I embarked on two online reading challenges last month, in order to try to get my book blog started again. You read the book, post a review on your blog (or on Goodreads or in a comment if you don't have a blog) and post a link on a central website.

One is a non-fiction challenge in which I have finished 3 books out of 5.

The other has six categories and has been running for several years, with new categories each year. I've done four out of six categories (A title with: an item of clothing; an item of furniture; a month of the year; the word ‘tree’). I have two to go to finish: a profession and a country, so I am currently reading Show Me the Magic: Travels Round Benin by Taxi by Annie Caulfield. It's funny and informative and I'm enjoying it slowly.

Last night I finished Breakdown by Jonathan Kellerman. It was really good. Today I'm starting Haunting Jasmine by Anjali Banarjee.

Donna

Reading now Hello NY, An Illustrated Love Letter to the Five Boroughs by Julia Rothman, a lifelong New Yorker. She explores the city, finding, among other places:

-the best place to get a bra, Orchard Corset, a tiny store run by a Hasidic man and woman

-a secret tennis court at Grand Central Station

-the NY Tattoo Museum, where firemen who survived the 9-11 attack, had a commemorative tattoo done with that date and the number of the firebox that was pulled closest to the towers

She also interviews a librarian at the NY Public Library and a taxi driver.

The illustrations are good.

I have just finished When the Music's Over by Peter Robinson. Typical for this author, whom I really enjoy. Off to the library tomorrow to pick up the new Louise Penny that is being held for me.

Carolyn - Just a few months ago, I began reading Louise Penny's Armand Gamache mystery series. I read three, then wanted to take one on vacation on my Kindle. Only the then-most-recent one was available from my library at the time, so I downloaded and read The Nature of the Beast. Though I liked it, it was such a mistake to jump ahead in the series like that. I learned of a death, a wedding, and a retirement that had occurred in books I had not yet read. It about killed me!

Reader-in-Transit - Hello NY... sounds like a really interesting book. I need to put that one one my TBR list. Love the "best bra" store description.

Kathy,

Hello NY is interesting, with quirky or poignant details. You feel you are hanging out with the locals as she mentions all these "secret" places, unknown to visitors. It is mostly illustrations, it can be read in a couple of hours.

Kathy, I learned that lesson long ago. You wouldn't believe how far behind I am in several series, but it does give me book security for the future.

I picked up the new Penny today but am reading Sorrow Road by Julia Keller. This is the fifth in her series about a prosecuting attorney in a small town in West Virginia. It's a must to read these in order, but they are very good. The first one is A Killing in the Hills.

Carolyn - Thanks for the Julia Keller series suggestion. I will keep that in my back pocket for future reading.

Woodnymph, your description of Lady Catherine has piqued my interest; I am going to see if my library has it.

Based on a recommendation in the August thread (by I forget whom, and I'm too lazy to go back and look) I picked up Understanding the Scots. It's not a long book so I should be able to finish it easily over the weekend.

I listened to The King of Attolia (Megan Whalen Turner) last weekend (on a long road trip) so today I decided to start the series over again and read The Thief this afternoon. This is one of my all time favorite series and I hope the author will hurry up and finish the last two books she has promised. She takes her time and the wait is definitely worth while but it has been several years since the last one came out and I am getting antsy...not that it will do me any good, I am just going to have to be patient!

I finished Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl yesterday while on a roadtrip to see son and family. We stopped for an ice cream, mine vanilla with chunks of chocolate and candied pecans. Both the ice cream and the book were tasty: sweet with occasional bites of crunch and flavor. I might read A Spool of Blue Thread. Shall I go out for another ice cream while reading it?

You'd better, Harbor Rose, before it gets too cold for that (for those still enjoying summer, it is already cooling down here). Our notorious rain is back, the cold not far behind.

What flavor will you have this time?

Finished Sorrow Road and will start A Great Reckoning later tonight since all PBS is showing are reruns through the holiday.

The rains are back here too in the Puget Sound of western Washington. It's the end of summer, come too soon for me as I know months of grey skies and misty rain are ahead.

Reader, I really wasn't trying to be overcute with the ice cream comparison. The book Vinegar Girl reminded me of the ice cream and I was asking if The Spool of Blue Thread is similarly sweet with flavors of enjoyable crunch. I'm partial to odd flavors of ice cream. You?

The Outcast by Sadie Jones was one of those 'can't put it down' but disturbing reads. Starting at end of WWII UK, a ten year old boy living in a close knit and claustrophobic community is unable to come to terms with huge emotional problems . . . and much of the 'stiff upper lip' English method of parenting is blamed for this . . . His life and that of the community suffers. Will there be any light at the end of the tunnel?

For a first novel this kept a fast 'pace' but I felt the author was rather hazy on how average 'comfortably off' families lived in post-war England. I think few people then had many/any servants, let alone butlers, nor did they throw endless luncheon/drinks/dinner/tennis parties. And my goodness, most of them seemed to have had a booze problem.

