SusanJ's categories for 2025 - Thread 2

Welcome to the second thread for my 2025 Category Challenge.

I’m Susan and I live in London, where I am retired. I finished work at the end of September 2024. I thought this would mean I could read the entire output of multiple famous authors through the ages but, five months into retirement, it hasn't worked out like that. But maybe it still will :-)

My categories this year are inspired by English or British monarchs.

King Charles III is our newest monarch, so this category is for books published in 2025. I did really well with this category in 2024 and I want to keep up with new things as well as reading all the goodness on my Kindle. Here is the King looking pretty new himself.



1. The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
2. Hunted by Abir Mukherjee
3. Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
4. Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth by Tom Burgis
5. Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
6. The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History by Laurence Rees

Queen Victoria represents Victorian literature. This category is a repeat of 2024, as I still want to read more Victorian literature. I love participating in Victober, which is a whole month devoted to Victorian literature.



1. The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley

I’m also interested in reading some works published earlier than the Victorian period. So this is my pre-Victorian category, represented by George I although it can include books written even earlier.



1. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
2. Oroonoko by Aphra Behn

We’ve had more kings called Henry than any other name* so King Henry VIII represents series reads.



*There were also eight Edwards, but the last one didn’t even make it as far as his coronation, so the Henrys win for seeing the job through to the end.

1. Crusader by Ben Kane
2. Candy Coated Murder by Kathleen Suzette
3. Pink Lemonade Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
4. Survival of the Fritters by Ginger Bolton
5. The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
6. Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh
7. The Drowned City by K J Maitland
8. Saving 6 by Chloe Walsh
9. Traitor in the Ice by K J Maitland
10. Rivers of Treason by K J Maitland
11. In Too Deep by Andrew Child and Lee Child
12. The Iron Way by Tim Leach
13. The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee
14. The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
15. The Spider's Web by Peter Tremayne
16. When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith
17. A Plague of Serpents by K J Maitland
18. Valley of the Shadow by Peter Tremayne

Athelstan is regarded as the first English king, so he represents historical reads.



1. Gwen and Art are Not In Love by Lex Croucher
2. Murder in the Family by Jeremy Josephs
3. Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
4. The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym by Paula Byrne
5. The Shadow King by Harry Sidebottom
6. The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale
7. Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans
8. The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness
9. The King's Mother by Annie Garthwaite
10. The Monstrous Misses Mai by Van Hoang
11. How Dear is Life by Henry Wlliamson
12. Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford
13. The Report by Jessica Francis Kane
14. The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland
15. The Book of Days by Francesca Kay
16. The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman
17. Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
18. A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh
19. A Winter War by Tim Leach
20. The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
21. Munichs by David Peace
22. The Players by Minette Walters
23. Clear by Carys Davies
24. The Catchers by Xan Brooks
25. A Fox Under My Cloak by Henry Williamson
26. The Eagle and the Hart by Helen Castor
27. A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell
28. The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
29. Mother Country: A Story of Love and Lies by Monique Charlesworth

King Arthur is a legend (maybe) so he represents my fantasy category.



1. The Sword of Kaigen by M L Wang
2. Malice by John Gwynne
3. The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

Charles II established the Royal Society, and represents my science and nature category.



1. Fire Weather by John Vaillant
2. Vet at the End of the Earth by Jonathan Hollins
3. My Life in Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
4. A City on Mars by Kelly and Zac Weinersmith
5. Supremacy by Parmy Olson
6. Pox Romana by Colin Elliott
7. Mountains of Fire: The Secret Lives of Volcanoes by Clive Oppenheimer
8. Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan C Slaght

Alfred the Great lived an exciting life, which included fighting off Vikings. He represents my thrillers category.



1. The Locked Door by Freida McFadden
2. The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
3. The Teacher by Freida McFadden
4. My Husband The Murderer by Charlotte Barnes
5. When You Disappeared by John Marrs
6. The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
7. The Girl in the Basement by Eoin Dempsey
8. The Crash by Freida McFadden
9. I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes
10. Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath
11. Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena
12. His and Hers by Alice Feeney
13. The Guest List by Lucy Foley
14. The Fury by Alex Michaelides
15. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

Monarchs have always been fond of freebies, and this picture of Elizabeth I (known as the Ditchley portrait), was a gift to her from Sir Henry Lee, intended to make up for a falling out between them. If you look at the bottom of it, you can see she is standing on Oxfordshire, which is where Sir Henry lived (at Ditchley) This is going to be my category for freebies, and I have many thanks to all the Kindle deals.

George III was the king whose book collection started the British Library, and he represents my hard copy books. I don’t have many due to lack of space, but I do want to make some progress with them.

Bonus category: Other things

Queen Elizabeth II lived through a time of tremendous change and amazing invention (Antibiotics! Television! The moon landings! Concorde! Broadband!). This category is for books that don’t fit into the other categories, as so much of her reign was about things that were new and different.



1. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee
2. Black Ghosts by Noo Saro-Wiwa
3. Get Carman by Karen Phillipps
4. Conspiracy Theory: The Story of an Idea by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey
5. Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac
6. Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan
7. Orbital by Samantha Harvey
8. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
9. Vassal State: How America Runs Britain by Angus Hanton
10. The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions by Dan Davies
11. Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan

I'm currently reading The Falcons of Fire and Ice as well as the NF books I borrowed from the library last week. And I started Packing For Mars last night, which is a library ebook.

This thread is now open!

Happy new thread

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! Looking forward to more great books and reviews!

>14 lowelibrary: Thanks April!

>15 MissWatson: Thanks Birgit :-)

>16 NinieB: Thank you, Ninie! I hope I can read faster :-)

Today I have been Out. We finally have some blue sky in London, even though it's still very cold and it wasn't one of my best ideas to walk over Tower Bridge without a hat, or at least my hood up. That wind was coming straight from somewhere very cold indeed. I went to Bird & Blend in Borough Market for some bougie tea (Red Velvet, Strawberry + Nutella and Mellow Yellow, which is a blend of turmeric and pineapple) and then over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's to get the tube out to Stratford where I had errands to run at Westfield. I am going out with Super-Fit Friend on Friday and it involves an hour of walking along the river, which will be fast, so I need to build up my stamina before then :-)

Then I came back and emailed the building's managing agents to see whether they can identify the man who has registered his car at my address. I'm getting his parking tickets now. I think he might have moved into the building and clicked the wrong flat number on the DVLA website (or got the wrong postcode). If it's not fixed I'll eventually get bailiffs, or whoever they send for unpaid tickets. I've also sent the DVLA a message on Twitter asking how I can get the address unlinked from his car. This *may* be "sliding into their DMs", which I have read about but never actually done.

I'm about half-way through The Falcons of Fire and Ice, which is really good. I can't remember now why I gave it up the first time. But now I need to have a bit of a tidy-up. There is laundry to fold, as always.

Happy new one, Susan! Your new teas sound good. I love that you are prepping to walk with Super-Fit friend.

So weird about the car registered to your address. What is "sliding into their DMs"?

>18 Crazymamie: Hello Mamie! I think sliding into someone's DMs is when you send them a direct message on Twitter, instead of just tweeting something everyone can see. I'm not sure how it's "sliding", though. But there are many things I don't understand.

Anyway, the DVLA replied with details of what I have to do. So if the managing agents can't identify this man, I will do that. But ideally he should contact them himself, and make the change. It's easy enough to make a mistake if you're not paying attention - websites here have an "address finder" which starts with putting in the postcode. Each UK postcode covers about ten houses or, in my case, all 23 flats in my building (but just the one building). Once you type the postcode, there's then a drop-down menu where you pick the flat. He might have been aiming to click the flat number above or below mine, and just clicked mine by mistake. But the people next door aren't new. I looked up the name on Facebook and there's a man listed as "Lives in London" but the first picture is him with a gun so I'm not going upstairs to see if he lives there. Alternatively, he might have got the postcode wrong and be living in the same flat number as me but another building in my development.

Super-Fit Friend says Friday's walk will take about an hour at a "leisurely pace" but that term means different things to each of us. People win races going slower than her "leisurely pace" (I may exaggerate, but not by much). Fortunately there's lunch at the end, at the Swiss Bakery in Ham (what a perfect place to have it).

>19 susanj67: Oh, I see. I know nothing about Twitter, so you know more than I do.

Seems like the easiest thing would be for you to give them his name since you are the one getting his tickets. So interesting about the postcodes. Good thinking about not contacting him directly.

Hoping you survive the "leisurely pace". I agree that Ham is the perfect place for the Swiss Bakery to be!!

>20 Crazymamie: Mamie, yes, that would be the easiest thing to do but as it is a government department, this is what I have to do instead:

"Please send a signed letter with the following information:

A brief explanation that you are receiving fines or correspondence for a vehicle you have never owned
Vehicle registration number and subject of enquiry at the top of the letter
Make and model of the vehicle (if known)
Your full name and address, including postcode."

And please allow six weeks for a reply. This is why I hope someone can identify him and then he can change his own record. Ultimately it's nothing to do with me and it will be his car that gets clamped for non-payment of fines when they catch up with him, but I feel a bit mean just letting it play out. Many years ago, just after I arrived in the UK, I had to go and get a National Insurance number (which is like a social security number). The woman behind the counter wouldn't let me fill out the form, apparently because my handwriting wouldn't have been good enough, so she filled it out. At the time I lived at number 8A of the street concerned. My NI number never came. I rang up to enquire about it and they said it had gone to number 84, which is what was written on the form (grrrr). I never did get the card with the number on it, although they did tell me the number. I wish someone at number 84 had returned it.

>21 susanj67: I figured it was something like that. What a pain.

Sorry about the National Insurance number debacle. Someone at number 84 SHOULD have returned it. I once lost my social security card and had to apply for a new one, and that is a very big deal. You only get three in total apparently for your lifetime.

>22 Crazymamie: Yes, it is an annoying hassle for something that isn't my fault and nothing to do with me. But if I have to open the envelope with the penalty notice in it, I may as well have a look around the carpark downstairs to see if the car is there. The managing agents don't recognise the name, but he could have moved in with a friend or girlfriend and not be the point of contact for his flat. Now I have to wonder what happens if you lose your social security card four times?!!

Today I've been to the Great Mughals exhibition at the V&A, which is excellent. https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/great-mughals-art-architecture-opulence And, as I mentioned in my thread last year, the perfect book to read before going to this is Courting India, which I noticed they were selling in the exhibition shop.

Stand by for my next post, which is the Walter Scott prize longlist...

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction announced its 2025 longlist today, and it is here: https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/the-2025-prize/the-2025-longlist/

The books are:

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
The Catchers by Xan Brooks
Mother Naked by Glen James Brown
Clear by Carys Davies
The Mare by Angharad Hampshire
The Book of Days by Francesca Kay
The First Friend by Malcolm Knox
Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon
A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
Munichs by David Peace
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

I think I'll reserve all of them :-)

ETA: Amazingly the system let me do that, but I couldn't find any sign of The Mare (which is on Amazon) or The First Friend (which isn't even on Amazon). The Book of Days was available at the elibrary, so I've got that one already. Now I must turn some pages in the things I already have, ready for the deluge.

>18 Crazymamie: >19 susanj67: Super tangential, but I just wanted to note that "sliding into (one's) DMs" is a phrase that often has sexual/romantic connotations -- you're not just sending a direct message (DM), but you're sending it for specifically flirtatious purposes. So I'd say "sending a DM" if that's all you mean. :)

Your parking tickets saga reminds me of my last house in London, which was a newbuild. Prior to being my house, it was a dodgy garage which was then demolished. Unfortunately the dodgy garage owner didn't bother cancelling his porn mag subscriptions or update the DVLA, so I got some very unsavoury post through the door alongside the (very many) parking tickets, and eventually a visit from the bailiffs. Luckily they could at least use their eyes and see that I wasn't him (although why they couldn't have used their eyes to look at council tax records to see who lived there, I'm not entirely sure).

