Rosewitch, England was definitely one of my favorite places I have ever visited. My folks took me there when I was 14, and I remember bits and pieces the Crown jewels, walking amongst the Stonehenge stones (roped off now, vandalism), Stratford upon Avon. Time for me to take my own 14YO. Im trying to think how I can get over there for a whole summer, LOL. Dlynn, I could have worked so much more. I didnt really look at night time stuff and there was loads to do. Greece: cant help you, but shoot Yasou a line, she went a few years ago. LOL Annie! Teresa, well go together. I wanted to explore more cooking and food shops/stores but didnt get to. Terri, here is more a link to Pictures of England, a website pointed out to me by Denise. I started it on Bourton on the Water, where we stayed for a few days. Thanks Sharon, I was actually thinking how can I even come close to posting her quality of travel guides, I dont do the pictures she does LOL. We might have sat at the same table in the Cheshire Cheeses dining room! Sawdust still there, but we didnt make it to the cellar. I missed a lot of the British Museum. It has changed.check out the new atrium. I couldnt keep up with DH and DS16. Afternoons, when I planned museums, I crashed. Next time! Pam, lots of people did more than we did per day! Theater every night, more attractions, I cant imagine. Gina heh heh yeah I need another vacation like a hole in my head. Speaking of whichDH has another week off in August. Nooooooooo! Kathleen, DH says he took an average of 200 pictures a day. Yup. Me, I just buy the post cards or Google the images, same thing (DARFC from the photo bugs here) Cathy, thanks for giving me the War and Peace moniker heh heh. Next time I go with CF friends! LindaC, I know. Im still exhausted. Speaking of the V&A, did you know there was a Dale Chihuly chandelier in the entrance room?

These are some of the titles that I have personally tried: * The Power of Habit: Why We do What we do in Life and Business - Charles Duhigg * Anything by Malcolm Gladwell is fun to read (sociology type stuff) * Sin in the Second City (history of brothel in Chicago) - Karen Abbott * Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - Steve Almond (just ok) * Woman: An Intimate Geography - Natalie Angier * Necropolis: London and its Dead - Catharine Arnold * The Great Influenza - John M. Barry (history of 1918 flu pandemic) * The City of Falling Angels - John Berendt * A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail - Bill Bryson (HILARIOUS!) * At Home - Bill Bryson * The Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way - Bill Bryson - just ok * Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America - Barbara Ehrenreich (controversial and interesting) * The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl - Timothy Egan (fascinating and of regional interest). Fabbo. Anything by Egan will be good, I think. * The Wal-Mart Effect - Charles Fishman (examination of how Wal-mart has changed things) * Watching the English - sociology of UK - Kate Fox (interesting) * Color: A History of the Palette - Victoria Finlay - just purchased this one⦠* Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things - Randy O. Frost * The Dead Beat: History of obit writing - Marilyn Johnson * The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson (Victorian cholera epidemic and public health) * The Great Mortality (history of Black Death) - John Kelley * The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson * Thunderstruck - Erik Larson (he also has a new release out about US diplomat in HitlerâÂÂs Berlin) * IsaacâÂÂs Storm: deadly hurricane down south Texas - Erik Larson * The ChildrenâÂÂs Blizzard - David Laskin * Women of the Raj - Margaret MacMillan (specialist but interesting if you like British history in India - otherwise probably not!) * No Idle Hands: A Social History of American Knitting - Anne McDonald. (I donâÂÂt knit, but surprisingly this was one of the best books I have read this year. Very entertaining and interesting.) * The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel (good and intellectually challenging) * The Emperor of Maladies (history of cancer) - Siddartha Mukherjee - high up the TBR pile * The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean (good) * Rabbit-Proof Fence - Doris Pilkington (Australian classic about Aboriginal tribes - very moving) * Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine - Roy Porter * Stiff - Mary Roach * Bonk - Mary Roach * Spook: Science Tackles the After life - Mary Roach * Packing for Mars - Mary Roach * Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal - Eric Schlosser * And the Band Played On - Randy Shilts (upfront history of AIDS epidemic) - there is a new documentary about...

Lauramarie, ahhh yes, the Ligurian coast. I enjoyed Extra Virgin but for some reason never reread it. Another one for the reread pile! I've liked several of Paul Gallico's books, though I don't think I ever read the one you mention. Annie Hawes' book reminds me of a category I left out in my list above: Travel memoirs and the related I-Bought-a-House-in-a-Foreign-Country books a la Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. I read a whole bunch of those several times, until I think I must have burnt-out on them. I never bought a house outside the USA, but I've rented a few delightful ones and many dumps. And, oh! the landlords. Lydia, I suspect that's right: the magazines had to cut out the lit so they could make room for more beauty tips, advice columns, fashion spreads, interior decorating displays, and other pretty pictures. Give the reader what she wants... Actually I don't know if all the magazines did that, since I haven't bought those sorts of general magazines in several decades. I think the UK publications held out longer than US ones -- some of them may still print stories and poems...I don't know. I was introduced by the magazines to a lot of writers who later became well known. I recall a Judith Viorst story from the early 1970s called "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" and the Redbook novel for August 1973 was Richard Bradford's So Far from Heaven (a condensation, of course). I liked the Bradford one so much that I sought out the complete version and have reread it several times. Sylvia Plath got her start in magazines, too, although that was a little before my time. I've never heard of the Everywoman's magazine your grandmother collected, but I know that those 'little' magazines could contain gems. Yes, I suppose they were tame, but watch out! The characters may not be hopping in and out of bed with each other, etc., but they might smoke cigarettes! :-b Lydia, the dustjacket on my copy of Before the Sun Goes Down says it won the $20,000 Doubleday Prize and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer $125,000 Annual Novel Award for 1945. Evidently, it was quite popular in the 1940s and '50s because even small-town libraries usually had a copy. I didn't read it until the early 1960s, although I had heard my mother and grandmother often refer to it. I suppose it became one of those family favorites that all the readers know what the other readers are talking about when they quote from it at apropos times. It's rather old-fashioned in the storytelling style, so I'm not surprised that modern readers might not like it -- it's too straightforward. Oh, and what it's about: The setting is a small town in Pennsylvania, the year is 1880. The main character is the town's doctor. The story is his interaction with the townspeople, most of them having been his patients, and he attended the births of nearly all the children in the previous twenty years. It's an evocation of another time, of course, but there's change in the...

In the last few days, I finished the third book in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I thought the books were very well written and imaginative, and I loved every moment. Yesterday I read a book I read about somewhere here on RP. I'm thinking that perhaps it was Cindy who recommended Mary Modern by Camille DeAngelis, so when I saw it sitting on the new acquisitions shelf at the library, I grabbed it. The book definitely depends on the reader's willingness to suspend disbelief, but what a wonderful reward it was. I very much enjoyed it. If it was you that recommended it, Cindy, I thank you. Today I finished a book that I even hesitate to mention since it is not at all my usual reading fare and I only have it in my possession because it was on the library sale table for a quarter. After the stress of the holidays, though, I must have needed something light and fun and have to admit that I actually became totally engrossed in Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, which is about a young woman granted a reprieve from execution if she agrees to become a food taster for the Commander (in a very fictional medieval-fantasy-era setting) to make certain that he is not assassinated by poisoning. Evil plots abound and magic flows, and I have read compulsively only to find that there's a sequel. Sigh. Sometimes it's nice to overdose on sweets, so I suppose I don't feel too terribly guilty about indulging in something that's pure entertainment.