CDVicarage (Kerry) thinks it's worth doing again

Last year was my first in this group and it went very well for me. I met old friends here, found some new ones, and kept a better log of my reading. I'm still a long way off a review, or even a comment, on every book I read but I managed more than 'date finished' for most books last year. The best/worst aspect has been all the suggestions for new reading that I get. I've just catalogued the books I got for Christmas and my TBR collection is now approaching a thousand - and that's just the ones I own or have easy access to - and since I'm now of mature years I've probably got enough reading matter to last out my time. However I doubt that that is going to stop me acquiring more - those Amazon tokens have to be spent on something...

Welcome back!

Hi Kerry - nice to see your thread here!

Will be following again in 2013. I know what you mean about the best/worst aspect and the ever growing TBR piles!

Hi, Kerry - glad to see you back!

*waves to Kerry*

Welcome back, Kerry!

Thank you, all, for these welcomes. I'm away from home and a computer so I'm using my phone and a feeble connection so I'm struggling a bit- a real first World problem!

I'm hoping to do a better job of keeping up with you this year, Kerry!

New readers start here:

2012 resumé

I read a total of 161 books in a variety of formats.
There were 151 different titles – 9 of the audio books I listened to I also read in print, and one print book I read twice (Diary of a Provincial Lady).

This year my kindle has very nearly taken over: of the 161 books 97 were ebooks. Of the rest: 25 were audiobooks (which surprised me), 28 were paperbacks and 11 were hardbacks.

I do a lot of re-reading and this year 54 books were re-reads but 107 were new to me. However most of these new-to-me books were also newly acquired (oh, all right, all of them were), so my TBR pile is as big as ever. Many of the books were free – out of copyright classics or library loans – and there were lots of kindle bargains, so I only bought about 20 books. Perhaps I should count the books I bought but haven’t read yet…

Reading rate: September and March were slow months with 9 and 10 books finished and November was the fastest with 17 finished. The rest were fairly even at around 13. I can’t account for this as September and March’s books were not especially long ones nor were November’s short.

Series: I started some new series this year – Daisy Dalrymple by Carola Dunn and Gil Cunningham by Pat McIntosh, both of which have plenty more books for me to read in 2013. I started a re-read of the Barchester Chronicles, I’m in the middle of the Chalet school series and I hope to continue with Alexander McCall Smith’s two Scottish set series and Louise Penny’s Chief Inspector Gamache series. There are also several ‘Girlsown’ type series that I intend to continue or re-read.

Resolutions for 2013

I am a total convert to kindle reading, although I have no intention of getting rid of my print books and will continue to acquire more, but I have been rather indiscriminate in my ebook acquisitions. I fear I have been too inclined to download free and bargain ebooks. The out-of-copyright classics are a valuable resource – and have freed up space on my bookshelves – but the new, often self-published, free books offered every day are rarely worth the effort of reading and have been distracting my attention from other better books. I got a generous amount of Amazon tokens for Christmas and rather than fritter them away on 99p bargains I intend to spend them on fewer but better books that I know are more worthwhile. Since I’ve been doing this 75 Challenge I have collected many recommendations from my fellow readers…

Well, three slender volumes read so far:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, finished 1st January. I took this with me on our New Year trip and read it as we drove home down the M6. I first read this aged 9. My, now very battered, Puffin copy cost 3/6d in 1965. It wasn't the first Narnia story I read, I had received Prince Caspian the previous year as a Sunday School prize, but I continued to collect them in publication order thereafter and that is the order I usually read them.

A Christmas Carol, finished 1st January. I listened to my audio version, read by Anton Lesser, just after Christmas but I read the print version on my kindle as we drove home.

A Child's Christmas in Wales, finished 2nd January. This was the audio version read by Dylan Thomas - a good start to my audio reading for the year.

I have been more ruthless with my Currently Reading collection. I have removed the books that were there all last year and it now contains only those books which I really am currently reading or expect to be within the next month. Possible exceptions are the Early Review books that I'm struggling with. Although I'm happy to have ebooks (often prefer them) I've had two in PDF format, which is difficult to read on a kindle so I put them aside to read using a computer, which is more inconvenient and so they get put off, again and again.

So, this month's Currently Reading list:

Clarissa Harlowe - New Year, new effort.
Nachtstürm Castle: A Gothic Austen Novel, nearly finished.
Make a joyful noise by Jenny Worstall, a bit better than chick-lit.
The Christmas Angel by Marcia Willett, my current audiobook and not really about Christmas.
The Wedding Group, still working through Elizabeth Taylor but also ready to start on Barbara Pym.
Love, Sex, Death and Words, this is a chapter a day for a year. I started it last June so I'm about half-way through.
Bring up the bodies
Helen by Maria Edgeworth, this has been going a long time. It could be abandoned if no progress this month.
Smugglers at Whistling Sands, an Enid Blyton-type adventure.
Richmal Crompton: The Woman Behind William
The Trail of the Serpent, Squeaky Chu's current tutored thread.
Magna Bloody Carta: A Turning Point in Democracy, a non-fiction ER book.
You, Fascinating You, a PDF ER book.
Book of My Mother by Albert Cohen, another ER PDF.

Welcome back Kerry!

I'm still a long way off a review, or even a comment, on every book I read You know, sometimes I think it's probably more fun not forcing myself to review or comment on every book. I enjoy your thread and the lists of current reads and book comments you do make.

#12 How are you finding Nachtsturm Castle?

Catching up and dropping my star here!

No sooner do I prune my Currently Reading collection than I find some more books to add to it. I've started Some Tame Gazelle for the Barbara Pym centenary read and I came accros a pile of Daisy Dalrymple books that I bought from The Book People (a real bargain!) and stuffed into a hidden corner before Christmas, so I've started the next one in the series To Davy Jones Below. I've also looked through the Amazon kindle sale this morning and bought a few more books but they're only in TBR collection so far.

I did finish a book too: Nachtstürm Castle: A Gothic Austen Novel. It was a jolly Gothic romp, following on from the events of Northanger Abbey. I have read quite a few Austen sequels and some have been very good (though actual titles escape me at the moment) and some have been dreadful. This one was a good book but not, I think, a good sequel. I've read a few Gothic novels lately (thanks to Lyzard and SqueakyChu) and this one was certainly as complicated as any of those. I think I should have gone slower (or perhaps had a tutor!) as I was confused at some points but I managed to pick up what I needed to know by the end. I'm not sure if the characters of Henry and Catherine are quite right or perhaps it's that, since this is a Gothic novel, the language and their behaviour is not Austen-like.

I looked at the facts and figures of last year's reading but made no comment on which books I actually liked or disliked.

Of the 14 titles that I gave 5 stars only two were new The Song of Achilles and Wolf Hall. I had 62 4 or 4½-star books and half of these were new titles. I read (or skimmed) 10 2-star titles, all of which were new, so the other 65 titles were 3-star reads and most of those were new. That seems about right as I certainly wouldn't re-read a 2-star book but a 3-star one might be given a second chance to see if I had missed something before.

Some of the 4-star reads:
The Impossible Life of Mary Benson
The Müller Twins at the Chalet School
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists
Great Expectations
Little Dorrit
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Old Curiosity Shop
A Tale of Two Cities
Parade's End
King Solomon's Mines
My Dear Charlotte
Good Morning Nantwich: Adventures in Breakfast Radio
Forgotten Garden
House at Riverton
The Bell of the Four Evangelists
The Woods of Windri
The Thirteen Days of Christmas
A Trick Of The Light
Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams
The Perils of Morning Coffee
Black Ships Before Troy
The Wanderings of Odysseus
At Mrs. Lippincote's

For some of the Dickens titles the 4 stars were for the audio versions which I enjoyed more than the print versions.

Also added to my Currently Reading list:

I'm reading a paper book one of my LT Secret Santa presents - Coming Home. I was a bit surprised to get it - do I seem like a woman who reads light romances, was my first thought - although I'm loving it (and it's not a light romance) but it's huge - 1016 pages - and as a, now, habitual kindle user I'm finding it, literally, hard to handle.

As my son, Andrew, gave me a lovely daily desk calendar from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (by way of a bookshop - he hasn't been to New York), I've also started to try and tidy (possibly, clear) my desk and under the piles of papers waiting to be filed or (better) thrown away I found several books, with bookmarks in. My record-keeping is also failing as some of them aren't even in my Currently Reading list. I also found a photo of Andrew, now 22, aged about 6. He's a very handsome young man now but he was so sweet then.



These are of Andrew and his sister, Clare, taken at a family wedding in the summer (the one I didn't go to as I was ill) and Andrew, pre-school, about 3 or 4.

Aw, I love discovering those old photos. I recently helped my mom move and came across photos of my kids that I'd sent her way back when. It was fun to go through them again.

Andrew still has that great smile, doesn't he? It's fun to look at old photos.

Both of your children look lovely, Kerry. Oh gosh, the great January desk tidying has been going on here as well. And I too found an old photo of one of my lads!

I've had a good reading week - three books finished and all enjoyed.

On 9th January I finished my first audiobook for this year The Christmas Angel by Marcia Willett. I bought this 'blind' as I hadn't come across this author before and it hadn't been recommended by anyone. I chose it because I like the reader, Phyllida Nash, whom I've heard read several Georgette Heyers, and the title made me think it would be good Christmas-time reading. It wasn't really a Christmas book as it starts after Christmas and covers the year until just before the next Christmas but the reading was very good. I liked the story, too. It's fairly easy reading, like Miss Read perhaps, but set in Cornwall, based on a small community of nuns and the people who work with them. I may have to find a book to look at as I need to see the name of the convent written down. It is perfectly clearly ennunciated in the reading but I can't imagine how it is spelled. I looked at the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads but they are mostly of the "I really enjoyed this book" one-liner variety so I'm still no wiser.

Yesterday I finished two books: first was What Matters in Jane Austen, which has been my kindle book for reading in odd moments at school. I like Jane Austen's novels very much and re-read or listen to them often so a book about how clever she is and how good the novels are is bound to appeal and it did. It's probably not one to sit down and read straight through but it is helpfully divided into twenty chapters each tackling a different aspect. The same points and arguments sometimes appear in more than one chapter but there is no sense of padding out the book and I could have happily gone on reading for longer.

Second was Coming Home, which was one of my LT Secret Santa books. I've had a kindle for two years now and read more on it than I do paper books. I like both formats and feel each has different advantages. This book was big - over a thousand pages - so it would have been easier to carry around if it was kindle based but I would then probably have read it in small chunks. As it was it stayed at home and, as I was on holiday for some of the time I read it, I was able to read it in large chunks, which, for a 'big' story, is often the best way as it allows me to get carried away with events (and remember what has happened!). I doubt I would have picked this book for myself, partly because it wasn't what I thought it was, so I am very grateful to my Secret Santa, Yarrow, and I have three more that she has chosen for me still to come.

Both these last two books were based in Cornwall, an area I haven't visted since I was a child, and they have made me want to go back as soon as I can. They both combined real, invented and re-named places and I somtimes followed the action on Google Earth as I read.

I've moved on to New York now as I've started The Saturdays. Lucy/Sibyx gave me the second in the series in the Virago Secret Santa exchange but I had to start with the first, which arrived in the post yesterday. I think I'll probably get them both read this weekend.

I love looking up places on Google maps or Google Earth while reading about them - it's one of the things I use my smartphone for while reading from a paper book. Also works for me while reading from the Kindle app on the phone too.

I'm glad you liked The Christmas Angel - I acquired that in December during Audible's advent calendar special deals, again knowing nothing of the author and wondering if it would be too romance-y for my taste, but based on a community of nuns sounds fun. If it's not so very Christmassy perhaps I'll get round to reading it before next Christmas....

