I finished Storm Prey by John Sandford. It was ok, but it was early this week that I finished and couldn't tell you the plot right now. I'd have to think about it and I don't remember it being worth thinking about again.
finished The Seamstress of Hollywood Blvd. by Erin McGraw last night. It was pretty good.
Started The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough last night. Good story so far.
As you can see, I read McEwan, McGraw and now McCullough this month. Bet you can guess what's next. It's still in the Mc's or Mac's I know.

My latest is "The Alchemist" by Paulo Cohelhi, I think that it may be life changing for me!!!

I just finished Blackout by Connie Willis, the first SF novel I've read in 25 years. I haven't read anything so thrilling in a long time so I immediately ordered the sequel, All Clear.It will arrive in 3 days, too long to wait!

I finished "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" by Katherine Howe. (This is a novel about witchcraft in early New England, with some magical realism thrown in). I'm now reading Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." (I've never read anything by this author that I did not like).

Finished up the Sookie Stackhouse mystery book, which was just ok. Nothing to talk about, really. And if the author mentions one more time about the main character's "yellow t-shirt and demin skirt", I will have to throw the book across the room.

Trying to regain some brain cells, I am now immersed in Willa Cather's "O Pioneers", which is gorgeous and beautiful and all those other adjectives...

Lemonhead, in P.D. James' books there is always one woman character who wears "fawn skirts". Sometimes it's another piece of clothing but the colour is always fawn. I think it's meant to convey a sense of understated elegance but I may be wrong. Perhaps it's dullness. I am not even sure what colour it is. It doesn't bother me much but I can't help waiting for the fawn when I open a new P.D. James.

mariannese fawn is a vague colour description that can be anything from 'camel' to 'beige'. In the world of the 'young' P D James as you suggest, to be well-dressed was to be understated. Very few bright colours, sensible tweeds and twin sets with, perhaps, a string of pearls. ;-)

Finished Terry Brooks's Magical Land for Sale - Sold. It was light and amusing, but not great. Now I'm rereading Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, for book club on Wednesday. This book amuses me, but it also makes me think about things - growing up, the influence our parents have on us, religion, relationships, and other topics. I think it will be a good discussion.

Not sure what I will read next, but I hope it's good. I haven't really loved a book for some time now. :(

A few years ago I saw Audrey Hepburn on an airplane - she was dressed in a cashmere sweater and wool trousers in a beige sort of color I would describe as fawn. Elegant, understated, sophisticated, oh yes!

My latest read is a true story "Shame" by Jasvinder Sanghera.

Siobhan, I have always wanted to be Audrey Hepburn when I grow up. I think she was without doubt the most elegant woman of the 20th century. Perhaps I need to look for fawn trousers and a cashmere sweater. Well, maybe merino wool, which I prefer to cashmere.

Won't happen. I was not made to be Audrey Hepburn! But I like being Rosefolly, too.

Back to books -- my reading seems to be running out of steam.. Right now I'm working on a book for my book club, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. Darn thing is written in present tense. I despise books written in the present tense. Must soldier through, I suppose. Audrey would.

Rosefolly

Finished Colleen McCullough's The Thorn Birds last night. Really enjoyed it. I can see why it was made into a movie. Of course if I see the movie now, none of the characters will look like what I think they should. I hate when my tall, dark and handsome character shows up on screen a short, skinny blond guy. I'll pick up another of her books on my next trip to the library. See if she continues to entertain me.
Started The Songcatcher by Sharyn McCrumb. Hoping to enjoy it.

Audrey was the epitome of elegance, at least to me.

So - finished up "O Pioneers" by Cather which was fabbo and now on to "Sag Harbor" by Colson Whitehead...

Finished "The Sea" (John Banville). Read it almost word-for-word up to pg. 160, then skip-read the rest. It was such a dreary book. I kept going on with it, though, to see if it would "pick up" . . . it didn't. It definitely isn't for someone who reads for an exciting story, or for a luminous, inspiring one. (SPOILERS COMING) I still don't know why the twins killed themselves. At least after plowing through all those pages you'd think that you deserved to know this -- one of the most pivotal points in the book !

As for chocolate, my personal favourite -- bittersweet, or at least dark . . . and preferably w/almonds or crushed hazelnuts or cashews. Have the flu this week, so am not reading a lot. Still into "The Little Lady Agency and the Prince." Can hardly believe am reading something w/such a saccharine title! But -- darn it! -- it's charming and fun to read, plus there's actually some real feeling and thought and ideas in it. Hester Browne may not be a brilliant writer, but she IS a smart writer !

