SusanJ's 75 Books Challenge - Thread 10

Hello, and welcome to my tenth thread for 2015.

I'm Susan, a Kiwi living in London for the past 20 years. During the working week I'm a lawyer so I love nerdy legal stuff, which crops up in more books than you might expect.

Over the past couple of years I've started to read mostly non-fiction, and this year my goal was 150 books, one-third fiction and two-thirds non-fiction. However, it's looking like half and half at the moment.

And earlier in the year I bought a Fitbit and turned into a stepper :-)













Top Fiction Reads of 2014

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Tilted World by Tom Franklin

Top Non-Fiction Reads of 2014

Merchant Adventurers by James Evans
Deep Sea and Foreign Going by Rose George
Empire of Necessity by Greg Grandin
Cheek by Jowl by Emily Cockayne
In These Times by Jenny Uglow

July reads

115. Tales of the City
116. Bad Pharma
117. The Establishment: And How They Get Away With It
118. Outlaws of the Atlantic
119. Forgotten Fatherland
120. The Devil in the Marshalsea
121. I Take You
122. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ
123. Crooked Heart
124. Concretopia
125. The English Spy
126. Trigger Warning: Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?
127. The Quality of Silence
128. Temeraire
129. The Mistresses of Cliveden
130. More Tales of the City
131. War Crimes for the Home
132. The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression: Shirley Temple and 1930s America
133. Fire and Steam
134. Evelina

August reads

135. Dreamstreets
136. Wayfaring Stranger
137. Family and Kinship in East London
138. How to Clone a Mammoth
139. Station Eleven
140. The Great Explosion
141. The Vanished City: London's Lost Neighbourhoods
142. Homicide
143. The Raj at War
144. On Immunity: An Inoculation
145. Moral Tribes
146. The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London
147. The Dragonfly Diaries
148. The New East End: Race, Kinship and Conflict
149. Ghettoside
150. Summer Days
151. A Place Called Winter
152. Summer Nights
153. Land of Love and Drowning
154. Platform Souls

September reads

155. All Summer Long
156. Boomerang
157. Further Tales of the City
158. Just One Kiss
159. A Fool's Gold Christmas
160. Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
161. Just Like Heaven
162. Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties
163. The People's Republic of Amnesia
164. A Perfect Crime
165. Blood and Roses
166. Guantanamo Diary
167. The Kindness
168. A God in Ruins
169. Black Earth

October reads

170. Babycakes
171. Pirate Hunters
172. The Making of Home
173. Empires of the Sea
174. Worktown
175. The Midwife's Child
176. Delucca's Marriage Contract
177. Rival's Challenge
178. His for a Price
179. His for Revenge
180. Some Kind of Wonderful
181. Redhead
182. Significant Others
183. The White House Mess
184. City of Djinns
185. Christmas Ever After
186. Crisis? What Crisis?
187. Watching the English
188. Sure of You
189. Willoughbyland: England's Lost Colony

November reads

190. The Great British Dream Factory
191. Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s
192. Michael Tolliver Lives
193. The Boys in the Boat
194. The Sixth Extinction
195. Mary Ann in Autumn
196. The Remains of an Altar
197. The Known World
198. Ban This Filth!: Letters from the Mary Whitehouse Archive
199. Imhotep
200. The Radioactive Boy Scout
201. The Planet Remade
202. Two of a Kind
203. Three Little Words
204. The Ascent of Money

December reads

205. They All Love Jack
206. In the Kingdom of Ice
207. The Rise of the Robots
208. The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria
209. Sweet Talk
210. Sweet Spot
211. Sweet Trouble
212. The Frozen Water Trade
213. Notre Dame vs The Klan
214. The Best Bride
215. Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants
216. A Wanted Man
217. The Devil in the Grove

204. The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson

This was a book exchange choice, and it's a good look at how the world came to use money in its different forms, and then insurance, and the various financial products that caused the crash (or crunch) in 2007-08. It was written in May 2008, so it stops before Lehman Brothers went bust or the big bank bail-outs happened in the UK, and of course before a lot of what happened in the US too. It's well done and very clearly set out, so if you're confused about what all the jargon means, this is a good place to start. I picked it mostly for the pretty cover, but that's just me :-)

>3 susanj67: - I hate book previews. Such a waste of pages. I've never read one in my life as I do not, under any circumstances, want to know what might be going to happen in the next book. I feel pretty much the same about movie and TV previews, too. More than once I have gone to see what was supposed to be a funny movie and it often turns out that they pretty much used all of the funny lines in the ads and there is nothing left for me to enjoy. TV is even worse as I am often terribly sick of certain shows long before I ever have the opportunity to actually see them. If I can get that sick of the ads for upcoming shows, I suppose this means that I watch far too much TV.

My ordered library book is at the library waiting for me to pick it up. My planning did not work as I think they cancelled the way out of town book that I ordered and replaced it with one that is more local. I may pick it up tomorrow, but I refuse to start reading it until Tuesday.

Happy new thread! Just marking my spot. (Something I learned from Adrian. ;-)

Nice new thread -- 204 books! Impressive. The Ferguson sounds interesting.

>5 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I never read the previews either. Somehow it seems wrong if the rest of the book isn't there. And occasionally it's for a book in the series that *isn't even the next one*. Shocking :-) Good on you for sticking to Tuesday for the reserve. Maybe I'll do that with the ebook I reserved yesterday thinking it would be ages, and then it came almost immediately.

>6 cbl_tn: Carrie, I think I like your electronic way of marking better!

>7 BLBera: Beth, it was a good read. And interesting to read it knowing what happened next, too.

Today I went to the V&A's "Fabric of India" exhibition, which was very good. And the jewellery one was also open, but it's a tiny space, and very dark, so I wouldn't recommend it for claustrophobes. They had some stunning jewellery, though, mostly looted by the English during their time in India. Some of it belonged to people I've read about in my India reading.

Now it's time top get cracking on all the books - I've gone from no due dates to three due dates in no time at all. And did I mentioned how HUGE the Jack the Ripper book is?

Congrats on your shiny new thread, Susan and happy weekend.

That fabric exhibition looks lovely. I am also very envious of the British library's west African print one at the moment. Web photos are not the same.

Are you going to get the London Fog book? The Guardian says thumbs up, but not sure if that view is shared in other publications (hello Times firewall). (It had me at the mention of beautiful pictures).

Happy new thread.
>:-)

Happy new thread!! Hope you have a nice weekend. I'm having a "sea day" after hosting Thanksgiving on Thursday. I love having a day every now and again when I just stay home.
"

>9 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara - you too!

>10 charl08: Charlotte, I think yes to the London Fog book, although there's no sign of it in the library catalogue yet. And the science one :-)

>11 Helenliz: Thanks Helen!

>12 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba! So far it's been good, but I might have a sea day myself tomorrow if the forecast is accurate. There's a weather warning out for mayhem, and I don't like walking around when it's windy. But I'll have to see if it comes true.

I've started They All Love Jack, which has a very "different" style - very conversational and ranty, hating everyone from the royal family to the judges to the police etc etc etc because they were all freemasons. It's a bit like reading a very long Guardian article, in which anyone with more than tuppence ha'penny to their name is, by definition, evil. The story is starting to come together, but I think I might be very tired of the writing style by the end of it. It feels overwritten, like the author isn't just making a point, but making it five times, each one hatier than the last, just because he can. I think, even 120 pages in, that it could probably be half the length and still tell the story, but I'll get back to y'all in seven hundred pages.

I've also started In the Kingdom of Ice, which is looking very good, and I've read a couple of chapters of The King in the North, in which Oswald is finally king, 30% into it. I like it, although I see some people have complained that it's very very very detailed. And they have a point. Also I'm reading the Kindle edition so the maps at the front are lost to me, and they'd be really useful as my knowledge of seventh-century borders of the various tribes is not great :-)

Congratulations on moving into double figures in terms of threads, Susan. I have enjoyed following your prodigious reading this year.

Have a lovely weekend.

Happy new thread, Susan!

How are you doing with the Ripper? As a committed Guardian (Review and quick crossword) reader, I feel like I ought to like that one, but the theories as to who he was just seem to be more and more bonkers each time I come across something on the case. Have you ever done a Jack the Ripper walking tour? I wondered how much of that London street area survives today.

I am not liking Clare Tomalin's bio as much as I thought I would. Feel like she should cut poor Mary (Wollstonecraft) some slack, instead of implying she was kind of an self-imvolved emotional wreck. Possibly I've been unduly influenced by Too Much Austen reading...

>14 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul :-)

>15 scaifea: Thanks Amber! I don't think I'm going to threaten your thread total this year though :-)

>16 charl08: Charlotte, the Ripper is going OK, but there are many things about it that puzzle me. Maybe some of them will be explained, but so far we have the Met Police being all freemasony and evil, while the City of London police are, quite literally, the good cops. (One of the victims was killed just over the border into City territory, where proper enquiries were made, and the police were quite keen that vital evidence wasn't destroyed). And yet there's no explanation as to why the City police aren't also freemasons. Apparently one of their coroners was, but not the police (so far). That doesn't seem to make sense. Why are they less "establishment" than the others? Mostly, though, I'm bemused at how rude the author is about the "Ripperologists", many of whom are alive and well today, and hosting the walking tours. It's one thing to disagree with someone's theories, but another to call them names and suggest they're morons. I libel-read from time to time, and I couldn't help wondering who read this manuscript and whether any changes were made to make it less likely to result in a lawsuit. Because heaven only knows what it must have been like before. I may have done a tour, but if so it was many years ago. I did do a night-time one of some sort once. A shame about the Tomalin - you could try that joint biography of Wollstonecraft and Shelley at some point although they don't come out of that looking like particularly well-balanced people either :-)

My Black Friday shopping has arrived! My Skechers trainers were actually ready to pick up on Saturday from the shop in the mall (amazing) and the combination microwave (i.e. microwave, convection oven + grill) was delivered to home today. They gave me an hour window this morning, so I popped home for the delivery, so that the porter didn't just dump it in the nearest foyer (we have five blocks), because he is Not Good With Post. Now it's sitting in my living room, ready to play with this evening. But first, I must decorate the office Christmas tree!

