Liz, you might enjoy C'est La Folie by Michael Wright. He has had a Saturday column in the Telegraph for a few years describing his move to the Limousin area of France, doing up an old farm house, acquiring farm animals and trying to fit-in with the locals. In no way is he the smart-arse that Mayle became and he never takes the p*ss out of the locals, although they do, out off him . . . often! His solitary life now has the addition of a wife and dog from Baltimore and two little girls. The expanded articles have now been turned into the book. Here is a link that might be useful: Michael's Web Page

I don't dispute that it's a bit of a disappointing short-list. But the books aren't half as depressing as they sound - the guy who does these deliberately picks out the worst parts and parodies the whole book like that. Very skillful, but I sometimes wonder if he actually enjoys reading very much? The same guy wrote an article in the Guardian which he seemed to suggest that if a book doesn't sell, it isn't worth anything....I really do wonder about him. Fortunately, someone else wrote another article refuting him.

Yes. I'm not much of a cricket fan, but I keep an eye on the test matches. After England's magnificent first innings score of 67 (!), like everyone else, I'd assumed an Australia win. Yesterday lunchtime, we had to get about 200 with 6 wickets standing, and I allowed myself a little hope. Had to go out for a couple of hours, and when I returned England needed 73 with one wicket. Oh well, I thought. So I turned on the TV, expecting to watch for perhaps half an hour and see the last wicket fall - and watched in amazement as Stokes single-handedly got the score closer and closer to the target... Quite something. Like I said to a friend of mine, I think I watched a bit of history yesterday! One nice little irony - Test cricket is not on terrestrial TV over here, it's on Sky, which means you have to pay to get it. But the day before, I'd found a voucher which gave me a week's Sky Sports for a bargain price, which I bought so that I could watch Arsenal play Liverpool at Anfield. If I hadn't wanted to watch the football, I wouldn't have been able to watch the cricket. If only Arsenal had won as well....

I haven't shared in a bit as I've been reading a lot of "throw aways".. primarily from a few mystery series (Aaron Elkin's Gideon Oliver mystery series for one) they suited the state of my mind and my available time. Ive recently returned to novels such as Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman -it was ok, readable, not too heavy but not all that memorable - 3.5. The Searcher by Tana French I do enjoy Tana French and this was no exception. It is a departure from her Dublin Murder Squad series and I'd say it's one of my favorites. 4.2. I am currently reading What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt and am very much liking the writing and the process of building the relationships between the characters-- a strong friendship between two men and ultimately their families. I am not far enough along to hit the trials of the friendships which i know are to come (thanks Amazon and Good Reads), but much as i know the story path will get dark, i expect to continue to like her writing. The setting is in the 1970s art and literary world and i especially enjoyed the discussions on art-- the portrayal of women's bodies and the role of artist and observer. I am barely 1/3 in ... so we'll see how it progresses. Has anyone read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig? I am curious to see what others think of it-- I think that's on deck for me.