Rosefolly got me on a Mary Stewart kick. First I read "This Rough Magic" and yesterday I finished "Thornyhold." Both fun reads, and I don't recall having read them before. Thanks Paula!

The library is holding the second Kage Baker "Company" book for me. So that's next on the list. I'm having a fun reading phase at the moment.

Within the next 15 minutes, the directions to assemble the new dining table for the deck. pray for me. pray first that they are in English, not pictolang.
Then just pray I don't hurt myself!

Otherwise, I am reading The More Deceived, the fifth in the series by David Roberts set in the 1930s-the run-up to WW II, including the Spanish Civil War, Mosely and the Fascists in England, and the reisitance to Churchill's call to England to re-arm to deter the Nazi war machine.

Also pending-The Queen Mother by William Shawcross. Looking forward to that but will need to read it propped on a pillow in my lap-it is a brick.

Bookmom, isn't it you who likes James Lee Burke a lot? My newspaper this morning printed an interview with him re the oil spill damage to the LA shore and said that he has a new book coming out in July. I can hardly wait.

I am ordering The Devil Amongst the Lawyers, new from Sharyn McCrumb. It is a part of her Appalachian books and has Nora Steele in it, but it didn't get a good review. My favorite of hers is If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O.

I have just begun A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss. It is the second book he wrote featuring Benjamin Weaver, a "thief taker" in 1600s London. I haven't read the first one--have only read The Coffee Trader by him. This one begins well.

Finished The Postmistress by Sarah Blake this morning. Very good, a different twist on WWII fiction. I often enjoy books set in Cape Cod as it is one of my favorite places. I must say, moving to Maine has been good for my reading, I go through books at the speed of light. Probably because I left the television in Massachusetts!

On to One Day by David Nicholls which promises to be very, very good. Then I will be ready for more nonfiction in the form of Bill Bryson.

CC -

You mentioned William Shawcross's book on the Queen Mum. Well, for some unknown reason, he visited our city for a book tour, and I got to speak with him. Very very ENGLISH upper class (as to be expected), but with a nice wry sense of humor. All the people in the room fell in love with him, I think, not because he's that good looking, but because he's English, and cultured and knows royalty..

I have seen the book, but don't know if I am interested in the Queen Mother for that many pages... :-)

lemonhead, cece, the general consensus on the Queen Mother book over here, was that Shawcross has been more than a little obsequious in his writings. Did he tell you the story of her page (not the paper ones in the book) know far and wide as Back-Stairs Billy? ;-)

Also Liz, regarding your interest in China have you read Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling? I heard it as a 'reading' on the BBC. What a tough, thankless life her parents lived as missionaries.
A country we should surely all be studying, as by the next century I'm sure they will have taken over the world . . .think of the enormous influence they already have in Africa.

As my life seems somewhat chaotic at present, I searched my bookcases for something soothing to read. I came up with an oldie, Gladys Taber's "House at Stillmeadow." I found it interesting how in the 1940's they came to leave New York City, and purchase a problematic farmhouse with barn in the country dating from the 1600's, and fixed it up. Lots of detail about gardening and canning vegetables and raising cocker spaniels. It seems rather quaint in these post-modern times....Of course, nowadays, such a home would cost an arm and a leg.

I gave a long list of requests to my library and they have all arrived at once. All these wonderful writers wanting me to read their stories! Who to choose first? None of them, yet, because the new Janet Evanovich will be in the shops soon and she will take precedence! Mainly because DD will want my copy asap.

Reading The Known World by Edward P. Jones for the book club (it won the Pulitzer Prize a few years ago). Enjoying it so far. The author jumps ahead of himself and tells you how this or that character will end years from that moment, but somehow it doesn't spoil the story. There are many characters, all of them intertwined, and they all carry the story, not just one or two characters.

Those flashforwards Jones uses to such good effect in The Known World are offically called prolepses. I remember being so impressed with how he handles them. Muriel Spark writes a killer prolepsis as well.

I'm about a hundred pages into Wallace Stegner's The Big Rock Candy Mountain. I'm generally a fan (all by myself) of second person in fiction, but it seems out of place when he uses it here.

