1pamelad
Hi, I'm Pam from Melbourne, Australia. Welcome to my second thread. I've continued the film theme with a few more favourites and had an enjoyable time deciding on films and finding posters.
I've changed the numbering, but not for a logical reason: I left some categories out by mistake so stuck them on the end.
I've changed the numbering, but not for a logical reason: I left some categories out by mistake so stuck them on the end.
2pamelad
1. Non-fiction
A classic from 1936, featuring the poem Night Mail by W. H. Auden
A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup
Kings of Georgian Britain by Catherine Curzon
An Appeal to the World: The Way to Peace in a Time of Division by the Dalai Lama
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Most Good You can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
Divided by a Common Language: A Guide to British and American English by Christopher Davies
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
Bulldozed by Niki Savva
Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune by Rory Muir
A classic from 1936, featuring the poem Night Mail by W. H. Auden
A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup
Kings of Georgian Britain by Catherine Curzon
An Appeal to the World: The Way to Peace in a Time of Division by the Dalai Lama
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Most Good You can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
Divided by a Common Language: A Guide to British and American English by Christopher Davies
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
Bulldozed by Niki Savva
Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune by Rory Muir
3pamelad
2. Africa, Asia and the Americas
Highly Recommended Egyptian film from 1969
Asia
Mongolia: The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
Japan: Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Japan: The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
Japan: The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo
Japan: Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Americas
Jamaica (setting) and Dominica (author's birth) : Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
US: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
US: Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
US: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Africa
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe): Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Nigeria: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
Highly Recommended Egyptian film from 1969
Asia
Mongolia: The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
Japan: Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Japan: The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
Japan: The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo
Japan: Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Americas
Jamaica (setting) and Dominica (author's birth) : Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
US: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
US: Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
US: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Africa
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe): Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Nigeria: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
4pamelad
3. Australia and New Zealand
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
Plumb by Maurice Gee
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Day's End by Garry Disher
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
Plumb by Maurice Gee
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Day's End by Garry Disher
5pamelad
4. Europe
I've been doing the Europe Endless Challenge since 2010, and am down to the last few countries. I aim to finish in 2022.
CROATIA Veres by Neven Usumovic from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
CYPRUS Exhibition by Nora Nadjarian from Best European Fiction 2011 Completed
LIECHTENSTEIN Deep in the Snow by Mathias Ospelt from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
LITHUANIA The Allure of the Text y Giedra Radvilaviciute from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
LUXEMB0URG The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin Completed December, 2021 Completed
MALTA Death in Malta by Roseanne Dinglii
MONTENEGRO Raymond is No Longer with Us - Carver is Dead by Ognjen Spahic from Best European Fiction 2011 Completed
SAN MARINO Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence
SERBIA The Basilica in Lyon by David Albahari from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
VATICAN CITY The Popes by John Julius Norwich
The Rest of Europe
UK
England My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
England The Executor by Margaret Oliphant
England Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
France We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
France Claudine at School by Collette
France The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
Ireland Snow by John Banville
Ireland Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Italy: Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
Portugal The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Spain The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
Sweden A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Sweden The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
I've been doing the Europe Endless Challenge since 2010, and am down to the last few countries. I aim to finish in 2022.
CROATIA Veres by Neven Usumovic from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
CYPRUS Exhibition by Nora Nadjarian from Best European Fiction 2011 Completed
LIECHTENSTEIN Deep in the Snow by Mathias Ospelt from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
LITHUANIA The Allure of the Text y Giedra Radvilaviciute from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
LUXEMB0URG The Luxembourg Run by Stanley Ellin Completed December, 2021 Completed
MALTA Death in Malta by Roseanne Dinglii
MONTENEGRO Raymond is No Longer with Us - Carver is Dead by Ognjen Spahic from Best European Fiction 2011 Completed
SAN MARINO Twilight in Italy by D. H. Lawrence
SERBIA The Basilica in Lyon by David Albahari from Best European Fiction 2010 Completed
VATICAN CITY The Popes by John Julius Norwich
The Rest of Europe
UK
England My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
England The Executor by Margaret Oliphant
England Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
France We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
France Claudine at School by Collette
France The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
Ireland Snow by John Banville
Ireland Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Italy: Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
Portugal The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Spain The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
Sweden A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Sweden The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
6pamelad
5. CATs and KITs
CATWoman
January: Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
February: The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi; The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan; The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
May: The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff; The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein
September: Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
October: The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
AuthorCAT
January: Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss; The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
February: Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant; The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan; The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
March: Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
April: Claudine at School by Collette
May: The Fallout by Garry Disher
June: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling.
July: Silence by Shusaku Endo
August: Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
September: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
October: Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
ShakespeareCAT
April: Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
CATWoman
January: Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
February: The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi; The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan; The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
May: The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff; The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein
September: Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
October: The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
AuthorCAT
January: Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss; The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
February: Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant; The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan; The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
March: Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
April: Claudine at School by Collette
May: The Fallout by Garry Disher
June: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling.
July: Silence by Shusaku Endo
August: Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
September: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
October: Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
ShakespeareCAT
April: Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
7pamelad
6. Book Lists
Nothing to do with lists, just a film that deserves to be seen.
I'm working my way through the Guardian 1000 with side trips into 1001 Books and assorted lists of classic crime fiction.
Read
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Guardian 1000
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan 1001 Books
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eco de Queiros 1001 Books; Guardian 1000
Claudine at School by Collette Guardian 1000
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 1001 Books
Chocky by John Wyndham 1001 Books
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff 1001 Books
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga 1001 Books
Silence by Shusaku Endo 1001 Books; Guardian 1000
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini Guardian 1000
Nothing to do with lists, just a film that deserves to be seen.
I'm working my way through the Guardian 1000 with side trips into 1001 Books and assorted lists of classic crime fiction.
Read
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Guardian 1000
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan 1001 Books
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eco de Queiros 1001 Books; Guardian 1000
Claudine at School by Collette Guardian 1000
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri 1001 Books
Chocky by John Wyndham 1001 Books
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff 1001 Books
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga 1001 Books
Silence by Shusaku Endo 1001 Books; Guardian 1000
Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini Guardian 1000
8pamelad
7. Crime
January to June
The Religious Body by Catherine Aird
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Dead Men Don't Ski by Patricia Moyes
Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths
The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths
A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths
Dying fall by Elly Griffiths
The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths
The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
Death Comes to Kurland Hall by Catherine Lloyd
Death Comes to the Fair by Catherine Lloyd
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Post After Post-Mortem by E C R Lorac
July to December
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Matter of Loyalty by Elizabeth Edmondson and Anselm Audley
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
A Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston
The Widow of Bath by Margot Bennett
The Heiress of Linn Hagh by Karen Charlton
The Sans Pareil Mystery by Karen Charlton
January to June
The Religious Body by Catherine Aird
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Dead Men Don't Ski by Patricia Moyes
Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths
The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths
A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths
Dying fall by Elly Griffiths
The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths
The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
Death Comes to Kurland Hall by Catherine Lloyd
Death Comes to the Fair by Catherine Lloyd
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Post After Post-Mortem by E C R Lorac
July to December
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Matter of Loyalty by Elizabeth Edmondson and Anselm Audley
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
A Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston
The Widow of Bath by Margot Bennett
The Heiress of Linn Hagh by Karen Charlton
The Sans Pareil Mystery by Karen Charlton
9pamelad
8. Prizes
Won the Palme d'Or.
Aiming for 10 different prizes.
Read
1. Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie Victorian Prize for Literature
2. The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey Miles Franklin
3. An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley RITA
4. Plumb by Maurice Gee James Tait Black Memorial Prize
5. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths Edgar
6. The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff Nobel
7. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga Commonwealth Writers Prize
8. The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin Ned Kelly Award
9. Silence by Shusaku Endo Tanizaki Award
10. Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read Hawthornden Prize
Won the Palme d'Or.
Aiming for 10 different prizes.
Read
1. Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie Victorian Prize for Literature
2. The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey Miles Franklin
3. An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley RITA
4. Plumb by Maurice Gee James Tait Black Memorial Prize
5. The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths Edgar
6. The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff Nobel
7. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga Commonwealth Writers Prize
8. The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin Ned Kelly Award
9. Silence by Shusaku Endo Tanizaki Award
10. Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read Hawthornden Prize
10pamelad
9. Wish List
I have wish lists on LT, Open Library, Overdrive, Amazon, Kobo, The Book Depository and probably others that I've forgotten. I plan to use them as a source of inspiration rather than a black hole.
Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea by Amara Lakhous
The Years by Annie Ernaux
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
Hope to Read Soon: a tribute to RebeccaNYC
The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Best European Fiction 2010 by Aleksander Hemon
I have wish lists on LT, Open Library, Overdrive, Amazon, Kobo, The Book Depository and probably others that I've forgotten. I plan to use them as a source of inspiration rather than a black hole.
Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea by Amara Lakhous
The Years by Annie Ernaux
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
Hope to Read Soon: a tribute to RebeccaNYC
The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Best European Fiction 2010 by Aleksander Hemon
11pamelad
10. New Authors
One I haven't seen yet. Still looking for it.
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Plumb by Maurice Gee
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Sweet Are the Ways by Essie Summers
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Years by Annie Ernaux
One I haven't seen yet. Still looking for it.
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Plumb by Maurice Gee
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Sweet Are the Ways by Essie Summers
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
The Years by Annie Ernaux
12pamelad
11. BingoDOG
1. An Award Winning book Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie Victorian Prize for Literature Completed
2. Published in a year ending 2 Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes 1962 Completed
3. A modern retelling of an older story Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Completed
4. A book you'd love to see as a movie The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag Completed
5. A book that features a dog My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley Completed
6. The title contains the letter Z Gerald and Elizabeth by D. E. Stevenson Completed
7. Published the year you joined LT To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverley 2006 Completed
8. A book by a favourite author Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Completed
9. A long book (long for you) The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros Completed
10. A book you received as a gift The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan Completed
11. The title contains a month The Merry Month of May by Joan Smith Completed
12. A weather word in the title Snow by John Banville Completed
13. Read a CAT Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant Completed
14. Contains travel or a journey Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning Completed
15. A book about sisters or brothers Love and Folly by Sheila Simonson Completed
16. A book club read (real or online) A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Completed
17. A book with flowers on the cover Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor Completed
18. A book in translation Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe Completed
19. A work of non-fiction A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup Completed
20. A book where a character shares a name of a friend Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson Completed
21. A book set in a capital city The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas Completed
22. A children's or YA book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Completed
23. A book set in a country other than the one you live The Religious Body by Catherine Aird Completed
24. A book by an LGBTQ+ author Claudine at School by Colette Completed
25. A book with silver or gold on the cover The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher Completed
1. An Award Winning book Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie Victorian Prize for Literature Completed
2. Published in a year ending 2 Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes 1962 Completed
3. A modern retelling of an older story Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Completed
4. A book you'd love to see as a movie The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag Completed
5. A book that features a dog My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley Completed
6. The title contains the letter Z Gerald and Elizabeth by D. E. Stevenson Completed
7. Published the year you joined LT To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverley 2006 Completed
8. A book by a favourite author Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Completed
9. A long book (long for you) The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros Completed
10. A book you received as a gift The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan Completed
11. The title contains a month The Merry Month of May by Joan Smith Completed
12. A weather word in the title Snow by John Banville Completed
13. Read a CAT Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant Completed
14. Contains travel or a journey Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning Completed
15. A book about sisters or brothers Love and Folly by Sheila Simonson Completed
16. A book club read (real or online) A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman Completed
17. A book with flowers on the cover Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor Completed
18. A book in translation Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe Completed
19. A work of non-fiction A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup Completed
20. A book where a character shares a name of a friend Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson Completed
21. A book set in a capital city The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas Completed
22. A children's or YA book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Completed
23. A book set in a country other than the one you live The Religious Body by Catherine Aird Completed
24. A book by an LGBTQ+ author Claudine at School by Colette Completed
25. A book with silver or gold on the cover The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher Completed
13pamelad
12. More Prizes
Nominated for Best Film of the Century.
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans: Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist
V for Victory by Lissa Evans: HWA Gold Crown Shortlist
Farthing by Jo Walton: Sidewise Award Finalist
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Shortlist
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Shortlist
O, Caledonia by Elspeth Barker: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize; David Higham Prize for Fiction
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan: Booker Shortlist
Foster by Claire Keegan: Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize
The Years by Annie Ernaux
Happening by Annie Ernaux
Nominated for Best Film of the Century.
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans: Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist
V for Victory by Lissa Evans: HWA Gold Crown Shortlist
Farthing by Jo Walton: Sidewise Award Finalist
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Shortlist
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize Shortlist
O, Caledonia by Elspeth Barker: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize; David Higham Prize for Fiction
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan: Booker Shortlist
Foster by Claire Keegan: Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize
The Years by Annie Ernaux
Happening by Annie Ernaux
14pamelad
13. Books I Own
Most of these are on my Kindle and Kobo, and I keep buying more. Better read the ones I have.
Bought For Fifteenth LT Anniversary
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau Completed
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher Completed
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi Completed
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan Completed
A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Karkup Completed
Segu by Maryse Conde
Plumb by Maurice Gee Completed
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
Books I've Already Started
A Young Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulkagov Completed
The Novel of Ferrara by Giorgio Bassani
The History of Philosophy by A. C. Grayling
The Popes by John Julius Norwich
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
Noise by Daniel Kahneman
The Rest
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Kings of Georgian Britain by Catherine Curzon
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
Chocky by John Wyndham
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
The Man in the Dark by Susan Scarlett
Most of these are on my Kindle and Kobo, and I keep buying more. Better read the ones I have.
Bought For Fifteenth LT Anniversary
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau Completed
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher Completed
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi Completed
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan Completed
A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Karkup Completed
Segu by Maryse Conde
Plumb by Maurice Gee Completed
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk
Books I've Already Started
A Young Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulkagov Completed
The Novel of Ferrara by Giorgio Bassani
The History of Philosophy by A. C. Grayling
The Popes by John Julius Norwich
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
Noise by Daniel Kahneman
The Rest
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
Kings of Georgian Britain by Catherine Curzon
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
Chocky by John Wyndham
The Fallout by Garry Disher
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
The Man in the Dark by Susan Scarlett
15pamelad
14. Challenges That Pop Up
Historical Fiction Challenge
1.Set in the country you're from The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
2. Set in a different country Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
3. Set in your favourite historical period Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
4. Set in period you're less familiar with Silence by Shusaku Endo
5. Historical fiction with a speculative element Farthing by Jo Walton
6. About a real historical figure or a specific event Rizzio by Denise Mina
7. A classic work of historical fiction The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Bonus: a work of historical fiction of over 500 pages
Historical Fiction Challenge
1.Set in the country you're from The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
2. Set in a different country Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
3. Set in your favourite historical period Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
4. Set in period you're less familiar with Silence by Shusaku Endo
5. Historical fiction with a speculative element Farthing by Jo Walton
6. About a real historical figure or a specific event Rizzio by Denise Mina
7. A classic work of historical fiction The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Bonus: a work of historical fiction of over 500 pages
16pamelad
15. Decades
1870 and earlier
The Executor by Mrs Oliphant
1871 - 1880
Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
1881 - 1890
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
1891 - 1900
Claudine at School by Collette
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
1901-1910
1911-1920
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
1921-1930
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
A Young Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
1931-1940
Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning
Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
Post After Post-Mortem by E C R Lorac
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce 1936
Fanfare for Tin Trumpets by Margery Sharp
1941-1950
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
The Mating season by P G Wodehouse
1951-1960
My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
Dead Men Don't Ski by Patricia Moyes
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The Lark Shall Sing by Elizabeth Cadell
The Blue Sky of Spring by Elizabeth Cadell
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
1961-1970
The Religious Body by Catherine Aird
Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Chocky by John Wyndham
Sweet Are the Ways by Essie Summers
The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell
Six Impossible Things by Elizabeth Cadell
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
1971-1980
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Plumb by Maurice Gee
Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
1981-1990
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
1991-2000
The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag (first publication, in German)
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
The Fallout by Garry Disher
2001 - 2010
Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2011 - 2020
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths
The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths
The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Most Good You can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
2021 - 2022
V for Victory by Lissa Evans
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
1870 and earlier
The Executor by Mrs Oliphant
1871 - 1880
Phoebe Junior by Mrs Oliphant
The Crime of Father Amaro by Jose Maria Eca de Queiros
1881 - 1890
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan
1891 - 1900
Claudine at School by Collette
The Story of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerloff
1901-1910
1911-1920
The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton
1921-1930
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
A Young Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
1931-1940
Mr Finchley Discovers His England by Victor Canning
Palladian by Elizabeth Taylor
Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes
Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes
Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
Post After Post-Mortem by E C R Lorac
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce 1936
Fanfare for Tin Trumpets by Margery Sharp
1941-1950
We Always Treat Women Too Well by Raymond Queneau
Pied Piper by Nevil Shute
Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
The Mating season by P G Wodehouse
1951-1960
My Dog Tulip by J R Ackerley
Dead Men Don't Ski by Patricia Moyes
The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi
The Lark Shall Sing by Elizabeth Cadell
The Blue Sky of Spring by Elizabeth Cadell
Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
1961-1970
The Religious Body by Catherine Aird
Death on the Agenda by Patricia Moyes
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Chocky by John Wyndham
Sweet Are the Ways by Essie Summers
The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell
Six Impossible Things by Elizabeth Cadell
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
1971-1980
Secret Rendezvous by Kobo Abe
Plumb by Maurice Gee
Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
1981-1990
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
1991-2000
The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag (first publication, in German)
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas
The Fallout by Garry Disher
2001 - 2010
Not Meeting Mr Right by Anita Heiss
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
2011 - 2020
The Labyrinth by Amanda Lohrey
The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths
The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths
The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
The Woman in Blue by Elly Griffiths
The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
Old Baggage by Lissa Evans
Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe
The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
The Most Good You can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically by Peter Singer
2021 - 2022
V for Victory by Lissa Evans
The Way It Is Now by Garry Disher
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience by Veronica Gorrie
17pamelad
Prizes and Lists
A place to store the prizes and lists I come across.
Prizes
1. Miles Franklin Award
2. Booker International/Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
3. Booker Prize
4. Stella Prize
5. Costa Award
7. Samuel Johnson/Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
8. Edgar Awards
9. PEN Translation Prize
10. Women's Prize for Fiction
11. Desmond Elliot Prize
12. Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
13. Betty Trask Award
14. Romance Writers of Australia Ruby Award
15. Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
16. Ngaio Marsh Award
17. Melbourne Prize for Literature
18. Tanizaki Prize
19. Barbara Jefferis Award
20. International Thriller Writers Awards
21. Historical Writers Association Awards
22. Gold Dagger Awards
23. Sidewise Award for Alternate History
24. Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
25. James Tait Black Memorial Prize
26. Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
27. Ned Kelly Award
28. ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize
29. Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel Award
30. Hawthornden Prize
31. Somerset Maugham Award
A place to store the prizes and lists I come across.
Prizes
1. Miles Franklin Award
2. Booker International/Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
3. Booker Prize
4. Stella Prize
5. Costa Award
7. Samuel Johnson/Baillie-Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction
8. Edgar Awards
9. PEN Translation Prize
10. Women's Prize for Fiction
11. Desmond Elliot Prize
12. Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
13. Betty Trask Award
14. Romance Writers of Australia Ruby Award
15. Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
16. Ngaio Marsh Award
17. Melbourne Prize for Literature
18. Tanizaki Prize
19. Barbara Jefferis Award
20. International Thriller Writers Awards
21. Historical Writers Association Awards
22. Gold Dagger Awards
23. Sidewise Award for Alternate History
24. Australian Literature Society Gold Medal
25. James Tait Black Memorial Prize
26. Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
27. Ned Kelly Award
28. ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize
29. Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel Award
30. Hawthornden Prize
31. Somerset Maugham Award
18pamelad
Best reads so far this year:
Nervous Conditions
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience
Wide Sargasso Sea
Decline and Fall
The Crime of Father Amaro
The Waiting Years
A Young Doctor's Notebook
The House of Ulloa
Best Historical Romances:
Lady Elizabeth's Comet
The Virgin and the Viscount
A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong
Most Enjoyable New Discoveries
Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series
Lissa Evans' Noel Bostock series
Nervous Conditions
Black and Blue: a memoir of racism and resilience
Wide Sargasso Sea
Decline and Fall
The Crime of Father Amaro
The Waiting Years
A Young Doctor's Notebook
The House of Ulloa
Best Historical Romances:
Lady Elizabeth's Comet
The Virgin and the Viscount
A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong
Most Enjoyable New Discoveries
Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series
Lissa Evans' Noel Bostock series
20MissWatson
Happy new thread! And so many fabulous films in here!
22christina_reads
Happy new thread! I'm off to add Lady Elizabeth's Comet to my wishlist!
25rabbitprincess
Happy new thread! Love the poster for Night Mail especially. Gorgeous blues.
26pamelad
>25 rabbitprincess: Welcome! I think you can download Night Mail. https://archive.org/details/night-mail-1936 I've never tried to download a film, but might have a go.
27DeltaQueen50
Happy new thread, I love the movie posters. I also love drooling over your many lists and challenges. :)
28pamelad
The Country Gentleman by Fiona Hill
"...considerably more wit and pizazz than the legendary Georgette Heyer herself." --Kirkus Reviews
Well, no. Brittle and hectic are more like it. Quite readable, and worth the $A1.89 investment, but the heroine was just awful!
"...considerably more wit and pizazz than the legendary Georgette Heyer herself." --Kirkus Reviews
Well, no. Brittle and hectic are more like it. Quite readable, and worth the $A1.89 investment, but the heroine was just awful!
29christina_reads
>28 pamelad: Yeah, that's a pretty bold claim!
31pamelad
7. Crime
Post After Post-Mortem by E. C. R. Lorac 1936
As the book begins, Mrs Surray is admiring the beauty of her garden and reflecting on her family. Her children are so successful, and her house so perfect, that Mrs Surray worries that there is nothing left for her to do with her life. But then her daughter Ruth is found dead, apparently a suicide. Ruth was an intellectual, which is problematic for women because their constitutions aren't strong enough to cope with the demands of their brains. This is the amusing thing about E. C. R. Lorac: she knows how people are meant to be and she judges them harshly. In others of her books I've been amused by villains who wear too much mascara, or don't know that it's proper to wear tweeds in the country. There a few potential suspects: an insomniac psychiatrist brother; a womanising explorer who dumped Ruth for her younger sister; a publisher who is always on the spot when disaster happens.
I liked this book for its faults and after ten books by Lorac, feel that I'm building up a picture of the author.
Post After Post-Mortem by E. C. R. Lorac 1936
As the book begins, Mrs Surray is admiring the beauty of her garden and reflecting on her family. Her children are so successful, and her house so perfect, that Mrs Surray worries that there is nothing left for her to do with her life. But then her daughter Ruth is found dead, apparently a suicide. Ruth was an intellectual, which is problematic for women because their constitutions aren't strong enough to cope with the demands of their brains. This is the amusing thing about E. C. R. Lorac: she knows how people are meant to be and she judges them harshly. In others of her books I've been amused by villains who wear too much mascara, or don't know that it's proper to wear tweeds in the country. There a few potential suspects: an insomniac psychiatrist brother; a womanising explorer who dumped Ruth for her younger sister; a publisher who is always on the spot when disaster happens.
I liked this book for its faults and after ten books by Lorac, feel that I'm building up a picture of the author.
32pamelad
Seeing Bedelia on DeltaQueen's thread reminded me of Vera Caspary. Her books used to be hard to find, but a lot of them have been republished now as ebooks. I've downloaded The Man Who Loved His Wife as well as some others from the Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp series.
Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty. Loved the film with Barbara Stanwyck. I've already read Now, Voyager and thought that the Bette Davis film was a lot better than the book.
The Girls in 3-B, By Cecile and Women's Barracks are an experiment, because fifties lesbian pulp-fiction is a genre I haven't tried!
Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty. Loved the film with Barbara Stanwyck. I've already read Now, Voyager and thought that the Bette Davis film was a lot better than the book.
The Girls in 3-B, By Cecile and Women's Barracks are an experiment, because fifties lesbian pulp-fiction is a genre I haven't tried!
33Tess_W
>33 Tess_W:"... problematic for women because their constitutions aren't strong enough to cope with the demands of their brains" LOL!
34pamelad
>33 Tess_W: Detective story writers were forthright with their opinions back in the thirties. I've just finished one by Anthony Berkeley where a couple of characters are cheer leaders for the death penalty and the victim is described as deserving her murder. A bit harsh!
I managed a few pages of Girls in 3-B, which is on KoboPlus so a guilt-free discard, and am reconsidering my commitment to fifties lesbian noir. I'm more inclined towards Margery Sharp (KP), Eric Ambler (KP) and Anthony Berkeley (KU and Overdrive), and am also going to give Leo Bruce a try (KP).
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley 1932
The eighth book in the Roger Sheringham series is unusual in that the first part is taken up with identifying the body of a young woman, found buried in a basement. Chief Inspector Moresby and his underlings carry out a lengthy and painstaking investigation, which is leading nowhere until an X-ray of the exhumed corpse furnishes a clue. Once the woman its identified it turns out that Roger Sheringham, author and amateur detective, actually knew her. Of course! The trail leads to a boys' prep school, a hotbed of petty politics and intrigue.
I enjoyed this short, jaunty British crime novel and have found a few Anthony Berkeleys I haven't read on Kindle Unlimited and Overdrive. Next up is Jumping Jenny.
I managed a few pages of Girls in 3-B, which is on KoboPlus so a guilt-free discard, and am reconsidering my commitment to fifties lesbian noir. I'm more inclined towards Margery Sharp (KP), Eric Ambler (KP) and Anthony Berkeley (KU and Overdrive), and am also going to give Leo Bruce a try (KP).
Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley 1932
The eighth book in the Roger Sheringham series is unusual in that the first part is taken up with identifying the body of a young woman, found buried in a basement. Chief Inspector Moresby and his underlings carry out a lengthy and painstaking investigation, which is leading nowhere until an X-ray of the exhumed corpse furnishes a clue. Once the woman its identified it turns out that Roger Sheringham, author and amateur detective, actually knew her. Of course! The trail leads to a boys' prep school, a hotbed of petty politics and intrigue.
I enjoyed this short, jaunty British crime novel and have found a few Anthony Berkeleys I haven't read on Kindle Unlimited and Overdrive. Next up is Jumping Jenny.
35christina_reads
>34 pamelad: Ooh, Jumping Jenny is the Anthony Berkeley I own but haven't read yet. Looking forward to your thoughts!
36pamelad
7. Crime
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
Another woman who deserves to be murdered! She is Ena Stratton, an enraged, hysterical exhibitionist, mad enough to inflict misery on everyone she knows, but not quite committable. She ends up dead at her brother-in-law's party, a fancy-dress celebration of famous murderers, complete with gallows. The guest of honour is Roger Sheringham, author and amateur detective.
Berkeley is experimenting with the form of the detective story. We know who contributed to Ena Stratton's death, but Sheringham gets it wrong and creates havoc by manipulating the evidence and coaching the witnesses. It looks as though the man he's trying to protect, who is not the murderer, could be trapped by Sheringham's machinations. The story bogs down in the middle, where Sheringham spends too much time talking about fitting suspects into scenarios, but overall it's an entertaining read.
On the evidence of Murder in the Basement and Jumping Jenny, Anthony Berkeley was very much a misogynist. I had to put that aside to enjoy both books.
Jumping Jenny by Anthony Berkeley
Another woman who deserves to be murdered! She is Ena Stratton, an enraged, hysterical exhibitionist, mad enough to inflict misery on everyone she knows, but not quite committable. She ends up dead at her brother-in-law's party, a fancy-dress celebration of famous murderers, complete with gallows. The guest of honour is Roger Sheringham, author and amateur detective.
Berkeley is experimenting with the form of the detective story. We know who contributed to Ena Stratton's death, but Sheringham gets it wrong and creates havoc by manipulating the evidence and coaching the witnesses. It looks as though the man he's trying to protect, who is not the murderer, could be trapped by Sheringham's machinations. The story bogs down in the middle, where Sheringham spends too much time talking about fitting suspects into scenarios, but overall it's an entertaining read.
On the evidence of Murder in the Basement and Jumping Jenny, Anthony Berkeley was very much a misogynist. I had to put that aside to enjoy both books.
37NinieB
>36 pamelad: Thinking about the plots of Before the Fact and Malice Aforethought, I think you're right about Berkeley.
38pamelad
>27 DeltaQueen50: Missed your post. Welcome!
>37 NinieB: Two excellent books. I re-read them in 2008 and, even then, misogyny was less remarkable than it is now. At least the male characters are unsympathetic!
>37 NinieB: Two excellent books. I re-read them in 2008 and, even then, misogyny was less remarkable than it is now. At least the male characters are unsympathetic!
39pamelad
14. Historical Fiction Challenge
Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
This is a gentle book about a very nice woman, Caroline Smith, a traditional wife and mother with an uncommunicative husband of whom she is quietly fond, and two adult children to whom she is devoted. Caroline is kind, diffident and intelligent, with a great deal of common sense.
The story begins at the turn of the last century, when Caroline Chase is seventeen. She lives in Morton, an outer suburb of London which consists of the town, where the common people live, and the common, where the upper classes live. The town and the common do not mix socially, and never intermarry. When Caroline, from the town, meets Victor, from the common, when both are exploring the garden of an abandoned manor house, she knows that they can't be friends in public but hopes anyway. She marries Henry, a man of her own class, capable and ambitious. Henry's eventual success enables him to move his family to a manor house in the equivalent of the common in a neighbouring suburb. All through the book we see the class system through Caroline's perspective: she knows her place, but is determined to fit in where she has to for the sake of her husband and children.
The stages of Caroline's life are delineated by gardens: the overgrown garden of the abandoned manor; the tiny backyard of the house in the town part of Morton, where she grows vegetables; the beautiful, formal garden at the new manor house, with a gardener who ignores her; the garden with which the book ends.
Nothing much happens in Four Gardens, but the writing is so good, the characters are so well-drawn and the social observations are so acute, that it is well worth reading.
Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
This is a gentle book about a very nice woman, Caroline Smith, a traditional wife and mother with an uncommunicative husband of whom she is quietly fond, and two adult children to whom she is devoted. Caroline is kind, diffident and intelligent, with a great deal of common sense.
The story begins at the turn of the last century, when Caroline Chase is seventeen. She lives in Morton, an outer suburb of London which consists of the town, where the common people live, and the common, where the upper classes live. The town and the common do not mix socially, and never intermarry. When Caroline, from the town, meets Victor, from the common, when both are exploring the garden of an abandoned manor house, she knows that they can't be friends in public but hopes anyway. She marries Henry, a man of her own class, capable and ambitious. Henry's eventual success enables him to move his family to a manor house in the equivalent of the common in a neighbouring suburb. All through the book we see the class system through Caroline's perspective: she knows her place, but is determined to fit in where she has to for the sake of her husband and children.
The stages of Caroline's life are delineated by gardens: the overgrown garden of the abandoned manor; the tiny backyard of the house in the town part of Morton, where she grows vegetables; the beautiful, formal garden at the new manor house, with a gardener who ignores her; the garden with which the book ends.
Nothing much happens in Four Gardens, but the writing is so good, the characters are so well-drawn and the social observations are so acute, that it is well worth reading.
40Tess_W
>39 pamelad: Perhaps I will give Ms Sharp another try....
41rabbitprincess
>37 NinieB: Agreed, especially Before the Fact, which I had to drop unfinished.
42pamelad
3. Australia and New Zealand
7. Crime
8. Prizes - Ned Kelly Award
9. Wishlist
10. New authors
14. Historical Fiction Challenge - Set in the Country You're From
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Charlie Berlin is the only survivor of a bombing crew shot down over Germany. He barely survived incarceration as a POW, but is now back at his old job, a police constable based at Russell Street Police Headquarters. Charlie is barely hanging on: he's managed to replace his benzedrine addiction with a less damaging dependency on Scotch, but is troubled by flashbacks and blackouts. Charlie's unsupportive superiors send him to Wodonga to investigate a series of payroll robberies carried out by a team of masked motorbike riders because he's dispensable. They'll be happy to get rid of him when he fails to solve the case.
While Charlie is in Wodonga, a young Chinese girl is found beheaded, and Charlie is put in charge of her murder investigation, which saves the corrupt Wodonga from having to do any work.
Geographical Information: Wodonga is a country town in northern Victoria, across the Murray River (border between NSW and Victoria) from the NSW town of Albury. These days it's about a 3.5 hour drive, but it would have taken a lot longer in 1947.
What I liked
Lots of nostalgic details from late forties Australia. I was a child in the fifties, when some people still hade ice chests and gave their kids Hypol, and the night man collected the pans of sewage from the back lane.
The historical information about life in Wodonga in the aftermath of WWII, with the police driving superannuated staff cars, farmers adapting military vehicles for use on their farms, the Bonegilla army base being converted into a camp for European migrants.
The Melbourne sections, which are set in parts of the city that I'm very familiar with.
What I disliked
Miserable cop; too many flashbacks; disconnected plot threads; a gorgeous newspaper photographer throws herself at PC Miseryguts; both crimes suddenly solve themselves.
7. Crime
8. Prizes - Ned Kelly Award
9. Wishlist
10. New authors
14. Historical Fiction Challenge - Set in the Country You're From
The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
Charlie Berlin is the only survivor of a bombing crew shot down over Germany. He barely survived incarceration as a POW, but is now back at his old job, a police constable based at Russell Street Police Headquarters. Charlie is barely hanging on: he's managed to replace his benzedrine addiction with a less damaging dependency on Scotch, but is troubled by flashbacks and blackouts. Charlie's unsupportive superiors send him to Wodonga to investigate a series of payroll robberies carried out by a team of masked motorbike riders because he's dispensable. They'll be happy to get rid of him when he fails to solve the case.
While Charlie is in Wodonga, a young Chinese girl is found beheaded, and Charlie is put in charge of her murder investigation, which saves the corrupt Wodonga from having to do any work.
Geographical Information: Wodonga is a country town in northern Victoria, across the Murray River (border between NSW and Victoria) from the NSW town of Albury. These days it's about a 3.5 hour drive, but it would have taken a lot longer in 1947.
What I liked
Lots of nostalgic details from late forties Australia. I was a child in the fifties, when some people still hade ice chests and gave their kids Hypol, and the night man collected the pans of sewage from the back lane.
The historical information about life in Wodonga in the aftermath of WWII, with the police driving superannuated staff cars, farmers adapting military vehicles for use on their farms, the Bonegilla army base being converted into a camp for European migrants.
The Melbourne sections, which are set in parts of the city that I'm very familiar with.
What I disliked
Miserable cop; too many flashbacks; disconnected plot threads; a gorgeous newspaper photographer throws herself at PC Miseryguts; both crimes suddenly solve themselves.
43pamelad
I've read 3 books from Joyce Harmon's Regency Charade series. They're short, cheerful and undemanding, available on KindleUnlimited, and free from sex scenes.
1. A Feather to Fly With
2. A Regency Road Trip (Novellla)
3. Katherine, When She Smiled
>41 rabbitprincess: I stopped reading a crime novel in disgust recently when the author made a joke about the WWII invasion of Belgium. Should have made a note of the title. I can manage Berkeley's misogyny better than I can that sort of callousness. I suppose you could say that the prejudice belongs to the character, not the writer, because these books are fiction, after all, but I don't.
1. A Feather to Fly With
2. A Regency Road Trip (Novellla)
3. Katherine, When She Smiled
>41 rabbitprincess: I stopped reading a crime novel in disgust recently when the author made a joke about the WWII invasion of Belgium. Should have made a note of the title. I can manage Berkeley's misogyny better than I can that sort of callousness. I suppose you could say that the prejudice belongs to the character, not the writer, because these books are fiction, after all, but I don't.
44pamelad
Winner! LT said I'd love Leo Bruce's Our Jubilee is Death and I liked it very much. I can't remember ever reading a Leo Bruce book before, which is a strange omission, and am pleased to find that there are so many of them. They're available on KoboPlus, which is another win.
Carolus Deene, schoolmaster and amateur detective, is contacted by his cousin who, while walking along the beach, has come across the head of the famous detective story writer, Mrs Lilliane Bomberger, who has been buried vertically in the sand. Mrs Bomberger is an awful harridan who delights in controlling and humiliating anyone who comes into her orbit. Unlike Anthony Berkeley's Roger Sheringham, however, Deene believes that no degree of nastiness justifies murder, and he shows a good deal more sympathy towards his characters. This is a humorous crime novel, but not a callous one, with some amusingly pompous, oblivious characters making themselves seem more and more ridiculous with every word they utter. The charlady doesn't quite work, but Mrs Bomberger and the hotel receptionist are very funny.
This is a classic detective story with plenty of motivated suspects and a final explanation in front of the police and other interested parties. It was first published in I959. I recommend it.
Classifying it in 7. Crime and 10. New authors.
Carolus Deene, schoolmaster and amateur detective, is contacted by his cousin who, while walking along the beach, has come across the head of the famous detective story writer, Mrs Lilliane Bomberger, who has been buried vertically in the sand. Mrs Bomberger is an awful harridan who delights in controlling and humiliating anyone who comes into her orbit. Unlike Anthony Berkeley's Roger Sheringham, however, Deene believes that no degree of nastiness justifies murder, and he shows a good deal more sympathy towards his characters. This is a humorous crime novel, but not a callous one, with some amusingly pompous, oblivious characters making themselves seem more and more ridiculous with every word they utter. The charlady doesn't quite work, but Mrs Bomberger and the hotel receptionist are very funny.
This is a classic detective story with plenty of motivated suspects and a final explanation in front of the police and other interested parties. It was first published in I959. I recommend it.
Classifying it in 7. Crime and 10. New authors.
45Tess_W
>44 pamelad: putting it on my WL
46DeltaQueen50
>44 pamelad: You sent me running off to Amazon to check out Leo Bruce and I picked up one of his mysteries - Case for Three Detectives which is the first one in his Sarg. Beef series. I'm looking forward to it.
47MissBrangwen
>34 pamelad: Murder in the Basement is on my shelf! I love the cover.
>42 pamelad: I visited Albury/Wodonga in 2010 for two days and really liked it. The river is so beautiful and I remember that I bought some bookmarks at the museum! I have added this book to my wishlist. I think I can live with the aspects you listed as dislikes, although they are annoying!
>42 pamelad: I visited Albury/Wodonga in 2010 for two days and really liked it. The river is so beautiful and I remember that I bought some bookmarks at the museum! I have added this book to my wishlist. I think I can live with the aspects you listed as dislikes, although they are annoying!
48pamelad
>46 DeltaQueen50: I'm reading it right now. Hope you like it.
>47 MissBrangwen: I've only ever driven through Albury/Wodonga so should break the trip and have a look around next time. I hope you like The Diggers Rest Hotel. Diggers Rest is a suburb on the western outskirts of Melbourne, so I was surprised to read about a hotel in Wodonga!
>47 MissBrangwen: I've only ever driven through Albury/Wodonga so should break the trip and have a look around next time. I hope you like The Diggers Rest Hotel. Diggers Rest is a suburb on the western outskirts of Melbourne, so I was surprised to read about a hotel in Wodonga!
49pamelad
The Gypsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp
The three Sylvester women are big, blonde, beautiful and ebullient, married to big, dark, handsome men who never waste a word. The family farm in Devon is a cheerful, sunny, happy place until Stephen, the fourth and smallest Sylvester, makes a trip to Plymouth and returns with a thin little fiancee. It's the 1870s, and every summer the narrator, an eleven-year-old girl from London, a distant cousin, looks forward to her two month stay at the Sylvester farm. She writes lovingly about the sunny parlour, the crab-apple tree outside her bedroom window, and the brusque and affectionate Sylvester women. Everything changes when Fanny, Stephen's fiancee arrives. On the eve of her wedding she goes into a decline, takes over the parlour, demands quiet and makes everyone miserable except the narrator who, with a childish lack of judgement, has become Fanny's supporter. But in the end the narrator, a good-hearted busybody who doesn't understand what's going on, precipitates a crisis.
Another well-written, enjoyable book from Margery Sharp, with beautifully drawn female characters.
The three Sylvester women are big, blonde, beautiful and ebullient, married to big, dark, handsome men who never waste a word. The family farm in Devon is a cheerful, sunny, happy place until Stephen, the fourth and smallest Sylvester, makes a trip to Plymouth and returns with a thin little fiancee. It's the 1870s, and every summer the narrator, an eleven-year-old girl from London, a distant cousin, looks forward to her two month stay at the Sylvester farm. She writes lovingly about the sunny parlour, the crab-apple tree outside her bedroom window, and the brusque and affectionate Sylvester women. Everything changes when Fanny, Stephen's fiancee arrives. On the eve of her wedding she goes into a decline, takes over the parlour, demands quiet and makes everyone miserable except the narrator who, with a childish lack of judgement, has become Fanny's supporter. But in the end the narrator, a good-hearted busybody who doesn't understand what's going on, precipitates a crisis.
Another well-written, enjoyable book from Margery Sharp, with beautifully drawn female characters.
50pamelad
7. Crime
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce 1936
Dr and Mrs Thurston are hosting a country house party, attended by a neurotic novelist, a lawyer, a hard-drinking sportsman and the narrator. There is crowd of servants with unusually murky pasts, and a very peculiar vicar, so when Mrs Thurston is found murdered there are plenty of suspects. Shortly following the murder, three famous detectives descend on the Thurston house: the Lord Peter Wimsey stand-in, Lord Simon Plimsoll; Amer Picon, who bears a strong resemblance to Hercule Poirot; Monsignor Smith, who shares many characteristics with Father Brown. Our narrator Townsend, well-versed in the rules of detective fiction, conscientiously acts as Watson (or Hastings) to all three, as they apply their giant intellects to the murder. Also investigating is the red-faced, beer-drinking, dart-playing plebian, Sergeant Beef, who is sadly underrated by the other investigators.
This is an amusing locked-room mystery, particularly for fans of Golden Age detective stories. I've read every book that Lord Peter Wimsey and Poirot appear in, so was very much entertained. I'm not such a fan of Father Brown, and the obscure, mystical utterances of Monsignor Smith suggest why I would have given up on him, but I've borrowed The Innocence of Father Brown to check on his portrayal.
The story sags slightly when the four detectives produce their theories, but overall it's an entertaining read.
Case for Three Detectives by Leo Bruce 1936
Dr and Mrs Thurston are hosting a country house party, attended by a neurotic novelist, a lawyer, a hard-drinking sportsman and the narrator. There is crowd of servants with unusually murky pasts, and a very peculiar vicar, so when Mrs Thurston is found murdered there are plenty of suspects. Shortly following the murder, three famous detectives descend on the Thurston house: the Lord Peter Wimsey stand-in, Lord Simon Plimsoll; Amer Picon, who bears a strong resemblance to Hercule Poirot; Monsignor Smith, who shares many characteristics with Father Brown. Our narrator Townsend, well-versed in the rules of detective fiction, conscientiously acts as Watson (or Hastings) to all three, as they apply their giant intellects to the murder. Also investigating is the red-faced, beer-drinking, dart-playing plebian, Sergeant Beef, who is sadly underrated by the other investigators.
This is an amusing locked-room mystery, particularly for fans of Golden Age detective stories. I've read every book that Lord Peter Wimsey and Poirot appear in, so was very much entertained. I'm not such a fan of Father Brown, and the obscure, mystical utterances of Monsignor Smith suggest why I would have given up on him, but I've borrowed The Innocence of Father Brown to check on his portrayal.
The story sags slightly when the four detectives produce their theories, but overall it's an entertaining read.
51christina_reads
>50 pamelad: I really enjoyed this one! The parodies of all three sleuths were spot on, in my opinion. And I was impressed that the book contained four plausible solutions to the crime!
52DeltaQueen50
>7 pamelad: That sound good and luckily, it was the one Leo Bruce that I picked up the other day. Something to look forward to.
53pamelad
Often when I've read an historical romance I've liked, I check the LT recommendations. Lady Elizabeth's Comet threw up The Nabob's Widow by Elsie Lee, which I found in the Open Library. It was a tiny bit too twee for me, but I'd recommend it for cat lovers and fans of gentle, cheerful, sentimental, sex-scene-free Regency romances, with one big but. I see no need to mention a cat's genitals, and was taken aback to read a very crude word (and I have quite a high tolerance for swearing!). Is this a Siamese cat-breeder term?
Lady Whilton's Wedding by Barbara Metzger
One of her failures. Unfunny humour and unappealing characters.
ETA I wonder if the edition of The Nabob's Widow that I read is a rarity, like a stamp with the date upside down.
Lady Whilton's Wedding by Barbara Metzger
One of her failures. Unfunny humour and unappealing characters.
ETA I wonder if the edition of The Nabob's Widow that I read is a rarity, like a stamp with the date upside down.
54pamelad
Tempting the Earl by Amy Sandas
Good story. A youngish earl is searching for the illegitimate offspring of his evil, dead father in order to create the family he never had. The problem, apart from the ludicrously lengthy and detailed sex scenes, is the contemporary, bland, jargon-laden language. An earl in Regency England who wants to be the best version of himself? Going forward?
The Duke of Ruin by Darcy Burke
Another evil father. A young woman, jilted by a duke, runs away to avoid her father's wrath. She's accompanied by another duke, unmarriageable because everyone thinks he murdered his wife. A ridiculous story, with the hero and heroine behaving quite inappropriately.
Both of these were quick reads because I skipped many chapters of amorous activity.
Goddess of the Hunt, Surrender of a Siren and A Lady of Persuasion by Tessa Dare comprise the Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy. I'd not read them before because I thought they were about dairymaids, and three dairymaids would have three too many, but The Wanton Dairymaid is a book of salacious memoirs that makes a big impression on two of the heroines. There are two damaged heroes and one damaged heroine, many misunderstandings, and three happy endings where the heroes and heroines declare their undying love. Quite readable, but talky and sentimental. Unbelievable, but no one reads Regency romances for realism.
And one more.
Earl Lessons by Valerie Bowman
Number 5 in The footman's Club series, but the first I've read. Six of the characters are from earlier books in the series and are about to have a triple wedding. The hero, Colin, is the brother of one of the brides and the heroine, Annabelle, is the groom's sister. Colin is a surprise earl who used to be a woodworker and doesn't know the rules of the ton, so the beautiful Annabelle is giving him etiquette lessons. She never wants to marry because her father was a violent drunkard.
Dull writing. Boring villains. Bland conversations. Not much happens.
Good story. A youngish earl is searching for the illegitimate offspring of his evil, dead father in order to create the family he never had. The problem, apart from the ludicrously lengthy and detailed sex scenes, is the contemporary, bland, jargon-laden language. An earl in Regency England who wants to be the best version of himself? Going forward?
The Duke of Ruin by Darcy Burke
Another evil father. A young woman, jilted by a duke, runs away to avoid her father's wrath. She's accompanied by another duke, unmarriageable because everyone thinks he murdered his wife. A ridiculous story, with the hero and heroine behaving quite inappropriately.
Both of these were quick reads because I skipped many chapters of amorous activity.
Goddess of the Hunt, Surrender of a Siren and A Lady of Persuasion by Tessa Dare comprise the Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy. I'd not read them before because I thought they were about dairymaids, and three dairymaids would have three too many, but The Wanton Dairymaid is a book of salacious memoirs that makes a big impression on two of the heroines. There are two damaged heroes and one damaged heroine, many misunderstandings, and three happy endings where the heroes and heroines declare their undying love. Quite readable, but talky and sentimental. Unbelievable, but no one reads Regency romances for realism.
And one more.
Earl Lessons by Valerie Bowman
Number 5 in The footman's Club series, but the first I've read. Six of the characters are from earlier books in the series and are about to have a triple wedding. The hero, Colin, is the brother of one of the brides and the heroine, Annabelle, is the groom's sister. Colin is a surprise earl who used to be a woodworker and doesn't know the rules of the ton, so the beautiful Annabelle is giving him etiquette lessons. She never wants to marry because her father was a violent drunkard.
Dull writing. Boring villains. Bland conversations. Not much happens.
55pamelad
Three by Carla Kelly: Summer Campaign; Doing No Harm; The Admiral's Penniless Bride
In all three books the heroes are servicemen returned from the Napoleonic Wars: a soldier, a naval surgeon and a sailor. Summer Campaign was the pick of them because the other two are marred by a too forgiving acceptance of domestic violence and an excess of religion. There is no pre-marital sex in Carla Kelly's books, and no graphic sex scenes.
Summer Campaign. The heroine is an illegitimate orphan, engaged to a sanctimonious, hypocritical vicar. On her way to renovate the dilapidated vicarage, helped only by her childhood governess, she is attacked by highwaymen and saved by a poorly dressed returned soldier who is not whom he seems. He is shot in the shoulder, and the two get to know one another when they pretend to be married so the the heroine can nurse the hero back to health.
Doing No Harm. A retired naval surgeon is travelling around Britain looking for a village to retire to when he is waylaid by a desperate mother with a severely injured son. The surgeon breaks his journey to treat the boy and supervise his recovery. The surgeon plans to move on, but becomes increasingly involved in the lives of the people in the poverty-stricken fishing village and is drawn to the heroine who is spending her small inheritance on feeding the starving villagers. These two are very, very good people, and together they manage to restore the town to prosperity. Kelly is not subtle! There is some interesting historical detail about the evictions of highland cattle farmers from their farms because rich landowners decided that they could make more profit from sheep than from cattle and drove the highlanders from the tenant farms where they they had lived for generations. Kelly makes excuses for a brutal wife wife-beater, a displaced highlander. No!
The Admiral's Penniless Bride. The retired admiral marries a woman he meets in a cafe, in order to get his sisters off his back. The woman chooses him over her only other alternative, the workhouse. It is supposed to be a marriage of convenience, but the two become attached and their future together looks promising until they are confronted by a disaster from the woman's past. The admiral's behaviour is absolutely appalling. I wonder how so volatile and impulsive a man managed to command the entire British fleet!
In all three books the heroes are servicemen returned from the Napoleonic Wars: a soldier, a naval surgeon and a sailor. Summer Campaign was the pick of them because the other two are marred by a too forgiving acceptance of domestic violence and an excess of religion. There is no pre-marital sex in Carla Kelly's books, and no graphic sex scenes.
Summer Campaign. The heroine is an illegitimate orphan, engaged to a sanctimonious, hypocritical vicar. On her way to renovate the dilapidated vicarage, helped only by her childhood governess, she is attacked by highwaymen and saved by a poorly dressed returned soldier who is not whom he seems. He is shot in the shoulder, and the two get to know one another when they pretend to be married so the the heroine can nurse the hero back to health.
Doing No Harm. A retired naval surgeon is travelling around Britain looking for a village to retire to when he is waylaid by a desperate mother with a severely injured son. The surgeon breaks his journey to treat the boy and supervise his recovery. The surgeon plans to move on, but becomes increasingly involved in the lives of the people in the poverty-stricken fishing village and is drawn to the heroine who is spending her small inheritance on feeding the starving villagers. These two are very, very good people, and together they manage to restore the town to prosperity. Kelly is not subtle! There is some interesting historical detail about the evictions of highland cattle farmers from their farms because rich landowners decided that they could make more profit from sheep than from cattle and drove the highlanders from the tenant farms where they they had lived for generations. Kelly makes excuses for a brutal wife wife-beater, a displaced highlander. No!
