Just finished The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District' by James Rebanks, a wonderful memoir of life on a sheep farm. Rebanks grew up loving the shepherd's very hard life and does his best to keep it all going. And, though a terrible student, he ended up with a degree from Oxford. His writing is beautiful, his knowledge of the sheep encyclopedic, and his love of the land and the life he leads powerfully moving.

I just started Station Eleven, a dystopian future novel by Emily St. John Mandel. It was a National Book Award finalist, and though I'm barely into it, I can already discern the exceptional quality of the writing and the story.

laceyvail, I received 'The Shepherd's Life' for my birthday and am reading it at night . . . a perfect book to sleep with!

I second all your comments.

I've started Dead Wake and it has completely pulled me in.

Laceyvail, I just picked up a copy of Station Eleven, good to hear more positive reviews!

Sheri, I almost never read non-fiction, but Dead Wake had the same effect on me!

Donna

I just read a superb SF novel called Ancillary Justice written by Ann Leckie. It won all kinds of awards: Nebula, Hugo, and a couple others I tend to forget exist. It is a superbly written sociopolitical SF novel. The first of a trilogy, it stands alone well. However I do intend to read the next two as soon as I can get my hands on them.

2016 has certainly started out with a bang. I have read three books I absolutely loved in the past ten days, the other two being The Garden of Evening Mists and The Good Luck Bird, both described in my final January post. Often I don't encounter three books I like this much during an entire season.

Laceyvail and Sheri_Z6, I read Station Eleven when it first came out, and I would agree that it is quite good.

I just put The Shepherd's Life on request at my library. It sounds interesting.

THE SHOEMAKER'S WIFE by Adrianna Trigianni

Reading Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers. An man dies in a car accident at 62, leaving behind a wife and a mistress. On page 20 the narrator declares "this is not an account of feminine jelousy, or even revenge, and not all human beings (not even women) conform to the attitudes generally expected of them." So, as not expected of them, the wife and the mistress start spending time together.

Philosophical musings every so many paragraphs interrupt the reading flow.

Woodnymph,

The Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen book sounds interesting. Thanks for the short review.

The next week is tipped to be more like February "Fever", with the temperatures in the 100Fs. I am going to get a load of murder mysteries set in the depths of Winter and bunker down in my A/Cd home!

LOL, Ann! We are having pretty cold weather, at least for Florida. High today is only supposed to be 60 F. Of course, Tue - Thu it was mid 80s.

I finally finished Riders Down and have started The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth. It's set in ancient Greece. The writing is a bit wordy, but I think I can get into the story.

Donna

I finished The Dust that Falls from Dreams and loved it. Now ready to start Go Set a Watchman that was on the 7-day display at the library.

Rosefolly, I had to go back and read your January post. The Garden of Evening Mists and The Good Lord Bird happen to be two of my favorites, also. Two very different types of writing--but both wonderful, skillful storytelling and remind me that, in comparison, so much of what I read is mediocre. Did you also like All the Light We Cannot See?

I recently finished Annie Barrows' The Truth According to Us , about a spoiled Senator's daughter sent to a small town in West Virginia to write local history, as part of FDR's WPA. It was charming and enjoyable, as opposed to Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, non-fiction about JFK & RFK's gorgeous oldest sister who was most likely born with brain damage as a result of oxygen deprivation during birth. Her father Joe Kennedy made the choice to have her lobotomized, supposedly as a way to make this young woman more tractable, and the poor result left her institutionalized and isolated from her family for most of her life.

I finished Go Set a Watchman this afternoon. It's pretty short and easy to read. I had read so many bad reviews of the book that I was pleasantly surprised to like it pretty well. I agree that it's no To Kill a Mockingbird, but I did enjoy it.

Finished Instances of the Number 3 by Salley Vickers. After a man dies in a car accident at 62, his wife and his younger mistress start spending time together and they form an unusual friendship. Shortly after they meet, a young Iranian man arrives to the widow's house, claiming the dead man was sponsoring his studies. He becomes a permanent houseguest. All of them--plus the dead man's ghost--interact and evolve in an interesting but slow novel.

IMO, it is a very British novel. A là Penelope Lively, emotions are hardly ever mentioned, the women work one as a French antique dealer and the other one as an art gallery manager (does anyone in these novels work as a bank teller or a car salesperson?). Mawkishness is avoided: "The two women met first in the café at John Lewis. This was Bridget's idea -- she was keen to avoid anything that hinted at the scent of camellias."

