SusanJ's categories for 2025 - Thread 4

Welcome to the fourth 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, so it's now been a whole year (today, in fact!) and I love it. I've read even more than before, but still haven't finished the collected works of the Victorians or indeed anyone else, as I was sure I would be able to do. Quite the puzzler.

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
21. Power and the Palace by Valentine Low
22. Saltwater Mansions by David Whitehouse
23. Ultra-Processed Women by Milli Hill
24. Flashlight by Susan Choi
25. Boudicca's Daughter by Elodie Harper
26. Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction by Sadiah Qureshi
27. Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite
28. Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
29. A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts
30. Every Screen On The Planet: The War Over TikTok by Emily Baker-White
31. Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney
32. The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
33. We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
34. The Spy and the Devil by Tim Willasey-Wilsey
35. The Favourites by Layne Fargo
36. The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

Queen Victoria represents Victorian literature. This category is a repeat of 2024, as I still want to read more Victorian literature, but it's not going very well. However, next month is 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
5. Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
6. Ralph The Heir by Anthony Trollope
7. The Doctor's Family and The Rector by Margaret Oliphant
8. The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy
9. The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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
3. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

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
45. The Hollow Throne by Tim Leach
46. The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
47. Shopaholic Abroad by Sophie Kinsella
48. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

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
47. The Waiting Game by Nicola Clark
48. Sunrise in the West by Edith Pargeter
49. To War With The Walkers by Annabel Venning
50. The Hungry Empire by Lizzie Collingham
51. The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili
52. The Lost Boys by Catherine Bailey

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
7. Shadow of a Dark Queen by Raymond E Feist
8. The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
9. Goddess With A Thousand Faces by Jasmine Elmer

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
27. They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

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
4. The Nanny's Secret by S L Harker
5. The Husband's Secret by Franklin Christoper
6. Deadly Secrets by Julie M Scott
7. The Dark Heart by Joakim Palmkvist

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.



1. Bess of Hardwick by Mary S Lovell

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
23. Every Breath You Take by Ian Williams
24. Party of One by Chun Han Wong
25. The Money Trap by Alok Sama
26. On Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas Murray
27. Autocracy, Inc by Anne Applebaum
28. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
29. Gambling Man by Lionel Barber
30. TikTok Boom by Chris Stokel-Walker
31. What Goes Around by Emily Chappell
32. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor
33. Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read
34. Hey, Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson
35. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
36. The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

Scarlett Clark is an English professor with a sideline in serial killing, but only bad men. She's a bit like an academic version of Dexter. But after the satisfactory dispatch of a student involved in a gang rape, things start to wrong with the plan for her next target...This is really good, and deserves all the hype I've seen on BookTube.

>13 susanj67: This sounds like a fun read. Taking a BB
Happy New Thread

>14 lowelibrary: Thanks April!



Every Breath You Take: China's New Tyranny by Ian Williams

This is about the spying technology that China is rolling out right across its own country, but also in other parts of the world. It's the first in a series of three, which continues with The Fire of the Dragon and ends with Vampire State. This one was published in 2021, so it's fairly up to date but it's also surprising how much has happened since then. Britain has finally woken up to the problems and started to say No to Chinese demands, but the saga of the proposed new embassy in London shows we have some way to go.

Happy new thread, Susan!

>16 MissWatson: Thank you, Birgit!



The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

I saw this on April's thread (Hi April!) and happened to be going in the direction of the library, so I picked it up yesterday. Amazingly, it was on the shelf in the correct place. I loved it. It's a gripping read, and I was constantly trying to work out what was going on, but that's not a criticism. There were lots of possibilities, and I didn't guess the premise. I'd recommend reading nothing about this before picking it up - just start reading it!

>17 susanj67: I am glad you enjoyed it.

>18 lowelibrary: Thank you for the recommendation! I wouldn't have found it otherwise, although my copy had a sticker on it for a BBC radio book club, so it must have been popular here too at some point.

Well, I have learned something amazing. The BBC has a headline (which I won't link to because it won't work outside the UK) saying President Trump will "reportedly link pain-reliever Tylenol to autism". And Tylenol, unknown in the UK as a brand but constantly seen in US TV series and documentaries etc is just...paracetamol. That's all it is. For decades I've been envious of the US apparently having a marvellous painkiller that we can't get here, but we can :-) I remember looking up the ingredients once and seeing "acetaminophen", but that's just the US name for paracetamol. How did I not know?!!

In other news, today is the beginning of year 2 of retirement. I had planned to spend it reading, but got caught up in the Reform political party press conference at which they announced plans to ditch Indefinite Leave to Remain and make all ILR visa-holders apply for five-year visas which they will only get if they earn more than £60,000. So it will be goodbye from me if they ever get into power. A journalist asked about retired people and the party leader seemed to think that was a ridiculous question. "Why are we paying pensions to people with ILR?" he said. Well, Nigel, that's because a lot of us have spent our entire working lives here and paid an absolute fortune in taxes. An alternative would be to apply for citizenship, but that requires taking a test and finding referees and paying a fortune. Also, "foreigners applying for UK passports" have historically been another class of immigrants who are not to be tolerated. I might pop on to realestate.co.nz and have a look.

Happy new thread.
>20 susanj67: well that's cheery news from reform - NOT. Tell me how that is not driven by racism. There are times when I am ashamed of my country.

>21 Helenliz: Thanks for the new thread wishes, Helen. I think Farage is underestimating the amount of ILR holders who pay tax - he would have his fans believe it's no-one, but that is not correct.



The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

This is my book club's pick for October, and I read it today to get it out of the way. I'm not a fan of all the trendy Japanese crime books, and this one did nothing to change my opinion. I thought it was unremarkable, although I did like the Tokyo setting.

Today in exploring London I went to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, which is on the UCL campus. I'd overlooked that it's freshers' week, so there were lots of keen young people around clutching slices of pizza and expensive coffees, and I was tempted to join a campus tour and maybe sign up for some classes but I managed not to. It was nostalgic, though - I remembered my own first weeks at university back in 1986 when the world was my oyster. The museum is cute. It was started with the collection of Amelia Edwards, whose book A Thousand Miles Up The Nile I enjoyed, and then added to by other people including Flinders Petrie. But it stopped acquiring new things from Egypt once the government there banned foreigners from taking them out of the country, so it's like a little snapshot of what they found and then it stops. There's lots to look at, though. My favourite things were the little ceramic "servants" or shabti, which were placed in tombs to do all the menial work in the afterlife. There was a whole cabinet of them.

Sunrise in the West by Edith Pargeter

This is the first in a quartet about "the first Prince of Wales" and his family and other dramas. There's a lot of running around in it, and lots of Welsh places that I'll confess I didn't stop to look up, but it was a good opener to the series. I have all four in an e bind-up, but I don't want to repeat the cover four times, so the one above is from one of the early editions. This was published in 1974 and it's by the same author who wrote the Cadfael books.

In today's news outrage - digital ID cards for everyone in the UK. I don't know why the Prime Minister thinks this policy is a good idea when he's already so unpopular, but I already have a digital ID, as I'm a dastardly forriner and we have to have them (no, I don't feel smug at all). The old Biometric Residence Permit is now an e-Visa, which allows employers to see that I'm permitted to work here and landlords to see that I'm able to rent. So far I haven't needed to do either of those things, but it might also be useful to prove the right to NHS care. That said, I was invited for a screening test recently and no-one asked me for any details. Maybe they rely on my GP to be satisfied before adding me to their books.

Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth by Mary S Lovell

This is an excellent biography of Bess of Hardwick, whose descendants include so many Dukes that the area in which the family built its houses is still known as "the Dukeries". I love Mary Lovell's books and Bess is such an interesting character, making the most of a fairly unpromising start to become one of the great women of Tudor history. There's an appendix at the back which details what happened to her children and grandchildren after she died, and a good family tree at the front.

This is my first finish in the "read my own hard copy books" category, which is *terrible* as it's nearly the end of September. But I suppose I can only do better.

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

This was the September book for the Hardy readalong, and I found it a bit hard to get into, possibly because I was also reading other things and Victorian writing requires quite a bit of concentration. But once I got going, it was a good read, and I've even finished it in the correct month #winning. It also serves as an early introduction to Victober.

The Lost Boys by Catherine Bailey

This is Catherine Bailey's third book, and just like the other two it is FABULOUS. (It's also called Fey's War and there is a different title in the US.) It's the story of a young German woman, married to an Italian and living in Italy, and what happens when she's arrested by the Gestapo and her toddler sons are taken away and put in an orphanage while she becomes a political prisoner. It's an amazing story.

Some Kindle freebies with "secrets":



The Nanny's Secret by S L Harker - a fairly decent thriller in which a young woman takes a nannying job with a family, but doesn't seem to have that much experience in looking after children. Could there be another reason she's so keen to work for them?

The Husband's Secret by Franklin Christopher - I tried to think whether I've read a more ludicrous, badly-written book in half a century of reading, but I couldn't identify one. Avoid at all costs.

