SusanJ's categories for 2025 - Thread 3

Welcome to the third 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, nearly eight months into retirement, I still haven't.

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
7. Careless People: A Story Of Where I Used To Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams
8. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
9. King of Ashes by S A Crosby
10. Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn
11. The Scientist Who Wasn't There by Joanne Briggs
12. Young Elizabeth by Nicola Tallis
13. Travellers in the Golden Realm by Lubaaba Al-Azami
14. Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney
15. The Illegals by Shaun Walker
16. Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy by Ian Williams
17. A Neighbour's Guide to Murder by Louise Candlish
18. The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen
19. The Idaho Murders by James Patterson and Vicky Ward
20. Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie

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
2. Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
3. Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
4. A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

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
19. Fury Girl by Jill M Beene
20. Legacy Girl by Jill M Beene
21. Other People's Houses by Clare Mackintosh
22. Old Bones by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
23. The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
24. Diablo Mesa by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
25. Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon
26. Barbarian Alien by Ruby Dixon
27. Barbarian Lover by Ruby Dixon
28. Dead Mountain by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
29. Barbarian Mine by Ruby Dixon
30. Barbarian's Prize by Ruby Dixon
31. Barbarian's Mate by Ruby Dixon
32. Ice Planet Holiday by Ruby Dixon
33. Dead Lion by John Bonett and Emory Bonett
34. Losers Club by Yvonne Vincent
35. Badlands by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
36. Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn
37. The Venetian Game by Philip Gwynn Jones
38. Barbarian's Touch by Ruby Dixon
39. Barbarian's Taming by Ruby Dixon
40. Aftershocks by Ruby Dixon
41. An Inside Job by Daniel Silva
42. The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
43. Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
44. Only Bad Options by Jennifer Estep

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
30. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
31. Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty by Alexander Larman
32. We Keep The Dead Close by Becky Cooper
33. Precipice by Robert Harris
34. The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
35. The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman
36. The Windsors At War by Alexander Larman
37. The King Maker: The Man Who Saved George VI by Geordie Greig
38. The Morbid Age by Richard Overy
39. The Mare by Angharad Hampshire
40. The Wrong Man by James Neff
41. Glittering Images by Susan Howatch
42. High Minds by Simon Heffer
43. Babylonia by Costanza Casati
44. Rebel Island by Jonathan Clements
45. Winter King by Thomas Penn
46. Lighthouse by Tony Parker

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
4. The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
5. Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
6. Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

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
9. Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller
10. Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked On Plastic by Saabira Chaudhuri
11. The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
12. Restricted Data by Alex Wellerstein
13. Rope: Tim Queeney

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
16. The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards
17. What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall
18. The Family Lies by Angela Henry
19. That's Not My Name by Megan Lally
20. Extinction by Douglas Preston
21. The Last Party by A R Torre
22. Exile by James Swallow
23. I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney
24. What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena
25. Death Under a Little Sky by Stig Abell
26. She Didn't See It Coming by Shari Lapena

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.



1. Kill Girl by Jill M Beene
2. Rogue Force by Jack Mars
3. Rogue Command by Jack Mars

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
12. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
13. This Divided Island by Samanth Subramanian
14. Courtiers by Valentine Low
15. The People of Providence by Tony Parker
16. Sandwich by Catherine Newman
17. Toxic Love by Tomas Guillen
18. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
19. The Quiet Damage by Jesselyn Cook
20. Girl A by Abigail Dean
21. A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan
22. The Fire of the Dragon by Ian Williams

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

This is a great read. I saw it recommended by Katie from Books and Things on YouTube, and the library had two copies in the new books display. Set in Yorkshire in the late 70s/early 80s, the Yorkshire Ripper is killing women and best friends Miv and Sharon see the news reports, but don't understand everything. What, for example, is a prostitute? Miv decides that maybe they could catch him, and starts a list of suspicious things in her notebook, so they can investigate.

Miv is a year or two older than I am, and I grew up in another country, but the novel *perfectly* captures the time, and the attitudes of adults to children's concerns. The police investigation into the Ripper, with its demonising of some of his victims, was shockingly inept. He killed women for five years, but most of them weren't "respectable", so no-one cared about them. Miv and Sharon are surrounded by adults up to all sorts, and that really was how things were. A grown man tickling young girls? "Just playing". A young woman covered in bruises? "Just fell". There were things that people just didn't talk about, or certainly not to children.

Very highly recommended.

I started Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty yesterday, and it's excellent so far. I read it while I was waiting to do a guided tour of St James's Palace, which was a fun outing. We went around for 90 minutes with a guide who explained the history of the palace, and why ambassadors present their credentials to the "Court of St James" when they come to the UK. There were lots of paintings and amazing decorations and we even saw the throne room. It was my first palace visit, and now I'd like to see Buckingham Palace.

Today is sunny and warm and I'm having a day at home with the books and some painting. I went to a "sip and paint" event at the library on Friday and it was lots of fun, so I'm working on a colouring book picture with some cheap paints I bought from Hobbycraft ages ago. I can't draw, but I can colour :-)

Happy new thread, Susan!

Happy New Thread
>13 susanj67: I am taking a BB for The List of Suspicious Things, which will be released in the US in December.

Happy new thread, Susan. I, too, am adding The List of Suspicious Things to my wishlist.

>14 NinieB: Thank you, Ninie!

>15 lowelibrary: I'm sure you'll love it, April!

>16 DeltaQueen50: Thanks Judy! It's a debut novel, so even more impressive because of that.

Another sunny day here, and I'm planning to start The Land in Winter, which is my last Walter Scott nominee. I also want to take apart the jigsaw I finished yesterday:



It's the 2000-piece "Tropical Forest" by Trefl, which is a brand I like a lot. I might start a new one later.

Happy new thread, Susan. >17 susanj67: That is a gorgeous image!

>17 susanj67: Despite liking this author (Andrew Miller) a lot, I gave up on this one and returned it to the library. Hope you have better luck than me.
ETA and thread wishes, of course...

>18 MissWatson: Thanks Birgit!

>19 charl08: I will bear that in mind if I can't get on with it, Charlotte :-) Usually I hate giving up, but if it defeated you too then I won't feel so bad.

In the end I didn't start it today (or so far) - I picked up Power and Glory to read a few chapters and just kept going.



Power and Glory: Elizabeth II and the Rebirth of Royalty by Alexander Larman

This was superb. My only quibble is with the title, which suggests that it looks at the reign of Elizabeth II, when in fact the narrative stops at her coronation. Instead, the book looks at the end of the reign of George VI, and his death and the Queen's accession. But it's still an excellent read. I didn't realise the author had written this as the third in a set (oh no) and I hadn't read the others, but it's not like a novel where you don't know the plot. I know the plot very well. The earlier books are The Crown in Crisis (about the abdication) and The Windsors at War, both of which I will look out for, as the author has a great style and a lovely turn of phrase. He says he is not a monarchist, but that may also be apparent from his description of the Duke of Windsor as "a man who should have gone to prison during World War II for treason, and ideally remained there". In this book the Duke makes repeated appearances trying to get money and an HRH for his wife, to the fury of George VI.

I don't know why the two earlier books had passed me by, but they're on shelves near me, which is tempting.

We Keep The Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper

In 1969, Harvard graduate student Jane Britton was murdered in her apartment. Rumours flew around for years about who might have been responsible, but the crime was never solved. The author heard the story as a Harvard undergraduate, and decided to investigate. This book is the story of her ten-year search for the answer, and it's a really good read. The amount of research is staggering, and the book is also a commentary on the "true-crime community" and women's struggles to be taken seriously in academia (and particularly Harvard).

I had planned to continue with The Land in Winter today, but the new Robert Harris novel, Precipice, arrived from Borrowbox a week earlier than expected, so I think I'll read that instead.

Things that make me go hmmmm:

The story starts in 1914, with characters attending an inquest. One was "Lady Diana Manners with an intimidating old lady he assumed must be the Duchess of Rutland."

At the time, the Duchess of Rutland was 58.

Another one:

"Miss Eva Luckes was seated at her desk - a small, plump, round-faced elderly woman, who bore a striking resemblance to Queen Victoria."

At the time, Eva Luckes was 60.

Precipice by Robert Harris

This novel is set at the beginning of WWI, as the world is going mad and the British Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, is obsessed with a young woman called Venetia Stanley, to whom he wrote hundreds of letters, often during cabinet meetings when he should have been paying more attention. Asquith's letters to Venetia in the book are the real ones (she kept them all). Hers to him are imagined.

There was a lot I liked about the book, despite middle-aged women being described as "elderly". It really is a window into a lost world (post was delivered twelve times daily in London, for example, which is staggering). But I'm not really sure what Harris was trying to say in it.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

This is one of the books shortlisted for the Walter Scott prize, and it's set in the freezing cold of early 1963, when much of the country came to a standstill. It follows the lives of two married couples, full of secrets. I liked it, although the huge amounts of drinking and the non-stop smoking made me feel a bit queasy. One of the couples has a party, and a guest turns up with a big box of presents and they're all tobacco products, which he hands around to everyone because they all smoke. Different times!

I'd still like to read The Mare, which I haven't been able to find yet (although I see my borough libraries have a few copies now) and there's an Australian book in the list that isn't out here yet. But otherwise I've read the whole longlist, save for Mother Naked, which I DNFd because it was told in the voice of a minstrel from Ye Olden Days and that put me off.

Kill Girl by Jill M Beene

Elayna Miller is a former CIA agent and now a professional assassin. I think I’ve yet to read a book in which this is not the career path taken by CIA staff. She has a great set-up and a loyal staff, but then comes news that a man she is following has gone to Mexico, where taking him out would be easier than in the US…This is the first in a trilogy and it was a freebie at some point, but they’re all on KU. So then I read…



Fury Girl by Jill M Beene

This time the team is doing some “pro bono” work after their previous case. They take out a variety of scumbags, but notice a mysterious man following them. What does he want?



Legacy Girl by Jill M Beene

In the final book, the team goes to Brazil. That’s about all I can say without giving things away, but once again there’s lots of running around killing people. I always enjoy that. In books, I mean…

I liked the trilogy a lot. The copy editing could be better, but the characters are great and the plots very entertaining.

The Psychopath Next Door by Mark Edwards

This is a KU thriller, and very well done. Set on the outskirts of London, there is plenty of dangerous behaviour as a thirty-something woman moves in next door to a family, and strange things start happening. Mark Edwards is a new author to me and has quite a few books on KU.

I was watching a YouTube video about Joe Abercrombie's books a couple of days ago, and the first three are on KU, so I'm aiming to start the first one later today.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

I loved this. It's the first in Abercrombie's series of books, which I think are all related or set in the same world. He writes "grim-dark" fantasy, although it didn't seem that much more grim than other fantasies I've read. Maybe that changes. There's a big character list, including some fairly stock types (crooked politician, magician, ingenue (male), giant barbarian) but they are all well-drawn. We get the inner monologue of one of the characters in italics, which is entertaining.

Logen Ninefingers is the barbarian, separated from his band of renegades and travelling with a magician to the city of Adua, where many interesting things happen.

"They were a strange-seeming crowd, especially the women. Pale and ghostly, swaddled in elaborate dresses, hair scraped up and piled and stuck through with pins and combs and great weird feathers or useless tiny hats. They seemed like the big jar in the round chamber - too thin and delicate to be any use, and further spoiled by too much decoration. But it had been a long time, and he smiled at them cheerfully, on the off chance. Some looked shocked, others gasped in horror. Logen sighed. The old magic was still there."

The book ends with various characters going to other places, setting up the next book nicely. It won't be long before I start it.

I went to the library today to return a couple of books, and saw Other People's Houses in the new books display. It's the third in the DC Morgan series. I also picked up The Crown in Crisis, because it was right there. The library is doing reserves again, as the renovations seem to be running behind schedule. That's dangerous.

I need to take The Wedding People back to the other library on Thursday, so that's going to be my next start.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Another great read - quite different from yesterday's finish, but good in its own way. Main character Phoebe arrives at an inn, intending to end her life, but the rest of the guests are a wedding party, and she quickly becomes involved in their lives instead. This UK edition has numbers at the end for help.

Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain's First King arrived at the elibrary this morning, and I borrowed it despite the stupid title. (In the US, it's going to be The Six Loves of James I, which is much better.) Swiping through the first few pages, I noticed this, on the copyright page:

"Without limiting the author's and publisher's exclusive rights, any unauthorised use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive...and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception."

I checked other newish books I have in the house, and the same wording is used by Penguin. Very interesting, even if it's ultimately futile because the tech bros didn't get where they are today by complying with rules.

It's raining today, or at least it has been. It would probably be safest just to stay at home and read, so that's my plan.

Other People's Houses by Clare Mackintosh

This is the brand new third book in the DC Ffion Morgan series, and it's excellent. There are two crimes to start with, with many twists and turns, but a lot of the book is about the relationship between Ffion and Leo, which started in the first book. This series should be read in order (like all series, obvs, but even more) so you understand the history. As with the other books, there's a map at the front which shows various key locations.