After I moved to Glasgow I lived in a flat, and a couple of Poles moved to the opposite flat. I was really delighted, as I'm sure you can imagine, to start receiving their council tax bills as well as my own - I kept posting them through their door, and eventually managed to collar the woman and she agreed to me phoning the council to get it changed. The council were initially pretty hostile - why wasn't she phoning them herself, they asked, before I could get a word in edgeways to tell them her English wasn't that great so I was phoning on her behalf with her permission. Why the council tax people at the council couldn't check the council tax records to see there was already someone paying council tax at that address I don't know. Anyway, that got sorted, but then I got a notice from the police stuck to my door, addressed to the Polish guy, saying they'd visited and he wasn't in (of course he wasn't, he didn't live in my flat!). Eventually the police came back when I was in and I was able to point out that clearly I wasn't Mr Polish Man (but I did whisper that he was in the opposite flat) and that was that. No idea what that was all about, but again, why the polis couldn't have checked the council tax records (which by this point were actually correct) before hammering on my door I don't know.

Quite apart from bins and potholes, it really made me wonder why I pay my council tax, when the presumably easy-to-access information about council tax payers never seems to be consulted.

>24 susanj67:

I just looked through the books listed and have added Mother Naked and Clear to my wishlist. I might also add Munichs. I did read a very good NF book Manchester’s Finest about that disaster a few years ago.

>25 christina_reads: Ah, well then I definitely wasn't sliding into the DVLA's DMs :-) I noticed that Elon Musk was accused of sliding into someone's DMs the other day, and now there's (allegedly) another little Musk.

>26 Jackie_K: Oh dear! What a palaver! As you say, why don't the authorities check their records?! We are constantly told the government knows everything about us, but it never seems to occur to anyone to look at it. I did get a visit from the police a couple of years after I bought my flat, asking for Mr so-and-so, and I recognised the name as the man who used to live here (two years earlier!). It was a car-related thing too. But then I had to prove he wasn't here, or I wasn't him - eventually I showed them my passport and they went away. But I'd been on the council tax roll for two years by then...

>27 Zozette: Some of them look really good, don't they?!

The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland

Unlike this author's other books, which are set in England, this one is set in Portugal at the time of the Inquisition and also in Iceland. I liked both of those settings, but there is a lot of supernatural stuff in this one which I didn't like so much. I'd recommend Company of Liars for a newbie to Maitland's writing.

>24 susanj67: Thanks for the Walter Scott longlist - will copy to my own thread.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction announced its 2025 longlist today, and it is here: https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/the-2025-prize/the-2025-longlist/

I have The Heart in Winter on Kindle, and have borrowed Clear, The Safekeep and Glorious Exploits as library ebooks but had to return them - expect I will have to look for them later - I have some catch up reading to do too. I have a couple of Francesca Kay's other books.

Ooh a list!

I loved Glorious Exploits (although it took me a while to get going) but don't even recognise most of the rest, although I've heard a lot about Clear.

You are nicer than me re the parking tickets. I would "return to sender" with "not known at this address". I think I would also be assuming it was a scam not an honest mistake. Hope dvla can sort it quickly.

>30 elkiedee: It does look like a good list, and I hope I can make my way through them all before the eventual winner.

>31 charl08: I do love a list! I've decided to try and read everything on this longlist and everything on the Bailiie Gifford longlist when it comes out, but that seems to be later in the year.

I just went over to the library to pick up a couple of reserves and the new Elly Griffiths book was in the new books display. "YAY!" I did not say out loud, even though I was thinking it. But it's just as well I found it, because I logged into my library account when I got home to cancel the reserve, and the book had disappeared from my list (and not because I borrowed it - the library tech isn't that sophisticated). But some of the books I reserved yesterday are already showing as "in transit", so now I'm scared.

>32 susanj67: The Frozen People should at least be a quick read. I've reserved some books that are still "on order" - including a new book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but I'm holding off on even looking up prize list books and other books that sound interesting, especially non fiction - at least until I finish current and very overdue books by Mary Gabriel and Barbara Kingsolver. I've realised that I have had review ecopies of at least 3 titles on the Walter Scott list via Netgalley.

>33 elkiedee: Yes, I'm hoping to read The Frozen People on Saturday, so I can return it to the library on Sunday when I go over there for a local history talk. In the meantime I'm beaming at it :-)

Katie Lumsden has a good video up about the longlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC-BY47X1qc&t=11s
She says that The First Friend is published in Australia and isn't out in the UK, so I don't feel so hopeless for being unable to find it.

Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh

The word "addictive" is thrown around a lot, but this series really is addictive. I've read this 800-page book in under 24 hours. It the follow-up to Binding 13, and starts in the same scene that ends that book. The "13" in question is Johnny Kavanagh, who wears the number 13 rugby jersey for his team at an elite private school in Cork. He meets Shannon Lynch, a new pupil from a very troubled family, and the two books are their story.

The books are about teens (although I think that both Johnny and Shannon behave like older young adults - maybe in their early 20s) but they are not *for* teens. Shannon's home life is filled with sickening violence and neglect, and the author doesn't spare the details. But there is comic relief from Johnny's best friend, Gibsie, and Johnny's parents also play a big role in this book.

The next duology features Shannon's brother, Joey, and I've just reserved the first one. According to a fandom wiki, there are 12 books planned for this series, and I hope that's true.

Happy new one, Susan.
Oh dear, what a mess in this car story. I hope for your sake that this problem is solved soon. Things like this are so nerdy.

>36 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara! I'm sure the mystery car will be sorted out :-)



Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China by Noo Saro-Wiwa

In this book, the author visited China just before the pandemic, to meet Africans living there and learn about their lives. Most of the people in the book are Nigerian, as is the author (although she was brought up in the UK and lives here). It seemed to be a pretty marginal existence, as China has rules about who can own businesses and get citizenship, and those rules don't seem to include foreigners of any sort. A lot of the Africans she heard about lived under the radar, hoping not to get caught up in police raids, and unable to travel much because plane and train travel require travellers to show their passports, which would highlight expired visas. Her research was completed before Covid, but a postscript says that there was a huge crackdown on African immigrants once the pandemic hit, with a lot of blame for the virus being put on them, and many went back to Africa and never returned.

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths

This is the new Elly Griffiths novel, and it's the first in a new series about police officer Ali Dawson. And it's SO GOOD! I loved it. I'm not going to say much about it, because going in not knowing a lot makes it all the more fun, but it's mostly set in east London and I loved that too. I am impatiently waiting for the next instalment. This was published in 2025 so it's my first 2025 read.

>38 susanj67: I am taking a BB for this one, even though it will not be released here until July, I have placed a hold with the library for it.

>39 lowelibrary: It's definitely worth a library hold!

Another overcast day here, with rain later. My tube line is closed *again* so I'm not going out. I want to make some progress with the library books. Packing For Mars is not what I thought it was going to be, so that's a bit of a plod. It's interesting, but it's more about the history of research so far than questions about the future (maybe those will come). It was also written pre-Elon, it seems, back in the olden days before the madness started. So I think I'll read a novel today instead :-)

>38 susanj67: - I keep hearing good things about this author, so I'll take a BB for this.

>41 dudes22: Her best-known series is the Ruth Galloway one, which starts with The Crossing Places, and if you like that then there's a whole (finished) series to binge :-) There's also the Brighton Mysteries, starting with The Zig Zag Girl. They're all excellent reads!

I've read nearly half of The Book of Days this morning, but my tablet is charging now due to Disorganisation, so I've switched to The Bone Chests, which I have in hard copy. I wish the binding wasn't so tight, but I'll have to get over myself.

>42 susanj67: - I think that's the one I've heard of most. I thought I'd start with a new series rather than try to catch up with another one. At least now.

>42 susanj67: and >43 dudes22: There is also a connected series of books - 4 so far - set in Sussex and London - a police detective, Harbinder Kaur, connects all of them but isn't the only major character in all, and I would say she's not as central in the most recent book, which returns to other characters in book #2. I think that the first wasn't intentionally written as the first in a new series.

And there is a historical series for children featuring Justice Jones, a student at a Sussex boarding school.

>38 susanj67:

It has been years since I have read a book by Elly Griffiths. I did read the first 8 or 9 book in the Ruth Galloway series. I have The Frozen People to my wishlist as it is probably easy to start a new series than to pop back into a series after being away for so long.

Also added Black Ghosts to my wishlist as it sounds like an 8nteresting book.

>43 dudes22: Yes, that makes sense but I do love a good binge through a series :-)

>44 elkiedee: What did you think of The Frozen People, Luci?

>45 Zozette: It's a great start to a new series, definitely!



The Book of Days by Francesca Kay

This is one of the longlisted books for the Walter Scott prize, and it was available at the elibrary when I looked it up, so I thought that was a sign I should borrow it immediately. And it's very good! The Book of Days in the title is a diary kept by a young woman whose much older husband is dying in 1546/47. But before he dies, he wants a chantry added to the local church, and a fancy tomb for himself and his wives and children. The story follows the construction of the chantry but also the things going on in the household, which has an old-fashioned priest, lots of Latin in the church services and a problematic statue...I doubt I would have found this had it not been longlisted, so I'm very glad it was, and I want to look up the author's other books.

Today, though, I'm going to try and finish The Bone Chests, which is an engaging read. It's not quite what I thought it was going to be about (the archaeological work on the chests) - it's more of a history of the Anglo-Saxons of the area, but it's very good.

It's warm enough here to have the balcony door open a little bit, which is amazing. I've already been over to the library and the supermarket and it's only 10.32, so I am a model of efficiency.

The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons by Cat Jarman

The bone chests in the title of this book are chests of human remains in Winchester Cathedral that were looted by Parliamentarian troops during the English Civil War, with the contents scattered around the cathedral. Attempts were made to put the bones back in the appropriate chests, and in 2012 archaeologists opened them up and started to investigate the contents again, using modern methods including DNA and isotope analysis. I thought the book was going to be about the investigation, but mostly it wasn't, although there were some references to the methods used by the researchers. Instead, it was more of a history of the Anglo-Saxons and their attempts to (a) rule and (b) fight off the Vikings. I thought it was really interesting, even if it's difficult to keep all the names straight. I definitely want to read the author's other book, River Kings, which I've had wishlisted at the elibrary for ages. Maybe I could find a hard copy.

>46 susanj67: I enjoyed The Frozen People and hope to write a proper review of it some time soon.

>38 susanj67: I am ready to try Ellys Griffiths again. I read the whole Ruth Galloway series and loved it. I started another, maybe a stand alone? It didn't work for me then, so I will jump into this new series with The Frozen People since both you and >48 elkiedee: are enthused about it. Thanks for the BB

>47 susanj67: That sounds very exciting!

>48 elkiedee: I wonder how long it will be till the next one.

>49 beebeereads: I hope you enjoy it!

>50 MissWatson: Yes, it was good :-) The Anglo-Saxons lived very action-packed lives. I was surprised at some of the kings ruling both here and back at home (at the same time). I don't think I knew that. But the author did include my favourite recently-acquired fact, about Harald Bluetooth's name being used for modern bluetooth technology and the bluetooth symbol being a rune.



Get Carman by Karen Phillipps

This is a look at some of George Carman QC's most famous cases. And the early part of the book is three chapters from the autobiography he was writing before he died, but they are *terrible*. The chapters about the cases are better, but could have done with more editing. Carman was best-known in his later career as a libel lawyer, and he was greatly feared for his excellent cross-examination and his appeal to juries (we no longer have juries in most libel cases in England, but that's a 21st-century change). I knew about most of the libel cases but didn't realise how much other work he had done before becoming famous for media law. If there's a paperback edition, all the nice comments about Mohamed Fayed will no doubt be deleted.

>51 susanj67: That’s very interesting about Harald Bluetooth!

>52 Charon07: I think it's my favourite piece of historical trivia :-)

I started Who Owns The Moon? earlier, but realised I didn't really care, so now I've finished (or finished with) all four of the books I borrowed at the book club library a couple of weeks ago and they can go back when I'm over that way on Thursday. I've started The Golden Fool, so I don't forget what's happening in the series. I have a library hard copy, which is pretty icky but I've seen worse. I should be focusing on Packing for Mars, but I'm not.

Happy new thread, Susan - not sure how I missed that!

>47 susanj67: I have River Kings, but need to actually pick it up and read.

Feeling particularly enthusiastic about early histories, as the library has delivered me a copy of the Viking history Ember of the Hands and it is just lovely, beautiful illustrations and accessibly written. Just finished a chapter on the carved runic messages they've found (somehow) on old pieces of bone under a former Viking harbour building. Including one telling a guy it was time to come home from the pub!