Deadly Secrets by Julie M Scott - this is the first in a series called the "Murderside High" books, and it's a YA thriller starting with the death of a teen girl at a party in the woods. It was an engaging read but I won't continue with the series.

Happy Victober to everyone who celebrates! Katie has reading sprints at 12.30 BST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In2Mzp7BPK4

I'm going to start the month with Ralph the Heir, and I've also got this month's Hardy book, The Hand of Ethelberta. The group read this year is Hester, which I read a couple of years ago, so I'm going to choose something else by Margaret Oliphant and I'm tempted to make a start on the Carlingford Chronicles. So many possibilities!

To War With The Walkers by Annabel Venning

This is another excellent book, which looks at the lives of an "ordinary" middle-class family during WWII. The six children (including the author's grandfather) fought in the Far East, nursed and studied medicine at St Thomas's and the oldest daughter found herself a rich American to marry. This is a great read for anyone interested in British social history during WWII and also the history of the war. There's a lot about the fighting in the Far East, which tends to be covered less in the UK than the war in Europe for obvious reasons.

I'm very pleased to have finally read this one, and the Catherine Bailey book above, which have been on my Kindle for ages. I have no library books at the moment, which is how I finally got to them. Two reserves have arrived now, though, so I'll pick those up tomorrow, but I'm going to start something else on the Kindle and try and read a couple of chapters a day at least.

Added two of your books to a list. Would have added Bess of Hardwicke too, but it is already on another list. For some reason I have avoided actually reading it. I suspect that that has been because of the name 'Bess'. I had a great-great aunt with that name who I only met face-to-face once when I was about 5; she had, what my mother described as, a constipated sounding voice. It was very off-putting to me at that stage of my life.

Going to back-track through your other threads and try to get into trouble there - book list-wise. But not until later as I have a sink full of dishes waiting to be washed.

>29 susanj67: I'm struggling with the idea that you don't have any library books, but that 2 reserves have arrived makes me feel better.
>26 susanj67: & 29 both look good. That sort of focused history in front of the sweep of world events makes for a good way to engage. You can relate to a person or family, whereas relating to a population is difficult.

>30 Fourpawz2: Hello Charlotte! I think it would be worth overcoming your Bess-related doubts as it's a good read. And she called herself Elizabeth for much of the time :-)

>31 Helenliz: Helen, yes, it's rare there are no library books, but I did get two yesterday and I really want to focus on Victober anyway. I thought both >26 susanj67: and >29 susanj67: were very good at both the "big" history and the personal history. Catherine Bailey in particular draws in all sorts of interesting things, but not as padding - they're all relevant to the subject. Her book Black Diamonds is still one of my top NF reads of all time.



Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street by Valentine Low

This is one of the books I picked up from the library yesterday as a brand new hard copy (and not the audiobook version that's all I can find on LT). It is, as the title makes clear, about the relationship between the monarch and the government, and it goes back to William IV. This will interest anyone interested in royal history and I enjoyed it. It's a good companion volume to the author's book Courtiers, which I read a few months ago.

It's rainy in the UK today, to match the mood. I got groceries yesterday while I was out, so if the rain continues all weekend, as forecast, I'll be able to get a lot read. Ralph the Heir is delightful, and there are more Victober reading sprints at 6pm so I'll tune in for those.

Saltwater Mansions by David Whitehouse

I reserved this from the library after seeing it recommended by Lissa Evans on Twitter. The author is having his hair cut one day when the hairdresser tells him the story of a woman who disappeared from a flat in Saltwater Mansions, where one of her other clients lives. Immediately he knows he has to investigate, and try and find out what happened to her. This is a short book - just 196pp, but a great read. It's made me want to take a day trip to Margate, too.

>33 susanj67: Taking a BB for this

>34 lowelibrary: I hope you can find it - it's new here so may not be out in the US yet.



Ralph The Heir by Anthony Trollope

Victober is off to a good start! I liked this one a lot. It has all the typical Trollope characters, and a lot happens even though, by the end, not a lot *has* happened as far as the world is concerned, at least. As always, solidly middle-class characters have things like a villa on the river in Fulham *and* rooms in Southampton Buildings in the Inns of Court, which together these days would be so ruinously expensive that no British person could ever afford them. Lawyers these days commute from Fulham (where they do not live on the river) rather than overnighting (with a servant!) in the Inns of Court.

LT tells me this is my 20th book by Trollope, so I have 27 left to read if I want to read all of them. And I think I do. I'm going to aim for one a month, and I should be finished by the end of 2027. But next I'm going to read The Doctor's Family, which is a shorter book.

>35 susanj67: My BB list is so long, I can wait.

>36 lowelibrary: :-) I think we all have long lists!



The Hungry Empire by Lizzie Collingham

This is new at my elibrary but was originally published in 2017, so it's not "new" new. Just new to me, and look at the pretty cover. It's split into 20 chapters, each starting with a meal somewhere in the British Empire over the past few hundred years, some from diaries and some from fiction. And then the author explains why the people were eating what they were eating, and "How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World", as the subtitle says. It's really well done, and anything that ends with Una Alconbury's Turkey Curry buffet is going to get my vote :-) Recommended for anyone interested in Empire/Commonwealth history, and/or food history.

>33 susanj67: Hello Susan, my library has a copy of The Long Forgotten by David Whitehouse. Have you read it?

>38 Ameise1: Hello Barbara! I haven't read that one - Saltwater Mansions was my first by him, but I loved his writing.

Today is going to be a quiet one, after the embarrassment of yesterday. I went to donate blood, and it was all fine until I got home and walked (slowly) up the stairs at the station. They're steep, and I stopped twice. Then I perched on a cabinet on the landing, waiting for the lift. I *think* a young man asked me if I was OK, and I would have said yes, but the next thing I knew there was an arm holding me up as he pressed the "help" button on the wall and said "I have a lady here who's collapsed." Another passenger appeared, with a little bar of chocolate, and they brought water down from the office. I ended up sitting on the floor for a bit, creating an Incident. *Another* nice young man joined in the "getting me to my feet" posse and I sat in the office for a while, just 100 tempting yards from home. But the passenger assistant said it happens a lot, particularly in winter when people bundle themselves up and then get on an overheated train...and then they have those steep stairs. I was amazed by the young people who helped - you don't really expect that in London, but people were lovely.

I'd done all the right things when I donated - had two breakfasts, drunk lots of liquids, had sugary snacks and more liquid afterwards etc, but maybe it's just too much for me. The woman in the next chair had a cycle helmet, and rushed off as if she was about to ride a great distance. The "give blood" publicity makes it all seem so easy, but I'm not sure. However, I have the luxury of being able to spend the weekend reading Victorian things (and a book about the CIA which arrived at the elibrary) so I'm going to do that.

The Doctor's Family by Margaret Oliphant

This is the first book in the Chronicles of Carlingford, and it's a novella. My Kindle copy was just 107 pages but somehow took me three days to finish. I liked it a lot, though. The doctor in the title is a young man making his way in the town of Carlingford, when suddenly he finds two young women in his parlour, and Drama ensues.

The next instalment is a short story, so I'll aim to read that later today and count them as one book, because quite a few editions publish them together.

The Rector by Margaret Oliphant

This is the second instalment in the Chronicles of Carlingford, but just a short story. It's very good, though - I liked it a lot. I've got The Perpetual Curate ready to go, and it's more than 500pp on my tablet, so back to a normal Victorian length :-)

This morning I've started The Hand of Ethelberta, which is this month's Hardy book. It looks promising, three chapters in. I returned the CIA book, as it was just going to be another giant book about men, so the two people waiting will get it earlier now.

>39 susanj67: Good to hear that the writing style is good.
Oh my goodness! Your blood donation experience sounds very unpleasant. Good to hear that there were lots of helpful, friendly people around you. I hope you've recovered well. I stopped donating blood a few years ago. As I naturally have extremely low blood pressure, the older I got, the less they wanted to let me donate.
Have a lovely Sunday.

>40 susanj67: >41 susanj67: I hate to tell you this, but another short story precedes The Doctor's Family. It's called The Executor; the doctor is part of the story, as are the main characters in The Perpetual Curate, although none of them play a big role. Someone helpfully uploaded a copy to Internet Archive. I don't think it's a big deal to read it after the two that you have read.

I really enjoyed The Chronicles of Carlingford and am glad to hear you are enjoying them too!

>42 Ameise1: Thanks Barbara. I'm feeling quite a bit better, and there are no stairs inside my flat, so I haven't been challenged over the weekend :-)

>43 NinieB: Oh no!!! And I am such a read-in-order person! I'll read it later, and get back on track. Thanks for the tip.

Ultra-Processed Women by Milli Hill

There's been a lot written about ultra-processed food, including Ultra-Processed People, but Milli Hill looks at the issue as it affects women. We're not just smaller and pinker men, after all, and yet "people", in science, generally means "men". It's a really interesting read, and there are lots of suggestions about how to quit UPF and eat better. I think the best one is to stop thinking of these products as "food" and view them as something else instead. Not food. So if you need food, they don't feature in your list of possibilities, because they are not food. Maybe my McDonald's lunch will be my last one. Ooh.

