Fieldnotes: On Staying Clam & Reading More in 2021 ☽ Part III ☾

Powerful Women of the Medieval World was my second Dorsey Armstrong The Great Courses offering, and it was quite good. She's a great writer/narrator. I'm going to go out of my way to buy her audible courses from now on. This one covers Empress Theodora, Eleanor of Aquitane, Hildegard von Bingen, Heloise, Jeanne d'Arc, among others. I really loved the chapter devoted to the kick-ass Mongolian women surrounding Ghengis Khan. He put his wives, daughters and daughters-in-law in change of many things instead of his sons. He thought his sons were a bunch of useless drunken louts.

I'm going to attempt to listen to Milkman next. During an online discussion of good Irish female authors this book came up. I tried to read it, but the style is almost stream of consciousness, and I was having trouble with it. Wish me luck. LOL

I'm also reading The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and so far it's amazing.

Happy new thread. I for one welcome your rebellious streak with your not waiting for 1st September to start your new thread.

Happy new thread, even if it is 2 days early.

>2 pgmcc: Thank you!

>3 Karlstar: It was more like 1⅓ days early, by the time I finally started it. :o)

Happy new thread!

How'd you fare with Ida?

Happy new thread Clam! I hope you have lots of good books to include on it.

I'm a week behind, but I'm here!

I finally finished Midnight Riot AKA Rivers of London after what has to be about three and a half years of dipping in and out of my kindle copy. I have this vague recollection of buying it for 99 cents on @MrsLee's recommendation. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, and I greatly appreciated that it was very easy to set aside and pick back up again months (or years) later without much impact. It reminded me a bit of The Rook in that there are a ton of supernatural beasties to contend with in London.

I've started Piranesi and I have to admit I do not have a clue what is going on!

>9 clamairy: Glad you enjoyed Midnight Riot. It is a series which grew on me as I continued reading it. Now it confuses me with all the variations of short stories and graphic novels, so I haven't pursued it in the last couple of years. I saved the first seven or so books though because I can see myself enjoying a reread at some point.

>1 clamairy: I'm glad to see a positive mention of the W.E.B. Dubois Lovesongs novel. I came across a mention of it elsewhere, and was inspired enough to put it in my Barnes & Noble wishlist so I didn't forget about it.

Then of course I forgot about it- until now. 😀
I think I'll place the order.

>10 MrsLee: I will most likely keep going, but not right away. So thank you...

>11 terriks: My loan expired (it was only a week) and the book is 800 pages long so I wasn't finished. I just gave in and bought it. I rarely pay full price for books, but this one seemed worth it.

>9 clamairy: I loved Piranesi! It's so mysterious and when I did figure out what was going on it was mind-blowing.

>9 clamairy: ...I do not have a clue what is going on!

I feel like this all the time. Isn't it wonderful?

>9 clamairy: Does anyone know why the title was changed for US publication?

>9 clamairy: it's a fun series, but a bit hit and miss in terms of instalments, some are much better than others and I'm not sure the author has grand plan for where it's all going.

I loved Piranesi too, and I’m still not totally sure what was going on!

>16 reading_fox: I agree. There is a lot of retconning.

>13 Sakerfalcon: :o)

>14 pgmcc: Only most of the time.

>15 -pilgrim-: Perhaps they didn't want the first book in the series to have the same name as the entire series. I did some snooping and saw that a few other people suspect this as well.

>16 reading_fox: Good to know.

>17 haydninvienna: Uh oh! I hope I have it figured out when I'm finished. Haha...

>19 clamairy: That makes sense. It is fairly clear that when he wrote the first book, he was not planning a series.

I enjoyed Susanna Clarke's Piranesi quite a bit. It is fascinating and confusing at first, and there is a bit a 'fuzzy magic' involved, but the tale is a good one. I do recommend this one, but probably not for everyone.

I already tried starting The Beautiful Struggle for the newly restarted local Library Book Club (YAY!) and I've already set it aside for We're Going to Need More Wine.

>21 clamairy: Yay for your restarted book club!

>21 clamairy:
There have certainly been books that I have tried to read that made me think We're Going to Need More Wine.

>22 libraryperilous: I never went before The Plague because it's a weekday morning. I'm going to try, though.

>23 pgmcc: Right? More than I can count.

Finished Gabrielle Union's We're Going to Need More Wine the other day, and it was such a pleasant surprise*. I borrowed this one because I read her review of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois in the New York Times and was very impressed with her writing. I was well into her book before I realized she's an actress, which is just as well as I probably wouldn't have picked it up. And I really would have missed out! She's outspoken, funny and she pulls no punches. The book isn't completely funny... she's had a lot of heartache. And she's also a bit raunchy at times, which I greatly appreciated.

