SylviaC Reads *ALL* the Books in 2016 - Part 3

I'm starting a third thread for this year, as the last one filled up unexpectedly quickly.

I read for pleasure, roughly equal amounts of fiction and nonfiction, and am quite willing to abandon any book that I'm not enjoying. I only write a proper review if I really have something to say about a book, but I'll always give at least a brief reaction. My star ratings are based on how much I enjoyed the book.

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The Chalet School Group is here: LibraryThing Goes to the Chalet School

Useful:
The New How To Do Fancy Things In Your Posts Thread

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These are the books that I'm currently reading:

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith
Music in the Hills by D. E. Stevenson - for a group read
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes- audio
The Concubine's Children by Denise Chong- for book club
The Assassin's Cloak : an anthology of the world's greatest diarists - bit by bit
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith - very slowly, my emergency book on my phone

Marking my spot on your new thread.

I enjoyed As You Wish and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is one of my absolutely favorites. It's gotten one of my super rare 10/10 stars.

Actually, the other one by Betty Smith, Joy in the Morning is also a favorite. I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in my early teen years and it made a lasting impression.

>4 jillmwo: I love both of those books by Betty Smith, though I did not read either until the last year or so.

I've heard mention of Betty Smith a few times but never followed up. Looks as if these would be a welcome change of pace from my recent attempt to read all of this year's various mystery award winners. And you can definitely carve one more notch in the butt of your gold-handled cane for As You Wish.

marking the continued thread.

re: Anya's Ghost, I felt similiarly. I can see why the book is popular. I would have loved it as a teenager.

A couple of years ago, I tried reading Maggie-Now by Betty Smith, but it was so depressing that I didn't get far at all. I think I'm having trouble getting into A Tree Grows in Brooklyn because I'm afraid it will be like that, too. And the fact that I'm only reading for a few minutes at a time, on a phone screen, doesn't help.

>6 Jim53: The great thing about the audio version of As You Wish is that many of the people who were involved in the movie pitch in with the narration, telling us their own thoughts and experiences.

And It Rained by Ellen Raskin. A children's picture book, and a very small one, at that. Not one of her best, but still good. A pig, a parrot, and a potto try to figure out how to keep the rain from ruining their daily tea party. Very cute, with Raskin's distinctive drawings full of animals cavorting in the background.

>8 SylviaC: I was just thinking that you are missing out on all the great photos in the book, but the actor's voices is a nice trade off. :) I enjoyed that one.

>10 MrsLee: We need both editions! Read the print copy to see the photos, and listen to the audio at the same time to hear the actors.

An Exchange of Gifts by Anne McCaffrey. A little tiny book, less than 90 very small pages. It's a children's fairytale about a runaway princess. Predictable but nice.

Just stopping by to say hello on your new thread!

>13 Sakerfalcon: Hi!

DeerDear Sylvia by Alan Cumyn. Another short children's book. I'm trying to clear some of the low-hanging fruit from the TBR tree. I'll admit I only bought this at a library book sale because of the title. The whole book consists of (mostly unsent) letters from a young boy named Owen to his girlfriend Sylvia, who has just moved away. Owen is always earnest, but the letters turn out funny as he and his brothers get into various sorts of mischief. The family has to learn to adapt when Owen's father quits his job to write a book. I think it must be aimed at kids under 10, but there is some mild adult subtext about the father's midlife crisis. The hapless Owen is a sympathetic character as he struggles with school (especially spelling) and with the changes at home. Apparently this is the third in a series. I'm not going to seek out the others, but I will read them if I come across them.

Frankenstein by "Ludworst Bemonster" (Rick Walton). Picture book. A parody of Madeline. I had fun reading this to my teenaged daughter in exactly the same way that I used to read her Madeline.

>16 SylviaC: argh! I've been hit by a book bullet!!!!

>16 SylviaC: I love Madeline! I may have to get this Frankenstein book! What a fun one to read to my class!

>17 fuzzi: >18 catzteach: The illustrations are good, too. My daughter and I really had fun with it.

>16 SylviaC: That was a very effective bullet. Purchased the hardcover for my daughter for Christmas. It is very reasonably priced!

Wow, I'm proud of myself! Who'd have expected such destruction from a children's book bullet?

>21 SylviaC: Good going, Sylvia. You score even with your eyes shut.

