Jill's 2026 Reading, Rummaging, and Sorting Piles of Books, Part Three

Okay, time for a new thread. When I looked back over the past three weeks (in terms of what I’d been reading), I realized I’d been floundering about. I was reading in a most fragmented way. Of the titles immediately below, I’d really only FINISHED two or three. The others were looked at haphazardly, not really making much progress through them.

So in May I had finished and posted reviews of Converts and Katabasis. I began one of the Hugo nominees, Raven Scholar. There’s been an enormous amount of world-building and establishing of ambiance in the first fifty pages, but I’ve not felt swept along. Theoretically, the reader is supposed to feel the suspense and the fear of what’s about to happen to our primary protagonist, but I really just want the author to get on with it. Part of it has to do with the size of the print product. It’s bigger than a normal trade paperback and it is at least 2 inches thick.

There was also a late-in the-game shift with one of the book groups. Katabasis they scheduled for later in the summer while kindly shifting the date of this upcoming one so that we can instead read one of the Hugo nominee titles, Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. Which sounds like a murder mystery but – insofar as I can – tell really isn’t.

I started and am making progress through Guilty by Definition as bedtime reading. It’s well done. The writing is good.

Other days in May I was tasting various titles to figure out what my mood was. One was A Most Peculiar Book which @haydninvienna had liked. I was concerned that the subject matter might be too dense to be an enjoyable leisure read, but it’s really rather fun. (Enlightening while managing to still be readable.) Other tastings include two re-reads – Legends and Lattes and The Moonstone. I am not sure that I will ever come to enjoy Collins’ The Woman in White because it’s convoluted and the people are irritating. So that one got consigned to the infamous Rehome Bag.

Coming up are two reviews. One is for All the Books of My Life and the other is Jane Haddam’s Murder Superior.

First of the two reviews promised.

Second of the reviews promised. I go back and forth on Jane Haddam's mysteries. They're fun but I sometimes think she would have benefited from a different style of editor.

>1 jillmwo:
Susie Dent has another novel coming out soon. I am glad you are enjoying her first one.

Do I understand correctly that you have been faffing around and not getting down to some quality reading? Sampling novels and passing on The Woman in White, such an excellent novel by Collins. You shock me. I expect the next thing I hear is that you are deeply engrossed in a Dickens novel.

>4 pgmcc: I thought you'd get a kick out of that one. Bleak House still sits on a pile in the bedroom. I have to either summon up the wherewithal to read it or find a way to rehome it. Procrastination at its finest. Note however that I still have a copy of The Woman in White in a Folio Edition. I can't break up a set!. The volume that is being released into the wild is a less-expensive Penguin edition with a trim size that didn't work for me.

Of course, what I really came back in here to say was that Public Library Groups Are Calling for Action on Ebook Licensing: https://www.ala.org/news/2026/05/leading-public-library-groups-call-e-book-actio...

>2 jillmwo: Thank you for this review. I actually might do the Agatha Christie autobiography first, which I am ashamed to admit I was only dimly aware of.

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread!

Happy New Thread! :)

Happy new thread!

I knew of the existence of Sheila Kaye-Smith (but no more than that) because there's a mention of her in one of Dorothy Sayers' novels, where an intense young woman who's an enthusiast for stark, grey novels of country life asks somebody (might be Harriet Vane) "Do you read Sheila Kaye-Smith?" But I looked through the Sayers archive on Faded Page without finding the reference and now I'm worried that I might have made the whole thing up.

Happy new thread!

>5 jillmwo:
The whole library licensing for e-books reminds me of the problems when people were trying to introduce copyright.

On a slightly different vein, e-books are a disruptive technology that has hit the whole book world. Whether you are a library or an individual, the licensing around e-books is heavily weighted to the publisher's benefit. Until the world works out how to fairly merge the e-book with the physical book from a licensing and copyrigth points of view there is going to be unrest and discomfort. Then we bring in the whole AI thing. The humble book is suffering tremendous pressures that have not been seen before.

Also, the poor writers are being totally squeezed and abused.

>11 pgmcc: "The humble book is suffering tremendous pressures that have not been seen before."

Well, yes... But there have been pirated books as long as there have been popular books.

Many younger folks seem to have the theory that as long as people are reading certain books it's all good, but I'm a lot more concerned about authors not being paid.

Discussing the consequences of AI on publishing is above my pay grade.

Words once again fail me: https://yalereview.org/article/sheila-liming-the-end-of-books

The article is certainly relevant to the >11 pgmcc: comment about humble books suffering under pressure.

The decline of books—of their value, ubiquity, or availability—is the decline of the effort to push ideas into circulation and make knowledge matter.

I don't know whether to yell at the faculty professor (who has no clue about sensible weeding of collections), the librarian (who may not have been asked about the rationale for weeding), or even the architect who assumed that faculty members no longer use or don't need books in their offices. Although I do agree that the use of such phrases as "information commons" cause one to roll one's eyes.

We live in a deeply imperfect world. *head desk*

>12 clamairy:. Yes, there have always been those who pirated books. But just recently, I had to break it to a young aspiring self-published author that people don't pirate books because they think they're high-quality. The pirate them because it's just easier.

And while this was announced six months ago as a move MIT had to accept as a means of closing a budget shortfall, it is still upsetting to read stories like this: https://fnl.mit.edu/may-june-2026/lament-for-the-mit-libraries/ The faculty member here references AI as well.

When texts are accessed solely by digitized means, without experiential basis in the original volumes, organization and material contexts, the learner is cut off from the process, extent and relationships that ground and constitute human works and knowledge. Those original works on paper, now being stored in dark spaces away from learner – or even staff-access, are the irreplaceable core and heart of human knowledge, history and expression. As the digital scan forms of many of those works but probably excluding those whose copyrights are still enforceable enter the repositories of AI, the works, ideas and facts become plagiarized and misrepresented. When I was educated, plagiarism was the most serious academic offense; now it is epidemic via AI. As AI-generated plagiarized text and images expand across the internet’s digital world, the actual voice of human-generated content diminishes.

I have met and chatted with the chief librarian there at MIT and I'm fairly confident that this wouldn't have been her preferred course of action. As I understand it from other coverage, it was MIT administrators who handed down that decision.

The original MIT announcement is here: https://libraries.mit.edu/about/vision/our-approach-to-budget-reductions-at-the-...
Additional coverage here: https://thetech.com/2025/12/04/mit-libraries-closure-2025.

>13 jillmwo: >15 jillmwo: Sad. If I need an 'information commons', I can just stay home. Being located in a library doesn't make finding online information any easier.

>14 jillmwo: Any idea how much the cost of books factors into pirating? I know some people will pirate just because. With prices going up quite a bit since 2020, is it more of a problem now?

>17 Narilka: A great deal of it is people who pirate just because: because they can and think it's fun, because they somehow think they're sticking it to "the man" when they do, because they have some vague notion that books should be free to everyone. Some pirate books, change the names of the characters and the places or otherwise file off the serial numbers, and put them up on Amazon as their own work. A related problem is people who belong to Kindle Unlimited reading entire series and returning them one by one as they finish them with some flimsy excuse...except then the publishers/authors lose more money than just the royalties as they have to eat the download fees.

>13 jillmwo:
I have read half the article and am being dragged of to shops. The article is very interesting and I join you in the “head desk” action.

By the way, as it happens I have just passed the 3,000 books mark in my LT catalogued books.

>19 pgmcc: 3000 is a promising number. Keep up the good work!

>20 Bookmarque:
I see you are way ahead of me.

My mentioning 3,000 in >19 pgmcc: was because it was featured in the article Jill linked to in >13 jillmwo:.

>19 pgmcc: On one hand, I feel like scolding you for announcing such an elite status as a collector of 3,000 books. OTOH, I commend you and deeply envy you all the bookshelf space you must have. Meanwhile, here's the quote from the article. (I loved the writing in the piece, but really, it's time people understand that books require storage space which is in short supply on campus.)

We humans communicate knowledge about the past through language—through conversation, through storytelling, through education, and, yes, most of all through writing, which creates a semi-coherent, semi-anchored record of that language. We present that record in the form of a book, something that can be turned to and consulted over and over again. And then, finally, we store that book in a place where we can get at it: a library. For someone like Wharton, that can mean a personal library, filled with the remnants of one’s own engagement with those texts. But since few of us can afford to build a three-thousand-volume personal library, there are also shared libraries, the public ones in our towns and schools.

