Sibylline's (Lucy's) 2023 Winter Into Spring Thread

Welcome to 2023!

Spring



Currently Reading


Reading in May
new Extraordinary People Peter May
new Machine Elizabeth Bear sp/op
new Indigenous Continent Pekka Hämäläinen history native american
✔ Daemon Voices Phillip Pullman writing, essays
new A Guide Through Finnegans Wake Edmund Epstein**
new Finnegan's Wake James Joyce fiction irish**

Read in June
35. new London Rules Mick Herron MI5 ****1/2
36. new bbg June Old in Art School Nell Painter memoir ****
37. library Joe Country Mick Herron MI5 *****
38. ✔ The Lincoln Highway Amor Towles no rating 100 club
39. ✔ Crusoe's Daughter Jane Gardam hist/contemp fic ***1/2
40. library Slough House Mick Herron MI5 ****
41. library Bad Actors Mick Herron MI5 *****

*bbg stands for Bridgeside Book Group
** Reading very slowly. Began on Bloomsday! (Dec 10, 2022)
***100Club -- I read 100 pages attentively, then page through the rest

2022 in brief
I read around 117 print or e-books, but I also listened to a huge number of audio-books (almost all historical romances). If I add those in the total is around 130. I have NOT listed them and probably will continue not to as I seemed to blow through them too quickly to keep up. I plan to write this year about aspects of this reading experience on my blog in Goodreads.

Despite all my best intentions I have found it hard to impossible to keep up with most threads. I love visitors, but if you need reciprocation I understand if you don't bother with me. Also I always will respond to your post here. Anyone who visits me two or three times should get a return post. If you want me to visit TELL ME. When I visit you, I'll check out what you have been reading and make sure all is well with you, but I don't read anything else.

Winter

January
1. new A Few Lawless Vagabonds David Bennett history vermont **
2. new The Hands of the Emperor Victoria Goddard fantasy *****
3. new Petty Treasons Victoria Goddard fantasy ****1/2
4. new Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander Victoria Goddard fantasy *****
5. new Brehon Laws: The Ancient Wisdom of Ireland Jo Kerrigan ****
6. new BBG Feb The Years Annie Ernaux contemp fic. *****

Fewer books than usual, but all but the Vermont history book were winners! Reading Finnegan's Wake (which will take a year at 2 p. a day) takes up a lot of oxygen. And two of the Goddard books are very long, though not slow, reads. I also continue to listen to the regency romance books but I can feel the obsession slowing down (perhaps?)

Read in February
7. new At the Feet of the Sun Victoria Goddard fantasy ****1/2
8. DNF new Zama Antonio di Benedetto contemp lit
9. DNF ✔ The Steel Bonnets George MacDonald Fraser history english, history scottish
10. new Slow Horses Mick Herron sort of thriller! *****
11. new Bilgewater Jane Gardam fiction contemp ****
12. new BBG The Quiet Zone Stephen Kurczy west virginia

Pretty much the same comments as above. I've plunged into the Slough House series Mike Herron and am having fun with that as winter drags on.

Read in March

13. new Dead Lions Mick Herron british thriller ****1/2
14. ✔ March Geraldine Brooks fiction american, fiction civil war ***1/2
15. new The Golden Enclaves (Scholomance 3) Naomi Novik fantasy ***1/2
16. new Shelf Life Nadia Wassef bookstores, egypt ***
17. new The Lions of Al-Rassan Guy Gavriel Kay fantasy alternate history ****1/2
18. new Real Tigers Mick Herron mys ****1/2
19. 100Club***✔ Refinements of Love Sarah Booth Conroy hist fict **
20. new bbg* The Guncle Steven Rowley fiction american ***

100Club formerly DNF

Spring

Read in April
21. new Ink Black Heart Robert Galbraith mys *****
22. ✔ The Forger's Spell Edward Dolnick art forgery, ww2 art ***1/2
23. ✔ Through the Heart Richard Grant sf dystopic ***1/2
24. new Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls Charles de Lint urban fantasy ***1/2
25. ✔ Castle Rackrent Maria Edgeworth fiction irish ****
26. new When I'm Gone, Look For Me in the East Quan Barry contemp fic *****
27. new The Ministry for the Future Kim Stanley Robinson sf near future *****
28. ♬ Who Cries for the Lost? C.S. Harris mys 18th ****
29. ✔ Zoo City Lauren Beukes urban fantasy ***

Read in May
30. ✔ Ancestral Night Elizabeth Bear sf ***1/2
31. RR Son of Avonar Carol Berg
32. new Sea of Tranquillity Emily St. John Mandel sf time travel *****
33. new Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garman contemp fic ****1/2
34. new Spook Street Mick Herron MI5 *****

And who knows how many more books?

Well, I have a guess: LOTS!

Happy 2023, Lucy.

Happy New Year Lucy!

I think my daughter might be reading that Annie Ernaux book. She received one of Ernaux's books from her partner at Christmas, but it had a very plain cover compared to yours. Anyway, I will look for your thoughts on it.

As for threads and visiting, you do what works for you. For the past year, I have pretty much lurked on yours with very little comment so far be it from me to expect anything in return!

>7 richardderus: I sure hope so! I know that the Joyce tome will slow things down.

>8 lauralkeet: I always check you out for book ideas and I love your garden/house blog! I am reading the Ernaux in both French and English (some interesting choices made by the translator already noted) and that cover is a French edition.

Hi Lucy, I have you starred. It's totally fine if you don't keep up with me, I have a hard time keeping up as well (and I also mainly focus on book posts).

Happy New Year, Lucy! I really enjoy both Lisa Kleypas and Julia Quinn - I think I have read most of their books, a lot of them pre-LT.

I'll echo what others have said about just doing what works for you as far as the threads go.

I love your topper photo!

Enjoy your 2023 reads!

Happy New Year, Lucy. I hope 2023 is a good year for you.

Wishing you a comfortable reading year in 2023, Lucy.

I will try to do a little better in keeping up with your thread this year. x

>2 sibylline: Hi Lucy, c'est moi, bien sûr!
I started a thread this year after a year off. It was a good choice to take time off, and excellent to decide to be back.
As I said in my topper, I did indeed miss having my own place to be chatty without hijacking your or someone else's thread.
Whether you (or anyone) visits my thread, it should be a fun thing, not a have to.

I set up a personal challenge in my 2023 objectives. It will be amazing if I stick to it long enough to make real progress.

I received Miss Benson's Beetle this Christmas. My family knows I'm still trying to deal with all my unread novels, but I was pleased with this gift from Mr. SM.

Many MANY more books, I'm sure!

You def are a braver woman than I, embarking on the Joyce read. I'm at the point where I realize I will prob never read...

Happy New Year, Lucy!

Happy new year, Lucy!

I really loved the Goddard book when I read it last year, so I'll look forward to your thoughts on it. I'm also hoping to read an Annie Ernaux book in January, though I chose a different title and don't have enough fluency in French to read in dual languages. Sounds like a fun project, though!

Happy new year!

I really need to get a book by Annie Ernaux. Sounds like an author I should not pass up.

Happy new year, Lucy!

Happy new year Lucy!

>10 kgodey: you are easy to keep up with kriti!

>11 Crazymamie: I'm so glad you liked Quinn and Kleypas too -- reassuring -- I admit to feeling a little sheepish.

>12 thornton37814: and >13 BLBera: and >14 PaulCranswick: And the same to you Lori, Beth and Paul.

>15 SandyAMcPherson: Sandy! So glad you are back here. Let's hope for a great reading year!

>16 Chatterbox: I don't think I'm brave -- foolish, perhaps -- but I ended up loving Ulysses which I never expected, (I did love Portrait from the very get-go) and if not now, never. It's an eclectic group I seem to be the only female person. We're not that far in if you're interested. I have it on my e-reader and I listen and read at the same time -- it's just a few pages a day, and sometimes I look things up and sometimes I don't and just let the language flow over me. At the very least FW and Ernaux balance out the romance bingeing I'm doing. And I think Joyce would have approved!

>17 ronincats: Roni!

>18 bell7: Happy New Year to you too, Mary and >19 figsfromthistle: and the same to you too. Ernaux is worth the effort.

>19 figsfromthistle: Jim -- I so appreciate the work you do in managing this thread and I always check out your thread to see what you are reading as well as what you are involved with lobbing out into the void!

>20 drneutron: Happy New Year to you to Susan. I appreciate your visits.

ed!!

Happy New Year Lucy.
I remember how much enjoyment you got from the Lymond Chronicles on audio a few years back, so I plan to do my reread of them via audio starting in a couple of months. Philippa is one of my all time heroines.
I read/listened to Dunnett's King Hereafter last year and loved it.

I've fixed my star and now look forward to learning what you read and what you think of it, dear Lucy!

>24 avatiakh: Oh I did, even went so far as to join the Lymond fan club on FB. All they ever discuss is who should play Lymond . . . which I've never been able to picture. Have you read the Niccolo's? (I have not - but do plan to listen eventually.) Meanwhile I will look out for King Hereafter-- a stand-alone would be do-able! Philippa is indeed a wonder! I do come to your thread now and then to see what you are reading.

It was such an intense experience listening/reading the Lymond books -- I'm not sure I am ready yet, but I hope to listen and read them again. I love the reader for the second book, which is perhaps my favourite. Sucker for that Ollamh.

>25 LizzieD: Peggy, dear! This year might be rather slow, I'm realizing as FW is going to take up a tremendous amount of oxygen, hopefully worth it.

Happy Thingaversary to us, Lucy, here at the absolute 11th hour. I just happened to think about it.

>24 avatiakh: >26 sibylline: I'm always happy to see mentions of Lymond. I'll say again that I start over every few years and try to read Niccolo. I think Race of Scorpions is as far as I've ever gotten before putting them down and rereading Lymond. Yet many people who have read them both seem to prefer Niccolo. I'll try again but not now.
Dunnett also wrote a mystery series featuring Johnson Johnson and his yacht, Dolly. I read them long ago and have mostly forgotten them.

>27 LizzieD: I've read Lymond, Niccolo, King Hereafter & the Johnson Johnson books, the last of which are interesting but because the time shifts read strangely. If Lymond and Niccolo were people I'd prefer Niccolo, mostly because he reminds me so much of my favorite brother - super sharp and always busy with his hands. Lymond is very high strung. As to the books, the series have such different feels, Lymond so much more related to the swashbucklers and romances of the early 20th century. Of course there are wild adventures in Niccolo's books, but money is the motivator when family isn't. But the we do get to see Niccolo settled down throughout the last book, whereas Lymond just sails out onto the open sea of life.