La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith. I didn't feel like it lived up to it's potential. I really enjoyed the first two thirds of it, which was stylistically very similar to the writing of some of the mid-twentieth century writers that I particularly like, with the odd unexpectedly modern note. Then I just stopped for several days, and had to struggle to finish it. I never felt a strong sense of attachment to La, and became more detached as the story progressed. Then, near the end, the perspective and the timeline got wonky. It was like the author got his story rolling along nicely, and then was interrupted and couldn't get back into the flow, so just threw together some bits and pieces. It's by no means a bad book, but it wasn't quite all that I wanted it to be.

Firegirl by Tony Abbott. Children's book, middle grades. A girl who has been very severely burned briefly joins Tom's grade 7 class. It gets off to a slow start, and even when it does get going, not much happens. There is the obvious lesson about not judging by appearances, and also themes of kindness, maturity, and outgrowing one's friends. It took me a while to adjust to Tom's rather bland narrative voice, but eventually I came to appreciate him, and ended up enjoying the book.

>24 SylviaC: That sounds like a book that might be more interesting told from the pov of the burned girl.

>25 Sakerfalcon: It would be a very different story. We are given very little insight into her life, except for two times when she confides in Tom. One of the things that Tom realizes is that while she made a big difference in his life, her time in their town was probably insignificant in the struggles of her life. It is notable that she is absent more than present in the book.

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes. Audio. Very entertaining, especially with the contributions from different members of the cast and production crew.

I read that one and loved it! I think I'll have to find the audio and listen to it on one of my trips to Mom's. I'd love to hear the contribution of the other actors.

The Concubine's Children by Denise Chong. For book club. A biography of the author's grandparents and their family that was split between China and Canada. If there are too many like this, I might have to rethink the whole book club thing. It is well written, but so very sad as it ground through the Depression, war, and political upheaval. The family experienced poverty, addiction, abuse, prejudice and social injustice. It ends on a more positive note, but the journey is painful.

The Boy with an R in his Hand by James Reaney. Children's historical fiction. About the 1826 type riot in William Lyon Mackenzie's printing office in York (which is now Toronto). I thought I read this when I was a kid, but none of it seemed familiar (except for the history, of course). There's a likeable main character, and some interesting information about typesetting. My family used to go to parties at the author's house.

>30 SylviaC: This sounds very interesting.

>31 LibraryPerilous: I was hoping to read and discard it to make space in my bookcase, but ended up keeping it. It deals with a period of history that should be familiar to most Canadian students.

>27 SylviaC: I think I have just figured out my next audio book :)

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Reread. I first read this when I was a child, and was delighted by the wordplay and the logical contortions. Forty years later, I still had a whole lot of fun reading it.

>34 SylviaC: Reread it with the kids a few years ago during a power outage. Best time to hold their attention. It was great.

Music in the Hills by D. E. Stevenson. Reread. Sequel to Vittoria Cottage. I liked it better than Vittoria Cottage, but still wasn't particularly enthralled with it. I thought I might find it more interesting now that I'm older (as with Amberwell and Celia's House), but my opinion is much the same as it was thirty years ago. One more book to go in the trilogy, probably in a couple of months.

>34 SylviaC: I plan to reread The Phantom Tollbooth this month, hope the suck fairy doesn't ruin it.

>37 fuzzi: I read The Phantom Tollbooth for my first time this month. I was sufficiently impressed with it to suggest the suck fairy will not have visited on your behalf. Some of its wisdom is timeless.

>37 fuzzi: She stayed away from my copy!

>38 pgmcc: >39 SylviaC: thanks for the encouragement. I'd hate to lose my fond memories.

Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer by Heather Lende. Audio. I quit about 3/4 of the way through. There wasn't anything wrong with it, but it wasn't what I expected. I expected it to be more about the people she wrote obituaries for, and less of a self-help book. The author seemed like a nice person, and read her book well, but it just wasn't my thing. I've never taken well to being told how to live my life, even when I agree with the advisor's philosophy.

Hee! Reminds me of an actor who once complained about being asked the meaning of life in his interviews: "I don't know, and why do you care what my meaning is?"

