Yes, frieda, that was certainly part of it. It just didn't go where I expected it to go and, unfortunately, I was along for the ride. I have read a couple of books like that in the past few years. Another one was "The River Wife," which had some potential and part of it was set in a very interesting time and place, but some pretty creepy things happened.

I never read "The Collector" and I don't plan on doing so.

I am going to have to read The Collector sooner or later, because it's part of a reading challenge I'm doing. I am not looking forward to it, having read other stuff by Fowles which I didn't like.

Netla, FWIW, I do like some of Fowles' work, but his "The Collector" was by far, the creepiest novel I've ever encountered. Even worse was the film made from the book.

sarah canary/friedag-
Still reading the book " A Reliable Wife". It kept me up last night. I will let you know what I think when I am done.

Netla-absolutely. Every so often I read straight through them all in order. Love meeting Bathgate, Peregrine and Emily and even Panty over again. Hope you are far from the volcano.

A Reliable Wife sounds like The Tattooed Girl by Joyce Carol Oates-a man looking for a woman who is looking for a man-but not for the same or even the usual reasons-and they are both dangerously flawed. I still get flashbacks from that book, and I shudder.

Finished and thoroughly enjoyed Dean Koontz's memoir of his dog, a golden retriever named Trixie. I have never read any of his books - too scary for me, but the memoir wasn't scary at all. Beautiful, honest, heartfelt without oversentimentality. And the added benefit of bringing funds and attention to a worthy organization, Canine Companions for Independence (CCI).

Been busy reading several things at once right now:

Last night, read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell, a class in American childhood lit, I believe. I read it for this book review column I do, and actually, really enjoyed it. I expect a lot of American kids have read this, but I had not heard of it before so got it out not sure what to expecting - found it to be a quick read and enjoyable with a strong female protagonist.

Then moved on to "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick,a wonderful mix of a graphic novel, ordinary word novel and cinematic techniques. As I picked up it at the library, I was a little intimidated at the size (big), but then noticed that there were loads of pages of carefully pencil-drawn illustrations that move the story along. It's a mixture that works - the half-graphic novel, half-normal novel. And the story is good as well - a twelve-year old orphan lives in the walls of a Parisian train station living a scrabble life when he comes in touch with an eccentric girl who lives with her grumpy godparents. The story revolves around an old broken automaton (mechanical toy) and the notebook which the boy's father had given him before he (the dad) died.

Complicated and yet easy to follow, this mix of pictures and words works wonderfully... Can't wait to find out how the end of it works out....

And then, to stimulate the brain cells a bit, I checked out "Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces of Western Art" for fun. Lovely to look, but some of the interpretations of the modern pieces are bit too art-farty for me.

Lemon, you might check out The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, the format sounds very similar.

I also re-read Island of the Blue Dolphins about two years and found it beautiful, moving, and wonderful. I first read it for school when I was probably 10 years old - too long ago to say!

I forgot to mention the title of the Koontz memoir above - it is called A Big Little Life.

I'm part way through Bill Bryson's "Notes on a Small Island." (Yes, I know, I am late reading this, as it came out in 1995). I have to wonder how much information about the UK in it is now dated. He mentions his earlier impressions of Britain in the 1970's, which would be more like the England and Scotland I remember from my own travels. I am gathering he is be-moaning the disappearance of the quaintness of the small stores, old buildings, early roads he first saw. He seems to complain a lot about the ugliness of the post-modern architecture rather recently constructed in the UK. Certainly "merrie olde England" is increasingly a vision of the past. Some would say alas and alack. As well, it seems clear that Maggie Thatcher really did a number on the UK and changed its culture forever....

It is some time since I read Notes From a Small Island which I remember enjoying for Bryson's ability to highlight our various eccentricities. I think most of us bemoan the disappearance of familiar buildings and dislike the rise of modern replacements usually caused by the narrow outlook of Planning Departments and lack of local concern until it was too late.
I think most of the book had first appeared as articles printed in the popular newspaper 'The Daily Mail' and I'm sure Bryson would have made no disparaging remarks about Mrs Thatcher. Many things have been said about her, but not that she changed our 'culture'. In fact, for all the ire she caused among Socialists it was during her time as PM that the UK regained some sense of identity after years of union domination, 'goes-slows' 'walk-outs' 'work-to-rules' that hastened the end of heavy industry.