Hi Lucy!

>1 sibylline: Kitties in front of wood stoves are quite wonderful. Julia Quinn got me started on my still-unsatisfied romance binge starting in April of last year. I’ve got 23 by her on my shelves. My recent reads, however, are MM, not MF. *shrug*

>2 sibylline: Don’t need reciprocation, might pop in occasionally. Congrats on reading/listening to ~130 books last year.

>27 LizzieD: I totally forgot about my Thingaversary -- mine was . . . 13!???? So yours is 14! I think that's about how many books came into the house over Xmas so I'll go with that.

As for Dunnett -- I haven't even acquired the Niccolos -- I am sure I would like them, but would I LOVE them? I will get to them, I hope. Meanwhile the stand-alone seems very do-able.

>28 quondame: This input is helpful too -- especially about Niccolo! I think I am a sucker for the swashbuckle and the romance.

>29 karenmarie: Which (see 28 above) would partially explain my latest listening/reading fetish. Do you read any other romance authors you would recommend? -- I really do prefer the 19th (or late 18th) for reasons which . . . I am not at ALL sure I approve of myself in this regard, but so be it!

A belated Happy New Year from me too, Lucy! I hope you have a wonderful, book-filled year.

>30 sibylline: I read the Lymond series, one book after the other, first - I've been in love with Francis since I was 15 (and I'm 65 now!) - and read the Niccolo series as they were published so with big gaps in between. I think I was imprinted with Lymond, so Niccolo could never oust him, and I've read the Lymond series - print and audio - countless times but Niccolo only two or three times. They are good, of course, but if I had to choose, it would always be Lymond.

>28 quondame:, >30 sibylline:, >32 CDVicarage: I read the Lymond books (from the local PL) in the early 1970's. At the time I really loved them but was ultimately frustrated with how the series ended when I indulged in a big re-read some 10 or 15 years ago.

As for The House of Niccolo series, I have never investigated what other series were written by DD. I think I'll have to remedy that because Dunnett certainly does pull a good set of chronicles together. And ~ I am a great fan of historical swashbuckling adventures.

Erp! Wrote this about 2-hours ago and I guess didn't hit the post-message button.

>26 sibylline: I also joined the FB group and know what you mean. There is also a pinterest group which posts pictures of actors.
I found an old article by Dunnett writing about touring Scotland and visiting Shakespeare's Macbeth locations, which also discussed how wrong Shakespeare got the history in his Macbeth play.
https://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/articles-real-macbeth.php

Another swashbuckling adventure story is Dumas's The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon.

Happy balated Thingaversary!!

>31 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! Happy New Year to you!

>32 CDVicarage: I haven't met anyone yet who actually prefers Niccolo.

>33 SandyAMcPherson: Of course, the truth is what is there to say about Lymond? I mean, there is no actor worthy, is there? And thanks for the Dumas tip -- I will put that on my wishlist. DONE!

>35 Berly: Thanks so much! That would be a scary number of books if I celebrated the way I did at first.

>36 sibylline: I prefer Niccolo! Of course your statement still stands.... And I rather fancy the young Jude Law was as pretty as it's possible for anyone other than a young Roger Dalton.

>37 quondame: !!! To me Jude Law is too 'nice' though a joy to behold. But Lymond, just isn't a nice guy at all!! Young Peter O'Toole (T.E. Lawrence) his features, such a combo of delicate and strong, those glinting eyes, yow! -- and such physical quickness? and less so, but somewhat the young Albert Finney (Tom Jones) so wickedly charming . . . It's kind of impossible, really, is that not so?

>38 sibylline: Oh, I never equated pretty with nice, nope, rather the opposite. Peter O'Toole was indeed a beauty, but I was very young when I saw his Lawrence face grimacing on the big screen, so when many decades later I met Lymond, O'Toole seemed too one-note to portray such a quicksilver being.

>39 quondame: It is impossible isn't it! Did you ever see P O'T in Becket? Really not a one-note actor.

>40 sibylline: Oh yes, the older O'Toole had a broader range. But Lord Jim? Looked constipated. I was 13 when I saw LoA, so P O'T was never a young thing to me - nor was Albert Finney, though a different type of attractive not at all the nervy Lymond sort.

I'm enjoying this discussion of who could play Lymond on screen. I stalled out after four books but absolutely "get" his unique charm.

>34 avatiakh: That reminds me, I want to re-read some Dumas. I don't know this particular title. I have such good memories of The Three Musketeers.
Read it off my parents bookshelf of "Book Club" editions. I think I haven't read any Dumas since I was about 17 y.o. (And no snarky comments about mastodon hunting* from the peanut gallery, ok?)

*what Richard said once to me on either Laura or Karen's thread some time ago now. It was an obscure joke perhaps to most LT-ers, related to our "age" when we did something or other.

>41 quondame: Older O'Toole had seen and done too many things. But the younger one. Oh my. I was only ten when I saw Becket, btw. Finney yes was all wrong except for something . . . defiance? Outrageous sensuality?

>42 lauralkeet: It's just impossible! But fun.

>43 SandyAMcPherson: Love the mastodon hunting!

Happy reading in 2023, Lucy!

1. history us **
A Few Lawless Vagabonds David Bennett

Discouraging that my first book of the year is virtually unreadable but so be it.

Bennett exhaustively researched the period between 1764 and around 1786 or so to make the argument that Ethan Allen would have been willing to ally Vermont as an independent republic under Great Britain. Unfortunately the 'argument' such as it is, is buried under an literal white-out of information. Four different entities were interested in claiming some or all of Vermont: New York, New Hampshire, Great Britain (via Canada) for strategic reasons, and even Massachusetts who coveted land in the south.. The primary wrangling was between NY and NH both of whom had been extending (without authority from the Crown much of the time) land grants to settlers. The area was mainly known, in fact, as the New Hampshire Land Grants. All during the Revolution the wrangling dragged on and on, military incursions, removal of people from their homesteads, etc. Bennett asks: What did Ethan Allen actually do? First, he was not suited to the military, but he was a magnetic person and 'had a mind overflowing with thoughts and ideas. a "teeming brain" that constantly sought expression in action, debate or in writing'. He could inspire and recruit. Thus he was instrumental in forming the Green Mountain Boys (later G.M. Rangers) however, he was far too impulsive to be a good military LEADER. In short, Ticonderoga was a lucky hit. Not long after that on a poorly planned and worse executed attempt to capture Montreal, he was captured and became a prisoner of the British for several years. Once free he immediately went to work trying to ensure Vermont (which had been given this name somehow or other in the interim) would become and remain independent. Bennett's argument that the Allens were quite serious about allying with Great Britain if they had to is believable, but my guess (and it is just a guess) that it had to be serious in order to push the US Congress into making a decision to pay off New York's claims and invite Vermont into the fold. Allen was tireless for throughout in his campaign for an independent state and much about the unusual character of Vermont is directly attributable to him and to what the people in the state went through to become independent. (For example, it was the first and only state where you did not have to own land or pay taxes in order to vote. Of course, you did have to be male. The constitution also outlawed slavery although abuses were not enforced with any enthusiasm. Nonetheless.) Bennett does give Allen credit for pretty much single-handedly ensuring that Vermont became first, an independent republic (which it was, by the way, for 11 years) and then in 1791 becoming the 14th state. This is just about the most disorganized and unintelligible book I've read in ages -- It's sad, as it is clear Bennett worked hard. He can write a reasonable sentence but he can neither organize a paragraph nor lay out a coherent chapter. He needed a friend/editor to help him and he didn't have the help, as people often don't these days. If I didn't care about Vermont I would not have gone on with it and I cannot recommend it. **

>46 sibylline: I would so have DNF'd that book in a shot!

Well done you, for not only reading it (such motivation: if I didn't care about Vermont I would not have gone on with it), but also writing quite an exhaustive review.

I'm struggling with The Black Swan and reading junky mysteries to give my brain a rest. Taleb's book is very readable but the concepts are in the realm of information theory, so it is slow going for me.

I was very curious about his premise: (quoting the PL overview),
Examines the role of the unexpected, discussing why improbable events are not anticipated or understood properly, and how humans rationalize the black swan phenomenon to make it appear less random.

This rationalization is a trap in which scientific researchers can easily find themselves wallowing. I understand that Taleb was in the world of finance when he wrote up this information. I will probably have to surrender and request the book a couple times since it isn't renewable (other holds).

>46 sibylline: Sorry that was such a rough read. You get points for caring so much about Vermont! And for your extensive review.

>46 sibylline: Too bad about that one!

I hope your next read is better for you, Lucy!

>46 sibylline: Too bad your first book of the year was a dud. The premise sounds interesting.

Yikes! You're a better woman than I am, even at my best - and I ain't at my best, Gunga Dina!

I wish you may love *Hands* enough to make up for it. What a great reward for perseverance though!

>47 SandyAMcPherson: (and to all those commenting on the Ethan Allen dud) - I gleaned that book for information, the kind of reading I used to do!

More specifically to Sandy, I'm not aware of The Black Swan -- there are however several noels of the same name! Some of them highly improbable! Probably that was the point of the title. I commend you for carrying on.

>48 Berly: I do very much care about Vermont, it is an unusual state with an interesting history.

>49 alcottacre: Hi Stasia -- I am reading several other (too many) excellent books from The Hands of the Emperor and The Years, a book on Brehon Law (about the extremely well-developed and sensible law system (based on reparation not punishment) before the British smashed it to bits) along with the truly epic Finnegan's Wake, 14 pages per week, plus some commentary (doing this with a group, not on LT). I have a feeling I will finish all of them at once (except FW) toward the end of the month.

>50 BLBera: The premise was and remains interesting although I think the writer didn't take the Allen family, um, agility at wheeling and dealing fully into account.

>51 LizzieD: As you know I love love love *Hands*!

2. fantasy *****
The Hands of the Emperor Victoria Goddard

(At last I have finished a second book!)

What a way to start a new reading year (2023)! A complex and rich world and characters it would take someone far more hard-bitten than me not to adore and relish. Go read the blurbs for the essentials, I won't bother with them here. What matters are the relationships, Cliopher's relationship to his enormous, rambunctious and faraway family and Cliopher and his deepening friendship with His Radiancy, the Last Emperor (after a magical cataclysm). Isolation, loneliness, and the prejudices of an aristocracy that has lasted for thousands of years, affect Cliopher deeply while the Emperor too, struggles with the emptiness of being treated like a god. I love the way magic is handled -- somewhat remotely but with assurance. Really I can't do the book justice, but I enjoyed every word. *****

>53 sibylline: And there's more! Not all of it is like THofE, but Victoria Goddard sure knows how to make a book flow.

