Close Out 2016 & Launch 2017; Jillmwo's Reading Thread

So I took MrsLee as a role model and decided to launch the next year's thread a bit early -- just about a week early, as it happens. I'm in the middle of Murder in Advent by Davd Williams and so far have been enjoying it. Published in 1947, it takes place in a Cathedral Close and the cast of characters includes Prebendiaries and Minor Canons and others in similar clerical ranks. A good book to read early in the day while still in bed with one's first cup of coffee.

So I took MrsLee as a role model and decided to launch the next year's thread a bit early -- just about a week early, as it happens. I'm in the middle of Murder in Advent by Davd Williams and so far have been enjoying it. Published in 1947, it takes place in a Cathedral Close and the cast of characters includes Prebendiaries and Minor Canons and others in similar clerical ranks. A good book to read early in the day while still in bed with one's first cup of coffee.

*hear Doublemint song playing in head*

One entry is for 2016 and the other is for 2017.

Just taking my place here ready for 2017. Murder in Advent sounds good - I'm not a big mystery reader but I do like books set in and around cathedrals.

Just a quick note to correct misinformation in the dual postings at the top of this thread. It was NOT published in 1947. Murder in Advent was published in 1985. I don't know what I was thinking or looking at; I must have been operating while under the effects of the pharmaceutical known as Christmas Prep Distraction. Of course, cathedrals in the '80's were in very different financial straits than those experienced in the '40's, so that may make a difference to those considering the title as reading material. I hope to post a review before January 1.

I need more sleep. I'm seeing double...

I do love it when the family converges as one for the holiday, but I admit to readily waving farewell to each of the offspring at the end. They're wonderfully helpful whilst also being wonderfully energetic and therefore exhausting. The baking and/or cooking is exhausting. The planning is exhausting (or more probably it is the lack of adequate planning that really makes it exhausting.)

Be that as it may, I did finally finish Murder in Advent by David Williams. I do recommend it. The sleuth is a merchant banker (rather like the banker that Emma Lathen invented during this same time period -- John Putney Thatcher.) Because the story is set during the season of Advent rather than during the Christmas season itself, there's a certain darkness to it, but everything does work out fortuitously by the end. Still it is *murder* after all.

The characters are fairly well drawn and there is just the right amount of humor in that rendering. The atmosphere is appropriate to the 1980's in the sense that you have the guy who wants to sell off all of the Cathedral's assets to benefit the Third World as well as the member of the clergy who deplores the new Prayer Book.

Honestly, if I hadn't been reading it in such a fragmented way over the past ten days, I'd be writing a much more coherent account of why it was worthwhile. Nicely enjoyable, if not forever memorable.

I may need to go read short stories. (Cyril Hare does some nice ones.) The book my spouse gave me for Christmas was Hamilton: The Revolution which is about the Broadway musical. I am fairly sure he wants to read it himself, but he'll allow me a week or so. (He finished one of his book gifts within 24 hours of opening it! Admittedly it was a short book, but STILL.)

Hi Jill!

I, too, loved when daughter descended upon us on the 24th. I cooked and baked on the 24th and 25th, had Santa, cleaned up as we went, and was happy to see my only child go late on the 25th. It's been recovery mode ever since.

I'm reading one of my Christmas books, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. It's quite good, in a Firefly-ish, interesting aliens sort of way.

>8 jillmwo: I'm very considerate and read the book gifts I'm giving before I give them. Then there is no pressure on the giftee to finish quickly so I can read them. ;)

>10 MrsLee: Wow. Your reasoning is flawless.

Hahaha!

>8 jillmwo: I'm with you on welcoming the end of the gathering. In our case it was coming home ourselves after visiting the whole family in Maryland. Fun and stressful, and we're very glad to be home.

I'm thinking that I'm might do a slow and thoughtful re-read of Alan Jacobs' book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction. I don't *think* I've written about this particular title, but my Kindle edition has a hefty number of highlighted passages.

If you've never read it, and this is apropos of books about reading, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman is so smart and so clearly a love letter to books

>14 stellarexplorer: That one is a favorite of mine. I don't see it in Jill's library, either.

>15 clamairy: *gasps* Not in her library?!?

Out! Go out right now and buy Ex Libris! Then immediately read it!

Not having Ex Libris in her library. *sniffs* The nerve!

;)

OH, OMG-- LOOK! @stellarexplorer, @clamairy, @Morphidae! QUICK -- BEHIND YOU!!

*Jill dusts off her hands* There, that should keep them busy for at least half an hour....

Meanwhile, I am having 'elevenses' on this last day of 2016 and thinking about how we should re-design tables of contents in the interest of bettering the condition of all humankind.

>17 jillmwo: OOooOOoooOooooh, look, a butterfly... *wanders off*

>17 jillmwo: and there - what are all those Table of Contents variations for?! Those could really help so many people! I forgot -- what did we come here to say?

>17 jillmwo: Woke up with a drippy nose and a bad (worse than usual even) attitude... Are you pointing at my comfy couch covered in fluffy blankets? Because I'm so there.

>17 jillmwo: OH NO HE'S NOT

(expecting the answer OH YES HE IS, and repeat from the top several times)

:-)

>10 MrsLee: Ha. My mother gave me the complete Bantam Agatha Christie series over the course of 10 years or so, a few at a time for special occasions. She solemnly told me that when she read them she made sure she wasn't eating at the time!

Happy New Year Jill!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2017 has just kicked in here!

Wishing you a happy new year with lots of reading time for some great books.

On page 98 of The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs, Professor, Wheaton College, writes “When we read for pleasure, we don’t, or shouldn’t, take notes; being rapt is then our only ambition.”

In the context of reading something like the Detection Club’s The Floating Admiral however it was difficult for me at least to either become rapt or prevent myself from mental analysis or mental note-taking. If you’re unfamiliar with this one, this title was a collaborative work emerging from the British Detection Club in 1931. Twelve “name” contributors (including Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Anthony Berkeley, John Rhode, and Ronald Knox) took turns building and then resolving a fictional case of murder. In terms of the writing styles, it’s a bit of a bumpy ride; hence, my inability to become “rapt” while reading. However, in terms of an exercise in constructing a puzzle mystery, it’s really rather fun. To further add to the reader’s enjoyment, it was one of the rules that as chapters were added to the chain, each author had to submit his or her solution for how the murderer would be identified. The various solutions are gathered in an appendix at the close of the volume and it is truly interesting to see how each writer conceived their own plot solution to the material submitted thus far.

I got interrupted in the middle of my reading during December so I spent a precious two hours of my New Year’s Day reviewing the first seven or eight chapters, scribbling down each character and re-orienting my sense of where the story had got to. (That’s where the note-taking came in.) Reading the story was intriguing just because there were sudden, startling twists, and ultimately one really did want to see how the various loose-ends were brought together.

Essentially, the story begins with the discovery of a body in a boat. It’s the body of an Admiral and the boat is just an ordinary rowboat belonging to the Vicar. That’s the first bit of awkwardness; subsequently, the awkwardness expands to the Admiral’s niece, her suitor, the Vicar, a wayward wife, and so forth. By the time you’re nearing the finish, you’re up to fifteen or twenty characters (including the local constabulary) and any number of questions to be answered. (For me, one of the delightful elements is the chapter midway through in which Ronald Knox sums up for the reader the full range of “39 Doubts” -- all the possible clues and questions presented to that point.) Frankly, I had the Vicar and the niece in cahoots with the missing brother lurking somewhere locally in disguise. Turns out I was half-right and half-wrong.

At some point, I recommended to those looking for a summer reading project, that they read Pierre Bayard’s Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? The Mystery Behind the Agatha Christie Mystery in conjunction with Anthony Berkeley’s full-length novel, The Poisoned Chocolates Case and his short story, The Avenging Chance. I now think this title could easily be brought into that reading project as further amplification of how mystery writers develop their plots. (Actually, it might also fit in nicely with John Curran’s two books about Agatha Christie’s secret notebooks; Christie’s puzzle solution in The Floating Admiral is really quite clever.)

(And really I wish to publicize Marissa Doyle’s sneakiness in introducing me to the Book Depository. That commercial entity makes it far too easy to order inexpensive hardcover British editions of some of these Golden Age novels. I shall end by finding myself in the poor house if this continues.)

So to bring it round again to that Alan Jacobs’ quote, there are multiple modes of how we read. I may not as frequently fall “rapt” to a book’s spell, but I still find that the lightest of reading material may fuel mental engagement in enjoyable and stimulating channels

Post-Script: Haste is the enemy of enjoying a satisfying read. A book should not be rushed through. That's one lesson I'm taking with me into the new year. Fewer books read perhaps but more pleasure derived.

Your Alan Jacobs quote reminds me of the Samuel Johnson quote: "A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

>25 jillmwo: *curtsies*

>25 jillmwo: Hi Jill! I skimmed your discussion of The Floating Admiral because it's on my shelves, waiting to be read. Good discussion of raptness and slowness, however.

>25 jillmwo: I see his point; on the other hand, some of my favorite reads have been those where I was able to have a dialog with the author/story as I read. Sometimes notes are part of that dialog. As with any maxim, this one has its truth and its untruth.

I do not analyze my mysteries though. I rarely even try to solve them beyond some mild guessing if they are good. When I can clearly spot the motive, means and villain, it is a bad mystery. For all my hesitation on liking Edmund Crispin's style, I must say that I thought the mystery in The Moving Toyshop was well done.

Honestly, MrsLee, I don't really work at figuring out who dunnit, either. Particularly in Golden Age Mysteries, I tend to read for the period or "alternate world" elements. It's stepping out of this world with all its commercial anonymity and technological pizzazz and stepping into the village where everyone knows your name and your business.

Which is probably to some extent why I so enjoyed The Witches of Lychford. It's that tension between the personal and the public village life that I found intriguing. The female lead characters are also nicely offbeat and interesting (Judith who knows rather than believes, Autumn who is not sure what to believe, given her experience, and Lizzie who has lost her belief.). And very real in their thinking (at least in my experience). The novella length was just right for the story. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel at some point.

(Those of you who were ducking that particular book bullet in my previous thread should now just stand still and let it hit you.)

