatsby is concerned. But I always expect people on a first reading won't like it. I'm not sure I did, but something drew me back and back.

Hi Genny! Rhian, I saw The Unthanks live, and although I love them, I sort of know what your husband means. It was a wonderful concert, but the music was very downbeat and low key - sort of hard to make work in a live music setting, especially as it was a standing concert - maybe it's just a sign I'm getting old but I grumbled to my husband that it would have been better as a sit down type gig.

I love the Unthanks - their mix of traditional Tyneside songs and some newer compositions, and their haunting arrangements. Definitely an acquired or a specialised taste though: I first got to hear of them when my stepmother sent me a CD which she'd obviously not got on with, saying 'I think this is more your sort of thing!' Some of the words of the songs are indeed on the depressing side (Blue Bleezing Blind Drunk comes to mind) but not all of them.

For those not familiar, here's a link to one of their earlier songs on YouTube - Felton Lonnen.

The chorus of this song is at first hard to recognise as English - to those not familiar with the Geordie dialect:

The kye's come hyem, but Aa see not me hinny;
the kye's come hyem, but Aa see not me bairn;
Aa'd rather loss aall the kye than loss me hinny.
Aa'd rather loss aall the kye than loss me bairn.

Which means more or less:
The cow's come home, but I see not my honey;
the cow's come home, but I see not my bairn;
I'd rather lose all the cows than lose my honey;
I'd rather lose all the cows than lose my bairn.

(You can see the scandinavian influence on the dialect - hyem for home in Geordie is very like 'hjem' in Norwegian.

And here' another favourite, a lively medley that includes a bit of clog dancing!.

I had fun tonight. My finger pads on my left hand are sore, it is so long since I last played the guitar I have long since lost the necessary callouses - but they'll soon harden up.

That's interesting. I know naught of British folk music, but am a fervent fan of classic American folk--the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger (solo), the Kingston Trio, but especially Peter, Paul & Mary, who I saw in concert numerous times over many, many years.

I enjoy a lot of American folk too, particularly Baez, and I have a soft spot for the Kingston Trio because I was named after one of their songs: Genny Glen.

#219 How nice to fine someone who loves The Unthanks as well! My family thinks that listening to them is an extremely odd habit: I always have to put their music on when people are out because of the complaints! I do agree that their songs are fairly miserable though - it is a fairly constant steam of missing children, dead children or husbands or lovers, suicide, starvation ....

Hi Genny, thank you for your words on my thread.

The folk-music session sounds great and surely good for the soul ;) I'm also trying to find a balance in my my life so that I don't take on too much and exhaust myself but include the life affirming stuff like friendship, books, talking about books and music.

#211 Wow Laura, your husband is clearly up for a challenge, if he's managed all of Proust and Infinite Jest too! I hope he enjoyed both of those - I've not yet attempted either. Wodehouse and Mankell I have sampled - one's great for cheering you up and the other good at bringing you down again! But it's a shame he doesn't know any men who share his enjoyment of serious reading. Does he not want to venture into the world of LT also? as you say there are plenty of such men here.

#213, 214, 215, 216 Thanks Rhian, Laura, Kath, Jenny. And yes, music is restorative, and I shouldn't let it (especially music making) get chased out of my life so easily. I do get to sing in church each week, and enjoy singing the harmonies for the hymns when I remember them, or making some up if I don't remember them, but that on its own is not enough.

The thing I've just started is a weekly class called 'Band with song', working on learning songs (both traditional and contemporary folk songs) and working out arrangements together for whatever instruments are there. There were only two of us besides the tutor last night, with a guitar each and also a banjo brought by the other person, so we got plenty of attention; there may be a third person next week, which will make it a little bit more of a band rather than just two guitars! After the teaching session (other classes are running in parallel with this one) everyone who wishes stays for an informal session of playing tunes, alternating with songs offered by anyone who feels like it. Not having practised in ages, I could not remember any of the newer songs properly which I've learned in recent years, so fell back on singing a very old one which I've been singing and playing for over 30 years - a song called Crossroads by Don McLean.

