SusanJ's reading for 2026 - Thread 2

(Image from here welcome png hd)

Hello! I'm Susan, a long-time LT-er but this is my first time in Club Read.

I live in London, and I'm retired, so I have lots of time to read (but still not as much as I envisaged. Why do the days seem even shorter now?!). I read nearly everything and try to read lots of non-fiction as well as novels. My favourite Dewey categories are the 300s and 900s.

Over the winter I read tons of thrillers, but now it's spring (officially) and I'm starting the Walter Scott prize longlist while I finish off the thrillers. It's a strange mix of historical novels and serial killers.

Helm by Sarah Hall

This is my third book from the Walter Scott prize longlist, and it's about the Helm Wind, which is the only named wind in the British Isles. It blows in Cumbria, which is in the north of England, and according to Wikipedia "can be so forceful that it disrupts the community and generates tales of haystacks blown away and riders forced out of their saddles." The novel starts with the experiences of the wind itself as the landscape changes over millennia and strange little beings appear. The rest of the book is little bits of the lives of some of the strange little beings, who are trying to worship, understand, control or stop the wind. They range from a neolithic woman to a scientist studying microplastics in clouds in the 21st century.

Overall I liked this, even though my concentration has been fractured this week, what with the war and everything. I'm trying to turn the TV off and *focus*. This is second on my list of preferred longlist books, after The Pretender.



Adrift by Will Dean

The most recent book I read by Will Dean was The Last Passenger, which was pretty silly (in a good way). A woman on a cruise wakes up one morning to find no-one else on the ship. And I thought this was going to be similar, because I grabbed it from the library shelf without reading the blurb. It's not at all similar. It's more like The Last Thing To Burn. It's *terrifying*, and actually pretty upsetting as it's about a psychopath who controls his family by a mixture of extreme coercive control and gaslighting, and there's a side-plot in which the son of the family is horribly bullied at school. I stopped reading it about half-way through last night because I didn't want to go to sleep with it being the most recent thing I'd read. I finished it this morning. It's very well done, but see "terrifying", above.

I checked the LT reviews as I added it to my books, and a couple said it's set in Illinois, which it definitely is not. It's set in the East Midlands, and I know this because it says "East Midlands, 1994" at the beginning. It's also packed with British words and concepts, like types of sweets, school uniforms, pounds sterling and the names of British cities. So either there's been an entirely different version published for the US or an ARC went badly wrong.

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

This is my book group book for March, and it's a reread for me as I read it in May last year. A lot of the book group choices are things I've read before. But I've enjoyed it both times. It won the Walter Scott prize for 2025 and was longlisted for the Booker. It's set in the winter of 1962/63, partly during the big freeze of that year, and it's very atmospheric. I also thought the period was portrayed well, although I can't know for certain how accurate it was. But it seemed more realistic than e.g. Broken Country which I read recently, also set in the 60s but seeming much more modern. There was a huge amount of smoking and drinking in The Land in Winter, particularly shocking to modern readers as the two main female characters are pregnant. But even the doctor drinks all the time, and drives around afterwards. I'm looking forward to the book group discussion of this one.

The Writers' Castle: Reporting History at Nuremberg by Uwe Neumahr

This book is about the writers and journalists who gathered at Nuremberg in 1945/46 to report the first trial of the worst of the war criminals. Many famous names showed up for at least short periods, and the accommodation for the press was Schloss Faber-Castell (yes, the pencil people). Some rooms had ten beds in them, and the bathroom situation was dire, but a lot of writing went on and helped the world to understand the horrors of the Third Reich. Recommended for anyone interested in the period.

The Fall of Roe: America, Abortion and the Fight for a Nation's Soul by Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer

I was a bit surprised to see this in the new NF books at the library, because the UK is very different to the US with respect to abortion (and the law differs between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, too). This is a very detailed look at the campaign to get the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade, which guaranteed women in the US the right to an abortion for 49 years. The majority of people in the US apparently supported that right, so how did it disappear? The authors look at the people involved in the campaign, and how they didn't need to change the mind of the public at large, but just get the right people into the right offices and legislatures (or seats on the Supreme Court bench). It's really well done, and I found it easy to keep track of all the people despite never having heard of the various campaign groups before (apart from Planned Parenthood). The key message is not to take rights for granted, even if they've been around for decades.

The Lucky Winners by K L Slater

Merri and Dev win a Lake District dream house in a lottery, but when they move in the locals seem hostile. When the house is vandalised, Dev wants to call the police, but Merri is reluctant in case they realise who she is. And is it her imagination, or is someone watching them from the woods? This was a decent thriller, and I liked the dream house angle - there's a company here in the UK called Omaze which runs these lotteries and they're very popular, with different types of house for each draw. Winners are required to take part in publicity, just like Merri and Dev, and the company's PR people are very good at getting articles in the papers and on websites. (This makes it different from the National Lottery, where winners can opt for anonymity). Omaze is clearly the model for "DreamKey" in this book. I saw this on BorrowBox a while ago and reserved it, so it's pretty popular.

Small library haul:

The Killing Time by Elly Griffiths - book 2 in the Ali Dawson time travel series
The Curator by M W Craven - book 3 in the Washington Poe series
Dead Ground by M W Craven - book 4 in the Washington Poe series

The Killing Time by Elly Griffiths

This is the second in Elly Griffiths' new series, about a police cold case unit that has worked out how to time travel. In this instalment, they've been banned from doing it after what happened in book 1, but Ali nevertheless finds herself in 1851 again, for what I considered to be a silly reason but others may disagree. It's the time of the Great Exhibition and there's lots going on. I can't say much more without giving things away, but the team does seem to be getting better at the time travelling, and that's particularly good news for one of them.

Rare Tongues: The Secret Stories of Hidden Languages by Lorna Gibb

This was a random choice from the new NF at the library, and it was interesting. It's about languages that are being lost as native speakers die out, and what we might be losing with them. There are also stories of the recovery of some languages, as countries realise that they might have something to offer that the "official" languages do not.

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury

This is the first in a very promising series, in which the main character, Kamil Rahman, is a former detective from the Kolkata police force, now working as a waiter in a Brick Lane restaurant in London after everything went wrong in India. There's a murder at a lavish birthday party catered by the restaurant and Kamil tries to work out what happened.

There are five books in the series so far, and I'll definitely continue with it.

Putting Rare Tongues on my to-read list! Last year I read a poetry book with everything in endangered languages, Poems From the Edge of Extinction which had a lot of interesting introductions to the languages before each poem.

>10 mabith: That sounds like an interesting read! Rare Tongues has quite a bit of phonetics in it, which I struggled with, but you don't have to be an expert to get the author's main point.

My favourite library branch finally reopened today, after five million months of renovations, so of course I had to go over and see what it was like. I had a stupid plan that I would just return The Killing Time and have a look around and then go into the City for book group. Can anyone see the fatal flaw in the plan? I took one look at all the gleaming newness and couldn't help borrowing things. I had to force myself to stop at four books, which were:

The Barbecue at No. 9 by Jennie Godfrey whose The List of Suspicious Things I loved
A Better Life by Lionel Shriver
Kill For Me, Kill For You by Steve Cavanagh, which was recommended by a BookTuber
The Cook by Ajay Chowdhury, which is the second in the series I started yesterday in >9 susanj67: (LT thinks it might be the journals of Captain Cook, but no)

The renovation looks great, but the shelving of the fiction needs a fair bit of work. They were probably rushing to get the doors open, and there *was* a ton of new stuff in the new books displays, including multiple copies of books that have to be reserved at the other libraries. I saw three copies of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, for example, which had a long waiting list last time I looked. I suppose now they're available to borrow they will be sent around the borough and start to fill some of the reserve requests. But the alphabetical shelves were a bit of a mess. Some of the crime and thrillers were in with the ordinary fiction despite having their own section and alphabetical order had broken down in other parts. It should only take a day or so to put it right, but I hope they actually do it. Or a well-meaning patron might appear and do it for them :-)

Up In The Air: A History of High Rise Britain by Holly Smith

This book looks at why Britain decided to provide new social housing by going up rather than out (clue: there's not much room for "out" on a skinny island surrounded by water) and why that decision led to so many problems with the high-rise blocks. The book doesn't cover all the regions - the author says that Glasgow, for example, has been extensively written about in another work - but looks at case studies in some areas, including my own.

Apart from places like the Barbican estate with their iconic high rise towers (and flats now mostly privately owned), the received wisdom is that high rise social housing fails because of the people put in it. Although the stated aim of many councils was to rehouse whole "communities" from the slums together in the sky, at least one council admitted its main goal was to split up criminal associations and improve law and order in their borough by dispersing the criminals. But problem families have to go somewhere, and if the bulk of social housing is high-rise, they will be there too. But the book also looks at the poor quality of the building in many blocks, which led to quick decline and terrible living conditions, meaning the people most desperate for social housing ended up in them. Cracks appeared, mould flourished, lifts broke and so on. When the Ronan Point disaster happened in the 60s, with part of a block collapsing after a domestic gas explosion, remedial work showed big flaws with the design and construction of the building, and understandable reluctance of the tenants to move back in after it was "fixed". The book also looks at initiatives later on to improve the look of buildings and their energy efficiency by wrapping them in cladding, and we all know how that turned out.

The book is published by Verso, which has a distinct political view, so I don't agree with all of it, but it's a good read and I learned a lot.

The Curator by M W Craven

This is book 3 in the Washington Poe series, and sees Washington and Tilly running around Cumbria once more, after severed fingers are found at multiple locations. There was one part of this that didn't work from a legal point of view* but otherwise it was well done, and I have book 4 ready to go.

*No-one on a jury in England would ever be able to give an interview to a newspaper talking about the case afterwards. It's illegal. Go-to-jail illegal, in fact.