One Two Buckle My Shoe is rather an interesting one by Agatha Christie, written in the early days of World War II. Ignore any descriptions found in the marketing blurb; it’s not about finding out who murdered Hercule Poirot’s dentist (or at least, only vaguely). Once upon a time, in the context of its first publication in the US, it was titled as The Patriotic Murders. (Do you catch a whiff of wartime propaganda?) Published in 1940 (and yes, I verified it this time), this was published two months after the Blitz had actually begun. The atmosphere in the book is built more around impending economic austerity and associated uncertainty than the problems of daily life during a period of outright war. I think this is one of the few times we actually see Hercule Poirot attending a church service (as a social courtesy to his host). Hercule is enjoying one of those weekend house parties. (During the church service as we’re hearing about the smiting of the Amalekites, Poirot works out the central issue of the multiple murders.) There are more than the usual number of references to the chipping away of social class and behaviors.

The structure of the book is governed by that nursery rhyme that teaches the numbers from one to twenty. The rhyming couplets are the featured chapter headings. (The chapter for “nine, ten, a big fat hen” features an unpleasant woman who reminds Poirot of a noisy, clucking chicken.)

It starts out very slowly. Christie is clever in how she introduces the many characters the reader will need to track, with each being shown in the early portion of the day of the initial murder. Based on what John Curran writes in his book about Christie’s use of notebooks, this was one where she felt she had to spend a good deal of time in planning it out. There is a longer time frame required to solve the case (a matter of eight - twelve weeks) which I think is unusual for Christie. Hastings isn’t around; the role of sidekick is played by Inspector Japp. There are many interviews, and for a while it seems to be just a lot of *talk*. Poirot is threatened by mysterious callers, but there isn’t much actual sense of immediate danger. Even the final resolution is a remarkably calm conversation between the murderer and Poirot.

One thing about Christie mysteries when she was writing at the top of her game -- they may be neither particularly realistic nor sophisticated, but there is generally a POINT being made. In One, Two, you can make a case that she’s championing the conservative British mindset or the wisdom of deferring to those with greater wisdom and experience. Poirot however makes a speech about recognizing and defending the priorities - the importance of individual lives even in the face of national crisis. One assumes that’s what Christie was getting at.

Do I think this one is a great work of literary fiction? No. I’m not even sure that I’d recommend it as a good read (although it did keep me up last night). But if you put it in the context of Bletchley (which @hfglen reminded me of, over on his reading thread, when he was talking about a book of interviews with Bletchley workers), then it becomes easier to sense the atmosphere in which Christie was working and why she incorporated such a heavy-handed message.

Still processing this one.

>31 jillmwo: Yikes! I just realize I've never read this one. Good discussion, Jill, and I just pulled it off my shelves to start reading tonight. Mine is called The Patriotic Murders. I probably thought it was Tuppence and Tommy and avoided it like I do all their books by Christie..... Cool. A Poirot I haven't already read once or a dozen times!

>32 karenmarie: For the record, John Curran thinks that her best book is Five Little Pigs. I've not read that one -- just seen the David Suchet version on television. Would you agree with his assessment of its worth? Everytime I think I've maxxed out on Christie, I find something that makes me think I've underestimated her.

Apropo of nothing and recognizing that it's NOT a real hardship in the grand cosmic scheme of things, but bringing in those Amazon deliveries today, I discovered that it is possible for books to be too chilly to hold in one's hand...

>33 jillmwo:

Gloves.

>33 jillmwo: does your system have a status flag for these books? Instead of "shelving cart," maybe "warming tray"?

>33 jillmwo: Murder in Retrospect is actually one of my favorites. I'd put it up in the top ... 5? ... although I've never rated them against one another before.

I'd like to have the problem of having Amazon book deliveries too cold to handle! Nobody can get down to the end of the cul-de-sac we live on and I've heard that our neighbor slid off the road today. Husband's friend couldn't even use his all-wheel-drive to get safely down part of the road and back up the other side. Tomorrow's supposed to get into the 40s in the afternoon. We'll see.

Read and respond to the story if you're interested in what happens with ebooks and subscription services:
http://publishingperspectives.com/2017/01/shelfie-data-ebook-subscription-servic...

Quote of Interest:
Hudson asked, “why haven’t we seen ebook subscription services take off?” In his view, the success of subscription services depends on two things:

(1) All, or substantially all, content must be available under the subscription model, and
(2) Content must be licensed under terms that allow the subscription platform to survive financially.”

What it means, Hudson said, is that “the only successes we’ve seen so far in ebook subscription have been in highly vertical markets such as Safari Books Online.” Safari is one of the more than 2,100 publishers Hudson’s Shelfie works with in its print-and-ebook bundling service. In a case like Safari, he said, “a small group of publishers can satisfy the content needs of a niche community”—the vertical.

Additional Quote of Interest:
If you have 2,000 books in your library, odds are those titles are published by over 350 different houses.”

That last one is particularly interesting and I'd love to know if LibraryThing data reflected the same thing as Shelfie's data did.

37> Thanks for sharing that article! I personally haven't signed up to any subscription services. It just doesn't seem worth it. How can they compete with the public library? They have fewer books I want to read, and I have to pay to join.

Is there a way to check LibraryThing data to see how many publishing houses are in our library?

>38 pwaites: There is but I don't think it works very well. Go to your profile page. Click on Stats/Memes at the top, then Publishers under Statistics along the left. I don't know whether publishers aren't recorded or if the link just doesn't work right, but the numbers are certainly off.

>38 pwaites: Morphy is right. I just went to look at what's visible on my Stats/Publishers page and what gets displayed is far fewer than the publishers whose product I know I have in my collection. It might have primarily been started as a marketing opportunity for the smaller publishers, because none of the logos of the five big houses are displaying there.

39, 40> Thanks! It's really strange that they don't include the five big houses.

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but a brief explanation. I re-read Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop this past week just because @pgmcc and @MrsLee had been discussing it on their threads. Now I can document that I read this with at least one of my two book groups back in 2011, but I don’t *think* that was the very first time I did so. For some reason however, I never wrote up a review of the book and I want to do that now. (just to document my response.)

I think this book is a hoot. It’s very much a madcap kind of romp -- the sort of silliness that is more familiar to the modern viewer in some of the humorous detective movies or television series (such as the Father Dowling television series from the ‘80’s.) The nature of the crime is certainly implausible (even if the motive is not). But there really are moments of high comedy. For example, at one point we see Fen and Cadogen bluff their way into the Sheldonian Concert Hall in order to follow a young female witness. In order to keep an eye on her, the men surreptitiously join the bass section of the choir, rehearsing Brahms’ Requiem. Of course, Fed can’t sing and rather disrupts the rehearsal until his quarry slips away. Further on (still following the young woman) in a college chapel, Fen again disrupts the orderly way of things to the point where some member of the clergy prays that the Oxford dons will all remember their dignity. Two thugs (classically referred to as Scylla and Charybidis) subsequently lock Fen and Cadogen in a closet. While waiting to be rescued, the two pass the time briefly by naming unreadable books.

“Tristam Shandy”
“Rasselas”
“No, I like that”
“Good God, Clarissa, then”

Fen’s dialogue refers frequently to the White Rabbit in Alice (“Oh, my fur and whiskers).
Be aware that later mysteries written by Edmund Crispin and featuring Gervase Fen aren’t as hilariously couched as the one in “The Moving Toyshop” but as both @pgmcc and @MrsLee noted in their reading threads, the clues are all laid out for the reader fairly. (It’s just that Crispin is adept at redirecting the reader’s attention,)

Hi Jill!

Now you've got me wanting to re-read the Fen books, and I re-read them all in ... 2008! I thought that I had re-read them more recently than that, but looking back through my threads I see that it was 9 years ago. Yeesh. In some ways they're as vivid as anything I read last year.

Excellent review, by the way.

>42 jillmwo: Agreed. I think I enjoyed it for the comedy more than the mystery. I loved their literary games. So who would you cast as the two leading characters? The comedy/mystery reminded me of some of the great movies with Peter Falk in them, but he is much too American. Peter Sellers? Perhaps not dashing enough for Fen.

One of course is tempted to fall back on the easy choices of Cumberbatch and Tennant, but who would play which is beyond me.

>44 MrsLee: Well, I rather fancy the idea of Fen played by Pierce Brosnan -- a younger and definitely clean-shaven one, but he's got the right build. Fen is rather lanky and back in the days of the eighties television series of Remington Steele, Brosnan was the only man on television who could look lean and comfortable in a three-piece suit.

Cadogen might be someone more ordinary looking. A Noah Wylie type.

By the way, for those who were talking about reading The Three Musketeers, I have just received (as part of my birthday book-buying binge) a copy of a sequel crafted by Dumas late in life entitled The Red Sphinx. That touchstone takes you to the French version, but if you search Amazon for that title, you'll encounter an English translation of the novel, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth. Michael Dirda gave it a big thumbs up in the Washington Post two weeks ago. The book is just as LONG as Musketeers, weighing in at 808 pages, but apparently it takes place just twenty days after the close of Musketeers. It's one hefty tome so I don't know how soon I will get through it.

Also just received The Housekeeper's Tale which is non-fiction focused on the role of the housekeeper in the English Country House during six different time periods. One of those is the Regency period so I'm counting it as a research work associated with Jane Austen. Honestly, I need to get off my duff and start writing my "work" about Jane Austen and some of her female characters.

The Housekeeper's Tale sounds very interesting!

>46 jillmwo: And that little "whhzzz...splat!" sound you just heard was The Housekeeper's Tale nailing me. Nice shootin', Tex. ;)

Geez, at least let me finish it, before accusing me of popping off book bullets. How can I target you effectively when I'm still working my way through the first 100 pages? Everybody is in such a rush these days!!

Just as a heads up on it, I will say that the housekeeper who they were classifying as being in the Regency period is more accurately placed as being Georgian-England-post-Regency -- actually working in the 1830's. So I was kind of disappointed on that score. So far the book is largely indicative of just how comprehensive and self-effacing the role of housekeeper was supposed to be. Remember Helen Mirren as the housekeeper in Gosford Park talking about how the best servant is always the one who anticipates.