3. fantasy ****1/2
Petty Treasons Victoria Goddard

A novella from the point of view, not of Cliopher, but of His Radiancy himself, of the time before the Fall, of waking up, of Cliopher's arrival in his life to the moment when he finds a way to give Cliopher the 'title' he deserves, 'The Hands of the Emperor.' Lovely! ****1/2

Oh yay, so glad to see you're enjoying the Victoria Goddard books, too! I'm planning on reading The Return of Fitzroy Angursell next month sometime.

4. fantasy *****
Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander Victoria Goddard

So delighted to read a story from the pov of Buru Tovo, Kip's mentor, the Tana-tai. Essentially the history of his relationship with Kip, his trip to visit Kip in Solaara which sets off more changes and consolidates Kip's position.A couple of interesting tid-bits, particularly about His Radiancy, Lord Artorin himself, something Tovo sees in him that no one else does. *****

Uh oh. You just sold me on the Buru Tovo book, Lucy. I knew I'd get to it eventually, but now I'll have to try sooner. Just not right now.

ireland history ****
Brehon Laws: The Ancient Wisdom of Ireland Jo Kerrigan

This is a perfect introduction to the unique law system that the Irish had evolved over millenia for governing themselves before the British swept through, Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and began the process of trying to destroy a culture and absorb the people. The essence of Brehon Law is this: reparation over retribution. A starving person who stole bread would not be punished as would a perfectly well-fed person and might not even be fined or made to work off the deed. In England (and France and thus Les Miserables) until the 1820's you could receive the death penalty. Couples could decide, after a year, that the whole thing wasn't working out and split up. Whatever you had brought into the marriage would be taken out. If there was a child the father would support it but generally the woman went home to her family. If a husband bragged (or complained) publicly about relations with his wife that was grounds for divorce! And on and on. It was a system designed to calm but satisfy the anger of those who had been wronged and encourage close-knit groups not to get caught up in never-ending feuds. There was a recognized hierarchy (as well as the severity of the crime) that determined the degree of reparation a person was required to make -- to injure a brehon (judge) or the local chieftain would incur a greater fine (generally #'s of cows) than a farmer with his own property and on down the line. It's a fascinating system that we could benefit from examining. I think, in our huge ungainly culture where you are more likely to have a community of like-minded interests, far-ranging family etc, as opposed to living in a closely-knit and very interdependent community might make implementing many of the ideas difficult. Also (some of us anyway) in our effort to avoid overt hierarchical distinctions among people would make placing value on various crimes challenging -- or maybe not. But the main thing is the attitude piece, that people do bad things, harmful things and the best thing is to keep them close and make them work off whatever in an appropriate way -- not isolate them in prisons or hang or kill. But even Brehon law had a limit: If a person was deemed hopeless they would be put in a boat with no oars and taken out 'beyond the ninth wave' and left there. (In essence the 9th wave is the distance out to sea where the tidal currents would not bring the boat back to land.) The book is written very simply with lots of photographs, truly intended as an introduction.****

Trying to keep up, Lucy.

>59 sibylline: That one appeals. We share Irish ancestry and that is something I need to investigate further and deeper.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Hello, Lucy! You got me with The Hands of the Emperor. I had seen this elsewhere in the threads with positive comments, but your thoughts on it sold it to me. I have already snagged my own copy.

*back to say that I added my thumb to your review

>59 sibylline: Hi Lucy, I wondered how readable that book would be. Sounds very approachable. I admire the Brehon way of law and dealing with culprits. Would it work in our present day society of self-entitled people with no sense of 'common good'? Probably not, but the Brehon way has merit.

I finished My Lady Judge and posted a review on the book page and a slightly shorter one on my thread.

>60 PaulCranswick: I'd read about the Brehon law way and then I started reading the mysteries by Cora Harrison about a Brehon Judge -- living in the last generation that could practice freely before Henry VIII clamped down.
My Lady Judge is the first one. As you can see at >62 SandyAMcPherson: Sandy is starting reading them!

>61 Crazymamie: You are going to love these books!

>62 SandyAMcPherson: I'll bustle off right now to read your review.

6. contemp fic *****
The Years Annie Ernaux

The first question one wants to ask is is this a novel or a memoir? The closest kin (in book terms) is Karl Ove Knausgaard's
My Struggle, but there are others where the re-explored and re-imagined life can be considered as both memoir and fiction. The author is generally after a 'truth' that might not exactly please family members as being 'what happened' as well as being absurd to claim that your version is the "real" one but Ernaux has side-stepped or gone further by attaching the life of the narrator/protagonist to the events going on concurrently during her life. She doesn't separate herself as a single individual exclusively, but as both -- herself and a person deeply influenced, indeed arguably created by the times she has lived in. It's a breathtaking concept and she succeeded in giving me a new way to regard my own life -- something only the great writers can do, shift a little something in your head. Not easy to read but I suggest that if you plan to, don't get hung up on the details of what was going on in France but associate them with your own experience at that time in your own context and at the appropriate age. A younger person would find this more challenging but they might find themselves examining their present obsessions and beliefs more skeptically! I read about half the book in French and English together then ran out of time and read only the English for the remainder. I plan to read the rest of her work. Extraordinary. *****

>64 sibylline: I really want to read this narrative. Great review!
I believe in these times (now) that most of the dialogue around cultural biases, challenges to 'white privilege' and attitudes developed during the day of colonial empires, has become fraught. Annie Ernaux's narrative sounds genuinely nuanced in thoughtfully seeking a way to emerge from the fray.

The strident claims on all sides of these arguments have 'truth of what happened' and a version, "this is the real one", vested in emotion and blame. Families *are* being torn apart by an unexamined woke attitude. There seems litle evidence of critical thinking.

I am completely on-side and agree that generations of discrimination have carried forward and created an unjust society with terrible daily living conditions couched in skin colour, religion, and politics. Political discourse colours the laws on both sides of the 49th parallel.

I especially appreciate that you spoke out with this advice:
don't get hung up on the details of what was going on in France but associate them with your own experience at that time in your own context and at the appropriate age. A younger person would find this more challenging but they might find themselves examining their present obsessions and beliefs more skeptically.

You will have had no idea how timely that comment is for me.

(PS your touchstone points to Virginia Woolf's book of the same title.)

Thanks Sandy. And thanks for the heads-up re Virginia W. and the touchstones. I keep fixing that one, but every single time I mention the book I have to fix it. Maddening.

>59 sibylline: This sounds fascinating. I'll look for it. Annie Ernaux is on my list as well. There aren't enough hours in the day!

>67 BLBera: Met with my book group last night and I'd say . . . some of them struggled with the lack of obvious narrative and felt hampered by not knowing enough about French history, culture etc. I think others of AE's novels are more 'novelly' -- I plan to read them.

dnf
Zama Antonio di Benedetto

Call me a coward, call me a philistine, I couldn't keep on reading, or rather, I paged slowly but steadily through the book growing ever more impatient. A bureaucrat is sent from Argentina to an office in Paraguay (think, guy from New York City being sent to work in Edmonton). Not paid enough, but not bothering either to send his wife and children any money (there is some but he spends it on himself) or to bring them to Paraguay as he hopes to get back to 'civilization'. I couldn't help wondering, after fifty or so pages whether he had been sent there as a tiresome self-absorbed man no one could bear the sight of back home. The lack in Zama of any self-awareness (possession of which leads to humour, which leads to a balance). What caused me to abandon the novel is that I couldn't get past a sense of the whole taking itself too seriously (and I mean that at so many levels). I also found di Benedetto's use of melodrama, histrionics, and so forth in a sort of casual throwaway manner as a literary device to develop his protagonist's decline, unconvincing. I've read lots of gloomy novels written by men about men (and the occasional woman) who just can't get past their desires, their inability to get out of their own heads or other parts etcetera, most of those tales had something I couldn't find here and cannot endure searching for further. I'd love to spoil by offering the ending which, in its extreme melodrama, makes my point, and almost becomes humorous almost compassionate, but . . . really? I chose the book to widen my reading of South American writers (from NYRB). And seriously, I'm not condemning the book, but giving you my own reaction, and you might find this a gem as others have.

>69 sibylline: I like the honesty of your review.
I was asked to review someone's short (~5000 words) article recently.
It was supposedly academic, and, omg, your phrase, just can't get past their desires, their inability to get out of their own heads suited my reaction perfectly (to the piece I was editing).

I think some authors are confused about their objectives and whether it is literary, a novel or an overview of a philosophical topic, they simply drown the narrative with too little awareness of context and balanced presentation.

Maybe I'm reflecting on the piece I was supposedly editing. However, your review resonated with me in that respect.

>71 sibylline: Oh you poor thing -- the hardest part is how to approach that sort of mess. I'm editing a children's book by a friend and while wonderfully well written, pretty good story, there is an infuriating tone of condescension: he's a respected biblical scholar although he does well in social settings, the need to teach comes out in spades with asides and explanations that would make most 8 year olds throw the book in the back of the closet. That's just one of about five things I'll have to talk about with him. I can only read so many pages at a time because I start tearing my hair out.

And to anyone who stops by -- I am reading too many long long long books! I generally stop here to write up comments on a book, but with all these 500 and more pagers, it's so going. I'll have to find some slim volumes!

>71 sibylline: I'm guessing that your #71 comment referred to >70 SandyAMcPherson: ?

I've also been slow to review books on Talk. The bread books were very time consuming. I did want to make a decent overview, since I suspect few readers here want to see 'chapter and verse' about the details.

Simply warning you, Lucy, there are bread product images displayed as I experimented and then posted some results. Surprisingly (to me), I've motored through 15 books so far this year. My Lady Judge is my favourite so far. I've bugged my PL to find me a copy of book 2. They have later books in the series, so I can't figure why not Book 2.

Oops -- fixed that.

No worries about the bread products.

Glad you loved My Lady Judge -- I'd be happy to loan you a copy of #2 if you run into a wall. I know that two in the series are really hard to get except as e-books. (5 and 6 maybe, can't remember.)