It is an intelligent book, with frequent poetic and Shakespeare quotes and analysis of Hamlet and the Catholic faith. It has frequent philosophical asides that interrupt the narrative flow. I enjoyed it mildy, but cannot recommend it.

reader, have you read Vickers' The Cleaner of Chartres or her earlier work Miss Garnet's Angel? Again emotions are kept in check . . . along with our English stiff upper lips, but well-written.

You are certainly right about the 'characters' in many UK novels, especially those by women authors. Females are almost always editors in publishing houses, execs in TV, news papers etc. and they have almost all studied at Oxford and live in muddled but comfortable homes in expensive and slightly raffish areas of London where their collective muse is activated by litres of red wine.

I put aside The Songs of the Kings (it was slow, and I think going to have very graphic descriptions of sword battles - ugh) and started The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. I'm still trying to decide if I've read it before, but I'm enjoying it. Four men dressed as Knights Templar smash into the Met in NY at the opening of a show of Catholic treasures, kill some people and make off with an odd, ancient box with buttons and gears.

Donna

Carolyn, did you truly become convinced that Go Set a Watchman is the work of the same author as TKAM? I ask, because I have read that many who are familiar with the author are convinced that she did not author this latest work, that it was ghostwritten.

Mary, the end papers said that some of GSAW consists of direct lifting of paragraphs from TKAM. I took that to mean Ms. Lee used some of her own material when writing Mockingbird. It also said that no one would say that Truman Capote wrote Watchman. I'm not erudite enough to say if it were the same author before she hit her stride, but it seemed so to me.

What I liked about this book was more glimpses into Scout's younger years. The falsies episode was really funny. And given the time and place, the ending rang true to me, although, of course, disappointing. I do love stories set in the South.

Vee,
I read Miss Garnet's Angel over 10 yrs ago, but haven't read The Cleaner of Chartres. I agree with you that Miss Garnet and this last book I read by Salley Vickers--Instances of the Number 3--are well-written.

Vickers, according to "about the author" information on the back of Instances "is a trained analytical psychologist and lectures widely on the connections between literature, psychology and religion". That explained a lot about religion and Hamlet being frequently mentioned in Instances. Her training as a psychologist and being British accounts for, as you say, keeping emotions in check.

I said "a là Penelope Lively", because the novels of both authors are cerebral, a bit coldish, with intelligent people and dialogue and narrative that is devoid of emotions.

Also because their characters have unusual jobs, such as landscape historian (the betrayed husband in The Photograph. What the heck is a landscape historian?!), organizer of poetry festivals (a woman in Consequences), and others.

In Instances of Number 3, the widow flees her Irish home as an adolescent, starts working in a hotel, and ends living in a posh London neighborhood, without any formal education or training. We never know if she got there by virtue of her marriage or because she was ahead of trends in the antique colleting world. In Consequences by Lively, everybody has jobs that pay little and still live relatively comfortably... in London! Wow, I'd like to be able to live like a character in their novels.

That said (above), I intend to read more novels by both authors in the future. These little discrepancies with the real world will not keep me away.

These women who dress smartly on poor wages aren't only in fiction. In the Poirot TV episodes Miss Lemon dresses very well on a secretary's wage IMHO!

I am reading non-fiction for once but it is about crime in a way. "The Golden Age of Murder" by Martin Edwards. It is about the members of the Detection Club and their books. It is a door stopper at 480 pages and just the thing for the present weather. This past week I stayed at home for nearly the whole time because of the heat of over 42C (or pushing 110F) and an infected mouth requiring heaps of antibiotics and painkillers.

Reading about fictional killers has diverted me somewhat!

Annpan - Sorry to hear you're cooped up and ailing, but it sounds like you're making the best of it with your Golden Age of Murder. <smile>

I just finished reading The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro. It's a rather complex and wildly imagined story of the forgery of a Degas painting that was so famously stolen (in real life) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. (Except the painting discussed in the book doesn't actually exist - minor detail.) At times it had me rolling my eyes (figuratively speaking, I think), but all in all it made for a fun reading experience.

I particularly enjoyed this book because I once visited the Gardner museum, which is a fascinating place. The terms of Isabella's will prevent curators from changing the placement of anything in her self-made museum, and thus empty frames have remained in place of the stolen paintings since the theft in 1990. And I love it that the will also dictates waiver of the museum entry fee for anyone named Isabella. She was quite an interesting lady who made the most of her privileged life.