Happy new thread Susan!

>18 souloftherose: Thanks Heather :-) I had better hurry up and finish something or it will be a short one!

I spent yesterday evening wrestling with the 24kgs of new microwave. Oof! I fear I did myself a mischief, but I'm OK so far. I hope it doesn't catch up with me. Anyway, it's in the right place, and now I have to work out what to do with the plates I used to keep on top of the old one, partly for handy storage but partly because it was nice to have a warm plate after I'd cooked something on the convection setting. (The new one is shiny stainless steel, so it will mark easily). I'll have to rearrange a couple of cupboards. This may require a trip to Lakeland on Saturday :-) But the Christmas tree is getting compliments, and the roomie bought chocolates for the Advent buckets...from Godiva :-)))

Photo of tree, please?

>20 katiekrug: Katie, since you asked...

The whole tree:



A close-up of the reindeer (new this year) with a robin peeping out:



The donkey, and a birdhouse ornament that my stitchy friend made for me:



The top, with my best robin and a close-up of the sparkly star and heart from my new ornament collection. You can also see the Advent buckets better here.

Love the tree!

So cute!

Very nice tree. Advent buckets also sounds wonderful too.

>22 scaifea: Thanks Amber!

>23 katiekrug: Thanks Katie!

>24 charl08: Charlotte, the Advent buckets are quite the feature, particularly with the Godiva chocolates. Last year I bought them and got various Lindt 3 for 2 offers on foil-wrapped snowmen and reindeer. A higher standard has now been set :-)

This morning's L'Occitane Advent calendar treat was labelled

shampooing
shampoo

I was telling Super-Fit friend about this as we walked at speed (well, me, not her) around the dock, musing that it was quite a strange name for shampoo because what else would it do? She asked me to repeat it and then explained (without laughing out loud, to her credit) that "shampooing" is the French word for "shampoo", so actually the label just said the same thing in two languages. (Her mother is French, so she speaks it really well). Durr! Minus 1 for me today.

Great tree and I love the advent buckets.

The Ripper books sounds interesting? I liked your comments on libel; GB's laws are stricter, are they not?

>21 susanj67: Beautiful! I love your tree.

>26 BLBera: Thanks Beth :-) I think the buckets are meant to be wound around the tree, but I would need a considerably bigger tree! And yes, England's libel laws are a lot stricter than those in some other countries, including the US. We have no "public figure" defence, for instance, and there is no need (in general) for a claimant to show that the statement was published maliciously, which I think might be required in the US, or at least for public figures. We also have costs shifting in litigation generally - i.e. the loser pays the winner's costs (which are far more than any damages award in a libel claim). The law changed at the beginning of last year to remedy what were thought to be (or asserted by campaigners to be) some of the worst features that chilled free speech, but it's still an expensive business. There was legislation in the US a few years ago saying that no English libel judgment would be enforceable in the US but in truth they never had been because they offend against the First Amendment, so we were a bit bemused by that :-)

>27 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara :-)

I've just been down to Waterstones to buy some Christmas picture books for the former office roomie's little boy, who will be ten months old at Christmas. He's really too little to understand the stories, I know, but it's never too early to start :-) I got A Christmas Story by Brian Wildsmith, Lucy & Tom At Christmas by Shirley Hughes (which won't turn into a touchstone), The Night Before Christmas and Mog's Christmas, because *how could I not*? This was helped by a buy one get one half price offer, but I'm pleased with all of them.

But on the subject of Mog, Super-Fit friend and I was discussing Christmas advertising on our walk yesterday and I said I thought that the Sainsbury's ad was the best one this year, and asked if she'd seen it. She said no. I said she should look for it on YouTube, "because Judith Kerr has written a new Mog story, about how she saves the house from burning down." Super-Fit friend said "Who's Mog?" Assuming she'd misheard me, I said "You know, Mog the Forgetful Cat." The same author as "The Tiger Who Came to Tea"." But she had no idea what I was talking about. I didn't think it was possible for any middle-class child brought up in the UK in the 70s not to have read and loved Mog, or at least to have HEARD of Mog (and the Tiger Who Came to Tea, which I think we actually owned in NZ because I know it so well, and we didn't have that many books). It was like someone saying they'd never heard of underwear. Maybe I should have bought a second copy.

Love the Xmas buying for small person report. Never mind if he can't appreciate it now, he will do eventually. Not sure how anyone avoids Mog. Was her mother anti cat? Had some kind of personal feud with Judith Kerr?

>28 susanj67: He will enjoy them when he becomes the right age many times and for many years.

>17 susanj67: A microwave/convection/grill -- bet you're going to love it. I recently replaced my (built-in) microwave with a microwave/convection (no grill, haven't heard of that option here) and it was so wonderful to have two ovens on Thanksgiving that I was nearly giddy all day. I also like having the option of using the smaller oven when cooking for the two of us instead of having to heat up the big on in my stove(cooker). Have fun with it :)

Also, love the office tree. We're going to be in San Francisco for Christmas so we aren't decorating at home this year. I'd just as soon not have to deal with getting everything out and putting it away but, even so, I sort of miss it and am having a hard time getting in the Christmas mood.

>28 susanj67: I never read Mog as a child. I apologise for being an ignorant oaf.

But I did love the Sainsbug's advert - way better than John Lewis's dodgy science and slightly spooky voyeur man in the moon.

>32 Helenliz: - The "dark side" version of the John Lewis ad was pretty funny, though...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB_C2eOQG9g

I did some reading of libel law when I was a journalism student eons ago. Mass Comm law was one of my favorite classes.

>29 charl08: Charlotte, I hope he will eventually. I don't remember any Christmas book traditions when I was a kid, but I've enjoyed reading about what LTers do at Christmas, so I thought I could start him off (assuming his family hasn't, but the more books the merrier I say). I still have no idea about the Mog situation. (For US readers, it would be like someone saying they've never heard of Big Bird or Ernie and Bert). Even if someone hadn't read Mog, surely they would have read about Judith Kerr by now, what with her virtually being a National Treasure and everything. I'm sure there was a "Secret Life of Books" on The Tiger Who Came to Tea, or certainly *a* programme, in which Michael Rosen tried to explain all the hidden meanings in it. (Well-hidden, is all I can say). My friend even has a three-year-old nephew who she babysits quite often. I would have bought out Waterstones in that position, but never mind.

>30 thornton37814: Thanks Lori. I hope so!

>32 Helenliz: Helen, I thought the John Lewis one was a really poor show this year. I like the Lidl one (or is it Aldi?) with the "My favourite things" song. The House of Fraser one must be the weirdest.

>33 katiekrug: Katie, I love that! Particularly the bit at the end - "George Lucas and John Lewis, please don't sue us, it's Christmas".

>34 BLBera: Beth, it's a very interesting area, and not really keeping up with real life very well now that everyone is potentially a publisher to the whole world. There are a lot of contempt of court issues too, as there are strict rules once a case is "active" (from the time of arrest in a criminal case) lest potential jurors are influenced by things they read or see which might not be adduced as evidence at the trial. That'a s big difference between here and the US, where I have seen all sorts of prejudicial stuff being published before someone's trial. It would make a media lawyer feel quite faint here ;-)

I'm still going with Jack the Ripper, and Oswald, King of the North, although he has now been killed in battle (oops, spoiler there). And yet still there are five chapters left to go. I'm hoping to finish something (anything!) this weekend.

>31 RebaRelishesReading: Oh no, I missed out Reba! Sorry Reba. The new microwave replaces a combination one which has had a busy life for 17 years. I haven't turned my big oven on since last millennium ;-). I've now mastered the microwave functions so tonight I'm going to try the grill, with some cheese on toast. Tomorrow I'm making granola, and this oven has room for a shelf in it, so I might be able to cook a whole batch at once.

So you actually cook with your microwave??? I haven't tried doing that since the last millennium. Mine, which is pretty small, is used strictly for warming up stuff, melting stuff and cooking bacon. Oh - and getting a jump on baked potatoes so that I don't have to keep them in the oven for hours. Kudos to you if you can make a microwave do anything resembling cooking.

>37 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I mostly use the convection and grill functions rather than "cooking" with the microwave function. Like you, I use that mostly for defrosting, warming milk and making scrambled eggs. And, um, heating ready-meals if they're microwaveable ones. I don't convert ordinary recipes to microwave. My old one had an amazing combination programme for jacket potatoes (part microwave, part convection) so I must look at the book to see if they have instructions for it for this one. This one is 1000 watts, which is a bit scary as my old one was 850. I'm resigned to nuking things accidentally :-) Despite most of the new machines on the market being 1000 watts, the ready-meals still put their times based on 800 watts. One day I'm going to forget.

The cheese on toast worked perfectly, and was delicious. I'll have to make cheese scones with the rest of the cheese :-)

And now, off to Jack the Ripper. I'm determined to beat it!

Howdy Susan I love your Christmas tree!

