SusanJ's 75 Books Challenge - Thread 11

Hello, and welcome to my eleventh thread for 2018.

I'm Susan, a Kiwi living in London for the past 23 years. During the working week I'm a lawyer so I love nerdy legal stuff, which crops up in more books than you might expect.

Over the past few years I've started to read a lot more non-fiction, so my reading is now more balanced between F and NF than it typically has been. I think I spend more *time* reading NF than F, but NF books tend to be longer and more complicated than a quick novel.

While I have been reading mostly from the library, I do have a fair few books that I've bought (mostly for the Kindle) and I need to keep my eye on those so that I actually read them instead of just accumulating them. This year I want to focus on reading my own things (famous last words).

Here are my tickers. I aimed for 150 books in 2018 as I wanted to read some NF chunksters and I also want to read more magazines and internetty things. I can feel a bit pressured by a stack of library books. That hasn't entirely worked, so I'm off the library books for November, unless previous reserves arrive.

Books read during 2018

January

1. The Women's Room by Marilyn French
2. Snow Blind by Ragnar Jonasson
3. Orientalism by Edward Said
4. Roseanna by Maj Sjowall
5. Testosterone Rex by Cordelia Fine
6. Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield
7. Long Road From Jarrow by Stuart Maconie
8. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
9. The Spy Who Couldn't Spell by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

February

10. Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
11. The Confession by Jo Spain
12. Cure: A Journey Into the Science of Mind Over Body by Jo Marchant
13. In Search of Mary Shelley by Fiona Sampson
14. Pandemic 1918 by Catharine Arnold
15. Artemis by Andy Weir
16. This is How it Ends by Eva Dolan
17. With Our Blessing by Jo Spain
18. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil de Grasse Tyson
19. Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street by Sheelah Kolhatkar
20. The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
21. The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taube
22. The Monk of Mokha by Dave Eggers
23. The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg
24. The Midnight Line by Lee Child
25. The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson

March

26. Close to Home by Cara Hunter
27. Young and Damned and Fair by Gareth Russell
28. Exposure by Helen Dunmore
29. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
30. Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of the Great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote by Jane Robinson
31. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton
32. The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths
33. The Power by Naomi Alderman
34. Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
35. The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks
36. Dark Blood by Stuart MacRae
37. The Almighty Dollar by Darshini David

April

38. Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance
39. Man of Iron: Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain by Julian Glover
40. Common Ground by J Anthony Lukas
41. Flat Broke With Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha
42. The Last of the Greenwoods by Clare Morrall
43. Paradise in Chains by Diana Preston
44. Exceeding My Brief: Memoirs of a Disobedient Civil Servant by Barbara Hosking
45. Reliquary by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
46. World Without Mind by Franklin Foer
47. The Deep Blue Goodbye by John D. MacDonald
48. Trouble in Paradise by Kathy Marks
49. A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power
50. The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
51. Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
52. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly

May

53. The Ministry of Nostalgia by Owen Hatherley
54. The Circle by Dave Eggers
55. The Net Delusion by Evegeny Morozov
56. Love Story, With Murders by Harry Bingham
57. The BBC: The Myth of a Public Service by Tom Mills
58. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
59. Wired for War by P W Singer
60. Rules of Prey by John Sandford
61. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney
62. The Disappeared by C J Box
63. The Bone Keeper by Luca Veste
64. The Mesmerist by Wendy Moore

June

65. The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman
66. Monk's Hood by Ellis Peters
67. The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku
68. Arms of Nemesis by Steven Saylor
69. Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik
70. Secret Pigeon Service by Gordon Corera
71. Bookworm by Lucy Mangan
72. MI5 and Me by Charlotte Bingham
73. Slow Horses by Mick Herron
74. Chasing the Harvest by Gabriel Thompson
75. To Be a Machine by Mark O'Connell
76. The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos
77. Lonely Hearts by John Harvey
78. Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwart
79. Charlotte's Web by E B White
80. 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman

July

81. The Leavers by Lisa Ko
82. The Romanovs by Simon Sebag-Montefiore
83. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
84. Proof by Dick Francis
85. If Only They Didn't Speak English: Notes from Trump's America by Jon Sopel
86. The Legend of de Marco by Abby Green
87. The Call of the Desert by Abby Green
88. Murder at the Grand Raj Palace by Vaseem Khan
89. Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
90. Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
91. The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman
92. Damaged Goods by Oliver Shah
93. The Other Woman by Daniel Silva
94. Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee
95. A Shot in the Dark by Lynne Truss
96. The Murder Wall by Mari Hannah
97. Joining the Dots by Juliet Gardiner

August

98. Sleepless in Manhattan by Sarah Morgan
99. Sunset in Central Park by Sarah Morgan
100. Miracle on 5th Avenue by Sarah Morgan
101. Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd
102. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte
103. The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
104. Extreme Cities by Ashley Dawson
105. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
106. Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
107. Settled Blood by Mari Hannah
108. Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
109. Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
110. My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
111. The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker
112. Hangman Blind by Cassandra Clark
113. Bring Me Back by B A Paris

September

114. All The Colours Of The Town by Liam McIlvanney
115. After The Party by Cressida Connolly
116. The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh by Linda Colley
117. Born Trump by Emily Jane Fox
118. Small Country by Gael Faye
119. Rough Treatment by John Harvey
120. Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
121. Into the Fire by Manda Scott
122. The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
123. Texas by James Michener
124. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
125. Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas
126. Endeavour: The Ship and the Attitude that Changed the World by Peter Moore
127. A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

October

128. Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
129. Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth
130. Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
131. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
132. Still Life with Breadcrumbs by Anna Quindlen
133. Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella
134. Where The Dead Men Go by Liam McIlvanney
135. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
136. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
137. Cutting Edge by John Harvey
138. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
139. Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery
140. Agent Jack by Robert Hutton
141. Macbeth by Jo Nesbo
142. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
143. The Mistletoe Murder by P D James
144. The Girls of Mischief Bay by Susan Mallery
145. The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani
146. A Stranger in the House by Shari Lapena
147. Viceroys by Christopher Lee
148. Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis

November

149. The Case is Closed by Patricia Wentworth
150. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
151. Reading Allowed by Chris Paling
152. The Number Devil by Hans Magnus Enzensberger
153. Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
154. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas
155. The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters
156. The Lightkeeper's Daughters by Jean Pendziwol
157. The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark

December

158. Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman
159. Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown
160. A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult
161. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway
162. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
163. The East End in Colour by David Granick
164. Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
165. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

A couple of years ago I started a new NF challenge, which is to read the non-fiction winners of the Pulitzer prize. I stole this idea from Reba, who was doing a fiction challenge (and has now finished it. Hi Reba!) This is a long-term project, rather than something to be completed in a year or two. If I can't find the relevant non-fiction winner easily in the UK, I propose to substitute the winner of the history category.

Last year I didn't make great progess, so I'd like to read at least five this year.

Here's the full list:



2018 Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman
2017 Evicted by Matthew Desmond
2016 Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick
2015 The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
2014 Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin
2013 Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King
2012 The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
2011 The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2010 The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman



2009 Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A Blackmon
2008 The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 by Saul Friedländer
2007 The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
2006 Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins
2005 Ghost Wars by Steve Coll
2004 Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
2003 A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
2002 Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter
2001 Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P Bix
2000 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower



1999 Annals of the Former World by John McPhee
1998 Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
1997 Ashes To Ashes: America's Hundred-Year Cigarette War, The Public Health, And The Unabashed Triumph Of Philip Morris by Richard Kluger
1996 The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg
1995 The Beak Of The Finch: A Story Of Evolution In Our Time by Jonathan Weiner
1994 Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days Of The Soviet Empire by David Remnick
1993 Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
1992 The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money & Power by Daniel Yergin
1991 The Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward O Wilson
1990 And Their Children After Them by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson



1989 A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
1988 The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
1987 Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land by David K Shipler
1986 Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by J Anthony Lukas
1986 Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld
1985 The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two by Studs Terkel
1984 The Social Transformation Of American Medicine by Paul Starr
1983 Is There No Place On Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan
1982 The Soul of A New Machine by Tracy Kidder
1981 Fin-De Siecle Vienna: Politics And Culture by Carl E Schorske
1980 Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R Hofstadter



1979 On Human Nature by Edward O Wilson
1978 The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
1977 Beautiful Swimmers by William W Warner
1976 Why Survive? Being Old In America by Robert N Butler
1975 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
1974 The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
1973 Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald
1973 Children of Crisis, Vols. II and III by Robert Coles
1972 Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 by Barbara W Tuchman
1971 The Rising Sun by John Toland
1970 Gandhi's Truth by Erik H Erikson



1969 The Armies Of The Night by Norman Mailer
1969 So Human An Animal by Rene Jules Dubos
1968 Rousseau And Revolution, The Tenth And Concluding Volume Of The Story Of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant
1967 The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture by David Brion Davis
1966 Wandering Through Winter by Edwin Way Teale
1965 O Strange New World by Howard Mumford Jones
1964 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
1963 The Guns of August by Barbara W Tuchman
1962 The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H White

I have a few series on the go, so in this post I'm going to list them so that I don't forget where I'm up to. Reading in order is important to me :-)

Series I have started and still have squillions to go *happy sigh*

I'm going to list these in date order, because why not.