>54 Helenliz: Thanks Helen!

>55 charl08: I've discovered that my other library has an e copy of River Kings available to borrow, but I need to finish some other things. Ember of the Hands looks amazing, and it sounds like a beautiful book. I'm trying to finish Children of Ash and Elm before I reserve it, and now I no longer have KU I might actually get to some of my own books! On the subject of the olden days, did you see the article about Suetonius making the bestseller list after 2,000 years? :-)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/feb/24/book-sex-scandals-roman-emperors-b...

Once again it is raining, but I've been down to the big Tesco, so now I can stay at home for the rest of the day. I predict pages will be turned, but I'm also tidying up the study (alcove) and re-purposing it now I no longer have to sit there all day.

>56 susanj67: Regarding Suetonius: Ha! Who said history was boring?

>57 MissWatson: Definitely not me!

In exciting news this morning, I've seen details of an event at the British Library, which is a festival of women crime writers. It's on Saturday 29 March, and there is an online option as well as an in-person one. Details here:

https://www.seetickets.com/event/deadly-the-festival-of-women-writing-crime/brit...

(This is the official ticket site, as the Library has still not recovered from the cyber attack and has outsourced its ticketing).

I went to the library to return four books and somehow borrowed six. I'm going backwards. But I found two of the Walter Scott nominees, including Glorious Exploits, for which there is a long waiting list at the other library. Now I'm waiting for a talk to start at Dr Johnson's House. I must stay away from the souvenir aspect unless they have bookmarks...

No souvenirs purchased, although I didn't look closely.

Library books:

Glorious Exploits
A Sign of Her Own
Paper Cage
Everyone Here is Lying
A Winter War
Conspiracy Theory: The Story of an Idea

But first I must finish Pox Romana, which is my last remaining e library book.

I will be interested in your opinion of Pox Romana as it is on my wishlist.

>61 Zozette: It's very good!



Pox Romana by Colin Elliott

This book looks at the Antonine Plague (165 - 180 AD) and how it affected the Roman empire. It's really well done. There's a lot we still don't know about the plague, and one of the biggest mysteries is what the illness was. Smallpox was assumed to be responsible for a long time, but now seems to have been discounted. Measles is a possibility, but we may never know (although in 2011 scientists identified the Justinianic Plague as bubonic plague, so it's possible that material will still be found that can be tested). The author looks at how the plague started and spread, and what its effects were. The title of the book is a play on "Pax Romana", a golden age of the empire, as the plague occurred during that time and seems to be partially responsible for ending it. While there are few resources that mention it directly, historians have found lots of other types of records that show a drop in economic activity during the plague years, and a mysterious vanishing of populations from some places. Recommended for anyone who likes history or science (one expert quoted in the book was a "Disease historian" which sounds like a fascinating job), and it was written post-Covid, so the author compares and contrasts this plague with Covid and other outbreaks to show its deadliness.

One quibble is with the Libby version of this book, which has tiny print and no ability to scale the text size, other than by expanding it with a reverse pinch, which then gets rid of the easy page turning. Publishers really should be better at this stuff in 2025! So if that's going to annoy you, maybe try the Kindle version as I just downloaded a sample to test that, and the text features work perfectly. Also, its only £1.98 in the UK store at the moment, which is a real bargain.

I am pleased you enjoyed Pox Romana, I will try to listen to it next month.

>63 Zozette: I think it would work well as an audiobook - there are quite a few chart and graphs but the text was clear about what they meant.

Burning question of the day - all opinions welcome: If you were a jar of Marmite, and you lived in a small London flat, where would you hide from your owner? (Not the fridge).

>64 susanj67: Opened or unopened?

Opened: In the gap between the cooker and the cabinets or behind the fridge.
Unopened: At the back of a closet behind some old boots.

Don’t know about Marmite but I found my Vegemite in the bread box the other day. I asked my son why did he put it there and he answered me ‘wasn’t me, I never put anything away’.

Finally managed to be back and follow your thread. You have had some great reading! I am really into your car story and am highly curious how it is going to end.

>65 Charon07: Eventually I found it upside down in the cupboard, hiding behind some packets of pasta. That's why I couldn't see the yellow lid. I need to organise that cupboard...

>66 Zozette: Ha! I bet he's been waiting years to say that :-)

>67 Tallulah_Rose: Recent books have been pretty good!

Today we have heavy fog in London, although the BBC says it's "sunny". Not yet it isn't. I started my new stack of books yesterday but I want to finish The Golden Fool before Monday so I can take it back when I'm over at Canary Wharf, and I've got quite a bit more to go.

I've just seen the Modern Cockney Festival 2025 being talked about on Sky News. Here's the events page: https://moderncockneyfestival.co.uk/modern-cockney-festival-2025/ Some of the events are online.

The Golden Fool by Robin Hobb

This is book 2 in the Tawny Man trilogy, which is the second trilogy featuring FitzChivalry Farseer. This book starts straight after the end of book 1, and once again there's a lot of running around and even a visit from some Outislanders. We also see a deputation from the Bingtown Traders, which makes me want to reread the Liveships trilogy. But instead I'll get book 3 in this trilogy as soon as the library books are down to a manageable number, and make sure I read it while I still remember what happened in this one.

Conspiracy Theory: The Story of an Idea by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey

This short book is an excellent look at conspiracy theories, and how they take hold and ruin society. But it's probably not a great read for right now, living as we do in Clown World, and knowing that we have another three years and ten months of it. It's just too depressing and enraging and then depressing all over again.

In other (not unrelated) news, President Zelenskyy arrived unexpectedly in the UK yesterday, which made it all the nicer that there was a big crowd outside Downing Street, cheering him on. He is here for a European summit about the war, so today will be a busy one for the news crews. The Clown in Chief seems to think that European wars aren't his problem any more because of the "ocean" between the US and Europe. But he's looking the wrong way. Only the very narrow Bering Strait separates the US from Russia, and if I were Putin I'd invade Alaska, because apparently there is a "deal" to be done in every situation, so why not?

Glad the marmite reappeared. Although you've reminded me we're out of Bovril...

The cockney festival looks great! When we were kids used to see a couple, a Pearly King and Queen, at all the local fairs. I only remembered this looking at old photos: completely took it for granted as "normal" (as kids do of course). I haven't seen anyone dress up this way for years, but as my sister pointed out that they (or their successors) probably still go to events, it's just we don't live "Down South" anymore!

Ed to fix spelling.

>71 susanj67: It's a horror story. Who'd have believed that the US would support Russia over the Ukraine? It's not even 6 weeks into the felon's term.

>73 pamelad: Yep, dystopia is here and now.

>72 charl08: I think I'll "attend" some of the online events at the festival. From time to time there are Pearly Kings and Queens on the local news here, but I've never seen one in person :-)

>73 pamelad: I can't believe any of it, right from "grab 'em by the *****" to now. I don't understand how he could have been elected even once, let alone twice. Our news today has multiple pictures of President Zelenskyy with the King, from yesterday's visit. That's world-class royal trolling :-)

>74 kac522: So depressing. I've got into the habit of having rolling news on all day, mostly muted, but I'm stopping it from today. Every weekday afternoon is basically just live rambling from the Oval Office, and I think the UK media needs to do better, and stop covering it so much.



Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon

This is another of the Walter Scott longlisted books. It's set in Syracuse, in 412 BC, after the Athenians have invaded Sicily. But the Syracusans fought back, and won. The remaining Athenian soldiers are imprisoned in a quarry, and the locals visit them, a bit like a zoo. The book's two main characters, unemployed potters, decide to put on a performance of Medea, using the Athenians as their actors. And then the Athenians mention a *new* play by Euripides...It's a fairly crazy plot but I enjoyed it.

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath

"In a small New Zealand town, a kidnapping is everyone's business" says the cover of this book, so I had to get it. It's an excellent police procedural/thriller, but it felt like reading about a foreign country much of the time. It really brought home to me how long I've been gone. The main character is Lorraine Henry, a file clerk in a small-town police station, worried about two cases involving missing children. And then her great-nephew disappears. The author says he's working on a new book about Lorraine, which I hope is ready very soon :-)

>76 susanj67: Ooh, a New Zealand mystery thriller! And my library has it as an ebook! BB happily taken.

>77 NinieB: Excellent news about the library! I am available for translation of any strange terms, although I noticed a few "foreign" words creeping into it - "lounge-room", which is Australian (in NZ it is just "lounge") and "dish soap", which we would call "washing-up liquid" or "detergent". But otherwise it was pretty authentic. There were "bikkies" (biscuits = cookies) and "lollies" (sweets) and various other delights.

A Sign of Her Own by Sarah Marsh

This is another Walter Scott nominee, about a young deaf woman and her work with Alexander Graham Bell. It didn't work for me. I thought it was too long and I couldn't understand all the technical details.



Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena

I rattled through this in a few hours, because once you start a Shari Lapena you really just have to keep going until it's all worked out. This one involves a missing child, but everyone involved has secrets. I'm not sure it would work in a UK setting because the detectives were trying to work out where all the people had been at the relevant time. In the UK they'd just pull the footage from the number-plate recognition cameras and the Ring doorbells and it would all be clear very quickly :-) But then we do have a *lot* of cameras here.

This afternoon I've started A Winter War, and all I knew about it when I picked it up at the library was that it's set in AD173, in the area of the Danube, and it's the first in a trilogy (I saw the third one in the new books display, which made me look for the first one (of course)). The library has them all, which is very exciting. It's about the Sarmatian people, who I'd never heard of, but they fought the Romans (like everyone else). On page 6 it says "A few years before, the gods had cursed the Romans with a plague that had piled the corpse fires high...", and that was the Antonine plague, which I read about for the first time just last week. A strange co-incidence!

It's the last of the six books I borrowed last week, so I am on track to be able to return them on Friday, when I'm going over for another talk. But I've taken a break to tidy up one of the balconies because I really wanted to get that done and be able to exercise out there. I'm on day 40 of an attempt to do some YouTube exercise videos every day for 100 days, and it's now warm enough to go outside. I'm inspired by Oldest Nephew, who did the "prison cell workout" in his bedroom during lockdown, to keep fit. It's possible to do a lot in quite a small space if you choose the routines carefully, but I haven't so far done any jumping as (a) there are people downstairs and (b) I'm quite feeble. But outside I can jump, or even skip. I thought I'd get a skipping rope this morning when I went to Decathlon for some heavier weights (get me!) but there was a bewildering selection and I didn't really understand what they were all for. In a truly ironic situation for one of the laziest people on earth, the country's biggest Decathlon shop is just two stops from me on the tube. It must be like Disneyland for people who do lots of sports.

>80 susanj67: Your exercise challenge is impressive....you go girl!

Taking some BB's from your recent reads: >76 susanj67:, >79 susanj67: I'm in the mood for mystery/thrillers right now.

>81 beebeereads: Thank you! I hope you enjoy the thrillers :-)



A Winter War by Tim Leach

This is the first in an adventure series about the Sarmatian people, who lived to the east of the Danube in the far-off olden days. It's a great read, and I can't wait to get to the next one once I've finished a few other things (a constant refrain...). One of the things I liked most about it was the female characters, who played leading roles alongside the male "hero" of the series. So often these books are just men, men and more men, but not this one. My new library has the other two in hard copy but I've also just seen they're available as ebooks immediately, which is going to present a challenge.

Well, I took my library books back but somehow I have five more:

The Players by Minette Walters (LT suggests a Scrabble dictionary for this title)
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Otherlands by Thomas Halliday - from a display about science and nature
Mountains of Fire by Clive Oppenheimer - ditto
Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed by Lizzie Dearden. I've already started this one and it's going to enrage me, but that's the subject-matter, not the book itself.

I could have borrowed many more, but don't want to find myself staggering down to Fleet Street and having to get a cab home. Also, no-one has made any progress fitting more hours into the day, which is annoying. I've got three from the other library and an ebook. Oops.

Today's talk at the library was really good. The speaker is a historian who has just written Women in the Middle Ages: Illuminating the World of Peasants, Nuns, and Queens and she was so enthusiastic about the subject. I could have listened for a lot longer, but the talks are only an hour.

Ooh, I just put in an Amazon order and they gave me 30 days of Prime free! That seems very generous. What TV programmes should I look out for? I haven't had Prime for ages. I'll also have to check out Prime Reading, except that will be DANGEROUS.