It's possible that Ffion and Leo could be the new Ruth and Nelson. Ooh :-)

>32 susanj67: I've already added this to my wishlist the other night - I've realised that I have the first two books in the series on Kindle, and if this comes up as a daily/monthly deal or just shows up on offer for 99p in the meantime, I might get it, but otherwise it makes sense to start by trying what I already own (!)

>33 elkiedee: Yes, definitely a good idea to start with the ones you have! It's a good police procedural as well as the other aspects. The author is a former police officer.

Is anyone else having issues with Borrowbox? It won't open ebooks, and when I try to return them it won't do that either. I've forced a stop of the app and restarted it, uninstalled it and reinstalled it and nothing works. It won't work on either my tablet or my phone, on wi-fi or phone data. So annoying! My King James book is trapped and I can't even send it back for someone else to read. ("No user matching the userId could be found")

The library ebooks I'm reading at the moment are on Libby - which has the advantage that it allows me to access books borrowed on multiple library cards at the same time on my phone, whereas Borrowbox only allows each device to be logged in on one account. However, I can open Borrowbox and open/close books on my chosen account. I hope you can sort things out!

>35 elkiedee: I definitely prefer Libby - it seems more stable, and I like that I can use Overdrive to read on my Chromebook if I want to. I also like being able to defer books when they come in if I have too many. I think there might be a problem with the Borrowbox file for the book - I managed to download another book and return it (I picked a Shakespeare play just in case it got stuck too). I've got another reserve coming on the 28th so I'll see how that goes.

I returned two things to the library today and picked up The Windsors At War and The Bone Season, but I want to finish This Divided Island first. It's a look at Sri Lanka after the civil war. We read Brotherless Night for book group, which was a novel told from the Tamil Tiger point of view, and I thought it might be interesting to read more about the war. The author of this book is Tamil, but from India, and it's a good read.

This Divided Island: Stories From the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian

This book is about the author's travels around Sri Lanka, talking to people about the civil war which finally finished in 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. Even after the war, journalists were taking a risk writing about it, so many of the people he spoke to were given false names or, in one case, just an initial.

Old Bones by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Ooh, this is EXCELLENT! It's the first in the Nora Kelly series, and a spin-off from the Agent Pendergast series for which these authors are most famous. We've met Nora in that series, but now she's back in Santa Fe, working as an archaeologist, when she's approached by a historian who has a diary written by Tamsen Donner, of the ill-fated Donner Party. The diary gives details of a "lost camp", which Nora is asked to investigate. Meanwhile, rookie FBI agent Corrie Swanson is investigating weird murders, which seem unconnected until she discovers what they have in common.

I loved all of this, and particularly the way Corrie is written. We always see FBI agents portrayed as wise-cracking geniuses, but Corrie is working her very first case and is unsure of how to go about it. She has a great mentor, though. The first three books in this series are on KU. There are four so far, with a fifth being published in July, so it seems to be an ongoing series.

The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman

This is the first of the author's three books about the monarchy from the 1930s to the 1950s, and it looks at the abdication of Edward VIII. I always think the mark of a great writer of history is when you're turning the pages desperate to see what happens next, even though you already know. And this is just such a book. It's a really detailed look at what happened, and all the legal and constitutional ramifications, plus lots of good gossip from the diaries of people like Diana Cooper and Chips Channon. I still don't know how this trilogy passed me by when it was published, but this book came out in 2020, which might provide the answer. I have the next one ready to start.

>29 susanj67: I love Joe Abercrombie and that series was wonderful! I am currently reading his "Age of Madness" series which features many of the children of the characters from that first series.

>40 DeltaQueen50: Judy! I'm delighted to find another fan :-) I hope to start the second one soon.

What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall

This thriller is on KU, and it was recommended in a YouTube video. It's set on Santa Catalina island, as Covid is closing the world down, and is pretty twisty. The main character isn't a very sympathetic person, but I was engaged enough to keep going. This author has a few others on KU too.

I started The Windsors at War this morning and I've read about half of it. And last night I read a bit more of the George V biography I've had going for far too long. I may be in my royalty era. Another reserve arrived on Borrowbox and it downloaded and worked fine, so the problem I had might have been an issue with the file for the last one (although it was also fine to start with). But I was finally able to return that one. I started the new one and didn't like it so sent it back. Ebooks are so handy :-) And somewhere a borrower just got it three weeks early, and maybe they will enjoy it more.

The Windsors At War by Alexander Larman

This has been the *best* trilogy! This one is book 2, as I accidentally read book 3 further up the thread without realising there were two earlier ones when I borrowed it. But really it's one big story, covering the royal family from the abdication until the coronation of Elizabeth II. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are in every book, but it's not just about them. I loved the writing style and all the interesting little bits and pieces as well as the "big" things (abdication, war). Very highly recommended, and The Crown in Crisis and The Windsors at War are just £2.99 each on Kindle in the UK at the moment. Power and Glory is newer, and £6.99, but definitely worth it.

Yesterday at the library I borrowed The King Maker: The Man Who Saved George VI, which looks interesting. Tomorrow I'm planning a trip to the Barbican library, which has a *huge* British history section, and many temptations.

Two e reserves also arrived - Why Fish Don't Exist and Food Fight, and I'm going to start them later.

My month of Netflix is nearly up, so I've just watched Apple Cider Vinegar over a couple of days. It's a dramatisation of the Belle Gibson story, which is everywhere (in the UK, at least - maybe Australia got over it years ago). There's a really good song at the end of episode 6, so I asked Google what it was. The AI suggested a song that appears nowhere in the episode at all.* But that's OK because the "Show more" button includes the important point: "AI responses may include mistakes". Even when you pay heaps for a shiny new machine with all the AI coolness, presumably. There's a way to turn off AI in Google, but alas not in my old version of Chrome. This may be the nudge I need to get a new Chromebook.

*The actual song is "Vampire" by Olivia Rodrigo

>44 susanj67: Yes, we did! Belle Gibson still hasn't paid up and I don't understand how she's managed to get away with it.

>45 pamelad: I suppose all the money is gone, if she ever had it in the first place. It's odd that the rest of the world is just catching up with the story - there are documentaries all over the place!

A similar type of story is told in "Bad Nanny", which was made by RTE in Ireland, about a serial fantasist who kept changing identities and scamming people. It's on the BBC over here and no doubt picked up in other countries - definitely worth a watch.

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

This is a nominee for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction 2025, which is why I reserved it from the elibrary. It's partly a history of a well-known (in the US, anyway) scientist who was famous for his work on fish, and partly a memoir by the author. But, as with most of these types of books, the author's life isn't interesting enough, and that part of the book is just woo-woo. The part about the scientist is much better. He started classifying fish, and ended as a leading cheerleader for eugenics. The author cites the writer of Naming Nature as one of her mentors, and that book sounds more interesting than this one.

Food Fight by Stuart Gillespie

This is an unsatisfying read, and more of a polemic than useful information. "White people bad" (we cause famines, apparently, even though famines have existed forever, including in places no white person had then set foot, and we also hold the terrible view that milk is good for people, which is not fair to non-white populations. Yes, you may wonder what those babies' mothers feed them if it's not milk, what with women everywhere being constructed along broadly similar lines, but there's no answer) and everyone else good. Western companies bad, everyone else good. Etc etc. Etc. The author isn't a good writer, and there are lots of sentence fragments. Which any regular read will know I hate. So much.

I went to the library earlier, to return a couple of things and be tempted by the British history section. I borrowed Courtiers and The Morbid Age, which is a history of the two decades between the wars. I saw it at the other library and it looked good, so I found it again.

Well, you did some great reading while I was away on LT for almost four weeks.
I wish you a wonderful weekend.

>49 Ameise1: Welcome back, Barbara!



George V: Never a Dull Moment by Jane Ridley

This is excellent. Last year I read The Quest for Queen Mary and then Queen Mary, so I thought I'd read about George V while I remembered who everyone was. And it worked! This took me longer than I anticipated, but not because it's a difficult read. I kept getting distracted by library books and KU things. Once I picked this up again, I finished it pretty quickly. It was a page-turner even though I knew what happened.

I'd now like to read the author's Bertie, about Edward VII.

Happy June, everyone! One of the BookTubers is doing a Thomas Hardy readalong, one book every month for 14 months, so I'm going to take part in that. This month's book is Desperate Remedies.

>50 susanj67: Not that I should join a Hardy readalong, but just curious, who is the BookTuber?

>51 NinieB: The Thomas Hardy readalong I know about is run by Jen the Librarian. Here's her announcement video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVRuE8hjBFI

The readalong starts this month with Desperate Remedies and here's her intro video to that book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX6AlTCTF6I

>51 NinieB: Ninie, Kathy is correct - it is Jen the Librarian! I'm sure you could squeeze in fourteen books...

>52 kac522: Kathy, are you doing it too? It would be great to have LT buddies reading the books :-)

I have only ever read Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and that was at school.

I searched KU for "royal biographies" the other day, and found The Windsor Story, which is a 1970s title about the Duke and Duchess. But one of the authors was the ghost-writer for the Duke's own memoir, so it looks pretty promising. (Dear me, the touchstone suggests that memoir first, with the author "Duke of Edward Windsor". So wrong.) So that's going to be my next royal ebook. I've read a bit more of The King Maker today, in hard copy.

>52 kac522: Thanks Kathy! I will watch the videos this evening.

>53 susanj67: There are books and there are books; with 2 Victorian novels each month already I'm worried about feeling overloaded! But I will read Desperate Remedies this month and see how it goes.

>53 susanj67:, >54 NinieB: Back in the 1980s I read 7 of Hardy's best known novels (Tess, Jude, Mayor of Casterbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd, Under the Greenwood Tree, Return of the Native and A Pair of Blue eyes. I think my favorite of these is The Mayor of Casterbridge, which I have read several times.) I blame my mother, who was reading (and raving) about them at that time, and some movie adaptations that came out then. After she died, I kept all of her Hardy books, so I believe I have every novel and several of the short story collections. I've never read his poetry; I just don't get poetry most of the time.

In 2021 I started my own read of all of his novels in order. I read Desperate Remedies for the first time; in 2022 I re-read Under the Greenwood Tree and A Pair of Blue Eyes. But then I stopped. So I'm going to pick up this readalong in September with Far from the Madding Crowd, and hope to continue from there. I'll probably watch her intro videos for the first 3 books anyway, just to re-fresh my memory. And I'm interested to see if The Mayor of Casterbridge holds up against the others.

>54 NinieB: Yay! I started it last night, and, as always with Victorian novels, had to force myself to slow right down. But I read about 70 pages. My ebook version is 585 pages. I wish I knew how to pronounce Cytherea - is it sigh-THEER - ee - a or sither - EE - a?

>55 kac522: Kathy, you are way ahead of me! How nice to have your mother's editions, too. I'm borrowing library ebooks.

This morning I went to donate blood for the first time. Stocks are critically low at the moment, and I have all the time in the world, so on Friday I found an appointment at the donation centre in Westfield. It all went fine, but I can see why they say no strenuous exercise or heavy lifting on the day of donation, because I do feel quite feeble, notwithstanding the drinks and snacks they give everyone afterwards. I don't think I could have done it and gone back to work. One of the nurses asked me if I was familiar with the term "couch potato", "because this is you today". :-) I have been *ordered* to sit down and watch TV and read, which is something I have always dreamed of :-)

>56 susanj67: I bought the Oxford World's Classics ebook yesterday as I like having the explanatory notes. I'm not sure when I will start; perhaps next weekend? Good for you, Susan, getting started so quickly!

>55 kac522: Glad you'll be joining us, Kathy.

>57 NinieB: I've read a bit more this afternoon, and it's taken quite a turn :-)

In other news, the videos are going up for Jane Austen July - here's Katie Lumsden's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgvSM6FxOI

The group read this year is Emma. I think I'll join, as my Austen reading has been patchy and long ago.

>58 susanj67: I'll be on vacation for the first two weeks of July, so I'm not sure how much time I will have to revisit Jane Austen. But if I can, I'd like to re-read Emma as well.

>58 susanj67:, >59 NinieB: Thanks for the link to Katie's video--I want that Jane Austen mug!

I'm going to pass on Emma; I will re-read either S&S or P&P. The new Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney is "in transit" to my library, so I will read that as soon as I get it, as there's a long list of holds after mine. I'm also going to start The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox this month for the JA's contemporary read. Not sure about anything else.

>59 NinieB: You could always start early :-)

>60 kac522: Jane Austen's Bookshelf does look good. I've seen it reviewed on YouTube but I can't think of the video. I haven't decided what else I'll read for July, but Katie's video has some good possibilities.



Courtiers by Valentine Low

This is another excellent read. The author was the royal correspondent for The Times until 2023, so knows most of the courtiers in the book, although there is a bit of history at the beginning which goes back to Queen Victoria. It's about the job of the courtier as much as the personalities of the people. This was originally published in 2022, but the paperback edition is dated 2023 and contains material about the death of the Queen and the accession of the current King.