Steven Saylor's Gordianus the Finder (about 100 BC)

Roman Blood
Arms of Nemesis

Ruth Downie's Medicus (Britannia, 108)

Medicus
Terra Incognita

Priscilla Royal's Eleanor, Prioress of Tyndal (East Anglia, 11th century)

Wine of Violence

Ellis Peters' Cadfael (Shropshire, 1135 - 1145)

A Morbid Taste for Bones
One Corpse Too Many
Monk's Hood

Bernard Knight's Crowner John (Devon, 1190s)

The Sanctuary Seeker
The Poisoned Chalice

Cassandra Clark's Abbess of Meaux (Yorkshire, 1380s)

Hangman Blind
The Red Velvet Turnshoe

Michael Pearce's Mamur Zapt (Egypt, 1908)

The Mamur Zapt and the Return of the Carpet

Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver (England, 1920s/1930s)

Grey Mask
The Case is Closed

John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee

The Deep Blue Goodbye

Mal Sjowall's Martin Beck

Roseanna

John Sandford's Lucas Davenport

Rules of Prey

Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch

The Black Echo

John Harvey's Charlie Resnick

Lonely Hearts
Rough Treatment
Cutting Edge

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Agent Pendergast

Relic
Reliquary

Harry Bingham's Fiona Griffiths

Talking to the Dead
Love Story, With Murders

Mari Hannah's Kate Daniels

The Murder Wall

Stuart MacBride's Logan McRae

Cold Granite
Dying Light
Broken Skin
Flesh House
Blind Eye
Dark Blood

Manda Scott's Ines Picaut

Into the Fire

Susan Mallery's Mischief Bay

The Girls of Mischief Bay

Series I'm caught up with and waiting for the next one *tapping foot*

Attica Locke's Highway 59

Bluebird, Bluebird

Lee Child's Jack Reacher, obvs
C J Box's Joe Pickett
Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon
Elly Griffiths' Dr Ruth Galloway
Vaseem Khan's Baby Ganesh Agency
Abir Mukherjee's Sam Wyndham
Lynne Truss's Constable Twitten

Not really a series but I need to keep track of my Dick Francis finishes (Hi Julia!)

Proof

Happy new thread, Susan!

Thanks for the explanation on your previous thread - I thought it was something like a guardian for children but couldn't quite figure out the adult angle.

Also, if I may be so lazy as to not bother Googling, what does RIPA stand for? I'm thinking the PA might be Parliamentary Act?

153. Because of Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

This is the first in a new series, about the Rokesby family, although the heroine of this book is a Bridgerton. I'm not quite sure how her branch fits with the better-known Bridgerton characters, but this book has everything you would expect from a Julia Quinn romance, even if I'm not sure that "exact same" was a Georgian expression, or that "Really?" was used as it is today, or that "I'm right here" was common. But hey ho :-) I'm definitely going to get book 2 when I'm allowed books again.



154. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

I've forgotten who read this and loved it, but I immediately reserved it and finally it arrived. I'd also forgotten what it was about, and it turned out to be set in the near future, when abortion and IVF had both been banned in the US. It's the stories of four women living in a very wet town in Oregon and how the ban/expectations about parenthood affected them, and I loved it. So thank you to whoever it was!

I'm making good progress with Rise and Kill First, too. And I watched Operation Finale on Netflix last night, which is about Israel's capture of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, which is one of the episodes in the book.

>6 katiekrug: Hi Katie! RIPA = the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. We already have one, which regulates what methods the government can use to collect information about people, but in Bodyguard Julia was trying to introduce a tougher version which would have given even more power to the security services and allowed them to collect more information.

Thank you! I love having my own personal expert :)

>9 katiekrug: Ha! Always happy to delve into legal nerdiness :-) I'm not sure if you have seen Making a Murderer, but I LOVED series 2 for that fabulous new lawyer and all the legal nerdery. Dramatically it was a bit of a bust, but I learned so much!

Happy New thread, Susan. >:-)

>10 susanj67: - I watched part of the first season, but I found it so infuriating, I couldn't continue. Bad for my blood pressure :)

Happy new thread, Susan. If you loved Red Clocks, it was me. I also loved it. Unfortunately, it seems it might be close to what is happening here now.

>11 Helenliz: Thanks Helen!

>12 katiekrug: Katie, yes, I can see why. It's an immensely frustrating situation.

>13 BLBera: Beth, yay! Thank you :-) I hope sanity will start to return now that the mid-terms are over.

Currently reading:

Happy new thread! Red Clocks looks like a great read

Wow, thread 11 -- that's one a month!! I'm most impressed.

Happy new thread!

>15 figsfromthistle: Thanks Anita! I thought Red Clocks was great, and definitely recommend it.

>16 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks Reba :-) I'm only five threads behind Amber now!

>17 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

No!vember faced its strongest test so far yesterday when I went to the library to return the Julia Quinn. There is a display of books for the Write Idea festival, which is a Tower Hamlets book festival with local authors. And a couple looked particularly good (and brand new). I picked them up. I read the blurbs. I thought that surely I could just bookhorn them in...but then I put them back, and typed the titles into the list of library books I keep on my phone. If they're at my library I will see them again.

I'm halfway through The Turn of Midnight, which is a decent enough read. Fortunately there's a recap of the key bits of book 1 at the beginning because I couldn't remember much about it. And I read a bit of Rise and Kill First last night too. The title is based on a verse from the Babylonian Talmud: "If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first". I like that and might adopt it as a motto. Probably not for the office, though. My new office motto is "What would Kathleen Zellner do?" Making a Murderer fans will understand.

Happy new thread, Susan.

>18 susanj67: I am impressed that you are keeping up with No!vember so well but it sounds like there might be a strong backlash come December 1! Only 16 more days to go. I am counting them because for my November I joined NaNoWriMo which is basically writing 50,000 words of a book in the month. Why do people do these things to themselves in November - isn't the cold weather and time change enough to deal with? Sorry, feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Keep up the good work.

As long as we have the current president, things will never be sane around here.

Also impressed by all the restraint around here!

Did you see the Jack Reacher news?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46207601

>19 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! No!vember is going better than I thought :-) Good on you for doing NaNoWriMo - what are you writing?

>20 BLBera: Beth, I know, but at least the House is not on his side any more. Look at me referring to the US legislature like I know what I'm doing :-)

>21 charl08: Charlotte, ha! I suppose my track record isn't the best. I *did* see the Jack Reacher news, and I was delighted because there is no way that Tom Cruise is Jack. I was excited to see that there is going to be a series - I hope it comes to Netflix and not Amazon, although I do have the Fire stick with Prime potential :-)

I'm closing in on finishing The Turn of Midnight, and I think I'll have tomorrow as a day's holiday so yay for that.

>21 charl08: I had not seen the Jack Reacher news, so thanks for that, Charlotte. What a relief that they are ditching Cruise. I never watched either of the movies because it just didn't seem like they could be any good with that casting.

>22 susanj67: Hi, Susan! You are remaining stalwart in No!Vember. I am in awe.

>23 rosalita: Hi Julia! I *am* remaining stalwart, and was proud of myself yesterday when I found a whole lot of new ebooks on the library site and didn't reserve or borrow any. Still, we all know what pride comes before...

BOOM! It comes before fall-down-go-boom! :-)

>25 rosalita: Yeah...I'm going to the supermarket at lunchtime, as a displacement activity. No books there. Well, there are some, but not to borrow, and there is no ban on buying stuff during No!vember. I rely on just being too cheap to do that :-)

I returned two books to the library yesterday, and picked up two more.

What's No!vember?

Heh.

>25 rosalita: Right. This is what I am waiting for. I can't believe she has kept me waiting for fifteen whole days already.

Hello, Susan! Good job with the staying strong.

>27 katiekrug: Katie, it's good to hear that someone is keeping the library system going :-)

>28 Crazymamie: Mamie, all y'all are just making me stronger. You know that, right?

Over lunch I was listening to one of the "brain training" exercises on the Curable app, and it involves putting an elastic band around one wrist and snapping it when you start to do bad things like catastrophising about pain. I am going to start snapping it when I think about library books too.

155. The Turn of Midnight by Minette Walters

This is a follow-up to last year's book The Last Hours, about the Black Death. It started well, but got bogged down in an endless trial involving two of the main characters, and by the end I was just glad to be finished with it. I think the story could actually have been told, more concisely, as part of a longer book 1.

I have a day of holiday today. I think I'll go out and get some steps in to start with, as the alternative seems to be sitting at home watching the government fall. I also want to read The Lightkeeper's Daughters, which is due back on Monday, and make some progress with Rise and Kill First. And maybe do some filing of endless paperwork.

