I finished Marine A SBS last night. I don't think I will read more in the series. The author kept repeating himself (the book could have been 30 pages shorter without it) and the situations the "good guys" survived and overcame were pretty preposterous.

I just started Internship for Murder by Margaret Truman. I don't think I've read any of her work before.

Donna

I've just started reading The Girl Who Slept With God by Val Brelinski. It has certainly caught my interest, but it feels a little disturbing and creepy.

I've just finished "Moloka'i". The story is based upon true events in Hawaii, and part of it is set in a leper colony of over 100 years ago. One would think this would be depressing, but actually the tale of the protagonist overcoming the odds is inspiring. There is a bit of history thrown in, e.g. how the Americans deposed by force the native queen of the Islands around the time of Grover Cleveland. That is a blot on our history, for sure. No wonder there is today a movement of sovreignty on the islands.

I've also heard good things about "Molaka'i" - a really wonderful book despite the subject matter.

Moloka'i is one I've wanted to read for years, as I, too, have heard good things about it. I finished up one which was meh--All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani (but it sent me to google to read about Clark Gable, Loretta Young and other "Old Hollywood" stars,) the very forgettable family suspense/drama The Daughter by Jane Shemilt, and just started The Book of Harlan by Bernice McFadden which is about African American musicians who are captured in Paris during WWII and sent to a concentration camp. So far, Harlan is just a little boy down south... And, I'm eagerly awaiting my turn at the next William Kent Krueger/Cork O'Connor mystery, Iron Boundaries. All fiction, so I hope my brain doesn't turn to mush.

Hey Michelle Cox, I am sorry I will miss you at BEA this year! I go when it is in NYC, but did not "put in" for work to pay for me to go for this Chicago change of venue. I heard it will be back in NYC next sure and I am sure hoping. :) Also hope you get some nice publicity for your book.

Vee, I remember reading and enjoying several of John Wyndham's novels. The Day of the Triffids scared me silly at the time. Re-Birth was a favorite of mine and I still recall it now and then, though I last read it decades ago. I think I forgot him as I did a number of the Golden Age writers (SF writers of the 30's, 40's and 50's). He did not have a huge output and his books often had different titles here in the USA.

Lately I have been recalling some of these old favorites.

michelle, I thought Journey to Munich was better than the most recent Maisie book. She has begun to put her life back together, and the author seems to be setting her up for WWII espionage.

I'm still reading The Elegant Solution. I have been on a family trip to San Antonio (where we drove through the Texas Hill Country at just the right time for the bluebonnets, Frieda) and am now a little over half way through the book what with sightseeing instead of reading. It's a strange book, set in 1700s Basel and dealing with mathematics, murder, and Christianity.

Thanks, Bookmom! This will be my first time at the BEA. I didn't realize it was usually in New York. I thought it moved around to various cities, so I guess I really am in luck that it's in Chicago. Looking forward to it. Everyone says it's fun but exhausting. And thanks for the good wishes about the book - I'm hoping, too!

Carolyn_ky - You've convinced me to pick up with Maisie again. I was getting a little bored, but I 'd like to retry. Currently reading Last Summer at Chelsea Beach, by Pam Jenoff.

Carolyn, oh, to be in Texas in the springtime! I missed the bluebonnets this year. Were the Indian paintbrushes and devil's daisies out, too? (The latter have another name that I can't think of at the moment. They are reddish orange with a yellow stripe and the centers are dark brown.) Just to see all that blue in fields and strips along the roadways! But I like the mix of the different colored flowers, as well. I wish I could clone myself about five times (like that red-haired woman in the television commercial -- Raymond James Financial, I think), so I could be in the right place, wherever it is, in season.

Did you make it out to Fredericksburg? We stayed in a B&B a few years ago -- an old native rock farmhouse out in the country that we had entirely to ourselves -- just across a dirt road from a huge peach orchard that was in bloom. It was either in late March or early April. Glorious! We used to ride motorcycles out that direction in the spring. What did you see and do in San Antonio? The last time I was there was when my son finished his AF basic training at Lackland.