The King Maker: The Man Who Saved George VI by Geordie Greig

This is an excellent biography of the author's grandfather, who was tasked by King George V with "bringing on" Prince Albert as a teenager. The Prince had health problems and seemed to worry a lot - probably not helped by being sent away to Naval college very young. Greig, who was older and a doctor, acted as a sort of second father, and had a role at court for the rest of his life. It's a good companion read to the other royal books I've been reading recently, as many of the same people appear in this one too.

I know a few of us follow Katie at Books and Things on YouTube, so I wanted to post this link to a "Congratulations on ten years" video from lots of other BookTubers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d71LcSOg2s . I could see Katie reposting this on my phone feed but not on my laptop, so evidently the settings are different somehow...Anyway, it's really good :-)

Katie's anniversary readathon starts tomorrow and runs for a week, with two prompts: 1. Read a classic and 2. Read a work of historical fiction.

The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks

I had to read this for book group, which is annoying as I've read it before and didn't like it then either. Last time was August last year, when I said:

"Once upon a time in the future, in an IVF clinic in London, one sample is switched for a very different one and the resulting child is one of a kind. Really one of a kind. This was pretty silly. It was a random choice from the new books at the library, despite all the stuff I have on my Kindle."

It is still silly, and there is a point at which the narrative can only continue because of something that would never happen. If you know, you know, as they say...(but it's the bit with the locket). I had to waste the afternoon reading this when I could have read something else. But I did read some of The Morbid Age this morning.

>63 susanj67: Thanks, I've bookmarked the video and will watch it tonight. I think she was the first booktuber that I actually "subscribed" to (early on during the pandemic) because she loved Austen, Dickens, Gaskell and Trollope, and those are my favorite authors, too. And it just so happens I started reading Wives and Daughters (1866) this month, which is a classic and is set 30 years in the past, so I guess it's historical fiction. It's the only main Gaskell novel I haven't read yet and I'm 150 pages in and loving it.

>65 kac522: I'm so glad I found her channel - I can't remember when it was, but I've done two Victobers, so maybe 2023? And there are quite a few things I've picked up because she recommended them. Cuddy is excellent, in particular, and there was a Christmas book last year that I didn't read but want to - I must see if I wrote it down somewhere! I love Wives and Daughters, and if you can also watch the BBC/PBS adaptation it is fabulous. They give it an ending, which is perfect. Actually I might pick that up too - I read it when the TV series came out, but not since then. This is the perfect reason!

>66 susanj67: I really want to read Cuddy but my library doesn't have it. I may put in a request for them to buy it.

>67 kac522: I hope you can find it. It's still pretty new.



At Bertram's Hotel by Agatha Christie

I read this for my online book group, and it was OK. There's a TV version of it which has quite a different plot, so that confused me. But it was a pretty quick read, so now I'm up to date with book group books, at least until I pick up another one later.

I went to a talk at the library yesterday and two new books came home with me - Sandwich and Everything Must Go. The latter is about why we think the end of the world is close, so it looked like a good companion read to The Morbid Age. But The People of Providence is waiting at the other library for me, and I need to pick that up and read it first, as it's for the online book group next month and there seems to be only one copy in the whole of London. I hoped it would be available yesterday afternoon when I was out, and checked the library app before I came home, but it only showed as ready later in the day. Vexing!

The People of Providence: A Housing Estate and Some of Its Inhabitants by Tony Parker

This is July's book for my online book group, and I manged to get perhaps the only copy in the London library system. It's a fabulous read, but I think a poor choice for a book group because it's so hard to get hold of from a library and expensive to buy. But I really enjoyed it. It's an oral history of a council estate the author calls the Providence estate, but which is really the Brandon estate in Kennington. It was published in 1983, but an afterword says it took five years to put together, so I think he was interviewing people from the late 70s onwards. And it seems like a completely different time.

The estate was built in the 50s and, like many big new council estates, was amazing for people who had previously been living in slum housing. By the time of these interviews, though, a lot of "problem" tenants had been moved in, the on-site caretakers had been removed because of fears of violence and it was a less attractive place. Some interviewees hated it, while others were still grateful for the opportunity to live there. The author also interviewed "outsiders" including two police officers, some teachers, the doctor, the local librarian and some squatters (known to the Greater London Council, as it was then, and allowed to stay short-term in return for some rent and payment of the utility bills).

I read it quickly because I want to return it tomorrow, but it would also work well read a little bit at a time.

>69 susanj67: that's definitely going on the wishlist! It sounds fascinating.

>70 Jackie_K: It's so good! And very cleverly structured, too, for reasons I won't go into in case of spoilers. But it's a masterpiece of its kind :-)

Just to say for anyone who has tempted that The People of Providence was reissued by Eland a few years ago, in paperback and Kindle, and still seems to be in print in both. I have it in Kindle and a couple of other secondhand dead tree books, but I think I might have to start collecting some of the others, even though some are older than me.

>72 elkiedee: It is available but quite expensive, I thought. The online book group is really supposed to be books that can be found in libraries, or people complain :-) But I'm returning it today so someone else should get it in a day or two.



Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy

This is Hardy's first published novel, and I read it for the Hardy readalong mentioned in >52 kac522: above. Having only read Tess of the D'Urbervilles by this author, it wasn't what I expected at all. It's almost like a "sensation" novel, with lots of mysteries and running around. I thought it was perhaps a bit long, but overall I enjoyed it, although the heroine's name - Cytherea - stumped me on the pronunciation front. Every time I saw it I felt a little bit annoyed that I didn't know for sure how it was said, even though I wasn't reading aloud and it didn't matter. I could have just called her "Cynthia" in my head.

Next month's book is Under the Greenwood Tree, which seems quite a bit shorter (unless the copy I saw at the library has very tiny print, but I didn't borrow it).

>73 susanj67: I read Desperate Remedies a couple of years ago for Victober and agree it was a bit long. I did enjoy his description of the countryside and also I remember it being about an architect, which I thought was interesting, since Hardy started out life as an architect. Under the Greenwood Tree is shorter, very pastoral (set in the 1830s or 40s, I think) and about people unwilling to give up their old ways.

>73 susanj67: Your comments on how to pronounce Cytherea prompted me to do a bit of research: https://forvo.com/search/Cytherea/. The only pronunciation on the site is from an American, so it might not be the same in British English, but to my ear it sounds like "sith-uh-REE-uh."

>74 kac522: I'm looking forward to one that's a bit shorter!

>75 christina_reads: Thank you, Christina :-) It's an odd name, but I see it's another name for Aphrodite. My Google search results also suggest an adult actor. I'd never seen it before.



Sandwich by Catherine Newman

This has been a Kindle deal here recently, so when I saw it at the library I borrowed it. It's about a family's week-long holiday on Cape Cod, and there are some bits that are amusing, but the female main character is a nightmare, and there's some modern made-up nonsense in it that isn't challenged and that put me off.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

This is book 2 in the First Law trilogy. The main characters from the first book are now in three other places in the world, and there are a lot of battles in all of them. I'm not really one for battles, so I liked this less than the first one. But the characters are great, and if there's a Superior Glokta fan-club then I should join it :-) I love his interior monologue, and also the way Abercrombie explains why he is the way he is.

I found the latest Joe Pickett novel on KU the other day, which is amazing. I think that will be today's read, along with another chapter of The Morbid Age.

The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919 - 1939 by Richard Overy

This is a very detailed look at why Britons thought the world was going to hell in a hand-basket in the interwar years. We look back now and blame Hitler, but Hitler wasn't the only reason, or even the main reason. People thought all sorts of things were wrong, and that civilisation was sure to collapse any day.

For me, it was possibly a bit *too* detailed but it's a great record of a past time, when learned lectures were broadcast on the radio, people showed up to public talks and summer schools and books on all sorts of subjects were snapped up by a public wanting more and more information. These days TV and social media has taken over much of the provision of information about current events, so I doubt anyone writing in 2130 about the 2020s will be able to piece together such a detailed picture.

Battle Mountain by C J Box

This is the 25th book in the Joe Pickett series. Joe is my third-favourite thriller hero, after Gabriel Allon and Jack Reacher, and I love the Wyoming setting and the cast of characters. This book is mostly about Nate Romanowski, who is on the hunt for the evil Axel Soledad. Meanwhile, Joe is asked by Governor Rulon to go south to Warm Springs to try and find the governor's son in law, who has gone missing. We see a little bit of Saddlestring in this book, as there are scenes with Marybeth and Sheridan, but mostly the action takes place in the mountains. By 65%, I was a bit worried that Nate might not pull anyone's ear off but that particular worry is satisfactorily resolved :-)

Amazingly, the whole series seems to be on KU, and I'd recommend it!

Toxic Love: The Shocking True Story of the First Murder by Cancer by Tomas Guillen

I'll admit that the subtitle of this book drew me in. It's on KU and, while it could have done with more copy-editing, it's an engaging story of two murders in 1978 in Nebraska, using an unlikely method. That's all I want to say, because the story unfolds in an unexpected way.

I've got KU for another month, although I'm a bit tempted to keep it going. I'd be more tempted if Jeff wasn't wasting my money on vanity projects and a giant wedding, but we'll see.

It's a lovely weekend here, and yesterday was Trooping the Colour, for the King's official birthday. Amazingly, one country with an *actual felon* in charge has been holding protests against kings. They should maybe try one again, because ours is a very mild-mannered chap who seems to get on with everyone.

The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is book 2 in the Nora Kelly series, and once again rookie FBI Special Agent Corrie Swanson is involved in lots of running around and searching for things in New Mexico as Nora tries to balance her work for the FBI with her real job.

I've got the third one ready to go. I love this series, which my library doesn't have in ebook format, so I'm making the most of the KU versions while I have it.

The Family Lies by Angela Henry

I saw this recommended by one of the thriller BookTubers, and it's on KU. Main character Sabrina goes to work as a private librarian (!) for a rich man in his mansion, but almost immediately creepy things start happening, and she wonders whether he might in fact be terrible.

I took a break from turning pages and went to Tesco. Then I finished this jigsaw, which was Very Hard. It's getting donated.



Disney+ has rolled out an amazing offer of £1.99 per month for four months, so I have signed up for that *and* they've kept my account going since last time, so I can see where I'm up to on various long-running series. (Netflix gets rid of data after ten months with no subscription here.. Maybe everywhere). So far I'm really enjoying High Potential, and I've watched a few Criminal Minds as well :-) They are the perfect thing to do while puzzling. We *might* be having a heatwave, which will be different. Last summer I was air-conditioned, but now I'm all on my own with the weather and no interventions. Eek!

Diablo Mesa by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is book 3 in the Nora Kelly series, and another great read. This time Nora and Corrie are caught up in the excavation of the Roswell site, where there might or might not be an alien spacecraft. And the dig is funded by a billionaire with a Tesla. I've now read all the books in this series on KU, but must find book 4 in a library somewhere. Book 5 is out in July, so may be available to reserve.

It's hot again today, but I've been to Westfield where it was a bit cooler. I had fun at Foyle's, looking at books for Booky Work Friend's little boy, as I am seeing her tomorrow for lunch. Somehow I've done all my steps for today already, which is a win.

Um, Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon

Can a person have KU without reading Ice Planet Barbarians? Well, I am not that person. I caved and read this last night and it's fun, save for the beginning which isn't. A dozen women are kidnapped from Earth by aliens, but then the spaceship crashes on a cold planet a long way away and the aliens disappear. But never mind! There are hot barbarians with horns and tails, all looking for da laydeez. In the first book, leader Georgie meets Vektal, who just knows she's his fated mate. I have a feeling I'm going to read this whole series.

I went to the library today to get Dead Mountain, which is the next in the Nora Kelly series, and also got The Mare and Great Big Beautiful Life. And Careless People came in overnight as an ebook and it's FAB so far. Every Kiwi should read it, as the author is a Kiwi who went to work at Facebook, and this is her memoir. A couple of chapters in and she's already throwing shade on the age-old Kiwi "enemy", describing a conversation with the woman who will become her boss:

"She...throws me a bone by saying they've opened a communications role in Australia that will do some policy work, as Facebook's under a lot of political pressure there because "somehow the worst of the internet ends up on Facebook Australia." I tell her I'm not surprised."

Careless People: A Story Of Where I Used To Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams

The author was Director of Public Policy at Facebook between 2011 and 2017, and this is her memoir about that job. The title is a reference to The Great Gatsby and the spoiled people at the heart of that story. The top brass at Facebook are, she says, just as oblivious to the real world, and just don't care. She give numerous examples of things that went wrong which could have been fixed with proper attention and investment, but no-one cared. And it's her realisation of this that really makes the story. It's not a lack of information, or resources, or people not understanding why problems are cropping up and the firm is breaking the law. They know. They just don't care. It's a fascinating read, and her experience will be familiar to a lot of people who work for large organisations where all the right things are *said*, but what's done is an entirely different story. I loved it, and read the whole thing in a day. 100% recommended, but especially for Kiwis, as there are funny references to Kiwis out in the world, and the way everyone thinks we all know one another. The John Key visit to Facebook HQ is excellent :-)

It's going to be another really hot day here, so I'm going to stay home and read novels. I think I'll start with the Emily Henry, as that's the newest and I was surprised to find it on the shelf. The checkout machine buzzed that it had holds, and made me take it to the desk, but they must be out-of-borough holds, and my borough doesn't send books to other libraries for the first six months.