I think if I had been forced to live among so many self-centred boring people some with nasty violent tendencies I too would have behaved badly 'though I feel self-harm might have been a step too far.

Harborrose, the book I'm reading (Haunting Jasmine by Anjali Benarjee) is set on Shelter Island in Puget Sound. The other book I've read by her was set there, too (Enchanting Lily).

Donna

I'm well into Louise Penny's latest, A Great Reckoning, and loving it as I do all her books.

I'm finally reading Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburnt Country." He's my favorite travel writer and I enjoy his humor, intermixed with some history. A little levity before I must begin my readings on ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia for the college history class I am enrolled in.

I ran out of books and am re-reading an old Brother Cadfael, Dead Man's Ransom. I don't remember it at all and am enjoying it all over again.

Meanwhile, I got the new Charles Todd and the new James Lee Burke in the mail as well as picking up three books that came in for me at the library. I'm rich again.

I just finished Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld. I've read other books that were sequels or alternate versions of Jane Austen's various books and most were dreadful (or just boring -- looking at you, Death Comes to Pemberley), but I thought this one was quite clever and entertaining.

I'm a big fan of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries so I was interested to see how another writer would bring P&P into the 21st century. In this version, Liz is a 38 year-old magazine writer, her sister, Jane, is an almost-40 year-old yoga instructor. Middle sister Mary never leaves her room or her computer, and Lydia and Kitty are obsessed with working out and their cell phones. The story is set in Cincinnati after Mr. Bennet has a health scare and Liz and Jane return to the family home to set things straight. As for Darcy ... he's (literally) a brain surgeon.

Sittenfeld does a good job (IMO) of shuffling story elements around to fit the modern setting. My only quibble was that Lydia's "scandal" isn't really that scandalous (though what could be, in this day and age?) but I thought the whole thing worked well. It was a good, entertaining read.

It took me 2 weeks to finish The Whole World Over by Julia Glass. It is 558 pages long (there were days when, because of work, I read only a few pages). IMO, it was worth it. She writes in the 3rd person with an intimacy that only a few authors achieve and that writing in the 1st person. She goes deep into the characters, exploring motivations, hidden fears, backstory.

The book follows the faltering marriage of Greenie and Alan, during the year that Greenie goes to work as a chef for the governor of New Mexico, leaving Alan behind in NYC (he is a psychotherapist), while trying to convince him to join her in NM. Other chapters are about Greenie's friend Walter, a gay restauranteur who recommended her for the chef job, and Saga, a woman who lost a good chunk of her memory due a head injury. There is no climax to this novel, but still has a satisfying denouement.

I just finished The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry which had great reviews so I know I'm in the minority. I found it predictable and a bit uninteresting. I just wasn't a fan. I didn't hate it, but I certainly didn't love it either. Feel I bit the odd one out...

jlsch - Though I am one of the people who loved The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, I completely understand how you feel being the "odd one out." Last night, I started reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, the book that Amazon named the "Best Book of 2015" and that Barack Obama declared his favorite of the year. I did not get very far at all before I abandoned it. Once again I am reminded what extremely wide variations in taste there are when it comes to reading.

Yesterday I finished reading Stoner by John Williams. I have to admit that I warmed up to it quite a lot after "dissing" it in my earlier comment (see above). I still feel conflicted about it, but I do understand why many people consider it to be such a great piece of writing. I guess I want to really love a book before I say it's great. I didn't love Stoner, but I'm glad I read it.

By the way, I didn't really need to use quotation marks around "dissing." I just checked and found it as a legitimate word in Merriam-Webster Online. That kind of surprised me.

Jlsch,

You are not the only odd one out. I didn't love The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry either. I found it lacking in substance and character development, and, at times, too cute (a policemen book club?).

I finished Haunting Jasmine the other day. It was a nice story, but I didn't like it as well as Enchanting Lily. Probably because it didn't have a cat as one of the main characters. :)

Now I've started A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain. I got an email from the library that my book on hold was available, and it was this one. I can't recall putting it on hold or why I would have! LOL Anyway, I'm about halfway through chapter 2 and so far it's not doing much for me.

Donna

Reading now Inheritance by Natalie Danford, about an Italian man who immigrates to America after WWII. When he dies, his daughter finds a deed to a house in Italy. He never mentioned this house. She goes to Italy to claim the house.

kathy_t:

I read Stoner years ago. It was exactly as you described. I don't know what anyone got out of it, except maybe a cure for insomnia.

I'm currently in the middle of Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson. Very good!

Because of rave reviews in the papers I ordered a library copy of The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and hurried through it as there were twenty people on the waiting list.

It is set in 1890's London and the Eastern county of Essex and written in a slightly 'gothick' style with a cast of mixed characters: a recently widowed 'free-spirit' wife, her strange son, her socialist/Marxist companion, a country parson, his consumptive wife, a couple of top surgeons and a host of simple coastal-dwelling villagers.

