What Are You Reading the Week of 9 February 2013?

Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–1847). Lamb has been referred to by E.V. Lucas, his principal biographer, as "the most lovable figure in English literature."

Charles Lamb suffered from a stutter and this "an inconquerable impediment" in his speech disqualified him for a clerical career. While Coleridge and other scholarly boys were able to go on to Cambridge, Lamb left school at fourteen and was forced to find a more prosaic career. For a short time he worked in the office of Joseph Paice, a London merchant and then, for 23 weeks, until 8 February 1792, held a small post in the Examiner's Office of the South Sea House. Its subsequent downfall in a pyramid scheme after Lamb left would be contrasted to the company's prosperity in the first Elia essay. On 5 April 1792 he went to work in the Accountant's Office for British East India Company, the death of his father's employer having ruined the family's fortunes.Charles would continue to work there for 25 years, until his retirement with pension.

Charles and his sister Mary both suffered periods of mental illness. Charles spent six weeks in a psychiatric hospital during 1795. He was, however, already making his name as a poet.

On 22 September 1796, a terrible event occurred: Mary, "worn down to a state of extreme nervous misery by attention to needlework by day and to her mother at night," was seized with acute mania and stabbed her mother to the heart with a table knife.

Although there was no legal status of "insanity" at the time, a jury returned a verdict of "Lunacy" and therefore freed her from guilt of willful murder. With the help of friends Lamb succeeded in obtaining his sister's release from what would otherwise have been lifelong imprisonment, on the condition that he take personal responsibility for her safekeeping. Lamb used a large part of his relatively meagre income to keep his beloved sister in a private "madhouse" in Islington called Fisher House.

Despite Lamb's own bouts of melancholia and alcoholism, both he and his sister enjoyed an active and rich social life. Their London quarters became a kind of weekly salon for many of the most outstanding theatrical and literary figures of the day. Charles Lamb, having been to school with Samuel Coleridge, counted Coleridge as perhaps his closest, and certainly his oldest, friend. On his deathbed, Coleridge had a mourning ring sent to Lamb and his sister. Fortuitously, Lamb's first publication was in 1796, when four sonnets by "Mr. Charles Lamb of the India House" appeared in Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects. In 1797 he contributed additional blank verse to the second edition, and met the Wordsworths, William and Dorothy, on his short summer holiday with Coleridge at Nether Stowey, thereby also striking up a lifelong friendship with William. In London, Lamb became familiar with a group of young writers who favoured political reform, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt.

He died of a streptococcal infection, erysipelas, contracted from a minor graze on his face sustained after slipping in the street, on 27 December 1834, just a few months after Coleridge. He was 59. From 1833 till their deaths Charles and Mary lived at Bay Cottage, Church Street, Edmonton north of London (now part of the London Borough of Enfield. Lamb is buried in All Saints' Churchyard, Edmonton. His sister, who was ten years his senior, survived him for more than a dozen years. She is buried beside him.

Text and photo from Wikipedia

I started this early in case Snowmageddon hits and I lose power.

Love the material on Charles Lamb. (I love essays, too.) Have just finished a book and have several possibles in mind. May go with Elizabeth Taylor's A game of hide and seek

Not sure whether we're supposd to start using this thread yet or wait until the week is up. Marking it anyway! Thanks for another great start Richard, hope you and everyone else in the area gets through the weather saflely and warmly.

ETA - I'm reading A Red Herring Without Mustard.

Richard, I've been keeping my eye on the forecast in Hempstead (I'm the one with the daughter at Hofstra) and wow, looks like a doozy. Hope you all get through it without losing power or anything else like that. There was enough of that already!

I'll go ahead and post what I'm reading here, because it's not going to change anytime soon. Reading Schindler's List, The Glass Key (which, at 1/3 through, I'm not enjoying as much as I thought I might) and listening to Washington: A Life.

I hope you come through Snowmaggeddon intact, Richard! :) We're preparing to be blasted next by Nemo as he blows through New York. I'm praying that we don't lose power ourselves.

Anyway, I finished reading The Naked Face, Sidney Sheldon's debut novel last night. I don't think that I've ever read an inferior or unsatisfactory book by Sidney Sheldon - he was a wonderful author, in my opinion! :) Now, on to reading The Gathering by Anne Enright, which I started reading today. After that, I'll be reading They Always Call us Ladies: Stories From Prison by Jean Harris.

