LizzieD: 2014*3 (SPRING)

Apple blossoms and our magnolias are gone, and now the scent of gardenias is in the air - or not. Ours have developed a bad black spot.







Books Out: Mine ~ 13 W's ~ 14

MOST SIGNIFICANT OF THE FIRST QUARTER *

Into the Silence
In Paradise
Ancillary Justice
Letters from Egypt

*The shortest list ever!

READ IN APRIL
Just One Damned Thing After Another
Peter the Great

NEW TO MY HOUSE IN APRIL
A Symphony of Echoes ✔ - Kindle
A Second Chance ✔ - Kindle
Dominion ✔ - PBS
Notes from a Small Island - PBS
Past Caring - PBS
Miss Buncle's Book ✔ - Kindle
Miss Buncle Married - Kindle Daily Deal
Under the Wide and Starry Sky - Beth...from her offer on her thread
The Boy in His Winter ✔ - ER ARC
Tinkers - Gift from the publisher of the ARC!
The Firebird - Kindle Daily Deal
Blonde ✔- AMP
The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. - PBS
Babel-17 - Kindle Daily Deal
Time Was Soft There ✔ - PBS
Murder at Mansfield Park - PBS
Nella Last's War ✔ - Awesome Books
Nella Last's Peace - Awesome Books
Nella Last in the 1950s - Awesome Books

READ IN MAY
Hild
Blonde
The Day of the Scorpion (reread)
*The Boy in His Winter
Nella Last's War
A Question of Identity
A Severed Head
Silent in the Grave

NEW TO MY HOUSE IN MAY
The Plover ✔ - ER ARC
Visitation - PBS
Edwin: High King of Britain - Kindle Deal!

READ IN JUNE
*The Plover
The Goldfinch
The Crow Road

NEW TO MY HOUSE IN JUNE
A Wild Sheep Chase - PBS
A Book of Secrets - PBS
The Way Things Are - PBS (a nicer duplicate, so the original goes out of the house)
City of Stairs ✔ - ER ARC
The Language Instinct - AMP
Off to Be the Wizard - Kindle Daily Deal
A Turn of Light - PBS
Just One Evil Act - PBS
The Patrick Melrose Novels - Kindle
The Buzzard Table ✔ - PBS
Brixton Beach - PBS
The God Stalker Chronicles - AMP

READING IN JUNE

Palace Walk

My goodness, you are having an acquisitive April! And that's a lovely picture of the blossoms, Peggy.

How beautiful! Happy new thread, Peggy.

Lovely blossoms! You've got a stunning bunch of books going too!

Welcome, visitors! I am accumulating at a frightening pace, Roni, but you'll notice that I've bought only one!
Diana, I've missed you, but I get farther and farther behind on your thread and more and more intimidated about catching up. I'm glad you've been here though, and I'll return the favor.
Lucy, truly I am reading only Hild, *Peter*, and Blonde right now, but you're right: they're super!

I do that too - I might list three books, two of which I read fitfully and one which I am actually reading.

Peggy, Happy New Thread full of marvellous reading and good chats.

Lovely new thread Peggy! I am so enjoying the signs of spring all around. (Though my husband just got off a plane in Minneapolis, having neglected to bring a coat. It is apparently 19 degrees.)

Yesterday it was in the low 70s here; today it is in the low 60s and tomorrow apparently we'll be back into the high 40s. Manic/depressive weather??

Some impressive wind blowing through, too, and a low pressure zone that is doing a number on my head.

Greetings Suz, Anne, Barbara (such a lovely picture), and Lucy.
I can't conceive of being without a coat in 19° temps. Maybe he can pick up a good coat cheap at a sale???
Break out the whipping cream and soften the butter for shortcake! We have the first of the local strawberries today in the nick of time. They'll cover them for the mid-30s due tonight and tomorrow night, but these are the best --- fragrant, sweet, and juicy! Your time will come, but they are most welcome here.
I would just like to point out ---- back in a minute!
ETA: My knowledge of European history is slim, so I'm just now finding out that Sweden's Charles XII in the early 18th century invaded Russia in the winter. That's way ahead of Napoleon and Hitler. I don't think it's going to go well.......

Local strawberries?! YUM!! I can't wait for them to appear in these parts.

We bought local strawberries at the farmers' market on Friday--so good!

We won't see apple blossoms for ages, so I'll enjoy yours vicariously. And strawberries too! I read that 19 as 19C, which is quite warm to us up here. You meant Fahrenheit, didn't you?

>12 LizzieD: I was struck by this episode too, also not previously enlightened about the period. What a character, that Charles. Not wanting to spoil anything, it goes well for a time. Then not.

Laura and Roni and Tui, the strawberries are about the best I've ever eaten. I wish some equally good ones for all of you. Tui, I did mean F not C. We have a freeze warning for tonight, doggone it. Everything is lush and green and wonderful after rain yesterday. Azaleas are not quite in full bloom, so I wish it may not freeze.
Hi, Rex. Both Charles and Peter seem larger than life at this point. I'm anxious to get back to them after a day of doing my duty, I hope.

You lucky dog with your local strawberries! I don't think they start in earnest here till we're well into May (end of, possibly?). A Severed Head was my first Murdoch and I found it to be an absolute hoot! Wasn't too bad either that I had the audiobook narrated by none other than Sir Derek Jacobi, which I'm sure I need not tell you is an amazing narrator. I'll definitely want to revisit that one.

No local strawberries here neither. It will be May/June when we'll have the local ones. Waves, Peggy, I hope you have a lovely day.

I lost track of you for a while, Peggy, and I'm sorry for that. I'm glad I've caught up with you now, in time to see those beautiful blooms at the top of your thread. Please, may spring come soon!

Julia and Barbara and Ilana, I'm very happy to see you here and not hating me too much because of our mild weather and strawberries! You will feel things even out this summer when we're too hot and humid to do more than breathe and even that sometimes too much to handle.
No reading for me today except a little of Hild. I'm going to try to fix that now.

Happy New Thread, Peggy! I see you're reading Massie's Peter the Great: His Life and World. I picked that up at a library sale a while back. His Nicholas and Alexandra is a favorite, and I enjoyed Catherine the Great when I got it as an ER book.

Hi Peggy - Beautiful new thread. If only we would see some blossoms...

Our strawberries aren't until late in June..... sigh....... we have some of our own and lots of little wild ones. Miss Po noticed me picking the wild ones last year and came to investigate and then realized it was TASTY FOOD and started HELPING. sigh.

Terri, I was willing to jump into Peter because I had enjoyed *N&A* so much when it came out. I need to make more reading time though --- it's a chunkster and even Hild qualifies as a chunkster, so April will be another month of very few books read.
Beth and Lucy, spring will come!!! Miss Po and strawberries!!!! Our first dog loved grapes, and I think they're not supposed to be good for doggy digestion. She would also find a way to crack and eat pecans.

My brother has a dog that will eat the ripe tomatoes off the vine in their back yard--to their dismay!

Peggy, I've started *Peter* and can't put it down. It's been interesting reading about the Ukraine and Crimea during Peter's time with everything that is going on today.
I envy you those strawberries. Our local berries don't come in until late May or early June.

Happy Easter!

Oh thank you for the bunnies and the Easter wish, Diana!
Jan, I'm tickled that you've started *Peter* too...... It does give some perspective for the current situation, doesn't it? And wait until you get him actually fighting in the area! I'm appalled all over again at his scorched earth policy - and at the taking of the town from some rebel Cossacks where he killed the 7,000 inhabitants after the siege and only 1,000 escaped. Grim.
Mama had a salad-eating dog too, Roni..... tomatoes and lettuce and broccoli! (Well, it came off the table so it had to be good, right?)
This may be my biggest book accumulating month ever - I'm not sure, and I'm scared to look. I just had to buy the Nella Last diaries after my friend kokipy raved about them - more Mass Observation Project. Heather, I can't remember whether you've also read these? Anyway, it will be very hard not to add the first one to my never-decreasing "currently reading" list.
I'm happy.

I'm just saying here ---- I have read (in S. Foote, vol 1) some incredibly dumb things that Civil War generals did, but I've never read anything to beat this. Charles XII decided to attack Peter's army even though he was wounded and could not lead his troops. He and his 2nd in command, who was also his mentor, made up the battle plan. This cavalryman, though, "decided not to tell Lewenhaupt anything, because he disliked even speaking to him. Lewenhaupt had a way of receiving orders with a haughty, disdainful look, as though only loyalty to Charles could force him to listen to this foolish Rehnskjold." Lewenhaupt was the commander of the infantry, and off they went to battle with L totally in the dark as to the plan.

Seems to me that wars are often about egos somehow. Or at least, egos have a large part to play in them, the above being a prime example.

Our previous corgi, Evan, was very fond of raspberries and cherry tomatoes - you had to keep an eye on him!

Greetings, Ilana and Lucy.....
Here's an example of why I'm loving *Peter* - (I don't know whether I love Massie most for digging this out or Peter for doing it).
In Peter's first meeting after his victory over Charles with Augustus, erstwhile and again King of Poland, who had betrayed his pact with Peter when it looked as though Charles was going to beat him, the discussion went like this:
"'I always wear the cutlass you gave me' Peter said, 'but it seems you do not care for the sword I gave you as I see you are not wearing it.' Augustus replied that he prized Peter's gift but that somehow in the haste of his departure from Dresden he had left it behind. 'Ah,' said Peter, 'then let me give you another.' Whereupon he handed to Augustus the same sword he had given him before, which had been discovered in Charles' baggage at Poltava."

Ha! That's wonderful.

Peggy, I wish you and a long weekend full of reading.

Wishing you a very



Peggy & family!

Oh, thank you Barbara and Tina!
My discovery in *Peter* today.... The Parthenon was pretty much intact until 1687 when the Turks were using for powder storage and a Venetian shell hit it.

Yes, isn't that just sad? I mean about the Parthenon.

Since you expressed interest in it Peggy, and indeed encouraged me to put the finishing touches on my commentary on Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth today, I thought I'd let you know I've posted my review-cum-biography on my thread, and even took the bull by the horns and posted it on my blog too. You might want to drop by my thread when you have a decent block or time though as it's extreeeeeeeemely long, sorry to say!

One of my all-time favorite students has been understudying Tovah Feldshuh in her role as Golda Meir in Golda's Balcony by William Gibson. Ms. Felshuh has other commitments this Wednesday and Thursday nights when the play is in D.C., and my Anne is going on!!!! Here's the Scoop! How I wish I could get there!!!