Hello, Susan! Happy Friday.

Excellent restraint at the library and hooray for good library talk.

>84 susanj67: Most exciting. You should watch Reacher. They also have Joe Pickett, which I have not seen, but weren't you a fan of the books?

>85 Crazymamie: Hello Mamie! Thank you for the recommendations. I do indeed love Joe Pickett, and also Reacher :-)



The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden

Another Walter Scott nominee and I really liked this one, even if I wouldn't call 1961 "historical". The prize rules say that "historical" means more than 60 years ago, so it qualifies, but still. It might not be possible to start this without knowing about its premise, but if you can then do. It's an excellent read either way.

The library has got Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter in for me. It could be number 1 in a whole series of things Elon has destroyed. I'm a little bit tempted to go over tomorrow and get it, and return The Safekeep so the next person can have it.

Plotters: The UK Terrorists Who Failed by Lizzie Dearden

This is an excellent look at the current state of terrorism cases and investigations in the UK, focusing on terrorists who failed. There are an alarming number of them, and the author looks in detail at the people, what they tried to do and how they were caught. There's a lot more I'd like to say about it, but apparently complaining about immigrants butchering English children is "far-right", so I won't. But then again I'm already a "Nazi" for knowing how to use apostrophes and for saying men are not women, so maybe it wouldn't matter.

Prime TV update:

The Truth Illusion - very good documentary about the current conspiracy theory nonsense and the end of agreement about what is reality.

Against All Enemies - excellent documentary about the January 6 coup in Washington, and the rise of military veterans fighting against their own country.

There's certainly a lot to explore, but Joe Pickett is on Paramount here, so that's saved me a few hours.

In deliveries, I've now got a rice cooker, which is full of fabulous, to use a Mamie-ism (Hi Mamie!). I made porridge this morning and rice to go with chilli for lunch, and I'm now investigating rice cooker recipes for more goodness. It's the little 1-2 person one from Lakeland, which isn't as cute as the Yum Panda one, but it's £60 cheaper so there's that. I also bought one of the Piranha whirly whisk things, which blends and froths. I blame an info-mercial on the Food Network for that one. And some 2kg dumbbells arrived this morning, but they're not that exciting. More exciting is the arrival of a little stool from IKEA, which was supposedly delivered last night but which was not in the foyer when I went down to look. Mid-afternoon, however, the doorbell rang and a man appeared on the intercom, explaining that the box had been misdelivered to his building, and he was dropping it off. *So kind*. The box was enormous, looking like perhaps there was an entire set of patio furniture in it, but it was just the one stool, which I want for the balcony to put drinks/books etc on if I'm sitting out there. It folds up to come back inside and not get pooped on by the pigeons. Funnily enough, though, since I tidied up the balcony and cleaned and dismantled the old poop-magnet table, I haven't seen a single pigeon.

I started The Drowned City this morning, which is excellent. It's set in Bristol just after the tidal wave of 1607. And I've also started Otherlands, which looks promising. No, LT, it's not Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Fairies.

>84 susanj67: I second watching Reacher, but you should also check out Cross, based on the Alex Cross books by James Patterson

Just checking in to see what you've been reading. I'm so far behind on threads, but I'm really trying to catch up a bit.

Hello, Susan! Hooray for the new rice cooker - you have now met Birdy's favorite appliance. And Mamie-ism!!! I am honored. We have two rice cookers - I have a fancy one, and Birdy has our original cheap one that she LOVES. She keeps it in one of the garage cabinets and brings it in when she wants to make rice, which is at least once a week.

I had to google Piranha whirly whisk things, and it turns out I have three of them in different sizes. Daniel and Kaitlyn gave them to me as part of my Christmas gift. I did not know that's what they were called. Heh. Have you used yours yet? I have not.

Love the IKEA stool story! How nice of that man to drop it off.

>89 lowelibrary: Thanks April!

>90 thornton37814: Hello Lori! I'm reading as fast as I can, but the books keep coming...

>91 Crazymamie: Hello Mamie! I'm delighted to have met Birdy's favourite appliance. I've now used it three times and I love it. I'm going to use it to make my porridge every morning as it's so much easier than the microwave or stove-top and it's delicious. I'm a fan of the frozen microwave sachets of rice, but (a) they only have long-grain white rice and (b) Tesco doesn't always have them in stock, so now I don't have to worry about that. I bought some pudding rice today and I'm going to try rice pudding tomorrow :-) I haven't used the whisk yet as I haven't had anything that needs whisking, but I might have an omelette for lunch tomorrow, so I'll report back then.

I took The Safekeep back to the library and picked up:

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter
The Catchers - another Walter Scott nominee
Saving 6 - book 3 in the Boys of Tommen series

Eek.

Hunted by Abir Mukherjee

This is a brand new thriller by this author, perhaps better-known for his historical crime novels set in Calcutta in the 1920s. But this one is set today, as a presidential election is about to happen in the US, with candidates strangely like those in real life. Then a bomb goes off in a shopping mall in LA, and that leads to massive amounts of running around by a large cast of characters. It's really good, and if it doesn't end up as a multi-part thriller for one of the streaming services I'll be amazed :-)

The Drowned City by K J Maitland

This is the first in a series by Karen Maitland, whose other standalone books I have read and enjoyed. It's set at the time of the tidal wave that his the west coast of England in 1606 (or 1607 depending on which version of the calendar you use. The main character, Daniel Pursglove, is fished out of Newgate prison in London and sent to Bristol to try and work out whether the wave was caused by witchcraft or not, and to see whether he can find any trace of a man allegedly involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Karen Maitland's books are always so atmospheric - the filth, the squalor, the violence - it's all there and really well done. There are four books in the series so far, and books 1 - 3 are just £2.99 each for Kindle in the UK, which is an excellent price.

Whisk update: It's very good! I whisked up an omelette, and it turned out really well. You just push the handle down, and it comes back up by itself, so it's a simple movement and might be good for people wish wrist issues or other dexterity problems, as sometimes using an old-fashioned whisk can hurt because of that stirring motion.

I also tried rice pudding in the rice cooker, but I think that needs some work. I used one part short-grain rice to two parts milk, and it cooked well but a proper rice pudding should have less definition in the rice grains by the time it's done. Maybe I need to try it for a cycle and a half next time. Still delicious, though :-)

>94 susanj67: Have you read Company of liars? My library has a copy of it.
I read your reports on the new kitchen gadgets with interest. I have a very ordinary whisk, which is enough for omelettes.
We also got a rice cooker three weeks ago. I wouldn't have bought it, but my husband did. He needed it to cook ordinary dry rice 🫣. An ordinary pan is enough for me. We don't eat rice pudding, so I don't think we'll be using the rice cooker much. Maybe I'll see more recipes from you.

>95 Ameise1: Hi Barbara! Yes, I loved Company of Liars, which is set just as a scary new disease arrives in England in 1348. You might be surprised by the rice cooker :-) It's so easy, and you don't have to keep an eye on the stove while a saucepan is boiling away. But I really like the porridge too. And I think the porridge setting might also make a congee, maybe with some more time added.

>96 susanj67: Many thanks for the book tip, I've added it to my ever-growing 🫣 library wish list.
Re rice cooker: yes, I agree, once you put it on you can forget about it. Porridge isn't our thing either. I know it's a national dish in England. But I still can't make friends with it.

>97 Ameise1: Some of the fancy rice cookers have a "cake" setting, so that might be an option if yours has it :-)



Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

A bestselling author, a disappeared wife, a creepy Scottish island where strange things happen - this book has them all. *And* a lovely black Labrador called Columbo. I didn't guess any of the twists in this. It's blurbed by Harlan Coben as "her best book yet" but I think Daisy Darker still has the edge for me. But it was very good :-) And now it can go back to the library tomorrow and I only have seven library books left.

>98 susanj67: No, it isn't a fancy one, just a simple rice cooker.

>98 susanj67: Taking a BB for this one, I enjoy mysteries with unexpected twists.

Hello, Susan! Happy Wednesday.

>93 susanj67: I didn't realize he had a new one out, so thanks for that - onto The List it goes!

Hooray for the whisk being a good one. Especially since I have three of them in differing sizes. Heh.

We have never tried rice pudding, so I await further comments. I need to get more adventurous with my rice cooker.

>98 susanj67: I think I need to read this one just because of the dog named Columbo. And the creepy Scottish island.

>99 Ameise1: Maybe you could get your husband a book of dhal recipes, and he could make something to go with the rice :-)

>100 lowelibrary: It's very good!

>101 Crazymamie: Happy Wednesday, Mamie! The Mukherjee is brand new - published this year. I wonder whether it means he's not writing the Wyndham and Banerjee books any more, but I haven't investigated further. I tried the short-grain rice with milk on the "porridge" setting for rice pudding, but the grains didn't break down enough. I am going to try maybe adding some more liquid at the end of the porridge cycle and setting it going again. This time I just had a rice pudding with a bit of bite, but I stirred in some, um, fruit compote (OK it was blackcurrant jam) and it tasted good :-)

I went to book group, and took back two library books. I came home with four, though:

Cuckooland: Where The Rich Own The Truth by Tom Burgis
Orbital by Samantha Harvey - this is the next book group book
Clear by Carys Davies - a Walter Scott nominee
Munichs by David Peace - another Walter Scott nominee. I would *never* have picked up a book about footballers otherwise, but I started it at the library and it's excellent so far. It's about the 1958 plane crash that killed a lot of the Manchester United football team, who were known as the "Busby babes".

>102 susanj67: Oh I love lentils, but since I had a gout attack more than two years ago and had to completely change my diet, this product is unfortunately on the deep red list.

>103 Ameise1: Oh no! That must be frustrating.



Munichs by David Peace

As I said above, I would never have read this if it hadn't been on the Walter Scott longlist, but it's my favourite of the list so far. It's about the air crash in Munich in 1958 which killed a lot of the players in the Manchester United football team, who were known as "Busby's Babes" because they were such a young team. A number of journalists and officials travelling on the flight were also killed in the accident, and there were so many funerals in Manchester afterwards that flowers had to be imported from Holland because the UK ran out (the same thing happened when Princess Diana died in 1997).

I knew of the crash, but that was about it. I don't follow sports, and while I know a few famous names, that's the limit of my knowledge. So I came to the book not knowing the details of what had happened, or who survived (apart from Bobby Charlton).

When I read The Safekeep, set in the 1960s, I said that it didn't really seem like historical fiction. (As someone born in the 60s, I could just be in denial). But this book, set in 1958, really did read like historical fiction - 1958 seemed like a totally different time, and I thought that was interesting. While many of the players who died were very young, some of the club officials were born in the 1890s. And even the young players were born in the 1930s, and had "old" names, as did their wives. (I finally learned what people called "Nobby" are actually called - I thought it was just a nickname but in fact it comes from "Norbert").

There *is* a bit of football talk - bits of games in which x passes the ball to y who does something else with it etc, and I did skim those bits. But there's not too much, and most of the narrative is far more interesting.

The title of the book was a puzzle to me until I read the author's note at the end. "Munichs" is apparently something shouted at Manchester United by fans from rival clubs, reminding them of the disaster and mocking them. In the book, it was only a few weeks before fans from other clubs were shouting that it was a pity the whole team hadn't died. That sort of carry-on is one of the reasons I have no interest in sports, and it's a big thing in football here (see also: Hillsborough). The author thinks Manchester United fans should reclaim the slur, but admits that he's not a supporter and that the club's own fans take a different view. Still, it makes the title easy to find in an LT search, so there's that.

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac

This is an excellent read, which at times seems almost like a novel. So much craziness, so much drama. It looks at Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, and what happened after that. It was published last year but already seems a bit out of date, given what happened next...But it's a very good look at Twitter, and particularly the layoffs at the beginning of his tenure as CEO, and then the other cost-cutting.

>105 susanj67: Sounds interesting. My library has a copy of it, but I realised that it's a tome of over 600 pages. No idea when I will read it.

>104 susanj67:

I haven’t read that book but I did read Manchester’s Finest by David Hall a few years ago which is about the same plane crash. Like you I am not interested in sport but was taking part in Non-fiction November over on YouTube and one of the prompts was ‘Sport’ I groaned when that prompt was announced. It took a while to find a sports book I wanted to read. It was a terrible tragedy.

