2018: LizzieD Ignores All Challenges

On the left, my Christmas treasures and the old, second generation Kindle fully loaded. On the right, selections from the Read Now table! I'm rich!

Welcome, dear friends! My plan is to ignore all challenges including the 75. When I joined the group in 2010, I was reading more. Times change, and I've spent the last couple of Decembers reading short books in a frantic effort to reach that goal. No more! I'm going to read what I want when I want and as many at a time as I want (see message 3 below). Maybe I'll add a pages read ticker and maybe I won't.
Anyway, although I should probably move to ROOTS, I can't leave this lovely group, so please visit. As things are, I won't likely make it to your thread often, but I value you each one and depend on this group.

Happy 2018!

READ IN JANUARY
1. Betrayer
2. Orfeo
3. *The Hounds of Spring
4. Blind Justice

Into the House in January
1. Mendelssohn Is on the Roof - AMP
2. A Question of Inheritance - Kindle
3. A Matter of Loyalty -Kindle
4. Eligible ✔ - Kindle Daily Deal
5. The Hounds of Spring ✔ - ER ARC
6. The Invisible Library ✔ - Kindle cheap
7. Go, Went, Gone - Kindle cheap
8. Goebbels: A Biography
9. Grant -Sam's (which is closing)
10. Mr. Darcy's Daughters ✔ - PBS

READ IN FEBRUARY
5. Mr. Darcy's Daughters
6. *The Last London
7. Murder in Grub Street
8. Omens
9. The Devil in the White City
10. Visions

Into the House in February
11. A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep ✔ - AMP
12. A House with Four Rooms - AMP
13. The Exploits and Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy - PBS
14. The Darcy Connection - PBS
15. Omens ✔
16. Visions ✔
17. Exit Strategy - PBS
18. Deceptions ✔
19. In the Garden of Beasts ✔ - AMP
20. Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire - Kindle cheap
21. Thunderstruck ✔ - AMP
22. The Tobacconist - PBS
23. Oath of Fealty - Kindle Very Good Deal

READ IN MARCH
11. Waiting for Wednesday
12. God Stalk
13. Deceptions
14. Thursday's Children
15. Six Wakes
16. A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep
17. Watery Grave

Into the House in March
24. Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Golden Samovar - Kindle
25. Betrayals
26. When Falcons Fall - Kindle Deal
27. The Jersey Brothers - Kindle Pretty Good Deal
28. Friday on my Mind ✔
29. The Breaking of Northwall - PBS
30. The Power - Kindle Daily Deal

Out of the House

Mine ~ 2 Wards' ~ 7

Bookmarked for Reading in March

Happy reading 2018, Peggy. Dropped a

Welcome back, Peggy - see you in 2018!

Have a *.

And some more....

Forgot to say I love your thread title!

Happy reading in 2018!

Welcome back!

Plopping myself down to await your return.

*crossing legs, sipping cup of tea*

Happy reading in 2018, Peggy!

Happy New Year! I wish you to read many good books in 2018.

Happy New Year, Peggy!

Happy New Year🎉

view from Zürich's landmark mountain Üetliberg

Dropping off a
And wishing you

Happy New Year
Happy New Group here
This place is full of friends
I hope it never ends
It brew of erudition and good cheer.

Hi Peggy and happy first thread of 2018!

HAHAHA!

Happy new year Peggy and hooray for ignoring challenges!

Hi, Peggy! Happy New Year! I was very far behind the threads this past year, and plan to at least stop in more often to chat with my fellow readers. While doing a first pass while the threads are short, I noticed that you have more books in common with me than anyone else so far! Thrilling! (Even if I haven't read them all.)

Starred! Happy new year.

Happy 2018!!

VISITORS!!!! Thank you for coming by with starry good wishes for the new year. I wish the same to you all: Kim, Charlotte, Judy (I'm excited about the books in common!) (Read them all? HA!), Heather, Jen (Heh Heh Heh), Karen, Paul (love the sentiment; love the verse), Roni, Barbara, Bryony, Cushla, Rachel, Anita, Suz, Jim, Lori, and Ellie!
I'm glad that Heather and Kim support my new-found attitude to challenges!
Let the games begin!!!!!

Happy New Year Peggy and Happy Challenge-Ignoring!
I'm trying to carefully re-integrate some challenges this year, with as little pressure as possible.

Hi Peggy!

A challenge-less year sounds like a stress-free year for you, Peggy! Reading should be a joy, not homework.

Even if my reading were to be cut down to 10 books a year, I would never leave our lovely 75ers either.

I hope you have a lovely day, even if it's a bit brisk for us here in NC.

Cheers for the year and the day, dear Nathalie! The same to you, Karen. I love to see you here and look forward to seeing KM in the flesh sooner rather than later.

What a lovely array of Christmas Treasures, Peggy. I didn’t get any books for Christmas! I am out in Denver and will be at The Tattered Cover later in the week. I will possibly be lured into a post-Christmas purchase.

I am keeping a lower profile on LT, too, and am not committing to any challenges. Here’s to being Free Reading Spirits in 2018. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Peggy. I hope this year is wonderful for you and yours.

Happy New Year Peggy and happy reading in 2018. I hope it's ok to be a member of this group and still not actually read 75 books because that will undoubtedly be me. I haven't read that many books in a few years. And boo to challenges when they put too much stress on what should be a pleasurable activity.

Donna! Beth! Bonnie! I'm happier than happy to see you all here. Thank you for the visits!
Bonnie and Donna, we'll support each other in reading what gives us pleasure, visiting when we can, and being grateful that the group goes on! (Meanwhile, I see that a decision not to commit to 75 has done nothing to curb my book buying. So be it.)
Beth, best wishes right back to you!
I'm didn't read much today, or maybe I'm just reading so little in so many books that I don't make any progress. I don't care.
Orfeo is almost entirely Powers's writing about music, and I love it.
Betrayer is still mostly in Bren's head but not as compulsively repetitive as usual, so that's going well.
The Last London is obviously an acquired taste, but I can't tell yet whether I want to acquire it or let it go. The book is over at my mom's or I'd give you a sample to let you make your own decision.
Waiting for Wednesday is just good as usual.

One should never stop book-buying.

Kim, you are so right. Thank you for the affirmation!

Peggy, I love your title and your spirit. Here's to keeping reading fun and to keeping you here. I love to hear what you are doing even if it is less often. Happy 2018!

Thank you, Jan, and the very same right back to you.
*sigh* Snow was supposed to start at 5:00 and give us 4" or so. Instead, we were in a "dry belt" that extended to the coast (I'm forcibly reminded again of my friend's mother who declared that Our Town was built on a vent from Hell; we never get snow when everybody else around us does). It finally started about 7:30 and snowed for an hour or so. I guess we got a bit less than an inch, and that will stay frozen and slick for several more days. I walked home VERY carefully. All you friends in cold places, STAY WARM!

Hi Peggy!

We got 2 1/2" of powdery, dry snow. It's gorgeous of course, but we're both staying inside today, Bill not going to work, and me cancelling a Friends of the Library meeting.

Stay safe and warm!

1 1/4" here. We stayed in except for crossing the street to get to Ma. So much had n
Melted that we tried to walk yesterday afternoon: no go. Black ice on the street within a block. 9 this morning - almost as cold as I've ever been! Stay warm and safe, friends.

We got your snow, Peggy - about a foot of it, depending on the borough of New York. Here in the lower half of Manhattan, probably about 8 inches. And I'm housebound with this stupid foot and can't go out and play. Very annoying.

Please stay safe Peggy!

Sorry you have so much snow and so bad a foot, Judy. Take care and stay in!
I'm being very safe, Nathalie, thank you. That scant amount makes our northern neighbors laugh, but we are not accustomed to any at all.
AND............... This is a very important day! On January 5, 2009, I joined LT. On January 5, 2010, Lucy joined LT. Happy Thingaversary to us both!

Hi, Peggy. Dropping a star.



I've gone the opposite way this year and decided to involve myself in a bunch of challenges - very casually, though! I have a feeling that next year, I will be right there with you once again ignoring them all! Reading should be fun and not stressful!!

Happy Thingaversary!

Happy thingaversary, Peggy!

Happy Thingaversary, Peggy!

Off to visit Lucy's thread.

And here I am visiting you! Happy New Year!

Happy Thingaversary, Peggy! It's cooling off a bit here as the sun drops lower--down to 72 and I may have to put on long-sleeves in a few or else close some windows. See, I'm working on keeping warm just as you advised. (Don't hate me because I live in the perfect climate) ;-)

Happy Thingaversary, Peggy! I hope you celebrated with books, as is the custom!

Happy Thingaversary!!

Many thanks for Thingaversary wishes, Jenn, Laura, Roni, Anita, Robin, and Karen!
Happy New Year to you too, Ms. Lu!
Enjoy your good fortune, Roni. In another week we should be back into the high 50s/low 60s, and that's perfect for me. I'll just hope that all this very cold weather is killing a lot of insects.
I haven't bought books........ not that I can't think of any but that I have already indulged this holiday season!
Meanwhile, Betrayer is too good to read anything else right now!