My digital library copy of The Secret History by Donna Tartt came due before I finished it. I loved the first half but started losing interest about the middle and pretty much stopped reading it, and I really can't say why. I will probably borrow it again in the near future and try again. I'm starting To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis, part of the Oxford Time Travel series.

Kathy, back around 2000-2001 when I was still posting on Salon's Table Talk (books forum) and at Readerville (defunct), another author used the Gardner Museum heist as part of a novel. I'm pretty sure the writer was a she, but I can't remember her name or the title of the book. For some reason I didn't make an entry of it in the book log I was keeping at the time -- maybe I didn't finish the book. I've done my usual Internet searches, but so far I haven't found mention of it. Do you happen to know?

I can't really say that I liked the novel, but it launched my interest in the real story of the stolen artwork and the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Elephant Moon by John Sweeney, was a quick read and came highly recommenced and mostly loved by clients on Amazon . . . I should have been warned!

Sweeney is an investigative journalist and his story uses the broad outline of the true facts of Burmese orphans escaping the Japanese by heading North to India using elephants from a teak plantation. But there are so many side-bars . . . from the about-to-happen partition of India, the treatment of the Burmese by the colonial British and Indians, the fascist uprisings in London's East End, attacks on convoys in the Atlantic and so on . . . plus some over-stereotyping of characters, some very unlikely sex scenes and 'unladylike' behaviour from the heroine. But, it was an easy fast-moving read.

A most enjoyable read was A Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks.

He is a Lake District hill sheep farmer following in the footsteps of his family for hundreds of years. After wasted years of schooling . .. from the age of 12 he was seldom there and where his teachers regarded farming and similar occupations as 'lesser' jobs, he worked with his greatly admired grandfather learning all the skills of a shepherd. I understand from a thread in which Frieda explained that this is a word not used in the US as it gives a feeling of what? Little Bow Peep maybe, but except that they both use crooks/sticks that is the end of the similarity. This is a tough thankless life in often hostile conditions with very little financial reward.

Rebanks describes in detail the sheep farming year, training his sheepdogs, the many small markets he attends, the prizes the shepherds hope to win, his early dislike of 'tourists' who have little concept of the true nature/ancient history of the fells, his gradual understanding of the 'Lakeland Poets' the important sheep-breeding work done by Beatrix Potter (Mrs Heelis as she was always know up there) and . . .strangest of all . . . his decision to educate himself and getting a place at Oxford University. He spends little time writing about his time there, we never even learn what subject he read but it has enabled him to earn money away from the farm and he now spends time as an adviser with UNESCO.

For any of you interested in the country-side and/or the etymology of words and expressions used in this part of the UK I recommend this as a good read.

Rebanks on sheep farming & encouraging children to understand it.

Vee, A Shepherd's Life definitely sounds interesting to me.

About 'shepherd/s': The word is used in the U.S. for a person or persons on foot tending a flock along with a dog or dogs. However, if the tenders are on horseback or driving ATVs, they are called sheepherders, as is the case in most of the western states where the sheep ranches are often huge. A shepherd runs a smaller operation in land area, and that is the distinction. The job of shepherd itself is not considered diminutive in the Bo-Peepish fashion that anybody could do the work, even a little girl in a flounced dress and a frilly bonnet as illustrated in books of nursery rhymes. Just wanted to make that clear. In the UK the distinction is probably not needed as much. :-)

Freida - No, I don't happen to know of another novel about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. Seems like a likely topic, however.

Thanks, Kathy, for responding. I suppose I will just have to stumble across the novel again.

I just received from the postperson a parcel that I nearly dropped because it was so heavy. Inside was a single book: Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaelogy, Genetics, Language and Literature edited by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch.

Cunliffe's books are always beautiful, even when they are paperbacks as this one is. The paper is the best quality, slightly thick and wonderful to touch. The design is lovely with oodles of photos, line drawings, diagrams, charts and maps. Even the text typeset complements the subject matter: as noted on the publication information page, the typeset is part of the Cynrhan type family by CSP-Cymru Cyf, printed in Wales. Usually I am not particularly interested in typesetting but I think this is too impressive for me not to notice it.

I expect that I will be absorbed in this book for several days, trying not to dribble/drool on its pages. :-)

I think I'm going to have to go to the library for a Miss Dimple book or two. I have read The Second Midnight by Andrew Taylor set when the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, and House of the Rising Sun by James Lee Burke, and watched last night's episode of Mercy Street on PBS; and I am thoroughly sick of mean people perpetrating meanness.

