Annpan,

At that same public library book sale, besides Crampton Hodnet, I found these other books by Barbara Pym:

A Few Green Leaves
Some Tame Gazelle
Excellent Women
Do you remember any favorite one?

Vee,
On the strength of your recommendation, I'll consider getting Emma Smith's books either from Amazon or as interlibrary loan, which are $5 per item. Thanks for the link.

I don't think I have read all the Pym books. I checked her output and recall some of the list. I read some in the 1950s so cannot remember any particular favourite! Quartet In Autumn was well received, I recall. A Booker Prize short-listing.
$5 per item for an ILL! We get them free but can only request fiction books within our State Library system. Non-fiction are treated differently but I haven't requested one for years so cannot comment on current loans.
I have been able to borrow some of the early Roger the Chapman books but some have been discarded so I have ordered three written in the 1990s from Abe books. I am not too fussy about the condition as long as the postage charge is reasonable. Some booksellers want unreal amounts for the books and the postage varies too!

I almost feel like I should introduce myself - it's a while since I posted *shame*

However, this afternoon I finished an ARC of Louise Penny's forthcoming The Long Way Home. The blurb says it is her 'break out novel' that will make her popular around the world, but sadly I didn't enjoy it as much as her earlier works. I wasn't terribly keen on the previous one either.

Tomorrow the next book in the Outlander series is released, so that should keep me busy for a couple of weeks, and will be followed by the final of Deborah Harkness's trilogy.

Carolyn I have yet to read the new book by Fannie Flagg, but I have read an enjoyed several of her other books.

Welcome to the World Baby Girl; Standing in the Rainbow; and Can't Wait to Get to Heaven are a trilogy by Fannie Flagg about the people and events in the same town-really good books IMO!

I have read several good books in the last few days. House Divided by Mike Lawson a book in his series about Joe de Marco a lawyer who works for the Speaker of the House in DC.
I re-read The First Commandment by Brad Thor over the weekend which is very politically topical just now. Anyone who enjoys a good political thriller this is a great read.

I have barely started The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham in his English police procedural about Tom Thorne.

It has been very hot here-104F today - so I am very glad for my kindle and that I can stay indoors and read without having to leave to go find more books!

Pat

RIT --

That was a heck of a find at the library sale. Those are quite scarce titles, so you have scored without realizing it. Nice one.

As for which titles, I've read some Pym and TBH, they've all been good. Nothing too deep or meaningful, but just nice rather gentle reads with a sly sense of humor every now and then. I'd spread them out rather than binge-read or they lose their "special".

Out of the titles that you've found, the two titles I've heard most about (and that I have read) are "Some Tame Gazelle" and "Excellent Women." I think they are stand-alones for the most part (maybe a recurring character here and there, but not a series.)

They're nice gentle happy reads for the most part. I enjoy them every now and then when I can find them.

I'm still ploughing through Funk's Five Days at Memorial, non-fiction about how one of the hospitals in New Orleans handed (or didn't handle, really) the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina. (It's amazing that it was such a calamity really.)

And then just finished a read of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, fairly gentle read about life in general which I enjoyed as it was SO well written and had no typos.

Yesterday, I read a graphic novel from Canada called "One Last Summer" by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. Lovely reminiscence about the summer two young friends spend at a lake -- a coming-of-age book. Pretty ok but nothing too great.

Now - what to read, what to read....

Thanks for the Flagg info, Pat. I finished All-Girl Filling Station this afternoon and found it delightful.

Now I have finished the library books I have on hand, I'm ready to reread the two Anne Armstrong Thompson books I've had since the 70s. Don't remember a thing about them but really did enjoy the other one that my friend loaned me. She only wrote three.

Lemonhead,

You are right. I got the Barbara Pym books without realizing they were quite a find. They are old: the original price for A Few Green Leaves was $3.25! Two of them belonged to the same person, a certain Mark, who wrote short notes at the beginning of the book, one for each chapter, in this way (these are from Some Tame Gazelle):

1 new curate visits Bede sisters
2 preparing vicarage garden party, Belinda sews dress, visits Hoccleve

...and so on. He wrote the same note at the beginning of each chapter. He also had the unfortunate habit of underlining. I didn't see it until after I had bought the books. I may have not got them if I had seen it at the book sale.