I just finished "Tender Graces" by Kathryn Magendie. I think it was free as a kindle book, so that's why I tried it. I thought it was very well written.

I was reading a mystery novel: "California Girl" by T. Jefferson Parker. It is about the four Becker brothers and their involvement with the Vonn family through the years, one of the daughters of which is found murdered. It is also one of those mystery novels where the murder is just part of the story - at least I think so. Unfortunately it failed to keep my attention and I had to put it down. Too much side story. Parker's other novels sound interesting so I will try something else by him.

I am now reading "Alice I Have Been" by Melanie Benjamin. It's a fictionalized account of the real Alice in Wonderland and her relationship with Lewis Carroll. I had seen a movie years ago - about 1989 to be exact - which was very similar. Alice is in her 80s and has just come back from a trip to the U.S. where she was feted, given an honorary degree for her role in one of the most famous novels of all time; returning home she reflects on her childhood. Well-written and obviously well-researched; I lose myself in the time period (circa 1860s) every time I pick up the book. It is a little disturbing though, reading about a very young girl being the muse of a much older man. I don't think I realized how strange the relationship was.

Being a hopeless royalist romantic I know about Backstairs Billy. (I really am hopeless-why else would I spend hours watching videos of the Crown Princess of Sweden's wedding-narrated in Swedish? OT-Daniel's speech to the Bride was the best ever in the history of weddings. A kind viewer on YouTube provided a translation for the Swedish bits)
I did also read that the bio was a bit too fawning, but that is all right-I have read several others of Elizabeth, Queen Mary, George V and George VI, and of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Churchill. She of course features large in all of their lives, and their biographers all add their impressions.

Thank you, PagesTurned, for that literary pearl of wisdom. I didn't know that. He certainly uses them very effectively.

I am reading two books at the moment.

The first is Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, which is interesting but requires me to have the dictionary at hand because of all the scientific jargon he uses. Once I finish that I plan to read Saddled with Darwin by Toby Green, who followed Darwin's journey from Rio to the Galapagos islands.

The other book is Ways of Dying by South-African author Zakes Mda. The story is interesting and well told, the writing is beautiful and I am already planning to find more of his books.

I had planned to start reading Ulysses on Bloomsday, but I was busy planning a short holiday and forgot.

Stayed up into the wee hours with One Day by David Nicholls. Magnificent novel, this will stay with me for a long time to come. The short description is that it tells the story of a couple's 20-year relationship by describing one day (July 15) each year, but it is much more than that, capturing popular culture since the late 1980's. Complicated, unexpected, maddening, beautiful - another RP recommendation I would not have found on my own. Must have been Martin who mentioned this one, thank you.

Now on to Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue - English & How It Got That Way, which I have been browsing for awhile. Just the thing right now, a dose of very amusing nonfiction.

The Help.
I resisted reading this for a long time, as so many "non-readers" were reading it...seemed like it was just a fad type thing. But then my daughter and daughter-in-law told me I had to read it, as well as several people here. I am loving it. I was in my mid-teens at that time, so remember the historical events referred to in the book. The mental and social lines between black and white were stronger than the legal.
I read for an hour this morning, before breakfast, before coffee and before the computer! I am hooked.

veronicae, so glad to hear you share my opinion of "The Help". We had a lively discussion a few months back on the novel,which you might want to find, on a thread by its name.

I tried to get into the Bill Bryson book "Mother Tongue", but found it difficult to finish, so I returned it, unread. This is an author whose work I ususally like.

Siobhan - glad you are enjoying "One Day"... David Nicholls has three books out right now, I believe, and there is a movie of one of them (Starter for Ten also called Question of Attraction). I really enjoy his books and recommend them to anyone who was a teen during the eighties... :-)

Finished up "Rivertown" about semi-urban China, and now starting "Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. We saw Roach in an author appearance at the univ here and she has this wonderfully wicked sense of humor about everything so now I am interested in reading what she has written. Even my non-reading Dh read this book from one end to the other in less than a month, and in more than twenty years of marriage, I have never seen this happen. It might be something to do with the fact he deals with dead bodies as his profession (detective), but also points to the fact that if DH can read this book, then anyone can read this book and find it interesting...