Dead Ground by M W Craven

Book 4 in the Washington Poe series is, I think, the best one yet. Once again there's a complex plot that sees Washington and Tilly racing around the country, and this time FBI Special Agent Melody Lee (introduced in book 3) is also part of the team. I've had to amend my book boyfriend list as Washington is such a great character, and it now reads like this:

1. Gabriel Allon (Daniel Silva)
2. Washington Poe (M W Craven)
3. Jack Reacher (Andrew Child and Lee Child)
4. Joe Pickett (C J Box)

Yes, Jack Reacher has been bumped down to third place, mostly because he does the same thing in every book and, while it's entertaining, I think Poe has more range. I was, however, amused to see "Poe said nothing" a couple of times in this book :-)



A Better Life by Lionel Shriver

This is Shriver's newest novel, which was sitting in the new books display at the library on Thursday, so I had to grab it. Homeowner Gloria Bonaventura is keen to take in an illegal migrant as part of a scheme run in New York (based on a real scheme that never got off the ground) but her Gen Z son, Nico, is less keen. He lives in the basement of the Queen Anne house in Brooklyn, five years after finishing college and not having found a job. But that's not because he can't - he just doesn't want to. He cultivates a life free of appointments, obligations and even a calendar, which he deletes from his phone.

"The stillness, the sumptuous monotony of his days, the luscious absence of demands, the paucity of engagements, the wide-open space both inside his head and without together conjured the hypnotic illusion that time had stopped. There was no future to plan for because the future and the present had fused. He was suspended, without care, in an eternity."

A legacy from his grandfather helps him maintain his lifestyle, but it all comes to an end when he's made to give up the basement for Martine, from Honduras. Nico thinks Martine is a grifter, but can't prove it. His mother loves her, though, and so do his sisters. But the family's hospitality is soon stretched further than anyone anticipated.

This is a fabulous read, which I'm already sure is going to be on my list of the best of 2026.

The Barbecue At No. 9 by Jennie Godfrey

This was another brand new release from the library on Thursday. I loved the author's The List of Suspicious Things, which is set in the 1970s and sees the main character trying to investigate the Yorkshire Ripper case. This one is set on the day of the Live Aid concert in 1985, and involves a barbecue on a new housing estate, attended by most of the members of the small street. They all have things going on, and the story is told hour by hour as the Live Aid acts play at Wembley Stadium. It's very well done, even if one of the plot lines is straight out of vintage EastEnders (but it's a very memorable plot, and I wondered whether that was done intentionally, to fit with the 80s vibe. OMG I just used the word "vibe". Somebody slap me). I liked this a lot, and I hope the author writes many more.

Kill For Me, Kill For You by Steve Cavanagh

This is exceptionally well done. Two members of a counselling group have men they want dead, but they know they'll be the chief suspects if they try anything. Unless...each kills the other's target. That, in itself, is not an unusual premise, but the twists keep on coming in this one and I couldn't put it down. There's some stunning misdirection but even when you think it's all been sorted out, it still hasn't. 100% recommended.

Library haul (I took five back but borrowed six, so the library is winning):

The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists who Hijacked the 1970s by Jason Burke
Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Hannah Durkin (I can't get that to link to a touchstone but it's about the passengers on the Clotilda, which I'm sure I have read about elsewhere)
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters - I've wanted to read this for ages but the library copies are inevitably filthy. However, this one is *brand new*.
The Botanist by M W Craven - #5 in the Washington Poe series
The Mercy Chair by M W Craven - #6
The Final Vow by M W Craven - #7

There is still a Situation with the alphabetical order of the older stock, but the end of the Cs in the crime section is now perfect :-)

The Pit by Peter Papathanasiou

This is book 3 in the Manolis and Sparrow series, which is not really conforming to true police procedural style. The Stoning was classic "Outback noir". The Invisible moved to Greece when the main character went on holiday, so wasn't set in the Outback. In this one, Constable Andrew "Sparrow" Smith is the main character, and he receives a call from a man confessing to a murder decades before. The book is a road trip to find the body, with a past timeline about the murderer's life. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't what I was expecting. I think book 4 returns to the classic style, and I have reserved a copy.

I started The Revolutionists yesterday and it's very good. I would be tempted to spend all day today reading it, but I have to go *out*. I just hope it doesn't start raining.

Silk Road by Colin Falconer

I have Kindle Unlimited again due to poor impulse control (and also, 99p for three whole months!) and this popped up in historical fiction. The author has written lots of books and they all seem to be standalones, but part of the "Epic Adventure Series". It's set in the 1260s as a horrible priest (based on a real person) is sent by the pope to visit the Mongol emperor and explain that everyone should convert to Christianity. His bodyguard is a Templar knight. The story is their journey across the Roof of the World to the court, and there's a fair bit of Mongol politicking in it as well. The contenders for the title of emperor were the grandsons of Ghengis Khan, who were living lives quite different to the nomadic life of their ancestors. I particularly liked that one of the main characters was a woman. I've got the next book ready to go.

The Cook by Ajay Chowdhury

This is the second book in the Kamil Rahman series, which I started in >9 susanj67:. Kamil now has a "Vindaloo visa", available to Indian chefs, so he is working legally in the Brick Lane restaurant, and he even has a sort-of girlfriend, Naila, a nursing student. But when one of Naila's student friends is murdered, the girl's parents ask him to investigate and he finds himself running around London again, trying to work out what happened. If you know London, you will likely guess the "whodunnit" part of this, but it's still a good read.

The Botanist by M W Craven
The Mercy Chair by M W Craven

These are books 5 and 6 in the Washington Poe series, which just gets better and better. It's a series where the same secondary characters recur, so the overall story develops at the same time as each new case. In The Botanist, a fiendish poisoner is killing people with botanical toxins, and they keep dying even when they're under police guard or in isolation in hospital. To complicate Poe's life, Estelle Doyle is arrested for murder. Poe puts in a lot of miles as he tries to work on both cases. The Mercy Chair starts with the leader of a cult being stoned to death, and Poe and Tilly are asked to work out what happened. But a new character pops up, ostensibly from the National Audit Office, reviewing the work of the NCA. But Poe is suspicious...This one has one of *the best* twists, which I did not see coming.

The Revolutionists by Jason Burke

This is a superb account of "The Revolutionists Who Hijacked the 1970s", as the subtitle says. The author looks at the various lunatics running around killing people and blowing things up (mostly in Europe and the Middle East), and why they were doing it. It's a really good explanation of how the various factions coalesced, which sometimes led to joint-venture operations, and some that the (Western) authorities couldn't find any reason for at all. The book also explains what is at the root of much of the Middle East conflict today, which is a good summary (if that's the word for meticulous research and excellent writing). As a child in the 1970s I was vaguely aware of some of the mayhem, although it didn't reach New Zealand. All we saw was news reports, and I remember a weekend documentary programme that *always* seemed to have lengthy slots on the war in Afghanistan. It's easier now, decades later, to understand what it was all for, but at the time it seemed like it had no relevance to us. 100% recommended for anyone who wants a better understanding of why we are where we are now.

>2 susanj67: very interesting about Helm

>3 susanj67: The Land in Winter twice! Nice. Does the beginning have more meaning the second time?

>4 susanj67: interesting! On Nuremberg.

>14 susanj67: also interesting, about A Better Life

I enjoyed catching up here

>23 dchaikin: I'm not sure I understood the beginning of The Land in Winter any more this time around :-) One interesting point came up in the book group discussion - one of the other members is 80 and she said it read to her like something set in the 50s rather than the 60s. She said the 60s were rather groovier than they appear in the book, and she's a pretty conservative person!



Survivors by Hannah Durkin

I still can't find the touchstone for this, but it's a very good account of the voyage of the Clotilda, which was the last ship to take slaves from Africa to the continental US, in 1860. I learned that for a long time the ship was thought (in modern times) to be a myth, but its remains were eventually found, and the descendants of its passengers are alive today, and many living in Alabama, which is where its enslaved people were landed before being split up and dispersed around the area. There *were* people looking for them at the time, and some attempts were made to prosecute the captain and crew, but no-one seemed to try hard enough. The book looks at some of the enslaved people and the lives they led in the US. Many wanted to return home, and started saving, but eventually they were resigned to staying put.

There is a Netflix documentary about the ship, and it seems to be based on Zora Neale Hurston's Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo", but that book was only published in 2018, which may be one reason why the story isn't better known. I'll definitely watch it the next time I have Netflix, and I'll try to read the book, too.

There was another interesting fact in the book, which was a reference to the third-biggest-selling novel in the US in the 1800s, St Elmo. I didn't bookmark the page, unfortunately, so I can't remember why it was relevant to this story, but I have downloaded the novel...

>24 susanj67: interesting. The mythology is the 1960’s didn’t become “groovier” till later in the decade.

Also interesting about this book and Netflix documentary. Barracoon was fascinating and a bit horrifying.

>25 dchaikin: My book club pal was describing some of her outfits from the early 60s and they sounded pretty groovy! I won't be in a position to judge historical accuracy until these novels reach the 80s, and then I'll be all over it :-)



And The Corpse Wore Tartan by Stuart MacBride

This is a Roberta Steel spin-off from the author's Logan McRae series, and the library had a brand new hardback copy so resistance was pointless. It's 227 pages, so not as long as one of the full-length books, but longer than a novella. Roberta is attending a wedding in the Highlands, and is in disgrace with her wife, Susan, for drunken behaviour on the evening of the ceremony. But the next day she has a chance to redeem herself when the father of the bride is found dead, impaled on a giant statue of a deer in the foyer of the hotel. Bad weather means the wedding guests are cut off from all outside help, so Roberta and two police officers from the Highlands and Islands division (also guests) have to try and solve the crime. This was a fun read, and featured Roberta's favourite bra, "Old Faithful", which the guests saw rather more of than they might have wanted to.

Nice review of Survivors: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the Last Atlantic Slave Trade, Susan (I couldn't find that touchstone either).Thanks also for the reminder of Zora Neale Hurston's book Barracoon, and for letting me know about Descendant, the 2022 Netflix documentary.

>27 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl! (I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't get the touchstone!). I'm sure I've read something else about the Clotilda but Google isn't helping me. Maybe it was part of another book.



Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

I've wanted to read this modern classic (?) for ages, but the library copies were old and grim. But I found a brand new one at the refurbished library when it reopened, so I snapped it up. Set in grimy Victorian London, it's got a very Dickensian feel to it, but with excellent female characters. There are two narrators and quite a few twists, and I read it pretty quickly because I needed to know what happened next. I thought the only other book I'd read by this author was The Paying Guests, which I *loved*, but LT tells me I've also read The Little Stranger and The Night Watch. That's embarrassing.

A reserve has arrived at the refurbished library, which is very exciting. I saw the reserves shelf the other day and it only had a couple of things on it, but I should be able to fix that :-) Highway Thirteen is waiting for me, and I plan to go and get it tomorrow.