Happy new thread, Peggy! I'm excited to hear about your strawberries. There are some strawberry plants at the bottom of our garden which I need to keep an eye on to see if they produce anything for us but the weeds have been taking over the garden for the last few weeks (I guess that means it's spring) so I think the strawberry plants might need rescuing.

I haven't read any of the Nella Last diaries but they sound good!

Peggy, completely missed your new thread until just now! Love the photo of the apple blossoms you've opened with. Reminds me that spring is coming eventually to my part of BC. Actually, our lawns are greening up beautifully, now for some new buds and leaves ...

Hi, Nancy and Heather. I'm just here to report that I spell disaster C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E this afternoon. I spent the day (it feels like the whole day anyway) baking my mother's 1-2-3-4 yellow cake, which is fine and then boiling the chocolate icing. Not fine at all. I've seen her arrive at the same sorry pass many times. After boiling 20+ minutes (12-14 is the specified time) and feeling it begin to stick to the bottom of the pot, I took it off ---- and the stuff will not thicken. Currently, it is sitting in a puddle around the layers. Tomorrow when I feel like dealing with it again, I'll scoop it all into a bowl, and serve it drizzled over the layers in a cup. It's raining this afternoon, so it wasn't a good day to deal with chocolate. I certainly don't plan to do it again. Tomorrow is egg-deviling day anyway, and packing.
Anyway, my back hurts, and I've had it!

Oh, Peggy, that sounds terrible. OMG what an awful day. I hope it gets better soon and please, just relax.

Lemon or orange drizzle icing has saved many a day. The only other kind of icing I can make with any degree of reliability is that cream cheese icing for carrot cake. Chocolate: never! Much sympathy.

>43 LizzieD: Sorry to hear about your chocolate disaster Peggy. I bet it still tastes good though!

Thanks for the sympathy, Barbara, Tui, and Heather. I've made it perfectly many times. Oh well. By today the chocolate has seeped into the cake, destroying the nice texture, but it does taste good. I foresee bowls and spoons.
And I didn't get to read any Peter today at all. Oh dear. Oh dear. This month will be the worst in my history!
No furries.

Hi Peggy, sorry about the chocolate disaster. Didn't know rain was bad for chocolate. All the same, I'd love to have one of those bowls or whatever the cake turned out like! *Num num*.

Sorry about missing out on Peter too. I get really frustrated on those rare days when I can't pick up where I left off the day before.

One more thing to look forward to tomorrow!

Exactly, Ilana!!! (I think that it's low atmospheric pressure or change in pressure or something that makes chocolate hard to work with. In fact, I think that atmospheric pressure has a far greater effect on all of us than general culture acknowledges.)
I'm sitting here fretting and waiting for my friend to call to say that she's on her way. (We'll leave at 9:00.) *ahem*
Good cheer to you all!

Sitting in a cafe enjoying free WiFi and the chance to catch up on some threads at last... Interested to hear snippets of what you are reading in the Peter biography. I ought to know something about him, as I studied 17th and 18th century European history for A-level. But what I now remember could probably fit on the back of a postcard! I do recall someone levying a tax on beards, but can't recall if that was Peter, or Catherine the Great...

>47 LizzieD:. I foresee bowls and spoons.

Actually, it sounds to die for. Wishing you a good day today, Peggy!

Hi Peggy, was doing some grade 11 marking earlier today and came across this, which hippo critically speaking, I thought you might enjoy, LOL. Argh!

>50 gennyt: That was Peter.

>53 stellarexplorer: Thank you!

Thank you from me too, Rex. My friends and I are having the world's best time together. We've stayed close through the years, so we're always able to pick up where we left off with each other. We all enjoyed the critical hippos, Nancy. Becky, the chocolate cake is good, but Rita's mother's lemon curd pie is to die for. We were able to walk a bit this afternoon, so I'm not quite rolling yet --- maybe tomorrow.
!sigh! No reading today.

Peggy, I wish you a gorgeous weekend.

Oooo, thank you Barbara! It was a gorgeous, wonderful weekend with 4 of my 5 best friends in the N.C. mountains. #5 had health issues and didn't get to come. Here we are at Lake Tomahawk in Black Mountain before we went our separate ways. (I'm the little one in green; I used to be as tall as the other woman in green. *sigh*)

Peggy, this is such a lovely photo of you and your friends. Thanks a lot for sharing it. It looks like you five had a gorgeous time.

You all look perfectly adorable - and the other green friend has on higher sandals than you.....

The only reason I haven't had a terrible reading month is that I am sucking up those Asaros. Good thing books don't have calories or I'd be in trouble.

You are so lucky to have friendships which go back over the years. It's good too that you keep them going.

What a lovely group of friends!

What a wonderful photo, Peggy, with your friends!

Great photo of you all - and what lovely sunshine and surroundings too!

Wonderful photo of you and your friends Peggy.

Lovely shot of you all--you'll treasure it, I'm sure!

Lovely photo, Peggy!!!

I'm now wishing I had a bowl of your cake with chocolate drizzle. It sounds quite yummy to me too (ditto >51 labwriter:) even though it's not how you envisioned it!

YAY! A visit from Barbara, Lucy, Tui, Laura, Nancy, Genny, Bonnie, Roni, and Tina!
I love that you all come and say sweet things about us. Truly, they're the best! We think we look pretty good for 70, and their continuing presence in my life is a great blessing. Of course, you're great blessings too, and my conversation was peppered with references to my friends at LT.
Roni, we followed the Black Mountain Art Safari where I fell in love with a $1500 necklace and $300 matching earrings, which I wished that she might sell to someone who loves them as much as I do. Here's her website, but she has nothing on it that looks like my catalpa-inspired set....Jody Ochs.
And I'm about to finish Peter the Great - just taking a break before I sit down with the epilogue. This is my worst reading month - maybe ever - but at least I will have finished one biggy! Back soon.
ETA: I just got notification that I will receive The Plover from the April ER list. Yay!

PETER THE GREAT: HIS LIFE AND WORLD by Robert K. Massie

I quite simply loved it. I don't know how anyone could ask for a better biography of a historical figure or one that so clearly presents the world picture. I've quoted little bits and pieces, and my nose is stopped up and hurting and I'm sneezing my head off, AND we're under a tornado watch for tonight and probably all day tomorrow. I have decided that all of that frees me of any responsibility for reviewing this great book. Whether you're interested in Peter, Russia, or Massie, it's one to grab and read when you retire or have a summer vacation.
2 books read in April! Good grief.

That's one good looking bunch of 70-year-olds Peggy! Isn't 70 the new 50, or something like it? You are very lucky to have had this special group of women over the years.

*Taking a teacherly voice*: You are excused from doing your homework this evening young lady, given the circumstances.

Besides which, your enthusiasm for Peter the Great was quite evident as you were reading it. I'll probably pick it up sooner than later largely because of that. I have it on audio, so it'll probably take me a week as opposed to a month to listen to it, but then I won't be so easily able to quote from it... unless I also borrow a copy from the library at the same time... hmmm

>68 LizzieD: I'm so glad to hear you say that, Peggy. That is how I felt, and I have recalled that one over the years as one of the most vivid and enjoyable biographies I've read.

You will no doubt enjoy Massie's Catherine as well.

The Ochs jewelry is absolutely beautiful--what an artist!

Roni, I do wish that you could see "my" necklace and earrings. There were the spiculums (I was so gobsmacked that I forgot to ask what the outer layer was - it was a rather dark, dull, mossy green) with gold spirals and other dangles of leaf-inspired shapes - and of course, as soon as I started to type, the kind of leaf left my brain (70 may be the new 50, Ilana, but some of us still have memory issues) - with the vertical gold band off-center . It will come back to me......spectacular in a profoundly quiet Zen way I wish I could describe.
Once again, we agree, Rex. I will enjoy Catherine the Great, but not right now. Right now, I'm eager to read some lesser works, at least in size. (So I'm into 700 pp of Blonde and 500 pp of Hild. Oh well.)

No wonder you've only read two books when all your books are page monsters!

Ochs's work is really spectacular!

I love jewelry like that.

catalpa leaves.....
I'm glad that you share my taste, Tui and Lucy.

Love the jewellery (UK spelling) too - and I'd love to have one of those kinetic sculptures in my back garden. Not that I even have a back garden, let alone the means to afford one of the sculptures!

Peggy, I love your photo of you and your best buds! I can only dream of looking so good at 70. And you've earned Peter the Great a spot on my wishlist, so thanks for that, too!

Just catching up, Peggy. Your group looks wonderful for any age! It's terrific that you've been able to maintain those friendships over the years.

Love all your comments about Massie's book. It's added to my WL too. N. and A. remains one of my favorite biography/history reads. No wonder your book list for this month is short...those are major chunksters that you've been reading!

I wish you a wonderful May, full of great books and fun.

Many thanks for the visit, Genny, Julia, and Gail! I loved *N&A* too, and that was the reason I was willing to take on Peter.
We will take all the compliments we can get, and I will pass them on to the group. We became productive citizens: 3 teachers - elementary, junior high, and high school; a pharmacist; an early keyboard performer, and our absent member, a professional feminist who spearheaded the successful campaign to buy Alice Paul's estate and turn it into a conference center. I'm proud of us.
And now back to the books. I'm actively reading *Hild* and *Blonde* and readying myself to dive into new stuff - one of which must be my ER ARC, The Boy in his Winter.

What a great group of women, Peggy! I'm proud of us. Deservedly so!

Thank you, Nancy! I didn't mention it, but 4 of us are still married to our original and only husbands. That's pretty good too. And now I'm through!
I am here to tell you that Joyce Carol Oates did something special in Blonde. I don't know anything beyond general knowledge about Marilyn, but most of the internal monologue feels authentic to me. I realize that JCO's Norma Jeane is a fictional character, and she's quite an achievement. I think I'm about to read some of the reviews here, especially Ellen's, to see how other readers were thinking.
Hild is good. I was about to say that it's the best fiction about the Anglo-Saxons that I've ever read, but I think it's the only fiction about the A-S's I've read. I'm still not swept away by it. I would wonder if I'm sweepable any more, but *Blonde* sort of indicates that I am.

>81 LizzieD: I loved Blonde when I read it last year. I read Gloria Steinem's Marilyn, a biography first, and then the book by JCO. I was really bad while reading Blonde, I kept going to the internet to see if I could find what was factual and what was JCO's fabulous imagination.