Happy belated TA Peggy !
The insect argument is a good one! We had the most wintery winter since I moved here and I'm also hoping for fewer of the biting/ blood sucking little beasts in summer this year. Though of course there are always fewer and less dangerous ones than in your parts.

Happy thingaversary, Peggy and happy weekend.

Many thanks for Thinga congrats, Nathalie and Barbara!

BETRAYER by C.J. Cherryh
It's good to start the new year with a bang, and I couldn't read anything else once I got into #12 of Cherryh's *Foreigner* series.
It's action all the way with Bren, the human liaison between his kind and the Atevi, sent without preparation to deal with the Atevi leader's most established enemy. Bren's assignments have changed greatly over the series, and his contacts with humans are much less important to him and the Atevi than they were in the past. As Lucy noted in her very good review, he has become more Atevi than human, and the ruling family for whom he works values his intelligence, courage, and loyalty as well they should.
Will I stop at infelicitous #12 or go right on into happy #13? We'll see.

I've never read anything by Cherryh, but have been meaning to - I'm sure I would really like her books.

Hi Peggy!

I suppose the mass murder of many insects is about the only consolation to waking up to -2F this morning. We were supposed to get above freezing today when I first looked at the forecast 3 days ago, but now it's only supposed to get to 30F. I don't think I'll go to book club tonight. Of course the decision is aided by a 4:30 Panthers game and hating A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor and abandoning it after 102 pages.....

Stay warm, and I hope you can get some good reading in today.

Hi, Karen. I certainly got in some reading but more good sleeping. Oh well.
I can't imagine -2 in the middle of the state! Good grief!!!! Ice almost all the way across our river is a thing I've never seen, but there it is. I took pics and DH got better ones, so I'll put one up, but nobody will be as impressed as I am! Anyway, it's supposed to be 70° here on Friday. Weird, wild weather!
I hope you stayed in!
Robin, I think that you would really like Cherryh. Her aliens are really alien, and everything she writes is thoughtful. Cyteen and that whole universe blew me away, and I also love the *Foreigner* and the *Chanur* series. Her only flaw as far as I'm concerned is spending an inordinate amount of time in her main characters' heads. I can go round and round with them for just so long. Fortunately, about the time I'm ready to toss the book, something unexpected and exciting has me flipping pages again.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
'We're right on the crest of a slump,' said the football manager, in the soft west-country burr that was his career-defining gimmick.
Instead, he passes him a thick, upside-down book.
~ The Last London
(This is not very helpful since this is a book of essays.)

***Quote of the Day***
All things that are easy to say have already been perfectly said.
~ Joseph Joubert (*Epigrams*)

>52 LizzieD: I couldn't read anything else once I got into...
Well that does sound like a great start to the reading year :) I love it when that happens.

Hi, Megan! I love it too!!!!! Hope you're not burning to a crisp down there.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
An overture, then:
Lights blaze from an American Craftsman home in a demure neighborhood, late on a spring evening, in the tenth year of the altered world.
And at last you will hear how this piece goes.
~ Orfeo

***Quote of the Day***
If I die, I forgive you; if I live, we'll see.
~ Spanish Proverb (*Last 637*)

Not reading much today, but I do love Richard Powers's writing about music!

I had to think of you today during the national news when they showed video of alligators in your N. Carolina swamps with their noses stuck up through the ice, Peggy! This is the video:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/01/10/breathtaking-video-sho...

Thanks, Roni! I had seen it. Our little vacation spot is right there on a tidal creek on the Shallotte River. we've shared the place with Big (a good 6' in 1970 when my parents bought the place) and her gator children all these years. So you were right on the money to send it to me.

If I die, I forgive you; if I live, we'll see.
~ Spanish Proverb

Ha!

Difficult to imagine alligators in the ice!?! Of to see :)

Just stopping by!

Hi, Megan & Robin! I appreciate your visiting when I haven't come myself. *sigh* I look forward to catching up when I'm not on the Fire.

WOOO HOOOOO!!!!!

THE HOUNDS OF SPRING by Lucy Andrews Cummin
I wish my review could do the book justice; it doesn't, but here it is. Thank you, Lucy!

Poppy Starkweather is a failed (at least in the eyes of her adviser and her more rigid friends) PhD. student of literature, who has become a dog walker as a stop-gap while she decides what to do next. She is in a relationship with a man whom she adores, who adores her. Even so, marriage was never a part of her plan for herself, and she's not sure that she can change that even for her Clive. On the day covered in the novel, Poppy comes to terms with herself and their relationship while dealing intimately with some of her clients, their dogs, Clive's own problem, and her brother and mother. Everybody has an opportunity to grow, and the reader gets to eavesdrop on their decisions and to think how their decisions will affect their lives.
I love the dogs for themselves and what they reflect about their owners. I love sentences like these: "Clive's story shifted the dark and she felt better. Stories did that, woke her up to all the wonders going on outside her closed-off self." This is a perfect combination of Poppy's deeply felt self-perception, which the reader feels is true, all the while knowing that the last thing Poppy is is "closed-off." "...shifted the dark" is typical and fine! Heady stuff for what is also a basic feel-good affirmation of life among a set of attractively sympathetic characters!
Thank you, ER, for the opportunity to read this now!

ORFEO by Richard Powers

Whatever R. Powers wants to write about music, I want to read. In Orfeo he is considering composition and composers (as opposed to performance and performers in The Time of Our Singing). The composer is Peter Els, who at 70 has retired from teaching theory and composition, and has taken up gene manipulation (he was once a chemistry major) in an effort to store music in DNA. In the book's present he is on the run from Homeland Security who suspect him of bio-terrorism. As he runs, we look back at his life and development both as a person and an artist. We meet the people who were important to him, two women, his friend the manic choreographer, and his daughter.
Powers gives what amounts to a play-by-play analysis through several pieces of 20th century music; I read every word eagerly, listened to some of them, and ordered CDs of others.
I guess this is not for everybody. The arc of Els's life is eventful and interesting, but I was there for the music. I think you have to be in order to begin to get this book.

>64 LizzieD: Quite a review! I'll keep an eye out for it.

>64 LizzieD: It sounds like just what I need!

>65 LizzieD: I have to slip out of lurk mode to say that you caught my interest with that review. What pieces does he explore, if I may ask?

>64 LizzieD: Sounds great! Added to the wishlist.

I applaud your commitment to ignore all challenges, Peggy!

>64 LizzieD: Well, I already planned to purchase it when it becomes available, Peggy. I'm glad to read such a positive review. I'm just pouting because I have to wait, not having won the ER copy I requested.

Judy, Jan, Charlotte, and Roni, I can promise that you're going to love our Lucy's book. It's lovely!
MAJ, I'll finish the list of music on your profile page.
Thank you, Ellen. I do believe this is one I can keep! I'm having a great time picking up and putting down as my whimsy takes me. (Oh dear. Does that mean I'm going to reread Lord Peter again? Maybe.)

"Does that mean I'm going to reread Lord Peter again?"
If that is where your whimsy takes you, so much the better!

>64 LizzieD: :D (so happy!)

>65 LizzieD: I liked it very much when I listened to it, but never got around to any of the musical works mentioned. It's the disadvantage of the audiobooks, especially when you're walking while listening, no note-taking or simple bookmarking.

Happy dance.

>64 LizzieD: I am trying to add this to my wish list (and LT says it's available through Early Readers but I didn't see it in "the list") but having trouble finding it.

ETA: I was able to pre-order it from Tupelo Press at tupelopress.org. Yay!

>73 EBT1002: Ain't that the truth!!!!?!!! So far I'm resisting. Also >76 EBT1002: GOOD for you, Ellen. It was an offering through ER in December. I need to go ahead and get my pre-order in at Tupelo/Leapfrog too. Good for you! Good for us!!!
>75 sibylline: It's a pas de deux, Lucy!
>74 Deern: See above, Nathalie. I didn't remember that you had read Orfeo. Have you read other R. Powers? I really, really love him.

BLIND JUSTICE by Bruce Alexander
Just what I needed: another historical mystery series! It turns out that I really do need this one. It's well done, and I didn't have a clue as to what was coming although the clues were there. The blind justice is Sir John Fielding, brother of Henry and co-founder of the Bow Street Runners. The narrator is Jeremy Proctor, a thirteen year-old orphan, who appears before Sir John on a trumped-up charge of theft. Jeremy becomes Sir John's assistant in solving the murder of Lord Richard Goodhope.
Very satisfying, and I'm off to the next, Murder in Grub Street.

As for my life, I played bridge today (and we set up our next game day for two weeks rather than three *sigh*) and read almost nothing until tonight. Since I'm not meeting any challenges, I've started two whoppers: Too Like the Lightning and Goebbels: A Biography. So there.
The Goebbels choice is something of an outgrowth of my reading of HHhH, for which I still owe a review. The good thing is that *Hs* was so vivid that I don't feel at a disadvantage for having delayed writing about it.

I just visited Ellen's thread and totally yielded...... found Go, Went, Gone cheap for Kindle and bought it. I don't know when I think I'll read it, but now I can!

>78 LizzieD: Woo hoo! I got you with that one (it's Beth who got me with it).

