I'm trying to get into THE PAYING GUESTS .

Post WW1 England, a young woman and her mother decide to rent out rooms in their home to a young couple in order to afford their expenses.
The advent of this couple changes their lives in many ways...to say the least.

I've also just started reading The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters because I found it at the library yesterday. Since it has a three-week limit it has to take precedence over another book I just started, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides. Ever since reading The Terror, fiction by Dan Simmons, I've loved all the nonfiction polar exploration books I've read and this one will not be an exception.

I've been unable to settle into a half dozen novels, so I put them aside; maybe later. So I fell back on my usual nonfiction that is so much easier for me to concentrate on.

I finished The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey. (Vee, was it you who mentioned this?) Bailey is a historian/archivist/researcher whose primary interest seems to be eccentric aristocrats. Why are aristos always called 'eccentric' when they are actually nuttier than fruitcakes? The focus of this book is the Manners family, hereditary Dukes of Rutland, and particularly the 9th Duke who died in 1940 while in the midst of cataloguing all the correspondence and the depressing accumulation of treasure and junk of his family for several hundred years in a 256-room castle, named Belvoir but apparently pronounced 'beaver'.

I thought this book started out most interesting -- I can't resist a mystery -- but although I understand how Bailey got caught up in trying to piece together what were three 'blank spots' in the 9th Duke's life, the conclusion was a letdown for me. The duke was trying to excise all mention of these episodes in his life, but of course he was unsuccessful -- the Manners family were (still are?) packrats and at one time were prolific correspondents.

The 8th Duchess of Rutland is the key in this family's late 19th- and early 20th-century dysfunction. She was the not-so-dear mother and interfering mother-in-law that aristocrats seem particularly prevalent of engendering. Among UC women the attitude seems to have been: conceive, gestate, give birth, turn the child over to someone else to raise, and then in late adolescence of the child reassert parental presence and manipulate as much as possible.

Anyway, the parenting habits of English aristos got me thinking about the peculiarities of English childhood itself. I went off on one of my tangents, reading and rereading books that mention how children have been treated, and most of that history is not pretty. The 'cult of the child' and childhood as we think of it didn't fully form until the Victorian Age or mid-19th century in Europe -- and particularly in England -- and somewhat later in North America (according to Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood by Steven Mintz. Barbara Tuchman describes in A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century the general attitude toward children that had probably been around for thousands of years and would remain the standard for another five hundred years.

I'm starting du Maurier's Rebecca for book club. I'm still making my way through A Burnable Book .

Merryworld - are you re-reading Rebecca or reading it for the first time? If the latter - then I envy you. I'd love to be able to read that book for the first time again (if you see what I mean!).

Just about to start Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.

The first time I read Rebecca, I couldn't get it out of my mind and realized I couldn't remember the second wife's name. I sat down and reread the whole book looking for it.

I finished the Tessa Harris book and began the new Rennie Airth. I was so excited to see that he had written another book; they are too few and far between. It has started off with a literal bang.

Martin, I've seen the Alfred Hitchcock film many times, but have never read the book.

Wasn't there a sequel written later on by someone other than DuMaurier with the title of the first wife's name? Rebecca is one of those books that stays with you forever, I think.

What is the title of the new Rennie Airth book? I really like his work, too.

Hi all! After a period of being uncharacteristically quiet, I'm back on-line. Work and life got a bit busy there for a few weeks.

I've been reading, the most recent of which was a quick re-read of "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" by Lynn Truss (except that she doesn't put that second comma in there). A pretty fun read from a fellow grammarian so long as it's all kept in perspective. :-) (Can't you say that about a lot of things nowadays?)

One of the notable NF reads that I've just finished was the latest one by Atul Gawande called "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End." It's about how the majority of Americans (and perhaps others as well) seem to prepare for death (w legal wills etc.), but few seem to prepare for the period of life prior to death when we may need assisted living etc. Gawande is a great writer and a surgeon as well and covers this rather serious subject in a variety of ways. A good read.