Not bad at all, Nana - I do that when reading now, all the time! Someone mentions a painting or a book or anything and I have to look that up too. I think it's great!

Hi, Lucy and Colleen. Yeah, I'm up to her nude photo shoot, so I had to look at all the pinup pics which included the nude ones. Au naturel she was gorgeous - not perfect, but just so lovely. And I read your review, Colleen, but I had already thumbed it. That shows how long my memory is.....but I can still recite the first 14 lines of the prologue of The Canterbury Tales if anybody should care to check me!

Between you and Ellen, I'm really itching to get my hands on Blonde. At the moment it's still only on the wishlist. We'll see how long it takes for it to jump into the tbr and then to a "currently reading".

Peggy, Our reading paths have momentarily converged. I just finished Peter as well and can't say enough good things about it. I know you will love Catherine. I read it last year, I think.
I'm also getting The Plover. Can't wait.

Ilana, I hope you get to it and enjoy it as much as I am doing right now......just taking a break, in fact.
Jan, yay! Maybe we can talk about The Plover as we read. I'm happier knowing that you got it too.

Peggy, I wish you a Happy Weekend full of reading.

And there's Blonde sitting on my shelf, staring at me...How long will I be able to hold out?

Thank you, Barbara. Blue birds of happiness for sure!
Bonnie, I don't understand why you're resisting.........I have only 3,000 or so unread and calling my name. Blonde is quite amazing though.
Today, in my reading time, I've been enjoying Hild. I hope to wrap her up tomorrow. I don't love the book, but I like it very much.

>57 LizzieD: Lovely photo, Peggy. I'm glad to hear you all had a lovely weekend. Hope friend #5 feels better soon.

>57 LizzieD:: Peggy, that is a lovely picture of you and your friends. Old (I mean long-standing) friends are the best! It looks like you had a gorgeous day for a walk!

How is Hild coming along for you? I almost nixed it in the first pages because of the Old English spelling, etc., but I'm glad I hung in there. I got used to the archaic writing quickly and am enjoying it very much.

Many thanks, Heather and Donna. Donna, I'm glad you asked about *Hild*. I just finished!!

HILD by Nicola Griffith

I liked this book very, very much; I didn't fall hopelessly in love with it, but I am looking forward to the sequel.
In 7th century England, Hild's mother tells her from the time she is a toddler "quiet mouth; bright mind." Her mother, soon a widowed queen dependent on the over-king's good will, had a vision at her birth that Hild would be the light of her people. Hild grows up believing this, preternaturally observant and able to make sense of what she observes. She becomes the king's seer and remains so even after they are all baptized by a Romish priest.
The reader is plunged immediately and completely into their brutal, beautiful, new world. Life is intense, violent, short. Hild herself is earthy, smart, sometimes fey.
I'm sorry that the map on my Kindle is unreadable; having it would have helped. Like another reviewer, I was not sure after Hild turned 14 or so how much time passed, but I'm guessing that she is in her early 20s by book's end. The names are exotic and a bit hypnotic. Eventually, I just read past them, checking every now and then to be sure I knew who a minor character was. Now that I'm writing about it, I may have enjoyed it more than I thought I did!

That happens to me a lot—I only realize I liked a book that much more after I've written about it. Sometimes, less, too, but gladly not too often.

Peggy, lovely review of Hild. What a story: The reader is plunged immediately and completely into their brutal, beautiful, new world. Life is intense, violent, short. Hild herself is earthy, smart, sometimes fey.

I must read this one...

Ilana, I'm glad I'm not the only one. I tend to doubt that impression because I remember how I felt during the reading. So long as I don't feel that I've completely wasted my time, I'm good...and on to the next!
Thank you, Nancy. It is quite a story. Genny, I hope that you make time for it eventually. You more than most of us can tell whether Griffith is getting things right. I suspect that she did.
I'm having a good time being attracted to the things that I say that I'm currently reading. Blonde is still a hit. Poor Norma; surprisingly intelligent and focused and talented Norma!

Both Hild and Blonde sound good.

Tui, some of the violence in Hild may be stronger than you like. On the other hand, it doesn't predominate, and I know you have read worse. Blonde is just extremely sad and powerful but with the fascination of learning about an American icon.
I have picked up Century Rain just because I suddenly felt a great need for solid scifi. Whether I go on to read it now is another thing.

Thanks Peggy. I'm ok with swords and head lopping off stuff. It's things like violence to animals (in any form), brutal treatment of children, etc., that I can't hack. Gratuitous stuff. Too vivid an imagination. As for Marilyn, I find it so sad that an intelligent woman got reduced to being an object the way she did. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to pick it up but if it fell in my lap, I'd read it.

Yeah me too - I'm sometimes surprised by which books get me blabbing endlessly and then thinking about them later.....

Nice review ofHild, Peggy. It's on the WL and slowly moving up.

A happy Friday to you!

Tui, if you can get through 10 year-old Hild's having to kill several of the enemy to put them out of their misery, you'll be O.K. That part got to me.
Lucy, it's part of why we keep reading, isn't it? Right now my zest for life is pretty much centered in getting back to the two books that I have going. RL is good; don't mistake me. But when a book grabs you, you're suddenly something and somewhere special!
Blonde continues to amaze me. I don't know that Marilyn is the woman that JCO gets into, but whoever she is, she's real and complex.
Gail, it's lovely to see you here. I hope you enjoy Hild when you get to her, and I thank you for kind words!
I haven't said anything about The Day of the Scorpion. I absolutely love these books from here on. If I understand anything at all about India, it's thanks to Paul Scott.

Peggy, I wish you a fantastic weekend.

Sight all unseen, Peggy, I think I could handle that. I might speed read when I got to it though.

Just wishing you a nice Sunday!

>93 LizzieD: You have me with Hild I think, Peggy. I will look out for that one for sure.
Struggling manfully to catch up after too much work and travelling but I am getting there slowly and I am at least in time to wish you a wonderful Mother's Day.

Dropping by to see the two books you read in April. :-) Oh _that’s_ why, strawberries and chocolate and traipsing around on mountains.

>84 LizzieD: but I can still recite the first 14 lines of the prologue of The Canterbury Tales
I can still recite the alphabetic frequency table for deciphering... the things we stuffed into our heads at an early age. The residents of the old age home will prefer you. :-)

Hi, Katherine. It wouldn't take long to get back the same amount of The Aeneid in Latin.......that would maybe have the same appeal as the alphabetic frequency table...
Paul, your trip has been dazzling. Hope you enjoy some downtime if you know what that is. Suzanne is the one who put me onto Hild, so that should increase your urgency!
Happy New Week, Barbara, Tui, and Lucy! I'm about to finish Blonde! I'll be glad as I'm more and more distressed by her.

BLONDE by Joyce Carol Oates
JCO has written a real gift to lovers of complex characters in this fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe's life. The broad outlines of Marilyn's story remain, but Oates has imagined an internally consistent and sympathetic character who may or may not be true to the real woman. Norma Jeane never had a fighting chance to be normal. Since she was so amazingly photogenic, she never really had a fighting chance to be average once the camera found her.
I pulled for her all the way and despised the men who used her, abused, her, made fun of her, profited from her as she spent her life looking for respect and love.
Although the book unfolds chronologically, we hear about Marilyn from many points of view including her own inner voice. Most of the time this rings true. A couple of unclear plot devices are completely cleared up in the end. I think my time was well spent, so I recommend it to whomever it appeals to!
(Marilyn's voice: a young reporter who was to interview her in the presence of several of her male overseers was nervous, and asked for a joke,"How will I recognize you?" Marilyn replied, "I'll be the one with the vagina.")

That's funny!

Yep --- she was so smart and so diffident. The men thought it was hilarious to see her reading Schopenhaur or Darwin, and nobody would talk to her seriously to help her develop her ideas, so she thought some weird stuff. On the other hand, she had read all Miller's plays before she met him and nailed his lacks precisely. Poor Norma. Poor Marilyn.

Blonde sounds like an entertaining read, Peggy. Love her response to the reporter who wasn't sure how to recognize her, LOL.

Found your new thread, Peggy!

Have a super day, full of good books and nice weather.

Good to see you, Karen and Nancy! Blonde is a lot more than entertaining, I thought. And now begins the time when I wish I were a little further north and west of here - like where you live, KM. It's SO humid and the temps are SO in the 90s. I tried to say that I wouldn't complain if winter would just end, but I don't think I can help it.

I had a look at Hild on Amazon, tempted by your review and encouragement... but it is not yet out over here except on Kindle (and I don't buy full price Kindle books, only the bargain ones - I'd rather spend money on paper books). So I'll have to wait until it's either on special offer on Kindle, or until it's out in paperback over here. Oh well, there's no shortage of things to read meanwhile!

It was pretty nasty here today, too, Peggy - about 90F or so with more humidity than I'd like to see in May. It's supposed to cool down towards the weekend though. I'm indoors most of the day, although when I came home this afternoon and it was still about 88F I watered the vegetable garden (raised bed, 4' x 16') and the hanging plants on the front porch. Sweaty work.

Hope tomorrow is a bit cooler out by you. Iced tea, ice cream, air conditioning..... all good things with this early salvo from summer.

Very good weather for collapsing indoors with a book! Hope you got to do some of that too, Karen!
As for me, I've added Century Rain to my current reading; silly of me, but there I am.

93 here today, Peggy, with 5% humidity at the peak of the day. It's 82 and 10% humidity now. I will say, the lower humidity is more comfortable than yours, but it's bad fire weather and there are a couple going in the county right now as a result.

Today in the UK we are looking forward to a warm day after weeks of showers and chilly winds. We are promised temperatures of around 18C here (I think about 64F) and up to 21C in London (about 70F). That will be just very pleasant, and with the air still slightly cool too in the shade. I wish we could blow some of our temperate spring weather your way - but even if we could spare it, I doubt it would stretch that far!

Just dropping by to say hi Peggy. I've been lurking of late, so thought I'd leave a trace this time!

Trace is welcome, Ilana. I'm reading *Scorpion* at the moment - have just finished the interview with Hari and am moved by it and don't want to think about it too deeply because it's so profoundly sad.
I'm also reading my ER ARC from March, The Boy in His Winter, a strange piece of meta-fiction, I guess, in which Huck writes in his own educated voice of his time on the river with Jim (1835-2005 maybe). I have them below Natchez in 1873, and not much has "happened." Curious. Curious.
Genny and Roni, I'm also always happy to have both visit...... We hope to get rain tomorrow. It's funny how high the humidity can be and how dry the earth! I would find 5% humidity scary.