Is it just me, or is Great Big Beautiful Life incredibly boring? I'm 200 pages in (so halfway through) and so far it's just a chirpy young woman trying to humanise a morose sulky man. Why are women socialised to think this is what they should spend their lives doing? I considered finishing it last night but started book 2 of Ice Planet Barbarians instead.

Very hot again, and I need to go out for groceries as the weekend is going to be even hotter. It could be 33C OMG.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

This is ridiculously boring. Nothing happens, and it keeps on not happening for more than 400 pages. It's mostly just schmaltzy buzzwords as the main couple fight it out for a job that they're supposed to want, but it's not really clear why. I may just be too old for this sort of thing now. I think I would have DNFd the ebook version of this, but I had a brand new hardback from the library and didn't want to "waste" it, which is ridiculous.

In other news, book 2 of Ice Planet Barbarians is going well :-) And I think it's a bit less hot than yesterday, or there's a breeze or something else that's different. But I did buy two boxes of popsicles at the supermarket, just in case.

>88 susanj67: Oh man, sorry you didn't enjoy Great Big Beautiful Life! I really liked all the flashbacks to Margaret's and her family's stories. Agree with you that the contemporary romance is less compelling.

>89 christina_reads: I think Margaret's story on its own might have been more my thing!



Barbarian Alien by Ruby Dixon

This is book 2 in the series, and sees Raahosh "resonate" with Liz. Liz is unimpressed until she receives the symbiont that allows the women to survive on the cold planet, and then she sees Raahosh in a whole new light :-)

Hot already and it's only 9am. Weirdly, though, the weather app says it will rain any time now, which I thought was ridiculous but it has clouded over and may indeed rain.

I think today I'll start The Mare, which is a Walter Scott nominee I couldn't find before the prize-winner was announced. I've also got Barbarian Lover ready to go, because of course I have.

The Mare by Angharad Hampshire

This is superb. It's the fictionalised story of Hermine Braunsteiner, a concentration camp guard at Ravensbruck and Majdanek, who later married an American man and moved to the US. In 1964 a US journalist broke the story about her, leading eventually to her extradition back to Germany and a prison sentence. One timeline is in Hermine's voice, while the other is narrated by her husband, Russell Ryan. Braunsteiner's excuse was "I was just doing what I was told", but it's clear that she saw the camp jobs as better than jobs she would otherwise have been able to get. She wasn't "conscripted" and forced to do it, as she claimed.

There's a good blog post by the author, here: https://theconversation.com/female-nazi-concentration-camp-guards-the-true-horro...

Barbarian Lover by Ruby Dixon

Book 3 is Kira and Aehako's story. Human Kira has a "translator" implant, given to her by the little green men who kidnapped the humans. This means she can understand other languages, and translate them for the group. But it also means she can hear the aliens' plans to return to the planet and retrieve their cargo. Meanwhile Aehako is trying to convince her that she's his fated mate, even though her symbiont hasn't resonated with his. He thinks he could do this by demonstrating his talents in the furs, but then he discovers kissing ("incredibly deviant"). I didn't have an IPB obsession on my bingo card for summer 2025, but I'm having so much fun with these books :-)

Corpus by Rory Clements

This is the first in a series about an American academic at Cambridge University in 1936, drawn into investigating some strange deaths around the time Edward VIII was deciding whether to abdicate and high-profile British fascists were making the news.

I thought it was possibly a bit over-complicated, and I agree with the LT review that said the characters knew too much about what was really happening in Germany, but it was a decent enough read. I've added the second one to my elibrary wishlist, and I'll get to it when I have a free reserve slot.

Dead Mountain by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is book 4 in the Nora Kelly series, which I found in hard copy last week at the library. Once again there is a lot of running around in New Mexico, and danger. This is just as good as the others and I'm looking forward to book 5, which came out a couple of weeks ago. I've reserved it from the library.

Once I'm up to date with this series, I'm going back to Agent Pendergast, as I've only read three of the 22 books in that series.

Barbarian Mine by Ruby Dixon

This is book 4 in the Ice Planet Barbarians series, and also book 4 of the "IPB Universe". I clicked the universe booklist on LT and there are 74 books in it so far, and that's not counting the novellas. I do love a series, though...

I also saw that the first four couples each have a .5 novella, which is their "honeymoon" and tells us more about them. Those novellas aren't listed at the back of the KU copies of the books, and I think were published later.

Today's IPB read is Ice Planet Holiday, which is a Christmas novella, or whatever passes for Christmas on Not-Hoth.

Two freebies:



Rogue Force by Jack Mars

Troy Stark has just retired (in his early 30s) from a career in black ops. But when killer drones start targeting civilians in various large cities, he’s given a job with the NYPD, except not really. It’s a cover for a government organisation dedicated to finding the baddies and disposing of them. This has lots of international running around, many guns and good characters.

Rogue Command by Jack Mars

Troy is now based in Madrid, working for an organisation which deals with security matters. But he’s also still working for the US, and gets involved in investigating the bombings of various scientific institutions. Once more lots of running, plus some boating and helicopters. And guns.

There are more in this series, which I'd like to continue.

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

This novel is about a Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia whose four-year-old daughter goes missing when they are in Maine, picking berries during the harvest in 1964. The world says she's dead. The family thinks she isn't. The story is told from two points of view - one of them an older child, now in his 50s and dying from cancer at the family home in Nova Scotia. The other is a woman from Maine, who recalls a childhood in which she wondered why she looked nothing like her parents...

Well. A heat wave has been forecast, but is currently missing. I got up early to go to the supermarket, and it was cool enough to walk over to Canary Wharf, although the refrigerated section was nice when I got there. I got home, made an iced coffee (Nescafe espresso concentrate - it will change your life) and got ready for the heat to hit. Still waiting. Currently it's overcast and still not that hot, even though there's been a health warning since midday yesterday. All very strange.

I'm reading a good KU book about the Sam Sheppard case, which I know nothing about although the name rings a vague bell. I'm not looking it up. Then maybe I'll get back to the barbarians, as there is something cooling about reading about an ice planet when it's hot.

The Wrong Man by James Neff

This is about the murder of Marilyn Sheppard in 1954, and her husband's trial and incarceration. Many things were strange about the evidence, and the author looks at Dr Sheppard's attempts to appeal the verdict, and at who else could have committed the crime. If you're in the US then you're probably very familiar with this case, which the author describes as the "trial of the century" until the OJ Simpson case in 1995. I wasn't familiar with it at all, so found the very detailed account interesting, as well as all the legal nerdery. I'm still amazed that jurors can be (a) named and (b) interviewed in the US as it's so illegal here that anyone who tried it would be facing a contempt of court charge and a huge fine. One thing I wasn't prepared for was a picture of the crime scene with the victim still in it, so beware of the picture section at the end.

This is a KU book at the moment. The publication date says 2015 but it was originally published in 2001.

Ice Planet Holiday by Ruby Dixon
Barbarian's Prize by Ruby Dixon

Ice Planet Holiday is a novella in the IPB series, as the humans' lives start to settle down on Not-Hoth. Georgie thinks a holiday celebration of some sort might be fun, but holidays are not something the barbarians celebrate, leading to some comic misunderstandings about their purpose and the concept of gifts.

Barbarians Prize is book 5, and the story of Tiffany and Salukh. One of the best things about the way these books are written is hearing the human speech from the barbarian point of view. The author writes it almost phonetically, with the words running together, and you can understand why the barbarians are sometimes mystified, even once they've received the language upload from the ancestors' cave. They still don't understand a lot about life on "Urth", but they do their best to love and protect the strange little women who've arrived on their planet. Salukh is convinced that Tee-fah-nee is his fated mate, but can he convince her?

Barbarian's Mate by Ruby Dixon

This is book 7 in the series, and sees the last remaining unmatched human woman finally resonating with a mate. And that's all I'm saying, as anything else would be a spoiler :-)

Having the Barbarian's Baby by Ruby Dixon

This is a "slice of life" short story, about the birth of a baby to a human/barbarian couple.

Ice Ice Babies by Ruby Dixon

This is another slice of life story, this time about Nora, who is mother to twin girls. Can she recapture the magic of the early days with her barbarian honey?

Book 7 contained a big plot twist, setting up books 8 and 9. Exciting!

It's supposed to be the hottest June day ever today, reaching 34C. So far there's a nice breeze but it's only 9.25. I'm staying inside all day, as it seems safest. The Savage Isle arrived as an elibrary reserve yesterday so I think I'll read that. It's the first in a new series about Britain in the time of the Romans.

I'm having the best time watching Olivia Rodrigo at Glastonbury last night, as I saw from a review that she had a special guest :-) Soooo good! OMG.

It was Robert Smith of The Cure and she introduced him by saying he was the best songwriter in the UK, and she wasn't wrong. But apparently everyone expected Ed Sheeran! The review I saw said it was the best-kept secret of the festival. I think the youngsters weren't entirely sure who he was, but the oldies went nuts :-)

Oh, now she's talking about things she's learned "being older". The child is 22 :-)

A new thing I have discovered reading KU true crime: There is a plant called an "air potato".

Imperfect Justice: Prosecuting Casey Anthony by Jeff Ashton

This is another true crime book currently available on KU in the UK. It's written by one of the prosecution team (and a journalist) and it's about the Casey Anthony case in the US, which involved a missing toddler, a mother who couldn't care less and an amazing verdict (not a spoiler - that's in the very first part of the book).

Straw poll: I gave a friend's toddler Would You Rather... last week, and one of the questions is would you rather an elephant drank your bathwater, or a pig tried on your clothes? Apparently this has caused quite a bedtime discussion, with the elephant just nosing ahead (pun fully intended). But what does LT think, and why? :-) (I asked whether dry-cleaning would be offered in the pig scenario, but the book is silent on that, so we have to assume no dry-cleaning).

>105 susanj67: I think I would rather have a pig try on my clothes. Pigs (especially teacup pigs) look adorable in clothes. I might not be done with my bath when the elephant chooses to drink the water, and that would be unwelcome for both of us.

>106 lowelibrary: April, that has evened up the score! I wonder if the little fellow voted for the elephant on the basis that it would drink the water *before* the bath, meaning no bath, because that could be attractive to a busy two-year-old.



Dead Lion by John Bonett and Emory Bonett

This is a "classic" British crime novel, published while there was still rationing. It's book 1 in the Professor Mandrake mysteries, which I thought would be a whole series but there are only two more. I have an electronic bind-up of the three from KU but I didn't like it enough to continue with the others, so it's going back. It was OK, but I'm used to a faster pace, and it took a while to meander to the point.

Losers Club by Yvonne Vincent

This is the first in a cosyish series set on a small island off Scotland, and the amateur sleuths are members of a diet club set up by the main character. She returns to the island with her stroppy teenagers after her marriage ends, and starts the club as part of her new business plan. But immediately there's a murder to investigate etc etc. This was just OK. There are too many characters, and I thought it was pretty crude in parts (yes, I realise this is a surprising observation given I'm now an Ice Planet Barbarians fan, but I think there's a difference between "crude" and "good old-fashioned smut"). I'm not going to continue with it, as there are too many other KU options I might like better.

Library haul! I checked my page and two books had arrived since I last checked it yesterday. So I went up to Whitechapel to get them, and got a couple of other things because of course I did.

The Venetian Game - I reserved this after I saw the series on Barbara's thread (Hi Barbara!). It took ages to arrive and was showing as "In transit" for so long I feared it might be a phantom, but it finally came.
Badlands - the brand new Nora Kelly adventure! I was amazed to get this so quickly, but now I have to wait a whole year till the next one, which is the peril of being caught up on a series.
King of Ashes - this is the new S A Cosby novel and I saw it in the display of new books and grabbed it. I love his books.
High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. I want to read the Simon Heffer books The Age of Decadence, Staring At God and Sing As We Go, but reviews say Sing As We Go is the fourth in his "mighty series" starting with the accession of Queen Victoria, so I think this must be the first, even though it doesn't have a matching cover. It's a huge book, with 817 pages of text, so I might have to set myself a timetable. Or - gasp - renew it. But I want to make a start today.

Other library haul:

Glittering Images - I saw that Pamela read this series on holiday (Hi Pamela!) and I remembered reading at least some of it back in 1991, so I thought I'd (re)read the whole thing. The Barbican library had it in the reserve stock, and my hard copy is the original 1987 one. The elibrary has books 4, 5 and 6 so I only need the first three in hard copy.
The Lost City of the Monkey God - a random NF pick, but it's by Douglas Preston so it should be good.

I have Kindle Unlimited as a super-cheap offer until 15 July, but I've turned it off from that date, at least for a while. I'll finish Last Argument of Kings, which completes the Joe Abercrombie trilogy, and maybe a couple more IPB adventures, but there are other things I want to read outside KU. I've started The World: A Family History of Humanity, which is going to be quite a project. Yesterday I read the first chunk of High Minds and it also looks very promising.