As usual, I am reading and rereading a bunch of books, but it's such a mishmash that I won't try to give their titles. I did finish the 8th book in Harrod-Eagles' Morland Dynasty series. I have two left, so it is about time to order the next five. I've slowed down my reading of them a bit, but I'm still enjoying them very much.

Frieda, yes, there were lots of Indian Paintbrush and lots of highway banks sown with mixed wildflowers, several yellows one of which I thought might be gaillardia with yellow petals and a red center. One very pretty one was white with four round petals and a pale yellow center. Do you know that one?

Driving south from KY, we made a sort of semicircle to the right of the interstate through the Hill Country, spending a night at Marble Falls, on to Llano and Burnet, and then driving the Willow City Loop to Fredericksburg to Luckenbach (is that place an in joke?), Blanco, and Boeme into San Antonio. Our hotel was right on the Riverwalk. We walked up and down it a lot, ate in several riverside restaurants as well as the Blanco Cafe that had really good Tex Mex food, took the river boat ride, saw the Alamo, toured the other four missions, went to John Hagee's Cornerstone Church on Sunday morning, and came home via Corpus Christi where we had a really good lunch at Blackbeard's seafood restaurant. The temps were in the high 70s to low 80s, and we missed a cold, rainy week at home. It was a really nice trip, and the flowers were just gorgeous as you know.

I have the latest Sebastian St. Cyr by C. S. Harris waiting for me at the library, so I'm trying to apply myself to The Elegant Solution and get finished, but I really did have to do the laundry today.

I just started Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow which I first heard of on the March reading thread. ( I didn't read the posts that actually discussed the book, but I liked the name and fact that several of you were really taken with it ).

I recently read Molokai which I thought was stupendous. I heard that his Honolulu is even better.

After that I read the Art of Hearing Heartbeats, which I also definitely recommend.

Where is everyone?

I have just finished the much over publicised/hyped The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollingsworth. So many rave reviews even before the book had been published; I should have been suspicious.

A long work divided into sections each building on the characters from the first chapter. A young and very beautiful (think Rupert Brooke) but second-rate poet, the heir to a vast estate, comes to stay in a modest house, the home of his 'lover' a fellow undergraduate at Cambridge.

While there he writes a poem, possibly for the daughter of the house which, after WWI where the young man dies, is published to much acclaim.

The following sections of the books deal with the characters who all 'want a piece' of the poet. The young woman claims he was going to marry her. Various pretty boys 'suggest' affairs they may have had with him. Writers search for lost poems/letters etc and several books are written about his grand house and the family.

Well-written but . . . the characters are so petty and generally unpleasant. All the young men . . .there are but a few women . . . . snigger, giggle and smirk, eye each other up and blush on almost every page. They all mix in literary/arty worlds where, if Hollingsworth is to be believed, everyone is gay and is having/has had a fling with everyone else.

It made me feel very old and unsophisticated.

Put aside The Elegant Solution and am happily reading the Sebastian St. Cyr book. The murder appears in the first paragraph.

Just finished The Choice by Nicholas Sparks and found the first half not up to his usual writing.

Am using this great thread to learn of books, their titles and whether or not it was enjoyed.... a big help.

Vee, Where have I been? I was struck by a lurgi and I always re-read favourite books when I am feeling low. I have borrowed the first book in a series about a library in a lighthouse but need to get past the first pages. I just can't concentrate...

I once read a book about Noel Coward and the only heteros mentioned was the pet dog and one couple! Coward said that there would be books like that written about him so I prefer to read the polite biography by his attendant "Coley". I am with the "don't frighten the horses" school of thought.

I just finished reading The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski and I am haunted by it. It's the story of a Christian fundamentalist family whose 17-year-old daughter returns from a mission trip to Mexico pregnant. She claims to be carrying God's child and that an angel told her that although her family and others would not understand, she must persevere to carry out God's plan for her. As you might imagine, her family does not believe her. Her father tries to handle the situation by sending his two oldest daughters to live in a house far from town, hoping that solitude, prayer and reflection will lead the pregnant daughter to agree with his plan that the baby be put up for adoption. He imagines this isolated location will keep them away from bad influences. Sadly, on the Acknowledgements page, the author revealed that she and her sisters, raised as devout evangelical Christians, shared many of the experiences portrayed in the book.