I read an electronic ARC of What Matters in Jane Austen? a couple of months ago and learned enough from it that I've added it to my wishlist for my permanent library. It's one I'd like to have on hand when I reread Austen's novels.

Kerry, do you fell the 'What Matters in Jane Austen' book should only be read once someone has read all or most of Austen's novels? I've only read Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility though I intend to eventually read them all.

#24 Julia, there will be spoilers if you haven't read the books and, even if you don't mind that, I think being reasonably familiar with the texts will make the arguments easier to follow, but you're half way through and he does give refences to all quotes so you can look up the context if you need to.

I am going to have to get a copy of What Matters in Jane Austen for my daughter, Catey. She is a huge Austen fan.

Thanks for the recommendation, Kerry!

As I have mentioned, I do most of my reading on my kindle these days and find it easy and convenient. I keep several titles on the go at any one time and swapping between them on a kindle just takes a few taps on the menus. However, and this is a real First World problem, I know, some kindle editions seem to override the type style and size settings and I have to change them every time I change to a particular book. Normally I have type size set at no.3 (of a possible 8) and use the standard modern serif font. My current chapter-a-day book, Love, Sex, Death and Words comes out just too small but still legible so I leave it but What Matters in Jane Austen was too big and used a sans-serif font, so that I had to change the size setting to no.2, otherwise I seemed to be forever 'turning' a page. The font could not be changed at all. Have other ebook users noticed this? And does anyone know of a way to impose my preferences on a book?

Thanks for the advice, Kerry. I'll just prioritize finishing off Austen's novels (such a hardship!) and then check out 'What Matters'.

Hi Kerry - What Matters in Jane Austen sounds like a winner. Nice pictures - you have beautiful children. I'm awed by the fact that you are reading so many books simultaneously; I can only handle one or two at a time.

Hello, Beth. Thank you for the compliment. I'm never sure whether I should/can take credit for my children. Physically they resemble their father more than me and now, looking back, it seems that I just stood back amazed while they brought themselves up. As for reading several books at one time, I have different books for different circumstances, but sometimes I think it means I don't concentrate enough on any of them!

That's exactly how I feel about my lads, Kerry. And "What Matters in Jane Austen" sounds like fun for this lifelong Austen fan.

I finished The Saturdays at the weekend and loved it. I think I would have liked it had I read it as a child, too, although I might have been a bit confused by some of the American terms. I shall go on to the next one next Saturday!

I also finished, on Monday, The Eliza Stories by Barry Pain. They are similar to, but not as good as Diary of a Nobody but they made a pleasant read. Although not in diary format they are similarly episodic and I have been dipping in and out of them for two or three months.

It's time for a Ripping Yarn and I have started the second book in John Buchan's Dickson McCunn series, Castle Gay. At the moment we're still in Scotland, post World War I, but I think we may be off to the Central European Republic of Evallonia soon.

I'm also whizzing through Some Tame Gazelle for the Barbara Pym centenary read. As you might guess from my username I live in a vicarage, with a vicar (he's my husband so it's perfectly respectable) so I think I have a certain familiarity with this type of set-up. If Jon is around I read out the particularly good bits. Fortunately he has found the same things amusing, so far.

Some Tame Gazelle, finished 16th January. I enjoyed this very much and found many aspects of it as recognisable now as in the 1930s. I liked the main characters, even Henry and Agatha by the end, and found the secondary characters easily distinguishable and memorable too. Perhaps not Bishop Grote though. British LT members might remember a TV series called 'Dinner Ladies' written by Victoria Wood and set in a factory canteen. The female characters seemed to converse in a series of non sequiturs, although they really always led to a pertinent point (and joke). The characters all know each other well enough to be able to follow the conversational trains of thought and I was reminded of that in STG.

To Davy Jones Below, finished 17th January. This is the ninth book in the Daily Dalrymple series (and there are twenty, so far) and, although better than the previous installment, not one of the best stories. Our heroine and her new husband are on their way to New York and the eventful crossing includes three murders. As this is holiday-set some of the regular characters have to be left behind and I missed them.

I'm still reading, and enjoying, Castle Gay. The action hasn't moved to Evallonia, instead some of the Evallonians have come to Scotland.

It has been snowing all day and the overnight temperature is expected to drop to -5°C so it's possible I may have a snow day at home tomorrow. On Friday, when the snow first fell, the West Sussex server crashed, presumably from the extra traffic generated by everyone looking for updates about possible school (and other departmental) closures so I hope they're better prepared this time.

There's a delay in the system somewhere: when my message didn't appear I reposted it so I'm now deleting the two duplicate copies.

This was the third copy that Tui mentions below!

Triplets! I have yet to do my STG review but I agree with & enjoy yours.

Well, I had half a snow day yesterday. I usually enjoy being at work when the teachers and students aren't there as I can get on with lots of tasks without interruptions, which I did, but it was so cold that I found it hard to concentrate and was glad to go home early.

When I got home I sat down in my nice, warm computer room and finished Castle Gay. Although this is part of the Dickson McCunn series he only plays a small, although important, part in the story. The main protagonists are two of the Glasgow street urchins from the gang in the first story. They are now grown-up and well-educated, (thanks to Mr McCunn's aid) and make very competent plotters. John Buchan's stories are of their age - this one was first published in 1930 - and their attitudes can sometimes jar the modern reader - but this story stood up well. One character - a baddie - was always described as the Jew Rosenbaum but there were no 'natives'. The two main female characters were decisive and active rather than sitting around waiting to be rescued or told what to do. The lower class characters also were not the simple, dim-witted types that they so often are. I managed to understand the broad dialect although I had to have more than one go at some bits. I shall be happy to go on to the final story of the trilogy.

This evening I finished Magna Bloody Carta: A Turning Point in Democracy, which I received as part of the Early Review scheme. I found this an interesting book and an easy read for non-fiction. The individual clauses were well explained and set in context but the conversational tone, with many slangy phrases, tended to make the book seem less authoritative and sometimes rather patronising. (I was also surprised that I rather bridled at having Magna Carta explained to me - a Brit - by an American but I realise that that is a completely unreasonable attitude and not something to be proud of.)

Here we are at the end of January and I am already falling behind. I've finished four books since I last reported:

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer, read by Eve Matheson, finished 23rd January. This was a new Heyer and a new reader for me and I enjoyed both very much. Our heroine, Ancilla Trent, is older than usual, although still in her twenties, and is a sensible woman. She is governess/companion to the dreadful spoilt-brat, Tiffany Wield. Our hero, the Nonesuch, is called Sir Waldo Hawkridge. The plotting is not as tight as in most other of her novels but the characters are memorable.

A Chalet Girl from Kenya, finished 26th January. The next story in the Chalet School series. It is not one of the best ones, although it's lovely to be back Abroad, and the girl in question, Jo Scott, is an attractive heroine.

A Life of Contrasts by Diana Mosley, finished 29th January. I gave this two stars and really I was unfair in even reading it. I knew I should dislike it as I strongly disagree with the writer's political views but I thought that I would be interested in other aspects of her life. I've read Nancy Mitford's novels and loved them and I could recognise some incidents in Diana's childhood that were used in the novels. Nancy made them sound amusing but Diana's recounting just made them sound dull and (to use her style) frightful. I know that's not a fair comparison: Nancy is a novelist but Diana just wrote a list of events. The only time she became discursive was about politics. She and her husband, and a lot of others, were treated badly during the war but they were able to bounce back afterwards when their main problem seemed to be that, because of shortages caused by the war, there was nothing to spend their money on.

So that's sixteen books finished during January, which, compared with last year's average of 13.5, is quite a lot. Some were 'slender volumes' but one was over a thousand pages long. Three were audiobooks, seven were read on my kindle and the remaining six were in print. Twelve were new to me and fairly new to my library, and the remaining four have all been read many times before. Of the new books I gave five of them four stars and six of them three and a half stars so I feel I have had a good start to my reading year.

I have finished one book so far this month: Westwood by Stella Gibbons, which earned four stars. The main character Margaret (she's too much of a drip to be called the heroine) yearns after the romantic, artistic life and meets, and is taken advantage of by, the Challis family. Gerard Challis is really a caricature, he is so selfish, mysogynistic and 'intellectual' that he is a joke and his plays sound drearily boring and unrealistic. It is quite a long book - 460 pages, according to my kindle edition - and there are some less interesting patches but I found it worthwhile.

Sounds like you had a good January for reading, Kerry. I really feel I should give Georgette Heyer a try one of these days after reading so many positive reviews from LTers. Can you recommend a good first Heyer to try?

I've just looked back at the titles I've read fairly recently to try and make some recommendations. My favourites, of the eleven Regency titles I've read, are:

The Talisman Ring, Cotillion, The Reluctant Widow and Black Sheep. Except for Black Sheep I've listened to them as well as read them and the readers were excellent. For Talisman Ring and Cotillion I can remember having to pause as I was laughing and couldn't hear properly.

There is a LT group, Almack's, which discusses Heyer and similar writers and they have a thread on this very subject:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/28912#3349025

Thanks for the link! I'll check out that group.

Some great reading in January Kerry. I'm hoping to read Heyer's first novel this month (I know it's not considered her best work but I wanted to read them in order.)

I read The Black Moth a year or two ago. It seemed a bit darker than her usual Regency novels and astonishing for a first novel, when she was still a teenager, I think.

Three more books finished:

Smut: Two unseemly stories, read by the author, finished 2nd February. I have read and very much enjoyed previous Alan Bennett novels and enjoyed his reading of some of them, and these two, while not the best, were very good too.

Nancy Mitford: The Biography Edited from Nancy Mitford's Letters by Harold Acton, finished 5th February. I'm on a Mitford roll at the moment, and I have the letters between the sisters lined-up to read next. While nowhere near as frightful as Diana, Nancy still has some dreadful - to me - opinions, even allowing for the age in which she lived. However I think I can forgive her a lot because I love her novels (inconsistency along with procrastination are my middle names!). I haven't yet read any of her biographies but I have Madame de Pompadour on my TBR pile, waiting.

These Old Shades, read by Cornelius Garrett, finished 7th February. This was my first disappointing Georgette Heyer. It wasn't a real Regency novel as it was set mostly in the France of Louis XIV but the language the characters used seemed very similar. The hero was apparently based on the Black Moth - he had a different name but the same backstory - and was annoyingly attractive. I say annoyingly because he is the kind of man whom I would thoroughly dislike and disapprove of in real life but whose dissolute life seems so exciting in print. And even more annoying the heroine, when judged with the same rules, I disliked. What has happened to my feminist principles? However, despite the characters, the story itself seemed just a bit too long. The reading was not to my taste either. Cornelius Garrett was the reader for The Reluctant Widow, which I enjoyed very much, but he didn't seem to get the voices quite right for this. Apart from the heroine, all the female characters sounded like pantomime dames, and the hero sounded 'strangled', although the other male characters were good, especially Rupert, the hero's brother and the light relief. I have got the next book, The Devil's Cub as an audiobook but with a different reader so I'm hoping for better things.

My current audiobook is Nightingale Wood, which is read wonderfully well by Carole Boyd, and my current print books include Clarissa Harlowe (I'm two-thirds of the way through volume 4), The Trail of the Serpent, The Four Storey Mistake and Bring up the bodies - half-term is coming up so I hope to have the time to finish it in one long session. I've also got an audio version but it has a different reader from Wolf Hall.

I have a day out planned for next week. Andrew's graduation ceremony is on Tuesday afternoon in Birmingham so I shall be travelling up by train. Jon, my husband can't come but Clare and her boyfriend, Richard, will be coming down from Manchester. I work at a school and it's term-time so I needed to arrange a day-off. The system for exchanging extra hours worked for time off in lieu is cumbersome, to say the least, but my line manager is very accommodating and we filled in the required forms, with only slightly fictional information, together. We were expecting trouble as the forms hadn't been submitted sufficiently far in advance, and when the HR manager visited me in my office my heart sank, but quite the reverse: we are an educational establishment and therefore we celebrate educational achievement, so I am entitled to the day off anyway. (Rather curiously when my form was returned it was marked as Compassionate Leave, which doesn't sound like celebration.) So now I have a day's worth of banked time to use that I am not really entitled to... I hope nemesis will not step in - the last time I had a day-off booked, to attend a family wedding, I was too ill to go and spent the day in bed, instead.