I'll keep you posted, @SylviaC and @Marissa_Doyle

To be filed under Curious-Things-Noticed-But-Possibly-Not-Significant

I was having a minor issue, while reading Another Little Christmas Murder, published back in 1947. I kept getting the male characters confused. The romantic lead, Inigo Brown, I could track because of his first name. The sodden Mr. Carpenter I could track because he was always sitting by the fire and drinking a whiskey whenever we saw him. But there were others I just couldn't track -- Mr. Howe, Mr. Raddle, etc. But by the time I finished the book in bed this morning, I realized that it all came down to the form of address used by the author in crafting a British mystery during that time period. If you might legitimately be considered a gentleman but you weren't a close friend of the family, you were never called by your first name. It was surname and Mr.

On the other hand, if you were a workman or a servant, at no time in the novel were you ever honored with a "title" or honorific. It's Ledgrove, the valet, and Vauxhall, the butler.

And only a *very* few individuals are ever called by their Christian name, and then only if one might be able to assume that they were legitimate family and/or friend. (Charlie, Dilys, etc.)

It was really quite striking as an example of the formality with which people might have been treated in England at that time. And indicative of the class system still in place in the years immediately following the War....

To be filed under Curious-Things-Noticed-But-Possibly-Not-Significant

I was having a minor issue, while reading Another Little Christmas Murder, published back in 1947. I kept getting the male characters confused. The romantic lead, Inigo Brown, I could track because of his first name. The sodden Mr. Carpenter I could track because he was always sitting by the fire and drinking a whiskey whenever we saw him. But there were others I just couldn't track -- Mr. Howe, Mr. Raddle, etc. But by the time I finished the book in bed this morning, I realized that it all came down to the form of address used by the author in crafting a British mystery during that time period. If you might legitimately be considered a gentleman but you weren't a close friend of the family, you were never called by your first name. It was surname and Mr.

On the other hand, if you were a workman or a servant, at no time in the novel were you ever honored with a "title" or honorific. It's Ledgrove, the valet, and Vauxhall, the butler.

And only a *very* few individuals are ever called by their Christian name, and then only if one might be able to assume that they were legitimate family and/or friend. (Charlie, Dilys, etc.)

It was really quite striking as an example of the formality with which people might have been treated in England at that time. And indicative of the class system still in place in the years immediately following the War....

Crap, another duplicate post. Think it's me? Or is it gremlins?

>52 jillmwo: Definitely gremlins. "There's... something... on... the wing!"

Edited to add: I have grown increasingly annoyed when filling out forms online that many of them insist that you pick something to go in front of your name, either Mrs, Miss or Ms. WHY???

>53 clamairy: And sometimes they give you a huge, long list to choose from, and I always want to choose something like "Her Eminence". I really don't understand why honorific should ever be a required field on a form.

>54 SylviaC: LOL I agree!

>54 SylviaC: I think for me, circumstances alter cases. Here in the GD I'd be horrified by any prefix -- the Dragon is where I relax informally among friends. But in some other situations, such as in communications from the hospital I had the misfortune to be in this past August, I would insist on the honorific Dr, reminding them that mine is a real doctorate, not just a bachelor's degree with unwarranted attitude.

>56 hfglen: It's Dr. Hugh from here on in.

Or should we just call you, "The Doctor"?

>52 jillmwo: I'm not sure what mode you are posting from, but I find that when I am on my phone, it doesn't give a clear clue that I have actually hit the "post message" button, and so am tempted to hit it again, which results in a double post. Also, the "talk" portion of LT seems a bit slower lately.

>57 pgmcc: :-P~~~

ETA PS: A sadly late uncle of mine (whose honorific was Prof., by the way) observed a local -- now deceased, mercifully -- politician and wrote this verse:

So D.F. Malan
is now Dr the Hon.
In a courtesy title
the meaning's not vital.

So are we calling our Irish friend Dr (the Hon.) Pete?

>59 hfglen: Unfortunately not. I progressed no further than Master.

:-)

>53 clamairy: Oh, MAN. Don't remind me of that. Creepiest dang movie just because of that part. Then he wiggles his finger at him. Nuh uh uh. *shudders*

After much review and carting volumes up and downstairs, I have come to the conclusion that I need another half dozen bookshelves (preferably solid wood, 6' high x 3' wide x 18" deep. I cannot possibly "re-home" or otherwise charitably share the wealth of enough of the books currently in my home to put all of the remaining volumes up where I can SEE them. And if I can't see the spine, how will I know what I've got available to me to read that will meet the current mood?

Please note I'm well-aware that this really is a first world problem, but I've been looking around the house to see where I might *possibly* shoehorn in another bookcase and the square footage of this brick house is not expanding in any way that would support that (as the Tardis most certainly would).

>62 jillmwo:

Add another floor to the house.

*snort* That would require re-doing the roof.

I share your frustration. My little house is not getting any bigger either. I'm fortunate enough to be able to keep about 80% of my books in one room, but a good proportion of those are hidden in the back of the bookcases or stacked on the floor. It would be so nice to be able to look around and see all my books. A ray of hope is that within the next ten years or so I should be able to start repurposing some of the bedrooms. (It is to be noted that my husband just added a new shed to the yard, big enough to hold a combine and a couple of tractors. With infloor heating and new toolboxes, etc. Something is wrong with the priorities around here.)

>65 SylviaC:

Can the shed get a second floor?

By the way, regarding the need for honorifics (or lack of such a need), I have consistently used Ms. when asked for an honorific because it negates any assumption being made about my marital status, a status which is in fact irrelevant to most business activities. That said, I don't mind using some honorific because there are always situations where it is appropriate. If I know you to have a doctorate, I'll always address you initially as "Doctor So-and-so" should I invite you to speak at an event, and we've never met in person. Honorifics are also sometimes useful, particularly in the case of foreign names or for determining whether someone is male or female. If I have to introduce you in the context of a virtual event, it helps to be sure. If it's a situation where I and the person holding a doctorate are in the position of being peers, then I'm less worried about the honorific.

Like @SylviaC and @clamairy, I confess that I too would love to be "Her Eminence" but to be honest, even on the longest pull-down menu, I don't think I've seen one for "His Eminence". Maybe I'm not hanging out with the right people. (The most likely assumption I suppose is that you all give to higher-class charities than I do....)

In future @hfglen, @pgmcc. I shall always refer to you as "my estimable colleagues". We can pretend we're all in Parliamentary politics.

You do not need to call me, "Sir". "Sire", will do!

>67 jillmwo: And in the same vein, I'm itching to refer to Jill with a good Teutonic "Frau Professor Doktor Doktor Doktor" ;)

ETA: Or maybe "Herr Professor etc." for Pete? :-P

WRT honorifics. I'm a retired military officer so my honorific is Major. But I know some thoroughly obnoxious other military retirees who INSIST on their rank title when speaking to nearly anyone, and find it so annoying most (other than close personal) friends don't know I was even in the military never mind that I was ::gasp:: an officer.

Also, some people treat me differently if they know it so I don't mention it lightly.

Hmm. Maybe I should have stayed silent here too.

"Your Majesty" works for me.

"She who must be obeyed"

>62 jillmwo: One of my friends had a handyman put up well-mounted sturdy shelves above the doors and all around the bedrooms in her house. You can stand in the middle of the room, crane your neck, and see all her books! She saw that space as wasted and figured books were the best way to use it.

>69 hfglen: How did I reach the status of being Frau Professor followed by Doktor in triplicate? Or is that just the LT gremlin merrily creating new proliferations?

>70 majkia: I'm always going to call you @majkia simply because I'll foul it up if I try to remember the military rank. (My dad was of your mindset on being called by his rank following retirement. He agreed to its use for his daughters' wedding invitations, but that was about it!)

>71 suitable1: "Your majesty" appeals to many people here in the pub, I know. After all, Aragorn is still heir to the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor. Have we any other thrones going empty?

>73 MrsLee: In an old apartment on Staten Island, we had plate railings around the top of the dining room. They held all the mass market paperbacks beautifully. I loved those. Of course, given the demise of the mass market paperbacks, they'd be insufficient. But the thought is a good one, Lee.

>74 jillmwo:
Of course, 'hey you!" works for me, too.

>74 jillmwo: Any combination of earned and honorary, as long as there are three of them. Overly formal Germans note each one separately. (You do have one from Unseen University, don't you?)

There is a great line in an episode from the comedy police show, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine". A character is presenting her credentials as a medium and says, "I have a degree from the Internet".

Okay, I'm well beyond just putting a small slug of Kahlua into my coffee as a coping mechanism. A bourbon and water may have to be the next step. Some portion of the population has forgotten that the world is round and instead have determined it is flat and everyone's going off the edge. I'm having to abandon FB and Twitter because the hysteria is too great and no one can remember how to be polite. And I yelled at my husband over dinner tonight --thereby giving myself indigestion -- because he failed to read the complete text of a news article about a sensitive topic before he passed judgement on said topic. He has slunk off to his own Pub for male companionship and a good trivia contest.

I believe the world has gone mad. I firmly believe that, and I'm taking to drink. I'm not even sure that Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters will suffice.

Edited to add: No one in Jane Austen novels has to put up with this kind of crap. In Georgian England, you just had to worry about marrying money.

Edited to further add: I was wrong. Elinor Dashwood in S&S did have to put up with both idiotic as well as maliciously conniving souls. I shall now endeavor to adopt Elinor as my role model and maintain an aura of calm in the face of emotional outbursts amidst the buzz of scandal.

>78 jillmwo: I know what you mean. I'm giving up on FB for a while too in hopes that things will die down.

On FB I'm a lurker and a liker. I have also taken to stopping all posts from certain people or their favorite sources. It's making it easier to be there and get the real stuff.

>80 karenmarie: I'm seriously considering doing this, too. As much as I like to stay informed and agree with certain people's posts, I simply can't handle the politics anymore. And as much as I like the funny and cute stuff, I need to stop wasting my time. I can spend hours on FB.

81> I've been doing the same thing on Twitter, and it can really get me down. On Tumblr I downloaded an app that blocks posts with certain keywords. I've been thinking about doing the same with Twitter, but I do want to know what's happening... I'm trying to compromise by staying off it whenever I feel bad already. Same with Facebook.

I'm not on Facebook, and I'm barely finding it possible to immerse myself in nourishing activities. But I am highly committed to trying, with or without the help of bourbon!

I learned a hard lesson last night to not look at FB in the 2 hours before bed.