Barbara Wood wrote a book called Childsong in which a 17-year-old girl is pregnant and insists that the child is holy. She is so convincing that the doctor begins to investigate and (spoiler) finds that she was struck by lightning in a swimming pool, thus causing reproduction, but the baby would have to be a girl because it would be a clone. It was a girl.

I really like Wood, and looking up the title caused me to find that I have missed her last several books. I never hear of her in any of my book sources (and that includes you all) so I have some catching up to do. Amazon will be so glad.

Interesting, Carolyn!

Wow, Carolyn, I'd better stay in during a thunder storm; you know how the neighbours talk.

As light relief from my last book I just read and thoroughly enjoyed Breakfast at Tiffany's 'borrowed' from my s-in-l's college collection of US literature. I don't know how this had passed me by as did the film, which I obviously missed when it came out and have never seen available as a 're-release'on TV.

Have you all seen/read it/enjoyed it? Isn't Audrey Hepburn too sophisticated or English for the part of Holly?

Will Moon River be running through my head all day? Probably ;-)

You know I don't think I ever read Breakfast at Tiffany's and never saw the movie. A few years ago there was an adaptation of it on Broadway which I saw-- it wasn't very good and it didn't play very long. Now I am definitely going to read the book and look for the movie. Thanks for sharing this.
There are many times when a book has been a best seller years ago, and has kind of fallen from mention when I read it and adore it-------and then I say no wonder it was such a hit.

I read the book and saw the film some years ago. The film differs from the book somewhat and fleshes it out.

I liked Hepburn in the part, so elegant and in the book it is remarked that she grabs rumpled clothes but makes an appearance as though she were Cleopatra dressed by handmaidens, or words to that effect. Like I said, I read the book, which I think was more like a novella, years ago! Now I have the Moon River earworm too! I heard that chewing gum distracts this. Anyone know if that works?

I finished Internship in Murder last night. I must say I'm confused as to the author - the title says "Margaret Truman's Internship..." and the name Donald Bain is at the bottom of the cover. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book. :)

Last night I started Kittens can Kill. I was having issues with Overdrive and downloaded it to test the fix they sent me. But it's about a kitten so I'll probably read all of it!

Donna

I've never read Breakfast at Tiffany's either, or seen the film either. Hmmm....

Vee, I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's years ago, when it first came out. I was always a fan of A. Hepburn. Every role she played was underlined by her gracefulness and elegance. (She was a ballet dancer for years before she was an actress). I loved the film, have not read the book.

I just finished Frances Mayes' "A Year in the World", which continues her travels. She is becoming my favorite travel writer. The author is a poet who taught creative writing before buying and restoring a villa in Tuscany. This shows in her lyrical descriptions of landscapes. Upon reading this, I was kicking myself for not having traveled to Spain, Portugal, or Morocco. Her descriptions of the medieval city of Fez is magical! Mayes is now 76, was born in Fitzgerald, GA and has now written a memoir: "Under Magnolia." Having grown up in GA myself, I want to find this and read it.

I have just started Sue Monk Kidd's "The Invention of Wings." This is based upon well-researched history, set in anti-Bellum Charleston, SC, where I now live. It's the story of the two Grimke sisters, high-born, but were abolition sympathizers early on. Their unusual friendship with a slave "given" as a birthday gift to Sarah makes for a dramatic narrative. I have not liked Kidd's previous works, but this novel is completely compelling from the very beginning.

Audrey Hepburn WAS Holly Golightly in Breakfast. I haven't read the book, either, but have seen the movie a couple of times. I also particularly liked her in Charade with Cary Grant.

I like any movie with Audrey Hepburn and/or Cary Grant!

I have not previously read any of Sue Monk Kidd's books, but I did read The Invention of Wings for my book club. I thought it a good read and very interesting.

I wondered if the language and to some extent content in Breakfast . . . was perhaps considered quite rich for mid-50's USA. In the original Holly is no more than a call-girl from a very poor family with a chaotic life-style and married at fourteen. She comes to NYC, re-invents herself and hangs-out on the edges of the Mob and 'allows' rich mummy's boys to wine and dine her. She becomes pregnant by a South American low-life who runs out on her, loses the baby while in prison and eventually manages to escape both the police and the US. And the book is set during WWII not the 50's. She regards Tiffany's as the height of glamour and sophistication but can only afford to buy what I think we would now know as 'calling cards'.