Still reading "East Lynne" on the computer, but really really want the ILL to come in with it so I can read it in book format...

I was very, very impressed with the writing skills that Nicholls displayed in One Day. I initially shied away from it because the premise sounded a bit cutesy and difficult to pull off. But the book is neither of those things, really amazing. I will look for his other work, but I feel like something different right now. Too much 80's-90's angst could be deadly.

In addition to the Bryson, I also have Ella in Europe - An American Dog's International Adventures by Michael Konik. A bit of fluff for summer, and I am a complete pushover for dog books. I must say however, I have noticed some pretty execrable dog/animal books out there. It seems publishers have noticed the trend for these types of memoirs and publish just about any junk. This one is from the library, no worries.

Off to work this evening, wish me a pleasant night shift at the hospital -

Have a pleasant night shift Siobhan. Here it is a beautiful clear night with a full moon . . and to think it is shining on ALL of you.

Finished the newest Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life and liked it very much despite somehow wanting more from it. If you like Bryson, you'll like this one.

I'm now reading The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. This book fits right in with Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes and Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything in both content and readability. Banks and Herschel are the primary scientists profiled thus far (I'm half way through). My DH is a bit of an amateur astronomer and we have telescopes, so I'm finding this quite interesting.

Lemonhead, I really enjoy Mary Roach's books. If you like Stiff, try Bonk (on sex) and Spooked (on science and the afterlife). I enjoyed them both. She has a new book coming out in August entitled Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void which looks quite intriguing as well.

I had read a glowing review somewhere for One Day by David Nicholls and was mildly interested, but after reading all the reviews here I've moved it to the top of my library list. Unless, like Annpan, the new Stephanie Plum arrives first!

What a lovely thought, Veer. It's not quite dark here yet, despite the late hour (LOVE this time of year!) I wish you a pleasant night shift too, Siobhan.

Hard to believe it's close to the end of the month. As usual, lots of books above have been added to my "Sounds good" list - I wish I could speed-read!

Forgot to mention I am also reading "The Death of a President - November 1963" by William Manchester. VERY detailed, which I welcome and I like the fact it was published in 1967 so it has the "flavor" of the time, if that makes sense.

Finished The Known World by Edward P. Jones. In an interview he said he wrote this book in 3 months, but had been writing it in his head for 10 years... Quite a feat. It is very well written, engaging and tragic (the subject is slavery). Like a Dickens novel, it has many characters. I liked reading it, but will never reread it.

So happy to have discovered this forum. Needed some new authors and have several from this thread alone. Thank you.

Finished my 4rd Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mystery today and enjoyed it immensely.

A Rule Against Murder - Louise Penny

I finished The Help. It was a good story, well written. I have to thank my daughter for recommending it and providing it.

iris, welcome! We're a friendly bunch, here and sometimes have threads discussing particular books. Feel free to start one and to post your favorites.

Sheriz, I managed to get a freshly unpacked Plum so have bought half of an unclaimed birthday cake and am hurrying to Trenton. See you there? :-)

Thank you Woodnymph.

Another mystery I read last week was Little Indiscretions by Carmen Posadas. Rather a sharp tongue in cheek. May try one more of her books?

Iris, if you are a mystery lover, as you seem to be, I will soon be your BFF. They are my favorites, and please do join right in. Welcome!

I'm reading the second Peter Helton book, Slim Chance. The main character is an artist and part-time private eye; the setting is present-day Bath, England. They are written in a lighthearted vein but have quite a bit of violence. It seems a contradiction in tone to me.

Welcome Iris, be sure to clear off a whole bookshelf for all the books you will want to read after hanging around here for awhile.

Halfway through Bill Bryson's book about English and also starting Ella in Europe by Michael Konik. Mr. Konick took his Lab/greyhound mix an a European vacation as a thank you for her years of work as a therapy dog in nursing homes and runaway shelters. They had quite an adventure, as you might imagine. Not great literature but amusing and very readable.