Kerry, These Old Shades is the only Heyer I've read and I thought it was just OK, but not good enough to make me come back for more. Do you have a favorite?

Congratulations on Andrew's graduation. I'm glad your employer is so "compassionate"!

#49 Laura, see above post 43!

Kerry, we called things like that "compassionate leave" as well, when I worked at the uni. I think it's a good term as it is an act of compassion to allow a mother to see her son graduate...wouldn't have missed either of my lads' ceremonies for the world. Stay healthy!

Congratulations to Andrew and you on his graduation! I'm glad you get to be there.

You've been doing some good reading/listening, too. I still haven't tackled any Heyer yet, but at least now I know one to avoid.

>50 CDVicarage:: oops, I missed that Kerry, thank you!

I hope you have a great day at Andrew's graduation!

Thanks for all the reviews; I need to read some more Heyer - I loved the Talisman Ring, which is the only one of those you've mentioned which I've read so far, though I've recently read and greatly enjoyed Venetia and The Grand Sophy.

#46 Definitely agree on the astonishing for a first novel. I really enjoyed it.

Congratulations to Andrew!

Well, my day out in Birmingham was very enjoyable but exhausting - you can see the result below (I hope).



It was lovely to see my children and the train journey gave me plenty of time for reading!

This week is half-term so I am at home, not at work, and have plenty of time to update my thread, which has fallen by the wayside lately. Although I am surprised to note that I have only finished four books since I last updated more than ten days ago - it felt like more. There must be a few that I am just about to finish.

The Four-Story Mistake, finished 9th February. This was a present from Lucy, my Virago Secret Santa. It is the second in the Melendy series so I had to find and read the first book, first. It was well worth it as I have loved both books, this one, perhaps, slightly more.

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, started and finished 12th February, as I went to Birmingham and back. Three of these books were available in an Amazon sale recently and I can't remember why they appealed to me but I'm so glad they did. They are set in barristers' chambers, which does not sound very attractive to me after all the law is dry and dusty, and one of the firms specialises in tax and finance law - even more dull than general law - but the writing style and the characters are wonderful. It seemed very like P. G. Wodehouse to me, but set in Lincolns Inn rather than Blandings Castle.

Minerva by M. C. Beaton, finished 14th February. This is the first of six novels about six sisters set in Regency England. It was a fairly jolly romp and easy to read but, and I realise that this is my problem, I judge all Regency novels by Georgette Heyer and none of them match up. Plus I am a bit suspicious of writers who are too prolific. I enjoyed M. C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth novels and didn't care for Agatha Raisin but there are other series as well as stand-alone books. She has 190 different titles on LibraryThing, under more than one name, which includes omnibus volumes but still at least 150 different books. How can one person write that many books in a normal lifetime?

The Shortest Way to Hades, finished 16th February. The second in Sarah Caudwell's legal series and as good as, if not better than, the first. I have nearly finished the third in the series but I am ekeing it out as the fourth is not available for Kindle (what were the publishers/Amazon thinking of?) and I am waiting for my paper copy to reach me by post.

I love the Sarah Caudwell series! Her death was such a shame and a loss.

I can't think how this has happened but a week at home somehow left me with no time to update my thread and the next week at work was the same. Still now I must write as it's time for the end of the month review as well.

Since the last post I have finished six books:

The Sirens Sang of Murder, finished 19th February, the third in the Hilary Tamar series, just as good as the first two.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, finished 20th February. I first read these as a child and my Puffin paperback copy was one of the first, if not the first, books that I bought with my own money. It cost 3/6d (17½p) in 1963 and is now rather yellowed and frail. This time I read on my kindle. Fortunately it included the Tenniel illustrations. It's many years since I read it and there were a lot of incidents that I had forgotten, or perhaps the Disney film had purged them from my memory.

The Sibyl in her Grave, finished 21st February, the last of the series. I don't know why Amazon/the publisher didn't include this one in the recent kindle republication but I had to wait for a paper copy to arrive in the post. I've loved all four stories and I can see that I will re-read them fairly soon to pick up all the details that I missed the first time round.

Nightingale Wood, finished 23rd February. This was an audiobook, read by Carole Boyd, who is definitely my new favourite reader. I started by not really liking the story or the characters but by the end I loved them all and I was pleased there was a happy ending for most of the characters.

The Importance of Being Earnest, finished 23rd February. This was a BBC radio production with a very good cast. This was a play I studied in English at secondary school and, although that was a long time ago, I've seen various performances since and thought I knew it well, but again there were a lot of bits I'd forgotten. I remembered the famous quotes - 'A Handbag!', 'To lose one parent, Mr. Worthington...' etc - though.

Well, that was February: 13 books finished, which is quite good for a short month, I think.

4 audiobooks, 7 on kindle and 2 in print.

11 were new to me, but none had been languishing on my shelves for very long, and two were re-reads.

I've started the new month well by finishing The Trail of the Serpent, which I have been following along with Madeline in her tutored thread. I moved ahead of her just at the end because I wanted to finish it. I enjoyed it very much and found the Madeline's questions and Liz's answers useful. I've read some other books by M. E. Braddon - Lady Audley's Secret and Aurora Floyd - but a long time ago and the writing style in this one seems different from what I remember - lighter, more humorous, with sarcastic asides to the reader.

You've done some good reading, Kerry! I've only read the 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Importance of Being Earnest', but some of the others are tempting.

This month's Currently Reading includes:

High Rising, the first Barsetshire novel
Doctor Thorne on kindle and audio
Excellent women, not finished in February
The Mitfords: Letters between six sixters, this seems to get longer as I go on as there are more recent letters than there were from their youth
Chocolat, my current audiobook
and a couple of ER books in pdf format. I've just been given a small tablet which will make these easier to read. They're impossible to read on kindle and I don't like reading on an ordinary computer.

I loved the Mitford letters. I will forevermore think of the Queen Mum as "Cake".

I am often tempted by the Kindle Daily Deal - after all 99p is negligible, isn't it? - and have ended up buying books I'm not really interested in merely because they're cheap. This week I was tempted again and only noticed after I'd bought it that the book couldn't be read on an ordinary kindle but needed the Kindle Fire, which I don't have. However after more reading of the small print I discovered that it could be read on a smart phone or a tablet and, lucky me!, I have recently been given a tablet so I was able to whiz through my new purchase in full colour. And what is the title of this wonderful book? It's Captain Pugwash. I can remember borrowing this from the library when I was about five years old and watching the very basic animated versions on TV. John Ryan is yet another past inhabitant of that very literary town Rye in Sussex and when we were there on holiday a few years ago we saw the original artwork on display in the town museum.

The Mitfords: Letters between six sisters, finished 5th March. This was a very long book and my opinion of the sisters went up and down several times throughout. They all wrote very well and all revealed themselves to be sometimes so frightful that I was on the brink of giving up but then one or other or all of them would display such wit or such pathos or such realistic common sense that I was won over again. By the end I was even sympathetic towards Diana.

Chocolat, read by Juliet Stevenson, finished 7th March. I first read this soon after it was published and enjoyed it very much. This time, despite the excellent reading, not so much. The characters seemed more like caricatures and it all seemed to happen far too quickly. I think the main change is that I am 12 years older and, I hope, 12 years better-read.

The Canon in Residence, finished 8th March. This was mentioned, either here or on another list that I use, and I followed the link given and downloaded it to my kindle. It was not a very good version as there were lots of OCR errors but it was legible enough for me to read without too much trouble. It was a lovely little story, very much of its time - early 20th century - set in a cathedral close, about a Church of England Canon who discovers his social conscience and his sense of humour.

I saw the Sarah Caudwell books and didn't succumb but it sounds like I should have done... Hopefully they'll be on offer again at some point.

I do remember enjoying the Captain Pugwash books when I was younger :-)

#65: Kerry, I know just what you mean about the Kindle Daily Deals! Have you seen the Spring Sale? (I just tried to post a link but it's about five miles long - however, it's on the Kindle home page).

Letters Between Six Sisters *was* long, wasn't it? I read it a bit at a time and it was taking forever so I made a big effort and finished it. It was so sad as the sisters died and the letters dwindled, but what a fascinating time they lived through, even if they did keep falling in and out with one another. I have Wait For Me and A Life of Contrasts to read (the latter being a Kindle Daily Deal from earlier in the year...). Then I think I'm caught up, although Mitford books do seem to be published quite regularly.

Congratulations on your son's graduation!

#67 Yes, I have seen the Spring Sale! I only bought two books and one of those was to replace a print copy so it doesn't really count...

I only bought two books and one of those was to replace a print copy so it doesn't really count...

Great rationalisations of our time. :)

Although I've been doing plenty of reading I haven't done any writing for a while. The end of any term is busy and I found this one particularly stressful. The exam period is approaching so all coursework has to be finished and revision sessions begun. I work with some good teachers who know what they want done and ask for it in good time with clear instructions, and then there are the others... If I could master bi-location and mind-reading my job would be so much easier. The last day of term - last Thursday - was horrendous, and then I had a friend to stay over the Easter long weekend, so it's taken this long before I am ready to commit my thoughts to print. It's probably as well that there's been a gap as there might have been rambling paragraphs interspersed with words full of asterisks but I've now calmed down enough to produce some coherent descriptions with no bad language (I hope).

On 11th March I finished High Rising, which I won in Karen's blog giveaway. It was the new Virago edition and has a lovely cover. The contents were lovely too. It's quite a while since I've wanted to read anything 'challenging' and this suited me down to the ground: a fairly gentle, uneventful story with some humorous touches. It's a bit dated but nothing that I can't cope with. It's the first in a loosely linked series of 29 books so I have plenty to be going on with.

Next I finished Excellent Women on 13th March. In some ways it's similar to my previous book, (i.e. not an exciting plot) but 'tarter'. I wasn't drawn into the story as much as with Some Tame Gazelle and so didn't enjoy it quite as much but it's still a good read.

I finished Book of my mother on 17th March. This was an Early Review book from last May's batch, although I didn't receive it until November. Since I am now a keen kindle reader I am happy to have ebooks but this one came as a pdf and so is not comfortable to read on a kindle but really needs a computer screen. Although I have access to a laptop as well as a desktop machine I don't like reading from a laptop. Fortunately I have recently been given a tablet, which is more kindle-like in shape and size and therefore easier to read from when lounging on a sofa, so I have, at last, got round to this. It was a collection of short essays about the author's mother, originally written as newspaper or magazine articles so not designed to be read in one go and, although beautifully written, they are overpowering in this format. It’s the same old story: he didn’t appreciate his mother’s love and care as he was growing up and was consumed with guilt when she died.

I succumbed to the kindle Daily Deal for A Lighthearted Quest and The Portuguese Escape. I’ve only read the first so far, finished on 20th March, and found it a pleasant read. However I at first thought it was set between the wars and was impressed by the ease with which our heroine flies about and uses the telephone. Having checked the details I realised that it was, in fact, set when it was written, in the mid-fifties which instantly made its attitudes seem very dated. I shall certainly read the next in the series but I don’t know if I shall bother to go any further.

Next I moved to another series I am following: A Pig of Cold Poison, finished 23rd March. This is the 7th in the series which currently goes up to nine, although I think there is another about to be published. I have enjoyed them all so far and this one got four stars.