Hi Peggy!

I received The Hounds of Spring through the ER program - I skipped your review because I do not read reviews before reading a book if I can help it and plan on starting it as soon as Monday. I also ordered a copy through Tupelo Press, as Ellen noted above. When I get it I can give up my ER copy, perhaps here, perhaps on BookMooch.

We're going out today for the first time since Tuesday. The roads should be fine, we've each got a touch of cabin fever, and we'll run errands too.

>77 LizzieD: Ah, another bridge player. Living room or club? I played bridge a lot with my last boyfriend, but rarely have with Jim, and now my ex-boyfriend, now our friend, and I are playing at a senior center. It started out as an errand of mercy, as Bob was so depressed and I thought some bridge would get his motor going again, and it has. Now I'm more interested, and Jim is too, so we may all play more in the future.

Great review of Lucy’s book. I will buy it as soon as it is released. I love that cover! I don’t even bother checking the ER books anymore. I am still waiting for The Women in the Castle. Haha. I think I might be holding a slight grudge...

Stay warm, Peggy. Our lake froze over a few weeks ago and we had an ice hockey team out there using it for their practice. Such fun!

Hi Peggy, I read Blind Justice about 20 years ago, well before I joined LT and liked it. Never went any further in that series so this is a good reminder to track down the next one to it and get to it sooner rather than later.

Happy to assist in Sir John love, Linda! I read a bit of Murder in Grub Street, and it's going to be another good one. Hope you get to it soon!
Donna, I'm sorry about your missing *Women in Castle*. I feel a lot that way about Rushdie's *2 Yrs, 8 Mnths*, which wasn't promised to me and *Gap of Time*, which was promised and never came. (I eventually obtained a copy!) Anyway, Lucy's book is wonderful, and I know that you'll love it!
A lake frozen enough to skate on! My mind boggles and retreats from the idea. I now know the extended cold it took to freeze out little river even that little bit. NO THANK YOU!!!!!
Judy, my bridge is hardly worth the name. My 3 friends and I play at home once every 3 weeks. I love them and love the lunch with them, but after an hour I'm tired of the bridge. You should be talking to my mama who loves the game and plays duplicate. I've never thought of bridge as a bridge out of depression. I'm happy that it worked for your friend and wish you joy in the cards! I got good ones for once and came home high score. This happens maybe once a year. That means that the cards were so good that they were bridge-idiot proof.
Glad you're getting out at last, Karen. This last blast was really kind to us. We had 60+° here today, and it was welcome!
Today I read in my November or October (???) ER ARC, The Last London and Too Like the Lightning. I also started Sir John #2, which will be as good as #1 if not better! And I started Devil in the White City, which sort of jumped into my hands, so that I couldn't do anything but start it. This is the joy of not being bound to a challenge!

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
We begin on the morning of March the twenty-third in the year twenty-four fifty-four.
"...Seven is enough."
~ Too Like the Lightning

***Quote of the Day***
I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.
~ Aldous Huxley (*Epigrams*)

>64 LizzieD:, >65 LizzieD: Great comments, Peggy. I added both these to my list.

>84 LizzieD: "I'm afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery." Now that one made me laugh!!

I am glad you are enjoying your spontaneous reading this year. Keep it up! I bought Go, Went, Gone with Ellen. It was also Beth's fault. Glad you are getting sucked in, too. Ha! And, look! Karma! You got Beth back with two books. >85 BLBera: : )

I too love the Huxley quote.

Kim, I confess that I'm gloating a bit to hit Beth twice. HA, Beth! HA!
Hi, Lucy. Since y'all liked Huxley, I'll try again.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
The date was April 14, 1912, a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63-65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it.
On a crystalline fall day you can almost hear the tinkle of fine crystal, the rustle of silk and wool, almost smell the expensive cigars.
~ The Devil in the White City

***Quote of the Day***
The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle. ***
~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (*Epigrams*)

***Ow! Ow! Ow!

Peggy, do you have any tips for adding The Hounds of Spring to your LT library? I can create a touchstone, and I can find the work, but when I click to add, the "add books" page can't find it. Argh!

That was my experience too, Laura. Then I used the ISBN to add it manually, and then chose the cover. I don't know whether that's how Karen did it.
I'm heading to your thread to see if you've read it.

Good morning, Peggy! Happy Monday to you.

I added the book manually, scanned the cover of my copy in to my computer, browsed, found, and chose it. I like accuracy, and since my copy says "Uncorrected Advance Reader's Copy: Not for Resale", by gum, that's what I wanted to show in my catalog.

>90 LizzieD: aha. thank you Peggy, I'll try that. I haven't read it yet because it arrived while I was on vacation, as did some library holds so I need to read those first. But I'm itching to get to it!!!

>91 karenmarie: you know we all totally understand that, right? You're in good company here, Karen!

>88 LizzieD: The sure conviction that we could if we wanted to is the reason so many good minds are idle.

Ow ow indeed. I just heard an interview with a new author, who wrote a novel about four siblings who intentionally find out the date of their deaths, and how that affects them. It connects me to this quote - we should attempt what we think we can do, and search out what we can actually do. Stuck a little in that right now, but working on it!

Hi, Karen and Laura! I love you ultra-purists! I cheated and got the cover that I thought captured the colors best, and now I see that it's your download, Karen, and totally accurate. Thanks!
I guess misery loves company, Judy. I say that I'm doing the best I can right now, but I know that's not close to the truth. I'd work on it, but I want so much to read!
Here's today's victory............. They're closing our Sam's Club, which I Really Hate because we love the pharmacists there and will now have to go elsewhere. Also, 150 people (including the younger pharmacist, who is the child of our friends and my former English student) have lost their jobs. You note the order of my objections. I note and deplore them too, but there it is. Anyway, I went in today, having bought my last tank of gas, to say goodby, and found on the one remaining set of shelves, the last copy of Grant for 75% off their already low price - $6.41 with tax! I'm grinning! Now. Can I continue to read *Goebbels* or must I try *Grant*?

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
On April 27, 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, tucked away in the rural southwestern corner of the state near Cincinnati.
But he knew that no hint of that existed in the narrative, that it had been too sore a point with Grant, who, in his quiet, inscrutable way, carried his private thoughts on the subject to the grave.
~ Grant

***Quote of the Day***
Though I'm not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
~ Shakespeare (*1,911*)

Hi Peggy!

I'm rather proud of the fact that I have a Helper Badge for Cover Uploading. Glad you could use it.

Good Citizen KM! Thank you!

> 94 Oh you do find the best quotes! That quite makes my day. That and a post of Ilana's on FB of a woman doing yoga with her dog. Fabulous!

Hi Peggy, I'm just stopping by to say hello. And, of course, I've added a couple of your books to my wish list.

In that case, Lucy, I'll try again!
Hi, Jan! I know you need book suggestions, so I'm glad you found them here! heh.

***Quote of the Day***
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
~ Ebert Hubbard (*Epigrams*)

Since I'm not getting time to read any of the many already posted as "Currently Reading," why not add another? I did. Mr. Darcy's Daughters looks to be a nice bit of fluff. I'm glad that Aston didn't try to be witty in the Austen manner, and that the five daughters are not at all clones of their mother and aunts - or at least not in the Bennett girls' birth order. Daughter #2, Camilla, may turn out to be another Lizzie.

***Quote of the Day***
I never knew any man in my life who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.
~ Alexander Pope (*Epigrams*)

(Oldie but goodie worth repeating.)

>100 LizzieD: As a famous person once said:

Only thing better than having 6 books in Currently Reading, is having 7 books in Currently Reading
-- Some famous person

Welcome, Ms. Aqeel. What a wise famous person!

>102 LizzieD: Mr. :)

Hi Peggy! Love the epigram in >100 LizzieD:. It's definitely worth repeating. :)

>103 aqeeliz: Ooops and apologies. I was afraid of that; the 'liz' threw me.
Hi, Jenn! Agreed! In fact, I did it!
My reading day goes like this: morning, something light - Mr Darcy's Daughters today; early afternoon, ditto - Murder in Grub Street; concentrated reading, something more demanding, The Last London today (I'm now officially within the last 100 pp); night reading, a bit demanding - Too Like the Lightning; bedtime, light again - *Daughters*. It's quite lovely, but I don't have enough time to do it properly.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence*** (a random one from my Kindle)
Perhaps many more years still lie before him, or perhaps only a few.
Actually, yes, exactly like the surface of the sea.
~ Go, Went, Gone

***Quote of the Day***
Living with a conscience is like driving a car with the brakes on.
~ Budd Schulberg (*1,911*)

(Just so you'll know, I do and I don't.)

>105 LizzieD: Hehe, no worries :)

Stopping by to read the quotes and say hi.

>101 aqeeliz:. Nice!

Stopping by to say Hi Peggy! I like your description of your reading day.

I have Too Like the Lightning waiting for me on my kindle and I'm so pleased to see so many positive reviews of Hounds of Spring popping up on the threads.

I'm stopping by to say hello. Happy Sunday to you!

Happy rainy Sunday, Peggy!

It's nice to have a variety of books going to work with any mood or amount of time.