It has been muggy and thunder showery here too, Peggy, although we haven't had your killer temps. It makes me listless. Going to the Y for aquafit was like a tonic, getting in the cold water.

You're speaking my language, Tui ---- except that "they" keep the pool I swim laps in at 85° or so for the older-than-I-am ladies who complain when it's "cold." That's not cool enough for real exercise, And I didn't get there today because I thought it was bridge day and was mistaken... I think that my friends changed the day and forgot to call me or else I wrote it down incorrectly to begin with. Oh well. We play Friday, so I've been reading, and that's not a bad exchange at all.

THE DAY OF THE SCORPION by Paul Scott

I am super-happy that I love *The Raj Quartet* as much now as I did the last time I read them.
The Jewel in the Crown was a sort of prelude to the characters and action of the last three books, and it starts now with our introduction to Mohammed Ali Kasim, a Muslim leader of Congress, imprisoned in 1942 as the Japanese army closes in and Congress orders the British to Quit India. For nearly 50 pages we read about his political beliefs and the consequences of his loyalty. Then we meet the Laytons: mother Mildred and her grown daughters Sarah and Susan, who is to be married to a young British officer. The father of the family is a prisoner of war in Germany. Because Susan's groom's orders have been changed, they hurry to have the wedding in the independent state of Mirat where MAK's second son Ahmed is assistant to the Nawab's wazir. The groom's best man is incapacitated, so he asks his bunk mate to stand up for him. And that bunk mate is Ronald Merrick. That should send chills down the backs of readers of *Jewel*.
I'm writing this mostly for people like Ilana, who is finding it hard to plow through MAK's politics and the history of the older Laytons. Stay with it! If a novel comes close to capturing the complexities of life in the twilight of the British Raj, this one does. Scott also gives us wonderful, rich characters, whom I love - even those whom I can't stand. His writing is wonderful too. If occasionally, he attributes thoughts and feelings to Sarah that make little sense to me, I either decide that I'll get it on my next reading or am willing to forgive him.
Read these books! It is for this depth of experience that I read and reread.

Wonderful review of The Day of the Scorpion, Peggy! Did you happen to watch the Jewel in the Crown BBC series from years ago? Merrick's hideousness comes through clearly and frighteningly there. You may be inspiring some reading here...

Hi, Gail, with thanks. I am a fan of the Granada series too. As good as the video is, the books are better!

Thanks Peggy, much appreciated. I did pick up The Day of the Scorpion again the day you dropped by my thread and pleaded in it's favour. I really am enjoying the part about the Layton family wedding now, and yes, did feel chills up my spine once I remembered who Merrick was (so bad with names, you see). I don't think I would have put it aside if it wasn't for me picking up the Matthew Shardlake books out of the blue and being suddenly stung with a passion for those 16th century murder mysteries. He packs so much period detail in there and I'm finding reading it on my iPad is encouraging me to look up so many of them I would have probably just shrugged at and moved on from before. For instance details of dress and so on, which wikipedia covers brilliantly for this period. I'm learning to much in the process and it's making me absolutely LONG for a) the next book in the series b) Hilary Mantel's final book in the Wolf Hall trilogy, due out next year I think, or whenever she gets down to actually writing it...

What a good review, Peggy!

Love your review of Blonde, Peggy! I've had quite the love affair with Marilyn since I did a conspiracy theory paper on her (JFK angle) in college. I have several books that I used as sources then that I've always intended on re-reading for pleasure one day. I was only reading quickly for source material / reference at that time many, many years ago... :)

Well, crap. I just had to add it to my wish list. :P

Tina, I request you to read Blonde immediately in that case! I have no idea where you came down on the conspiracy theory, but with your background, you will love the book, I think!
Thank you, Tui!!!
Ilana, I love M. Shardlake too, and I know how good they are. I have Heartstone yet to read, and I'm sort of saving it for a time when I know I'll need a good one. I'm pretty sure that Sovereign will remain my favorite, but maybe not. And everything stops when Mantel brings out Wolf 3!
I'm trying to think whether *Scorpion* lags again; I don't think so, but I had a lot more patience with MAK this time than when I read the series before. I think I've already said that I can't read Lady Manners seeing Hari Kumar without tears. I don't know whether I can wait until July for The Towers of Silence.

And everything stops when Mantel brings out Wolf 3!

Read an article about her this weekend and was not surprised to learn she is slightly daunted by the task of writing a 3rd Booker Prize winner (sheesh, no kidding, who wouldn't be!)... in the meantime seems she's put her skills toward a collection of short stories with The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, which we can look forward to at the end of September.

Peggy, wonderful review of The Day of the Scorpion. These novels sound too good not to be on my list!

I'm going to re-read Hild before book #2 appears, so that I can enjoy all the detailed plots a second time.

Meanwhile, a second reminder to get going with book #2 of the Raj Quartet!!

Let's hope that Mantel doesn't end up suffering from the same kind of epic writer's block that Patrick Leigh Fermor had. His trilogy of travel books, chronicling his walk from Holland to Constantinople in the early 30s, was only completed posthumously...

Ilana, that's interesting about H. Mantel. I've heard that she's surprised and pleased that people treat her writing as literature! She might even tempt me to read short stories.
Thanks, Nancy. I hope you do read Paul Scott. I've liked a couple of his other books less than the quartet, but I have no trouble recommending these!
Hush, Suz, hush! I can't bear to think about Mantel with writer's block - hardly even dare say it.
Did I ever say how much I loved N. Griffith's Ammonite? I did. Slow River was a little less good for me, and that's all I've read. I'm pretty sure I'll read the sequel to *Hild* too, but I doubt that I'll reread before diving in.
I'm poking along in The Boy in His Winter. I should like it better than I do, but I don't. It should go faster than it's going, but it's not. Having just under 100 pp to go should light my fire, but I'm not even smouldering.

Peggy, I finally got my copy of The Plover and I'm a few pages in. I think I'm going to love it.

I have Ammonite sitting there on the shelf reproaching me.... and Mantel #2 which I am 'hoarding' for no good reason.... ah me.

I was born a fussy old lady, I guess, nothing I like better than basking in a nice warm pool - but you are right it doesn't really lead to exercise!

Hi Peggy - I'm trying to skim over your comments for the Raj Quartet. I would love to reread but I have so many other books waiting for me. I need to retire!

Hi Peggy, just passing through. I had a stressful time. Wishing you a wonderful week.

Hi Peggy. Glad you liked Hild. I do want to read it but, like Genny, I'm put off but the high kindle price (especially if the map is too small). I'm also a bit daunted to hear it's going to be a series. Enough series!

I'm doing my best to make room for The Day of the Scorpion considering how deep I'm into C. J. Samson lately, and spent a couple of hours catching up yesterday. Plan to go to the park with a couple of books soon with Coco and will bring it along, along with my iPad to start on Sovereign... the Shardlake series has taken over my life!!!

eta: Heather confirmed today that a 6th book is coming out! YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Ilana, don't force yourself to read *Scorpion* when you'd prefer to be Shardlaking. I just didn't want you to give it up; it's to good to miss. And YAY!!! for Shardlake 6!!! I'll get on to Heartstone soon in that case.

THE BOY IN HIS WINTER by Norman Lock

I worked on this review, so I'm going to post it here just because. I ended up pretty doggone impressed with the book, but I didn't adore it while I was reading it. And I'm left wondering whether it's really profound or merely pretentious, but I'm leaning toward the profound side.....

The Boy in His Winter is yet another novel that has grown in my estimation after I finished reading it. It is a river voyage through time and memory but not eternity. For many of us, Huckleberry Finn has been alive and on his raft with Jim since Mark Twain put him there in 1835. In a discursive first person narrative, Huck tells his timeless story until he is thrown back into time in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina. He continues his story, having taken the name Albert Barthelemy, until he is an old man in 2077, remembering it all and dictating to an unnamed, unseen amanuensis, to borrow his word.
The writing is gorgeous. Every page has beautiful turns of phrase: to pick one at random, "Like gray worms, the ash at the ends of our cigars grew, unmolested by a feeble breeze that had lain down in the dust, in laziness or exhaustion." The reader revels in this lushness somewhat impatiently waiting for something to happen. Huck/Albert is not Mark Twain (in fact, he hates him for having usurped his life), and a reader hoping for action and satire is going to be disappointed.
There is not no action. For example, the first word signalling Jim's death gave me a real frisson. At the second work, I gasped aloud, "Run, Jim!" but of course, he didn't. Instead, we get this: "Sometimes, one must tell an outlandish story because the truth is too fantastic to be believed. What I believe is this: To read a book is not to experience life, but words - only them. But to say "only" is to underestimate them....I mean that all these many words I've bundled into the world are a logical result of consciousness and an autocratic will. I insist on caprice as a necessary countermeasure to slavery. Otherwise, my own dictatorial mind must take - unknown to me - its instructions from a mastermind. And I insist, as well, that this story tells a truth." Huck was always a liar. Is he lying about this? The Boy in His Winter is not a book for lazy minds!

Peggy, you've caught my attention with your Raj Quartet review. I've never read them and didn't think they would interest me but you've made me think otherwise. Thanks for that!

Also, I'm commiserating with you on the hot and humid weather which I also loathe. The one and only time I've been in NC for an extended period (a couple of weeks) was in late July/early August, staying with friends who did not have air conditioning. I honestly thought I might just sweat away into a puddle.

Julia, I hope you love them as much as I do! That will be a lot.
Oh dear. I hope you were in the mountains in late July/early August if you were without AC. I'm not sure how we and our forebears managed before its advent, but it's an appalling thought now. Of course, we haven't had ours on yet, but we live in an old house with high ceilings and can stay relatively cool for another little while by airing it out at night.

Peggy, I was in rural Siler City, where my friends had founded a Catholic Worker house (Silk Hope Catholic Worker). Their lack of AC was a philosophical decision and thus not open to argument. I was philosophically in agreement with them, but that agreement was somewhat strained at 90 degrees/90% humidity. :-)

*big sigh of relief* We are back to normal here. It's 73 degrees and 52% humidity right now, just about perfect. I'm sorry I can't do anything about North Carolina during the warm season. ;-(

Peggy, I left you a note on the TIOLI thread, because I noticed tonight I'd listed The Day of the Scorpion under two different challenges in the wiki. You'll see what I mean in more detail over there.