After so much heavy reading, I finished "A Cat Abroad" by Peter Gethers. Cute, but not nearly so witty as anything by Peter Mayle, in my opinion. (By the way, is Mayle still churning out his books?) The Gethers book was written ca. 1993, and already, it is outdated in some of its references.

For my history class, I read, among others, "Attala" by Chateaubriand.

Nymph, I read A Cat Abroad a couple of years ago. I agree, it was cute. :) If you like cat books, have you read "Dewey the Library Cat"? Loved the story, but I cried from page one till the end!

Donna

I just finished Kate Morton's newest book, The Lake House. It was good mystery, involving a 70 year old cold case and a famous murder mystery writer. Morton managed to lead me to believe three or four different scenarios before the final plot twist. I like her books a lot, she's very clever, and I enjoyed twists and turns.

Even though I just read it last month, I've started The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry again - can't help it.

Donna, I've not read the library cat books. I don't think I could bear to be moved to tears, however in reading it. (I have never recovered from reading "Dog of Flanders" years ago, where I cried my eyes out.....).

That's why I only read the first Dewey book! There is at least one more. And some were happy tears...but it sure was emotional!

Donna

I have finally finished "The Golden Age Of Murder" and thankfully returned it undamaged as it has a penalty notice of $A84 attached. It was quite interesting but a lot was insider gossip about the writers and how it affected their books.

I was more interested in learning about the books written at that time. Most are OOP but some are obtainable as reprints, so I am requesting those from the library.

I picked up a Charlaine Harris omnibus of five Lily Bard stories (935 pages!) for $A5 so that should keep me busy for a while. The weather here has gone a bit cooler, just under 80F! I shall be needing a cardigan soon...

I'm reading Chaser by John Pilley, about a Border Collie who has learned lots of verbs (like many dogs) but also 1022 nouns. She can also work out a new item she has never heard the name of when it is in with old things, understand syntax ('Chaser, take Frisbee to ball') and categories like balls and toys. Since my dog was a Border Collie, I am predisposed to like this book :) I do wish I had been a bit more experienced when I got Whisky. She was obviously very clever as I taught her lots of words and commands, even as a novice trainer. (Those of you who participated in the bookmark exchange may have a photo of Whisky. I used her as a model a couple of times).

Obviously a very intelligent and well-read dog Kath!

James Rebanks in his book 'A Shepherd's Life' writes about the various collies he has had as sheep dogs. Of course these are bred to work and are never considered to be pets . . . even his children were discouraged from becoming too attached to them as puppies. A few Youtube clips of him 'working' his dogs are on line.

There are several Youtube clips of Chaser too. She had working dog parents, and I'm not sure a 'purebred' Border Collie would be quite as driven as this dog obviously is. The owner tailored her learning to blend in with her herding drive. Wh

A dog who had me in tears of laughter was one I saw in a TV competition.

Six dogs were to carry a shallow bowl containing objects, including an egg and a sausage without dropping them, to their trainer. Five did the task well but the sixth dropped his bowl, spilling all the contents.

He immediately slurped up the broken egg then ate the sausage before picking up the bowl and proudly trotted it back to his trainer, who still gave him a pat.

Ah, well, you can't win them all!

Frieda, could the mystery in question be Murder at the Gardner by Jane Langton? I never read it, but I remember my husband enjoyed it some years ago. It is one of the Homer Kelly series books.

Just finished a quickish read Resistance by Anita Shrive. I find some of her books variable in quality, but this one about a US pilot shot down over Belgium in WWII; very realistic and well-written.

Also picked up among a pile of books/pamphlets etc from the home of my late parents and lying about here for far too many years a short 'account' of the life of a woman from a village in the Cotswolds. Over the Bones by Molly Figgures.

She had been asked to write down things she remembered from her childhood and older years and recounts her young life helping to run one of the village pubs, the vast amount of work required, the long hours, the 'characters' in the bar and the visitors who stayed in the Summer. It gets its title from the discovery of several skeletons found under the floors while the building was undergoing restoration.

They appear to have been bones dating back to the ninth century (after carbon dating) with dolichocephalic (long head-boned) skulls and were thought to be part of a group of Angle peoples ie pre 'Anglo Saxon' that lived in the area. My late Mother was involved in digging at a nearby archaeological site where similar 'longheaded', tall (about 6 ft) skeletal remains were found.

Sorry to get technical . . . but I find it quite interesting!