It was a happy Sunday, and I thank you Linda and Karen, made happier by your visits. That holds true for Lucy, Heather, and Aquee too!!!

I am trying so hard to finish The Last London, and I guess I'll hold those amazing quotations for the review, which has to be coming up soon. As I've said before, I read and read and read and read, and at last I get to turn a page.

***Quote of the Day***
One advantage of company, not the only one but considerable...It's pleasanter to agree with other people and exchange harmless little lies than to quarrel with oneself and exchange large hurtful truths.
~ D. J. Enright (*Epigrams*)

Hi Peggy!

So glad to see you are still in the 75 group! I am slowly making my way around the threads since it's been a few years. :)

I love your goals at the top of the thread. I echo and wholeheartedly applaud and cheer you on. My goal is to READ in whatever ways I can!

Val, I'm delighted to see you here! In fact, I looked at your thread last night, and it was so long that I just shook my head and moved on. Thank you for being braver!

No worries Peggy! Just happy to you still threading around here. And most definitely no pressure to "keep up". I know previous years the keeping up with the threads got to be a bit much for me as well. So this time around. Just when I can and no guilt and that should be the same for everyone. :D

>99 LizzieD: heh! I love that quote.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
Town and country are different worlds.
"Leave it be, what need do we have of darkness?"
~ Mr. Darcy's Daughters

***Quote of the Day***
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.
~ FrancoiRené de Chateaubriand (*Epigrams*)

Hi, Val....... It's not so much guilt these days as regrets. I miss you guys!

Just checking in, Peggy. Sent the book to Stasia on Monday. Thanks so much again.

Hi, Roni! You're most welcome, and Stasia is checking the mail!!!

MR. DARCY'S DAUGHTERS by Elizabeth Aston
I shouldn't have enjoyed this as much as I did. It's not nearly as good a book as the other 2 by Aston/Pewsey/Edmondson that I've read. In fact, it's a strange thing to me that this one was published under her real name. With a little more effort she could have made it pure delight rather than a guilty pleasure. Never mind.
Mr. Darcy with Elizabeth has gone to Constantinople on a diplomatic mission for a year or so, leaving their five daughters in London in the care of Mr. Fitzwilliam and his wife. Camilla, the second daughter (naturally) is Elizabeth's true child. She has no help from her older sister Leticia, who is Mr. Woodhouse in a skirt and very annoying. The twins, Belle and Georgina, are Lydia types. The youngest at 16, Alethea, is a brilliantly talented singer. All the girls but Camilla are gorgeous, and Camilla herself has fine eyes, etc. Lydia appears from time to time, now married to an intimate of Prinny and eager to get husbands for her nieces. Fitzwilliam, who was likable in *P&P* has become a prig. Caroline Bingley is still a villain, Jane is barely mentioned, and Mary and Kitty not at all - well, I think one mention is made of Kitty's having grown plump.
I suppose a less romantic reader might view this as a satirical pastiche. It has a lot of fat that could have been trimmed. I just relaxed into all the over-the-top romantic complexities and enjoyed it a lot. The other two in the series that interest me are on the way from PBS.

Meanwhile, my copy of A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep has arrived, a BB from Lucy. It will be a relief from Goebbels (which will take me all year to read - especially if I don't pick it up).

***Quote of the Day***
Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.
~ Mark Twain (*1,911*)

>116 LizzieD: I like that quote!!

>77 LizzieD: so you regularly play bridge? Cool. I have started playing 500 again recently, as my neighbours are into it (you need 2x2 teams of people). I want to get a regular game going, as it is such a fun game.
I seem to play it every decade or so....initially I learned the game in my final year of high school, and we played every morning before school, then I left if for (half) a decade and played it daily in 2000 while travelling South America (conveniently with 3 other people-perfect!), and now here I am again, another decade and a half down the track!

I liked >116 LizzieD: too, Val!
Megan, I'm not sure that what I do can really be classified as bridge. (I had to look 500 up - I've at least heard of Euchre but not 500). My friends' parents all played bridge too (in fact, my mama and her best friend are 2 original ones left from a club that had begun at least by 1944 and is still going strong...... Favorite story: Mrs. Floyd and Mrs. Boyd in that club were pregnant at the same time. They made a pact that if they had boys, they would name them Boyd Floyd and Floyd Boyd. They had the boys, but they reneged.) My parents played in a couple's club too, so it was inevitable that I learned to play. When I got to college and walked through my dorm lounge for the first time, I saw a table of bridge. I thought about joining them, but then decided that I hadn't begun my big adventure just to end up at the bridge table. They went to classes and played bridge, and that's about all they did, so it was a wise decision. That said, I like it just fine for about an hour. Then I get antsy and want to be reading or something else. Today was fine...... I was high score - a thing that rarely happens.
No reading though. I WILL finish that London book; I just can't predict when.

***Quote of the Day***
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.
~ Robert Morley (*1,911*)

Happy weekend Peggy, and that last quote is so very true... *sigh*

I can't really deal with sequels to classics. This one sounds like fun, but I'll give it a pass and imagine simple a complete "happily ever after" for The Darcies (Darcys?) without any details. Lydia type twins?! *help*
I'd go to Constantinople as well!

Lovely to see you, Nathalie! I'm the opposite - I spend some time thinking about what the characters do after a book's end and enjoy other people's ideas.

***Quotes of the Day*** (all from *Epigrams**)
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.
~ Ezra Pound
AND
Education gives us ephemeral knowledge and lasting antipathies.
~ Jean Rostand
AND
For every person wishing to teach there are thirty not wanting to be taught.
~ W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

Great quotes! Esp like the Rostand.

Hi, Lucy. School has a lot to answer for. Teachers have a lot to answer for, poor dears. (I am a poor old dear.)

***Quote of the Day***
Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.
~ Josh Billings (*Advice*)

THE LAST LONDON by Iain Sinclair
I've taken only two months to read the 300 or so pages of this ER offering. It's not bad at all. I just don't have the knowledge of London to appreciate it. You'll find my review with a couple of quotes from the book on the book page. I'll just say here that the London he loves is disappearing and that he loathes Thatcher/Trump/May and their ilk. I wish I had read Austerlitz and will bump it higher on Mt. Bookpile - but not yet.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
The window slid up without a sound, with not a rattle nor squeak to break the silence of early morning.
"And therefore just the man for Alethea," said Fanny with the utmost satisfaction.
~ The Exploits and Adventures of Alethea Darcy

***Quote of the Day***
Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough.
~ Mark Twain (*1,911*)

Skimming through all the wonderful quotes. And I rather enjoy the first sentence/last sentence thing. I assume you don't look ahead at the last sentence when you're starting a book. Do you?

>126 LizzieD: I especially like that one.

Hi, Ellen!
I don't look ahead at the last sentence when starting a book. Most of the time the very last sentence doesn't give anything away, and I'm good about selective seeing.
I like the dog one too.

Hi Peggy! Happy Wednesday to you.

I spend some time thinking about what the characters do after a book's end and enjoy other people's ideas. What a neat concept. I'm not sure that I've ever consciously done that before. The only exception would be when I was not expecting it to be the end of a book when it actually ended - and that only occurs occasionally on my Kindle.

What Happens Next? may make an appearance after a book or two on my thread this year!

Hi Peggy! Happy Wednesday indeed. I hope you're warm and dry, anyway.

Enjoying all of the first/last sentences. I wish more books tied the first sentence of the book with the last one. I think if I ever wrote a book I would try to do that because I just feel it brings a sense of completion to the book.

Hi, Karen! I will look forward to your What Happens Next?. I commend you to it!
Welcome, Jenn. We were warm at any rate.
Welcome, Robin! I agree about books tying first and last sentences - also Romantic composers (at least) developing something from a first movement in a last one. Brahms does just that in my favorite of his string quartets, B flat major, Opus 67, in case anybody wants to know.

MURDER IN GRUB STREET by Bruce Alexander
Thanks to Lucy again for recommending these so highly. I enjoyed this one, #2, even more than the first, and I'll start #3 tomorrow. Jeremy, the narrator, is still 13 in this one, and promised as an apprentice to a printer since his father had taught him to set type as a child. Not happening! He continues to assist Sir John Fielding, magistrate and founder of the Bow Street Runners, in solving a particularly heinous set of crimes. We meet a street boy Jeremy's age, and I hope he reappears in subsequent books. Most satisfactory!

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
"That's a single headlight, turning into the parking lot."
He took Ariel's arm and led her back to the kitchen.
~ Medusa's Web

***Quote of the Day***
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a public library.
~ Dr. Samuel Johnson (*Epigrams*)

(Dr. Johnson because he is becoming my familiar in the Sir John Fielding mysteries.....)

After recommending the Sir John Fielding books for so long, I am so happy that first Lucy and now you are picking them up and enjoying them.

Ah.....
You are The Source. Thank you, (((((Roni)))))!

>133 LizzieD: I have the next two in that series (after the one you mentioned), but I haven't gotten to them yet. I'm hoping to sort through a few books this evening to get them in boxes by priority of reading. I'll see how that goes with three helpers who love to be in the boxes themselves.