It's looking more and more like a BIG blast is headed here, Ursula, so i hope your daughter is prepared...batteries, lantern, personal stash of cookies...the essentials for dorm life, IMO.

It's fine with me if the thread starts up today, I'm not that much of a control freak, but I hope y'all will still visit the previous one, too.

I am still smiling my way thru Merivel A Man Of His Time by Rose Tremain, in all, a joyous read.

I will be reading the children's novel Splendors & Glooms which sounds promising.

I will be reading the third and final book in the trilogy midnighters. It's called Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld.

Stay safe all in New England..I am so done with winter! We are 18 to24".. Oh goodie... And thanks Richard for starting us early..hope ur power stays on!

>9 Iudita::Iudita, I loved Splendors and Glooms as I have all of Laura Amy Schlitz's books. Happy reading!

Hope everyone stays safe in the storm. I am ready to get snowed in for the weekend: got takeout & a couple of kindle books going: Behind the Beautiful Forevers & a YA novel Love and Other Perishable Items By Laura Buzo set in Australia. Like this one a lot so far!

I've written my review of the curiously monotonous, though quite well-written, collection of Southern American Black Male stories called I Got Somebody in Staunton. I gave it three stars. Review is in my thread...post #19.

How I wish I could have been more enthused.

Happy Snowmageddon from cheerily lit Long Island! May it stay this way.

Nada. Content to wait for hold at library to come through: An Invisible Thread, Laura Schroff. Guess it is the snow.

Broke down and picked up Mr. Blue by Myles Connolly; just couldn't wait for the library and it is almost Lent.

humph, didn't have River of Smoke or Bring up the Bodies at the library - both out.

I am excited about what I did bring home though; Doc, looking forward to starting that, 2 short story collections (noted in the short story thread), Barbara Anderson's autobiography Getting There (NZ author), and Freddy Mercury; His Life in his own Words.

On the last few pages of Every Last One, so now will have to decide which of the above is next.

>9 Iudita:, 12 I just finished and also really enjoyed Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz, my latest favorite children's fantasy author. Now am listening to yet another Jack Reacher thriller, The Affair, set in 1997 before he left the military, and am going to start Angel's Blood by Nalini Singh for Fantasy February.

Happy weekend, everybody, and please stay safe and as warm as possible, all you New Englanders.

Thanks for the great start, Richard! The Lambs' background story is intrigueing! I hope that you and everyone in the storm's path are safe and warm! Having lived in So Cal my whole life, I've never had to deal with that kind of weather, but it does sound like a great excuse to read all day!

I am currently reading Temple of a Thousand Faces by John Shors. My reading mojo's just a tad slow through no fault of the book. I'm loving the story, whch is about 12th Century Khmer. The enemy Chams have routed the Khmer from Angkor, and the
Angkor king and his wife are in exile, hiding in the jungle, and beginning a plan to take Angkor back with stray Khmer forces. I am enjoying both the plot and the writng style. Shors is nicely descriptive of the setting and the characters. Even more minor characters shine.

We New Englanders who woke up with power this morning are doing just fine. Can't say as much for the poor folks who are in the cold and dark. We've got two feet and still falling. It's so gorgeous when it first falls and you're cozy and warm inside. Shoveling and snow blowing is on the menu for this afternoon, but meanwhile....

am curling up with Margaret Talbot's The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and my Father's Twentieth Century. The author's dad was the character actor Lyle Talbot and the story is just great.

Still working on The Dark Monk and The Silmarillion.

Finally finished Parade's End and brought home my next stack from the 1000 novels. Read The Uncommon Reader and loved it. On to Millenium People.

Thanks for starting the thread, Richard, despite impending doom. Hopefully your stash of cookies and books will sustain you!

I'm still reading a story a day from Everything's Eventual by Stephen King. I've been surprised at the variety of stories: everything from the Dillinger gang to a gunslinger held captive by vampire nuns.

If I have time after finishing a story then I read The Midwife (now published under the title Call the Midwife) by Jennifer Worth. My book club chose this one for February. I've only read a little but so far it's interesting.

#23, I finished The Midwife a couple of months ago and the sequel Shadows of the Workhouse is on my TBR list.

Finished the YA novel Love and other Perishable Items, a sweet tale set in Australia. I am still 1/3 of the way into Behind the Beautiful Forevers. I really want to like this one, but every time I pick it up, I seem to fall asleep!

