Laceyvail, I'm glad to hear you liked Miss Peregrine, I've wanted to read the series for quite a while, but had no idea what I'd be getting into. Onto the list it goes!

At a friend's suggestion, I just read Dashing Through the Snow by Debbie Macomber. While the book was thankfully very short, I feel I wasted a few precious hours of my time on it. Clearly, friends don't always agree on books.

I began Triple Crown by Felix Francis today. It has an English undercover investigator coming to the U.S. to look for shenanigans in our three big races.

I've just finished a really interesting read of the history of steroid abuse in American sport. (I know it happens worldwide, but this was mostly how it started in the 70's in CA and then spread outwards.) It was really a lot more fascinating that I had expected and exactly fit the bill when I wanted to pick up a book on something completely outside the box of what I normally read.

Called "Steroid Nation" by Shaun Asseal, it's really well written. (Must be bc otherwise I have less than no interest in baseball, and that sport plays a major role in the steroid culture, and I was riveted to the book.) Also interesting in learning more about politicians, who supported (or didn't support) the various legislative wrangling that went on to curb (or not) the market, and also a brief history of body building.

Definitely hit the spot for my reading at the moment. Now - what next?...

Finished The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger, about a man who is here this minute and the next minute in another place and year of his life. His wife meets him when she is only 6 and he is a time traveling adult. They eventually meet in real time. It is an imaginative and sad book.

Then I read the thread of the discussion of this book that began on Dec 11, 2003 and went on until Aug 23, 2009 (Martin provided the link above when I mentioned I was reading the book). I was a bit surprised by how many readers felt enthralled by this novel, "my favorite of all time", some said. I found it enjoyable, interesting, and liked very much the love story, but it's not even my favorite book this year.

Why is the book called The Time Traveler's Wife, when it is mostly about the Time Traveler himself and told from his point of view? Why not call it The Time Traveler (does it sound too sci-fi)? or The Time Traveler and his Wife? (I know, it doesn't sound great). Maybe I have an issue with this because I don't like titles where the woman in the title exists as an appendix to a man (The Winemaker's Daughter, The Mapmaker's Daughter, The Zookepeer's Wife, The Pilot's Wife, to name a few). Still in this book, there are far few chapters from the Wife point of view.

Carolyn, is Felix Francis related to Dick Francis? I'm curious b/c Dick Francis' books are all about horse racing (at least all of them I've read).

I'm still plodding through The Girl on the Train.

Donna

Yes, Donna, Felix is Dick's son, helped him write his last few books, and is now writing the same sort of books on his own. I can hardly tell the difference and have always enjoyed Francis father and son.

Just finished a Golden Age murder mystery reprint "The Mystery at Stowe" with a suitably lurid and inaccurate portrayal of the discovery of the body on the cover!

I had to check out one phrase "sporting the oak" which means a door closed against callers in college parlance. It would probably have been meant to colour the social status of the hero in the 1920s.

Some of these subtle indications included in novels of a bygone time could go right over the head of a modern reader.

I wonder what might puzzle a reader 100 years from now in one of the current books?

Donna, once I finally finished "Girl on the Train", I found I did like it. I want to see the movie now.

Woodnymph, I finished it yesterday. I found the last 100 pages or so really good! I'm not sure why it took so long to engage my interest.

Donna

Reading The Love of My Youth by Mary Gordon. High-school sweethearts that have not seen each other for thirty-six years are alone in Rome at the same time, where they once spent a blissful summer. For the few weeks they are going to be there, he suggests they take a daily walk and get reacquainted. They are happily married to other people with grown children and this is not the sort of novel where they would get back together.

It has a beautiful cover of a bridge in Rome.

I've just finished "Spinster" by Kate Bolick. It's a well-written examination of several independent women and how they chose to live their lives apart from the mainstream cultures of their day. The author explores the lives of Edith Wharton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Maeve Bannon, among others. The writer interjects her own personal story, as well, in tandom with her thoughts about how these other women influenced her thinking about her own life choices.

I really liked this book, as a thought-provoking, lively read.