And now I must go off and declutter, deaccession, and otherwise eliminate stuff from the house.

>17 Narilka: and >18 Marissa_Doyle:. The issue with pricing is that there are so many variables. And like every other business, publishers have payrolls and production expenses, etc. At the moment, there's an awful lot of the printing industry that was allowed to go offshore with the result that at the moment for very large print runs or for four-color printing, publishers in the U.S. rely on China. (I recently looked at the copyright page for a study bible -- not a really expensive one -- but one with four color. The copyright page reflected sixteen different ISBNs and proudly showed the message, Printed in China.

Suffered an interruption w/ grocery delivery.

Sorry. LT went down for maintenance at the same point I was having to unpack the groceries. And now that I think of it, I don’t know what we’re doing for dinner at the moment. Do I have ANY leftovers?

Continuation of discussion truncated in prior message. At any rate, during the pandemic, the publishing industry kind of recognized that this was not a good situation and have slowly been trying to redirect printing jobs to different areas of the world. Shipping constraints and costs also forced this on them. (If you want to sell in Europe and conform to EU standards of sustainability, then there's a good case for seeing what you can get printed over there.) Book costs are rising due to standard business expenses, but also to make up for lost volume of sales (due to competition from other forms of entertainment, budget cuts in libraries, etc.). In recent months, I have been seeing a disconcerting uptick in the prices of ebooks. We've gone from $12.99 for a Kindle edition to $14.99 for one in roughly the space of about 9-12 months. This isn't even the pricing for front list best sellers; this is for back list stuff, stuff that has been out for more than three years. I know that I'm slowing down myself on what I purchase. (I am still reading 'way too quickly. But I'm rereading more stuff I already own before I jettison any print. I’m also buying more used books although even buying through thrift stores has gotten more expensive when it comes to second-hand stuff.)

And @Marissa_Doyle is quite right. While book piracy is a very real problem, few of the pirates are stealing titles on the basis of quality. Those in other parts of the world who defend the practice will tell you it's because they can't afford the cost, but I'm not sure it's anything to do with individual consumers. There's one pirate library (I think it's called Anna's Attic) that justifies the theft of digital books because they think all knowledge should be free. How that justifies stealing novels is beyond me. Although I think the idea is to hack your way in and grab the full digital corpus of a publisher's assets with the idea of sorting through it afterwards. (A low priority for the pirate entity.)

Marissa, of course, makes an equally good point about how so many of the current consumer behaviors cheat creators. It's an ugly world out there in many respects. Trade publishers will tell you that they're fighting for survival as they are forced to compete with self-publishing authors, AMZ holding the profits hostage, as well as piracy. Scholarly publishers will tell you that they no longer expect profit, they're just trying to see how well they can keep to the point of break-even.

The folks who buy books are either individual consumers or libraries. Both of those groups are cutting back due to budgetary concerns. (You hear about foundations etc buying books in great bulk, but there aren't as many of those and they tend to only buy a single title or within a single subject area.)

Okay, I'm feeling depressed now myself. I don't feel comfortable with the licensing model for ebooks because that means I have no control over the item in which I have invested. But neither am I comfortable with the idea of publishers driving print into the category of "luxury goods". Books are how I fight off boredom. They’re making it harder for me to do this. I’ll adapt, but I won’t be happy about it..

*murfle*

>22 jillmwo:
I loved that paragraph too.

>24 jillmwo: You summed that up well. Ebook pricing baffles me. If I'm going to spend $15 on an ebook I may as well wait for the paperback and actually own the thing. I'm starting to think I may be in the minority with that thinking though.

>18 Marissa_Doyle: I don't use KU so had no idea that was a problem. I had the vague notion that it was like a paid for library subscription and that you returned the books at the end anyway? No clue how authors/publishers make money with this program.

>18 Marissa_Doyle: & >26 Narilka: I thought it was like a lending library as well. You don't get to keep anything with Kindle Unlimited, that's why it's not really that expensive. (I pay almost as much for my music subscription with Amazon, but I use that multiple times a day. Plus I get one free audiobook book a month with that, so definitely worth it.)

This is what Google says about how KU works.

>19 pgmcc: Congrats! That's is a significant number. I don't think I'll ever have shelf space for that many, but these days, I am adding as many ebooks as physical books, if not more.

>24 jillmwo: Speaking of costs, we heard this week that there is now a new paper option available that's both lighter and cheaper, for self-published books and I suspect the publishers have been using it for about a year now.

>28 Karlstar:. Hmmm. I don't think that lighter weight paper is going to solve many of the current issues. I am currently ticked off with Harper Press (part of Harper Collins UK). I ordered a paperback edition of a title initially published back in 2011. There is no ebook edition available and the book is 900 pages (plus). When it arrived yesterday, I was somewhat disenchanted with the production values. Clearly to do the paperback, the publisher just reduced the trim size of the hardcover and shrank down the text on the page. Black-and-white photos run right to the edge of the page.

In terms of measurement, the book is (and I measured carefully so as not to exaggerate unduly):
Trim size width: 5-1/16 inches
Trim size height: 7-1/4 inches
Trim size thickness: 2-1/16 inches.

As a comparison, the hardcover is shown on AMZ as being 6.26 x 2.48 x 9.45 (inches)

Internal margins of text pages are 3/4 of an inch for the outer margin and something rather less than that on the gutter. I actually can't measure the gutter. The actual font is roughly 8 or (maybe if I'm being charitable) 8.5. Certainly not more. I will only be able to read this book during the summer months on days of brightest sunshine streaming through my living room windows. The ink on the page just isn't that dark. (To be fair, however, I probably do need new glasses.)

I don't think that it's print-on-demand. There's no indication anywhere that it is.

The copyright page proudly notes that the printing company used was CPI Print UK, using 100% Renewable Electricity. On that company's website, it says "We lead the book printing market with the latest deployment of inkjet digital printing technology, integrated warehousing, distribution and supply-chain solutions, thanks to significant investments in digital technology and advanced internal IT solutions." The paperback cover is a coated cardstock of some sort. Not awful, but nothing to write home about.

Now the writing is really quite good. But if this is the most cost-effective way that they could do a hard copy, then I really wish they'd have managed to do an ebook. Geez Louise. Just like the EU, I recognize and support sustainable production output, but this does not bode well for the long-term preservation of a single copy.

>29 jillmwo: I hope the new paper is durable, I don't want my hardcovers falling apart in a few years.

>27 clamairy: Argh, you're right--it's not KU, it's just a slimy trick a lot of people pull on Kindle. Fortunately they have taken some steps to crack down on it, but not enough.

>31 Marissa_Doyle: That does not surprise me at all. I am guessing that they have made it a bit harder to do that, though. In fact yesterday evening I couldn't even get a refund for a package that didn't arrive without having to contact customer support and use the 'chat with a representative' feature.

Today's problem is that fiber optic cable in our area got cut yesterday afternoon so we have no Internet so no streaming service or access to other stuff. Using phone to post which truncates communicatio. Spouse in something of a snit. Me too 😁

>33 jillmwo:
As you say, it truncates “communicatio”.

Very clever. I see what you did there.

>33 jillmwo: You have my sympathies. I had a power outage yesterday that lasted five hours. It wasn't really nice outside, but I went for a walk anyway. Then I made myself a small martini to soothe my woes. I finished one book and started another. Of course after the power came back on the Wi-Fi was all mucked up for a bit, and every smart bulb in the house came on.

>33 jillmwo: Is your internet back today?

>35 clamairy: That's a long outage, what was the cause?

>36 Karlstar: Tree damage to the lines. We had 40+ mph gusts yesterday.

We're back. It went out at around 3pm yesterday afternoon. Over about 18 hours, the spouse spoke w/ four different Verizon reps, the best of whom was on the midnight work shift. Maybe he was bored, but he was the only one who actually shared what was going on. Someone had cut the fiber optic cable and took out the Internet for roughly 1,000 of us.