Long Island's Snowmageddon produced ~14in/30cm of snow...or, as we called it before cable TV news, "it snowed last night." Sunshine and light breezes now, so our front lawn looks like fairyland.

#25 richarderrus -my friends in milford Connecticut where I will soon be moving to are dealing with 38inches of snoe-eek!

Stay safe and warm all who were hit my the little bit (ha ha) of snow yesterday and last nite. Hopefully no one lost power either.

It looks like my little corner of the world dodged another bullet! Yay for me, boo for those all snowed under (literally).

I finally got up the nerve to write a review of Guards! Guards!. It's in my Orphans thread...post #38.

It only got three stars because there are a couple of quotes I liked enough to add to my collection.

I started Old Filth by Jane Gardam and Outlander by Diane Gabaldon

I'm almost at the halfway point in Galore by Michael Crummey and it's starting to shape up as a 5 star read. Myth, fable, rich quirky characters, ghosts that seem all too real, rich, rich language, metaphor---need I say more? I literally cannot put it down. Absolutely delightful. And to think that it's been sitting on my shelf for over two years.

Just starting Doc so far so good.

#23 I loved Call the Midwife

# 30..It is a must to follow up Old Filth with The Man In The Wooden Hat also by Jane Gardam, it is a companion novel and clears up a few mysteries!! these two are among my favorites, Jane Gardam has also written a third novel that includes the characters from the earlier books Last Friends it will be released in April.. BTW I have preordered this one from Amazon.

#34 thank you hazeljune I do have the Man in The Wooden Hat and will immediately move it to the top of Mt TBR

I love Jane Gardam's work and Old Filth was one of my favourites. I didn't realize that The Man in the Wooden Hat was related. I'll have to find that one too.

Reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers which is good, but disturbing; still reading Three Sisters and listening to Peaches for Monsieur le Cure which I am a bit disappointed in so far.

#36, I am now 2/3 of the way through Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Interesting so far, although I am not loving it like I expected to due to all the publicity about it. That always ruins it for me!

>33 NovaLee: Almost the whole reason I got going on Goodreads was so I'd have a place to put my collection of quotes!

I've written my review of How to Be Alone: Essays, Jonathan Franzen's collection of personal reflections, over in my Orphans thread...post #42.

Underwhelmed.

I keep quotes on my reading journal blog. I love flipping back through them.

OK, I'm late to the party but have to chime in on Dickens. After reading Little Dorrit I wanted to spit on his head and kick him in the whatevers; however, reading Dodger and Mrs. Woolf and the Servants gave me an appreciation of his ability to publicize the plight of the lower class people who he showed as actually human beings with feelings, intelligence, morals and abilities. So as a person (as evidenced by his treatment of his wife) he seemed to be reprehensible, as a novelist unbearable, but as a promoter of the social good he deserves kudos. And I did like A Tale of Two Cities.

My reading for the week:
On audio: Outdoors I just finished and loved Roots, a great addition to American literature. Next up is one that many folk seem to love, Tigana.
Indoors I'm about 3/5 through Call it Sleep and enjoying it very much.
On paper: I have to put aside the wonderful Cutting for Stone for now in order to read two early onset Alzheimer's books for my RL book club Friday: a reread of the wonderful novel Still Alice and Thomas De Baggio's account of his own bout with the condition, Losing My Mind: An Intimate Look at Life with Alzheimer's. As part of my physical last week, the nurse practitioner gave me an Alzheimer's screening. It was frightening just knowing what she was checking.
On Nook: alas, I'm not yet finished with Bad Blood but should be this week never again to entangle myself in anything by Lorna Sage.

I'm about a quarter of the way through The Noble Revolt: The Overthrow of Charles I. Something tells me that it's going to take me most of this month to finish. The book is not just dry, it's desicated. Which is a shame since it could be such an interesting topic. It might be good as like a third or fourth book on the topic, but not your first.

I finished Lisa Cohen's All We Know: Three Lives, a remarkable book about the lives of three women who came of age in the 1920s, women whose lives reveal so much about the cultural revolution of that period (in art, literature, music, fashion, sexual attitudes, etc.). The book is also about biography itself - what we can know, what we can never know.

It took me awhile to read the book because I kept taking the time to read more about and by so many of the people who influenced and/or were influenced by these three women. I read Edith Wharton's story, "The Angel at the Grave" and essays by Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. I found many of the paintings and examples of architecture and design of the period (1920s-1950s) on the internet.