In the 'original' there is a cat and she does play the guitar. How does the rest of the story compare with the movie?

Vee, can you watch the DVD? Some of the book is used but the film is charming from memory and has a lovely ending that makes you need a hanky! Well, I did...

I always had a Tiffany piece on my bucket list and actually bought a shop-soiled ID bracelet on the net which had a tiny flaw. Sadly, it was too small for me so I gave it to my slender-wristed daughter. When I told her how much this would cost new, she gulped and changed the wrist she was wearing it on so it didn't get scratched by her watch!

Ann, I have watched bits-and-pieces on Youtube but we don't have a subscription to netflix or similar, so cannot 'borrow' the DVD.

I read that the cat used in the production after being heavily rained on smelt very bad and brought tears to the actor's eyes . . . and that 'Moon River' was due to be cut from the movie until AH firmly put her foot down.

I just finished the newest Nora Roberts, The Obsession. As a life-long Nora fan, I enjoyed it, though it was very dark in the crimes-committed department. I'm now reading Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home by Jessica Fechtor. She suffered a brain aneurysm at 28 and the book is the story of her recovery. So far, very engaging and uplifting.

Vee, the BaT movie was not like the book, and now I surely don't want to read it and ruin my memories.

Vee, I am puzzled by your reference to DVDs and Netflix.

I borrow library DVDs or buy them to watch on TV through my DVD player. I only have Free to Air TV programs and don't subscribe to any of the several on offer. This restricts my viewing somewhat from viewing popular programs but as I read a lot and spend time on the net, I don't want to bother.

Ann, I had never thought of the library for DVD's! Like you, we don't use any extra TV channels that have to be paid for * Sky etc. There is usually enough choice on the various BBC and independent channels plus endless 'repeats' and the 'best-of' this and that, which are really repeats cobbled together . . .

*In the UK we have to pay a TV licence fee of nearly £150 per year for a colour set (B & W is only £50). The money collected pays for the BBC and causes much grumbling about the 'quality' of the out-put and the huge salaries and waste of money that takes place within that institution.

I should add that the BBC is NOT a Govt run broadcasting system as some 'foreigners' think. News etc is always meant to be impartial, although either side of the political divide claim it is biased.

It is difficult to avoid payment as so-called detector vans are able to pick up on houses where TV's are being used without a licence. A hefty fine can be imposed.

Once over 75 years old one no longer has to pay. Something to look forward to?

Vee, fortunately we don't pay a TV licence here and when I was in the UK our group licence was paid by the Council who ran the complex where we lived.

Actually, although not a foreigner, I thought the BBC was a Government institution when I bothered to think about it....which was like almost never!

My journalist husband had worked in TV news in Australia and was horrified by the bias of some of the news programs shown against some personalities featured in the stories in the UK. Complaints against such behaviour would get a strong rebuke from Regulatory Bodies of which there are so many for everything, usually known by initials!

I can borrow DVDs for three weeks from my local library but the City library only allows a week which isn't long if I want a series. Sometimes I have to buy one from a different region and can only play this on my old VCR/DVD multi-regional player. This no longer functions as a video recorder as it is analog but I keep it for the purpose of viewing past shows only on Region 1 & 2 DVDs, like the old version of "Love in a Cold Climate." with Judi Dench.

Vee, both my county/city library and my nearby college library have a fantastic collection of DVD's. That is where I get all of my movies and stay au courant. I'm now watching a Brit mystery series " Midsomer Murders" and "The Good Wife" (American TV series). This is how I got to watch all of "Foyle's War" as well as "New Tricks." Movies usually go out for 2 weeks, but can be renewed. There are many branch libraries as well as the city one, and service is free. Best of all, there is a bookmobile that comes to my building twice monthly and will take requests for any and all.

My only complaint re the public library is that just after I moved here 5 years ago, they suddenly decided to divest themselves of all French and Italian DVD's as well as books. They did, however keep a decent collection of Spanish films and books. Go figure!!!