As you say, I plan to space them out.

Annpan,

Our ILL were free until about 3 yrs ago. Five dollars is still less expensive than buying a book (sometimes), but it's a bit hefty for a book that you will not keep. I don't know where they send for the ILL's.

reader intransit (and others) when buying a UK printed/published book have you ever considered buying through amazon.co.uk (and no, I don't work for them!)
I have bought several second-hand books this way, some of them brand new and many for as little as one penny so, even though p&p/shipping might add a few $$'s to the total it can be cheaper than an inter library loan plus you get to keep the book.
For example I checked out The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith in both hardback and paperback and copies could be had for a very few pence.

Here is a link that might be useful: Second Hand at Amazon

This post was edited by veer on Tue, Jun 10, 14 at 16:47

Liz, are you able to pick up the BBC? If so listen in to As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. It is on in 15 min parts all this week.
See below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Radio 4 Laurie Lee

I recently finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I found it difficult to get into at first, mostly because I could not stand the main characters, Frank and April Wheeler. But at some point, the story clicked and found the story of their tragically unhappy marriage to be quite compelling.

It was published in 1961, and was considered quite scathing about the lives of suburbanites. How ironic that their lives seem so idyllic compared to now. The economy was booming, for example, and you did not have to be a millionaire to buy a house. It is amazing to think there was a time when a young couple, with children, could live quite comfortably on one income.

I'm reading Fatal Enquiry by Will Thomas. It's a detective series set in Victorian London. I love those books with covers that show a foggy London scene with lighted gas lamps. I once bought a paperback because it had that kind of cover, and the story was not very good.

I have just finished one of the most boring books I have had the misfortune to order from the library . . . and it came highly recommended in a w/end paper (no doubt from a relative of the author)
It is The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares by Margaret Spufford. MS is/was a Cambridge Don, and appears to have written-up and published a thesis on the people we would call 'pedlars' and what they sold. She has obviously trawled through local archives to find copies of Wills and Inventories of deceased pedlars in the late sixteen hundreds and the book is little more than lists of how many items were left in their houses and what they cost.
I have learnt that chapmen/pedlars supplied country people with small items such as needles, pins, some clothing . . . caps, gloves, 'sleeves', ribbons, handkerchiefs and lace.
She mentions a selection of linen and rougher/finer cloth carried and I would have liked some detail about them. So, eg's I had never heard of included sleasy diaper, inkle, lockram, scotch cloth, fleams, hockingfields, barras, osnabrucks, gulix, hammils, leltis, inderkins. I had heard of holland and dimities but would have appreciated some idea of what they were sewn into by the housewife. Apparently there is almost no information about the clothes worn by poorer people (the great majority of the population) or how much was 'home made' against 'tailor-made'.
The only rather blurred photo of clothing was that of a man who fell into a Shetland bog where the material was preserved!
This could have been an interesting book but was deadly dull. ;-(

Poor Vee....My Chapman mysteries are more lively. I have got caught up in them to the extent of chasing up the earlier ones and am having them sent from all over the world! There are some good descriptions of what a pedlar would carry in his pack, what was eaten, social customs and the living conditions of the various levels of society in the mid 15th Century.
I like the style, one doesn't feel the weight of research by the well informed author. I usually avoid the medieval sleuth novels and have only read, also watched, the Cadfael series. When I finish this set, I might try another.

Vee, that book sounds as if it could have been fascinating, with more detail added. I do know what "osnabruck" is, as it is a type of fabric I once had curtains made from. I was told it was worn by monastic orders in the Middle Ages.