*I was surprised because I don't usually assume actors & actresses are capable of writing well.

I also finished a quickie called I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider which was wonderful and slightly quirky. I see some people have tagged it as a graphic novel, but it is really a collection of cartoons. I'm going to paste a frame or two here. I heartily recommend borrowing this one if you can.

>26 clamairy: Nice. I like, "The end of one story, is the start of another."

>26 clamairy: Good stuff.

>25 clamairy: Carrie Fisher aside.

>29 MrAndrew: Yes, her stuff was wonderful. I hope it didn't seem like I was implying none of them can write. I just never assume they can. LOL

>26 clamairy: very nice.

>26 clamairy: oh that's cute. Love.

>25 clamairy: and of course, Pamela Anderson and Sylvester Stallone.

>30 clamairy: The celebrity industry seems obsessed with the assumption that "you are brilliant at doing X, you must be able to write as well as that, also".

The person may or may not be skilled at both, but the assumption does not follow. It would make as much sense to assume that all writers are great cooks, or athletes, or actors.

I stayed up later than I should have to finish The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel. I suspect quite a few of you aren't as familiar with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow as those of us in this corner of the US are. I grabbed this one when it was on sale because of the relatively high rating here on LT, and because I absolutely adore Washington Irving's story. It was okay, but definitely not as good as I'd hoped. The writing style is basically YA, but with quite a bit of sex going on. In more skilled hands this could have been a great read. I'll admit I plowed through because I needed to find out how it ended, but I am not too sure I would recommend this one to that many people.

I've moved on to The Once and Future Witches on my kindle and Famous Ghost Stories in print. It's October!

>35 clamairy: I see from the cover image of Famous Ghost Stories that it contains stories from some really highly regarded such as Oliver Onions. I hope you enjoy it.

CAn I just say how much I like the name of Oliver Onions. just made me smile

>37 cindydavid4:
I know. Imagine having the initials, “O. O.”

:-)

I was perusing my highlighted notes on Goodreads (the only thing I really use it for now that Amazon will only let me share to that website, and no longer share to Facebook or Twitter) and I found all my favorite passages from Midnight Riot/(The Rivers of London.) I'll be kind and only share three of them.

Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, “Who knows why the fuck anything happens?”

So Newton, like all good seventeenth-century intellectuals, wrote in Latin because that was the international language of science, philosophy and, I found out later, upmarket pornography.

The flats were solidly built, so at least I didn’t grow up listening to next door’s live docusoap, but they were built on the dubious assumption, so beloved of postwar planners, that the London working class was composed entirely of hobbits.

>39 clamairy: Brilliant.

I absolutely loved The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow. The writing style reminds me very much of Uprooted which I also adored. If you don't like that kind of writing then stay away.

Much of it resonated with me, despite it being based in a US that never existed. One where there was a Salem full of actual powerful witches, that was burned to the ground with all of the women and children inside it. One where witchcraft is trying to make a comeback, while women in white are trying to get the vote.

Here are a couple of the passages that I highlighted on my Kindle:

She understands that the Women’s Association wants one kind of power—the kind you can wear in public or argue in the courtroom or write on a slip of paper and drop in a ballot box—and that Juniper wants another. The kind that cuts, the kind with sharp teeth and talons, the kind that starts fires and dances merry around the blaze.

Every woman draws a circle around herself. Sometimes she has to be the only thing inside it.

I think I will moving this author's The Ten Thousand Doors of January closer to the top of Mount Tooby now.

And tonight I'm diving into Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It. (Pun intended.)

Ten Thousand Doors should have been right up my alley, but it just didn't work for me and it ended up a dnf. Little hesitant to read this witch one tho might try it , sounds interesting

>42 cindydavid4: If you don't like her writing style I would not try it. Did you read Uprooted?

>41 clamairy: I have this in my electronic TBR pile. Was not a fan of The Ten Thousand Doors of January when I read it earlier this year, though not so much because of the writing style.

>44 Marissa_Doyle: I'd give it a pass then. These witches have backbone, though. LOL

>41 clamairy: I just bought the paperback of this, so I'm glad to see your review. I was a little disappointed by The ten thousand doors but liked it enough to keep reading the author. I do like her style (aside from the use of present tense narration - yuck!)