Happy Friday, Susan. I haven't read the first one yet, but it sounded interesting. Good to know I can pass on the second.

Hey, you're having some politics news yourselves these days, with the Brexit mess. As if I know anything about that.:) And yes, at least the entire government will no longer rubber stamp the Bull Horn.

>31 BLBera: Hi Beth! Yes, all the news is political here. Yesterday they had talking heads on Sky News discussing when in the last *thousand years* the country had been in such a pickle. I do love living in a country with that much history, but I thought it was a bit over the top.

Today's goal: Finish The Lightkeeper's Daughters. I got a bit sidetracked yesterday by Staircase on Netflix (truly nuts) and I also went OUT (gasp).

1000 years? Ha! Although I did enjoy the Brexiteer telling the cameras not to get into such a flap.

Hope you have a great weekend. I am enjoying having lots to choose from to read next after unpacking.

The entire debate does seem to have descended into people wanting their cake and wanting to eat it as well. You can't possibly negotiate two mutually exclusive scenarios at once, it's not logical. Hey ho.
If anyeone knows of a nice secluded desert siland going spare, I may just up sticks and move until it's all sorted. Be back sometime in the next decade, I expect.
Hope the reading is good, even if the world is going to hell in a handcart.

>33 charl08: Charlotte, yes, a thousand years. And of course Winston Churchill featured. I had to snap my rubber band very hard on your thread :-( It sounds like you got some lovely things, though!

>34 Helenliz: Helen, it's madness. I haven't been keeping up with it today but I might read up on where they're up to tomorrow morning. Apparently Dominic Raab is going on the Andrew Marr show. That might be worth a watch :-) One of my friends said surely he should be driving down the M20 to see whether the English Channel is really a thing, and which side Dover is on.



156. The Lightkeeper's Daughters by Jean Pendziwol

I read about this on Charlotte's thread and it was available at a branch not far from me, so I walked down one lunchtime (before No!vember). And it was a really good read, so thank-you Charlotte! It's set partly in the present day and partly back in the 1930s, and both parts worked well.

I just went to the library to return The Lightkeeper's Daughters, and Unsheltered was *right there on the new fiction shelf OMG*. I have this reserved as an ebook, so technically I *could* have grabbed the hard copy and cancelled the e reservation without breaking the rules of No!vember, but instead I snapped my elastic band a couple of times and walked slowly away.

What I should really have done is taken it to the desk and pointed out that a hundred people were probably waiting for it and they might like to consult their reservations list and send it on, but I didn't. I hope someone else sees it today and goes squeee! and grabs it.

That leaves me Rise and Kill First, Merchants of Doubt and Dark Water, and nothing in the e format at the moment, although I'm now #1 on 1 copy of Ma'am Darling and #2 on 1 copy of the Kingsolver. And Five Giants is coming along on the Kindle, from my own library.

Happy Monday, Susan!

We finished watching 'Bodyguard' this weekend and I thought the ending was super lame. Not the Nadia is actually a baddie bit, but the whole organized crime bit. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but maybe that's because as an American, I didn't realize the connection between RIPA and organized crime? I don't know. It just felt like they included all these red herrings and then just plucked something random out at the last minute. I felt kind of cheated somehow.

Hi Katie!

Yes, it was a slightly odd ending, and I still can't believe that the writer killed off Keeley like that. Everyone thought it couldn't possibly be true, and when the BBC announced a Q&A with the writer after episode 4, and asked for questions by text, Keeley asked "Is Julia Montague still alive?". I definitely liked the first half better than the second. And the RIPA/organised crime link was a bit tenuous, but then increased snooping powers would affect everyone, good and bad, so I suppose that's why they did it. Everyone focuses on terrorism, but it's a threat to anyone who is up to no good. The guy who played Luke (the baddie), and who was seen picking Chanel up in the first episode, was apparently an important character in another show, so people said after the first episode that a good actor wouldn't have been cast for some no-name role and must be important in the end.

Very excited by the John Le Carre series, although bit embarrassing, what I thought was a pleasingly open ending turned out to be episode 3 of 6 (I blame Wikipedia! )

Hope No!vember continues apace. I am impatiently waiting for many reservations (as usual) despite having far Too Many Books.

Hi Charlotte! I couldn't understand what that Le Carre series was all about, so I gave up. Then I saw something in the paper saying that lots of other people also wondered. I'm glad you could work it out!

No!vember continues to go well, even though I know there are certain people (Hi Mamie!) who think I will fail. Well, we'll see :-) I took Dark Water back to the library yesterday as I couldn't be bothered with it. But the second one of that crime series with the nun came in on reserve, so I have that. FLA recommended Cutting For Stone, but I'd already read it. Plus, of course, No!vember.

I fear the amount of times the young hero took his shirt off in the fourth episode may have been directly related to concerns re the er, oblique style losing people. On the plus side, no mumbling.

Well done re the self control on the books, although how lucky that FLA's recommendation was already in the read pile... close escape that.

I have faith that you will continue to enjoy a successful No!vember, Susan.

Thanks for the additional context on 'Bodyguard.' It makes sense, but I'm still annoyed ;-)

>41 charl08: Charlotte, good news about the lack of mumbling in the Le Carre. So much new stuff seems to be shot in the dark, with mumbling. Day 24 of No!vember and I'm still staying strong!

>42 katiekrug: Thanks Katie :-) Sorry that Bodyguard didn't work for you, particularly as I went on and ON about it.

This morning I went to the Anglo-Saxon Worlds: Art, Word, War exhibition at the British Library, which is getting five-star reviews. https://www.bl.uk/events/anglo-saxon-kingdoms . And it is very good indeed. It goes through chronologically but also with certain themes, and works really well. Most of the exhibits are books, but there are also artefacts including jewellery and some coins. The descriptions of the exhibits were excellent too. Booking is recommended (but it always is) but I got there at about 9.45 and bought a ticket to go straight in and it wasn't very busy at all. When I came out about 90 minutes later, though, it was pretty busy so I would say either go early or book if you want to go later. It will probably be less busy mid-week, for people who aren't chained to a desk. The gift shop swag is pretty good, and I bought a couple of bookmarks but no books, although I was tempted by Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is available as a Penguin Classic. (As is the Domesday Book, in fact. I've never seen that one before as a Penguin, but it looks longer than Clarissa. Brrr.)

When I got home my new pillow had arrived from QVC. It's a firm support Sealy one, and tempting though it is to pop a pillowcase on it and give it a try, I mustn't :-) Instead, I think I'll read my crime novel set in a nunnery in 1383. It's outside the Anglo-Saxon period, but not by too much. Well, by English standards. Evidently I have now lived here long enough to dismiss 200 years as not very long :-)

"Evidently I have now lived here long enough to dismiss 200 years as not very long :-)"-- LOL
or maybe 200 years that was more than a thousand years ago seems not very long.

>43 susanj67: I was there as well. I had a ticket for 10 am, and I didn't come out until 12:30. I did sucumb to the exhibition catalogue.

Ooh you're still stay strong not much longer now! I decided to write a mystery since I spend so much time reading them.

>43 susanj67: Looks good Susan, I'm tempted. Did you get the leather bookmarks with the quotes on? (I may have spent some time on their online shop.)

>44 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes, I'm sure that's it :-))

>45 Helenliz: Helen, what a coincidence! You must have been going round just after me (I was wearing a purple puffa (of course)). I'm glad you loved it too. So many old treasures - it's amazing what they could do with such basic materials and no fancy lights. And some of the old books were only marginally grubbier than the current stock at my library. Among the many interesting things I learned was that one of the recipes in an old "herbal" was followed recently and found to be effective against an antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA.

>46 Familyhistorian: Meg, that sounds excellent! I'm in awe of the NaNoWriMo-ers - such a lot of words for a single month. I hope it turns out well.

>47 charl08: Charlotte, no, just the card ones. They had one with a dancing (?) lord type of figure and one (in various colours) with a rune pattern on it. I had a quick look at the web shop but I can't see them. They were only 50p each, though.

157. The Red Velvet Turnshoe by Cassandra Clark

This is book 2 in the Abbess of Meaux series, which Charlotte recommended, and which I really like :-) I found the plot of this one easier to follow than the first one, although the timeline and map at the front helped. (I had the large print edition from the library so felt guilty and read it quickly). In this instalment, Hildegard was sent to Italy to buy the cross of Constantine, but things did not go smoothly.

I'll get book 3 after Saturday :-)

>48 susanj67: Hmm. Maybe they weren't leather then. The perils of online shopping.

>49 susanj67: Glad this was OK. I still haven't read the first one, but just checked the library and they have a copy of A Parliament of Spies, so that's good (if you pay no attention to book order...).

I have a friend who wants to know what is meant by "outstanding" in this:

We were watching an episode of Vera where she explained to her new detective sergeant (DS) that her prior DS had been promoted and moved to a new house next to "an outstanding."