This is a wonderufl book and I think an important one. It immerses you in the times and gives you much to think about.

Books lead to other books -- the one I am reading now is discussed in Cohen's book: The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography

Now reading Daphne du Maurier's Cornwall, (a friend and I plan to do some of the walks from The House on the Strand} if we get a summer this year) and Them: adventures with extremists by Jon Ronson.

Still going on The Nature of Things (the parts that aren't warped-physics-textbook are *excellent*). Started The End of Your Life Book Club and looks really good so far. Also still going on Where'd You Go Bernadette. And am about halfway through an ER read (my first!): Because I'm Small Now and You Love Me. Or, at least, those are the ones I'm actively reading at the moment.

Just finished the wonderful Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain. Great novella! Now on to another book which had been on my shelf for many years, Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.

Townie - author Andre DuBus III has a great New England voice.

Just started The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and continuing Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search For Identity by Andrew Solomon. The Solomon book is excellent, but I needed some fiction counterbalance.

My Mom took a bad spill on ice (we were doing our daily walk to the library) and fractured her humerus and shoulder in multiple places. It was a horrible and scary time. So I have been @ the ER and helping my Dad around their house. My poor Mom is in severe and constant pain - the medication is not helping much. To orthopedic doc tomorrow to get an expert opinion on matters to see if there is anything else she can do.

So I have not had time (or headspace) to read. But I was almost finished with Part One of 2666 which I (kinda surprisingly) continue to enjoy, very much.

Hi,

Since taking up writing I have little time left for reading, and too often I end up rereading what I write - is that sad or what?!

But I do still get some reading in, and for some reason it too lately has been stuff I read as a much younger man. Currently I'm working my way through the incomplete enchanter series, Le Sprague De Camp. It's an enjoyable ride even if its nowhere near serious.

Cheers, Greg.

#48 Carolyn -I hope your mom feels better

#48 Your poor Mum. I hope she recovers quickly.

Oh, Carolyn, I'm so sorry about your mom. Damn, getting older is no fun. On the bright side, my doc just told me that older women have tough pancreases, that doesn't help her current situation, but at least it's a benefit.
I finished Bad Blood and have to say that the ending almost made up for the rest of the memoir. Some of the print reviews call it tenderly written, an exuberant celebration, generous. I'm going to say no to all of that. One reviewer said it described a time in English villages that England continues to run from - that comes closest to my perception. But intelligence, books and education saved the day, so I guess that will save me from throwing my Nook against the wall. Next up, Ape House.

Carolyn, sorry to hear your mom's in a lot of pain. How old is she?

My sympathies also for your mother, Carolyn.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for your Mom, Carolyn.

Currently I'm reading Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. It was recommended to me, but the cover drew me in also! :)

Boston Miscellany by William Marchione
Reprints of his columns on Boston history

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan
1st novel of his "Riyria Revelations" trilogy. Originally these were e-books, now in print.

I am currently reading Adam & Eve which was a Christmas present from my oldest son and the first time he has picked out a book for me on his own. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time getting into it which is very disappointing because I found the idea of the story so interesting. Hopefully, it will draw me in more as I go on reading.

Carolyn I hope ur Mom feels better soon and out of pain.

Just started The Silver Linings Playbook. Quirky, but I am enjoying it. Sort of a "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" lite.

Major happy healthy now *whammy* for your mom, Carolyn. So sorry to learn of this.

Healing wishes to yoyr mother, Carolyn! And you take care of yourself as well.

Hi Carolyn,

Just read your post, hadn't noticed it before. Sorry to hear about your mother but the good news is that fractures heal. I sadly know from experience having broken enough bones. And one of my injuries was fractures of the shoulder and the collar bone from playing squash. Apparently concrete walls don't buckle when you dive sideways into them to get the ball after all!)

I remember being very sore for a while, and having to keep my entire arm immobilised for weeks, but it came right.

Cheers, Greg.

Best wishes to your Mum Carolyn, sounds extremely painful. Hope they get the pain dealt with soon and she can be on the road to recovery.

Well, I didn't even make it through 1 CD of Tigana. What I heard of it was an all male cast talking exclusively about warfare and pride. It sounded to me something like the adults in a Peanuts cartoon - "waw, waw, waw." Instead I started Divergent by Veronica Roth - a dystopian novel about different factions of citizens based on their personality types which is populated by both males and females who have equal talents, intelligence and abilities. Just what I need.