My main complaint about The Ten Thousand Doors is that it was actually two books in one, above and beyond that plot point; and should have been split. Harrow is much stronger with short fiction so far. Her phrasing is so refreshing.

>47 2wonderY: She has a novella out from Tor, A Spindle Splintered, that sounds interesting, and might bridge this gap.

I, too, DNFed Harrow's first novel, so I think I'll skip the witchy one, but the plot sounds fascinating.

>46 Sakerfalcon: oh I hated that, probably the main reason I gave up. and >47 2wonderY: you are right, too long by half, easily two stories (there is another similar kind of book that had the same problem the Invisible Life of Addie LaRue I LOVED her A Darker Shade of Magic series, but this one was all over the place way too long, again with present tense, plus I got so tired of having her contant moaning and groaning in my head. Pity.

>41 clamairy: this one sounds good. Like others, Ten Thousand Doors wasn’t a favorite read, but I did finish it. I loved Uprooted! I’m going to see if my library has this one.

>50 catzteach: I hope you enjoy it! It should be available as it's been out for a while. If you can't get it let me know. I can lend Kindle books for 14 days, I think.

I am torn by the diversity of opinions about The Ten Thousand Doors of January. A physical copy rests on my shelves awaiting attention. When I first saw it I looked at the blurb and was tempted but not convinced enough to buy. After one or two positive comments about it I bought a copy. In recent weeks, possibly months given the temporal anomalies brought on by working from home for 18 months (or is it three years, a decade, a week and a half,...), there have been some less favourable comments.

I suspect I may have to read the book and make up my own mind. It could be one of those books that divides the world into two camps; either you love it or you hate it.

I really liked The Ten Thousand Doors of January a lot. I'm stalled on The Once and Future Witches, though, because the one is such a wimp that she's totally annoying me.

>53 reconditereader: Hang in there! That's all I am willing to say without spoiling anything.

>52 pgmcc: It's easy enough to bail if you hate it and you already own a copy.

>52 pgmcc: I may have to read the book and make up my own mind ...: Now let's not get too radical here! FWIW I quite enjoyed it, but I agree that it's probably not for everyone. Come to think of it, what book is?

Not sure about the witches one, but has anyone read A Spindle Splintered? that does look right up my alley

>55 haydninvienna: Everyone Poops

>57 MrAndrew: Er, I would have thought that that was a perfect example of a book that wasn't for anyone (except perhaps a middle schooler with an ambition to be a proctologist).

>52 pgmcc: I was meh on The Ten Thousand Doors of January--I felt it could have used a much stronger editorial hand to reel it in and keep it focused--but I'm ridiculously picky a lot of the time.

No comment on proctological ambitions, but I did know a boy in middle school whose fondest dream was to grow up to be an undertaker.

>59 Marissa_Doyle: I have a dear friend whose fondest dream while at school was to be an undertaker -- she said she'd always have a job, as there's always someone dying. She now works for a pay-tv company during the day, and is busy producing a most interesting family history in her "spare" time.

>60 hfglen: True--there is a strong degree of job security in the field. But I think I was scarred by reading Waugh's The Loved One some time in my late teens.

>61 Marissa_Doyle: That was an awesome book! Didn't read it until I was in my late 30s, though. No scarring...

Agreed that we obviously all have different tastes. And if Peter already owns a book he has nothing to lose by trying a few pages.

>62 clamairy:
Now all I have to do is find where I put it.

:-)

I have started reading The once and future witches. So far, so very good!

>64 Sakerfalcon: Yay! I'm pleased.

You and I seem to share very similar tastes. I should just pick my next books from your 4-5 star reads. 😆

I've set aside The Brilliant Abyss for a few days to read something more appropriate for the season, Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow , and so far I'm enjoying it.

Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow got off to a galloping start, (heh heh) but ultimately failed to be a winner. I am giving it 3.5 star stars for a very original premise, and some really decent parts. Can't recommend this one, sadly. The writing is very YA, while the story contains some very gruesome mutilations and murders. I probably would have loved this as a 14 year old.

It's back to The Brilliant Abyss for me, with some dipping into A Night in the Lonesome October which I managed to borrow using the Hoopla app. It's an ebook not a mobi file, so I am reading that one on my Kindle Fire... and it will not let me adjust the font! When I try to bump it up all it does is increase the spacing between the lines. LOL

Right between the eyes with The Brilliant Abyss. Hmmph.

>56 cindydavid4: I just finished it and found the novella format worked well. There was a bit of hand-waving about the multiverse physics, but I thought the story itself was charming. It's a quick read, and the snarky tone of the narrator probably wouldn't have worked for me in a longer story.