>39 luvamystery65: Hi Roberta! Thank you for loving my tree :-)

Today is so windy that I think the "crane operation" due to happen down the street has been cancelled, because the street is supposed to be closed today and yet it's not. I walked to the supermarket avoiding things that might blow off buildings and kill me, and made it back safely. And with (mince pie purists may wish to look away now) a box of Waitrose puff pastry Christmas-tree shaped mince pies. I practised pre-heating the new oven to warm one up, and that worked, but I fear it's sending messages back to HQ saying "Help, I have come to live with an idiot who can only learn one new thing at a time." I'll try cooking on two levels later though, so that will be two things today :-)

And I'm going to do my best to finish They All Love Jack, because I don't think I can stand it much longer.

>40 susanj67: I love Marks & Spencer's mince pies. I'm not sure I ever tried Waitrose's. I have a neighbor who occasionally spends Christmas with her family in Wiltshire or somewhere thereabouts, and she usually brings me a package of mince pies when she returns.

>40 susanj67: Is it set up with Internet access? I know this sounds stupid, but I read about a toothbrush being online this week (very odd).

Puff away with the adapted pies as far as I'm concerned. I just can't stand mince pies. Almost every year I think I might have changed my mind (they look pretty, someone has made them at home etc), try one, and regret it.

ETA To correct 'as fat as I'm concerned. Although if the current stollen consumption continues, I may change it back again.

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Susan.

>41 cbl_tn: Carrie, I saw some lovely-looking ones at M&S last week but couldn't see them last night. I hope I see them again!

>42 charl08: Charlotte, I was kidding about the oven, or at least I hope I am. But you never know :-) There's a reason I have a post-it note stuck over the camera on my laptop... I haven't historically been a mince pie fan (I blame my father for calling Garibaldi bicuits "fly cemetaries" right through my childhood) but I'm coming around.

>43 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara!

My current state of mind:



Yes, I finished the confounded book!



205. They All Love Jack by Bruce Robinson

Subtitled "Busting the Ripper" this purports to say who Jack the Ripper really was, and why, although it's a bit light on the why, frankly. I can sort of see why the author thinks it's who he says, but by the end of it I really didn't care. The hatey language about others in the field, the constant use of obscene language and the sheer length of the book have made me determined to be more careful when I reserve Samuel Johnson prize nominated books in the future.

But it's finished! Woo-hoo!

While I like mincemeat pies, they aren't a favorite. I generally prefer some of the other desserts around the holidays.

I'm in the "can't stand mince pies" crowd. When I was a child at Christmast my mother would make a pumpkin pie for herself (i can't stand those either), a mince pie for my father (neither she nor I liked the mince) and an apple pie for me. A lot of work for her but it was Christmas and made us all happy -- and we got to eat pie for a week :)

>46 RebaRelishesReading: A whole apple pie for yourself!

I loved my mom's mince meat pie. I miss it. She also made some mince meat cookies too. That was later in life though. I never learned to make her pie but the last couple of Christmases she was around I insisted to my mom to instruct my cousin Joe to how to make her mince meat pie. He willingly did as he loves to cook and also bake on the holidays. He does a decent job of it. I'm glad I was a bossypants and they all complied. LOL!

Afraid I am in the 'love mince pies' school. There used to be a little grocery store with gourmet food ambitions in the neighborhood that stocked mincemeat every Christmas and I usually bought some for at least one pie every year. It was rather good, I thought. Mind I did not have anything with which to compare it - have no idea if it was even authentic as mincemeat was not part of the family's Christmas tradition. Miss that little store. It was the last one around here that had an actual butcher on premises who would get you exactly what you wanted in the way of meats. Such luxury - a pound of hamburger whenever I asked for it and not 1.23 pounds or .98. The good ol' days!

>45 thornton37814: Lori, I'm the same. I'm just trying to get into the Christmas spirit :-)

>46 RebaRelishesReading:, >47 thornton37814: Reba, mmmm, large pies :-) I've never seen a big fruit mince one - ours are little, like the size of a cookie. Was yours a full-sized one, like this?: http://www.marthastewart.com/335568/mincemeat-pie Googling around, that seems to be the US incarnation of it.

>48 luvamystery65: Roberta, it sounds like bossypantsing was exactly the right thing to do :-)

>49 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, if you made it year after year, then it definitely was part of your tradition!

I've had a lovely day reading a book that did not drive me mad. Actually I was half-way through it, so I finished it.



206. In The Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides

This is the story of the USS Jeanette and its expedition to try and find the North Pole. I believe it is very famous in the US, but I'd never heard of it, so there were surprises all the way for me. It's a terrific read, and I read the second half pretty much straight through, pausing only to catch up on the news from time to time to see if jihadis had stabbed any more people at tube stations. None so far. The LT book page links to the details and reviews of another one of the author's books, about the Wild West, which actually looks really interesting, but definitely has nothing to do with ice :-)

>50 susanj67: I wonder if Hampton is his real name? Why would you call your child such a name? An earlier maiden name perhaps?

I hadn't heard of it either, actually but I will look for it now.

Have a lovely Sunday.

>47 thornton37814: Yep! I got a slice a day until it was gone (about 6 days worth) and, yes, they were full-size pies, 8 or 9 inches in diameter.

The Sides book sounds good. His name sounded familiar, so I looked up his other work. I read Ghost Soldiers, which I thought was good.

>50 susanj67: I ate slices from full-size pies also, Susan.

>50 susanj67: - I've got that Sides book on my Kindle, I believe. He is a rather well-known nonfiction writer over here. Mark warbles about him and his Hellhound on His Trail about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the manhunt for his killer. I also have that one waiting to be read. Gah! I also have Ghost Soldiers on my shelf, LT tells me. Good Lord, I need to get cracking. His book about Kit Carson and the American West was in all the stores in Santa Fe, as Carson has some connection to that area.

No comment on the mince meat pies :)

>51 PaulCranswick: Paul, it struck me as an odd name too. And he'd dedicated it to his brother, Link. They must be old family names, I suppose.

>52 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I could do that with apple, not so much with fruit mince :-)

>53 BLBera: Beth, he's definitely an author I want to read more of.

>54 thornton37814: Lori, I don't think I've ever seen a full-sized one here! How funny that there's such a difference. I wonder when UK pies became small, or the US ones upsized themselves.

>55 katiekrug: Katie, it sounds like you *do* need to get cracking! I lost a couple of hours of reading time yesterday to the new series of Big Rich Texas, so I need to get cracking too, but I was just fascinated/appalled by how none of their faces move and I couldn't stop watching.

I took the Jack the Ripper book back to the library this morning, so yay for that. I borrowed nothing :-) The science book I wanted has gone, so that's no longer there to tempt me. I'm reading The Rise of the Robots, which is about technology and the threat of mass unemployment, so it's a cheery little read. And an ebundle of Susan Mallery romances downloaded itself over the weekend, but that's it on the library front. The less I go, the easier it seems to be to stay away.

>56 susanj67: The wikipedia article has this statement at the end: "New England mincemeat pies are usually full-sized pies, as opposed to the individual-sized pies now common in Britain." It certainly implies the British used to bake theirs whole. Just from a practical point, I think the pies were whole pies at one time there. I can't imagine someone in the 19th century baking a bunch of individual pies. I suppose it's possible they used to fry them like hand-held pies. One of my friends is writing her dissertation in food history, researching lots of old cookbooks. I sent her a message asking if she knew but told her not to spend lots of time on it. I just wondered if she had come across it.

Just reporting another mince pie near miss. Costa have such pretty looking ones with little shapes cut out of the pastry. Surely something so beautiful can't taste so untreatlike? I stepped away from the case.

Still plodding on with the Elvis Costello autobio. Interesting on the music, but seems to have a huge chip on his shoulderabout the media. On the other hand, the Worry book is intriguing. I'm worried for the author - he's never going to cover the subject in less than a couple hundred pages.

>57 thornton37814: Lori, it certainly seems to suggest that we once had large mince pies here too. Thank you for asking your friend, and what a great subject to be writing a dissertation on!

>58 charl08: Charlotte, well done on stepping away from the case. This must be a dangerous time of year for the mince-pie unenthusiast :-) What is the worry book? I looked back through your thread but couldn't see it, unless I didn't go back far enough.

I didn't get much reading done last night, which I blame on no pressing library deadlines. Also the EVIL Alphabetty Saga on my Kindle Fire, and a couple of documentaries, and my new Handy Acrostics mag. I must do better tonight, at least until Empire comes on at 9. It's my must-see-as-broadcast TV of the week :-)

I did get Amazing Grace: The Great Days of Dukes in the mail over the weekend, after Lyzard's excellent review. That's another one for Mount TBR.

Worrying: a literary and cultural history. It's a lovely little hardback edition. I need to get on with these books - seven reservations waiting...

All caught up with you, Susan. Sorry to be so late to your new thread. As usual, you had me laughing out loud - always a good time to be had here! Your tree looks lovely, and I want those buckets - SO cute!

I listened to In the Kingdom of Ice earlier this year, and it was so well done.

On the subject of mincemeat - I think the smaller the pie the better. That might be because I am not a fan - although I have actually made mincemeat from scratch, if you can believe that. Our church in Indiana used to do that as a fund raiser every year - what a lot of work that is!

And congrats on finishing the Ripper book and on your new microwave! Most exciting!

Okay, back to correct myself - I did not listen to In the Kingdom of Ice; it was Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage. Mental moment. Oops.

I read Endurance a few years back in book form. It has the most amazing photos in it. If you get a chance, Mamie, check it out some time.

>63 RebaRelishesReading: Will do, Reba!

>59 susanj67: She hasn't run across it in her stuff, but she'll keep her eyes out as she's perusing those old cookbooks.