>24 susanj67: There was an episode of Finding Your Roots, with Questlove, where one of his ancestors came to the US on the Clotilde. It was pretty interesting.

>29 WelshBookworm: I checked the PBS app here in the UK but sadly that series isn't part of it. It does sound good, though.



The Final Vow by M W Craven

This is #7 in the Washington Poe series, and now I'm up to date until the next one is published in August. Once again there was a dastardly villain and a lot of running around. I'll miss Washington and Tilly now - I've read all the books this year but maybe I should have spaced them out.

Today is sunny in London - hurrah! I am sending this into the ether with my new broadband, which I set up yesterday. I realised I was only getting 6Mbps with the old one, because despite living in the middle of London my area still has the old copper wiring, so no fibre for me :-( But one of the telecom companies has a "broadband without landline" option which uses the mobile phone network, and a brand new hub arrived yesterday morning. I'm giving it a try before I cancel the old broadband, but I should be able to get rid of that *and* the landline (necessary for the broadband, because apparently this is the 1900s, as the Young People say) and save a lot. Currently I'm getting about 4x the speed of the old one, which is good. Not gaming-good, but fortunately I don't have any gadgets that require that much speed. I wouldn't have said the old one was slow for the things I do (mostly internetting and TV streaming, plus playing banging 80s tunes on my Echo Dot) but links are noticeably faster to open since yesterday. And as more 5G rolls out across London, I should get faster speeds. I'm sure the company will be in touch to increase my bill once that happens :-) At the moment London has good 5G coverage outside, but it's patchy indoors, so I've got a 4G plan. But who knows what tech will dream up in the future?

Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell

This is a biography of Pamela Harriman, which I first read at the end of 2024. Now it's a book group read for April, so I've read it again. Strictly speaking, I reread the first half and skimmed the rest, as the sections about US politics in the 70s and 80s are incredibly boring. Older biographies of Harriman focus on her activities as a "grande horizontale", and Purnell also talks about that, but says that she was misunderstood and was really playing an important role in Britain's war effort by learning what important men from different countries were thinking (by sleeping with them) and making sure Britain's interests were promoted. I'm a bit doubtful, although I'm not the one who's done all the research.

The other library book group is reading Travellers in the Third Reich, which I have also read before, but it's a better read than Kingmaker, and I have started a reread. I have the Kindle copy, which is handy.

Tiny library haul:

The Bolthole by Peter Papathanasiou - book 4 in the series, and the book I went over to pick up from the reserve shelf
Cleopatra by Lucy Hughes-Hallett - a revised version of a book originally published in 1990, which has been on the new NF display since the library reopened. How could I resist?

The shelves of old stock are still a mess, which is very disappointing. Not only is the alphabet being disrespected, there are some books by an author in general fiction and others in crime and thrillers when they are all the same type of book (Lee Child is one example). The library offers various volunteering opportunities, and I'm wondering whether I could offer to put stuff in order. It doesn't fit an existing category, but I would love to do it. There's something about orderliness which is very satisfying.

>31 susanj67: the sections about US politics in the 70s and 80s are incredibly boring

Ah, the differences in readers' interests here in LT! Although I'm not an American, that could well be the part that would get me reading this book. After all, there was Vietnam, Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, the energy crisis, the women's movement, just to name a few, and we're not even out of the 70s!

>3 susanj67: >7 susanj67: Taking note of these.

>33 SassyLassy: It wasn't the "big" events - there was a lot about e.g. fundraising for Democrat politicians who didn't win anything and who are now just tiny footnotes in history.

I've started the Cleopatra book, this afternoon, and the first chapter is about the "fantasy" story of her life, followed by what actually happened. It's very good. (Also £3.99 for Kindle at the moment).

The Tiger by John Vaillant

I loved Vaillant's Fire Weather, which I read at the beginning of last year, so I've been on the lookout for this book for a while. A brand new copy appeared at one of my libraries, so I had to get it. It was published in 2010, and it's about events in 1997 in Primorye, in the Russian Far East. A man was killed by a tiger, and the author discusses the attempts made by the authorities to work out why, and to catch it. As with Fire Weather, there are lots of other strands to the story, including the history of the region and a lot about primates vs tigers and the state of tiger conservation as at 2010. It's very good, and the hard copy has maps which I think are essential to understand all the running around in it.

I recently read Owls of the Eastern Ice, which is set in the same area, and it's an area I'd like to read more about.

Highway Thirteen by Fiona McFarlane

This book is connected short stories with a serial killer at their core. None of the stories is about him, but they all involve people from his family, or who knew him, or who knew one of his victims. They're really well done, and I will look for more by this author.

In other news, it's All-Aimee-April in the jigsaw puzzling world, which means doing puzzles by Aimee Stewart in April, or "the month of April" as the influencers say, maybe in case April could be something other than a month. I love Aimee's images and have a lot of her jigsaws, including some I haven't done, so I've started a 2000-piece one while I catch up on some podcast episodes.

This is Amazing Animal Kingdom:

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

This is a book group book for my second book group, which is non-fiction only. As with Kingmaker, I'd already read it but LT tells me that was in 2018, which seems a lot longer ago than I had thought. It looks at the people travelling to Germany (mostly from the US and UK) in the 1930s, and why they thought it was a good idea, given everything that was going on. It's very well done and there are some great records in the way of letters and articles written by the visitors, explaining what they'd seen and what they thought of it all. My favourite travellers were two opera-loving sisters from London who visited frequently, but not just for the opera. They were busy helping Jewish families with their emigration applications, and smuggling out their jewellery on the trip back to the UK, so they would have something to start their new lives with if they escaped. One of the sisters was a romance writer and wrote a memoir about what they did, and it's available now on Kindle Unlimited so I have added it to my KU library.

>35 susanj67: sounds strangely interesting!

>37 susanj67: the idea of this book gives me chills. And I recently read The Director, based on the life of GW Pabst, a German movie director who failed in Hollywood, and so returned to Nazi Austria.

>37 susanj67: Interesting premise for a book. Also love the idea of a NF book club.

>38 dchaikin: The Tiger has all sorts of interesting things in it. I particularly liked the history of the region. I must see what else the author has written and try and find it. The Director sounds excellent. I've just reserved it :-)

>39 AlisonY: The author has also written A Village in the Third Reich, which I want to read too. I'm very excited by the NF book club. Friday will be my first meeting (there was a waiting list). As I think I've said on my thread, I feel with fiction that maybe I've just read all the stories now. Or enough stories, anyway. I have a friend a bit older than me who only reads NF (with the occasional classic) and it's tempting. The next NF book is Raising Hare, which I haven't read (I am perhaps the last person in the country). I've had a few rereads for book group lately and it's annoying, particularly when I didn't like the book that much the first time.

Raising Hare looks really good, Susan. It’s on my library list now. Plenty of copies available locally.

Wish my book club were more open to NF, but they are mostly about fiction.

>41 Fourpawz2: Hi Charlotte! I keep seeing Raising Hare, so it's probably good that I have to read it soon and find out what everyone is talking about :-)



The Bravest Voices by Ida Cook

This is the memoir I mentioned in >37 susanj67:. It was originally published in 1950, I think, but then updated, and the KU version of the book has a foreword by Anne Sebba (who wrote The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz) dated 2015. I hadn't realised when I read Travellers in the Third Reich that the Cook sisters were actually famous in their time - honoured by Yad Vashem after the war and each recognised as a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2010. Ida was even the subject of an episode of This Is Your Life in 1956 https://www.bigredbook.info/ida_cook.html

I loved the memoir, which is an excellent piece of social history quite apart from the sisters' work saving refugees. There is, however, a *lot* of opera in it. The sisters didn't just *like* opera, they were superfans, queuing all day for tickets in the gallery at Covent Garden and travelling to New York in 1926 to see the famous Amelita Galli-Curci at the Met and then to various places in Europe. They were such dedicated fans that they met many of their favourite opera singers and became friends with them, and it was one of them who got the sisters involved in the refugee work.

Much of their work was funded by Ida's earnings as a romance author (Mary Burchell). She wrote 112 novels for Mills & Boon (presumably why The Bravest Voices is published by Harlequin). She says that by the end of the refugee work she was £8,000 in debt (about £300,000 today) but still wondered whether she could have done more.

Some of her books are available as ebooks, including a 12-book set involving various operas and yes, I do plan to download them :-)

>42 susanj67: KU version? Like the University of Kansas? The story and book sound fantastic

>43 dchaikin: Kindle Unlimited. I keep saying I'm *not* getting it again, and then they send me offers like 99p for three months and resistance is futile :-)

>44 susanj67: ah. That makes more sense. I do hope the University of Kansas has a press. But probably not for a wide audience…

>45 dchaikin: They do seem to have one! And some of the books look interesting.



Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet

This is another Walter Scott prize nominee, and it's based on a real murder on the Scottish island of Benbecula in 1857. It's very short - just 147pp, although there's an afterword with details of what really happened in the case. It was OK, but I think I would rather have read a NF account of it all. The story is told from the point of view of the brother of the man who murdered his parents and aunt, but it's not clear where the narrator is or what he's doing, and that annoyed me.

I will continue with the Clementine Churchill biography this afternoon (First Lady by Sonia Purnell). In Kingmaker I was amused by the part where Pamela Churchill (daughter-in-law of Winston and Clementine) ran out of money and had to move into the Dorchester hotel (one of London's most expensive, even then) and in this biography Winston is fired from the cabinet during WWI and the couple find themselves with nowhere to live as his government house is gone and their own is let out, so they are forced to move into a house owned by his aunt, next to the Ritz. It reminds me of that old joke: "Once there was a family which was very poor. The father was poor. The mother was poor. The butler was poor..."

>47 dchaikin: too bad about Benbecula. I enjoyed Case Study. And i hope to read His Bloody Project

>47 dchaikin: I read His Bloody Project in 2016, and this is what I posted:

"I read this because it was on the Booker longlist, and also because it was very cheap on Amazon until they realised and increased the price. It's a fictitious account of a murder in the Scottish Highlands in 1869, based around a memoir written by the accused man, witness statements from his neighbours and a very well-done account of the trial, complete with multiple snarky comments from the press pack. And yet... I thought it was missing something, although maybe it had the thing and I was missing it. I know a lot of LTers are planning to read this, so I won't go into details, but I don't see it as the winner."