The Admiral's Penniless Bride. The retired admiral marries a woman he meets in a cafe, in order to get his sisters off his back. The woman chooses him over her only other alternative, the workhouse. It is supposed to be a marriage of convenience, but the two become attached and their future together looks promising until they are confronted by a disaster from the woman's past. The admiral's behaviour is absolutely appalling. I wonder how so volatile and impulsive a man managed to command the entire British fleet!
56pamelad
Margery Sharp's Martha books are a welcome contrast to Carla Kelly's moralising. Martha is not good at all! She was introduced in The Eye of Love, which I read years ago. At the time the two other books in the Martha series weren't readily available but now that they are I'd recommend reading them in order. All three are available on KoboPlus in volume 2 of The Margery Sharp Collection. The second and third books are novellas.
Martha in Paris and Martha, Eric and George
Martha, who was a child in The Eye of Love and determined to learn to draw, is now eighteen and showing such potential that a family friend, Mr Joyce, sponsors her for two years' instruction in Paris under a famous artist, referred to only as le maitre. Everyone assumes that Martha will be safe from seduction in Paris because she is overweight, unattractive, completely uninterested in other people, and focussed solely on her art, but she meets Eric, a British bank clerk who possesses a very desirable porcelain bath, so Martha falls into the habit of visiting Eric and his mother every Friday. When Eric's mother goes back to England for a few days, Martha sees no reason why she should miss her weekly bath and turns up on Eric's doorstep.
Even a pregnancy doesn't distract Martha from her art. She manages to keep it secret, and on her way back to England deposits the baby with Eric's concierge. Eric has no idea how to find her. His mother is delighted to have a grandson without the inconvenience of a daughter-in-law.
Ten years later Marth is a successful artist, back in Paris for an exhibition, when Eric tracks her down and presents her son, George, who looks just like the unfortunate Eric.
These are very funny books. I loved the capable, ironic French women, the amoral pragmatism, the dry and detached humour. Martha is utterly selfish, a user of people, attached to no one except Mr Joyce. She refuses to sacrifice herself to domesticity and turns the tables on Eric, leaving him to cope with the stigma of an illegitimate child and the disruption to his career. A witty feminist message from the early 1960s.
Martha in Paris and Martha, Eric and George
Martha, who was a child in The Eye of Love and determined to learn to draw, is now eighteen and showing such potential that a family friend, Mr Joyce, sponsors her for two years' instruction in Paris under a famous artist, referred to only as le maitre. Everyone assumes that Martha will be safe from seduction in Paris because she is overweight, unattractive, completely uninterested in other people, and focussed solely on her art, but she meets Eric, a British bank clerk who possesses a very desirable porcelain bath, so Martha falls into the habit of visiting Eric and his mother every Friday. When Eric's mother goes back to England for a few days, Martha sees no reason why she should miss her weekly bath and turns up on Eric's doorstep.
Even a pregnancy doesn't distract Martha from her art. She manages to keep it secret, and on her way back to England deposits the baby with Eric's concierge. Eric has no idea how to find her. His mother is delighted to have a grandson without the inconvenience of a daughter-in-law.
Ten years later Marth is a successful artist, back in Paris for an exhibition, when Eric tracks her down and presents her son, George, who looks just like the unfortunate Eric.
These are very funny books. I loved the capable, ironic French women, the amoral pragmatism, the dry and detached humour. Martha is utterly selfish, a user of people, attached to no one except Mr Joyce. She refuses to sacrifice herself to domesticity and turns the tables on Eric, leaving him to cope with the stigma of an illegitimate child and the disruption to his career. A witty feminist message from the early 1960s.
57Tess_W
>56 pamelad: Gonna have to give Sharp another chance!
58pamelad
>57 Tess_W: I think so! Perhaps The Nutmeg Tree was the wrong place to start.
2. Asia
5. AuthorCAT
7. Crime
The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo is the second book I've read by this author. I enjoyed it more than The Honjin Murders.
The head of the Inugami family has died, leaving a complex will that leads to murder. Inugami had three daughters, each to a different mistress, and showed neither them nor their mothers any interest or affection. His daughters married and each produced a son, one of whom stands to inherit the bulk of the Inugami fortune should he be chosen as a husband by the beautiful granddaughter of Inugami's mentor, a priest who saved him from starvation and death. This is a ludicrously artificial mystery, but very entertaining. It was first published in 1946, when soldiers were returning from the war. A disfigured returned soldier in a rubber mask plays an important role, as does another returned serviceman who hides his identity with a muffler. (Is a muffler a scarf? In Australia it's something to do with the car exhaust.) There are lots of interesting cultural bits and pieces.
This Kindle book, and The Village of Eight Graves which I have also bought, is available for less than $2.
2. Asia
5. AuthorCAT
7. Crime
The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo is the second book I've read by this author. I enjoyed it more than The Honjin Murders.
The head of the Inugami family has died, leaving a complex will that leads to murder. Inugami had three daughters, each to a different mistress, and showed neither them nor their mothers any interest or affection. His daughters married and each produced a son, one of whom stands to inherit the bulk of the Inugami fortune should he be chosen as a husband by the beautiful granddaughter of Inugami's mentor, a priest who saved him from starvation and death. This is a ludicrously artificial mystery, but very entertaining. It was first published in 1946, when soldiers were returning from the war. A disfigured returned soldier in a rubber mask plays an important role, as does another returned serviceman who hides his identity with a muffler. (Is a muffler a scarf? In Australia it's something to do with the car exhaust.) There are lots of interesting cultural bits and pieces.
This Kindle book, and The Village of Eight Graves which I have also bought, is available for less than $2.
59NinieB
>58 pamelad: Yes, a muffler is another word for a scarf. As well as a car part.
ETA: Sadly, $9.99 on Kindle in the US.
ETA: Sadly, $9.99 on Kindle in the US.
60pamelad
>59 NinieB: Ebook pricing seems quite random. Thank you for the muffler clarification. I think there could be a career possibility for British/US:US/British translators e.g. if scarf is used in both places, and a book is translated for an international readership, why not choose the word that everyone uses?
61pamelad
Two by Tessa Dare: The Duchess Deal and The Governess Game
Light enough, and the writing is fine, but there's too much sex and not enough story. Working women marry dukes. Ethel M Dell for the new millennium.
Wrong! Ruby M Ayres is the author I was thinking of. Ethel M Dell tells a good story.
Light enough, and the writing is fine, but there's too much sex and not enough story. Working women marry dukes. Ethel M Dell for the new millennium.
Wrong! Ruby M Ayres is the author I was thinking of. Ethel M Dell tells a good story.
62pamelad
Completing the Bingo card from the 216 books I've already read this year:
6. The title contains the letter Z Gerald and Elizabeth by D. E. Stevenson
10. A book you received as a gift The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan (Bought for 15th LT Anniversary)
16. A book club read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman The Catch-Up Book Club
6. The title contains the letter Z Gerald and Elizabeth by D. E. Stevenson
10. A book you received as a gift The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazan (Bought for 15th LT Anniversary)
16. A book club read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman The Catch-Up Book Club
64pamelad
>63 Tess_W: Thank you. I trawled through quite a few online book clubs before I found one with a book I'd read this year. That was the hardest square.
2. Africa, Asia and the Americas
9. Wishlist
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout is the third Lucy Barton book, and not quite up to the standard of the other two. William, Lucy's ex-husband, tells her she is a joyous person, but there aren't many signs of that. She's quite dreary and so is he.
Lucy's second husband has recently died, and William's second marriage is shaky. The two of them have remained friends and can rely on one another, so when William receives some surprising news about his mother, he shares it with Lucy and asks for her help. It's a very inward book, with Lucy reflecting on her upbringing, her marriage with William, and the difficulty of ever really knowing another person.
I much prefer the awful Olive Kitteridge to the fearful Lucy Barton!
2. Africa, Asia and the Americas
9. Wishlist
Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout is the third Lucy Barton book, and not quite up to the standard of the other two. William, Lucy's ex-husband, tells her she is a joyous person, but there aren't many signs of that. She's quite dreary and so is he.
Lucy's second husband has recently died, and William's second marriage is shaky. The two of them have remained friends and can rely on one another, so when William receives some surprising news about his mother, he shares it with Lucy and asks for her help. It's a very inward book, with Lucy reflecting on her upbringing, her marriage with William, and the difficulty of ever really knowing another person.
I much prefer the awful Olive Kitteridge to the fearful Lucy Barton!
65NinieB
>64 pamelad: I hear you on the book club square being hard to fill. I'm planning to read one from the old Oprah's Book Club, not that I ever watched Oprah.
And congratulations on finishing your card! I'm dragging mine out this year.
And congratulations on finishing your card! I'm dragging mine out this year.
66DeltaQueen50
Congratulations on completing your Bingo Card.
67dudes22
>64 pamelad: - Congratulations on completing our card.
>65 NinieB: - There's also the Today show book club and Reese Witherspoon has one.
>65 NinieB: - There's also the Today show book club and Reese Witherspoon has one.
68pamelad
>65 NinieB:, >66 DeltaQueen50:, >67 dudes22: Thank you!
In the real world I felt obliged to finish the books our book club chose but not so online, so I had trouble finding anything that I wanted to read. I checked out loads of group reads on LT, other people's book club reads on the Bingo Wiki, and quite a few online book groups. I'm stuck in froth mode.
In the real world I felt obliged to finish the books our book club chose but not so online, so I had trouble finding anything that I wanted to read. I checked out loads of group reads on LT, other people's book club reads on the Bingo Wiki, and quite a few online book groups. I'm stuck in froth mode.
69lowelibrary
Congratulations on finishing your bingo card. I still have 3 left to go.
70dudes22
>69 lowelibrary: - I have 3 left also.
71pamelad
>69 lowelibrary: Thank you! I hope you find three good ones for your last squares.
>70 dudes22: If you like classic British mysteries, I can recommend Leo Bruce's Our Jubilee is Death for the LGBT square.
>70 dudes22: If you like classic British mysteries, I can recommend Leo Bruce's Our Jubilee is Death for the LGBT square.
72pamelad
Because I enjoyed most of the Georgian romances in Stella Riley's Rockcliffe series, I was pleased to see the Brandon Brothers series, which features some of the same characters. Not as enjoyable, unfortunately, and the last one, The Montesoro Legacy, is my least favourite. It's longer than necessary, the characters don't really come to life, and the legacy plot is silly. But I've read a lot worse!
73dudes22
>71 pamelad: - Thanks for the recommendation, but, I have one to pick up from the library tomorrow that will fill that square.
74pamelad
Mick Herron won this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award for Slough House. I've read six in the Slough House series and am having a break from the revolting Jackson Lamb, but have added a previous winner, I Let You Go by Claire Mackintosh, to my wish list for my 10 Different Prizes Category.
75pamelad
Miss Delectable, Miss Delightful, Miss Dignified and Miss Desirable by Grace Burrowes comprise the Mischief in Mayfair series, which continues on from the True Gentleman series.
The heroes of first three books are cousins, soldiers returned from the Napoleonic Wars. Colonel Sir Orion Goddard is half English, half French. Major Alasdhair Mackay is Scottish. Captain Dylan Powell is Welsh. All three men have made themselves responsible for poor, downtrodden people: Goddard looks after street children and destitute French emigres; Mackay helps street walkers; Powell supports returned soldiers. All three men fall in love with strong, independent women: a cook; a vicar's daughter; a woman in search of her brother, missing after his return from the wars. There are impediments to romance!
These were all the same book, with superficial variations.
The hero of the fourth book, Miss Desirable, is a nobly-born French wine merchant. The heroine is a legitimate by-blow, product of her mother's affair with an earl with inconveniently distinctive eyes that he passed on to his daughter, but accepted as his own by her mother's husband. She has inherited a fortune and is being blackmailed into marriage.
I'd given up on Grace Burrowes because her books were too long and the middle was full of nothing much, but these were shorter and I'm running out of escapist Regency Romances. I enjoyed them all, even though they appear to have been edited by the work experience student. Burrowes pumps these out at a great rate. I'm now reading the True Gentleman series, the precursor to the Mischief in Mayfair series. It's winter here and there's lots of Covid about, so a lot of my pre-pandemic pastimes are still paused. Going anywhere requires weighing risk against reward. Same for everyone. Very dreary.
The heroes of first three books are cousins, soldiers returned from the Napoleonic Wars. Colonel Sir Orion Goddard is half English, half French. Major Alasdhair Mackay is Scottish. Captain Dylan Powell is Welsh. All three men have made themselves responsible for poor, downtrodden people: Goddard looks after street children and destitute French emigres; Mackay helps street walkers; Powell supports returned soldiers. All three men fall in love with strong, independent women: a cook; a vicar's daughter; a woman in search of her brother, missing after his return from the wars. There are impediments to romance!
These were all the same book, with superficial variations.
The hero of the fourth book, Miss Desirable, is a nobly-born French wine merchant. The heroine is a legitimate by-blow, product of her mother's affair with an earl with inconveniently distinctive eyes that he passed on to his daughter, but accepted as his own by her mother's husband. She has inherited a fortune and is being blackmailed into marriage.
I'd given up on Grace Burrowes because her books were too long and the middle was full of nothing much, but these were shorter and I'm running out of escapist Regency Romances. I enjoyed them all, even though they appear to have been edited by the work experience student. Burrowes pumps these out at a great rate. I'm now reading the True Gentleman series, the precursor to the Mischief in Mayfair series. It's winter here and there's lots of Covid about, so a lot of my pre-pandemic pastimes are still paused. Going anywhere requires weighing risk against reward. Same for everyone. Very dreary.
76pamelad
A Lady's Dream Come True and My Heart's True Delight by Grace Burrowes are books 9 and 10 in the True Gentleman series and feature two sons of the Dorning family: Oak, a painter and Ash, who helps his brother Sycamore run the gambling den/supper club that features in the Mischief in Mayfair series. The nine Dorning sons and daughters are named after trees (or perhaps plants? I think there's a Daisy Dorning).
Oak has to save a lovely widow from the ruinous gossip of the art world. Ash, who is the winner as far as tree names go, suffers from depression and has let his melancholy separate him from the woman he loves.
Each book has a villain who destroys people's lives for sport, as do two of the Mischief in Mayfair books. Psychopaths are thick on the ground in Burrowes' Regency England.
Pleasant, escapist reads.
Oak has to save a lovely widow from the ruinous gossip of the art world. Ash, who is the winner as far as tree names go, suffers from depression and has let his melancholy separate him from the woman he loves.
Each book has a villain who destroys people's lives for sport, as do two of the Mischief in Mayfair books. Psychopaths are thick on the ground in Burrowes' Regency England.
Pleasant, escapist reads.
77pamelad
The Last True Gentleman by Grace Burrowes
Sycamore, the youngest Downing brother, runs the Coventry, a gambling club, with his brother Ash, but Ash has just married and retired to the country, leaving the lonely Sycamore as the only unmarried Dorning. Sycamore has had his eye on Jeanette, a widowed marchioness, for a few volumes now and it's time for their romance to bloom, but Jeanette's experience of marriage has convinced her never to marry again. Jeanette and Sycamore get together over knife-throwing lessons: she is being followed and has received threats.
The Last True Gentleman leads on to the first book in the Mischief in Mayfair series, Miss Delectable, and introduces its hero, Sir Orion Goddard, Jeanette's brother, as well as Miss Delectable herself, the under-cook at the Coventry.
This Burrowes binge has more to do with availability than literary merit: lots of Burrowes' books on Overdrive. Nice, predictable romances where a happy ending is never in doubt. This one was particularly tidy, with multiple characters sorted in the last chapter or two.
Sycamore, the youngest Downing brother, runs the Coventry, a gambling club, with his brother Ash, but Ash has just married and retired to the country, leaving the lonely Sycamore as the only unmarried Dorning. Sycamore has had his eye on Jeanette, a widowed marchioness, for a few volumes now and it's time for their romance to bloom, but Jeanette's experience of marriage has convinced her never to marry again. Jeanette and Sycamore get together over knife-throwing lessons: she is being followed and has received threats.
The Last True Gentleman leads on to the first book in the Mischief in Mayfair series, Miss Delectable, and introduces its hero, Sir Orion Goddard, Jeanette's brother, as well as Miss Delectable herself, the under-cook at the Coventry.
This Burrowes binge has more to do with availability than literary merit: lots of Burrowes' books on Overdrive. Nice, predictable romances where a happy ending is never in doubt. This one was particularly tidy, with multiple characters sorted in the last chapter or two.
78pamelad
Truly Beloved by Grace Burrowes is Daisy's story. She is the youngest Dorning child, seduced at sixteen by the young local squire, mother of three before she is twenty-one. Her unsatisfactory husband has recently died and his will is missing. His villainous older half-brother is trying cheat Daisy and her children out of their inheritance and remove the children from Daisy's care. Her older brothers are distracted and useless, but Fabianus Penweather is on the job.
79Tess_W
>78 pamelad: Sounds like one I might enjoy!
80christina_reads
>78 pamelad: Fabianus Penweather! Love it!
81pamelad
>79 Tess_W: Beware this rabbit hole!
>80 christina_reads: I've just finished Beckman, where the heroine is called Sarabande Adagio because she used to be a concert violinist. How prophetic of her parents!
Every recent Grace Burrowes ebook ends with a list of future publications. She pumped out at least six books in 2021 alone. So many short, sturdy energetic heroines. So many tall heroes, all with bodies that would put Apollo to shame. Always the same ending: a chapter of more of declarations of eternal love.
Beckman by Grace Burrowes
Beckman is an earl's spare, recovering from opium and alcohol addiction, prone to melancholy due to SOMETHING IN HIS PAST. Sara (Sarabande Adagio!) is a widow, hiding as a housekeeper with her daughter and sister on an estate owned by Beckman's grandmother. She and Beckman fall in love, but there is SOMETHING IN HER PAST, that could destroy Beckman's love. The estate steward, Gabriel, is really a Marquess, but he is hiding from SOMETHING IN HIS PAST that will be revealed in his own volume of the Lonely Lords series. There's an evil dead husband, a mysterious brother-in-law and dangerous attacks on farming equipment. There's an American snake, American plants, American seasons, American furniture and American accommodation, with Sara and her family occupying an apartment. A Regency apartment on a farm.
Burrowes is pumping these books out much too fast and taking too little care. Why did I read another?
A Rogue in Winter by Grace Burrowes is a novella.
Piotr Sorensen is a widowed vicar in a Yorkshire village. It's mid-winter and the roads are treacherous, so when a young drunk and his sister are stranded the vicar takes them in. Fortunately, his housekeeper is visiting her daughter for Christmas and the young drunk is confined to bed with a cold, so Piotr and the sister, Joy, have enough space and privacy to fall in love. But Joy is on her way to receive a proposal from an aristocratic dimwit, which she must accept if she is to save the family fortunes, so it looks as though their love is doomed. Fortunately, an epileptic duke (I think he might have his own volume. Rescued from an asylum by a brother and saved from misery by the vicar.) and a group of grateful villagers take a hand.
(Piotr's mother was Danish. Where did his Danish surname come from?)
>80 christina_reads: I've just finished Beckman, where the heroine is called Sarabande Adagio because she used to be a concert violinist. How prophetic of her parents!
Every recent Grace Burrowes ebook ends with a list of future publications. She pumped out at least six books in 2021 alone. So many short, sturdy energetic heroines. So many tall heroes, all with bodies that would put Apollo to shame. Always the same ending: a chapter of more of declarations of eternal love.
Beckman by Grace Burrowes
Beckman is an earl's spare, recovering from opium and alcohol addiction, prone to melancholy due to SOMETHING IN HIS PAST. Sara (Sarabande Adagio!) is a widow, hiding as a housekeeper with her daughter and sister on an estate owned by Beckman's grandmother. She and Beckman fall in love, but there is SOMETHING IN HER PAST, that could destroy Beckman's love. The estate steward, Gabriel, is really a Marquess, but he is hiding from SOMETHING IN HIS PAST that will be revealed in his own volume of the Lonely Lords series. There's an evil dead husband, a mysterious brother-in-law and dangerous attacks on farming equipment. There's an American snake, American plants, American seasons, American furniture and American accommodation, with Sara and her family occupying an apartment. A Regency apartment on a farm.
Burrowes is pumping these books out much too fast and taking too little care. Why did I read another?
A Rogue in Winter by Grace Burrowes is a novella.
Piotr Sorensen is a widowed vicar in a Yorkshire village. It's mid-winter and the roads are treacherous, so when a young drunk and his sister are stranded the vicar takes them in. Fortunately, his housekeeper is visiting her daughter for Christmas and the young drunk is confined to bed with a cold, so Piotr and the sister, Joy, have enough space and privacy to fall in love. But Joy is on her way to receive a proposal from an aristocratic dimwit, which she must accept if she is to save the family fortunes, so it looks as though their love is doomed. Fortunately, an epileptic duke (I think he might have his own volume. Rescued from an asylum by a brother and saved from misery by the vicar.) and a group of grateful villagers take a hand.
(Piotr's mother was Danish. Where did his Danish surname come from?)
82pamelad
2. Asia
5. AuthorCAT
6. Book lists
8. Prizes - Tanizaki Award
14. Historical Fiction Challenge
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Silence is an historical novel about religious faith and the conflict between East and West. It is set in seventeenth century Japan, when Catholics are being pursued, tortured and killed in the attempt to eradicate Catholicism from Japan. Decades earlier, Portuguese Jesuits had brought their faith to Japan and spread their message to hundreds of thousands of brutalised, starving peasants, who are now maintaining their religion in secret. The priests are dead, along with thousands of their followers, tortured for refusing to deny their faith, but rumours have reached Portugal that Father Ferreira, leader of the mission, has apostacised to save his life. Two young Portuguese priests, Rodrigues and Garrpe who were students of Ferreira and cannot believe his betrayal, make their way to Japan with great difficulty in order to find Ferreira. The main protagonist is Rodrigues, whose faith is tested when the peasants who would protect him are tortured for their loyalty while God remains silent.
A thought-provoking book that addresses serious questions. Recommended.
5. AuthorCAT
6. Book lists
8. Prizes - Tanizaki Award
14. Historical Fiction Challenge
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Silence is an historical novel about religious faith and the conflict between East and West. It is set in seventeenth century Japan, when Catholics are being pursued, tortured and killed in the attempt to eradicate Catholicism from Japan. Decades earlier, Portuguese Jesuits had brought their faith to Japan and spread their message to hundreds of thousands of brutalised, starving peasants, who are now maintaining their religion in secret. The priests are dead, along with thousands of their followers, tortured for refusing to deny their faith, but rumours have reached Portugal that Father Ferreira, leader of the mission, has apostacised to save his life. Two young Portuguese priests, Rodrigues and Garrpe who were students of Ferreira and cannot believe his betrayal, make their way to Japan with great difficulty in order to find Ferreira. The main protagonist is Rodrigues, whose faith is tested when the peasants who would protect him are tortured for their loyalty while God remains silent.
A thought-provoking book that addresses serious questions. Recommended.
83pamelad
5. AuthorCAT
8. Prizes: Hawthornden Prize; Somerset Maugham Award
Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
Two seven-year-old boys meet on their first day at a private Catholic boarding school run by the Benedictines and, despite having little in common, remain friends. Eddie Dawson is a lonely, earnest boy who wants to spend his life helping people. Bobby Winterman, the narrator, is far more worldly. While Bobby goes on to Cambridge, Eddie is recruited by the Benedictine abbot and studies for the priesthood, but life in the Benedictine order teaching the children of the wealthy is not suited to his reformist zeal, so he leaves the Benedictine order to become a secular priest in London. Bobby recruits him to write crusading religious articles for a newspaper, and Eddie, now Father John, eventually runs foul of the church hierarchy. His increasing doubts drive him from the priesthood and he is scooped up by a beautiful widow. From here on it's difficult to have much sympathy for Eddie Dawson because of the narrator's bleak, jaded perspective.Dawson marries a kind-hearted young woman whom he treats with disdain because she doesn't measure up to the beautiful widow. His unkindness seemed out of character.
I found Monk Dawson interesting for its perspective on the upheavals in the Catholic church in the aftermath of Pope John's reforms. Monk Dawson, however, is a cypher, a bundle of inconsistencies. I really disliked the superficial judgements on the female characters and the cynical nastiness of the narration. Everybody is awfulexcept for Dawson's wife, who is rejected for her poor cooking, fat legs and badly-decorated flat .
This was a quick read. The ambiguous ending reflects the narrator's perspective on his own Catholicism.
Monk Dawson is available in KindleUnlimited.
8. Prizes: Hawthornden Prize; Somerset Maugham Award
Monk Dawson by Piers Paul Read
Two seven-year-old boys meet on their first day at a private Catholic boarding school run by the Benedictines and, despite having little in common, remain friends. Eddie Dawson is a lonely, earnest boy who wants to spend his life helping people. Bobby Winterman, the narrator, is far more worldly. While Bobby goes on to Cambridge, Eddie is recruited by the Benedictine abbot and studies for the priesthood, but life in the Benedictine order teaching the children of the wealthy is not suited to his reformist zeal, so he leaves the Benedictine order to become a secular priest in London. Bobby recruits him to write crusading religious articles for a newspaper, and Eddie, now Father John, eventually runs foul of the church hierarchy. His increasing doubts drive him from the priesthood and he is scooped up by a beautiful widow. From here on it's difficult to have much sympathy for Eddie Dawson because of the narrator's bleak, jaded perspective.
I found Monk Dawson interesting for its perspective on the upheavals in the Catholic church in the aftermath of Pope John's reforms. Monk Dawson, however, is a cypher, a bundle of inconsistencies. I really disliked the superficial judgements on the female characters and the cynical nastiness of the narration. Everybody is awful
This was a quick read. The ambiguous ending reflects the narrator's perspective on his own Catholicism.