That's ten books finished in March: seven ebooks, one audio and two in print. Four were free, out of copyright or review copies and a competition prize, one was a library copy, five were cheap kindle copies and two were part of a bargain print set, so although all were fairly recently acquired and haven't really reduced the TBR pile, they haven't really affected my bank balance either. So that's all right then.

Those of you who read my thread last year may remember that I bought two of the Narnian books for kindle only to discover that they used American English spelling, which I found very distracting. I returned them and got my money back and, as I didn't need more versions, I didn't do anything about getting copies with British English spelling. Over Easter the kindle Daily Deal was the complete series for kindle. This time I checked the spelling first and then bought them. And it doesn't feel like a new purchase because I'd already bought (some of) them before.

Yesterday was a miserable day. As other Brits will confirm, this is a very cold Spring and, despite the fact that it is Eastertide and April, here in the South East we are still getting snow. But the calendar says it is Spring and that is the correct season for trimming/pruning trees so that is what the electricity company did. Health and Safety restrictions require that the electricity supply must be turned off before the tree surgeons approach any branches near an electric cable - not unreasonable! - so our electricity supply was turned off from 9am until nearly 3pm. The house was very cold by then, and I had to go SIX HOURS WITHOUT A CUP OF COFFEE. Anyway I decided I needed some comfort reading and turned to Prince Caspian.

I'm dithering a bit about what to read. I always have several books on the go at any one time, plus some back-ups in case none of them suits at any moment. My Currently Reading collection has 13 books in it at the moment and I know that I'm reading some that aren't in it and not reading some that are in it but it acts as a usfeul guide to me. Most of the time.

I finished Prince Caspian yesterday (or the day before) and I now really want to read the rest of the series but I have the feeling that I should be reading something else, something on my Currently Reading list. So I'm not reading the Narnian books but I'm not reading any Currently Reading books either. I think this is a very good example of Cutting Off My Nose To Spite My Face. I need someone to hand me a book - any book - and make me read it.

Here's a nudge for Dissolution off of your Currently Reading list. It's a great series. Although the Chronicles of Narnia is, too, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (next up for you?) is possibly my favorite book of the series.

#70 It's quite a while since I've wanted to read anything 'challenging' Having had a rather stressful few months at work I've been feeling that way too. On the other hand it's been quite nice to just read what I feel like reading in some ways.

I have High Rising on its way to me from Waterstones so I'm glad to hear it was a non-challenging read :-)

#73 Sorry to hear about your no electricity day. Not pleasant with weather we've been having!

#74 I'd just reread all the Narnia books if that's what you're in the mood for.

Six hours without a coffee! Not fun, especially without heat too. I've been staying in a friend's house for my post Easter break and have been very glad of a wood-burning stove to keep cosy.

I'd read Narnia if you feel like it -especially as (I agree) Dawn Treader is up next and that's such a good one. Or Dissolution is good too..

Thank you, all, for your suggestions and encouragement. In the end I read The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex, although not cover to cover. I enjoy Mark Kermode's weekly film criticism on the radio and admire his verbal fluency. The book was very like one of his 'rants' - I could hear his voice as I read - and it left me feeling a bit breathless.

Since I work at a school I still have a week's holiday left and I need it! Like you, Heather, although not as bad, I have a sore throat and a cold threatening, so I shall do some more comfort reading and complete the Narnian series. Dissolution is also high on my TBR list but as it's a new series and a new author for me I think I am prepared to find it a bit more of an effort than an Old Familiar and shall wait until I feel in better health and spirits. So I'm off the Lone Islands...

Lashings of tea prescribed, with a dot of honey for your throat.

Tui, I wish I liked tea. When I was a child I thought that that would be how I would know I was grown-up - all the grown-ups I knew drank cups of tea all day long. I think I thought it was one of the physical changes that a girl went through to become a woman: grow breasts, hair in unexpected places, and like tea. Well the other things happened but I'm still waiting to like tea. I do have some lovely lemon, honey and ginger cordial though and I'm drinking plenty of that.

Despite my cold, the weather and my general dithery-ness, I have finished quite a few books this month. I finished March's Barbara Pym, Jane and Prudence on 1st April having enjoyed it very much. I hadn't really engaged with the characters in Excellent Women although I did like the writing but I had no difficulty this time, possibly helped by the fact that, like Jane, I am a Vicar's Wife. And I have, in the past, attempted to match-make some of my single friends but I'm very definitely cured of that now.

Next I whizzed through the eighth and ninth books in the Gil Cunningham series, The Counterfeit Madam and The Fourth Crow. These were two good episodes and I really feel immersed in the setting now and able to remember more of the characters. Unfortunately the next episode is not yet published so I shall probably forget all I've learned by the time I read it.

I finished two versions of Doctor Thorne, an audio version read by Timothy West and the kindle edition I was following too. Towards the end of the story I came across this statement:

The comic almanacs give us dreadful pictures of January and February; but, in truth, the months which should be made to look gloomy in England are March and April. Let no man boast himself that he has got through the perils of winter till at least the seventh of May.

For those of us in Britain it is certainly the case this year.

I noticed that comment in Doctor Thorne too - very true! If we could only be sure there would definitely be some warmth and sunshine from 7th May, that would be great...

>80 CDVicarage:: well, that's ok...a hot drink of some kind to soothe and steam ye olde broncheoles and sinuses. It's very much the 7th of May in Canada as well. In fact, I have snow recorded in my gardening journal on the 9th of May one year! The birds are bravely courting and sparking here but snow is called for on Thursday & Friday.

Hope you feel better soon Kerry.

When I was a child I thought that that would be how I would know I was grown-up - all the grown-ups I knew drank cups of tea all day long. I think I thought it was one of the physical changes that a girl went through to become a woman: grow breasts, hair in unexpected places, and like tea. :-)

#80 Well, at least 7th May isn't that far off now. Definitely experiencing some April showers too.

I don't know how or why it's happened but it's three weeks since I last updated my thread. My cold, fortunately, didn't come to much and the weather has brightened so life is looking better.

I have finished quite a few books in that time so I have plenty to write now. I did work my way through the rest of the Narnian books from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to The Last Battle in publication order and was surprised that I felt differently about them this time. My favourite story changes intermittently, (although it's never The Last Battle) and it's often The Voyage of the Dawn Treader but this time I found I didn't care for it much. It seemed too episodic with each chapter unconnected to the others. The Silver Chair seemed much more of a complete story and I love Puddleglum. The Horse and His Boy is always high on my favourites list as Shasta is a lovely hero. The Magician's Nephew was lovely too. The description of the creation of Narnia is spellbinding. I went straight on to The Last Battle and tried to concentrate on it this time as I tend to whizz through, reading it for completeness' sake only. I did get more out of it by paying attention to the details more but I still found the ending - further up and further in - a bit tedious. One thing I did notice this time, in all the books, were Lewis's asides to the reader. This is a technique I enjoyed in Trollope and I did here too. Lewis seemd to be (mostly) on a child reader's level without being too patronising. A lot of his views are dated and very non-PC but there is enough for me to enjoy and

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

is one of the best opening lines ever.

These were my daytime print/kindle books; my audiobook at this time was The Devil's Cub, the second of the Alastair trilogy. I had not really enjoyed These Old Shades but this was an improvement. The reader was Michael Drew, whom I had not heard before, but he was much better. The story was also a bit better. The heroine was a sensible, competent young woman, whom the hero came to appreciate soon enough, but she did fall in love rather quickly with no apparent reason than that she was the heroine and it was her purpose to fall for the hero.

Finishing these books took me to 16th April.

My next book, finished 19th April, was The Portuguese Escape, the second of Ann Bridge's Julia Probyn series. Although the writing is lovely, particularly the descriptions of the Portuguese countryside and the buildings, it is so dated in attitude that it is almost laughable, and I shan't be going on to the others in the series.

I spent Saturday afternoon finishing a small knitting project (a cover for my tablet) and listening to The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, read by Alan Cumming. I haven't read or watched much Sherlock Holmes before, and I can't see myself becoming an ardent fan, but I shall probably try some more in the future.

My next book was A 1950s Housewife, which I think was a kindle bargain at some stage, finished 20th April. I was born in the late 50s and can remember from my childhood much of what was described. I don't think it was a particularly scientific study of the times and there must be a lot of generalizations, but it was well written and easy to read and reminded me of a lot of things I'd forgotten!

Another kindle book that I was able to appreciate better by reading on my tablet was The Moomins and the Great Flood as this was illustrated in colour. It is the first Moomin book and has only fairly recently been translated into English and made available.

I finished another audiobook in the early hours of this morning: Regency Buck. This was read very well by June Barrie. Some people include this in the Alastair series as some of the characters appear in An Infamous Army although I regard it as a standalone story. It's a fairly standard Heyer plot: the hero and heroine start by disliking each other instensely and, although there is no real doubt about how it will end, Heyer keeps you wondering how she will resolve matters right to the last chapter. We've reached the Regency period now and I do prefer these books to the other historical ones.

A lot of the same old books are (still) in my Currently Reading collection but there are also some new ones, which I really am reading. New additions include Less Than Angels, which I doubt I will finish this month, My Favourite People & Me: 1978-1988, another book set in recent history, The House of the Four Winds, the third of the Dickson McCunn stories in which the action moves to Evallonia, and for my next audiobook I'm about to start The Shell Seekers.

Kerry, I read The Shell Seekers recently, as it had been republished and it was one of those famous books that I never got around to earlier. It's sweetly dated. I think it was the one in which people spent a lot of time waiting for phone calls, which nowadays they would put to good use by going to the supermarket or running errands, taking their phones with them!

#87 Susan, I think that makes it sound more attractive! I resisted this author when she was first popular as I thought she was only one step up from a Mills & Boone type writer. I was given another of her books by my LT Secret Santa and enjoyed it very much, and The Shell Seekers is narrated by Hannah Gordon whose voice I like so I am looking forward to it.

Where has the time gone? It's the middle of May and I haven't written my April round-up yet.

I did finish My Favourite People & Me: 1978-1988 on 30th April. I like what I've seen and heard of Alan Davies and I enjoyed this memoir. He is about five years younger than me so it wasn't quite my era but close enough to be familiar.

So, in April I finished 19 books, which is more than my usual amount. 14 were ebooks, one was a paperback and four were audiobooks. Eight were re-reads, including two versions of Doctor Thorne and six of the Narnian books, but eleven were new to me. All the new books were bought fairly recently or borrowed from the library so the TBR pile is not noticeably diminished.

So far this month I've finished:

The House of the Four Winds, the third, and final book in the Dickson McCunn series and a jolly good Ripping Yarn.
Pride and Prejudice, re-read for the umpteenth time and as rewarding as ever.
Love, Sex, Death and Words, this was a chapter a day book so I have been reading it for a year. It wasn't a leap year so I read two chapters on 1st March. I miss it now it's finished as it was a good start to my reading day and I usually read my daily chapter as I ate my cereal and toast.
Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, a cosy murder mystery set in the 1950s with a Church of England clergyman as the hero. As far as my reading goes the 1950s is a neglected decade and, although it is comparatively recent history, it seems as distant as Victorian England in many ways. This is the first in a series that is due to reach the early 21st century and I'm looking forward to the next.
The Summer School Mystery, also set in the 1950s with another amateur detective. I'm not consciously trying to remedy my neglect of this decade, it's just coincidence.
Cocktail Time, an Uncle Fred story, which cheered me up no end.
Strangers at Vivians, the third in a Girlsown school story series, also set in 1950s!

I've just had my birthday and my Thingaversary so I've had to buy some books. Having signed up to the Persephone Biannually it seemed a good idea to buy something from it. A swift perusal of the catalogue produced a list of 14 that I really want, and lots more that sound interesting, but I managed to reduce my order to a mere three titles (this time): Someone at a Distance, Good Evening, Mrs Craven and Few Eggs and No Oranges so I'm now waiting impatiently for my parcel. I thought someone was bound to give me an Amazon token and had already decided what to spend it on, but no-one did. However that isn't going to stop me and I'm going to buy Life after life anyway.