Yeah, I think I'm the problem :-)

>48 susanj67: 🙂 He’s maybe not your author

>28 susanj67: I just happened to be browsing in a local bookstore and recognized the author name and started browsing through the book and I think I stayed in that bookstore for about an hour or so reading that book Then I went home and finished It was amazing I don't normally like mysteries whodunits but this was just amazing . Read this book

>49 dchaikin: I think you're right :-) It's not that the stories aren't interesting, more that I'd prefer them as NF books.

>50 cindydavid4: It's great, isn't it? I can't believe it took me so long to get around to reading it.



Hardacre by C L Skelton

Recently I was looking for something not involving serial killers on the Channel 5 website and I watched The Hardacres, which I think aired here last year or maybe 2024. (It's on Britbox elsewhere). I loved it, and noticed it was "based on" a book by C L Skelton. And the book was on KU! "Based on" is true - both the TV series and the book are about a Yorkshire family in the late 1800s. A workplace injury causes the family to look around for another way to make money, and they make their fortune. But nearly everything else is different. The TV family has lots of additional characters and many other storylines as the family's fortunes progress. But they are both great entertainment. Channel 5 is advertising series 2, which must be out soon, and this time I'm going to watch it in the old-school way, week by week as it airs. There's also a second book, which I will get soon. If you like family sagas I'd recommend both.

That made me think I need more giant sagas in my life, because I do love a series. Also, now the Winter of Wickedness (serial killers and crime) is coming to a close, maybe it's time for Saga Spring and Summer. I've read the Poldark series (but could reread it, as I snagged the whole series on Kindle a while ago). I've read the Cazalet series by Elizabeth Howard and the Spoils of Time trilogy by Penny Vincenzi (fabulous). I'm waiting for Diana Gabaldon to finish the Outlander series before I reread those and continue. There's the Sara Donati Wilderness series - I've read the first one but there are now six (!). I've read the RF Delderfield A Horseman Riding By series, but I see he has some other books. I tried but gave up on the Jalna series. I haven't yet read the Forsytes, the Jeffrey Archer series or the Ken Follett "Century" books (well, I think I started them but lost track. Poor). Does anyone have other recommendations, preferably for a long series (longer than a trilogy), maybe written in the days when copy-editing was a thing and characters didn't all speak like American teenagers?

>51 susanj67: I was going to recommend the Forsytes.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty has 36 books (!) and she has a much newer series with 5 books. I'm not sure how you'd find the writing quality but I think the first Morland books are quite cheap on Kindle. In the early 90s I also enjoyed Dinah Lampitt's sagas, mostly available for Kindle though often under the name Deryn Lake. Barbara Taylor Bradford's series starting with A Woman of Substance is long, and I've enjoyed rereading the first two but the writing is CLUNKY. Reay Tannahill and Diana Norman also wrote some good historical novels but they're not really series books.

A few months away but Louisa Young has been commissioned to write some more Cazalet novels, and I'll be interested to see how those turn out. She also has a loose trilogy of historical novels of her own, starting with My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You.

Another trilogy but I enjoyed the first two books by Kate Williams.

And I think Kate Glanville's "big house" books are all standalone but I really liked the two of them I've read. They're more contemporary with some backstory than historical.

>52 ELiz_M: Yes, I should probably start there! The elibrary has all the books permanently available so there's no reason not to.

>53 elkiedee: Thanks Luci! A 36-book series would be my dream :-) That's interesting about the new Cazalet books. I read My Dear, I wanted to Tell You and don't think I liked it that much.

I've just cancelled my old broadband and landline, so now I'm living on the edge :-) But the new broadband is working perfectly (fingers crossed) and I'm pleased I switched. I used to be so proud of my central London phone number, but no-one cares about those any more. BT was clear, though, that if I gave up 0207 and then changed my mind, my new number would start 0203, which is what they started using when 0207 (central London) and 0208 (outer London) were full.

Today I want to finish The Bolthole, which I'm not loving. The series started with a lot of promise, but hasn't lived up to it. I've also got Tell Me What You Did and Wild Dark Shore from the elibrary. I keep saying I've almost finished the library books, but it seems I never really have.

The Bolthole by Peter Papathanasiou

This is book 4 in the Manolis and Sparrow series, and returns to the classic police procedural structure. Manolis and Sparrow are sent to Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, to help investigate the disappearance of a rich incomer with a complicated life. I thought the crime part was well done, but there's a lot of lecturing in the book about environmentalism, and Australian history, and that went on and on. I understand that a character like Sparrow would have a lot to say about the history of the country in particular, but it sits a bit uneasily in genre fiction like this.

Mini library haul:

The Lasting Harm by Lucia Osborne-Crowley, about the Ghislaine Maxwell trial
The Gravity of Feathers by Andrew Fleming, about the history of St Kilda (the island, not the suburb in Melbourne :-) )
I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, a "runaway bestseller" about the gig economy in China

It's ridiculously warm in London today - 24C already! It's supposed to be the hottest 8 April since 1946, which is amazing. I ditched the puffa coat when I went out, and really I could have done without a coat of any kind, but that doesn't sound like me.

Cleopatra: Histories, Dreams and Distortions by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

This book was originally published in 1990, but has been updated and republished this year for some reason - I'm not sure why. The author looks at the legend of Cleopatra and then the real facts about her, and then how she has been portrayed in literature, art and film over the centuries. There are definite trends over the years, and it's a really thought-provoking read. I haven't read a lot about Cleopatra - I saw Helen Mirren in Antony and Cleopatra at the National Theatre years ago and I've seen the film with Elizabeth Taylor playing the lead, but I'm going to hunt out some of the other works mentioned in the book. I see there are a few new novels about her but they are bound to annoy me with their modern language and girl-boss vibe (oh no, "vibe" again), so I'm going to look further back.

ETA: This is 99p for Kindle in the UK at the moment.

57: Just bought the Cleopatra book, thanks! Antony and Cleopatra was one of my A-level English Literature texts at 16, and I was quite obsessed for a while.

>57 susanj67: there’s always Stacy Schiff’s update, Cleopatra: A Life… but i didn’t like it. 😁

>58 elkiedee: that’s maybe the best possible inspiration, other than Elizabeth Taylor (the actress, not the author)

>58 elkiedee: Yay! They do have some good deals :-)

>59 dchaikin: I DNFd Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692, which was one of the most annoying books I've ever attempted, so I think I'll give her Cleopatra a miss too! Tomorrow I have a book group meeting at a big library with a superb history collection, so I'll see what they have.

>60 susanj67: ha! Same here. I gave up on that. But her books on Vera Nabokov and Benjamin Franklin are gems.

>61 dchaikin: It seems she's a bit uneven, then!



The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell by Lucia Osborne-Crowley

The UK subtitle is "Witnessing the Trial of the Century", which I suppose it is so far but depressingly the trial is unlikely to be remembered by the end of it. The author is a legal reporter who attended all of the trial in New York at the end of 2021, and the book is about that, but also (and mostly) about the effects of trauma, and why trauma isn't better understood by the world at large. A lot of it is very difficult reading, and the author includes her own experiences too.

There remain a lot of unanswered questions about Epstein's offending, including the names of many of the men involved in it, but all the attention does seem to be on them and not really on the victims, despite their campaigns for the authorities to listen. Now that Epstein is dead, it feels very much like it's all going to be brushed under the carpet. Why else was the FBI so reluctant to listen to the women who contacted them with evidence that would have been relevant for the trial? On one view, the prosecution may have thought they had enough evidence and there's something in that. There's no point in fifty people giving evidence if the experiences of one or two witnesses would be enough to convict. But that does mean that the other victims feel they're not being taken seriously, and it was interesting to read that the journalists covering the trial thought for most of it that Maxwell would be acquitted. What if a missing witness had the evidence that would have meant a conviction? In the end, that wasn't an issue, and the judge handed down a sentence higher than normal. But it does make you wonder who decided to stop with just four victims, and why.

Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson

Poe Webb hosts a podcast called "Tell Me What You Did", where people confess their secrets. One day a man confesses to killing Poe's mother. But that can't be right, because Poe killed that guy herself...I thought this was OK - it got a bit bogged down in the middle but it was a good concept and there's a dog in it. One of the characters appears in an earlier novel, and I'll look for that as her story sounds interesting.

I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan

This is an account of the author's time in the gig economy in China, much of it delivering parcels for various companies in Beijing. I was fascinated by the differences between the systems in the UK and China. In China, for example, delivery drivers are not allowed to throw parcels over the fence and pretend they were signed for by the addressee. But the addressees do often seem to be quite demanding, insisting on repeat visits if they're not at home, and arguing about returns. The author has also worked in a logistics facility and in various retail and restaurant settings. By the end I felt quite sorry for him as he never seemed to be able to settle into any job or career for the long term.



Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

This is "climate fiction", which is a relatively new thing, about how we're all doomed. There are even prizes for it now. But this is a good novel anyway (despite the doom), set on a remote island off the south of Australia where a man and his children have lived for years, taking care of a research station (now empty) and a seed vault (slowly thawing). And then a woman is washed up on the beach, nearly dead. Who is she, and what on earth is she doing there? And who has destroyed the radio and other communications equipment, meaning help can't be summoned? This is quite twisty, as you realise from the outset that there's a lot of information missing, and it didn't go in the direction I expected. I did enjoy it, though.



They Were Her Property

Huge thanks to Jerry @rocketjk for this recommendation after I finished Heiresses recently. That one was about women who owned or benefited from Caribbean sugar estates. This one was about the US, and debunks the (perhaps?) received wisdom that the ownership and management of enslaved people was something men did, while their wives stayed in the house and entertained. The author looks at many examples of women's involvement in all aspects of "the peculiar institution" (the author uses that phrase) and it's a real eye-opener. I could only get the audiobook version of this from the library, but found I could follow it really well, without the lapses in concentration that I usually experience with audiobooks. I listened to the whole thing over three days, and most of that was today. It's really well done and, while some of the LT reviews suggest it might be a bit *too* detailed, I thought it was all very interesting and the wealth of detail just added to the astonishment that women's role in enslavement isn't better-known. My only issue with the audiobook was the accents used for the quotations from formerly enslaved people who were interviewed as part of the Slave Narrative Collection by the WPA in the 1930s. But overall I thought it was superb and I'm very glad to have read it.