In other news, I went to "The Edwardians: Age of Elegance" exhibition at the King's Gallery this morning, and it was very good. I was there at the right time for a little talk about tiaras. It closes next month, so hasten to it if you want to see it.

I came home via the library, where Flashlight was waiting for me to pick up. I saw it on Charlotte's thread (Hi Charlotte!). I also wanted to get Malice in Wonderland, which was supposed to be on the shelf, but there was no sign of it. I'd like to read it before I go to the new Cecil Beaton exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I did find Erotic Vagrancy, though, which has been on my list for a while, so I snagged that. I'm not reading as much as I wanted to for Victober, and some due dates may motivate me more generally.

>45 susanj67: I enjoyed Ultra-Processed People, so I am taking a BB for Ultra-Processed Women

Sorry to hear about the blood donating after effects. There are some nice people out there, pleased that they found you.

I've not been for a while, had a series of failed donation where they struggled to find a vein. And these days they don't go in for a second stab if they don't get it first time.

>46 lowelibrary: It gives you a lot to think about!

>47 Helenliz: I don't think it's as easy as the publicity suggests. And this time I didn't get a message saying where it had been sent to, so maybe they haven't even used it. Last time mine went to Milton Keynes.

"

Flashlight by Susan Choi

I saw this on Charlotte's thread and liked the excerpt there, so I reserved it. And I loved it. It's a Booker nominee, which usually I wouldn't pick up because they're a bit too clever for me, but this one was great. In some respects the writing reminded me of Anne Tyler, one of my favourite authors. I think it's best to go into this not knowing what happens, so I'd advise caution reading reviews before picking it up.

Boudicca's Daughter by Elodie Harper

We know little about Boudicca's daughters - they aren't even named in the Roman sources discussing Boudicca. Elodie Harper imagines the life of the oldest daughter, and it's a fascinating read. This is a standalone novel, so I was glad not to have to wait for the story to wrap up.

The Dark Heart by Joakim Palmkvist

This is a Swedish true-crime story, which must have been a Kindle freebie years ago as I found it while I was looking for something else in the depths of my Kindle. (I also found a book I'd reserved from the elibrary - result!). It's about a murder in 2012, and the subsequent investigation by the police but also Missing People Sweden, an organisation that helps search for missing people. The main woman from that organisation (who was the main witness at the eventual trial) seems to have led a life too full of activity for someone her age, which always makes me suspicious. But mostly what struck me about the story was that it wasn't very exciting. It seemed to be a fairly run of the mill murder, and I doubt a similar book would have been written about a case in the UK. Maybe they just don't have much gruesome crime in Sweden!

Library haul:

Gambling Man by Lionel Barber - a biography of Masayoshi Son of SoftBank (I reserved this);
Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction by Sadiah Qureshi - I kept seeing this in the new NF display so I gave in and borrowed it;
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo - this seems to be a feminist retelling of Moby Dick with a female protagonist but mostly I just liked the cover...; and
Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, who wrote My Sister The Serial Killer, which I enjoyed.

I could have got more, but I also had to go to the supermarket. So really I deserve praise for borrowing four books when I went to get just one. Or something.

Before I picked those up this morning, I'd started The Surprising Life of Constance Spry, which I bought in a remainder bookshop years ago, and it's really good.

>51 susanj67: - Okay - “Good girl for having borrowed 4 books instead of one!”

Multiple book borrowing is important in order to maintain those muscles that help in toting large numbers of heavy books around the house for purposes of rearrangement - as I realized yesterday when I spent 2 hours on such a book relocation project.

That last name of Spry really caught my attention. When I was a tiny child Spry was a vegetable shortening product that my Granny used in pie and biscuit making. She always bought the really big can.

>52 Fourpawz2: Yes, wasn't I restrained?! I could have borrowed so many more. And you're right about toting heavy things around - doctors here say one of the best things older people can do for fitness (without really trying) is to carry their shopping home from their supermarket (easier in the UK's big cities, which are walkable). You get steps, balance, resistance training and so on. Also (unrelated to fitness) you get to see planning applications taped to lampposts so you know what the neighbours are up to, but that might just be me. Yesterday at the supermarket I got a shy smile from a baby in a front-pack, so I smiled back and his smile got a bit bigger. I added a wave, and got more smiles. Then I made myself stop because his father was nearly finished comparing tins of something and I didn't want to look like a weirdo. But I think there's probably a law that says you have to smile at a baby who's smiling at you. That is funny about Spry being a shortening :-) I have learned that actually Constance was never married to Mr Spry, but that was scandalous back then, so they pretended.

I'm reading a book about TikTok on my tablet, and last night downloaded the app to see what it's all about. The tablet is a Lenovo, so if it's true that all our data is going to the Chinese government, it already was. They know about my pirate romance preferences and the blue aliens on the ice planet. Kinda hoping I never need a visa for China now...But anyway, my exploration lasted about ten minutes before it all got too much and I deleted the app. I don't think it's for people my age, unless there's a "SeniorTok" section, but that would probably just mean people over 25.

When he was a baby, my older son used to wave and smile at everyone from his buggy, and he would look so sad if he didn't get a response. So I make a point of smiling at babies on the bus etc.

Mike does most of the shopping but I do cart around bags of library books, so I like the idea that this is exercise.

>54 elkiedee: A colleague's wife was once on the train with their baby, who kept crying, so she started to sing "The Wheels on the Bus" quietly, to try and calm him down. Other passengers joined in, and apparently he was so amazed that he did indeed pipe down :-)



Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski

Ugh, this was AWFUL. Vulgar, misogynistic and a really shocking choice for a book group read (although given the City of London Corporation's disdain for women, maybe it's a required text for their libraries). I skimmed most of it and was very pleased to be done with it so I can get back to good things. I might not go to the book group meeting as I have nothing useful to say about it.

>55 susanj67: How about, "What were you thinking?!"

>56 NinieB: Yes, that would be appropriate! It's a really awful choice for a book group, and I bet all the people saying it's a classic and amazing are men.



Gambling Man by Lionel Barber

This is a biography of Masayoshi Son, the head of SoftBank. I'd never really heard of him until the disastrous investment in WeWork, because I read all the books about that :-) But he's had an amazing career and made a fortune. He also lost it a couple of times, but made it back. In the business world he's probably best known for an early investment in Alibaba, but he also introduced Yahoo to Japan and helped to develop the market for internet connectivity there. It's a bit strange to read about the times before the internet/smartphones etc when people were trying to work out what the future would be, because it seems so obvious now. But I suppose we generally only read about the winners and not those who bet on the wrong thing.

I started Cursed Daughters this afternoon and it's very promising so far.

TikTok Boom by Chris Stokel-Walker

I reserved another book about TikTok, and this one came up in the "borrow right now" suggestions after I'd placed the reserve. So I did :-) It's a really engaging look at the app that everyone (young) seems to be obsessed with - how it started and what makes it different from other social media platforms. The author even explains how the algorithm deals with new videos - pushing them out to a small group, then a bit bigger group if they do well, and so on. He also addresses the Big Question: Is all the data going to the Chinese government? He says no, but I'm not sure I agree with that. It might not be going *now*, but all Chinese companies are required to co-operate with the CCP. The government isn't going to be interested in Western teenagers lip-syncing in their bedrooms, but what about content on issues they don't approve of? The obvious answer is "people shouldn't use it for that", which is fine when there are other platforms, but is TikTok just the beginning of world tech domination by China, eventually leaving protesters and dissenters nowhere else to go? This was published in 2021, so it doesn't cover the latest drama in the US. But then that drama seems to change daily on so many issues...

Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction by Sadiah Qureshi

This book had many interesting aspects, but I'm not sure what the central theme was, other than "white people are responsible for all the extinctions in the world, among other terrible things". Actually, that probably sums it up. The hardback is chunky, but the text is only 283 pages. That's probably enough for evil white people, who still have species to kill off and mayhem to cause. We're very busy, doncha know?

New* coffee review:

Yesterday I went to a retail park, which has "Greenwich" in the title but which is actually in Charlton. (In fact it's three "parks" which pretend to be separate, but they're all joined together). And they have a Home Bargains :-) It's the closest one to me, so I don't go often as it's a 20-minute walk down the Peninsula from the Tube, but there is so much new building that it's always interesting to see what's gone up since my last visit (which I think was mid-2024). At Home Bargains I found Kenco's Dubai Chocolate Style Latte, which can be made hot or cold, so I had to get some. I've never had the Dubai chocolate, and I half expected the coffee to be green, but it isn't. It's good, though, and now I feel trendy and up-to-the-minute. I also went to the big M&S down there and found the Christmas tea bags, which I've been watching out for (tea with spices and a hint of orange - so nice) and I got a bottle of gingerbread syrup, for plain coffees made the old-fashioned way. They also have a maple-syrup one. I didn't get the M&S x Natural History Museum chocolate dinosaur Advent calendar, but I still might.