I thought you might be familiar with the term as used in the Northumberland area. Several people came up with theories--all different. I know what I had pictured too. The term was not in Oxford English Dictionary. The closest definition there was "†1. A projection, protuberance; the action or an act of standing or jutting out. Obsolete."

>50 charl08: Charlotte! I will pretend I didn't read that about book order.

>51 thornton37814: Lori, I really don't know. I can't see "outstanding" anywhere as a noun. We do have a concept of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, though, and part of the Northumberland coast is such an area. House prices would be higher than somewhere less nice. The fact that someone got promoted and moved would suggest that they bought somewhere more expensive. But I've still never heard the word used on its own like that.

>52 susanj67: Thanks for your input.

>48 susanj67: I don't remember seeing a purple puffa, but it was a bit dark in there. I had a black coat and pink scarf, but was carrying both, as I was indoors. I feel the cold but not quite that much!

I am so proud of your NOvember restraint, Susan. I read the first in the Clare series and liked it. I should get back to it.

>53 thornton37814: Lori, sorry I couldn't provide a definite answer - I'll probably see or hear it in the next couple of days now, so I might post again!

>54 Helenliz: Helen, yes it was dark, wasn't it?

>55 BLBera: Thanks Beth! My restraint was tested last night when I went to the library to return the Cassandra Clark and saw the new Tracy Borman on the new NF shelf. Look. How. Pretty.



But I'm pleased to say it is still on the shelf!

I have to share this very funny video made by the New Zealand government to encourage teachers in the UK to go home: http://teachbackhome.co.nz/ Click the "Watch the vid" link on the right-hand side, under the strapline "Now's the toym". I saw it last week at the beginning of a YouTube video and I've been sending it to Kiwis ever since.

>56 susanj67: Hi, Susan! The teachers video is very funny. I'm not sure I picked up on all of it, but the parts I understood were funny, anyway. :-)

The video made me laugh. Who is the actor? He looks very familiar.

I was trying to think of what they could say to make UK teachers come the other way.
Still thinking...

I am truly impressed by your self control! Only a few more days and it will be December. Are you going to go crazy?

>57 rosalita: Hi Julia! There were bits in there that I'm not sure I picked up either, which is a bit worrying!

>58 charl08: Charlotte, I don't recognise him but I have asked a friend in NZ who he is. He's probably massively famous down there. They should have used Sam Neill, in my opinion.

>59 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I'm really not sure if I will. I still have a couple of things to finish, and I'd like not to have a great big pile of library books over Christmas.

>60 susanj67: but is Mt. TBR looking better?

>56 susanj67: We found someone from Northumberland who verified it was basically what you said.

>61 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, no, not really. I'm still reading things that are coming in on reserve (reserved ages ago). I've made some progress with one NF chunkster on my Kindle, but that's about it so far.

>62 thornton37814: Lori, that's excellent! I'm glad you have a proper answer.

I started Ma'am Darling on the bus this morning (elibrary reserve which downloaded last night) and could feel myself developing republican tendencies. I'm still going with Rise and Kill First and Merchants of Doubt, but the latter is *whispers* really boring. And it's all about men, men and more men. It's great that women aren't responsible for all the fake science discussed (so far) but still.

>63 susanj67: Strong words about republican tendencies, but if any royal could bring out that reaction it would be Margaret, I reckon. I saw a meme on Twitter yesterday that read "Given that the Windsors are really the Saxe-Coburg Gothas, will they get to stay in the UK after Brexit, or will this privilege be extended to skilled migrants only?" It was signed "Barry Shitsgibbons, Australia" which I suspect might possibly be an alias. ;-)

>64 rosalita: Julia, yes, they will be able to stay :-) They were all naturalised long ago, save for Meghan, but Brexit doesn't affect her. She is currently here on a family visa, I believe, but there are rumours her mother is moving over and that is likely to create a bit of a fuss, visa-wise.

>63 susanj67: Facebook is great for crowd-sourcing things like that if you leave it open enough that friends can tag friends. That's how we got a verified answer.

>66 thornton37814: Lori, I suppose it's more useful than endless cat and panda videos!

I made some decent progress with Rise and Kill First last night, and I hope to finish it over the weekend. I'm also now 21% into Ma'am Darling, which has made me plan to watch series 2 of The Crown over Christmas when I have 11 days off in a row, but using only 4 days of holiday. I will watch an episode every day for ten days. Or, knowing me, binge-watch it over two days and wish I'd spun it out a bit :-)

I have the second season of The Crown still to watch, too...

>68 katiekrug: Katie, at least season 3 isn't ready yet, so we're not *really* behind (even though season 2 came out last Christmas).

I just went for a walk down to the big supermarket nearish to work, to get in a few steps. So windy out there! But not cold, fortunately. And when I go by myself (instead of with Super-Fit Friend) I get the DLR back up to the office. Heh.

>69 susanj67: I enjoyed Season 2 of The Crown, and I'm looking forward to seeing Olivia Colman as QEII in Season 3. I just adore her acting in everything I've seen her in.

Now that we have "cut the cable" and are streaming our TV we've caught up with several favorites including The Crown, Doc Martin and A Place to Call Home (which has actually ended). We tried an episode of Vera last night (interesting) and have watched some Endeavor, Midsummer Murders, Foyle's War, Ancient Civilizations and Penelope Keith's Coastal Villages. What else should we try?

>71 RebaRelishesReading: - Reba, have you watched The Marvelous Mrs. Masiel on Amazon Prime? I resisted it at first, but it's delightful. The second series comes out next week.

Thanks, Katie. I saw it listed but we haven't tried it. I will suggest we do so soon.

Nice holiday coming up, Susan. Any other plans?

>48 susanj67: I finished, not the book but the 50,000 words. But I have an advantage over you because I could finish early. I can't believe the restraint you have shown for the WHOLE month! Hang in there Susan, December is just around the corner.

>70 rosalita: Julia, yes, she's very popular. The internet is a bit vague about when season 3 will be available but apparently they're shooting it back to back with season 4 so they might be close together.

>71 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I *loved* A Place to Call Home, but we only got the first two series here. I looked it up this morning just to make sure it was the same programme you were referring to and I see that there are six series! Humph. Other suggestions:

Grantchester
The Durrells
Inspector George Gently
Shetland
Home Fires
Doctor Blake Mysteries (Australian series)
The Brokenwood Mysteries (New Zealand series set just north of Auckland, a bit like Midsomer Murders)

Also, keep an eye out for a series called Dickensian, which is a BBC production from three or four years ago. It's a mash-up of various Dickens characters and plots which I admit doesn't sound that promising, but it was really good. The BBC made 30-minute episodes and scheduled it like a soap opera. But despite great reviews they didn't commission a second series. The first one is a full story, though, so it doesn't just cut out part-way through.

>72 rosalita: Hi Julia!

>73 katiekrug:, >74 RebaRelishesReading: Charlotte also liked that one.

>75 BLBera: Beth, no plans yet, but I'll see what's on.

>76 Familyhistorian: Meg, congratulations on all your words! That's a fabulous result. And a day early! It seems like we have both had successful months :-)

I'm still going with Rise and Kill First, but I'm about 120 pages from the end now. And 44% through Ma'am Darling. Princess Margaret was dreadful. That seems to be the consensus. Apparently she was good material for diarists and people who lived off gossip, as every dinner or house party resulted in a cracking story they could pass on, but even they began to think that the price was too high.

>77 susanj67: Hmph. The Brokenwood Mysteries does not appear to be available on U.S. Netflix.

>78 rosalita: Julia, it seems to be on Amazon Prime in the US :-(

>Oh! I didn't think to look there. I do have Amazon Prime, yay.

Edited to add: But it's only available if you also have an Acorn TV subscription. Back to hmph.

Susan, have you found an advent calender for this year yet? Wondering what excitements we can experience vicariously this year. I have a tea calender waiting for window number 1 tomorrow.

>80 rosalita: Well, I see they offer a free week :-) I must investigate my Fire TV stick a bit more to see what we have in the UK. Prime does seem to get expensive with all the add-ons, though. (And they're no longer supposed to claim next-day delivery here, because quite often they take longer.)

>81 Helenliz: Helen, I have one from Thorntons (which is chocolate, for those outside the UK). The beauty advents all got a bit much. One of my pals here at work has the M&S one this year and can't wait for tomorrow to start it!

>83 susanj67: People who go to the UK often bring me back Thorntons chocolates. They are yummy!

>77 susanj67: Thanks for the great list of recommendations. We have watched George Gently and Home Fires in the past but I'm sure there are more episodes of each that we haven't seen.

A Place to Call Home is on Acorn here. You can either go there via Amazon Prime and pay per episode or subscribe for $5.99/month (or close to that, not sure). Acorn has a lot of British, Australian and New Zealand series which tend to be our favorites so it is well worth the little additional cost to subscribe. A Place to Call Home is wonderful -- keep tissues handy!