I am engrossed in a wonderful memoir: "Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness" by Alexandra Fuller. This well-written book is a portrait of her parents' lives in Africa in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. It gives much detail re the Mau Mau uprising, the Boer War, the Dutch "trekkers" who settled the "veldt" and the Colonial Life in "equatorial light." I cannot wait to read Fuller's previous work "Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight."

Finally gave up on the Hurricane Katrina/hospital book as it was taking me AGES to read and that's usually a sign of me not really liking a book. So - down it goes.

Finished up a good read of short stories by Anthony Doerr (full review later), and then picked up Bleak House - Charles Dickens as my classic (which I have been neglecting of late.)

I saw the movie Belle the other day, a narrative based on the true story of an eighteenth century's family's struggle with slavery and a grand-daughter who is half-African and half-Caucasian. Sumptuous costumes, good acting and in England (lots of green and trees). There were quite a few actors who had also played in Downton Abbey and other UK films (like Cranford etc.) so a lovely way to spend the evening. Plus it was half-price night. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Belle movie (IMDb)

Another library book has bitten the dust.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman.
A few punters on the Amazon.uk raved about this but I didn't even bother to get through half of it.
Two 'stories' presumably linked ('though must have been in the final part which I never reached). Set in 1900's N Y City. An extremely nasty Russian-Jewish boy recently arrived in the US and a girl who is an 'exhibit' in an amusement place on Coney Island.
Is Ms Hoffman's held in such high esteem that her editor wont use the blue pencil on sloppy writing and a rambling non-plot?

Vee - I had a looksie at Ms. Hoffman's bio, and it seems that she has published approximately five million books most about magical realism stories, I think. Perhaps she is above the run-of-the-mill editor in terms of sales... Shame. Good writing is good writing, no matter where you are on the bestseller list.

Speaking of good writing, I'm really enjoying one of Mary Wesley's earlier book, "A Sensible Life", set around the life of one woman and how it overlaps with a set of friends as life progresses. It got off to a bit of a rough start (S-L-O-W), but now has picked up and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

NF-wise, I'm reading volume one of Robert Lacey's "Great Tales from English History" which goes back to include figures such as Alfred the Great (who was really a good guy and the only sovereign given a "Great" at the end of his name). I'm up to the Vikings right now - they are relentless in invading England at this point in time. Lacey is a good author and makes this history all very interesting to me so far in manageable chunks.

Finished Alexandra Fuller's "Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness" and liked it so much I began a re-read. Now I have in hand her "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" about her childhood in Africa. She writes so well! Looks like a night of great reading coming up!

I finished Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym. Very good, witty and cozy. That world of vicars, spinsters, dons and an old lady's companion felt a galaxy away. There were a couple of characters that were hard to believe. Like a wife that shoos away her don husband from his own home, when he wants to sit down and talk to her and their daughter. She suggests he goes to the Bodleian library, because "is so much better when he has something definite to do". This is her prevailing attitude. Maybe this was normal back then...

According to the introduction by B. Pym's biographer Hazel Holt, this novel is one of her "earliest completed novels, and in it she was still feeling her way as a writer". Since this is the first book I read by her, I can't compare, but will try to read her other novels I got at the book sale in chronological order, over time.

Possibly Pym knew someone like that. I would suggest that being the earliest novel, she would draw characters from life.
I recall that Mary Stewart wanted to withdraw her first book as she felt it was too autobiographical.

Finished Krakatoa, enjoyed it very much. Winchester was educated as a geologist before he became a journalist and clearly has a great deal of enthusiasm for the subject, combined with an ability to clearly explain quite complicated concepts to laypersons. He is one of my favourite non-fiction writers because he delves with such curiosity and interest into his subjects and then writes about them in a way that makes them come alive.

I also read The Red Badge of Courage, which I found to be an excellent psychological novel, and Margaret Craven's I Heard the Owl Call My Name, which is such a beautiful story. I can't recall another book I have read that handles the subject of death with such sensitivity and yet at the same time a complete lack of pathos.