>60 charl08: Charlotte, that sounds like a good read, but I agree - it seems like there would be more to cover than 200 pages!

>61 Crazymamie: >62 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! I wouldn't attempt mincemeat from scratch - what a lot of work! I saw a recipe the other day for something with mincemeat in it and the "total time" given was 73 hours. I love the new oven - it bakes so well and grills well too. And defrosts :-) Maybe I should try an actual microwave recipe!

>63 RebaRelishesReading: >64 Crazymamie: Reba, thanks for the tip. I'd like to read more about the explorers in cold places, and at the moment there's an exhibition of photographs from the Shackleton exhibition on at the Royal Geographical Society, which I want to go to.

>65 thornton37814: Thanks Lori!

I saw the cutest thing this morning. A young woman was walking along pushing a baby in a buggy, with little boy of about three trotting along beside her. "And now we're going to post it!" she said. "Are you excited? I'm excited!" The little boy had a schoolbag in one hand, and was clutching an envelope with "Santa" written on it in the other hand. They continued along to the postbox, which is just past the bus stop, and she took his photo with the envelope, standing in front of the box, and then lifted him up so he could post it through the slot. They came back my way and he was *beaming*. Royal Mail runs a "letters to Santa" scheme, so I assume it was part of that unless his mother is planning her own response.

Cute Santa letter story. Hope you enjoy Endurance. I think it's an amazing story. I simply can't imagine doing anything he did from start to finish.

Reba, I'll look out for it. The library is proving vague, but there's a copy for 1p on Amazon. I lost another evening to Not Reading yesterday, but Empire was excellent :-)

Well! I have changed the world :-) After wrestling the new microwave into the house and hefting it up onto the bench a couple of weeks ago, I emailed John Lewis to suggest that they offered an installation and disposal service as an option for microwaves because some of them are so heavy. They replied saying that they had passed my email on to the relevant team, and then someone from that team said they were considering it. I didn't think any more of it till I looked up my oven today to send a link to someone, and lo! All their microwaves now have an installation and disposal option available. I have very possibly saved someone from doing themselves a mischief lugging 24 kilos of oven around. And well done John Lewis for listening!

>69 susanj67: - Congratulations, Susan! How amazing that a business actually listened to a suggestion from a customer.

Good bit of world changing there. Had kitchen done before getting a new machine, couldn't believe the difference in size. Can now for an extra shelf / cupboard in.

I am feeling like I should volunteer for something, reading two books in a row full of active people doing something positive. The Rebel of Rangoon also reminding me of how easy it is to take the voting malarky for granted.

Wow, how nice John Lewis actually listened to a (very good) suggestion. I'm surprised they didn't offer it before though. It's been an option for every appliance or large piece of furniture I've ever purchased. Without it I'm not sure I'd buy a new anything.

>70 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I was pretty surprised!

>71 charl08: Charlotte, some of them have indeed shrunk - I looked at one replacement that was smaller but a bit plasticky. In the end I picked that looking more solid, without really thinking it through...

>72 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, they offer it for large appliances (and furniture - they took my old bed away when they delivered the new one, even though it took two trips before they sent the right people) but microwaves are in the "small appliances" category, like toasters and kettles. But, as I pointed out, something that weighs 24kg is not really small! I'm comforted to think that next time I need a new microwave, which could be when I'm 64 if this one lasts as long as the previous one, someone will sort it all out for me and take the old one away. As I said in my email, I don't know how elderly or infirm people manage if they have no-one to help them. Maybe, as their Christmas ad this year supports Age UK, that stuck a chord!

I am waiting to maybe be called into a meeting. Or not. I've been waiting since 3pm. I'm glued to my computer and I can't even go and tidy the book exchange. I'll be in tomorrow, though, running a workshop for Graduate Recruitment, so I'll catch up with it then. Twice a day it looks like the hordes have ransacked it - I don't understand how people can make such a mess just looking at books. I saw the Bonnie and Clyde book in the returns box yesterday. Favourite Hairdresser confessed that she hadn't finished it, but there was no space for it in the new salon, so she'd put it back.

207. The Rise of the Robots by Martin Ford

Subtitled "Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment", this is a fascinating read, but pretty worrying. The author looks at how automation (not just robots) is replacing millions of jobs, and encroaching not just on low-paid work like product assembly, which has been happening for a while, but into the middle-class jobs that people have used to raise their families and provide for their old age (and pay shed-loads of tax to support public services), and which lower-skilled people are encouraged to retrain for as their own jobs disappear. True, it will be a long time before a robot can replicate the human brain but, as the author points out, they don't have to. They just have to be able to do someone's job, and none of us uses the entire vast complexity of the human brain to do our jobs. And the more specialised the work, the easier it can be for robots to learn how to do it.

One of the professions the author looks at is the legal profession, which is of particular interest to me, and where document review is now undertaken by paralegals looking at a database of documents rather than lawyers going through boxes of hard copies (ah, the olden days before email. I look back nostalgically), and that certainly has a cost benefit for clients. But many of those people now doing paralegal work would once have been junior lawyers, doing document review as just *part* of their job, while they also got to do more interesting things like drafting pleadings, appearing in court, negotiating transactions and so on as they worked their way up to senior positions in a law firm, or transferred to in-house work and became a valued (and well-paid) part of a corporate team. Now they're stuck doing just document review, and those good legal jobs are gone. Even worse for young people in expensive Western countries, review can just as easily be done by millions of graduates with law degrees in lower-cost locations like India, where many are trained in the law of foreign jurisdictions such as the US and UK precisely so they can do this work. And how much longer will it be before the process can be entirely automated, cutting out nearly all the humans save for a couple of people doing the final review of the documents that the automated systems have sifted out as relevant?

Some people might think that this just shows that highly-paid people aren't required for this (or other) work, and that clients have been overpaying, but the people receiving the salaries are the ones who are spending their money on their clients' products. If all the jobs are taken by robots, who has any money to buy anything?

It's a thought-provoking read, and also one that makes me glad I'm approaching the end of my career rather than starting out in it.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Susan.

>74 susanj67: - This has been a worrisome topic to me, as well, Susan. I am afraid it will be well out of hand before society really begins giving it serious thought. People have to have work - and they have to have work that pays enough for them to support themselves and their families. All very well and good for machines to perform jobs that people might find tedious, but when they end up doing all of the work, what is to become of Man?

>75 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara :-)

>76 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I agree that it's not something people are really thinking about, or that perhaps robots are only seen as things to perform the dirty, dangerous and boring jobs which it is *good* that humans no longer have to do (as long as there are other jobs they can do). No-one's really thinking about what happens as the robots get more and more clever. But one of the young people at the legal workshop day on Saturday asked the speaker before me about the effect of artificial intelligence on the jobs of young lawyers, which was interesting! The speaker said that lawyers were hired for their judgement, which isn't something a robot has, but I thought that rather overlooked the point I referred to above, about fewer people now having access to law jobs so they could *develop* that good all-round judgement. You can't just plonk someone with a law degree behind a desk and say "now exercise good judgement" when they haven't been-there-done-that over and over.

Fire alarm lady is going crazy, and keeps repeating the "Fire has been reported in the building" message, which ends "Please listen for further instructions". The second part (if it gets to that) says "Please leave the building immediately. Do not use a lift." As we're now much higher up the building, there is a temptation to leave before we get to part 2, with the lift ban :-) But she's been doing part 1 for about 15 minutes, so I suspect it's a burning-toast situation. Or fairy lights. Anyway, hurrying onwards with my next review...



208. The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria by Max Adams

This must have been a Kindle cheapie at some point, because I had never heard of Oswald of Northumbria, but it was a great read, all about one of our most famous Dark Ages kings. The author admits that there are a lot of gaps in the narrative, but what we do know (mostly from the writings of Bede) is a fascinating look at how the country was organised back then, and at all the various tribes and sub-tribes constantly at war with one another. Even kings couldn't read or write, so they left nothing of their own apart from archaeological evidence. It's super-detailed, but there's still a lot of interest in it even for the non-specialist. And, despite the giant Kindle file, the text is only 64% of the book. I would have preferred this in hard copy so I could refer to the maps which I saw briefly at the front, but the author was pretty good at saying what various places are *now* called, so I managed.

Phew! Fire alarm lady has just said everything is fine, and sorry for the inconvenience. I wasn't looking forward to walking down all those stairs, particularly after yesterday's walking with Super-Fit Friend. We went out in Richmond Park, and there was a Giant Steep Hill involved. Only half-way up the hill did she mention that a bus ran along the bottom. When we got back to the house, her husband and I spent a good ten minutes swapping tales about the various hills we had been marched up. He had wisely stayed home to write a speech for his trial today. (He's a barrister, not the defendant :-) ) But the Fitbit did record more than 16,000 steps by the end of the day.

ETA a picture of the Giant Steep Hill. Srsly, I am not exaggerating!

I walked with my super-fit friend last Wednesday -- nearly killed me but we got a lot of steps done. Haven't had a good day since though.

Hi Susan! I'm doing the RandomCAT challenges in the 2016 Category Challenge group again next year. The January challenge has just been posted and it's to read a book you share with few or no other LTers. I will be reading Willoughbyland, which as of today is in just two LT libraries - yours and mine. :-) I'm glad I discovered it here!

>79 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I just got my weekly update from Fitbit and my weekend steps are nowhere to be seen! But they're there on my dashboard on the computer. Grrrrr. Honestly I walked up that hill :-)

>80 cbl_tn: Carrie, I'm glad I could help with your category :-) I hope you like the book now!

I am wondering how long it takes to print a letter, and whether I might usefully practice instead of relying on other people to get it looking right on the fancy paper. Sigh.