Iris, welcome.
We are many mystery lovers here-I will try to find a thread from the past in which we all listed and touted our favorites. You might find some new favorites. I too enjoy Louise Penny's books-and her blog, which is great fun.

I put off starting the biography of the Queen Mother because I came across Born to Rule by Julia Gelardi. A five-fingered bio of the grandaughters of Queen Victoria who ended up as Queen Consorts.
Alix (Russia)
Marie (Romania)
Sophie (Greece)
Maud (Norway) and
Ena (Spain).

I am enjoying it very much-Gelardi weaves the five cousins' stories together very well. My only complaint is the simplified family tree in the front-I own the book, so read with a pen beside me, fleshing the tree out as I go. I'm pretty good with the English branches, but need more help with some of the other Royal families and the tree helps.

I just tried to read the newest Gail Godwin novel: "Unfinished Desires." It is set in a Catholic girls' school in the south in 1951. I found the style and character descriptions so convoluted that I could not get into it. This is an author whose earlier work I used to like.

I did finish Gladys Taber's "Stillmeadow" book. Any other Taber fans out there? I love her descriptions of the New England country landscape....

Yes, I like Taber. I have her Stillmeadow cookbook and have used it some, but the amounts of butter and cream in the recipes are astounding.

Carolyn, I agree, and Taber herself was overweight. Some of her recipes are in my "Stillmeadow" book, and she also used salt liberally. Plus the family seemed to eat a lot of egg dishes daily. I wonder if her descendants managed to save "Stillmeadow" and its land. A few years back, it was threatened by developers....

As for butter and cream, if you look at the older, original Julia Child recipes, they are extremely lavish and rich, as well.

Reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (think hard before starting it , it is a 916 pages book )
An Australian escaped convict arrives in Bombay looking to start a new life and disappear. This is an epic adventure story of his life covering a 10 year period in which he lives in an Indian rural community, then a Bombay slum becoming their resident 'doctor', a stint in Bollywood films, fighting in Afghanistan and a hellish time in an Idina prison. There is also a love theme running through the book.
I am one third and I finding it truly enjoyable
grelobe

grelobe -- I tried to read Shantarum a few years ago, but found it a little too graphic for my taste. The premise sounded intriguing, though. Hope you enjoy the last two-thirds.

I finished Kage Baker's Sky Coyote, which I didn't like as well as her first book in The Company series. I'm now reading Alice Hoffman's latest(?) The Story Sisters, which I'm finding pretty depressing. I think after this I'll return to Heyer's world. I bought The Nonesuch at The Almost Perfect Bookstore, our wonderful local used book store.

Finished up the fascinating "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach, a funny funny author. She finds out what happens to "willed" bodies, how cadavers play a role in bullet and car experiments and how plastic surgeons hone their talents. A very fun and interesting read about a not-much-talked about subject. Bought one of her others (Bonk) at the airport the other day so will read that soon. (Want to spread them out a bit.)

Still reading on computer "East Lynn" - slow progress as I can only read it at work really so I have to sneak it in here and there.

And then quite enjoying the fluffy read, "One Fifth Avenue" by Candace Bushnell about the shenanigans (sp?) of these ultra-rich people living in this posh apartment place... A nice change from Victorian England and dead bodies. :-)

I do love a good internet search and discovered that Stillmeadow was indeed saved by the purchase of a neighboring farm by a small group dedicated to keeping her works available. There is even a refreshingly retro newsletter than one can subscribe to by sending an actual check to a real person and receive an envelope in the mail full of stories and recipes. (I'm not being sarcastic, I think this is great and I am considering subscribing myself.)

Still reading Bryson's take on the English language - almost done!

I finished Jed Rubenfeld's next offering The Death Instinct, and enjoyed it very much. I think 'rollicking' describes the pace of the book. It has the same characters as The Interpretation of Murder (Younger, Freud and Littlemore) and starts with the bombing of Wall Street in September - 1920!!! I had never heard of this. There is a two layered story - one part the follow-up of the bombing, the other a mystery involving radium, plus a back story set in WWI. I was very happy that the author included an afterword saying what was true (a surprisingly large amount!) and what he had made up.
My next book is Sara Gruen's forthcoming book Ape House. My boss, who enjoyed Water for Elephants very much, says this is a stunner, so I will let you know.