Happy birthday, and happy Thingaversary! I agree that buying books is the most appropriate way to celebrate. In fact, I believe it's a requirement!

#90 The Sidney Chambers book sounds good and at a very good kindle price at the moment...

#91 Happy birthday and thingaversary! Your book haul sounds great - I loved the Mollie Panter-Downes stories so I hope you enjoy them.

It was half-term last week so I had a week off work - plenty of time to get my thread up-to-date and write my monthly round-up. Or so I thought. I have no excuse as I can't point to how I spent my time instead; it really was a holiday spent doing nothing.

However I did finish a few books, which is considerably more than nothing:

Professor Tolkien of Oxford, finished 19th May. I'm the only person to have catalogued this in LibraryThing so I don't think any of you will have read it. I think I got it free, probably from Amazon, and it is, as its title suggests an account of Tolkien's life in Oxford. Its blurb suggests a certain pride in the photographs but they were about postage stamp size on my kindle with no obvious way to enlarge them.

The Shell Seekers, an audio edition, read by Hannah Gordon, finished 23rd May. Having read, and enjoyed, Coming Home just after Christmas I thought I'd try this. The story is very precisely dated, ranging from the outbreak of World War II to the present, at least the present when it was written, which was the mid-eighties. This makes it not old enough to be historical, not modern enough to be current but just dated. Although I liked Hannah Gordon's reading I think it would have been better in print. There's quite a lot of book and I would probably have skimmed over some bits, but you can't do that with an audiobook.

The Making of Modern Britain, finished 28th May. Another Amazon bargain, I think. Although I found it easy to read and quite interesting it is still the voice-over to a TV series, even though there is a lot more in the book than on TV.

Mary-Lou of the Chalet School, finished 31st May. The next episode in the long series. The Swiss-set books are definitely the least good of the series - and they go further downhill from here - but it's still good to read about Abroad.

The Hobbit, finished 31st May. I bought a beautiful hardback edition of this a year or two ago but it's almost too beautiful to risk damaging by reading so I felt justified in buying a (fairly cheap) ebook. This was an 'enhanced' edition and had coloured illustrations, drawn by Tolkien, and promised audio versions of some of the songs but I couldn't make that bit work. I enjoyed the story as much as ever and now feel inclined to go on to The Lord of the Rings again, if I can fit it in!

That brings me up to 12 books finished in May: 9 on Kindle, 1 audio and 2 in print. There were 9 new books and only three re-reads, so the TBR pile is a little smaller (or would be if I hadn't added to it faster than I read).

Already this month I've finished three books:

Five Children and It, finished 1st June. I'm amazed that I didn't read this as a child, although I'm sure I watched it, probably on Sunday tea-time. I wish I had read it when I was much younger and I shall certainly go on to the rest of the series.

Quartet in Autumn, finished 3rd June. I have fallen behind in the year of Barbara Pym having found Less than angels less than compelling but the birthday weekend spurred me on and I had this one as an ebook and whizzed through it. I found the start a bit bleak and it took me a while to grasp who was who but after a few chapters it drew me in, even though it got considerably bleaker.

I then went back to Less than angels and that seemed to take off and I finished it today. So far Some Tame Gazelle and Jane and Prudence are my favourites. I haven't read A glass of blessings as it's the only one I had read before this year, although I might later on as I'm enjoying spotting characters from other books doing cameo appearances. I have No Fond Return of Love ready to start, and I'm also reading Bring up the bodies. I've bought a kindle edition - a bargain - and I'm starting from the beginning again. My beautiful hardback can go back on the shelf.

Finished Bring up the bodies on 7th June. I read this really quickly and had to make myself stop reading from time to time to make it last a bit longer. I want to go on to the third part straightaway, except I don't want to read it because I know how it must end and Hilary Mantel has made me like Thomas Cromwell.

I've gone quite quickly through the rest of the Psammead Trilogy this week, finishing The Phoenix and the Carpet on 10th June and The Story of the Amulet on the 12th. I enjoyed the whole trilogy very much and can't think why I didn't read them when I was a child as I think I would have enjoyed them even more then.

Yesterday, 15th June, I finished Robinson Crusoe and I enjoyed parts of it. The Tales From Europe version was always on TV when I was a child, there must have been hundreds of episodes, but I was still surprised at how long Crusoe spent alone on his island. That part of the story was the most interesting - how he discovered or made the things he needed. Once Friday came on the scene the attitudes of the day came to the fore and I began to skim over much of it. The chapters about leaving the island and then travelling through Europe, although intended to be exciting, I found boring and unneccessary.

I've actually passed the 75 mark - Bring up the Bodies was my 75th book - but last year I completed 163 books so I'm still less than half-way through my likely total.

My current reading is Framley Parsonage, which is also my current audiobook, No Fond Return of Love for the Barbara Pym centenary read, Millions like us: women's lives in the Second World War, in which Barbara Pym's diary is quoted, and Queens' Play, the second in the Lymond Chronicles. These are the main books but there are others which I pick up from time to time.

Congrats, Kerry, on passing 75! Gardening season takes a 3-5 month toll on me, so I always slump terribly in the summer. I haven't read Robinson Crusoe since I was about 7.

Mantel does make us complicit with Cromwell, doesn't she! What a good writer she is.

Hello Kerry. I found your thread and I'll be sure to return often. I haven't read any books of Barbara Pym. I know she is a favorite of many in our 75 challenge group.

Congratulations on reading more than 75 books thus far.

Congrats!

Congratulations on reaching the 75 book mark! I bought Millions Like Us for kindle - interesting to hear she quotes from Barbara Pym.

Congratulations on hitting 75.

I had a couple of days off work this week due to ill-health and spent one day reading a modern girls' boarding school story - St. Mallory's Forever!. It was just what I needed. It is a modern version of an epistolary novel, using the girls' blogs instead of letters. Apart from that although I have done plenty of reading I haven't finished anything else.

Millions Like Us is proving very interesting and quite thought provoking for me. It's always interesting reading letters, memoirs etc written at the time when the final outcome was uncertain, rather than with the benefit of hindsight. I have also got Singled out by the same author ready to read next. (I hope the touchstones stay right - she does rather specialise in long subtitles and that's too much typing!)

I'm on the last leg of Framley Parsonage and enjoying it more and more, and I'm trying to go slowly with Queens' Play, which, although I have read it many times before, is so complex in terms of plot and characters that it needs to be taken slowly so that I can be sure of what's happening, but not so slowly that I forget what happened before.

Just catching up with your reading, Kerry! I've been a Sarah Caudwell fan since that Amazon kindle sale too.

I'm pleased to hear that Millions Like Us (another Kindle bargain) is proving worthwhile too.

I've had quite a good last week of the month, finishing 5 books. I had, of course started some of them well before.

Millions like us, finished 23rd June. I found this very interesting and quite intense. It considered a lot of aspects that had never occurred to me before.
Queens' Play, finished 24th June. This is the second in the Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett. I first read this series as a teenager and have re-read the books many times since then. They are very complex books and need a lot of concentration even after the many times I've read them before.
Dissolution, finished 28th June. The first in a series and I'm looking forward to the rest. However I've recently finished Bring up the bodies and it was hard to cope with a completely different view of Thomas Cromwell from the one put forward by Hilary Mantel.
The Beautiful Mystery, finished 29th June. This is the eighth book in the series about Armand Gamache and I think each one has got more intense.
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, finished 30th June. From the sublime to the ridiculous. It was a free book and I thought I'd revisit a bit of my childhood. It's very dated, as, I suppose, is my childhood!

I finished 15 books this month: 1 audio, 13 ebooks and 1 paperback. 12 were new to me and three were re-reads but several of the new books ought to have been re-reads - how could I have grown up without reading E. Nesbit or Robinson Crusoe?

My current reading includes several ER books that are overdue, June's Barbara Pym, No fond return of love, Framley Parsonage, which is nearly finished, The case of the murdered muckraker, 10th in the Daisy Dalrymple series, and a new Ripping yarn, The Scarlet Pimpernel. I think that's a varied enough list so that I have something to suit every mood and occasion.

Both my children are moving house this weekend: Clare has moved out of the city - Manchester - into the country, near Knutsford, and Andrew is leaving Birmingham after four years and coming back to live at home for the summer while he decides what to do next.

>105 CDVicarage:: However I've recently finished Bring up the bodies and it was hard to cope with a completely different view of Thomas Cromwell from the one put forward by Hilary Mantel.
Oh I know just what you mean! I read a Shardlake not long after reading BUTB and it was really weird.

>106 CDVicarage:: Both my children are moving house this weekend
That's a lot of upheaval! And can I assume it's been a while since you've had one living at home? I would imagine that's quite an adjustment for all concerned. I still have one in high school and am wondering what it will be like when she goes to university in a year's time.

You read like a fiend -- 15 books in one month !!!

I thought Hilary Mantel was still writing the 3rd book in the Cromwell trilogy, I don't imagine we'll get to read it for a little while yet.

#105 & 107 I had the same experience with the Mantel and Sansom portrayals of Cromwell.

Hope Clare and Andrew's moves go smoothly!

Thanks, Heather. I have been amused at the different reactions from Clare and Andrew. I'm not sure if I can attribute it to the male/female divide or that Clare is moving into her first 'own' home and Andrew has come back 'home'. Clare is a little upset that she hasn't got enough storage space and the the house is still untidy after day 1; Andrew has just left piles of 'stuff' in various positions about the house and gone out to meet his friends, presumably confident in the knowledge that his parents will extract anything that needs washing and move the rest to his bedroom, while he makes sure that his bikes are OK!

#110 Oh dear!

I have two Andrews. It would have been lovely to have had a Clare. Thankfully the Andrews didn't move home at the same time or I would have had a meltdown. And equally thankfully they've both moved back out on their own, although they have left an entire storage room full of their bumph, over time.

I can't be too severe with my Andrew as I am no more tidy than he is. I can quite happily live with piles of my stuff around the house, it's only other people's stuff that seem to be in the way!

I've finished five books this week but two of them were the same title and one was very short so not as impressive as it might sound.

Framley Parsonage, audio version finished 1st July and kindle version on 2nd July. This was a re-read for me and I enjoyed it even more this time, partly because of reading it in company and partly because the audio version made me go slower.

The Hangman, finished 1st July. This was a short story, set in the Three Pines series, written for the Good Reads scheme.

The Scarlet Pimpernel, finished 3rd July. I was ready for another Ripping Yarn but I was a bit disappointed in this. Of course I knew the Scarlet Pimpernel's identity anyway so some of the suspense and surprise was gone but I also found the extreme respect for noble breeding a bit much to take. I know that when reading such books one must be prepared to allow for the attitudes of the time and I can usually suspend belief enough but not this time.

She Painted Her Face, finished 6th July. So I went straight on to another, more recent, Ripping Yarn. I keep thinking I've read all of Yates's books but then find another new title. His books are set in the 1930s and feature upright, honourable Englishmen, all ready for a bit a derring-do, usually to rescue and protect a beautiful, gently born foreign woman from her evil relatives, but sometimes to retrieve some treasure for its rightful owner. The upright Englishmen are all wealthy, drive Rolls Royces and have devoted servants to assist them. Yates always gives a detailed description of the building or landscape from which the captive or the stolen jewels must be retrieved and, although I can never quite get a coherent mental picture of it, a vague idea seem to be enough for me to enjoy the action. I find the names that Yates chooses for the houses and titles of his characters amazing; he seems to choose random nouns. In this book the two noble charcaters were the Countess of Brief and the Duchess of Whelp (both Austrian), the houses they stayed in, Raven and Tracery. In other stories I've come across houses called Girdle, Maintenance, Brooch and Barley.