Well, goodness me! The Observer has an article this morning about the real story behind The Salt Path, and it's a shocker. https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-real-salt-path-how-the-couple-b... I always did wonder how they lost their home despite apparently having evidence they tried to put before the court at the last minute. Usually judges are pretty lenient with litigants in person on matters of procedure. But it's starting to make sense now. I wonder if Penguin will require the fourth book to be written, and whether the title will be "G Is For Grifters". They can have that suggestion free :-)

>111 susanj67: yes I saw that and it's really shocking. I gave the book a high rating because I thought the descriptive writing was beautiful, but I did struggle to warm to the author and found it quite a stressful read. I also thought the court case bit at the beginning was weird, but assumed it was because I'm not a lawyer and don't know the finer details of how these legal things work. I bet the meetings at Penguin tomorrow will be quite something. I just can't understand how nobody - editors, publisher, agent - thought to say hang on a minute, let's check this out before publication.

>112 Jackie_K: I've read all three books and liked them but the first one in particular stressed me out with their extreme frugality - and all the time they had land in France they could have sold and used that money to live on. They also claimed benefits in that first book, so I wonder whether those were means tested. I'm surprised it's taken this long for the story to come out, to be honest - anyone can post on Twitter these days and tag journalists, or go along to one of the events and ask a "question" from the audience.

Heh - I just checked Twitter, and one of the first posts is an ad from Penguin for book 4. There's a Waterstones exclusive edition and everything. Oh dear. I think that, although the stealing is bad enough, it will be even more of a shock if it turns out there's nothing wrong with her husband. Belle Gibson all over again. It will be awful for people with the same disease who might have thought they too could do what he did.

>107 susanj67: I've enjoyed a few crime novels by John & Emery Bonnett, the ones that feature a Nick and Nora clone swanning around the Riviera and being witty, but gave up on Dead Lions after a couple of pages. Too slow, as you say.

>110 susanj67: Susan Howatch is such a good story-teller. On previous holidays I've read her Gothics, Penmarric and Cashelmara, so I put Glittering Images on my wish list. I was wary of there being too much religion, but I became so immersed that I had to read the whole series. The Church of England is central to so much British fiction e.g. Anthony Trollope, Margaret Oliphant, Barbara Pym that I was happy to find out more about it. Advice for ambitious young Anglican clerics: marry right woman! Otherwise, apostasy looms.

>114 pamelad: I'll have to try the Bonetts again next time I have KU. I'm looking forward to the Susan Howatch books. I can't remember whether I read more in the series last time, but I was reading one in 1991 (on a balcony in the Cook Islands, no less!) before easy library reserves, so I doubt I read all six. I'll look out for the others, too. I'm always well-disposed to people called Susan :-) I'm reading High Minds at the moment, and there is a ton of religion in that too, but, as you say, it's so useful for understanding what people were writing about!

It has been *raining* here, which is very exciting after all the heat. I think it's stopped now, though, so I can go to Tesco later before the next heat wave hits.

The Winn/Walker story has really blown up overnight. And now someone on Twitter is saying it was an "open secret in the narrative-non-fiction world." This makes it even more interesting that no-one blew the whistle, unless this sort of thing is much more widespread than anyone's admitting, and it was a mote/beam situation.

>115 susanj67: I'd say I'm on the periphery of the narrative nonfiction world, and it wasn't an open secret from my vantage point (unless this is the exact point where I discover nobody likes me or tells me anything 😂). There's been a lot of thoughtful discussion, but I'd say many people are genuinely scunnered by the whole thing.

>116 Jackie_K: I just can't get over the illness aspect. The PSPA has published a statement saying it's no longer working with them: https://www.pspassociation.org.uk/news/pspas-response-to-the-observer-article/ . On Mumsnet there's a lengthy two-thread discussion (so far) about all of it, with someone pointing out that patients don't necessarily get "re-diagnosed" if their symptoms change, but it's all very strange. I get that maybe they thought he had CBD at the beginning, but people don't get better from it, so at the very least they should have said in the later books that perhaps the diagnosis was wrong. (But someone has also cited Stephen Hawking, who lived for far longer than expected with MND, albeit not pretending he was getting better at any stage).

I saw a statement that she was "consulting lawyers". Every single law firm is going to insist on quite a chunk of money up front for that advice...

Ooh, now the Walkers' nephew has posted on Linkedin:

*****

"Something a little different from me.

The people behind The Salt Path books are not who you think they are. The real people, Sally and Tim Walker, my Uncle & Aunt, are pathological liers who have always left a trail of destruction behind them.

Learn the truth about them in the article by Chloe Hadjimatheou at The Observer.

Glad the truth is finally coming out."

*****

Retirement is perfect for this sort of drama. I can keep up with all the developments in between reading my book and doing my jigsaw puzzle. #livingthedream #oldladygoals

>117 susanj67: Yes, I agree with you. My father in law died last year from PSP, which as the PSPA say is closely related to CBD, and his trajectory was very much not the one in this book. I get that sometimes symptoms can be subdued for a period of time, but reversal/cure is another kettle of fish entirely.

My favourite response to the whole thing has been posted by travel writer Tim Hannigan: "So, it turns out Roger Deakin couldn't swim, Helen Macdonald had a budgerigar not a goshawk, and Robert Macfarlane was neither lone nor enraptured..."

>119 Jackie_K: Still no proper statement from her. I blame the lawyers, who tend to insist on stuff like knowing all the facts before starting defamation proceedings.

Today has been a super-busy day for news in the UK, and now I see we're getting the Bayeux Tapestry back (on loan) while the museum in France is refurbished. It's being announced later, but the BBC has the story already. I'd like to see the copy made in Victorian times, which apparently has underwear added to the nekkid men.



Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

This is the final book in the trilogy, and was once again very long with too much fighting. But I will always be a Sand dan Glokta fan-girl :-) I think I would have left more time between the books if I hadn't been trying to finish them while I still had the KU cheap deal.

>116 Jackie_K: and other messages/Raynor Winn - I was interested to notice in the Amnesty charity bookshop in Kentish Town this afternoon that her books 2 and 3 were in the fiction section of the shop. I don't know whether or not they were originally there.

>121 elkiedee: I have seen a few references to people doing that!

There is now a rebuttal statement: https://www.raynorwinn.co.uk/

Badlands by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

This is book 5 in the Nora Kelly series, and once again there is a lot of running around. At one point Nora has to drive for many hours, when she would listen to audiobooks. "She'd come prepared with a couple of good thrillers by Preston and Child." I liked this a lot, and read the whole thing this afternoon and evening, much of it sitting outside as various party boats meandered past. It's a lovely evening here, and not as hot as tomorrow is going to be.

Consumed: How Big Brands Got Us Hooked On Plastic by Saabira Chaudhuri

This is an excellent account of how plastic took over the world. It was mostly led by consumer brands which persuaded us that everything needed plastic, and then blamed us for demanding that plastic when pollution skyrocketed.

My favourite chapter was the one about disposable nappies (diapers). Amazingly, disposable nappies were never intended to be used all the time. They were invented as something parents might use when the family travelled, or a child had to go into hospital, or went to visit Grandma. The manufacturers were staggered when parents started buying them for everyday use, but very soon the nappy laundering services disappeared and disposables became even more attractive. (A quick Google shows that these services are back, at least in London).

There's also a lot about food and drink packaging, and the myth that "recyclable" means "actually recycled", when mostly it does not.

>124 susanj67: I think milk was better in a carton. Less light got to it. We use a lot more of those plastic grocery bags than we did of those much sturdier brown paper bags.

>125 thornton37814: I learned the interesting fact that plastic milk bottles are called "jugs" in the US, which I didn't know before! The UK required shops to charge for "single-use" plastic bags a few years ago, so they slowly disappeared. Now all the supermarket bags are much heavier "bags for life" (still plastic) and the shops promised to replace them if/once they wore out. But that promise was quietly dropped. There was a big increase in cotton bags as a "green" alternative, but those are also problematic, because of all the water used to grow the cotton and make the bags. They *do* last for years and years, so people were ending up with lots of bags they would never use.



The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook

This is a fascinating but very sad read about five families who "lost" members to QAnon and its nonsense. We got a little bit of QAnon news in the UK - I remember when the man showed up at the pizza restaurant to "rescue" the children in the non-existent basement - but it was really a US thing, so much of this book was news to me. It's very well done, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in cults or conspiracy theories.

King of Ashes by S A Cosby

This is the 2025 release by this author, and it's very good, although very violent.

We're having another heatwave, although today is supposed to be the hottest day and it's pretty breezy. But I think the best plan is just to stay inside and turn pages :-)

>126 susanj67: Some of the ladies at our church collect the plastic bags. Then they tear them into strips and crochet them into blankets for the homeless. Apparently they are waterproof and keep them warm in winter.

>128 thornton37814: That's a good way to reuse them. It must be a challenge with such short strips of material, though!



Kills Well With Others by Deanna Raybourn

This is a follow-up to Killers of a Certain Age, and involves just as much running around and killing. But, like Jack Reacher, the retired assassins only kill people who need killing (apart from one unfortunate incident in 1982...). It's not clear whether this is going to be a series, but I'd definitely read another one.

The Venetian Game by Philip Gwynne Jones

This is the first book in a mystery series about the UK's Honorary Consul in Venice. I liked the setting, but the main character less so.



Barbarian's Touch by Ruby Dixon
Barbarian's Taming by Ruby Dixon

I turned KU back on, mostly so I could continue with this very silly but addictive series. I can't say much about these books, because it would involve significant spoilers, but they were lots of fun. I'm going to try and read one every day, or I'll be a KU member for a gazillion years.

But today also involved a library haul, as I got an email to say An Inside Job was ready to pick up. Never have I put my face on so quickly and run up there for a reserve. I also borrowed The New Age of Sexism which I had reserved as an ebook, so I've been able to cancel that reservation and pick something else from my wishlist, and The New Geography of Innovation.

Later on, a Fortnum & Mason musical biscuit tin arrived! It's a competition prize from the Lovatts crossword magazine people. I knew something was on its way as they wrote to say I'd won something but not what the thing was. The biscuits are excellent :-)

A musical biscuit tin of posh biscuits sounds fun! What tune does it play? Congratulations.

>131 elkiedee: It plays a song from "La Traviata". I wasn't sure how airtight it was once I'd opened it, so I put the biscuits into another container and now it's got tea bags and coffee sachets in it, looking fancy on a shelf in the kitchen :-)

Glittering Images by Susan Howatch

This is the first in the author's "Starbridge" series, about the Anglican church in the 20th century. It starts in 1938 as Charles Ashworth, a Canon at Cambridge, is asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the Bishop of Starbridge. But the investigation doesn't go quite as he expected.

All the main characters are a ten on the drama-llama scale, so of course I enjoyed it immensely, and I'm looking forward to the next one, which I'll reserve once the library TBR pile is a bit shorter. It's in the stores at one of my libraries, so I can get it in a couple of days.

>133 susanj67: I became addicted to the Starbridge series and when in some of the places I stayed OS the Wi-Fi didn't work well enough to buy and download the next one, I was so disappointed. Such a relief when the next one was safely on my Kobo. Susan Howatch tells a good story.

>134 pamelad: That must have been frustrating! I was surprised at how quickly I read Glittering Images - it's 500 pages and it flew by, even though it's hardly action-packed (apart from all the driving around the country).



Girl A by Abigail Dean

This is on KU, and described as a "crime thriller", but it's not. It's more of a psychological study of the aftermath of child abuse (seven children kept prisoner in a house by wackadoodle parents), told by "Girl A", the oldest daughter. I kept waiting for the crime part, but apart from the parents' crime there wasn't any. I did enjoy it, if "enjoy" is the right word, but I don't think the description and publicity does it any favours.

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

This is a very good non-fiction book from Preston, whose FBI thrillers I like :-) I saw it at the library when I went to pick up a reserve, and I couldn't resist. It's about a famed "lost city" in Honduras, that people have tried to find for centuries. Preston travelled with an expedition in 2015 which made use of LIDAR to narrow down potential areas for searching. But the book is about a lot more than just the expedition. There's a history of the area, the failed searches by various eccentric characters, the expedition itself, the aftermath (disapproval from various experts who mostly seemed jealous that they weren't there themselves) and quite a bit about diseases of the region, and how "Old World" diseases wiped out so much of the indigenous populations. It's all really interesting.

One note: If you're freaked out by reading about giant sn*kes, this is not the book for you.

A second note: I just checked KU for Preston's books and and Extinction is available. It's the first in a two-book set or series (so far, although I think the second has yet to be published ETA: It's called Paradox), and was published in 2024. Exciting!

The Scientist Who Wasn't There by Joanne Briggs

This is an unsatisfying read. It's a memoir by the daughter of a sketchy scientist who faked having a PhD and may or may not have been involved with the development and marketing of Primodos, which caused birth defects in the 1960s. The allegation seems to be that he faked the results of scientific tests, but it's really not clear what was going on. She also wonders whether he tried to poison her mother but, again, it's all a bit woo-woo, and goes completely woo towards the end, with imagined scenes involving the father just before he died. I think if I had such a relative I'd be keeping quiet about it.