Daggermouth by H M Wolfe

The fantasy BookTubers are all going nuts for this dystopian enemies-to-lovers story, which happily is on KU, so I downloaded it. And it's very good! It was indie published, but has now been bought by a mainstream publisher, and I'm not surprised. But that does mean the sequel has been delayed. This one ends on a real cliffhanger, so that's annoying. However, I'm sure I'll remember the story because the world the author created is a good one, and the main characters really are enemies. Recommended if you have KU and want to see what all the hype's about.

>64 susanj67: they were her property sounds fascinating

Just popping my head up to say hello and that I'm enjoying all your reviews, although I haven't had much to contribute.

>66 dchaikin: Definitely a great read.

>67 labfs39: Hi Lisa! Thank you for reading my ramblings :-)



The Gravity of Feathers by Andrew Fleming

This is subtitled "Fame, Fortune and the Story of St Kilda", and it's a very thorough history by an expert on the area. I thought it was maybe a bit too detailed for a general audience, but anyone who knows more about St Kilda than I do will find lots of interest in this book. The author goes right back to pre-historic times, and traces the story until 1930, when the smallish population left on the main island asked to be removed, and were resettled in other places. St Kilda is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

I finished the book this morning while I was waiting for a FedEx delivery, and as that came at 10.04 (! my delivery window was 9.20 - 13.20) I went over to the library and the supermarket afterwards and picked up two reserves:

The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin - there was a reference to this novel in the book I read recently about mining in the UK, and it was the easiest one to get hold of so I reserved it. It's a huge trade paperback size and nearly 700pp. Gulp.
Burned by Thomas Enger - I read about this on Barbara's thread.

I also borrowed Everybody Loves Our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won, which is the new book by Oliver Bullough.

I've started Raising Hare this afternoon, but I've had to stop to watch the last days of the UK PM, who is speaking at 15.30. The political journalists seem to think he'll hang on for a bit longer, but basically he's toast.

St Kilda sounds fascinating itself.

>69 dchaikin: Yes, I've done a bit of Googling and there is lots to read about it!



The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

This is one of the book club books for May. I don't like magical realism, so I started it not really wanting to read it, and finished it with the same view. It's very long, and there's lot of sexual violence in it, which gave me the ick. There's also a lot of tedious politics. It was written 40 years ago and a lot of the language doesn't stand up to modern sensibilities, but obviously it's a classic etc etc. I just didn't like it and don't care. But it's finished now, so I can move on :-)

The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

I hadn't heard of this new fantasy release until I saw it in a YouTube video a couple of weeks ago, but I see from the LT page that it's a BBC Radio 2 Book Club choice, so evidently I just haven't been paying attention. It's a very good debut novel, set in a fantastical version of China, with feuding sons and strange magic, and there's also a dragon. The main female character is a poor village girl chosen to be one of the concubines for the recently-announced heir to the throne, and she quickly realises she has a lot to learn. There's also a twist in it that I didn't see coming, and I don't mean the bit at the end. I'll definitely look for this author's next book.

Everybody Loves Our Dollars: How Money Laundering Won by Oliver Bullough

This is the new book by Oliver Bullough, who writes excellent things about financial crime. I've enjoyed (if that's the right word) Moneyland and Butler to the World so when I saw this one in the new books display at the library I had to borrow it. It's very well done, but a depressing read. That's not the author's fault, though - it's the state of the world. There are some eye-watering statistics in the book about the size of global money-laundering, and a general malaise on the part of the authorities to do anything (or at least enough) about it. Why, for instance, are central banks printing more and more banknotes when almost no-one uses cash any more? Why are no questions asked about clearly dodgy goings-on, like lavish casinos on tiny islands in the Pacific? And, most shockingly (for me), why is Bicester Village (an outlet mall) so popular with Chinese students in the UK? This is a very good read, and recommended for anyone with an interest in the area.



Scam Nation by Kaf Okpattah (no touchstone I can see)

This continues the theme of depressing things about the modern world, but it's about scammers. It starts with an anecdote from the author's school days, when a teacher asked one of his friends where he'd got his new trainers. "I clicked them from JD, Miss" was the answer. "Clicking" does not (just) mean ordering things on the internet. First you need fullz, and an addy, and only then can you click. If those terms mean nothing to you, this book explains what they are and why they matter. Scammers previously used the dark web to communicate with one another and find victims, but now they use Snapchat and Instagram, and fraud is escalating. As well as "clicking", the author looks at the architecture behind text message scams and telephone calls pretending to be from people's banks, and at the end there's a good explanation of all the laws these activities break, and the sentences when scammers get caught. The author is a BBC journalist, and there's quite a bit about how he identified some of the scammers in the book, which makes for interesting reading too.

I Think We Should Kill Other People by L M Chilton

This popped up in the new books on BorrowBox, and I'd enjoyed Don't Swipe Right by this author, so I reserved it. I came in a couple of days, and that's because it's a quick and fun read, although I'm not sure about the title. Main character Hazel enters a reality show competition to marry a mystery man, with their compatibility determined by AI. Odd things keep happening as the show is filmed, but they end up in Norway for the wedding. Most of the book takes place in a tiny airport after everything goes wrong, and then people start dying...

Today is the London marathon, and it's coolish but sunny, which is good weather. I can hear helicopters over the route, which runs near me (in multiple places as it winds around east London). It's a good day to stay at home and watch it on TV.

>73 susanj67: i don’t have much to say on the book, but cool about the London marathon

>74 dchaikin: It all seemed to go well, and the winning man set a new record, maybe for marathons anywhere (?) finishing in less than two hours.



First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill by Sonia Purnell

I borrowed this from Kindle Unlimited after I finished Kingmaker, by the same author. This one is about "Mrs Winston Churchill" as the US title seems to make clear. It's very well-researched, and very interesting for anyone interested in British social history and particularly the two world wars. As with Kingmaker, though, I wondered whether the author had ascribed too much influence to Clementine. Yes, Winston Churchill was a nightmare to live with and look after (although he was at least faithful), but I don't think I agree with the author's view that the marriage was important to his success. Plenty of men rule the world without their wives being involved in any way other than decoration, and Churchill disapproved of "petticoat government" (he was also very against women getting the vote). It's clear that Clementine did do a lot, but we'll never know if the world would have been any different had she not done it.

One thing that annoyed me was that the numbered chapters of the book ended when Churchill died in 1965. The remaining thirteen years of Clementine's life were in the epilogue. I think she deserved better.

>75 susanj67: that does sound interesting. What a life

>76 dchaikin: Yes, it was certainly an interesting life, but I was a bit surprised at how often everyone seemed to be ill, requiring lengthy convalescences overseas. I suppose that was the moneyed classes and not ordinary people, but I'm sure rich people today just get on with things. But then we do have vaccines and antibiotics, so maybe people just aren't as ill as they used to be, or ill as often.



Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

This is my non-fiction book club book for May, and the meeting is on Friday next week so I finished it this morning. It's an interesting choice for a group made up of people who live among concrete, but overall I enjoyed it. It's a memoir of the author's time during the pandemic when she found a baby hare on her land, and took it inside to raise it. She did it expecting the hare to grow up and leave, so she never gave it a name or put it in a cage, but it did have the run of the house, with some comical results. As the hare grew, she researched hares in general, and in history, and there's quite a bit of that in the book, which I also liked. Towards the end there's more about conservation. The cover image is gorgeous, and there are black and white illustrations at the beginning of each chapter too. If you like nature writing and you haven't already read this, I'd recommend it.

>77 susanj67: i thought about this when reading Edith Wharton’s bio. She was a pretty tough lady, but yet she was also physically sick for long stretches.

Nice to see your review of Raising Hare. I have thought about this for an audiobook.

>78 dchaikin: I think it would make a great audiobook!



The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin

This novel was mentioned in Mining Men, which I read recently, so I reserved a copy from the library. And the story was excellent. It's really well-written with great characters and set in the first quarter of the 20th century, which is an interesting time. My difficulty was with the physical copy of the book, which is a trade paperback size and it's 700 pages. It weighs *two and a half pounds* (yes, I weighed it) and the experience of reading such a giant book was not a great one. I would have read this in a few days if I'd had the ebook, but it took me much longer because it was so cumbersome. So I'd recommend it for content, but think carefully about the format.

Oh goodness me, I've just checked Amazon to see whether they have other books by this author, and this one is available on Kindle Unlimited at the moment. Nooooo! All that wrangling and I could have just downloaded it!! Why did I not check?! But two of his others are on KU and those that aren't are around £3.99.

Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

This is the first in a (completed) fantasy trilogy, in which various misfits get together to try and kill a king. There's a little bit of romance in it, but not much. There is, however, lots of running around and the stakes are very high as the team makes its way across the country to the final showdown. I liked this. KU fantasies are often silly, but this has a good story and I liked the characters. True, there are sentence fragments. So many. And the inns they stay at have marble floors and bathrooms, but I decided to overlook that. I've already downloaded the next one :-)

But next up is an e reserve, which is Shield of Sparrows. This one is getting a lot of hype, which might be due to clever marketing (the author is an established romance author) but early reviews of book 2 are also very good. I'll start it tomorrow, and read some more NF this evening.

The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI & I by Clare Jackson

This is a new biography of James VI & I by a great historian. I loved her Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588 - 1688, which was a history of England/Great Britain told by various ambassadors sent to London (their overall view, in short: "OMG. These people"), so I was very pleased to get this one. It's organised by theme rather than chronologically, which I found a bit of a challenge as the timeline hopped around, but the dates were always made clear, and it was interesting to see how topics developed through James's reign. It would probably be useful to have an understanding of James's life and times before starting this, because, as the author says, he's a forgotten king in many respects, sandwiched between the glamour of the Tudors and the drama of Charles I and the Civil War. But I think I knew enough.

I reserved this from the library and it's a brand new hardback published by Allen Lane with beautiful paper and good photo sections too. The inside flap says £35 for the UK (which is expensive for a hardback here - many are around the £25 mark) and an astonishing $74.95 for Canada (well, it was astonishing to me). But it's a beautiful book, and if you like royal biographies then this is essential for your collection.

I have DNFd Shield of Sparrows at 289 pages. There are 750 pages or some ridiculous number, and I lost the will to bother with it. The writing is terrible, the characters are stereotypes and the author kept Doing. That. Annoying. Thing. With. All. The. Full. Stops.

So that means - and I can hardly believe I'm typing this - I have NO library books. I'm collecting a reserve tomorrow, but right now there are none, unless I count the library e-version of The Claverings, which I don't because (a) I could have got it from Project Gutenberg and (b) it's always available at the elibrary even once the "loan" period is up.