Monk Dawson is available in KindleUnlimited.
84pamelad
Monk Dawson completes my Ten Different Prizes category. I'm reading an eleventh, Autobiography of a Corpse, which won the PEN Translation Prize. It's a collection of short stories written in Russia in the twenties and thirties and unpublished at the time. I'm going slowly because of the need to concentrate. The first one is allusive, political, philosophical and humorous.
85Tess_W
>82 pamelad: That book still haunts me. It does, as you stated, raise some questions that can only be answered by each individual's conscience.
86pamelad
Just finished a third book by a dedicated Catholic author, The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton. I wanted to compare the original Father Brown with Leo Bruce's version in Case for Three Detectives, which is exaggerated for the sake of comedy, but quite accurate. Father Brown really does make mystical and incomprehensible statements as he solves cases by relying on evidence no one else is aware of. I found these stories entertaining but silly, and was most interested in Father Brown's classification of Catholics e.g. pragmatic, logical French Catholics who are low in spirituality, and automatic Irish Catholics who remember their faith only when they're in trouble. Neither the French nor the Irish are mystical enough for Father Brown!
I read a Guardian article about Piers Paul Read because after reading Monk Dawson I wanted to know more about Read's connection to the Catholic Church. The narrator seemed so disgusted with English society and Dawson eventually returned to his religion, isolated from society as a Trappist monk. This was a sort-of happy ending. Seems genuine. Read is a life-long practising Catholic, an anti-feminist who believes that women's role is to bring up children. He was born into the Church and thinks that Graham Greene did not behave as a real Catholic should. I wonder if he had an opinion on G K Chesterton, a convert, as was Greene.
Then there's Silence, written by a Japanese Catholic who questioned his faith, and the role of the Catholic Church in Japan.
I read a Guardian article about Piers Paul Read because after reading Monk Dawson I wanted to know more about Read's connection to the Catholic Church. The narrator seemed so disgusted with English society
Then there's Silence, written by a Japanese Catholic who questioned his faith, and the role of the Catholic Church in Japan.
87pamelad
7. Crime
Dead Man's Shoes by Leo Bruce
The obnoxious Wilbury Larkin makes himself unpleasant to everyone he meets, so it's hard to understand how Lance Willick can count him as a friend, and why Lance's uncle, Gregory Willick, pays him an allowance. When Gregory Willick is murdered all the evidence points to Larkin, but he is no more, apparently having thrown himself off the ship bringing him from Tangiers to England. A fellow passenger, an ex-spy colleague of the history teacher and amateur detective Carolus Deene, suspects murder, and recruits Deene to investigate.
I liked this for the dry humour and the characters: the ship's passengers and crew; Carolus Deene and his off-sider, the precocious sixteen-year-old Rupert Priggley; Mr Gorringer, the pompous school headmaster. The denouement is quite complex, with people trotting back and forth from Tangiers, and there are few unnecessary plot strands and characters e.g. a contract killer and a cynical, incompetent detective who doesn't investigate murders because they are hard to solve, unlike the prosecution of homosexuals. The author, real name Rupert Croft-Cooke, had recently been caught up in a campaign against homosexuals and imprisoned for six months in Wormwood Scrubs, so he had no time for policemen. This also explains the Tangiers setting: the author moved there to avoid police persecution.
Dead Man's Shoes by Leo Bruce
The obnoxious Wilbury Larkin makes himself unpleasant to everyone he meets, so it's hard to understand how Lance Willick can count him as a friend, and why Lance's uncle, Gregory Willick, pays him an allowance. When Gregory Willick is murdered all the evidence points to Larkin, but he is no more, apparently having thrown himself off the ship bringing him from Tangiers to England. A fellow passenger, an ex-spy colleague of the history teacher and amateur detective Carolus Deene, suspects murder, and recruits Deene to investigate.
I liked this for the dry humour and the characters: the ship's passengers and crew; Carolus Deene and his off-sider, the precocious sixteen-year-old Rupert Priggley; Mr Gorringer, the pompous school headmaster. The denouement is quite complex, with people trotting back and forth from Tangiers, and there are few unnecessary plot strands and characters e.g. a contract killer and a cynical, incompetent detective who doesn't investigate murders because they are hard to solve, unlike the prosecution of homosexuals. The author, real name Rupert Croft-Cooke, had recently been caught up in a campaign against homosexuals and imprisoned for six months in Wormwood Scrubs, so he had no time for policemen. This also explains the Tangiers setting: the author moved there to avoid police persecution.
88pamelad
I'm still reading Autobiography of a Corpse, which is really quite demanding and intellectual, so yesterday I gave the brain a break and read One Thing Leads to a Lover by Susanna Craig.
It's the second book in the Love and Let Spy series. A young widowed countess finds herself in possession of an antique French cookery book which puts her and her family in danger. The Magpie, a spy whose job it is to recover the book, insinuates himself into the countess's household. The countess, who seems doomed to marry her sons' guardian, a match enthusiastically promoted by her interfering mother, is ripe for adventure and the Magpie provides it.
This was a pleasant read, a bit bland, but competent. There's an epilogue, which abruptly skips from the Magpie and the countess to a taster for the next book in the series. My expectations having been trained by Mary Balogh, I was predicting a flock of little magpies and perhaps a gathering of happily married spies.
I have started the next book in the series, Better Off Wed, because it is only $A1.16 on Kindle.
It's the second book in the Love and Let Spy series. A young widowed countess finds herself in possession of an antique French cookery book which puts her and her family in danger. The Magpie, a spy whose job it is to recover the book, insinuates himself into the countess's household. The countess, who seems doomed to marry her sons' guardian, a match enthusiastically promoted by her interfering mother, is ripe for adventure and the Magpie provides it.
This was a pleasant read, a bit bland, but competent. There's an epilogue, which abruptly skips from the Magpie and the countess to a taster for the next book in the series. My expectations having been trained by Mary Balogh, I was predicting a flock of little magpies and perhaps a gathering of happily married spies.
I have started the next book in the series, Better Off Wed, because it is only $A1.16 on Kindle.
89pamelad
Finished Better off Wed by Susanna Craig.
As Lady Sterling, Laura wreaks vengeance on aristocrats who have molested and raped their female servants. She uncovers damaging facts about them and picks their pockets. General Scott, spymaster, sends Captain Jeremy Addison to identify Lady Sterling and find out whether her intelligence gathering could be used to aid England. Jeremy, who has unexpectedly acquired the real title of Lord Sterling, and Laura, who is off to save a governess from a predatory employer, end up together at the employer's country house pretending to be man and wife and doing a bit of spying. But Jeremy can never marry because with his title he inherited vast debts, and there is a terrible secret in his past.
A tidy and pleasant historical romance. Everything works out for the best!
As Lady Sterling, Laura wreaks vengeance on aristocrats who have molested and raped their female servants. She uncovers damaging facts about them and picks their pockets. General Scott, spymaster, sends Captain Jeremy Addison to identify Lady Sterling and find out whether her intelligence gathering could be used to aid England. Jeremy, who has unexpectedly acquired the real title of Lord Sterling, and Laura, who is off to save a governess from a predatory employer, end up together at the employer's country house pretending to be man and wife and doing a bit of spying. But Jeremy can never marry because with his title he inherited vast debts, and there is a terrible secret in his past.
A tidy and pleasant historical romance. Everything works out for the best!
90christina_reads
>88 pamelad: >89 pamelad: Ha! I also acquired these recently -- the e-books were $0.99 (US) apiece, so why not? I enjoyed One Thing Leads to a Lover more than its predecessor, and I'll likely continue with Better Off Wed soon.
91pamelad
I've been having a Grace Burrowes Regency romance binge. Lots of her books are available on Overdrive and they meet my requirements for light, predictable and mindless. But Thomas is extraordinarily tacky, with the hero seducing a woman who works for him. There's an interlude that's supposed to be romantic but it's really, really off.
A list of things you have to ignore when reading Grace Burrowes.
1. People put cream in tea.
2. They have a staple diet of scones.
3. The heroes are interchangeable.
4. The heroines are interchangeable.
5. There's only one plot, which hinges on a malevolent villain.
6. Characters speak a strange hybrid of formal British English (or Grace's interpretation of it) and casual, contemporary American English. They live in apartments, use flatware, call autumn "fall", say "off of", "gotten" and "it's complicated". Grace even gives pronunciation hints, but breeches does not rhyme with screeches. It rhymes with witches!
I am now reading Very Good, Jeeves and The Spy and the Traitor. I was planning to read a story a day from Autobiography of a Corpse, but missed a day and didn't get back to it. I enjoyed the first three stories, but they're enough.
A list of things you have to ignore when reading Grace Burrowes.
1. People put cream in tea.
2. They have a staple diet of scones.
3. The heroes are interchangeable.
4. The heroines are interchangeable.
5. There's only one plot, which hinges on a malevolent villain.
6. Characters speak a strange hybrid of formal British English (or Grace's interpretation of it) and casual, contemporary American English. They live in apartments, use flatware, call autumn "fall", say "off of", "gotten" and "it's complicated". Grace even gives pronunciation hints, but breeches does not rhyme with screeches. It rhymes with witches!
I am now reading Very Good, Jeeves and The Spy and the Traitor. I was planning to read a story a day from Autobiography of a Corpse, but missed a day and didn't get back to it. I enjoyed the first three stories, but they're enough.
92Tess_W
Lol to "britches!" Hasn't been used in the U.S. since 1800's or early 20th century. I remember my grandmother saying, "He was acting too big for his britches!"
93rabbitprincess
I really enjoyed The Spy and the Traitor. Just learned yesterday that Macintyre has a new book coming out this year: Prisoners of the Castle.
94pamelad
>92 Tess_W: Do you remember witches britches? They were popular for a short time in the pre-pantyhose era. Banned from school, which seems a mistake when girls wore stockings and suspenders with their dresses hiked right up.
>93 rabbitprincess: Thank you. I've enjoyed a lot of Ben Macintyre's books and will look out for Prisoners of the Castle.
>93 rabbitprincess: Thank you. I've enjoyed a lot of Ben Macintyre's books and will look out for Prisoners of the Castle.
95pamelad
7. Crime
Jack on the Gallows Tree by Leo Bruce
Carolus Deene, history master and amateur detective, is convalescing after a bout of jaundice and, on the advice of the school's headmaster who wants him to steer clear of some distracting seaside murders, books into the Royal Hydro Hotel in the spa town of Buddington-on-the-Hill. But murder follows Deene and he is drawn into investigating the deaths by strangling of two elderly ladies, both found clutching a lily.
This is the fourth Leo Bruce book I've read and, as with the others, it's the characters who make the story: the pompous, hypocritical headmaster, Mr Gorringer; Deene's student off-sider, the precocious Priggley; the ludicrously snobbish fellow guest, Miss Tissot; the vegetarian, naturist Baxeters; Mr Tickett, car park manager and hypochondiac; the genteel Miss Shapely who rules over the bar of the Dragon Hotel. The plot is secondary and quite artificial, but this was an entertaining read.
Jack on the Gallows Tree by Leo Bruce
Carolus Deene, history master and amateur detective, is convalescing after a bout of jaundice and, on the advice of the school's headmaster who wants him to steer clear of some distracting seaside murders, books into the Royal Hydro Hotel in the spa town of Buddington-on-the-Hill. But murder follows Deene and he is drawn into investigating the deaths by strangling of two elderly ladies, both found clutching a lily.
This is the fourth Leo Bruce book I've read and, as with the others, it's the characters who make the story: the pompous, hypocritical headmaster, Mr Gorringer; Deene's student off-sider, the precocious Priggley; the ludicrously snobbish fellow guest, Miss Tissot; the vegetarian, naturist Baxeters; Mr Tickett, car park manager and hypochondiac; the genteel Miss Shapely who rules over the bar of the Dragon Hotel. The plot is secondary and quite artificial, but this was an entertaining read.
96Tess_W
>94 pamelad: nope, those must have missed me! I do remember wearing nylon stocking when I was 13 with a garter belt, though! Thought I was the coolest thing!
97pamelad
Pondering a category.
The Terror of St Trinian's and Other Drawings by Ronald Searle
When St Trinian's crossed my mind I went searching on Overdrive and found this book. It's a selection of Searle's cartoons from a number of his books, including The Rake's Progress, Souls in Torment, Molesworth and Merry England. My favourites are from Sounds in Torment and The Rake's Progress, even though I missed some of the references which are before even my time.
A quick and funny read
THE MP
1. Advent
Born of Rich but honest parents. Fired with radical enthusiasm by radical Norland Nurse.
2. Emergence
Secretary Cambridge Union Society. Contests hopeless seat with great verve. Bloody - but unbowed.
3. Success
Wins bye-election. Moderation of views brings frequent bookings on BBC Political Forum.
4. Triumph
Smiled at by Prime Minister. PPS
5. Temptation
Encouraged by success expresses an opinion. Cast out by Whips. Expelled from Party
6. Ruin
Praised by News Chronicle. Joins Liberal Shadow Cabinet. Divorced
Forgot to say that this was from The Rakes Progress
The Terror of St Trinian's and Other Drawings by Ronald Searle
When St Trinian's crossed my mind I went searching on Overdrive and found this book. It's a selection of Searle's cartoons from a number of his books, including The Rake's Progress, Souls in Torment, Molesworth and Merry England. My favourites are from Sounds in Torment and The Rake's Progress, even though I missed some of the references which are before even my time.
A quick and funny read
THE MP
1. Advent
Born of Rich but honest parents. Fired with radical enthusiasm by radical Norland Nurse.
2. Emergence
Secretary Cambridge Union Society. Contests hopeless seat with great verve. Bloody - but unbowed.
3. Success
Wins bye-election. Moderation of views brings frequent bookings on BBC Political Forum.
4. Triumph
Smiled at by Prime Minister. PPS
5. Temptation
Encouraged by success expresses an opinion. Cast out by Whips. Expelled from Party
6. Ruin
Praised by News Chronicle. Joins Liberal Shadow Cabinet. Divorced
Forgot to say that this was from The Rakes Progress
98pamelad
1. Non-fiction
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Oleg Gordievsky was brought up in a KGB family, so joining up was inevitable. He advanced rapidly through the spy service, despite his disgust for the conformity, fear and repression imposed by the Soviet State. He was recruited while still at university in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall was built, the height of the Cold War. At university he'd become friends with a Czechoslovakian man, later a key person in Gordievsky's recruitment as a British spy.
Macintyre presents Gordievsky as a noble man motivated solely by ideology, whose goal was to bring democracy to Russia. This works for the narrative because we really need to be on Gordievsky's side, which I was, though I had to store away a few doubts along the journey. According to Macintyre, Gordievsky's information allowed the west to step back from the brink of nuclear war. Could this be overreach?
I was much taken by the spy craft trivia: leaving a piece of orange peel under a park bench to show the message had been received, or a piece of chewing gum on an escalator in the underground; hanging around a bakery clutching a supermarket bag, in order to pass a message to a spy in grey eating a Mars bar; the KGB scattering radioactive dust over the clothes and belongings of the innumerable people they wanted to track. Then again, the secret services of the Soviet Union, Britain and the US were all let down by the problems of all huge bureaucracies: incompetent staff; out of touch administrators; political wheeling and dealing; personal ambition.
A very entertaining read. Well-paced, full of interesting details.
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Oleg Gordievsky was brought up in a KGB family, so joining up was inevitable. He advanced rapidly through the spy service, despite his disgust for the conformity, fear and repression imposed by the Soviet State. He was recruited while still at university in 1961, the year the Berlin Wall was built, the height of the Cold War. At university he'd become friends with a Czechoslovakian man, later a key person in Gordievsky's recruitment as a British spy.
Macintyre presents Gordievsky as a noble man motivated solely by ideology, whose goal was to bring democracy to Russia. This works for the narrative because we really need to be on Gordievsky's side, which I was, though I had to store away a few doubts along the journey. According to Macintyre, Gordievsky's information allowed the west to step back from the brink of nuclear war. Could this be overreach?
I was much taken by the spy craft trivia: leaving a piece of orange peel under a park bench to show the message had been received, or a piece of chewing gum on an escalator in the underground; hanging around a bakery clutching a supermarket bag, in order to pass a message to a spy in grey eating a Mars bar; the KGB scattering radioactive dust over the clothes and belongings of the innumerable people they wanted to track. Then again, the secret services of the Soviet Union, Britain and the US were all let down by the problems of all huge bureaucracies: incompetent staff; out of touch administrators; political wheeling and dealing; personal ambition.
A very entertaining read. Well-paced, full of interesting details.
99Tess_W
>98 pamelad: I've read Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies and Agent Zig Zag and liked them both. This one sounds good, also. On my WL it goes.
100pamelad
7. Crime
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Matter of Loyalty by Elizabeth Edmondson and Anselm Audley
This series is available on Kindle Unlimited. All three books are set in 1953, in Selchester, an English cathedral city. Selchester is also the name of the earl, whose body is discovered in the first book under the flagstones of a disused chapel in the family castle. The castle is now inhabited by Selchester's niece, Freya, the housekeeper. Mrs Parkinson, and Hugo Hawksworth who is working at the nearby "statistical institute", which is actually spy central, home to the British spy archives and a nest of investigators. Hugo is the guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister whose parents have died in WWII, and whose former guardian, a cousin, has moved to America with her new husband. Another important character is Lady Silvia, daughter of the earl, who has been waiting for her hated father to be declared dead so that she can sell the castle.
In the first book Freya and Hugo investigate the death of the earl, who was a very nasty piece of work. He was linked to the secret service which, in order to avoid an extensive murder investigation with its attendant publicity, is attempting to blame the earl's death on Freya and her cousin Tom, the earl's son, who died in WWII.
In the second book the earl's secret son arrives from America to assume the estate and title, accompanied by his two daughters. He has been lucky to survive a number of attempts on his life. When a shonky art dealer is murdered in the castle, the question is, " Was he the intended victim?" Perhaps his death is linked to the secret stash of paintings in the attic.
The third book was completed by Anselm Audley from the notes left by his mother, who died with the book unfinished. He has done a good job, but the female characters have much smaller roles. A physicist, who worked at a top secret atom bomb research institute, disappears and is thought to have defected, but his body is found in a river. He has been shot. Hugo investigates while Freya hangs around the castle doing not much.
I enjoyed all of these undemanding, light, historical mysteries.
A Man of Some Repute by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Question of Inheritance by Elizabeth Edmondson
A Matter of Loyalty by Elizabeth Edmondson and Anselm Audley
This series is available on Kindle Unlimited. All three books are set in 1953, in Selchester, an English cathedral city. Selchester is also the name of the earl, whose body is discovered in the first book under the flagstones of a disused chapel in the family castle. The castle is now inhabited by Selchester's niece, Freya, the housekeeper. Mrs Parkinson, and Hugo Hawksworth who is working at the nearby "statistical institute", which is actually spy central, home to the British spy archives and a nest of investigators. Hugo is the guardian to his thirteen-year-old sister whose parents have died in WWII, and whose former guardian, a cousin, has moved to America with her new husband. Another important character is Lady Silvia, daughter of the earl, who has been waiting for her hated father to be declared dead so that she can sell the castle.
In the first book Freya and Hugo investigate the death of the earl, who was a very nasty piece of work. He was linked to the secret service which, in order to avoid an extensive murder investigation with its attendant publicity, is attempting to blame the earl's death on Freya and her cousin Tom, the earl's son, who died in WWII.
In the second book the earl's secret son arrives from America to assume the estate and title, accompanied by his two daughters. He has been lucky to survive a number of attempts on his life. When a shonky art dealer is murdered in the castle, the question is, " Was he the intended victim?" Perhaps his death is linked to the secret stash of paintings in the attic.
The third book was completed by Anselm Audley from the notes left by his mother, who died with the book unfinished. He has done a good job, but the female characters have much smaller roles. A physicist, who worked at a top secret atom bomb research institute, disappears and is thought to have defected, but his body is found in a river. He has been shot. Hugo investigates while Freya hangs around the castle doing not much.
I enjoyed all of these undemanding, light, historical mysteries.
101pamelad
Two ebook bargains.
The Bride's Secret by Cheryl Bolen
Not bad for a free Kobo book. The heroine is a fallen woman and the hero an earl who was responsible for the death of the heroine's husband in the Napoleonic Wars. He wants to look after the heroine and her son. She made a big mistake by falling in love with a rake who refused to marry her, and is trying to keep her past a secret.
The hero has vermilion eyes! Surely this is not what the author meant to say. He's almost too noble to be believed, so monster eyes are very much out of place.
The Duke Wins a Bride by Nina Jarrett
A Kindle Unlimited book. The heroine catches her fiance banging a maid in the stables but her father won't let her cancel the wedding, so she rides off dressed as a boy to ask her fiance's ducal cousin for help. The duke's dead wife was a frail shrinking girl who rejected him, so he's looking for a feistier wife this time, and decides that our heroine will do. Will they come to love one another? Of course, but there are misunderstandings along the way.
This book is advertised at 410 pages, but it's actually quite short. It's let down by bad writing: a lot of waffle about not much and some excessive sex scenes.
The Bride's Secret by Cheryl Bolen
Not bad for a free Kobo book. The heroine is a fallen woman and the hero an earl who was responsible for the death of the heroine's husband in the Napoleonic Wars. He wants to look after the heroine and her son. She made a big mistake by falling in love with a rake who refused to marry her, and is trying to keep her past a secret.
The hero has vermilion eyes! Surely this is not what the author meant to say. He's almost too noble to be believed, so monster eyes are very much out of place.
The Duke Wins a Bride by Nina Jarrett
A Kindle Unlimited book. The heroine catches her fiance banging a maid in the stables but her father won't let her cancel the wedding, so she rides off dressed as a boy to ask her fiance's ducal cousin for help. The duke's dead wife was a frail shrinking girl who rejected him, so he's looking for a feistier wife this time, and decides that our heroine will do. Will they come to love one another? Of course, but there are misunderstandings along the way.
This book is advertised at 410 pages, but it's actually quite short. It's let down by bad writing: a lot of waffle about not much and some excessive sex scenes.
102pamelad
5. CATs and KITs
An early entry for the September CATWoman: Women During War
Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
Frances was orphaned at four-years-old and brought up by her aunt and uncle. She's been educated by governesses, has never left London, has never had a friend, and now at 25 is looking after her hypochondriac aunt and managing the house with too few servants. Oh, the servant problem! The aunt has refused to leave London, despite the Blitz, but when a bomb lands nearby she stirs herself to move to the country. Frances manages to assert herself by refusing to go with her. Instead, she travels to a Scottish seaside village for her first ever holiday. She gets to know the locals, and makes friends with some army wives and their husbands.
Spring Magic starts very slowly with lots of landscape and lots of Scottish history, and I didn't warm to Frances. What's interesting is that the book was published in 1942, and was written during the blitz. Soldiers are camped nearby; army wives are searching for accommodation; there's a training manoeuvre involving the army and the civil defence; the village turns out to watch a dogfight over the ocean. These descriptions of life in WWII, from someone who was there, are what make the book worth reading.
An early entry for the September CATWoman: Women During War
Spring Magic by D E Stevenson
Frances was orphaned at four-years-old and brought up by her aunt and uncle. She's been educated by governesses, has never left London, has never had a friend, and now at 25 is looking after her hypochondriac aunt and managing the house with too few servants. Oh, the servant problem! The aunt has refused to leave London, despite the Blitz, but when a bomb lands nearby she stirs herself to move to the country. Frances manages to assert herself by refusing to go with her. Instead, she travels to a Scottish seaside village for her first ever holiday. She gets to know the locals, and makes friends with some army wives and their husbands.
Spring Magic starts very slowly with lots of landscape and lots of Scottish history, and I didn't warm to Frances. What's interesting is that the book was published in 1942, and was written during the blitz. Soldiers are camped nearby; army wives are searching for accommodation; there's a training manoeuvre involving the army and the civil defence; the village turns out to watch a dogfight over the ocean. These descriptions of life in WWII, from someone who was there, are what make the book worth reading.
103christina_reads
>101 pamelad: I LOLed at "vermilion eyes." How did no one catch that?!
104pamelad
14. Historical Fiction Challenge: about a real historical figure or event
Rizzio by Denise Mina
I've read and enjoyed a lot of Denise Mina's crime fiction, so was intrigued by this short book about the murder of Rizzio. Very atmospheric, written from the perspective of the young Mary, Queen of Scots. Vile, corrupt Scottish nobles, an insane, murderous Calvinist who used to be a priest and Darnley, a truly terrible husband.
Rizzio by Denise Mina
I've read and enjoyed a lot of Denise Mina's crime fiction, so was intrigued by this short book about the murder of Rizzio. Very atmospheric, written from the perspective of the young Mary, Queen of Scots. Vile, corrupt Scottish nobles, an insane, murderous Calvinist who used to be a priest and Darnley, a truly terrible husband.
105MissWatson
>104 pamelad: Having just read Stefan Zweig's biography of Mary I would love to read this, but I'm waiting for the price to come down.
One of the most astounding things in Zweig's book was how those Scottish nobles would always agree their traitorous plots in a written bond before taking action.
One of the most astounding things in Zweig's book was how those Scottish nobles would always agree their traitorous plots in a written bond before taking action.
106pamelad
>105 MissWatson: It was a lucky find on CloudLibrary. Since the start of the pandemic I've joined 5 libraries for their online collections, so now belong to 7 libraries altogether. Making a note of the Stephan Zweig biography.
107pamelad
I've had an Emily Larkin binge, having discovered that also wrote under the names Emily Gee and Emily May. She's from New Zealand and writes light, frothy, cheerful Regency romances.