Sylvia, you've scored a double-barreled BB blast on me (or maybe an exponential one). On the strength of your comments here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/226378#5740630

I took The Silent History out of the library a couple of weeks ago, and it was on deck when my husband and I ditched our current read-aloud last night, so I produced it. One session was enough to intrigue us both. Now he's ordered it on Kindle because it will take us months to read at a rate of 25-30 pages per week.

In a curious way it seems to be the inverse of Max Barry's so-very-interesting Lexicon, which also explores the connections and identities among words or Word, meaning, thought, and power. I hope it holds up to the sustained treatment of our reading aloud.

>43 Meredy: I hope you both enjoy it. In theory, it should work well as a read-aloud, since it is supposed to represent "oral history". Maybe you"ll be able to detect more differences between the individual voices than I did.

Lexicon looks interesting, but I get the impression from the reviews that it is very violent.

>44 SylviaC: Thank you. There's violence in Lexicon, all right, but I would not describe it as a violent book. That's not what stays with me, anyway. This was my review:

https://www.librarything.com/work/13423011/reviews/117545615

>43 Meredy:, >44 SylviaC: How did I miss your remarks on The silent history when you first posted them?! It sounds excellent and gets added to my wishlist. Congratulations!

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer. Audio. Reread. I chose this because I wanted something that was guaranteed to be entertaining. I didn't think I had read the audio version before, but a couple of days ago I happened to be looking something up on last year's thread, and discovered that I had listened to it exactly a year ago. I have absolutely no memory of this, and nothing about the reading seemed the least bit familiar (except for the story itself, of course, which I know very well). And the odd thing is that it is an exceptionally good reading, which should have been memorable. I especially respect the male narrator for not trying to mimic female voices.

>47 SylviaC: I have this on my Mount TBR Soon list. I've got it on ebook. Heyer is a love/hate thing for me. The Talisman Ring got a 3/10 stars whereas The Grand Sophy got 7/10 and Frederica got 8/10. I'm looking forward to this one as it seems as if it will get a higher star rating.

>48 Morphidae: Oh, you're in for a treat with The Unknown Ajax--Hugo is probably her best hero ever. I felt the same way about The Talisman Ring.

I've never quite sparked to Heyer, although I did give The Talisman Ring four stars because it was a smuggling story.

>50 LibraryPerilous: Have you read The Unknown Ajax? (very slight spoiler) It has smuggling, too. You might also like The Toll-Gate, which has a highwayman.

>48 Morphidae: >49 Marissa_Doyle: I love The Talisman Ring. I think Sarah is my favourite Heyer heroine. For favourite hero, I can't decide between Hugo and Jack Staple, and Freddy is pretty close behind.

The Unknown Ajax is very funny, but the humour is less slapstick than Frederica, and their plots are completely different. Both were written later in Heyer's career, and the writing feels more polished than The Talisman Ring, which was written much earlier.

I don't like Friday's Child, Charity Girl, or Sprig Muslin, and there are others that are just so-so. I don't like most of her mysteries, either.

Our Heyer-tastes are almost identical! Sprig Muslin and Charity Girl are at the bottom of my list as well; Friday's Child is redeemed somewhat by the secondary characters (definite shades of Freddy there, whom I also love.) Eustacie annoyed me sufficiently to knock The Talisman Ring down a notch or two.

>52 Marissa_Doyle: True, Eustacie is annoying. But I love the way Sarah deals with her. And I wish Sarah's brother Hugh had his own book. I want to try rereading Friday's Child to see if I like it any better as an adult. I don't really feel any urge to revisit the other two, though.

I had a discussion over on the Georgette Heyer group on GR about our least favorites, and those two books were on several members' lists. I think part of why they're unsatisfactory is that the development of the love stories is...well, not very well developed. In neither book are the heroes and heroines on the page together for more than a scene or two, so there's no opportunity to see them come to the realization that they're perfect for each other.

>47 SylviaC: ::muttering::

Another BB...thanks... ;)

>55 fuzzi: The audio version in particular, or the book in general?

>56 SylviaC: the book. I don't listen to audio books, my mind tends to drift...

>47 SylviaC: I need a good audio book for next weekend's ride to my mom's. I will see if my library has this one.

Midnight in the cemetery : a spooky search-and-find alphabet book by Cheryl Harness and Robin Brickman. Just a few days late for Halloween. The illustrations were excellent, but the story was only okay. It's also a search-and-find book, so I'll probably hang onto it until I can play around with that a bit.