>84 thornton37814: Lori, yes, they are popular here. I've just had my first chocolate from the calendar and it was excellent :-)

>85 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, how handy to have a place for all the British TV :-) I looked at the BBC iPlayer yesterday and they seemed to have screened series 5 of A Place to Call Home at some point, so I think I must have just seen series 1 and 2 when those were the only ones, and then thought that it was finished. They showed the first two series in an afternoon slot, which might be why I missed the next ones.

I'm pleased to say that I resisted reserving or randomly borrowing library books for the whole of No!vember! I don't even think I bought any, although that was actually allowed. But I've still got existing reserves coming in, and last night Unsheltered arrived, so I'm looking forward to that. The elibrary seems to have bought another copy of it which might be why it arrived earlier than I thought it would.

Congratulations on successfully navigating No!vember, Susan. I knew you could do it! And I hope the library is prepared for the pent-up demand coming its way in Yes!cember.

>86 susanj67: I can't remember now whether there were 5 or 6 seasons of A Place to Call Home but you know when you get to the end because there is a little summary of what happened to each of the main characters after the show. On Amazon/Acorn you can access them any time you want, no "broadcast times" to worry about.

We watched another Foyle's War last night. We thought we had seen most of them when they were being broadcast by PBS but now we've seen two in a row that were new to us.

>87 rosalita: Thanks Julia! I did reserve the Tana French today, but it's not out here until the end of February, so I thought that was quite restrained :-)

>88 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, the internet says that there are 6 series. The first two are available on one of the channels on my Fire stick, so I'll wait a bit and see if the rest become available.

I have not read any words today. Oh dear. But I *did* do lots of steps. Maybe I'll hit the books tomorrow. Or I could go to bed right now and start Unsheltered. Ooh :-)

>89 susanj67: February?! I find that so odd that a book by an Irish author would be published so much earlier in the US than the UK!

>90 rosalita: Julia, that surprised me too. "The Witch Elm" shows up on Amazon as being available here in hard copy but the library page is still saying "Ordered", so they must be getting "The Wych Elm" or they would have had it by now. Fortunately I think I have enough to keep me going :-)

>91 susanj67: That's a relief. Let us know if things get scarce and we can organize some sort of LT Book Drop. :-)

>92 rosalita: Julia, will do!

It's 10.20 and I have done most of my Christmas shopping (online) and my TAX RETURN!!! Go me! It's not due until the end of January, so I feel ridiculously smug. So smug, in fact, that I might have my Advent chocolate right now. Ooh, coffee truffle - excellent.

I started Unsheltered last night and so far so good. I'm 10% of the way into it. But I need to make some progress with the hard copy books today...

>94 susanj67: Wow. I went to a bookshop and bought erm, some gifts plus some for me. Kind of worked. Ish.

Still waiting for Unsheltered (patiently as ever). On the plus side, the library has ordered four more copies.

>95 charl08: Charlotte, your bookshop trip sounds like more fun than buying gift vouchers online. It's so strange about Unsheltered. You would think that librarians would be all over it and be ordering lots of copies. But then that book about libraries that I read recently suggested that increasing numbers of libraries don't have book buying people any more, and just get sent stuff by a central library-book distribution company. Maybe they just send one of everything to start with.

>94 susanj67: of well done you! I did most of my Christmas shopping yesterday, I may hav followed Charloette's example... It was a local Christmas market, and I have to admit that the alcoholic purchases (of which there were several) were mostly for me. First Christmas do last night. Today's tea in the advent calendar is "clean and green", a detox tea... it's like it might be psychic!
Today I will mostly be doing very little.

>97 Helenliz: Helen, your shopping sounds productive. And first Christmas do already! I have only heard Fairytale of New York once so far, so things don't really feel that Christmassy :-) I hope your day of doing very little has gone well. I have been filing and tidying, but I am very close to finishing a book as well.

Congrats on completing NOvember, Susan! Your Saturday sounds very productive.

I liked Unsheltered - I'm glad it's working for you so far.

>99 BLBera: Thanks Beth! Yes, I have had a surprisingly productive weekend.



158. Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman

I saw this reviewed somewhere, and thought it might be interesting given my love of the Gabriel Allon novels. And it is. It's a very detailed look at how Israel has used assassination to get rid of opponents (something other countries don't do to the same extent, or at least admit to the same extent), and the way in which the various parts of the Israeli intelligence and military communities work together. If you're a Gabriel fan, this is a great read. You'll find yourself looking for parallels between his characters and the real people in the book. And you'll realise that operations run a lot more smoothly in novels than they do in real life.

Congrats on a most productive day. I don't even know what I'm going to get for the big grandkids yet but other than that I'm fairly far along.

>100 susanj67: That does sound interesting, Susan. I'm a big gobsmacked to think that the screwups that happen in the books are actually an improvement on real life, though!

Shopping, tax returns and assassinations - that is some weekend, Susan!

>101 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I amazed myself :-) I need to send something to my stepmother today but I know what it's going to be. Then I just have to get something for my secretary, who is going away over Christmas so I thought a set of travel-sized shower gel and moisturiser etc would be nice. I must find out when she's actually going.

>102 rosalita: Julia, yes, amazingly they are. In real life there has been a lot of unintended collateral damage - letter bombs killing the wrong people, bombs blowing up children as well as the intended adult targets, and so on. And that notorious case a few years ago where a team went to Dubai on false passports, often in the names of actual people, and got found out (albeit after the event) because the passports had been used before by the same people. Gabriel's team is altogether more focused and successful.

>103 PaulCranswick: Paul, when you put it like that, it was!

My Christmas tree has gone live in the office this morning. Well, not actually live. It's still a £6 fake one from Robert Dyas. But it has a new Lego ornament, and a new John Lewis felt animal. I try to get one every year, but last year's was a flamingo which doesn't go with my theme. This year it was (I thought) a goat, but when I was standing in the queue to pay for it on Saturday the girl behind me said "Excuse me, where did you find that dog?" (You can tell it's Christmas when Londoners start talking to one another in queues). I wanted to protest that it was a goat, but I looked it up on the website when I got home and it says "dog". Humph. Anyway, he's a bit bigger than the other animals so I have hidden him around the back for the time being. He is very cute, though :-)

I looked at Merchants of Doubt last night and realised that I am a third of a way through it, which has spurred me on to keep going. It has a very long index and notes section, which is excellent :-)

>104 susanj67: No sign of Xmas decs here, although I am lobbying for a Real Tree.
I'm guessing it's not this one?

>105 charl08: Charlotte, LOL, no - not that one :-) This one:

>106 susanj67: I'm sorry to say that definitely looks like a dog to me, Susan. Not as much as the one Charlotte posted in >105 charl08:, granted. Although now that I've said that I can't quite put my finger on WHY I think it's definitely a dog. I think a goat would have a shorter tail?

Maybe British goats look different than American ones...?

Heh.

Either way, the ornament is cute!

Yes, definitely cute! Both of them.

>107 rosalita:, >108 katiekrug:, >109 rosalita: *Sniff* :-)

Look at this goat:



Floppy ears, eyes high on the head...I see a resemblance. But a dog also fits my Woodland Christmas theme, which is lucky.

That is a cute goat!

I was wondering what your theme was if a flamingo didn't fit, and now I know. I certainly have not seen many flamingos in the forest!

Susan, are you sure your "flamingo" is really a flamingo? Maybe it's a squirrel.

*ducks and runs*

>111 rosalita: Julia, yes, last year was a bit random on the felt ornaments front. They usually have half a dozen themed collections.

>112 katiekrug: Katie, it was pink, so I think it was a flamingo. Mind you, my favourite toy as a baby was apparently a pink squirrel, which went by the name of Pink Squirrel.

Oh, that's funny!

>112 katiekrug: *snort*

>113 susanj67: Glad someone else had a systematic method of naming toys. I had a 4ft teddy bear called, inventively enough, Big Ted. He sits on the floor next to my desk in my study, and is, I note, currently wearing my straw sun hat.

Love the Christmas ornaments. We helped friends decorate their tree last night and it was such fun to see what other's have and hear some of the stories. Our ornaments are pretty much all ones that we were either given or that we bought on a trip. I love getting them out and remembering good time and good friends each year.

>113 susanj67: Well, you can always say it is a pink squirrel.

Kudos for making it through No!vember, Susan.

>114 katiekrug: Katie, I doubt I could ever say the name, though. By the time I could talk, dolls had entered my life.

>115 Helenliz: Helen, it must be nice to have Big Ted still. My stepmother had one of those cane "peacock" chairs on a staircase landing with lots of the old toys on it, but I think they then went to new homes. She did get the dolls' eyes fixed, though. Anne-Marie (named after a friend's little sister) and Mia (named after my mother's hairdresser's daughter, who famously flushed her father's ties down the loo) even got new eyelashes :-) Victoria-doll was all plastic, with no real hair or eyes so was therefore immune to damage. It took one of my friends YEARS to realise the significance of her dolls being called Christine and Mandy - suggestions from her wicked parents :-) *

>116 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, that sounds like a nice evening. I'm not sure what happened to the family ornaments, but I'd like the angel we used to have at the top of our tree.