I discovered yesterday that I have to return Terry Pratchett's Nation to the library the day after tomorrow and decided to put all other books aside until I finished it. I ended up nearly pulling an all-nighter because it's just so readable. Fortunately my survival instincts kicked in around 1 a.m. and I reluctantly put it aside. Will finish it when I get home - after I have cleaned and baked for tomorrow's meeting of the handicrafts group I am hosting.

I finished the second book by Shona McLean called The Game of Sorrows. It was quite good, but not as good as the first one.
Tonight I finished a forthcoming debut novel, The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly. I enjoyed it a lot, rather in spite of myself. The characters were either unattractive personalities or annoying, but the story was very good and very well constructed. Little pieces of information are released as the book progresses, keeping the reader guessing. I recommend it (due out here in May or June).

netla - I think I've said it before, but "Nation" is probably my favorite Terry Pratchett book. Glad you're enjoying it.

Cece, I have read the other two Lady Julia Gray books by Deanna Raybourn, Silent in the Sanctuary and Silent on the Moors, and really liked all of them. I have now started her just published The Dead Travel Fast, which is a werewolf tale set in the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. The time is the mid 1800s and the heroine is a Scottish lass, and so far it is a little silly. Maybe it is meant to be a spoof, but she is no Lady Julia. I just loved her. I'm only about a fourth of the way into it, so it may improve.

Reading now The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--Stieg Larrson. I'm so sad that this is the last book I'll be reading of his.

My cousin, who is very serious about mysteries set in the South and in England, sent me home recently with stack.

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler is the first of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series. It begins with the bombing of the PCU offices in London. Our Hero believes the bombing is related to his first case with the unit and the primary story is of murders in the Palace Theatre during the Blitz in 1940. Unusual to have octogenarians as protagonists. V e r y s l o w g o i n g for the first half and even descriptions of daily life in a city under attack couldn't make it better. If I didn't trust my cousin I'd have never finished. The second half turned into a page turner, and I've been assured the series improves.

Then I raced through the first three Jefferson Bass novels set at the Body Farm here in East Tennessee, Carved in Bone, Flesh and Bone and The Devil's Bones. Jefferson Bass is the non de plume of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of the Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson. I find it hard to judge forensic novels - I don't particularly like them in the first place - but these charmed me. I've but recently returned to live in Knoxville after 35 years, and the detailed (perhaps too detailed for a novel) descriptions of the locales intrigued me. The protagonist is the fictional director of the Body Farm, excuse me, the University of Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility. His sidekick and best friend is a Knoxville Police Department criminologist. My cousin, a lawyer, tells me that the lawyers and other characters in the novels are very thinly disguised and easily recognized as real people here in the area. Fun, but too much bone detail for me.

Well, I finished The Dead Travel Fast and found it ended better than it began, but it still doesn't please me the way the three Lady Julia books did. Ms. Raybourn is writing a book a year, and this one just came out. I will be waiting to see what she does next.

I finally finished To Kill a Mockingbird and it was just wonderful. It started to come back to me bit by bit as I read, but I'd forgotten so much of it. It was just perfect.

Still reading my way through Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces of Western Art. The interesting thing is that it's in alphabetical order, so you never know what's coming next, art-history-wise...

Then read a good book called "Waxwings" by Jonathan Raban about a fictitious NPR commentator whose path collides with illegal immigrant contractor Chick and how they affect each other's lives. If you liked "Tortilla Curtain", then you'll like this one. I'd like to read more of Raban's work, but I think I'll have to ILL it...