High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain by Simon Heffer

This is a very detailed look at how Britain changed in the Victorian period, or at least up to 1880. The next book, The Age of Decadence, covers 1880 - 1914. Some of the author's choices bemused me a bit. There is one chapter on "women's issues" (my term) including education, divorce and suffrage, but nearly as much space spent (it seemed to me) on all the correspondence going back and forth about the Albert Memorial. I know that women aren't generally of interest to male writers, but that seemed odd in a book written in 2013. But there was lots of interest in it, and lots of references to other books and writers.

An Inside Job by Daniel Silva

This is the brand new 25th book in the Gabriel Allon series, and I've loved them all. I've been caught up since about 2011, so I always look forward to the new one each July. There is a lot of running around in this one, which is set in the art world and involves Gabriel's restoration work. I do miss the stories from his days as an assassin, but quite a few recurring characters appeared in this one. And now I have a whole year to wait until the next one :-(

The New Age of Sexism: How the AI Revolution is Reinventing Misogyny by Laura Bates

This is a very alarming look at how the snazzy new world of AI has already spiralled out of control, to the detriment of women. You may have read about intimate-image abuse and deepfakes, but did you know there are sex robots and cyber-brothels? (Those two chapters are the most dreadful (content-wise, I mean, not the writing)).

Bates is excellent on the subject of misogyny and violence against women, with one exception, and that is her references to "transwomen" being included in this class when they cannot be the victims of misogyny at all. At one point, Bates asks: "For every Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk becoming unimaginably rich, there are thousands of women and girls suffering, self-harming and terrified. Why aren't we standing up for them?" and then over the page:

"It all comes back, again and again, to men's entitlement to progress. Entitlement to wealth. Entitlement to plausible deniability. Entitlement to our bodies. Entitlement to our faces. Entitlement to our lives. Entitlement to our genitals."

But she doesn't make the link between "entitlement to call themselves women if they have the ladyfeelz and pop on a skimpy outfit and clown makeup" and the increasingly pornified expectations on women online and elsewhere. So many young women these days are told that if they don't fit the regressive stereotype of womanhood performed by these (mostly straight, middle-aged, white) men and cheered on by other men, they're not real women at all.

Bates blames the chaos on the straight white tech bros and criticises the fact that people won't speak up against that, but at the same time the TWAW mantra protects straight white men who invade women's toilets and changing rooms wearing a frock, because they're heroes. So which straight white men *can* we criticise? And if Mark, Elon, Sam etc suddenly decided tomorrow that they too were laydeez, presumably all criticism would have to stop immediately.

Usually I avoid things by writers who parrot the TWAW mantra, what with being hard-core swivel-eyed and all, but there is a lot in this book that's really important, so I would recommend it anyway.

Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain's First King by Gareth Russell

The title of this book comes from a 17th century quote: "Elizabeth was king, now James is queen." And yes, it's about James VI/I's love life, but about much more than that. It's a great history of James's reign, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the period. (I hope Borrowbox has now fixed the copy that conked out on me, but I reserved it again from Overdrive and that one behaved itself.) I also liked this author's Young and Damned and Fair, about Catherine Howard.

This book made me realise I know nothing about the Stuarts before Mary Queen of Scots and James, which is terrible as our current royal family is descended from them. I've found a book which should help.



Barbarian's Heart by Ruby Dixon
Barbarian's Hope by Ruby Dixon

These are books 9 and 10 in the Ice Planet Barbarians series. Barbarian's Heart is an amnesia storyline, which I don't usually read, but it's a series so of course I had to. And in Barbarian's Hope, the two main characters are both barbarian. Hemalo loves his dark blue honey, and doesn't really see why the other men are so crazy about the human women, who are not only small and pale but have no tails. The story takes place as human Claire has organised another hawl-ee-deh celebration, with decorations and gifts.

That feeling when Tesco has the back to school specials and you just don't need any stationery. (But if you DO, the best offer I saw was 2x12 Pentel Ink Joy pens for £10 with Clubcard. So pretty! All the colours!)



The New Geography of Innovation by Mehran Gul

This is a fascinating look at where innovation is happening now, and why. We tend to think of Silicon Valley, but is it on the way out? What's really happening in China? Why is Singapore so important? Is the King's Cross area in London really the heart of "New Palo Alto"? This is brand new, so a great read for 2025.

Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States by Alex Wellerstein

The author of this book was one of the contributors to the excellent Netflix series "Turning Point: The Cold War". I wrote down the names as they appeared and then looked for their books. This one is on KU (at the moment, anyway) despite only being published in 2021 by the University of Chicago Press. It definitely doesn't fit the usual KU "elf p*rn" mould. In fact there's nothing about elves in it at all. Or blue barbarians from icy planets.

It looks at how the US grappled with the science that came of the Manhattan Project. Many scientists were in favour of making everything public, but the government disagreed. This led to the beginning of the secrecy regime in place to protect nuclear research and technology, and the book discusses how it came about and how it worked over the years as other countries developed nuclear expertise of their own. "Restricted Data" is a category of information that was restricted by its very nature, even if someone working entirely independently discovered it themselves by their own experiments. That caused a lot of problems, because how can anyone know that what they're doing is "secret" and that they might not be able to make use of their work afterwards?

The issue is still live today, not just with nuclear secrets but with biology (engineered viruses etc), AI and other cutting-edge developments that could be used by bad actors.

>94 susanj67: I haven't been on your thread in ages. I haven't read any books from this series yet, but I've now added the first volume to my list.

>130 susanj67: I read this book by Philip Gwynne Jones in May. I think I liked it a little better than you did.

>139 susanj67: Ah, you remind me that I should read another Silva book again.

Have a nice weekend.

>143 susanj67: Read this double review last week (although beside the fact I read it, remember very little about it, poor on my part). Wondered if any of them were also on the show?
https://www.the-tls.com/science-technology/sciences/going-nuclear-tim-gregory-at...

>144 Ameise1: Hello Barbara! I envy you having some Daniel Silva books still to read. I'm all caught up :-(

>145 charl08: Hi Charlotte! Those aren't names I remember from the programme, but both of the books look really good :-)



London Belongs To Me by Norman Collins

This was a reread, for my book group (I suggested it as the group read). I *love* this novel, which I first read in 2012. It's set over two years in London starting at the end of 1938, and mostly concerns the residents of a house in Kennington, which is split into flats and presided over by a basement-dwelling landlady who is terrified of having to start spending her capital. All the characters are fabulous and the author has a lovely turn of phrase. I really hope the rest of the group enjoys it as much as I have.

And that's my last library book for the time being, save for Under The Greenwood Tree, which I still haven't finished. But that's an always-available ebook. Actually, that may be the problem. Nothing motivates me like a due date. I need to finish it and move on to this month's Hardy book, which is A Pair of Blue Eyes. Mostly, though, I'm reading things on KU as I have it for 12 more days and then I really am switching it off.

Some KU finishes:



That's Not My Name by Megan Lally

This is a good YA thriller about a teenage girl who wakes up at the side of a road, injured, with no memory of who she is or why she's there. Elsewhere in the state, a small town is searching for a teenage girl who's been missing for five weeks...

Extinction by Douglas Preston

This is the first in a new series by Douglas Preston on his own (although I saw on Instagram that he's written book 2 with his daughter). The lead characters are a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent and a county sheriff, called in to investigate two disappearances at an exclusive resort in Colorado where tourists can see de-extincted (they need a better word for that) animals like mammoths. This book does contain cruelty to animals, which is hard to read, so give it a miss if that's going to upset you. Book 2 is out next year.

The Last Party by A R Torre

This is all over ThrillerTube, but it's very silly, and contains my least favourite narrative method, which is part of the story told by someone who doesn't survive till the end

Exile by James Swallow

This is book 2 in the Marc Danes series, and I wish I could remember book 1 better. There is lots of running around and a huge amount of killing in this, which involves a small nuclear weapon that's fallen into the wrong hands. Books 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are on KU but not 4. I see what they did there. But I have seen this series at the library, so I'll get 4 from there.

Young Elizabeth: Princess. Prisoner. Queen by Nicola Tallis

I was amazed to see this on KU as it's brand new and Nicola Tallis is a proper historian. Even better, *four* of her books are on KU at the moment and I also recommend Uncrowned Queen, about Margaret Beaufort, and Elizabeth's Rival: The Tumultuous Tale of Lettice Knollys. (I haven't read Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey).

This one looks at Elizabeth's life until her accession at 25, by which time she'd already packed more into her life than most people would manage in several lifetimes. It's really well done. I heard Nicola Tallis speaking about it at a history writing festival, which is what made me look it up.

The longlists for the Wainwright Prizes have been announced: https://wainwrightprize.com/longlist-2025/

None of the adult nature writing or conservation writing books appear as KU choices (I thought I'd check after finding the Nicola Tallis books there) but The Company of Owls is 99p for Kindle at the moment, Raising Hare is £1.99 and Nature Boy is £2.99.

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan

This is set in New Zealand over the summer holidays of 1985/86, and the narrator is a ten-year-old girl on holiday at the beach with her family. Her stroppy older sister is busy reading Dolly magazine, and Seventeen (oh, the memories!) and considers herself too cool for family holidays, so ten-year-old Alix finds her own friend and starts investigating the disappearance of a girl from the area some time before. This took a while to get going, but overall I liked it. It's very evocative of the time, and full of NZ words and phrases that I was pleased to see (although there was a "corner shop" that should have been a "dairy").

There's more Salt Path drama in today's Observer: https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/we-thought-it-cant-be-the-salt-path...

I went to a talk at the library on Friday and had a moment of weakness:

Travellers in the Golden Realm
The Illegals
Babylonia

And then Jane Austen's Bookshelf arrived yesterday as an e-reserve, so I have plenty to be getting on with. I thought I'd try having just one library book at a time, but that idea did not survive first contact with a library.

Travellers in the Golden Realm: How Mughal India Connected England to the World by Lubaaba Al-Azami

This book is about the English and India before the stories we see today involving lots of military battles and the Raj. The author says this earlier period is little-known, which I suppose proves that every new generation discovers things all over again as there is plenty out there about the earliest travellers and I've read a lot of it. But it's definitely true that it doesn't get a lot of attention although I can't imagine any broadcaster commissioning a story about a lone English traveller in 16th-century India because there would immediately be complaints that it was all about one white man. Attempts to broaden out the narrative would be "cultural appropriation". And so on. They're not our stories to tell etc, and yet we're criticised for not telling them.

Anyway, the book is an interesting read, although the timeline jumps around quite a bit. I did learn things I hadn't read before. But I do think the Mughals got a bit of a free pass, as they were invaders themselves. And the first English travellers weren't there to invade, but to buy and sell things and have a look around. There are great extracts from letters telling friends about their new discoveries, including a delicious drink one of them tried in China, made from "boiled herbs", which he thought might catch on. The author said the Mughals didn't need to trade because they managed their land very well and lived off taxes...but those were presumably taxes on the people they invaded, or money from land they expropriated. The invaded people seemed to be acceptable collateral damage given the glories of the Mughal empire, but other empires aren't treated the same way. And I'm not trying to excuse the failings of the English (and Dutch and Portuguese) but there seems to be a double standard in a lot of modern history writing.

Next up is The Illegals, about Russian sleeper spies. I've read the introduction and it looks really good.

Jane Austen's Bookshelf: The Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend by Rebecca Romney

This is so good! I thought I'd start it yesterday, taking a break from The Illegals, and just kept reading. The author is a rare book collector and dealer, and it's a memoir about her exploration of the women writers *before* Jane Austen, because yes there were quite a few :-) The issue of why we think Austen is a lone genius is also something she discusses.

I was delighted to see she referred to Mothers of the Novel, by the Australian feminist academic and writer Dale Spender, which does something similar. I bought that book back in the late 80s, when it was published, and it's still part of my very small hard copy collection, together with five 18th-century novels republished as part of a project to make the books available again. Dale Spender came to Auckland University to give a talk, and we all wore purple :-) It was standing-room only in the lecture theatre. There were 20 novels published in the end, and I'm torn between wondering why I didn't buy them all and wondering how on earth I spent NZ$27.95 per novel in 1987. (I think part of the answer is tuition fees were tiny and we all had a bursary from the government back then).

These days all the books (or at least texts) are available with a single click, and Romney does read some that way, but also adds some rare hard copies to her collection, and explains how book collectors go about building a collection. I found that part fascinating too.

Now I have about five million new titles for my TBR, but first I have to read Jane Austen's six novels. LT says I've read Pride and Prejudice (which I do remember) and Mansfield Park (which I don't). I think I've also read Emma, but it's time to (re)read everything. I didn't participate in Jane Austen July in the end (darned KU and the blue aliens) but the videos are all waiting for me on YouTube.

>152 susanj67: I'm so excited for your Austen reading plans! I love all her novels...maybe I'll join you in a reread or two.

>153 christina_reads: That would be great! I have a couple of library books to finish, but plan to start Sense and Sensibility on the weekend. I know I haven't read that one, although I must have seen TV versions.