>117 Familyhistorian: Thanks Meg! So far in Yes!cember (copyright: Julia) I've reserved three things and borrowed two. Ahem.

The two I borrowed last night were Bluebird, Bluebird, for which Charlotte is to blame, and A Spark of Light, which I saw on Katie's thread.

I'm now 20% through Unsheltered and Princess Margaret continues to horrify me. I'm only reading that one on the bus, though, so it's slow going due to my short commute.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profumo_affair for overseas readers :-)

Yikes, Christine and Mandy dolls...

I'm lost in John Lewis land decorating (as yet non-existant) trees. Did they have the owls when you went in?
https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-partners-amber-fluffy-owl-tree-decoration-b...

The Princess Margaret book sounded mad just from the review. Perhaps short doses are for the best.

>119 charl08: Charlotte, I didn't notice the owls, but then I wasn't looking for them. I was in the big branch in Oxford Street, which probably had everything. I bought the goat dog because I wasn't sure I'd see it again at the Wharf, which has a much smaller collection.



159. Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown

As its title suggests, this is a book with 99 very short chapters (some only a page or two, on my *phone*) about Princess Margaret. It's very well done as a book, but the Princess doesn't come out of it well. If you're a royal fan you'll love this anyway because there is so much royal information in it. And if you're a republican you'll be confirmed in your views about royalty. Really it has something for everyone :-)

The most interesting thing I learned was that modern horoscopes date from the time of Princess Margaret's birth. A newspaper editor, casting about for something interesting to print about the event, asked the paper's astrologer to predict what the future held for her. The astrologer was away, but his assistant decided to do it, and it was so popular with readers that the assistant was asked to keep going and write predictions for the general public. He realised there was no way he could do it for the 365 possible birth days, so he decided on 12 groups, and named them after constellations. And the modern horoscope was born. I know that astrology has been around for millennia, but I never realised that the "star signs" as we know them are actually a 20th century invention.

I had no idea about modern horoscopes! The things I learn from your thread, Susan, could fill a ... well, library! :-)

>120 susanj67: Star signs only from mid-20th century?!? Who knew?

>121 rosalita: Julia, I think the horoscope thing may be my most interesting fact of the year. Not that I keep a list. Maybe I *should* keep a list...

>122 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I know! I'll be on the lookout for people in historical novels referring to their star signs now :-)

I read a bit more of Merchants of Doubt last night, but gave in quite quickly and went to bed to red Unsheltered on my Kindle. It's good, but I don't love the parallel story thing (one strand modern, one historical - there's probably a name for it). I'm more interested in the modern story. I'm a third of the way through it now, and I want to focus on it so the gazillion people after me don't have to wait too long.

Some lists!

The best tech books of 2018, from the Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/tech-books-2018-gift-guide-a4009271.html

The best history books, from History Today: https://www.historytoday.com/history-today/best-history-books-2018

And the BBC's "ultimate guide" to the best books of 2018: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/SM82NZbRrY6XYY42WzMvrQ/your-ultimate-gu...

I started Unsheltered last night and got about 4 pages in when Hubby came in and said he thought we should watch a little TV...I hope to get back to it today.

Hey Susan. Thanks for the lists. I think I'll look at them instead of grading another essay. :)

>106 susanj67: Love the dog ornament, and I'm sorry to say it doesn't look like a goat to me, either.

Morning Susan. We made it to Friday again. I started the History Today list and had to stop because there was lots of stuff I wanted. My library has a copy of Frederick Douglass: prophet of freedom, so there's my reading for Xmas. Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium also sounds good.

>125 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I hope the TV was good, at least! Last night I found the list of extra channels we can add to Prime, like your Acorn. There is nothing nearly as good!

>126 BLBera: Beth, I'll try and find some more lists for you :-)

>127 charl08: Hi Charlotte! Yes, finally Friday. I have to teach contract law to 30 sixth-formers shortly, and then review 700-odd pages of documents, but eventually it will be home time. I wrote that opium book down a while ago and must get back to finding it. However, my library reserve list now seems to be filled up again. I don't know how that happened. It's just a blur.

>127 charl08: I keep eyeing the Frederick Douglass book. He was a most interesting and impressive man!

>128 susanj67: It helped me go to sleep anyway :) Too bad you can't get Acorn :(

Trouble with it being Friday is that it'll soon be Monday. We're bing audited on Monday, and I'm in charge. I'm sick with nerves already. >:-S
Re-reading Harry Potter 5 to try and take my mind of it. It's certainly big enough...

However, my library reserve list now seems to be filled up again. I don't know how that happened. It's just a blur.

Susan, I think it's possible your library account may have been hacked, and someone else is filling up your holds list. You might want to check into that ... maybe change your password.

>129 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, all these lists are very dangerous!

>130 Helenliz: Helen, a Monday *and* an audit? Is that even allowed by the laws of the universe?

>131 rosalita: OMG Julia, you could be right! The reserves do seem to be things I would like, though. Maybe I actually have a useful hacker with my best interests at heart.

This weekend I am going to finish Merchants of Doubt. That is all.

>132 susanj67:, well I thought not, but it seems it is. It *should* all be fine, but the doubts have started creeping in. What if there's some massive hole I've missed? This is where being in a small company is a disadvantage, if it all goes Pete Tong, it's all my fault, no one to share the blame with.

Love the thought that your library reserves have magically refilled themselves as soon as No!vember was over. No idea how that happened, none at all.

>133 Helenliz: Helen, has there ever been a massive hole you've missed before? I doubt it. Have faith in yourself! Two of my library reserves are waiting for me. Yay :-)



160. A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult

I saw this on Katie's thread, but couldn't reserve it due to No!vember. So imagine how pleased I was to find it on the New Fiction shelf at the library earlier in the week. It's set on a single day, in a family planning clinic in Mississippi where an anti-abortion protester has killed members of staff and is holding a number of people hostage. It's told backwards - starting late in the afternoon and going back to the morning. I liked the way that my assumptions about the characters at the "end" of the day were slowly turned upside-down as I read the "earlier" hours. It was very well done.

Regular visitors may think "But wait - this is not Merchants of Doubt now, is it?" And no, it is not. I just picked it up to read a couple of chapters...and kept going. But I'm nearly finished with Merchants, honest. Watch this space. But, you know, keep breathing and everything.

161. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway

Oof. This was a dense read. It's a very important topic, and this book will undoubtedly be important as a record of the campaigns run against science and in favour of the free market, but it's hard going. There is a "macro" side to it, which explains why there is so much fake controversy created about things like second-hand smoke, acid rain, global warming and so on, and that works really well. (The answer is that regulation -> socialism -> communism in the minds of the people involved). But a lot of it is very "micro" - looking in detail at how reports were written and who changed bits of them and who changed the next bits and how the changes were misrepresented in the summary etc - bewilderingly detailed and really only of interest to the people working in those fields. It got bogged down in detail which disrupted the broader narrative. It's fortunate, really, that all these controversies happened before Twitter and the book was written in 2010, because if it had contained all the tweeting and general social media mayhem it would have been about half a million pages long.

>124 susanj67: Thanks so much for the links, Susan. Very interesting.
Have a wonderful Sunday.

The Picoult sounds good, and Merchants of Doubt sounds interesting, but too much for me right now.

So, what's next?

And, do you have a huge pile waiting for you at the library?

Ha, I have just discovered the drawback to unlimited reserves. They all come in at the same time! Maybe No!vember was good for a reset, Susan.

>136 Ameise1: Glad you enjoyed them, Barbara :-)

>137 BLBera: Beth, I have Unsheltered to finish (I'm 63% of the way through it now) and then Bluebird, Bluebird. At the library the new Ellie Griffiths, The Stranger Diaries, is waiting (reserved before No!vember), and The East End in Colour, which I saw in the London evening paper last week. That's mostly photos though. I'm hoping to see my street when it was still part of the docks. Maybe even the warehouse that used to be where my building is now.

>138 Familyhistorian: Meg, yes, that is a problem :-) I've reserved a few things that are still on order, according to the library catalogue, so I'm hoping to stretch them out a bit.

>134 susanj67: audit concluded. Me now looking like this: >:-D
And stuffing my face with a cupcake.

>140 Helenliz: Helen, that's excellent! I'm also glad I now have a "reason" for the five Christmas chocolates I have just eaten. Cheers!

>140 Helenliz: Hurray!

>141 susanj67: I am very happy to help. >:-)

>142 charl08: Hi Charlotte!