The Fall of the House of Montagu by Robert Wainwright

Robert Wainwright is an Australian writer who has a nice line in biographies about Australian women who married into the British aristocracy in the early 20th century. I enjoyed Enid earlier this year. This one, while about the Montagu family (Dukes of Manchester) more generally, focuses on Nell, the Australian wife of the 10th Duke. It's a great read, and interesting for anyone who likes British aristocratic history and shenanigans, which I do :-)

A small library haul:

Mafia: A Global History by Ryan Gingeras (no touchstone as the list includes seven million mafia romances)
The Devil Takes Bitcoin by Jake Adelstein (a much better title!)
Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein

And the next book for my non-fiction book group:

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

I've started the mafia book, which could be more gripping. But today I also started Four Ruined Realms, which is the next one in the fantasy trilogy I started in >80 susanj67:, and it's an engaging read.

Mafia: Ryan Gingeras

This is a global history of mafia organisations, looking at how and where they developed, and the reasons for that. It was interesting, but perhaps tried to cover too much. I think I anticipated it would be about the Italian mafia groups (in Italy and the US) but it branched out into the triads and yakuza and the drug cartels of Colombia and Mexico as well. I am interested in reading more about the Italian groups, and "New York's Five Families", who were mentioned a few times without details of who they were. Maybe a US audience would know. I recognised some of the names, but I couldn't say for sure which ones were in the "Five Families". Nor do I understand how someone with a totally different name could be the head of a family, but that might just be me. I've made a note of some of the books mentioned by the author, and downloaded The Godfather as a starting point :-)

The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japanese Connection by Jake Adelstein

This is a great read, described on the back of the book as "The wild, true story of cyber-era commerce, crime, cold-hard cash and one of the greatest heists in history". The focus of the book is the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, which failed in 2014, but it looks at the creation of Bitcoin and the identity of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the creation and operation of the Silk Road website and a lot of other ducking and diving in the world of bad things dressed up to look shiny and new.

Originally published in French in 2019, this English-language edition was updated (properly, not just in the introduction and epilogue) in 2025 so it's still very current. Recommended if you're interested in the subject, or just in the madness of the early 21st century.

That feeling when Amazon says "You are the next delivery!" at 9.45 but your parcel doesn't come till 4.30.

Still, at least it came :-) And I've read quite a bit, in between updating the page to see if it was here yet. I think every household in my area must have had a delivery today.

Four Ruined Realms by Mai Corland

This is the sequel to Five Broken Blades, and once again was action-packed as the group set out on their next mission. One very unexpected thing happened, and the ending was quite a cliffhanger, but book 3 is right there waiting for me :-)

Mini library haul:

The Crossroads by C J Box - this year's Joe Pickett instalment
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett - this is the next book for one of my book groups

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

I borrowed this from the elibrary when I read the book about the mafia in >85 susanj67:, and it's a great read. I read it when I was a teenager, but that was decades ago. There are two others by this author which LT says are part of the series, and a prequel and two sequels by other authors, so I plan to find them all.

But first, some thrillers. Paradox and Based on a True Story arrived on BorrowBox yesterday, unexpectedly early, so they are going to be my next reads.

Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan

A famous author, a 70th birthday party at an expensive house in Cornwall and a body on the beach...This is the most recent release by Sarah Vaughan, and it's been getting a lot of attention here. It was a good read, with lots of family drama.

It arrived early from BorrowBox and I can see why - I read it in a day, and much of that day was spent remotely attending the European Writers' Festival at the British Library. You can get a lot done in the breaks between sessions :-) Today's programme only has four slots, but I'm looking forward to it. The British Library has really embraced hybrid events.

Paradox by Douglas Preston and Alethia Preston

This is book 2 in the Cash and Colcord series, about a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent and a county sheriff. In Extinction, the duo was dealing with an...issue at a park where visitors could watch megafauna cloned from old DNA. This time a recluse is murdered in the woods, a priceless relic is stolen from the Vatican and Frankie Cash is annoyed by a newbie at the CBI, who seems to want to steal her case. It's an entertaining read, and it reminded me that I must read more of Douglas Preston's Agent Pendergast series, written with Lincoln Child.

The Crossroads by C J Box

In book 26 of the Joe Pickett series, Joe is shot in his truck and left for dead. As Marybeth sits by his hospital bed in Billings, Montana, their daughters Sheridan, April and Lucy investigate the crime in Saddlestring and try to work out which of the sketchy local ranch owners was responsible.

I *loved* this instalment, which has a dual timeline and all the excellent recurring characters and places. I want to go to Saddlestring and have a coffee and a cinnamon roll at the Burg-O-Pardner. I want to visit Marybeth's library. And I want to see a pronghorn antelope and a sage grouse.

As with the last book, I was a bit concerned that no-one would be missing an ear by the end but Nate came through, as always :-)

Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein

My library had a brand new copy of this book, but it was originally published in 2010. I'm not sure it would be today. The author was one of the first "gaijin" to get a job on a prestigious Japanese newspaper back in the 90s, and he did a lot of crime reporting. But he comes across as a real sleaze, and it's put me off reading anything else by him. I liked The Devil Takes Bitcoin, in >86 susanj67:, but that's it for me.

Mini library haul:

The New Mafia by Sanne De Boer - about the 'Ndrangheta
Splendour and Squalor by Marcus Scriven - referred to in the recent book about the Montagu family
The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse - the fourth in a quartet I need to finish before I forget who everyone is

I also picked up my free copy of The Break In by Katherine Faulkner, which is the book for a special thriller book club night in June. We all get a copy of the book to keep, and there are going to be bookish activities and prizes, which is very exciting :-)

>89 susanj67: oh i read that book when it came out and loved it I didnt read the sequels but i did watch the movies many times

>94 cindydavid4: I haven't seen the movies, but maybe I should! I can only get the second book as an audiobook, so that's coming in June. One of my libraries has the third one in hard copy.

As I ran all my errands yesterday, I get to spend the whole day reading. Yay! It's still cold here, but a heatwave is forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend.

Northerners: A History by Brian Groom

Once upon a time, not that many centuries ago, the north of England was *the* place to be. It had famous monasteries, great ports and a lively trade with countries in north Europe. But then the Normans came, and slowly things moved to the south. This is a fascinating history of the north, and I had never really appreciated just how much the north had while the south had nothing much at all (after the Romans left). Had William I not conquered, York might even now be the capital, just as it was once (as Eboracum) the capital of Britannia Inferior (so called because it was further from Rome than Britannica Superior, with its capital Londinium). But William did conquer, and, from the northern point of view, it was all downhill from there.

There is still a north-south divide in the UK, although opinions vary about where "the north" starts. But there are road signs near London with arrows to "The North", like this one:



Maybe there are signs up north with "The South" on them, but I can't quickly find a picture of one.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in English history. (For overseas readers, "the north" in this context does not mean Scotland, although that is obviously further north but is its own place).

>96 susanj67: That's a BB for me...

So many fascinating things to learn about, so little time...

>97 WelshBookworm: It's on Kindle Unlimited here, so maybe elsewhere too :-)

>98 labfs39: Yes, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed this morning with all the stuff I want to read. The more I read, the more there *is* to read! YouTube keeps recommending BookTube videos with "50 books before 50" and so on. I started wondering whether I could manage "60 classics before 60", even though that's only 19 months away. I had to make myself put down the pen and notebook I was going to use for my list :-)

It has finally warmed up here, and a heatwave is promised (or threatened) for this weekend, which is a long weekend. The BBC says Monday may be 32C in London! I know that's not hot in American weather, but it's hot for here. Fortunately I have nowhere I need to be, other than doing a supermarket run tomorrow morning, so I'm planning some quality time with the balcony door open and a short-sleeved t-shirt on.

The weather forecast is correct so far. I might even open the roof window.

I'm now considering "70 classics before 70", which on one view is planning too far ahead, but then again if I reach 70, why not reach it having read 70 more classics? It's not as if I'm making YouTube videos and need to keep my audience. I've got 138 months and one week, so let's say 140 months. That's a classic every two months. Hmmm. I'm about half-way through The Claverings, so that could be my first one.

Today, though, I'm going to finish Tom Lake, which is a book group read. There's a lot in it about various productions of Our Town, so I found an ancient film version on one of the free streaming platforms and watched that. I understand the book a lot better now.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

I liked this novel, even though it's set in 2020 during the pandemic as a married couple and their three daughters pick the cherries on the family farm, doing their best with reduced staff and all the uncertainty of the time. The mother, Lara, tells her daughters about the time she dated a man who went on to be a famous actor, so there's a dual timeline. Much of the book involves productions of Our Town, so I watched one after I'd started the book. Today I picked up the book to read the second half, and I was confused. So confused that I looked up Wikipedia, and discovered that the 1940 film I'd watched, starring Martha Scott and William Holden, *changed the ending* of the play. It was done with Thornton Wilder's approval, but if you need to watch a production I'd recommend picking a different one :-) I think this is a great book group choice and I'm looking forward to the meeting.

>99 susanj67: >100 susanj67: It's a fun idea, although I'm three months older than you, so I would need to get hopping, lol. I'm currently halfway through a group read of all twenty Rougon-Macquart novels, and I find the pace of one every other month doable.

>101 susanj67: ETA: My book club read Tom Lake last year. I listened to it on audio, narrated by Meryl Streep, which was a pleasure.

>101 susanj67: That would be confusing. The real ending of the play is sad. It's available in a 2017 Penguin Modern Classics edition with 2 other plays and a really helpful introduction, and I attempted to write something of my thoughts as a review on the book page: Our Town and Other Plays. It was interesting and I'd enjoy it more as a production I think, but the role Lara acts in is a very traditional early 20th century female role. The introduction suggested that Thornton Wilder was homosexual but I think that he was not really "out" - not language then - as some other American playwrights/novelists and British ones of his time were better known to be. I enjoyed the intro almost more than the play, and I might have found it disappointing after Tom Lake.

>102 labfs39: Tom Lake would be great with Meryl Streep as the narrator! I looked up my library's e-catalogue and they have it, but with a minimum six-month wait. I think I'm going to do a "low-key" (as the Young People say) classics challenge - just aim to read one every couple of months and see how far I get by 70. I'm not going to make a list. I'll just choose whatever appeals to me at the time.