DNF
The Steel Bonnets George MacDonal Fraser

This is another Did Not Finish -- not because anything is wrong with the book, but because there was no reason for me to continue. The appeal for me was really to know more about the area after reading Dorothy Dunnett's marvelous series about Lymond of Crawford (The Lymond Chronicles. MacDonald is outlining the history of the Border 'Troubles' and those who participated in the mayhem, both sides, with almost shattering detail. Well organized and readable, it is nonetheless information that I cannot absorb or really justify spending hours reading. To anyone who lives near the old Marches and is has a family interest or an abiding historical interest, I have no doubt this would prove deeply fascinating and rewarding. The scope is too tight for me -- I've paged through the whole and I think I have grasped the essentials: Reiving has been romanticized, on both sides the violence became a way of life, making it harder to sustain consistent ethical stances, and albeit at the expense of Scotland's full independence, the problems faded away within a decade of England's absorption of Scotland. Maintaining that border as a border was impossible at that time in that place due to the precariousness, really, of the agricultural existence of the people who lived there. Now there could a border much like ours with Canada, I expect, as the economic pressures make that border irrelevant. I was, in some ways, saddened by the cold facts, but not surprised. Those who revere 'the cowboy' really don't know that hard and brutal that life could be. Perhaps it is human nature to fasten on these outlier cultures that are so hard and romanticize them, who knows why? I adored the image, at the start of Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson and Billy Graham, all descendants of some of the worst of the worst 'riding' reivers in a photograph together. Still reiving? Favourite words -- going on a hot trod -- that is, galloping out asap after the ****ers who just stole your cattle and burned up your farm.

Just noticing one of those weird moments when my books 'go together'


Also am adding the comment that I have "DNF"ed two 'tomes' lately and there will be more probably -- I am trying to choose books from tbr shelves that have, as it were, gotten stuck in some shallow by-way.

>74 sibylline: That hot trod business sure was an interesting adaption to grizzly circumstances about which legal entities could do little but toss up their hands.

>76 quondame: or, as I gathered from MacDonald -- some of those legal entities joined in the 'fun'!

>77 sibylline: I'm partial to a less vigorous definition of fun. Also less bloody.

7. fantasy ****1/2
At the Feet of the Sun Victoria Goddard

Cliopher continues to 'realize' his dreams and ambitions and bring them into harmony with himself -- I truly do not feel I can say much of anything about what happens without spoiling, but there are some marvels, satisfying reunions and all the rest of it. I will however say that I am not in the least bit clear about what Goddard is driving at vis a vis the relationship between Cliopher and HFR. (His Former Radiancy -- a term I will use to also avoid any spoiling). It makes no sense to me human beings being who and what they are and just seems cruel to HFR who has such a passionate and physical nature and needs, so something feels unbalanced and, frankly, unfair. I can't understand either how a person with the energy, ambition and drive of Cliopher could be asexual. I mean really! There are relationships that exist that are a bit like this, full of bromance, yes, but usually not so intense. And who knows, really, where Goddard is intending to end up. Given Cliopher's detachment from his own needs and his physical self and how long it has taken him to get this far, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Totally worth reading if you have been enjoying the saga so far. And I will keep on with it, though ready now for a break. ****1/2

And Oh MY! I finally finished a book! It's been weeks!

I'm tempted to count the two books I didn't finish, I did try, after all. You could say I finished with but that is stretching, I guess.
Tell me what you think!

Meanwhile, here on the home front, the spousal unit finally succumbed to Covid although mildly, overall, about five days of bleh (some fever, lots of phlegm etc) and the last three or four slowly rejoining the world (pottering about the house and a little bit outside, weather permitting). He has to get his own breakfast and lunch now. That kind of thing. I have evaded a second bout but we have sequestered pretty seriously, masks when on the same floor of the house, and I am not going to any of my music things until he has tested clean a couple of times (once so far).

>80 sibylline: Jim once told me, "There are no rules in this group" (in the way you count books, or report, or not). Good advice, I think.

In my case, when I've read enough to comment or post about, I do so. I add these titles to my books-read and make note that I DNF'd or skimmed. That's for my own record, so I can revisit a book when I'm in a better frame of mind, or someone has posted an enlightening (for me) perspective.

Sorry the spousal unit picked up the viral infection. Sounds like he's managing to mount a good immunity as indicated by the pottering about. Very sensible to sequester from your community. Not enough people think of that. Sending healing vibes your way.

Edited to mention that just yesterday, I posted on my thread (an the book page) a 2-star review of book I didn't read very thoroughly. In truth it was a DNF with disgust! The reviews seem to lavishly praise the story with 4 or 5 stars; but when I looked at GoodReads to see if my review was an outlier, 3% of the reviews said basically what I said (3% was over a 1000 reviews according to the count on the website).

>79 sibylline: I do agree that there is an imbalance between HFR and Cliopher, but in a way it is refreshing for an author not to throw the central characters into a hot tangle - especially after setting up one as not prone to impulsive sexual adventuring. And the relationship related events in The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul need to be considered as well.

>80 sibylline: Oh, no, dealing with in-home Covid is a strain. I hope you don't follow the spouse. Is that treatment I see touted on FB available?

>82 quondame: He's doing quite well, case on the mild side, so I think the Paxlovid will be enough. I have not read the more recently published books yet, about Fitzroy and Pali etc. but I seriously need to take a break!

Started Slow Horses in fact and cannot put it down!

Oh and back to add that I am fine with ungraphic, tactful, and mostly implied pleasurable sex (say as between Bren and Jago in the Foreigner series) but -- these are two humans! I suspect it is another aspect of himself that terrifies Cliopher. He does like being in control, eh?

>83 sibylline: What is the break you speak of?

Well humans are supposed to come in infinite varieties and to confound our expectations. I've found it so in life, but with fiction - well it has to seem to offer us something novel, while feeding our insatiably permanent appetites.

Break from reading the Goddard oeuvre!

Point taken about offering infinite variety! But she hasn't convinced me yet. What I can buy is that Cliopher is a complicated person and has sublimated everything into his life's work and at a very young age got an idea in his head that he doesn't even know how to begin to move away from. (And that is a pattern in his life generally!)

10. thriller *****
Slow Horses Mick Herron

Take a bunch of highly-trained (e.g. you've spent a lot of time and money on them) MI5 personnel who have, nonetheless, effed up big-time (in various ways) so that just firing them isn't an option, what do you do? Put them in Slough House and put them to work doing the most boring of the boring work, not analyzing the data but collecting it for others to analyze (searching for suspicious activity whether on the internet or a real estate transaction etc) Give them a boss who is . . . unfathomable. Create a situation where, suddenly, these losers have a chance to redeem themselves if only in their own hearts and minds. And bingo! I won't give a thing away. And read the book(s) before you watch the tv show(s). *****

contemp fic
Bilgewater Jane Gardam

Marigold's nickname is Bilgewater and she's an adolescent living in a House at a boy's school in Yorkshire (vaguely latter half of the 20th) where her father is the Master. Paula is the Matron and runs the place efficiently. It's the basic story of the adolescent girl emerging, as it were from caterpillar to butterfly . . . only . . . hesitantly and in that unsure way that leaves the reader wondering 'what if'. Three boys at the school she has known for years suddenly seem to be interested in her and she also maybe finds a female friend (she's definitely not your average girl so finds friendship difficult). Those three boys are the three trying, as she is, for Oxbridge. (I can categorize them as #1 Kind and Safe,#2 Deceptive and Handsome, and #3 Fascinating and Brilliant). After finishing I found myself pondering the way some of us (different from the above -- category A &B not # 1,2,3) (and I know I am category B) tend to choose safety (B) over, shall we say, spontaneity (A)? This leads to intense moments of 'what if' in my own life I had defied my parents and done this or that or taken that other bus or gone ahead or stayed the night with . . . I don't think A's either look back or chicken out! (Or perhaps now and then they might have a pinch of regret?) And let me add too, Gardam makes no judgement call on A or B. Anyway that is, perhaps, the most significant underlying theme. To my surprise I flagged a bit in the middle, seeing where things were headed, but Gardam handles everything with grace and humor and so the book satisfies while also feeling fully grounded in the Way Things Are. ****

>87 sibylline: Hi Lucy. I wondered what you thought of >81 SandyAMcPherson:?
Didn't see any comments, and would be interested in your thoughts.

>87 sibylline: I must be an easily-confused person these days, because I read this post as (A) = Kind and Safe, (B)= Deceptive and Handsome, and (C) = Fascinating and Brilliant.
Except that didn't seem to line up with your descriptions, e.g., "I know I am category B"?

I haven't cared to read Jane Gardam (because her Hat trilogy and 'Faith Fox' didn't appeal). However, your review of Bilgewater is beckoning to me.

Ah, I did unsnafu the above review making #1,2,3 versus category A&B, I hope! I also added 'a bit Mad' to #3.

I ordinarily gobble up the Gardams so it was unusual for me to pause. I just adored #3 even though I knew he wasn't all that great an idea for a lifetime and #1 was a sweetie, a much better Idea. I'll be interested to see what you think. I loved the Hats to bits. Tell me if I solved the problem?

Re >81 SandyAMcPherson: -- I am so grateful for your input onm this! And, if you look at the top of my thread here you will see my response! I have put my DNF's into my numbered reading, anything to boost the numbers, but the reality is that I did spend a lot of time on those two books and I did write up my reasons for quitting.

>90 sibylline: Re our >80 sibylline: and >81 SandyAMcPherson: discussion, I have just now (tonight) encountered that same quandary you had about "counting a book" as 'read'. I think I am dithering in the same way you were with your DNF books at >1 sibylline:.

Green Rider was a BB from you in 2021 and when I saw it at our used book shop, I instantly wanted it. I explained on my thread why I think maybe I'm floundering but would value your insights. Normally a story like this is golden for me. I'm quite surprised, it is like losing some reading mojo that I always valued...