Violet and the Bow Street Runner is the latest book in the Baleful Godmother series. The Baleful Godmother women appears to the women in Violet's family on their twenty-third birthdays and offers them a magic gift. Violet chose flying. On a night flight across London she sees a man trailing someone she knows. He turns out to be a Bow Street Runner, and Violet becomes involved in the investigation of a crime. The Runner is the grandson of an earl, brought low by his father's bankruptcy and suicide.
Nor much to this and it's quite silly, but I liked it.
Lady Isabella's Ogre
No magic in this one, which is a big plus. Lady Isabella saves a young woman, Harriet, who is running away from a forced marriage to Major Reynolds, a Waterloo veteran with a scarred face. Isabella inadvertently calls Reynolds an ogre in the hearing of one of the ton's worst gossips, and the nickname catches on. Reynolds turns out to be an estimable man, so Isabella persuades him to pretend to court her, in order to give the ton something else to talk about.
My Lady Thief
Arabella Knightley is the granddaughter of an earl. He disowned his son for marrying Arabella's mother, and refused to help when Arabella's father died. Arabella's mother ended up on the streets, and on her death Arabella had no choice but to seek out her grandfather, who educated her, launched her into society and made her his heiress. All very realistic! Arabella is barely accepted by the ton and carries the nickname "smell o' gutters", bestowed by the arrogant Adam St Just. While Arabella waits for her 25th birthday, when she will come into her inheritance, she burgles people who deserve punishment and uses the money to look after destitute women and girls. Arabella's and Adam's paths cross when Arabella burgles a woman who is blackmailing Adam's young sister.
Two enjoyably silly and unrealistic stories.
Lieutenant Mayhew's Catastrophes
This one is a novella. No magic but it has kittens, which could be worse. My least favourite, but a light and cheerful read.
All of these are available on KoboPlus.
Having run out of Emily Larkin books I borrowed Lorraine Heath's In Bed with the Devil from the library. Like Lady Arabella, the hero, Lucian Langdon now an earl, was saved from the streets. The ton thinks he's an impostor and a murderer, and so does he, but the old gentleman who saved Lucien, and believed the boy was his grandson, had no doubts. This book is Victorian, not Regency, but you can barely tell because there's almost no historical detail. Lucius and the heroine, Lady Catherine Mabry, almost met years ago at a ball, and meet again when Catherine seeks him out to persuade him to murder a man who deserves to die. He agrees, if Catherine will promise to train his intended bride, a friend from his days on the streets, to fit into the ton.
The plot is ridiculous but there is no humour, so this book's a failure.
Violet and the Bow Street Runner is the latest book in the Baleful Godmother series. The Baleful Godmother women appears to the women in Violet's family on their twenty-third birthdays and offers them a magic gift. Violet chose flying. On a night flight across London she sees a man trailing someone she knows. He turns out to be a Bow Street Runner, and Violet becomes involved in the investigation of a crime. The Runner is the grandson of an earl, brought low by his father's bankruptcy and suicide.
Nor much to this and it's quite silly, but I liked it.
Lady Isabella's Ogre
No magic in this one, which is a big plus. Lady Isabella saves a young woman, Harriet, who is running away from a forced marriage to Major Reynolds, a Waterloo veteran with a scarred face. Isabella inadvertently calls Reynolds an ogre in the hearing of one of the ton's worst gossips, and the nickname catches on. Reynolds turns out to be an estimable man, so Isabella persuades him to pretend to court her, in order to give the ton something else to talk about.
My Lady Thief
Arabella Knightley is the granddaughter of an earl. He disowned his son for marrying Arabella's mother, and refused to help when Arabella's father died. Arabella's mother ended up on the streets, and on her death Arabella had no choice but to seek out her grandfather, who educated her, launched her into society and made her his heiress. All very realistic! Arabella is barely accepted by the ton and carries the nickname "smell o' gutters", bestowed by the arrogant Adam St Just. While Arabella waits for her 25th birthday, when she will come into her inheritance, she burgles people who deserve punishment and uses the money to look after destitute women and girls. Arabella's and Adam's paths cross when Arabella burgles a woman who is blackmailing Adam's young sister.
Two enjoyably silly and unrealistic stories.
Lieutenant Mayhew's Catastrophes
This one is a novella. No magic but it has kittens, which could be worse. My least favourite, but a light and cheerful read.
All of these are available on KoboPlus.
Having run out of Emily Larkin books I borrowed Lorraine Heath's In Bed with the Devil from the library. Like Lady Arabella, the hero, Lucian Langdon now an earl, was saved from the streets. The ton thinks he's an impostor and a murderer, and so does he, but the old gentleman who saved Lucien, and believed the boy was his grandson, had no doubts. This book is Victorian, not Regency, but you can barely tell because there's almost no historical detail. Lucius and the heroine, Lady Catherine Mabry, almost met years ago at a ball, and meet again when Catherine seeks him out to persuade him to murder a man who deserves to die. He agrees, if Catherine will promise to train his intended bride, a friend from his days on the streets, to fit into the ton.
The plot is ridiculous but there is no humour, so this book's a failure.
108VivienneR
>94 pamelad: I thought of St Trinian's as soon as I looked at that cover! I've never heard of Witches Britches being worn anywhere else.
109christina_reads
>107 pamelad: Interesting! I've read a novel by Emily Gee, The Laurentine Spy, which I remember enjoying; it was a fantasy romance, I believe. I didn't know she wrote historical romances under another name! I'll see if I can find some of her Emily Larkin titles.
110pamelad
>108 VivienneR: Witches britches must have been a fleeting Australian fashion. Do you remember the Molesworth books? Also brilliantly illustrated by Ronald Searle.
>109 christina_reads:Emily Larkin writes very good froth, and I've just made another frothy find: Alicia Cameron. Her books are available on Kindle Unlimited and I've just read five. Her first book was Clarissa and the Poor Relations which is light and cheerful with appealing characters but a too tidy, perfunctory ending. Her most recent books are the Fortune sisters series. I've read all four and am expecting another two to appear because there are an unmarried sister and a very nice baronet still unmarried. They are: Georgette and the Unrequited Love, Jocasta and the Cruelty of Kindness, Katerina and the Reclusive Earl and Leonora and the Lion's Venture. They're utterly undemanding with a bit of humour and no sex scenes.
>109 christina_reads:Emily Larkin writes very good froth, and I've just made another frothy find: Alicia Cameron. Her books are available on Kindle Unlimited and I've just read five. Her first book was Clarissa and the Poor Relations which is light and cheerful with appealing characters but a too tidy, perfunctory ending. Her most recent books are the Fortune sisters series. I've read all four and am expecting another two to appear because there are an unmarried sister and a very nice baronet still unmarried. They are: Georgette and the Unrequited Love, Jocasta and the Cruelty of Kindness, Katerina and the Reclusive Earl and Leonora and the Lion's Venture. They're utterly undemanding with a bit of humour and no sex scenes.
111pamelad
12. More Prizes: Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize; David Higham Prize for Fiction
O, Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
This is Janet's story, from her birth during WWII at her grandfather's home by the sea in southern Scotland, through her miserable boarding school years when she is surrounded by Philistines, to her death at sixteen in her family's grim highland castle. Janet's father believes that girls are an inferior kind of boy, while her mother likes babies and doesn't like her two eldest, Janet and her arrogant, frighteningly self-possessed brother Francis. Janet is not at all self-possessed: she notices only what interests her, retreats into her imagination, and can't be trusted. She's compassionate towards animals, but doesn't like people.
This is a tragedy about an intelligent, unhappy, friendless, doomed misfit, but it's leavened with the humour of the ridiculous situations that Janet finds herself in, and a cast of exaggerated comic characters.
O Caledonia is strange, short, and well worth reading. I found a copy in the Open Library.
O, Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
This is Janet's story, from her birth during WWII at her grandfather's home by the sea in southern Scotland, through her miserable boarding school years when she is surrounded by Philistines, to her death at sixteen in her family's grim highland castle. Janet's father believes that girls are an inferior kind of boy, while her mother likes babies and doesn't like her two eldest, Janet and her arrogant, frighteningly self-possessed brother Francis. Janet is not at all self-possessed: she notices only what interests her, retreats into her imagination, and can't be trusted. She's compassionate towards animals, but doesn't like people.
This is a tragedy about an intelligent, unhappy, friendless, doomed misfit, but it's leavened with the humour of the ridiculous situations that Janet finds herself in, and a cast of exaggerated comic characters.
O Caledonia is strange, short, and well worth reading. I found a copy in the Open Library.
112Tess_W
>111 pamelad: on my enormous WL is goes!
113pamelad
If you look carefully in the middle, you can see two small kangaroos. I am such a fabulous photographer!
115pamelad
There's a koala tucked into the V of the second branch on the right. Although there's plenty of native bush on Raymond Island, this koala is living in someone's front yard.
116pamelad
I have been with a friend to the Gippsland Lakes for a few days. Yesterday we caught the ferry from Paynesville, where we were staying, to Raymond Island, which has people living there, but is mainly bush. There's a koala trail and a nature trail.
Gorgeous weather considering it's barely spring: 18C, sunshine and hardly any wind.
Gorgeous weather considering it's barely spring: 18C, sunshine and hardly any wind.
118pamelad
13. Books I Own
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse is the third book in the Jeeves Omnibus 3.
Jeeves and Bertie are always good for a laugh. I've read these stories many times, but they never pall.
7. Crime
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
On a misty night an ex-Commando and the beautiful young woman he is driving home come across a body on the road. The commando breaks into a neighbouring house to ring the police, but is attacked and left unconscious. The young woman runs home along a path across the fields because she must get home before her puritanical father realises she is gone. There's a surfeit of suspects, many of them young men in love with the beautiful Dilys. Eventually the intuitive Inspector Waring solves the crime.
An enjoyable mystery from the tail-end of the Golden age.
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse is the third book in the Jeeves Omnibus 3.
Jeeves and Bertie are always good for a laugh. I've read these stories many times, but they never pall.
7. Crime
Two-Way Murder by E C R Lorac
On a misty night an ex-Commando and the beautiful young woman he is driving home come across a body on the road. The commando breaks into a neighbouring house to ring the police, but is attacked and left unconscious. The young woman runs home along a path across the fields because she must get home before her puritanical father realises she is gone. There's a surfeit of suspects, many of them young men in love with the beautiful Dilys. Eventually the intuitive Inspector Waring solves the crime.
An enjoyable mystery from the tail-end of the Golden age.
119pamelad
Midsummer Magic by Catherine Coulter
After reading some good reports of Cahterine Coulter's books, I found this on Overdrive. There's plenty going on: characters are deceiving one another all over the place; a battle between two unwilling spouses; a bluestocking French mistress with a heart of gold; a possible murder; corruption in the racing industry; a manipulative parent. I wasn't much taken with the book because the character of the hero fluctuated to fit the plot and he behaved badly towards his wife. I don't want to read about angry people when I'm seeking frothy escapism.
After reading some good reports of Cahterine Coulter's books, I found this on Overdrive. There's plenty going on: characters are deceiving one another all over the place; a battle between two unwilling spouses; a bluestocking French mistress with a heart of gold; a possible murder; corruption in the racing industry; a manipulative parent. I wasn't much taken with the book because the character of the hero fluctuated to fit the plot and he behaved badly towards his wife. I don't want to read about angry people when I'm seeking frothy escapism.
120pamelad
1. Non-Fiction
But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"? by The University of Chicago Press
This short book, 63% body and 37% index, consists of questions to the Chicago Style Q & A. Plenty of worried editors, proof-readers and technical writers are losing sleep over issues such as index entries, what goes inside the quotation marks, and how to spell sulfur (this is the IUPAC spelling).
I bought this yesterday through Bookbub and while most of the book's content wasn't relevant to me, I found it interesting and amusing. The overall message is to consider the reader and use common sense.
I was pleased to see that "off of" is US colloquial, to be avoided in formal writing and, I would add, in Regency England.
But Can I Start a Sentence with "But"? by The University of Chicago Press
This short book, 63% body and 37% index, consists of questions to the Chicago Style Q & A. Plenty of worried editors, proof-readers and technical writers are losing sleep over issues such as index entries, what goes inside the quotation marks, and how to spell sulfur (this is the IUPAC spelling).
I bought this yesterday through Bookbub and while most of the book's content wasn't relevant to me, I found it interesting and amusing. The overall message is to consider the reader and use common sense.
I was pleased to see that "off of" is US colloquial, to be avoided in formal writing and, I would add, in Regency England.
121Tess_W
>120 pamelad: There is no common sense when the reader is your co-operating professor reading your grad thesis!
122dudes22
>120 pamelad: - "Off of" is one of my pet peeves along with "I seen". Yuck!
123pamelad
>122 dudes22: If the characters are American and they say these things in direct speech, no problem. My problem is when "off of" pops up in the narrative and in other places where people wouldn't use it. Grace Burrowes take note!
I used to teach science in secondary schools where lots of kids said "we done" and "I seen", so in context they're not a bother to me. I don't think students would use them in writing, just speaking. A bit like a dialect. I also remember how the local kids would teach the newly arrived migrants some very crude terms, which the migrant kids would come out with in really inappropriate situations. Teachers had to take them aside privately and tell them what they'd just said!
I used to teach science in secondary schools where lots of kids said "we done" and "I seen", so in context they're not a bother to me. I don't think students would use them in writing, just speaking. A bit like a dialect. I also remember how the local kids would teach the newly arrived migrants some very crude terms, which the migrant kids would come out with in really inappropriate situations. Teachers had to take them aside privately and tell them what they'd just said!
124pamelad
My Darling Duke by Stacy Reid is rated 4.19 on LT and gets good reviews, so I gave it a go. I liked the story and the characters but wasn't impressed with the writing, which I found gushy and repetitive with some blatant errors. Iraq didn't exist then: it was Persia!
Kitty is in her fourth season and hasn't received an offer. She's her family's last hope because her mother's widow's jointure has almost run out. Kitty, her two sisters and her mother are already living in genteel poverty, so the financial situation is desperate. Kitty lacks a dowry and important connections, so she decides to pretend that she is betrothed to a hermit duke, in the hope that he will never become aware of her deception and that the connection will encourage suitors for her sisters. The lonely, damaged duke finds out and comes to London to meet his fictional betrothed, despite having sworn never to marry.
Kitty is in her fourth season and hasn't received an offer. She's her family's last hope because her mother's widow's jointure has almost run out. Kitty, her two sisters and her mother are already living in genteel poverty, so the financial situation is desperate. Kitty lacks a dowry and important connections, so she decides to pretend that she is betrothed to a hermit duke, in the hope that he will never become aware of her deception and that the connection will encourage suitors for her sisters. The lonely, damaged duke finds out and comes to London to meet his fictional betrothed, despite having sworn never to marry.
125pamelad
>121 Tess_W: Your supervisor was excessively attached to his/her own grammar rules?
126Tess_W
>125 pamelad: No, to the APA Citation and Writing Style, when the rest of the department used the Chicago Manual Style (specifically, Turabian).
127pamelad
Ten Kisses to Scandal by Vivienne Lorret
Naive, feisty young woman wants a more important role in her family's matchmaking business. Hardened rake promises to give her the benefit of his insight for the price of a kiss per tip. The writing was OK but there is virtually no plot, so I abandoned this a third of the way through due to boredom.
The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath is the middle book of the Hellions trilogy. I'd already read the first and third. The writing is OK, but the story about a twin impersonating his dead brother so that his widow won't lose her baby is unbelievable. It's illegal in 19th century England for a man to marry his brother's wife and there is no viable solution to this problem. I don't mind unbelievable as long as it's not serious, but Heath isn't funny. CloudLibrary has lots of Lorraine Heath books, so I'll probably try another. Hopefully LT can steer me towards a good one. I think this book was set in Victorian England, mainly because the first in the series clearly was, but it is so bereft of historical detail that it's difficult to tell.
The Dishonored Viscount by Sophie Barnes started off well. Louise has cataracts which have been treated by couching, where a needle is inserted into the eye and the lens is moved out of position. Eventually the lens moves back, and the painful procedure must be repeated. At a ball she meets Marcus Berkly (unusual spelling!), now an eye surgeon but formerly an idle viscount and heir to an earldom. Marcus's father was hanged for murder, forfeiting his estates and title, so Marcus is now a disgraced commoner with whom Louise cannot associate. When Louise has an attack of blindness at another ton function Marcus looks after her, and while they wait for her parents to arrive he tells her about cataract surgery that could fix her vision permanently.
Once the eye bits are over the book falls apart, mainly because of repetitive writing full of bland, contemporary cliches, and a dull plot. Hero feels himself not good enough for heroine. I'll risk another book by Sophie Barnes if I can find a free one.
Naive, feisty young woman wants a more important role in her family's matchmaking business. Hardened rake promises to give her the benefit of his insight for the price of a kiss per tip. The writing was OK but there is virtually no plot, so I abandoned this a third of the way through due to boredom.
The Earl Takes All by Lorraine Heath is the middle book of the Hellions trilogy. I'd already read the first and third. The writing is OK, but the story about a twin impersonating his dead brother so that his widow won't lose her baby is unbelievable. It's illegal in 19th century England for a man to marry his brother's wife and there is no viable solution to this problem. I don't mind unbelievable as long as it's not serious, but Heath isn't funny. CloudLibrary has lots of Lorraine Heath books, so I'll probably try another. Hopefully LT can steer me towards a good one. I think this book was set in Victorian England, mainly because the first in the series clearly was, but it is so bereft of historical detail that it's difficult to tell.
The Dishonored Viscount by Sophie Barnes started off well. Louise has cataracts which have been treated by couching, where a needle is inserted into the eye and the lens is moved out of position. Eventually the lens moves back, and the painful procedure must be repeated. At a ball she meets Marcus Berkly (unusual spelling!), now an eye surgeon but formerly an idle viscount and heir to an earldom. Marcus's father was hanged for murder, forfeiting his estates and title, so Marcus is now a disgraced commoner with whom Louise cannot associate. When Louise has an attack of blindness at another ton function Marcus looks after her, and while they wait for her parents to arrive he tells her about cataract surgery that could fix her vision permanently.
Once the eye bits are over the book falls apart, mainly because of repetitive writing full of bland, contemporary cliches, and a dull plot. Hero feels himself not good enough for heroine. I'll risk another book by Sophie Barnes if I can find a free one.
128mathgirl40
>115 pamelad: Nice photos! I especially like the one with the koala bear.
129pamelad
>128 mathgirl40: Thank you. The koala is a lot easier to find than the kangaroos!
130pamelad
1. Non-fiction
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan is organised around twenty questions that the author thinks are important. Some of the questions were interesting because they brought in information about the Austen's world. Others were not, consisting of numerous quotes from Austen's novels to answer questions that I deemed trivial and dull. A few questions I had to skip because the author's judgements of some characters, particularly Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, were so harsh that they were destroying my happy memories of the book.
I would recommend parts of this book.
What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan is organised around twenty questions that the author thinks are important. Some of the questions were interesting because they brought in information about the Austen's world. Others were not, consisting of numerous quotes from Austen's novels to answer questions that I deemed trivial and dull. A few questions I had to skip because the author's judgements of some characters, particularly Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, were so harsh that they were destroying my happy memories of the book.
I would recommend parts of this book.
131pamelad
The Viscount's Inconvenient Temptation by Theresa Romain is a reissue of Season for Temptation.
A viscount proposes marriage to a respectable young woman, only to fall in love with her stepsister. At 419 pages it's much too long. The fiancee is an elegant, introverted blue stocking, while the stepsister is warm, outspoken and affectionate. The book needs to lose 200 pages, because there's not much going on.
A viscount proposes marriage to a respectable young woman, only to fall in love with her stepsister. At 419 pages it's much too long. The fiancee is an elegant, introverted blue stocking, while the stepsister is warm, outspoken and affectionate. The book needs to lose 200 pages, because there's not much going on.
132pamelad
Brides of Redemption Trilogy by Gayle Callen: Return of the Viscount; Surrender to the Earl; Redemption of the Duke
Three soldiers back their own judgement and ignore their orders, causing the deaths of three men. To assuage their guilt, they vow to look after the families left behind. Michael Blackthorne, a viscount who is a sergeant for the sake of the plot, takes on the daughter and dissolute son of his commanding officer. Robert Henslow, an earl, takes on responsibility for a deserted, blind bride, virtually imprisoned by her unsympathetic family; Adam Chamberlin, a surprise duke (third in line, but his father and brothers die) tries to help his sergeant's sister, who is working as a chaperone to support her mother (I don't think chaperoning would pay enough to support a second person). All light, entertaining reads, not too long, but with minimal attention to historical accuracy and tidy, sentimental endings.
Three soldiers back their own judgement and ignore their orders, causing the deaths of three men. To assuage their guilt, they vow to look after the families left behind. Michael Blackthorne, a viscount who is a sergeant for the sake of the plot, takes on the daughter and dissolute son of his commanding officer. Robert Henslow, an earl, takes on responsibility for a deserted, blind bride, virtually imprisoned by her unsympathetic family; Adam Chamberlin, a surprise duke (third in line, but his father and brothers die) tries to help his sergeant's sister, who is working as a chaperone to support her mother (I don't think chaperoning would pay enough to support a second person). All light, entertaining reads, not too long, but with minimal attention to historical accuracy and tidy, sentimental endings.
133pamelad
A Reckless Match by Kate Bateman
I enjoyed this ridiculous romantic adventure story. The Mongomery and Davies families have been feuding for generations, and by Royal decree a representative from each family must meet in No Man's Land to shake hands. If they don't meet, No Man's Land, a large piece of property owned jointly by the families will be ceded to the family that doesn't send a representative. For Gryff Davies and Maddie Montgomery, who have harboured an unadmitted attraction for years, this meeting is the beginning of adventure and romance. There are smugglers, caves, an evil suitor, a threat of bankruptcy, a lightning strike, an explosion.
A choking episode seemed as though it was in the wrong book.
I enjoyed this ridiculous romantic adventure story. The Mongomery and Davies families have been feuding for generations, and by Royal decree a representative from each family must meet in No Man's Land to shake hands. If they don't meet, No Man's Land, a large piece of property owned jointly by the families will be ceded to the family that doesn't send a representative. For Gryff Davies and Maddie Montgomery, who have harboured an unadmitted attraction for years, this meeting is the beginning of adventure and romance. There are smugglers, caves, an evil suitor, a threat of bankruptcy, a lightning strike, an explosion.
A choking episode seemed as though it was in the wrong book.
134pamelad
I tried another Kate Bateman, the novella The Promise of a Kiss, which was truly terrible. I don't mind a ridiculous story but a cursed Egyptian necklace, a wicked Italian archeologist, a missing eunuch, breaking into Napoleon's bedroom to steal the cursed necklace from his coat pocket are too much. There's also a romance I didn't give two hoots about.
135pamelad
Fanfare for Tin Trumpets by Margery Sharp
Alastair is drifting along in a dead-end job he doesn't like, as an unqualified junior master at a prep school, when he inherits 100 pounds, enough to live on for a year if he's careful. He fancies himself as a writer, and plans to write a play, some short stories and perhaps a novel. Alistair and his friend Henry, who is going to do a teacher training course, search London for an affordable flat and end up in a big, pleasant room in boarding house in a working-class area. Social life in the boarding house centres around the outgoing Winnie and her bawdy grandmother Ma, and generous Winnie welcomes the middle-class upstairs boys.
This is a cheerful, episodic novel. Sharp's characters, even the most minor, are affectionately and ironically delineated, with a special emphasis on Winnie and the self-deluding Alistair, whose writing plans and budget are derailed when he falls in love with the ambitious young actress Cressida.
This was Margery Sharp's second novel, published in 1932. It's delightful.
Alastair is drifting along in a dead-end job he doesn't like, as an unqualified junior master at a prep school, when he inherits 100 pounds, enough to live on for a year if he's careful. He fancies himself as a writer, and plans to write a play, some short stories and perhaps a novel. Alistair and his friend Henry, who is going to do a teacher training course, search London for an affordable flat and end up in a big, pleasant room in boarding house in a working-class area. Social life in the boarding house centres around the outgoing Winnie and her bawdy grandmother Ma, and generous Winnie welcomes the middle-class upstairs boys.
This is a cheerful, episodic novel. Sharp's characters, even the most minor, are affectionately and ironically delineated, with a special emphasis on Winnie and the self-deluding Alistair, whose writing plans and budget are derailed when he falls in love with the ambitious young actress Cressida.
This was Margery Sharp's second novel, published in 1932. It's delightful.
136pamelad
7. Crime
A Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
This is the second book in the Mrs Norris series, but the first one I've read. Mrs Norris is the housekeeper for James Jarvis, an upper-crust New York lawyer, who has just been allocated a breach of promise case, not the sort of case his superiors would normally accept, but impossible to refuse because the defendant is the son of a wealthy, long-term client. The firm's compromise is to demand that the defendant, Teddy Adkins, not sully their office with his case, but meet with James at his apartment. Adkins drops in often and ingratiates himself with Mrs Norris. Meanwhile, a rich woman has been murdered and her broker is implicated. Who is this broker? We readers have clues that the investigators do not.
I enjoyed this fifties mystery. There's no blood or gore, the murders happen off-stage and most of the victims are awful.
A Gentleman Called by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
This is the second book in the Mrs Norris series, but the first one I've read. Mrs Norris is the housekeeper for James Jarvis, an upper-crust New York lawyer, who has just been allocated a breach of promise case, not the sort of case his superiors would normally accept, but impossible to refuse because the defendant is the son of a wealthy, long-term client. The firm's compromise is to demand that the defendant, Teddy Adkins, not sully their office with his case, but meet with James at his apartment. Adkins drops in often and ingratiates himself with Mrs Norris. Meanwhile, a rich woman has been murdered and her broker is implicated. Who is this broker? We readers have clues that the investigators do not.