(((((((Peggy)))))))!

Love those helpers, Lori! I'm borrowing the Sir John series, so I have them lined up too. GOOD for both of us! Enjoy your 3 helpers.
(((((Roni))))) right back at you!!!
Not much reading today --- a little *Devil/White City*, and that's about all. I'm off to stay awake for a percentage of Goebbels so that I don't fall behind. Now, that's really a challenge!

'Morning, Peggy!

I have helpers, too! They always 'help' me take longer.

Just swinging by to wish you a wonderful weekend Peggy!

I have a helper right by my side as I type.

Karen and Lucy, my current helper comes and goes. That's Tully the purr & quack guy. The rest of them are preoccupied by paper bags in various stages of shred.
Thank you, Val, and a wonderful weekend right back to you! It's here!
I've dedicated myself to 1% of the Goebbels bio a day. At this rate I'll finish in 3 months, but I'll finish! Right now it's 1928, and he's a member of the Reichstag, Gauleiter of Berlin, abandoning his literary ambition, and in love with Hitler - and therefore giving up his own brand of national socialism. My one semester of German is pretty much no help at all. Otherwise, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
It's a port city.
".... And even without Babel-17, you should know by now, I can pretty much talk my way out of anything."
~ Babel-17

***Quote of the Day***
There's always an ear on the other side of the wall, and there's bound to be someone outside the window.
~ Anonymous Chinese (*Epigrams*)

***Quote of the Day***
The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind.
~ General Joseph Stilwell (*1,911*)

Hi Peggy!

Stay dry and safe with all this rain coming. I hope reading is on the schedule for today!

Hi, Karen! The reading was on schedule, but the rain won't get here until tomorrow. Hope your Sunday was good.
So I was reading 6, right? Make that 7. I'm having a wonderful time in Omens, and will likely be recommending it. So far Kelley Armstrong is only hinting at the supernatural, and I may not like it quite so much when whatever-it-is surfaces, but so far so good. Premise: the daughter of a wealthy Chicago couple learns that not only was she adopted, but that her parents were serial killers. She has chosen to try to make her way alone in the face of non-support from her widowed mother and her fiance. She has ended up in a small town north of Chicago called Cainsville (the name of the series), and that's where I am now.
If this sounds at all like your kind of thing, I suspect that it's really your kind of thing.

I think I read Dime store Magic by Armstrong but didn't continue. She's probably grown as a writer since then so I'll be looking forward to your final review of the start to this new series.

We are hoping for rain tomorrow too!

Hi Peggy, lovely to visit you this morning. I’m loving your recommendation of HHhH, almost done. And I’ll be interested in what you think of Goebbels. I’m not sure I can stomach a whole nonfiction book on the man, but maybe you’ll tell me otherwise...

Roni, I'm getting closer and closer to recommendation of Armstrong. No rain yet........ High 40s tomorrow and 78° on Thursday. My poor sinuses!
Lovely to see you here as ever, Rex! I'm pleased that you made time for HHhH. I do think it is stellar. (Ahem) As to Goebbels, I'm not so far into it as to be actively nauseated. What a sadly, obnoxiously pretentious person he was! I'll let you know, but I'm reading it very slowly, mostly for the stomach's sake.
Tonight I read a bit more of The Devil in the White City. It's a page flipper for sure.

***Quote of the Day***
Variation on Descartes: Sometimes I think; and sometimes I am.
~ Paul Veléry (*Epigrams*)

Just dropping by to say hello and send you a hug Peggy.

I still have Dead Wake on my TBR list. I'm not a huge NF reader but since being on LT, I have definitely been enlightened by so many good NF books out there. I hope The Devil in the White City continues to be a good one for you and looking forward to what you think of it Peggy.

Hi Peggy!

Well, it took me long enough to look for you, but I finally found your thread!

Hi, Val! *Devil/City* reads pretty much like a novel with a thread for the architect and a thread for the psychopath. It's really good. I'll look forward to both *Dead Wake* and Isaac's Storm at the very least.
Glad to see you here, Susan! I don't get around much any more, so I'm thrilled when somebody makes time to come here..... It's enough to push me into finding a quote for the day. (This day involved a lot of running around an people-ing, so I'm ready to settle down with a book.)

***Quote of the Day***
You've always made the mistake of being yourself.
~ Eugene Ionesco (*1,911*)

Sorry, Peggy, I have been only lurking for way too long.
I do visit your thread almost every day and do enjoy the quotes, I hope to get to HHhH soon.
On the latest quote: it isn't easy to be mistakenly yourself or even someone (else)... ;-)

Happy Valentine's Day to you, Peggy!

Now, here's another mention of Dead Wake. @nittnut mentioned it on her thread. I have pulled it out of the stacks and it's on my desk, looking at me, waiting to be opened. This must be the nonfiction book I'm supposed to read.

I loved Devil in the White City, Peggy. I'd like to read more Larson now.

Happy Valentine's Day, Peggy

Hi Peggy, I'm just stopping by to say hello. I've been absent much more than I had intended.

I'm interested in Murder in Grub Street. You know how much I love mysteries

>64 LizzieD: I finished the book yesterday and loved it! I will be shipping it off to Linda this week :)

Wow! I love all Valentine love!! Thank you, Robin and Karen, and the same back to you and to all kind souls who make it to this thread!
Stasia, YAY!!!! I'm thrilled that you enjoyed Lucy's book - as I was sure you would - and thank you for sending it on to Linda!!
Jan, you need to read Blind Justice, the first of the Sir John and Jeremy books, first. I have picked up but not really gotten into #3, Watery Grave.
Karen and Laura, I am a total fan of Larson even though I haven't read quite half of my first of his. He is a man who can tell a story while he informs! He's also a man who can pick a great story to investigate.
Anita, I'm happy that you enjoy the quotes. I put that Ionesco up because its snarkiness struck me. I'm happy when you drop out of lurk!

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
Eden crawled into the living room, the rough carpet burning her chubby knees and hands.
I was alone in the park again.
~ Omens

***Quote of the Day***
We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are thinking about.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (*Epigrams*)
---- which sounds a lot like a former professor ----
If you can say all that you mean, then you really don't mean very much.
~ Dan Zelluf

All of this is important to me, but I have to say that I'm saddened and furious at the shootings in Parkland, Florida. We say the same things over and over and over, and people keep dying. If they didn't have guns, they couldn't shoot. As long as they have guns, they will shoot. Why is this so hard? Why does a citizen's right to have a gun count so much more than the lives of the children who died today?

Yes. So awful and so utterly aberrant. This doesn’t happen in other countries. And yet political intransigence makes it so hard to see it changing. If each atrocity doesn’t change people’s attitudes, what could?

>159 LizzieD: Ever since the Sandy Hook massacre, I've been working with Ceasefire Oregon to try to change laws to offer more gun safety. Until you get in the trenches, you can't believe how powerful the NRA is in this country. They have more lobbyists working in Washington than any group except big Pharma. It is very discouraging. I just read that nationwide, this is the 44th school shooting this year.

“With the Parkland shooting, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history have come in the last five months” -NYT

Dear Red and Jan, I weep for us. Jan, I honor you for doing more than weeping.

:( I saw that on the news today and watched some of the footage as well. I don't even know how you live through something like that and be okay. So much violence. My heart goes out to all the families that have gone through something so horrible.

Thank you for speaking, Val. Surely we're better than this.

OMENS by Kelley Armstrong
I thoroughly enjoyed this and am off to #2, which begins the day following the end of #1. I recommend it highly to those of you who like this sort of thing.......
Here are the components:
Olivia, adopted by wealthy Chicago parents, who learns about her adoption at the same time that she learns that her biological parents are convicted serial killers. (That's enough to put a lot of you off right away.)
Cainsville - a town north of Chicago where Olivia retreats, and which is most unusual. It's guarded by gargoyles. No churches exist. Olivia is expected before she arrives. They all have some Welsh.
Young lawyer, Gabriel, nephew of a Cainsville resident, loser in an appeal by Olivia's birth mother, who takes her as a client to help her decide whether her parents are guilty.
???? (to avoid spoilers) - a realistic bogey present in the last quarter or so of the book.
It's not spoiling to suggest the FAE, but they are ever hovering just beyond the focus of action. I like the balance between fantasy and reality.
Try it, Roni, et al.

***Quote of the Day***
As the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue. It cannot be spared, nor left behind, but it hindereth the march.
~ Francis Bacon (*Epigrams*)

I'd to a 1st sentence/last sentence, but Visions is in another room.

I didn't mean to do it, but here I am ⅓ of the way through Visions and itching to get back to it.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
The poppies were a bad sign.
I folded the letter and started to cry.
~ Visions

***Quote of the Day***
Henry James created more convincing women than Iris Murdoch put together.
~ Wilfred Sheed (*1,911*)

>167 LizzieD: Pretty sure something is off on that link, because, oddly, I am one of 25 people who own it on LT. It’s a wonderful book, 60s art fantasy of invented worlds. Rather psychedelic. Mind-bending. But I doubt it’s the book you’re reading!