13. ** west va, technology
The Quiet Zone Stephen Kurczy

Kurczy valiantly tried to make this story into something, and the book maybe could have been so much more if he had pulled the whole together by looking more deeply into himself and his assumptions. Unfortunately he can never quite get beyond a chatty, yet faintly condescending look at this remote community in West Virginia where a huge radio telescope to monitor space noise was built in a deep ringed valley in the late fifties. The place comes across as full of wackos, quaint, spooky and dangerous. Butchering rabbits, seven-year olds with guns that could kill, etcetera, resentful locals. However what Kurczy admires most about the place is no more than virtually any truly rural community at its ordinariest. People talking to one another, having local events for this and that, helping you out, and so on. (More on that at the end.) What IS different from most rural communities are the kinds of people who have been attracted to THIS place, mainly from media hype. Because of the Observatory and other government surveilling sites, Green Bank also develops a rep for being 'quiet' so these entities can read the incoming radiowaves from outer space. The weirdos come: from white nationalists to back-to-the-landers (whether hippie or end-timers or apocalypse-nowers), the electro-sensitives and the just plain creepies. Then wifi happens and keeping 'the zone' quiet becomes a losing battle but . . . At some point I realized this book was written by a deeply urban/suburban-raised person so he is wowed that anyone would ever stop to help anyone on a back road or chat you up in the local milk store. Are you kidding me? I live in a murder-free, relatively wifi free, white nationalist-cell free etcetera place (OK, I admit, for a brief while we had a brothel up a back road with red velvet on the walls and everything--I know this because later the place briefly became a restaurant and we checked it out; food was terrible, decor fascinating!) Point is, I live where most faces are at least familiar and where people stop if you have a problem with your car, help you out if you have a bigger problem even if your politics are different, and the time I've spent chatting at either the P.O. or the milk store or the library is just too embarrassing to contemplate. To Kurczy to do these things is so amazing! So I think there is a deeper issue here, that has to do with what Kurczy himself and why he was so attracted to the place. About that sense of unease so many urbanites do have (some don't) a sense of loss and a feeling of disconnection and a desire to belong. Not having a cell phone, as he hopes, will not cure this problem. A couple of stars for tidbits. Never would have read this had it not been a book group choice.**

13. fiction british, thriller MI5 ****
Dead Lions Mick Herron

This Slough House series is just going to be plain fun, both the books and the dramatic rendition on the teev. Amply reviewed, I will only say I am loving the interactions between the slow horses, whether at work, or sloughing off work or doing something or not doing anything at all. ****

You were on my list of people to look for at the start of the year, and somehow I still failed to star your thread. Went looking again, because I just finished reading a book about mammal evolution that I got on the basis of your enthusiastic review in 2015. I feel vindicated letting it sit idle for so long because suddenly it was just the right thing.

>80 sibylline: Yuck! A bout of COVID cost me two weeks of PT, as you know, but it really just made me sleepy all the time like it has the other times I've had it. The vaccine and boosters have kept me on the mild side of infections, thank goodness.

I Hope you're spotting lots of beautiful cheetahs in your local jungle, the way I am now! :-)

>94 qebo: Isn't that a most interesting book?

>95 richardderus: those cheetahs, they are prowl so so quietly. Glad you are mending.

14. fiction american, fiction civil war
March Geraldine Brooks

March has been on my TBR shelf for far too long, but I wasn't looking forward to reading it as I have mixed feelings about other novels Brooks has written. This is the back story about Papa March from Little Women, absent for that novel working as a chaplain and whatever is needed down in the war zone. He sees and participates (as a passive observer) in horrible things and most of his efforts to help seem wasted, eventually he falls ill, Marmee comes to nurse him, he won't go home with her, then Beth gets sick, you all know the story if you've read Little Women (Which I am going to assume you have if you read this novel.) So this is all about what happens to March while he is away, a window into the war. On the whole a worthy novel but . . . not compelling is what comes to mind? So carefully and thoroughly and conscientiously researched and written that light and life never fully enter in and overall I felt a little bludgeoned and truly never warmed up at all to March who, it seemed to me was suspiciously good at justifying his infatuation as being something other than what it was and came across also as being immature in his insistence of his failures. What I think is that Brooks felt that in order for the story to work, Papa March had to be a stubborn git -- but I think there would have been other better and more convincing ways to develop his character. I think she wanted to create a flawed man, and she did do that, I guess, too flawed? I don't know. I'd like to give it a *** but I am adding a 1/2 for all the work Brooks put into research. ***1/2

>97 sibylline: I read this in 2015, back when I was writing reviews for posterity. "I got seriously annoyed with the author in chapter 2." sez my review, and that's why I've hesitated to pick up other books of hers.

Heh! The Sting of Justice (Book 3) is on its way to me.
*does the happy dance*

I read Writ in Stone (#4 in the series) because I was impatient, (reviewed on my thread).
"S of J" was somewhere in library-hinterland ~ listed as 'pending' ever since being requested in early February (with no indication of the hold being in place). All of a sudden, the title went from "pending" to "shipped". Yay!

I also gave up trying for Book 2 (too old for a recommended title) and apparently not in a PL where my Library system has an ILL agreement.

Writ in Stone didn't appear to have any backstory spoilers so that worked out ok. Might have made some reveals in Book 3 already known. I don't mind, Harrison writes so well with a flowing evocative style that I really appreciate. I'll be happy reading it even if the story has less suspense or surprise reveals than otherwise.

Thanks again for writing about the Burren series, Lucy. These are such genuine pleasures for whiling away the long winter evenings wrapped in a duvet.

>97 sibylline: The thing that made me craziest in March was making "Marmee" Marmee's childhood nickname. It's so obvious to me that baby Meg or Jo called her Marmee, and that was that.
I read this one back to back with The March and have a bit of difficulty remembering which was which.

14. fantasy YA ***1/2
The Golden Enclaves (Book 3 Scholomance) Naomi Novik

While I loved Spinning Silver and the Temeraire series, I've struggled a bit with this Scholomance series. It's in the first person, which can get tiresome (it did), and the magic is complicated (too complicated?). El (short for Galadriel has been brought up outside the 'Enclaves' (where all the other witches and wizards live)in a commune in Wales because of an omen put forth by her great-grandmother that she would bring destruction and death. The enclaves are built to protect the witches and wizards from the 'malia', think essentially, the backlash from magic use which 'feed' on them, especially children. In the three books El comes to terms with her powers, learns to use them, then deploys the full force of her abilities in this final book. All the ingredients for a great story are in place. I think Novik's talent if for details, for figuring stuff out. In the Temeraires, it is figuring out how the dragons and the soldiers work together and why -- and I think that worked better for me because the dragons and the soldiers were both worthy and interesting beings, whereas in this series, the choices and situation are more stark, good choices, bad choices. Orion, one of El's classmates, might be the most complex but even so, not really. I want to say clearly that I think plenty of readers will love this series to bits. Personal taste is what it is. ***1/3

16. books ***1/2
Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller Nadia Wassef

I like reading about books about bookstores -- I have enough of them that I should probably make a little shelf for them. What makes Wassef's contribution significant is that she was, with sister and friend, founding a contemporary western style bookshop, the first one, in Cairo, twenty plus years ago and that they were all women owning and managing. Running a bookshop successfully is difficult in any circumstance, but they took on a monumentally challenging project. Wassef herself is a passionate and opinionated and likely a rather abrasive person and her story is open and honestly written about the problems she faced in work and home life not just because of the challenges, but because of who she is and how she handles problem-solving and conflict. The book is organized carefully and the writing is very solid and straightforward but Wassef is not a story-teller. This is a memoir by a person who loves books and reading, who is committed to learning about herself and others. (She starts out scoffing both business and self-help books, for example, but ultimately curiosity and need bring her to look at them quite differently.) If you love bookstores and like reading about them, you will enjoy and learn here. ***1/2

17. fantasy alt hist ****1/2

This is the last (as far as I know) in the (sort of) series (not really) that begins with the Sarantium books in the alternate Europe from say, 800 AD to . . . 1400-ish? It's an alternate historical Earth so, I can't even say what events might or might not correlate with our own, only that they feel strangely possible, should this or that have taken different turns. The story focuses in the peninsula (where are our Spain and Portugal) España (northern third) and Al-Rassan (the rest) here. The last Khailif of Al-Rassan was murdered more than a decade earlier and the cities in both Al-Rassan and España have splintered into smaller kingdoms and city states. There is weakness to exploit. The story is complex -- but -- the essence is that these are the final days and all hangs in the balance, will the Asharites from across the Mediterranean recover the peninsula or will someone emerge from España determined enough to wrest the whole 'back' into what had once been all theirs before Al-Rassan? Three men and a woman emerge as the pivotal characters. One a young Jaddite Horseman, one a woman, Kindath, a doctor, the other two--the most important--are respectively the unparalleled military leaders, one Jaddite, the other an Asharite. All of them quickly become people (as well as a lesser but equally intense set of characters orbiting around them) you will care about. But this is the story of the end of an era, and while perhaps the start of something new and bright, that is not the focus which is centered on the rapid fall after a long decline of a kingdom which had probably been vulnerable without strong leadership. Definitely a three-hankie ending, my friends, but worth the effort. I hope to have the opportunity to reread the whole group of books. ****1/2

>103 sibylline: For some reason I couldn't articulate, I didn't cotton onto Sailing to Sarantium, so I've never tried the other related stories. Enjoyed your reviews however! At this time of life (life and strife as younger daughter says), I'm avoiding even the one-hankie endings in my reading.

The The Sarantine Mosaic seems an intriguing saga however and I've a loyalty-fondness for GGK 'cause he's a Saskatchewan boy, originally. My enduring fave GGK is Ysabel with Tigana a close second. I read the Fionavar Tapestry books when they came out and then tried a re-read in 2020. It was one of those efforts I should not have attempted, because my reading tastes had changed in that 30-year span. (Duuuh).

Even though it is snowing out there and the wind is howling, spring is on the way. Today was the Taft Family Farm Maple Sugaring Open House. Here are Bruce and Tim Taft watching the sap steam into syrup. You can just see the door of the 'furnace' -- they literally stuff it with four/five foot lengths of 6in diameter logs or sawn pieces. We share a border with them and they rent our big field down by the river for haying, sizeable* milk op. there too -- think of them when you eat Cabot cheddar.

18. mys MI5 ****1/2
Real Tigers Mick Herron

No need to say much -- Herron makes the point that these days half of what goes on in government, covert or overt, is to do with covering your ass or trying to get someone else in big trouble so you can replace them. Even if the primary mission is to protect civilians from terrorism within the country, it is overwhelmed by all the political manoeuvering and shenanigans. So. A tangled plot here and really, the plot is not the thing: What consoles the reader, of course, are the relationships between the unwilling members of Slough House and their response when Catherine Standish, Lamb's (recovering) alcoholic secretary is kidnapped. And with that the story unfolds. ****1/2

(This is the first in my '100Club' reads -- books that have languished for so long on my TBR shelves that Something Had To Be Done. 50 pages (the Pearl rule) isn't always enough as I often find a book grabs me a little further on, plus I want to 'live' with the book long enough to count it as a book read, so I've settled on 100 pages and then a quick look through the rest.)