Can't use the bourbon trick because I'm on a two week fast from alcohol. Strong tea. We can do this.

And again, assuming the Elinor Dashwood model of online behavior, I thought I'd provide readers here with this really interesting blog post pertaining to British folklore: http://steelthistles.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/folklore-and-memory.html

Take the time to read it (because I love the bit about the giant warrior with the golden cape).

Thanks, Jill. That's a very interesting page. I love the poetic flies.

I grabbed the 99-cent Kindle copy of Our Island Story. Ms. Langrish doesn't mention that the H. E. in Marshall's name stands for Henrietta Elizabeth.

>84 MrsLee: Never look at FB that close to bedtime!

>86 Jim53: I should go look at that title. I had heard of it, but I don't think I ever looked into its background. Seriously, how did you learn it was written by a woman named Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall?

>79 Narilka:, >80 karenmarie:, >81 Morphidae:, >82 pwaites:, >83 stellarexplorer: It I was faced with outrage from scientists, faculty and administrators in higher education, scholarly publishers, etc. My tolerance levels go up and down.

>86 Jim53: But she says the author was Australian...she was Scottish!

>87 jillmwo: I'm confused. What was faced with outrage? You not using FB as much?

>89 Morphidae: Well, okay, I have to admit I wasn't particularly articulate. I was blethering. I have to be on Twitter a lot because of my work. My twitter stream was blowing up this week with many reactions to federal agencies being told to clamp down on public announcements of research findings. That's not the issue. However, I did become annoyed because it was clear that some of my information profession buddies were posting articles without having read said articles all the way to the end and they were contributing to much mis-information. (And my husband did the same thing that night over dinner. Talked about an article without having read it through to completion. TLDR has become a Bad Habit. Makes me crazy.)

At the same time, I couldn't turn my Twitter feed OFF because periodically something would pop up that actually had to do with WORK. Still, sifting through was making me crazy because I couldn't avoid a certain amount of crap. When I went to FB, there was a lot of the same material. It was just exhausting and, while I'm just as alarmed as others about the potential suppression of science, I just couldn't find a "quiet" spot where people weren't all freaking out. Except here. Where all of you are lovely and my favorite-est people in the world. It's why I keep returning here (Well, that and the fact that you all stroke my ego on a periodic basis.)

I'm fine now and I will naturally continue to interact with folks online. I think that post #78 from Wednesday, Jan 24, was just indicative of a really bad day for me and social media. Which is why on Thursday, someone else came up with the #cuteanimaltweetoff: http://mashable.com/2017/01/25/cute-animal-tweet-off/#WnXpynVpBmqN

Read the story; you too will be charmed into a cheery mood! In the meantime, I will try to read something this weekend and post about whatever title I manage to finish.

>90 jillmwo: Oh, ew. That's all I have to say about not being able to turn social media off. Ew.

>90 jillmwo: I love the cute animal tweet-off.

Speaking personally, I was in a job in which social media use was on some fronts discouraged and I saw one individual get themselves into trouble several times over its use - anybody who goes home from work 'ill' and then posts on their own facebook that they've managed to get off work with a migraine when they know they have friended people they work with.... In my experience migraines and social media use are not mutually compatible.

I watched other friends and shared hotel rooms with friends who followed various individuals (friends and celebs) on twitter and their phones would buzz and bleep all night long. Not restful (I know I'm posting this at about 4.30 in the morning - but that's a conscious choice as I can't get comfortable enough to sleep) and they'd have to check constantly (when they were awake) to see if it was something important - I don't even need the fingers on one hand to count the number of actually important things that were tweeted.

I'm in a new job now in which I'm the exception to the rule with no Facebook or twitter or whatever and they look at me slightly oddly for it, but for the moment I'm not changing. There are things I miss out on finding out or seeing, but overall, I think I'm happier being able to choose what and when I'm subjected to.

>90 jillmwo: Still, it says something beyond your bad day that so many people related to your comment and had their own version.

>90 jillmwo: TLDR

>87 jillmwo: I found the author's full name by Googling the book ;-) It sounded sorta interesting.

Hoping you're recovering from the tweetstorm, till the next one at least, and finding something soothing to read.

Hi Jill! I had to search online (I don't use google, I use ixquick) to see what TLDR meant and can understand your frustration. And having to wade through Twitter crap to get to the stuff you need for your work seems like one of the circles of hell, too.

I don't use Twitter, I have a FB account but consider myself a 'looker' and a 'liker'. I've never actually posted anything, have occasionally replied and occasionally messaged someone. This is my social media and I agree with you Where all of you are lovely and my favorite-est people in the world.

Verdict of Twelve

This particular mystery will be released in the US market during this next week in a paperback edition from the British Library series of classic Golden Age mysteries. IMHO, you should immediately seek it out. Verdict of Twelve is a remarkable puzzle mystery, a piece of surprisingly well-crafted, if not lyrical writing. The reader comfortably sits down with the book, thinking that they’re about to enjoy a pleasantly easy read of manageable length and yet through the length of the novel is regularly caught off guard. (In my copy, the first shock had been delivered quite effectively by page 28. One of those thoroughly enjoyable moments of Wait, what just happened there? Oh, wow -- this is gonna' be good. and one is subsequently annoyed by disruptions because you're just trying to get on with the story.)

Author Raymond Postgate opens by introducing us to the twelve jurors as they are each given the oath prior to being seated for a 1940's murder trial. None of the twelve are quite as ordinary as they might appear to a casual observer seated in the gallery. Each will have a response to events in court and to their fellow jurors that will influence the final verdict in the end. This is one of those rare cases where I will not give you many hints about the plot of the book, simply because I think it is important for the reader to go into the book with as few expectations as possible. There is more than one surprise to this -- in part, because of the way in which the narrative is laid out. Honestly, It would be wrong to give any hints whatsoever; you’ll just have to accept my recommendation. It’s worth your while getting your hands on this one and plopping down to read -- just warn folks not to bother you for the next few hours.

I was reading an old edition (the pages are giving off that smell of deteriorating, acidic paper and I know the hardcover is just not long for this world). I’ve ordered a new copy -- the British Library one, because I know I’m going to read this one again, just for the pleasure of watching how Postgate pulls it off. Just remarkable!

This one would be particularly good for @Jim53. Just sayin'

>97 jillmwo: Right between the eyes.

On order!

>97 jillmwo: well targeted. I'll be looking for it.

>97 jillmwo: Ah, ya got me! Sounds wonderful, just ordered it from Amazon.

On the wishlist it goes!

>97 jillmwo: Thanks. I just ordered a copy from Biblio.com

>97 jillmwo: Dagnabbit, woman....
I do have a stack on B&N giftcards that need to be used.

>97 jillmwo: It looks like you were using a six-shooter for that one. We are all following your recommendation. I am sure the book is wonderful.

It is a testament to your taste.

No pressure!

>104 pgmcc: It's a good book. It'll keep everyone occupied.

However, I realized at some point this past day or two that I didn't note the other book I'd read for purposes of discussing with the library book group. The title was The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. It was originally published in 2007 (yay, Jill, for reading something actually written in the current century). The mystery is a mix of historical events and modern events, with the historical being by far the more compelling tale of the two. You will come away from it knowing way more about early 19th c. medical practice than you would ever think necessary. You will also come away from it with a greater respect for Oliver Wendell Holmes (Senior), because he was the one who figured out that the occurrence of puerperal fever could be minimized if doctors only washed their hands. (See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2675443/) Beyond that, I found the book's scene involving the amputation of a man's hand to be particularly memorable. Seems to me that the anesthetic use of whiskey can really only be expected to go so far...

It was actually a decent read and the women of the library group enjoyed it. Perhaps the really key thing to bear in mind, however, is that I don't feel a particular need to hold on to it. I'll hand it off to my husband to read because he likes her Rizzoli and Isles series of books, but I won't keep it beyond that point.

>103 clamairy: Actually, my dear, when using words like dagnabbit, I believe bold faced type is required in order to make it truly heard by the broader reading populace. It might even require ALL-CAPS

>105 jillmwo: au contraire, my dear, I definitely felt a frisson, or at least a tingle, when clam said "dagnabbit" to me recently, with no emphasis at all (and despite my efforts I'm one of the broader members of the reading populace). It's a rather delectable word, I think.

I do love that word. But every time I type it I feel as if I should jump up and down a few times like Elmer Fudd.

>97 jillmwo: >98 pgmcc: ditto

>107 clamairy: I definitely saw you doing that. I'm sure you did.

*blush*

>110 clamairy: there are no secrets here in the Dragon

And she took her hat off and threw it to the ground, too. I saw it. I did.

>112 Morphidae: I jumped up and down on the hat, too.

>113 clamairy: But I liked that hat! Now we'll have to get you a new one.

Dag-nab-bit! she whispered throatily...

What's that do for you, >106 Jim53:? No bold-face type, no ALL-Caps, just italics....

>114 jillmwo: oooh, the italics and the throaty whisper are quite a combination!

>113 clamairy: Can we get her a hat with an ostrich feather this time? Please, please? I want to see Clammy in a hat with an ostrich feather!

>116 SylviaC: Better do a peacock feather. Less expensive to stomp on.

Will this one do? Click through to: http://ragdolliesmadhouse.deviantart.com/art/Victorian-Mini-Top-Hat-with-Peacock...

I could never desecrate that masterpiece.

>118 jillmwo: Very eye-catching!

Inspired by our clammy, I tried this combination yesterday at work, sans the hat. It had a marvelous effect on the mechanics and I highly recommend it.

How about this one?

>122 Morphidae: That's almost a Go, Dog. Go! hat! :o)

>121 MrsLee: Don't overplay that hand, or it might lose its effectiveness. It's a mighty tool, so wield it thoughtfully. ;o)

>123 clamairy: Well, I vary it with "Dad-gum-it!" ;)

One of the recurring threads in Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery is the nature of the exchange that exists between a true member of the upper class and the household servants and that which exists between a member of the nouveau riche and the domestic help. In Seven Dials, we see Lady Coote flub instructions to both the gardener and the housekeeper, where Lady Eileen “Bundle” Blunt knows exactly how to speak to each in order to get precisely what she wants. In particular, Mrs. Howell (or Howelly, as Bundle fondly calls her) is our stereotypical plump and loving family retainer, indulgent towards Bundle having known her since childhood.