#217 I wonder if you can define what you like about it, Caroline? And do you enjoy Fitzgerald's other writings too, or just Gatsby?

#218 Hi Hannah, good to see you. I agree about the Unthanks suiting a sit-down type gig more than a stand up one! Most of their arrangements (though not all) are slower and more thoughtful rather than lively ones to get people up and dancing. I've only seen them live twice, once up here when they did a guest spot in a concert of sea shanties - where we were in a sit-down venue - and once at the Greenbelt Festival last year when they played the mainstage so that was a standing in a field kind of concert. Good though it was to see them in the flesh, I remember thinking then that I'd have preferred to be in a small, intimate kind of folk club (and sitting down) - they seemed a little lost on a large stage.

#222 I'm glad to share this odd habit with you, Rhian! This talk of the Unthanks is reminding me I need to get hold of their latest CD, and listen again to the earlier ones more often. I haven't even been playing much recorded music at home in the last months as I've been so busy/distracted.

#223 Hello Dee, thank you for your thank you (we'd better stop there!). Good luck with the trying to find a healthy balance in life - it's so hard and I know I've got it wrong myself for too much of the past 15 years or so especially. At least LT is helping us all reserve a space for celebrating books in our life - we may not always have/make as much time as we'd like to spend here, but it's always here to remind us, and certainly for me, in the past nearly three years that I've been active in this group, I feel I've reclaimed something important by paying more attention to what I'm reading and even discovered something new (the joy of sharing/talking about reading, which before was very much a solitary experience for me). So that's a step in the right direction even if I'm still pretty 'unbalanced' (in all sorts of ways) in general!

And oh, what a nice (if slightly guilty) surprise! I unpacked a lurking bag that had gone unnoticed after my return from holiday - I thought it just had CDs in it from the car, but it also contained two more new-to-me books which I'd entirely forgotten that I'd bought.

The Song of Achilles Madeline Miller and
The importance of being seven - Alexander McCall Smith.

These were bought back in August, so my tally at the top of the thread needs updating, bringing my total of books acquired to 92, while the total read remains 84...

I'm going to have to bookmark those stars.

LOTS of photos from Gozo, pls? I've been dying to visit those two islands for decades, don't ask me why. As soon as the little darling goes off to college that is high on the list. So take notes!

I am always up for photos!

I love your surprise find (Song of Achilles)! I loved that book.
And sadly, I can't convince the hubster to join LT. Was it on Paul's thread where we were talking about how people just don't get LT? He's definitely not into all the cataloguing stuff so that's part of it, plus just not understanding what an amazing place this is!

Hi Genny. It was fun catching up with your thread--your travels, your birthday (glad it was so good), your plans to see Gozo (which I've never heard of), your Stalled Books list (an idea I may steal) . . . . You lead an interesting life!

I also have favorited your instructions about how to add stars to a post. I always wondered how people did that.

I sympathize with your attempts to keep up with all the threads on LT and how addictive it becomes!

Thanks for introducing a new folk group Rhian and Genny - I am out of the loop somewhat over here and it is nice to get a new recce. Will order by amazon and get them to send to my mum's place for me.
Peter is back from Malta and was enthused by future possibilities there.
Wishing you a wonderful and peaceful weekend.

Just stopping by to say hi, Genny!

#227 Hi Lucy, glad to help with the stars. I certainly intend to take lots of photos on holiday; the real challenge is getting them sorted and uploaded for others to see too!

#228 Hello Kath, will attempt to oblige with photos...

#229 Shame your husband can't be convinced to join LT, Laura. Yes, it was on Paul's thread the discussion about how hard it is to describe what this site (and this group) is all about. But I guess if you are not into listing and cataloguing, that removes one of the things that draws many of us in (even if it's not the main reason we stay!).

#230 Lovely to have a visit from you, Pat! I hadn't heard of Gozo either until I started looking at Malta in more detail as a holiday option. You are welcome to borrow the stalled books idea - my list has not got much shorter since the start of the year, and if I'm honest there are probably a couple more that ought to be added, but as none of them are books I've decided I'm definitely NOT going to finish, ever, then they will just stay there as a reminder...