Mix these into a 'non-story' about strange sightings of dark shapes in the tidal waters and add some truly non-Victorian flourishes . . . children sucking ice-cubes in hot weather, tomato salad at a picnic, oranges sold in little nets during the Summer, the lack of 'department stores' in rural Colchester, a successful operation to sew up a stabbed heart, plus many more. A huge suspension of belief might have made this book more enjoyable for me.

Note to self: don't be influenced by florid book reviews. ;-(

A couple days ago, I finished reading Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen. It came to my attention when the title was used in our May game when I was intrigued by the title. While reading the book (which I obtained for a dollar at a Friends of the Library Book Sale and has a really lovely cover), I learned that the book was named after a photograph that made the professional-photographer protagonist famous. I liked that about it, and I liked the story of how that photograph came to be taken. I would say that this was a lovely, quiet, pleasant book to read. Nothing shocking or particularly insightful about it, but it was quite enjoyable.

I finished My Name is Lucy Barton today. It is the first Elizabeth Stout book that I've read, and I liked it a lot. Are her other books written in similar format?

I'm still working on A Murder in Time. Somehow, when I'm reading it I'm interested in the story, but when I'm not reading it takes quite a mental "push" to get started reading it again. Weird, huh?

Donna

Carolyn - I've never read anything by Elizabeth Strout, so I can be of no help, but I am curious - what is the format that you refer to in your question?

It is told at a later date but is written in first person about a woman in the hospital for a long period recovering from surgery that should not have caused problems. Her mother, to whom she had not spoken for several years, comes to see her, stays in her hospital room for five days and nights, and their mild gossip about old friends and neighbors creates a bond between them that they never had. The patient is a writer, and in the book quotes another author whom she admired as saying that every writer only has one story to tell in whatever various ways. I just wondered if her other books have a similar underlying theme.

I haven't read "Wolf Hall" or "Bringing up the Bodies" yet, being as Vee once said 'all Tudored out' but the TV version is starting tonight so I will take a look.

Why doesn't anyone "do" the Prince Regent? Now that would be a soap opera!

I can only recall "Beau Brummel" a movie made years ago, or has there been something more recent?

I'm almost finished, and liking, of course, Black Widow by Daniel Silva. It's a bit too close for comfort re terrorism.

Am reading Dreaming of Iceland by Sally Magnusson so the title of this thread is quite appropriate as this does dwell on family sagas!

Magnussson and her well-know TV 'presenter' and journalist father Magnus, visit the country of his birth to follow-up the various family legends and travel to the far North of the country to the original farm owned by them.

Apparently most Icelanders are knowledgeable and very interested in their family lineage and are always on the lookout for a bishop or two or even royalty to boost their 'blood-line' but many claims and saga-like stories cannot be relied on for the truth. ;-)

The one downside of the book is the fact that so many people have the same names and dates are too thinly scattered so who was/when/where/why isn't always easy to follow.

SM also wrote the moving account of her Mother's decline to dementia which I read some months ago.

Ann, you ask why a TV drama/series/show hasn't been made about the Prince Regent (son of George III and later King George IV)

The only one I can think of is the comedy Blackadder the Third with Rowan Atkinson as the scheming butler Edmund Blackadder and Hugh Laurie as the Prince . . . albeit WAY too thin and possibly slightly more stupid than the 'real' Prince Regent.

Blackadder the Third

Vee,, I have seen all the Blackadders in the UK.

I was thinking that the life of the Prince Regent would make a good mini-series. I know he has figured in films but it has been as a secondary figure, I believe.

I watched a little of Wolf Hall but it had too many scenes lit by candle light or flaming torches for my easy viewing. I have given up on a few shows because of that. They make me screw up my eyes and I can feel a headache coming on!

I like shows with good daylight and clear diction too. I can manage with subtitles when people mutter but can't do much about seeing in the dark in spite of eating a plentiful lot of carrots!

I'm reading Murder in the Afternoon, a Kate Shackleton mystery by Frances Brody. I think I mentioned her before. Kate is a WWI war widow who can't give up even after several years that her husband was only reported missing and may still come home. Meanwhile she is solving mysteries. Not as good as Maisie Dobbs but still pretty interesting.

Sign me up as another one who disliked AJ Fikry. Seemed to me as if the book was written for affect instead of substance. If memory serves, this book came out a few years after Danielewski's (spelling... sorry) House of Leaves with it's eccentric format. Perhaps it is just a copycat effort?

Currently reading The Water Knife by Paulo Bacigalupi for book club. I am seeing wayyyy too much political grandstanding and not enough imagination/substance/emotion/thought. Keeping my fingers crossed that no one asks my opinion. I plan on just eating and drinking my way through the evening.

Also reading Who was Dracula? by Jim Steinmeyer which is a biography of Stoker and focused on how he found his inspiration and character development for the book Dracula. It delves into his fascination with Victorian Theater, his long employment at the Lyceum in London, friendships with Oscar Wilde, actor Henry Irving (also Stoker's boss at the Lyceum) Walt Whitman and others. A very interesting snapshot of Stoker, Victorian theater, and of course, the novel.

PAM