I have Scales' book on my shelf, along with a couple of other marine science books that released this summer. I should read them!

thanks! snarky tone? Im on it! :)

>68 Marissa_Doyle: It's chewy... It's so packed with facts that I had to take a break. But it is awesome.

I really enjoyed listening to Cary Elwes and Seth MacFarlane narrate Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. This book is 25 years old, and although it hasn't aged well in a few spots it is still very relevant. Sagan wrote about how much less American school children knew about science in the 1990s compared to their counterparts in most of the other industrialized nations. Obviously that hasn't improved. Those children grew into scientifically illiterate adults. One area I think he's be pleased about is the number of women scientists. That has greatly increased.

He focused part of the book on the the sensational stories in the public eye like alien abductions and Satan worshipping cabals in schools, etc, and all the hubbub around them at the time. Oddly, I only vaguely remember that there were a bunch of people accused of conducting devil worshiping rituals in preschools and the like, who were ultimately exonerated. So odd to think back on that hysteria now.

Towards the end of the book there is an in-depth description of the European witch trials and the torture many of those accused were subjected to. They were almost all burned or executed whether they confessed or not. There was one priest in Germany who realized what was happening, and wrote about the travesty of it all to his superiors and fellow priests. He was hushed up and packed off elsewhere.

Sagan finished with a plea for schools to fund science as much as they do sports. Well, a lot of schools aren't funding either now, so he got his wish... but not the way he envisioned, I am sure.

I've now stared listening to The Last Enchantment, which is the third book in Mary Stewart's Merlin Series.

Ummmm its not the school that isn't funding science, its our legislators and governors, the ones who decide how much schools get. We have always had low funding even back whenI started in 1979, and unfortunately it hasn't got any better.

>73 cindydavid4: You mean that it is the legislators and governors that set the curriculum and choose which staff a school can hire?

We now have the curriculum for each subject tightly set, but schools still choose their own emphases.

>73 cindydavid4: >74 -pilgrim-: It differs from state to state. Here the town residents vote on the school budget every year. And they elect members to sit on the school board. A budget is hashed out by members of the school staff and the board members before it gets voted on by the public.

There are funds coming in from the state for certain things.

>75 clamairy: Does that mean there is only one school per town (apart from fee-paying ones) and so no choice where your child attends?

ETA: I am aware that our education systems are very different. Please excuse me if I tread anywhere that is a contentious for you guys; that is not my intent. But I would like to understand the differences a little better and how your system works.

>72 clamairy: not only has funding (or lack of it) been an issue in education for decades, but years ago there were mandated minutes set up for reading,writing, and math. And I had to teach those programs with fidelity. So I had no time to teach science or social studies. Now, even though those mandated minutes are still there in theory, very few of us follow them because, well, we have other things to teach, like science.

It sounds like a book I would very much like. And listening to Cary Elwes read it? Yes, please. I’ll have to see if my library has in it audio.

>77 catzteach: So I had no time to teach science or social studies.

and the arts - drama, art, music, suffer as well. Our kids are lucky to get these every couple of weeks, maybe. This all started with 'no child left behind' that tossed anything that was not considered basic. We were only just starting to get more funding when COVID came along, and then it all just disappeared

Thank you @MrsLee, @-pilgrim-, @Storeetllr and anyone else who raved about A Night in the Lonesome October. I loved it. The illustrations by Gahan Wilson were awesome as well.

I also finished The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It by Helen Scales. The first half of this was such a pleasure to read. The second half was depressing as hell. I suppose given the title I should have expected that, but I wasn't really prepared.

I've moved on to The Bookbinder's Daughter, which was shot between the eyeballs from Peter.

>78 cindydavid4: yeah COVID screwed up so much!

>79 clamairy: I got my replacement copy of that one but not really in time for an October read, I'll get to it in a bit.

>79 clamairy: Glad you enjoyed it! I loved the illustrations as well.

The Bookbinder's Daughter was a shot between the eyeballs at close range from @pgmcc. Definitely enjoyed this one, though I have a few quibbles about the editing*. It's just a great story, and would make a wonderful mini-series. I stayed up late one night to get close enough to the ending so that I could stop worrying and get some sleep.

*I don't like being told a thing multiple times, like it's a big reveal each time. The flashbacks especially seemed more than a bit repetitive to me, and I think that should have been addressed.

I have moved on to Skin Deep by @Marissa_Doyle, and that tight editing (or writing) I was missing in the Jessica Thorne book is very evident here.