Hot and nasty here, Peggy, with the threat of thunderstorms. Summer. Blech. The only really good thing about summer is the wonderful tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and pole beans from my garden. They love the heat and humidity.

Hope you're having a great day and have exciting plans for the Memorial Day weekend.

What Karen said. Hot and just starting summer. I can only hope it will be a rainy one.

Love your latest review; thumbed.

I wish you a pleasant weekend.

Hi, Karen. It's just hot here. I was hoping for some rain, but we have nothing so far. Add corn and field peas and okra and watermelon to your list of summer goodness, and I'm right with you. I hope to have a very calm, non-eventful Memorial Day weekend, but I hope you get to do something great. I haven't visited your thread yet to see whether your daughter is coming home for the summer.
Hi, Gail. The farmers around here say, "A dry summer will scare you to death, but a wet summer will kill you." I'd be happy for what used to pass as a normal one. Thank you so much for the thumb. I thought a lot about that book even though the review may not show it. Happy weekend and healthy kitties to you!
Roni, 52% humidity sounds idyllic. Enjoy!
Julia, Siler City is practically across the state from me. I wonder whether you got a true taste of the heat/humidity that goes on for months here.
I am enjoying Nella Last's War. She's a pretty good writer, and she doesn't seem to hold back anything much in her diary. I've started my April ER ARC, and it's not working particularly well for me. I'm finding it overwritten, but maybe when something is actually going on, I won't notice as much. Present tense narration both first person and third and no quotation marks irritate me. Lists irritate me. Here's a sample of Declan talking to the sea gull that is flying along with him as he has set sail on the Pacific (the book is The Plover, btw): "Imagine if you grew a foot a day, pretty soon you would be an albatross, and then where would you be? Albatrosst, albalost." I can put up with that once every few pages, but its like is on every page so far. Jan likes it though, and we often agree, so maybe I haven't read enough.

Hey Peggy! A big thumbs up from me for your review of The Boy and His Winter!

Peggy, I wish you a relaxing weekend.

Peggy, I don't know if I got a true taste of the heat and humidity or not. I know the taste I got was enough to last me for a good long while. It gets plenty hot and humid here in Iowa in the summer, too, but I don't think the season lasts as long and of course I have air conditioning and I'm not afraid to use it. :-)

Tina, thank you for being a dear! Barbara, that's lovely! Julia, AC is one of the great gifts of the 20th century!
Today is another lovely, non-humid one with temps in the lower 80s. Can't ask for better than that! (It was a girl from Siler City who had to make the rounds of the upper-classwomen dorms at my college and recite over the PA system, "It's a right nice night for white rice and ice CREAM." All those flat i's were pretty funny.) Incidentally, that flat i in "white rice" is a class marker where I live but not in Siler City, I guess. I, for example, pronounce those words like the rest of the world, but my I and my are as flat as you can ever hope to hear. I'm sure somebody has studied those unspoken rules. Another class marker is pronouncing a long O as aw, as in "Tawny has a pawny." They got that right with Andy Griffith in No Time for Sergeants. This stuff is endlessly fascinating to me.

Endlessly fascinating for sure. My husband is from Mooresville, raised in Chapel Hill. He barely sounds "southern" unless he deliberately tries, except for a few words. Daughter, born and raised in Chatham County, but with a Westerner for a mother (California with Mid-west influences) has more southern words but everybody says she sounds like me on the phone. (voice and words)

"Sah-ler City", the big town. 10 miles west of where I live. I don't know many people from there, but I do know lots from Sanford (I've worked there for 23 years) and it sounds much more "Southern".

One of my interests is how someone says the word important. glottal stop Im-por'-nt or possibly-unique-to-NC im-POR-dant? Or other? Daughter says im-POR-dant and I say im-POR-tnt.

*Happy Sunday* Today is another beauty here in central NC, hope you're humidity-less out there on the I-95 corridor.

Omigod, class markers... If only we could get rid of them, I'm quite convinced the world would be a happier place! I suppose we'd just replace class markers with regional markers, then, however...

I'm about 100 pages into Day of the Scorpion and enjoying it enormously. It's my designated Memorial Day weekend reading.

>137 sibylline: Lucy, I appear to be hoarding The Broken Road and The Orenda. Both authors I love. I think because I know that when they are over, they will be GONE.

Re A/C -- one of landlord's guys needs to come in and put them in. I've been bugging him about this, but no one has shown up. We haven't had any weather that is remotely warm enough to justify their use yet -- even today, it's only heading toward 70 degrees F -- but tomorrow may hit 80 and we're careening toward summer months. I'm going to need to start being melodramatic or something about it. Or tell him I'll hire someone myself -- that should scare him. I pay whoever puts it in; he just would prefer one of his people to do it. The bedroom A/C was in place all winter (one reason the bedroom stayed so frosty!) for fear of just this scenario, so that, at least, will be sorted.

Off to NYC on Tuesday, and BookExpo kicks off on Thursday morning at dawn!

I'm fascinated, too, Peggy, with your explanations of white rice, flat i, long o pronounced as aw.

Hi, Karen, Suze, and Nancy. Wouldn't it be great if class markers didn't nail you in some social tier immediately? Of course, when I'm conscious of it, I can't tell what I say, but I think it's more along the lines of "imPORnt." I'm pretty sure I swallow that first t. And I wonder again just how many of you could understand me first thing if we talked..... I did say about the home office person in Baltimore (not that far away) asking a RobCo native in the business where my friend worked to put somebody on the phone who was a native speaker for whom English was the first language, didn't I? I'm tickled that you're enjoying *Scorpion*, Suzanne - almost as much as if I had written it myself or were related to Paul Scott. Good luck with the AC. I do have to say that coming in from 95° or so (only once so far this spring), 80° feels pretty cool.

NELLA LAST'S WAR by Nella Last
I really enjoyed this first of three diaries by a 50-something housewife in Barrow-in-Furness on the west coast of England from 1938-1945. (Unfortunately 1944 was lost.) Nella opens her world and herself in these pages, and it's all fresh and compelling. The menus are startling to me, but she takes great pride in having really good food on the table for her husband when he comes home from work both for lunch and for tea and supper. She loves and cares for her house, but her great devotion is for her two grown sons, whom she has reared without much help from the husband. One is a soldier, and the other a tax collector.
She says that her brains are in her fingers, and she spends the war cooking at a center for municipal workers (many of them "conchies" against whom she has the same prejudice as others have for Jews) and soldiers as well as running a little shop to earn money to send packages to prisoners of war through the Red Cross. She loves to make rag dollies for sale and to mend donated items; she says that her brains are in her fingers. I wouldn't have thought that she could be a particularly interesting person, and I would have been wrong.
What is really intriguing to watch is her burgeoning feminist consciousness. Her relationship with her husband is more that of an upper, live-in servant to master than that of a wife to her husband. She writes about getting nerve enough early in their marriage to ask him why he never praises her cooking (which she knows is good). His response is that he sees no need to; if he sees something wrong, he'll let her know. *grrrr* His concern for her from time to time touches and surprises her, but in this book, at least, they have little common ground. She works hard and achieves admirable results, and muses about her success. She is not going to be satisfied to retreat into the house after the war, and I look forward to the next two volumes.

Hi Peggy--I've been away from LT a while, but am now stopping by some threads.

Like you, I was blown away by Blonde--I don't know how Oates did it, but her Marilyn was so real and authentic (not to mention tragic). It's a book that I'd like to reread, were I given enough time.

I'm rereading The Raj Quartet too, but so far have only gotten through The Jewel in the Crown. This is my third rereading (it's one of my desert island books), and it gets better each time. Have you read the sequel if sorts--Staying On? It's much lighter--the humorous tale of an older British couple who couldn't afford to go "home" after independence and are living in genteel poverty in India.

Hi, Deborah, and welcome back. I have read Staying On and look forward to rereading it this year too. I'll say again: I am thrilled that I love *Raj Quartet* as much now as I did on the first reading.

Excitement for my day! Elaine's good review of Edwin: High King of Britain made me go looking for it, and it's currently $1.99 for Kindle. I'm all over it!

I just added it to my Kindle as well, Peggy. Thanks for the heads up.

>161 LizzieD: Me too. Thanks, Peggy!

Good for us, Roni and Colleen!!!

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY by Susan Hill

I love Susan Hill. I hate Susan Hill. She creates perfectly charming characters and kills them off without turning a hair. In this one Simon and crew are trying to track down a killer of old women. I'm sorry to say that I don't think Hill was giving this one her full attention. She likes to leave loose threads, and I expect her to deal with family matters in the next book. But for goodness sake! Why wouldn't she tell us why the killer clips the toenails of his victims? That is certainly not something that I expect her to address in the next book.
I had also identified the killer with about 150 pages to go.
Even so, she is one of the best, and I'll certainly grab The Soul of Discretion, out here in December, as soon as I can afford it!

Peggy, I got such a chuckle out of your opening comments on Susan Hill! And I would also want to know why the killer clips the toenails of his victims. I mean, come on, Susan Hill! I've taken a bullet on this series; it sounds like one I would really enjoy : ).

ImPORTant I've said it about five times out loud and that's how it comes out every time. (I didn't know whether to put the first T in caps or not as I'm dropping my voice towards the 'ant' part at that point.) Ok, is the humour of the white rice/ice cream sentence that the i is pronounded as ah? So when she gets to ice cream it's ahs cream?

Tui, it's not really "ah" as in when the dr. says, "Say AH." It's how I say "eye", and it's interesting. I've just been listening to Phonetic Alphabet Pronounced, and the sound isn't there. Listen to the American "five" and take off the little ai-ee sound at the end and flatten the initial vowel. Give me a call, and I'll talk for you!
Nancy, if you love mysteries and are not reading Susan Hill, you owe it to yourself to fill that vacuum. This is a series that must be read in order, the first being The Various Haunts of Men.

Catching up after my weekend of fun and family..... I seem to see imPORtnt - the end of the word barely there at all. Although I think depending on the circumstances I might also say imPORtint.

Just added The Various Haunts of Men to the wishlist. I might spend an Audible credit for it eventually, because I like the narrator Steven Pacey. I don't quite dare say how I feel about The Day of the Scorpion. The whole questioning of Hari Kumar with Lady Manners listening in had me riveted, but somehow I find I'm sort of just dragging along. I don't know why that is because I can very well say it's a great book. I must just not be in the optimal headspace for it. Maybe because I just want to keep reading Matthew Shardlake books?!