Fixed with thanks, Rex. There's certainly nothing life changing about this book - just a not-so-guilty pleasure. I will maybe check out your *Visions* someday, a much more worthy choice.

>166 LizzieD: The library has it at my local branch, Peggy, so I've put a hold on it.

I think you'll be happy, Roni.

Ok ok ok ok I give in. I will track down Omens and see what happens.

I think you'll be happy too, Lucy. I am. Although I'm reading only book 2, I can see myself finishing this series now, a thing I normally avoid. I will say that the last half of *O* is better than the first half, and book 2 is better yet.
And, Rex, I'll have to give your Visions a pass for several reasons, the price being not the least of them.

***Quote of the Day***
Superstition sets the whole world alight, philosophy quenches the flames.
~ Voltaire (*Epigrams*)

Gosh, I bought it for maybe 5$ in 1977. I could sell at a good profit! But I couldn’t. That book and I have been through so much together. :*)

Just stopping by to say hi, Peggy.

Hold on to your book, Rex!
Hi, Beth! I appreciate a speak.
I think I'm off to bed early.

To bed early just doesn't happen for me. Oh well.

***Quote of the Day***
The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.
~ Willie Tyler (*1,911*)

Hi Peggy! I've just added the first in the Bow Street Runners series to my wish list. Your description was appealing, and you mentioned that Lucy had tipped you off about the series, and Roni is a fan, and so I went off investigating. It looks like a good one!

((((Peggy))))

Me too! It has been my goal to get into bed a decent hour this week. I failed 4 times now...haha

Better luck to us tonight, Val! I intend to type this, look at the first thread I come to, sign out, check my e-mail, fb, and GO TO BED!
Hi, Roni!
Ellen, I'm happy to be one passing the Sir John/Jeremy news on. It's a solid series, and I'm eager to get back to it. Meanwhile, I need to read my last 20 pp of Devil in the White City. I've been fascinated with the whole world's fair business. Wonder whether there's a decent novel about it.....

***Quote of the Day***
If you cannot mould yourself as you would wish, how can you expect other people to be entirely to your liking?
~ Thomas a Kempis (*Epigrams*)

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets sucked into various things and stays up too late.

Happy Friday to you, Peggy!

I'm worried about my forsythia because it's starting to bloom and I just know we're going to get either snow or frost. I do not like 70s in mid-February.

I'll be interested in reading about what you think of The Devil in the White City. I pulled it as soon as I'd finished Dead Wake, and will probably start it today.

Hi, Ellen! I'm sure that you and Val and I aren't the only 3. I'm just going to write one word here, read one thread, etc. and then I'm gong to bed to finish Visions.
I know exactly the feeling, Karen. I don't like 80s in mid-February. We know it can snow in March and even April. SHHHHhhhhhhhh.
I'm here to say a word or two about *Devil/City*.

THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY by Erik Larson
I really, really, really enjoyed this book, which read a lot like a novel. I'm withholding a half star just on some kind of principle - not quite sure what it is.
EL follows two men through the two years before, the six months of, and the couple of years following the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893: that is to say, the Chicago World's Fair. Daniel Burnham, a leading Chicago architect, was the over-all designer/executor/administrator of the fair; Dr. H.H. Holmes was a psychopathic (not an acceptable term these days; it's anti-social personality disorder) serial killer, who preyed on young women who came to Chicago eager for work and adventure.
I'm fascinated by the fair, and I wish he had described the exhibits and the buildings in even more detail. I didn't know so much. Those grandiose white buildings, made to last 6 months, were skeletons coated with "staff," a mixture of plaster and jute. The fair saw the first widespread use of incandescent electric lights powered by alternating current. The engineering marvel to excel the Eiffel Tower was the first Ferris Wheel, and it was HUGE - it could carry 2,000+ passengers at a time, and one revolution took ten minutes. Frederick Law Olmstead worked on the landscaping at the same time he was working on Biltmore House. On and on!
Holmes (not his real name, but I won't go into that) was a handsome, charming, plausible monster. Enough said.
I highly recommend this one, and I will surely be reading more Larson!

Now I"m off to read the last of the Cainsville book 2.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
It started with a slip of the tongue.
It's not a job it's an adventure.
~ Rough Justice
(I'm sending this one off through PBS - never read it; won't miss it.)

***Quote of the Day***
'Thinkers' are people who re-think; who think that what was thought before was never thought enough
~ Paul Valery (*Epigrams*)

Has the antisocial personality disorder diagnosis truly rendered psychopath and sociopath unacceptable? I mean as terms ;)

Rex, I checked it only briefly online. One source (and of course, I don't remember which, but maybe Psych Today) indicated that "psychopath" was returning to favor.

I'm glad to see how much you enjoyed *Devil*, Peggy. It was a page-turner wasn't it? And just an unbelievable story, all the more so because you know the horrible stuff really happened. And the history was fascinating, too. I had no idea the ferris wheel was developed for the fair, and as a way to "out-Eiffel Eiffel," a phrase I loved.

Me too, Laura, me too.

VISIONS by Kelley Armstrong

I read this one very happily too. We now have a sort-of romantic triangle except that nobody but the reader feels it's so. We learn a lot more about Cainsville and Olivia and Gabriel. We visit a truly spooky deserted insane asylum at night (and can google the real place and be freaked out as much as we choose) and find an amazing, empty house in Cainsville. I hope that Olivia and my favorite of the two men will eventually move into it.
I had another couple of quarrels with this one. First, True Macy/Fake Ciara is the important child in the switch and is brought up in Cainsville. But how did she get fae blood? Her parents and brother certainly didn't have any.. Second, the action climax is just highly unrealistic: not Welsh-mythology-come-to-life unrealistic, cheesy- action-movie unrealistic.
These quibbles are not enough to keep me from #3. Deceptions, here I come!

Devil in the White City is a temptation, I admit.

Yield, Lucy, yield!

>184 LizzieD: Almost 10 EUR as e-book, but highly recommended... okay, sample is on my Kindle. Sounds great! :)

10 EUR as an e-book? That seems a bit high for an older book. I got a good, cheap used copy here, but that's here. Wish it were not so, Nathalie.

Just stopping by to say hi Peggy - the Kelley Armstrong isn't calling to me at the moment but I will bear the series in mind. Are they scary? I'm currently very much enjoying a revisit to Barbara Hambly's Darwath series with Mother of Winter which is hitting the spot for me.

So...I finished Omens last night. Very readable, love the premise, haven't even gotten into the good stuff yet in this first book, just hints and "omens".

>122 LizzieD: Boyd Floyd and Floyd Boyd.
Hilarious! I think I would have reneged as well :)

>184 LizzieD: I'm withholding a half star just on some kind of principle - not quite sure what it is.
Intuition! I love it.

Visitors! Welcome, Heather, Roni, and Megan!!!!!
I've never read any Hambly, Heather. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure that I want to remedy the lack. It makes me feel OLD with SO MANY BOOKS without adding one more - especially one more series!
Are the Cainsville books scary? I remember a spot of dread or two, but I don't think they are intended to scare the reader, and I simply enjoyed the atmosphere without a pounding heart for the most part.
(((((Roni)))))! I'm delighted that you enjoyed the first book. I've eagerly picked up Waiting for Wednesday and am not spending much time with anything else, so #3 is waiting.
Always happy to please, Megan!
My copy of Thunderstruck arrived from PBS today, so I'm really going to have to read another Larson soon since I now have 4 unread. And grrrr. I've had Isaac's Storm in my hands this very year, but once again I've done something with it and can't find it. I spent a good hour Sunday hunting through the piles. (You have no idea. You want to have no idea.)

***Quote of the Day***
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
~ Herbert Asquith (*Epigrams*)

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
Totally.
I would rock my youth now. More enjoyment, less insecurities. :D

You and me, Val!

WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY by Nicci French
I don't understand why I haven't zipped right through this series. It is better than anything else I'm reading now.
In this one Frieda Klein is recovering from the trauma of the last book. She is a difficult woman, and one fiercely loved and deeply valued by her friends. Everything is complex: characters, plot - maybe I have to rest from the intensity.
At any rate, if you're looking for a top-notch mystery with fascinating characters in contemporary London, you'll do worse if you don't try this series.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
One Sunday, in the late summer of 1937, an unusually violent thunderstorm swept over the mountains of the Salzkammergut.
This time, though, it was no illusion, and by the time she reached the Votive Church and started to quicken her step, then finally to run as fast as she could, the sky was already filled with the rapidly swelling sound of the Allied bombers' engines as they approached from the west like a huge, dark swarm, casting the city into shadow.
~ The Tobacconist

***Quote of the Day***
Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand.
~ Unknown (*1,911*)

GOD STALK by P.C. Hodgell
Mercy! I know many of you have joined (((((Roni))))) in loving this book, and I respect and envy your enjoyment. With age I've grown more impatient, more critical, and less willing to spend time on a book that isn't working for me. By the time I realized that it was never going to work, I had read too much not to finish. It's been an albatross around my mental neck, but I've finished and buried it. Since I own the 2-book volume, I may eventually get back to #2, which people say is better, but no time soon.
This is very much a first book, and Hodgell has a wonderfully individual world to build. I think that she tried to do too much, and the result is rather disjointed and rather demanding of the reader's willingness to take big doses of fantasy on faith without explanation. I wish I had read the appendices first, but even they didn't help a lot. This has nothing in common with C.J. Cherryh's ellipses, which I think normally have to do with characters' thought processes and which eventually come clear. I found the last third of the book better than the first, so I'm sure that she was growing and learning as she wrote.
I just don't feel pulled on, and I'm sorry. de gustibus non est disputandum

Hi Peggy!