>84 clamairy:
Glad you enjoyed the story.

I actually finished Skin Deep by our own @Marissa_Doyle several days ago, but I have been too busy to post about it. Well done, Marissa. I really enjoy Garland's feisty personality. Plus there is quite a bit of humor in this one, which I appreciated. I don't know if it's because I live in a similar location, but the 'locals vs the Summer people' comments really hit home. I will definitely be picking up What Lies Beneath at some point.

I'm working on Below the Edge of Darkness: A Memoir of Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea by Edith Widder, but I suspect I might bail on this. It's a bit too similar to The Brilliant Abyss, but told on a more personal level, which I am only somewhat enjoying. I did manage to borrow The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed as an eBook, which means I have to read it on my Kindle Fire. I don't like reading that in bed because it's not e-ink, so tends to keep me awake, even when I have it set to look as much like a paper page as is possible.

On the home front I have been having my almost 60 year old cement patio removed and replaced with a much larger one made of paving stones. It's been a lot louder job than I was expecting. LOL Not just the removal, but the preparation of the layers they put down below the pavers. Will try to post photos when it's all done.

The Annual Migration of Clouds was a shot between the eyeballs from @tardis. This is a great short novel set in a post-apocalyptic society where climate change has severely damaged much of the earth. It's set in a area where people are living without benefit of any technology other than steam engines, but there are people in areas who still have tech... Supposedly.

I've started Chances Are... by one of my favorite writers, Richard Russo. The local library book group is discussing this in December, and I plan to join for the first time.

genreally like his books; will be curious your reaction

>88 cindydavid4: It's great so far. I'm about 1/3rd of the way through.

Chances Are... by Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo was a great read. Set in 2015 it concerns memories about four close friends and their college days in the early 1970s. I think I might like this one better than Empire Falls, but not as much as Nobody's Fool.

I've already started Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach, who's stuff I thoroughly enjoy.

I finished listening to the Audible version of Mary Stewart's The Last Enchantment. I liked it better this time around than I did when I read it back in the 1980s, but I still don't love it as much as I do The Crystal Cave. I will be stopping here, as I distinctly remember being less than enchanted (pun intended) by The Wicked Day.

I've already started listening to Andy Serkis reading The Hobbit and I am loving it.

In the 'minor tragedy' news category, I scratched my Kindle screen. A small bedroom lamp fell on it, and because of the new feature where you can see the cover of the book you're reading when the Kindle is off I had the case open. It's minute, and it's actually under the surface, so it only shows when I have the screen lit passed a certain brightness. So I'm hoping I'll just get used to it. 🤞

>92 clamairy:
So irritating.

I have started using that feature recently and I am still surprised when I open the kindle and see the book cover.

>93 pgmcc: I got upset the first time, thinking the book had reset to the beginning!

>93 pgmcc: Yeah, I love that feature. I think someone is going to have to create new protective covers with clear front plates now.

>94 MrsLee: Hahaha! Luckily that hasn't happened to me, as I waited months for that feature to finally show up on my Paperwhite.

>92 clamairy: Apparently, this is only available for the ad-free Kindles? (Fair, I guess, but I was excited for a moment!)

>97 libraryperilous: Yes. Sorry!

>95 clamairy: do they not make tempered glass screen covers for tablets like they do for phones?

Someone needs to get a "move on"!

>99 fuzzi: No, it is tempered. But the lamp that landed on it was glass and metal. I am not sure even my phone could have stood up to it.

>100 clamairy: glad that it's just cosmetic damage.

Mary Roach is one of my favorite somewhat humorous non-fiction authors, so I figured Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law would be my cup of tea, and it mostly was. It got a bit depressing when the slaughter of invasive species was discussed, though.

I'm going to share a few of the bits I highlighted on my Kindle.

About a dumpster-diving bear in Colorado:
"I would take delight in the optical non sequitur of a bear standing in front of a Louis Vuitton boutique. This poor goober with the burrata on its snout, innocent and utterly unaware of its likely fate, makes me want to cry."

About how deadly bears really are:
"Snowplows kill twice as many Canadians as grizzly bears do."

Her sense of humor (which is twisted like mine) on display:
"Albert Ken-rich Fisher’s 1900 “Summary of the Contents of 255 Stomachs of the Screech Owl” made me feel tired and sad, though also vaguely festive, owing to the author’s “Twelve Days of Christmas”–style presentation: “91 stomachs contained mice … 100 stomachs contained insects … 9 stomachs contained crawfish … 2 stomachs contained scorpions …” "

I could tell quite a bit of this subject depressed her, and she was aware it would have a similar impact on her readers. At one point I almost bailed, but I hung in there and I am glad I did.