Just had to share my relief that the library catalogue is back online - phew. (Hope those steps turn up - and that you get some kind of acknowledgement of the hill?)

>82 charl08: Charlotte, I am relieved for you! And also for the library staff, whose borrowing stats must have been severely endangered :-) I'm reading an ebook bundle and a NF from Mt TBR, but this week is proving something of a challenge.

Hi Susan - Both The Rise of the Robots and The King of the North sound interesting. Nice discussion on AI, and its role. I'm thinking dusting and vacuuming...

Too bad about your disappearing steps (sounds like a mystery...). My fitbit doesn't count steps when I'm on certain machines at the gym. One day I came home after a 40 minute workout, and it recorded 200 steps. I guess I'll be avoiding that machine in future.

>84 BLBera: Beth, I think there is definitely a role for dusting and vacuuming! My actual Fitbit counted the steps, but for some reason they didn't register in my step total for the weekly report, making it look as if I'd basically been lying down all weekend. But they show up in my dashboard, so I'm hoping they count towards my lifetime steps :-)



209. Sweet Talk by Susan Mallery
210. Sweet Spot by Susan Mallery
211. Sweet Trouble by Susan Mallery

This was an ebook romance bundle about three sisters and their family bakery, but for me it fell flat. All the sisters could have done better in terms of heroes, and the "hero" of the third book was seriously warped in his thinking and in his treatment of the heroine. In other circumstances he'd be featuring on a poster about domestic abuse. Given how much I like the author's Fool's Gold series, I was surprised that this was so different, and merits a "meh" rating at best.

Boo for the meh reading. Hope that today being Friday means the working week is nearly over. I'm enjoying The Wolf Border: the Scottish referendum went the other way, which is fun (in fiction). I liked The Rebel of Rangoon , might try and get a bio of Aung San Suu Kyi soonish.

>86 charl08: Charlotte, yes the working week is nearly over. Phew. It's had its moments, but today is calmer, and I just went for a walk with Super-Fit Friend. Oooh, 9,233 steps so far today. I should hit my goal! I saw The Wolf Border mentioned on Beth's threads, and there's a copy at Bow...Meanwhile I've started A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Scandal, Political Corruption and American Culture which, unsurprisingly, I got from Verso :-) And The Frozen Water Trade is proving interesting, but a tiny bit repetitive as he ships the ice and it melts and he tries again and it melts and so on. I read a book about Burma earlier this year which I will locate in my books on here, and come back to post.

ETA it was Burma's Spring by Rosalind Russell and it was excellent.

Mmmm, first slice of Christmas cake. The M&S box that my sister-in-law sent me included a top-iced cake, and somehow I opened the box before Christmas Day. The chocolates are safely at the office, out of my reach, but the cake has fruit in it so that's probably one of my five a day, right?

It is 17C here today. I went to the supermarket wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt, a thin cardigan and a raincoat (just in case) and I was far too hot. Weird. I should try and do some more steps later, and there is a library book at Cubitt Town that I have just seen mentioned in the Mail Online (I only read it for the book reviews...) so that's a possibility. It does feel odd having no library books. Maybe *one* would be OK.

Wishing you a lovely weekend, Susan.

>89 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara :-)

I've borrowed a couple of library books. Ooh :-) I walked to the little branch I sometimes go to at lunchtime, and got Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants: Britain's First Female Crime Syndicate and The Grand Duchess of Nowhere, which is the new novel by Laurie Graham. I took them to the desk, where both assistants carefully ignored me, and asked to borrow them, please. I got The Look.

"Isn't the machine working?"

"One of your colleagues told me that the old cards don't work on your machine."

"Do you want a new card?"

"No."

Ha! A win to me, for daring to ask her to take ten seconds to scan a couple of bar codes when she was just gossiping with the other girl at the desk. Then I walked up to the mall for a couple of things, so all in all I have 15,000 steps today.

Wow. How incredibly rude! I especially hate attitude from municipal employees (am assuming public library workers are muni employees in the UK). After all, who do they think is paying their salary? Also hate, in anyone, the idea that their conversation with a fellow employee should be carried on with while a customer is trying to give them money in order to purchase something from the store where they are supposedly employed. If they include the customer in the conversation that is one thing, but I hate being made to feel that I am invisible.

So, is the library book borrowing freeze over, Susan?

>91 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, the freeze does seem to be over :-) But I still want to focus on Mount TBR, so I'm going to go easy on the reserving in 2016. I agree with you about the employee conversations that carry on regardless. Sometimes I want to put my item down and walk away and see if they'd even notice, but then I'd have to turn round and look. A lot of people go through checkouts now chatting on their phones or with both ears in and I also think that's rude, but if they're just going to be ignored then I can sort of see why they do it.

After all the love for The Wolf Border I walked up to Bow this morning, where the catalogue promised a copy. I couldn't find it, but I *did* find A Notable Woman, the new book edited by Simon Garfield, which has been on my list, and which I was thrilled to see on the new NF shelf. So it was worth it just for that, which is 700pp and will be perfect for over Christmas. I walked down to Canary Wharf and got the tube from there, so that's just under 14,000 steps for today. And one nap :-)



212. The Frozen Water Trade by Gavin Weightman

I'd never given much thought to how things were made cold before refrigeration, but the answer is by cutting huge blocks of ice from frozen lakes in America, and shipping them all over the place. This book tells the story of how the trade got started by shipping ice down to the West Indies (I wonder if they call them that in the US?) and then further afield, and as far as India. And, of course, the domestic market grew incredibly quickly, with ice in drinks becoming quite normal. (When the shippers tried the UK, on the other hand, the ice received a very lukewarm reception, a state that still persists today as will be clear to anyone from the US who's ever tried to get iced water in a restaurant here).

As a subject, it's really interesting, particularly because of the scant information about how the trade was carried on. Ice was such a weird thing to ship that no-one ever thought to try and tax it, so a lot of the records that would ordinarily exist through the tax authorities just never came into being. But as a book it fell short. I was thinking of sending it on to my Dad because it's the sort of subject he would enjoy, but I've changed my mind in case I put him off.

I'm roasting vegetables now for a squash soup, and listening to a carol service on Classic FM. I was intrigued to see the Barefoot Contessa making it the other day, and including an apple. So I've included an apple and I'll see how that goes. The house does smell delicious so that's a good start. I must get out the blender and rustle up a stock cube in hot water.

>92 susanj67: I love the Barefoot Contessa. She's probably my favorite TV cook!

>93 thornton37814: Lori, I like her too. There are two episodes every evening here, at 7 and 7.30, so I watch them while I'm having dinner. I don't make the recipes as they are always for too many people, but I get some great tips. And the soup turned out really well! The apple is a great addition. I also made some cheese scones from an old NZ recipe, so the freezer is looking good.

I'm going to read for a while before the Bear Grylls episode with President Obama, which is on at 8pm. I'm not usually a Bear fan, but this episode has had a lot of publicity so I thought I'd try it and see if I can spot the Secret Service people in the background ;-)

>92 susanj67: - Squash soup - mmmm! My co-favorite soup. It is tied with minestrone, which I am making tomorrow.

The book about the ice trade is on the wishlist. At this rate I am going to be able to have a whole year with nothing but books I have gleaned from your threads. Kind of a creepy stalker reading plan. :)

>95 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, apart from the fact that you're *not* a creepy stalker, that could be fun :-) In fact, maybe there's a book idea in there somewhere - an LTer spending a year reading either just books from someone else's thread, or a collection of books recommended by other LTers. Actually not recommended - *required*, so that the person doing the reading has to read things right out of their usual territory and see how they get on. Ah, the romances I would recommend to the romance-phobics :-) And the sports memoirs people would recommend for me :-)

The Bear Grylls programme was really good! I thought it had screened in the US a while ago, but I see that it was only Thursday. Bear was a hopeless fanboy but the President took it all with very good humour, and had a nice droll line in observations and answers to the questions. Although his staff didn't appear in shot, they were close by, and I was fascinated to learn that the Secret Service has a rule that the President is never seen eating anything. But I've googled to try and find out about the rule, and there are lots of pictures of various Presidents eating things, so maybe that's not right. He does have a food taster, but nevertheless was allowed to eat some salmon that Bear had cooked. (I suppose, though, that the taster might also have had some).

>90 susanj67:, grrrr on your behalf. I do hate that kind of casual rudeness.

I realise I'm about 6 weeks behind you, but I've put our Christmas tree up today. You'd not be at all proud of me, it's got just about every bauble I posses on it (it would have all of them if I hadn't run out of paperclips!). No themed trees here. >-)

That's a really good idea, Susan. It would be neat to do that, I think. A little different - daunting, I should think - and a test of one's dedication to the completion of the challenge. It would be easy to get bogged down in some kinds of books that are way out of one's comfort zone, but perhaps if they were waaaay out there one could get double credit toward one's 75 book numbers. (I'm always concerned about the numbers no matter how many times people reassure me that it doesn't matter.) The idea appeals to me a lot.

The Prez has a food taster! How Byzantine Empire of them. I had no idea.

>97 Helenliz: Now Helen, you aren't six weeks behind. Only three :-) And that super-glitzy look is apparently what the Duchess of Cambridge is doing this year, so you're right on-trend, to use an expression I picked up from QVC.

>98 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, of course the numbers matter :-) I don't think I could manage a whole year of not reading any of my own choices, but I think it would have to be that to get a decent story out of it. I've seen books by people who've read the classics and those "books you must read" books, but an LT one seems like a fun idea.