I am now reading an English translation of Thor Heyerdal's Kon-Tiki. Funny enough, when I was about 2/3 through it, I found a copy of the Norwegian edition, which I bought because it has many more photographs, in addition to artwork that I think was done by one of the expedition members. However, I think I will finish reading it in English because if I switch to the Norwegian now I am sure to remember it as two separate stories.

I am reading "French Women Don't Get Facelifts" by Mireille Guiliano which was recommended on a TV program. I don't usually read "self improvement" books. Not that I think I am perfect already, of course!
It has good practical advice about aging and good grooming.
I really should throw out clothes that no longer fit!

I'm reading Booty Bones, newest in the Sarah Booth Delaney series by Carolyn Haines. This is another series I'm not sure why I'm still reading.

Oh, I know that feeling! One wants to know more about the characters lives though, even if they begin to grate or the plots get feeble.
I have dumped a couple of series when I found I wasn't that interested in the characters or I actually disliked someone.
One series had a husband I positively loathed! A real MCP, IMHO!

Reader in Transit, I'm another Barbara Pym fan. She's wonderful and you picked up two of my favorites, Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women. Quartet in Autumn is also outstanding, but much more melancholy than her other books. Enjoy!

Astrokath, I'm counting the days until The Book of Life arrives (July 15 in the US). I've already warned the family they're on their own for food and laundry while I binge-read all three books. I can't wait!

I'm still on a paranormal / steampunk / romance reading jag. I just finished two books by Kristen Callihan, Firelight and Moonglow, which were good. I've also been reading the several novellas that accompany Meljean Brook's Iron Seas series on my iPad. She is fabulous, and of all the books of this sort that I've been reading, I like hers the best.

Life has been a bit busy lately so not as much reading as I'd like. However, I did finish Mary Wesley's A Sensible Life which was mostly good. (Almost put it down after a slow beginning but then it picked up and got much better.)

It was a good read, except that it was one of those reads where there's not a lot to say afterwards. I quite like Wesley's books in general and this was on the TBR pile. It's not a keeper.

I just learned about Wesley's life. Her bio reflects that she was a bit crabby for a lot of her life, and there are times in her books when you can see this. One notable tidbit about her:

Late in life, Wesley ordered her own coffin from a local craftswoman and asked that it be finished in red lacquer. She kept it as a coffee table for some time in her sitting room and requested that a photographer from a large magazine feature take a picture of her sitting up in it. The idea was politely declined. :-)

I've just finished Vertigo 42, a new Richard Jury book by Martha Grimes. She hadn't had one of his for awhile, and I enjoyed it. The Little Piddlington gang is back in full fettle.

As I was invited to check out this forum, I should introduce myself.
I am mylab and though I do love to read, I no longer read nearly as much as I once did.
I have read several threads and you strike me as a delightful group. I must confess though that the group's reading material strikes me as far more sophisticated than what it is I tend to read when it is that I manage to sit with a book.
However, I so thoroughly enjoyed the friendly banter of conversation between you all that I might peek in from time to time, if you don't mind.

The last book I very recently completed was "The Secret History" which I believe will haunt me for quite awhile. It was one of the better books I have read.

Cheers to you all!

Welcome, Mylab. My choice of reading isn't at all sophisticated. I mostly read cosy mysteries and rarely post about my current book.
I do love a chat though and have been posting here for over ten years. It is like talking to friends.

Greetings mylab, and don't feel you have to read any particular kind of book to fit in here. All that we ask is that everyone is polite :)

I finished Diana Gabaldon's latest, Written in My Own Heart's Blood and was really pleased with it. Not only did she resolve the cliffhangers in the previous book, the story moved along much more quickly than the last couple of books, and involved all the characters I like the best.

Has anyone read The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert? I enjoyed the first two thirds, but then suddenly lost interest.

Mylab, welcome! I hope you stick around. IMHO, this forum is considerably more polite than others I'm familiar with.

Your comment on Donna Tartt's "Secret History" has made me want to dig out my copy and re-read it, and to find her latest novel.