>106 Ameise1: The text is 436 pages in the hardback edition, and the rest is notes and an index. I read it all yesterday - it reads really fast.

>107 Zozette: Thank you for that title - my elibrary has it, and I'm going to get it once the current stack of books is finished (lol - they are never finished).

Today I'm going to start The Players, which is the new Minette Walters novel. I have the lovely hardback from the library.

The Players sounds interesting, look forward to hearing what you make of it.

>108 susanj67: Thank you for the clarification.

>109 elkiedee: Review below!

>110 Ameise1: :-)



The Players by Minette Walters

This is a follow-up to Walters' novel The Swift and the Harrier which I haven't read, but I didn't realise that when I borrowed it. I really wish publishers would make it clearer when a book is not a standalone novel. However, the first book was set during the Civil War and this one during and after the Monmouth Rebellion when the main character from the first book is much older, so it wasn't too bad. The focus of the book is the Assizes in the west Country, presided over by "Hanging Judge" Jeffreys, and attempts by some local people to try and save the convicted men from the worst type of death. There's also a romance :-) I'll look out for the first book, but I'm going to be good and not reserve it. I'm sure I'll find it in one of my libraries at some point.

Clear by Carys Davies

Another Walter Scott nominee, and I think the shortest of the list, at just 146 pages. It's set in the Orkney Islands during the clearances, and is about a man sent to evict the last remaining tenant on one of the islands. It was fine, but I generally like more story rather than short, elegant novels. Still, I'm whittling down the pile of library books. I took two back today and came home with just one - The Traitor in the Ice, which is the second one in the Karen Maitland series I mentioned above. It was right there on the shelf at the library, so what else could I do?

In other news, I've won a Ninja smoothie-maker in a competition, which is exciting. It will arrive shortly, according to a letter waiting for me this morning when I went downstairs. I'd better turn on the doorbell.

Congratulations 🥳🥳🥳

>113 Ameise1: Thank you :-)



Mountains of Fire: The Secret Lives of Volcanoes by Clive Oppenheimer

If you're looking for a science book, or something with "fire" in the title for one of your categories, this would be a great choice :-) The author is a volcanologist at Cambridge, and the book is partly about the history of several famous volcanoes and partly a memoir about his own career exploring them. I think I liked the historical parts the best.

Have you already made your first smoothie and if so, what kind?

Oh look at you with the high tech winnings! Do report back on the smoothie results.

>115 Ameise1: It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm going down to Tesco tomorrow and I'll have a look at their freezer packs of smoothie ingredients. I might also get some protein powder, as apparently the Young People add that to everything.

>116 Helenliz: Ha, yes, I will! This is the first time I've won something that isn't a cheque, and other possibilities included a musical biscuit tin or a fancy coaster from Liberty, so I'm pretty pleased (but TBH would have been very happy with the coaster).

>117 susanj67: Susan, I would never add extra protein. If you eat a varied diet, then you have everything your body needs. Anything over that can be counterproductive.

>118 Ameise1: I've been looking up "green smoothies" so I'll start with vegetables, at least :-)



Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth by Tom Burgis

This is the newest book by the author of Kleptopia but, as the man he writes about is suing just about everyone, I'll say no more than that.

Delighted to see that Suni and Butch got back safely last night. I watched the splashdown and it was amazing. And there were dolphins! It's such a shame that Elon's legacy will not be SpaceX and science.

Caledonian Road has arrived at the library, so I'll pick that up later. There's an online book group at the London Archives which discusses a London-y book every month, so if anyone's interested, the link is here: https://www.thelondonarchives.org/join-in/book-group (The next one is 9 April).

Saving 6 by Chloe Walsh

This is the third book in the series, and it's part 1 of Joey and Aoife's story. It starts before the events in books 1 and 2, and once again the characters behave "older" than their actual ages. But it's well done, although he terrible home life of the Lynch family is, if anything, even worse in this book than the earlier two.

Happy spring equinox to all the Northern hemisphere visitors :-) Today is 19C in London, which is amazing. I went over to Canary Wharf to return Saving 6 and pick up Caledonian Road. But it wasn't there. I checked my emails, which said it was up at Watney Market. So I got the DLR over there to retrieve it. I was pretty sure I hadn't asked for it to go to Watney Market, but apparently reserves can no longer be picked up from the Wharf until refurbishment works are complete (at some unspecified future date). That's maybe something they could have said in an email. Or even a little note on the reserve shelf, so people would be aware of it for the future. Instead it's on the website, which I never visit because all I need is the catalogue. That might be my last reserve for a while, although I have a few still waiting. I've changed the pickup location to Whitechapel as it's the main branch and full of exciting choices. Not that I need exciting choices, with the giant Kindle backlog.

Travelling around to pick up books can be annoying. But hey, you're retired and have time for trips 😉.

>123 Ameise1: Yes, very true! And it's sunny and warm for travelling around, too :-) After I got the book I went down to the supermarket, so I got quite a bit done and exceeded the daily fare cap, I think, so by the end I was travelling for free!

Still no sign of my prize, but I'm having fun with the rice cooker, so I don't need too much techie newness all at the same time. I inspected all the types of rice at Tesco today and worked out what to get next, but when there's just one of me it takes a while to use things up, so I'm going to do that first.

This afternoon I've been reading A Fox Under My Cloak, which I had to renew. But as it's come from reserve stock at Kingston and was originally published in 1955, I don't feel too bad. Lots of it is set in France during WWI and the fighting parts are very dull. I just need to push on through it.

>124 susanj67: Glad you enjoyed your trip. I also spent a few sunny, warm hours in the garden.
Makes sense to get to know one new gadget before the new one arrives. It also makes sense not to have too many similar ingredients at home. You can do a lot with very few varieties.

>125 Ameise1: Isn't it lovely to have some warm weather?!

Chaos in London today as Heathrow is closed all day, due to a fire last night in a local electricity substation. I can't remember this happening since the ash cloud in 2011, but that closed the whole of UK airspace. Heathrow has occasional issues due to snow or high winds, but it's never closed for an entire day. It's strangely peaceful outside, even where I am. The planes are still too high over me to make a big noise, but they're always there.

DHL sent a text this morning notifying me of a delivery, which is scheduled to come between 10.42 and 11.42. But the map shows the driver is just a few stops away, so it might be earlier. After it comes I'm going out to a talk at the library. I'm taking books back and *definitely not* borrowing any more. Unless I see something totally awesome.

I started The Catchers last night, which looks promising.

>126 susanj67: Yes, I love it when I can spend a lot of time in the garden. At the moment, the sky is covered in Sahara dust. Thomas, my husband, is cleaning the garden slabs with the pressure washer so that everything shines again. We have to do this once a year. We have lots of big old trees and when they lose their leaves in autumn and it's damp and foggy, the garden slabs soon look like a ‘lost place’.
Ah, DHL is delivering something today. Shall I guess if this could be your juicer?
Have fun in the library. Ha, last Monday I thought I was only going to the library to return books and pick up audio books. Far from it, of course a hardback book came home too.

>127 Ameise1: London had bad pollution yesterday, blamed on Europe (!) but maybe it was also the dust. The pressure-washing sounds very satisfying. Our caretaker was doing the front steps of the buildings yesterday and they look good.

The smoothie-maker just arrived - it's this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninja-QB3001UKS-Blender-Smoothie-Silver/dp/B07Q6GT98V/r...

It's a neat little machine, and I'm looking forward to trying it out once I get some ingredients.

The Heathrow story is the only one the news is covering, which will enrage all the people outside London who think (with some justification) that the news is skewed towards London stories all the time. Some flights are being diverted to other UK airports, but they're saying one ended up in *Iceland*. And there are some in Europe, with passengers stuck in transit lounges because they don't have visas for those countries. Someone asked why there was no back-up power supply, and the answer was that the fire destroyed that too. Sky is reporting that "investigators" say it was caused by discarded smoking materials, which seems bizarre. The official line is that they still haven't worked out the cause.

>126 susanj67: Saw the story about Heathrow on the news. It reminds me of 9/11 here in the states. We live in Chicago in a direct flight path for incoming flights into O'Hare airport and the noise of airplanes overhead is fairly constant, especially in the early evening. But after the WTC towers went down, all flights were stopped for several days. The lack of constant rumbling was almost eerie.

>129 kac522: Yes, it's very easy to ignore the noise when it's constant - it's just part of the background. But it's so quiet here now! I saw some tourists taking pictures of a plane when I was in the City earlier, but it was going to City Airport.

The fire is still burning a bit, according to a news conference I just saw, but it's mostly out. Heathrow has had to explain that they do have back-up power, but it's only for getting planes down safely in an emergency. They don't have enough to run the airport like a normal operation.

I've been out for about four hours, but the "discarded smoking materials" theory is no longer being repeated (as far as I can see), which makes me wonder where it came from in the first place.

I went to the talk at the library and managed not to borrow any more books, which is amazing given my poor impulse control in libraries.

>130 susanj67: managed not to borrow any more books, which is amazing given my poor impulse control in libraries...I'm way too familiar with that impulse...

>131 kac522: I reminded myself that I have two ebooks coming in via BorrowBox next week, and they have no "defer" option like Libby.

The planes are flying again. BA sent some flights out from 7pm last night, although they only announced it at 5pm, so I don't know how people were supposed to get to Heathrow for a 7pm departure. The train companies cancelled trains to Heathrow yesterday, and I'm not sure if the tube was going out that far. I'm in central London and a quick trip to Heathrow for me is 80 minutes (maybe a bit less now with the Elizabeth line). But Heathrow had spent all day saying DO NOT TRAVEL to the airport. I hope if people couldn't make it yesterday evening they weren't counted as missing their flights.

I've just done my exercise video for today, thinking I'd get it out of the way this morning, but now I feel like a nap. I think I have some way to go yet before exercise energises me. But this is the video I did - I really like this man and his cheery chat during the workouts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8FFtxF_pns

The Catchers by Xan Brooks

Another Walter Scott nominee, this time set in 1927 as three "song catchers" set out to discover new music in the southern US, while torrential rain starts the great flood of the Mississippi River. I liked this, but Munichs is still a the top of my list so far.

His and Hers by Alice Feeney

This is available via Prime Reading, so I couldn't help myself. It's my third book by this author, and it has three narrators. But who is the killer whose chapters are in italics? This was good, but not better than Daisy Darker (also available as a Prime Reading book).

Overcast and a bit misty this morning, but it's still early. I'm going to start Caledonian Road as it's very long.

Looking forward to your thoughts about Caledonian Road.

>136 Ameise1: It was very good!



Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan

Wow. What a novel! Very long, and with gazillions of characters, this is a very "London" novel, set in 2020/21, as Covid is ending (the first time, anyway) and Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine. There are lots of strands of the story, focused on Campbell Flynn, a "public intellectual" and writer, whose life seems great...until it doesn't. I read this for an online book group, but I'm going to look for more by this author.

>137 susanj67: I've put it on my list. At 720 pages, it's quite a tome.

>138 Ameise1: Yes, it's a long one!



The Guest List by Lucy Foley

This one is on Prime Reading at the moment, and I've only read The Hunting Party by this author, so I downloaded it. It's set at a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland, and most of the wedding party have terrible secrets. This did have one of my least favourite things - a narration by someone who dies (there are multiple narrators, so that's not really a spoiler) - but was otherwise good.

There is finally some sun today, so I might return a couple of library books and get some steps in.

Somehow two books jumped off the shelf and came home with me. I don't understand it. But they are:

The Fury
Rivers of Treason, which is book 3 in the series I recently started. I have book 2 ready to go and may get to it later today.

As I was up at Whitechapel, I went to Sainsburys afterwards, as their website suggested they had the Pret smoothie mixes in stock. And they did. I bought a "greens" one and a fruit one, and instead of apple juice I got some no-added-sugar coconut drink, because I think the fruit in the smoothie is enough without more fruit sugar in the liquid. Historically I haven't been a fan of "drinking my calories" but I'm keen to give smoothies a try as something different.

A Fox Under My Cloak by Henry Williamson

This was a real slog. It's book 5 in the Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight series, and set during WWI. Much of it is endless Army talk and battles, which bored me to tears. There was also a lot of drinking in a pub, and intoxicated behaviour, which is also tedious. I ended up skimming the last part, just to see broadly how the characters ended the story. I really hope the next one is different, because I loved the first four in this series.