19. DNF / 100Club
Refinements of Love Sarah Booth Conroy

After reading The Education of Henry Adams and some biographical material, I also read about his wife Clover (Marian Hooper) and Henry's treatment of her papers and photographs after her death--(all destroyed as well as the other weird stuff like the creepy memorial by St. Gaudens). Around her death hovers a mystery. Was it suicide or was it, perhaps, murder? Having stumbled on this novel at a secondhand store, I could not resist. Conroy carefully unfolds her own imaginative rendering of the last couple of months of Clover's life: her decaying and suffocating marriage, her realization that her husband does not love her at all except as she reflects well on him, her childlessness which adds to her struggle to hold on to a sense of her own identity and self worth. She describes the setting--the house they rent down the street from the house HH Richardson is building for them in Washington D.C. and describes their friends, social life, and surroundings down to what is almost minutia--all of it, I have no doubt, absolutely researched and correct, even to placement of paintings on the walls. However, the story, while Conroy writes well, is slowed down by so much 'side' information. All the reader really wants to know is whodunnit, of course, but the book is not shaped as a mystery but as a laying out of all the events preceding . . and no spoilers from me. Someone who wants to get an amazing picture of D.C. at that moment in time, 1885, might be enthralled. I was interested, but not enthralled. The book deserves three stars for the work that went into it, but not as a work of fiction, except perhaps at the very end *** (but really a ** as a novel).

Is there still a rule that you have to reach 150 messages to change to a new thread? It looks as if there is . . .

I might just post some reflections and other tidbits then, see if I can get close.

One thing I didn't mention about the Refinements of Love book, for example, is that rellies of my Spousal Unit figure in it, albeit minorly.
There is an Emily Beale, friend of the woman, Elizabeth Cameron, who might have been a sort of mistress to Adams (however unlikely that seems once you've read about him) who would be, let me see, a sister of the SU's g-g-g-mother. I had no idea she would figure so it was a bit of a surprise, sent me haring off to look at various (dusty) genealogical tomes around and about the house to confirm.

Back to add that Henry Adams is one of those people who, the more you read/learn about him, the harder it is to like him at all.

>108 sibylline: Hi Lucy, thought I would delurk to say the "rule" has always been that one needs 150 posts to be able to continue to a new thread. Are you fed up with this one? I'll help a bit by chattering... *grin*

In other biblio-talk, I have on my talk thread been reviewing the Burren mysteries as I go through them.
I'm so glad you gave Cora Harrison a shout out. I review the books on the book page, too, but tend to pull my punches compared to Talk threads.

I'm reading the Andrea Penrose series as an interleaved set of mysteries with Harrison's. Hers are also historical mysteries, but set in the Regency era.
I like her characterizations but am becoming lukewarm about her writing style. It is like no one is copy-editing them and Penrose's overuse of the same words all the time drives down my enjoyment.
Despite this negativity, I am drawn to her plotting most of the time and will seek out Book 5 when I've had a holiday from reading the series.

Hello for a +1

>112 SandyAMcPherson: Heavy word repetition annoys me too.

>112 SandyAMcPherson: and >113 quondame: I agree wholeheartedly!

And thanks for the boost. I think I need to let it be what it is.

Have to try out some Penrose. Wonder if they are on audio. Repetition bothers me less when listening (usually I'm doing things, so half the time I have to repeat bits!)

Also helping out in moving the messages along. You can always start a new thread--you will just not get the automatic forwarding for people who have starred your thread.

>114 sibylline: Only two of the Wrexford & Sloan novels appear in my access to our Overdrive as audio versions.



Maybe your library access will provide book 1. As always, I advise the series is best enjoyed if one reads the first few books in order. Later, I think the stories can be read a little mixed in publication.

>115 ronincats: I like the automatic forwarding feature, I can wait -- just do two threads for the year.

>116 SandyAMcPherson: I found the first two for free with my Audible subscription! So I can try them out!

20.
The Guncle Steven Rowley ***

For me an uneven read, so that it took me a long time to finish, never with enthusiasm. Here's the thing: If the protagonist, Patrick, had been an ordinary gay guy who took charge of his brother's children, I would have been fine. The fact that he was a 'media personality' who'd been a star on some sit-com, lived in Palm Springs, etc. just irked me throughout. It took a story that could have been resonant into la-la land and also made me suspicious that the author was reaching for a contract with the industry. The second problem was that I didn't really buy the agenda with the children and the flights into 'wisdom'. The best parts, really, were the mess with the sister and the visit to the brother ( to a facility where he was getting off the medications he'd gotten addicted to while his wife was dying). I got very engaged in those segments and several other places only to be dumped into the side story of Patrick's continuing grief over the death of his partner, the need to restart his career etc. The fact that his brother having married Patrick's own best friend from college didn't ring true somehow either, felt like an excuse for the shape of the novel. So what am I saying, good bits here and there in a somehow overly contrived work. ***

Book group read or I would never have chosen it . . .

21. mys *****
Ink Black Heart Robert Galbraith

Impressive and engaging. The impressive part is the entwining of contemporary cyber-uses and abuses into a wild and truly absorbing plot with the ever-engaging characters in Strike and Ellacott's Detective Agency . . . and their ever-maddening dance of those tweo around one another. But I found myself really thinking about that -- the difficulties inherent in not trying to prevent the person(s) you love put themselves in mortal danger (even if you have no problem putting yourself in mortal danger). I did kind of figure it out, but didn't have all the details. Lovely -- if you've liked the others, you will enjoy. *****

Waving hello and doing my bit to get you closer to the magic #150!

Sorry The Guncle wasn't better for you. I generally enjoyed it even when it was a bit over the top, but hey, how boring would it be if we all loved the same things? :)

Hope you have a great weekend!

Hi Lucy! Sticking my neck out after a long period of lurking here. I'm glad you enjoyed the latest Cormoran Strike. I stopped reading after book 3 because the books just kept getting longer and longer (for some reason this didn't bother me with HP but I just couldn't do it again). However ... the hubs and I have been loving the CB Strike TV series. I like the portrayals of both Strike and Robin. We've just started the Lethal White episodes and the "ever-maddening dance" as you called it is in full swing. It's currently available on HBO.

Have a great day!

22. art forgery, history ww2
The Forger's Spell Edward Dolnick

Pulled this off my languishing bookshelf figuring I would read at least 100 pages and 'see' -- but I read right on to the end. The book is well organized and written and very interesting in several areas: technical, historical, and psychological. To forge a Vermeer, which is what this Dutch artist did, is a tremendously complicated technical undertaking, from finding and preparing a canvas to applying paints that won't instantly reveal themselves to be recent, to the final addition of authentic 'craquelure' on the outer surface at the very end. The historical piece entwines with the psychological, but Dolnick spends time in the beginning describing some of the figures from Goering to the experts of that time before moving the story into the psychological, that is, our propensity to see what we expect and want to see. He compares forgers to magicians, but there is more at work here too, which was a confluence of what was happening at the time, the artist himself, as well as the fact that in Vermeer, there was, as it were, an accident just waiting to happen. Everyone wanted more Vermeers, and vanMeegeren, the painter was happy to oblige.
Overall Dolnick offers another fascinating facet of the incredible story of what went on with artworks during ww2, the efforts to protect, the efforts to acquire--the heroes, the villains and the . . . something-in-betweens. It was, in fact, the efforts made to protect and hide the 'fake' Vermeers, the lack of scrutiny due to the war that allowed the scam to last as long as it did (barely was the war over when the questions begun being asked). ***1/2

23. sf dystopic
Through the Heart Richard Grant

Grant is a favourite of mine, one of those solidly interesting writers whose interests and stories lie a little off the beaten path, and yes, include having imbibed a number of substances at one time or another. So, I've kind of hoarded a few of his novels for a rainy day, (although the sun has been shining the whole time I read this latest). In this offering Grant explores a dystopic Earth, ruined by yours truly, but people get along in various ways. Kem, sixteen, is sold by his father to 'the Oasis' for some tools to fix his wagon -- a behemoth machine on treads that roams about what appears to be the ravaged midwest. Kem works first in the galley, then down in the engines, but he is soon brought to the notice of the higher-ups as he is somehow unusual (he has no clue about that, but really, it is simply that he has the kind of curiosity that gets cats in trouble and he's smart). He needs to figure what the Oasis is all about, what it's purpose is, and that gets him in heaps of trouble. The first half of the book was gripping, the second was interesting, but a bit convoluted, which is a thing that happens with Grant in some of his books. Put simply, some continue to fiddle with nature in ways that harm, some are pushing back (while a goodly portion just concentrate on getting along and surviving, like Kem's father in his wagon.) The mantra from Kem's friend Sander is to realize that nothing on the Oasis (or anywhere else, for that matter) is what it seems to be, in fact, usually the opposite. That's all you need to know. Perhaps not his best, but still worthy. ***1/2

>120 bell7: I enjoyed The Guncle well enough -- and as you say, we simply don't all like the same things!

>121 lauralkeet: Yes! We've loved the Strike on the teev! Also Slow Horses --both the books and the teev rendering.

>122 sibylline: I looked at the photo section in that book and was *gob*smack*ed anyone not visually impaired fell for these awful, lumpen daubs as Vermeers! Not a great book, but very telling abour Humanity's desire to be decieved.

>125 richardderus: I had the same reaction -- I always look at the pictures right away in any nf book -- they were so hideous! A proper Vermeer always has a lightness, a hint of humor or joy about life, or something. Really it was the war that kept van Meegeren from being ferreted out. And, in a way, justice for Goering.

>126 sibylline: Vermeer's surfaces glow, his light suffuses the subjects with a magical sense of three-dimensionality, and the topics he paints are living, breathing people engaged in real-life activities. Landscapes and rooms are imbued with a sense of immanence, of the existence of a divine spark in each element.

Not one of those qualities is present in those awful forgeries.

>127 richardderus: Very very well said.

24. urb fantasy ***1/2
Juniper Wiles and the Ghost Girls Charles de Lint

de Lint sure can move a story along at a swift clip. I'm still a fan, though less, perhaps, than I was twenty years ago or whenever it was I fell into de Lint's orbit. He has such an easy writing style and matter-of-fact way of drawing the denizens of other worlds and other modalities into his made up Earthly city of Newford. In this one, Juniper (who I am guessing made her first appearance in a novel I haven't yet stumbled across) is working with a shape-shifter Joe (who I vaguely remember from another story) to help the newly formed Newford Paranormal Investigation Unit solve the problem of a weird find, a box they can't open but is dangerous. Juniper comes in and sees seven ghosts and can talk with them. The box appears to connected to their ghosts who were murdered by someone . . . there's also an alternate Hogwarts and some wizards and some gender shifting, lots going on! As a writer of the Elizabeth Bowen school (she once stated she has trouble moving characters from one room to the other) I am in awe of just plain story-telling and de Lint is a master.***1/2

>129 sibylline: I do love Charles de Lint, especially the middle Newford novels, though my over the top favorite is the first work of his I read the novella Riding Shotgun. I've read both Juniper Wiles books, and it's fun to revisit Newford.