Then read a graphic novel called "Regift" but not sure of the author. What was nice about it was that instead of being the dysfunctional gloom and doom of a lot of graphic novels that are NF, this one actually had a happy ending. Really enjoyed it as well so bonus points for me.

sarah canary/friedag-

Finished at last "The Reliable Wife" and I have mixed feelings about the book. I think the book is well written and a page turner. If you happen to like dark stories than this novel is for you. I find that the book and (the author who says he based his characters on himself) have a strange, disturbing view on life, women and sex. His characters are complex and not easy to read. I would not suggest this book to most people. However it did keep me up during the night and the last book that did that was "The Swan Thieves".

I have just finished a book sent by a US friend. Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South by Shirley Abbott. For me an interesting and entertaining look at the history of the backwoods South and the Scots-Irish mixed with Indian who were S A's ancestors. She neatly debunks the idea that the hillybilly dialect is a reflection of Elizabethan English, or that gracious living and Southern Belle-ism is the right of every female . . . too many of them were dirt poor and married to idle boozers . . . and there is a enlightening chapter about the growth of the Southern Baptist Church.
Abbott does concede that the Southern male cannot cope with erudite females or anyone less than pretty, hence her move to New York. After her new city friends managed to understand her speech and got over actually meeting someone from Arkansas and asked where she kept her fiery cross, she settled down but realised how she missed the 'old life' with its simple certainties and true neighbourliness and questions whether the treatment of the black population in the North is any better than in the South.
This book gave me some incite into the background of The Help but does not preach and takes the **** out of many long-held preconceptions.

I am having a re-read of The Colour by Rose Tremain, and so enjoying, it is just like a first time read for me.

Any of us who have read Music and Silence by Rose Tremain would enjoy this book. Love to hear from any who have read it.

june, I read Colour when it first came out but didn't enjoy it as much as Music and Silence which is one of the best books I have read.
Have you tried Tremain's Restoration set in the period of Charles II's return to the throne? It isn't until the end of the book that you appreciate the full meaning of the title (far more than the 'restoration' of the Monarchy).

I've finished both Nation and Deadheads. Loved both. I think I may have a new contender for favourite crime author, but will read a couple more of Reginald Hill's books before I decide.

Next up is >i>The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.

Veer - I have that very same book - the Womenfolks one - at home in the TBR mountain, so it sounds like it will be moved up in the pile.

A friend teaches an honor course at univ here and recommended this book of essays to me: "A Country Year: Living the Questions" by Sue Hubbell. Wonderful short essays (2-3 pages) done in seasons, and covering nature in the Ozarks. It also covers middle age etc, but mostly nature. Very contemplative and just spent a glorious lunch hour sitting on the front door step in the shade of cedar trees, sun shining, temps just right, breeze gently blowing, happy old dog sitting in front of me while I read about nature. Can't get much better than that sometimes....

veer, I did try Restoration but I did not like the main character, a shame as I do like Tremain's books, Music and Silence was a real gem, it is on my re-read list.

netla, I would love to hear your thoughts on Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

I just finished the latest from Yann Martel (of Life of Pi fame).
And I'm confused. The book isn't very long, seems partially autobiographical (the main character has had a hit book with animal characters) and is about the Holocaust. The title characters are Beatrice, a donkey, and Virgil, a howler monkey, and they are the two main characters in a play written by a taxidermist, who has matching animals in his shop. The play is in the style of Waiting for Godot, and is an allegory for the Holocaust.
So far so good, but I am confused about what I should 'get' from it and what the point of the book is, allowing that it has a point. Calling the Holocaust another name (The Horrors) and making the victims animals doesn't seem to serve any great purpose.
I will eagerly await someone else's opinion on this one.

Kath, what is the title of the Martel book please? It certainly sounds weird.

Sorry Vee, it's called Beatrice and Virgil.

junek, about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas:

Read it as a parable and not as something that is meant to be totally realistic, or it might disappoint you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Here is what I wrote about in on my blog

Just finished Bryerson's "Notes on a Small Island." It's my least favorite of his, to date. I thought it bogged down again and again in the small villages, with his same complaints of inferior post-modern architecture having replaced blocks of Georgian terrace houses or rows of glorious Medieval pubs dating back to the 1400's etc. ad infinitum. I might well agree with him, but by the end of the book, I thought he had beaten a dead horse and I was thoroughly bored. He did not even like Edinburgh! As well, he seemed to be trying to compete with novelist Paul Theroux, who followed similar travel paths.