I give my husband credit. He didn't bellow at anyone. He just got very, very fretful for lack of television viewing options. But we read books. We played idiot games on the tablet. We conversed. We turned in early. He was up at 6 am this morning and was upset that it still wasn't ON. Verizon said (initially) "Oh, give us another hour." Of course it was more like two or three hours. But they did message us when it got fixed.

The only truly obnoxious moment was when the Verizon rep (some sweet young thing) tried to persuade my husband that he could pay his June bill a month ahead of time and get a 10 percent discount. Takes a certain chutzpah to solicit an early payment when someone is calling you to say that the service is out.

Locus Magazine announces their award winners: https://locusmag.com/2026/05/2026-locus-awards-winners/

>39 jillmwo: Very happy to see so many of my favorite authors nominated.

>39 jillmwo: The fantasy list is all bangers, no skips

I am aware thar four or five paragraphs in a review might be overkill, but I just can't seem to whittle down my thoughts down as well as say @tardis or @Meredy.

Oh, and I forgot to thank @catzteach for pointing me in the direction of The Once and Future Queen because the physcial copy really was a pretty book! The book design did foster a positive reading experience in a variety of ways. The sprayed edges, the gorgeous end papers, etc. A fine example of what can be managed by book designers.

>42 jillmwo: I'm just too lazy to do proper reviews LOL

>39 jillmwo: Thanks for the list, I see some titles I need to add to my TBR pile.

Some while back (December 31, 2024), @pgmcc finished reading a book by Susie Dent entitled Guilty by Definition, giving it a rating of 5 stars at the time. Much as it pains me to do so, I must agree with him. It's a five star read. It's really quite brilliant. I will be writing my own review of it presently, but let me just say right now that I did not see any of the final resolution coming. The final tie-up caught me off guard. You should all be reading this one. Suzie Dent is really quite as good as Kate Atkinson. To the extent, that I'm considering telling one of the book groups that I will buy all the members copies of this one just so that they will read it and so that we can then discuss it. And I'm thrilled that there's a follow-up title coming down the pipe.

Oh, and when one is having one's usual afternoon latte, re-visiting Legends and Lattes is also quite good.

But really, the one by Susie Dent is amazing!! Highly recommended. Gob-smacked -- that's the word I'm looking for. I was gob-smacked.

On an entirely unrelated topic, do the enforcers give credit of any sort for acquisitions ahead of one's Thingaversary if the acquisition was actually an (entirely unnecessary) designer hand bag? Or does that entail adding an extra dozen titles when it's a 20 year celebration? Asking for a friend.

>46 jillmwo: BB--just added to my wishlist.

>46 jillmwo:
Glad to hear you agree with me. Delighted that it pains you to agree with my judgement. :-)

>47 jillmwo:
A designer handbag could incur the wrath of the enforcers. For your sake I hope you have plenty cheese in the fridge.

"The Death of the Reader", Gifted article from The Atlantic. I don't think you will hit a paywall. (Note that this article is about AI so take that as a trigger warning of sorts.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/ai-writing-reading-nazir/687419/?gift=...

In the absence of the author, or of the certainty that one exists, we may default to a style of reading that is self-conscious, hyperaware, restless, and anxiety-driven. We may struggle to immerse ourselves in a book, and instead hover at a safe distance, or dip in and out, worried that we’ll be fooled once again. Nothing less than the pleasure of reading is at stake.

>51 jillmwo: That was interesting and it brought up something that was mentioned in the Early Reviewers book I'm reading, where the author indicated that the story actually was written by AI - not that there was doubt.

Isn't this story really calling into question the integrity of the writers? Do we or should we start doubting whether they are using AI too much?

>46 jillmwo: Okay, I'll bite. Going on the wishlist!

>53 clamairy:
Bwahahahahaha!

Another one bites the dust.

Review to come of Guilty by Definition but meanwhile, chew on this one:

Yes, we read less, but do we consume less? A lot of our consumption is, no doubt, quick and shallow — video captions, 140-character tweets, a 3-minute newsreel. But running parallel to this is the rise in long-form podcasts. People subscribe to and binge multi-hour-long conversations. They will spend an entire afternoon listening and watching a loved creator unpack an idea or niche interest.

You can find the full article over here: https://bigthink.com/mini-philosophy/the-3-types-of-reading-and-the-2-youll-pick....

I cannot take credit for unearthing the article. I found it on another thread in the group, Book Talk.

>55 jillmwo:
Funny you should post this just now. I have just finished listening to a 51 minute podcast in which my former CEO was interviewed. This is not something I would normally do.

Oh, dear. The morning sunshine shows up the dusty cobwebs. I should not be at my computer typing. I ought really to be cleaning, decluttering and discarding “stuff”.

That said, I want instead to tell you about this past weekend’s reading and thinking. Human beings operate on a cyclical basis when they tell stories. (Warning: This post runs about 700 words in length. Hit pause if you have other things to do this Monday….)

Legends and Lattes is a nice little book, written early in the 21st century, about a woman (well, a female Orc) arriving in a small town and setting up a business (a coffee bar) in an old stable that requires much renovation. With hard work and a little bit of “magic”, she succeeds. For the record, the community has its share of lowlifes and “bad guys” but by and large, the people are good. She comes to realize a sense of community, family and home.

The Scent of Water is a nice little book, written in the mid 20th century, about a middle-age woman who is enabled to retire in a small English village through the kindness of a relative she only met once as a child. She’s inherited a house which requires a significant amount of renovation, but which also comes with a charming set of doll-house collectibles that hearken back to folklore and fairy tales. In this village, there are criminal elements, but, by and large, the people are good. She comes to realize a sense of community, family and home.

The two publication dates are only about 60 years apart. Both books were written with a primary appeal to a female readership. It is not then surprising that the message in both is relatively consistent. People are – for the most part – good and we should learn to come together in recognizing that fact. We should support the gifts people bring to the common table (so to speak) and accept any silly foibles as simply being part of the package. That said, I wouldn't necessarily recommend the two books to the same reader. The Scent of Water might easily cause eye-rolls in the reader who loved Legends and Lattes and vice versa. (I was tolerant of both, but I contain multitudes…)

Then (!!!) there is a third title. Death of the Author is up for a Hugo this year. The book’s theme deals with the idea of autonomy and all the various constraints that are placed on an individual’s desire for autonomy. (There’s an excellent punch line to the book, but I won’t talk about that lest I spoil it for others. Suffice it to say that the narrative trick reminded me greatly of a famous Agatha Christie resolution.)

Speaking personally, I don’t think this particular title should win the Hugo. It’s not a bad book, but I didn’t find it overly compelling. I found the main character to be an overly emotional type who would do well to recognize in life that sometimes you just have to suck it up (whether career misfortune or family drama or whatever) and then MOVE ON. The people in this book are not awful people, but they’re not consistently kind or virtuous either. They’re flawed beings who sometimes behave badly in entirely self-destructive ways. Nor did I come away with any sense that the author, Nnedi Okorafor felt we should all be more accepting and come together on the basis of communal harmony or a sense of tribal family. There’s very real danger to the characters in this one; not just one or two criminal masterminds, but the unthinking kind of danger one recognizes in an angry mob. Life, even basic existence, entails risk. One might say that Death of The Author is a far more realistic read than the other two I’ve mentioned. I view it as more pessimistic than optimistic as to how the world ends, but others might view the situation differently.

At any rate, that’s what I saw in my reading this weekend. I am constitutionally incapable of behaving like Pollyanna but I am also a little depressed when forced to acknowledge harsh reality. Maybe if I were to do some housekeeping, it would be a better response to life in general.

Oh, and by the way, the enforcers will be happy when they see what I recently "acquired" in anticipation of my upcoming Thingaversary. One of the university presses was having a spring 50% off sale. (And then I was also able to apply some credit card reward points to my purchases as well.) Feel free to imagine me as the little old lady with a bad leg jumping up and down with justifiable self-satisfaction and anticipation. I have clearly never absorbed the real meaning of the word, abnegation...

>57 jillmwo: I think you shot me between the eyes with The Scent of Water, but The Death of the Author does not appeal to me at all.

Congrats on the acquisitions and the upcoming Thingiversary!

Abnegation is for lightweights.

>57 jillmwo: & >58 jillmwo:
Powerful posts. Just for the record, housekeeping is never the answer. 42 is always the answer closely followed reading another book.