Lauramarie, I too have been laid low this week but as my reading is usually the light cozy mystery, I cannot get much lighter! I have been reading one by an author who is new to me (I had to do a quick run to the shops and grabbed a library book too) and have been rather irritated by her own obvious prejudices which are mouthed by her characters. Normally cosies are neutral about politics, religions and other contentions. One more rant and I'm done!

annpan --

Political, religious, etc. rants in a light book? Odd! Although, A. Christie had her prejudices, too, and they showed in her books (but not as rants). It's THE ONE NEGATIVE THING I can say about her books -- and that's only a few of them, thank goodness -- because they're such scrumptious little treats, aren't they ? !

Have you tried the Mapp & Lucia books? They aren't mysteries, but are set in England between the two World Wars, and are really lively, charming, and very, very catty ! ... loads of FUN.

Feel better!

Lauramarie, Thanks for the suggestion but I have read all the Mapp and Lucia books including the Tom Holt follow-ups. I even bought some in the Rye bookshop which is the town on which he modelled Tilling and also have a bookmark/postcard depicting a High Street gossip session. How's that for dedication?
I can overlook Christie's prejudices, which were reflections of contemporary feelings, even though they do grate on modern thought but this author has her character saying that she does not believe 'secondary smoke' is harmful. My neighbour smokes like a chimney pot and the fug seeps into my home which has not done my poor sore throat any good. This is only one of the irritating statements made by characters in this story. I am still reading it because the mystery is gripping!

I just finished Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford for my book group, which meets tonight. It was a solid story that certainly offered lots to think about (Chinese boy meets Japanese girl followed by the rounding up and incarceration of Japanese-Americans during WWII), but I thought some of the characters were rather wooden, and certain plot points that might have been very dramatic were handled in an "Oh, OK, we'll go with that" sort of way. Overall, I thought it was good, just not great.

I was very happy to see that another Flavia de Luce mystery will be released in February 2011 -- I'm already on the library waiting list.

Here is a link that might be useful: A Red Herring Without Mustard: A Flavia de Luce Mystery

Did some long reading last night on my Kindle last night. This was the first time for me to invest such a length of time into this, and to be honest, after a while, I was so sucked into the book that I didn't even notice that I was using a Kindle. Perhaps this Luddite will be converted yet.

The book that sucked me in was "Mill on the Floss" by George Eliot. Work has been slow and so I have been reading it in the office on-line, and it was so good I wanted to continue to read it at home. And amazon had it free to download...

I haven't read any Eliot since I was a teenager, and had not realized that she was actually pretty funny in places. There is a young girl called Maggie, and Eliot really knows how to get into her head and think like a little girl would...

And my nephew is named after George Eliot - that is a nice tribute I thought.

A good day.

Finished up "The Mill on the Floss" and oh - that ending! So disappointing after having been introduced to all these characters and story lines and that happens. (Trying not to give the ending away, but it seems rather like ELiot had had enough of this book one day and said, "That's it. I'm finishing this now!"..)

Has anyone read it and if so, what did you think of the ending? And was the brother/sister relationship a bit creepy?

Now, back to Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor...

lemonhead, I completely agree with you about "The Mill on the Floss". My mother gave it to me as a very young girl and I think it shocked me. Yes, the relationship and the ending were both creepy....

I'm so pleased to learn that Alexander McCall Smith has written another in the Isabel Dalhousie series, set in Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm going to call the public library to reserve it.

I'm trying to get into "One Day" but so far, think it greatly over-rated. Those of you who read it, why did you like it?

Have just finished the long and detailed The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith. This is a 'history book' which looks at all aspects of the Irish potato famines of the 1840's and makes no allowance for sentimentality or subjectivity. But it is still a harrowing account of the suffering of the Irish peasantry and the string of circumstances that led to it. A mixture of wet weather producing blight, potatoes the only crop grown in the poorest areas, a freezing winter, a government totally under-equipped to help (in a time when govts did precious little for anyone). Typhus and typhoid and starvation was followed a year later by another crop failure.
Some private help was given and money raised, but almost no food was available for purchase. 'Indian corn' bought from the US was too difficult to grind. Thousands left for England to fill the Workhouses and beg. Many emigrated to Canada where thousands perished. The US (where most wanted to go) refused to accept famine victims and ships were sent up to Canada where eventually the stronger passengers walked over the border.
With each chapter one keeps thinking "Things must start getting better." But they don't.
No-one, either the Govt with their only slight understanding of conditions, or the private landlords (some bad, but not all were wicked and many paid to keep their people above starvation) have enough food or money or basic 'know-how' to deal with the situation.
The final straw seems to be after a few hot-heads, who appear totally unaware of the famine, plan a revolt against the government. Almost no-one is willing to join but their over-blown oratory against the English and a few skirmishes with the police lead to a hardening of the feelings of those sending aid and gradually the country is just left to suffer.
The only people who come through really well are the Quakers, but even they are defeated in the end.