Now I have returned to The Searcher which I had set aside for a bit to read this one.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I went to the Book Discussion Group at my local library for the first time and I was really impressed. There were probably 25 or more people, and they really dug deeply into the meat and bones of Chances Are.... The overall consensus was that it was well-written but a bit too depressing. I won't be going every month, but I will try to read the books that look good and go when I can.

The latest audio version of The Hobbit read by Andy Serkis blew my socks right off. I will be using my Audible credits for his narration of LotR as well. This one got five stars.

Yeah. There is a decent book in there somewhere, but this just went on much longer than it should have. I did enjoy the ending, but it was a bit of a rough slog in places getting to it. It's as if Tana French got stuck in one of the peat bogs that The Searcher kept warning about. If this had been the first book of hers that I had read I am not so sure that I would pick up another. Thankfully it was not.

>105 clamairy: not my favorite of hers, either.

>106 catzteach: I'm surprised the LT ratings are so high. I wonder if I was expecting too much because of that. Not to mention that it was on the NY Times 'most notable' book list for 2020.

>105 clamairy: & >106 catzteach:

I agree it was not up to her normal standard. It struck me as a modern day re-telling of "The Quiet Man", but with drugs. It even had equivalent characters for those of John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and Barry Fitzgerald.

One of the things that impressed me with the other Tana French books I have read is her understanding of the nuances of life in Dublin, its local snobbery, and the accuracy of the atmosphere. With The Searcher I felt she was slipping into preconceived stereotypes rather than relying on any personal experience and exposure. Perhaps she has not had as much time in the West of Ireland as she has had in Dublin where she works.

>107 clamairy: Could they have given her that honor for one of the police procedurals? A mere genre novel? Doubtful. This one was so navel-gazey that people probably think it's Literary.

>110 Bookmarque:
A short while ago I came across a definition of a "literary" book:

A book that uses words that people don't.

>111 pgmcc: By that definition, most scientific and above all medical textbooks would qualify as "literary"!

That's a pretty good one.

>112 hfglen:
I am with you on that, Hugh. We will launch a global, literary non-fiction award. The GLNF Awards; it just rolls off the tongue.

>108 pgmcc: & >110 Bookmarque: Yes, I agree with both of you, for the most part. I think she was experimenting with a different pace. One of the reasons I love the Dublin Murder Squad books is the frenetic energy. I don't want to put them down. At times I had trouble making myself pick this one up.

>111 pgmcc: Ha! Well, that only fits in that I was unfamiliar with some of the colloquialisms in this one. Do men call other men "Sunny Jim" in the countryside there? LOL

>104 clamairy: I have been resisting that, because I don't have much time to listen to books anymore. You have convinced me that resistance is futile.

>116 MrsLee: It is wonderful. I hope you enjoy it. He does so many different voices well that I have a hard time imagining how he kept track of what he was doing for which troll or goblin while he was being recorded.

>115 clamairy:
I think some of her colloquialisms are a bit dated in The Searcher. "Sunny Jim" would have been used on occasion. It could be used in a friendly mode, or used to indicate you thought someone was a bit of an up-start. As with many colloquialisms here colloquialisms can have positive and negative meanings. The meaning will probably be apparent from the context or the tone. If you see someone robbing your bike, and you do not want to use a profanity, you might call out, "EXCUSE ME, 'SUNNY JIM', WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!" If you are not worried about using a profanity in such a situation then the wording might be slightly different. "Sunny Jim" might still be used, but you will find that most of the other words form a lot of alliteration around the sound of the letter "F".

On the positive side, an older man might refer to a young nephew as Sunny Jim in a fond fashion.

One person in bunch of friends waiting for another friend might say, "Here's Sunny Jim now", when the awaited friend turns up.

Thanks for the explanation, Pete. Fascinating how two words can convey so many attitudes and can fit so many situations. Sunny Jim seems to be a particularly Irish phrase. I've never noticed Scots or English use it.

>119 Bookmarque: It is interesting how we form impressions of the phrase we use or hear. I would never have thought of "Sunny Jim" as a particularly Irish phrase. It would be very English in my mind. In my mind's eye, well, more my mind' eye and ear, I can picture Stanley Halloway using it in one of the old Ealing Studios comedy films. It is very much something I associate with old English comedies and English musical hall comedy sketches.