I was impressed with your tying the three books’ themes together.

Have a happy thingaversary when it comes along. I suspect the enforcers will require titles rather than a general allusion to buying some books at a 50% off sale, even if it was from a reputable university press.

You taught me a new word today. Every day is a school day.

>59 clamairy: I suspect that you might do some eye-rolling, moving through The Scent of Water. Because there were moments when I did an eye-roll or two. Quite honestly, I'm not sure it would be to your taste. Elizabeth Goudge was the daughter of an Anglican clergyman and it shows. The book's title is actually a reference to the biblical Book of Job. (I had to track it down.)

I realized after posting that there was another parallel between the two books. Both Legends and Lattes and The Scent of Water feature cats. Lattes has the dire cat named Amity and Water has a ginger kitten named Tiger. There's even a point in Water when the local Vicar makes a crack about not taking the heroine as being a woman with a cat and the heroine stops and wonders exactly what it is that the Vicar means when he says that.

As for Death of the Author, I was participating in a book group discussion yesterday about this and I was kind of surprised by the group's reaction to the book. There was much more feeling about the familial support (or lack thereof) when the protagonist is trying to build autonomy while living with a disability when doing so entailed taking some questionable risks. I don't think the group got around to discussing the idea of allowing automation to augment one's personal autonomy. What does the individual owe to the surrounding community when it comes to the use of technology to do something? Once upon a time, a community might have to leave its disabled members behind on an ice floe if that meant that the younger members of society would be more likely to survive. With technology, that abandonment might no longer be necessary. So why would people not support technology (of whatever kind) that enables individual autonomy? It means a removal of constraints for the individual which translates to some degree of loss of control within the larger family or tribe or community. Is that good or bad? Constraints on behavior are a necessity when people live in close proximity to one another. It was a thought-provoking book to some extent, but I don't think it could fully deal with the premise in the length of 400+pages. (Do we give the Hugo on the basis of a book's punchline?) I find that I may still be processing this one, which on some level I find annoying.

>61 jillmwo: Okay, thanks for the warning. I am a chronic eye-roller... I will look at some other reviews before I decide. I would be borrowing it so if I hate it I can jump ship.

Regarding SFWA, the Nebulas, and the Grand Master speech given by N.K.Jemisin
https://www.patreon.com/posts/160533261

Bare-bones coverage of the winners: https://lithub.com/here-are-the-winners-of-the-61st-annual-nebula-awards/.
More complete listing here: https://www.andrewliptak.com/nebula-award-winners-2026-sfwa-science-fiction-fant...

>57 jillmwo: >61 jillmwo: Excellent summaries, thank you for all of that writing.

>43 jillmwo: Seems as though the beauty of the book didn't continue into the actual story, though. That's a bummer.

>63 jillmwo:
I have obviously lost contact with the SF world; I did not recognise any names in the short lists other than Martha Wells.

>46 jillmwo: "Suzie Dent is really quite as good as Kate Atkinson."

Um. I got nuthin'. You did not have to include that you were gob-smacked; your BB had already squarely hit its target.

On my To Buy list (apparently a paperback is coming later this month)!

From the British publishing periodical, The Bookseller, dated June 4, 2026:

The publishing industry reached its highest-ever revenue in 2025, according to the Publishers Association’s (PA) latest industry statistics, up 3% to £7.4bn, with audiobooks, digital and export key areas of growth.

The overall home market was up 3% in 2025 to £2.6bn, while the export market was up 4% to £4.7bn, making up 64% of revenue and emphasising “the importance of international trade for the publishing industry”.

The US, Australia, and Germany were the largest markets for books across the combined academic, education and consumer publishing sectors, according to the report.

Overall, print saw no percentage change, remaining at £3.8bn, while digital increased 7% to £3.8bn. However, the report notes that “while digital has been growing faster, it’s important to remember that print is still by far the preferred medium in the consumer market”, accounting for 79% of revenue.

Life continues on.

>67 terriks:. But I was gob-smacked! And how often does one get to use such a charming colloquialism? I'd gone in with minimal expectations but then had a fun time with it.

Oh, and one more thing having to do with general controls applied (overtly or not) to what is made available for reading to or for or by children.
https://www.prettyokmaggie.com/blog/2026/5/9/whos-afraid-of-childrens-books.

A book was delivered last night from MIT Press that covers the problem as well. I have to remind myself that reading shapes thinking and that all well-meaning parents struggle with what the right answers are for their children and for the larger society in which their children live.

>70 jillmwo: I love this piece. Thank you! I let my kids read whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Both of them were constantly giving their library and school assigned books to me after they'd read them, and I read a bunch of things I wouldn't have otherwise. Even when I didn't love the books, I loved that shared experience.

>71 clamairy:. Where's the heart emojii when I need it?

>68 jillmwo: That's good news.

>70 jillmwo: Another great article, thank you.

>68 jillmwo:
Did the report give any information on the number of books, or any indication of price changes from one year to the next?

>69 jillmwo:
Two points.
1. I believe I was the one who tempted you with Guilty by Definition, yet you went into the book with "minimal expectations". :-(

2. >67 terriks:'s post reinforces one of the golden rules of sales training courses: once you have made a sale stop talking. You can not remake the sale and something you say when it is not necessary can only risk putting the customr off the purchase. It is, however, understandable in your situation as you were honestly communicating your very favourable response to the book. I am trying to work out if you were gobsmacked by the book or gobsmacked by the fact that a book I recommended was good. I am in a quandry.

:-)

>70 jillmwo:
Interesting article. Fortunately book banning is not a problem where I live.

>70 jillmwo: Interesting article. I remember reading all kinds of books when I was growing up. There were a few Judy Blume books my parents didn't want me reading, so I read them in secret. :) And I'm glad I did. I learned a lot about growing up that my parents wouldn't talk about. I also read a few books where the character was living through some stuff I had lived through or was currently experiencing. It made me feel less alone. The book banners are doing a disservice to our children.

>69 jillmwo: Gob-smacked it is, then!

>74 pgmcc: "I am trying to work out if you were gobsmacked by the book or gobsmacked by the fact that a book I recommended was good. I am in a quandry."

Two things can be true at the same time. ;)

>77 terriks:
:-)

>74 pgmcc: I've been remiss in responding. The full report may well have included that information, but the complete text is restricted solely to members of the Publishers Association UK. I didn't even have the good sense to download the full Bookseller article to my system so I can't even tell you if their write-up mentioned pricing.

And yes, you get some credit for touting the Susie Dent book. I just think it unlikely that there's any more room for notches on the bedpost. You're very good at finding good books. The bit about minimal expectations was more due to my awareness of the author presence on BBC television. She was a semi-regular (I think) on Countdown with 8 out of 10 Cats. (I don't think that show gave her much to do beyond talking about different arrangements possible of a six letter word in making other words. Just not a lot of depth. The book had some degree of depth and expertise.)

>9 haydninvienna: Another case where I'd been remiss in response. You mention a vague recollection of Kaye-Smith appearing in one of Sayers' novels, but couldn't identify which one. I want you to know that I did spend a bit of time trying to see if I could find such a reference through digital search of the ebooks, but I was unable to find anything.

>9 haydninvienna: >80 jillmwo:
Hi Richard, Jill,

It is in Unnatural Death, Chapter 5.

Copy/paste from Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/70008/70008-h/70008-h.htm

“You really are thinking of doing it, then?” cried Miss Findlater. “I do hope so—because, if you do, I mean to apply for a job on the farm! I’m simply longing to get away from all these silly tennis-parties and things, and live close to the Earth and the fundamental crudities. Do you read Sheila Kaye-Smith?”

Miss Climpson said no, but she was very fond of Thomas Hardy.

“It really is terrible, living in a little town like this,” went on Miss Findlater, “so full of aspidistras, you know, and small gossip. You’ve no idea what a dreadfully gossipy place Leahampton is, Miss Climpson. I’m sure, Mary dear, you must have had more than enough of it, with that tiresome Dr. Carr and the things people said. I don’t wonder you’re thinking of getting rid of that house. I shouldn’t think you could ever feel comfortable in it again.”

>81 rhondak101book: OMG, you are amazing. Thank you. Clearly, I am losing my Information Goddess status these days.