And then I have a small picture book of dish design over the last few centuries. (Weird, but could be rather interesting, design-speaking.)

Mary, I have a book called Rebecca's Tale by Sally Beauman that tells the story from Rebecca's point of view. I found it very interesting. And then there is Mrs. deWinter by Susan Hill in which Mrs. deW is just as aggravating as she was in Rebecca.

The new Airth book is The Reckoning. I'm about 100 pages into it now and liking it a lot. John Madden is still farming but is drawn into the present case.

For my recent birthday my DH Tom gave me a good selection from my wish list books. A gift card from our youngest daughter almost wiped the list out. Packages have been arriving from various sources, mostly used book dealers. I now have not only books I have been wanting, but also most of our book club's reading list for the next year. My favorites I will keep. The rest will be donated to the local library's Friends book sale.

I started off by reading Tryst by Elswyth Thane, a lovely 1930's ghost story that has held up surprisingly well. To me her historical novels have not stood the test of time nearly as well. I find them distinctly uncomfortable to read and have given them up. However, this one is still a pleasure.

On to the next! It will probably be the book different fibers for knitting. I'm not a very skilled or experienced knitter, but I do enjoy reading about the various wools.

Rosefolly

Carolyn, I would agree with you that the second Mrs de Winter is the most annoying/spineless/wimpy character that ever graced the pages of a book. I wonder how long it took Max de Winter before he realised he would have been better off with the first wife? At least she had 'go'.
I think du Maurier's slightly similar work (in the psychological sense) My Cousin Rachel stands up equally well and leaves the reader pondering after the book is finished.

Frieda I haven't read The Secret Rooms but would totally agree that many of the English aristocracy are (or used to be) quite batty. We mostly put it down to centuries of in-breeding. The limited gene-pool of these 'blue-bloods', their restricted childhoods . .. brought up by nannies, then boys sent to often tough and cruel boarding schools, girls kept at home with almost no education, followed by boys inheriting too much money and going wild. Sisters of these boys marrying similar young men; the circle repeated itself.
Of course there were many exceptions . . .brave soldiers, great statesmen, noble philanthropists etc and these days most of them have had to join the twenty first century just to keep their estates afloat. The recently deceased Duchess of Devonshire, Debbo Mitford would be a case in point. Lots of books out there by and about her and her unusual family.

I think the sort of upper class English life mentioned above is perfectly presented in Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited." The values of the aristocracy seem so shallow, a bit reminiscent of the American nouveau riche as depicted in Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." In that time period, I have the impression the American elitists were trying to copy their English cousins, e.g. even the children often raised by nannies, then sent off to boarding schools, usually in New England, onward to the Ivy League, thereafter.

Yesterday a friend loaned me "Black Swan" by N. Taleb. It is supposed to be a philosophical work that broke new ground. In trying to read it, I am quite daunted by the style and the great number of footnotes on almost every page. I have the impression I am not going to get through this long work for several reasons, not the least of which is that it seems to be written for a younger set, not those of us who have already made our mistakes in life and now can do nothing but move on.

Has anyone here actually read this one?

Rosefolly,

I have read Tryst a number of times and still like it as much as I did the first time I read it. Were you referring to the Williamsburg novels when you said they didn't stand up as well to the test of time, or her other novels? Just curious.

I've had a bit of a reader's block (for lack of a better description) lately. I've been starting books and putting them down again and I've just been unable to focus. Yesterday, however, the newest Iron Seas book, The Kraken King by Meljean Brook arrived and I read the whole thing in practically one sitting and finished it this morning. It's a steampunk romance, and I love the world she's built for it. It was originally published as a serial novel for the kindle, but I'm very happy I waited for the whole thing to come out in print. It was a great escape book, completely enjoyable and I didn't want it to end.