>58 catzteach: It would be good for a long drive. The narrator is Daniel Philpott.

>60 SylviaC: My library doesn't have it. Bummer.

Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge edited by Damien Broderick. 14 essays by scientists and science writers, exploring their visions of the year One Million. Many of them tend to lean towards human intelligence being uploaded into clouds or Matroishka Brains, orbiting the sun or other stars, although there are a few dissenting voices. I think only one of them suggests that humans (or our upgrades) may not, in fact, be around in a million years. Some of the essays that stood out for me were Jim Holt's about numbers and laughter, Dougal Dixon's about the physical Earth, Robert Bradbury's about redesigning the solar system to power Matroishka Brains, and Rudy Rucker's, which has us communing with the souls of stones. A few of the essays included some math and physics that was beyond my skill level, but they were accessible enough that I still understood what the writers were talking about. Altogether, it was an interesting mental exercise. If only I had a time machine so I could go and see whether any of them were even remotely right.

@stellarexplorer, this one is firmly in your territory.

>62 SylviaC: Does it count as a book bullet if you decide a book would make a great Christmas present for a family member?

>63 Marissa_Doyle: You deflected it towards them.

>62 SylviaC: I was thinking this was up my alley as I was reading your description. I am more than a little surprised though that none of the contributors thought humans would be gone. I have to imagine that was an exclusion criterion on the part of the editor. Sounds quite fun, more no doubt than human extinction!

>62 SylviaC: That book sounds interesting. It reminded me of a book I have that tries to predict what the world will be like in 500 years. I read the introduction and was a bit put off when it was stated that 500 years is sufficiently futuristic that no one currently living will be around to verify the accuracy of any of the predictions and therefore the contributors could say anything they want without fear of contradiction. To me, this undermined the whole concept of the book.

Your book sounds more fun.

>62 SylviaC: I took a hit on that one too!

>65 stellarexplorer: Yes, I think it was an editorial choice to focus on a human-based future. Dougal Dixon was the only one whose future included the extinction of humans. The others had some form of humanity continuing at least as long as there is a universe to exist in. Most of them expected the form to change, but consciousness and intelligence to continue in transhuman and posthuman forms. Nanotechnology plays a big role.

>66 pgmcc: The editor of this book says that while we can't really imagine humanity in the Year Million, but "we can try to chip away at the edges of the idea of deep time." A few of the essays go even farther into the future, beyond the death of our solar system and galaxy.

Above the Dreamless Dead : World War I in poetry and comics edited by Chris Duffy. Two dozen cartoonists present poetry from World War I with their own graphic interpretations. An impressive collection, particularly poignant on Remembrance Day.

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely. Audio. A book about behavioural economics, a subject I didn't even know existed. Ariely studies how people make decisions. We respond irrationally to "free" offers and discounts, which really cost more. (Bookstores with free shipping, anyone?) We are more likely to steal when actual physical money is not involved—you wouldn't likely take money out of the petty cash box at work, but don't think twice about taking home a pen of the same value. We make different decisions in the heat of the moment than we do when we're calm. The part I found most interesting was the conflict between social norms and market norms. People make different decisions based on whether they perceive an action to be a social transaction or a market transaction, and companies try to blur the line between them. It was a bit scary how much of my own decision-making matched the behaviours described in the book. Especially all the mundane little irrational decisions about which item to buy, and were to buy it.

I'm quite interested in this field. A person might save a lot of money by understanding his/her unconscious irrational choices

>71 stellarexplorer: This was the kind of information I was looking for when I read Why We Buy a couple of years ago, which turned out to be more of a merchandising handbook. Predictably Irrational is much more enlightening.

At some point you might want to look at Thinking Fast and Slow. Kahnman is quite good on this. He's a lucid writer, and his research won him the Nobel Prize in economics.

>73 stellarexplorer: That looks good. I've added it to the list.

>70 SylviaC: Book bulleted.

>70 SylviaC: That sounds interesting. It's going on my wishlist.

>70 SylviaC: sounds interesting, and my library has it available as an ebook - got me with that bullet!

Bullets seem to be flying every which way in here!