It’s that kind of stereotype that The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran The English Country House is intent upon dispelling. The women introduced in this social history are not as calm as the impeccable Mrs. Hughes of Downton Abbey. The mother of H.G. Wells was in the same situation of Christie’s Mrs. Howell -- serving a mistress who was not familiar with upper class behaviors. Mrs. Wells’ mistress was a former dairy-maid. (Even more unfortunate, Mrs. Wells was no more suited to her role as housekeeper than was the dairy-maid to hers.) What this readable social history does is demonstrate how vulnerable women were in this role, having no safety nets of any sort against a suspected failing or mis-step. One served at the whim of an employer; even after having served in a household for an extended timeframe of a decade or more, one could be dismissed on scant evidence of substantive wrong-doing.

The issue in providing a social history of this sort is that so much of the historical record of those serving in that position may only be found in housekeeping records (linen books and the like) that telling a compelling story relies heavily on the author’s imagination. Because that kind of documentation is so brief and limited in scope, it’s hard to be sure of the historical interpretation. The narratives created by Tessa Boase are well-researched but by her own admission the lives of these women were essentially and even intentionally invisible. The early profiles are dependent upon what may have survived in an estate’s archives; the later ones may have more corroborative details available (from newspapers and the like) but again are still reliant upon imagination woven in with more general social history. The book is interesting but not really as useful a reference as one might have hoped for. The chief take-away for me was the recognition of how important it was for housekeeper and mistress of the home to be in sync with one another. Failure to bond and work well together as a team was really fatal in the long run. (Of course, as one reads the final profile of a 21st century housekeeper in a Stately Home residence, the same challenge is evident.)

Reading The Housekeeper’s Tale did send me back to a chapter in a different book I read at some point during the past 18 months -- Country House Society by Pamela Horn. That book -- comparable in length to Housekeeper’s Tale -- devoted a full chapter to the experience of domestic service. However, even in that book, there’s not much there about the housekeeper. Plenty about footmen and maids (and the dearth of good cooks) but really not much about this one position of power to which women might aspire. Again, how well one did depended upon the successful relationship between the two women (the lady of the manor and the housekeeper) responsible for hospitable organization and management and how well those two could bridge the social gap between them. A parvenu like Lady Coote who really wanted to just sit down at a table in the kitchen with her cook and housemaid for a cup of tea and a good gossip wouldn’t have any real chance of success.

At any rate, while Housekeeper’s Tale was an enjoyable read, it doesn’t provide as much of an in-depth historical survey as I had hoped. My advice to those with an interest would be to borrow before buying.

>122 Morphidae: I personally love that hat and wish I could wear it to my son's wedding. I would love the flair but I'd worry that I'd look "odd" in the wedding photos.

>125 jillmwo: Thanks for taking care of that for us. I needn't rush out to buy it now.

>122 Morphidae: My neighbours have peacocks. Shall I sneak out and start plucking?

>126 jillmwo: At least you can wear hats. I have such a large head, I look ridiculous in them.

>127 SylviaC: Pluck away! (That sounds naughty. Pluck you! Hee hee.)

>128 Morphidae:

Just for you:

I'm not a pheasant-plucker. I'm a pheasant-plucker's son, and I'll go on plucking pheasants till the pheasant-plucker comes.

Repeat several times getting faster each time.

:-)

>129 pgmcc: Didn't even get through it the second time. LOL!

Over on his thread, @hfglen suggested this as a hat for clam:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/245130#5921677

I can't imagine anyone flinging such a hat to the floor and stomping on it (no matter what the provocation)!

>129 pgmcc: Didn't the Smothers brothers 'way back when have something similar by way of a tongue twister? Something like a pleasant pheasant feather plucker?

>132 jillmwo: I was not aware of their having such a tongue twister, but, by a coincidence, no doubt caused by the fickle finger of fate, I saw an article on the Smothers Brothers yesterday. It is here.

Love your post in >125 jillmwo:! Quite interesting. I was wondering, was it the upper class or the nouveau riche lady who got what she wanted from her staff?

>134 zjakkelien: It was the lady who had been born to the Country House lifestyle (the upper class) who had the confidence needed in delivering instructions about what was to be done and how. It was the insecurity of the newly-rich, as to whether they were doing things correctly, that allowed the servants to take advantage of them in ways that the servants would never have dared to do with a real member of the upper class.

>135 jillmwo: I don't think that is just a class problem. I know when I was made manager at the hotel, there were certain members of the staff who thought they had it made. Happily, I also had an experienced insider as a friend who coached me behind the scenes so I was not taken advantage of.

It is perhaps human nature?

>136 MrsLee: Why did they think they had it made, MrsLee? Did you have another position in the hotel before?

>135 jillmwo: that allowed the servants to take advantage of them in ways that the servants would never have dared to do with a real member of the upper class.

The cads! One can't get good staff these days.

>137 zjakkelien: Yes, I began as a front desk clerk, a know nothing. I learn fast though, and I wasn't born yesterday. ;)

Well, you wouldn't have been made manager if you were, I imagine!

>135 jillmwo: This discussion reminds me of du Maurier's Rebecca... Vis-avis; the difficulties the new Mrs. de Winter encountered at Manderley.

>141 ScoLgo: I hadn't thought of that, but you're absolutely right. There's a situation where Mrs. deWinter breaks a china figurine and says nothing about it to anyone because of the depth of her embarrassment. Mrs Danvers chastises the footman instead and there's that whole THING. Brilliant observation, @ScoLgo.

>133 pgmcc: I enjoyed that article! Thanks. The tongue twister that I was quoting came in the context of a routine that they did which included a song (see verse below):

My father is an anthropologist; what do you think about that?
He wears an anthropologist collar. He wears an anthropologist hat
He wears an anthropologist raincoat, he wears anthropologist shoes
And every Saturday evening, he reads the Sunday news.
And some day, if I can, I'm gonna' be an anthropologist, the same as my old man.

The Smothers Brothers did another one or two humorous verses like that and then one of the two bellows out "My father was a pleasant pheasant feather plucker! What do you think about that?" They speed it up and the other one notes -- after they didn't make any mistakes in the tongue twister while singing -- "You're lucky!" The audience howls with laughter.

I haven't thought about that song in years. I feel a bit old.

>143 jillmwo: you've got company. I hadn't thought of that skit in a long time, but now that you mention it I remember it clearly. The funny thing about those guys was that Tommy always acted like the dumb one, but apparently he was the brains behind the outfit and the one responsible for pushing the envelope on social issues.

My dad and I used to watch the Smothers Brothers show. Pretty sure I didn't get a lot of the innuendos going on, but there was so much to enjoy.

I loved the Smothers Brothers. It took me years to realize the implications of "I know a boatman, he was sore, he came home without an oar."

I remember the Smothers Brothers - barely. (Yeah, I just looked it up. I was four when their show ended on TV.) I may have seen them as guests in the 70s on other shows.

Re: the boatman - so did he come home without a whore or without his penis?

>147 Morphidae: I have the same question about the boatman. @karenmarie, have you a response? I don't remember that one in the context of the Smothers Brothers.

Also just for the sake of accuracy, I did do some checking and it appears that the Smothers Brothers sang their version of @pgmcc's tongue twister as "Cotton Pickin’ Finger Lickin’ Chicken Plucker" but I know I've heard Peter's version as well (involving the pleasant pheasant feather plucker"). Can't think just where.

Finally, for those of you who may be stressed out by so-called every day life, here are some lovely bookmarks to color from the library of the University of Missouri:
http://library.missouri.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/53/2017/02/bookmarks.c...

It's part of the #ColorOurCollections campaign this week.

By the way, a shoutout to @SylviaC for pointing me to the Autobiography of Agatha Christie. I've been dipping in and out of it and she seems like she would have been a fun person to know.

>148 jillmwo: I like those bookmarks.

>149 jillmwo: Glad you're enjoying it. One of the things I liked near the start was that she considered it relevant to tell us about Victorian toilets. She gives a nice sense of life in the early 20th century.

>152 Morphidae: I recently watched a video on how Victorian ladies used the toilet in all those skirts and bustles. Interesting stuff. It mostly came down to that the ribbing and bustles are a LOT softer and malleable than they look so you just fold them up. Plus it's easier to face the toilet when sitting rather than away from the toilet. Though you do have to stand to wipe. (ETA: Foot on seat.) Squatting won't do.

>152 Morphidae: Now that's the stuff that I want to learn about when I read history!

>153 SylviaC: Here's the video. Not high production values. But she's adorable and the clothes are gorgeous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHeSTDv_24

>154 Morphidae: Thanks! The hoops and bustle really are a lot more flexible than they look. You're right, she is adorable!

>154 Morphidae: Thank you for that. It was enlightening and entertaining! I'm sure somehow I would have ended up wearing the spilled contents of the pot on those skirts, though.

>148 jillmwo: Bookmarks printed and ready for our coloring night at the library on the 14th! Our Valentine's date. :)

>154 Morphidae: Very enlightening!

>156 clamairy: I would have stuck my foot in the toilet while wiping.

>158 SylviaC: *snork* Yes, or that. Wet skirts and a ruined shoe...

I'm so glad massive skirts/dresses have disappeared in most of the world. And I'm thankful for indoor plumbing.

>147 Morphidae: and >148 jillmwo: I assumed whore..... didn't think of his oar.

>154 Morphidae: Fun to watch, and oh, so informative.

>148 jillmwo: Bookmarks. Since I read so much, people are always giving me bookmarks. I also find them in family books inherited and in books I buy at thrift stores. I'm currently down to 30, having just counted, but only am using 2 of them, one for the Bible (year-long group read), and one for Bleak House for the group read started February 1.

And Hi Jill! Hope you're having a loverly day.

I have heard of "toilet humour". I am trying to work out if this thread has strayed into "toilet literature", "toilet history", "toilet documentary", "toilet fashion", or toilet what?

Definitely toilet documentary. Meanwhile, we've taken over Jill's thread.

Honestly, all I can think of to say to the Pub in general is that once again our Morphidae has proven to be an information goddess. I would never have thought to check if there might be a documentary on the topic.

It was sheer happenstance. I can't even remember what video I was watching but it had nothing to do with the subject. I think it was one of the Texan in Tokyo videos. Or maybe 10 things not to do in Japan.