Rouan, yes, I did mean the Williamsburg novels. I know many readers including you and Carolyn love them dearly, but I do not. I have tried to, but they just don't work for me. I like the idea of them, but not the books themselves.

Rosefolly

Vee, as you say, there have been aristocrats that were/are noble in both senses of the word, but I suppose they are just like any other group of people with only about ten percent really distinguishing themselves and about ten percent that are wastes of protoplasm. I can tolerate reading about the aristocracy occasionally -- sometimes it's unavoidable because writers and historians are too dependent on them because they are the best-documented group. I prefer history and stories about 'ordinary' folk, though.

Mary, do you think Waugh and Fitzgerald would have given their eyeteeth to have belonged in the upper crust? In spite of effectively pointing out the shallowness inherent in the titled (English) and moneyed (American) classes, I've always felt their writing is a bit too admiring and awestruck.

Speaking of famous families, I just reread Adam Nicolson's Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides. Although Adam is the grandson of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, he comes across as surprisingly normal. ;-)

This book was published in 2001. At the time Adam was contemplating what he would do when it came time to pass the Shiants, the islands his father Nigel had given him when he (Adam) was twenty-one, on to his own son Tom. It was still up in the air at the end of the book, so I looked for an update on the Internet. Sure enough, the Shiants have belonged to Tom since 2007 although Adam had to jump through hoops to get the Scottish government to approve the transfer of ownership. Sheesh!

Anyway, Adam tells of how his father bought the islands in 1937 and deliberately kept them primitive. There was some sort of fad in the 1930s of wandering around nude that many people enjoyed, so Nigel set off one day from his cottage in the buff. He crossed an isthmus to another island and had a fine hike. But when it came time for him to return he found that a boatload of picnickers had drawn up on the beach. Nigel hid in the bushes for a while, hoping the people would leave shortly. But they didn't. He was tired and wanted to get home, so he suppressed his embarrassment and strode confidently across the isthmus, passing by the picnickers, saying to them that he hoped they were having a pleasant day. (This reminds me of Topaz Mortmain in I Capture the Castle communing with nature at night in nothing but hip boots. The setting of that story is the 1930s, too.)

There's another funny bit about two of Nigel's female guests having to sleep in a room of the cottage with rats that were active all night. These women were later bridesmaids in the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The ladies were good sports about the rats.

Frieda, certainly Evelyn Waugh was considered to be a terrible snob and loved to hang around the aristocracy and being invited to 'weekends in the country'. As you say it was the title that attracted him, the wealth was of little consequence . . . until, in EW's case he bought a manor house and had great difficulty in maintaining its upkeep. Over here we didn't have quite that fascination with money and the making thereof, as was the case in the US. Even Edith Wharton's characters, who seem often more 'English' that 'American' have made a pile of wealth and are able to site back and enjoy the creature comforts. For me many of the characters in Fitzgerald's work are just what we call filthy rich with few redeeming features.
Nudism still seems to be alive and well, even in our chilly climes. I believe the Germans take it quite seriously. ;-)

I have just received a parcel of Marion Babson's books from Better World and am very pleased with them. it is so interesting to see who had them previously. One is from a library that was still using pockets for cards. That takes me back!
I like to have some of my own books on hand in case I can't find something at the library. I am often in a hurry when I go there as it is the last port of call after I have done the shopping and have to rush to catch the hourly bus home.

Ann, I think there is much to be said for the old 'pocket' system for library books tickets. When some years ago plastic tickets were given out to each customer there was endless trouble with the electronic swiping machine which frequently went wrong.
Our library now uses a do-it-your-self machine whereby the book is placed on a shelf, buttons are pressed and if you are lucky a ticket appears with return date printed on it. As for me, I just go to the counter and ask for the old fashioned method of rubber-stamping so I have the date there in the book. The librarians now just sit behind the counter and are not even meant to hand out a book that has been ordered, you have to sort through a pile left on a distant shelf. Nor are you encouraged to phone to order a book (it will cost you ã1!) as you are expected to do it 'on line'. I miss the days of staff interacting with us, the customers, recommending books etc.