The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell. Audio. This is my favourite Cadell book, and was recently released as an audio book. Her family are in the process of republishing all of her books, first as ebooks, and gradually in print and audio as well. The narrator was good, but didn't quite match the voices in my head. I did enjoy listening, though, and ended up spending a lot of time playing a mindless game just so I could finish the book. I'm strongly tempted to get out the print book and reread that too.

I'm starting a new needlework project, so there will probably be an increase in audiobooks in the next while.

>78 SylviaC: DUCK!!!!

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. A memoir by a man who strove to live a meaningful and ethical life. Even before his cancer diagnosis, he sought a deeper understanding of life and death, asking big questions with no easy answers. This book gives us a view of life, healing, and death from the perspective of both doctor and patient. It stirs up a lot of thoughts and emotions. I finished reading it shortly after midnight, and expected a sleepless night with so much on my mind. Instead, I fell asleep immediately and unusually soundly.

Beauty by Robin McKinley. Audio. Another old favourite that I'm reading in audio for the first time. Excellent in every way.

>81 SylviaC: That one sounds familiar! ;)

>83 stellarexplorer: And it lived up to your review!

>82 SylviaC: I was charmed by that one -- way back when. I don't know where my copy is at the moment. But I loved it.

>27 SylviaC: I really enjoyed that one, though he did make the experience sound a bit too perfect.

>81 SylviaC: I broke down and bought an actual physical copy of this after realizing I'd be 90 before I finally got to borrow a digital copy. It's been sitting on one of my end tables mocking me for many weeks. I'm glad to hear it lived up to your expectations, but I don't have the heart for it just yet.

Trustee From the Toolroom by Nevil Shute. Audio. Yet another favourite. I love this story of an ordinary man who goes to extraordinary lengths to fulfill a responsibility that he willingly accepts, and all the people who help him along the way.

>86 clamairy: Well, yeah. I did take all the sweetness and light in As You Wish with a grain of salt. But at least it was a change from the dishing of dirt that you get in some entertainment memoirs.

You definitely don't want to be in the wrong frame of mind when reading When Breath Becomes Air. I had to put it aside for about a week partway way through, because I was too stressed over something else. I will be interested to know what you think of it when you do read it.

>87 SylviaC: I liked that one a lot too. It was my first Shute, and I admired it for exactly the reason you stated, along with fine, capable craftsmanship, style, and an ability to inspire enthusiasm for the things he is passionate about.

>89 Meredy: There is all that technical detail on subjects that will never be of any practical use to me, but I don't find it boring at all, in print or audio. It highlights Keith's steady, meticulous character. The crevices of my brain are probably stuffed full of obscure mid-twentieth century aviation, nautical, and engineering information from all the Nevil Shute books I read in my formative years.

Broken Chain by Sandi Plewis. For book club. By a local author—local as in just around the corner from me. It is very well written, with complex characters, but grim.

Busman's Holiday by Lucilla Andrews. A book that I hadn't read before, by one of my favourite romance authors. I had high hopes when the first paragraph introduced an elderly dog named Psmith. Sadly, things deteoriated from there. The heroine treated the hero in a completely unreasonable way for the first half of the book, then spent most of the rest of the book moping. Both of them repeatedly made unwarranted negative assumptions about each other, which could have been immediately cleared up by talking and listening. By the end I was thinking that if their communication issues were that serious, their marriage wasn't going to last long.

The New Collected Short Stories by E. M. Forster. Heavily laced with classical mythology and allegory, which aren't really my thing, but still interesting.

The most memorable story for me was the only science fiction one, "The Machine Stops", which is dystopian and apocalyptic. All humans live in individual underground rooms, where all of their needs are taken care of by the Machine. They communicate through handheld devices that transmit and receive voices and faces. They are constantly connected through electronic social interactions, and are entertained by visual and audio lectures and shows. Physical touch is repulsive, and they seldom, if ever, leave their rooms. On the rare occasions that someone must travel, they do so on a vast network of airships, running non-stop on fixed routes, usually empty. The Machine controls everything. The story was first published in 1909, and there is nothing in it that we can look at today and say, "No, that couldn't happen." The whole communication and social interaction system is eerily similar to our current world of Skype, streaming vlogs, and Facebook. This is a good one for the apocalyptic fiction fans, and should be readily available online.

Forster is one of my favorite authors. I don't like short fiction, so I've not read any of his short stories, but "The Machine Stops" sounds very interesting.