I am re-reading Alexandra Fuller's 2 memoirs about her family in the setting of Rhodesia and Kenya before I must return both to the library. I really like this author's style.

Peek away, mylab, and feel free to join in. My favorite genre is murder mysteries without horror, so not very sophisticated at all.

I just ordered the new Diana Gabaldon book, Astrokath, and your comments make me want it to hurry up and arrive!

I am reading House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, a free download from Susan Hill's Top 40 list at the end of Howard's End is on the Landing. I got all of them that were free and so far have only read one other, Thackery's The Way We Live Now. Not my usual pursuits but interesting every so often. I thought they would be good for trips, which is about the only time I use my e-reader, and I went on a bus tour to the Lilac Festival on Mackinac Island with a friend last week. We talked so much I didn't get much reading done, but the lilacs were gorgeous.

Carolyn,

How wonderful to have gone to the Lilac Festival on Mackinac Island. Ever since I read an article about it in a Victoria magazine years ago, I have thought of going, but never have. Was it too crowded? Can you tell me a bit more?

Annpan,

You said above:
Possible Pym knew someone like that. I would suggest that being the earliest novel, she would draw characters from life.

I had not thought of that, but you are most likely right.

Carolyn, I have Howards End on the Landing somewhere but can't find it. I want to take a look at Hill's 'Final Forty' so I thought I would do an Internet search for it. No luck! Every site with reference to the list plays coy, trying not to spoil the ending, I suppose, for potential readers. The intention may be well meant, but I'm annoyed with the "you'll just have to read the book" close-to-the-chest attitude. I DID read the book, so what Hill wants to read 'for the rest of her days' is not some deep, dark secret that I shouldn't be privy to just because I no longer have the book at hand. Pffft!

Anyway, Carolyn, if you know of a place where the 'Final Forty' is listed, I would appreciate direction to it. I would ask you to copy & paste the list here, but I don't want to raise the ire of any readers who think it's a spoiler. :-)

I've just finished reading an Icelandic translation of The Nonexistent Knight by Italo Calvino. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly was not what I got. The book is a funny and somewhat Monty Pythonesque story of a knight who exists only as animated, empty armour, which doesn't stop him from walking, talking and fighting. You can read it as a simple entertaining fantasy story, or as a philosophical story about alienation and duty.

Here you are Frieda, I found it in part of 'Alex from Leeds' blog. I don't know who she is, but she too had been looking for the list of the '40 books' that Hill would be happy to re-read if nothing else was available.

1. The Bible
2. The Book of Common Prayer (1662)
3. Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
4. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
5. Macbeth, William Shakespeare
6. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Carson McCullers
7. A House for Mr Biswas, V. S. Naipaul
8. The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen
9. Middlemarch, George Eliot

10. The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope
11. The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire, Anthony Trollope
12. The Blue Flower, Penelope Fitzgerald
13. To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
14. A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
15. Washington Square, Henry James
16. Troylus and Criseyde, Geoffrey Chaucer
17. The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
18. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton
19. The RectorâÂÂs Daughter, F. M. Mayor
20. On The Black Hill, Bruce Chatwin
21. The Diary of Francis Kilvert
22. The Mating Season, P. G. Wodehouse
23. Galahad at Blandings, P. G. Wodehouse
24. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
25. The Bell, Iris Murdoch
26. The Complete Poems of W. H. Auden
27. The Rattlebag, edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
28. Learning to Dance, Michael Mayne
29. FlaubertâÂÂs Parrot, Julian Barnes
30. A Time To Keep Silence, Patrick Leigh Fermor
31. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
32. Family and Friends, Anita Brookner
33. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
34. The Journals of Sir Walter Scott
35. Halfway to Heaven, Robin Bruce Lockhart
36. The Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
37. Clayhanger, Arnold Bennett
38. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
39. Among Women, John McGahern
40. The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot

Happy reading!

Vee, thanks for posting the list. I have read 5 of the works Hill lists, out of the 40. I am a bit surprised at her list, as I admire her own books, but her reading taste is not my own. For example, I disliked Fitzgerald's "The Blue Flower.'' Many on her list I have never even heard of.