Rosefolly, neither the title, Murder at the Gardner, nor the author's name, Jane Langton, ring a bell with me; but that doesn't really mean anything with my memory! I'll definitely check it out. I might like the mystery even if it's not the one I originally read. Thanks for the tip!

Vee, I'm always fascinated with those accounts of digging up old bones, especially when they signal something unusual or provide evidence of something long suspected. As for dolichocephalic skulls, I and most of my family have those -- along with the long noses that often go with that shape of skull. Neanderthals are described as longheaded . . . hmmm. I'll never forget an anthropology professor I had commenting about dolichocephaly and someone quipping: "Does a long head indicate a narrow mind?"

I finished The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury last night. It was good, once they got past several gruesome murders in the first part. It had an interesting variation on the usual Templar treasure mystery.

I wanted to download some books from the library last night and found my card has expired! :( Bummer. I filled out an on-line renewal form, but apparently the actual process is done the old-fashioned way and will take a week. So I guess I'll go back to Songs of the Kings for now.

Donna

Mini-review:

I've just finished a "tour de force" memoir by renowned William Shirer: "Love & Hate: the Stormy Marriage of Leo and Sonya Tolstoy." For anyone with a deep interest in old Russia or Tolstoy, this is a must-read. Shirer is a brilliant author.

Normally, I would not choose to read such a depressing story of a long but doomed marriage but there is so much here that touches on timeless topics: women's rights, the foreshadowing of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Tolstoy's influence upon Gandhi, his revolt against the Russian Orthodox Church, because he took the side of the peasants against the Tzar, etc. Tolstoy was excommunicated, although he constantly preached his version of the love of Christ to his serfs on his estate. To them, he was a hero. Tolstoy prefigured the ideas of Marx, that ultimately fomented the Revolution that overthrew the Tzar. He was prescient, loved by many,hated by his intelligent wife, who copied all his manuscripts by hand, as well as his diaries. Sonya also bore him 13 children and ran his estate. The couple were larger than life, in their strong personalities.

Ultimately, matters became so bad between them that their grown children had to physically intervene. Tolstoy fled his home and died in the cottage of a stranger at a railroad station. How his death plays out is fascinating, in a bizarre way. Reading this, one gains perspective re a vast Empire on the cusp of great change. This was Shirer's last work, written in his late 80's.

Frieda, I think you might like this....

I have just finished the third in the Lydmouth series by Andrew Taylor that my daughter loaned me and ordered the rest of them (five books) from Abe Books--super cheap with no postage. She had also brought over her copy of Caroline Minuscule by him, which I didn't like much. She bought her copies at a good used bookstore close to an out-of-state temporary work assignment she had that is now finished, so I may just stack my newly ordered copies up and wrap them for her birthday.

Carolyn, I have made a number of attempts to read various books by Andrew Taylor as he is a 'local' author, and have never managed to finish one of them. I find the 'plots' just don't hold my attention and I spend too much time wondering which town/street/river he is referring to, although I know he has 'mixed-up' various places.

I have been listening to via the BBC Erica Jong's Fear of Flying which is being read in the unexpurgated/no holes barred/technicolor of the original version. All I can say is that I am getting old and feeling even older. I find the characters self-centred, navel gazing, hedonistic and totally unlikeable. I cannot find any sympathy with this group of analysts and psychologists all obsessed with sex and have found, after checking a few comments 'on line', mostly written by men searching for erotica, that I must have been busy leading what I thought was a real life back in the early '70's when this book first came out.

Vee, I typed a book report for my boss' high school age daughter back in those early 70s when she had chosen Fear of Flying for her report. She used that particularly bad word in it a lot, and I was embarrassed even to be typing the paper. I certainly never wanted to read the book.

Currently reading The Fry Chronicles : an autobiography by Stephen Fry. I am all swooney and melty over his superb command of WORDS. Such lovely command of language I seldom come across. I got it because I had seen a documentary on Netflix in which he read bits of his book. ( Not a particular fan of his work, just vaguely aware of things he's done. )

Also read The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simionson - I enjoyed that as much as the first one (Rosie Project).

I started a new series, by Steve Hockensmith. The first book is The White Magic Five and Dime ( with an assist by Lisa Falco). Different but I enjoyed it.

He also wrote the Holmes on the Range series - the set-up being that 2 cowboy brothers admire Sherlock Holmes and decide to emulate him . It takes place during the time period in which the stories were first being published as serials in magazines.

Dawn