Now if the above is an example of incorrect ethnicity or political thought . . . so be it. This is my understanding of The Great Hunger.

Vee, the big reason I didn't fall in love with Ireland as I am with England, Scotland, and Wales is the sight of those lonely, roofless, stone cottages left standing as evidence of the famine. The countryside where they are is heart rending, beautiful as the scenery may be.

The last two days I have read Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron and Christmas Odyssey the new novelette by Anne Perry. I liked the Maron book better than the past few. It has more family stuff in it, and she does Southern family better than anyone I know. The Perry book, as always in her Christmas offerings, features one of the lesser known characters from one of her two series, this time Henry Rathbone, father of Oliver.

I finished Connie Willis's All Clear, whew! Quite a tale, and very enjoyable. Almost done with Agatha Christie's Murder in Mesopotamia, really a fun read. I have huge stack of wonderful TBRs from the library, must get cracking!

Today I finished Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which I was reading for my book club. I probably would have given up on it if I had not been reading it for that reason. It is written in present tense, which drives me crazy. As it was, there were points of interest in the twists and turns of the plot, but I did not love it.

Not sure what I'll read next. Actually I spent some of the evening figuring out how to use the rolled hem foot I just got for my sewing machine. Now that I've got it working I wonder how I lived so long without this cool and nifty gadget. I may be doing less reading for the next week or so.

Rosefolly

I am well into "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields, it is so good.

lauramarie_gardener, thanks so much for mentioning Hester Browne. I read your post about the Little Lady Agency and picked up two of her books from the library. I just finished The Finishing Touches and thought it was delightful - light and funny and quite nicely written.

Woodnymph, I really loved One Day. I felt I knew the characters, the dialogue was clever and sharp, and the jump from year to year kept the story fresh and fast-paced. I think what really pulled me in, though, was the time frame. I'm just a bit older than the main characters, so the events and cultural references rang true, and their joys, disappointments, and anxieties felt quite familiar and spoke to shared experiences, even though I'm in the US. That book just sang for me, so I'm a big fan.

I have started Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. Several people have said they don't like it, but I do. It begins just before WWI and has a love interest between a German officer and an English aristocrat as well as a coal mining strike in Wales, a pretty, young housekeeper pregnant by the duke for whom she works, and the beginning of the Russian revolution. It has a long list of characters in the front and I despaired when reading it, but Follett does such a good job of telling their stories that I haven't had any problem keeping track of them or following the different threads. He does stick in some nasty sex stuff as usual; I wish he would leave it to the imagination. This is the first of a planned series of five books.

Been busy trying to get into another book, but it is not taking right now... Started Kim by Kipling - bleaugh. Could not get past the first chapter. Now on to a half-graphic novel and half novel called "The Selected Works of TS Spivet" which is just ok...

Did download Eliot's Silas Marner so perhaps that will save the day...

Oh, and I agree with Sheri about "One Day" - it was really good for me because there was a lot of overlap between the ages and the cultural refs of the characters and when I was that age... so I could relate to them really well...

sheri and lemonhead, thanks for encouraging me to return to "One Day" and give it another try. I am loving this book! The dialogue is brilliant and the characters so real. I find some of the scenes wickedly funny. Vee and Martin, as Brits, have either of you read this one?

Mary,I've just been reading in a back number of the 'Sunday Times' of the unexpected worldwide-popularity (translated into 31 languages) of One Day. It is described as a "humorous, bitter-sweet very British tale of patient love and thwarted ambition." A film with Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway is in production.
Can't do a link for it as the Times and Sunday Times have to be paid for on line. ;-(

Kipling's Kim is one of my comfort reads. It's very dated, of course, with it's glorification of the Raj but on the other hand it's very positive to Indian customs and way of life. My favourite is the opening chapter in which Kim meets the old lama outside the Lahore Museum, the Wonder House. Kipling's father was the curator of the museum for a period.