Mary, you may remember my long rant here a while ago complaining that our county library was cutting costs by removing all their 'mobile' library services. They also tried to close several of the smaller branch libraries. I think some of these places were 'saved' by volunteers going in to run them with the occasional visit from someone from Head Office, but the library 'vans' were put up for sale . . . and the one in our area was brand-spanking new all singing all dancing . . . so they must have sold them at quite a financial loss. A friend wanted to buy one and use it as a horse-box, so, at least, the horse would have plenty to read/eat during long journeys.

I have never checked, but I don't imagine our small library has any books/DVD's in any languages except English. Maybe they could order them . .. for a payment.

I know our Japanese D-in-Law, living over here, can get books in her language, both for children and adults from their much bigger library system in the English Midlands.

It's a very dark afternoon here in the Midwest where thunderstorms are rolling through, and I am reading the dreariest book ever - Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I believe I would not be out of line to describe every character as one-dimensional, and almost all of them as dreary. Forging on ...

I finally finished The Elegant Solution. It had some magical realism,
which I'm not fond of, along with jealousy, murder, and higher
mathematics; but all things considered, it was an interesting book.

I have been away for a long time - somehow there hasn't been a lot of reading.

Random comments after reading above:

I enjoyed March and The Secret Chord even more, but I think People of the Book is my favourite Brooks' book.

Strangely I have Breakfast at Tiffany's on my bedside table awaiting reading right now.

I have most of John Wyndham's books, and The Chrysalids was a set text in early high school.

Over the weekend I finished Maestra by L S Hinton. This book is marketed as an erotic thriller - don't bother. I read a reasonable amount of romance and erotica, so I'm not averse to a bit of sex, but this was not well done. The sex scenes were excessively graphic for a thriller and completely gratuitous, as well as not erotic. The lead character, as seems to be the current trend (reference Gone Girl, The Kind Worth Killing and The Girl on the Train), was obnoxious, self-centred and uninteresting. The only part of the book I really enjoyed was the art references.

I'm now rereading Agatha Christie's Ten Little N******** (yes, my copy has that title) after seeing the BBC series of And Then There Were None on the weekend. I thought it was well done, and had many excellent actors in it, including Charles Dance, Miranda Richardson, Aidan Turner and Sam Neill. I felt compelled to check how closely the film followed the book.

Kath, we watched And Then There Were None on TV during the Christmas holidays. I've never read the book but thought the tension was kept up very well and it was a chance for weak-kneed females to admire Aidan Turner's manly chest . . . if/when Poldark, in which he starred, reaches the US you will appreciate the moments of virile hay scything.

Yes Vee, he's certainly worth viewing time.

However, you seem to have forgotten that I am an antipodean Colonial :). I think Poldark has been on here, but I missed it. I may have to seek it out.

"Antipodean colonial" - love that description, Kath!

Kath, I could never forget that you are an antipodean Colonial with your cheerful "G'day sport" greetings and the wonderful 'Toyota' ad you posted to illustrate the many descriptive uses of the word bugger for our US friends. It still makes us laugh.

Kath and Vee - I'm interested in your capitalization of "Colonial." I wasn't aware of that convention. (Might my ignorance have something to do with that "b" word?)

Kathy I only put a capital 'C' to emphasise the importance to the UK of the Old Empire. ;-)

When we were children we thought bugger was the naughtiest word there was. Of course there is far worse flowing from the mouths of infants these days . . .

Check out on youtube with 'Toyota ad' + 'bugger'

Looked at youtube - funny!

Vee, when my mom was a little girl (back in the early 30s), she and her brothers would go outside and whisper "tut, tut, chicken butt" and crack up laughing. They would get in HUGE trouble if either of their parents heard them say that!

Donna

I finished the dreary book I mentioned earlier, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I don't recommend it.

Kathy, I'm curious: Why did you finish Everything I Never. . . ? If it is as dreary as it sounds to me, I would've conveniently lost it somehow. Oops! Can't finish if I can't find it. I do that a lot. :-)

Good question, Frieda! I finished it only because I will be attending a discussion about it in May, and it wasn't too long.