Vee, I belong to a couple of libraries run by different Local Councils and they have varied check out methods. One is a do it yourself, one is done by library staff on their computer and the snazziest one has you put as many items as you take piled up and magically scans through the pile! I rarely take a date stamp slip as I read books very quickly. If I am close to the due date, I get a polite email to remind me to return or renew the item if it isn't on a request list.
I have an unhappy memory about the pocket system from when I worked in a small Community library! We usually put the library cards in family pockets at random as the mothers always took and returned all the books at the same time. One woman using Visitor's temporary cards demanded that I put each of the dozen book cards in the correct family member's named pocket. It was just on closing time so I wasn't very pleased with her. I wanted to close up and go home instead of having to play a kind of pairing card game!

I'm astonished, Vee, at some of the comments re your library procedures. Here, there is no charge at all to phone in a book or movie request. And at both libraries I frequent there is a good deal of interaction between staff and patrons. (One is a college library, the other a large public city library). When a book I requested has arrived, I am either telephones or sent an e-mail. When I show up at the front circulation desk, a clerk searches for the book on their shelves and brings it to me.

We are fortunate in this city to have bookmobile services at no charge. Twice a month, a bookmobile comes to my building with a good selection of new films, books, videos, and magazines.

Mary, I do receive an email when an ordered book has arrived. The main benefit of the 'on-line' service is that I can see whereabouts in the county system a particular book might be, how many copies are available and how long it might be before one becomes available.
The downside must be for the many older folk who don't have a computer or who find the layout of the too-many pages confusing and badly presented and the near impossibility of suggesting a new title to anyone. In the past I could ask for a book and if it wasn't outrageously expensive there was a good chance a new copy would turn up in a few weeks.
Our mobile library went to the wall a couple of years ago (as I moaned about here . . .long and loud) Apparently the county were not allowed to scrap the service completely so a van trundles the highways and byways and is said to appear is a remote village, far from us, every few months.
I suppose I am lucky in that our local town still has a library at all; many of them have been forced to close.

Here is a link that might be useful: Library Closures

I have begun To Dwell in Darkness by Deborah Crombie, whose books I really enjoy. I like the family life entwined with the policing.

I can request a book or DVD etc. free online if it is within my local Council libraries system or request it at my branch if it is at some other library in the State. I will get an email when it is waiting in my local library and it will be on the Requests shelf for me to collect. This works well excepting when someone picked up my book along with their requests. It shouldn't have gone through the system on their card but somehow it did and I missed out.
I was given priority for the next returned copy :-)
I find the staff are very helpful. I know the staff at the library in the UK that my sister went to were quite unhelpful when she asked for assistance in downloading a pix of my granddaughter's wedding dress which was on the internet. They asked her if she didn't have a friend with a computer. If she did know one, she wouldn't have needed to use the library!

I had to give up on "Black Swan". I think it is probably the worst writing in a work of NF that I have ever attempted to read. It made me quite depressed, in fact.

I then tried to get into Chris Bojalian's newest: set in the Middle East around the time of WW I. I'm finding it slow and dragging, to my surprise, as I like this author.

So with relief, I've turned to Rennie Airth's "The Reckoning". I find the style and pace quite refreshing.

I recently finished up a read of an ancient Virago pub of Margaret Atwood's "Life Before Man". It was so complicated at first (due to multiple POV and who was having an affair with whom etc.), but after sitting down for a long read, I finally had it sorted out in my head.

This was one of Atwood's earlier books and I've found her work a bit patchy during this period. (That's ok - you can't hit a home run with every pitch and ref: "Surfacing" in particular.) This one was pretty in the middle though and I was quite determined to finish it as I've carted around for approx. 30 years. I wanted to find out if it had been worth it!