I jumped on Edwin: High King of Britain. Thanks for singling it out. That review certainly sold me on it.

I'm somewhere between imPORtnt and imPOR'nt, perhaps affected by self-conscious experiments.

I agree with you, Peggy - I love Susan Hill, I hate Susan Hill. I usually want to smack Simon.

The summer thunderstorm season has started - a huge branch of one of our trees came down and we lost power for 2 hours yesterday. Thank goodness for the generator and thank goodness the branch didn't damage anything. I think it's going to be a juicy summer here in NC.

YAY! I got City of Stairs in the ER sweeps for May! I'm excited!! So I'd better get busy with The Plover..........uh oh.
Karen, I almost always want to smack Simon too. So glad that he has wonderful women relatives. (He's just like his daddy - almost.) Yep. I had finished my swim and shower this afternoon when they cleared the pool for a thunderstorm. Actually, I'm glad to see them. No matter what the farmers say, drought scares me to pieces. I envy you your generator.
Katherine, that's what I thought in re the self-consciousness.
Ilana, I'm sorry that you don't love the Laytons as much as I do. Maybe it will come. I can understand the urge to Shardlake. And I'm glad that you also enjoyed Elaine's review. I'm her great fan!

Peggy, I wish you a relaxing weekend full of reading.

OOOooo! Thank you, Barbara, and the same to you! What amazing bird is that?

A SEVERED HEAD by Iris Murdoch

This is not my least favorite Murdoch so far, but it's certainly the slightest. It reads much longer than its 204 pages, and while I found it funny, I'm not sure that what I laughed at was what IM intended that I laugh at. I devoutly trust that these characters are not like any real people, but they are very recognizable as Murdochios and Murdochias. The narrator Martin is a self-regarding Lothario (at least when we meet him) who probably gets what he deserves in the end. The women are really no better although the younger woman Georgie is portrayed with a bit of sympathy. I'm glad that I was able to satisfy my curiosity about it, and I'm glad to be finished!

It's a hoopoe.

Ah! Thank you for both the bird and the identification!

I'm with you on A Severed Head. My least favorite. But mercifully short!

Hi, Lucy. Not quite short enough!

Interesting! I really liked A Severed Head. It was, I think, my third Murdoch and the one where I finally "got" her.

That is interesting, Laura! I wonder whether you also love The Sea, The Sea, which is the one I really hated when I read it these 30 or so years ago. I will reread it if I live long enough, but I have plenty of IM unread before I let myself in for that again. You and I have so many reading tastes in common that a disagreement is spicy.
And I looks like I'm going to wrap up my mindless historical romance/mystery today in spite of everything, which certainly helps my monthly average after reading only two in April.

Hi, Peggy! I must say that, inspired by your Raj Quartet love, I hunted down my copies of the first two volumes and got the remaining two from bookmooch. As I skimmed a bit of vol. 3, I could see that it will be a great set of books for me too.

The Murdoch talk is interesting. I've yet to try her work, but do have The Sea, the Sea and one or two more here on the stacks.

So many, many books and so very little time...

>180 LizzieD: I liked The Sea, the Sea, but I didn't love it. I have a lot more IM ahead of me as well, in fact I haven't read anything of hers in over a year and really need to rectify that. Just haven't been in the mood.

Agreed, Laura. IM demands attention and cooperation!
Gail, I can't wait to see what you think of P. Scott. Sometimes I think that it would be a good thing to be all brain and eyes so that I could read and read and read without worrying about exercise or cleanliness or eating or much of anything else......hmmm. Maybe now.

A Severed Head was my first Iris Murdoch, and maybe because I got it as an audiobook and it was read by Derek Jacobi, I really found it quite delightful. All these neuroses on top of neuroses and really outrageous people just made me smile. And Jacobi did an amazing job rendering the whole. Sorry it was such a drag for you. I can easily see a lot of people not liking it, mind you. The Sea, the Sea was my second book, and I must have been in the right place for it because I ended up liking it too, rather unexpectedly, though I did say in my review that it was certainly not an easy read by any measure and even quite painful in parts. I definitely want to read lots more of her work. Just a question of fitting it in, as with everything else.

Ilana, once you get a taste for Murdoch, there are times when nothing else will do. I hope that your next one will be one that I consider a good one. The Philosopher's Pupil became my favorite last year. I would be attracted to the phone book read by Derek Jacobi, I confess.

SILENT IN THE GRAVE by Deanna Raybourn

What do you know! I was able to squeeze one more into May, and while this one was long, it was easy, quick long. It's a historical (Victorian England), romantic mystery. Lady Julia Gray's husband has died, and the stranger at the scene is an investigator whom the deceased had called in to deal with threatening letters. It's pretty much a high-class Harlequin in tone except that there is no explicit sex --- lots of sexual tension though. It also deals with a number of hot topics, but to list them would be to provide spoilers. At any rate, it is amusing fluff, and I was happy to be amused.
Raybourn writes well enough that I was perplexed by the two exceptions I found. At one point she mentions that each story grew more colourful than the next..................uh --- what? And Lady Julia remarks that Brisbane has "knocked his arrow." He's surprised at the metaphor, and would have been more so had he read it. I cared enough to crack out the old OED, and "nock" has never been spelled "knock". So once more I lament the lack of a copy editor who could have kept those howlers out of the book.
I bought this after somebody here read it and recommended it. Now I can't remember who it was. Thank you, dear person. I have book 2 in the series from PBS, and I will definitely read it sometime when my brain is weary.

Is it nock the arrow or notch the arrow? *perplexed*

I've been reading that series for a while, and enjoy it in a rather desultory way, but don't think I've ever recommended it, so shan't take credit! I did find it rather odd that this series and that by Tasha Alexander launched at almost EXACTLY the same time. Both are set in Victorian England, with both heroines having husbands who are murdered. In both cases, the heroines meet a hunky private investigator who is involved in the investigation into that murder... And so begins a romance and a series...

>184 Smiler69: Derek Jacobi is amazing at everything he does, I can imagine him narrating that book.

I didn't think the recommender was you, Suze. Since I looked it up, I can tell you that "to nock" an arrow is to fit it to the bowstring, which I thought was what she meant in context. It can also mean "to notch" an arrow, or to put that little hole thingy in it so that you can fit it to the bowstring.
Hi, Laura. Yep. Real love here for DJ!

Hi Peggy!

>158 LizzieD: Nella Last's War sounds like one I'd enjoy (I keep misremembering the title as Nella's Last War). I've bumped it up my wishlist.

There was an excellent TV adaptation of Nella Last's War, entitled 'Housewife, 49' with Victoria Wood as Nella.

Agreement here, Jacobi is a great reader. A Severed Head was also written by Murdoch as a play - and I completely see how it would be fun on stage. So listening to it might be a very good way to absorb it!

O.K. I can see how it would make a good play. I think my next IM will be a reread of one I know I like though - maybe Nuns and Soldiers. I've been saying I'd reread it for about a year now.
Kerry, I knew that there was some kind of Nella Last on video - I'm too out of the loop to know Victoria Wood though. I'll bet they made quite a lot of her non-relationship with her husband. Heather, I think that you will definitely enjoy the book; I'll get to the next one, at least, this year. (I want to call it *Nella's Last War* too.)
I had such a nice afternoon! I made some progress in The Plover, which I am liking better in spite of the style. I also read some of *Crow Road*. Now this is my idea of good writing!

Wow, it looks like I haven't visited here in quite a while. I'm way far behind, and skimming, but want to impart best wishes!

Thanks, Terri. I know the problem. You're very welcome whenever you come.
I HATE LISTS!!!!! The Plover is punching every button I own, but I keep looking forward to picking it up again. That surely says something for Doyle.
Why does anybody think that this is writing??? "General examination of the equipment in toto especially gudgeons, pintles, rudder, engine buckles, shrouds (upper and lower), sails, propeller, engine water tanks, both bilge pumps, all aspects of the restroom facilities, winches, flashlights, diving mask and fins, slickers, and an audit of food supplies remaining especially almonds ----" and on and on for another two or three lines, and this was a short list.
On the other hand, I enjoy this: "People make too much of facts. Also people make too much of gut feelings. Gut feelings probably mean food poisoning. Most of the time you try to be sensible but sensible is just as overrated as intuition...." and so on for only a page before he resumes narration.
I'm glad that it isn't the slog that I expected after only 20 pages.

*lurk*

*double lurk*

Peggy, I think I"m right with you on The Plover. I'm carried away by his language then irritated as he rambles on and on, often repeating himself. But I too am finding much to like in it.
I just went to Powell's this morning and purchased the first Susan Hill mystery after you mentioned it earlier on. But I won't let myself start until I finish The Plover.

Jan, I intended to go to your thread to let you know that I am enjoying *Plover* more now than I was at the beginning. I had an out of town church meeting today, so I've read almost nothing. *sigh*
I hope you like the Susan Hill. I have to say that after the first one, I was sure that I'd never read her again. Then I couldn't help it; I had to know what was going on with some of those people. Hope you enjoy it when you get to it.
And HOW I wish I could say nonchalantly, "I just went to Powell's this morning and purchased...." Shoot. I'd be happy to say, "I just went anywhere this morning and purchased...."

*re-lurking*

>194 LizzieD: Hi Peggy. I have to agree with you about the list you posted. Uninspiring, to say the least.

Did I miss some list somewhere. I like to make lists, but then I lose interest in them.

Just thought I'd let you know I just got The Various Haunts of Men from Audible based on your recommendation for this series. I think I'll probably give it a listen soon, and we'll see if I love or hate Susan Hill! :-)

Hey, Ilana! ODI ET AMO!!!!
Lucy, the lists are in The Plover. I quoted one of the shorter ones above. Deadly.
Hi, Bonnie. Always good to see you here!
Roni, you're always welcome too, lurking or speaking!

"Odi et amo" is an expression new to me, but the feeling certainly isn't! :-)

Old as the hills - older than Catullus, whose poem it is.
Rough translation: I hate and I love. If you ask me how, I can't tell you. I only know that it's so, and that I'm torn in two.

And I'm just about through The Plover! YIPEEEE!!!!

Yes yes, Catullus, I saw that when I googled it. I'm sure my mum would be familiar with it. She had to take Latin for goodness knows how many years with the nuns!

Just stopping by to see how you're getting along with The Plover. Glad the end is in sight!