#231 I hope you enjoy the Unthanks, Paul. And glad to hear your brother has discovered good opportunities in Malta.

#232 Hi to you too, Terri, thanks for dropping by!

**************************

I finished another book, Union Street, the first novel by Pat Barker who went on to write The Regeneration Trilogy among others. Just in time for a last September TIOLI challenge.

Oh, it's wonderful to hear that you're getting back into music-playing! I miss it terribly and need to find some way to get back into it since we've moved...

Book no. 85 - Union Street - Pat Barker



Own book, Virago Modern Classic
TIOLI challenge Sept 2012 -TBR Teamwork (pair up with someone to read a book that's been on both your TBR piles for at least six months) - I've had this TBR since Nov 2011

I think of Pat Barker as writing about the effects of war, and primarily about men - since the first books of hers I read were the Regeneration Trilogy, set during WWI and concerning men affected by shell-shock (or post-traumatic stress as we might call it today) and the doctor trying to treat them. More recently I've read Life Class which is also set during WWI and is about artists working out how to respond to war - this one does feature women as well as men as the main protagonists.

But Union Street, Pat Barker's first novel is very different from these, and is almost entirely about women, and not at all about war. It's a gritty, honest, uncompromising look at the lives of ordinary working-class women who all live on the same street in an unnamed town in the North East of England around the late 1960s or early 1970s. It's almost a collection of short stories rather than a novel, as there are seven chapters, each focusing on a different woman. But as the women all live on the same street at the same time, and know each other to varying degrees, the chapters are interlinked and held together by their common address on Union Street, so that the main character in one chapter may reappear in a minor role in several others. There is a different kind of unity too, in that each chapter deals with a woman who is older and at a later stage in life than the previous one, from the eleven-year-old girl in the first chapter to the old woman close to death in the final chapter. Thus the book as a whole is a kind of 'seven ages of woman'. Yet these are very far from being archetypes. They are earthy, flawed, unpredictable, real women, whose lives are circumscribed by poverty and lack of opportunity - work in the deafening cake-baking factory and/or pregnancy, face-saving marriage and repeated child-bearing seem to be the only options. And while this is not a book about war, it is certainly about dealing with trauma: rape, unwanted pregnancy, domestic violence, unemployment, sickness, bereavement, bungled abortion, and neglected old-age are the every-day realities faced by these women. It sounds grim, and is certainly not cheerful reading; but each chapter ends with some kind of upturn, a note of hope or maybe acceptance or the making of a positive choice, however limited the options - women making the best of the often bad lot they have been given, in the best way they know how - and this for me made the book bearable without denying the harsh realities.

Apparently it took Barker 10 years to find a publisher willing to accept this book - in the end it was the feminist Virago Press who took it on as one of their Modern Classics in 1982. I'm not surprised the mainstream publishers were reluctant - her un-sentimental, un-romantic way of writing about ordinary women's lives clearly did not fit the stereotypical expectations of the time, and it was viewed as too bleak and depressing. Barker was actually writing from her own experience of growing up in a similar environment, surrounded by women like these. When she started writing, at first she tried to be 'a sensitive lady novelist' but without success; her first three novels remain unpublished and rightly so she believes; the success and positive acclaim for Union Street when eventually it was published show that she had found her true voice. Her next couple of books continue to explore similar territory; but when she began to feel boxed in as a 'northern, regional, feminist writer' she decided to try something different in the Regeneration trilogy, to show that she could 'do men' as well. She did them so well that I guess many people, like me until reading Union Street, would be surprised to discover that she 'does women' very well too!

I'm therefore looking forward to reading Liza's England (formerly published as The Century's Daughter), one of her other early novels published by Virago, which I have waiting on my TBR pile.

I'm giving this four stars . Recommended if you are not feeling too depressed or trapped by grim circumstances to start with!

Hi Genny!
Sorry I missed your birthday celebration - though glad it turned out good for you!
Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY wishes for many more!

Your holidays are intriguing and it's wonderful that you enjoy them so. Thanks for sharing :-)

Great review above - will look into Pat Barker (new to me) and Union Street.