So sorry to hear about your mum Carolyn. No sooner have our parents stopped worrying about us falling down and hurting ourselves than we have to start worrying about them doing the same thing. I do hope she feels better soon and stays off the ice from now on.

Sorry to hear about your mom, Carolyn. Don't forget that it's important to take time for you, also as you're helping out. It's so important.

I continue to read When Christ and His Saints Slept and have reached the halfway mark in it. I like this book because it is fiction and makes no pretense to be anything else. Even if it is historical. I am listening to Robopocalypse and am enjoying that one. I also continue to work on Life of Pi off and on for my book discussion group.

Glad to hear that all of you made it through the snow storm. I agree with Richard about the hype accompanying storms these days. One of these days people are going to stop paying attention as the little boy who cried wolf syndrome is going to kick in. I just don't see how all the hyperbole about how many inches of snow is falling per hour and standing out in the glare of lights just to be on TV broadcasting something encourages people to stay in and off the roads. In fact I think it does the opposite. Besides, I listen to the forecast every morning on the radio and dress and plan my day accordingly. I don't have to watch the hyperbolic weather channel to do that. Thank god for good old fashioned radio forecasts from the National Weather Service.

Carolyn - sorry to hear about your mother. My parents have a step on the north side of their house to get down to their garage, and I worry about that slippery step all the time.

I'm currently reading the wonderful Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I love Gaiman's humor and compassion.

I finished Officers and Gentlemen, the second book in Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honor" series. The series delivers an excellent, dark comedy as we follow Guy Crouchback in his efforts to make a meaningful contribution to the British war effort in World War Two. "Sword of Honor" is a satire on, in no particular order, war, bureaucracy, and the English class system. Fun and wicked, although a bit darker than the first book in the series, Men at Arms.

Now I'm reading Out There in the Woods: the Day-by-Day Account of the Extraordinary 36-day Manhunt for a Double-Murderer on the Northern California Coast by Stephen Sparks and Tom Allman. Steve Sparks is a writer living here in Anderson Valley, Mendocino County, where I live, too. Tom Allman is the county sheriff. This book is more or less Allman's account of this event, as told to Sparks (who is a friend of mine). In early 2011, a disturbed individual named Aaron Bassler killed two well-known local figures with a long-range rifle. The murders occurred a few days apart and both took place in relatively remote areas of the vast public forest land that stretches all over this part of Northern California. The book was published just a few weeks ago (I have them for sale in my store) and is generating a lot of local response. This was a huge event around here while it was happening, as Bassler was an expert woodsman who eluded capture, as the title says, for 36 days. People were on edge, to put it mildly, because the fellow was obviously disturbed, armed and liable to turn up anywhere. Definitely interesting reading, and I don't think you have to live in the area to appreciate it. The book is self-published, and that shows in spots, but not enough to mute the interest.

I finished and REVIEWED Michael Crummey's glorious novel Galore. Absolutely loved it.

Now I'm reading A Buyer's Market, the second novella in Vol 1 of A Dance to the Music of Time.

**I hope you mother makes a good recovery Carolyn.

Thank you, RD, for another great start to the week!

I'm nearly done with The Paris Wife and like it a lot more than I did at the start. I think it's fascinating and well done! I'm also close to finishing the audio of Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend which is unique and well read but a bit on the repetitive side.

I'm anxious to get going with The Deep Blue Good-By, John D MacDonald's first Travis McGee book. I read a few in the series a couple of decades ago and was happy to find it available as an ebook through the library.

I finished up Splendors and Glooms today and really enjoyed it. Tonight I started Indian Horse and although I am only 50 pages in, I am loving this book. I didn't want to put it down. If the rest of the book continues like this, it will surely be one of my favourites for the year. Boy I'm having a great reading week!

What am I missing with the two flagged messages above (#69/72)? Although they're both from new members who have no other books catalogued, I don't see any real evidence that there's anything flaggable about them. Am I being obtuse?

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, for the well wishes for my Mama. Things are okay, she needs surgery (Wed.) as the bone is inverted and there are at least 3 fractures, possibly more. So a plate, some screws and a such, and hopefully recovery and prognosis are excellent and she should not be restricted in the future. But the pain is unreal, still, so will be glad when the surgery is underway to take the pressure off that inversion/fracture (it causes spasms and internal bleeding too). My Mom is 69 (almost 70). We did see the ice and tried to avoid it, and somehow she stepped wrong and went down. It happened about two blocks from her house, on a townhome property's parkway section of the driveway (sidewalks here are public and the homeowner or association has to maintain the parkways). It was just a bizarre accumulation of ice on a decline. It has been a stressful, sad and confusing time - she is VERY active (as am I) and we are walking buddies, and actually do like Winter, so our joys are a little bent out of shape. It will all be okay. Working on keeping spirits up more than anything.