*New to me. Probably all over social media for months.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

This is the second book by the author of My Sister The Serial Killer and it's set in Nigeria, with lots of family drama. This time, though, there's a curse on the daughters of the family, put on them generations before but which still seems to be affecting their lives now. I liked this a lot, and I hope the author writes more.

The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy

This was the October book for the Hardy readalong. It took me ages to finish it because I kept not reading it. But finally I had about 150 pages left and made up my mind to finish it today. Hooray! I didn't really like it, or at least I didn't like the way it turned out.

The next one is The Return of the Native, and it's a third of the way through the month already, so I need to make haste.

>62 susanj67: LOL at "because I kept not reading it." Very relatable! :)

>62 susanj67: I did Hardy at school, and hated it. Took me 30 years to try him again, and I dipped my toe back in the water with Return of the Native. It was better than I remembered Hardy being, so that's a positive review! Can't imagine voluntarily reading more than one though.

>59 susanj67: *snort*

>63 christina_reads: Yes, there are so many temptations! Sadly, this wasn't one of them.

>64 Helenliz: I find his writing so hard to understand. I can read a sentence three times and still have no idea what he's trying to say. I've downloaded The Return of the Native, but I might just quietly give up on the project. There are things I'm more interested in reading.

Yesterday was book group. Taking Ninie's suggestion in >56 NinieB: into account, I queried what the library was thinking having this book as a book group choice and said I thought it was inapproriate. None of us liked it. The group leader and I actively hated it. For December we're doing some Christmas short stories and a poem, and I've recommended The Christmas Hirelings, which Katie from Books and Things raved about last year.



Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo

This is a reimagining of MobyDick, but with a female protagonist. I thought it was well done, but I'm not entirely sure what the point was. I did have a lovely new library hardback, though, so it was a great reading experience.



What Goes Around: A London Cycle Courier's Story by Emily Chappell

This recently appeared in the new ebooks section of my library's Overdrive site, although it was published in 2016. I loved it. The author finished her Masters degree and couldn't think what to do next, so she took a job as a bicycle courier with one of the London firms in 2009. That was only 16 years ago, and yet this was like reading about a lost world. I even had to look up whether cycle couriers are still A Thing (for documents and business-related things, not takeaways and groceries, which are delivered by people riding illegal ebikes illegally on the pavements), and it seems they are, but I think I spent so long out at Canary Wharf that I got used to not seeing them. Jobs between the City/West End and the Wharf would be done by motorbikes or cars/vans, I think, because it's a long way and the quickest route is via the Limehouse Link tunnel, which I don't think cyclists would use. Certainly the author never mentions the Wharf, and seems to have worked mostly around the West End and the City. This is an excellent memoir about the years she spent in the courier community, riding thousands of miles around London, and it would be a great read for anyone who knows London well.

Exciting news for fans of the late Queen - the Royal Collection Trust has just released a collection of china and homewares for the 100th anniversary of her birth, next year: https://www.royalcollectionshop.co.uk/chinaware/collection/queen-elizabeth-ii-ce...

And from 10 April 2026 to 18 October 2026 there is going to be an exhibition of her fashions at the King's Gallery: https://www.rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/queen-elizabeth-ii-her-life-in-style/t...

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

This is a fabulous read. FABULOUS. Set in India between 1991 and 2008, it follows characters connected to the wealthy Wadia family, which seems to have made much of its money by dubious means. It's just under 600 pages, but feels very long (in a good way) and yet not long enough. I loved all the detail about the places and the people and I hope this author writes lots more books. This has been on my Kindle since March 2023 and it's one of those hidden gems I wish I'd discovered much sooner.

I have no library hard copies at the moment, and only two NF ebooks, so I'm going to go spelunking in the Kindle again for my next novel. Exciting!

A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts

This book was nominated for one of the Wainwright prizes this year, and then it showed up in my elibrary. The first time I borrowed it I couldn't get the book to load past chapter 2, so I returned it. But then I saw it was available again with no holds (suggesting other people had the same issue) and I gave it another try. It was still a bit buggy, possibly due to the number of photos in it, but this time I got to the end.

The author retraces the journey made by a party accompanying four Indian elephants from Dar es Salaam to Lake Tanganyika in the late 1800s, as part of a plan to use elephants for the heavy work in the Congo. King Leopold and his advisers thought that, although elephants weren't tamed and used that way in Africa, they might learn from the Indian elephants, which did do that sort of work. Four elephants were sourced from Pune and walked up to Bombay and put on a ship for Tanzania, where they were going to form part of a training school for elephants. But things didn't work out as anticipated...

I'd recommend getting a hard copy of this book, because as well as the photos there are helpful maps, and flicking back and forth in an ebook is always annoying.

I'm watching someone unbox a stationery Advent calendar, and she's complaining it has "too many bookmarks". There's a whole world out there I don't want to know about.

But I've finished another book:



Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read

Multi-level marketing seems to be everywhere, even as the internet makes it easy to find out why they don't work and how to avoid them. But this author looks at how they got started in the US, and why enormous fortunes have been made by a very few people while most signing up lose a ton of money. There's more of a history than I realised, and it's a very interesting read.

>69 susanj67: I've just read a novel by crime fiction author Megan Abbott about women who get caught up in a pyramid scheme in the 1980s. It's called El Dorado Drive. I've also met a few people who had got caught up with pyramid selling cults - I hope they found their way out without too much emotional and financial damage.

>69 susanj67: That sounds very interesting. I also heard an interview with the author of another book about MLMs which sounded fascinating: Hey Hun: Sales, Sisterhood, Supremacy, and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson.

>70 elkiedee: El Dorado Drive sounds excellent. I'll keep a look out at the library. The elibrary has a few of hers, but not that one.

>71 Jackie_K: The library has this one as an audiobook, so I've reserved it :-)

Thank you both for the recommendations! Sometimes I watch a YouTuber called Hannah Alonso who has a series of videos on MLM horror stories (people write in) and those are eye-opening. It's really hard to understand how people are still caught up in it despite all the information available. In the early days people assumed they just weren't working hard enough, but the business model means that almost no-one will make anything, and that's been shown over and over again. There's a good documentary about Herbalife which I saw a few years ago, and which the book mentions - Betting on Zero. There's also a good series on Prime called LuLaRich, which is about the LuLaRoe company, selling leggings. From memory, real consumers were actually buying (some of) the leggings in that case. But a lot of MLM schemes are based solely on "agents" just buying products from the company and not necessarily selling them to anyone. All the companies report "sales" which are actually just purchases by the agents, and not sales to an end consumer. And they lobbied hard to get around employment laws in the US, by saying their agents were "independent contractors", a familiar argument today in the "gig" economy.

I'm now down to a single library book, which is another ebook about TikTok. And then...then there will be no books.

I've now fallen down an MLM/cult rabbit hole of podcasts. Podcasts are something I've taken up relatively recently, as they go well with jigsaw puzzling. Anyway, I was interested to learn that the NXIVM cult started out as an MLM programme for life coaching, before becoming completely disgusting.

Today's new coffee is the Costa Gingerbread Latte, which I bought at Tesco this morning (£2.55 for six sachets, or £1.85 with Clubcard). It's pretty good - not as frothy as Kenco (but that could be my fault as I made it with a spoon instead of a fork) but a nice taste. I'll get the Millionaire Mocha next time. They also have a maple syrup latte, which is interesting because maple syrup isn't popular here like it is in the US. I don't like it, and would never buy something in that flavour, but maybe internet influencing has created a demand for it, as it did with PSL.

>67 susanj67: That sounds fantastic. My library has it in book and audio form. I've added it to the list.

>72 susanj67: And then...then there will be no books. >:-o Hoping that situation resolves soonest!!!!

>74 Ameise1: It's so good, Barbara!

Rainy in London today, but fortunately I don't have to go anywhere. I went to Tesco yesterday and the British Heart Foundation has opened a new charity shop in the mall, so I took some jigsaws over. I got 8,000 pieces out of the house (in multiple puzzles) and I have more lined up to go.

Today I'm going to start Every Screen On The Planet, which is a brand new book about TikTok.

>75 Helenliz: I'm sure it will :-) I'm next on the list for an ebook, and there are the gazillions on the Kindle, which TBF I have been saving for just such a day :-)

I've been watching YouTube videos, including a Christmas gift guide, and it seems that book counters are a thing. Etsy has lots: https://www.etsy.com/uk/search?q=book%20counter&ref=search_bar They look like a very cute idea for a reader.

In other news, I've got another 6,000 pieces of jigsaw out of the house (six puzzles - I can only dream of a table big enough for a 6,000-piece jigsaw) so the sorting out is going well. And I went to a talk at the library today and managed not to borrow any books. I wonder if I'm quite well. However, the TikTok book is going well, and I've started The Eighth Life on my Kindle, as it's been sitting there for ages.

>78 susanj67: I know what I want from Santa.