My husband and I arrived in Lahore by train in December 1967 and met a very depressed young German who had bicycled from Munich and was on his way to Japan to learn martial arts. He wanted us to share his hotel room and talk German to him. We spoke German but being on our honeymoon we wanted our own room. To cheer him up we took him to the museum but it was no success. A guard spotted us and found out that Manfred was German and made the Hitler greeting and began to talk of Hitler's achievements. This made Manfred even more depressed. Still, it's an interesting museum and the Zamzamma gun is still outside. Reading Kim takes me back at once to this journey on the hippie trail to India.

I have just borrowed the new Marcia Muller "Coming Back" As the last two books I have tried to read have been duds, I am hoping for 'third time lucky'!

I read a forthcoming book by Amy Chau called The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I found it astonishing. Chau is the daughter of Chinese immigrants to the US and tells of how she has raised her two daughters. Her husband is Jed Rubenfeld, author of The Interpretation of Murder and most recently The Death Instinct both of which I enjoyed.
She tells how Chinese mothers believe their children must be pushed extremely hard to be as perfect as possible academically ("anything less than an A is unacceptable") and study either piano or violin (no other instrument is 'worthy'). I was horrified at the schedules she kept for her girls - no time for play at all with other children, just study and practice instruments. She tells how this worked well for one, but not so well for the other.
Chau acknowledges that most Westerners won't understand and/or support her philosophies, and while I am one of those old fogies who believes the primary school curriculum in particular is too full of things that don't need to be taught at school, I think she has gone too far.
A quick read but a very interesting one.

I agree with you, Kath. I had personal experience of the pressure a Chinese girl was under in pursuing her studies.
She used to beg us to let her take out reference books from the University library, so that she could study them at home. When we refused, as they would be needed by other students, she tried to smuggle them out.

Mariannese -

I know lots of people really enjoy "Kim" and I thought I would as I am interested in the time period of the Raj, but that first chapter just got me... Perhaps I will try at another time...

Gasve up on the Spivet book (not that riveting), and re-picked up "Sag Harbor" which I had started two times before. Got a good chuck of reading last night and am really really enjoying it. The author really has the mind of a young teen to a T during the eighties... Very funny in places, especially if you were around that age back then...

I am enjoying "House Of Splendid Isolation" by Irish writer Edna O'Brien.

Hello :

annpan - Sorry, am responding late to your message...flu bug almost gone now. Your bookmark sounds very intriguing! . . . Did you find a good frothy Something to read while you're sick?

sheriz6 - Was so tickled someone here reacted to something I recommended -- and so Positively !! Thanks for letting me know. Also, there was a chunk of "Finishing Touches" after the end of "Little Lady...". I read it, but wasn't sure if I'd try it. Now, with what you've said about it, think I'll give it a try.

Finished almost the first half of "Blackout" (C. Willis), and . . . gave up on it. The first 40 pages bore me to death with all the bickering over when their "drop" dates would occur, changes in costume, etc. I kept thinking: "When's the good part going to start?" Then when that was pretty much over with, it was interesting -- sort of. I kept on word-for-word, but finally had to give up, or .... die of terminal boredom. The prose writing is really pedestrian, too. Once I stopped, and turned to the inside backflap to see what the writer's credentials were like. Was surprised it's by an American. And all that time I thought it was written by a Brit. That explained A LOT to me, as I've never read a book about English (Irish, Scottish, Welsh) people that was written by an American and wasn't cardboard-stiff and dry as a bone. Sorry! I really like British writers' cheekiness, wit, and their magic way with words and sentence structure! I'm not saying Americans don't know how to write really well -- that would be stupid -- look at Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, John O'Hara, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Laurie Colwin (to name a modern writer -- and one who isn't a man!), Willa Cather, etc., etc. Maybe if a Brit. wrote an American story it wouldn't come out right, either. What do you think?

I found Blackout very thrilling because I got into the idea of time travel and was hooked on that aspect of the book. I would have gone back to Shakespeare's time to find out how he worked on his plays. Next I would go to the beginning of the Indo-European language split between satem and centum languages and find out why the eastern Tocharian is a centum language so far from the west.

I ordered All Clear at once and it became obvious that Connie Willis desperately needs an editor. I started All Clear yesterday and will finish it soon because of the fast flipping through the tedious discussions of the drop dates. One volume would have been quite enough.

Lauramarie: Glad you are feeling better. I did pick up a couple of light mysteries and they were both quite dreadful! I skipped through them and dipped into some of my 'kept' books instead. I need comforting when I am not well, don't need to be irritated! I am a bad fidget too then, so find it hard to get into a book, constantly getting out of bed or chair for cups of tea etc.