I enjoyed this fifties mystery. There's no blood or gore, the murders happen off-stage and most of the victims are awful.
137pamelad
The Prank of the Good Little Virgin of Via Ormea by Amara Lakhous
Wondering whether to count this book as African: the author was born into a Berber family in Algiers, but the book is set in Italy and has no Africans as major characters, so probably not.
This is a story of corruption and racism in Turin, told in alternating chapters by a crime reporter, Enzo Lagana and Patrizia, an ex-banker who, haunted by the clients she has cheated, is living as a gypsy. Their paths cross when a fifteen-year-old girl accuses two Roma boys of rape and a right-wing religious vigilante drums up support for a violent attack on the Roma encampment, aided by the biased newspaper that employs Lagana. Enzo and Patrizia have drifted along for years with their consciences in neutral, but self-disgust is forcing them to make reparations.
Just like home. Corrupt right-wing press pushing racism? Murdoch's News Corp and the "Sudanese gangs". Corrupt banks whose financial planners are lying to clients and losing their money in risky ventures? Many, many examples were revealed by the 2017 Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
I wish Lakhous hadn't chosen a fake rape as the precipitating event, but even so this is a revealing look into contemporary Italian society.
ETA This was momentarily on the Wish list, until I found a copy on KoboPlus, so I'm adding it to 9. Wish List.
The translation by Antony Shugaar is so heavily and slangily American that it removed me from Italy. I much preferred Ann Goldstein's translation of Lakhous's Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio.
Wondering whether to count this book as African: the author was born into a Berber family in Algiers, but the book is set in Italy and has no Africans as major characters, so probably not.
This is a story of corruption and racism in Turin, told in alternating chapters by a crime reporter, Enzo Lagana and Patrizia, an ex-banker who, haunted by the clients she has cheated, is living as a gypsy. Their paths cross when a fifteen-year-old girl accuses two Roma boys of rape and a right-wing religious vigilante drums up support for a violent attack on the Roma encampment, aided by the biased newspaper that employs Lagana. Enzo and Patrizia have drifted along for years with their consciences in neutral, but self-disgust is forcing them to make reparations.
Just like home. Corrupt right-wing press pushing racism? Murdoch's News Corp and the "Sudanese gangs". Corrupt banks whose financial planners are lying to clients and losing their money in risky ventures? Many, many examples were revealed by the 2017 Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry.
I wish Lakhous hadn't chosen a fake rape as the precipitating event, but even so this is a revealing look into contemporary Italian society.
ETA This was momentarily on the Wish list, until I found a copy on KoboPlus, so I'm adding it to 9. Wish List.
The translation by Antony Shugaar is so heavily and slangily American that it removed me from Italy. I much preferred Ann Goldstein's translation of Lakhous's Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio.
138pamelad
Historical romances
A Scandalous Kind of Duke by Mia Vincy.
Vincy is Australian and I like her writing style, but this book was slow compared to the others in the Longhope Abbey series. Not enough happens.
Juno and Leo spent a lot of time together when he was 19 and she 17, but Leo clumsily rejected Juno's declaration of love because he was a duke's heir and concerned about duty. They're still friends, still in love and still in denial. Juno is a bohemian artist and Leo is now a duke. He's looking for a suitably aristocratic wife, and Juno is devastated. Will they or won't they?
Delphine and the Dangerous Arrangement by Alicia Cameron
I'm reading my way through Cameron's historical romances, which are all on KindleUnlimited. Delphine's evil mother has just died, and Delphine has inherited a huge fortune. She has been kept almost a prisoner and is now 22 with no idea how to go on in society, so she enlists the help of Gascoigne, a viscount whose enormous debts make him a terrible marriage prospect, but who is well-respected by the ton. Gascoigne and Delphine get along brilliantly, so it's a real shame that Gascoigne's debts are in the way.
Nice and cheery. No sex scenes.
A Scandalous Kind of Duke by Mia Vincy.
Vincy is Australian and I like her writing style, but this book was slow compared to the others in the Longhope Abbey series. Not enough happens.
Juno and Leo spent a lot of time together when he was 19 and she 17, but Leo clumsily rejected Juno's declaration of love because he was a duke's heir and concerned about duty. They're still friends, still in love and still in denial. Juno is a bohemian artist and Leo is now a duke. He's looking for a suitably aristocratic wife, and Juno is devastated. Will they or won't they?
Delphine and the Dangerous Arrangement by Alicia Cameron
I'm reading my way through Cameron's historical romances, which are all on KindleUnlimited. Delphine's evil mother has just died, and Delphine has inherited a huge fortune. She has been kept almost a prisoner and is now 22 with no idea how to go on in society, so she enlists the help of Gascoigne, a viscount whose enormous debts make him a terrible marriage prospect, but who is well-respected by the ton. Gascoigne and Delphine get along brilliantly, so it's a real shame that Gascoigne's debts are in the way.
Nice and cheery. No sex scenes.
139pamelad
Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt is a gothic mystery romance. It's set in Cornwall, somewhere in the mid to late nineteenth century, hard to tell because of the lack of historical detail, but probably after 1840 because there are trains, and not too late because there is no gas lighting and no obvious indoor plumbing.
Martha Leigh is the orphaned daughter of a vicar. She had a London season but failed to find a husband, so her alternatives are maiden aunt or genteel employment. She's chosen employment as a governess to an eight-year-old girl whose mother died a year ago. But did she? The child's father is a tall, thin, cold-eyed philanderer who is carrying on with a beautiful, jealous neighbour. He wants nothing to do with his daughter, who pines for his attention. Another little girl, the illegitimate granddaughter of the housekeeper, has a blank gaze and sings to herself in the woods. They all live in a cliff-top Elizabethan manor that has peep holes, mysterious passages and hidden rooms. The closest neighbour, not the beautiful one, is devoted to the daughter of the house and is known for her kindness and if that's not suspicious, what is?
Victoria Holt is no Daphne DuMaurier, or even a Mary Stewart, but I enjoyed this historical romantic suspense and will look for others. Recommendations are welcome.
Martha Leigh is the orphaned daughter of a vicar. She had a London season but failed to find a husband, so her alternatives are maiden aunt or genteel employment. She's chosen employment as a governess to an eight-year-old girl whose mother died a year ago. But did she? The child's father is a tall, thin, cold-eyed philanderer who is carrying on with a beautiful, jealous neighbour. He wants nothing to do with his daughter, who pines for his attention. Another little girl, the illegitimate granddaughter of the housekeeper, has a blank gaze and sings to herself in the woods. They all live in a cliff-top Elizabethan manor that has peep holes, mysterious passages and hidden rooms. The closest neighbour, not the beautiful one, is devoted to the daughter of the house and is known for her kindness and if that's not suspicious, what is?
Victoria Holt is no Daphne DuMaurier, or even a Mary Stewart, but I enjoyed this historical romantic suspense and will look for others. Recommendations are welcome.
140NinieB
>139 pamelad: From what I recall of reading those 40 years ago, you should similarly enjoy the next few that Holt wrote, like Bride of Pendorric, Kirkland Revels, Menfreya in the Morning, etc. (I think Pendorric was my favorite). At some point Holt started setting them in exotic locales and they became increasingly formulaic.
141pamelad
>140 NinieB: Thank you!
1. Non-fiction
13. Books I Own
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
Published in 1953, this is the account of Operation Mincemeat by a man involved in the deception from the very beginning, when a chat between two colleagues threw up the wild idea of misleading the German High Command about the Allied invasion of Sicily by planting fake documents on a dead body. The same story was covered in Ben MacIntyre's breathlessly dramatic Operation Mincemeat, but because Montagu is an insider this book has a different slant and we're with him as he wades through the operational difficulties, from finding a suitable body, through dealing with the conflicting opinions of his superiors, establishing a background for the pretend Major Martin and ultimately delivering the Major to the coast of Spain. All the way through, Montagu can barely believe that the plan is working.
1. Non-fiction
13. Books I Own
The Man Who Never Was by Ewen Montagu
Published in 1953, this is the account of Operation Mincemeat by a man involved in the deception from the very beginning, when a chat between two colleagues threw up the wild idea of misleading the German High Command about the Allied invasion of Sicily by planting fake documents on a dead body. The same story was covered in Ben MacIntyre's breathlessly dramatic Operation Mincemeat, but because Montagu is an insider this book has a different slant and we're with him as he wades through the operational difficulties, from finding a suitable body, through dealing with the conflicting opinions of his superiors, establishing a background for the pretend Major Martin and ultimately delivering the Major to the coast of Spain. All the way through, Montagu can barely believe that the plan is working.
142christina_reads
>141 pamelad: Ooh, that one sounds interesting -- I loved Operation Mincemeat!
143Tess_W
>141 pamelad: I've read the MacIntyre book. I'm going to try to secure this one!
144pamelad
Just One Season in London and The Wedding Affair by Leigh Michaels
Two tidy historical romances, both with multiple happy endings.
Just One Season: The young Viscount Ryecroft inherited an impoverished estate and needs to marry money pronto so he can pay for his beautiful sister Sophie's first season in London. Sophie wants to find a rich suitor so that Rye doesn't have to marry someone he doesn't like, while their mother, Miranda, not yet forty, also has a plan.
Light and cheerful.
The Wedding Affair:
The sister of the Duke of Somerton is about to be married and their mother has filled the house with young female duke predators. He strikes a deal with the impoverished widow Olivia, Lady Reyne, who agrees to pretend to be courted. Meanwhile Kate, the daughter of the late vicar, is desperately seeking employment and trying to avoid the attentions of the pompous new vicar, a distant cousin and Penny, a brewery heiress recently married to an earl who avoids her, wants to attract her husband.
Once again, multiple happy endings.
These are books 2 and 3 in Michaels' Regency series, available on KoboPlus. She also writes contemporaries with business magnate heroes (or, as I read recently in a book by a different author, magnet) which fits because money was a focus in both of these books, which is acceptable in Regency historicals but iffy elsewhere.
Two tidy historical romances, both with multiple happy endings.
Just One Season: The young Viscount Ryecroft inherited an impoverished estate and needs to marry money pronto so he can pay for his beautiful sister Sophie's first season in London. Sophie wants to find a rich suitor so that Rye doesn't have to marry someone he doesn't like, while their mother, Miranda, not yet forty, also has a plan.
Light and cheerful.
The Wedding Affair:
The sister of the Duke of Somerton is about to be married and their mother has filled the house with young female duke predators. He strikes a deal with the impoverished widow Olivia, Lady Reyne, who agrees to pretend to be courted. Meanwhile Kate, the daughter of the late vicar, is desperately seeking employment and trying to avoid the attentions of the pompous new vicar, a distant cousin and Penny, a brewery heiress recently married to an earl who avoids her, wants to attract her husband.
Once again, multiple happy endings.
These are books 2 and 3 in Michaels' Regency series, available on KoboPlus. She also writes contemporaries with business magnate heroes (or, as I read recently in a book by a different author, magnet) which fits because money was a focus in both of these books, which is acceptable in Regency historicals but iffy elsewhere.
145pamelad
Beggar on Horseback by Sylvia Thorpe, first published in 1953, is set in the late seventeenth century. Major Kelvin Rainham has been twice disgraced and reduced to earning a living as a mercenary. He returns to London and, over five nights of cards, wins the young David Stratton's entire estate, leaving him and his sister Dorothea in poverty. Back at the Stratton estate the solitary Major, who is universally loathed, falls in love with Dorothea's portrait and sets off to find her. With just the barest hint of her whereabouts he spends months searching through Kent, only to be wounded, left for dead, then nursed back to health by Dorothea, who doesn't know his real name. Lurking in the background is David's pretend friend who is in love with Dorothea. By fair means or foul, he will keep Dorothea and the Major apart.
Meanwhile, the callow and sulky David falls in love with an earl's daughter who is betrothed to a scoundrel. David can't save her from her fate because his lack of money means he can't marry.
Much melodrama! I liked it.
Available in the Open Library.
Meanwhile, the callow and sulky David falls in love with an earl's daughter who is betrothed to a scoundrel. David can't save her from her fate because his lack of money means he can't marry.
Much melodrama! I liked it.
Available in the Open Library.
146Tess_W
>145 pamelad: Sounds like what I need. You hit me with a BB!
147pamelad
10. New Authors
12. More Prizes: Booker Shortlist
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
In 1985 Ireland is in recession with businesses failing and people losing their jobs. It's almost Christmas, the busiest time of year for Bill Furlong, the coal merchant in a small Irish town. Bill is a compassionate and generous man, married with five daughters, working long hours to support his family. His unmarried mother had him at sixteen and brought him up with the help of her employer, a well-off, childless Protestant woman, avoiding the fate of many other young pregnant girls who, abandoned by their families, end up in Magdalen laundries with their babies taken from them, overworked and punished for their immorality. The local people do not want to know what goes on at the Magdalen laundry because the nuns have such an influence over the town. Like Bill's wife they keep their heads down and protect their own children.
This beautifully written novella says so much in so few words.
12. More Prizes: Booker Shortlist
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
In 1985 Ireland is in recession with businesses failing and people losing their jobs. It's almost Christmas, the busiest time of year for Bill Furlong, the coal merchant in a small Irish town. Bill is a compassionate and generous man, married with five daughters, working long hours to support his family. His unmarried mother had him at sixteen and brought him up with the help of her employer, a well-off, childless Protestant woman, avoiding the fate of many other young pregnant girls who, abandoned by their families, end up in Magdalen laundries with their babies taken from them, overworked and punished for their immorality. The local people do not want to know what goes on at the Magdalen laundry because the nuns have such an influence over the town. Like Bill's wife they keep their heads down and protect their own children.
This beautifully written novella says so much in so few words.
148pamelad
Strangers on the Moor by Sylvia Thorpe
On the death of her father, pale and weepy Deborah becomes the ward of her father's wicked stepbrother, who lives with his wicked nephews in a grimy rundown manor on the moors. The locals refuse to go anywhere near the manor, so it is with great difficulty that Deborah and her bad-tempered governess find a guide to lead them through the mist to her guardian's gate. Her fearsome, yellow-complexioned, whale-like guardian, his clothes spattered with ancient food stains, immediately dismisses the grumpy governess, leaving Deborah to be chaperoned by the coarse, wine-swilling slattern who is married to the oldest nephew. The foul old man plans to marry the wealthy Deborah to his favourite nephew, a vicious reprobate with a veneer of charm.
I enjoyed this ludicrous gothic romance. There are smugglers, stolen diamonds, a secret wife, a disinherited heir, and at least three murders.
ETA It's hard to tell what era this is set in. Candles and post chaises, so it could be Regency?
On the death of her father, pale and weepy Deborah becomes the ward of her father's wicked stepbrother, who lives with his wicked nephews in a grimy rundown manor on the moors. The locals refuse to go anywhere near the manor, so it is with great difficulty that Deborah and her bad-tempered governess find a guide to lead them through the mist to her guardian's gate. Her fearsome, yellow-complexioned, whale-like guardian, his clothes spattered with ancient food stains, immediately dismisses the grumpy governess, leaving Deborah to be chaperoned by the coarse, wine-swilling slattern who is married to the oldest nephew. The foul old man plans to marry the wealthy Deborah to his favourite nephew, a vicious reprobate with a veneer of charm.
I enjoyed this ludicrous gothic romance. There are smugglers, stolen diamonds, a secret wife, a disinherited heir, and at least three murders.
ETA It's hard to tell what era this is set in. Candles and post chaises, so it could be Regency?
149pamelad
Love Only Once by Johanna Lindsey
Lindsey is a popular writer, and over 1000 people have this book on LT. I can't understand why. I read The Heir to which I gave 1.5 stars but decided to give Lindsey another try in case her other books were better. Unfortunately, this is another shocker: a childish, tantrum-throwing rapey heroheroine too drunk to know what she's doing ; an unnecessary plot strand involving a pirate; Regency aristocrats who sound like American gangsters e.g. a smack in the kisser; lots of tiresome misunderstandings; a confusion of characters who appear at the beginning but never appear again; incorrect titles e.g. a countess is married to an earl, not a viscount.
My expectations for historical romances aren't high, but they're higher than this.
Lindsey is a popular writer, and over 1000 people have this book on LT. I can't understand why. I read The Heir to which I gave 1.5 stars but decided to give Lindsey another try in case her other books were better. Unfortunately, this is another shocker: a childish, tantrum-throwing rapey hero
My expectations for historical romances aren't high, but they're higher than this.
150christina_reads
>149 pamelad: Yikes! This is not an author I've tried, though I recognize the name, and I think I'll steer clear. With some authors who've been writing for a while, their earlier work doesn't always hold up.
151pamelad
>150 christina_reads: You can't have a hero who makes a habit of deflowering debutantes. There are rules to these romances, so he wouldn't be allowed into Almack's!
152pamelad
2. The Americas
13. Books I Own
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
I've been aware of this book for ages, so when it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal I bought it.
Fifteen-year-old Charlie is writing to a stranger, initially about his fears of starting high school, then about the troubles and joys of his life. He has a history of mental illness that stems from a mystery in his past. He cries a lot and occasionally blanks out and ends up in hospital. It's all a bit one note, and I got tired of Charlie, which makes me feel callous, but the book is probably directed towards people of Charlie's age, who might find it helpful.
13. Books I Own
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
I've been aware of this book for ages, so when it came up as a Kindle Daily Deal I bought it.
Fifteen-year-old Charlie is writing to a stranger, initially about his fears of starting high school, then about the troubles and joys of his life. He has a history of mental illness that stems from a mystery in his past. He cries a lot and occasionally blanks out and ends up in hospital. It's all a bit one note, and I got tired of Charlie, which makes me feel callous, but the book is probably directed towards people of Charlie's age, who might find it helpful.
153pamelad
2. Africa
5. AuthorCAT
No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is the second book in the African Trilogy. The main character is Obi Okonkwo, grandson of the doomed warrior in Things Fall Apart, who is standing in the dock charged with accepting a bribe. The rest of the book describes how he ended up there.
The Umouofia Progressive Union raised the money to send Obi to study in England so that he can qualify for a position in the Nigerian Senior Service, which is run by the British, and bring credit to his village. Obi is morally opposed the corruption that permeates Nigerian society, which is pragmatically accepted by his fellow Umofians. At first I found the book hard to read because of Obi's looming tragedy, but it became clear that Obi was weak, self-centred and hypocritical, rather than a victim of forces outside his control. He is living at a time of great change in Nigerian society and is trapped by the demands of his family and fellow villagers and maintaining his status as a senior public servant with its unexpected expenses. Though Obi believes himself free of village superstitions, a curse contributes to his destruction.
Obi's racist British boss is contemptuous of educated Africans and saves his sympathy for the poor.
This short book is a snapshot of fifties Nigeria just before Independence, and well worth a read.
5. AuthorCAT
No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe is the second book in the African Trilogy. The main character is Obi Okonkwo, grandson of the doomed warrior in Things Fall Apart, who is standing in the dock charged with accepting a bribe. The rest of the book describes how he ended up there.
The Umouofia Progressive Union raised the money to send Obi to study in England so that he can qualify for a position in the Nigerian Senior Service, which is run by the British, and bring credit to his village. Obi is morally opposed the corruption that permeates Nigerian society, which is pragmatically accepted by his fellow Umofians. At first I found the book hard to read because of Obi's looming tragedy, but it became clear that Obi was weak, self-centred and hypocritical, rather than a victim of forces outside his control. He is living at a time of great change in Nigerian society and is trapped by the demands of his family and fellow villagers and maintaining his status as a senior public servant with its unexpected expenses. Though Obi believes himself free of village superstitions, a curse contributes to his destruction.
Obi's racist British boss is contemptuous of educated Africans and saves his sympathy for the poor.
This short book is a snapshot of fifties Nigeria just before Independence, and well worth a read.
154pamelad
5. AuthorCAT
Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
This mainly epistolary novel centres on Michele, who has suddenly left Italy for England. Michele, his friends and his family are gradually revealed by the letters they write and by other people writing about them, so they seem multi-faceted and authentic. There's a chaotic network of family and friends, all with their own concerns, linked by their connection to Michele.
The underlying tone is sadly realistic, but the book is written with lightness and humour. Ginzburg is a wonderful writer.
ETA I would have given this book 5 stars except for the translation, which had too many contemporary Amercian colloquialisms for my taste. The book was written in Italy the seventies! I wish translators wouldn't update language. A book is a part of its time.
Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzburg
This mainly epistolary novel centres on Michele, who has suddenly left Italy for England. Michele, his friends and his family are gradually revealed by the letters they write and by other people writing about them, so they seem multi-faceted and authentic. There's a chaotic network of family and friends, all with their own concerns, linked by their connection to Michele.
The underlying tone is sadly realistic, but the book is written with lightness and humour. Ginzburg is a wonderful writer.
ETA I would have given this book 5 stars except for the translation, which had too many contemporary Amercian colloquialisms for my taste. The book was written in Italy the seventies! I wish translators wouldn't update language. A book is a part of its time.
155pamelad
Three by Courtney Milan in order of preference:
The Countess Conspiracy. I enjoyed this one. Liked the characters and liked the science bits, even though Mendel made those discoveries, not the countess!
The Suffragette Scandal. OK, but the hero was a misery and I had to skip a lot of filler.
Once Upon a Marquess. A mess. Much too long. I skipped great slabs of it, including a lot of irrelevant, heavy-handed humour.
The Countess Conspiracy. I enjoyed this one. Liked the characters and liked the science bits, even though Mendel made those discoveries, not the countess!
The Suffragette Scandal. OK, but the hero was a misery and I had to skip a lot of filler.
Once Upon a Marquess. A mess. Much too long. I skipped great slabs of it, including a lot of irrelevant, heavy-handed humour.
156pamelad
5. CATWoman
13. Books I Own
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
From Annie Haynes - Ultimate Collection of Golden Age Murder Mysteries, which contains the Inspector Furnival and Inspector Stockart series, this is the first Inspector Stockart mystery, though mystery isn't quite right because the murderer is obvious almost from the beginning. The victim, Dr. Bastow, is discovered at his desk, shot, with a sheet of paper on which is written "It was the Man with the Dark Beard." Too many clues point to Bastow's assistant, Basil Wilton, as the murderer. Wilton had just asked for the hand of Bastow's daughter and had been not only refused but sacked from his position. There are many potentially false threads: a doctor who has shaved off his beard; a good-looking parlour maid with a mysterious past; Bastow's missing medical research (he seems to have discovered the cure for cancer); a secretary with an unexpected inheritance.
The most entertaining character is Miss Lavinia Priestley, a not so maidenly aunt, who has pronounced views on the modern woman. The book was first published in 1928.
ETA It's definitely worth paying out 75 cents for this collection of 8 Golden Age mysteries.
13. Books I Own
The Man with the Dark Beard by Annie Haynes
From Annie Haynes - Ultimate Collection of Golden Age Murder Mysteries, which contains the Inspector Furnival and Inspector Stockart series, this is the first Inspector Stockart mystery, though mystery isn't quite right because the murderer is obvious almost from the beginning. The victim, Dr. Bastow, is discovered at his desk, shot, with a sheet of paper on which is written "It was the Man with the Dark Beard." Too many clues point to Bastow's assistant, Basil Wilton, as the murderer. Wilton had just asked for the hand of Bastow's daughter and had been not only refused but sacked from his position. There are many potentially false threads: a doctor who has shaved off his beard; a good-looking parlour maid with a mysterious past; Bastow's missing medical research (he seems to have discovered the cure for cancer); a secretary with an unexpected inheritance.
The most entertaining character is Miss Lavinia Priestley, a not so maidenly aunt, who has pronounced views on the modern woman. The book was first published in 1928.
ETA It's definitely worth paying out 75 cents for this collection of 8 Golden Age mysteries.
157pamelad
Victoria has just had what the weather bureau calls "a significant rainfall event," resulting in widespread flooding with some country towns having to evacuate. Roads and rail lines are cut, and towns are isolated. Victoria is much dryer than Queensland and NSW so it's not yet like the Lismore floods, with people and their pets sitting all night on the roofs of their houses waiting to be rescued by locals in dinghies, but it's quite bad enough. In Melbourne's west houses have been flooded by the Maribyrnong River. Where I live in the inner north, away from rivers and creeks, we've been lucky so far, touch wood. In Melbourne, at least, the rain has stopped.
It's the third year of La Nina, and for people in some parts of Queensland and NSW, the third year of floods. So, while we're reading about heatwaves and drought in Europe, and seeing pictures of towns and battleships revealed by sinking water levels, we're experiencing the reverse.
It's the third year of La Nina, and for people in some parts of Queensland and NSW, the third year of floods. So, while we're reading about heatwaves and drought in Europe, and seeing pictures of towns and battleships revealed by sinking water levels, we're experiencing the reverse.
158MissWatson
That's awful news. I hope the worst passes you by!
160JaxonMcArthur
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161christina_reads
>157 pamelad: Hope you stay safe and dry!
162DeltaQueen50
Echoing everyone else here with hopes that the flooding recedes quickly without too much damage or injury!
164pamelad
Thanks everyone. I've recently had the roof repaired, its gutters cleaned, and the overhanging tree branches removed. Fortunate timing! Also, I live near the top of a hill.
The rain has stopped but the rivers are still rising, so more towns are being evacuated. Big rainfalls are expected again next week. Jayne lives in regional Victoria, where the risk is much higher than where I live.
The rain has stopped but the rivers are still rising, so more towns are being evacuated. Big rainfalls are expected again next week. Jayne lives in regional Victoria, where the risk is much higher than where I live.
165pamelad
The Weaver Takes a Wife by Sheri Cobb South is the first book in a box set of four Regency romances featuring Ethan Bundy, an orphaned workhouse boy who became a wealthy mill owner. Ethan falls in love at first sight with the beautiful, supercilious Lady Helen, daughter of a financially embarrassed duke. Ethan effectively buys Helen from the duke, but you can't take too much umbrage because these are light and silly books and Ethan is such a nice man.