I finished the first movement and am also almost done with the second in 2666. I finally had a chunk of time to sit and read last night. I am still really enjoying it, but have no idea how/if it is going anywhere. But for some strange reason, that does not bother me. I love the wandering, pensive, questioning look at so many of life's mysteries. I will definitely need something a bit more cheerful after this one though!

>Booklsoth: Perhaps they are too commercial, promoting their own website or Amazon.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mom, Carolyn! I broke my tailbone, slipping on icy stairs almost 30 years ago. It took a long, long time to heal and in extremely cold weather, I still get a prickling twinge along my tailbone whenever I'm outside. It doesn't really hurt, but I think that it's just my tailbone warning me to go carefully on ice.

I finished reading The Gathering by Anne Enright on Saturday. She definitely is a very talented writer, in my opinion. The writing is very lyrical and evocative, and I so wanted to like the book more than I did because of that. The line between fantasy and reality was just too blurred for my liking and I just couldn't figure out what actually happened and what Veronica imagined. Oh Well!

I immediately started reading They Always Call us Ladies: Stories From Prison by Jean Harris on Saturday night. It's good so far, I think, however it is a little dry and boring with all the facts and figures.

#70
Years ago I read Piece of Cake about the RAF at the beginning of WWII and loved it. Last fall I read the rest of that RAF trilogy by Derek Robinson and disliked it as the other two novels were satires on the state of things during the war. They were totally unexpected in attitude and tone. Either that or I misread the first novel in the series and missed the satire in that book. If you liked the Waugh book you might try this trilogy.

#78

I liked The Gathering but had much of the same reaction to it that you did. I think it was another of those family study books, where each member of the family sees things differently. The writing was fantastic.

I'm reading J.K. Rowling. I started The Casual Vacancy as I've recently moved into a community similar to the one described! I can't yet decide whether the tone in the book sneers at the characters or whether the author isn't taking sides and instead is asking the reader to judge.

#79> Thanks! I may well check in to those. I still have one more book to go in the Sword of Honor trilogy.

Question, though: Are you sure those other two books are part of a series with Piece of Cake? I ask because the book's work page doesn't list it as part of a series. That might account for the difference in tone. Obviously, you've read the books and I haven't; just wondering.

Finished Proud Shoes and started Carolina Moon.

Finished The Dark Monk by Oliver Pötzsch and started Blood Maidens by Barbara Hambly.

#81
FictFact counts them as a trilogy as does Amazon, but that doesn't mean anything. I wondered about the difference in tone because it was so jarring. However, the last two seemed more like Catch 22 than like Piece of Cake.

#84> For what it's worth, wikipedia simply labels them all, "Novels set in RAF squadrons during the Second World War" without calling them a series per se. They were written fairly far apart: 1983, 1993 and 2002. That might account for a difference in tone between the first and the second two. Anyway, that's my wikipedia report. :)

Read All Creatures Great and Small and now am starting Cold Mountain.

Fuzzi, you've got quite a contrast there. Are you going to dive into the next Herriot book after Cold Mountain to get warm again?

I'm rereading Maggie: a Girl of the Streets because I read it a couple of days ago then realised I hadn't taken in a single word (no fault of the book, it was because my mind was on other things). I'm also continuing my personal du Maurier readathon with Rule Britannia.

@nhlsecord, I'm not sure what will be next. I've got a bunch of new books (new to me) sitting on my 2013 shelf, so it depends on my mood when (if?) I finish Cold Mountain.

I like reading all sorts of different stuff. The only books I avoid are scary/graphic stories, as I don't handle them well. When I read Nineteen Eighty Four, I had nightmares...

I have almost finished The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett and love it. I can't stop saying crivens! This is the first discworld book I've read, and it won't be the last.

I am reading Sarah's Key. I am finding that as with many novels that fluctuate between the past and present day, one is much stronger than the other (I prefer the sections that take place in the past).

#88 Booksloth I like the sound of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets will add that to my TBR list.