>81 rhondak101book: Um, well. I used the Faded Page Canada text, but it's there all right. Don't know how i missed it. But thank you for sorting that out (and validating my ageing memory).

>83 haydninvienna: Cheers!

I have had my notes from reading this novel sitting on the ottoman for days, but I kept getting drawn into other projects. That said, I do want to finalize a review. (Clamairy has been so good about posting hers in recent weeks. I feel I may be found guilty of sloth in comparison.) More to come throughout the day, I hope.

A book group selection, I wasn't entirely thrilled with Dead in the Frame but I think others might well find it enjoyable.

>85 jillmwo:
Great review.

>87 pgmcc:. I'm glad you stopped by. See below:

Independent Bookshop Week is a celebration of independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland. It aims to highlight the vital role independent bookshops play in their communities, and to encourage consumers to shop for their summer reads with their local independent. The campaign was launched in 2006.

Independent Bookshop Week takes place annually, mid-June. Hachette UK is the headline sponsor, with support from Gardners and NielsenIQ BookData. Almost 800 independent bookshops are registered to participate.

Independent Bookshop Week 2026 (the 20th anniversary!) takes place Saturday 13 - Saturday 20 June.

So why are you currently vacationing in France? Why aren't you back there buying up great quantities of books in support of independent booksellers? Inquiring minds want to know your strategic thinking...

>88 jillmwo:
Aaaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!

I also missed a rare book fair last week.

It is my wife’s strategic thinking that has caused this series of unfortunate events. I am simply a victim. At least the temperature in the shade has reduced from 34C to 32C. What relief!

>85 jillmwo: What do you call a BB that has hit you several times already?

Wonderful review :)

>90 Alexandra_book_life:
Group target practice.

Well, here's something different to consider. This was a quick read, one of those bedtime reading experiences that help one re-orient oneself and face life right-side up.

>85 jillmwo: My my - 5 stars! I was already hit by this particular BB, and I'm ready to be gob-smacked too. :) Nice review!

>91 pgmcc: But of course 😆

This morning's topic of conversation at breakfast. Is aviation the great boon to society that we have always been told? Yes, it means that people can see family, but there is an enormous cost in natural resources. Would we have done better to stick with transatlantic ocean liners?

*Originally posted on June 16 at 8:26am but edited to note that the subject was brought up after hearing a TV celebrity complaining about having to endure chatty seat-mates on planes.

I can't imagine why this book shows no reviews on this platform. Having read it myself, I shall rectify the omission. I believe it received some media attention when it was initially released in late 2025, but perhaps not as much as the message of the author would justify...

From The Big Think: https://bigthink.com/books/dangerous-books/

Interview with the author freely accessible here: https://captimes.com/entertainment/books/that-book-is-dangerous-takes-on-left-le...

>95 jillmwo: Hmm. We'd have to live with much slower shipping of even priority goods. Even in emergencies, it would be very slow to get supplies of any type, anywhere, if they had to go a distance. Visiting people who live far off would be a lot less frequent. I do think it is a great benefit.

I do think we've gone a bit too far in making flying extremely common.

>97 Karlstar: We need both forms of transport if we're going to keep things moving -- shipboard containers as well as air freight. But you hit the point that Patrick and I sort of reached ourselves this morning. That the airlines have really mixed feelings about moving people. It's not like they're expanding the size of first class. They will cram folks in like anchovies to sit in Economy Class. They don't really like the people who buy Economy Class but they can't get ENOUGH people to buy up First Class. (And heaven forbid that a TV celebrity might be expected to be polite to some poor schmuck who had the luck to be upgraded...) There's something clearly amiss with the airline's business model.

Having said that, I had been reading something by Alec Waugh that talked about shipboard travel back in the early 1930's and he made it sound like such a nice way to become acquainted with people. And yes, there would likely have been tedious people to deal with on board as well, but on a ship, for the most part one could avoid them as needed.

Back in the UK, diatribes about cheap airlines frequently seemed to have a class bias: airline travel was OK for the upper class (or however you say that in dog-whistle language) but not so much for the Great Unwashed. In the 1930s, ocean liner travel was definitely for the upper classes: quite apart from the cost¹, nobody else would be able to take four and a half days to travel from Europe to North America.² For the lower class, a weekend at Brighton was more their style.

¹ This page shows a first-class ticket from New York to Trieste (so a bit further than NY to London or Bremen) costing US$258 ($5,808.80 in May 2026) in 1934. One way.

² Fastest crossing in 1930 was the German liner Europa, in 4 days 17 hours 6 minutes from Cherbourg to New York.

>95 jillmwo: >99 haydninvienna: I can only agree with @Haydninvienna. Just before the mailships stopped running in 1977, the fastest run from Southampton to Cape Town was 11 1/2 days; the present flying time between Johannesburg and London is about 10 1/2 hours. And it sticks in the mind that already in the mid-1960s, the fare from Ndola to London by Hunting-Clan Skymaster (3 days and some) was less than the Union-Castle fare between Cape Town and Southampton -- and one still needed a several days' train journey from Ndola to Cape Town for the sea journey. (Data from ads in the Rhodesia Railways Magazine -- both journeys advertised in the same issue.)

>99 haydninvienna: >100 hfglen: This is maybe the greatest benefit of air travel - you don't have to add great amounts of time just getting there to a trip overseas. That makes long distance travel much more practical for more people.

>98 jillmwo: Unfortunately, at least in this country, the government stopped advocating for airline passengers decades ago, so the airlines were free to cram as many seats into an airplane as physically possible, as long as it is 'safe'.

>99 haydninvienna: >100 hfglen: >101 Karlstar: Here are a few quotes from Alec Waugh's book, A Year to Remember: A Reminiscence of 1931:

Ships nowadays make their money out of cruises. They provide holidays afloat – not transportation. Moreover, you meet nowadays a different class of traveller by sea. Up till 1939, anyone who wanted to cross from England to New York had to go by sea. You were likely to find on board a minister of state, a prominent actress, a socialite in the news, the heir to a Dukedom. You met on equal terms men and women whom you would not expect to meet in the ordinary routine of your life: and you were quite likely to have a real talk with them. Formal persons were ready to relax on board.

...the three or four days before I sailed I would be making enquiries to find out who would be on board. New York friends would be saying, ‘What luck for you, you’ll meet Frank and Elsie.’ The seeing off and the meeting of ships was part of the city’s life, part of the city’s drama. Newspapers carried ‘on the gangplank’ columns....

...I usually travelled by the eight or nine day boats. They were cheaper, they were as comfortable, and – what was important – they gave me the length of time aboard that I needed to write a short story. I can only work when I live in an atmosphere of day to day eventlessness. A man friend of long standing told me that he rarely failed to have a love affair on board. ‘I don’t know how else one fills in the time.’

I agree that it was a privileged class that likely enjoyed the cruises the most. But in his memoir, Waugh says he didn't consistently travel first class. He was a freelance writer by trade and sometimes there was more income available than at other times. (His father and mother were not of the titled class.) If I remember correctly, Michael Innes wrote his first Inspector Appleby novel while on shipboard for three weeks between London and Australia.

And again, I think my original point was that while celebrities ought not to be pestered to death by seatmates, being open to conversations -- whether on board ship or plane -- continues to be an opportunity for meeting new people.

>102 jillmwo: Alec Waugh was evidently something of a pot-hunter (as his younger brother definitely was). He also had a rich wife: "Joan Chirnside, only child and heiress of Andrew Spence Chirnside (1856-1934) of Edrington, Berwick, Victoria and Vite Vite, Derrinallum, Victoria" (Wikipedia). Maybe Mrs Waugh wasn't willing to subsidise Alec's lifestyle.

But the idea of an eight-day crossing as being desirable because of its length is a bit striking. I used to see questions on Ask.Metafilter about how to survive a "long" flight, like New York to Los Angeles (about six hours). Of course on a ship you wouldn't be crammed in like a sardine in a tin, but it was mostly the tedium that the questioners were worried about. Dudes, I've done quite a few 14-hour international flights. As long as you cam cope with the discomfort, it'll be fine. Get your iPod or whatever stocked up and bring a book.