It's so warm here that the ice rinks around London are melting, according to the Evening Standard, which describes the one at Hampton Court as basically a puddle. We have one at the Wharf so maybe I'll peer over the fence at lunchtime and see how it's getting on. And today is the shortest day of the year! It can only get lighter in the mornings now, although the giant white neon sleigh and reindeer on the roof of the building over the road from me provides quite a bit of light anyway, and at all times of the night.

213. Notre Dame vs The Klan by Todd Tucker

This short(ish) book tells the story of the riots in South Bend, Indiana, in 1924, in which the students from Notre Dame took on a KKK rally. Or at least that's what it's based around. There is a lot of "before" and a fair amount of "after", and it's an interesting history of the University and also the resurgence of the KKK in the 1920s, when its focus in the northern states was immigrants, rather than black people as in the south. Catholics were squarely in the KKK's sights, although the Klan was just picking up on existing prejudices. I knew that there was some anti-Catholic prejudice in the US, but I had no idea just how much. The author looks at how Indiana became a Klan state, with a governor sympathetic to the Klan and lots of members in positions of power. If you already know the story, there might not be much new in this, but it was all new to me.

>100 susanj67: - Yes, indeedy, there was a good deal of anti-Catholic prejudice in the North. And one of my great-grandmothers was a Klan member - her focus being that anti-RC aspect. Supposedly, when she died in 1930, the first thing my grandmother did, once she stopped carrying on and having a generalized fit (she was very big on huge emotional displays at every opportunity, large or small), was to confiscate her mother's KKK robes and burn them. I think there was some printed material that was un-earthed from the bowels of the attic at at Granny's house as well. Don't know why that wasn't disposed of as well.

>101 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, that's fascinating! I didn't realise that anti-Catholicism was such a big thing in the US - I suppose because so many immigrants were Irish I imagined that they weren't the minority that actually they were. But it used to be here as well, and the Act of Settlement was only changed in 2013 so that someone in the line of succession could marry a Catholic and not lose their place in the line. And I certainly didn't know that the KKK had that aspect to it. Everything I've read about them was about the Klan in the south.



214. The Best Bride by Susan Mallery

This popped up as a new ebook at the library...I didn't realise it was a reprint of a book originally published in the 90s, but I saw that it was the first in a series, so I nabbed it. I was making very slow progress through the percentage bar, and then discovered that it was actually *three* books in one volume. But, checking the characters against a Goodreads list, the books weren't 1, 2 and 3, but 1, 3 and 7 in the series. Gaaaargh! I was so close to committing a crime against Order! I finished number 1 and sent it back. I don't think I'll continue, even if I could find number 2. It was quite dated, and I like the humour in the author's more recent books. This one took itself very seriously, and the heroine had a Terrible Secret, which really wasn't that terrible at all. And that's always annoying.

I don't think I've said Happy Holidays yet.

Happy Holidays! We've got lovely crisp weather that I'm hoping will be the same over the rest of the week for a nice winter walk. I imagine places like Richmond Park will be wonderful (but maybe just very muddy).

>102 susanj67: - Mind you, I have not really run into any anti-Catholic feeling in my own life*. However, my grandparents had a fit when my aunt was in high school and going out with a Catholic boy. Likely if they - and in particular my grandmother (daughter of the KKK great-grandmother) - had not acted so awful, my aunt and this boy would have married. But they made a stink and the two of them broke up. The community they lived in had been for literally hundreds of years - a Protestant one, but around the early 20th century the Catholic community began to grow and I think these old time families felt a bit threatened - particularly with regard to the marriage prospects of their children. Not to say that the Catholics in this town were anything new, but when those families first came to live in the town and there were no Catholic churches, they ended up sending their children to the Protestant churches and the Friends Meeting. This is why one of my grandfather's best friends was Portuguese; he and his siblings all went to the same Friends Meeting that Grandpa went to.

*Anti-Protestant feeling did affect my life - in a round-about way. The girl my father was going out with and likely would have married, had a rabidly anti-Protestant, Roman Catholic sister who tried to make demands as to what he would have to do, religion-wise, in order to get her permission to marry her sister. Daddy backed away and met my mother on the rebound. The older sister should have stayed out of it.

Happy Christmas, Susan!

For my Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Holiday image this year (we are so diverse!), I've chosen this photograph by local photographer Mark Lenoce of the pier at Pacific Beach to express my holiday wishes to you: Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All!

I have been MIA for a bit from LT so I will start off with congratulations on your new thread. Love your office Christmas tree. So festive! As someone who does not own a microwave, your new microwave/convection oven/grill sounds most intriguing! I am one of those individuals who absolutely loves mincemeat tarts... the holidays are not complete unless I bake a batch. Of course, it is kind of easy considering I have a favorite brand of jarred mincemeat and another favorite brand of frozen tart shells. Kind of a no-brainer to put the two products together in the oven. ;-) Hot mincemeat tarts with rum-laced whipping cream and nutmeg = divine!

>69 susanj67: - Kudos on changing the world! That is big! I am so used to corporations ignoring customer suggestions. You have given me the faith to continue to make suggestions.

Well, you know it's Christmas at Canary Wharf when the Jubilee line is nearly empty, a meeting has been postponed because the partner leading it is queuing to pick up his turkey and the (male) partner across the hall is playing opera and singing along...to the soprano. At least the mall shops opened early, so I could pick up the wrapping for my secretary's Christmas present. There was a slight lapse in organisation there. Fortunately she doesn't start till 10, so I could sort everything out in good time.

>103 charl08: Charlotte, all the best to you too! I hope you get in some of those walks. I don't have any more Richmond adventures planned, being more of a concrete sort of person, but a friend is looking at property in Kent, and over the weekend saw one with a woodland, so I have put a pair of Hunter wellies in my Schuh basket, just in case. He was freaking out about what you *do* with a woodland, so I googled and found a Forestry Commission publication titled "So, you own a woodland" which was perfect! I hope they buy it.

>104 Fourpawz2: Charlotte, I wonder whether it's the same today with kids of the one religion bringing home kids of the other. (Both Christian, I mean). My mother wouldn't have stood for it, but I can't see my brother and s-i-l minding about their own boys, and I don't think my father would mind. He'd probably just be glad if I married anyone. Ha!

>105 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara - you too!

>106 SandDune: Thanks Rhian. Your tree looks lovely :-)

>107 ronincats: Thanks Roni. What stunning colours in that photo!

>108 lkernagh: Thanks Lori! You have me wanting mince pies now, and brandy cream. Mmmmmm. And it's only 9.47! I was pleased with my customer service victory. Now if only I could get them to open more tills in their supermarkets...

Merry Christmas from Texas! No hope of a white Christmas this year. I was out in short sleeves yesterday. It's nice for my SIL's relatives from Mexico. They live on the border with Belize and aren't used to cold weather.

I'm holding down the fort while Katie is away. One of these days I need to plan a visit while she's here!

>110 cbl_tn: Thanks Carrie! It's not quite short sleeve weather here, but it's not far off :-) I hope you have a great visit with your brother and sister in law and her family.

Have a lovely holiday, Susan. xx

Warm wishes for a magical holiday season, Susan!

I've been crazy busy lately getting ready for Christmas and this trip to San Francisco to celebrate both Christmas and Hubby's big birthday. We're now in our rented condo in S.F., all the groceries are in the house and everyone but me it out and about :) so I have a bit of time to visit the thread and wish you a very merry Christmas!! Hope your holidays are just lovely.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Susan! May it be full of fabulous!

Merry Christmas Susan.
Hope Santa turns up with some reading material.

>112 lkernagh: Thanks Lori :-)

>113 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul. I hope you're enjoying your UK Christmas.

>114 katiekrug: Thanks Katie :-)

>115 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba :-) Love the tree, again!

>116 luvamystery65: Thanks Roberta!

>117 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie - so far so good :-)

>118 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. You too! So far I've received London Overground: A Day's Walk Around the Ginger Line, by Iain Sinclair, which was on my must-read list. I loved Walk The Lines, a book by another author about walking various tube lines above ground, but it didn't include the Overground, so this one fills that gap. Former Office Roomie gave it to me, and what's sweet is that I remember talking to him about Walk The Lines, so he knew it was just the sort of thing I'd love. And I do!



215. Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants by Brian McDonald

This must be too new to have a touchstone, but it's subtitled "Britain's First Female Crime Syndicate" and it's about a shoplifting gang from the Elephant and Castle area of south London. They stole amazing amounts of merchandise during the 1920s and 30s, and even made day trips to clean out seaside towns of furs and silks, accepting the eventual jail sentences as just part of the job. Their nickname of the "Forty Elephants" arose because they hid their loot in secret pockets under skirts and coats, so that they would go into a changing room and come out looking considerably larger all round.

It had the potential to be a lot better book than it was. It needed more context, and a better narrative instead of tending towards a list of Bad People and the Wicked Things They Did. I read it because I like things about London, but I don't think I'd recommend it. There are more interesting social histories out there that cover some of this material. One thing it does remind us of, though, is that there never was a golden age of law-abiding people who all lived in peace.

I have The Devil in the Grove going on the Kindle, but next in hard copy will be A Notable Woman. I might even start it this afternoon, but this evening will be devoted to the Christmas specials of Call the Midwife and Downton Abbey :-)

Yes! I am 21 again :-)

Booky gift report:

A friend at work gave me Weatherland: Writers & Artists Under English Skies which looks fabulous, and which I had never heard of before, so two surprises there!