Traitor in the Ice by K J Maitland

This is book 2 in the Daniel Pursglove series, and it is set during the Great Frost of 1607 - 1608. Daniel is sent to Battle Abbey to find out what happened to one of the King's pursuivants, who disappeared before he was able to report on his investigation. As with all of this author's novels, there's a really strong sense of place and time - you can almost smell the filth and feel the biting cold. I have book 3 ready to go, but I need to read a couple of other things first.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

I read this for book group, as it's not something I would have picked up normally. But I really enjoyed it. It's the story of six astronauts at the International Space Station as they go through 24 hours in space and reflect on life, the Earth, space and everything else. Down on Earth a typhoon is about to hit Asia, and up in space four astronauts are on their way to the Moon, meaning that the ISS crew are no longer the people furthest from Earth. It's a short read but I'd recommend it. (There are also lots of details about the ISS routine and the effect of being in space on the human body, so it's interesting in light of the recent coverage of the "rescue" of the two ISS astronauts stuck up there for longer than expected).

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

This is an excellent mystery, beautifully plotted and with various timelines that all worked together. A teenager goes missing from her summer camp, on the property her family owns in upstate New York. Her younger brother disappeared years earlier, and there's a serial killer on the loose who has recently escaped from jail. There are lots of characters, and I didn't guess what had happened.

I went to a talk at one of my libraries today and found the 2024 Jack Reacher novel on the new books shelf (it's a brand new paperback) so that was excellent.

My final Prime order with my free trial has arrived. It was a small inflatable ball for Pilates exercises and a set of four resistance bands. I never thought I would have a collection of exercise equipment. I've been doing some videos out on the balcony, as the TV handily swivels around so I can see it out there, but a couple of days ago it was blowing a gale so I took the monitor from the study (alcove) and moved it into my bedroom, where it now sits on top of a tall chest of drawers. I can connect up my Chromebook and I have a little studio in there for days when I can't go outside. I've used the monitor only once since I retired, so I'm glad it now has a new life. The Chromebook screen is a bit small when I'm standing at a distance from it. I've now been doing videos for 70 days, and I've nearly made peace with the fact that I will never be co-ordinated enough to do aerobics-type things. Arms - fine. Legs - also fine. Arms and legs together - total chaos. I've downloaded the "Couch to 5K" app, as I started that years ago (before it was an app) and it is pretty nice to just walk and run, walk and run, with no flinging other bits of myself around the place at the same time.

I watched all three series of Reacher while I had Prime, and really enjoyed them. I thought series 2 was the best. That scene in the helicopter near the end! OMG. I also watched quite a few documentaries, including the one about the Duggar family, which was very good. I didn't ever see their show, but the story was explained well enough that it didn't really matter. I think next I'll move onto Disney, and see what's new there. In the UK, the Disney platform also carries the shows from Hulu in the US (or at least some of them - we don't have Hulu here), so there is lots to look at, including some things that jar a bit with the Disney concept (they had Pam and Tommy, for example, which is definitely *not* the sort of thing you'd expect on Disney).

I've had a bit of a quiet week on the reading front, but now I have:

The Fury - I just read a third of this while I waited for the Amazon man to come
Rivers of Treason - this is book 3 in the Daniel Pursglove series
The Shadows of Men - this is book 5 in the Wyndham and Banerjee series
The Iron Way - book 2 in a trilogy I started recently
In Too Deep - last year's Reacher novel

So quite a bit to be getting on with, but nothing too hard.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides

This is the author's newest book, and the BookTubers have all been hyping it. It's a thriller set mostly on a small Greek island involving just seven people and a murder. In the acknowledgements at the end, the author says that Agatha Christie "did it first and did it much better", and it has made me download a list of Christie's books and think about reading them all. This one was OK - I thought there was more to be revealed, but then it ended. It was a fast read, though.

Rivers of Treason by K J Maitland

This is book 3 in the Daniel Pursglove series, and it starts just a few days after the end of the second book, as the Great Thaw of 1607 is under way. Once again, there's a lot of running around as Daniel travels the country trying to work out who (if anyone) is trying to kill the King. There is one more book to go, which will wrap everything up. The library catalogue promised it was "on the shelf" at one of my libraries yesterday, but when I walked over there it was actually in transit to somewhere else. So I've reserved one, which I hope will show up soon as there are a lot of characters to keep track of. There are dozens of copies in the library system as a whole, so it shouldn't be too long.

Then I walked down to Canary Wharf, where I bought a new toy - the Galaxy Fit3 fitness tracker, which is the Samsung version of a Fitbit. It's not a full smart watch, but I'm *amazed* at all the developments in the tech since I bought my first Fitbit years ago. It pretty much just counted steps, but this one does so much more. You need a Galaxy phone with the relevant apps, but I have one, and it turns out the apps have been there all along, just waiting to be woken up and linked to a "wearable". The display is gorgeous, and I can swipe through to news headlines, alarms, reminders and many more things I have yet to understand. There's even a screen for "workouts", which seems to have instructions. Lots to explore, and I love it. I was so motivated by my Fitbit in the olden days, and I'd like to recapture that, particularly now that it's getting warmer. I was also amazed by the price - it was just £59, which I thought must be a mistake, or the cost of a replacement strap or similar, but no. So if anyone has one and has good tips, HMU as the Young People say :-)

In Too Deep by Lee Child and Andrew Child

This is the most recent Jack Reacher novel, which I hadn't caught up with. But I knew I'd find a copy sooner or later, so I didn't reserve it, and just waited. As with all the novels, there is an intricate plot, lots of baddies and vast amounts of violence. But Jack still doesn't kill anyone who does't need killing.

Overnight two ebooks arrived - the first in the long Wilbur Smith series, When The Lion Feeds, and The Eagle and the Hart. I'm going to start the second one later.

Watching the King and Queen in Italy, where it looks sunny. There's a red carpet, and a band. Meanwhile, back in London, Prince Harry has arrived at the Court of Appeal for the case about his security arrangements. Sky News is trying to suggest these two events (presence of Prince, absence of King) are connected. No, they are not. The Court of Appeal does not schedule cases on the basis of the King's diary. Sheesh.

I started The Eagle and the Hart last night, which is about the overthrowing of Richard II by Henry IV. The author explains the relevance of the story to modern times, and the introduction includes this:

"Theirs is a story about what happens when a ruler demands loyalty to himself as an individual, rather than duty to the established constitution. When he seeks to create his own reality rather than concede the force of verifiable truths. When he demands that his own will should trump the rule of law. When he recognises no interests other than his own."

It was published on 3 October last year, but reads as though it was written last week. I'll continue with it later, but today I'm aiming to start (and finish) The Iron Way, which is the second in the trilogy about the Sarmatians.

My day of calmly doing laundry and reading has come to a halt with the stopping of my mains water. I reported it to Thames Water via WhatsApp, because apparently that's a thing now, and the chatbot said that yes, there is an issue in my area, sorry. But, checking their website again, there's an update to say that all the "E" postcodes are affected. That's an *enormous* area, including the whole City of London. Holy mackerel. And, annoyingly, the washing machine not only shows an error message, but beeps every 20 seconds, and there's no way of turning off the beeps when there's a fault. (For non-fault beeps, you press the "Prewash" and "Extra rinse" buttons at the same time, for six seconds, but they don't say whether that's with Mississippis or Mississippilessly (giggling now at the memory of that Friends episode with the spray tan, which must be the best scene in the whole series)). So, as my Dad would have said, that's a nice how-do-you-do. There is supposed to be an update at 2pm, which is a hour and a half away. Fortunately I have a cold water tank and a hot tank, so everything *but* the cold mains supply works, at least until it runs out. Nooooo.

ETA: whining on LT evidently prompts the universe into action, because Thames Water now says that water is back on, but may take a while due to all the properties that lost it.

>150 susanj67: Oh dear, luckily you now have water again. About 3 weeks ago, the water in our neighbourhood was turned off for about 3 hours because something had to be done to a main pipe. We were informed in advance.

>151 Ameise1: They fixed it very quickly, which was lucky. But now it's stopped again! Once again they're admitting "an incident". Grrr.



The Iron Way by Tim Leach

This is book 2 in the Sarmatian trilogy, and the Sarmatians are now in Britannia, where they are guarding Hadrian's Wall. They have 25 years to serve before they're allowed to go home. There are lots of raids and much drama in this one, and a twist at the end that makes me want to snatch book 3 off the shelves tomorrow as soon as I arrive at the library.

Today I'm aiming to read The Shadows of Men, and a bit more of The Eagle and the Hart.

The Shadows of Men has started really well. But I keep checking the Thames Water page to see if there is any news. They've added a picture to their incident report: https://www.thameswater.co.uk/network-latest/e15-090425 Look at the crappy old pipework, and for this I pay more than £100 a month. (True, I could get a water meter, but that's a whole other story).

However, I've stopped reading to watch a press conference about the new theme park which has just been announced for Bedfordshire by Universal. It's being heavily covered by Sky News, which is owned by Comcast, and both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor were at the press conference, with the head of Comcast. It looks amazing, and will be their first theme park in Europe. It will open in 2031. I've never been to a theme park, but this one is in the perfect place for a mini-break :-)

>153 susanj67: Oh dear, yes, it's a tiresome thing with old water pipes. About seven years ago, they replaced our 80-year-old pipes in our neighbourhood. But there are still a few construction sites in the city where the water pipes are being replaced.

What kind of theme park will there be? What do I have to imagine?

>154 Ameise1: The water is now back on after four hours - thank goodness I didn't have anywhere I needed to go today, or have the washing machine beeping at me every 20 seconds. This is the press release about the theme park: https://universalukproject.co.uk/ I think it will be like the one in the US, with rides and things based on their films. Maybe I need to catch up on some of the films :-)

>155 susanj67: Ah, thank you very much. Now I can visualise something. I'm neither a cinema-goer nor do I usually watch such films on TV, so I'm not necessarily interested in such a park.

>156 Ameise1: :-)



The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee

This is book 5 in the Wyndham and Banerjee series, and it was published in 2021. Given the way it ended, and the fact that the author published the excellent (but very different) Hunted last year, I wondered whether it was the last in the series. But The Burning Grounds is out later this year, so the series continues. I liked this one, which involved a lot of running around in India, and not just Calcutta this time.

Very briefly I had finished all my hard copies. But after three library visits today (2 x picking up reserves, and then book group) I have six more oh no.

Vassal State: How America Runs Britain - I was pleased to find this in hard copy because it frees up an e reserve slot.
The Unaccountability Machine
A Plague of Serpents - the final book in the Daniel Pursglove quartet. This is the one I tried to get on Sunday, only to find it had been sent somewhere else, so I got it from the Barbican instead, where it was on the shelf in the correct place, as the catalogue promised.
The Golden Virgin - the next instalment of the Henry Williamson series, which I hope has something other than just war in it. The copy I picked up is grimly filthy so I will have to get out a Dettol wipe.
The Spider's Web - book 4 in the Sister Fidelma series. I reserved this from the Libraries Consortium ages ago but they only had one copy and it seemed to be lost, because it never turned up. So I tried reserving it from the Barbican and it arrived immediately. I'm glad I can continue with this series as I liked the first three.
Brotherless Night - the next book club read. It's set in Sri Lanka, which is not somewhere I've read much about.

My new fitness tracker congratulated me on meeting all my goals for today. I didn't know I had goals, but apparently I do. It also seemed to think I'd done a 24-minute bike ride (albeit travelling 0 km) so I must have pressed a button accidentally. The internet told me how to delete it, but even with no bike ride I still met my goals :-)

I have the Daniel Pursglove series and several other Karen Maitland books in my Kindle TBR.

It's quite tricky to follow long running series from the library - some of the books always seem to have been discarded or gone AWOL. I shouldn't complain though - I keep finding that books from my own TBR disappear without trace when they're chosen as a bookclub read or when I've decided that's what I fancy reading next. It's partly because I ran out of bookshelf space more than 20 years ago, and there's nowhere to add extra shelves - in fact some had to come down to put in the stairs to the top floor (a loft extension in 2016).

Brotherless Night was the Women's Prize winner in 2024 - I was initially disappointed that another book didn't win but loved this when I read it.