I've been comfort reading with the Alphabet series by Sue Grafton. I have started The Devil in the White City, too, but with Jenna home for spring break and lots of Friends of the Library stuff this week, my reading's way behind. I just got a copy of Isaac's Storm via BookMooch, but don't dare start it in case I put down Devil and never pick it up again.

>201 karenmarie: I had to abandon Sue Grafton after she killed off one of regular characters - that went so far beyond my comfort level I just put down the book and never picked up another.

Hi, Karen and Susan! Glad to see you both.
My copy of *I's Storm* is still awol. What can I have done with it? Give *Devil/City* a chance. I wasn't too taken with the beginning, but I ended up loving it all.
I don't know that I read far enough in Kinsey to lose the continuing character who didn't continue. I'll have to try her again one of these days. I'm not sure what kept me from pursuing the alphabet eagerly.
Sidetracked by my purring, quacking lap-cat Tully. I think I'm off to bed with a book!

Hi Peggy, I just wanted to let you know I just finished my first Fielding mystery and loved it. Thanks for recommending them and suggesting I start with Blind Justice. I have the second one on hand and it won't be long before I open it. I think I am most content when I have just started on a new series I love!

>200 LizzieD: By the time I realized that it was never going to work, I had read too much not to finish
I smiled reading this, as as soon as I have read any amount of a book, I feel the same :)

Yers there is a point of no quitting, isn't there, sheer stubbornness over time invested etc!

Hi, Jan! I'm happy to see another willing reader of the Sir John/Jeremy series. I have started the 3rd book and read a very little of it today. I seem to have too many good things going at once - typical!
Woe, Megan and Lucy. What will we do with ourselves? This is a time when I wish that I were a speed reader. Otherwise, I like my pace as it allows me to savor good writing.
Today I read 40 or so pages of Deceptions, maybe 5 of Goebbels and 10 or so of The Ruin of the Roman Empire (I know I don't have it listed, but there it is anyway), 10 or so pp of Rumer Gooden. Can that be all? I swam, and that takes up a couple of hours in getting there and back with a shower thrown in for good measure.
Oh well.
Tomorrow is another day.
Say good night, Katy Scarlett.
(Good night)

Came by to say goodnight, since I've started reading Visions tonight between basketball plays. North Carolina beat Duke! Kansas beat Kansas State! West Virginia beat Texas Tech and I don't know if we can beat them for a third time this year. Manana.

How 'bout them HEELS!!!
(((((Roni)))))

How 'bout them HEELS for sure!!!

We watched too, Peggy. Happily surprised, very nervous the last 3 minutes or so. But they pulled it off.

Hi, Karen. Still love the Heels, bless them.

DECEPTIONS by Kelley Armstrong
Book 3 wasn't as good as books 1 and 2, but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy it. I did. We find out a lot more about what's going on, but we didn't spend much time in Cainsville, and that's my favorite. We were back briefly in the abandoned asylum, which is really Menteno State Hospital of which there are countless images if you do a google search; that's not my favorite.
I continue to tire of Olivia and Ricky having sex in public or wooded places, but it's not graphic, so that's good.
I'd like to read something else, but it's likely that I'll be diving into book 4 soon.

>212 LizzieD: Well, they didn't spend all that much time in Cainesville in book #2. I think I'll wait and see what you think of books 4 and 5 before moving on. If they continue to decline in "goodness" I may not go on.

ETA Sorry about the Tar Heels. At least they are still a #2 seed, and they are playing in Charlotte this week for all that they are in the West Regional. As a Jayhawk, I'm a big Roy Williams fan. We love him and think he's a quality guy.

>213 ronincats: True enough, Roni. I'll keep reading though because a friend has given me all of them. I'll let you know.
I was proud of my Heels, and I love Roy Williams. He's a worthy successor of Dean Smith, who is next to a god for us. My grandfather was a Smith. We all have big noses. My cousin used to claim kin with Dean.
Anyway, I read Frieda Klein #4, Thursday's Children instead of Cainsville and a bit of The Ruin of the Roman Empire (which I'm not saying that I'm reading yet), and Thunderstruck (ditto) instead of *Goebbels*. Sounds just like me.

***Quote of the Day***
You carry forever the fingerprint that comes from being under someone's thumb.
~ Nancy Banks-Smith (*Epigrams*)

Hi Peggy, and happy Wednesday to you!

Wow, a connection to Dean Smith. I shocked my husband's family when I first moved here by asking who the man with the big nose was running up and down the side lines while we were watching the Tarheels play. Four pair of eyes turned to me disbelievingly and said "That's Dean." Also, I joke that Dean Smith came to my 40th birthday dinner 2 years later - Bill and I and had dinner at a fancy restaurant in Chapel Hill to celebrate. I saw a man, a woman, and two teenage girls sitting next to us and told Bill that I thought it was Dean Smith - he was able to casually check them out and told me No, it wasn't Dean! I was chastened. After we left, when Bill got a better look, he admitted that he was wrong and it was The Man Himself.

OH no, Karen! Any connection to Dean was all in cousin's head (or maybe in her nose); it was a joke with us and I meant it for one here. Sorry I was unclear.
You, on the other hand, can claim dining with him sort of.

I guess I wanted you to have a connection. I really did see him up close, though, so there is that.

I would love to have had a connection, Karen. What a fine man! He even read theology!!!
I didn't even try to get into a round ball game the year and a half that I was in Chapel Hill. I did see my cousin play football though. Have I bragged about him? He was a 3-letter man. He pitched a no-hitter for the Heels - a few years ago it was still the last one. (He was either brilliant or wretched. The game he was scouted, he was wretched.) He walked on to soccer try-outs and played in the first real soccer game he ever saw. (Some of the Yankee fathers - war husbands - taught their sons to play soccer here back in the '50s.) He parlayed that soccer into football kicking specialist, and I got to see him return his own kick for a touchdown against Wake. He kicked on a 4th down and realized that he hadn't heard the whistle ending the play, so he strolled past the Wake huddle, picked up the ball, and ran it in for a TD.
I, on the other hand, continue to read Thursday's Children as I can. I don't know why, but I hadn't understood until this book that Frieda Klein is actually beautiful. Anyway, I'm happy that I have a bit more of this to read and the next three lined up ready to go.

***First Sentence/Last Sentence***
'A SPLENDID afternoon to set out!', said one of the friends who was seeing me off, peering at the rain and rolling up the window.
I didn't want to be late.
~ A Time of Gifts

***Quote of the Day***
A team should be an extension of the coach's personality. My teams were arrogant and obnoxious.
~ Al McGuire (*1,911*)

THURSDAY'S CHILDREN by Nicci French
I continue to love this series. I also love Frieda Klein as her friends do, and I'm not sure why. She is so much the therapist that her personality, except for compassion and doggedness (not necessarily the most endearing qualities) is a blank. She's not witty or particularly profound, but she knows the questions to ask to help people work through their problems.
In this one Frieda returns to her home town, a thing she never intended. We learn that she was raped as a teenager and that her mother didn't believe her. Now the teen daughter of a classmate has been raped, apparently by the same man, and Frieda's acerbic mother is dying from a brain tumor. We meet her high school crowd and watch Frieda stir things up as she attempts to discover the rapist/murderer. Her friends are back and helping. Her relationship with Sandy is on the rocks - her choice.
Even though Frieda is difficult, I couldn't put the book down for the last 75 pages or so, and when I had to, I thought about her.
On to Friday on My Mind!

Sheesh. Bridge today and no reading. Relatives tomorrow (Hooray!) and no reading (Boo!). Maybe Sunday afternoon I'll be able to sit down with a book. I wasn't going to start Frieda Klein on Friday right away, but now that I've seen what it's about, I'm afraid I have to go ahead.
I manage to read 1% of Goebbels several days a week. I guess I'll finish it some time this year. I had intended this to be a year of big biographies, but I'm not doing well.

I hope Sunday afternoon brings some reading relief..... We're watching a lot of BBall, of course. Go Heels!

>219 LizzieD: I need to start this series, Peggy.

I hope you get some reading in this weekend, even if it's only a couple of pages before you sleep. Enjoy the family.

Hi, Beth and Karen. I guess I got a bit more than a couple of pages read today, but not nearly enough. I look forward to tomorrow afternoon.
We did have a good family visit. Here's a bit of eye candy: the visiting cousin's younger brother being beef-cakey. He's the adventurous one: an artist married to an Italian woman and living in the Campania. *sigh*

Hi Peggy!

Some pages are better than none. Ooh, he is gorgeous.

Boo, flunk. 86-65 Texas A&M.