And then NF is Jonathan Raban's wonderful travelogue about sailing solo around the British Isles. Raban is a great writer and I am really enjoying this (despite knowing very little about sailing). Right now, he's just passed Lyme Regis going east with lots of talk about tide tables...

And my classic read is probably going to be Emile Zola's book "The Ladies' Paradise" (upon which the BBC/PBS Masterpiece series is based). Anyone else watching that?

Oh, and it's freezing cold. YAHOO!!

Liz, it's freezing cold here, too, in SC--- not normal for these climes!

Carolyn, I wonder if you enjoyed Rennie Airth's "The Reckoning" as much as I did? It's a real page-turner. I finished it at 4 a.m. and the final appearance of the killer was a real shock to me. I love the way this author works up such an intricate plot and finally connects all the threads so skillfully. I must find his "In the Dead of Winter". Am I right in that he has only written 4 mysteries in this series?

Now, searching around for something equally stimulating to read.....

Wood - I also had to give up on "Black Swan"... It was awful when I tried to read it as well.

Had quite a quick and rather enjoyable read of Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych" (1884 novella). A very good read - probably rather a broccoli book for many, but I enjoyed this one. (Oh, and I keep on wanting to type "Toystory" for Tolstoy!)...

Actually, the Tolstoy story came from a reference from another book from Atul Gawande, a surgeon who writes for the New Yorker and others and who has just published an NF called "On Mortality" which talks about the process of aging in America and how to care for those involved.

It was a fascinating read and was about how people tend to worry about their death after and usually get that squared away (with wills, etc.), but not the actually "getting old" process and how to handle that (re: the question of aging family members and how to balance the need for safety vs the need for independence/QOL issues etc.)

My mum is getting a bit old (almost 80) and I happened to pick this up just before she came out to Texas for a visit, and, as some of Gawande's book covers the aging process, it was very interesting to see what he mentions in the book happen in real life between my mum and I at times.

If you've read any of Gawande's work, you'll know it's good and this was no different. (An earlier work of his called "Complications" is excellent if you'd rather read not read about death. :-> )

Lemonhead ...I had to look up "Broccoli book" and it seems to be a kind of Manga, is that what you meant?
Like your mother, I am nearly eighty and like to think that I have the "Final Exit" as the funeral fund adverts delicately put it here, sorted but I haven't read anything on ageing since I was in my forties and worried about words slipping across my brain and disappearing like silverfish insects! The book started by dealing with that problem and so after reading the first sentence which advised readers not to worry about it, I put the book back on the library shelf and stopped worrying!

Mary, as far as I know, there are only the four Airth books; and, yes, I did like this new one a lot. I would go back and reread the first three if only there were not so many other books I haven't even read once.

I have started the new Father Tim book, Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good. It's a pablum book rather than a broccoli one, but it's nice pablum.

I just finished one of the best novel's I've read this year: Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek. Taylor's novel is an elegantly-written, and insightful tale of forbidden love set against the backdrop of middle-class life in post War Britain. I can wait to read more of her books.

For years Taylor's novels seem to have been unjustly neglected by readers and critics alike. But her reputation has now been thoroughly resuscitated, and all of her books are back in print. Elizabeth Jane Howard (who continues to haunt my reading this year) was a close friend of Taylor's. Following her premature death, Howard was approached to pen a biography of her friend but declined the task.

Tim. I have only read a few of Elizabeth Taylor's short stories but do have a copy of At Mrs Lippincote's waiting to be read. Your mention of ET might be a good time for me to make a start on it.

I'm now enthralled with "The Romanov Sisters" by Helen Rappaport. I'm finding it very well-written, and it reveals much about the last Tsar's family of which I was unaware.

Annpan -

Haha. What I actually meant when I used the term "broccoli book" was that it wasn't that fun to read, but it was good for me. (Kinda like broccoli isn't very nice to eat, but is good for you so we still eat it.)