>94 LibraryPerilous: That one is very different from the rest of the stories. Forster says in the introduction that ” 'The Machine Stops' is a reaction to one of the earlier heavens of H. G. Wells." Having no familiarity with Wells, I don't know what work he's referring to, but I am kind of curious.

The body count for the entire collection is very high.

>93 SylviaC: I think The Machine Stops sounds interesting too. My library has a copy, I've put it on my For Later shelf.

All My Friends are Dead by Avery Monsen and Jory John. A funny picture book for adults.

The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton. A warrior princess and an adorable, round pony.

>97 SylviaC: The princess and the pony sounds great. I wonder if either of my goddaughters would like it (they are 18 months and 4 years old).

>98 Sakerfalcon: A four your old could definitely appreciate it, especially if she ever feels frustrated about being little. The younger one would probably like the roly-poly pony.

Incidentally, my son, who is in his last year of highschool, thought The Princess and the Pony and All My Friends are Dead were both great.

Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett. I liked it well enough to finish it, but mainly because I was curious about what places he would include, rather than about what he had to say. It was far more about the author's ideas than about the individual places—they were just there for him to hang his words on.

I think I'm just going to read fun books from now until Christmas. So this is my warning for visitors to expect lots of romance and other light stuff here for a few weeks.

>102 SylviaC: I'm just going to read fun books...expect lots of romance and other light stuff here for a few weeks.

I cannot reconcile these two contradictory statements. Does not compute!

;-)

>103 pgmcc:

I know it is hard to understand, but it appears that there are actually readers who enjoy romance novels.

>104 suitable1: Pull the other one!

>103 pgmcc: And there'll be nary a gothic novel amongst them!
:-P

>104 suitable1: Wonderful, isn't it? ;-)

>102 SylviaC: I spent all last month reading fantasy and urban fantasy.

>102 SylviaC: Whatever gets you through the month, my dear!

Near Neighbours by Molly Clavering. Mollie Clavering was a good friend and neighbour of D. E. Stevenson, and her books are of a similar vintage and style. People who should know claim that this is the best of Clavering's books, and it was recently republished by Greyladies. It is a lovely, quiet story of two families in adjoining Edinburgh townhouses. Miss Dorothea Balfour, an elderly lady who is suddenly on her own after a lifetime of oppression by her father and sister, lives in Number Four, while Mrs. Lenox and her five children, all in their teens or early twenties, live in Number Six. We watch Miss Dorothea's growing independence as she and the others discover her kindness, tolerance, and wisdom. At the same time, the Lennox children mature and look to their futures. My only issue with the book is that it jumps around too much between different characters' heads. The narrative is always in third person, but parts of it are from the perspectives of at least twelve different characters. Other than that, I enjoyed it very much.

>109 SylviaC: That does sound good. I like Greyladies books but I wish more bookshops carried them.

>102 SylviaC: I hear ya. I've been doing some of that as well. No romance, though. Humor instead. :o)

>107 Morphidae:, >108 jillmwo:, >111 clamairy: Happy reading to all!

>110 Sakerfalcon: I agree. I can rarely get them without paying pretty hefty shipping fees, so I don't like to take too many chances. I'd like to try some of the Noel Streatfeild/Susan Scarlett books, but don't want to risk spending that much on something I might not like.

Hospital Circles by Lucilla Andrews. Not one of her best, but still much better than the one I read a couple of weeks ago. Pretty much follows one of her main formulas.

Death and Miss Dane by Elizabeth Cadell. This was originally published as a serial in Canada only in 1959, and then republished in a limited edition in 2005. As with many such "lost" books, there is good reason for its obscurity. It's a novella, really, with the characters barely developed and the plot full of holes. I doubt that Cadell ever considered it a candidate for publication in book form. The story is fine for what it was intended to be, but in this version is only really of interest to hardcore Cadell fans (an oxymoron if ever there was one). This edition includes a biography of Elizabeth Cadell by her daughter, as well as other supplemental material.

Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher. This one turned out to be surprisingly good. Not up there with Winter Solstice, of course, but much better than most of her shorter novels. Not a lot happens in it—it's mainly about people and relationships. Another Porthkerris book.

>115 SylviaC: I like Pilcher but the short ones run together. Have you tried Robin Pilcher?

>116 BonnieJune54: I haven't yet, although I am curious about his writing. Are his books at all similar to his mother's?