>79 lowelibrary: Me too! I'm only surprised it took this long for them to be invented (or at least for me to find them).



Every Screen On The Planet: The War Over TikTok by Emily Baker-White

This is another engaging read about TikTok. This one focuses on the legal and political carry-on (TikTok Boom was more about the user experience, and caused me to download the app to see how it worked for myself) but it's right up to date. Interestingly, the author thinks that TikTok has peaked in popularity and, like Facebook and Instagram, has become more of a marketplace than a place where people can show off their lives and talents and catch up with friends. That raises the question (for me): What's next? From a tech point of view, AI is The Next Big Thing, but it's not a social media network. What's going to be the new TikTok? Will it be something that oldies like me can take part in, or am I forever consigned to the olden days?

And that's all my library books, finished. I'm going to go back to my Constance Spry biography.

Still no more library books! Amazing. I'm getting on very well with The Eighth Life, but it's 1200 pages on my Kindle so it's quite a project. I've had it for five years, and it demonstrates why I *do not need* the KU special offer, which so far I've resisted clicking on even though it's now into day 2. Last night I went through my Kindle books and downloaded and opened a few NF ones, so they appear at the top of the screen on my tablet. That's another reminder that there are great things to read and I already have them. In particular, I want to start House of Lilies: The Dynasty That Made Medieval France, which I'd reserved at the elibrary until I found it right there on my Kindle. It's supposed to be excellent.

I bought a Kindle late last year with a gift card I won at a conference. It came with a month of KU, and I have never canceled it, even though I'm not using it that much. When I do use it, I really appreciate it.

>82 NinieB: It's certainly very tempting! I find that all I do when I have it is fret about how many more KU books I should be reading to make the most of it, but I'm peculiar like that :-)

I just said "Alexa, stop" to the fan heater, which proves I need caffeine urgently. The M&S Christmas tea is excellent, so I'm having some of that. Today I plan to read more (and more) of The Eighth Life, which I am now more than half-way through. Yesterday I got a bit distracted by the budget announcement and my jigsaw puzzle, which was this one:



I thought the dark background might make it a "no" but I really enjoyed it. I basically pieced fish together for a couple of days and then put them all into place. And without using the picture!

ETA: I started this post to say that Katie from Books and Things is doing a readalong of Les Miserables from Jan - Mar next year - link to her announcement video here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWiGXNatRIY

It's official: I am 94. I've just watched a BookTuber in maybe her late 20s/early 30s going through some 2026 releases, and she said one of them is described as "a reverse When Harry Met Sally...but I don't know what that is."

And no-one in the comments has explained what it is, suggesting they don't know either.

In other news, I donated some more jigsaws today, meaning I've got 20,000 pieces out of the house in the last ten days. The lady today said "Oh, I like jigsaws, but only this sort" (illustrations) "not these ones" (photos). So that was, um, something. True, photos have fallen out of fashion lately, but these were Ravensburgers, so excellent quality and they'll be able to get a good (charity shop) price for them, which is surely the point. They're not AI crap from China.

And speaking of (generative) AI, which I think is overhyped and unreliable, I heard someone in an interview says it wasn't as great as people thought and should be used with caution, and *it was the CEO of Google*.

>84 susanj67: You and me both. Do you think she knew it was a movie?

>85 NinieB: I don't think she had any idea. I know that it's an "old" movie*, but that famous scene is referred to so often that I was surprised she'd never heard of the movie (even if she hadn't seen the whole thing).

*1989! So nearly 40 years old. Ouch.

>86 susanj67: One of my law school friends was obsessed with the movie, so the year it came out is permanently engraved on my memory!

>87 NinieB: I had a look yesterday to see whether it was available to watch and it's only on Prime here in the UK. But the BBC is screening it on Christmas Day, late in the evening, so I'm going to record it :-)



The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili

Sweeping, sprawling and epic are all words that could describe this huge novel, set in Georgia and Russia in the 20th century. The narrator writes the book for her niece, to explain the history of their family. The niece is the "eighth life", and the book looks at seven others. It's really well plotted and beautifully written and translated (from German). I learned so much about Georgia, and now want to read (a) the author's other books and (b) more Georgian literature and history. I had no idea the language was so different from Russian - it has totally different roots and an alphabet like nothing I've seen before. Very highly recommended, but it's really something to be read every day to keep up with all the characters and the timeline. I've read some of the LT and Amazon reviews and many say the hard copy has tiny print, so I'd recommend the ebook version, which I had.

The last day of November already! Various influencers I follow are doing "Vlogmas", which means uploading a video every day, so December will be busy for them and their followers. I've been thinking about what to read, as the book group choice(s) for December are two short stories - "Banished" by Elizabeth McNeal and "The Gift of the Magi" by O Henry - and a poem by Robert Frost. I suggested The Christmas Hirelings as well, and I'm looking forward to that.

Yesterday I watched a good video by Tristan and the Classics: "10 Cozy Winter Classics - And What To Eat With Them", which is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX_OtXRJz2I I downloaded a library copy of The Wind in the Willows and read the first four chapters, and now want a fancy illustrated edition. I love it. I'm going to try some of his other recommendations too.

I've also got my Christmas jigsaws ready to go:









From top to bottom, they are "Home for Christmas" (2025 Ravensburger); "Snow White and the 7 Gnomes" (Ravensburger) - this says "pantomime" to me, so it's Christmassy; "Christmas Market" (Ravensburger from a couple of years ago, but still widely available); and "The Adoration of the Magi" (Clementoni, now apparently rare, but I've had it for decades. Literally).

The Hollow Throne by Tim Leach

I realised yesterday that I had to finish this series, and this third book was right there at the elibrary so I seized the moment. It completes the story of the Sarmatian people brought to Britannia by the Romans, and their adventures in the region of Hadrian's Wall. Relatively little is known about the Sarmatians, meaning the author could do quite a bit with the story, and I liked all the instalments. He has another series, which one of my libraries has in hard copy, so I'll start that in the new year.

The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

This is a gorgeous little Christmas story. It starts with the owner of a grand house in Cornwall talking to his houseguest and a niece about Christmas, and they agree that it's really only fun if there are children involved. So the houseguest suggests that they hire some children to enjoy all the festivities. Laddie, Lassie and Moppet duly arrive and steal the hearts of the entire house :-) I loved this, and recommend it for a great December read. I bought the Amazon copy which is 49p and an OCR version, but it seems from the cover above that it's been published in hard copy recently, so I'd recommend looking out for that version.

>84 susanj67: Happy birthday! I love the movie "When Harry Met Sally," but I must admit I'm having trouble picturing what a "reverse" version would be. :)

>91 susanj67: Sold! I picked up a Kindle copy of this and will hopefully squeeze it in this month!

>92 christina_reads: Thank you! I seem to turn 94 every time I watch Young People :-) I think the "reverse" would be Sally taking on Harry's point of view about men and women not being able to be friends, but who knows! Googling the film title I was amused to see the question "What is the most famous line from the movie?" with an AI response suggesting some schmaltzy word soup, and not "I'll have what she's having", which is still used all the time. I saw it in a brand new Christmas ad on UK TV over the weekend.

>93 DeltaQueen50: I'm sure you'll love, it Judy, and it's only 166 pages so a pretty quick read :-)

I've heard Fairytale of New York, so the Christmas season is officially open. Maybe it's time to start a Christmas puzzle and listen to a podcast. I just checked Spotify to see if my Spotify Wrapped was available, but not yet unless I'm looking in the wrong place. I don't really know what it is, but I want to take part :-) Currently they're offering me four months of premium free, so I think I might finally take the plunge and try it.

Well Spotify says my listening age is 21! Exciting. The "Wrapped" feature is lots of fun, and I'm going to listen more next year to make it better. I learned how to play it through my Echo Dot, which means I am operating at the very outer edge of my tech powers.

In other news, I caught up with part 1 of the new BBC documentary, "What is the Monarchy For?". It's David Dimbleby complaining about nepotism. David Dimbleby! (For those abroad, he is part of a famous broadcasting family). Hilarious and enraging at the same time. The Telegraph says it would never have been broadcast had the late Queen still been alive, and they are not wrong. See also: The Duke of York biography.

In still more news, I have learned that they don't have Christmas crackers in the US (the type with the party hats and jokes in, not the type that go with cheese, although IDK about those). Every day is a learning experience.

Raining again in London, so I am having a cosy day at home, as cosy is the thing to be having right now, according to BookTube. I was feeling in need of a due date, so on Thursday I looked at my elibrary wishlist filtered to show "available now". And the Raymond E Feist Serpentwar quartet was available, so I downloaded it and started the first one (which is book 9 of the whole series in the order I am reading it). This meant that of course a Robin Hobb reserve turned up at the elibrary the following day, so now I have five giant fantasy novels. I'm going to finish Shadow of a Dark Queen and send the quartet back to the library as I don't need that sort of pressure. But it's going very well, and I should finish it today.