The other books are Brighton Honeymoon, French Leave and The Desperate Duke.
Four readable books for $2.99. A bargain.
The other books are Brighton Honeymoon, French Leave and The Desperate Duke.
Four readable books for $2.99. A bargain.
166christina_reads
>165 pamelad: I've enjoyed Sheri Cobb South's books in the past, and I think I have The Weaver Takes a Wife as an e-book. Time to move it up the queue!
167pamelad
>166 christina_reads: For when you're in the mood for something short, silly, superficial and cheerful. For me, lately, this is a lot of the time.
Anita Mills is a Regence Romance discovery from the eighties and nineties. I started with The Rogue's Return, which begins with the heroine waking up from drugged unconsciousness in a seedy inn room near the docks, fighting off the repulsive cousin who abducted her. Fortunately for her, there's a Deveraux downstairs.
Next was Falling Stars, in which the naive heroine marries a Russian duke only to find something so nasty in the woodshed that, pregnant and desperate, she flees her new home in the depths of winter accompanied by a gorgeous Viscount who has led a life of selfishness and hedonism but discovers new depths. This was a bit too long and the heroine was a drip.
Scandal Bound is the first of two books about the Deveraux but I read it second. (Can I write Deverauxs? It looks very wrong. Perhaps they're like sheep, or fish.) This Deveraux is a Marquess, older than his rakish cousin in the Rogue's Return but otherwise interchangeable, as are the heroines in the two books: brave, feisty young women who are not traditionally beautiful and would not normally come to the attention of a Deveraux.
This mindless entertainment is available on KoboPlus.
Anita Mills is a Regence Romance discovery from the eighties and nineties. I started with The Rogue's Return, which begins with the heroine waking up from drugged unconsciousness in a seedy inn room near the docks, fighting off the repulsive cousin who abducted her. Fortunately for her, there's a Deveraux downstairs.
Next was Falling Stars, in which the naive heroine marries a Russian duke only to find something so nasty in the woodshed that, pregnant and desperate, she flees her new home in the depths of winter accompanied by a gorgeous Viscount who has led a life of selfishness and hedonism but discovers new depths. This was a bit too long and the heroine was a drip.
Scandal Bound is the first of two books about the Deveraux but I read it second. (Can I write Deverauxs? It looks very wrong. Perhaps they're like sheep, or fish.) This Deveraux is a Marquess, older than his rakish cousin in the Rogue's Return but otherwise interchangeable, as are the heroines in the two books: brave, feisty young women who are not traditionally beautiful and would not normally come to the attention of a Deveraux.
This mindless entertainment is available on KoboPlus.
168pamelad
9. Wish List
10. New Authors
12. More Prizes: Nobel
The Years by Annie Ernaux is a memoir, beginning in 1940 when Ernaux was born, and ending in 2007. There is no "I." In the events of Ernaux's personal life she is "she", and when she's describing French society, politics and historical events, she's part of "we." When I first started reading, the stream of events seemed like a list that would be dull reading, but I was drawn in immediately. Although the author seems to have stepped back from the events she describes, it is her point of view provides the book's coherence and much of its pleasure, the perspective a left-wing intellectual who is aware of her own shortcomings and prejudices. There's humour and irony along with empathy and engagement. Ernaux reminded me in some ways of Natalia Ginzburg, whose Happiness, as Such I recently read, in her dry, flat, distant depiction of emotion, the opposite of wallowing, which intensifies rather than detracts.
I very much enjoyed The Years and will read more by Annie Ernaux.
10. New Authors
12. More Prizes: Nobel
The Years by Annie Ernaux is a memoir, beginning in 1940 when Ernaux was born, and ending in 2007. There is no "I." In the events of Ernaux's personal life she is "she", and when she's describing French society, politics and historical events, she's part of "we." When I first started reading, the stream of events seemed like a list that would be dull reading, but I was drawn in immediately. Although the author seems to have stepped back from the events she describes, it is her point of view provides the book's coherence and much of its pleasure, the perspective a left-wing intellectual who is aware of her own shortcomings and prejudices. There's humour and irony along with empathy and engagement. Ernaux reminded me in some ways of Natalia Ginzburg, whose Happiness, as Such I recently read, in her dry, flat, distant depiction of emotion, the opposite of wallowing, which intensifies rather than detracts.
I very much enjoyed The Years and will read more by Annie Ernaux.
169pamelad
9. Wish List
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg
The best thing about The Dry Heart is that while I was waiting for the library hold, I read Ginzburg's Happiness, as Such. In The Dry Heart, first published in 1947, the dreary characters are wallowing in misery. The novella begins with a woman shooting her husband, and the rest of the novella describes how she reached that stage of desperation. The lifeless translation adds to the gloom. The main interest for me was in reading one of Ginzburg's early books.
Happiness, as Such is by the Ginzburg of Family Sayings and The City and the House. The language is still simple, as it is in The Dry Heart, but there is humour and irony and even though there is unhappiness, people don't wallow!
Happiness, as Such was published in an earlier translation as Dear Michael, a title much closer to the original Italian one.
The Dry Heart by Natalia Ginzburg
The best thing about The Dry Heart is that while I was waiting for the library hold, I read Ginzburg's Happiness, as Such. In The Dry Heart, first published in 1947, the dreary characters are wallowing in misery. The novella begins with a woman shooting her husband, and the rest of the novella describes how she reached that stage of desperation. The lifeless translation adds to the gloom. The main interest for me was in reading one of Ginzburg's early books.
Happiness, as Such is by the Ginzburg of Family Sayings and The City and the House. The language is still simple, as it is in The Dry Heart, but there is humour and irony and even though there is unhappiness, people don't wallow!
Happiness, as Such was published in an earlier translation as Dear Michael, a title much closer to the original Italian one.
170pamelad
7. Crime
Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston
Marston churns out crime novels. This one, first published under the Conrad Allen pseudonym, is the first in the series of Ocean Liner Mysteries. The writing is terrible, but I persevered. A large piece of furniture glistening like a searchlight?
It's the first voyage of the Lusitania, the pride of the Cunard Line. George Porter Dillman, ex Pinkerton man, is the ship detective. He's travelling incognito in first class because that's where the crime is, and there's a lot of it, from theft, through physical violence to murder. There are also a few threads that go nowhere.
This is available on KoboPlus. I don't plan to read the rest of the series.
Murder on the Lusitania by Edward Marston
Marston churns out crime novels. This one, first published under the Conrad Allen pseudonym, is the first in the series of Ocean Liner Mysteries. The writing is terrible, but I persevered. A large piece of furniture glistening like a searchlight?
It's the first voyage of the Lusitania, the pride of the Cunard Line. George Porter Dillman, ex Pinkerton man, is the ship detective. He's travelling incognito in first class because that's where the crime is, and there's a lot of it, from theft, through physical violence to murder. There are also a few threads that go nowhere.
This is available on KoboPlus. I don't plan to read the rest of the series.
171christina_reads
>170 pamelad: I read that a while back and was underwhelmed. I see my review called it "pedestrian," and I found the main character smug.
172pamelad
>171 christina_reads: The good thing about Marsden's books is that they fall in the middle ground between ultra-cosy (cooking and quilting) and ultra-violent. I'm looking for crime novels in the middle, but with much better writing than Marsden's. The Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths was a good discovery, though I could do without the druid.
The main character wasn't at all convincing, and he wasn't the only one!
The main character wasn't at all convincing, and he wasn't the only one!
173VivienneR
>172 pamelad: If you want something in between cosy and violent you might like Dorothy Bowers who is likened to Agatha Christie but with better developed characters. I read the first in the series Postscript to Poison and found it pretty good. I'm now reading the second one Shadows Before but it's too early to tell if it's a winner or not. The writing is beautiful, very descriptive.
174pamelad
>173 VivienneR: Good choice. I've read them all! Postscript to Poison was my favourite, followed by Fear and Miss Betony.
175christina_reads
>173 VivienneR: Welp, that's a BB for me!
176pamelad
7. Crime
The Heiress of Linn Hagh by Karen Charlton
Linn Hagh is a crumbling castle inhabited by the Carnaby siblings. Three are the offspring of an insane, violent mother and the fourth is a half-sister, heiress to her mother's fortune. Her two older siblings are desperate to get their hands on the inheritance and will stop at nothing, but the heiress has foiled them temporarily by escaping from an apparently locked room. The missing girl's maternal uncle has called in some Bow Street Runners, the melancholic Detective Stephen Lavender and his jovial underling, Constable Woods.
This was an undemanding read, with an outcome predictable from the beginning. The villains are so very evil!
I'll try the next book in the series because there's a romance foreshadowed between Lavender and a beautiful Spanish widow who carries a pistol and is not afraid to use it. I hope things turn out well for them.
The Heiress of Linn Hagh by Karen Charlton
Linn Hagh is a crumbling castle inhabited by the Carnaby siblings. Three are the offspring of an insane, violent mother and the fourth is a half-sister, heiress to her mother's fortune. Her two older siblings are desperate to get their hands on the inheritance and will stop at nothing, but the heiress has foiled them temporarily by escaping from an apparently locked room. The missing girl's maternal uncle has called in some Bow Street Runners, the melancholic Detective Stephen Lavender and his jovial underling, Constable Woods.
This was an undemanding read, with an outcome predictable from the beginning. The villains are so very evil!
I'll try the next book in the series because there's a romance foreshadowed between Lavender and a beautiful Spanish widow who carries a pistol and is not afraid to use it. I hope things turn out well for them.
177pamelad
I'm thinking of setting up two threads for 2023, one of them just for historical romances. Some categories I'm considering:
Damaged Dukes and Ailing Earls. Heroes with war injuries, deafness, blindness, dyslexia, melancholia, a family history of insanity.....
What Price for This Heroine? Heroines escaping the efforts of evil fathers and guardians to marry them to wealthy, depraved suitors.
Father Was a Gambler. Includes gambling brothers, husbands, and anyone else who loses the family fortune to leave wives, mothers and sisters destitute. Could also include men who forfeit their fortunes by committing murder, suicide or treachery.
Steamless I'm not keen on extensive, graphic sex scenes and what Christina calls "insta lust", so this is for G-rated romances. A public service.
Fabulous Finds Entertaining books by authors I haven't read before.
Why did I Bother? I've read some real rubbish. It goes here. This is another public service.
Suggestions welcome.
Damaged Dukes and Ailing Earls. Heroes with war injuries, deafness, blindness, dyslexia, melancholia, a family history of insanity.....
What Price for This Heroine? Heroines escaping the efforts of evil fathers and guardians to marry them to wealthy, depraved suitors.
Father Was a Gambler. Includes gambling brothers, husbands, and anyone else who loses the family fortune to leave wives, mothers and sisters destitute. Could also include men who forfeit their fortunes by committing murder, suicide or treachery.
Steamless I'm not keen on extensive, graphic sex scenes and what Christina calls "insta lust", so this is for G-rated romances. A public service.
Fabulous Finds Entertaining books by authors I haven't read before.
Why did I Bother? I've read some real rubbish. It goes here. This is another public service.
Suggestions welcome.
178MissBrangwen
>170 pamelad: >171 christina_reads: Too bad. The premise sounds lovely - I am fascinated by those ocean liners.
>175 christina_reads: And for me!
>177 pamelad: I'm really looking forward to following your romances thread!
>175 christina_reads: And for me!
>177 pamelad: I'm really looking forward to following your romances thread!
179pamelad
12. More Prizes: Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize
Foster by Claire Keegan
After being so impressed by Small Things Like These I looked for more of Keegan's writing and found Foster which, like Small Things Like These, is a short story, also set in rural Ireland, also beautifully written in simple prose. A young girl, grubby and neglected, is sent to stay for the summer with an aunt and uncle she has never met. Her overburdened mother is about to give birth to yet another child, and her feckless father has no care for anyone other than himself, but her aunt and uncle treat her with affection and kindness, so she blossoms. The story is told by the nameless young girl, so there are many things she doesn't understand.
Highly Recommended.
Foster by Claire Keegan
After being so impressed by Small Things Like These I looked for more of Keegan's writing and found Foster which, like Small Things Like These, is a short story, also set in rural Ireland, also beautifully written in simple prose. A young girl, grubby and neglected, is sent to stay for the summer with an aunt and uncle she has never met. Her overburdened mother is about to give birth to yet another child, and her feckless father has no care for anyone other than himself, but her aunt and uncle treat her with affection and kindness, so she blossoms. The story is told by the nameless young girl, so there are many things she doesn't understand.
Highly Recommended.
180pamelad
12. More Prizes: Booker long list
The Colony by Audrey Magee
In summer 1979, during the Troubles, Northern Ireland is riven with political murders carried out by the Provisional IRA and the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force). A tiny island off the coast, with a population of 92, seems untouched by the violence. Lloyd, a British painter, has paid Michael, the island's entrepreneur and owner of the boat that carries people and supplies between the island and the mainland, well over the going rate to secure solitude, but after a few days of peace, a noisy French linguist, Masson, arrives to live in the neighbouring house. A family of women and a fifteen-year-old boy, James, do the housekeeping and the cooking for Masson and Lloyd. Mairead, the boy's mother, is a young widow. Her husband, father and brother were fishermen, and died at sea.
Life on the island is related via the internal monologues of Lloyd, Masson, Mairead and James. Their stories are interspersed with reports of political murders on the mainland. At first the violence seems remote but as the book goes on, we realise that no one on the island is untouched by the outside world. But Lloyd and Masson, who need the island to be an isolated, primitive place, try to ignore the reality.
The colony might be the island, or it could be Northern Island whose language and culture have been almost eradicated by the British, or it could be any colony. Masson was born in Algeria, the son of a French father and Algerian mother, and belongs nowhere. In the book, the French colonisation of Algeria mirrors the British colonisation of Ireland.
A thought-provoking book. For me it wasn't entirely successful because I put it down every time the mystical Mairead's internal monologue took over and took a week to finish it. But it was interesting, and worth reading.
The Colony by Audrey Magee
In summer 1979, during the Troubles, Northern Ireland is riven with political murders carried out by the Provisional IRA and the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force). A tiny island off the coast, with a population of 92, seems untouched by the violence. Lloyd, a British painter, has paid Michael, the island's entrepreneur and owner of the boat that carries people and supplies between the island and the mainland, well over the going rate to secure solitude, but after a few days of peace, a noisy French linguist, Masson, arrives to live in the neighbouring house. A family of women and a fifteen-year-old boy, James, do the housekeeping and the cooking for Masson and Lloyd. Mairead, the boy's mother, is a young widow. Her husband, father and brother were fishermen, and died at sea.
Life on the island is related via the internal monologues of Lloyd, Masson, Mairead and James. Their stories are interspersed with reports of political murders on the mainland. At first the violence seems remote but as the book goes on, we realise that no one on the island is untouched by the outside world. But Lloyd and Masson, who need the island to be an isolated, primitive place, try to ignore the reality.
The colony might be the island, or it could be Northern Island whose language and culture have been almost eradicated by the British, or it could be any colony. Masson was born in Algeria, the son of a French father and Algerian mother, and belongs nowhere. In the book, the French colonisation of Algeria mirrors the British colonisation of Ireland.
A thought-provoking book. For me it wasn't entirely successful because I put it down every time the mystical Mairead's internal monologue took over and took a week to finish it. But it was interesting, and worth reading.
181pamelad
November 30th is my 16-year LT anniversary and I'm starting the book purchases now, with Garry Disher's latest, Day's End. I still have two of last year's books to read, Segu and The Books of Jacob, so this year the plan is to buy only books I want to read right now and to read each one before I buy the next.
1. Day's End by Garry Disher
2. John Pickett Mysteries 6-10 Box Set by Sheri Cobb South
1. Day's End by Garry Disher
2. John Pickett Mysteries 6-10 Box Set by Sheri Cobb South
182pamelad
7. Crime
Murder in Chianti by Camilla Trinchieri
Nico, former New York homicide detective, has retired to the village of Gravigna, the birth-place of his dead wife, Rita, and home to the only family he has, Rita's sister, brother-in-law and niece. They run a family restaurant where Nico fills in as a waiter and helps with the cooking. On a morning run through the nearby forest, a stray dog leads Nico to the body of a man who has been shot in the face. Salvatore Perillo, the local maresciallo, who has never investigated a murder, convinces Nico to assist in the investigation.
Maresciallo is rank in the carabinieri, which is the national police force, also part of the army. A maresciallo is higher than a sergeant and lower than a second lieutenant. The second main branch of the police force is the civil police, the Polizia di Stato.
The murder has roots in events of over twenty years ago in Gravigna, but the locals are protecting each other and keeping secrets.
I enjoyed Murder in Chianti for the Italian setting. Lots of engaging characters, and everyone is eating and drinking all the time.
Murder in Chianti by Camilla Trinchieri
Nico, former New York homicide detective, has retired to the village of Gravigna, the birth-place of his dead wife, Rita, and home to the only family he has, Rita's sister, brother-in-law and niece. They run a family restaurant where Nico fills in as a waiter and helps with the cooking. On a morning run through the nearby forest, a stray dog leads Nico to the body of a man who has been shot in the face. Salvatore Perillo, the local maresciallo, who has never investigated a murder, convinces Nico to assist in the investigation.
Maresciallo is rank in the carabinieri, which is the national police force, also part of the army. A maresciallo is higher than a sergeant and lower than a second lieutenant. The second main branch of the police force is the civil police, the Polizia di Stato.
The murder has roots in events of over twenty years ago in Gravigna, but the locals are protecting each other and keeping secrets.
I enjoyed Murder in Chianti for the Italian setting. Lots of engaging characters, and everyone is eating and drinking all the time.
183DeltaQueen50
>181 pamelad: Ohh, have fun with your Thingversary purchases! I look forward to seeing what you get.
184Tess_W
Happy thingaversary! My friend loved Murder in Chianti and will be sending the book my way.
185pamelad
>183 DeltaQueen50:, >184 Tess_W: Thank you! This year I'm going for books I'd like to read but am normally too tight to pay full price for. They don't have to be well-regarded and worthy.
Murder in Chianti will make you wish you were in a Tuscan village.
Murder in Chianti will make you wish you were in a Tuscan village.
186pamelad
7. Crime
Because I liked Sheri Cobb's The Weaver Takes a Wife, which is a light-hearted, undemanding, innocuous Regency romance, I gave one of her mysteries a try.
In Milady's chamber is the first book in the John Pickett series and is free on Amazon Kindle. Pickett is a young Bow Street runner, called in to investigate the death of a viscount who has been found in his wife's bedroom, stabbed in the throat with her nail scissors. Infatuated at first glance, and counter to public opinion, Pickett refuses to believe that the viscountess is responsible, and determines to prove her innocence.
I pleasant, easy read.
Because I liked Sheri Cobb's The Weaver Takes a Wife, which is a light-hearted, undemanding, innocuous Regency romance, I gave one of her mysteries a try.
In Milady's chamber is the first book in the John Pickett series and is free on Amazon Kindle. Pickett is a young Bow Street runner, called in to investigate the death of a viscount who has been found in his wife's bedroom, stabbed in the throat with her nail scissors. Infatuated at first glance, and counter to public opinion, Pickett refuses to believe that the viscountess is responsible, and determines to prove her innocence.
I pleasant, easy read.
187pamelad
7. Crime
Dead Bore by Sheri Cobb South is the second book in the John Pickett Mysteries series. Lady Fieldhurst, the young widow Pickett saved from the gallows in book 1, has escaped the gossip and innuendo of London's ton for a country house party, where she finds a family under strain. The matriarch, is determined that her beautiful daughter become the belle of her first London season and make an enviable match, but the young woman has fallen in love with a distant cousin, a poverty-stricken curate.
The bore of the title is the local vicar, who is writing a history of the village and talks about it at great length over a dinner that tuns out to be his last. That night, the vicarage catches fire and the vicar's body is found in the ruins. Lady Fieldhurst suspects that the fire was no accident, and that the vicar was murdered. She calls in John Pickett, who insinuates himself into the household as her footman.
Another light and enjoyable read. A romance between Lady Fieldhurst and John Pickett is developing gently despite their own denials and the huge difference in their stations. I immediately started the next book, Family Plot, which is going along nicely.
The series is available in two box sets. I've bought volumes 1-5 and will probably buy volumes 6-10.
Dead Bore by Sheri Cobb South is the second book in the John Pickett Mysteries series. Lady Fieldhurst, the young widow Pickett saved from the gallows in book 1, has escaped the gossip and innuendo of London's ton for a country house party, where she finds a family under strain. The matriarch, is determined that her beautiful daughter become the belle of her first London season and make an enviable match, but the young woman has fallen in love with a distant cousin, a poverty-stricken curate.
The bore of the title is the local vicar, who is writing a history of the village and talks about it at great length over a dinner that tuns out to be his last. That night, the vicarage catches fire and the vicar's body is found in the ruins. Lady Fieldhurst suspects that the fire was no accident, and that the vicar was murdered. She calls in John Pickett, who insinuates himself into the household as her footman.
Another light and enjoyable read. A romance between Lady Fieldhurst and John Pickett is developing gently despite their own denials and the huge difference in their stations. I immediately started the next book, Family Plot, which is going along nicely.
The series is available in two box sets. I've bought volumes 1-5 and will probably buy volumes 6-10.
188christina_reads
Glad to see you're enjoying the John Pickett mysteries...I've only read the first one, but I have the two box sets on my e-reader!
189MissBrangwen
>182 pamelad: I gave this one as a present to my husband and I'm happy to see that you enjoyed it! I think I want to read it myself once he has done so.
>186 pamelad: A BB for me!
>186 pamelad: A BB for me!
190pamelad
>188 christina_reads: Once upon a time I would have been irritated by the unlikelihood of a romance between a Bow Street Runner and an earl's widow but am well past that now and will be happy when they get together.
>189 MissBrangwen: You can't lose with a free ebook!
>189 MissBrangwen: You can't lose with a free ebook!
191pamelad
7. Crime
Sheri Cobb South's John Pickett Mysteries series is still going well. I've finished Family Plot, in which Lady Fieldhurst, who is in Scotland with her young cousins, finds a woman on the beach who may or may not be a local worthy's missing daughter. Lady Fieldhurst has booked into an inn incognito as Mrs Pickett, causing far-reaching complications when John Pickett turns up to investigate the bona fides of the woman on the beach. A welcoming home party for the prodigal daughter ends in murder.
After Family Plot I read Dinner Most Deadly in which Lady Fieldhurst's friend, Lady Dunnington, has decided that Lady Fieldhurst needs a lover and has invited a selection of possibles to dinner. One of the men is the evil Sir Richard Montague, on whom Lady Dunnington has her eye. None of the potential lovers cares to associate with Montague so the dinner finishes early. As Montague leaves there's a shot, and he is found dead in the foyer. Lady Dunnington calls in John Pickett, who has been trying to avoid Lady Fieldhurst and a romance with no future.
I'm now reading book 5, Too Hot to Handel and am contemplating buying books 6-10, but that would be overkill!
Sheri Cobb South's John Pickett Mysteries series is still going well. I've finished Family Plot, in which Lady Fieldhurst, who is in Scotland with her young cousins, finds a woman on the beach who may or may not be a local worthy's missing daughter. Lady Fieldhurst has booked into an inn incognito as Mrs Pickett, causing far-reaching complications when John Pickett turns up to investigate the bona fides of the woman on the beach. A welcoming home party for the prodigal daughter ends in murder.
After Family Plot I read Dinner Most Deadly in which Lady Fieldhurst's friend, Lady Dunnington, has decided that Lady Fieldhurst needs a lover and has invited a selection of possibles to dinner. One of the men is the evil Sir Richard Montague, on whom Lady Dunnington has her eye. None of the potential lovers cares to associate with Montague so the dinner finishes early. As Montague leaves there's a shot, and he is found dead in the foyer. Lady Dunnington calls in John Pickett, who has been trying to avoid Lady Fieldhurst and a romance with no future.
I'm now reading book 5, Too Hot to Handel and am contemplating buying books 6-10, but that would be overkill!
192pamelad
7. Crime
Finished Too Hot to Handel and have started I'll See You in My Dreams.
Too Hot to Handel isn't the best in the series. Missing diamonds and Pickett hovering on the brink of death, ending with a too-long exposition by the villain. But I enjoyed it and bought the next box set, which I am counting as an LT Anniversary purchase. >181 pamelad:
Finished Too Hot to Handel and have started I'll See You in My Dreams.
Too Hot to Handel isn't the best in the series. Missing diamonds and Pickett hovering on the brink of death, ending with a too-long exposition by the villain. But I enjoyed it and bought the next box set, which I am counting as an LT Anniversary purchase. >181 pamelad:
193pamelad
I've started a second 2023 thread for everything but historical romances here. I think of it as my real thread.
194pamelad
New Yorker article about Annie Ernaux
12. More Prizes: Nobel
Happening by Annie Ernaux
Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.
In 1963 Ernaux is studying for a Ph.D, the first person from her family to escape her working-class background and enter "the world of books." When she finds that she is pregnant, she knows that unless she can end the pregnancy her potential career will never be, and her family will be deeply shamed. This short memoir is written in Ernaux's characteristic, flat language, using photos, music and observations from the time to report on the woman Ernaux was then. She's watching and remembering her desperation without writing about the emotions themselves.
This is a harrowing account. Ernaux ended up in hospital after an illegal abortion, close to death, abused by the doctor whose job it was to save her. Happening is relevant today.
The translation is mediocre.
12. More Prizes: Nobel
Happening by Annie Ernaux
Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.
In 1963 Ernaux is studying for a Ph.D, the first person from her family to escape her working-class background and enter "the world of books." When she finds that she is pregnant, she knows that unless she can end the pregnancy her potential career will never be, and her family will be deeply shamed. This short memoir is written in Ernaux's characteristic, flat language, using photos, music and observations from the time to report on the woman Ernaux was then. She's watching and remembering her desperation without writing about the emotions themselves.