Lauramarie, how do you feel about Martha Grimes' Richard Jury books?

Finished "One Day" by David Nicholls. How I hated for it to end! Rarely have I cared so much about characters in a novel -- perhaps not since Wharton's "Ethan Frome." Has anyone here read any other books by Nicholls? Also, what authors have you found that are similar in style? This one is a hard act to follow....

Woodnymph, I'm so glad you liked One Day! I'm going back for a re-read as it's my book group's choice for January and I'm hoping it will be just as good the second time through. I'm also curious about Nichols' other books and would be grateful for a recommendation.

I finished the next two books in Patricia Sprinkle's genealogical mystery series, Sins of the Fathers and Daughter of Deceit. I really like the main characters and despite one or two surprisingly violent incidents (violent IMO for books I consider "cosies" anyway), I thoroughly enjoyed both books.

Next up will be finishing The Little Lady Agency by Hester Brown.

I am having a re-read of "The Room Upstairs"by Monica Dickens and loving it.

Wood and Sheri -

David Nicholls has another book called "Question of Attraction" or "Starter for Ten" (depends on when published but same book)... Another 80's college student-y novel and just as good as "One Day" I thought. He has a good website too (under his name) and he answers email! :)

I have just finished "Sag Harbor" by Colson Whitehead and thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me of the book "A Girl Named Zippy" as it employed the same sense of humor and I think anyone who enjoyed Zippy would enjoy this one as well...

Now reading a forgettable Agatha Raisin novel, and then...hmm... but I do plan on doing lots more reading this weekend.... Bliss.

I finished Fall of Giants last night and continued to like it a lot, although I did get a bit bogged down in the Russian revolution. I was incorrect in saying there will be five books in the series. It actually is a trilogy following five families. That's what I get for skimming the book jacket.

Today I started Valley of Dry Bones, new this year from Priscilla Royal.

Stopped by Barnes & Noble this afternoon to see if they had the latest Lois Meade cozy by Ann Purser to put in my daughter's Christmas stocking. It turns out that it is due to be released on December 7, but they preordered it for me. She just loves the series; and, of course, I read them, too. No book passes through my house unread!

I picked up from a charity shop bin an old anthology "A Woman's Eye", short crime stories written by women. Some I have read in other collections but some are new to me. A good way to sample authors I have not come across before.

I have just finished reading Larry McMurtry's "Dead Man's Walk", the first in his Lonesome Dove four-book western saga (I understand Lonesome Dove was written first, then he wrote two prequels, of which "Dead Man's Walk" is the first, then a sequel). I fell in love with the two lead characters Gus and Call and found the tales of, to simplify the story, trying to settle the West gripping. It seemed they got into one bind after another and would always manage to get into trouble right as my subway or bus stop was coming up.

My only problem with the book was the violence/gore. Sometimes it was man's inhumanity to man; sometimes nature's inhumanity to man. I do not really think it was violence for violence's sake - having read my share of history books I know these things happened. In any event, my co-worker assures me that there is less of this as the saga progresses.

Despite this, I am not going to jump right into the next in the series and have decided to start my library copy of Connie Willis' novel "The Doomsday Book" - the only book of hers the library had on hand. In this one a student is dropped back into the middle ages to study the black plague. According to some online reviews I have read, as it was written in 1992 it loses some of it's futuristic qualities as apparently in the characters' 'present' time of the 2040's they did not have cell phones. However, I understand that her depiction of the middle ages is very well researched so I am looking forward to that. Will let you all know how it goes!

I have read One Day and another of Nicholls called The Understudy, both of which I enjoyed thoroughly. I would not normally read these types of fiction, but his writing is superb. He pulls you into the stories and the characters until you forget you are reading a novel.

I'm rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after seeing the film twice!

Picked up an old history of my school in England which I have had for ages, but never read. Since I am interested in Victorian times and women's education, this is actually far more interesting than I had thought. Plus I am learning about things which I didn't know existed at the school when I was there... Will have to check w my old school friends to see if they knew this stuff was there or perhaps I was just super-immune to what was going on...

At the same time, started reading "A History of the Wife", a NF by Marilyn Yalom about, you guessed it, the life and times of the role of wife over time. Really interesting. The Romans were very up with women's rights, but then when they left, it reverted back to women as property etc. Now in Medieval times so will see how women fare then...!