THE PLOVER by Brian Doyle

FINISHED!!!! YAY!!!!! I'm not sorry that I spent the time with it, but I am so happy to have finished that I don't know what to do. My review, and Jan's (who liked it more than I did), are on the book page. I ended up not hating it at all, but I'm well and completely tired of it. I'm sure that Edmund Burke had something to say about the condition, but I don't feel like looking it up.

ETA: Being through has made me rude. Hi, Ilana! Hi, Laura!

Congrats on finishing the book, Peggy. Now pick up something light and entertaining to cleanse your palate.

Peggy, I won't read The Plover, but thumb-up for a fabulous review! Oh my goodness, you made me chuckle: I think the endless wordplay (which I generally love) and the really endless lists (which I hate) are supposed to evoke a rabelaisian energy, but they made me tired and ready to spit.

Have been thinking of you yesterday and today. About to start Our Mutual Friend (I often listen/read classics, and will with this one, too), and would appreciate any words of wisdom. You are probably unaware, but I consider you LT's resident Dickens expert! ETA: I had starred some time ago the OMF group read, so going through that, too! Most helpful!

Oh my goodness, Nancy! I am honored by the thought even if it's SO not accurate. I confess that I didn't love *OMF* as much on my last reading as I did the first two times. My memory tends to play up the plot lines that I love (Lizzie Hexam {hence my user name here and from of old} and Bradley/Eugene and Mr Venus et al.) and minimize the ones I find tedious (all things Bella). On the other hand, Dickens could write! Oh, how he could write! And thank you for your kindness about the review and the thumb. I treasure them!
Roni, I am reading Century Rain, which is Reynolds-light, but I confess that Decca Mitford's letters jumped off the shelf at me today, and I had to start them. WHAT am I doing???? It's not as though I were not already reading a 700+ page book this month. I wish, I wish my ego were not so involved in meeting at least one of my annual goals. Alas, I'll be disappointed when I don't make the 95 this year, and I guess I didn't really expect to make the 40,00 pages, but I was hopeful. Meanwhile, I'm happy as a clam.
Also I ordered a couple of VMCs from AwesomeBooks this afternoon, and that has me glowing.

Thank you, Peggy! Was reading your OMF character list over at the GR thread earlier. I'll need to review it again … and again. Dickens wouldn't be Dickens without at least a thousand characters, LOL! I think I probably do the same thing as you do with plot lines.

Peggy, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

I can't imagine reading OMF for a third time. I enjoyed it the oncet!

Have a jolly time with Decca.

Thanks for the visits, comments, picture, and good wishes, Nancy,Barbara and Lucy!
Weekend so far is very good, but no Decca yet. Today's reading time went into The Crow Road, which is very enjoyable.

Hi Peggy - just a drop by on my way to visit an elderly neighbor..... I think this thread needs to end soon because at least here in central NC it's more like summer than spring... think the coast's worse. The only benefit to summer in NC is that it grows good tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, green beans, and sunflowers. Probably other things too, but that's what's in my summer garden this year.

Have a lovely Sunday and a good week.

*sigh* You're right, Karen. Summer's here. I'm just too lazy to set the new thread up. Thank you for dropping by this one though!

I have to agree, reluctantly Even I had to turn the bedroom A/C on today, which is a major event...

*lurk*

Hi, Suz and Roni. I've been unhappily AWOL - enduring a stomach virus of the 48 hour variety. I finally woke up with no fever this morning, but I'm starved and shaky and a little queasy from trying to eat too much too fast - only a cream of mushroom soup (weird, I know, but my go-to food after a stomach bout) and a few saltines. At least I'm up.
I improved each shining hour by reading The Goldfinch, which is what I had going on the Kindle, and it's been very entertaining. It is really L-O-N-G though.

Hi Peggy, so sorry to see you've been unwell. Hopefully you'll be all better very soon with that mushroom soup and saltines combo. Yum! Haven't had mushroom soup in a long time.

I'll eventually build up the courage to jump into The Goldfinch. It's just such a huge time commitment. Only 10 hours longer on audio than The Six Wives of Henry VIII, which I'm almost finished with and enjoyed very much, but still... There is the fact that I'm not so keen on contemporary fiction lately...

Peggy, get well soon.

Sorry to hear you've not been well, but glad the worst is over.

Hey if cream of mushroom soup works, why knock it? We all have those "comfort flavors" built in, I suspect! Feel better...

Hope you're continuing to feel better, Peggy! Funny, I like cream of mushroom soup, too, on an unsettled stomach.

Delighted you're finding The Goldfinch entertaining. Yes it is! And it is also L-O-N-G enough, LOL!

>Dear little woman in green, you look beautiful!

And, the images of flowers are breath taking.

Happy Evening to you!

Hope you're feeling a little better Peggy. I think I may finally get to The Goldfinch in July/August.

I join Bonnie in sending positive thoughts your way in the hope that you are feeling better.

Aw, thanks, friends. I appreciate the good wishes, and I am feeling better - in fact, off to eat a little rice in a minute. I keep trying stuff other than the recommended list (I do not like bananas or yogurt a lot) and not getting on too well (except with the mushroom soup!). Tomorrow will be better.
*Goldfinch* is galloping to the end although my cousin who read it earlier this year said that the ending seemed way out of sync with the rest of the book. I haven't read any reviews yet to see if that's a common complaint.
You've made my day, Bonnie, Linda (you dear!), Nancy, Suz, Roni, and Barbara. What a great group!

I'm sorry to hear you've been ill, Peggy. I hope your improved health continues. I'm glad you are enjoying The Goldfinch — I loved it when I read it at the beginning of the year.

The ending does kind of force you to rethink some of the stuff earlier on, doesn't it? And the tone of the final scenes -- the voice -- also is quite different. Intriguing! Shall look forward to your comments, but even more to your complete recovery....

Thank you, Julia. Well, Suzanne, here goes....

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt

I quite enjoyed the book. If it had been a couple of hundred pages shorter, I might have loved it or almost loved it. As it stands, I would almost certainly have nominated it for the Orange Bailey, but I'm just about positive I wouldn't have nominated Tartt for a Pulitzer. This is only her third book, for heaven's sake, and I didn't think it was all that good.
So. I did enjoy it. The story kept me involved, and the settings were all exotic to me, so that was good. I could have spent a lot less time in Las Vegas. I was as involved with the characters as I am in any other decent thriller. I enjoyed the time spent in Hobie's shop. I was breathless through the action in Amsterdam. For the rest - it was good enough.
(I'm feeling pretty defensive here but telling the truth to shame the devil....) I don't think that Tartt's writing is anything more than very competent. That's a lot to say, especially these days, but it's nothing that I would give a prize to. I was happy to read a first-person narrative in the past tense with quotation marks. That makes the reading go a lot better for me. I was not particularly impressed by the ending philosophy itself. I'll admit that I read it last night around midnight when I'm not at my brightest, but I thought that If it had been better focused, I might have found it sort of facile. It didn't ring any bells for me thematically. All in all, I come down on the thumping good read side with a thud. I'm glad that the people who have read and loved it got to read it......I'm certainly envious of their experience and still waiting for the next book that I can't bear to finish because it's so wonderful. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat if it were in the 400 page category; at 775 pages, I recommend it only to my friends who are intrigued by the premise or burningly curious to see what all the attention is about.

Hm. I wasn't in a great hurry to get to it before, and not in a great hurry to get to it now, but I do have it on both audio and ebook formats so I can get through it at a decently quick pace when I decide to settle down with it. Thanks for the honest review Peggy.

>232 LizzieD: in the past tense with quotation marks
Well, that's a start. 775 pages and mild curiosity are incompatible, so that'll be the end of it for me. :-)

Yes, Peggy, your experience with it pretty much echoed mine. I have been very amused to see how rapidly, when I say I didn't love it and express reservations about the tremendous love affair with the book, people rush to conclude that I disliked it. I didn't it. I simply thought it was very competent with themes that were, at bottom, facile. Nothing made me put the book down, step back, and wonder about the world and people in it in the way that a truly excellent book does.

And nope, I don't think that's being elitist, or a book snob, or envy. It's just my personal judgment. Had another wrangle with someone over this just yesterday. *sigh*

It isn't even about the Pulitzer. I don't really care what wins and what doesn't. That is so "of the moment" that had Goldfinch failed to win, odds are it would have been another book "of the moment" that did. Sometimes, those are the books that are astonishing and remarkable, but not always. Sometimes, they're just the ones that everyone finds tremendously readable, and that are good ENOUGH for them to be called great.

LOL re "past tense with question marks"!

Interesting thoughts on The Goldfinch, Peggy. I really liked it, and also consider it a "thumping good read," but I agree it would have been better, and more recommendable, at 400 pages than at 775.

Philosophical Comment du Jour:

Books are like food. One person's gourmet taste treat is another person's "Ugh, get this out of my sight!!!!"

Thoroughly enjoyed your review of The Goldfinch, Peggy. I thought it was a thumping good read, too, even if Vegas went on too long. Not a spectacular read, but very good. Glad you enjoyed.

Glad to have some readers whom I respect agree with me pretty much, Suz and Nancy. I'm guessing that you maybe liked it more than I did, Laura? And I know that Julia ranks among the dedicated lovers. Books are like food. I am always delighted when somebody loves a book as much as I do - especially if I've recommended it. And I'm always disappointed when somebody, whom I think has tastes similar to mine, doesn't - especially if I've recommended it.
Now I'm going out on a limb. I've seen this one and The Luminaries, another greatly loved new book that I didn't like at all, called "Dickensian." That always makes me a bit nervous. What they generally mean, those that say this, is that it's long and has lots of characters (at least one being some monster you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley even in the daytime) and a complicated plot. Truly, none of those are great reasons for loving Dickens, and I do. (And talk about a magnet for passion both positive and negative!) I love him for his miraculous writing. It reads as though it were effortless, and, of course, it wasn't. Every page has sentences that sing their way right out of the print into heart and mind, and I'll prove it, having done this once before on another LT thread. I'll walk into the sitting room right this minute, stand in front of the Dickens shelf, close my eyes, pick a book (last time it was Barnaby Rudge for heaven's sake), open it to a random page, read, and copy a wonderful sentence. I'll be right back ----- O.K. I picked Martin Chuzzlewit -----
On page 408 to 409 I read, "Then Mr. Pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door: calmly appearing on the threshold, as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite certain." Well, it may not sing to my heart and mind, but it's good stuff. That hesitation caused by "from his vineyard" reinforces the impression that Pecksniff is anxious to create. And it's funny. That's the other thing I love about Mr. Dickens, however loathsome a husband he was.
Neither Tartt nor Catton has that mastery of the language. In fact, I feel stupid even writing that sentence. CD was unique.
So I could go on, but I won't. I'm back into The Crow Road and enjoying it very much. I like it a lot more than The Wasp Factory, my first Iain Banks with no M, which I ended up appreciating at least. Of course, I'm a Culture fanatic - another group of novels that are so good that I save them for a time when I need something really good really badly.