On looking it up on the all knowing Interweb, I was informed its first use was in Philadelphia to promote a breafkast cereal Brand called "Force".

I also found that it is a brand of firelighters in Northern Ireland for the past fifty years. I had forgotten about those.

OMG how funny! Friggin' Philly. Who knew. I guess it's my limited exposure to pop culture through the decades in Great Britain. Thanks for setting me straight.

>121 Bookmarque:
The thought of Ealing Studio comedies being referred to as pop culture is something I will have to take some time to digest. :-)

I suppose my problem is that the concept of pop culture has only come into use recently compared to the time when Ealing was producing its films.

I'd run into the phrase Sunny Jim in my reading before, but I could not for the life of me remember which books. I just knew they were older. Much older...

>123 clamairy:
Stop with the “old” theme.

>120 pgmcc: and following: Wasn't "Sunny Jim" also a nickname of James Callaghan when he was British PM?

>125 hfglen: I think you are right.

>125 hfglen: Ahh, and the timing of that would fit as it was over a hundred years ago. So only people over a certain age would be using it, am I right @pgmcc? ;o)

>125 hfglen: Hugh, I had not remembered that but I see it in newspaper articles from 1969, which, despite what some people think, was not 100 years ago. ;0)

This article about his passing covers a lot of the history involved at the time. I remember the "Winter of Discontent", and Jim Callaghan being greeted with cheers in The Bogside in Derry after the British army had been sent in by his government to relieve the siege of the bogside. I remember him addressing the people from an upstairs bedroom window in the Bogside.

>128 pgmcc: Yes, I guess Wikipedia threw out the year of his birth and that was all I saw... ;o)

What a memory. I keep forgetting what turmoil you lived through, Peter.

>128 pgmcc: Until you and Hugh mentioned Callaghan, I was thinking that I had only heard it in the form "Sonny Jim".

It reminds me of the time I ended trying to explain to a Russian guy how being called "sunshine" by a Londoner was not AT ALL the same thing as being called sonechka by a Muscovite (even if the literal meaning is the same), and that he should not interpret it as a kindly compliment..

And yet it is usually a compliment this side of the pond, and most often used to refer to children. Occasionally someone will call an adult sunshine facetiously.

The BBC series Butterflies has two brothers who often called teach other sunshine, and it was always seemed to be meant as an endearment.

>131 clamairy: Do you find addressing an adult man as "princess" to tend to be meant in a friendly way? Yet if said to a small girl the chances are that it is meant in a pleasant way. (It could be intended to imply that she is bumptious and thinks too much of herself.) Context is everything.

I have never heard "sunshine" as a form of address, except as
a) an older man giving a younger one a dressing down for being too cocky, and thinking he "knows it all"
b) a preface to a direct, or implied threat.

>132 cindydavid4: If you mean the Wendy Craig/Geoffrey Palmer series from the seventies, I haven't watched it since it first came out, so I don't recall the brothers that you mention.

But British men of that era didn't show affection for each other easily. Mock-threatening each other sounds quite plausible.

I have no idea why calling someone "sunshine" became hostile. Implies "flashy but with no solid substance", perhaps? But that is only a guess.

See https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/39401/what-does-sunshine-when-it-s-p... for an example.

yes thats the one. Loved that show. my memory maybe thinking of something else then. But I heard it somewhere.....

>133 20thEagle: Among certain communities here, Princess is a modestly common given name.

Sunshine was an affectionate term in my family, especially directed to children who woke in a good mood. “Good morning, sunshine!”

>135 hfglen:
For any gender? Or as a feminine name?

>136 2wonderY:
As a child, I might be woken with that. But it would be more if a reproof that I was not already up, and someone had had to wake me.

>137 20thEagle: As you said context is everything. I was also greeted like >136 2wonderY:, and it was not meant sarcastically until I was oversleeping in my teens.

"Sunshine" is one of those terms that is so ambiguous it can be used and no one will ever know what you actually meant.

There is another word that has many meanings, but it is clearly explained in this video.

>139 pgmcc: That's awesome. There's a funny one about the F bomb, but I just started listening to it and decided to skip sharing.

>137 20thEagle: Female. Though there are names (as in English) where the masculine and feminine forms are almost indistinguishable unless you know what to look for, for example Nkululeko (m) and Nonkululeko (f).

I found Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini while scouring LT for something to put me in a seasonal spirit. It wasn't terrible. Some of the historical bits about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were quite informative. The stuff set in the present was only slightly twee. I got my Moderna booster shot yesterday morning, so I wasn't feeling terribly chipper for much of today. I was able to finish this so I can move on (hopefully) to something better.