>117 SylviaC: I have one on a shelf, unread as usual. :-(

>118 BonnieJune54: My library system has four of them. I should borrow one sometime.

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, & the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick. Audio. Did not finish. This was not part of my fun reading month—this was quitting not-fun reading. Every now and then something interesting would stand out, but most of the time I was just listening to words. I got about halfway through. I learned more from Quicksilver.

Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three by Ellen Raskin. Reread. A Christmas picture book full of animals wearing rhyming clothes. As with many of Raskin's picture books, the words and pictures interplay to tell the story. The drawings are very elaborate in this one.

I bought this book four years ago, and apparently didn't show it to the kids at the time. I remembered it a couple of days ago when I was looking for Christmas books, but couldn't find it. I asked the kids if they had seen a book called Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, but they both insisted that there was no such book, even when I showed them the LT book page, and said, "I know it exists, because LibraryThing says so!" Eventually I found it and showed it to them, but they still claim that it isn't real.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett. Nice to see Rincewind, Twoflower, and especially the Luggage again.

>122 SylviaC: Heh heh. The luggage! :o) I enjoyed listening to that one. Though now I can't sort its contents in my mind from the one before and the ones after.

(Edited to add: Thank you for the nudge in the right direction. OverDrive has added 20+ Pratchett titles since I last checked, and several of them are audio. I've got A Hat Full of Sky on hold!)

>123 clamairy: Me too! I'm thinking that 2017 will be a reread year for me. All of Discworld, and some of my favorite mystery authors and such.

>123 clamairy: Other than Good Omens I've only done audio for Pratchett. I should probably do print for a revisit to cement things a bit more in my noggin.

I loved The Colour of Magic in audio. I think it worked well because it was so episodic. The only other one I tried in audio was Mort, but I got frustrated at the pacing about halfway through. I'll wait until I find it in print to read the whole thing. In general audio works better for me with nonfiction than with fiction. The Light Fantastic was about the fourth Pratchett book I've read. I'm buying them as I find them at sales, so I'm not really going in order.

The Matchmaker of Périgord by Julia Stuart. I really enjoyed the first few chapters, as the author introduced the village and the characters. The book is full of quirky, occassionally macabre humour, which I appreciated, but eventually it became clear that there is not much else to it. There is a plot, as the local barber realizes that his barbering days are numbered, so becomes a professional matchmaker for his tiny village (pop. 33), but it meanders and digresses. The running jokes are funny for a while, but become tedious as the same phrases are repeated every single time certain characters or situations appear—there are just too many of them. The author also has an odd way of always using every character's full name. So the main character, Guillaume Ladoucette, is always called Guillaume Ladoucette even if his name comes up three or four times in a single paragraph. The author does this in at least one of her other books, too. I cared enough about some of the characters to keep reading, but was increasingly annoyed by the belaboured quirkiness. I liked it more than The Pigeon Pie Mystery, but not as much as Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo.

>127 SylviaC: "So the main character, Guillaume Ladoucette, is always called Guillaume Ladoucette even if his name comes up three or four times in a single paragraph."

Does she do this to make some kind of self-referential philosophical point, some post-modern experiment? I mention this because in one of his more well-known short stories, John Barth mentions a property that contains a pond or small lake. Thereafter, each time he refers to it, he always uses the same phrase, i.e. "Gazing out the window, she contemplated the pond or small lake". This happens multiple times and you realize the author is purposely calling your attention to this odd construction.

>127 SylviaC: >128 stellarexplorer: Purposeful or not, that would distract me enough I wouldn't like the book.

>128 stellarexplorer: That is exactly the sort of thing that Julia Stuart does, but she overdoes it. It is very much part of her style. She has some purpose to it, but I don't know how philosophical it is. Comedic and self-referential, certainly.

>129 catzteach: I do like that sort of repetition as a humorous technique—Pratchett does it in the context of much broader humour—but Stuart uses so much of it that it overwhelms the rest of the story.

>87 SylviaC: Ahhh. Trustee From the Toolroom is a good comfort read. I've read it too recently to read it again, though. In the middle of a re-read of Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

>97 SylviaC: All My Friends Are Dead is fun.

>114 SylviaC: I am thinking I can give Death and Miss dane a miss. I recently read Alice, Where Art Thou and Death Among Friends for the first time recently and enjoyed them.