I'm Currently Reading: Icons of England, a collection of articles written by well-known people combined in a book to raise money for CPRE, No Fond Return of Love and my audio book is Monarch of the Glen. The story is a bit dated but I'm enjoying the lovely Scottish accents.

While Andrew is at home he has decided to do some reading - he's even going to join the public library! However he is starting by going through my library. Unfortunately his taste is for Science Fiction and Dystopian novels neither of which feature very much. He's already exhausted my small George Orwell collection so, after taking suggestions from Goodreads (I tried to interest him in LT) he finally settled on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Loooking Glass...

It's so hot that reading is all I can comfortably do. Unfortunately the rest of my family seems to expect meals and clean clothes to wear and although we are sharing the chores so it's not all my responsibility I still have to do my share. However I have had plenty of time for reading and have finished three books this week.

Icons of England, finished 10th July. This is a nice collection of short pieces about aspects of the English (and British) countryside and life. It's been a useful book to read while at work as it's easy to pick up and put down for short bursts of reading. The items were of variable quality and interest, ranging from the general to the very specific and back again.

Storm Music, finished 13th July. Another Ripping Yarn set in an Austrian castle with characters who have extreme and rather skewed ideas (to the modern mind) of honour and general behaviour. While the general attitudes in this type of book are frightful, the storyline is at the same time exciting and restful as there is plenty of action but all ends well with the baddies getting their just desserts.

Singled Out: How Two Million British Women Survived Without Men After the First World War, finished 13th July. Another interetsing book by Virginia Nicholson. I like the use of personal memoirs and the stories of named individuals which, though less scientific than columns of figures, is much easier to read.

My Currently Reading is much the same as it was last week, with the exception of those books I've finished. My audiobook is nearly finished so I will have to choose another. I've started Virago is 40 - another easy-to-read at work book, and I think I shall start Life after life this week. I've just bought a few Alexander McCall Smith books for the kindle but I need to read a print book first before I can go on to those.

Only a week and a half till the end of term...

Kerry, it's extremely hot here too, in the 90s and humid. We Canucks don't handle this stuff very well--I suspect it's the same with you. It has been several weeks of it so I've been reduced to simple mysteries, as tiny brain is on strike.

#116 It's cooled down a little bit for us now, but I feel like I've done nothing but read in the evenings for the last few weeks. Too hot to think about housework or cooking.

I'm having a lovely time in the Tirol - plenty of sunshine - and I met up with another Chalet School fan yesterday.

I started reading Life After Life yesterday but I think I shall have to stop until I get home again - all these deaths, even though it's the same child, are too upsetting.

My last real post i.e. with bookish information in it, was in the middle of July. Holidays disorganise me. I'd better start with the remaing July books and a round-up:

Virago is 40 finished 15th July. I'm sure lots of you will have read this. Although anthologies like this are good for odd bits of reading time I'm not really a fan of 'shorts'. Anyway, from what I can remember, some of these were very good, some were not to my taste and the rest were OK.
The Professional Aunt, finished 17th July was a lovely light novella set in late Victorian or Edwardian times. Perhaps a bit like Angela Thirkell in tone.
The Monarch of the Glen, audiobook, finished 17th July. This was fairly humourous, though a bit dated. It was lovely to listen to as the reader, David Rintoul, was very good at all the voices and the Scottish accents were gorgeous.
The Importance of being seven, finished 19th July, Bertie plays the blues, finished 22nd July and Sunshine on Scotland Street, finished 25th July. These are books 6, 7 and 8 in the 44, Scotland Street series (and book 9 is just about to be published). I've never wanted to read the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series but I love the two Scottish set series and these three kept up the standard.
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth, finished 27th July. This is book 8 of this series and I have book 9 waiting.
A Princess of Mars, finished 28th July. This has taken me quite a while to get through, though it's easy enough to read. Although I like a good Ripping Yarn I still find Science Fiction, (or is this Fantasy?) not very appealing but as so many people, whose opinions I respect, like it I shall have another try.
Blind Corner, finished 29th July. This was a quick re-read as I was a bit of a loose end with my reading and we were about to go away on holiday but I followed it up with the next in the series Perishable Goods, finished 31st July. They were both set in Austria, which is where we went on our holiday, although not quite the same area, so they seemed very suitable and I enjoyed them just as much as the first time.

Well, that's July finished: 18 books read, although one was a duplicate of an audiobook, so 17 works. There were 2 audiobooks, 15 ebooks and one paperback. 14 were new so my TBR pile has been significantly diminished, though I can't see where...

By the 1st August we were well established on our holiday. We went to Pertisau in the Austrian Tyrol, home of the Chalet School, by train. The journey took two days and for my husband the planning of it was part of the holiday. He is someone who takes pleasure in choosing routes, reading timetables and making bookings and he had been doing it since the beginning of the year. Fortunately he is very good at it and the journeys went smoothly and were comfortable and enjoyable - I was able to lift my head from my kindle from time to time and admire the scenery. The weather was very hot but it was a relaxing holiday and I did plenty of reading:

The first book I finished, on 3rd August, was The School at the Chalet. I had my kindle copy of the GGBP 80th anniversary edition with me as it had lots of extra information about the setting and I though I'd read the story too.
Next I went on with my Ripping Yarns spree:
The Power House, the first book in the Edward Leithen series, finished 4th August.
Safe Custody, finished 5th August - more Austrian set derring-do.
John MacNab, finished 6th August - Scottish hunting, shooting and fishing.
The Dancing Floor, finished 8th August - Edward Leithen's Greek adventure.
That got me home and I had to stop reading to do the washing and shopping.

>120 CDVicarage:: I love Bertie but his mother drove me to distraction. Does McCall Smith let Bertie grow older as Rowling did with Harry Potter? I find it odd when a character stays stuck at an age, like Flavia de Luce stuck at 11.

Reading and holiday sounds like good fun. I'm the itinerary planner in our family. How lovely to have someone else do it for you!

As I work in a school I still had plenty of time left before the beginning of term however we did have some other committments. My father-in-law, Ken, had died on 19th July - part of the reason why updates had stopped here earlier on. Since all three of her children had holidays booked my mother-in-law, Dorothy, decided that the funeral should be delayed and it took place on 19th August. As we are on the spot all the rest of the family gathered here beforehand, which meant that the house had to be reasonably clean and tidy... It all went well and, as my husband was the officiating clergyman, it really was a family affair. Dorothy had chosen a wicker coffin, which was decorated with trailing flowers and a bouquet rather than a wreath, which also contributed to the comfortable and relaxed atmosphere - no polished wood and formal suits or black coats. Clare and her boyfriend had come to stay and remained until Wednesday, which was lovely. She had just been promoted and was going back to start her new post.

I was still reading throughout all this but a a slower rate:

An Infamous Army, audio, finished 9th August. Much the best of the Alastair trilogy, in story and reader. There was a lot of military detail about the preparations and the battle, which are apparently well regarded by those who know about these things, but I did tend to drift away in those parts and I would probably have skimmed over them had it been a print book.
The Gap in the Curtain, the fourth book featuring Edward Leithen, finished 10th August. This is an unusual series in that it deals with a different aspect in each book and this one introduces the supernatural - not my favourite.
Life After Life, finished 12th August. I started this while we were away on holiday but I had to stop as I was finding it too upsetting. The death of a child at the end of each section, even though it was the same child, was too much. However I started again when I got home and read it through almost in one sitting and thought it marvellous.

I realised that I had read nothing for AV/AA and started The Solitary Summer, which I finished on 18th August. I loved the descriptions of the gardens, and some of Elizabeth's opinions.
Next I went on to Illyrian Spring, which I finished on 25th August. Again the descriptions of the countryside, the journey and the flowers were lovely but I found the story rather dated.
I finished two more books on the same day - Lost and Found, which I had won in Ali's blog giveaway. This was an easy read, quite funny and very sad, but also it felt that there was a large chunk missing.
Also the next volume in my Chalet School reading - A Genius at the Chalet School. This is one of the better Swiss-set books but they are definitely becoming fomulaic and dated from now on.

I finally finished No Fond Return of Love on 27th August. That's one more for AV/AA and while I would say I enjoyed it it obviously hadn't really grabbed me as I kept picking it up and putting it down again. But I would still say that I haven't read a Barbara Pym book that I didn't like.
While I was working my way through the Recent Covers module I listened to The Uncommon Reader, read by the author. I had read it in print before but it made a very good audiobook so it was worth reading again.

Although my Currently Reading collection has 13 books in it what I'm really Currently Reading is:

The Small House at Allington, print and audio. I'm up to chapter 42 - Crosbie is about to be married and the Dales are preparing to leave the Small House.
The Sweet Dove Died, the next Pym, but not a Virago so no good for AV/AA.
Minnow on the Say by Phillippa Pearce, another slightly mystical children's book set in East Anglia.
The next Chalet School book - A Problem for the Chalet School.

Nice to see you here again, Kerry. I'm sorry to hear about your father in law.

I'm currently reading The Small House at Allington as well, but I've only just started.

Hi, Kerry! I haven't dropped in for ages, sorry! My sympathies over the loss of your father-in-law.

I read the Leithen books over the past couple of years - they're strange in being all so very different from one another. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed John McNab, given that huntin'-shootin'-fishin' isn't exactly my thing. :)

I hope you and Laura will both drop in on and comment on the group read thread.

>127 lyzard:: Liz, I just visited the group thread. My practice is to read along until I reach a point where the group is discussing chapters I haven't read yet. Then I mark my place so I can return later. I guess I could zip down to the bottom and comment, but I'm afraid of encountering spoilers so I will probably save my comments for when I'm finished. I can say, though, that reading the thread is helpful as it's already pointed out some things I missed (comparison to S&S, for one), and has highlighted passages I didn't pay close enough attention to on a first reading.

I think I'm back in the LT swing now. I finished Minnow on the Say yesterday and really enjoyed it though perhaps not as much as Tom's Midnight Garden, which is in Amazon's Kindle Summer Sale for 99p if you haven't got it. There were a lot of twists in the story - every time the boys thought they were near the treasure they had to think again.

#123 I hadn't really noticed that Bertie is not getting any older but I read an article on that subject by Alexander McCall Smith in which he explains it. I can't remember where, perhaps it was the introduction of the book. I don't mind in this series as they are slightly fantastical anyway. The Isobel Dalhousie series lets the characters age properly and they are more realistic so I find that's suitable.

#127, 128 I do mean to comment but I find the threads run away without me. I never seem to be in the right place in the book, but I will try to make my mark in the general discussion. I'm listening to the audio version, read by Timothy West. He reads beautifully and I think Trollope's conversational tone really suits an audiobook.

Kerry, I can't really catch up, but I do offer sympathy in the death of your father-in-law. A wicker coffin is out of my realm of experience, but I googled and like the concept.
You remind me that I'm behind the world in Trollope reading, but I don't know when I can catch up. Books! Time!!

#127 I'm certainly not an outdoor activities person, least of all hunting, but I very much enjoyed John MacNab, too. Similarly, although I'm far more likely to be an anti-foxhunting protester than supporter and I'm quite nervous of horses and have never really wanted to ride, even as a small girl, one of my favourite books in the Marlows series, Peter's Room, contains a marvellous description of a day's hunting, which I really shouldn't like, but I do very much.

We haven't hit any of Trollope's notorious hunting scenes yet; they take hold in the Palliser novels. The only thing that reconciles me to them is that they almost invariably focus on someone who has a bad ride or takes a fall, so we never get anywhere near the end-point of the hunt. :)

I've just written this post but as I moved between tabs on the browser I hit the 'x' by mistake and it disappeared. Anyway, I'll start again and be more careful this time. During the last few days of my holiday I did quite a lot of reading:

The Sweet Dove Died, finished 2nd September. as other reviewers have commented Leonora is a frightful woman - selfish and self-centred - but by the end of the book I was feeling sorry for her. Although the book is set in the 70s with enough scene setting to make that obvious it still felt to me as though it was taking place during the 30s some of the time.