#91 mynovelthoughts I forgot Sarah's Key was based on a book, I have seen the movie but would much rather read the book - also adding to my TBR list :o)

I am still on Doc and enjoying it very much, just not getting much time to read at the moment.

My son was amazed yesterday when he showed me the book they are reading in Year 10 English at the moment, The Outsiders, and I told him I too read it at his age (14) but had to hide it from parents and teachers as it wasn't approved of - too rebellious! How times have changed. I felt like a fossil!

>92 FionaWh: That comment about The Outsiders makes me wonder if it was controversial at all that we read it in 9th grade in small-town Kansas back in 1985.

It does make you wonder Ursula, this would have been the mid-70s, maybe a decade made all the difference, I don't know. I know some books that were well read here in NZ weren't regarded as appropriate in the US and vice versa.
Thank goodness we are free to read whatever we like in our parts of the world :o) I can't begin to imagine what it would be like not being able to read freely.

Finished and reviewed The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, Volt: Stories, and All Roads Lead to Austen. Now I'm a good ways into Scarlet, the followup to Cinder.

I've reviewed Death of a Cozy Writer, first in a series about Inspector St. Just the Cornish policeman, in my thread...post #34.

This series by author G.M. Malliet is one I will follow, unlike her later Max Tudor series which got off on the wring foot with me.

I have sadly finished Merivel:A Man Of His Time by Rose Tremain, I have now been captured by The Pretty Girl Novella and Stories by Debra Spark, it shows great promise., I am fascinated by Aunt Rose .It will be interesting to read the short stories.

Well I fnished Indian Horse and I loved it. I'm sure it will be one of my favourites for 2013. Tommorrow I start The Quality of Mercy.

Finished Behind the Beautiful Forevers which was good but I felt compromised while reading it. It is a non fiction book that reads like fiction. I found myself enjoying the story but had to keep stopping to remind myself that these were real people not characters. So, a difficult read for me.

Now I am reading Tell the Wolves I`m Home which I am liking.

I finished Call It Sleep and was disappointed that with all the stories available to a talented writer writing about the immigrant experience Henry Roth had to go the Woody Allen route and concentrate on sex and the budding young rapist. Now I've started Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, which I hope will be much better.

Also reviewed the amateur-sleuth cozy, set behind the scenes at a zoo, called The Anteater of Death in my thread...post #35.

I haven't read Call it Sleep so can't compare but I thought Wild Swans was excellent both as a story and as insight into life in China.

So, I finished reading They Always Call us Ladies: Stories From Prison by Jean Harris last night. It did eventually improve slightly about halfway through the book, although the book still wound up being incredibly dry and boring, being so filled with facts, figures and statistics. Anyway, I just started reading Somebody Else's Daughter by Elizabeth Brundage last night and am really getting into it! :)

I started Above All Things by Tanis Rideout last night and I think it is going to be a spectacular read.

I am reading The Thieves of Legend and so far the man is perfect, the lady is perfect, their friends are perfect, and it's like watching a Tom Cruise adventure. I think I will skip ahead a little bit to see if the story can provide a little excitement because so far I am not the least bit worried that there is any danger for this guy.

I read Call it sleep so many years ago that I have no clear memory of it, but I always wondered why so many people seemed to think it was wonderful. Wild swans is a wonderful book.

I started The Twelve by Justin Cronin yesterday and continuing to work on Old Filth and Outlander

#100 I read Wild Swans many many years ago, excellent !!

I'm just now starting Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes. I had no idea that Hughes had written a novel, and I'm really looking forward to it! I'm only a couple of pages in., but am loivng it so far, especially the tone of the dialogue. Hughes had such a gift for writing with beautiful rhythm.

I've calmed down enough to write a rational review of Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, my latest and last foray into reading the work of Connie Willis. It's in my thread...post #24.

It's taken over a month for me to be able to behave sensibly instead of screaming insults and hurling baboon feces every time I see the jacket illustration.

Richard baboon feces? LOL. You need to tell us how u really feel about the book! Love ur reviews!

Richard, what have you got against baboons?

What I want to know is where one gets baboon feces.

One has one's sources, not to be revealed.

The new thread is fully functional.

Don't you like C3PO, @richardderus?

Not to interrupt this levity regarding the pile of baboon feces in richardderus house, but I just finished Catch-22. How I missed this all this time, I do not know. But then I don't know why some folks keep certain things so readily at hand either.