Thanks for posting the list, Vee, so I didn't have to type it all out! My only addition is that Ms. Hill specified the King James or the Revised Standard Versions of the Bible. I'm fond of the RSV myself. My mother gave me a copy back in the early 60s when it was still a bit controversial, as in the supposed quote, "If the King James Bible was good enough for St. Paul, it's good enough for me."

Reader intransit, the Lilac Festival does attract a lot of people, but cars are not allowed on the island so you don't get as bogged down as other places. There is just one main street along the lakefront and another parallel to it but not having as many shops. Just as information, the islanders call the tourists "fudgies" because there are so many fudge shops and all are well patronized. (My favorite was the penuche.)

I had been once before with family something like twenty years ago, and we did not stay overnight on the island. It's a five-mile ferry ride across Lake Huron on a fast ferry. The Festival is in June, and the lilacs there are not shrubs as they are here in Kentucky and, of course, bloom later. Theirs are trees that reach up to the second story windows of the houses. There are several different varieties, and they smell heavenly.

This time we did stay on the island overnight. This was a bus tour, and we had a buffet lunch at the Grand Hotel, where they charge $10 just to go onto the porch if you are not staying there. It's the world's longest porch at 660 feet and has lots of white rocking chairs on it. We stayed at the Bayside Inn, which is located just across the street from the ferry dock. It was very pleasant, and our room had a front view of the lake.

There are a ton of all kinds of bicycles to rent, and the thing to do, besides eating fudge, is to take a carriage ride in a horse-drawn open sort of wagon that has padded seats and holds eight or ten people. On my first trip, the weather was beautiful. This time the sun was shining, but the wind was blowing hard and we were pretty cold during the ride.

More than you wanted to know? If not, send me an email.

Danke, Vee, for ferreting out the list. It's seems pretty conventional for an Englishwoman to me -- nothing that requires the secretiveness that some readers seem to want to tantalize others with. I don't get it.

I like some of Hill's writing/books, but Howards End is on the Landing actually didn't make me think I would like Ms Hill very much in person. Of course every reader is entitled to her own favorites, taste and all that, but I think she rubbed me the wrong way with her dismissal of Australian and Canadian writers and what seemed to me to be her grudging admiration of some (just some) American writers. But I laughed over her assessment of Jane Austen and Janeites.

Carolyn, I'd choose The King James Version because I love the sheer poetry of the phrasing, although I understand the translators got plenty of things wrong. The Revised Standard is less perplexing, I think, and the language use is still quite poetical.

I'm trying to read too many books at once as copies I ordered from the library, as always, arrived at once and have to be read first.
The one I have finished is That Woman; the Life of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor by Anne Sebba. Not my usual reading material but it made a change. I don't suppose there is anyone in the UK or the USA older than 50(?) who isn't familiar with the story and I don't think Sebba had much extra to add but I learnt something about her early life, reliance on wealthy relatives, the ability to 'flirt' with men, the need for money and then more money. The unhappy marriage, the later marriage for security (and money). Joining the Prince of Wales' 'fast set' and then finding she was more or less captive to the needy, totally besotted Prince.
It seems she always believed the PofW would tire of her and she would go back to Ernest Simpson with her trunk-loads of jewellery, but she was unable to control the situation, political events went too quickly for her and she found herself in a constitutional minefield. Everyone knows how the couple spent the empty years from 1936, and especially after 1945. The round of parties, shopping, holidaying, complaining about the Royal Family, esp. as Wallis was never given the title HRH.
Possibly the best thing Wallis ever did for Great Britain and the Empire was to take Edward VIII from them as he would have been a most unsuitable king with little moral fibre and no sense of duty.
Is there any interest in Mrs Simpson in the USA these days?