>159 elkiedee: If you read the Daniel Pursglove series, I'd recommend focusing on them rather than stretching them out over months. There's an over-arching story which goes through all four books, with individual mysteries in each one. But there's a lot to keep track of! That's good to know about Brotherless Night.

It's warm this morning, and I was home from Tesco by 10am. It might get to 22C - woo-hoo! I have many pages to turn, and other things to do as well, starting with baking some banana muffins. Why do green bananas go brown in the half-hour between the shop and the kitchen? It's an enduring mystery.

I loved this sentence from The Eagle and the Hart: "So fastidious were the King's habits that he had taken to carrying in his hand a specially hemmed piece of the finest linen in case he needed to dab or blow his nose, an accessory so new that there was not yet a word to describe it."

Yes, Richard II invented the hanky :-) I bet he'd go nuts if he found himself in the paper products aisle at a modern supermarket.

I started Vassal State after lunch. It's about how many products and services in the UK are provided by US companies (far more than in other European nations). And then this:

"Behind it all hangs the gravest risk, one that we rarely consider: what could happen to the UK if the US were ever to break with the values shared between our two countries for the past century? How robustly could British policy-makers respond, for example, to a second Trump presidency that turned its back on the rule of law, worked much harder to erect trade barriers, shrank NATO and promoted ever closer relations with the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at the expense of Ukraine?"

I expect the author is hard at work on a second edition, with a lengthy afterword.

I do disagree with one point in his introductory survey of US businesses, though - he says "Step into the high street for a cup of coffee and the choice is limited..." Um, no it is not. In London you can't go more than about 10 metres without finding a cup of coffee. Yes, there is Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa (all US-owned) but alternatives are Pret, Greggs, Paul, Leon, Pure, Black Sheep Coffee, Mouse Tail (really not sure I'd have gone with that name in the UK), Rosslyn, Urban Baristas, Ole & Steen and on and on. And other places have independent coffee retailers and not just the chains you find in central London. But so far it's a very good read.

The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor

This was an excellent read, and I was surprised by some of the things that happened, as it's not a period of history I know well. I don't think anything can really be a "spoiler" after 600 years, but I deliberately didn't Google as I was reading, and just let the story unfold. There are lots of people in it and, as with many royal stories, most of them are called Edward or Henry, but the author does a really good job of setting out the family relationships and I was never confused. It did make me want to read lots more, though. In particular, I want to get to Dan Jones' biography of Henry V fairly soon, while I can still remember who everyone is.

Plans for the rest of today:

1. Finish The Cabinet of Curiosities, which is part of yet another series I'm trying to make progress with
2. Finish Vassal State, which is pretty short. It's very interesting, though, and the issue of foreign ownership of British businesses is particularly relevant this weekend with the emergency recall of Parliament to pass legislation requiring the Chinese owners of British Steel to keep a plant open.

Vassal State: How America Runs Britain by Angus Hamilton

This is a very good look at the influence of the US on the UK, through businesses but also US foreign policy. I knew that a lot of British businesses are owned by US parent companies or private equity funds, but there are even more than I had thought. And many US businesses now operate an "as-a-service" model, tying companies and consumers in to subscription models for everything from software to clothing rentals. So much of what we do every day relies on US companies, whether for communication, entertainment or shopping. I had assumed that it was the same everywhere, but apparently it's not. One interesting statistic is that "US corporations have more employees in the UK than the number they have in Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Sweden combined. Measured by sales, the largest US companies sell more than $700 billion of goods and services to the UK, which amounts to over a quarter of the UK's total GDP."

But what can the UK do to regain some control? Decades of government apathy have led to the takeover by US businesses, as "foreign direct investment" is so valued. But, as the author points out, it is one thing for a foreign company to invest money into a new enterprise, creating skilled jobs for UK workers, and quite another for it just to buy up a British business and loot its assets. And yet both types of conduct count as foreign direct investment.

True, there are worse things than being owned by an American parent, but why is so much British business owned by anyone else at all? Maybe with the ongoing mayhem from the US things will change, but on another view the mayhem will only last for a few more years. Perhaps we will just wait it out for things to get back to "normal".

The Cabinet of Curiosities by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is book 3 in the Agent Pendergast series, and it was published in 2002. It's very silly, but I don't mean that as a criticism. There's quite a bit about the history of New York, which I enjoyed. It's very gory, though - bordering on horror in parts. There are 20-something books in this series now, so I don't want to wait long before picking up the next one.

I think my two favourite of the Pendergast books are The Cabinet of Curiosities and Brimstone. I have read everything by both authors including their solo works.

>166 Zozette: That is quite an achievement! I still see the newer Agent Pendergast books at the library - the series has been going for a long time.

I had to pick up two reserves this morning, which will be among my last from Tower Hamlets until the Canary Wharf library renovations are finished and they start having reserve pick-up again. I had to go to Whitechapel, so I did a bit of supermarket shopping at Sainsbury's while I was up there, and it was very quiet, particularly as it's the Easter holidays for the schools here. Maybe everyone had gone somewhere more exciting. I picked up The Heart in Winter, which is a Walter Scott nominee, and Death of the Author, which one of the YouTubers I follow said was fabulous. I returned the Henry Williamson book unread, as I just couldn't stand more war, and it was filthy and I didn't really want it in the house. So I'm back to six hard copies and two ebooks. I've started The Unaccountability Machine but I think I'll spend the afternoon with The Spider's Web, and get back into the world of Sister Fidelma.

Hmmm. I just saw an Instagram ad for Kindle Unlimited for 99p for three months, so I clicked it to see whether it applied to me. And it does. Last time I had KU for three months, the special price wasn't available for about nine more months, so this is a big change as my last trial finished in February, I think. (Yes, I *did* say I wasn't getting it again as it's so distracting, but 99p for three months is just too enticing to pass up). They also gave me Prime free for a month recently, so it seems as though subscription numbers must be falling, and they're trying very hard to get people back.

The Spider's Web by Peter Tremayne

Book 5 in the Sister Fidelma series sees Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf going to investigate the murder of a chieftan. But people just keep dying. Can the deaths be connected? I was very pleased to be back in Ireland in 666 and I want to try and read more of this series this year. I've just reserved the next one, so fingers crossed it arrives soon. Book 36 is being released in July! I see that this author has a few books available via KU so I'll check those out too.

It's a gorgeous day in London today - almost like the weather realises that sanity has finally returned to the UK. The shredders will be running hot in HR departments all over the country as they try to pretend they were never complicit in the erasure of women's rights.

I walked up to the library to pick up A Chelsea Concerto, which is the book for next month's online book club. It's a memoir of WWII, and a very slim read which I'm going to prioritise so I can take it back ASAP as people in the chat last time were saying it was hard to get hold of. The library at the Wharf is open on Saturday and I can still return books there, even if they don't have reserve pick-up any more. I always think of the Easter bank holiday as four days of total shutdown, even though the shops are only shut on Sunday. I still can't get over things being opened on Good Friday, which they never were in NZ when I lived there (maybe that has changed). I've just had a blueberry hot cross bun, which my mother would not have approved of, as (a) blueberries do not feature in the traditional HCB recipe and (b) HCBs are for Good Friday *only* and no other day. In the UK they're available year-round in all sorts of flavours (cheese and Marmite, anyone? Triple chocolate?), which breaks all the rules but they are delicious.

>170 susanj67: Have you read Frances Faviell before? I really liked both The Dancing Bear and Thalia.

>170 susanj67: I loved A Chelsea Concerto.
>171 NinieB: I haven't read any other of Faviell's books, but my library has a couple of them, I think.

>170 susanj67:, >171 NinieB: I also liked The Chelsea Concerto, The Dancing Bear and Thalia and own two more: The Fledgeling and The House on the Rhine.

Hot cross buns are available in Australia all year now, so it's probably the same in NZ. They're absent briefly over Christmas but usually reappear on Boxing Day.

>171 NinieB: I hadn't! In fact I'd never heard of her.

>172 kac522: Five seem to have been published by the "Furrowed Middlebrow" imprint of Dean Street Press :-)

>173 pamelad: I would definitely like to try her fiction.



A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell

This is a memoir of the author's life in the Blitz in London during WWII. She lived in Chelsea, which was not the bougie squillionaires' playground that it is today, but housed ordinary people too. The book starts in June 1939 as people are rehearsing Civil Defence activities (being jeered at by the general public) and continues until the end of the Blitz, with a section at the end concluding the story. The author was very busy with war activities, including supervising a growing group of unruly refugees and carrying out nursing and first aid duties. Reading the details of the damage caused by the bombs, it's hard to imagine how everything was eventually mended or replaced, although I know it took many years. Most of London is a mix of lovely old buildings and modern in-filling, caused by bomb damage, particularly in the east, but nowhere escaped.

NB if you're in a borough that is part of The Libraries Consortium, this is catalogued as "Chelsea Concerto", so it's invisible unless you search on the author's name.

Neither of my library systems has any of the author's other books, but they're all available on KU, which is delightful :-)

>174 susanj67: I remember when I first started to read it, I was disappointed that there wasn't more about music!🤣 She does briefly mention the concerts during the Blitz, which I just happened to know about because here in Chicago we've had Dame Myra Hess Memorial concerts for decades. They are on Wednesdays during the noon hour, are free, and often feature university and young professional musicians. And they're broadcast live on our classical radio station.

Even without much music, what I appreciated about the memoir overall is that it felt so genuine. Sometimes historical fiction doesn't have that same authenticity to it, but this memoir was very real, despite being written some years later.

>175 kac522: That's a good point about the title - I wonder what the "concerto" was supposed to be? And it's so interesting to hear about the Chicago concerts! A great way to remember her. I agree that it felt very genuine. Even though it was written later, the relentlessness of the bombing and the damage and the deaths came through very clearly. I really don't know how people copied, other than just having to because there was no alternative. There's alarm in Europe with warnings in various countries to stockpile three days of water and food in case the Russians do something dreadful (or more dreadful) so I have no idea what would happen if conflict went on for six years.

I took A Chelsea Concerto back to the library, intending to borrow nothing at all. I managed to limit myself to just one book - The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History, which was in the new NF display. It looks chunky, but it's only 340 pages, with lots of notes. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

In other news, another letter arrived from the crossword people, telling me I'd won a prize. This time it's a silk pillowcase :-) I looked up the website of the pillowcase company, and their cheapest product seems to be £105. I would *never* spend that on a pillowcase, even if I was still working (even if I won the lottery tomorrow, TBH) so it's a lovely treat.

Today I want to finish When The Lion Feeds, which is the first in a huge series by Wilbur Smith, and The Unaccountability Machine. We're seeing a good example of such a "machine" at the moment, with the cutting down of a very old tree on land owned by a restaurant company. Initially the company said it was for "health and safety reasons" but the CEO has now apologised and said that decision was made by a middle-manager and should have been sent further up the chain due to the age of the tree and the neighbourhood uproar. But you can bet that the company's policies said any health and safety issue should be dealt with immediately, and it seems as though that's what they did. The risk of a tree falling and injuring customers should of course be addressed urgently, but maybe with a 400-year-old oak the "just cut it down" rule needs amending. (The problem with that, though, is that if they cordoned off the tree but someone trespassed and it fell on them, the company would still be liable, so I can understand why they did it).

The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions by Dan Davies

This is an interesting read, although I'm not sure it really explains the issue it sets out to. But the basic argument is that "the system" is all too often used by companies and governments to explain ridiculous decisions and mean that no-one is ultimately accountable for them. As the Young People say, "It's a feature, not a bug." The author spends a lot of time on the work of Stafford Beer and the discipline of "cybernetics", but I didn't really see how that was responsible for the mess we encounter today when we try and find someone to fix a problem instead of just reading nonsense off a card in a call centre. But that might be my lack of understanding.

When the Lion Feeds by Wilbur Smith

This is the first in Wilbur Smith's famous "Courtney family" series, which now runs to about 25 books, it seems, many written by other authors. But this one was published in 1964, so the elibrary had the anniversary version of it. It starts in the 1870s in South Africa, where the Courtney twins, Sean and Garrick, are teenagers, and getting into all sorts of trouble. It ends as the Boer War is about to start. The brothers are estranged, and the story in between has seen a lot of deaths and drama. There's also a lot of elephant hunting, which was hard to read. I liked it a lot, and I've reserved the second one already. It's back to hard copy for that.