Yep, disaster, Karen.
Yep, he was quite the young man. He's 60 now, and I haven't seen him or a current picture in years. I'm betting he's still fine.

:-(

>223 LizzieD: An artist in Campania, married to an Italian woman. That sounds like a good life! :)

Thank you for the BB for *White City*, loving it! It's like alternately eating chocolate (the H.H. Holmes chapters) and some ripe aromatic raspberries (the "I'm learning something here" chapters about planning the fair and the architecture), quite delicious and addictive.

>223 LizzieD: Not hard on the eyes at all. ;)

I need to read me some French as well!

Hope you are doing well Peggy.

Hi, Va! You're a sight for old eyes. Glad to see you.
I should have been reading French, I guess, but instead I picked up Six Wakes yesterday, and am enjoying it too much to read much of anything else. I'll try to add a bit to my R. Godden memoir tonight. Since India fascinates me, I'm enjoying her experiences of Calcutta between the wars - at least, I think that's the time.
Yep........ Cousin was lucky to get his daddy's blue, blue eyes and Grandmother's black, black brows and widow's peak - not to mention Granddaddy's slim body. He was a runner in his youth - Boston at least a couple of times.
Hi, Nathalie! Glad you're back!!!!!! I'm happy that you're enjoying *Devil/City* as much as I did. I guess it is a confection, but it's a confection of a very high order, as you say. Dell supports himself by doing interior painting for rich folks - faux finishes, decorative panels in any style. He'll be happy to paint a copy of a famous picture and put your face in rather than the original. He's done geometric designs in the harem of an Arabian Emir and lots of other stuff. The downside is that he rarely gets time to develop his own creative style. 20 years ago he was painting monoliths standing in living water in a rich buttery/lemony light. I thought they were wonderful. He's also the one with the snake background. If I haven't told that story, I'll be happy to. That doesn't mention the underwater spelunking in caves in Haiti.

>229 LizzieD: I don't remember the story which doesn't mean it hasn't been told. :)
(I'm the one who can read all her murder mysteries all over every 5 years because I forgot who did it)

Hi Peggy. Happy first day of Spring to you, although it's gloomy, rainy, and damp here. Looks like you'll be 20 degrees warmer with T-storms. We might get a bit of snow mixed up in the rain tonight and early tomorrow. What a difference!

What a great way to describe The Devil in the White City, Nathalie! I've got about 70 pages of 390 to go. It's wonderfully slow reading as I go to the Internet to find out about somebody or something that he's mentioned almost in passing.

I'd love to hear your cousin's snake background sometime.

Hi, Nathalie and Karen!
I can also reread mysteries, Nathalie. I may remember who without the why, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy to reread.
I'll do the snake story one of these nights when I'm not trying to get to bed before 11:00. Maybe I'm on my way!
I also burned up the Internet looking for pictures to illustrate *Devil/City*. I must get back to Thunderstruck. Wouldn't it be awesome to read two books at the same time? I guess my greed would just double, so I'd be in the same fix as now.

>226 ronincats: So you didn't appreciate my attempt to commiserate re: your Tarheels? *sob*

>233 ronincats: ((((((((((Roni)))))))))) *sob * I missed you. Thank you for the sympathy.

>166 LizzieD: I just finished Omens and placed holds on a couple of sequels. You get credit for the BB.

>235 quondame: Heh heh heh. I didn't realize what a hunter I am: inordinately happy when a random BB hits a target. I can't get back to book 4 because of Six Wakes - SO entertaining! I'm off to read.

Phew! All caught up here again. WAAAAAAY too much to comment on, but happy as always to be here. : )

Just read the review of Omens, thanks to >235 quondame:, (and >166 LizzieD:). Sounds enthralling! But I don't normally read thrillers, I am trying to branch out and it is dystopia or sci fi that I am trying to read more of. I am struggling though! It just dawned on me that I have been saying that for quite a few months now (maybe a year or more worth of months, actually!!). ha ha! Best intentions, right?

Hey Peggy >229 LizzieD: Don't some people have fascinating lives? Wow.

I can't keep up with threads at all this year. Even so, every 4 weeks or so, I make a valiant effort. Have added Sir John Fielding to the TBR pile, and even requested the first book from the library. Boo-hoo about basketball. My bracket is hanging by a Villanova thread. That is all.
I hope your weekend is enjoyable, and maybe even warmer than predicted? Silly spring. I did have a perspective inducing memory pop up on facebook this morning though. My son and husband shoveling FEET of snow on this day 8 years ago, in Denver.

>236 LizzieD: Oh dear, or is it oh deer in the headlights, I may have to chase after Six Wakes. Metaphor Hash for dinner, I'm afraid.

Dear Susan, eat hearty! I'm about to say my few words about *6 Wakes*, and I hope that they send you to the library. Nifty entertainment!
Jenn, I don't even have time for a valiant effort. I try to catch up on one or two a night, but that's all I can manage, so I'm grateful to see you here at all. I do think you will enjoy the Sir John books. I'm currently back into #3 and very happy. Good luck with your bracket.......... I just don't much care any longer except in a detached but curious way. We always have an Easter cold snap, but I don't think this is it yet.
Charlotte, I'm not going to be able to tell the snake story yet, but stay tuned. Cousin Dell is one of my heroes. One of his brothers stayed in Wilmington, but his sister is now in Montreal, having sold her house in Tucson, and the other brother is in California - Castro Valley.
Megan, Omens is urban fantasy rather than dystopian. I'd have to think (and I can't right now) about something else for you to do your branching instead.
Good luck to you!
Kim, I love having you here, comments or no!

SIX WAKES by Mur Lafferty
I started sneak-reading this one, and it turned into my read or die of this week. It is hugely entertaining space opera. The crew of a colony founding space ship awakes, newly cloned, to their own former bodies floating with stab wounds in a space that should have gravity. Who killed them and wiped the log of the AI that runs the ship and programmed the food synthesizer to produce only hemlock? This is not real science fiction although they live in a futuristic setting and raise many issues about human cloning. What it is, is a closed room mystery with backstories that works itself out logically with no holes in the plotting that I could find. Did I say it was fun? It was fun! Do I think it will win the Nebula this year? Well, no - but I do see why it was nominated.

So glad it was fun.

Ooo la la that cousin.

Hi Peggy and happy Tuesday to you.

>242 LizzieD: Six Wakes is waiting for me at the library.

It was a lot of fun, Lucy!
Karen, it was a fine Tuesday, and the same wishes back to you for a good Wednesday.
Susan, Whoo Hooo! I think you'll be entertained with the 6 wakes; hope so!

A TIME TO DANCE, NO TIME TO WEEP by Rumer Godden
This was supposed to balance my immersion in the Goebbels bio. Instead, I read this and very little Goebbels. Oh well.
I like Rumer Godden although I haven't read that many of her many novels. In This House of Brede is the gold standard for me. I found her bio/memoir, part one, pleasant. She didn't have a particularly easy life, but she makes it easy reading. Somehow, she and I, as I read about her, feel a bit detached from her experiences. I was happy to have another look at India before and during WWII.

Peggy, just stopping by to say hi. You've been doing some good reading.

>242 LizzieD: Adding this to the wishlist - space closed room mystery - too tempting!

"Very little Goebbels" sounds good to me.
Hope the good reading continues.

Hi, Jan and Charlotte!
I can't say why I'm reading Goebbels except that I thought he might be a good way to try to understand how the Nazis happened or anything about them at all really. That sounds stupid, and I'm not surprised by any of it so far. Goebbels may have been "Doctor", but he was not the intellectual that he has sometimes been painted. It's a long, long, long train wreck, and I'm trying to watch no more than 11% a day.
I happily am up to receive an ER copy of Everything Happens for a Reason by Kate Bowler, whom I heard interviewed on Fresh Air maybe. I hope I get it. I'm still waiting for October and January to show up. January has 3 more days. Bummer!

WATERY GRAVE by Bruce Alexander
Entry 3 in the Sir John Fielding/Jeremy Proctor mysteries is as good as the rest of them. I missed Boswell and Dr. Johnson though and wanted some things to end differently. Tom Durham, Lady Fielding's son, was a good addition to the cast, but since he is in the Royal Navy, I guess we won't be seeing him again. Sir John becomes even more a sympathetic character, and I felt bad for him.
On to #4!

Good night, Peggy!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Peggy!

Good night, Roni! Also, Jenn and Karen.
A Happy Easter to you all and a Blessed Eastertide to you Christians!
(I have to boast. We had the first local strawberries today. SO GOOD! Just remember that when spring finally gets to you, we'll be in summer misery.)

Strawberries? STRAWBERRIES????!!!!! The snow isn't even off the ground here. No peepers. Sugaring in full flow. Mud season just underway. Barely even any of the birds are fully returned. To all intents and purposes it is still late winter.

I'm jealous of the first local strawberries. We won't have them in Sanford 'til last week of April, and that's even 45 minutes south of me.

Yep, Lucy and Karen, we are those fortunate people. I'll remember how fortunate when it's too hot to wear clothes or breathe. I've seen a map somewhere that shows that spring comes to NC first in our county.
To add insult to injury, we have our first humming birds right on time. Our feeders were up and ready for them.