A problem for the Chalet School, finished 3rd September. The books from this part of the series are starting to feel very dated now. This one is hampered by a set of what would be very snobbish attitudes nowadays (and probably then, too). A fifteen year-old girl who is interested in boys, clothes and make-up! How common! But of course the Chalet School, particularly in the person of Mary-Lou, has its usual effect on the new girls and they are both well on the way to becoming real Chalet girls by the end.

A few green leaves, finished 5th September. I think I have enjoyed the books with a church-y background the most and this was a good one for me. I do hope Tom and Emma get to know each other better but I also hope Daphne doesn't continue to be bossed around by Heather.

Unnatural Death, finished 7th September. I read Clouds of Witness a year or two ago and enjoyed it but somehow never got round to the rest of the series until now. However I enjoyed this one just as much and shall now go on to the rest. I know there are a lot of LPW enthusiasts in my LT groups but I'm not sure yet if I'm going to join them.

The Small House at Allington, finished 8th September. I'm listening to this series this time round, although I look at some bits on the page as well. The reader for my audio versions is Timothy West and he is excellent. I think the books' conversational tone fits the audio treatment perfectly. I'm looking forward to Can you forgive her?, as that is quite new to me, but also to The Last Chronicle of Barset although I'm happy to put that off for a while.

I watched the BBC TV adaptation of The Warden and Barchester Towers again over last weekend and enjoyed it just as much as the last time. It verges on pantomime sometimes and I quite wanted to shout 'Boo' when Mr Slope appeared!

My Currently Reading list is:

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
The New Mistress at the Chalet School
Heroines on Horseback

amongst others.

I need to decide on my next audiobook - I'm swithering between Bill Bryson's At home and The Private World of Georgette Heyer - both non-fiction, which I've never really read in audio format before. I'll see what I decide when I turn on my ipod!

Kerry, sorry to hear about your father-in-law.

I felt exactly the same about A Few Green Leaves.

I've been meaning to try Buchan's Leithen series for a while now but for some reason still haven't got round to reading the last two Richard Hannah books.

My husband and I recently watched the TV series of the Barchester books and loved it too.

I love the comparison of the BBC Barchester to pantomime. Wouldn't it be fun if we could all watch it together and shout at the screen at key moments?

I'm glad to know that you like the Timothy West recordings of Trollope. I'm debating whether or not to do the audio version of Can You Forgive Her? this time around since I read it years ago. Timothy West is the reader for the Audible recording.

#137 Carrie, I have the audio version, read by Timothy West, of Can You Forgive Her? ready to go. I find his voice just suits this type of story - very victorian! - and Trollope's conversational style suits reading aloud. I always have a print version on my kindle so that I can re-read bits that I may have missed or misunderstood. I tend to audio-read in bed and sometimes fall asleep and then wake up again and so miss a chunk! If it's a book I'm re-reading, as with the Barchester books, I tend not to go back but just read the print book the next day but if it's a new book I'll re-wind the next night.

I think you've talked me into the audio route for this one. I'll give it a try!

I've had a good reading week with four good-sized books finished:

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, finished 9th September. I'm working my way through the Lord Peter Wimsey books and enjoying them.
The Private World of Georgette Heyer, audiobook, finished 14th September. This was my first non-fiction audiobook and, although it was very well read and an enjoyable book, I think I would have preferred it in print. Phyllida Nash's (the reader) skill with voices was wasted but it's a lovely voice to listen to. I was a bit disappointed in Georgette Heyer herself, mostly in her political views although I hadn't really expected her to be a Guardian reading liberal - perhaps it's best not to know too much about the author - but it hasn't stopped me enjoying her books and I certainly respected her determination to keep her personal life out of the public view.
Crampton Hodnet, finished 14th September. The next in the Barabara Pym ouevre. I loved this and whizzed through it. Plenty of church politics, lots of characters that I'd met before and it was a relief to find out that Miss Morrow was happy in her life even though she did make changes later on.
Burning Bright, finished 15th September. I thought this was one of the first books I got as part of the Early Review scheme but it's not on my list. I wonder where I got it from? I entered it onto LT in Septenber 2008 and I did start it before this but it just didn't grab me at the time. This time I found it an enjoyable read. William Blake was all the rage when I was a teenager (some years ago, now) and I remember going to an exhibition, in one of the London museums or art gallerys, of his artwork for Songs of Innocence and Experience. This novel is similar to The girl with the pearl earring in the way that Blake, like Vermeer, is almost a peripheral character and it is the story of the working class characters that is the main part of the book but the effect that Blake has on their lives is important. I've enjoyed several other Tracey Chevalier novels and I have Remarkable Creatures on my TBR list: I might move it closer to the top.

As usual I have lots of books in my Currently Reading collection; some of them I really am reading, some of them I intend to read soon and some of them are there because I ought to read them. I really am reading:

At home: a short history of private life, my current audiobook and another non-fiction work.
Strong poison, the next Lord Peter Wimsey
An unsuitable attachment, the next Barbara Pym.

I also intend to start The Convenient Marriage, which I have in print rather than as an audiobook, which is my preferred format for Georgette Heyer I think (except for the one or two which did not have very good readers).

#140 I thoroughly enjoyed Crampton Hodnet too. Interesting to see she reworked some of the characters (like Jessie Morrow) for Jane and Prudence).

Looks like you've enjoyed some good reading this past week.

Pym on, MacVicarage!

I was away at the weekend so did not make my usual post. I went to stay with my sister and must have enthused about LT as she has opened an account. We share books quite a lot but do have significant differences in taste as well.

The Convenient Marriage, finished 17th September. A standard Heyer romance, set just pre-Regency, but an easy an enjoyable read. I'm working my way through the titles I haven't yet read in chronological order if I can. This one was an ebook.

An unsuitable attachment, finished 20th September. Another church-set story, with some anthropology as well. It is nice to meet familiar characters from other books and I'm glad that Ianthe had a happy ending (well so far).

Dr Finlay's Casebook: Omnibus, finished 24th September. This wasn't what I expected. It is a collection of short stories, set in fairly rural Scotland between the wars. I didn't watch the TV adaptations from the 60s (?) but had got the impression that they were fairly sentimental and cosy - typical Sunday evening fare - but if that was the case the writers had to change quite a lot from the originals. The first story has Dr Finlay refusing a patient an abortion but helping her to pass off the baby as her husband's - not the sort of thing that you got on Sunday family viewing TV.

As part of the literacy campaign at school staff are being encouraged to post what they are reading on office or classroom doors. We have a template and fill in a picture of the cover and a précis of the plot or the cover blurb. I am quite a good example as I always have my kindle with me to read when I am issuing laptops, or rather in gaps between issuing laptops, and the students often comment and ask me what I'm reading. This means I have to be reading something 'suitable' but I usually am. My Line Manager suggested that I should get a digital photo frame to post my reading as I change the printed poster so often!

Anyway, the current week's reading includes:

Strong poison and At Home, my current audiobook, and then I'm a bit stuck. I've got lots of books on the TBR pile but nothing really leaps to my attention at the moment. I shall have to study the To Read collection.

You've reminded me that I need to follow through on my intention to read more Barbara Pym! So far I've only read Excellent Women and Jane and Prudence.

Well, I didn't make my usual weekend posting and now it's the end of the month so I'll just combine it with the round-up.

Strong Poison, finished 26th September. I am enjoying this series. This one is important, I think, as we meet Harriet Vane. I felt quite pleased with myself as I guessed whodunnit, but then so did Lord Peter - it was the proving it that was difficult.

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals, finished 28th September. I can't remember why I got this, an Amazon bargain I think, and it's a good title. Although the blurb suggested the events of the story accurately it misled me as to the 'mood'. Still, I enjoyed it and would be prepared to read more by this author.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life, audiobook, finished 29th September. This was read by the author and, although I like his voice, I was still surprised by some of the American pronunciations - 'vayse' always catches me out, in Britain we put our flowers in a 'vahse'. It was quite a long book, about 18 hours, and, although it was interesting and amusing, it was a bit random.

Heroines on Horseback: The Pony Book in Children's Fiction, finished 29th September. This wasn't really a book for reading cover-to-cover, though I did. It was well written and very interesting; are there any girls who didn't go through a pony book phase? I certainly did and I don't even like horses. I haven't read all the pony books surveyed but enough to enjoy the overview of the ones I hadn't read and to agree (or disagree) with her view of the ones I have read.

In September I finished 18 books, (unfortunately according to LT I added 39 books to my TBR collection):

three were audiobooks: The Small House at Allington and my first ever non-fiction audiobooks, twelve were ebooks and three were paperbacks. Fifteen were from my TBR mountain and the other two titles were re-reads. I know that doesn't add up to 18 but there were two versions of Small House at Allington.

I've put quite a few books into my Currently Reading collection but I'm not actually reading many of them yet; it's just a statement of intent. My book for reading at school is Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, which is quite hard work at the moment. There were fifteen children in the family and it's taken me quite a while to remember their names let alone distinguish their characters. The princesses are mostly grown up now so I'm hoping that their lives will become more interesting to read about. I was a voracious reader of historical novels as a teenager and beyond so I know roughly the historical events of the time but it was the rakish princes who featured in the novels rather than the princesses.

My current audiobook is An Accomplished Woman and it is being beautifully read by Phyllida Nash, my favourite reader of Georgette Heyer, but it is just emphasising that this is not a Georgette Heyer novel. I've just re-formatted my ipod and have a selection of six books on it. This means I am a bit over-prepared as, although I usually have several print books on the go at once, I've never managed that with audiobooks.

I've already read October's Barbara Pym so I might go back and read A glass of blessings. I didn't read it in May as it was the only one I'd already read but it would be good to look for mentions of characters from other books now that I've met so many more. I've also got several ER books too finish and review, and some that have been finished but not yet reviewed, so I have plenty to keep me busy.

It's nearly time for the end of the month round-up and I haven't written anything during the month so I shall have to combine the two. Although I've done plenty of reading I haven't finished many books, but here is the list:

Wild Strawberries, finished 9th October. My second Angela Thirkell and I enjoyed it even more than the first so I'm looking forward to the rest.
Last Trains: Dr Beeching and the death of rural England, finished 12th October. This was a kindle bargain and I thought it was a nice cosy description of all the funny little rural lines that were closed as a result of the Beeching Report and although it did include that it also contained lots of technical facts and figures that I skimmed over very quickly...
An Accomplished Woman, read by Phyllida Nash, finished 13th October. This was the third rather disappointing audiobook in a row. I chose it because of the reader, who is my favourite for Georgette Heyer's books, and because it sounded similar to Georgette Heyer's regency books, however Jude Morgan is not as good as Heyer and I found the book too long and the characters too 21st century in their attitudes.
I needed something I could rely on to be enjoyable so I whizzed through The Diary of a Provincial Lady and The Provincial Lady in London, finishing them on 16th and 19th October.
Next I needed an audiobook that I could be sure I'd enjoy and settled on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, read by Stephen Fry and finished that on 22nd October. And of course I enjoyed it and was tempted to go straight on to the next!
Amazon's kindle sale provided me with my next - another comfort read - Village School, finished on 24th October. I've read this story - and the whole series - many times and I always enjoy them.
I also finished Ivanhoe the same day. This has been my school reading book and was a bit of a trudge. I've never read any Walter Scott before, although of course I've seen films and TV series based on his books, and even though it was enjoyable on the Ripping Yarn level I found the pseudo-archaic english annoying and the attitudes towards the Jews and the rather ridiculous ideas of Honour and Chivalry very hard to take.
My final book this month (unless I finish another in the next two days) was Part of the Furniture, read by Samuel West, finished on 28th October. This was a book I had read in print but not since I have been keeping detailed records, so at least ten years ago. I thought I remebered it well but there was a lot I had forgotten. It's not a 'serious' novel but rather better than what I would classify as 'chicklit'. The best part of it was the reading by Samuel West. It was the first reading by him that I have listened to and he goes on to my list of favourite readers, which already contains his parents.