Now, I've just begun "In a Sunburnt Country" and hope I like it better. Otherwise, Bill, I think I'll prefer to read of ye in my own North Georgia woods....

Woodnymph, you will find Bill loves Australia - I was almost embarrassed to read that book.
It is another, however, with an alternate title that confuses me. The book is called 'Downunder' here, which is more a term used overseas than locally. Then in the US it is called "In a Sunburnt Country' - how many American readers would grasp the significance of that? It is a paraphrasing of a locally famous poem.
Finally, in German, it is called "Früstück mit Kängurus" - Breakfast with Kangaroos"

Here is a link that might be useful: I Love a Sunburnt Country

netla,
I have read The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.
I was wondering what your thoughts were.

The author wrote it for junior readers.

I saw the movie of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas on an airplane. It didn't seem like it was for juniors to me.

Carolyn, the book here is put in the young adult section, and I think it is OK for there. I do think the book has been spoilt by having a film tie in cover - you immediately know the setting. The original cover was deliberately vague about the setting - just pale blue stripes.

Carolyn and Kath,
Thank you Cath for the right wording with the "young adult" listing for this book.

Carolyn if you have read the book you would I am sure understand why I would not want to see the movie. Movies seldom do a book justice, and it would have been impossible to capture the true content and heartwrenching finish to this fine novel.
A book has never left me with the feeling that I have and will always remember.

Some of the book's wording "out with" and "the fury" I shall also always remember.

I watched the movie on a plane and didn't know anything about it. It wouldn't have been something I would have gone to see, and I don't want to read the book either. That provoked my comment about it not being something for youngsters.

I have just finished The Mapping of Love and Death, the new Maisie Dobbs book by Jacqueline Winspear. It moved Maisie's story along considerably, and I enjoyed it. It deals with WWI cartography and one American volunteer whose body is found long after the war but whose injuries were not due to the war.

Well, it's been a long time since I was a youthful reader, so I have no way of knowing how The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas would have affected me if I had read it at the age for which it was aimed. But reading it as an adult -- and an older adult, at that -- the improbabilities nagged me and I couldn't suspend my disbelief as Netla suggested.

Now, a young English-speaking reader might not be bothered with the implausibility of a boy who speaks only German mishearing der F&uumlhrer as "the Fury" and Auschwitz as "Out-with" and Heil Hitler as a fancy way to say "hello." But adults and anyone familiar with a modicum of Deutsch will know the author is really stretching.

I suppose TBitSP is a well-meaning, noble effort to impart a moral lesson to a certain group, but it seems unfortunate, to me, that the author chose to tell his allegory (or parable, or whatever) the way he did. I have no wish to see the film adaptation either.

I have been reading a large swirling mix of things lately, one of which has been the wonderful NF "The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for life" by Twyla Tharp. Tharp, as some of you may well know, is a famous choreographer, and she uses examples from her life and from other famous creative lives to make her point. It's a well written book and I've enjoyed it immensely. So much that I might even order my own copy. (This is an ILL.)

Also, pouring my way through Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces of Western Art - I wonder how long I can have this checked out???

And then reading my way through a pile of graphic novels which has been fun.... One rather leads to another in a way...

Oh, and in a meditative mood, I read Sue Hubbell's "A Country Year: Living the Questions"... Hubbell is a commercial beekeeper in the Ozarks, and recently a friend of mine informed me about the terrible loss of bees that has been happening. This led me to the book. If you enjoy slow meditative short essays about nature, then you'll like this.