ETA Just this morning Qantas has announced that Project Sunrise will be flying non-stop between Sydney and London next year — 10,570 miles, and about 20.5 hours. I'd do it.

EATA this will be the longest passenger flight by quite some way, if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly (current longest is Singapore to New York on Singapore Airlines, 9,537 miles). Qantas though still holds the record for the longest time aloft ever — during the Second World War they used to fly a regular service between Perth and Colombo using Catalina flying boats. The service was called The "Double Sunrise": you'd see the sun rise twice because the flight took longer than a day. "The flight from Ceylon to Australia on 30 August 1943, remains the record holder for longest time airborne (for a commercial passenger flight) at 32 hours, 9 minutes." (Wikipedia)

This particular title, Address Unknown is a very short read and one I finished just in the past two days. On the one hand, I wonder how it is I had never heard of it before. On the other hand, it isn't a light read.

>102 jillmwo: I prefer a just a little 'get to know you' chit chat on a flight. I'll talk to strangers, but not much.

>103 haydninvienna: The longest flight I've ever been on was NYC to Milan. I don't recall how long that was. I always bring books with me in both ebook and physical form, so a flight is just an opportunity to do some reading.

Thanks for the info on Project Sunrise, I would take that flight! Wasn't the longest non-stop flight during Covid, so this will set a new record?

>103 haydninvienna: I am reading The Trackers by Charles Frazier. It is set in 1937. The MC flies from Denver, CO to Tampa, FL. Frazier does not show this, but the MC remarks that he flew with 18 others and there was a lot of airsickness: "With all the refueling stops, there had been more terrifying takeoffs and landings than I could count. I'd had all of the sounds and smells of people, including myself, that I could handle."

Also on the trip home, the stewardess brings him a half full bottle of gin from the cockpit. The pilots will not need it because they have a full one!

We have come a long way.... in many ways.

>103 haydninvienna: >105 Karlstar: >106 rhondak101book: Transportation has changed and accelerated so much over the past 100 years. J.B. Priestley in the opening pages of his 1933 book English Journey writes about the luxury of motor coach buses. He also touches on visiting a Daimler car factory. Agatha Christie in her autobiography wrote about experiencing her first airplane ride (five minutes in length) in 1911. Then in 1935, she wrote Death in the Clouds where aviation is still primarily for the wealthy rather than the ordinary middle or working class kind of soul. The glamour of airline travel lasted up until the time that both the demand became intense. Business was unwilling to put their staff peons on a flight in anything but economy but CEOs didn't want to have to sit next to mothers traveling with cranky toddlers.

One last question for @haydninvienna -- what is the meaning of the slang phrase "pot-hunter"? I'm not familiar with that one at all.

So it’s summertime at the beach or on the Cape (if you prefer) and you have to hustle into town to pick someone up. Here’s what you encounter…

Cars were crazily parked at all angles in Railroad Square. A ten-ton truck was carefully secured to the old hitching post by pieces of cod line and a flaming red lobster buoy. A brand new sedan was wedged solidly into the entrance of the moving picture theater.

Cats lapped at melted ice cream which trickled from over-turned containers outside the candy shop; flies buzzed above the trodden mess of fruit and vegetables which marked the grocery store sidewalk. The usually conservative windows of the Ladies Exchange were devoted not to gingham house dresses and embroidery silks, but to a display best described as intimate. Every inch of plate glass along the street was plastered with smatterings of dried egg and squashed tomato.

Even the air was alcoholic.

– Sandbar Sinister, Phoebe Atwood Taylor, 1934.

Now the townfolk are not generally drunk to quite this extent. It’s a mystery novel so, of course, there’s going to be a murder and a body gets discovered at the end of the first chapter. But honestly, don’t you find that a fun way to open a beach read? Because is there a witness able to reliably recall who shot what when the whole town clearly is waking up with hangovers?

I did finally sort through how I felt about Death of the Author. Four stars rather than five, but it's still very definitely worth reading.

>107 jillmwo: I first came across the term "pot-hunter" in pony books, referring to someone who goes to all the local horse shows to try and win as many trophies (pots) as possible. Often they have a much better pony than anyone else can afford, so it takes them very little effort to win. They are not competing for the enjoyment or challenge, just for prizes they don't need. I'm sure the term is transferable to other fields.

>109 jillmwo: I really enjoyed Death of the author for making me think about the questions you highlight in your review. Zelu is fun to read about, despite her spikiness and chaos. I also really enjoyed learning about the different cultures within Nigeria and their traditions.

>109 jillmwo:
You did that deliberately. You wrote that review as a direct shot at me. I know the way you operate. I have seen this before. You are so clever the way you nonchalantly write a review knowing it will hit me as I innocently stroll by your post.

>110 Sakerfalcon: Thank you for the explanation. In the context of Alec Waugh's work (which was what @haydninvienna was talking about), I can see how that mindset might seep into his stuff. as to Death of the Author, I think it offers a lot of meat for discussion, but I did not necessarily find it to be a "fun" read. I really will be interested to see if it actually wins the Hugo this year.

>111 pgmcc:. Well, yes. I sat here in my dark little room and meditated on how best to fling a book into the path of the unwary. Hang around. There will be more soon. The elements needed in the creation of such potent blends take time to meld together. What is it you and Clam always say? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-hah....

It would appear that I am always one book behind in reading the novellas of Nghi Vo. Over the course of the past week, I've read A Mouthful of Dust. It's an excellent example of her writing skills, and one I recommend. It's not always easy to read (or comforting) but the experience of her Singing Hills world is immersive and real. When reading a tale of fantasy gives you that, it's the work of a proven artist.

>113 jillmwo: I, too, am one behind with the Singing Hills. I am thinking that I should do a complete re-read before I dive into the newest one. The world needs revisiting. I am also behind on some of her longer works as well--not sure why I have not moved them up on my TBR because I thought that Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful were clever and impactful novels.

>113 jillmwo: This novella is excellent and hits you hard. Great review, thank you for reminding me of my reading experience.

>112 jillmwo:
When Clam & I say that we are merely imitating you. :-)

I sat here in my dark little room and meditated on how best to...

Is that the same place where you review all your poisons and concoct new elixirs and potions?

>116 pgmcc: I don't believe that. I wouldn't have known how to spell it if it weren't for you two!!! As for your question, the short answer would be no. If you think about it, any risk of flame from a Bunsen burners would be bad for books. It's a library best practice to always keep liquids and noxious gases far from the shelves.

Meanwhile, I take it this means that my alma mater must have acquired some massive 140 room country house in England. Along with the fancy gardens, etc.
https://www.longwood.edu/news/2026/recognized-with-official-coat-of-arms/

>117 jillmwo:
Well done on your college coat of arms. I am obviously lacking in education on these matters. My understanding was that coats of arms were normally elements found within a monarch. Obviously I am wrong.

Another thing that amazed me was that the college was presented with a coat of arms by a British institution when it has such affection of the person who was instrumental in defeating the English in France. I must read up more on my Joan of Arc history. The area we are in is her stomping ground and we have picked up a lot from just being here and visiting the various significant Joan of Arc sites and buildings.

I take your point about the flames and liquids in the vicinity of books. Your laboratory is probably in a hidden underground, yet well ventilated, lair.

>107 jillmwo: Yes, I never answered the "one last question", did I? >110 Sakerfalcon: has the right idea: Evelyn Waugh seems to have particularly sought out the acquaintance of people who were seen as socially desirable. I wonder if Betjeman had the right idea:

Too overexcited and pleased with myself to know
That the words I heard my hostess’s mother employ
To a guest departing, would ever diminish my joy,
I WONDER WHERE JULIA FOUND THAT STRANGE, RATHER COMMON LITTLE BOY?

>119 haydninvienna:
:-)

>117 jillmwo: Lots of happies!

>118 pgmcc: "My understanding was that coats of arms were normally elements found within a monarchy."

Not necessarily. We have a Bureau of Heraldry in Pretoria, and I have enjoyed the benefit of a previous State Herald's wisdom on a couple of occasions. Some time ago, it was relatively inexpensive to register a personal coat of arms with them, but the cost has gone up enormously. And when would you ever use it?