>103 elkiedee: Yes, it was pretty confusing :-) The collection you read looks good - I'll keep an eye out for it.



Splendour and Squalor by Marcus Scriven

This is an excellent look at "the disgrace and disintegration of three aristocratic dynasties" as the subtitle of the book says. The families concerned are the FitzGeralds (Dukes of Leinster), Montagus (Dukes of Manchester) and the Herveys (Marquises of Britsol). There are four peers involved, but two of them are Herveys, lending some weight to the "bad genes" theory about that family. I finished it this morning and added it to my LT catalogue, but a message in red said it was already in there. It seems I read it in 2010! Well, I've read it again, and it holds up :-) It seems to be the author's only book, which is a shame because it's a good read.

The New Mafia: The Inside Story of the Rise of the 'Ndrangheta by Sanne De Boer

This is a very good look at the Calabrian mafia, which is different to the Sicilian mafia (Cosa Nostra) and the Neapolitan mafia (Camorra). Originally published in 2020, this English-language edition is updated with developments since then. The author is Dutch and moved to a village in Calabria to work remotely (long before that was fashionable). She'd never heard of the local mafia, but slowly started to realise they were everywhere.

I seem to be in my mafia era, which is a change from all the serial killers, I suppose.

It's hot again today, and may be HOTTER THAN TEXAS. I think tomorrow is going to be even hotter, so I may have to take refuge at Westfield. But I know from the internet that I'm not the only person in the UK with an empty laundry basket and every single washed item bone dry in minutes :-)

Islington only has one copy of the Thornton Wilder plays, including Tom Lake as a Penguin Modern Classic. These plays have been available together for a long time, from other publishers, probably in the US. Not in the Consortium but Central (Highbury - can you get there on the Overground?), N4 (Finsbury Park), Finsbury (Angel or Old Street perhaps, confusingly at the opposite end of the borough from Finsbury Park. I don't know if you can get it via the Consortium, which I can access too now at my local branches. At the moment I have lots of books from other boroughs via the Consortium, with free reservations, lots of renewals if someone in Brent or Essex, or Surrey, doesn't want it, but it's slow and I can't see like I can from non consortium library catalogues if there is one hold on the only copy in the system, or 2 on 6/10 copies allegedly available. It's a mess!

Camden is part of a different system and reservations are expensive, and I had to return a Camden copy of a newish book which was clearly going to be in demand, because someone in Southwark had paid £3.50 for it. Luckily now Heart the Lover is on the Women's Prize list but while I agree with sharing of more unusual stuff, every borough should be trying to identify the books that are going to be popular, and the ones that are taking off, much earlier. If they are buying new books, of course, but they probably need a Stock Librarian. My borough Library Service head office people, two black men not at the library coalface, went to our iconic local New Beacon, a specialist black bookshop, and could only spend a bit of the allocated money. I could do better than that, (not choosing what I like alone, but the books that would be good on library shelves, out there to borrow and read, and I know lots of people who could help do better than me. And the Library management should ask our local independent bookshop, what would you recommend - new and reissued and back catalogues, revived interest, should be available etc etc. They've cut so many good people and essential roles, and the central management can't do the basics.

There are lots of people who represent the diversity of this borough better than me, including these managers, and I shouldn't be the one telling them how to choose, what to buy but if we don't have book crazy people working in those roles,

>106 elkiedee: There are a couple of copies of the three plays in the Libraries Consortium, at libraries outside of London, so I could reserve one. I find that a lot of the older things are available at libraries outside London, often as a "Stacks" listing. But they come eventually. Tower Hamlets seems to concentrate on newer things, and perhaps doesn't have the space for stores of older books, although it's not as poor as the Mayor likes to pretend. It seems to do pretty well with popular new stuff, particularly fiction, but there isn't any depth to the collection. They might have the last couple of books in a crime series on the shelf, for example, but not the first ones. They're available somewhere, but as reserves. £3.50 for a reserve is insane! We are very lucky that they're free in the Libraries Consortium. Tower Hamlets doesn't send reserved books out to other boroughs for the first six months, although the check-out machine won't let you borrow them - they have to override the reserve at the desk. But that helps with the very new things.



The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse

I started this last night just to get it started, but it was too hot to sleep so I kept going and finished it. It was like the good old days before my concentration was shredded by gadgets. It's the fourth in the Joubert family series, and takes place mostly in olden-days (1600s) South Africa, which was really interesting.

I've now got only one library book left, so today I'm going to focus on my KU reads.

I am now Co-Chair of Haringey Friends of Reading and Education, with another woman. Libraries management wants to co-opt us, and stop us being too political. They can try!!! I actually don't want us to be party political - people may have many views but Reform's presence here is still limited. But I am thinking of asking if they can talk to us more about this. I have had several people in other groups/campaigns ask/complain to me as their local Library geek person, so I think we have legitimate cause to represent. I want Haringey to remain in the system, but it doesn't make sense to reserve a book and get it from Surrey (south of London) or Hounslow (outer west borough) when there are copies in Haringey branches other than mine. And of course a library service the size of mine, with a budget, can't buy everything, but how can importing a copy of an award listed book, esp shortlist, and then having to send it back after 3 weeks, make sense? How much does it cost, and could that cost be spent on a few extra copies, that could then maybe be sold off or redistributed once it doesn't usually have a resevation list. There should be a priority manual for planning purchasing. Haringey should keep more than 1 copy of 21st century bestsellers that are not now very easy to buy in the shops. Otherwise, I might as well go to Amazon or Marketplace, but I have more disposable income than many neighbours in Tottenham, as I have to remind myself when I feel poor.... My mum always reminded me about this, as I grew up in similar homes - middle class, educated, not always the most up to date consumer goods, inner city then inner suburb, within walking distance of each other....

My house is in Zone 3 but it is far more inner city than suburban - this is why I live here as it's a better place to live really without a car and substantial disposable income, than somewhere less gritty but more boring. When I was buying, I had estate agents who wouldn't show me properties near here, wanting to show me a mansion flat on an overloaded road in Hornsey, lovely inside, but horrid outside. And with overall poorer transport connections.

>108 elkiedee: I hope you use your powers for good! :-) I can imagine all the lobbying from different interest groups. I also wonder how purchasing decisions are made - presumably there are library periodicals that set out all the new things, and maybe the wholesalers put packages together (?) of popular things, but sometimes I find things at my library that are pretty "fringe". The recent book about St Kilda is one example - I can't imagine that was on a list of popular NF to buy, but somehow they found it and bought it.



A Dance With The Dragon: The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony by Julia Boyd

This is a superb read, and it's about a time and place I knew nothing about. For about a hundred years, until 1949 and the communist takeover of China, Peking had a district known as the "legation quarter", where the foreigners lived. Many were ministers of various foreign governments, but there were also business-people, missionaries and various hangers-on who lived on allowances from their families or found other ways to make money. This is a history of the quarter, with lots of references to letters and diaries of some of the best-known people who lived there, and it's also a great history of China from the Boxer Rebellion until the beginning of the People's Republic of China, with some 19th century history added in to explain how the quarter had developed.

The author wrote Travellers in the Third Reich, which I read recently for one of my book groups, and I noticed this on KU when I was looking for more of her books. I'm so glad I found it.

I've switched off the KU renewal after my three amazing months for 99p, so I now have until 11 June to finish Hardacre's Luck and read Three Shattered Souls, and then I'm going back to my own books. Really. I was watching a BookTuber explain the "Collections" feature on Kindle the other day, which made me look through my books and add a lot to my "Non-fiction to read" collection (set up years ago but forgotten). I have nearly a hundred books in that collection and, while most were 99p specials, that's still £100 of books sitting unread. I was delighted to find them all when I got them, so I want to make a big effort to read them. The freebie thrillers can wait a bit longer :-)

In exciting news, Hugo Vickers' Queen Elizabeth II is "in transit". That label is sort of meaningless - it might come tomorrow, or in three months or never - but it's more promising than "pending", somehow.

Hardacre's Luck by C L Skelton

This is the follow up to Hardacre, which I read recently. Many of book 1's characters appear again, but this is about a new generation, and there is lots going on. I didn't like it as much as the first book, and I thought the middle sagged a bit, but I'm glad I've completed the duology.

KU has a trilogy by this author which I'm vaguely tempted to try and read before I lose KU, but I've also discovered another book by Julia Boyd.

>110 susanj67: relation to red skelton?

>111 cindydavid4: No, he wasn't. He did live an interesting life, though, and that shows in some of his characters, who did the same jobs he tried.

I've been watching some BookTube this afternoon, and the Young People are all going nuts for "purple prose", which they seem to think means good writing. Oh dear. I've also started Three Shattered Souls, in which (20% in) characters have had to "get some air" three times. Does anyone actually say that in real life? And one character had to give another some bad news, so he said "Walk with me". I've also watched a couple of videos about the prize-winning short story alleged to be AI slop. I used to feel bad that I hadn't read more classics, but now I'm glad because in a few years they're the only things we'll have left that we know have been written by real people. And I have tons left to read!

>113 labfs39: I used to feel bad that I hadn't read more classics, but now I'm glad because in a few years they're the only things we'll have left that we know have been written by real people.

Oh, I hope not. Dismal thought. Maybe I'll hold off on reading War and Peace and Brothers Karamazov against that day!

>113 labfs39: Well, I might be exaggerating just a *bit* (not that I'm known for doing that or anything) but it's a real issue, it seems. These are the videos I watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSrQ3hHkR6Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14egp0eqriQ

Once again it's quite hot ("quite" having the UK meaning of "fairly" and not the US meaning of "very", a difference that still amazes me, but does explain why an email I received from our US office once said "Thank you for your explanation. It was quite helpful" - not something a British person would ever write because that's just *rude*) but I have been to the supermarket for salad things and I can survive the weekend :-)



Room for Rent by Noelle W Ihli

This is another KU book, which I read last night because it was right there and my deadline is approaching. Nya is in her final semester at college and needs somewhere cheap to live, but is the room she finds maybe a bit *too* cheap? I did eventually work out what was happening in this story, but only at about 75%. It's a good and terrifying read.

>114 susanj67: Thanks for links. I enjoyed learning the nuances of US vs UK usage of "quite".