And I got a Waterstone's gift voucher :-))

My brother rang me earlier, and I had a fun catch-up with him and my s-i-l and the nephews. Youngest Nephew finally got the phone he'd been saving so hard for, but it was a Christmas present, so I suppose now he can spend his savings on something else. "Good luck with Candy Crush Saga" I said. "I don't play THAT!" he said, horrified. "Too girly?" I asked. "Yes!" he said. Ah, 12-year-olds :-) I didn't tell him about all the grown men I see on the tube who're addicted to it.

I went out yesterday and did my steps, but today looks very gloomy (although it's not cold) so I might just recline and read :-)

Happy Birthday, Susan!

I NEED to get my steps in today - it's been a while. The temps here are making me a bit crazy - going to be in the 80s again today, and it is SO humid. I want winter. Or at least a crisp morning to do my walking in before the soupy temps take hold. I know, I know....quit complaining and get out there, right?!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUSAN!

(Again)

Hope you're having fun.

Says it all really. Have a great day. >:-)

Happy Birthday, Susan. Hope it is especially nice. Like you!

Dropping by to wish you a very Happy Birthday, Susan!

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas, Susan. Have a great day.

Happy birthday Susan! I hope it's a great day for you!

Happy Birthday Susan!



A little extra Birthday Howdy from our own Houston Texan's JJ Watts. Yeehaw!

>130 luvamystery65: - Ro, I almost used that license plate graphic for Susan, too! Ha!

And JJ - YUM......

Thank you for the birthday wishes and picture, everyone! (And that charming gentleman, Roberta :-) ) My thread looks very festive :-) I decided to treat myself to a day with Jack Reacher, so I've been running around Iowa with him as he hunts down bad guys. Lots of fun, especially from the warmth of my living room!



216. A Wanted Man by Lee Child

This is number 17 in the series, which means I only have three left, at least until the 2016 book. This was another good instalment, with the baddies sometimes hard to tell apart from the goodies, and Jack still travelling without any luggage save for his trusty toothbrush. It was definitely a good way to spend a birthday :-) I bought this in hard copy because the library didn't have the ebook and their own copy was gross, so I've actually read another one from Mount TBR, which concludes my little Mount TBR challenge for the year.

>130 luvamystery65:, >131 katiekrug: Hmmm, LT ate my post! I googled Mr Watt and I see he's a professional footballer who hasn't yet found the love of a good woman. Romance hero alert!! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3239693/You-don-t-know-wants-wants-money...

>131 katiekrug: The license plate graphic is SO SUSAN isn't Katie? Yes YUM YUM JJ Watt!

>133 susanj67: Of course I will post Houston's hero for you Susan. Mr. Watt does so much for the community. So easy on the eyes. Perhaps a Houston Texans game when you do your grand tour of Texas.

He's also an all-around good guy, by all accounts, and does a lot of charity work. I could totally see him with a successful Kiwi lawyer based in London. And then you could visit Ro and me!

>135 katiekrug: Can totally see JJ hanging out in London!

>134 luvamystery65: Roberta, maybe I'll have to see whether we have any NFL games televised here :-) I noticed a couple in the TV guide recently, so who knows?

>135 katiekrug: Katie, I think he needs someone who's 21 the first time round, rather than part-way through the third :-) I hope he finds her.

Tonight is another night of new TV - something called "Dickensian" at 7pm and 8pm, which is based on characters from Dickens, and "And Then There Were None", which is a new BBC adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel getting a lot of press. I'll give it a go, as I have had my nap so I should be able to stay up late :-)

>136 luvamystery65: Roberta, aha! I'd be that person on the tube who had *no idea* who he was, while all around me people were swooning. Well, maybe not any more!

>137 susanj67: I've set the magic box to record both of those series. Not sure I know the Dickens well enough to work out who is who, but I'll give it a go.

>139 Helenliz: Helen, there's a picture guide in the Radio Times. But I assume it will work as just a story on one level, with added levels of "ooh, that's clever" if you know Dickens really well. I don't know his books that well, but I'll give it a try and see. It's written by one of the EastEnders writers, I think.

Happy Birthday, Susan!

>141 lkernagh: Thanks Lori!

Oooh, the Verso ebook sale has started! 90% (yes, 90%) off all ebooks until 1 January 2016. http://www.versobooks.com/ I've just bought these:



And also the Verso 2015 Mixtape book, which is free.

I've decided on another quiet day in the warm today. I'm alternating between A Notable Woman and The Devil in the Grove. I thought I'd gobble up A Notable Woman but unfortunately the diarist is quite tiresome. I'm working my way through her 20s at the moment and I'm hoping she stops obsessing about boys soon, and we get to some of the "Extraordinary. Timeless, funny and utterly absorbing" entries (Hilary Mantel quote on the cover), but I do wonder...

Hope you had a wonderful birthday yesterday. We thought of you as we celebrated your co-birthday-person's day yesterday. Wish you could have been here with us.

>142 susanj67: Oh no! That diary book sounded *so* good. I liked Vron Ware's book, look forward to hearing what you think.

>143 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I did have a good day, thanks :-) I hope your celebrations also went well.

>144 charl08: Charlotte, I know! I'm disappointed, and this afternoon decided to concentrate on The Devil in the Grove, which I was closer to finishing. I'll pick it up again tomorrow.



217. The Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King

This is an excellent account of the "Groveland Boys" case in Florida at the end of the 1940s, and the role of Thurgood Marshall, who at that stage was working for the NAACP and later became the first black Supreme Court judge. The case involved extreme bias against the defendants every step of the way, including the killing of two of them - one by a lynch mob and the other by a law enforcement officer who only just missed killing the third one as well. But that, apparently, was quite normal at that time and in that place. There were also references to other civil rights cases that Marshall was working on at the same time, including the famous Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, which decided that "separate but equal" educational facilities were unconstitutional.

>145 susanj67: I really liked The Devil in the Grove (as I think you know). I had no idea Florida was that bad. It sometimes seems like it's "south of the south" but this book points out that parts of it, at least, have a terrible history of corruption and civil rights abuses.

Happy, happy birthday to you, Susan! Hope your day was lovely and book-ish. This thread is making me hungry for mince pies, which I don't think I've had since I was about 12. I may have to make some next year, particularly Lori-style with rum-laced cream and nutmeg! Lots of great books here, and 217 books! Wow!

So so far behind :)

So... belated Merry Christmas, belated happy happy happy birthday wishes and just a weigh in on Mog at Christmas (which I brought for my son) and Lucy & Tom at Christmas (which I brought for my nephew). They really have re-released some lovely books this year - I still have the family's old copy of Lucy & Tom from 1981 - tis my still my favourite book and I read it to the kids snuggled up on Christmas eve :)

>146 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes, it went on my list after you reviewed it :-) It must have turned up as an Amazon deal shortly afterwards because I've had it since about the middle of the year.

>147 AMQS: Thanks Anne! I am getting quite a bit of reading done, and I'm about to start The Worst Hard Time, which I have seen mentioned here on LT. It's from Mt TBR, which is very slowly reducing :-)

>148 BekkaJo: Hi Bekka! It's great to see you again. I did love the Waterstones selection of traditional books, and could easily have bought more. Former Office Roomie came in to thank me for the parcel (although I put "from Santa" on the gift tag, so I don't know how he knew...) and said that there was a giant pile of presents under the tree for the baby, while he and his wife had one small thing each :-) The baby is the first grandchild for both sides of the family, so I expect that will continue, at least until he gets a sibling or a cousin. F-O-R said that he seemed to know *something* was happening, even though he's too little to understand Christmas.

It's warm yet again here, with sunny blue skies. I feel like we should at least have rain, in sympathy with the poor people up north who have terrible flooding. But, as we don't, I walked to the Wharf to get groceries, so I got some steps in. And now I have the balcony door open because it's so hot inside. Crazy. But the hand-washing is dripping dry outside nicely and I intend to vacuum any time now. Any...time...

Catching up here after the holidays and limited Internet access.

>150 thornton37814: Hi Lori! It's good to see you back.

I saw an article in the Guardian yesterday about ten things to do in the New Year http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/dec/28/new-year-new-you-how-to-be-h... and I thought I'd resolve to give number ten a try at least. It is "Read a poem aloud", so today I spent my Waterstones gift card on Poem for the Day: One which is, as it suggests, a poem for every day of the year ;-)



I tend to associate poetry with speech and drama lessons as a kid - I was always learning them for exams and competitions and it was just another thing I had to do. I've tended not to read poetry since I no longer had to, but maybe this project will change that.

I went to the Samuel Pepys exhibition at the National Maritime Museum today, which was good, although it was, dare I say it, a tiny bit light on Pepys and tended to focus on the events of his time. But those are still interesting, taking in the execution of Charles I, the restoration of Charles II, the Great Plague and the Great Fire so there was a lot to see.

Now I'm going to sit down (somewhere different, I mean) and read a hundred pages of A Notable Woman before I get up again.

>151 susanj67: Oh I love this book (and the sequel). What a great resolution. Hope you find something you like. I would also recommend the Poetry on the Underground anthologies if you're looking for a wide range of poetry (and the design is beautifully done too).

Library computer system is down again. Maybe my resolution should be not to moan about the library...

Happy Belated birthday , Susan. Nice book haul!

Kudos on the poetry reading resolution. Poetry and I are not friends. My mind begins to wander almost immediately on those rare occasions when I attempt to read a poem. Part of it may stem from the way it was always used as a threat in school. You know - "Next quarter we're going to be reading poetry!" (Said grimly with a forbidding and serious look around the room at the poetry-dreading students.) And then we never did. Which was ok but it tended to leave me with the idea that poetry was a very disagreeable thing - so awful that the teacher didn't really want to tackle it either.