Books are all over my house these days – upright on shelves, in vertical stacks, listed on digital storage devices. There are the titles that I haven’t yet read yet, frequently for upcoming book groups. In many of those shelves and stacks, there are the books I have already read or perhaps read in part. (Life can be distracting.) Books I have read at least once but which demand that I think about them before I release them into the ether to be read by others. Books I have read multiple times (not just on the basis of sentiment, but because they deserve to be fully thought through.) Books slated to be sent to Goodwill, the Library Friends Book Sale, etc. Honestly, books can move through this house rapidly; at other times, books linger.

Technically speaking, you might suggest, books that have already been read once ought not to be included in a TBR pile. Given that we’re talking about To Be Read piles. I have no reasonable argument to mount except that the acronyms of TBRAST (To Be Read a Second Time) or TBRATT (To Be Read a Third Time) haven’t caught on. We could call them BTFUP (Books To Follow Up On) but that’s just an off-the-cuff kind of idea. Or maybe Books Requiring Follow Up (BRFU) would be easier.

Publishers want us all to have massive TBR piles. We should buy the year’s latest titles as soon as the books are made available. Pre-Orders should become part of one’s routine. However, one should be clear that this desire on the part of publishers is primarily due to their desire to shift warehousing responsibilities. In a publisher’s ideal world, the responsibility of storage should fall on the buyer’s shoulders. Consumers and libraries should deal with the annoyances of storage, regardless of whether it’s on or off site. One can always seek out a nice storage pod company to handle the overflow. But the publisher wants to re-home that initial print-run as quickly as possible. (They’re still wrestling with how to handle the digital copies.)

Only the most famous authors and literary pundits are encouraged to have massive, massive libraries. Interior decorators love to show us photographs of how those personal libraries are tastefully arranged on-site in the individual’s NYC or Parisian pied-a-terre. Sadly, most academic researchers don’t have the luxury. Their personal research collections (at home and in the office) must all too frequently be dissolved at retirement. Libraries can’t absorb all of those physical materials (unless cataloging costs are absorbed by the donor).

At any rate, as I am in the run-up to my 20th Thingaversary (June 26), I will share with you that my TBR is extensive and must be broken up into the following categories:

(1) Untouched, Unread New or Gently-Used Books
(2) Book Group Books (Selections Not Entirely My Own)
(3) Books Requiring Follow-Up (Titles to be Re-visited or Re-read)
(4) Reading for Research

More to come.

>112 jillmwo: >116 pgmcc: & >117 jillmwo:

I alternate between bwa-ha-ha and mwa-ha-ha, and I no longer remember why. (I think the second one sounds a lot more like Dr Evil.)

>113 jillmwo: She has an uncanny ability for writing books that make one feel uncomfortable, and her writing is gorgeous.

>122 jillmwo: "Given that we’re talking about To Be Read piles. I have no reasonable argument to mount except that the acronyms of TBRAST (To Be Read a Second Time) or TBRATT (To Be Read a Third Time) haven’t caught on. We could call them BTFUP (Books To Follow Up On) but that’s just an off-the-cuff kind of idea. Or maybe Books Requiring Follow Up (BRFU) would be easier. "

I am saving those acronyms for future use! Except maybe the last one, for the way it ends. I'll need to find a good TBRATT soon-ish. Maybe I'll throw a good bratwurst on the grill in the meantime.

Press release, dated June 23, 2026 from Library of Congress:

The Library of Congress has announced that the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction will be awarded to Ann Patchett at the National Book Festival on Aug. 22.

The annual Prize for American Fiction, one of the Library’s most prestigious awards, honors an American literary writer whose body of work is distinguished by its mastery of the art, as well as its originality of thought and imagination.

“Ann Patchett crafts moving, probing, tender novels. She has a talent for creating fiction that readers continually devour because she thinks deeply and writes evocatively about human connection,” said Acting Librarian of Congress Robert R. Newlen. “I am thrilled that she is the 2026 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction recipient.”

I seem to recall lots of folks in the pub here enjoyed her book, Bel Canto.

Source: https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/ann-patchett-to-receive-2026-library-of-congress-p...

>124 clamairy: I quite agree with you. I recently read something that said you should always pay particular attention to the information that an author offers you in the first paragraph on the first page of their work. For this one? Nghi Vo gives Almost Brilliant the opening line of "What are you eating?" Perfectly normal question in normal life. The whole book is about eating and not eating, For the unsuspecting reader, it is such a casual opening, but it's such a good set-up for the critical theme of the book.

>126 jillmwo:
I was one of those folks. Her writing is all they said it is.

>126 jillmwo: Add my voice to the chorus of praise for Ann Patchett. I finished her most recent book Whistler about 10 days ago and she has not lost her touch. She's definitely one of my favorite living American fiction authors. (Right up there with Barbara Kingsolver.)

So again, this year for my Thingaversary, I’m looking at my TBR pile in all its dusty cob-webby sunshine. I made a list of roughly 20 titles or so that are sitting around. It's not necessarily about what is most current in terms of acquisition. To be clear, I did not go out this past week and binge-buy all twenty-plus titles shown; I looked around to see what was readily accessible in the house and of that, what qualified as being untouched, unread, new or gently used books.

A Treacherous Secret Agent by Marjorie Garber. This Harvard scholar is a fascinating and challenging writer. I have read and re-visited her wonderful 2011 book The Use and Abuse of Literature. This one really is a new book and it has to do with the House Unamerican Activities Committee of the early 20th century.

Orley Farms by Anthony Trollope. Much earlier in 2026, I had intended to participate in an online group discussion of this, but things got away from me and they were done before I was ready. I already like Trollope and this seems like a nice possibility. Purchased in paperback, I might read this during July while sitting in air conditioning. It has to do with money and inheritances and legitimacy of birth, if I’m not mistaken.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Again, a nice respectable paperback book. It’s an intimidating chonker of 600 pages or so. There was a discussion around here where some of you admitted to having started it, but then ran out of steam. But something was showing the movie version recently – the one starring Burl Ives as the lead – and I glimpsed enough of that to think that I might find the historical background sufficient to carry me along. And AMZ had it for a reasonable price.

Lives of Great Religious Books, a book series from Princeton University Press. Many university presses have annual sales where you can pick something up for half price. This particular series consists of titles that I have always viewed as being slightly more expensive than I like to pay, but when the timing this year worked out and there were reward points as well as a massive discount, I decided to go for it. Some were half-price in hardcover, some were half-price in paperback. See below:

Augustine’s Confessions: A Biography
The Book of Genesis: A Biography
The Book of Mormon: A Biography
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography
The I Ching: A Biography
John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion
The Book of Job: A Biography - currently about mid-way thru’ this one

Now I don’t own every single book from this series, but I bought and read both The Jefferson Bible: A Biography as well as C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. I think I have reviewed those as well. I have the one about Paradise Lost and the one about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and some others still unread. The write-ups are less about the belief systems than one might think. The marketing blurb characterizes them as these books examine the historical origins of texts from the great religious traditions, and trace how their reception, interpretation, and influence have changed – often radically– over time. I think that’s why I find them so intriguing. They’re as much about the publishing history of the content as about any form of belief/doctrine. I tend to take these slowly when I read. I don’t swallow them down in great gulps. (Reading the one about Job meant that I wanted occasionally to go back and review the actual poetic text. Apparently, there is a famous section entitled the Hymn to Wisdom and I had never registered it as such. It’s fascinating to learn some of the background. The word "patience" is never used in the Book of Job, despite the well-worn phrase; that characterization actually came from a different work or retelling of the life of Job. Other bits have been stitched together at various points in time.) But that whole purchase package will take me about ten years to read and process. (I'm hoarding books for later in life.)

The Book At War is non-fiction and has been sitting on the pile for an awfully long time and I really want to either read it or pass it on. It’s bugging me with its stubborn lack of movement. At the same time, the typography irritates me.

Another non-fiction title is The Infernal Machine which is all about anarchists blowing things up and how detectives had to change their practices in order to track down the miscreants. Not too dense so it should be a quick read.

There are a run of Kindle editions in my TBR pile. Theoretically, at least, I have The Everlasting by Alix Harrow because one of the book groups is supposed to discuss it and it’s up for a Hugo. There’s something of a scheduling conflict at the moment, so I’m not sure if I’ll make that one. Other book group selections include My Real Children by Jo Walton and Naomi Novik’s short story collection, Buried Deep and Other Stories.

