I gave up on The Jealous Kind. Not my thing. I looked for The Stranger in my Genes on our library's website. but they don't have it. That's too bad - I think it sounds very interesting.

I'll have to do some searching tonight for some new books to read. I'm still in the sling from my shoulder surgery so will likely spend most of the weekend resting and reading.

Donna

Mary/woodnymph I think the person you mention as having 'got into a tangle' with PM Theresa May, is Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones.

See the obituary below for Pauline Neville the author.

Pauline Neville

Vee, I found another obit that mentioned the "tangle" with an author with exactly the same name and photo and biog.

Donna, I have every book James Lee Burke has ever written. There is a lot of violence in them, but I really like his writing. I find it absolutely lyrical. He is another author I had the privilege of meeting at a reading.

Carolyn, I'll try something else by him. The story set in the 50s just didn't interest me. I was born in 1961 and have always felt "bleh" about anything from the 50s! :)

Donna

Donna - I find your comment interesting because I have always felt "bleh" about books and movies set in the 50s also. (Thank you for "bleh" - the perfect descriptor in this case.) Since I was born in 1950, you might think I'd enjoy the nostalgia, but I seem to have grown tired of it over the years.

Had to return to the library More Than Words, Illustrated Letters from The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art without reading every single letter, but the ones that I read were quite charming, especially those written more than 50 years ago. People did know how to write letters back then.

Others were witty, like one written by Andy Warhol to a Harper's magazine editor:

"biographical information

my life couldn't fill a penny post card

i was born in pittsburgh in 1928 (like everybody else in a steel mill)

i graduated from Carnegie tech

now i'm in NY city moving from one roach infested apartment to another".

Donna and Kathy have just written off a quarter of my life. Bleh to you. (Kidding, of course.)

Carolyn, I would make an exception for you. Let us know if you write a memoir!

Donna, Kathy, and Carolyn: Y'all are funny!

I was also born in 1950, so my memories of that decade are spotty and shallow -- mostly school stuff, what was in movies and books, what was on the radio and television, music, and fashion (light stuff, in other words). That was just on the surface, though. Many of the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s actually germinated in the 1950s. Beyond the nostalgia, I've actually become more interested in the 1950s. The decades that I find bleh! to read about are the 1980s, 1990s, and the 2000s. :-)

As I was born in 1945 I should be able to look back on the '50's with fond memories. But in reality England was still rather colourless and rationed. People still harked back to 'before the War' when everything was apparently wonderful, a land flowing with the proverbial milk and honey.

And the swinging sixties didn't get going until nearer the 70's . . . all that sex, drugs and rock and roll and "if you say you remember the '60's you obviously weren't there"

For me the 'bleh' times were probably house keeping, babies, children and husband tending of the '80' and '90' Most of it has gone by in a haze . . . ;-(

Over here we don't have the bleh word . . . I know what it means but cannot think of the English equivalent.

Vee, I was always hearing how good were the pre-war years and I was sick of it! Even though my parents were out of work on and off in the 1930s, it was so much better then!

My son, who hardly ever reads books, was given an autobiography of a well -known musician who migrated to Australia when a boy and he suddenly started to ask me about my reasons for migrating in 1960.

I reassured him that I wasn't seeking a better life like so many did who were fed a story of Australia being Britain with sunshine! It wasn't like that really.

I came for the chance to travel cheaply, a six weeks cruise for ten pounds, spend the obligatory two years in working, travelling and saving the return fare and then go home but his father (an Aussie hunk!) put paid to that idea!

annpan, the headmistress of my very small junior school had spent many years working in Australia (some mean parents claimed she went unsuccessfully to find a husband) and all our geography lessons were to do with that country. After the 1953 coronation we produced scrapbooks of HM's tour of the Commonwealth sticking in newspaper cuttings of those other 'hunks' from Bondi Beach, fruit canning, the Snowy River hydro scheme, sheep stations . . . you name it we studied it; but as far as I know none of us went on to be Ten Pound Poms although I am sure it would have been a wonderful experience for us.

In the 1950's, it was common for Americans to have "pen pals". This meant corresponding with students from all over the world. I remember that I had two such: a boy in Germany and a girl in Australia. The Australian life sounded fascinating to me from Carol's descriptions: koala bears, lots of "bush" , acres and acres of open spaces. We often exchanged photos. Those were the days of b & w pictures. I, like so many others, enjoyed collecting the "exotic" (to me) stamps that came from the various foreign countries.

Vee, do you have the word blah? Bleh was new to me, too, but very descriptive.

Ann, "Aussie hunk" sounds like a good reason for you to write a memoir.

It's a rainy Saturday afternoon here, and I have spent much of it reading Garden of Lamentations by Deborah Crombie. I wish she didn't make you wait so long between books, although she hasn't "gone downhill" for me yet the way some series writers do. I blew the rest of my Christmas Barnes & Noble gift cards this week buying it and Racing the Devil by Charles Todd.