I'm reading Emile Zola's The Ladies' Paradise upon which the current PBS Masterpiece series is based. I love the series and so picked up this to read just for fun comparison.

And I picked up a somewhat random topic for me to read: a book on dish design throughout the ages. (You know - the designs that are on dinner plates). Lovely photographs and interesting designs... I'm still not getting a dinner service, but it's nice to look at. (One set of dinnerware included 512 pieces.) Yikes.

Lemonhead, I thought that a manga wasn't right! I rarely read the sort of book that is good for me!
Re: dinner plate design, I had dinner at a house once where the hostess had a beautiful set called Isabella by Noritake. I was so taken by it that when I saw a teaset in a charity shop, I bought it and started to collect any piece I could find as well as oddments of Noritake in other designs. When I had enough of a Spectrum set, I gave it to my granddaughter as I no longer had room in my china cabinet!
There are websites where replacements can be bought but I prefer the thrill of the chase!

I finished two books over the weekend, One Plus One by Jojo Moyes and The Martian by Andy Weir.

One Plus One was an enjoyable read but The Martian really grabbed me.

The Martian is a story about an astronaut left behind on Mars after his crew thinks he's died in a dust storm while trying to make an emergency return to their orbiting spacecraft. The detail and the science of what he does to survive (knowing that the next Mars mission and his potential rescue is 4 years away) was amazing and mostly understandable, told through his darkly funny log entries. There's a lot of chemistry and physics described, but it's explained in a way that even I, a math-phobic English major, could understand. According to the couple of articles I've read about the author and his book, it appears his science is spot-on, and all that he describes is actually possible. It is a little dry in spots, but the story is great and it will make a fantastic movie (which is already in the works).

Here is a link that might be useful: The Martian

I just finished The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. It's based on the true story of the Sarah and Angelina Grimke, sisters who were, in real life, the daughters of a prominent judge and slave owner in Charleston, South Carolina in the early 1800's. The two women rather famously became abolitionists. The novel focuses on Sarah and her relationship with Hettie (also named Handful), a slave who was given to Sarah as a birthday gift when she turned 11. While the story is interesting, I thought the characters seemed pretty one-dimensional.

This post was edited by kathy_t on Tue, Nov 18, 14 at 22:36

I have just finished a nonfiction book by Robert Benson called: Dancing on the Head of a Pen: the Practice of a Writing Life. It was okay, but I wouldn't re-read it.

I heard an interview on NPR with musician John Luther Adams who was discussing how he had moved to Alaska as a young musician and after many successful years, moved to NYC. He mentioned a book he had written called
The Place Where you go to Listen. I had to request it on ILL since my library system doesn't own it. I haven't gotten very far into it but it's looking interesting so far.

Kathyt, I ought to be reading the book about the Grimke sisters, as I am now living in Charleston, SC. Thanks for telling us about it.

Woodnymph - If I remember correctly, Sue Monk Kidd lived in Charleston for a time and was surprised to learn about the Grimke sisters while visiting a museum (?) in another city. She had never heard mention of them in Charleston, which piqued her interest. Although the slave characters in the book were completely fictional, apparently most of what she wrote about the Grimke sisters was factual.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the description of an appliqued story quilt that was being constructed by one of the slave women throughout the book.

Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan had to go back to the library with one chapter still to read. "No you cannot keep it any longer, it is wanted by a member of a reading group." I think Keenan has written another book so maybe I'll be able to check the goings-on of her husband, AW the EU Ambassador and her two totally wild and badly behaved daughters (expelled from even the most liberal UK schools). Once the book got away from the 'present' . . . being spent in some ex Russian satellite state and went back to BK's meeting her future husband the book perked up and there are several amusing incidents around the world, from Trinidad, to Belgium, then India, to the Gambia; plus stops along the way.