Vee, a piece of trivia.
When I went to Australia in 1960, we went through the Suez Canal. Due to political problems that had arisen, for some reason we migrants had to stay on board our ship, so the Egyptian salesmen came in small craft to try to interest us in their wares.
They all called out "Hello, Mrs Simpson" to the women. No one could explain why.

Vee, I've long been fascinated with Wallis, in part because she was a southerner. I've read at least 3 biographies, as well. Some of the stories that went round are amazing to me, such as the sexual secrets she supposedly learnt during her sojourn in China. I've always been intrigued by the sympathies of this couple towards Hitler and the Nazis. I believe I read that Edward was posted to an island in the Caribbean to get him out of the arena of Europe because of his friendliness with same. Yes, I quite agree that Wallis did England a huge favor inadvertently by taking Edward far from the kingship.

Thanks, Carolyn, for the Lilac Festival information. I'll keep it mind if I ever go. The Grand Hotel charging $10 only to go onto the porch?! Though it sounds like one of a kind porch... I'm trying to visualize lilac trees instead of bushes.

I'm trying to decide which of three titles to concentrate on, and would appreciate comments and recommendations from people who have read any of these:
-Tigers in Red Weather by Ruth Padel (this is not the recent novel of the same title, but a travelogue about tigers and recovery from a breakup).
-Danube by Claudio Magris. Another travelogue, this one a philosophical one, tracing the course of the Danube from source to sea.
-John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk.

Netla -

Sorry - not familiar with any of your titles, but as I adore tigers (and stories about them), that's the one I'd pick. You may have a more scientific method though!

Netla, the Danube book sounds interesting . . . if it doesn't get bogged down in too much 'deep thought'. ;-)

I have just finished a light read Aprons and Silver Spoons by Mollie Moran.
MM, now aged almost 100, came from a poor family in Norfolk (East Anglia) and became a scullery maid at the age of 14 to a wealthy family with properties near her home and in Kensington, London. Despite the very long hours, hard work and strict discipline she describes how by watching the cook she learned many skills and by the very young age of 20 she became a cook herself serving an endless string of meals three times a day to the family and guests 'upstairs', to the nanny and small children in the nursery and to the indoor staff of butler, housemaids, kitchen maids, hall boy etc 'downstairs'. As she points out all this was done without the benefit of any 'modern' cooking aides. She only took the cook's job because the family had bought a 'fridge! Quite a luxury in the late '30's.

I picked up a copy of UNDER A FIG TREE at a local library sale.
It is a family memoir telling the story of the author's grandparents who were Sicilian immigrants.
What a beautifully written and interesting book.
It was one of those times when I felt that I needed to write to the author and tell her how much I enjoyed her work.

My mother's parents were Sicilian immigrants who came to the US in the late 1800's and so much that she recalls brought back sweet memories for me.

Here's her website if anyone is interested:

Here is a link that might be useful: Under A Fig Tree

It has been a long time since I've posted here but I have been reading. Sometimes I have so much to say there isn't time and sometimes I have nothing!

In the last week I finished three very enjoyable books and wanted to give them a mention.

The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker is about 650 pages long and I finished it in less than a week because I couldn't put it down. It is a thriller about a writer who develops writer's block after having written a very successful book. He visits his college professor, Harry Quebert, also a writer who had one very successful book. The story jumps around in time and would have been impossible in audio book format. This book has the most mixed reviews on Amazon that I have ever seen, about evenly mixed between those who loved it and those who hated it. I loved it.

The Big Tiny by Dee Williams is about a woman who discovers she has a heart problem in her early 40s and decides to simplify her life by leaving her home that she had done so much work on and building instead a tiny house that measures 84 square feet and is on wheels. She built the house herself and has lived in it for 10 years, I believe. While I could never live in a house nearly that small, it does make me think about having so much stuff (especially books) and why can't I live without a lot of this stuff. Fantastic book!

The third book is another wonderful thriller, Suspicion by Joseph Finder. I like all of his books and saved this one for a few weeks because there will be a long wait for another book by him. It has a few gruesome spots but I was able to skim through them without too much problem. This one makes you wonder who you can trust.