>120 SylviaC: The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, & the Birth of the Modern World by Edward Dolnick was also a DNF for me.

>127 SylviaC: So was The Pigeon Pie Mystery.

>122 SylviaC:, >126 SylviaC: I like me some Terry Pratchett, though.

>121 SylviaC: Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three sounds good. I love that your kids still insist that it doesn't exist :-). I really should read The Westing Game one of these days.

>121 SylviaC: I borrowed and read Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three yesterday. That snail in a veil was hard to find!

>131 MDGentleReader:

I want to reread Miss Pettigrew soon. It keeps popping into my mind lately.

Don't bother with Death and Miss Dane unless you have completist impulses. I haven't read Death Among Friends yet, but will get the new Kindle edition sometime. It's great that they're coming out so fast. Alice, Where Art Thou was one of the first Cadell books I read, and one of my favourites. Portholes has more personality than most of the men in her books.

I'm glad to know that it wasn't just me who gave up on The Clockwork Universe. I ended up just skimming The Pigeon Pie Mystery.

My favourite Ellen Raskin novel is The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel). It is based on wordplay, and is the funniest of them. The illustrations are made up of words. I think she is underrated, both as a children's novelist and as an author/illustrator of picture books.

My mini-review of Miss Pettigrew: The humor is a little dated but this is a charming story which made me run right out to go watch the movie again. While there are some major differences, in general, they both have the same tone of a HEA for a delightful woman who decides to come out of her shell and live a little.

>134 Morphidae: That seems pretty accurate. When was the movie made? According to LT, the book was published in 1938.

>134 Morphidae: I'm glad you enjoyed Miss P. It's a charming and uplifting little book.

>135 SylviaC: The film dates from 2008. It is lovely but there is one change they made that I really disliked they made Edythe nasty to Miss P because E wanted Joe for herself. I much preferred that they liked each other in the book and there was no romantic jealousy.

>136 Sakerfalcon: I didn't realize the movie was that recent. I don't know why they feel the need to add tension to something that works perfectly well.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. This is the first of Nancy Mitford's books that I've read. I never cared much for Nancy in any of the Mitford biographies or letters that I've read, but she was certainly a good writer. The narrator, Fanny, tells the story of her cousins, the Radletts, particularly Linda. It seems to be a mixture of thinly disguised Mitford experience and pure fiction. The book was neither as funny nor as biting as I expected. It was funny, and often satirical, but also rather sad, and many of the characters were surprisingly sympathetic. I didn't feel that much of a connection with Linda, though, and would like to have learned more about Fanny. There are two more books, so hopefully I will get to know her better in them.

>136 Sakerfalcon: I agree wholeheartedly! Enjoyed both, but loved the consistent tone of the book.

Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. Anyone who has been following my reading threads for awhile will know how much I like this book. I've reread it most Decembers since I first discovered it. Elfrida always feels like the kindest, most welcoming of friends. It was just the perfect pool of calm that I needed in what is proving to be a somewhat stressful month.

>140 SylviaC: Another book that I own but have never read.:-(

>141 BonnieJune54: I think you'll like it when you do read it.

>140 SylviaC: Just ordered it from the library for a reread.

>143 Morphidae: Perfect for this time of year! I didn't like the Christmas book that I brought home to read for book club, so I told them about Winter Solstice instead. A couple of them had already read and loved it, and others wrote down the title so they could look for it.

>144 SylviaC: I also have Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas.

>145 Morphidae: I'd be interested to know what you think of that one. I wanted to love it...

>146 SylviaC: I'm not expecting a lot to be honest. But it's Christmas-y, on Mount TBR, and fluffy.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. Audio. Something to listen to while I was wrapping presents today. I prefer reading it in print, especially since the narrator pronounced "Aslan" differently than I do. It fulfilled a need, though.

A handful of Christmas romance novellas that used to be favourites of mine. The Mysterious Gift by Kathleen Creighton, The Humbug Man by Diana Palmer, and Always and Forever by Lindsay McKenna. Two of them had lost some of their charm—I think mainly because there was too much focus on physical attraction, and I just wasn't in the mood—but the third was still very good.

>140 SylviaC:, I just finished a re-read, too. I love spending time with Elfrida.

My 2017 thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/246302