Once again it is HOT (English hot) in London. This is supposed to be the last day of the Very Hot, before normal summer hot returns. Yesterday I went to the supermarket and lingered in the chilled section, but I couldn't stay all day. Today I'm hoping for a bit of a breeze.

Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

I read this for the Hardy readalong on YouTube. It was July's book, but the great thing about YouTube is that the videos are always there to watch, even if you can't keep up with the reading schedule. This one is a short book, and overall I liked it although I kept getting distracted and reading other things. I think that was a mistake, and I'm going to look for the next one in hard copy at the library as the due date keeps me focused.

Two KU finishes to mark the end of my subscription:



The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes - this is the first in a quartet about teens with special talents recruited by the FBI to help catch serial killers. If you like Criminal Minds, this might we worth a look, but I wasn't tempted to continue with the series. It's YA and I'm old, but mostly I just don't like the endless wisecracking (for any age).

I Know Who You Are by Alice Feeney - this is Feeney's second book, and overall a disappointment and frankly totally gross by the ending. This type of plot resolution should not be "entertainment".

Book group was great, but there was some weakness beforehand:

A Neighbour's Guide to Murder by Louise Candlish (brand new hardback!)(apparently not on LT yet)
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena
Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy by Ian Williams
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

And next month's book group book is The Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn. I may have gone just a tiny bit overboard, but most are novels so maybe not. I now have to rearrange the books on top of the blanket box, which stand in a neat row with the bookends that were my leaving present from work. I might have to put a pile of books into the neat row, because I'm in danger of running out of blanket box-top real estate.

>156 susanj67: Did you buy or borrow these new books?

Weirdly, there are 4 copies of the Louise Candlish entered on LT, but touchstones seem to work better without the apostrophe: A Neighbours Guide to Murder

>155 susanj67: Taking a BB for The Naturals. I enjoy Criminal Minds and YA books.

>157 elkiedee: They're all library books. I was tempted to get even more, but made myself stop. That's terrible about the missing apostrophe! I tried the US spelling of the title, but never imagined they'd go feral with punctuation.

>158 lowelibrary: I've seen BookTubers raving about the series, so definitely give it a go!

Yet another hot day. The heat alert has been extended until the end of Monday. I'm making good progress with The Illegals, but I want to start Babylonia today as well. Those two are due back first. I'm considering going out for groceries, but the weather app is still saying tomorrow will be a lot cooler, so I'm tempted to wait until then.

For anyone interested in Victober, Katie Lumsden has put a post on the Discord server to vote on the group read. It's in the "Introductions" section, on 13 August. The choice are Villette, John Halifax, Gentleman, New Grub Street, Hester, The Three Imposters and The Wrong Box. You can vote for more than one book! I read New Grub Street and Hester last year, so I'm hoping for Villette, but all the choices look good.

ETA: I've just seen an option to create an invitation to the Victober Discord! So here's a link, which will last for seven days: https://discord.gg/jmDjnfYU

Finally the heatwave has broken and it's a cool 18C here in London. I've discovered my fitness watch also does the weather. I thought I was operating at peak tech when it showed my text messages (how?!!) but it seems not. I've also started tracking my sleep with it, which isn't going well. Five more nights and I will get some coaching from the app. (Probably "Put down those gadgets and close your eyes!").

This morning I've been grocery shopping and I also went to Waterstones to buy a magnifying bookmark. It's really for crossword magazines with tiny squares, where it's hard to see the numbers, but I've tried it out on a book and it's amazing. #oldladyrecommendations

Now I'm going to hit the books, and maybe try and finish The Illegals today.

It's still pretty hot where I am, I think.

>162 elkiedee: It's up to 21 where I am, but quite blowy and such a lovely change from the past week. I feel so alert!

In other news, QVC has *Christmas chocolates*. It's August. I thought the 2026 calendars at Waterstones this morning were bad enough.



The Illegals by Shaun Walker

Subtitled "Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West", this is a great history of how Russia set up and maintained its "Illegals" programme for a hundred years, placing agents in key Western countries to feed back information to the KGB. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, when Western governments hoped that maybe things could be different in the future, Russians were able to operate using their own names, in plain sight, until the Ukraine invasion in 2022 and the beginning of sanctions. Could Illegals be relevant again? This is blurbed by Simon Sebag Montefiore, Catherine Belton, Oliver Bullough and Tom Burgis, so the publishers really hit the jackpot for the cover quotes, but they are all justified by the book.

This has made me want to watch The Americans again, and fortunately it's on Disney here, which I currently have. Hurrah!

Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy by Ian Williams

This is a very good (and super up-to-date) look at the current state of the Chinese economy, and why the world should be worried about it. The author describes people who write enthusiastically about China as "deluded" and "credulous", which is always exciting :-) He has two earlier books about China, which I have reserved. Every Breath You Take: China's New Tyranny is about surveillance and The Fire of the Dragon is about the country's global ambitions. They are all very timely, given the state of the world. And interesting for my part of London too, which may become home to the new Chinese embassy if the many and varied protesters don't persuade the government to say no. Objections include protests clogging up the roads, its position right on top of key telecoms infrastructure serving the City of London and rooms whose descriptions have been redacted from the plans.

Another coolish day here, which is delightful :-) I thought I'd get some steps in and walk to the local Waitrose, which is about 1,500 steps away. I thought that surely by now they would have fixed the freezer cabinets that broke in the first heatwave (even though they break every year). But no. Still no freezers, and now almost no chilled things either. No milk!! In a supermarket! I really hope they send me a link to their post-visit survey, because I will have a lot to say.

Fortunately I have books to calm myself down. I want to make some more progress with Babylonia today, and maybe finish it so I can return some things tomorrow. At the other library, one of the China books is "in transit", but I'm still #45 in the queue for the book about the Duke of York. It was only published on Thursday last week, though, and the libraries should buy a lot of copies. But I'm horrified by the details about the sex abuse of the Prince as a child, and that has made me question whether I want to support the book by borrowing it. I've read other things by Andrew Lownie and liked them, but I don't understand how anyone thought it was appropriate to write about that. Usually I roll my eyes at "not your story to tell", but this time I totally agree.

Babylonia by Costanza Casati

This is an excellent retelling of the story of Semiramis, a woman in the 800s BC who rose to be an Assyrian queen. I know nothing about the period, so there was Googling, but this was a great story. I also enjoyed the author's earlier book, Clytemnestra.

A Neighbour's Guide to Murder by Louise Candlish

LT seems to have fixed the touchstone to include the apostrophe. Yay!

This is the most recent novel from Louise Candlish, who writes psychological thrillers. I enjoyed this, but the cover promises a twist and I'm not quite sure what the twist was supposed to be. There were twisty bits, but often at the end of these things there's a *huge* twist. I did like the story, though, which is mostly in the form of a manuscript from a seventy-year-old woman who lives in a fashionable mansion block, where a neighbour starts letting out a room to young women...

Next, I had a look at the next book group book and realised that it's 378pp of small type, and it's NF so I've started it already.

>167 susanj67: Hello Susan, have you read 'Those People' by Louise Candlish? My library has a copy of it. They also have 'Our House' and 'The Other Passenger'.
Since this morning, we've had steady rain, which is very welcome after several weeks of heat and drought.

>168 Ameise1: Hello Barbara! I have read all those books by Louise Candlish, and they are great. The Other Passenger in particular is excellent :-)



Only Bad Options by Jennifer Estep

I saw this on Christina's thread (Hi Christina!) and it was available at the e-library, so I clicked :-) And I loved it! It's a really fun read, set on planets far far away with some whizzing around in spaceships, but with very human characters. No blue aliens, in other words. Heroine Vesper Quill is a "lab rat" at a huge company that makes all sorts of things (badly), and finds herself in trouble after whistleblowing about a fault with one of the company's new spaceships. And then her life gets even worse as she meets Lord Kyrion Calderen, head of the elite defence force in the galaxy and a stone cold killer. Both characters are in their late 30s, which is a welcome change, and it's not an "insta-love" story at all. My e-library has book 2, but I have to put a hold on it and of course I have no spare holds at the moment. But it will be the first thing I reserve when I can.

>169 susanj67: Thanks for the tip. I've now added the first volume to my list. 😃

>170 Ameise1: I hope you like it! I've enjoyed all her books :-)

I took four books back to the library, and found The Summer Guests on the shelf. It's the new Tess Gerritsen novel, and it wasn't even in the new books display - just sitting there in the crime and thrillers. Amazing. I do love a brand new hardback :-) This meant I could cancel my hold on the e version and reserve Only Good Enemies instead.

People were wearing *coats* when I went out. Not heavy coats, but still coats. It's pretty windy in London today, which may explain it. I went to Marks & Spencer where they had things like milk and other basics, so I stocked up and then got the bus home. This afternoon I'm going to read some more of the Henry VII book and then start A Pair of Blue Eyes, because the end of the month is approaching and I don't want to carry it over into next month.

>169 susanj67: Oh yay, I'm so glad you enjoyed this one!

>172 christina_reads: I did! I'm looking forward to the next one. I think I'm third in line for the ebook.

I have an important question for y'all in the US. This morning at Tesco I found the Kenko sachets of Pumpkin Spice Latte I saw on YouTube, but it's August. What is the correct start date for PSL season? Should I wait till September, or even October?

Before that, I was in Covent Garden, walking around in an old pair of sunglasses that I bought to look like Sydney Bristow from the TV series "Alias". Sydney worked for the CIA. I passed a street performer who was doing his routine for a small crowd, commenting on what was going on around them, and he said "Now look at this lady. She is an undercover agent for the CIA." I smiled enigmatically as I continued on my way.

I haven't worn sunglasses for a long time, on the basis that it's never that sunny here and I seldom go outside for long periods, but the optician told me yesterday that I have the very beginning of cataracts - eek. So it's back to sunglasses for me. Fortunately my seeing-far ability has improved, so the old pair is fine for the time being, but I will get some new ones. It's just very overwhelming in the shop after the appointment, and the sales assistant had such poor English that I couldn't understand anything, so I just paid for the test, got my prescription and left. I asked about just getting new lenses for frames I already have, but she seemed to say it would cost £90 to use my own frames, plus the cost of the new lenses. Can that possibly be correct? (at Boots). I had a look at their website but it's not clear.

>173 susanj67: I am not a Pumpkin Spice girl myself, but my stepdaughter and daughter-in-law both start PSL the moment they find the first one in the store.

>174 lowelibrary: Thanks April :-) PSL hasn't been A Thing here for that long (outside Starbucks, anyway), but you know it's hit the mainstream when the big companies are doing sachets of instant coffee :-) I'm going to try and wait until September, because tomorrow is supposed to be 30C here, and PSL seems like a colder-weather thing.

It's another lovely day here, so of course I'm spending it reading. I've read today's chapter of Winter King and now I'm reading Still Life With Crows, which is book 4 in the Agent Pendergast series. It's much longer than I thought it would be - the ebook says 648 pages, and the screen is a decent size, so it's not like reading on my phone where every book is about a million pages long.. It was published in 2003, and feels like it. The best part is the introduction of a very young Corrie Swanson, who appears as an FBI agent in the Nora Kelly books. At the moment she's a teenage goth.

Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The fourth instalment in the Agent Pendergast series is set in Kansas, where strange deaths in a cornfield set Pendergast on the trail of an unusual killer. As I said above, the best part about this story was meeting Corrie Swanson. There was a lot of gore and an extended sequence running around a cave system, which felt very claustrophobic. Overall it seemed too long to me.

>173 susanj67: That seems mad that they charge you to use your existing frames! I don't go to Boots though, mostly because Specsavers is our local optician. I've been tempted by the online prices eg here: https://www.glassesdirect.co.uk/best-fit but not convinced I'd get a good fit.

It feels like it should be a storm soon here, but nothing yet, just oppressive heat.

>177 charl08: Yes, it all seems quite hard to understand. I also looked at the online options but, like you, was worried something might go wrong. I'll take my prescription with me when I go out next and have a look for a branch with better communication. The wind is up a bit down here, and apparently London is *not* getting the 30C weather tomorrow - hurrah! It is going to be further north.



What Have You Done? by Shari Lapeña

This was last year's thriller by this author, and very good although it's set in a small town where at least one key plot point relies on someone not locking their doors. Do people really not do that these days? But it was a good read, and now I only have the 2025 book to go and I will have read this author "to zero", which is a thing on BookTube.

The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritsen

This is the second book in the author's "Spy Coast" series, set in a small town in Maine where retired CIA agents "help" the local police solve crimes (whether or not their help is asked for). This is a great instalment, with a satisfying mystery and a good twist. There is also rich-people drama. The UK hardback has a bonus story by the author and Lee Child, which I've read before in a Child anthology, but for anyone who hasn't then this is a good extra.

A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

This is the third book in the Hardy readalong being run by Jen the Librarian on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@JentheLibrarianreads and I've finished it in the correct month. It's a story about love which goes wrong, and there is a fair amount of running around in it, plus characters rushing off on trains and leaving their luggage to follow by goods train later. That's not something that would be possible today.