>130 quondame: Remind me which was his first book? I bet I've read it too.

>131 sibylline: The first book listed for him is The Riddle of the Wren. I think Newford first showed up in the short stories in Dreams Underfoot with the first Newford novel being either The Dreaming Place or Memory and Dream which is much more in the positive Newford-ian spirit. The first Juniper Wiles is Juniper Wiles. Some of his Samuel M. Key books take place in Newford.

Oh my goodness! I had completely forgotten de Lint, and I used to love him. I'll bet I have some unread ones squirreled away, but I don't know anything about Newford or Juniper Wiles.

>132 quondame: Oh yes! The Riddle of the Wren. I might have to search the bookshelves to reread that one.

>133 LizzieD: de Lint is steadily entertaining, even if I feel, sometimes, the books are too chatty or something. A hint of depth but not quite getting there most of the time? The prose just slips along, you know? Still, very very entertaining.

25. fiction irish, classic irish *****
Castle Rackrent Maria Edgeworth

Oh what a delicious, funny and painful (as all truly deep humor is) book: a portrait, written in the early 19th century, about a series of negligent (understatement) Anglo-Irish landowners over a series of generations (supposedly in the 18th century, but . . . ) as narrated by the faithful Thady Quirk, estate agent to most of them as he lives into his 90's. Rack renting was the lamentable practice of, essentially, leasing a parcel of land to a person who would then rent said parcel out in smaller landholdings at madly overrated prices and without any restrictions or responsibilities toward the land or for those who cultivated it. Everyone made money except the folks at the bottom, who barely ended up scratching out a living and who had no security, no reason either than to practice farming at its worst (for the hope of quickest and surest profit) and in this practice lie the origins and reason for the famine. No, Edgeworth didn't prophecy the famine, how could she, and yet, a modern reader cannot help feel awe at her acuity and the sheer genius. I plan to listen to this in a recorded book form pronto -- I had to read it aloud in a pretend Irish accent, to get the full glory. *****

26. ***** fiction mongolia, fiction buddhism
When I'm Gone Look for Me in the East Quan Barry

A marvelous and rewarding read! Barry evidently is deeply engaged in Buddhist thought and practice as well as having an (understandable!) geographical love affair with Mongolia. A quest tale, the search for a new reincarnated being, a tulku, known as the One For Whom the Sky Never Darkens. The narrator is Chuluun, a young monk on the verge of taking his final vows and the group that goes on the search has two other 'tulku' although one, Chuluun's twin, Mun, who had also been named as the Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness has taken his vows as a child (without much choice) but walked out later, as a young adult. The story alternates with ease between their story, to the history of Buddhism in Mongolia, and to Chuluun's internal struggle about whether he will not take his final vows and will leave. So it is a quest story, a journey story, complex and beautifully put together and written. *****

27. sf near future *****
The Ministry for the Future Kim Stanley Robinson

Robinson is a supremely rational and thoughtful being (unlike most, including me) and has collected the data, dreamed up solutions to, and woven together a portrait of the essentially infinite problems that we, humans, in the holocene have set in motion on this planet and what, if anything we can do about it. Robinson imagines the scenario where a group of extremely clever, determined and optimistic people, tasked by the Paris Accords to do what can be done to alter the current trajectory set to work: to lower carbon rates in the atmosphere, return half the earth to wildlife (to set wildlife on a par with ourselves as having a right to exist) to slow the melting of the Antarctic ice cap and manage the Arctic lack of ice. Robinson, in order to 'humanize' what is essentially a non-fiction presentation of things we can do lashes a few individual stories into the text: a young man, Frank May, who survives the trigger incident of a heat wave in India that kills 20 million people in a few days eventually connecting his story in Zurich with Mary Murphy the head of the Ministry for the Future which is based in that city.
This is less novel and more science fiction non-fiction and, yeah, a bit clunky, but don't let that stop you. Robinson is too smart and too passionate in his profound hope that humans can come together to prevent worldwide catastrophe to ignore. Robinson skitters past a few issues that I expect would loom large in reality (the religious fanatics) and simplifies, but that's not really the point: all the ideas he puts forward, from solar and wind-powered 'clipper ships' and airships huge and beautiful and fast to carbon coins, to pumping the water out from underneath the ice in Antarctica are all do-able, the only thing lacking, are the will and the common sense, alas. *****

28. ♬ mys 19th
Who Cries for the Lost? C.S. Harris

The 18th offering in this mystery series and I am still enthralled. Both the plots and the characters are complex and endlessly intriguing. Do I need to say anything else? Oh yes, I am listening to these and the reader has an unusual voice and a slow delivery that I also find suits the work perfectly. ****

>138 sibylline: I'm still on the wait list for this one. Glad to hear that "the plots and the characters are complex and endlessly intriguing".

I'd like to get back to St. Cyr, not to mention Sir John! I'm not sure what is stopping me.

>137 sibylline: I appreciate your appreciation for KSR and his imagination. I sometimes don't love his prose, but always enjoy his stories.

29. urb fantasy ***
Zoo City Lauren Beukes

Hard to know what to say -- the short comment would be too egregiously violent for me. The long answer would ask a question -- how did a book this violent win the Arthur C. Clarke award? I know the answer. The setting is Johannesburg and the premise is truly excellent: people who have murdered acquire an animal familiar and a magical ability (just one, and some are very small). The novel is also well put together and solidly written. But toward the end chaotic violence that doesn't quite feel authentically grown out of the story erupts and I didn't really even speed read what was there, just kind of checked who died, who survived and called it a day. Of interest is that Beukes does not specifically call this or that person white or black or asian, a bit of info, a description of some feature, some little tidbit clues you in. In the area of the city where the 'zoo' folks live with their familiars what matters is surviving and that transcends human fixation with skin color. *** (difficult, not that fun, but interesting)

30. sf ***1/2
Ancestral Nights Elizabeth Bear

Salvagers, two human and one AI who work together come across a mysterious ship about which they received a tip. However, they make a horrific discovery and everything starts to go wrong. All three belong to the Synarchy, a collective of space-faring beings who have agreed to cooperate for the sake of peace in the galaxy. There are however some constraints that have to be implemented to make this work, known as 'right-minding'. Not all space-farers are interested in being part of the collectiv. Haimey, the main character, has experienced, due to an early life experience, a massive right-minding and is soon caught up in more complexities about her past than she could ever have imagined, along with being challenged by one of the non-conforming pirates. I like that Bear accepts that humans are not very good at getting along with either themselves or others and that the Synarchy really does seem to be about as benevolent a form for organizing such disparate civilizations can be. Much happens, a big saga here, I'm not going to go into all of it, but the book while not wildly original is solid and satisfies. ***1/2

>143 sibylline: I didn't hate it rating it a ***, but I felt that it's form and length didn't match it's story very well.

31.
Son of Avonar Carol Berg

A reread from five years ago. At the time I liked it enough to collect the next three books, but of course I'd forgotten too much to go into Book 2 without stopping back here. It didn't help that I neglected to write even a few lines of commentary. A young man appears out of nowhere being chased by officials more or less into the arms of the banished Seri, a woman who refused a king and married a man who was then revealed to be a 'sorcerer' (really he is a healer) and brutally tortured and killed. She shelters the lad even though he is bad-tempered and can't talk. It soon becomes clear that this lad is involved in the dark happenings in the kingdom and so on and so forth. On a second reading I found myself impatient with the flashbacks to the time around the death of the husband, Karon, the healer. The story in the present drew me in. Second time around can be tough, revealing awkwardness and scaffolding that isn't apparent as you are caught up in the first reading. I will continue into book 2 and we shall see. ***1/2

>145 sibylline: I know I've read Son of Avonar twice without experiencing issues with the back story, but while I like Carol Berg, I have her books on my bedroom re-read shelf, the overwrought emotions only suit my reading mood occasionally.

>146 quondame: That's helpful -- I think the first person in the first book grated. I've come to feel first person is the trickiest of all. Only a few writers can pull it off.

I liked some another series, a three-parter -- Transformation, Revelation Restoration (no clue what order, just grabbing the titles out of my head) which is why I started the Avonars.

>147 sibylline: Transformation, Revelation, Restoration. My favorites of hers, the ones I really want more of are Lighthouse Duet and Sanctuary Duet which share a world and leave most of the non-personal problems unaddressed.

I'll have to look for those!

>147 sibylline: Hi Lucy, I sure agree with your insight ("I've come to feel first person is the trickiest of all. Only a few writers can pull it off.")
I generally feel less engaged when I'm reading a novel written in this format.

I read the first two Cate Glass fantasies in her Chimera series (An Illusion of Thieves and A Conjuring of Assassins. Those were written in a style more to my liking (is it third-person narration? I am hazy on assigning this nomenclature). I found the first novel very intriguing but then the story descended into a muddle in book 2 and very much felt repetitive.

I think it was Susan (quondame) who told me that Carol Berg ws writing these novels under a different pseudonym. Does anyone know if her other series is anything like how she writes other series as C-Berg (other than the Bridge of D'Arnath)?

>151 sibylline: I think there are many reasons why first person is tricky, not the least of which is the 'trustworthy narrator' factor. My master thesis was on Nick in The Great Gatsby and it is one of those bottomless pit subjets. Also, the present tense is wildly tempting to inexperienced young writers especially, rarely done at all well. Thirdly, person is the most excluding of choices for the reader. For readers who like to lose themselves in the main character the "I" tends to keep the reader at a distance. I am sure there are many more reasons, but those are some. As a writer i sometimes find writing a story in the first person brings details into focus, makes everything feel immediate, but I almost ALWAYS switch to third, totally fascinated by how that changes everything for the better!

I will have to look into finding out who Carol Berg is!

32. ***** sf time travel
Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel

Hints and whispers of other writers as wildly different as David Mitchell and Jodi Taylor and such movies as The Matrix (itself based on earlier ideas in the sf genre) filter through, but Mandel makes her own ever-original way through the twisted mind-(unprintable) of time travel. Mandel doesn't waste a single word or comma, even very incidental characters are in focus (although, really, almost no one is incidental which is the whole point). A sub-theme to the mysteries of what reality is made of in the universe, and one that never ceases to grip Mandel is the threat of annihilation from pandemics and features here as well. This would be a good book for someone leery of the genre of speculative fiction to read, because the point isn't 'science' or technology, but to thoughtfully take on the bigger implications of ethical behaviour, uses of technology etcetera. Mandel has a gift too for tackling tough things without flinching but without plunging the reader into despair. *****

>150 SandyAMcPherson: The books written under Carol Berg are less YA and all have protagonists that go through horrendous dark, violent experiences. But while they change they are not destroyed.