I've not yet read The Luminaries. Stalled in the first 25 or 30 pages. I'm not altogether sure why, and I do want to try again.

But yes -- Dickensian, and paragraph to paragraph comparisons. Here is the now-infamous Francine Prose, from the now-infamous review, on Dickensian novels:

"What do people mean when they call a novel “Dickensian”? A large cast of vividly drawn characters, some of them grotesques with comically descriptive names and odd tics of speech and behavior; a plucky orphan who overcomes a childhood blighted by humiliating poverty or simple lower-class misery; numerous and ingeniously interconnected subplots; panoramic shifts of location; a narrative that makes the reader finish each chapter eager to begin the next. But like “Kafkaesque,” “Dickensian” is only a partial description of the writer’s work. Often missing from so-called Dickensian novels are the aspects of Dickens—his originality, his intelligence, his witty and precise descriptions, the depth and breadth of his powers of observation, his cadenced, graceful language—that can temper the urgency of our impulse to keep reading with the desire to read passages aloud, preferably to another person."

I think you and Prose are on the same page (aha, pun alert!) here, Peggy.

and a page to page comparison, but Prose instead compares Tartt's writing to that of Edward St. Aubyn, taking a very analogous situation, a young man thinking of what it's like to crave a drug hit.

From Tartt: "It was a myth you couldn't function on opiates: shooting up was one thing but for someone like me -- jumping at pigeons beating from the side walk, afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder practically to the point of spasticity and cerebral palsy -- pills were the key to being not only competent, but high functioning."

From St Aubyn: "Heroin was the only thing that really worked, the only thing that stopped him scampering around in a hamster's wheel of unanswerable questions. Heroin was the cavalry. Heroin was the missing chair leg, made with such precision that it matched ever splinter of the break. Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favorite cushion. It was as soft and rich as the throat of a wood pigeon, or the splash of sealing wax onto a page, or a handful of gems slipping from palm to palm. The way other people felt about love, he felt about heroin, and he felt about love the way other people felt about heroin: that it was a dangerous and incomprehensible waste of time."

The latter tells me far more about the character. It also SHOWS me, not just instructing me. The metaphors are rich and vivid, and yet St. Aubyn never loses track of what it is that he's trying to say and never collapses under the weight of a just OK sentence. And the cumulative of impact of lots and lots and lots of just OK sentences, however compelling and melodramatic the plotline, is a book that I can enjoy reading but can't call great or one of the best I've read or love.

The bottom line, as Prose says, is that I can't imagine experiencing the urge to read out phrases from "Goldfinch" to someone. I look back at my Kindle version, and find I didn't highlight anything that struck me. When I read a book that I love, I'm usually marking a page with a passage that I love to share with someone somehow -- sometimes here, sometimes in a review. Sometimes, it isn't even in a book that is all that great; it's just a felicitous turn of phrase.

Anyway, I realize that this is one of those books that the lovers will always love, and I'm glad of that. I'm not trying to persuade them to reconsider their point of view. Merely to say that this is how and why I reached my own opinion -- and it's not a product of elitism, not envy and not malice or any of the other motivations I hear flung around. It's disconcerting that a review of a book that differs from what its fans want to hear can arouse as much hostility!

Thanks so much for posting that here, Suz. F. Prose absolutely nails it. And that's quite a contrast. And I agree that lovers of *Goldfinch* should enjoy their love and publish it abroad and praise and defend it to the end. But please give me leave just to like it.

I didn't care for The Luminaries. It may have had a "Dickensian" number of characters, but that's where the similarity ended. I found all of Catton's characters pretty much ran one into the next; there was nothing distinguishable about any of them for me, and it took me forever to be able to keep them even somewhat straight.

Peggy, I wish you a wonderful weekend.

Peggy, so sorry to hear you were laid low with a stomach bug but glad to hear you're feeling better again.

I appreciate your thoughts on The Goldfinch. It wasn't one that had particularly appealed to me before so I think I'm happy for it to pass me by entirely.

>243 lit_chick: That was pretty much my experience too, Nancy. I kept expecting it to get good - or something - but what you read in the first 100 pages was what you got in the other 750 or whatever.
Thank you, Heather. I can't imagine that you'd adore it although I could be wrong.
Thank you for the dragonfly! I'm a dragonfly lover......... We have lovely little dameslflies later in the summer that we love to watch.
ACK! I totally forgot that I had promised myself and TIOLI that I'd read The Palace Walk this month. Here I am frivolling away my time with Century Rain and loving The Crow Road. I'll just have to mop up and make a start on it anyway.

I'm starting to wonder whether I should bother with The Goldfinch at all. I'd pre-ordered it on Audible and I started to listen to it on the day it came out, but 10 minutes into it, I decided I wasn't up for contemporary fiction, and knowing the disaster that was coming up right at the beginning, didn't feel I wanted to deal with that at all. I really enjoyed her first book when I read it, but that's over 20 years ago. On the other hand, Suz totally sold me on Edward St. Aubyn's series of books when she published that quote on her own thread a while back, and I do look forward to those.

Ack, I would hate to feel that I'm talking anybody out of a book that is a good read, if not what I happen to consider Great. So hopefully nobody would let my views on Good/Adequate vs Great convince them NOT to read something.

Now, good vs crappy is, of course, a different matter altogether... *cue evil chortle* There I am quite happy to ascend a bully pulpit...

>248 Chatterbox: No worries Suz, I'd been wondering about this book since the day it came out actually. I think I'll have to tackle it eventually, if only so I can get it out of the way.

Happy Sunday Peggy!

Meanwhile, I'm about to put the St. Cabins Patrick Melrose novels, the first four anyway, on my Kindle for $7.99. Sounds like a good deal to me!
Thanks for visiting, Ilana and Suzanne.

Thanks for the heads up on the deal for Off to be the Wizard yesterday, Peggy. zefariath had put it on my wish list last year, and I would not have seen the Kindle email until today thanks to being busy yesterday.

>250 LizzieD: I just bought 'em, too. I've just finished Lost for Words, his Booker Award satire, which was more playful than anything else, and while the level of bleakness in these sounds as if it may be daunting, I think I should try them. Sometime. At least they'll be on my Kindle at an affordable price -- $2 apiece!

Glad to be of service, Roni and Suz.

I keep forgetting to post this. This is one of my very favorite former students EVER, the one who just got to step into the Golda Meier role in DC earlier this year. I can't tell you how much I wish I could get to Brooklyn for this performance!

Only Child presents ASYLUM
June 26, 27, & 28
Doors open @ 7:30pm; Show @ 8pm
The Muse Brooklyn
32D S. 1st St. (between Wythe & Kent Aves)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L train to Bedford, 10-15 min walk from subway)

Tickets $20 Here and at the door

Finally, I'm baaaack.... I never let your thread get this far behind!

I think your review settles The Goldfinch for me. And I thank you!

>253 LizzieD: What a marvelous marvelous thing that is!!!!

Isn't it??? Kendall has been working on the aerial flying/dance for several years. She's such a perfectionist that I'm sure she's very good. She's certainly very lovely as you see.



Hmmm. I don't much think that you'd enjoy *Goldfinch*, Lucy.

I wouldn't call The Luminaries Dickensian, but it sure felt a bit like a good old worry-free classic adventure novel, at least the first half when it was just a story and before astrology and the chapter-length became important. I am glad I read it just when it was published, so the later hype didn’t put any pressure on me to like it. I tend to be too critical with praised contemporary books, can't help it, so now I mostly try to read them later.
Last year I read all the longlisted Booker candidates, and TL was one of the last ones to be published in my region. So when I got to it I had been through a very mixed stack and most other authors had tried to be deep and serious in some way. TL, despite its length, was a relief and felt like such fun in comparison. In the end it wasn’t perfect, but I was glad it won.

I don’t feel tempted by The Goldfinch yet, maybe later this year. I’ll need some shorter and/or easier books now for the summer.

It's been more than a year since I read any Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit has been on my tbr forever, as has Nicolas Nickleby. Hm... so much about shorter books...

I have The Goldfinch but probably won't read it until later this summer. I'm working on reading all of the Pulitzers so I'll read it but with the reactions I've heard here and from friends in real life, I can't say I'm looking forward to it. Too long, only adequate and Dickensian -- yikes!! (I'll confess, I don't like Dickens)

Reba, you can read *Goldfinch* without fear that it's Dickensian! I'm sorry you don't like my man and also sorry that that's no guarantee that you will like *Goldfinch*> Nathalie, maybe reading *Luminaries* pre-hype was a good idea. I don't much think I'd have liked it even then, but I'm glad that you did. I am with you in the need for summer reading, and I think I'll just take up my newly arrived copy of The Buzzard Table.

THE CROW ROAD by Iain Banks

I loved this book. It feels really good to say that after damning some with faint praise. I confess to being a little weary of young men who spend a lot of their time with alcohol (although I can't fault the choice of malt whiskey right there near Oban) and drugs. My only caveat is for people who prefer their family sagas told in a nice, straight, linear fashion. I simply read on trusting Banks, and in the end, the chronology was perfectly clear in my head. I'd like to go back some time, but likely won't, to map out just how he did structure this novel.
So. Prentice McHoan is at university in the year in which a number of his relatives and a friend die (take the Crow Road) dramatic deaths. They are very Scottish, and that was fun for me since I'm 5/8 Scot. With the exception of one nasty customer, they are charming and personable and quirky and genuinely human.
Prentice grows more aware of his extended family as he attends his grandmother's funeral. He is obsessed by the beautiful Verity, at odds with his father over religion (he says that his father left him completely free to believe whatever he wants so long as he agrees with his dad), and intrigued by his friend's report from a drunken encounter with an international news correspondent that a McHoan is having the wool pulled over his eyes. Prentice begins to explore, and we follow through his own experiences and experiences of his parents and his aunts and uncles as they lived them. To say more would be to spoil, but I was a happy reader among the McHoans, and I'll remember them for a good long time!