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball recommended by Woodnymph/Mary is the story of the first year spent on a run-down farm in up state New York by an ex-journalist and her new-found green-age farmer. It seems amazing that they could take on 500 acres of gone-to-seed land plus a rat-infested house and collapsed barns/sheds/outbuildings, work the land using only horse power, learn to milk cows, castrate calves/pigs, set up a local organic co-operative to sell their produce, plan a romantic wedding and still have time to write a book. It makes me tired just reading about it.
The only criticism is that the book is over-long and KK could have thought of a better title.

Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan had to go back to the library with one chapter still to read. "No you cannot keep it any longer, it is wanted by a member of a reading group." I think Keenan has written another book so maybe I'll be able to check the goings-on of her husband, AW the EU Ambassador and her two totally wild and badly behaved daughters (expelled from even the most liberal UK schools). Once the book got away from the 'present' . . . being spent in some ex Russian satellite state and went back to BK's meeting her future husband the book perked up and there are several amusing incidents around the world, from Trinidad, to Belgium, then India, to the Gambia; plus stops along the way.

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball recommended by Woodnymph/Mary is the story of the first year spent on a run-down farm in up state New York by an ex-journalist and her new-found green-age farmer. It seems amazing that they could take on 500 acres of gone-to-seed land plus a rat-infested house and collapsed barns/sheds/outbuildings, work the land using only horse power, set up a local organic co-operative to sell their produce, plan a romantic wedding and still have time to write a book. It makes me tired just reading about it.
The only criticism is that the book is over-long and KK could have thought of a better title.

I've started reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. What an interesting book ... and unusual ... and funny. I can't tell you what it's about because even that would be a spoiler. Unfortunately, a well-meaning friend told me too much. I would like to know how I would have reacted to the book had I not known. Perhaps someone here will read it "on faith" and share that experience.

I've just finished "The Woman Upstairs" by Claire Massud. It was quite a page-turner and kept me enthralled until the bitter end. I do not want to say more, nor add "spoilers". But I can attest that the author writes beautifully and characterizations and plot are brilliantly done.

Has anyone else here read this author? She has won several literary honors.

I took a break from mysteries to read "Etta Mae's Worst Bad-Luck Day" by Ann B. Ross. I have read a few of the "Miss Julia" series but this is a stand alone. I was quite charmed with Etta Mae, she is a sweetie!
I had to look up "Congealed Salad" it appears to be nicer than it sounds! In my mystery books it usually refers to the victim's blood...

I've just powered through Daniel Silva's latest in his Gabriel Allon series, The Heist. I don't know why I enjoy these books so much as he writes the same book over and over, but I just do. I find them very relaxing and enjoyable. And I like the fact that he has found a new direction to take the character that should keep things entertaining.

I've been reading many books on Buddhism, several by David Michie. I've been very interested in this since going on a retreat last month.

You don't actually have to like cats to enjoy this one, if you have any interest in Buddhism or the Dalai Lama -

Here is a link that might be useful: The Dalai Lama's Cat

I have started First Impressions by Charlie Lovett who wrote The Bookman's Tale and am really loving it. The story is interspersed with a modern young woman with a brand new Master's Degree from Oxford who loves books and meets an interesting young man and Jane Austin who is writing her first novel and discussing it with an older retired clergyman. I think anyone who loves books will like this one.

I have just borrowed "First Impressions" along with four other brand new requested books from my library. Feast or famine! I think they must have just had a budget allowance from the Local Council. I am racing through the mysteries first as I think I won't be able to get extensions as these books will be on waiting lists.

Finished The Dirty Life about farming in NY State, not long ago. I had bought the copy second hand 'on line' via Amazon and when they asked me to comment on 'my purchase', had it arrived in time/condition of book etc I pressed the right buttons, dotted the i's and got a reply saying what I had written was unprintable and obscene. The PC police at Amazon must be working over-time as the only 'words' I had written were those of the title. ;-(