>109 susanj67: Yes, Islington Libraries catalogue online has a section with the latest 100 ? or so new books, lots of popular new books, some older books. My theory is that someone was interested in reading it, perhaps because of a family or friend or place connection. I have twice asked for books to be bought again because a book had suddenly disappeared, most recently a very comprehensive 900+ biography of Sylvia Pankhurst by Rachel Holmes. So someone found out about the existence of St Kilda! But each suggestion should be looked at to see if it is reasonable and then maybe looked at to check they balance.

It seems my libraries top management went on a trip to the local specialist bookshop New Beacon, with a set sum of money to buy books for the library, and they only spent a third, which is a shame for the business but also to anyone wanting to read a more diverse selection of books, with regular new titles. But Friends of Marcus Garvey Library (yes, Marcus Garvey) which I was involved in setting up but don't make it to more than 1 in 3 meetings overall has done lots of work doing a list that should be available, perhaps more than one copy if lots of people are suddenly afte rit. More of that needed!

>116 elkiedee: It's so annoying when expensive books disappear like that. I remember a huge history of the City of London that went missing at Canary Wharf, despite showing as "on the shelf". The staff didn't seem to care. The libraries all have buzzy alarm things at the door but no-one to chase people down for stealing things :-) One thing I do think is good is the "Core Collection" labelling of key books, which is an attempt to highlight really good things. I just wish the copies weren't all so grimy.



Three Shattered Souls by Mai Corland

This is the conclusion to the "Broken Blades" trilogy, available on KU. I wanted to finish it while I still had the KU subscription. I've seen BookTubers saying this trilogy has its detractors, but I thought it was a decent read. Unlike a lot of fantasy, where the "good" people all survive, the author isn't afraid to kill off main characters, which keeps the tension up.

I've got KU for 12 more days, and I'm planning to try and read The Keys of the Kingdom, Hatter's Castle and The Excellent Doctor Blackwell. And maybe some more Noelle W Ihli thrillers if I can manage any more pages. I've done pretty well this time around, particularly for just 99p :-) This week in London there are two days of tube strikes, which is really four days by the time everything winds down and starts back up again, so I have the perfect excuse to stay at home.

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

This is an excellent memoir about the author's childhood and teenage years in Albania, where the "end of history" occurred in 1990 when the communist government fell and everything changed. I liked the childhood part in particular. The author captures the confusion and misunderstandings of childhood really well, and the family's history was interesting. I particularly liked the way the West was portrayed to the children through the limited resources they had. One TV programme, for example, showed a family at a supermarket in the UK where the shelves were full and there were *no queues*. That seemed suspect, as did the packets of things with names on them that weren't just "soup" or "toothpaste". And then a man appeared in their town with a crocodile on all his shirts. What did it mean? Why did it always look the same, even though the shirts changed? This is the NF book club choice for next week and I'm sure we're going to enjoy discussing it.

>118 susanj67: Another great review of a book I've been meaning to read.

>118 susanj67: I loved Free. I have her next book, a memoir of her grandmother this time, on my Kindle. But unlike Free which contains very few pics (probably because of the way in which the author herself had to leave Albania), Indignity has photos - so maybe she is now able to go "home" and return with less risk, with a job in London etc. Because of that I collected an already placed reservation but have had to return it - I wonder where its next destination is! If you read Indignity we could even end up reading the same book - but I don't think the catalogue system is that well organised or user friendly - I'm not sure it discriminates enough between Hornsey (Haringey) and Hounslow (Hounslow)

>119 labfs39: It's a great read, and not one I would have found without the book club.

>120 elkiedee: Yes, I saw she had a later one about her grandmother, which looks really good. I'm not ready for it yet, but I do plan to get to it. I might just keep an eye out and pick it up if I see it, rather than reserving it.



The Keys of the Kingdom by A J Cronin

This is a shorter read than The Stars Looked Down and it's about a Catholic priest at the end of his life, looking back on how he came to be a priest and his time in various postings, including a lengthy one in China at the beginning of the 20th century. There was a lot of story for a book of 322 pages and I enjoyed it. It's a KU book, so I wanted to read it before my trial is up and I'm glad I got to it.

>121 susanj67: Waiting till you see it sounds like a good idea if you have too many books shouting at you right now. I keep a wishlist on Amazon, but I also use it to help me not to forget books I want to read.

>122 elkiedee: Yes, the Amazon wishlist is excellent, and arguably better than the basket, which I always worry I could check out by accident and owe £2 million ;-)

I've just picked up the new Hugo Vickers book about Queen Elizabeth II, which is a brand new hardback and nearly immaculate...except there's an indentation on the front cover. Turned towards the light, it says "Canary Wharf", so someone wrote on the routing slip *right on top of a brand new hardback*. I would love to belong to a library where people care about books. Maybe in my next lifetime. I also picked up The CIA Book Club, which was in a display of new books. I've read a little bit about it in The Secrets We Kept, but I don't know any more than that.

>123 susanj67: Eeeeekkkk! Although actually it's kind of interesting too.

Do you use bookmarks with your library/own hardbacks and paperbacks? I do. And if I have to take them out on a miserable day like today, I put them in a carrier before putting them into a tatty backpack which I didn't choose. I'm addicted to tote bags, Mike to backpacks - the only difference is that I have adopted one of the backpacks - I try to take it out with library books to take in, plus some tote and carrier bags so that I have room if I accidentally acquire anything from the shops near the library, bus stop en route, whatever!

>124 elkiedee: Yes, I do always use bookmarks, and I have a fabric bag for library books, which I put the books into when I finish them, and it lives on the back of a door waiting till I go to the library. It's an old freebie from the firm I used to work for, so I just keep the logo turned towards me :-) If I *have* to go when it's raining I'll wrap everything in a supermarket bag. I'm careful with my own things but even more careful with library stuff. I hate the state of some of the books, which are clearly filthy because people just don't care, and that maddens me.

The Sicilian arrived via BorrowBox and it's an ebook, so I've made a start on that. It's ten and a half hours long and I've got eight hours left. It's a full cast audiobook, which I've never encountered before as I don't tend to listen to them. There are a lot of cod-Italian accents which are a bit embarrassing - if characters who would not have spoken English are going to speak it for the purposes of a book, why not just have them speaking normally?

>125 susanj67: I think we're in agreement on looking after library books, as well as others in our possession.

>126 elkiedee: I think we are!



Hatter's Castle by A J Cronin

This is a harrowing read, which I doubt I'll ever forget. James Brodie is a domestic abuser, whose family live in permanent terror of his awful behaviour, meanness, mockery and sneering, shouting and all-round despicable character. He has no redeeming features, and just gets worse and worse. In the middle of all this, his wife, mother and three children do their best, but it's never, ever good enough. It's a really chilling, oppressive read, and brought home to me how trapped women were in the late Victorian period, in a way that other books set at that time have never quite managed to. These days there are laws against coercive control and other appalling behaviour, but I know that far too many people still live in households like this, so broken down that they can't escape in reality, even if it's theoretically possible now. I'm very pleased I found this on KU, although I was equally pleased to return it.

The Break-In by Katherine Faulkner

This is the book for a special thriller book club event that one of my libraries is running next week. Main character Alice kills a burglar in her kitchen, and everyone thinks he was just a random criminal who found an unlocked door. But was he really? The story is very twisty, with a lot of misdirection, and it's a good read.

Library haul:

Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon - this is the next book group book, which I've already read but I'd better read it again
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
1929: Inside the Crash by Andrew Ross Sorkin
House of Huawei by Eva Dou

It's rainy and cold in London today, and when I saw someone in a puffa coat I wished I'd worn mine, even though it's the middle of June. But I'm home now, and I'm going to try and finish the Hugo Vickers biography of Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II by Hugo Vickers

This year is the centenary of the birth of Queen Elizabeth II, and this is the biography I've been looking forward to the most (the official biography is yet to be written, but Anna Keay has been commissioned by the King). Hugo Vickers has written extensively about royalty and the aristocracy and has all sorts of interesting inside information. This book is at its best when he is taking part in the various tours and events he writes about, which is from the 1970s on. Lots of the footnotes refer to his own interviews or diary entries, and it must have been a fascinating time.

If you know a lot about the late Queen, much of the basic information about her life won't surprise you, but how could it? But there were some very interesting bits among the well-known facts, and I think my favourite was a comment about the famous "Three Queens in Mourning" photo, taken as King George VI's coffin arrived in London for its lying-in-state. I haven't linked to the photo because I don't know who owns the copyright, but it's widely available online (although often described incorrectly as showing the Queens in Windsor). It shows Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother and Queen Mary in mourning dress, waiting on the station platform for the train, and I've seen it before without noticing that Queen Mary's outfit is very different from the mourning worn by the other two Queens. Vickers says:

"There was the haunting photograph of the three Queens awaiting its arrival - the new young Queen and her distressed mother, both heavily veiled and Queen Mary in full Tudor mourning, surely the last time this has been worn in public. She looked like a figure from the Middle Ages."

And she really does! It's so interesting to look at it again, from that point of view.

I liked this, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the royals, or just the late Queen.

A further library haul:

Supremacy by Parmy Olson - next month's NF book club choice, which I have also already read
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson - I can't believe I found this sitting in a display, with no giant reserve list
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo
Behind White Picket Fences by Christine Gunderson

I wore a puffa coat when I went out today. It's the middle of June, but I regret nothing. Maybe the weekend will be better.

I think The Raven Scholar has been out for a while, with Kindle deals etc. Sometimes a book is just on the shelves at one library and has a big reserve list elsewhere.

I look forward to your views on Nervous Conditions.

>132 elkiedee: Amazon says the hard copy came out in April last year, but this library never had it. Today I got the paperback, which was published at the end of this April. I'm still amazed it wasn't reserved. The BookTubers are still raving about it. It's the first in a trilogy, but the next one isn't out until October 2027, which is vexing. Antonia Hodgson has written historical crime, so I'm hoping it isn't full of modern slang and nonsense like most of the new fantasy offerings!

Elon has just become the first dollar trillionaire, so it's quite a day. LT doesn't recognise that word, but I'm sure it will catch up :-)

The Sicilian by Mario Puzo

This is book 2 in the Godfather series, and it's set in Sicily while one of the characters from The Godfather is over there during the events in the first book. I could only get the audio, which was terrible. The overdone Italian accents made all the characters sound ridiculous. But I listened to it all, and now it's done. Hurrah! I saw book 3 at the library yesterday but I had enough books already, so I'll have a break and get it next time.