Just a quick update as I run from pillar to post this week:

(1) Apparently I have a surprising amount of biographical material on Agatha Christie in my book collection. Hadn't realized it because things were tucked in various and sundry corners upstairs and down.

(2) I suspect I may have read more of Christie's novels than I had realized as well. I haven't done a complete inventory as yet, but I will be sitting down to do a review of just what I have and have not actually read. This is where watching television adaptations and actually READING gets muddled in my memory.

(3) I spent time (in odd and irregular chunks) this past week with Witness for the Prosecution - why I do not know. I watched the version with Diana Rigg and Beau Bridges; that was made back in the 'eighties. Then I went back and re-read the short story (which one wouldn't think could serve well as a basis for a lengthier work). My husband tells me he was actually in a high school production of the play so I dug that out as well. And at some point I want to stream the 2016 version because Kim Cattrell plays Emily French (murder victim). I think that version goes back to the short story rather than the play itself.

I have no good reason for obsessing this month on Christie's stuff. I have A Taste for Nightshade which I need to read before discussing it at the township library at the end of the month.

And the wedding has sucked up so much time this past ten days. It's like we all suddenly woke up and went -- Oh, my ears and whiskers! There's stuff to get done!.

I'm visiting Maryland this weekend for the Bridal Shower. Many errands associated with that. (And much tracking of packages up and down the Northeast Corridor.)

I will be back at some point and perhaps will then be better able to post something slightly more coherent.

>165 jillmwo: When is the wedding?
Enjoy everything about it.

Wedding is April 8. If I count correctly, that's just six weeks away. We had to go buy my husband a new suit this week so that we be sure he'd look respectable in the photos. The woman who measured him laughed and said we'd have the suit by Feb 28. (Really, it's so unfair. I am all kinds of befuddled over what I'm going to wear. And I have been thinking about it a lot longer than he had been thinking about the suit.)

Oh, and my boss still thinks I should be working for a living. Drat that kind of mindset! I have other things to do.

Oh, and my boss still thinks I should be working for a living. Drat that kind of mindset! I have other things to do.

Amen to that! Hope all goes well with the wedding!

>167 jillmwo: I echo >166 pgmcc:

Such a short season, but one I hope, which will be full of warm and pleasant memories for you all.

While it is admittedly something of a side issue, I dreamed about zombies last night. This is a first and I can't think what my psyche is trying to tell me. I am not overworked and this is far from the most stressful period of my life. Maybe it's telling me I'm the walking dead for some other reason?

>170 jillmwo: maybe it was because I was staggering around your part of the world the last few days, visiting friends in West Chester and nearby towns.

And I was out on the road this week and not in the area to wave hi! I'm sorry I missed you, @Jim53.

So let’s chat about "The Witness for the Prosecution", one of Agatha Christie’s more famous works. The short story is (in Christie’s view) a simple character sketch of “an accused individual and an enigmatic witness.” There are only three people to whom the author gives any close examination in the story -- solicitor Mayherne, suspect Leonard Vole, and witness Romaine Heilger. There are three others who are named but whose presence and/or testimony is only spoken of by the others -- Janet Mackenzie, the housekeeper, Emily French, the murder victim, and a friend, George Harvey who we learn introduces Vole to French at a party. Being a short story, Christie rightly worked on delivering an effective punchline within a tightly constrained set of parameters. It was amazing to me when I read the short story that it had been deemed worthy of a screen adaptation, simply because it was just the three characters “on camera”. The backstory supplied regarding French is that she’s a wealthy (albeit persnickety) elderly woman with eight cats, apt to change her will at the drop of a hat.

I saw the black and white film (1957) with Charles Laughton as my introduction to Witness for the Prosecution. It might have been in a classroom setting or it may just have been on television; I tend to think the former, however, because I don’t remember the impact of it being destroyed by commercial breaks. Of course, I loved the comedic interludes between Sir Wilfred Robarts and his private nurse. For the record, Robarts was a character introduced for the purposes of the stage play where the action is situated in either the lawyers’ chambers or the courtroom. The Nurse Plimsoll role was primarily created for Elsa Lanchester because Laughton wanted her (his wife) to be in the movie with him. The back-and-forth worked well for that particular cast, whereas the character fell flat when Deborah Kerr played it in 1982. (Ralph Richardson played Robarts in that vastly disappointing version.) At any rate, the important thing to note about the *movie* versions of Witness for the Prosecution is that they’re largely simply expansions on the stage play which came before.

Unfortunately, the stage play strikes me as being one of those that really only works if one sees it done live; reading it to oneself (for me at any rate) was a rather flat experience. There was however one really interesting tweak in that there is a moment in the stage play when Sir Wilfred actually voices his suspicion that Janet Mackenzie might have murdered Emily French. I did pause at that point and wonder if anyone had ever thought to build up that potential relationship conflict in a re-write or in a different adaptation. I suppose it came up in my mind because of the Housekeeper book I’d read during the previous weeks (see #125 above). For that matter, no screenwriter has ever bothered to build up George Harvey as a viable suspect for subsequent film adaptations.

However, I was able the other weekend to watch the 2016 version of Witness for the Prosecution which featured Kim Cattrall as the murder victim. This most modern version is not nearly as sanitized as the 1957 film which again had been based on Christie’s adaptation of her short story for the stage. Instead the writer of this version re-envisioned the short story in what the reviewers called “the broader social context”. The dry cough that Mayherne has is attributed to his wartime exposure to mustard gas. The pivotal film scene that takes place in the Euston railway station is acted out in the seediest of houses of ill repute. The period context, the sets and the costumes largely seem accurate, even to the point of being depressing to view. Christie’s short story didn’t really stress those details because again she was working within tight editorial parameters. But the writer who adapted her story for the 2016 version didn’t let a single opportunity slip by for establishing the dingy discomfort of the lives of those characters who were *not* of the upper class. Also, the 2016 script emphasized those three critical characters -- Mayherne, Vole and Romaine Heilger. I don’t think I enjoyed the 2016 version as it was unsettling, but it was essentially true to the original source material. It encouraged some thinking about and digestion of that original source material, by requiring me to step away from the black and white movie that is so widely known.

Looks like I need to read Witness for the Prosecution again. Good discussion!

Today’s library book group discussion centered around Martine Bailey’s A Taste for Nightshade; however, none of the group found it to be a particularly compelling read. There was a definite aura of Daphne du Maurier to this Gothic tale centering around two women, Mary Jebb and Grace Moore, living in late eighteenth century England. Neither is well-served by the culture. Mary Jebb, caught in a theft, is convicted and transported to Australia’s Botany Bay. Grace is actually something of an heiress but has not been raised in any way that would make her aware of that fortunate circumstance. She’s excessively naive, and in the words of one of the group’s members, “tedious” as a character. She never develops a sense of confidence and/or self-awareness.

While skillfully constructed, the pacing played against the readers in this group. A Taste of Nightshade is rather slow in building its story. It’s only in the final third of the book that the reader feels things might be happening. I thought the book was well-done, but I didn’t find myself speeding through it with enjoyment. There were surprises at various plot points, but the story doesn’t become adequately intriguing really until the final third of the story. Unreliable narrators abound and identities shift. The appeal of 18th century recipes and other historical elements make the story and setting interesting but are -- at least based on this group’s feedback -- insufficient to compel the reader’s interest through the first two thirds.

Just a bit of follow-up digestion of the short story, The Witness for the Prosecution. In the short story, where is the key conflict? Is it the very proper Mayherne running up against the other two? Is he the interesting character or does Romaine's behavior as the witness make her the more interesting? I'm not sure that Leonard is anything more than a McGuffin of sorts.

>167 jillmwo: I know it's stressful now but I do hope everything comes together nicely and you allow yourself to enjoy the few days of celebration. :o) I'm sure you'll look lovely no matter what you choose to wear.

>177 clamairy: Thank you, but really at the moment I'm not stressed out. (Or really not stressed about the wedding. Ask me about replacing the oil tank and that cost. That's got the potential to become stressful.) Am I busy? Absolutely! But also, in many respects, I'm feeling lighthearted. My boy has found someone who loves him and who will take care of him. What else can a mom look for in life? (Of course, I'm not a cock-eyed optimist and I am all too aware of the divorce rate. I will always *worry* about my sons and whether they're properly loved and cared for, but I feel fortunate at the moment.)

Maintaining perspective is always a good thing. Every time I might start to whinge or moan, I take another look around and see someone who is worse off than I. (And you all are fully empowered to remind me of that if I sound sulky, sullen, or otherwise unpleasant.)

What you need for a good marriage is someone who will be your friend; someone who will love you; someone whom you share interests with; someone with whom you are happy setting up a home; someone with whom you can really let your hair down. Ideally these five people should never meet one another.

>179 pgmcc: *chortling*

>179 pgmcc: I like that idea immensely.

>179 pgmcc: Great humor at the end, but some real wisdom preceding it.

>179 pgmcc: I had to send that to my mother. She's really going to appreciate it.

I am reminded of The Husband's Toast when raising a glass: "To my wife and girlfriend. May they never meet!"

After the Funeral

It’s really about the women in this Christie novel -- (Maude, Susan, Helen, Cora, Rosamund, even Miss Gilchrist) each one a competent if thwarted woman fairly well sketched out for the reader. The male characters are not as completely fleshed out, but perhaps that’s because they’re only important in terms of how they perceive the women. The lawyer - Mr. Entwhistle -- views women initially in the context of how well they wear their black garb at the funeral, but he’s not entirely wrong as appearance is how women tend to *be* judged -- certainly how they were judged in 1953. There’s the perfect lady who looks elegant in black; there’s the erstwhile artiste who wears wisps of black badly. The women are generally underestimated by the men in this novel, which is rather the point. Susan isn’t chosen to inherit the wealth from her uncle even though she’s the closest to him in temperament; instead he is blind to her strength and eliminates her primarily because he doesn’t like the man she’s chosen to marry. But every woman in this tale has a talent, one that is to some extent or another thwarted in nineteen-fifties’ Britain. The men around them simply underestimate the women and their understanding.

This was another instance of published in the UK with one title and in the US with another. The alternate title here is Funerals are Fatal. But it's one of the shorter Poirot novels -- less than 200 pages (although it still took me two weeks to read it through).