I really like the sound of Union Street Thank you for the review :)

I got Union Street on ReadItSwapIt a little while ago, but when it arrived it didn't appeal as much as I thought, so it's been languishing on the shelf ever since. Reading your review has rekindled my interest in giving it a go

Hmmm ... I must get to Union Street. I loved her Regeneration trilogy.

What a lovely, well-written review, Genny! Thumbs up for me!

Great review of Union Street, Genny, and a thumb from me too!

Thumbing your wonderful revue... and trying to keep up a little...

Hi Genny - great review of Union Street! I loved Regeneration, liked the 2nd one and didn't like the 3rd much but I will look out for this when I'm in the right mood. I saw she had a new one out too (can't remember the name but something about Toby...) Edited to add doh, it's Toby's Room and it's another WW1 book.

Fabulous review of Union Street, Genny! I'll add it to my wish list.

Good review of Union Street. I'll have to keep an eye out for it. I don't have it in my Viragos and haven't read it.

Genny, I'll give you for sharing those codes. I used to know how to do more "stuff" here, but I've misplaced the sheet of paper where I had written the various codes. It's time to clean out my desk!

You know, I haven't read anything by Pat Barker. Union Street looks quite good. Maybe I'll start with that one since its her first book, then move on to The Regeneration Trilogy which I've been wanting to read for some time.

Thanks everyone for your kind appreciation of my review. I'm glad to have finally got one written for a change. It does take me so long to formulate what I want to say, though in my head before I start writing it all seems very clear!

#236 birthday greetings are welcome at any time, Cee. As for holidays, it's fun to share my experiences there, which are a welcome break from what is currently a very stressful job. Because I work from home, I feel I need to get away from my house altogether when I have time off, otherwise I'm still getting phone calls and people calling round, and I'm surrounded by reminders of everything I haven't finished.

#237 You are welcome, Jenny!

#238 I'll be interested to see what you think, Rhian, when you get to it.

#239 This is very different, Laura, but well done in my view. I hope you enjoy it too.

#240-243 Thanks, Roni, Pat, Kath and Cushla. A thumbed review - a rare experience for me since most of my reviews never make it out of my head!

Cushla, I agree: I liked Regeneration best of the three too. This is different in many ways, not least the format which means you don't get the chance to focus one one main character. I'll gave to look out for Toby's Room too.

#244 Darryl, I get so many ideas for good reads from your threads, is good to be able to reciprocate for a change! Will be interested to know what you think (I presume you've read Regeneration?).

#245 This demonstrates the value of collecting VMCs, Lucy. I acquired this simply because it was a Virago, plus I was a little intrigued because I didn't think of Pat Barker as a Virago author, which just shows how little I knew about her. It was the TIOLI TBR challenge last month which got me to read it - I'm collecting Viragos far faster than I'm reading them, of course!

#246 happy to help with the stars, Donna! I don't think it matters whether you start with her first novel or with the better known Regeneration and its sequels; in subject matter they are very different and both stand alone. It's so long since I read the latter, I'm not sure how much stylistic similarity there is between her books but I guess a common thread could be the portrayal of humans dealing with very traumatic and challenging situations.

It's time I created a new thread, but I won't do that just now as I'm posting from my phone and it's far too fiddly. I have a few more book additions to confess too - couldn't resist calling into my local Oxfam on Wednesday to buy something as a treat for having made it through another big occasion at work which had involved weeks of planning (and procrastination) and preparation on my part. It was a service on the exact anniversary of the coarctation consecration of the church building 125 years ago, and all the former clergy - at last all those still living - had been invited back to join the celebration. A bit intimidating as I imagined them all reminiscing about the good old days and passing critical judgement on the current incumbent... but I know that's me projecting my own insecurities and in the end it all went splendidly of course. But I certainly felt I'd earned a new book or two.

I bought five!

Edited to correct erroneous vocabulary introduced by my phone's predictive text.

Terrifying to contemplate a book sale! I am just managing to clear some shelves...