The "Sherlock Holmes" TV series is on again. I have seen it before but this time have been reading the stories to compare with each episode and also checking with Wiki.
My book is a paperback in the tiniest print but also has the original drawings by Paget. It contains "A Study in Scarlet" as well as "The Sign Of Four" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" all squeezed into one manageable book!
I don't recall that I have ever read the stories before but from recollections of the Victorian era told to me by my grandparents, can imagine the settings, aided by the impeccable sets in the TV version.
As I own this book, bought from a charity shop, I can take my time reading it.

Inspired by the obit seen in RP a couple months ago, I requested Appaloosa by Robert Parker from the library. So far it is a very quick read, which is a good thing due to some of the content. I really hate it when the bad guys are 'winning' and am really thin-skinned at times with respect to certain kinds of violence (and I am sure this is nothing compared with Larry McMurtry's novels!). It's funny, sometimes I can read any novel, no problem and other times I have a hard time reminding myself 'it's just a story!'

So far, the dialogue is snappy and seems appropriate for the time period, the action is fast-paced, and it doesn't get bogged down in too much description (mind, how much description does the old west need? Mention a tumbleweed and you're there!)

Just finished a quick read The Spare Room by Australian author Helen Garner.
A tough subject honestly handled about a woman who's terminally ill friend arrives for a three week stay and the difficulties, anger, guilt etc that the visit causes. Sick friend is an aging hippy type taken in by quacks offering expensive, useless 'alternative' medicine.
It all sounds terribly gloomy; but isn't, though probably more enjoyable if you are in rude health when you read it.

Veer,
I have read The Spare Room, it is very different and very good. Great story about sisterly love.

Finished "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"--Stieg Larrson. What amazing three books these are. I so wish there were a fourth.
I'm now onto "In the Woods" by Tana French.So far, so good.

I finished The Shadows in the Street, the new Simon Serrailler book by Susan Hill. (Does anyone know how to pronounce his name?) It is similar to the other books in this series, but I don't think it is quite as dark. She does know how to make you care about the characters--or not, as the case may be.

Today I have just begun A Murderous Procession, a new offering in the Mistress of Death series by Ariana Franklin. I'm not far enough into it to comment on it, but I have enjoyed the others.

Finished The Skeleton Room by Kate Ellis. Once again a mystery novel set in the present and the past. The locale is a Channel side community historically known for Wreckers, luring ships to the rocks, killing all the survivors, and picking over the cargo. In the present day we have a suspicious suicide dive off the cliffs and a skeleton discovered during renovations of an old house.

Another Susan Hill fan, here. Am just beginning "The Various Haunts of Men". I was captivated by "The Woman in Black." I am afraid I've abandoned Bill Bryson half-way through. We got bogged down in Surfer's Paradise, in Oz....awaiting the next alligator attack.

Carolyn, A Murderous Procession doesn't seem to be available over here yet, although I'll order it from the library and hope it turns up eventually. Don't you love Franklin's strong female characters?
How to pronounce Serrailler? I'm not sure as it isn't a name I have ever come across before. Possibly Sir-ale-ur . . but run together?
I have two of Susan Hill's books awaiting me. The Beacon which was serialised on BBC radio and Howards End is on the Landing.
Hill lives in an old Cotswold farmhouse less than half a mile from the village where my parents retired to.
Excuse the ungrammatical sentence!

Vee, I'll be interested to hear how you like Howard's End Is on the Landing. I saw it advertised, but I don't much like ghost stories or meanness. I saw The Woman in Black at a London theater and did enjoy it, but I read I'm the King of the Castle and didn't enjoy it at all.

I don't believe the pronunciation of Serrailler is straight forward. In this last book, a new policeman shows up and keeps telling people how to pronounce his name. One of his coworkers remarks that now they have two men with strangely pronounced names.

I'm still not too far into the Arianna Franklin book. I do like it, but we went to the country today to help my sister move.

Being a student of French, I would guess that Serailler would be pronounced: "Ce-rye-ee-eh".

Just as an aside, I note that one of my favorite mystery writers also has highest praise for the works of Susan Hill (Ruth Rendall).

Vee,I do wish I could find the Bryson book on Shakespeare. Our library seems to not favor this author.