I might need to go find some non-fiction next. (Although for the library later this month, I stil have to have read The Secret Place. That one at 450 pages will undoubtedly clear the brain of any lingering taste of Christie.) I'm scanning my shelves to see if there is any relatively brief non-fiction lying about. Maybe I'll revisit something by Pierre Bayard. The thing that currently appeals but which is neither non-fiction nor brief is Imprimatur which was recommended by @pgmcc. Spousal unit got to it first and he enjoyed it.

Telecommuting means there are no snow days. Even if there is a foot of snow predicted.

>186 jillmwo: Surely if the snow is predicted it has not appear yet. In that sense it is virtual snow: it may materialise or it may not. Does this not justify a virtual snow day?

Of course, we have to examine the attributes of a virtual snow day. Is a virtual snow day a day that is not a snow day so you actually work and pretend not to work, i.e. participate in the virtual activity of not working? If that be the case, then you virtually have the benefit of not working.

Enjoy your hard working day off!

Well, the luck of the Irish must be yours to dispense, Peter! It's tremendously kind of you to rub that shamrock on my behalf. The boss just announced to all of his remote staff that we're getting a snow day today.

>188 jillmwo: I dropped a wire to your boss. I just used the normal wire-tapping channel to get a message through. I thought you could do with a NBRD.

Congrats! That's very nice of him. I hope you are enjoying it!

Are you getting any snow/sleet/freezing rain?

Actually, there is no rest for the wicked. I have an event for tomorrow so that still has to go on, but I'm not glued to my desk. I'm bouncing between the couch (with my feet tucked under a blanket) and checking the work machine for incoming messages pertaining to tomorrow's event. Spousal unit has DVD of "The West Wing" running.

W/R/T the snow/sleet/freezing rain, we have had all of those in the past 24 hours. The snow isn't that big of a problem this time around, but significant icing of branches and wires is always worrisome. I'd feel more unhappy if I didn't know that we're within spitting distance of spring. The folks I know down in DC are *really and truly* miffed that the cherry blossoms have been encased in ice. (In DC, you're never supposed to mess with the cherry blossoms.)

>189 pgmcc: I need to set you up with my boss.

>191 jillmwo: I have heard that very complaint from my DC-area siblings. I'm more worried about the effects of the late freeze, after the early fake spring, on the NC strawberry crop.

Without meaning to do a re-read, I spent the weekend re-reading The Salisbury Manuscript. This is only interesting because I actually reviewed this book back in 2009 here in the pub when we were playing a game called "The Person Below Me" (See https://www.librarything.com/topic/55310#1064865). I, however, didn't remember the storyline when I pulled the book out the other day nor did I recall writing any response. So just as a second statement, after re-reading it, it's still not entirely satisfactory as a novel, the biggest issue being that it moves at a sedentary pace. But there was a clear subtext to the mystery which is always something I enjoy (brother against brother). I have the second and third in the series so I may read those in the next month or so.

On the other hand, I do still have to read Tana French's The Secret Place for next week's library group. (And then the wedding completely takes over. I am told the bachelor weekend (March 17-19) consisted of a baseball game at Yankees spring training in Florida and my son's attendance at his very first NHL game. I can't quite mentally reconcile the two sporting events in such close proximity but I attribute that to being sports illiterate.)

>193 jillmwo: I enjoyed The Secret Place a lot last year. You have to have some tolerance for teenagers, but she depicts them as quite close to humans.

Hey, you guys! Read this: http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/untalented-crime-writers-respond-to-thei...

Although really, @pgmcc, why didn't you let me know that there was this whole kerfuffle bubbling over there in Irish circles? I rely on the Pub's foreign correspondents.

I'll be back at week's end with some thoughts about expectations of writing quality. There's a huge amount of difference between Agatha Christie and Tana French. I'm not sure any of my thoughts will exactly qualify as new or incisive, but I am reassured at least that my brain is still operating.

>195 jillmwo: thanks for the link! great fun to see the responses. I would definitely buy the anthology.

>195 jillmwo: I've found some new authors to try! Based on their responses, I'm going to put books by Jane Casey and Jo Spain on my wishlist. My first thought when I read what he said was the same as this:

"I always find it strange when literary types associate popular success with lack of talent; it seems so insulting - not to the writers, but to the readers."
Jane Casey

And the last, or near the last, which remarked that the man is not winning friends for the literary fiction circles.

His remarks reek of envy.

Ha! In looking up the above authors, I see that Jo Spain's novel With Our Blessing is on sale on the Kindle today for .99, so I will be trying her sooner, rather than later.

>195 jillmwo: I apologise for the gap in my intelligence briefing. My agents had not brought this one to my attention.

I look forward to your comments on the subject. Having been involved in the Sci Fi/Fantasy/Horror community, this sort of anti-genre comment was quite well known and the commenters ignored with the contempt they deserved due to their lack of knowledge and lack of any willingness to banish the lacuna in their education.

It puts me in mind of a discussion I had while on a writers' holiday in southern Wales. In conversation with a young (late twenties) writer we touched on the subject of the works of Iain Banks. She liked his works and when I asked her would she be writing anything like his mainstream novels she replied, "Oh no! I will be writing something literary."

The conversation ended at that point.

:-)

>198 pgmcc: I have to admit that I only know one "literary" plot, namely the one where two late-middle-aged (ahem) women sit drinking tea and kvetching about the world around them. As far as I can see you only need to write 500 pages of that and you get a prize, even if nobody reads the book. Though it's bound to be profitable as a school set-work, and lead to much educationist hand-wringing because "the youth of today don't read, even though we try to expose them to the very best models". Surprise, surprise. Am I cynical or what?

That said, the authors in the article >195 jillmwo: kindly linked to for us (thank you, Jill!) are spot on the mark.

>199 hfglen: Literary novels = navel gazing (by any sex or age from what I've read). That being said, there are a few I have appreciated very much, but I read them few and far between. Now look who's generalizing too much! LOL

My quote about literary novels, "miserable people being miserable."

I loved reading that article. Those authors certainly gave him a piece of their minds!

I'm with Morphy. The hallmark of the "literary" novel is that is is depressing. If I want to be depressed, I'll read the news. I avoid "literary" fiction like the plague. If it has won a Giller or a Booker or other major literary award, or appeared on Canada Reads (with the odd exception) I will ignore it forever.

I once did a guest lecture about SF&F in a library school's adult fiction course because the instructor knew her students needed to know about it to do proper reader's advisory, but she couldn't bear to soil her precious eyes and brain with it. Well, at least she recognized that getting an enthusiast to talk about it was better than her holding her nose and treating it like a smelly diaper.

>202 tardis: "she couldn't bear to soil her precious eyes and brain with it"

You remind me of a certain librarian when we moved to Durban, who tried to convince me that when I wanted to read New Scientist (which her branch didn't have), I should really read New Statesman. Fortunately, she's now retired, but her dire effect on that branch's holdings of "genre fiction" lingers on. For the record, I also regard a Booker or other major literary nomination (Hugo and Nebula excepted) as a fatal flaw when choosing what to read next at the library. Unfortunately the librarians don't agree.

>202 tardis: I agree! And books that are promoted as "Canadian Literature" tend to be unremittingly dreary. I learned that in highschool, and have avoided them for most of my life. In the last year I've been dipping back into Can Lit with the book group at the local library, and it hasn't lightened up any in the intervening 30 years. I want to read to be entertained or to learn stuff, not to be dragged down.

>203 hfglen: The funny thing is that this particular instructor was just fine with mysteries. It was only SF&F (and horror) that she scorned. She was a lovely woman otherwise, and really helped me at the beginning of my degree.

Well, have we sufficiently derailed jillmwo's thread yet? :)

>205 tardis: Oh, come now, you'll have to become 'way more raucous than this for it to qualify as a derailing. Remember last year's pun session pertaining to light bulbs and electricity! Now that was a well-handled de-railing.

>205 tardis: It sounds to me like @jillmwo was setting a challenge to us all in >206 jillmwo:.

Hi Jill!

The older I get the less I like 'literary' novels. Navel-gazing and depressing people sum them up pretty well.

We did hijack your thread, didn't we? That was lots of fun.

Also not a fan of literary novels, (with a few exceptions). There is more than enough misery in the world for me to want to seek it in books.

>201 Morphidae: Morphy, I repeated your definition to a friend who was taking a break from trying to read "worthy" novels and she laughed, but agreed firmly.

>209 Sakerfalcon: Not that all literary fiction is bad - I've read some great stuff - just most of it.

Morphy, actually yes. I believe I'm right in thinking that Umberto Eco and Ivo Andric both won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Certainly both are worth reading (in translation). But like others here, I'd normally regard this prize as a 'fatal error' unless negated by a friend's recommendation.

>211 hfglen: I loved The Bridge Over the Drina and have recently acquired The Bosnian Chronicle.

I am not sure if Eco won the Nobel prize but he was predicted to on a number of occasions.

Thank you, Peter. Indeed, The Bridge over the Drina was exactly the book I had in mind.

In relation to other Nobel Prize winners, I read Herta Müller's The Appointment and found it very interesting. I found it a much better example of a stream of consciousness that Joyce's Ulysses.

Of course, it was in line with the definition of literary given above; i.e. it was about misery.

Further to the The Bridge on the Drina (sorry Jill, we've really subverted your thread!)
I read it at about the time I was attending Serbian language classes at the Sandton Serbian Orthodox church. At the same time the Yugoslavian civil was was getting serious, and I was trying to understand the species represented in the Forestry Herbarium that the National Herbarium. One of these was Picea omorika, the Serbian Spruce, represented by one or 2 specimens from a sub-adult tree grown in an unsuitable locality. So that evening I appear at 7 (on time, for a change) to discover that (a) it's conversation class, with one of the refugees passing through the church as the sucker on the other side, and (b) my particular sucker was a young forester whose English was as imaginary as my Serbian. However, it took next to no time flat to discover that we had a common interest. I soon learned that before the war the total wild population of Serbian Spruce was about 60 individuals that lived on the hillside where this lad had grown up, just on the Bosnian side of That Bridge. And the bridge had been hit in a bombardment just the week before, and the trees weren't looking so good either. And then we were off, chattering happily. The only way the teacher could get a word in edgeways to "facilitate" was to keep us awash in venomously strong Serbian-Turkish coffee, served in large cups replenished frequently. When I got home, somewhat after 2 am, I was wonderfully unpopular -- and naturally with such a caffeine overload, it was only the next night that I was able to sleep at all. But for 7 hours, the forester laddie and I carried on a good Mediterranean conversation, hardly stopping to draw breath. And the surname of our facilitator? Šumar (forester in Serbian)!