Just sharing this here as well since I went to the effort to add it to the cheese group. ;o)

>143 clamairy: my shopping basket confirms that!

I tried to finish reading A Lot Like Christmas which I started last December and bailed on halfway through. Perhaps I should have just skipped the one story that was bogging me down and gone on to the next one, but I just bailed a second time and picked up the Dickens instead. I used to read A Christmas Carol every year right before Christmas Day, but I fell out of the habit when my kids were smaller and I had 50 million things to do in the few days before the holiday. So I was happy to be able to do it again. I forgot how much humor is in this book, and some truly terrible (wonderful) puns... The cover I posted isn't mine, but I really like it!

Now I'm reading the first in The Witcher series, which isn't very Christmassy at all, but I am enjoying it nonetheless.

>145 clamairy:
The first time I read A Christmas Carol I was totally surprised at the amount of humour. It still got its message across.

It is a great read.

I'm still working my way through The Last Wish and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I wasn't expecting the humor! I'm also more than halfway through listening to Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, which is fascinating!

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is going to be added to my best of the year list. Like several of the other science books I read or listened to this year it discusses what climate change and human encroachment are doing to so many species, but unlike the others it sounds a hopeful note. We are going to lose a bunch of species, but a lot of them will also adapt by moving North (or South) or moving uphill to cooler areas, or downhill to wetter ones. I will definitely be reading more Thor Hanson.

>148 clamairy:
That sounds fascinating.

Ireland has been seeing species that were normally from more southern climes, both in the air and in the sea. Some of the newcomers seem to be the sort that humans would prefer to stay somewhere else, such as more agressive shark species and insects.

>148 clamairy: that sounds really interesting. I don’t know if we’ve had any new animals coming into our area, but the squirrels no longer hibernate and the geese and ducks stay all year.

>148 clamairy: Ooh, got me with that one too. I was a little iffy on it, but if it possesses some hopefulness...

I am very late on the discussion of "Sunny Jim" and "Good Morning, Sunshine". Both expressions were used in my family growing up, and both pertained to greeting someone who might not have been a happy early riser.

And your discussion of Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squids reminded me of a conversation I had with a work colleague who lives in Tennessee He noted that where he was (near Sewanee University) they were seeing armadillos quite frequently. I was surprised because I wouldn't have thought they were well-suited to his area just in terms of temperature, but he shrugged and noted that climate change was shifting all sorts of wildlife.

Insects are a huge issue. The wrong ones are dying off, and the awful ones are doing really well here. Especially that cursed Lone Star tick.

>149 pgmcc: I'm not surprised at all.
>150 catzteach: Again, not surprised.
>151 Marissa_Doyle: *pew pew pew*
>152 jillmwo: The armadillo thing also doesn't surprise me at all.

The Last Wish was actually a lot of fun. I was not expecting all the humor. The Netflix series is sort of tongue-in-cheek, but this humor seemed a bit more earnest. I will probably keep going with the series, but not right away.

>148 clamairy: sounds interesting!

>149 pgmcc:Ireland has been seeing species that were normally from more southern climes, both in the air and in the sea. Some of the newcomers seem to be the sort that humans would prefer to stay somewhere else, such as more aggressive shark species and insects.

AAAAH! Air Sharks!

>156 MrAndrew:
You’ve seen the movie; now see it in reality.

Sharks on a Plane.

There’s a bite in the air.

See the link below:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/336401#7697131

Clare, have a brilliant 2022.

>156 MrAndrew: Sharknado, perhaps?

>158 pgmcc: Thank you, Peter! The same to you...

>154 clamairy: I read this many years back. Interestingly, I did not pick up on any humour.

>161 -pilgrim-: Interesting.

>162 clamairy: I read a very early copy, long before the Netflix tie-in. (And before playing the computer game.)

I found the language very simple too, which puzzled me, since the people I knew who had read it in the original Polish raved about the quality of the writing and the subtle allusions.

I am wondering if I read a poor translation.

>163 -pilgrim-: That is a possibility. I did notice the language changed a bit from one story to the next. I suspected it was because they were written seperately and then collected. I found the stories with Dandelion the Bard to have the most humor.

>164 clamairy: Who is the translator for your copy?

Best wishes for a happy new year, @clamairy!

>165 -pilgrim-: Danusia Stok

>166 jillmwo: Many thanks! And the same to you!

Happy new year, Clam!

>169 haydninvienna: The same to you, Richard!

>167 clamairy: Thanks, Clam.