Ah. Must run. It’s 2pm.
Edited to Shriek the Question: WHY ARE MY TOUCHSTONES WONKY?
Oh, and then suddenly, somehow or other, they're magically NOT wonky.

Subsequently further edited to correct several touchstones, but previous time stamp was for June 24, 2:09pm

>130 jillmwo:
Wow! A mystery. Why is 2pm such a “must run” time? Hair appointent?

>130 jillmwo: I will put in a plug for the Naomi Novik. Not all the stories are gems, but some of them are outstanding, and I believe you will like East of Eden.

It has come to my attention that @jillmwo would like to start her new thread on her Thingaversary but she is worried that this thread has not yet reached the 150 post trigger for a continuation thread. If that is not an invitation to a piffle party I do not know what is.

Happy posting, Jill, and have a wonderful Thingaversary on Friday. I am sure your friends will pull together to get this thread over the threshold.

>133 pgmcc: I am sure she will reach 150 by Friday.

In fact she might reach it today.

(I am holding out till July 1st for my next thread which is why it's getting so long in the tooth.)

Piffle party! What shall we discuss? I recently bought a vegan baking book of chocolate. I made the best chocolate sauce the other night. Goes great with strawberries!

>130 jillmwo: I am one of the guilty parties on East of Eden. I looked at it yesterday and considered picking it up again, but declined.

>134 clamairy:
I too am confident Jill will reach 150 before Friday.

>136 catzteach:
Hmmm! Vegan chocolate and strawberries. Sounds just the thing to discuss at a piffle party. I wonder what our hostess thinks about it.

>130 jillmwo: I enjoyed Naomi Novik’s short story collection very much, I will second @clamairy.

I read East of Eden for my book club in 2022. It was quite a journey, I am very curious to see what you will think.

>136 catzteach: This makes want to bake something.

I read it in 1999 and gave it 4 stars. Have a positive feeling about the reading experience even though I don't remember many details from the book.

>132 clamairy:, >140 Alexandra_book_life: I third the Naomi Novik collection! I liked it even more than her novels.

>136 catzteach: That sounds delicious!

Okay, so several of the touchstones needed to be corrected up there in #130, but I went through with the edits so now they're okay. Meanwhile, I think it's revelatory to see what you all think is of importance. (A piffle party gets this crowd every single time and I'm always grateful for piffle...Thanks @pgmcc and @clamairy)

I see the short story collection from Naomi Novik gets three thumbs up. Thank you >143 Sakerfalcon: >132 clamairy: >140 Alexandra_book_life:. That one was a $2 bargain on AMZ when I picked it up. As was the Jo Walton one.

East of Eden doesn't have quite the same set of resounding endorsements; much more of a mixed bag. That said, no one is actually trying to untie me from the railroad tracks so that I can escape the oncoming train.

>136 catzteach: I am always up for a dessert that features chocolate sauce and strawberries. Honestly, we don't even need to call it dessert. We can call it dinner.

There will be more posts coming today and tomorrow. I just haven't written them yet. But I did kind of comb through to see what others had recommended in recent months here in the Pub. I do try to keep track of who suggests what. I mean, I still have one of the Kate Atkinson books that I haven't read yet on the TBR pile. (It's almost as much of a chonker as the Steinbeck.)

Remember what we were thinking about Thingaversarys (Thingaversaries?) a few years ago?
https://www.librarything.com/topic/298780
And someone on that thread pointed to this cartoon in that day’s Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/picture/2023/oct/07/tom-gauld-on-reaching-an-a...

Meanwhile an anonymous soul (who may or may not be an Enforcer) left me a little private note saying that the Thingaversary list featured above in #130 does not include a full twenty titles plus one which would be the minimal acquisition if one were looking to avoid penalties. So to satisfy said Enforcer, who I suspect of being well sated with good wine and European cheeses, I give you the following additional titles of interest.

Rummaging Thru The KIndle, I find as-yet-unread the following titles recommended by people here on LT::

A House Between Sea and Sky - Beth Cato A pub recommendation (clam? I don’t think she recommended this title specifically, but I think she gave a thumbs up to the author.)
Italian Folktales - Italo Calvino A pub recommendation (pgmcc)
The Honjin Murder - a pub recommendation (probably pgmcc)
A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible - Kristin Swenson (NF) a pub recommendation (definitely offered up by haydninvienna)
My Grandfather, the Master Detective - Asian Review of Books (As listed on Featherbear’s on-going thread, Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements and Lists in the Book Talk group.

Flotsam and Jetsam: Kindle Books Bought on the Cheap (less than 5 Dollars) but not vetted through LT
The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion
A View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe

Other stuff on the Kindle (NF indicates non-fiction)

Life in the English Country Cottage - Adrian Tinniswood (NF)
The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (NF)
English Journey - J.B. Priestley (NF) - a current research read
Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics (NF)
A Year to Remember - Alec Waugh (NF) - read to completion, but not yet reviewed
The Great War and Modern Memory (NF) - I still regret not picking this one up when the Folio Society offered it as a hard cover edition.
Ivory Vikings (NF) – This one is about the Lewis Chessmen and was grabbed impulsively after reading Tolkien’s Beowulf earlier in the year.
The Art of Reading - This one may be a DNF. (See what I did there?)

Note: All of the touchstones have been verified as pointing to the correct book! Although I have included typos so that no one will try to accuse me of using AI in crafting my post. (I am AI free to the best of my knowledge.)

Oh, yes. One more chonker sitting on the TBR pile / shelf is Christianity:The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Glad to see you are striving to be compliant with the regulations. Compliance is essential.

Now, have you got three more posts planned to reach the maginc 150 posts before midnight tonight?

>145 jillmwo: That's a great reading list, I may have to add some of those to my TBR pile.

>147 pgmcc: I thought reaching 150 was our job?

>148 Karlstar:
If we do not let Jill think she did it all by herself her confidence will plummet. Do not say a word to her.

>145 jillmwo: Ha. All of the enforcers (If they actually exist) can be bought off with cheese, wine, chocolate or anything else delectable.

I have read three books by Beth Cato and enjoyed the two in her Chefs of the Five Gods series more than I did that standalone novel. It's still solid, though. I hope you enjoy it.

>150 clamairy:
All of the enforcers (If they actually exist)

Such heresy. If the enforcers hear about your saying that it will take more than wine and cheese to protect you from their wrath.

By the way, Congratulations on posting the threshold post that releases @jillmwo to celebrate her Thingaversary in the style to which she wishes to become accustomed.

>130 jillmwo: I missed the piffle party... <sad trombone>

I bought a hardcover of The Everlasting a few weeks ago but have not yet gotten to it. You may also consider looking up The Six Deaths of the Saint as it is a short story related to the novel. I believe it is free to borrow for Amazon Prime members.

My Real Children is one of my favorite Jo Walton novels. I hope you enjoy it.

>148 Karlstar: >149 pgmcc: >150 clamairy: You all make me chortle. I still have some stuff to write, but it will be nice to begin my new thread tomorrow. Trumpets will blare. A chorus line of pool boys and belly dancers will make their way down the aisles and across the stage, draping feather boas and Hawaiian leis around all the attendees. The Roombas will march in formation and set off the occasional sparklers. An MC will undoubtedly read congratulatory telegrams from the great and famous. The new thread will be a major celebration.

>153 jillmwo:
I cannot wait.

>152 ScoLgo: The Six Deaths of the Saint was awesome!

>153 jillmwo: I'm glad we made you chortle.

>152 ScoLgo: Thank you for the heads up on that short story!! I absolutely will check it out. (And I like Jo Walton as well.)

>155 clamairy: Yes, however having promised an opening tomorrow of a thread with dancing girls and pool boys and marching Roombas in formation, everyone will be so disappointed when it turns out that I could only recruit a single Dancing Judge Ito and some nameless guy humming into a kazoo.

>156 jillmwo: We would celebrate with you even if you were tap dancing in your PJs and playing that kazoo yourself.

>157 clamairy:
This I want to see.

>153 jillmwo: Looking forward to the new thread and the celebration, in any form! I suspect there will be cheese.

>157 clamairy: Just going to let that one go...