>152 sibylline: Maybe I'll take a closer look at this one.

>153 quondame: Yeah.. No. Not likely to choose Carol Berg novels.
Thanks for the insight.

33. contemp fic ****1/2
Lessons in Chemistry Bonnie Garmus

Deft is the word that comes to mind. Garmus takes on the 1950's and the 'message' that blanketed women post-war that they were needed in one place only--the home (which includes the bed as well as the chores and children) and not good for much else, thank you.
Along comes Elizabeth Zott who is smart as well as eye-poppingly beautiful and ambitious to solve the mysteries of chemistry, the origin of life, in fact. Much (mostly men) gets in her way and again and again despite her determination, she cannot make any headway. She does, however (to her dismay, initially) fall in love and the game changes. I really can't say much more except that the novel does not follow a predictable course, things happen and as this is not, ultimately a gloomy tragic and pessimistic novel, work out in their own way. Once I was into it, I couldn't put it down. ****1/2

Hmmm. I'm more likely to read the Mandel than the Garmus, but I've seen that Garmus around. Thanks for both reviews, Lucy.

>136 sibylline: For reasons unknown, I missed this review of Quan Barry's book on my last visit to your thread. What an intriguing book! I added it to my WL at our local PL branch.

>138 sibylline: I've now read and reviewed Who Cries for the Lost?. I agree that the story was complex "and endlessly intriguing". I usually burn out in reading a series and move on. Elly Griffiths' Ruth G books and CS Harris' St. Cyr stories are the only ones in my memory of having read all the stories to date.

>155 sibylline: I think maybe I should take another run at reading this story. I abandoned it about 50 pages in. Clearly I should persevere, having been similarly treated as useless in research.

34. MI5 *****
Spook Street Mick Herron

Here's something to think on - around the 1800's the Home Office was split into Home and Foreign. Home had a finger everything that needed doing within the Empire, so the boundaries were still somewhat blurry, about what was in which brief, no matter. In the FO there were something like 25 people, the Secretary and two Under-Secretaries and a bunch of minions to do paperwork, clerks mostly. They were housed in the former tennis court (!!!!!) in the Whitehall Palace, still extant. In the HO there were many many more and they were housed in something like an old church, but the point is beyond having folded a police force into the organization the HO had nothing even remotely resembling MI5 and the FO didn't use spies so there was no hint of anything like an MI6 either. Not officially anyway and nothing traceable, so likely nothing.
The French? They already did have a spy network.

What has this to do with the Herron ouevre (and all who have gone before Le Carré & etc)? Nothing really, just a thing to marvel over. In this offering River is worried about his grandfather, a former big time spook, who raised him and is now sinking into dementia. He's convinced someone is planning to kill him. Then, something does happen that seems to prove he was right. At the same time a pointless explosion in a shopping center kills around 250 people, including youths coming to a flash mob dance/singing scene. Are the two connected?

Herron's delicious characters enduring their tedious lives in Slough House, and yet? Even though these are broken people; they are a mess and they do stupid things, they are also disaster magnets and they constantly surprise, not unlike Clouseau but different. There is the enigma that is Jackson Lamb for one thing. And one begins to think that the slow horses got where they are because . . . they are naive, yes, but have ethical underpinnings that betray them. This is the best of the best in spy writing and pretty darn great for many other elements: dialogue, humour, characters, you name it, it's here. *****

35. MI5 ****1/2
London Rules Mick Herron

A barbarous killing in a rural village and the rumors begin to fly about as they always do. In London political manoeuvering is going on either to hold onto a new post or achieve one long coveted (those of you who have read the series know exactly who that is). At Slough House things are plodding along much as usual except that many of the 'residents' old and new have a lot to work through, from grief to why they ended up here and why they stay. All except Roddy Ho, of course, who continues to regard himself as Fabulousness Personified. He has a girlfriend. Too good to be true, right? ****1/2

36. memoir ****1/2
Old in Art School Nell Painter

Painter, having reached some invisible turning point in her career as an historian (and an excellent and acclaimed one she is) wants to go to art school. Wants to follow the road less travelled but yearned for. She is 64 as she enters a bachelor's art major program at Rutgers a train ride from her home in New Jersey. From the start she feels--old. Also black, but mostly that is overshadowed by her sense that the young students can barely 'see' her. And yes, right along with that is the problem that faces the black artist. Do you represent everyone whose skin announces an African origin somewhere in your past, or do you follow your own weird? Either way your damned by some and ignored by the greater art world. Add to that, (as if the first two weren't enough) the 'anti-academic' stance of the art world, of the teachers towards people like herself, an acclaimed historian. Most believe that for Painter to become an Artist artist is beyond her reach, possibly by temperament and most probably by her years of historical training, research, methodology. Just. Can't. Also some of those teachers are wont to say, "You can't draw. You can't paint." What they really mean, she discovers is that they don't believe she can let go of her historical (academic) perspective and give herself up to- to- well that is just it, to what? The what is a paradigm shift (an expression I am loathe to use but is apt here) more than turning off all her past training she has to discover the power of the images themselves apart from anything coming from outside, drawing into herself the new ideas and approaches, then working and working until her unconscious (or something) does the final break, accessing everything that is boiling around inside her, until something new and authentic happens that can, when it works, speak directly to another person at many levels. That's art making. That's where I think she ends up. She uses all her knowledge and life wisdom but does not DIRECT it. Big difference. Being a writer and a logical person at heart, she writes her story for us step by step, so you do make the little leaps with her. Just because you've read my comments, they are not enough, the book is worth reading on your own especially if you are older and contemplating a sideways move. I learned a great deal about any number of black painters about whom I knew nothing and spent much time happily on the internet, looking looking looking.
****1/2

>160 sibylline: Nell's book is so insighful, isn't it? I enjoyed your perspective and yes, everyone who is interested in this aspect of embarking on a different path later in life can find inspiration in the book.
I bought her book and re-read it several times. It was not exactly 'my truth' but it certainly resonated as a non-artist professional entering the art world. I passed my book on to an older woman of indigenous background (Métis) because she was so interested in how I was very different from the trained artists (if I can say 'trained') in our community.

I was 'old' when I joined a formal artists' organization (after retiring) and fortunately, met with so much enthusiastic interest.
I'd kept up my art, sometimes with a great many months between those studio days. Grad school and art classes sometimes worked because I was in the company of like-minded people, all of us creative in different ways.
I think I wouldn't have managed as well had I not been associated with a racially- and culturally-diverse community in my town.

37. MI5 *****
Joe Country Mick Herron

This latest, #6 will explode any remaining fantasies you might be harboring about the life of the dudes exiled to Slough House. For one, even characters you like won't necessarily make it, leaving an open-ended question whether they really are screw-ups or were vulnerable in some way or other that landed them in this setting. Even though there are such painful losses, I admire what Herron is putting out there. Who knows what the motivation is to go into this line of work but Herron explores in each character the different ways the essential conflict of the work both attracts and tears a person in two: the never-more-alive-than-when-in-mortal-danger thing versus a genuine desire to do something useful hopefully for the good of the many. All of the characters share this need, this duality, and in some it causes stepping over the line into delusion, into committing evil deeds 'for the good etc.) There is killing that can't be avoided and killing that sometimes must be done and black and white is rare. For others, the effort to cling to something ethical (Lamb) cannot be done without paying the price. I can't say anything without a little spoiling, but I don't even think that's the point with this book, it leads inexorably to a situation at the end that is chilling -- no not apocalyptic put that out of your mind -- more in the way of demonstrating how the allure of the ideas along the-evil-deeds-for-the-good-of spectrum come into being, tempt, and co-opt. This idea is one that I have no doubt is in the back of the minds of some any number of powerful and insanely rich living people, but is unequivocally dangerous, immoral and, in the way of evil born of hubris, gonna fail big-time but not without equally big-time casualties. Bravo, Herron. *****

38. contemp fic 100 club
The Lincoln Highway Amor Towles

Sadly, no matter how often I tried, I could not become engaged. Just about everything felt, I guess, too obvious? The failed farm, the four boys, one a true 'gent', one innocent, one sociopathic, and one probably autistic or something, oh and the lovely girl and the quest. And a cool car. I immediately knew what each character would get up to and how it would all turn out. I loved A Gentleman in Moscow so much that I tried and tried. I read 100 pages and then slowly thumbed through the rest. And don't mind me, you might love it. Towles is a fine writer. no rating

I agree about *Gentleman* and Towles's writing, but even as I agreed with you (without knowing that your reaction would happen), I read on to the end. I've spent my time on worse.

I want to be reading The Covenant of Water, but I've started the second Rockton mystery instead. I hope I don't have to binge all 8 novels right now. *Water* is good, but I'm not sure it's as good as *Cutting/Stone*.

38. contemp(ish) fiction ***1/2
Crusoe's Daughter Jane Gardam

Polly Flint is deposited by her father, a sea captain who then promptly dies at sea, in the Yellow House on marshes on the east coast of Yorkshire, not far from Hartlepool, with her two aunts, a permanent houseguest and a rather grim servant, Alice. She finds her place there, isolated and rather stern, but not quite bleak, passion however eccentrically directed abounds. Polly becomes obsessed, early, with the story of Robinson Crusoe which makes sense as you get to know her. Neighbors, a love interest or two, a benign uncle-ish fellow float through, first one war, then the second, and modernization and changes, and Polly grows up and then grows old. A memoir novel, not told in the first person, wisely, but quiet and like all Gardam's work, a balancing act between internal workings of the mind and desires and betrayals of the body. Didn't grab hold of me as others of her novels have, but no complaints. ***1/2

40. MI5 *****

So very little one can say without spoiling! Someone long lost resurfaces, the slow horses have been betrayed by not only their own, the uber-plot takes a very dark turn . . . how can one stop reading? *****

I really enjoyed watching the recent TV series of Mick Herron’s books and seeing your reviews I definitely have to get around to reading some as well.

41. MI5 *****
Bad Actors Mick Herron

Schemes are afoot to centralize power into the PM's orbit, under the control of one Sparrow, but more, creating a precedent for the PM to appoint his or her own cronies to posts that would manage everything including MI5 (and 6, I am sure). One part includes deposing 'the Red Queen' (guess who!). Large and dastardly, and actually seriously bad for democratic governance should the scheme succeed. So naturally too the Slough House crew is in the thick of things.

Last Herron for now, but looking forward eagerly to the next one, of course! *****