Shadow of a Dark Queen by Raymond E Feist

This is the first book in the Serpentwar quartet, and the story is set 50 years after the events in the first trilogy. The characters have to go to another part of the world to fight the Saaur, or "lizard-people", who have all sorts of bad behaviour in mind. As always, there's lots of running around, but I liked the central characters. I've had a quick peek at the next book, which seems to focus on the best friend of the hero of this one, so now I'm tempted to keep it for a bit longer and read that too. But only after I've read Fool's Fate, which will finish the Tawny Man trilogy.

Proto arrived at the elibrary earlier, so that will be a good NF change of pace from all the dragons and elves :-)

Raining again, and I am watching Vlogmas videos and not reading. Must do better. I started Proto last night, which is good and also quite short, so I ideally I want to finish it today. I also started Fool's Fate, which is a thousand pages long. Eek. But no more reserves have arrived, so that's something.

There has been some sort of bust-up in a carpark at Heathrow, involving pepper spray (illegal here) but the police say all parties were known to each other so they sound delightful. Usually the Heathrow drama happens closer to Christmas and involves e.g. the air traffic control system going down, stranding people all over the place, but I suppose there's still time.

>99 susanj67: *snort* 'Tis the season of peace and goodwill to all - except those really close to you!

Dragons and non-fiction sounds like quite the contrast!

>100 Helenliz: It seems the pepper-sprayers were trying to steal a woman's suitcase. I wonder what could possibly have been in it? :-) Maybe it was charcuterie imported from Europe, which people aren't supposed to do any more. But then again Terminal 3 is one of the long-haul terminals, so probably not. I think I can guess what it was.

Hey, Hun has arrived at the elibrary. It's about 11 hours of audio and I've started it this afternoon. I think I have too many books now. I've got about 100pp of Proto left but there is a lot of running around Europe and it's all a bit exhausting. I'd recommend a hard copy, though, as the maps will show up better and they are important. I'm learning some interesting things about paleogenomics, though, including that there is a thing called paleogenomics.

>96 susanj67: No, Christmas crackers are not a thing here, although I once went to a Christmas dinner where we had them; I assume you can buy them online. Trying to think of an American Christmas custom you wouldn't have in NZ or UK . . .

>102 NinieB: I Googled to see when they were invented, and the V&A traces them to a London baker who patented his invention in 1847 https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-christmas-cracker?srsltid=AfmBOopgy92-GXiTkii... Most British emigration to the US was earlier than that, I think, which might explain why they're popular in places like NZ (settled by the British later) but not the US.

Rinsed arrived at the elibrary overnight. It's like the system is pranking me. Fortunately I have nowhere I need to go today, so apart from a webinar at lunchtime with the Wallace Collection I can swipe all day.

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney

This book is about Proto-Indo-European, one of the very earliest languages that migrated across Europe and Asia and became the modern languages spoken by so many in the world today. But how did it happen? In the past, linguists looked at words shared among languages, which could show a common ancestor language. But now ancient DNA is helping to show how populations moved around and therefore how languages might also have moved. It's now possible to take dental plaque from ancient teeth and tell what sort of wood was being burned in the vicinity, with the smoke ending up in the plaque. The author looks at some of the new research and describes how we now think languages migrated across Europe. It's written for a general audience, but I did think perhaps I needed to know more ancient history before going into it. There are maps at the beginning of each chapter, which are helpful (but not so much in the ebook as they can't be enlarged).

Hey, Hun: Sisterhood, Supremacy and the Other Lies Behind Multilevel Marketing by Emily Lynn Paulson

This was mentioned by Jackie (Hi, Jackie) after I read another book about MLMs recently. The library only had it as an audiobook, but I cranked up the speed to 1.5 and did a lot of jigsaw puzzling while I listened to it. The author was a rare MLM success, making a lot of money (but not as much as she assumed from the headline figures) and with a big "downline" (which is the people she recruited to sell the products). The book describes how she got into it because she felt lonely looking after her five kids while her husband got to go out to work and have fun and stuff. At work. I *hated* her admission that they had so many kids because they were bad at contraception, and she said a couple of times that she was a chemist, so it wasn't clear why (a) she couldn't have stopped at a couple of kids and (b) she didn't get her training up to date again after the kids and go back to work in a proper job. Instead, she joined a scheme she calls "Rejuvinat" in the book, but that's a made-up name. Reddit says it was really Rodan + Fields.

The bit about her time in the MLM is interesting. I thought it fell apart a bit once she realised it was all basically just a pyramid scheme and stopped doing any work (apart from writing a book about her life). Then Covid hit and the huns started posting all sorts of "plandemic" nonsense and quoting QAnon and she realised what poor-quality people they were and was aghast that she'd ever given them the time of day. From that point, she turned herself (she says) into what I would describe as a culture warrior, and the book has all the usual references to "cis heteronormativity" and other nonsense that would normally make me want to throw it across a room. Hun, all the "cis" nonsense is over! Women are not a subset of our own sex class! You can give up hoping a man will think you're the "right" sort of woman because they never, ever will.

She makes the claim throughout the book that MLMs are based on, and promote, "white supremacy", which I assume means that the products are geared towards white women in terms of cosmetic shades etc (an issue for mainstream brands as well). But she also says that non-white women weren't represented in the hun population, or at corporate level. However, as most people involved with MLMs make no money and often actually *lose* money, surely the lack of participation of those groups means they're not being fleeced of their money and getting sucked into these awful schemes, alienating their friends and family and ruining their future employment prospects (one recruiter is quoted as saying that if she sees MLM experience on a CV it goes into the "No" pile). I didn't really understand that argument, and suspect it was included for added points on the political correctness scale.

>103 susanj67: Christmas cookies. Do you have Christmas cookies?

>106 NinieB: Not really, or not in the same way I've seen in US TV programmes like The Pioneer Woman, where she does a ton of cookie-baking for friends. That's not really a thing here. Baking tends to focus on mince pies and Christmas cake. If I went to a friend's house in the run-up to Christmas I'd expect a mince pie and tea/coffee (if refreshments were offered!) and after Christmas there would be left-over Christmas cake. We do see gingerbread-house kits in the shops.

Young BookTuber: "This is an old fantasy novel. It was published in 2018."

I've made a bit of progress with Fool's Fate, but (whispers) I'm not sure I'm in the mood for 900 more pages. So I've read this one instead:



Rinsed by Geoff White

This is subtitled "From Cartels to Crypto: How the Tech Industry Washes Money for the World's Deadliest Crooks", and that is an accurate summary. The author uses case studies to explain his points and it's a really engaging read. Some of the cases have received publicity but I'd never heard of others, and the shenanigans are alarming. North Korea, in particular, is said to be involved in massive theft and money laundering and could well be using the money to invent things to kill us all.

I was very sad to hear earlier that Sophie Kinsella has died. She had a brain tumour, but was only 55. Awful. While I've read quite a few of her novels, I've never read the Shopaholic series, so I've downloaded The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, which seems to have been renamed Confessions of a Shopaholic, maybe for overseas markets.

>108 susanj67: *snort* how to feel about a million years old!
I read that, I've not read anything by her, but her first novels, under her own name might be more up my street.

Oh wow, I didn't know Sophie Kinsella had died; what a tragic story. I've found many of her books enjoyable, my favorite being I've Got Your Number.

>109 Helenliz: Yes, her Madeleine Wickham books would be worth a look. She wrote so much!

>110 christina_reads: LT tells me I've read eight of her novels, but i haven't read some of the more recent ones, so I will catch up.

Library haul:

The Spy and the Devil by Tim Willasey-Wilsey
Goddess With A Thousand Faces by Jasmine Elmer
We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse (the first in a quartet!)
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (next book group read)

It's good to have a giant stack of things for Christmas :-)

Before book group I had lunch at Pret, and had the Christmas sandwich for the first time in a couple of years. I had a mocha too. A mocha is now £4.05. I was amused to see, reading The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, that the main character was paying £1.50 for a latte in 2000. And the same for a muffin, which would now be about £4. My Dad used to love hearing about outrageous London prices and he would have enjoyed the £4.05 mocha. And that's Pret, which is not one of the fancy chains like Urban Baristas or Rosslyn. I've never been to either of those but I bet they're even more expensive.

The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

This is the first book in the massively popular Shopaholic series, and was originally published in 2000, when "underconsumption" had yet to be invented. The late 90s/early 2000s were a time when the UK went nuts for buying stuff, and shopping was a major hobby. Becky Bloomwood, the main character, is a financial journalist with a huge overdraft whose Visa card and store cards are about to be stopped, but she just can't stop spending. It's a difficult read in some respects, although we suspect that eventually it will all be OK.

Things changed here after the financial crisis of 2008, but now with Temu/Shein/Amazon Haul and the discounters like B&M and Home Bargains, shopping is creeping back as a Thing, now with "buy now pay later" schemes like Klarna which once again are tempting people into debt they can't afford.

Mostly, this is a little glimpse of life at the turn of the century, with shops and brands that are now just memories. Becky's London is not the modern London, and it's interesting to see just how much has changed in a quarter of a century.