>143 Helenliz: Thank you Helen - that is very generous of you :-)



162. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

I'm amazed I got this so quickly from the elibrary as I started #7 on 1 copy, I think. It's an excellent read, but involves two separate storylines and I definitely preferred the modern one. I *loved* Willa and her family, and I'll confess to reading the chapters set in the 1870s impatient to get back to the modern narrative. I think that really it could have stood on its own. I can see what the author was trying to do with the two storylines, though. Highly recommended.

Nice review, Susan. Parallel storylines can be tricky to do well. So often one or the other is so much more compelling that it detracts from what the author was trying to accomplish. Sounds like that might have been the case here.

>144 susanj67: I'm still #27 in the library queue. But at least there is more than one copy in the library system now!

>145 rosalita: Thanks Julia! Yes, I do often find that with parallel storylines.

>146 charl08: Charlotte, you will get there!

I've just been watching my favourite beauty vlogger over lunch. She went to an Ulta shop and bought $800 of makeup. I'd never seen inside one before but OMG! It's cosmetic heaven. I've located the one in Manhattan on Google maps, but when I clicked on "Directions", intending to put in my firm's NY office as my starting point, because I know where that is, Google told me that first I'd have to fly across the Atlantic, and that would take 7 hours and 35 minutes :-)

Let me know if there is something I can pick up for you from Ulta, Susan :)

>148 katiekrug: Katie, you are sweet :-) But I think I'd need most of a shipping container! It was just like the America of my old Seventeen magazines - all bright and beautiful with endless choice. When I eventually make it back to NY I think I'll definitely be going through the customs red channel on my return to London. The vlogger (who is Canadian) was at an LA branch with her husband, who was doing the filming as she skipped around trying everything. Occasionally he would film himself yawning in a mirror, and there were comments like "You don't need that - you already have a red lipstick". Pretty funny :-)

>149 susanj67: *snort* sounds like my husband when I say anything about shoes... He says he has one pair of feet, so 3 pairs of shoes is more than enough. He's wrong, on so many levels.

>150 Helenliz: Helen, yes. Don't they realise that capitalism would collapse with attitudes like that?

>144 susanj67: Glad you liked Unsheltered. I'm about 1/3 of the way through and enjoying it. Won't have much time to read this week but I'm really looking forward to getting back to it.

>152 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I hope you can find some time!



163. The East End in Colour by David Granick

This is a slim book of photos taken in the East End of London from 1960 - 1980. The photos themselves are part of a collection given by the photographer, David Granick, to the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archive. Although there were no photos of my bit of Tower Hamlets, there were lots of streets I know well, and I was stunned by how different things were just 40 years ago. There is virtually no traffic at all, even on the Commercial Road or the Mile End Road, which these days are nose to tail most of the time. There are hardly any people (although the photographer was photographing buildings, and not looking for people). But it all looked so empty. And so low-rise. Today there would be towers in the background of nearly all of the pictures, but instead there is just...nothing. I loved this little book, and it would make a lovely gift for anyone with an East End background. It's nicely made, too - the publisher is a micro-press in Hoxton*. Of course it is. I've never been to the local history archive, but I think I'll look it up and see what they have on in the way of displays.

*Hoxton is in the borough just to the north of Tower Hamlets, and is the current hipster capital of the UK.

I went to the library at lunchtime and took nothing out. Nothing! Since then I have downloaded a book from my elibrary wishlist, but I am getting close to having no library books.

Wow. It's like No!vember has changed me. Or maybe I have just accepted that I will be too busy this evening watching Sky News to see if the PM survives the "no confidence" vote to actually read anything.

>154 susanj67: I'm starting to worry about you, Susan. Do you think you might be coming down with some sort of anti-library virus? Your parliamentary showdown was all over the morning news here; as far as I could tell, no one knows what's going to happen, or what it would mean either way. So that's nice.

>155 rosalita: Julia, it *is* possible that I have developed a resistance to the library. Worrying. As for the political drama, it is anyone's guess, but I am appalled to think that Dominic Raab might take over. He's the former Brexit secretary who confessed recently that he hadn't appreciated how much freight came into the country via the English Channel. Perhaps he hadn't also appreciated that we are an ISLAND. He didn't say where he thought it all came from, but Kent council (which is the county where the main Channel freight ports are) has published a doom-laden paper predicting that the county will become a giant lorry-park if there is no deal, because Customs officers on both sides will be overworked and unable to process all the comings and goings (plus the French are usually on strike about something, but they left that out). This, says Kent, will lead to other people being unable to use the roads, schools closing, rubbish not being collected and burials unable to take place. I haven't even dared to look at how far the pound has fallen today.

>156 susanj67: It's all very alarming, Susan. I've read a couple of "worst case scenario" articles and they sound like plots for dystopian novels. Which I enjoy reading, but would not enjoy living through. I read that the idea has been floated of calling for another referendum on leaving, but no one seems to think it very likely.

>157 rosalita: Julia, yes, we even have some preppers now, although not like US ones. More like some extra boxes of cereal and baked beans in a little pile in the living room, photographed with worried-looking people for the Daily Mail. No-one really has the space to prep properly. Pharmaceuticals seem to be the main worry - lots come in from Europe and now that everything is "just in time" - or the UK version "more or less in time" - there are worries that delays at the ports will mean people have to go without medicines. The government says it will all be fine but it seems they have told the drug companies to start stockpiling and the companies have asked where they're supposed to put it all. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/23/brexit-patients-may-need-own-dr...

The new Jack Reacher has just come in at the library for me. Maybe I'd better not go twice in one day.

>158 susanj67: Jack Reacher is exactly who you need to straight this whole Brexit mess right out!

I feel guilty that I am watching the mess in the UK while metaphorically eating popcorn to distract myself from the dumpster fire in my own country.

>159 rosalita: Julia, yes, he couldn't do worse than the current lot! On the issue of the second referendum, it is popular as a concept with people who want to stay in the EU, but if the result was "stay" then the tally would be 1 - 1. So (it is argued) when would then need a third referendum as a tiebreaker. Aaargh. I suppose I have lost sight of the fact that whoever takes over as PM can't possibly be as bad as the US situation, so that's a comfort :-)

>160 katiekrug: Katie, lol at our near cross-post!

It’s all so depressing isn’t it! I’m usually very opinionated about politics but at the moment I just can’t decide what I want to happen. I mean, I know what I would like to happen in theory, but i’ve got no idea what’s the best thing to happen in practice.

>163 SandDune: What I would like to happen in theory is to turn back the calendar and just re-do the entire year of 2016, in hopes that both our countries could get it right the second time! Sadly, I don't think Connie Willis has quite perfected that time travel device up in Oxford.

>159 rosalita: It's got to be a better idea than any of the other candidates. If Boris Johnson is PM I'd like to hand in my passport and emigrate (maybe in reverse order, but you get the idea).
>160 katiekrug: I can't say I blame you.
>163 SandDune: yup. I'm not very political, but I find myself getting very very cross. I'm comming around to the idea that Guy Fawkes and his friends might have been on to something.

>165 Helenliz: When I was quite small I was under the impression that we were celebrating Guy Fawkes’s attempt to blow up parliament as being a good idea. So he hadn’t succeeded, but at least he’d given it a good go, and you had to give him points for trying. I’m not sure what this says about my family.

>163 SandDune: Rhian, yes, I think the most important thing now is that *something* happens. They just need to get it sorted out and then we go from there, wherever "there" is. All this endless faffing and infighting is not benefiting anyone.

>164 rosalita: Julia, just imagine if we could :-)

>165 Helenliz: Helen, I see you're staying! And yet despite the fact she won 200/117, the haters are still saying that it wasn't much of a majority.

>166 SandDune: Rhian, that is funny :-) I remember reading the story of Guy Fawkes when I was about 11, and, looking back, the book was far too grisly for a school library. It was a big thing in New Zealand too for some reason, although more about fireworks than bonfires. Here it seems to be "Bonfire night" but in NZ it was just called "Guy Fawkes".



164. Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

I read about this on Charlotte's thread, and it sounded good. I've read two other books by this author - Pleasantville and Black Water Rising, but this one is the first in a new series about a black Texas Ranger. It was very well done, although I have no idea how they'll do the audiobook version as the n-word was used frequently throughout. I must add this to my "series" post so I can keep track of it. I read a fair bit about the Texas Rangers in Texas, but I don't think I realised that they were still going, and I don't really understand how they fit in with the other law enforcement bodies in Texas. It might be time to google.

>167 susanj67: Glad you liked it Susan. There used to be a programme on TV called "Walker, Texas Ranger" which seemed to be on a lot, but beyond this had not come across it. Where's Katie when you need her?!

>168 charl08: Hi Charlotte! Yes, we *do* need Katie. Katie! *waves*.

I picked up the new Jack Reacher this morning. I'm having a hard time not pulling it out of my bag and reading it in secret at my desk. And it's only 10.08.

I meant to add earlier that the UK Kindle Daily Deal today includes an omnibus of the novels of Nancy Mitford for just £2.99!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Complete-Novels-Nancy-Mitford-ebook/dp/B005WNGF...