Next up is Far From the Madding Crowd. I was tempted to get a hard copy at the library this morning, but the hard copy of A Pair of Blue Eyes had asterisks all over the place but no explanation as to why and that drove me mad so I got the ebook version of it instead. I'll do the same with Far From the Madding Crowd as you can always rely on Project Gutenberg for a bare-bones version of a classic with no footnotes, endnotes or anything else. And sometimes that's just what you need.

This morning's library haul was The Well of Loneliness (yes, I saw Katie's review on YouTube :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYWc3COrQ_I&t=939s), Rebel Island, about the history of Taiwan, and "Rope" by Tim Queeney, for which I can't find a touchstone, but which is about the history of rope. I was surprised to learn that rope *had* a history - hasn't it always just been there? But apparently not. Ooh, and looking at the first few pages, there's one titled "AI-Free" which says "No AI was used in the research or writing of this book." Excellent. (It seems to have a touchstone if I put in the author's name too: Rope: Tim Queeney)

It's raining! Well, technically it was raining until about 11.30. Things I nearly did this morning:

Put on tights
Made a PSL
Made soup

But I reminded myself that it's still only August. I did wear a raincoat when I went up to the library to collect a reserve, and that ensured the rain stopped.

I picked up Lighthouse by Tony Parker (who wrote the fabulous The People of Providence), and while I was there three other things jumped into my hands:

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen (the first in her main series)
The Fire of the Dragon by Ian Williams
The Idaho Murders by James Patterson and Vicky Ward

The first two were on my mental list, but the Idaho one was not. However, we got coverage of the sentencing hearing here, and I wanted to read more about it. I hope the families don't think that having James Patterson write it is sensationalising it.

Death Under A Little Sky by Stig Abell

This is the first book in a series (? there is one more so far) about a retired (but not old) police detective who inherits a big house in the country where strange things happen. I liked the set-up, but much of the book involved the main character lusting after one of his neighbours, which is just tedious. It also seemed quite long for the amount of plot. I might try the second one, but I won't go to great lengths to get it.

The Idaho Murders by James Patterson and Vicky Ward

This is about the murder of four University of Idaho students in November 2022. The narrative finishes before the trial, and we know now that there wasn't a trial as the killer pleaded guilty in exchange for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty. One LT review says there's nothing in the book that readers who'd followed the case would not have already known, but I knew very little so that didn't bother me. I did wonder whether the book might dwell on the killings and the injuries to the four, but it didn't really, and it was written with the co-operation of at least some of the families. It was really a portrait of the four young people and their lives, cut short by a lunatic.

I don't think the killer has ever explained why he did it - he wasn't known to any of the victims and didn't go to the same university - but the book suggests that he was an incel, inspired by the one who killed people in California in 2014. (I am deliberately not naming either of them, because they deserve to be forgotten). A friend of one of the victims says she imagined that he had gone to eat at the restaurant where the victim was a waitress, asked her out and she said no. So he's just one of the many, many men who won't take No for an answer. And that certainly makes sense to me. He was known at his own university as a misogynist who thought women were wasting their time getting an education because their role in life was to get married and do whatever men told them to. There is evidence that he was following one of the victims on social media, and spent time outside the house in the evenings, maybe looking into her bedroom. Just a standard run-of-the-mill creep, really, and they wonder why no-one wants them.

I started The Surgeon yesterday afternoon and sadly it *is* a book in which gory deaths of women feature heavily. If Tess Gerritsen writes like Karin Slaughter then I'm not reading any more of hers. Women-horrifically-killed-as-entertainment is not my thing, and I'm particularly disappointed when women write like this.

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

This is the first book in the author's series about a police officer and a medical examiner, although the medical examiner doesn't appear in this one. Written in 2000, it reads like it. The whole book is basically "torture-p*rn", and it's profoundly upsetting. As I said in my post above, I don't know why women write this stuff. They're just giving bad men ideas. The author's new series is nothing like it, perhaps demonstrating that the publishing world has moved on. I don't think I'll continue with the series. There's a TV version, which is apparently lighter (on Amazon here in the UK).

The Victober challenges and announcement videos are up! Here's Katie's video, which has links to all the other hosts in the information underneath, and lots of recommendations in the text as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RWZlJaUU-E

Rope: Tim Queeney by Tim Queeney

As the cover says, this is a book about the history and development of rope. It turns out I'm not that interested in rope, but this did have some good bits. Or maybe good strands :-)

How it started:

Return six books (four to one library, two to another)
Pick up a reserve at the second library
Get the tube down to Tesco with my one book, leaving plenty of carrying capacity for groceries.

How it went:

Six books returned
One reserve picked up (She Didn't See It Coming)
Three other books borrowed due to poor impulse control:

Party of One
The Waiting Game
The Money Trap

Tesco trip abandoned for today.

It's now overcast and raining, so I've made my very first PSL from a Kenco sachet (coffee purists look away now). It's OK but not very pumpkin spice-y so far. It mostly just tastes like hot milk. But I've just started it. Emailing my brother in NZ the other day I joked that PSL was now a Thing here and there would probably be a laundry liquid in that scent. Then I googled and discovered that Aldi does a fabric conditioner.

Rebel Island by Jonathan Clements

This is a history of Taiwan, and very relevant at the moment with the ongoing drama in Asia about China's plans for the region. The author goes right back to the first (recorded) contact between the island and outsiders, and explains how things changed over the centuries. By the end, I understood exactly why China says that Taiwan is part of China and exactly why the Taiwanese say it isn't. It's a really good read, and right up to date.



Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

This is my book group read for next week. I've been reading a chapter a day for the last couple of weeks and I'm glad I did, because it's very fact-y and quite dense. It's about the life of Henry VII, who was the first Tudor. All of our modern attention on "The Tudors" seems to go to Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, but the current royal family is descended from Henry VII by his daughter, Margaret. If the reign of Henry VIII seems like a long time ago, Henry VII seems much further back, somehow. Or maybe I just recognise the names of the later Tudor period better. Most of the people in this story are men, and, as usual, they share a few first names so it all gets a bit confusing. Overall I didn't think it was a great choice for a book group read - an opinion I might not share next week :-) I read a lot of history and I struggled with it. But Margaret Beaufort appeared from time to time, reminding me of the superb Uncrowned Queen, which I recommend to everyone.

The Fire of the Dragon by Ian Williams

Written in 2022, this is an excellent look at "China's new cold war" as the subtitle says. Once again it's particularly relevant now, with the meeting in China this week and apparently good relationships between China, Russia and North Korea. I read the author's Vampire State recently and it was also very good. Every Breath You Take is ready for me to pick up, so I'm aiming to get it on Saturday. It's the first in the loose trilogy, which I am reading backwards in a development that appals me :-)

She Didn't See It Coming by Shari Lapeña

This is the 2025 release by this author, and I've now read all of her books. This one is very twisty and I liked it a lot. It's also only 99p for Kindle today in the UK, although I had a library copy.

Today has involved a change of plans. The original plan was to read Lighthouse and maybe start The Well of Loneliness. But then an email arrived from the library saying Entitled was ready to pick up, so I went to get it instead as the waiting list is long and I want to prioritise it. Every Breath You Take was also there.

Then I went to Sainsbury as it's just around the corner, and they had Starbucks PSL in sachets so I bought a box of those. I'm having one now, and it's got a lot more taste than the Kenco. The Kenco one is nice as a coffee, but has only a faint hint of spice, like someone misread the recipe and instead of putting in a tablespoon they put half a teaspoon. The Starbucks one is stronger. Maybe this is the beginning of my home-made flavoured coffee odyssey :-)

Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie

This is not a book that would have been published while the late Queen was still alive. That's not just because of what it says about her (allegedly) favourite child, but because of the very first sentence, which is about Prince Philip. It's very disrespectful and unnecessary.

Overall, I think the author has written better books. This has had, and will have, a lot more publicity, but to be honest it's not that interesting if you've followed royal news for a long time. It gathers together all the criticisms of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York, but there's nothing really new in it. I do wonder, though, how they have the time and energy to have so many affairs and do so much jetting around the world. It's exhausting to read about it, and I always feel stressed by people spending vast amounts of money they don't have.

>190 susanj67: I saw that one in a book list. I'm not sure if it will make the cut of what we select or not. I'll be placing an order sometime next week if I hear the business office paid the renewal for the leased books.

>193 thornton37814: I think Shari Lapena is always reliable with her plots, so it would be a good one to get if you're looking for something twisty.

It's cool here today, and a half-marathon is running down my street so I have to stay home. Let's ignore the fact that the tube station is just down the road, on the same side as me...I plan to start Lighthouse. Last night I started The Well of Loneliness and Preventable but those are ebooks and I usually save them for reading in bed.

Lighthouse by Tony Parker

This was originally published in 1975 and it's interviews with lighthousekeepers and their wives and families, and some other people connected with the maintenance and running of the lighthouses. Lighthouses are now fully automated in the UK, so this is a real window into the past, and a job that no longer exists. It was recommended by the book group that read The People of Providence and while I think that one was better, I'm still glad I read this.

Autocracy, Inc by Anne Applebaum

This is a short book subtitled "The Dictators Who Want To Run The World" and it's about how autocracy is becoming a new opponent to the traditional values of Western democracy. The autocrats don't really believe in anything - they just want to get very rich and do whatever they want. It's very timely, and my ebook version had an updated preface, I think, from April this year. It was definitely post-the US election, but before the end of the bromance between the president and Elon.



The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

I really tried with this one, after seeing Katie from Books and Things say it was her new favourite read. But it's beyond tedious, and I limped through 200 pages before deciding to take out the bookmark and put it in my bag of books to take back to the library tomorrow when I go for book group. That cheered me up a lot.

It's rainy and overcast here, and we're on day 4 of a tube strike, so I've spent the last couple of days at home, glad I didn't have tickets to go to anything. I can walk over to my book group tomorrow. I think the tube is supposed to be back on Friday, but they usually take every opportunity to drag it out for as long as possible so it's going to be a quiet week.

On Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas Murray

This is Douglas Murray's newest book, and it's excellent.



The Money Trap by Alok Sama

The author is a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley, who went to work for SoftBank. This is an engaging look at SoftBank's business deals and the world of the super-rich. Sama is pretty rich himself, but not in the squillionaire class. He has a lovely writing style - it's very droll. For example, on Adam Neumann of WeWork:

"There's something else about Adam Neumann that Masa didn't get. Like Monty Python's Brian, Adam may have looked like Jesus, but he wasn't the Messiah. He was a very naughty boy."

Party of One by Chun Han Wong

This is a very good look at Xi Jinping and "China's superpower future" as the subtitle says. But it had the smallest font size of any book I've ever read, and I ended up using a magnifying glass for part of it, which is ridiculous (and no, it's not me - the other books I was reading at the same time were fine). So that made the reading experience a bit difficult. This would work much better as an ebook :-) But content-wise it's a very relevant read.



The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens by Nicola Clark

History! About women! After the recent Winter King, which was just men, men, men and more men, this was a great read. It's about the ladies in waiting of the Tudor court, and there is lots of fascinating detail about their lives. In the introduction the author says that one of the reasons there is so little written about women during this period is that a lot of indexing of original materials took place in the 1800s and 1900s, and it was done by men, who saw nothing interesting or important about women, and so just left them out of the materials they created. The records just focus on the men. And some original materials were destroyed soon after they were created. Each time Henry VIII acquired a new wife, for example, the previous wife's household records were destroyed. Bits and pieces survive in records kept by other people, or where things were missed, but it must take a lot of digging through those materials to put it all together. The author has done a great job tracing the lives of the women she focuses on, and this is an excellent read.

I returned three books to the library and borrowed nothing! Truly amazing. I just have Every Breath You Take left now (from the other library) and next month's book group choice, which is The Devotion of Suspect X. I should be able to make some progress on this month's Hardy book, and maybe finish Sense and Sensibility, which hasn't grabbed me. I've just had to renew the ebook, which fortunately is always available.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

There's an infamous internet review of Pride and Prejudice that says "just a bunch of people going to each other's houses" and I think it could also apply to Sense and Sensibility. Marianne Dashwood is an excellent OG drama-llama, but overall this took me ages to get through, there were too many people and I didn't really care. I realise this is heresy :-)

But on the subject of visiting, I have enjoyed the US president's state visit to the UK today, even if I disapprove of it in principle. Marine One was late getting to Windsor, and a figure was shown parting the curtains in the castle and looking out for an update. Yes, it was the King. The carriage ride through the park looked amazing, and then there was a ceremony on the lawn outside the castle, with soldiers, more soldiers, horses, swords, guns, cannon and *pipers*. The president was invited to inspect the troops and looked thrilled by it all. His family and friends will be hearing about it for EVER. It looked like the organisers had been told to cram in every single item of pomp and ceremony they could possibly think of, and then double it. I've never seen anything like it in 30 years of living here. This afternoon there has been a Red Arrows flypast and other events, and there's a state dinner this evening. The late Queen switched the speeches to before the dinner was served, so I might watch those. Meanwhile, in London there's a protest, but there's always a protest about something. Tomorrow's events are going to be at Chequers, which is the Prime Minister's country house (it comes with the job).

New thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/373977#8953179