I enjoy poetry, but I don't read nearly enough of it. We got in a new collection at work that I hope to give a try this year. One of our English professors also released a collection that I recently cataloged. Perhaps I should adopt that poem a day resolution.

>152 charl08: Charlotte, they had the sequel too, but for obvious reasons I had to get number 1 :-) Funnily enough, they had those Penguin bags you have on your 2016 thread, and the first one I saw was the Lost Girl one! Sorry about the library system - maybe this is the time they do their mysterious "maintenance", like the trains.

>153 vancouverdeb: Thanks Deborah!

>154 Fourpawz2: Thanks Charlotte. Yes, I hope I'm just blaming my speech and drama lessons. It could of course turn out that I just don't understand it :-)

>155 thornton37814: Lori, join me with your own volume!

I read today's pages of A Notable Woman. That doesn't sound like it's a rip-roaring read, does it? That's because it's not. But it's now the war, and her war diaries were part of another book edited by Simon Garfield (from Mass Observation diaries), where she appeared as "Maggie Joy Blunt". In this book he has both those entries and entries from her personal diary that didn't form part of the Mass Observation programme.

In light of the mince pie discussion above, the most interesting entry was from 28 December 1944, in which she says: "I was able to get some mincemeat and made a large mince pie, the first time I had ever made pastry, and it was an enormous success." Presumably she didn't create a pie that she'd never seen before (or at least she doesn't comment on deviating from the typical small pies) so maybe large mince pies were still around during WWII.

ETA: But then again, if mince pies were routinely large, she wouldn't have said "large", I suppose. Just "I made a mince pie". Maybe both large *and* small mince pies were around then. I will email my friend the cookbook writer and see if she has ever considered the question.

Hmmm, it is very windy outside, and overcast, and it will rain later. Pyjama day! But I have Goals, which are:

1. Read 100 pages of A Notable Woman
2. Finish A Colossal Wreck, which I am greatly enjoying and will be sad to finish
3. Start The Worst Hard Time

Have a happy pyjama day Susan. Don't forget to let us know when you set up home in 2016.

Happy pyjama day, Susan. I love such days with a big pot of tea.

Definitely deserving of a pj day. So windy here the decs have blown off the tree outside. Given that Croston is about half an hour away, we've got away quite lightly.

I'm thinking of coming up with a new game based on the length of pause before a national newsreader says a name in the northwest, with bonus points when the reporter pronounces it wrong. Fun for all the family...

Oh, man, I LOVE me a pajama day! Totally jealous, so enjoy!! And I am betting that you will love The Worst Hard Time - really well done and so interesting.

I would be having a pajama day if I didn't have to go pick up the stupid cat from the vet/boarding place. And tomorrow is cleaning lady day so I have to skedaddle for that (but am treating myself to breakfast and a visit to the giant used bookstore). And Friday is my uncle's birthday dinner. So Saturday! Saturday will be my pajama day!

I just wrote this in a post to Mamie on my thread: "I still plan to undertake a reading of the Penguin History of the World, spread out over the year. You and Susan had indicated some interest, so I'm just reminding you. No worries if it no longer appeals :) "

So consider yourself reminded, too!

>158 Helenliz: Thanks Helen. I have a 2016 thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/210006

>159 Ameise1: Barbara, there has been tea ;-) And also home-made soup and a cheese scone for lunch.

>160 charl08: Charlotte, that sounds like it's very close to you. I hope it doesn't get any closer. I assume that the newsreaders must be thankful that Wales isn't involved in the flooding...

>161 Crazymamie: Thanks Mamie. I seldom have them since getting the Fitbit, but I hate walking in the wind, particularly given the amount of scaffolding and what-not around the place. I'm going to start The Worst Hard Time next.

>162 katiekrug: Katie, LOL! There's always something, isn't there? :-) But I'm glad you have Saturday in your sights. Also glad that you got home safely and can have some alone time. I find it difficult being "on" all the time when I'm visiting family. I usually spend most of my non-work time on my own, so it's quite an effort :-) And yes! I do want to do the Penguin History of the World read with you and Mamie. (It appears as Great Expectations with brackets, so I have taken them off). I think I was faffing around trying to decide whether to get the ebook or a hard copy. I'll get back on that, as 1 Jan is nearly here.



218. A Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American Culture by Alexander Cockburn

I got this in the mid-year sale at Verso in June. I'd never heard of Alexander Cockburn, so really I bought it because I liked the cover, but he turned out to be a British journalist who emigrated to the US in 1972, and wrote a lot of pieces on many topics about American politics and culture generally. And a lot of people didn't seem to like him much. This is a collection of his writings from 1995 - 2012 when he died, arranged by year. I've been reading it for a while, a year at a time, but this seemed like a good opportunity to finish it, and I enjoyed it a lot. The pieces range from columns he wrote, to diary entries, to responses to letters people had written about *him*, and he definitely had hobby-horse subjects that he liked to return to. Occasionally I had to google to work out what had happened that he was commenting on, because a lot of the pieces are just comment, but that was more for the early chapters. By the time of the later ones I was evidently paying more attention to world affairs.

I've also read my pages from A Notable Woman, and did vaguely consider pushing on to the end so I can add one more book to the 2015 total, but I decided against it. I've only got 2.5 more days to go and then it will be finished. But then it will be a "meh" review for my first book for 2016. Hmm.

Love the idea of a PJ day!

>164 lkernagh: Lori, every so often it's just lovely :-)

But today is sunny and again not cold, so I walked up into the City to have lunch with a friend who is working today, but found himself in an empty office. I wore just a long-sleeved t-shirt and a cardigan - no coat at all. And then I went to Marks & Spencer, but that's never a good idea after a huge lunch! Now I have to read my pages of A Tiresome Woman and then maybe some more of The Worst Hard Time, which is excellent so far. I've also got a novel on the go - so many choices for the first review of 2016!

Last night I got an email from Better World Books, saying that my books ordered a couple of days ago had shipped. But it said a bit more:

*****

Hello Susan,

(Your book(s) asked to write you a personal note - it seemed unusual, but who are we to say no?)

Holy canasta! It's me... it's me! I can't believe it is actually me! You could have picked any of over 2 million books but you picked me! I've got to get packed! How is the weather where you live? Will I need a dust jacket? I can't believe I'm leaving Mishawaka, Indiana already - the friendly people, the Hummer plant, the Linebacker Lounge - so many memories. I don't have much time to say goodbye to everyone, but it's time to see the world!

I can't wait to meet you! You sound like such a well read person. Although, I have to say, it sure has taken you a while! I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but how would you like to spend five months sandwiched between Jane Eyre (drama queen) and Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (pyromaniac)? At least Jane was an upgrade from that stupid book on brewing beer. How many times did the ol' brewmaster have one too many and topple off our shelf at 2am?

I know the trip to meet you will be long and fraught with peril, but after the close calls I've had, I'm ready for anything (besides, some of my best friends are suspense novels). Just five months ago, I thought I was a goner. My owner was moving and couldn't take me with her. I was sure I was landfill bait until I ended up in a Better World Books book drive bin. Thanks to your socially conscious book shopping, I've found a new home. Even better, your book buying dollars are helping kids read from Brazil to Botswana.

But hey, enough about me, I've been asked to brief you on a few things:

*****

And then the order details etc. So funny!

That's hilarious!

Belated birthday and Christmas wishes to you Susan!

>156 susanj67: I really enjoyed Maggie Joy Blunt's contributions to the Mass Observation books so A Notable Woman sounds potentially interesting although I'm still not sure given your earlier comments about the diarist obsessing about boys a lot which was something that annoyed me in Joan Wyndham's Love Lessons.

>163 susanj67: Ok, definitely less interested in A Notable Woman given your 'meh' feelings. Maybe Simon Garfield already used all the good bits for the Mass Observation WWII collections?

>165 susanj67: The warm winter weather this year is so strange. Aside from feeling bad for all the people dealing with flooding I have been quite selfishly annoyed that I have not had enough opportunities to wear my new winter coat accompanied by scarf, hat and glove set.

And I love the email from BWB!

>165 susanj67: Big thumbs up to Better World Books. What fun.

>165 susanj67: What a hoot! I read it aloud to Birdy and Abby, and we were all laughing. Thanks for sharing!

I'm going to have to run to the store in a bit, but I love the idea of a PJ day also. Maybe I can change back into PJs after I go to the store. ;-)

#165 That's lovely!!

Happy New year Susan :)

>166 katiekrug: Katie, it did make me giggle - particularly the question about the dust jacket.

>167 souloftherose: Thanks Heather! Yes, A Notable Woman is going to be "meh" at best. She is the *most annoying* person, always whining and complaining even though she lived mostly on investment income, didn't have to do any war work and always had a nice little house to live in. She's starting (I'm now in the 1950s) to say that mostly she's really a happy person and the diary just sees the worst of her, but I'm not convinced. I've never known it this warm in London - I'm usually in a padded coat at the beginning of September! Well, October. I haven't seen the news from up north today but it all seems to be the fire in Dubai at the moment.

>168 charl08: Charlotte, I can only assume someone there was really bored :-)

>169 Crazymamie: Mamie, I'm glad it made you and the girls laugh :-)

>170 thornton37814: Lori, any time of day works - I hope you manage some quality PJ time.

>171 BekkaJo: Thanks Bekka! Happy New Year to you too :-)

I think I'll bring this thread to a close now, as I'm not going to get anything else finished. Thanks to everyone who followed along, whether you posted or just lurked.

>165 susanj67: - That 'personal note' is awesome!

Happy New Year, Susan!

Happy New Year, Susan. I look forward to following your reading in 2016. I also would like to read more poetry.