The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

This is my first book by Paula Hawkins, as somehow I never read The Girl On The Train (but I intend to now). It's set mostly on a small Scottish island, accessible by a causeway at low tide, and the previous home of a famous artist. But when one of her sculptures is displayed at the Tate Modern, a viewer notices something alarming and investigations are necessary. I really liked this!

It's sunny here, and pretty warm too. Not warm-warm, but "I may struggle to justify wearing a puffa coat" warm. Actually scratch that - I never struggle to justify puffa. I'll just wear a short-sleeved t-shirt underneath it.

I started The Bright Sword yesterday, and also Goddesses With A Thousand Faces. The goddesses one looked promising but is written in a very "modern" sort of way - all about "speaking your truth" and other annoying nonsense phrases. It almost reads like it was written for teenagers, but seems to be an adult title. It's very dumbed-down, if that's the case. I think I'll add The Spy and the Devil later.

Also, for anyone who loved Devil-Land, which was one of my top books from recent years, the author has anew one out called The Mirror of Great Britain, which is a biography of James VI & I. A friend mentioned it recently so I had to reserve it ASAP.

We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

This is blowing up on BookTube, so when I saw it at the library I thought I should read it to see what they're all talking about. Main character Eve is at home one evening when a family knocks on the door, and the father says that he grew up in the house and asks if they could look around. And then Eve can't get rid of them...The library says this is a thriller, but I'd say it's horror, and horror isn't really my thing. But it's very creepily written, and I think horror fans would like it.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman

There was a lot I liked about this novel, set in the world of King Arthur. The author made one trendy choice that drove me mad, but we live in the Age of Insanity, so I wasn't surprised. And it *was* a fantasy novel, which is the best place for trendy nonsense.

I keep meaning to read more of the old-school Arthur books, and I've even got some waiting on my Kindle so I'm going to try and get to them in 2026.

>117 susanj67: I have the Once & Future King set to read, but keep not quite getting to it.
I will leave the trendy choice book to one side, you've not really sold it to me!

>118 Helenliz: Even fans of the author seem to be divided about The Bright Sword so it's not just me! I was also thinking about The Once and Future King but looking on Amazon I realised I have the Rosemary Sutcliff series and the first book in Mary Stewart's Arthur series, so I'm going to start with those. There's a good trilogy by Helen Hollick, called the Pendragon's Banner trilogy, and the first one is The Kingmaking. I've got them in hard copy and enjoyed them years ago, so I might reread them. Then there's Giles Kristian, Bernard Cornwell...so many!

I'm plodding along with the goddesses, which needs a darned good copy edit. If I knew I overused a phrase like "as such", I would do a find and replace before I sent the manuscript in, instead of letting it appear four million times. Ditto "to this day". It's just pointless padding to get the word count up.

ETA: Oh my word, I've just discovered Lancelot on my Kindle, which is the first one in the Giles Kristian trilogy. I've also found Amazon has a whole category for them:

Books›Science Fiction & Fantasy›Fantasy›Myths & Legends›Arthurian

Dangerous!

ETA further: There's a lot of romantasy in there, which is annoying. But I'm also reminded of the superb Morgan Is My Name, about Morgan Le Fay. The second book in that trilogy is Le Fay, and the third one is out in March. I saw a BookTuber with an ARC and was immediately jealous.

Goddess With A Thousand Faces by Jasmine Elmer

This is ridiculous. It's just word soup, full of all the catchy 2020s buzzwords and not much else. But I do have to give the author points for not including any gods cosplaying as goddesses. It's rare these days to find a book about women that doesn't include men. Maybe the publisher drew a line of some sort. We can only hope.

Library haul:

Malice in Wonderland by Hugo Vickers - I was pleased to find this on the shelf at another library after reserving it from my main one without success so far
The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue - also pleased to find this as I had a reservation for the ebook which I have cancelled
The Favourites by Layne Fargo - amazed to find this one as the BookTubers are all raving about it and yet it was just there on the shelf.

I had intended to get another one, also sitting on the shelf, but someone had reserved it, they said, and took it off me :-( Still, three was probably enough to carry home, and I didn't really intend to bring home more than I left with. I just can't resist the new and shiny.

The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse

This is a great start to the Joubert Family Chronicles, which is a quartet. Set in the mid-1500s in the Languedoc, it follows various characters caught up in the Wars of Religion which caused so much trouble in France. I whizzed through this, and now want the other three ASAP while I still remember who everyone is. Fortunately, I have a plan...

It's another lovely day here, maybe a bit colder than yesterday but I haven't worn a proper scarf so far this winter, which is nuts. I haven't even moved into my heavier puffa coat, which is unheard of for December.

The Spy and the Devil by Tim Willasey-Wilsey

This is subtitled "The Untold Story of the MI6 Agent Who Penetrated Hitler's Inner Circle" and it's about a man who doesn't appear much in the written records of WWII, but who befriended Alfred Rosenberg and reported on what the Nazis were planning in the years leading to the war. It was an interesting read, and the author had obviously done a ton of research which must have been challenging.

New beverage update: This morning at Waitrose I spotted the new Twinings "Black Tea Discovery Collection", which is 5 x each of Classic Chai, Vanilla Chai, Gingerbread Spice and Creamy Vanilla. It's £3 at Waitrose, which is a discount, and the same price at Tesco with a Clubcard. I've tried the gingerbread one and it's excellent. Waitrose wasn't super-busy, but I'm definitely not going back on Wednesday, when it will look like one of the circles of h*ll.

Susan, I just came by to thank you for introducing me to The Christmas Hirelings I really enjoyed this Victorian story and didn't even mind that it was a little too sentimental. Perfect book for this time of year!

>124 DeltaQueen50: I'm so glad you enjoyed it, Judy! Happy Christmas!

It's finally cold here, and I'm hunkered down at home trying to keep warm. I've started Malice in Wonderland, which is very good so far. I'm also trying the chai teabags I bought yesterday. I'm not as keen on "Black Chai" or "Natural Vanilla" as I was on the ginger one yesterday, but they're OK and anything hot is good. A friend went to his Waitrose this morning and said he was "shoved around by panicking shoppers". I considered going to the library to return a couple of things but the weather put me off, so I have avoided the panicking people and the shoving.

>125 susanj67: So Susan, just curious, what is cold in London these days? Here in upstate New York it is snowing, but it's only -1C and based on the forecast it's unclear whether we'll have a white Christmas.

>125 susanj67: I got all my shopping done early, I was home by 9:30. Waitrose was a bit 'nanas, mostly with people who couldn't drive a trolley!

>126 NinieB: I think yesterday was about 4C, but it was also very grey and gloomy, which I think makes it feel colder :-) Today the low is supposed to be 2C, but it's sunny with blue skies. I'm still not going out!

>127 Helenliz: Wise move there, Helen. I never understand why Christmas seems to take people by surprise every single year :-)



Shopaholic Abroad by Sophie Kinsella

I went to bed early last night, for warmth, and read this second instalment in the Shopaholic series. Once again it's like a time capsule - Becky buys a computer for £2000 and shops at more retailers that have long disappeared - but part of the story is set in New York where yes, there is even more shopping. I'm also amused by the high-powered boyfriend who runs his own top PR firm. He's 34. But the author would have been a similar age when the books were written. From my advanced age, 34 is a virtual child :-)

Happy Christmas! My phone says it's 3C here in London, but the sky is blue and it's sunny.

I'm going to make some more progress with The Bee Sting, which is excellent, and maybe Malice in Wonderland later.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

Anther great chunkster for 2025. One of my libraries has at least three copies of this book, and I finally borrowed it last time I was in. It's a family story, set not over generations but involving plenty of drama, and told from various viewpoints. I loved the way the sections got shorter and shorter as the climax approached. Superb.

I finally left the house and went to the supermarket. This meant I could check the post downstairs, and my new Oyster card had arrived (it's the Transport for London travel card). I had a "first generation" (i.e. old) card, and it stopped working. We can just use a bank card to pay, but I don't like having a credit card in my pocket. So I looked at the website and they offered me a new one, no deposit required, which seemed too good to be true but clicking the link did indeed produce a new card, and quicker than they promised. It's even linked to my account. I've topped it up with some money and transferred the balance from the old card over, and all this should work like magic next time I go through a ticket gate, which has to be by 30 December. It seems too efficient for TfL, which doesn't have the best record for customer service.

Marks & Spencer was pretty quiet, but well stocked, and I bought another box of the Christmas tea bags from their last-chance-for-Christmas-things display. I love it, and it doesn't expire for months, and I got through the first box pretty quickly.

This afternoon I'm going to finish The Favourites, which is so hyped on BookTube that it couldn't possibly match the hype, and it doesn't. It's about ice dancers so there's lots of sports stuff and I find all that very boring. But if I finish it today I could take four things back on Monday and that's appealing. I'm listening to a crime novel on Spotify, which is making me remember why I don't do audiobooks. I don't want to speed it up so they sound like cartoon characters, but it's soooo sloooow. Give me print, and lots of it.

