Vee, I can't speak for the sophistication of his scholarship, but Cahill is definitely an entertaining and very readable historian, and I've enjoyed his books. Mysteries of the Middle Ages is sitting on my bedside table and it's time to move it up in the pile. I just flew through Laurie Graham's The Importance of Being Kennedy. It was just as good as Gone With the Windsors and it sent me scrambling to Wikipedia and the Kennedy Library website to verify facts and dates. From what I can tell, she's quite accurate with her facts, though of course this is fiction. She tells the story of the Kennedy family through the voice of the children's fictional nursemaid, Nora. It starts when Joseph Patrick is a toddler and ends with JFK's first bid for elected office. It also focuses on two Kennedy sisters I knew almost nothing about, Rose Marie (who was tragically lobotomized in 1941) and Kathleen, who defied the family and married a Protestant (William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington) during WWII. I found it fascinating.

Finally got to read this thread! What with a computer problem and watery eyes, I got all behind. As regards having a house elf, that would be lovely. When I returned to work about 40 years ago, after the children went to school, I tried employing neighbours who were 'stay at home mothers' to do a little cleaning for me but after a couple of weeks they decided that they liked having their own money and got fulltime jobs! I picked up a couple of audiotape books from my local library for $1Aust each, that is really cheap! I have not tried listening to books until recently but found it ideal as I could not read for too long with the watery eye problem. Now I'm hooked because I have to listen word-for-word instead of skipping as I often do. It does seem to depend on the person reading how much I enjoy the book. Sometimes I disagree with their pronunciation and correct them as I would have done with my children when they did that! I have picked up an edition of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" which has his illustrations. Very interesting but it was a pity that he did not like Regency fashions and clothed the characters in mid 19th Century styles. I could not relate to them like that. We are used now to seeing the correct dress in the TV and film versions usually although the Greer Garson 'Elizabeth Bennet' was dressed incorrectly, I seem to recall.

I keep a reading journal and it has a place to rate your reads on a scale of 1-10. So, I'll list the books I read this year according to how I rated them. (I know this message is way too long, but hey--I hardly ever get a chance to post, horrible lurker that I am, so a once-a-year overly long posting isn't too horrible, right?) 10-Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey Sentimental 10 rating--remember reading it as a child and it held up. Good fun. 10-Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell What a mind-blowing book with so many layers and connections. LOVED IT! 10-Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Such a beautiful and contemplative book that examines aging, new life, regrets, families, grudges, grace and God. Particularly loved how the main character finds beauty in sunlight catching a sprinkler's spray or birds roosting on a phone wire (two things that would have been impossible to see in the 1800s). 10-Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Company: A Road Novel with Literary License by Maria Amparo Escandon This is the "One City, One Book" pick for 2009 in our town. It is such a page-turner! The main character is in a women's prison in Mexico for a crime that remains a mystery for most of the book. She starts a reading group for the inmates, only she doesn't actually read the text, rather tells her story. 10-I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith This book has been mentioned time and again on this forum and I finally got around to reading it this year--THANK YOU to whoever recommended it. I loved it so much! 10-There is Room for You by Charlotte Bacon Such beautiful descriptions of India, both in the 40s and the 90s. Loved the two intertwining narratives of mother and daughter, both outsiders in India but at two different times. A very lush book. 10-The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys I'm sure everyone in the world had read this but me. Written in the 1960s, it imagines the story of Mrs. Rochester (Mr. Rochester's crazy wife that he kept locked in the attic in Jane Eyre.) It was hard to read and I gave it a 10 not because I loved it, but because it did perfectly what it meant to do. It said so much about patriarchy, post-colonialism, feminism, and madness in ways I'd never thought of. I need to re-read. 10-The Woman I Kept to Myself by Julia Alvarez This book of poems was so great that I am going to buy the book. There's one poem in the particular about how she can tell who her husband is talking to on the phone by the tone of his voice. Another one talks about how she can't bear to throw out her headbands, even though she has short hair now, because they are such a symbol of her girlhood. You have to read these poems out loud so that you can hear the sound of them. 9-Five Skies by Ron Carlson Loved this book! Three men out on the plains building stuff and eating really good food. I have no idea why I related so strongly to them! It was downgraded to a 9 because of the...

Book club and authors - first we pick a place we'd like to go, then we do some research on a local author. We look for someone who lives there, uses that location as the setting for a book, and is not a bestselling author. Bestselling authors are not terribly interested in meeting a group of middle aged women from California, though I do think the group met someone fairly well known before I joined, which was about 8 years ago. This group has been established for quite a number of years. Anyway, when we find a likely prospect we write to them and ask them if we can take them out to lunch to talk about their book. Sometimes they say yes, and those are the ones whose books we buy, read, and then go to visit. We have had wonderful discussions with a number of authors, none of whom are famous. There are some accomplished writers out there producing well-crafted books that do not become well known. Anyway, it ends up being a mutually enjoyable experience, and along the way we explore a city we might otherwise never have seen. It is fun!