Mad_gallica, that is a total spoiler! Mashamcl, I just re-read Sad Cypress about a month ago for the first time since I've started to enjoy old roses. It was fun to finally have a frame of reference! I suspected your post was about just this topic when I saw the title, but I was not expecting the stupendous photos! Wowzers! It might be time to introduce a climbing rose to our back fence; maybe these pics will convince hubby. There's even an arbor...

Rainbow's End and Pierce the Veil by Bob Adamov. These are just mysteries that take place on the island I came from in Lake Erie. Birdman of Alcatraz:the Story of Robert Stroud by Thomas Gaddis I thought of another one but it slipped my mind already :0(((((

My favourite Books of 2011 - no particular order - 1) ""Get Me Out of Here" - Henry Sutton A dark -- very dark -- satire set in modern-day London.... Tells of a once-successful financial professional who's on the skids -- yet, still hankers for the luxuries and amenities so many of his ilk had during the '80s - early-2000s - until the global financial crash. 2) "Bleak House" - Charles Dickens My first reading of this classic. Like the above -- another tale of riches-to-rags -- for some characters, rags-to-riches. Teeming w/ delightful or creepy characters, high drama, ugly-beyond-belief slum scenes and human cruelty, enough neuroses to keep a psychiatric clinic busy for a decade (or more!), generosity of spirit, healthy lust for life, etc., etc. ... a rich cornucopia of humanity -- both wonderful and lousy. 3) "Left Early, Took My Dog" - Kate Atkinson Very "juicy" mystery involving a kidnapped spunky little girl and one of the most delightful female police detectives I've ever encountered. ... She reminded me of the actress Dawn French. 4) "King Solomon's Carpet" - Barbara Vine / Ruth Rendell One of the best books she's ever written ... even though I was annoyed w/ how meagre the explanation was at the end -- of a couple of the characters' outcomes. But, still, a fascinating ride -- in both senses! -- the story as well as the hair-raising subway ("Underground" in Brit speak) scenes. Some of the weirdest, most intriguing characters I've come across in a book in a long time! 5) "Bad Behavior" - Isabel Wolff A woman's storybook -- I call this genre -- some call it "Chick Lit", which turns me off. Anyway -- a lovely story about a young, single woman setting up a new veterinary practice in London. She has a very awful secret in her past. A war photojournalist comes into her life, and the secret if blown open. 6) "My Cousin Rachel" - Daphne du Maurier Several of us "chatted" about this in the August thread. I still think the dame did it! 7) "The Private Patient" - P.D. James A professional investigative TV journalist goes to a posh country clinic to have an old scar removed from her face. But much more than that happens to her. Really intriguing who-done-it... although I felt that bringing Dalgleish's personal life into the story interrupted the flow. That's it. This year think I'll read more non-fiction. After going over the lists of all the books I read - 2011 - I noticed I've been reading way too many mystery books! Some books keep popping up in the lists above and in discussion that I want to try -- "IQ84", "Discovery of Witches", "The Assassin's Cloak". Kathy9norcal - You named 2 of my all-time favourite books: 1) "Brazzaville Beach" - Wm. Boyd -- Every time I mention this novel I have the feeling I'm the only person who's read it, as no one seems to've heard of it! Although I've read some awfully good books set in Africa (fict. &...

"enduring the Blitz".......I always wonder how humans can do intentional harm to other innocent humans. It sickens me to imagine such soul-less behavior. Ten years ago I decided to create albums for each side of our family and tell their stories with written memories and photos, newspaper articles . I made one for my mother's Sicilian family and another for my father's Ukrainian family. Then I created an album for my husband's Irish ancestors on both sides ......yes, he is 100% Irish ( blarney included gratis !) I discovered some amazing things while doing searches on Ancestry. For instance....my mother's mother had an older sister no one knew about or spoke of ! I came across her photo in Ancestry and thought she looked like my grandmother and through some coincidences connected with a distance cousin who helped shed light on her relationship to my grandmother ! My Sicilain grandfather immigrated to New Orleans and worked on a plantation when he was 15. His name was Andrew ( or Andrea in Italian) . I discovered that the plantation owner's name was Andrew Hynes Gay ........and Hynes is my husband's ( and my) last name !!! No relation.....or was he ?! After all those albums were completed, I created one of my own life and memories from my birth through this decade of my life. I felt like that project was more for me than others.........though I would love to sit with a grandchild and tell my stories. Sadly, no one seems interested in those albums or stories. But I felt compelled to create them to give testament to the fact that we were more than what you knew and instill in whoever might sit down and read those albums a sense of all those who came before us .