This is a harrowing account. Ernaux ended up in hospital after an illegal abortion, close to death, abused by the doctor whose job it was to save her. Happening is relevant today.
The translation is mediocre.
195pamelad
The Dean Street Press Free Kindle Ebook of the Week is Molly Thynne's The Draycott Murder. Thank you NinieB for mentioning these freebies.
I haven't liked the two Thynne books I've tried before, but perhaps the third time is the charm. And it's free!
I'm currently reading Marot Bennett's The Widow of Bath, a 1952 crime novel. Only one rating on LT so I checked GoodReads where there is a bipolar collection of reviews. I'm quite liking it.
I haven't liked the two Thynne books I've tried before, but perhaps the third time is the charm. And it's free!
I'm currently reading Marot Bennett's The Widow of Bath, a 1952 crime novel. Only one rating on LT so I checked GoodReads where there is a bipolar collection of reviews. I'm quite liking it.
196NinieB
>195 pamelad: I haven't tried Thynne before but I'm looking forward to reading The Draycott Murder.
197DeltaQueen50
I have one of Molly Thynne's books lined up for next month - The Crime at Noah's Ark. I hope that one wasn't one of the ones that you didn't care for.
198pamelad
>197 DeltaQueen50: I read Murder on the Enriqueta on a plane to Italy in 2017 (one leg of 9.5 hrs and a second of 12 hrs, with a 4 hr layover - plenty of reading time) and gave it 2.5 stars. I would have been happy to read anything!
ETA Made this up! The book I read on the plane was The Girl Who Had to Die by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, also set on a ship but a better book.
I abandoned The Case of Adam Braid and gave it half a star, so I must have been very annoyed by it. I think the heroine was awful and the writing dreary, but here must have been something else. Probably politics. I particularly dislike bright young things who think it's a great jape to pretend to be workers during the General Strike, but the turn-off might have been something different altogether.
ETA Elizabeth Sanxay Holding wrote The Blank Wall on which the 1949 film noir, The Reckless Moment, starring James Mason and Joan Bennett, is based. The film is in the public domain and is available for free on You Tube.
ETA Made this up! The book I read on the plane was The Girl Who Had to Die by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, also set on a ship but a better book.
I abandoned The Case of Adam Braid and gave it half a star, so I must have been very annoyed by it. I think the heroine was awful and the writing dreary, but here must have been something else. Probably politics. I particularly dislike bright young things who think it's a great jape to pretend to be workers during the General Strike, but the turn-off might have been something different altogether.
ETA Elizabeth Sanxay Holding wrote The Blank Wall on which the 1949 film noir, The Reckless Moment, starring James Mason and Joan Bennett, is based. The film is in the public domain and is available for free on You Tube.
199pamelad
7. Crime
The Widow of Bath by Margot Bennett
Everton used to work for the foreign office but after a liaison with the beautiful, amoral Lucy Bath, wife of a retired judge, he barely survived an attempted murder and was jailed for fraud. Now he is working for an organisation that rates third-rate hotels and has run into Lucy again. When Lucy invites him to her home for drinks, he ignores his misgivings and goes, to be caught up in a murder.
Mostly I was amused by Everton's humorous, sardonic observations, particularly of third-rate hotels, but sometimes the defeatism became too much. However, Everton manages to rise above his cynicism and investigate the crime, revealing the well-meaning, kind-hearted man who had been ruthlessly exploited by the conscienceless Lucy.
There are many plot strands and numerous twists, probably too many. The book was published in 1952, when there was money to be made smuggling criminals out of Europe, and food was still rationed in Britain. I was amused by the emphasis on food, which is common to other books from the same period. E C R Lorac springs to mind.
I quite liked The Widow of Bath and would recommend it as an oddity.
The Widow of Bath by Margot Bennett
Everton used to work for the foreign office but after a liaison with the beautiful, amoral Lucy Bath, wife of a retired judge, he barely survived an attempted murder and was jailed for fraud. Now he is working for an organisation that rates third-rate hotels and has run into Lucy again. When Lucy invites him to her home for drinks, he ignores his misgivings and goes, to be caught up in a murder.
Mostly I was amused by Everton's humorous, sardonic observations, particularly of third-rate hotels, but sometimes the defeatism became too much. However, Everton manages to rise above his cynicism and investigate the crime, revealing the well-meaning, kind-hearted man who had been ruthlessly exploited by the conscienceless Lucy.
There are many plot strands and numerous twists, probably too many. The book was published in 1952, when there was money to be made smuggling criminals out of Europe, and food was still rationed in Britain. I was amused by the emphasis on food, which is common to other books from the same period. E C R Lorac springs to mind.
I quite liked The Widow of Bath and would recommend it as an oddity.
200rabbitprincess
>199 pamelad: I received this one for Christmas last year. Will have to move it to the "read soon" pile.
201pamelad
>200 rabbitprincess: Definitely worth a try. I'm thinking of reading The Man Who Didn't Fly, as well.
202pamelad
3. Australia and New Zealand
5. Crime
Day's End by Garry Disher is the fourth book in the Paul Hirschhausen series. Hirsh, a senior constable formerly based in Adelaide, has been banished to the small town of Tiverton four hours' drive away, where he is responsible for policing a region bigger in area than Belgium. It's 2021, at the height of the Covid epidemic, and the Covid-deniers are amping up their activities. Disher was brought up in a little town like Tiverton, but currently lives on the Mornington Peninsula, which was locked down interminably with Melbourne, so I sympathise with his extremely negative depiction of anti-vaxxers, most of whom are criminals and vigilantes. Even so, I think he should have stepped back and taken a wider view.
Like other countries, Australia has social issues and crimes like cyber bullying, a housing affordability crisis, right-wing political extremism, conspiracy theorists,paramilitary organisations training in the bush , racism, criminal families with meth labs and savage dogs. They're all happening in Tiverton. Don't go there!
Overall, while I didn't think this was one of Disher's best, he always writes well. The many plot strands converge in a dramatic climax; the characters are well-rounded; you can picture Tiverton and the surrounding country.
5. Crime
Day's End by Garry Disher is the fourth book in the Paul Hirschhausen series. Hirsh, a senior constable formerly based in Adelaide, has been banished to the small town of Tiverton four hours' drive away, where he is responsible for policing a region bigger in area than Belgium. It's 2021, at the height of the Covid epidemic, and the Covid-deniers are amping up their activities. Disher was brought up in a little town like Tiverton, but currently lives on the Mornington Peninsula, which was locked down interminably with Melbourne, so I sympathise with his extremely negative depiction of anti-vaxxers, most of whom are criminals and vigilantes. Even so, I think he should have stepped back and taken a wider view.
Like other countries, Australia has social issues and crimes like cyber bullying, a housing affordability crisis, right-wing political extremism, conspiracy theorists,
Overall, while I didn't think this was one of Disher's best, he always writes well. The many plot strands converge in a dramatic climax; the characters are well-rounded; you can picture Tiverton and the surrounding country.
203pamelad
7. Crime
The Sans Pareil Mystery by Karen Charlton
Detective Lavender is investigating the death of a young woman whose body was found beneath the floorboards in a dilapidated building. His investigations lead him to The Sans Pareil theatre, where many plot strands converge. The Napoleonic Wars continue, and London is now the home of many Spanish emigrees, including Dona Magdalena, the young widow who saved Lavender's life in The Heiress of Linn Hagh and to whom Lavender is becoming very much attached. I read this second book in the detective Lavender series to see how the romance between Lavender and Magdalena was proceeding and am pleased to report that, despite difficulties, it is going well.
There's a lot going on: spying, treachery, mistaken identities, murders, kidnappings. But Lavender, with the help of his off-sider Constable Woods and the gun-toting Magdalena, sorts everything out.
A light, enjoyable read.
The Sans Pareil Mystery by Karen Charlton
Detective Lavender is investigating the death of a young woman whose body was found beneath the floorboards in a dilapidated building. His investigations lead him to The Sans Pareil theatre, where many plot strands converge. The Napoleonic Wars continue, and London is now the home of many Spanish emigrees, including Dona Magdalena, the young widow who saved Lavender's life in The Heiress of Linn Hagh and to whom Lavender is becoming very much attached. I read this second book in the detective Lavender series to see how the romance between Lavender and Magdalena was proceeding and am pleased to report that, despite difficulties, it is going well.
There's a lot going on: spying, treachery, mistaken identities, murders, kidnappings. But Lavender, with the help of his off-sider Constable Woods and the gun-toting Magdalena, sorts everything out.
A light, enjoyable read.
204pamelad
7. Crime
Murder's a Swine by Nap Lombard
As Nap Lombard, Pamela Hansford Johnson and her first husband, Gordon Stewart, wrote two crime novels. This one is set during the phony war, in the early months of WWII when no major military action was going on. In the book's introduction Martin Edwards suggests that Andrew and Agnes Kinghof, the married couple drawn into investigating a murder, are based on the authors themselves, and reality seeps in with Agnes's loneliness in Andrew's absence, and her fear for him at each farewell. But overall, the book is a light-hearted parody of detective novels and owes a debt to The Thin Man. Andrew and Agnes, being British, consume vast quantities of sherry and whisky, rather than cocktails, and the ebullient Agnes goes in for excruciating puns. The plot is ridiculous, with a mystery man who menaces people to death with a pig's head, an incompetent group of Fascists, and a policeman called Eggshell whose superior is nicknamed Pig.
My favourite bits featured Mrs Rowse, writer of girls' school stories. As a child I read hundreds and loved them, so was highly entertained by Mrs Rowse's ridiculous characters and plots, which were just over the edge of authentic and very funny.
Murder's a Swine by Nap Lombard
As Nap Lombard, Pamela Hansford Johnson and her first husband, Gordon Stewart, wrote two crime novels. This one is set during the phony war, in the early months of WWII when no major military action was going on. In the book's introduction Martin Edwards suggests that Andrew and Agnes Kinghof, the married couple drawn into investigating a murder, are based on the authors themselves, and reality seeps in with Agnes's loneliness in Andrew's absence, and her fear for him at each farewell. But overall, the book is a light-hearted parody of detective novels and owes a debt to The Thin Man. Andrew and Agnes, being British, consume vast quantities of sherry and whisky, rather than cocktails, and the ebullient Agnes goes in for excruciating puns. The plot is ridiculous, with a mystery man who menaces people to death with a pig's head, an incompetent group of Fascists, and a policeman called Eggshell whose superior is nicknamed Pig.
My favourite bits featured Mrs Rowse, writer of girls' school stories. As a child I read hundreds and loved them, so was highly entertained by Mrs Rowse's ridiculous characters and plots, which were just over the edge of authentic and very funny.
205pamelad
Victoria has re-elected the Labor government with a solid majority. The opposition ran on the platform of getting rid of the premier, Daniel Andrews, and massively over-estimated the number of religious fundamentalists and people who disagreed with the Covid lockdowns. Dan's a ruthless political pragmatist who gets a lot done and by the end of this term will have been in power for 12 years. We really need a functioning opposition, but they're floundering around on the extreme right, while the voters remain in the centre.
The voters ignored the Murdoch press. Good on us!
The voters ignored the Murdoch press. Good on us!
206christina_reads
>204 pamelad: Sounds like a fun one -- BB for me!
207pamelad
>206 christina_reads: It brought back those school stories. Girls called Vera who captained the lacrosse team. Midnight feasts with lashings of tomatoes. (The tomatoes seem really odd, but a friend who's a fellow fan remembers them too.) The honour of the school. Crushes on the games mistress.
208pamelad
I started thinking about buying LT Anniversary books so early that I forgot the actual day! 16 years on November 30th.
Making a list and checking it twice.
Making a list and checking it twice.
210MissWatson
Happy Thingaversary, Pam! That's a long time!
211lowelibrary
Happy Thingaversary.
213pamelad
Just bought for my LT anniversary: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. That's three, so 13 to go.
Considering Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino.
Considering Why Read the Classics? by Italo Calvino.
214pamelad
Bought number 4: Bulldozed: Scott Morrison's Fall and Anthony Albanese's Rise by Niki Savva
Scott Morrison was the leader of the Liberal/National Coalition Government, which was not just defeated in the May Federal election, but lost seats it had held since Federation. Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Labor Party, and the current government.
Schadenfreude.
Scott Morrison was the leader of the Liberal/National Coalition Government, which was not just defeated in the May Federal election, but lost seats it had held since Federation. Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Labor Party, and the current government.
Schadenfreude.
215pamelad
9. Wish List
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
The pandemic has been a gift to hermits, but it's time to get out of the house, so I've rejoined some U3a activities including the Friday Brisk Walkers, a group of wiry little ladies in their sixties and seventies who maintain a cracking pace for up to 25 km. It's good to be out and about again, talking to people, and I'm very happy to survive each walk! Some of the walkers are in the Book Group, and this is the book that they liked most in 2022.
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman is set in Britain, mainly Cornwall and Edinburgh, but the author is an expatriate Australian, which I didn't realise until I read the afterword. It's funny and heart-warming, a bit excessively heart-warming in places so that I felt a little manipulated, but not so much that I didn't enjoy the book.
When Sadie's father died, she fell apart and went on a binge of booze and one-night stands that stopped only when she found she was pregnant with Norman. She doesn't know who his father is - he could be one of four men - and he has never seemed to be bothered, but his best friend Jax has just died, and Sadie would do anything to make her twelve-year-old son happy, so when she finds out that two of his ambitions are to find his father and to perform a comedy act at the Edinburgh Fringe, she tries to help. Sadie is a lethargic and not very practical person, so despite her good intentions her plans would probably have come to nothing but for the intervention of her new friend Leonard, an octogenarian bundle of enthusiasm. Leonard, Norman and Julia set off in Leonard's vintage Austin to make Norman's dreams a reality.
I enjoyed this cheerful, funny book and would recommend it.
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson
The pandemic has been a gift to hermits, but it's time to get out of the house, so I've rejoined some U3a activities including the Friday Brisk Walkers, a group of wiry little ladies in their sixties and seventies who maintain a cracking pace for up to 25 km. It's good to be out and about again, talking to people, and I'm very happy to survive each walk! Some of the walkers are in the Book Group, and this is the book that they liked most in 2022.
The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman is set in Britain, mainly Cornwall and Edinburgh, but the author is an expatriate Australian, which I didn't realise until I read the afterword. It's funny and heart-warming, a bit excessively heart-warming in places so that I felt a little manipulated, but not so much that I didn't enjoy the book.
When Sadie's father died, she fell apart and went on a binge of booze and one-night stands that stopped only when she found she was pregnant with Norman. She doesn't know who his father is - he could be one of four men - and he has never seemed to be bothered, but his best friend Jax has just died, and Sadie would do anything to make her twelve-year-old son happy, so when she finds out that two of his ambitions are to find his father and to perform a comedy act at the Edinburgh Fringe, she tries to help. Sadie is a lethargic and not very practical person, so despite her good intentions her plans would probably have come to nothing but for the intervention of her new friend Leonard, an octogenarian bundle of enthusiasm. Leonard, Norman and Julia set off in Leonard's vintage Austin to make Norman's dreams a reality.
I enjoyed this cheerful, funny book and would recommend it.
217pamelad
>216 Tess_W: As well as the walking group I'm in the Tai Chi beginners' class. A lot of the people in the advanced class have been doing Tai Chi together for 13 years and are now in their eighties. They're really chatty and friendly. I don't think any of us are much good at Tai Chi, but it doesn't matter because it's just good to be out and about again.
I hope you like The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman.
I hope you like The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman.
218Tess_W
>217 pamelad: I live in such a rural area that I don't find a lot of group things that are close. I do walk 5 miles each Saturday morning with a former school pal. I'd like to find a strength/conditioning class as I've noticed I've lost a lot of strength in the past year, especially hand/wrist/arm strength.
219pamelad
>218 Tess_W: That makes it hard. You don't really want to spend more time driving than doing the activity, so it would be good to find a class that fits in with your work timetable. One of the good things about the U3a, on top of the camaraderie, is that everyone is careful about Covid.
220pamelad
1. Non-fiction
Bulldozed by Niki Savva
The long title is Bulldozed: Scott Morrison's fall and Anthony Albanese's rise. Scott Morrison is the prime minister who went on holiday to Hawaii during the 2020 bushfires, lied about it, and when tackled by the press said, "I don't hold a hose, mate." And that's the tip of the iceberg. He is the top contender for Australia's worst prime minister ever, an absolute gift to the Labor Party, which won the May Federal election.
Niki Savva is a respected, experienced political journalist with access to politicians on all sides of politics. A lot of them have been very honest and forthright, and it's a shame Morrison's colleagues covered for him for so long when they didn't support what he was doing. This is a rushed book, and the prose is clunky, but I read it with glee.
Bulldozed by Niki Savva
The long title is Bulldozed: Scott Morrison's fall and Anthony Albanese's rise. Scott Morrison is the prime minister who went on holiday to Hawaii during the 2020 bushfires, lied about it, and when tackled by the press said, "I don't hold a hose, mate." And that's the tip of the iceberg. He is the top contender for Australia's worst prime minister ever, an absolute gift to the Labor Party, which won the May Federal election.
Niki Savva is a respected, experienced political journalist with access to politicians on all sides of politics. A lot of them have been very honest and forthright, and it's a shame Morrison's colleagues covered for him for so long when they didn't support what he was doing. This is a rushed book, and the prose is clunky, but I read it with glee.
221pamelad
14. Historical Fiction challenge
Completed with The Scarlet Pimpernel, a classic work of historical fiction. It was published in 1905 and set in 1792, during the French Revolution.
The Scarlet Pimpernel wasn't what I was expecting, because it was told mainly from the perspective of the Pimpernel's wife, the former Marguerite St Just, a young woman with revolutionary sympathies. She doesn't know he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, renowned for spiriting aristocrats out of France at great risk to himself, and thinks he is whom he appears to be, Sir Percy Blakeney, a foolish, aristocratic fop. As it turns out, the greatest risk to Sir Percy's safety is his wife, who is described as the cleverest woman in England but who certainly doesn't act it.
An entertaining read.
Historical Fiction Challenge
1.Set in the country you're from The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
2. Set in a different country Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
3. Set in your favourite historical period Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
4. Set in period you're less familiar with Silence by Shusaku Endo
5. Historical fiction with a speculative element Farthing by Jo Walton
6. About a real historical figure or a specific event Rizzio by Denise Mina
7. A classic work of historical fiction The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
I've not completed the bonus category, a book over 500 pages, because I've had little patience recently for long books. Next year!
Completed with The Scarlet Pimpernel, a classic work of historical fiction. It was published in 1905 and set in 1792, during the French Revolution.
The Scarlet Pimpernel wasn't what I was expecting, because it was told mainly from the perspective of the Pimpernel's wife, the former Marguerite St Just, a young woman with revolutionary sympathies. She doesn't know he is the Scarlet Pimpernel, renowned for spiriting aristocrats out of France at great risk to himself, and thinks he is whom he appears to be, Sir Percy Blakeney, a foolish, aristocratic fop. As it turns out, the greatest risk to Sir Percy's safety is his wife, who is described as the cleverest woman in England but who certainly doesn't act it.
An entertaining read.
Historical Fiction Challenge
1.Set in the country you're from The Diggers Rest Hotel by Geoffrey McGeachin
2. Set in a different country Four Gardens by Margery Sharp
3. Set in your favourite historical period Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans
4. Set in period you're less familiar with Silence by Shusaku Endo
5. Historical fiction with a speculative element Farthing by Jo Walton
6. About a real historical figure or a specific event Rizzio by Denise Mina
7. A classic work of historical fiction The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
I've not completed the bonus category, a book over 500 pages, because I've had little patience recently for long books. Next year!
222Tess_W
Congrats on completing the historical fiction challenge! I first read The Scarlet Pimpernel as a teenager and fell in love with it. I've probably read it 2-3 additional times, although I don't love it as I did as a teen.
223VivienneR
Congratulations on completing the historical fiction challenge. Like Tess, I read The Scarlet Pimpernel when I was a teen. I read it again recently and loved it.
>215 pamelad: The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson is a BB for me!
>215 pamelad: The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson is a BB for me!
224Tess_W
>221 pamelad: I scrolled through your posts but did not find it.........but how did you like Silence?
225pamelad
Here it is: >82 pamelad:
I've also read The Samurai, which is just as devastating. Other books I've read about people of intense religious faith are: The Palace Walk trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, which shows how religion touches every aspect of the characters' lives; The Chosen and The Promise by Chaim Potok, about Hasidic Jews.
I've also read The Samurai, which is just as devastating. Other books I've read about people of intense religious faith are: The Palace Walk trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, which shows how religion touches every aspect of the characters' lives; The Chosen and The Promise by Chaim Potok, about Hasidic Jews.
226pamelad
>223 VivienneR: I hope you like The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman. We need more happy books!
227DeltaQueen50
I, too, read The Scarlet Pimpernel for my Historical Challenge. I thought it was great fun. I haven't decided whether or not to repeat the Historical Challenge again next year, but I suspect that I might do so later into the year.
228christina_reads
Another Pimpernel fan here! I first saw the TV movie with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour when I was a teen, fell in love with it, and promptly read the book. Rereading as an adult, I can spot more of its flaws, but it's still a heck of a fun read!
229pamelad
>227 DeltaQueen50:, >228 christina_reads: I don't know how I missed reading it years ago but am glad I finally did. I'll have a look for the film as well.
230pamelad
I just watched the 1934 film of The Scarlet Pimpernel. It stars Leslie Howard who is brilliant as Sir Percy, Raymond Massey who makes a very good Chauvelin despite a wandering accent, and Merle Oberon who is not bad as Lady Blakeney and very beautiful. Everyone, including the French peasants but excluding Chauvelin, speaks upper-crust English, which is initially disconcerting. Massey lurches between British English, American, and a weird foreign accent that is supposed to be French but sounds more like Hungarian, but he's a wonderful villain all the same.
I found it on Youtube and recommend it highly.
ETA There are quite a few differences from the book, particularly the ending, but it's recognisable as the same story.
I found it on Youtube and recommend it highly.
ETA There are quite a few differences from the book, particularly the ending, but it's recognisable as the same story.
231pamelad
1. Non-fiction
Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune by Rory Muir
Subtitled "how younger sons made their way in Jane Austen's England, this is an entertaining mix of historical data, quotations from memoirs and biographical snippets. If you've ever been taken aback when a Regency hero tosses a sovereign to a crossing sweeper, wondered how much a half-pay officer earns, or how much it costs to buy a commission, this is the book for you. In Jane Austen's England the rules of primogeniture meant that the oldest son inherited everything, and the other offspring had to manage as best they could. There were very few occupations suitable for the younger sons of the aristocracy and the gentry, and only the exceptionally competent and well-connected made their fortunes. The rest moved further and further down the social scale.
The occupations covered are the church, medicine, the law, banking and commerce, civil office, the navy, the army, and India. By far the worst, with a survival rate much lower than the navy and the army, is India.
Very interesting.
I've also finished Scaramouche. It's reviewed in my 2023 thread because it's an early read for the ClassicsCAT and the Historical Fiction Challenge.
Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune by Rory Muir
Subtitled "how younger sons made their way in Jane Austen's England, this is an entertaining mix of historical data, quotations from memoirs and biographical snippets. If you've ever been taken aback when a Regency hero tosses a sovereign to a crossing sweeper, wondered how much a half-pay officer earns, or how much it costs to buy a commission, this is the book for you. In Jane Austen's England the rules of primogeniture meant that the oldest son inherited everything, and the other offspring had to manage as best they could. There were very few occupations suitable for the younger sons of the aristocracy and the gentry, and only the exceptionally competent and well-connected made their fortunes. The rest moved further and further down the social scale.
The occupations covered are the church, medicine, the law, banking and commerce, civil office, the navy, the army, and India. By far the worst, with a survival rate much lower than the navy and the army, is India.
Very interesting.
I've also finished Scaramouche. It's reviewed in my 2023 thread because it's an early read for the ClassicsCAT and the Historical Fiction Challenge.
232pamelad
13. Books I Own
The Man in the Dark by Susan Scarlett
This is a Kindle freebie from the Dean Street Press. It's by Noel Streatfield who wrote ballet stories for girls. I read them as a child, despite having little interest in ballet, because the library had them. This romance for adults, first published in 1940, has the simple language, predictable plot and moral certainty of a children's book. The man in the dark has been blinded in a car crash and has withdrawn from the world because he doesn't want to be a burden on his old friends. His evil sister encourages his isolation, but fortunately a dead friend bequeaths him the guardianship of a seventeen-year-old girl, an American sophisticate, so he employs a young woman to manage the household and keep his ward company.
There are quite a few Susan Scarlett books, but I see no need to read any more of them.
I've also read The Zig Zag Girl. It's reviewed in my 2023 thread because it's an early read for the SeriesCAT and the Historical Fiction Challenge.
The Man in the Dark by Susan Scarlett
This is a Kindle freebie from the Dean Street Press. It's by Noel Streatfield who wrote ballet stories for girls. I read them as a child, despite having little interest in ballet, because the library had them. This romance for adults, first published in 1940, has the simple language, predictable plot and moral certainty of a children's book. The man in the dark has been blinded in a car crash and has withdrawn from the world because he doesn't want to be a burden on his old friends. His evil sister encourages his isolation, but fortunately a dead friend bequeaths him the guardianship of a seventeen-year-old girl, an American sophisticate, so he employs a young woman to manage the household and keep his ward company.
There are quite a few Susan Scarlett books, but I see no need to read any more of them.
I've also read The Zig Zag Girl. It's reviewed in my 2023 thread because it's an early read for the SeriesCAT and the Historical Fiction Challenge.
