>Wild Swans by Jung Chang Diane, I was in London when I saw that in a bookstore. Despite having several books for the trip already, I knew I had to get it. Not only an incredible story of the three women, but a very readable and well researched history of the times. Another book you might like is Legacies by Bette Bao Lord (her husband was the US ambassador to China ). She has first hand stories of a great part of the same history, esp during the cultural revolution (I took a class in college about Chinese History with a professor who thought the cultural revolution was the best thing since sliced bread. I didn't know better then, but if I was a student now I would not have been able to be quiet)

I liked Leonie Swann's "Three Bags Full". At least the sheep acted quite naturally which is more than can be said for some of the animal detectives! Being winter and cold, windy, raining etc. (Like the UK Summer this year apparently) I have been curling up under my cheap misprinted Winnie the Pooh blankie and listening to tapes so that I can keep my frozen mitts under wraps. I bought a lot of them from the local library who are selling old and donated, almost new, tapes. I like books I have already read, I find them easier to follow. I also like women readers better as they can deepen their voices for male characters but men don't sound right becoming women! What do other listeners think? I have been trying to get Kate Fenton's two early books from the Australian library system but no luck so far. I enjoyed her books very much and was reminded of her from another thread. Almost Spring, so a lot of my reading will be garden catalogues!

Leaving aside A Tale for the Time Being I remember someone here a while ago saying how they couldn't get on with Angela's Ashes as the subject matter was so distasteful. Now I admit I enjoyed the book and, for me, the 'distasteful' part was saved by Frank McCourt's humour. If it had been written from the angle of "Didn't we suffer as kids? Wasn't my Mother a drunk who starved us so she could buy booze? Didn't my Father run away and leave us when we got back to Limerick where we were forced to live upstairs in a hovel awash with raw sewage? Were we not beaten by the priests at school and wasn't I mocked over my 'yellow eyes' running with pus? It does sound truly horrendous and perhaps the fact that most of it was untrue (except for the eyes) helped to take the sting out of it. On the other hand We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (which I heard as a reading on radio) was most powerful (for me) at the end, when the 'why' came out. I agree with netla when she says that some 'true-crime' writers seem to revel in and 'Big Up' the criminals. We may not have as many baddies as there are in the US but some of ours are/were very nasty people. Much was made of the 'Great Train Robbery' because the thieves got away with millions of pounds worth of used bank notes, most of which never found, nor were the 'brains' behind the operation. Books have also been written about a notorious family the 'Kray Twins' who beat up/maimed/killed/tortured with no compunction in the East End of London, an area that still offers 'tours' of the back alleys where Jack the Ripper carried out his horrible murders. I'm not suggesting nothing should be written about these subjects, but why do the writers need to dwell on the pools of blood/dismembered body parts. I suppose I know the answer. It is what sells books. :-(

Of the ones on the list, I have only read Didion's book and thought it gripping and very well-written, but painful. It was even more painful to learn from a local newspaper recapitulating this year's stories that her daughter, Quintana Roo, who was seriously ill at the time when Didion's husband suddenly died, also ended up dying (this past August.zxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxz Several months or a year ago, I tried to read one book by Murakami because it was up for discussion in this forum, and a good deal in it disgusted me to such an extent that I never joined in the discussion. I can't help suspecting that Murakami deliberately writes the way he does for the sake of notoriety, and I plan never to read anything by him again. Maybe, just maybe, "Kafka..." (Reduced to using quotes for titles because the usual formatting won't work.) contains no disgusting scenes, but "Once bit, twice shy." zxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzxzx Ha haaa! The thing wouldn't let me even make paragraphs, but I have partially thwarted it--or so I hope--by typing strings of zxzxzx. Come on, Powers that Be, if only for the sake of clearer expression, give us back the ability to indent, leave double spaces, and write short lines of poetry if we want to!