I'm sure I remember reading Smith's books when I was a pre-teen (I remember the school library I borrowed them from) but I don't know which books those were. Looking at the list of all his works, maybe they were some of the standalone novels.

It's a grey day in London, so I might just spend it reading quietly :-) I've got Owls of the Eastern Ice from the elibrary, and I'd like to make a start on A Plague of Serpents too. Tomorrow We Solve Murders will be available from Borrowbox. Exciting!

>179 susanj67: Oh I love the We Solve Murders series. I wish you lots of fun with it.
It's sunny but stormy and fresh here.
Happy Easter 🐰🥚

>180 Ameise1: Happy Easter, Barbara! The new Richard Osman book is the first in a new series - he says he's still going to write Thursday Murder Club novels, but also this new series. It's very annoying when authors do that! But this book seems to have been well-received, and I've been waiting for it for ages, so I hope it's good.

I've read the first section of Owls of the Eastern Ice, reading it on my Chromebook with a map open in another tab, and Googling pictures of fish owls. I'm not sure I'd ever heard of fish owls, but they live in eastern Russia and Japan. The book starts in 2005, I think, as the author is scoping out a study to preserve them. There are lots of interesting characters, and we haven't really got to the owls yet. The team has seen a few, but the author's PhD project requires him to capture some and fit them with tracking devices, which he thinks will be difficult.

We Solve Murders is pretty similar to The Thursday Murder Club so far - a large cast of eccentric characters, and an implausible but entertaining plot. If Osman has a ghost writer, it's the same person. But maybe he writes them himself.

Overcast today, but I've just done my Couch to 5K run out on the balcony (on the spot - it's all cardio). In today's session I ran for 16 minutes (with walks in between) which amazes me. I almost want to go running outside, but that doesn't really seem like something I will ever do. Seventeen swans paddled past as I ran - some of them with the darker tail feathers which I think mean they're young. It seemed like a lot if they weren't families, but I thought cygnets would still be quite small at this time of year.

Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan C Slaght

This is an entertaining memoir of the author's time researching his PhD, which looked at the conservation of Blakiston's fish owl, a large bird that lives in the far east of Russia, and in Japan. Little was known about its habitat or habits before his research in Russia. He started it in 2005, working with local experts and fixers and travelling around a large area. Vodka featured prominently. Apparently if someone puts a full bottle of vodka on the table in front of company, there's a rule that the group has to finish it. The result of the research was a greater understanding of where and how the birds live, and that helped to conserve their territories, which were threatened by logging.

This is the first in a new series, but it's really just a copy and paste of the Thursday Murder club books. The same wacky characters, the same types of personalities and the same implausible goings-on. I nearly returned this unfinished, but finished it this evening and sent it back.

>184 susanj67: I just finished this yesterday. I was disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed all the TMC books, I found this one lacking the substance the others had. Since it will be an on-going series, I may try the next one but if that's a no-go, I'm out. I understand he has another TMC in the works. I will stay on that path unless he flops there as well. Every author needs at least one flop. Perhaps he was just too caught up in the success of the books and the series.

>185 beebeereads: I'm glad it wasn't just me! I agree the TMC books have more substance, and the characters seem more realistic somehow (maybe not Elizabeth!)

I am on a proper train, going to pick up a NZ friend for a day of museuming. I was very nervous about the train situation, which is ridiculous, but I don't do hard things any more, which might be why, and non-Tube trains scare me with their timetables and platform numbers and they always have. Also we have tickets for a certain time, so there is no room for error (although I suspect the National Maritime Museum would let us in any time. It's not the National Gallery). At least it's not raining.

Well, it was all fine in the end. We went to see the Pirates exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, which I would recommend. Beautifully done and very interesting. We also went to the Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Museum, which is free. And it was amazing. People are so clever. Then we took an "Uber Boat" (Thames Clipper commuter ferry) up the river, and that was fun. We had a coffee at the Jewel Tower in Westminster, and discovered why London seemed so quiet. All the people were in Westminster, taking photos in front of red telephone boxes with Big Ben in the background. This is A Thing now, and there are queues. You can watch the queues taking their photos, which is a bit of a meta-experience, but entertaining :-) Tomorrow's gallivanting will include the "Flowers" exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, which another friend went to recently and loved. There was *lots* of yapping, and it so nice to see my friend again after quite a few years. She is a reader, so there was quite a bit of book talk :-)

>187 susanj67: Sounds like a lovely day!

>188 beebeereads: Yes, it was great to be out running around (well, a stately walk) with a good friend. And at the Museum they had little info cards at knee-height, as well as the grown-up commentary. So we did the activities on those cards too, which included making our scariest pirate face for the people we were with, and thinking up a name for our own pirate ship ("Auntie Susan's Revenge").

Yesterday was the Saatchi Gallery, which I have never been to before. They have a "Flowers" exhibition on, which is well worth a visit if anyone's in London. It closes on 5 May. It's *huge* - we were in there for over 90 minutes - and the rooms have different themes. We both loved the Ann Carrington sculptures made out of old cutlery https://mymodernmet.com/ann-carrington-utensil-bouquets/.

Today is the "HistFest" at the British Library, for which I have a two-day online ticket. I'm waiting for the link to arrive in an email, but it doesn't start until 11, so I should be able to turn some pages in the meantime. It's overcast in London, which is not the heatwave they promised, but tomorrow is the London Marathon, so this weather would be perfect for it.

A Plague of Serpents by K J Maitland

This is the final book in the Daniel Pursglove quartet, and a good end to the series. This is definitely not a series to read out of order as there's a strong narrative running through them, and it's all wrapped up in this one. I'd recommend reading these close together, as there are lots of characters and action. The author keeps up the squalid feeling of Ye Olden Days really well too :-)

The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

This is another Walter Scott prize nominee, and it's a Western. Sort of. I didn't love the writing style, but I did like the story, and it was short so I read it all in one go.

Today I'm going to start Death of the Author in between session of the history festival, and read a bit more of The Nazi Mind.

It's the marathon today, and a bit overcast so far, but it's hotting up. A shame, really, as it's best with less sun and maybe even a shower or two. But we won't get those today. I'll "screen-stack" like a Young Person, and have it on the TV, muted, while I watch the festival talks.

I just did a YouGov survey which was mostly about train travel, but they often ask a current affairs question at the end. Today's was "If the USA and Canada went to war, which side should the UK support?" Because apparently people are discussing that.

It's another lovely day here, and I walked up into the City for an appointment and to pick up a library reserve. But now I'm going to finish Death of the Author.

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

I saw this sci-fi novel recommended on YouTube, so I reserved it from the library. It's very well done, and the end is just perfect :-) Don't look at the LT page as there's a spoiler in one of the reviews, which is annoying. Fortunately I didn't see it until after I'd finished the book.

>184 susanj67: Oh my 🫣, this doesn't sound good.

>187 susanj67: >189 susanj67: It looks like you've had a fantastic few days. 😃

>194 Ameise1: We did have a lovely time!

I'm having a weekend of finishing things, and reading the book for book group on Thursday. Yesterday I went to the library for a talk, and a mouse also attended. Eek! I'm not really looking forward to going back. I think after the four books I have in hard copy I might really focus on the Kindle, and not just *intend* to do that. A few days ago KU showed me some books on my wishlist that are now on KU, and I've started Mother Country, which is an engaging read. I don't remember adding it to my wishlist, but maybe I saw it on a thread here.

The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings From History by Laurence Rees

This is a very good look at how Hitler and the Nazis came to power and conducted WWII, but by "theme" instead of chronologically. The twelve "warnings" are things that they did, including "Spreading conspiracy theories", "Leading as a hero" and "Corrupting youth". The author looks at how they did these things, and how modern leaders can (and do) use the same types of behaviours. There are some interesting references to experiments conducted by psychologists and others (like the Milgram experiment) which show that people are more suggestible than perhaps they think they are, and that it doesn't take much for our amygdala to perceive a threat and take action.

It's easy to think that these days we would know more about what was going on in countries that were killing vast numbers of people, but would we care?

>196 susanj67: Noting this book to buy for my husband. He loves books on psychological experiments and how they affect people.

>197 lowelibrary: It's a very new one, so you might see proper reviews too :-)



Valley of the Shadow by Peter Tremayne

This is book 6 in the Sister Fidelma series, and this time she and Eadulf are sent to a remote valley to discuss where a church and school can be built. But on the way they discover a massacre, and more deaths at the homestead of the chieftain. Fidelma is accused of murder, and Eadulf has to act as her lawyer. The duo is a bit like a seventh-century Hart to Hart - "'cause when they met, it was moider" (yes, it was my favourite show) and people are always trying to kill them.

Today I'm going to read Brotherless Night, which I expect to take most of my reading time.

I just watched a YouTube video in which a young woman promised a "HUGE HAUL" from 66 Books, which is a wholesaler that opens to the public two weekends a month. People make videos about their trips there, which require a car and a lot of queuing. The "HUGE HAUL" was nine books. False advertising, I think.

>198 susanj67: I totally agree, that's false advertising. I think she would need at least 25 books to get into HUGE HAUL territory.

>199 NinieB: TBH I was hoping for 40 or 50, but I suppose it's not realistic when you have to carry them round for ages in a crowded warehouse. She did say that some people take suitcases, though :-)

I've read just over half of Brotherless Night, but could have done better. I suppose I still could in what's left of the day. Instead, I finished watching The Feud on channel 5 (very silly, but in good way) and assembled various animals in a 2000-piece jigsaw.

Brotherless Night by V V Ganeshananthan

This book won the Women's Prize for Fiction last year, and it's the next read for my in-person book group. It's not a book I would have chosen otherwise, as the Sri Lankan civil war is one of the "too hard" subjects I tend to avoid. But I liked it a lot. It's written as a memoir by a narrator who was a teenager when the war began, and who wanted to study medicine and become a doctor. But her life turns out very differently from the life she imagined she would have.

I'm sure I've seen a new(ish?) non-fiction book about the war, but cannot now find it on the internet. If anyone knows what it is, I'd like to read it too. This novel explained enough about it to give me somewhere to start.

Now I have just *one* hard copy book left, which I've already started. And I've got one hard copy reserve, which has made the Walter Scott prize longlist, so I want to read that too. And that's it! No more hard copy reserves, and the limits on e reserves mean that I won't be overwhelmed by them either.

Mother Country: A Story of Love and Lies by Monique Charlesworth

I still can't remember where I saw this, but I added it to my Amazon wishlist and it's currently on KU. Amazon has a useful feature which tells you which books from your list are available - a further good reason to use the list feature as a TBR :-)

It's the story of the author's mother and her complicated life, which started in 1920s Germany as the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. The family was harassed by the Gestapo and eventually left Germany for Brussels, only for the father to be rounded up there and sent to various concentration camps, eventually being killed at Birkenau. His wife and the author's mother had to survive somehow after that. The author looks into the family history after her mother dies, and realises that much of what she was told, or believed, about her mother isn't true. It's an interesting read, particularly after having just read The Nazi Mind.

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

This is on KU, so I borrowed it for a quick read. It was suitably twisty, although the "couple trapped in a creepy chapel in Scotland in the snow" isn't my favourite setting.

In news that will surprise no-one, I now seem to have five library books again, despite saying just two posts ago that I intended to focus on KU and my own books. But one was a reserve I was expecting, and a second is the next book group book. I have no excuses for the others:

The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks - this is for the next book group. I read it a while ago but I'll read it again.
The Land in Winter - a Walter Scott nominee
The Wedding People - on the shelf at the library and Mamie liked it (Hi Mamie!)
The List of Suspicious Things - Katie from Books and Things recommended this
Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty - this was on the new books shelf when I picked up The Land in Winter and I couldn't help myself. I do love a royal book.

The US president is announcing the trade deal with the UK. Everyone hopes we don't have to allow the chlorinated chicken into the country, but apparently we are taking new products that haven't previously been allowed in the UK OMG.

In other news, I've got Netflix again, and I'm gripped by Turning Point: The Cold War. It's an excellent documentary, and I have written down the names of all the talking heads and looked up their books. There's a good one called Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, which is on KU at the moment. I was surprised to see it among all the cosy mysteries and elf p*rn, but I recommend it.