I've just started Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart. Set in 1914 and based on a real woman who became one of the first female deputy Sheriffs in the US, it's well-written, but I'm finding it difficult to get into. At the 100 page mark I consulted the Amazon reviews, one of which stated, "...the story moves much too slowly and is in dire need of tightening ... the story waddles when it should dance," and that's pretty much how I'm feeling about it right now.

Has anyone else read this? Does it pick up? Is it worth plodding through the next 300 pages?

Peaches for Monsieur le Curé by Joanne Harris is a follow-up to Chocolat (there is another between the two that I haven't read).

It has been suggested that JH was writing on the back of the success of the book plus the film's popularity and this time the Village in SW France is now home to a Muslim community and our White Witch heroine arrives at Ramadan in order to 'help' the villagers and their new neighbours to resolve their various conflicts. Luckily she is acquainted with many Islamic customs and expressions, sends for supplies of chocolate, rustles up 'simple' meals of homemade soup, ditto bread, slow baked rice pudding and peach conserve within about an hour. In between times she deals with her children . . .she now has a little girl who is 'strange' and is accompanied by a faint orange spirit, in much the same way the older girl had an imaginary rabbit(?)

The priest is still in residence but has fallen out of favour with the community but hey! Vianne Rocher is able to help him, rid both communities of their narrow-minder fanatics and bring peace and order all round.

As I couldn't remember all the 'characters' from the first book nor the many 'new' people she introduces I found it difficult to follow the very thin plot. Now had I a set of tarot cards I wouldn't need to read a book at all, just shuffle the deck and all would be revealed.

Vee,

Years ago, after reading Blackberry Wine (very thin plot too) and Five Quarters of the Orange both by Joanne Harris, I crossed her from my list of authors. Glad to hear from your review that I'm not missing anything.

Vee - You should be getting paid for your book reviews. Reading them always improves my day.

Sheri, I read Girl Waits with Gun and liked it enough to request the next one, Lady Cop Makes Trouble, from the library. I have it here but haven't started it next. It's next on my TBR list, so I'll let you know if I think I will continue what I assume is to be a series or put her aside.

Amazon says, "Based on a true story, Girl Waits with Gun introduced Constance
Kopp and her charming and steadfast sisters to an army of enthusiastic
readers. Those readers will be thrilled by this second installment--also
ripped from the headlines--in the romping, wildly readable life of a
woman forging her own path, tackling crime and nefarious criminals along
the way. "

Amy Stewart wrote several NF books on horticulture before turning to fiction. I think she is a decent writer. This is very generous of me personally, btw. We met once, and she did not like me. Someone in the audience dragged us together, thinking that we would be so pleased to meet because we looked so much alike. Well, we both have curly red hair. But I am nearly a generation older than Ms Stewart, and she was offended that someone thought we looked alike. So don't all of you think it gracious of me to be so nice to her?

Gracious indeed, Rosefolly. It is crazy that she disliked you because of a remark someone else made. Unfortunately, we've all seen this kind of behavior, and unfortunately it's usually in a woman, and it does feminist causes not one bit of good.

So I've been pootling around picking up various titles and putting them down again... 'Tis the season to be indecisive.

Plus my work schedule and projects have been really demanding for the past month so my little eyes have been a bit tired! I tried to read the new one out by Sebastian Junger about Tribes (groups of humans/sociology type of thing), and gave it a go, but wow. That was like being trapped at a dinner table with a loud-mouthed person who only speaks to hear themselves talk. (Not to be brutally honest or anything. :-) ) So now I have to look through my library books, and see what's due when. Maybe I can make up my mind that way.

I am gradually ploughing /plowing ( my Spellcheck is a US version) my way through Heyer's "Snowdrift" and I realised that it must be over 50 years since I read this book, as the original "Pistols for Two" was published in 1960. I only vaguely recall a couple of the short stories. Most have the typical Heyer Hero in them "Tall, dark and handsome" and always faultlessly dressed.

No wonder I fell for my T, D and H husband although he was scruffy the first time we met as he had been fishing! Still...

The stories are light and amusing but are best read now and then, like enjoying a box of sweet centred chocolates, too many at once are cloying!