Hi, Genny. I'm not reading your review of Union Street because I just got a copy that I haven't gotten to, but I'll be back.
I hear that I really like The Unthanks, whom I had never heard of. Thanks for the introduction!
I'm glad that you're making music again; I need to plant bottom firmly on piano bench for several weeks running so that I can get back in tune.
Congratulations on the anniversary of the coarctation - a word that I don't know and which shows up on the first google page only as a constriction of the aorta or some such. What does the word mean?
And happiness for finding five new books!!!

#251 Kath, it's just as well you don't have a lovely charity shop like my local Oxfam shop, just five minutes away; you'd be filling up shelves faster than you can empty them, unless you are much stronger willed than me.

#252 Peggy, glad to introduce you to the Unthanks. I'm enjoying getting back into playing again too, but I'm definitely very rusty, and my fingers need to toughen up again soon.

Sorry to confuse you with strange words. Coarctation was not what I meant to write; it should have been consecration! The keyboard on my smartphone allows me to slide my finger or 'swype' over the keys rather than touch each key individually. In general this speeds up the typing process, which would otherwise be frustratingly slow for anyone who is used to touch typing. But the clever way the software works out which particular combination of letters was intended sometimes lets me down, and I didn't proofread that last post properly, leaving you trying to imagine in what sense a church could have a constricted aorta!

I haven't read Regeneration, or anything else by Pat Barker for that matter. I don't own anything by her, not even her Booker winner The Ghost Road, which I'll probably read and buy soon.

#253 The Ghost Road is the third in the Regeneration trilogy, so you might want to start with Regeneration itself.

>255 gennyt:: I agree with you on that, Genny. I was drawn to The Ghost Road because it won the Booker, but then became aware it was the third in a trilogy. That, and public opinion seems to be that the Booker was awarded based more on the trilogy than on the single book.

So I'm sorry Darryl, but you'll have to buy 3 books. I hope you don't mind :)

>256 lauralkeet: So I'm sorry Darryl, but you'll have to buy 3 books. I hope you don't mind :)

Nope, as long as you're buying. ;-)

HI Genny

What a wonderful review of Union Street. I'm thumbs up #9!

An excellent review of Union Street, and I do have it on my shelves but I don't think I can read it at the moment. I don't know if it's the weather or my cold or something else but all I can face at the moment is fairly light or already familiar stuff.

*giggling at coarctation/consecration*!

No kidding. The nearest shop to me is several towns away. whew!

Adding another thumb to your superb review of Union Street Genny - I think I've had that book on my shortlist of books to read for the last 3 months now. It would fit October's TIOLI challenge to read a book with a word in the title starting 'un' so maybe this will finally be the month!

Congrats on getting through your celebration with success! I'm betting it was wonderful even though it was so stressful for you. A reward for tasks well done is always in order.

giggling at "coarctation" - lol

Wonderful review of Union Street, Genny--I've added it to my wishlist. I have the Regeneration trilogy but have not yet gotten around to reading it. Now I'm tempted to look for Union Street first. Although I should probably stick to my plan of reading books I own.

And thank you for the star tips! . I never knew how to do that before.

Just popping in for a quick hello, Genny! Hope you are doing well. :)

#256, 257 I hope your copy of the Regeneration trilogy is winging its way to you from Laura, Darryl! :)

#258 Hello Linda, thanks for your thumb!

#259 You are wise, Kerry, to avoid it if you are not up for a fairly robust read! Hope your cold is better by now though?

#260 Giggles brighten the day, Peggy. I do catch most of the inappropriate words suggested by my phone before they get posted (earlier today it thought I wanted to say 'lust' when in fact the word I wanted was 'list' - though when it comes to book lists, I guess the two are more or less interchangeable) but sometimes one slips through the net!

#261 I would find it hard to live so far from a bookshop, or even a charity shop with a good supply of books, Kath - though perhaps my mount TBR would not be quite so out of control if I were not so close to temptation.

#262 Hi Heather - I'll have to visit your thread and see if you've decided to go for Union Street as an 'un-' book for October TIOLI. It's interesting that most of the other 'un-' words have been negatives, whereas the 'un-' in 'union' is of a more positive kind, to do with being (made) 'one'. Actually, that is interesting to reflect on, since the book is about not one character but seven different ones, though they are 'un'ited by living on the same street.