>215 hfglen: That is a great story from a troubled time and place! A fishy story even.

How fares the Serbian Spruce now?

PS to the above: Pete probably knows that the original title of the book is Na Drini čuprija. This surprised me somewhat, as the usual basic-Slav word for a bridge (given also in the dictionary I was using) is some variant on most. So, ever-ready to put my foot in it, I asked the locals next lesson. The response from at least a dozen Serbs all talking at once, deafeningly (just like Annie Hawes's Italians) was that in the Balkans many artifacts, like bridges and carpets for example, have two words, one Slav, used for modern classy examples, the other Turkish, used for old, handmade ones. So obviously most is for a shiny modern steel and concrete structure, čuprija for the old stone Turkish model. I still find that interesting.

>217 pgmcc: As far as I know the hillside was wiped out in the war (it was near Srebrenica, 'nuff said), but it's quite common in cultivation, which gives hope that it would be possible to reintroduce them one day.

>215 hfglen: That is a great story! And your comment about the words for bridge in post 218 is fascinating.

Thank you, Pete and Claire. Should we now respectfully invite Jill to reclaim her thread?

I'm here. But I am glad you all carried on the conversation around the table while I was "absent". So I had a book group this afternoon that was discussing the novel by Tana French, The Secret Place. It was the first of her works that I had personally encountered. To put everything in context, let me tell you that in 2017, this library book group -- a group of intelligent women in their '70's -- has read in the past three months The Bone Garden by Gerritsen, A Taste for Nightshade by Bailey, and this title by French. Speaking for myself, I've most recently read Agatha Christie’s After the Funeral but most recently, watched the David Suchet version of Five Little Pigs with the book on my Kindle close at hand. So if I had to put those five titles on a spectrum of difficulty, I'd say that the two Christies would be the easiest reading, then Gerritsen, then Bailey, with French being the most challenging novel overall.

The two Christies are both post-War, 20th century, dating back to the '40's and '50's. The other three are more recent, having been written since the year 2000.

The group’s verdict on The Secret Place was that it was too long at 450 pages and emphasized character development over actual *plot*. They weren't fans of the writing style. As one of them put it, reading this novel was like reading poetry -- you couldn't read it too quickly. You had to go slowly, almost line by line, and in a busy month for some of them, that was a problem. For the record, I largely agreed with their assessment of the book. It’s good, but it’s not really well-suited to periods when you are reading in short snatches of time. Her chapters varied in length so you couldn’t really rely on a predictable number of pages ahead.

We then got into a discussion of how much time people had to read and how that might shape expectations of what publishers acquired and sold to the market. Did people consciously look for short books? What’s the reading equivalent of binge-watching? (I should have mentioned our DNBR days, but didn’t really think to do so.)

We got into a discussion of whether this should have been sold as a mystery novel AT ALL, whether this was really more of a literary novel. These women can handle literary novels; they did Julian Barnes Arthur and George last year and two of the women between them led more of the discussion than I did. And I shared with them bits of the article linked above in #195 about the disdain sometimes levied at genre fiction by literary critics. I also noted to them a remark I’d heard from a librarian how she was looking for an automated mechanism for classification of fiction.( I don’t know what your collections look like here on LT, but I’ve got a slew of titles stuck in 823.912. FYI, that’s specifically English Fiction. It’s kind of broad as these things go. Not a lot of differentiation.) LIbrarians don’t think that much about separating out literary fiction from genre fiction; that has always been more of a sales & marketing concern. Publishers came up with the BISAC subject classification scheme that got used heavily in retail situations, but there are those who don’t like that approach either. I also noted to the women that YA titles are widely read outside of the Young Adult population for which they’re intended.

Different titles appeal to different readers in different moods and in different mindsets. Imposing labels on different kinds of fiction -- literary, mystery, romance, etc. -- serves to direct the reader in particular ways. Sometimes readers are grateful because that helps them get to the right stuff a bit easier; other times readers are irritated because they don’t find something precisely because it got pigeon-holed into a category they’d never think to look in (or search under). Amazon long ago gave up on serious classification. They’ll put any title under anything in the interests of making a sale.

However, I’ve wandered far away from my point which was that French’s sophisticated writing style gets written up in The New York Times and in the New Yorker. Her first novel, In The Woods, got all KINDS of awards. Christie’s books are at the other end of the spectrum in terms of style, vocabulary and pacing. She’s never been out of print and her books have sold in tremendous numbers. Kids in sixth and seventh grade can read and understand Christie. Yet the books by both of these women get sold in the same category. Even if you take it out of the realm of formal classification systems, does this make sense?

There’s probably more to be said, but this is today’s brain dump. And I know I need to go start the next segment of this thread. I'm just waiting until March 31 so that there's some kind of clear demarcation.

Edited to add: At some point I'll do a real review of this book. I just haven't fully processed the book yet. Other than to say that this book is all about trust, recognizing who you can trust in life and the long-term repercussions of establishing trust with someone. What happens when someone betrays your trust?

>222 jillmwo: I liked your description of the discussion with your group about book classification and would support the view that classifying books can lead to many missed opportunities. I have known bookshops that display their books in author alphabetic order and give little regard to genre. I have found it rewarding browsing in that type of shop as I have found interesting reads that I would never have found otherwise.

Some people here have recommended that I read some Tana French and I have ordered her second novel, The Likeness, after reading a good review on LT. Your comments above have lowered my expectations so I might find it a great read. :-)

>222 jillmwo: Your comments about library classification strike a chord. When I took over the Railway History Society's library, my predecessor spent a long time complaining that almost all the books ended up under 383 or 625, with an endless string of digits after the decimal. For a reason that involves a long and terminally dull story, I've lately been considering whether it would be a good idea to move that library on to the Library of Congress system. Enough of this is available on the internet to be a viable idea, and it seems that the LoC HE and TJ classes have enough next-level divisions to give the finer classification we need with generally shorter codes. What do you and the good librarians of the GD think?

>224 hfglen:

Obtain books in other categories!

Okay, I'm a bit slow on it, but the brain did finally kick in. I remembered what it was that The Secret Place had reminded me of, niggling there in the back of my consciousness. The narrative structure was similar to the one used by Ruth Rendell in her book, Judgement in Stone which I'd read five or six years ago with the library group. The narrative focus was on how the forces built to the end result of murder, not so much who committed the crime. In Judgement in Stone, you're told on the first page who who is responsible for the murder and the book recounts the events and forces that converge and lead into the act of murder. In The Secret Place, you're not told who the murderer is but you are provided with a microscopic examination of how events contributed to the act of murder.

I have to credit the reviewer who called French a writing microscope because it's precisely the right description. Such close examination of what goes on in the character's minds. Whereas if you're reading a Christie, the emphasis is on the outward actions that the detective can trace back to the murderer. You don't get inside the head of the murderer. In French, you get inside every suspect's head to such a great extent that you are distracted by that from the question of who the detective finally determines did it. The revelation isn't necessarily anti-climatic, but the reader is more taken by the pretzel-path followed by the human mind in dancing up to an uncomfortable understanding of the truth and then shying away from it.

I really do think that she's a worthwhile read, but that she's not a light read the way that Christie is.

You literary fiction haters are a bunch of unwashed philistines. ;o)

I used to read literary fiction almost exclusively until I started this group with @JPB. Now I prefer to escape reality most of the time.

Excuse me, but I take a bath every Saturday whether I need one or not.

Coming round to your thread so late, Jill...but I made it.

>25 jillmwo: I very much agree on the matter of haste. I'm a slow reader, and for that reason I don't want to read books that aren't worth the time they take me. I read every word, without skimming or skipping, and I want to know that the author gave them the kind of thought that warrants close attention.

On the matter of notes, though: I don't take notes, but I make notes, and that's not the same thing. I carry out my dialogue with the author in a little notebook, and I also record good quotes, great lines, and lapses I just can't let pass. Some of those turn up in my reviews, and others just satisfy the imperative that comes of spending 30 years in the editing business.

>30 jillmwo: I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that old BBs are just as hard to duck as new ones. I've just laid in both "Lychford" titles to take along on my Kindle on an upcoming trip.

As for literary fiction, I've read a fair amount of it (although I'd still have trouble defining it in an inclusive way) and have found some of it dreary, but some of it was reasonably wonderful. If someone told me, though, "I write literary fiction," I would run the other way. In my ten years of attending writers' club meetings, I'm happy to say that I've never heard anyone say that.

I've always thought of the literary fiction term to be a way for the entrenched literary establishment to put down and keep out the books and authors that are not officially sanctioned members of the club. In that world, "genre" is unworthy written by one of the Great Unwashed (to inadvertently paraphrase clamairy's >227 clamairy: comment). Agreed, these literary books are not better, and often worse. Though frankly, there are many good novels of every kind, and IMHO few great works of genius, literary or not.

I think sometimes of the example of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I have enjoyed many apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels. McCarthy's is the one that receives effusive praise. And yet while I don't say it is not good, I did enjoy it less than I did many of the others. To hear it lauded -- along with many of the other lit fic offerings -- smacks of The Emperor's New Clothes.

One more example. As a teen, I read a lot of Vonnegut. Loved his books. My local book store shelved them under SF. But the time came when I could no longer find them there. I inquired. They were moved to "speculative fiction". Vonnegut had crossed over, received his card from the club. Apparently there was a term for SF that had been granted the imprimatur of the establishment: Speculative Fiction. But they're the same books by a different name, I wailed to no one in particular. Sigh.

Hi Jill!

>226 jillmwo: A Judgement in Stone is my absolute favorite Ruth Rendell of all time. You're right. The tension builds and builds, and the murderer can be seen to be falling apart under the pressures..... won't say more to not spoil it, but wow! Such a good book.

>226 jillmwo: I haven't read that one yet. Ignore the ketchup seeping out form under my shirt. That's all it is.