Yesterday, I started reading another book, along with the other ones I am already reading, and couldn't put it down. I will be finished by the end of today: "The Cellist of Sarajevo" by Steven Galloway. Have had numerous "WOW!" moments with the writing. A former concert cellist decides to play the same adagio daily for 22 days in the middle of a site where 22 of his fellow citizens were killed by mortar attack; unknown to him a young female counter-sniper is sworn to protect him from enemy snipers so he can complete his 'work'. Just amazing. Reminds me how lucky I am to live where I do.

Deep into the five Queen Consorts (ratty lives, most of them) and also East Lynne on the iKindle. It is getting rather fraught with emotion-but where Anne Hereford reminded me of Turn of the Screw, this one reminds me of Days of Our Lives. Too many "if only I had spoken" moments.

cece, have you read Elizabeth RI by Elizabeth Longford? (matriarch of the slightly unusual family of writers including Antonia Fraser). It has got an amazingly detailed pull-out family tree containing names of endless minor German princelings and princesses ALL with the name 'Victoria'. I checked it at Amazon and notice someone has complained that the photos are b&w. ;-(
What is a 'ratty life'? We don't use that expression over here.

Ratty means shabby and worn out, even miserable.

My last book was Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge about Hungarian Jews trying to survive during WWII. The first half of the story actually takes place before the war, in Paris, where the main character is studying architecture. The second half of the book follows him and his extended family in Hungary as their situation becomes increasingly more desperate. I couldn't put it down during the second part. Would recommend to anyone interested in WWII/Holocaust literature.

As usual I have too many books on the go. Major Pettigrew is still upstairs, Mark Twain is sitting on the piano (needs a good light and a following wind as the print is v small) and have picked up from the library The Life of Pi about 10 years after everyone else read it. Not far into it, but am certainly enjoying Martel's very 'individual' style.
Do other RP'ers remember enjoying it?

Vee - I remember when I read Life of Pi and thoroughly enjoyed it, although I do remember that you have to be in the right kind of mood... :-)

After searching my stacks of TBR for a new NF to read, came across "We are at War: The Diaries of Five Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times" by Simon Garfield. More along the lines of "Nella Last's War" in that this book follows the diary excerpts from five ordinary people during the beginning of WWII. And they weren't kidding when they describe the people as "ordinary" - it is teetering on "rather boring in places" which, I suppose, is to be expected when you consider the "ordinary" people who play a starring role. Not as entertaining as the Nella diaries, I will give this a few more chapters and then see if things improve.

This book is more about the Mass Observation Project during WWII...

Vee -- I've read "Pi" twice and loved it both times. It's probably one of the most unique books I've ever read.

Let us know what you think once you've finished it. We had some good discussion about it here -- don't know if that thread still exists or not.

I was reading Alice Hoffman's "The Story Sisters," but it's just too grim for me right now. So I've moved on to another old favorite - Mary Stewart's "Wildfire at Midnight."

lemonhead:

Re your Cadaver book -- sounds riveting. Reminded me of a second-hand book I bought a few years ago on similar topic: written by an Englishwoman who'd been the secretary to the chief medical examiner for Scotland Yard (I think, or the London police dept.). She had to accompany him when he went to the crime scene. The book was written years after she'd quit (to marry). She describes the scenes so well (decor, atmosphere, building); you feel like you've seen it yourself. But what really makes it so alive is that she tells you the corpses "story": how they lived; what they did for a living (in some cases barely living at all); how they came to be killed or commit suicide. It was so well-written! A lot of non-fiction books I've read (by professionals) hasn't been nearly as fascinating to me as that secretary's book. I will look up the book you recommended.

Hi,im new to this site, i would really appreciate it if somebody could recommend some good books. I enjoy a good thriller(not dan brown,like reading the script for a b movie!). I also enjoyed 'The kite runner',purple hibiscus. half a yellow sun, incendary by clive cleave. Any other book sujestions along these lines would b welcome.Dont like anything 2 heavy or romantic.

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