I'm here!

The Texas Rangers are a statewide law enforcement body, similar to state police in other places in the US. They have certain specific responsibilities, e.g. protection of the governor, but they can also assist local law enforcement/police departments with investigations. They also conduct their own, but I'm not sure what determines their jurisdiction - maybe when an investigation involves more than one local jurisdiction (e.g. organized crime or something like that). Often, they are asked to investigate crimes that are either (a) very high profile; or (b) in which local law enforcement may be involved. For example, a man in Dallas was recently killed by an off-duty Dallas Police officer, so the Rangers handled much of the investigation to avoid conflicts of interest (or at least the appearance of them).

To be honest, I'm a bit fuzzy on their jurisdiction and general responsibilities vis-a-vis local law enforcement bodies...

>171 katiekrug: Hi Katie! Thanks for the explanation. In the book, the main character was keen to progress an investigation into the Aryan Brotherhood in Texas, so that fits with your description. It seems that the Rangers get a lot more respect than the ordinary police - characters called him "Ranger" and there were frequent references to how important his badge was (which seemed more important than an ordinary police badge).

This is funny: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/13/londoners-troll-new-york-times-p...

>172 susanj67: - Like a lot of things in Texas, there is a certain mythology built up around the Rangers (for no good reason, as far as I can tell...)

>173 susanj67: - Heh.

>173 susanj67: I read through that whole Twitter thread this morning. Hilarious! And now I know to most definitely NOT stand on the left side of the escalator when I visit London. That really seems to make the stiff upper lip quiver.

>175 rosalita: - We have the same problem in New York. Stand to the right, walk to the left!

>174 katiekrug: Katie, maybe it's the history and how they were the only law enforcement in the olden days.

>175 rosalita: Julia, the "stand on the right" instructions are from the tube (so people can hurry up/down on the left), but if you go to the big department stores you will also see Londoners standing neatly on the right :-) That always makes me smile.

>176 katiekrug: Katie, I'm glad it's the same, even though we drive on different sides of the road. I was all prepared to stand on the left and walk on the right if I took the subway :-)

>173 susanj67: that is fan-bloody-tastic!

>177 susanj67: - I am not a fan of the attitude of Texas Exceptionalism. They go way overboard with it. Plus, everyone knows New York is the greatest state in the Union and we are very humble and circumspect about it.

>177 susanj67: Well, I would be the same way. You can teach this old dog a new trick, like the proper side of the escalator to stand on, but my rapidly aging brain is not quite up to the strain of remembering specific variations for specific locations!

>153 susanj67: Maybe tomorrow...

Aren't books with old photos of areas you know well fun?

>154 susanj67: You with no library books out?!?!? I'm a bit frightened the earth will stop spinning.

>164 rosalita: Yep, a redo of 2016!! One can dream.

>181 rosalita: Yeah, somewhere I was (maybe Liverpool?) and they've tried to introduce the idea of everyone standing on both sides of the escalator. It just is Weird and Wrong. (AKA my brain can't cope with it).

>179 Helenliz: Helen, it's like the UK and the US are two different countries :-)

>180 katiekrug: Katie, I particularly like the humility :-)

>181 rosalita: Julia, well at least we've got London and NY covered. And really, everywhere else should be like one of those places :-)

>182 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I really enjoyed the old photos. The lack of traffic was the most startling - you can see it in any film involving London in the 60s too. It wasn't unique to the East End. There was also still a lot of bomb damage in some of the photos, even 20+ years after the war. Lots of the area was pulled down and cleared, but there are still pockets where some of the old warehouses survive, and are now expensive flats.

>183 charl08: Charlotte, Transport for London tried it here at Holborn station too. People just refused, even though the maths proved that it would get people out of the station faster.

I started The Stranger Diaries last night (why won't that turn into a touchstone?). It's a stand-alone Elly Griffiths novel, and looks good (50 pages in) but I couldn't help thinking that if she had time to write it she could have written another instalment of Ruth Galloway. It's like all those Diana Gabaldon books about Lord John, when the fans just want MORE JAMIE AND CLAIRE PLEASE. I realise that I need to get over myself.

Hmmm, reserves "in transit":

West by Carys Davies (Katie)
The Law of Angels by Cassandra Clark (Charlotte got me into this series)
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (Charlotte again, I think)
The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy by Greg Miller
Berlin 1936 by Oliver Hilmes and Jefferson S Chase (reserved for the sports-related category of the PopSugar challenge but it's been "in transit" for so long now that I think it's lost and I'm tempted to delete it)

The touchstones are broken this morning I think.

I wonder whether I'll get any of these before Christmas?

At the elibrary, I should get Women of the Raj by Margaret McMillan on 18 December as I suspended the hold until then. I'm #27 on 2 copies of Rich People Problems, which is book 3 in the Crazy Rich Asians series, and #5 on 1 copy of The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London, which I read about in the Evening Standard recently. That's remarkably restrained for me.

Totally taking credit for The Great Believers. Fab book. In fact I think it might be my book of the year (until someone reminds me of what else I read this year...). Fingers crossed some of those reserves come in.

>184 susanj67: Totally agree about both Elly Griffiths and Diana Gabaldon faffing about with other books when what we all need is more Ruth/Nelson and Claire/Jamie, dagnabit.

>185 susanj67: I hope you have lots of time off during the holidays because it looks like you'll have plenty of books to keep you warm :)

All is right with the world as there are library books coming your way, Susan. The stand on the right, walk on the left is the rule on Vancouver escalators too unless you end up behind people who are together and want to stand and block the whole escalator, grr.

>186 charl08: Charlotte, there's no sign of any reserve movement this morning. But I am looking forward to The Great Believers!

>187 rosalita: Julia, glad you're in my corner on this issue :-)

>188 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, I have 11 glorious days in a row (that includes weekends) and for only three days of annual leave, because the office is closed on Christmas Eve. Woo-hoo!

>189 Familyhistorian: Meg, that's three countries with the same escalator rule, so maybe it's the same everywhere :-) You can definitely tell the tourists standing all over the place. There is lots of huffing and tutting in London, because we are passive-aggressive like that :-)

Most of the country is getting freezing rain and black ice today. To be honest, I'd always thought that "freezing rain" was "snow", but it turns out to be something different. London should escape, but it's blooming cold here anyway. And by that I mean 2C (36F) - no laughing from really cold places please. I have been out to get a paper and take some recycling to the cupboard downstairs, but that's it for the rest of the day. I'm going to snuggle up and read The Stranger Diaries because tomorrow is going to be All About Jack. Yes, I am going to binge-read Past Tense and then wish I still had it to read.

>190 susanj67: I'm with you, it's cold out. I've walked into town for food shopping, then ventured further afield for Christmas shopping. I *may* have looked like I was venturing on a trip to the arctic, but I was not the only one - there were an abundance of hats being sported.

Urgh I'm not sure it's freezing rain here, but the birds are all but being blown off the feeder. Hoping I don't have to go out any time soon...Three reservations have come in, but I can wait until Monday.

Hi Susan - I hope you are having a lovely weekend.

I agree about Unsheltered; I loved Willa and her family. That's the problem with two story lines. Often I am impatient with one that interrupts the other.

>160 katiekrug: "Dumpster fire" seems a good description of our current president. I did read Becoming, which made me feel more optimistic than I've felt for a long time. I miss the Obamas.

>173 susanj67: That is hilarious.

>190 susanj67: I remember runs like those. They feel like a wonderful gift, don't they?

>191 Helenliz: Helen, that sounds like a lot of walking for this weather. It is horrible here - rainy and freezing. Tomorrow is supposed to be better.

>192 charl08: Charlotte, yes, those reservations can wait. It's not like you're going to run out :-)

>193 BLBera: Hi Beth! The weekend has been good so far. I've done all the laundry and finished a book, so there are two achievements right there :-) It's interesting that you felt the same about Unsheltered. I wondered whether it was just me!

>194 RebaRelishesReading: Reba, yes, they are lovely. Mostly because I can wake up without an alarm clock for all those days. Someone asked me what I was doing for Christmas "or are you stuck in London?" and I thought that I have never been STUCK in London - what a concept! I choose to be here in the warm, with books and snacks and the occasional venture out for supplies.



165. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths

Elly Griffiths is probably best known for the Dr Ruth Galloway series, but this is a standalone novel with the story told by multiple narrators and it's an excellent read. It's the sort of thing I could have read in a single sitting, but a nap crept in. Oops.

>195 susanj67: This one sounds good. A nap sounds good as well.

>196 BLBera: Beth, I think you'll love it. The main character is a teacher, and "The Stranger Diaries" is a spooky short story by an obscure author that she is writing about. And then real life starts imitating the events in the story...

I'm very close to 200 posts on this thread, which is worrying given that there are still 14 days left in the year and I'll be reading a lot. Time for a new thread, I think, even if it will be a short one.