#263 Thanks Cee. It was a good evening in the end, though not as well attended by our regulars as I thought and hoped it would be, so it was a bit disappointing to have been worrying away and working away at preparing it for weeks and for so many people to have something better to do than attend - but those who came did appreciate it so I should be thankful for that!

#264 You are most welcome to the star tips, Anne - I still find it quite fiddly, but I suppose the more often I use them the easier it will be. Good luck with trying to stick to reading books you already own - it's hard not to keep adding more to the wishlist when we hear about all the lovely things other people are reading too!

#265 Hi Valerie, thanks for visiting, I'm doing ok - still standing, at least!

*************************************

I've finally got round to listing my new acquisitions at the top of my thread: the five I picked up last week in the charity shop are:

The black book - Ian Rankin (an early one in the Rebus series, which I am reading/re-reading my way through)
Espedair Street - Iain Banks (one of the few non sci-fi Banks that I've not yet read)
Excession - Iain M Banks - my first paper copy of any of his sci-fi ones, though I have several others lined up on audio
How to be a woman - Caitlin Moran - apparently a joyful, funny, feminist memoir.
The comfort of Saturdays - Alexander McCall Smith - stocking up on another one of his series

I've also acquired by loan or purchase several guidebooks on Malta and Gozo in preparation for my trip (I wouldn't have ordered one of them from Amazon if I'd known someone would lend me an equally good, up-to-date one).

I've also been lent a language book called Learn Maltese: why not?. Why not indeed, apart from lack of time before I go away, and the fact that Maltese does look particularly tricky! It is a strange mixture of Arabic with many Italian and English influences, and seems to consist mainly of the letters x, q, g, j and k...

U dawk x'inhuma? Hajt, art, saqaf, mejda, siggu...
And what are those? Wall, floor, ceiling, table, chair...

Much as I love the challenge of learning a new language, I don't think I'll get beyond a smattering of Maltese, but perhaps I'll at least manage to work out how to pronounce the place names. I gather English is an official language alongside Maltese, so I don't think there will be any problem in communicating, but I hate to go a foreign country and not bother at all to learn some of the language.

Other recent new books include Black water rising, which my book group will be discussing in a couple of weeks, and The game of kings, the first in the Dorothy Dunnett Lymond chronicles set in 16th century Scotland - the series which was mentioned earlier in this thread because the third book is partly set in Malta. I won't have time to read as far as Disorderly Knights before November, but I hope to make a start on the first book and move on to the second and third after I return from holiday.

Another new (used) purchase was Espresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith. I was entering many of my series onto the FictFact website to work out where I'd got to, and I realised that I'd read books 1 of the 44 Scotland Street series some years ago, and then read book 3 by mistake (before the days of LT and FictFact to keep my series reading in order), and have a couple more lined up, but had never read book 2, and had never seen it in my local charity shop which has such a good supply of all the books I'm usually looking for. So I ordered a copy from eBay, and before it arrived, I spotted a nice copy in the Oxfam shop, nicer in fact than the rather scruffy copy which eventually arrived in the post - so I wished I'd held on and had more faith that Oxfam would come up with the goods sooner or later. Scruffy or not, I read it straight away - I needed something light and entertaining and undemanding at this point.

So, The comfort of Saturdays ,that's an Isabel Dalhousie right? I don't think I've read that one, but I have read a few of those.. and liked them a lot :) I would like to read the Scotland Street series, too.

Yes, Kath, that's a Dalhousie one. I've read the first one, The Sunday Philosophy Club, and I think I may have read the second from the library years ago, as I vaguely remember it but don't have a copy. I've picked up books 4 and 5 now, but am lacking no. 3. It's frustrating waiting for them to turn up as used copies, but I'm trying to resist ordering them specially...

44 Scotland Street is fun. There are some awfully silly and self-deluded characters, and some very likeable ones too. And a dog who struggles to resist the urge to bite human ankles (and usually manages).

Shiny new thread is now open for business, come on over and join me there!