The main reason I haven't been keeping my thread updated is lack of time and inclination because my father is in hospital and we have my mother staying with us. What started as a short stay in hospital to sort out a few minor problems and to enable the house to be adapted for someone with more limited movement has changed to an indefinite stay with more serious implications. At the moment it seems unlikely that, if he does leave hospital, he will be able to go home again but modern treatments can do wonders so we are not giving up yet.

Oh Kerry. Glad you're finding time to tuck into a book, given the circumstances.

Oh dear, I'm so sorry to hear that Kerry. So much to sort out, and an emotional roller coaster too.

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad's health problems. I know from experience how stressful it can be. Here's hoping for the best possible outcome.

Kerry> I think a lot of us can empathize with the aging parent challenges.

Time to get my thread re-started.

The reason for the long silence was the illness and death of my father. He was in hospital for only two and a half weeks before he died, although it seemed a long time as it happened. His condition deteriorated quickly but once the problem was diagnosed, and we knew that he wouldn’t survive, we all had time to say good-bye. My mother, my sister and I spent the last hours at his bedside. He was comfortable, sleeping quietly and his breathing just got shallower until it stopped – a truly peaceful end. We were all glad to have been there.

Being in the business, the funeral was easy to arrange and my mother was able to have things as she wanted without the stress of having to deal with people she didn’t know. My husband took the service, my daughter’s boyfriend designed and printed the orders of service and played the organ, and I wrote (with Mum’s editorial oversight!) and delivered the eulogy and sorted the rest of the music.

My mother has gone home now after staying with us for nearly six weeks. She wanted to be back in her own home but it’s a bad time of year to start living alone. I thought of persuading her to stay until Christmas, when she will be coming back anyway, but she felt that if she didn’t go back soon it would just get harder. My sister and I will visit more often than we did before.

Although my mother was an easy guest it did mean that my usual routines were changed and I certainly spent less time on my computer and less time reading. But I did do some reading and finished seven books during November:

Have His Carcase, finished 4th November. I enjoyed this although I skipped over all the code breaking detail.
The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, finished 7th November. The ninth in the Isabel Dalhousie series and just as good as the others.
Princesses: The six daughters of George III, finished 8th November. Biographies of the daughters of George III told mostly through their extensive correspondence. They have tended to be marginalised in all the historical novels of the period that I’ve read, with the princes being more important, so I was pleased to have found out more about them.
The Spanish Bride, finished 12th November. Not one of more enjoyable Heyers for me. There was too much description of the battles and other military details - I prefer more witty conversation and shallow social activities!
Do not Pass Go, finished 16th November. This was a history and description of the bits of London that feature on the Monopoly board and that made it a bit random, although quite interesting and humorously written.
You, Fascinating You, finished 17th November. This was an ER book so I must write a proper review.
The Pigeon Pie Mystery, finished 24th November. I was a bit disappointed in this as the description made it sound better than it was. It was a Victorian mystery set in Hampton Court Palace, but all the characters were too quirky and eccentric to be believable in any way but not enough to be farcical.

All of these seven books were ebooks. I've been very pleased to own a kindle this month, as I often found myself having to wait around unexpectedly.

Now it's December I've looked out my Christmas reading. I read a chapter a day of The Christmas Mystery as an Advent calendar and when I've finished my current audiobook - Can you forgive her? - I shall listen to my favourite reading of A Christmas Carol. As well as re-reading old favourites I have some new books, including Ten days at Christmas, to try this year, and of course I shall be continuing with my non-Christmas Currently Reading books.

Kerry, please accept my condolences to you and your family for the loss of your father. I'm glad for you that the end was peaceful, even if it came much sooner than you would have hoped. Your mini-reviews have reminded me that I enjoy the "Isabel Dalhousie" series and need to get back to it. I'm about to start my first-ever Heyer, and I'm glad it's not the one you reviewed as that one sounds a bit of a slog. The London Monopoly book sounds fun.

Kerry - I'm so sorry about your father, it's a hard time no matter how it goes.
I'm honored that you stopped by my thread today, so soon after your return to LT. I hope you indulge yourself fully in reading only books you are really enjoying! So therapeutic!

Kerry, I'm so sorry to hear you lost your father recently. I'm glad you had time to be together. I'm sure you'll be a great source of support for your mum this holiday season.

Thank you to all my visitors for your kind thoughts. LT is such a caring community.

I haven't finished any books since last week although I have done a lot of reading. Several of my Currently Reading books are very long but I think I shall finish several at once quite soon. The current list includes:

The Christmas Mystery. This is my advent calendar so I can't finish it before Christmas Eve!
The Pillars of the House, a huge Victorian doorstop of a book, fortunately I have it on kindle.
Can you forgive her?, my current audio book, only six chapters to go.
Mary Poppins: the complete collection, this Amazon bargain is lovely for dipping into and reading a chapter or two. I expect it was released to coincide with the new Disney film. There was also an excellent documentary about P. L. Travers on BBC recently.
The Castle of Wolfenbach I can't go any faster than Madeleine for this as it's her tutored thread. Although it's quite short it's as complicated as any other Gothic novel so slow and steady is probably best anyway.

As I finish these I shall be moving on to some Christmas reading. My next audiobook will certainly be A Christmas Carol, read by Anton Lesser and I have some new light (Chicklit) novels to read as well as some old favourites to take me through December.

My reading total increased this week:

Can you forgive her?, finished 8th December. This was the audio version, read by Timothy West and it was wonderful. Trollope's conversational style suits being read aloud and Timothy West is an excellent reader. This was the first time I've read this story and I enjoyed it very much. George was a wonderful villain and I was so relieved that John Gray prevented Alice from making herself (and him) unhappy even if I didn't quite approve of his 'masterfulness'. The light relief provided by Aunt Greenow was lovely, too.

The Pillars of the House, finished 11th December. This was hard work but worthwhile. I'm glad I had a Kindle version as I wouldn't have had the strength to carry around a print version.

Six Geese a-laying, finished 12th December. This was really only a short story - a pastiche of A Christmas Carol applied to an ante-natal class - but it is seasonal and easy to read. (And free.)

Mary Poppins: the complete collection, finished 15th December. This was a lovely nostalgic read. Although I love the film - I was just the right age when it was first released - I like the books more.

I've reached 157 books but several are duplicates - print and audio at the same time - and some are so short as not to really count. I'll decide on a final total at the end of the year.

My Currently Reading collection has a seasonal flavour. After finishing Can you forgive her? I wasn't quite ready for the audio A Christmas Carol so I'm listening to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets read by Stephen Fry. There's always a Christmas chapter so I'm still getting my seasonal input.

In print I'm reading my daily chapter of The Christmas Mystery, following along with Madeleine's tutored read of The Castle of Wolfenbach, although I have fallen a little behind, dipping in to The Illustrated Christmas Cracker and I'm getting ready to start some serious Christmas books.

I thought I'd just catch up with your thread, Kerry, and was very sorry to hear about the loss of your father. My thoughts are with you and your family.

Sorry to hear about your dad, Kerry. How far away is your mum? And your sister? I can sort of understand the idea of going back to her house for a few weeks now, with returning to you at Christmas ahead. Any time is going to be hard.

I've read the first two or three Mary Poppins books recently and I'm fascinated by her as a children's book character - all that edginess. It's forever since I've been to the cinema but I'm quite curious to see the new film about P L Travers, Saving Mr Banks, despite the mixed reviews.

Thank you Dee and Luci for your kind thoughts. Christmas is over now so I think for my Mum it is one of the dreaded First Times crossed off the list. She has gone to stay with one of her sisters for New Year, my sister and her husband have gone home (and then straight away on holiday) and Clare and Richard have gone back to Cheshire so we are back to the usual number in the house.

I had better get my final lists of the year written before I start next year's thread!

Since my last report, two weeks ago, I have finished twelve books. It is not quite as impressive as it sounds as several of them are short Christmas reads:

The Illustrated Christmas Cracker, finished 17th December. This was a small anthology collected by John Julius Norwich and very nicely illustrated by Quentin Blake. This was an ebook but I read it on my tablet so that I could better appreciate the coloured pictures.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, read by Stephen Fry, finished 17th December.
The Provincial Lady in America, finished 18th December. I've only read these once this year.
Is it just me?, finished 22nd December. This was an easy, amusing read, good for the time of year but it won't be a high point of this year's reading.
Christmas at Thompson Hall, finished 23rd December. This was a short story, appropriate to the season. I'm ready for the next Trollope group read, it's Last Chronicle of Barset, isn't it?
Jeeves and the Yule-tide spirit, finished 23rd December. Another seasonal short story. I've not read any other Jeeves and Wooster before although I've loved the Blandings series and some stand-alone books, so this is a promising start to a new series for 2014.
A Child's Christmas in Wales, read by the author, finished 24th December. A usual part of my Christmas celebrations.
Village Christmas, read by June Barrie. I listened to this in the early hours of Christmas day, waiting for my husband to return from Midnight Mass.
The Tailor of Gloucester, finished 28th December. Keeping up the Christmas reading.
The Christmas Mystery, finished 29th December. I usually read a chapter a day through December as my advent calendar but I got left behind after a few days this year, so I finished this in one chunk. It never fails to entrance me.
China Court, finished 30th December. I think this is my favourite Rumer Godden (unless it's The Dolls' House or Miss Happiness and Miss Flower or In this house of Brede or ...) and I spent some of my Christmas money on a kindle edition, although I shall be keeping my paper copy as well. I like Rumer Godden's non-chronological narratives, which don't explain everything.

There's still one more day of this year left and I am close to the end of my current audio book - Winter in Thrush Green - but I doubt I shall finish another print book, which gives me tomorrow to do an end of year resumé and start next year's thread.

Kerry, I am coming to this sad news terribly late but my most sincere condolences to you and yours nonetheless. Having gone through a similar experience a dozen years ago with my own father, you have my heartfelt understanding and compassion for all that this entails. Best wishes for your mom. How lucky you are to have a sister to help you. And I'm glad you're finding the time and space in which to read. I reread A Child's Christmas in Wales every Christmas. It is one of my most favourite stories. Warm thoughts to you.

Well, I did finish some more books:

Twin Beds: Christmas at Heartbreak Hotel, finished 30th December. This was a seasonal short story using characters and settings from Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach, which I haven't yet read, but this was promising.
The Christmas Mouse, finished 31st December. I wasn't ready to start something new so I read through this old favourite to finish off a year's reading.

I have 170 books in my 2013 Reading collection, the most since my LibraryThing record keeping began in 2007. 114 were ebooks, 28 were audiobooks, which means that 28 were paper books. I have only read 165 different titles as five were reading along with audio books.

What surprised me most was that 123 were new books and only 42 were re-reads. As the year went on I thought that I was doing more re-reading especially during the time when I needed comfort reading.

Of my five star reads only one was a new book (Bring up the bodies), but 4 new books got 4½ stars and 47 got four stars and I think some might be re-classified upwards.

As well as these I started and abandoned 6 books this year, some within the first chapter but some I did get quite a long way through before stopping. In these cases there was no conscious decision to abandon I just noticed that it was a long time since I had read any. I still have some books in my Currently Reading collection that I haven’t read for a long time but I still think I will finish them.

Now, onwards! I will be starting a new thread for 2014 and I hope any readers will follow me there.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/163303

This is my new thread for 2014.