Ann I think all computer spellchecks are in American English rather than the English 'English' wot is spoke/writ over here. I was at first surprised by the number of words spelt differently on the far side of the Pond and have occasionally been 'corrected' by US well-wishers.

Vee, I think it can be changed on some computers but I am not messing with mine! I just ignore the wavy red lines.

I am sweltering here outdoors at present so reading "Snowdrift" is a good idea! You said you couldn't imagine Christmas in the heat but it is quite good really. My home has air-conditioning...

The public transport runs on Christmas Day, so those who don't have a car can get about too. We can take ourselves off to the beach for a swim or drop in on friends. The trains and buses cater for bikes and surf equipment as well as Gophers and prams.

My next book is "All the Little Liars" by Charlaine Harris, a new Aurora Teagarden mystery. I have discovered that there is a pronunciation difference in Aurora to my version!

Have readers ever found they pronounce a name of a person or place mentally and found it was wrong?

I have been pronouncing Clara as Claira but my newest Great-grandchild is a Clara pronounced Klara and I have had to get my head around that!

Ann, I spent my teen years reading Barbara Cartland romances, and my hubby is TD&H, too! (Well, he used to be "dark" but it's mostly gray now.)

I'm reading The Guilty by David Baldacci. The main character is Will Robie, who is a CIA assassin. I'm really enjoying the story, though there are an awful lot of bodies. :/

Donna

Annpan - What's a Gopher?

Kathy, in England a gopher usually means a lowly 'dog's body' probably a young person being paid very little who is asked/told "Go for a coffee/go for the mail . . . I don't know if it has the same meaning in Aus.

The Gopher I was referring to is a mobility aid, they can be driven onto public transport. On the bus a ramp is put down so that the driver easily mounts from the footpath and people who were sitting in the front side-facing seats get up and tilt the seats up to provide a space to allow the equipment to slide into place. Disabled people can manage on their own and feel independent.

A similar system is available on trains.

Msmeow, do you think we were programmed by our teenage reading of Heyer and Cartland to be drawn to TD&H types? My sister married one too!

Annpan you ask about the pronunciation of names. The only eg I can think of off hand is the name Louis (as in Robert Louis Stevenson) I always presumed it was spoken the French way, but apparently it would have been said as Lewis.

And then there is my city, Louisville, that was named for King Louis XVI--because LaFayette et. al. fought with us against those pesky Redcoats, you know--and thus pronounced Louieville but now increasingly Lou-a-vul.

I've begun Lady Cop Makes Trouble by Amy Stewart but am not far enough into it to comment.

Yesterday I finished reading The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny. This was the sixth Louise Penny mystery I read this year. Obviously, I like them a lot.

Currently I am reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It is a SF novel with set in the near future where a virtual reality world is just about the only good thing most people have in their lives. I keep putting it down, but not because it isn't good; it is, quite good. I'm just so darn busy getting ready for the holidays and out of town visitors. But I pick it up with pleasure and am instantly right back into it.

I'm now reading The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick. It's about a widowed man who, while sorting through his wife's belongings, happens upon a charm bracelet. He's never seen it before and wonders where all the beautiful and unusual charms came from. He begins seeking the story behind each charm and learns much about his wife's pre-married-life past that he never knew. It's such a sweet book so far, I do hope it doesn't take a sad or tragic turn at the end.

Kathy, in this type of situation, I read the end of the book to avoid a sad surprise. I do this with lost dogs and other things that might distress me. I know it is only a story but these predicaments can play on our sympathies and I need to know how it will work out!

That makes me smile, Annpan. It makes sense, but I have never, ever looked ahead to see how a book ends. I can't start now.

I too never read the end of a book before I get there although in the case of my last read I should have known the end anyway had it followed the expected route.

Quarantine by Jim Crace takes as its subject the forty days Jesus spent in the Wilderness preparing himself for his 'ministry'. A group of disparate travels/pilgrims are also on a similar mission and have the misfortune to meet up with a truly evil merchant and his put-upon little wife. He has the 'gift' to use every situation to his advantage and wastes no time in organising these people to do his bidding while Jesus, a scrawny youth, takes his fasting to the limit. Will he be tempted by the false words of the merchant?