The Favourites by Layne Fargo

This is blurbed by Jodi Picoult on the cover of my library copy as "Part Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones and the Six", which I think is a good description. But it's about ice dancers competing in the Olympics, and I think all sports are a waste of time and money, so 440 pages about it was never going to work for me. I should have thought about that more carefully before I picked it up. I also think I've aged out of books like this, which are full of unnecessary drama and running around. It's exhausting. No-one has to live their life like it's an episode of EastEnders.

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue

I loved this shortish novel (261pp) about a train travelling between Granville and Paris one day in 1895. Filled with interesting passengers, the train itself seems to sense that the journey will not be its usual one. I'd recommend reading nothing about this before starting it.

In other news, I've discovered that the headphones I use with my laptop work over the top of hoods (sweatshirts, dressing gown). *How did I not know this before*? Now I can watch YouTube and TV streaming things without having a cold head. I've been watching some end-of-year BookTube and I am, as the Young People say, shooketh by this discovery.

I left the house again, which is twice in three days. Amazing. I went to Tesco, but mostly I went out to start my new Oyster card working, and it was all fine. A flurry of emails arrived confirming it had been used, and the auto top-up had been set up, so I just need to check that it does in fact top up when the time comes. Tesco did not have their Easter things out, which I was half expecting. They had Christmas stuff discounted, but also some new things, and I picked up another Twining's collection, this time their Earl Grey Collection. It is 4 x each of Earl Grey, Strong Earl Grey, Vanilla Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey and Lady Grey. I'm having a "strong" Earl Grey as I type this, and it's really good. They also have two herbal/fruit sampler packs which are new.

I have one more book to finish to reach a total of 240 for the year, which seems like a nice round(ish) number, so I'm going to do that this afternoon.

>135 susanj67: Well, my local grocery store does, in fact, have their Easter stuff out. It's bananas.

Woot for Twinings Earl Grey! My favorite.

>135 susanj67: Leaving the house is overrated imo. Twixtmas is all about loafing and hibernating in my world.
240. Goodness!
Do let us know where you are setting up home for 2026, be good to follow along with your reading and adventures!

>136 scaifea: Oh no, that's nuts! The "strong" Earl Grey is excellent, but I'm not sure what makes it stronger than the normal type. And the UK website only lists an "extra strong", available online. They do have other types of Earl Grey, though, so I might investigate those at some point. I'm excited to try Lady Grey, which is readily available here, but I didn't want to get a whole box in case I hated it.

>137 Helenliz: Tesco was pretty quiet, suggesting loafing and hibernating was going on in the area :-) I think I'm going to have a thread in Club Read for 2026. My category project went a bit awry (e.g. I have only read one of my own hard copies, but 52 historical things).



Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

I never read this series when I was younger, and I don't know why. But I saw book 4 (Winter Holiday) recommended as a perfect cosy winter read, so of course I had to start at the beginning with this one. Originally published in 1930, it's the story of four children on their summer holidays in the Lake District, who sail around their lake and go camping on one of the islands in the middle. It's a sweet story, if a health and safety nightmare - there is no mention of life jackets at any point, and the youngest child is only seven. But I don't suppose even in 1930 children were actually allowed to sail around and go camping on their own. It does make a good story, though. There is perhaps a bit too much nautical terminology, but the characters are nicely drawn and I can see why this is a classic.

>138 susanj67: Hello Susan, it would be lovely to see you on Club Read. I will start a new thread there in the new year, but first I need to finish this year. I still have one book to read and then I will have reached 100, which is quite a lot for me.
As we do every year, we had an Advent tea calendar, which we enjoyed. We drink a lot of tea, but not necessarily black tea.
😅 Fortunately, the Easter items aren't in the shops here yet, but it probably won't be long now.
I wish you a good finish to the old year and a happy New Year in 2026.

>138 susanj67: I love their Lady Grey; it's a staple in my tea box right next to her Earl. I hope you like it, too!

>135 susanj67: Glad to hear the Earl/Lady Grey tea is good. Twinings messed about with their Lapsang Souchong a few years ago, and changed it from tasting like the tea of the gods to tasting like a full ashtray.

>135 susanj67: I received a Twinings Tea Advent Calendar from my mom this year. It was great trying all the different teas.
>136 scaifea: My current favorite is English Breakfast tea, although I tried Prince of Wales tea this year and am going to look for that one to add to the mix.
>138 susanj67: I find Lady Grey to be a gentler, sweeter tea than Earl Grey

>139 Ameise1: Thank you for the Happy New Year wishes, Barbara! And good luck with your final finish for the year.

>140 scaifea: I am drinking Lady Grey right now and I love it! I'll definitely get a full box once I've drunk the tea stash down a bit.

>141 Jackie_K: The internet suggests the changes were due to an EU regulation (which presumably the UK copied) but I can see mass fury among lovers of the blend!

>142 lowelibrary: I was intrigued by Prince of Wales tea, which I hadn't heard of, and it seems it was created for the then Prince of Wales in 1921 and discontinued in the UK when he became King in 1936. It's only available in some overseas markets. I *love* nerdy stuff like this with a royal connection :-) It sounds delicious. I'm usually a Darjeeling person, but I should try other types.

I've started The Book of Form & Emptiness, which is the next book club book. We meet on Thursday next week and I didn't want to read it too early and forget things. It's good so far, although I thought it was set in the UK and it's not, so I may have confused it with something else.

>142 lowelibrary: Oh, I love a good English Breakfast, too. And an Irish Breakfast. And I agree with your assessment of Lady Grey; gentler and sweeter is the perfect way to describe it!

>143 susanj67: Yay! I'm so glad you like it! I'm having my morning coffee now, but I think my afternoon tea will be a Lady Grey today...

I love the tea chat. As I can't tolerate caffeine any more, this is a closed door. You tend to get 'a' decaf, not a Lady Grey decaf, an Earl Grey decaf etc. Boooooo.
My current loose leaf brew is Rooibos with cocoa and mint. Works surprisingly well.

>144 scaifea: I wanted to try it when I saw your message last night, but I can't be drinking caffeine in the evenings :-) The Twinings UK site lists one called "The Earl", which is part of the family but different. The description says "What's that nose-twitching, intriguing citrusy smell? Ahh it's bergamot! The unique flavour that sums up Earl Grey. And we decided to take it to whole new level, marrying it with lemon zest and a sublime large leaf Chinese black tea to bring The Earl to life." I haven't seen it in the supermarkets here but I pass the Twinings shop from time to time so I'm going to get a few tea bags to try, as they sell them individually there.

>145 Helenliz: Waitrose has decaf Earl Grey, Helen! Decaf Lady Grey seems to be an import, but it's available on the iHerb website. (I'll be honest, tea was not the first thing I thought of when I saw the name "iHerb")

That reminds me of the best funny thing I saw on Instagram over the break - a story about a stewardess on a plane who made an announcement that "Someone has dropped an iEar at the boarding gate. My phone is a Samsung - I don't know what they're called." And then 30 seconds later, "I understand they're AirPods. Someone has dropped an AirPod."

I read a decent chunk of my book group book and then watched the last three episodes of Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, which was good. Tonight is another Midsomer Murder, and they're onto series 24. Perhaps it will run forever.

>146 susanj67: well that's exciting - I'm off to Waitrose tomorrow already, will have to have a little looky for that. mmm not sure tea would be what I'd expect to find at iHerb!

>146 susanj67: Oooh, The Earl sounds really good!

>147 Helenliz: I was in Marks & Spencer this morning and their own brand Early Grey also comes in a decaf version.

>148 scaifea: I will report when I find it and try it!

Today I'm trying Lavender Earl Grey, which I think is an acquired taste and not one I plan to acquire. Marks & Spencer had "Empress Grey", which is their version of Lady Grey, as Lady Grey is a Twinings trademark. M&S's tagline is "This is not just food - it's M&S food" so it's not surprising that they chose "Empress".

I took some books back to the library and thought I wouldn't get anything out. So just three things came home with me:

The City of Tears by Kate Mosse, which is book 2 in the series I started a couple of weeks ago
Murderland by Caroline Fraser
Raised by a Serial Killer by April Balascio (yes, I was in the crime bit of the 360s).

But first I have to finish the Ruth Ozeki book I started yesterday, not least because Atmosphere will be available on BorrowBox tomorrow, which is very exciting. So that's my plan for the rest of the afternoon. I did all my steps for the day as I roamed around the City, which is excellent, and now I can sit and drink tea.

>149 susanj67: M&S - Empress: oh, that *is* clever.

>150 scaifea: Yes, I don't think anyone can beat Empress :-)



The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

This is the book club book for next week, and it's not something I would have chosen for myself. It's a sad story about a teenage boy with mental heath problems, living with his mother who's a hoarder, having lost his father in an accident at the beginning of the book. It seemed very long to me, and I'm sure there was lots in it I didn't understand. It won the Women's Prize in 2022.