A really 'different take' on the traditional Bible story and not told with a religious message but worth reading.

A deplorable thing to do, reading the end of a book and I was "served right" when I found I was reading the "teaser" first few pages of the next book in the series, not the story I was currently reading!

No wonder I couldn't understand where these new characters came into it!

Oh that's funny, Annpan!

LOL, Ann!

I finished The Guilty by David Baldacci last night. It was a fast-paced read with some good twists, though lots of bodies.

I downloaded four new books from the NY Times bestseller list last night. I think I'll start Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory first.

Donna

I've been known to skip to the end just to see how a book finishes out. I must be weird, because often I will start a magazine and read it from the back pages, in reverse. That works well when I read The New Yorker, which I love for its cartoons.

The only books I've ever skipped ahead through to take a peek at the ending were the Harry Potter books -- with each book I had to make sure the three main characters survived to the end :)

I just finished A Stone-Kissed Sea by Elizabeth Hunter, the latest entry in her Elemental World series. I am a little embarrassed to admit these are vampire books, but she's such a great story-teller, I've found all of her books thoroughly enjoyable. Her Irin Chronicles books are even better.

Rosefolly, Ready Player One is one of my favorites, I thought it was brilliant. I hope your holiday prep settles down so you can finish it!

I finished The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick and am happy to report that it does not end in tragedy. A light-weight and enjoyable book. It will make me look at National Trust statues differently in the future.

Under the Flamboya Tree by Clara Kelly was an 'easy' read of a difficult subject. Clara was a Dutch child who grew up on the island of Java at the time of the Japanese invasion. Her father was taken to work on the notorious Burma railway and her Mother with three children, the baby only six weeks old, were put into a camp where they endured ill-treatment, starvation and disease until the end of 1945.They fared little better after their release and another year in a holding 'facility' before their eventual repatriation to Holland on an overcrowded cargo ship.

Clare was only four when her ordeal began so her memories are very general. The heat, hunger, beatings and death . . . and the boredom, not forgetting the fights between the inmates that all became 'everyday' events. Even the 'native' people felt ill-will and animosity towards the Dutch and seemed glad to see the women and children suffer.

Her Father was reunited with them but had lost interest in the family and had even forgotten that his wife was pregnant when he was imprisoned. The story is really about the courage and strong will to live shown by the Mother and how the three children managed to make new lives for themselves when they became adults.

I've started The Trespasser by Tana French and hope to read it in two days so that I can return it to the library when a couple of other books are due. I don't think I'll have any trouble if it is as engrossing to me as her other books have been.

I am really enjoying Three Sisters, Three Queens. The story is being told by Queen Margaret of Scotland, the elder sister of Henry VIII. I am about 1/3 through it and find it very engrossing!

Donna

I finally read "All the Little Liars" a new Aurora Teagarden mystery by Charlaine Harris which I started some weeks ago but Christmas preparations got in the way! I had to start from the beginning again to recall the plot.

One thing I noticed, there is a mention that Aurora will get three weeks maternity leave from her work at the library. Is that the norm? Australian new mothers, by birth or an adoption, get eighteen weeks paid leave after a year working for the same employer.

I enjoyed the book and couldn't put it down because I didn't want to skip to the end to solve the mystery this time!

Ha! I'm proud of you for not skipping ahead, Annpan.

I believe my last employer (a bank, and thus decidedly conservative) offers new mothers and fathers 6 weeks of maternity leave. It's only in recent years that paternity leave has been offered, and many of the men do not take full advantage. The U.S. is in a transition period regarding this benefit and so the amount of time offered varies a great deal, I believe.

I received several books for Christmas, and dove right in with My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman, the author of A Man Called Ove (which I loved). This one is just as good, and I'm in that wonderful place where I can't wait to finish it, but I don't want it to end.

I loved My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. I hope you enjoy it sheri.

I am reading The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating every night before bed. Life has been very stressful this year and this book has had a been a small and happy point. I highly recommend it!