Carolyn, writing a memoir has been suggested to me before but I was too busy living my life to write about it! Perhaps I will be confined to staying at home and get around to it one day. I have a milestone 80th birthday in May but am still active. I just need some time to sit or have a Nanna nap in the afternoons!

Carolyn blah or more usually blah blah blah . . . is an impolite word/s from someone being forced to listen to instructions or responding to a boring political speech on radio/TV. Often uttered by children but sotto voce so as to avoid a clip round the ear.

Perhaps bleh is more like our 'yuk' although that implies something is slightly vomit-making.

In my world, 'bleh' is not as nearly as negative as 'yuk.' In fact, it's not even really negative. It's more like saying something is simply uninteresting or boring. It's sort of like saying "yawn."

Maybe I've misheard "bleh" but I believe people say blah in this area to mean boring.

Ann, funnily enough I have just read two YA books by an Australian author, Cath Crowley. I enjoyed them but think I will wait a while before I read any others by her as both were written from different character's POV and I found them a little too similar for that reason. But I did like reading about life for an ordinary teenager who's physical surroundings are normal and everyday but that I, as a visitor, would find exotic and different. (If that made sense)

As to bleh vs blah. I always think of bleh meaning so-so, bland or boring; and blah being used like the example Vee shared.

Rouan, I do understand what you meant. When I went to Bali, I was driven around the island by a young Balinese man who was surprised at my admiration of the terraced hills. It was so normal to him

"Just rice fields." he shrugged.

Carolyn, I have just read this thread and I'm pleased to know Rennie Airth has a new book. Like you, I find them very engaging.

However, if the chocolate you were brought came from Australia, it was made here. Cadbury has a factory in Tasmania. Our chocolate tends to last longer in your mouth as it has more cocoa butter to make the melting point a bit higher for our hotter climate I believe.

I borrowed Golden Hill by Francis Spufford from the library after reading glowing reports about in the papers.

For me the interesting thing about it was the setting, New York in the 1740's and written in much the same style as books of that time eg Fielding, Smollet or Defoe.

A young man arrives by ship from London carrying a Bill of Exchange to be honoured at a mercantile house on Golden Hill. BTW I didn't know that at that time ready money was in very short supply in the colonies and had to be made up of promissory notes from the various States or overseas territories, which is the way the story takes off.

We are shown a vivid picture of this small city, what is now Lower Manhattan, gradually transforming from Dutch to English, the narrow streets, the garrison, the busy harbour, the coffee houses the respectable citizens (and the less so) the Guy Fawkes, St Nicholas and King's birthday celebrations. As to why this young man has so great a sum of money to spend is not explained until the very end so don't cheat and go to the last pages first . . .

I know of few novels that deal with this period of US history with no mention of the 'Revolution' yet to come, although I do remember reading a children's book many years ago Mary Ann by ?? set on the Connecticut coast about ship-building and the whaling trade.

I finished Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and highly recommend it. The book is a series of anecdotes about growing up in South Africa as a mixed race child. It bothered some members of my book club that the time line of the stories was muddled, and some felt that they liked him less after reading it. Overall, I thought it was an intelligent, sometimes amusing, sometimes harrowing but always a thoughtfully written book.

I also finished Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell. It's a memoir written in the 1950s about living with pet otters on a remote Scottish island. Beautiful writing, delightful otters, but too many animals die tragic deaths and it ends on an odd note. If written today he would have the Peta protesters at his door 24/7, Interesting that he gave no thought as to the possible ramifications of introducing otters from Iraq and Africa to Scotland, or even the moral ambiguity of keeping wild animals as pets (he had quite a few others besides the otters). Overall I enjoyed the book, but I have no interest in reading the other two books in the series.

The Invention of Wings is my next book club pick, and I'm not sure if I want to move on to that right away or read something from my TBR pile first.

Nora Roberts was the guest on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend. I don't think I've read any of her books, so when I saw one on the library's NYT best-seller list I checked it out. It was actually under the name JD Robb. Something about an assassin. I read about three paragraphs and knew it wasn't for me!

I just started Damaged by Lisa Scottoline. I've only read a couple of chapters, but I always enjoy her books.

Donna

I finished the Crombie book in a day and a half and am now reading Racing the Devil by Charles Todd. I really like these books and am "racing" through this one, too.

Kath, the wrapper on the Cadbury bar said Birmingham. My daughter bought it in the Sydney airport so perhaps that made a difference. At any rate, it was delicious. Ours seem hard compared to yours, and I'm sure it's that luscious butter fat.

Carolyn, Cadbury's choccy hasn't been the same since it was taken over in a hostile bid by US 'giant' Kraft, closing factories and probably 'recipes'. Kraft have now put in a bid for Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever but so far the shareholders have resisted it.

Tell the shareholders to hang in there, but yours is still better than ours.

That's really interesting Carolyn. I wonder if it's there for homesick Poms (the somewhat derogatory name for Brits used in Australia).

This Pom isn't homesick and likes Belgian chocolates best!

I saw in the paper today that the Kraft-Unilever deal is off.

Yes, I heard that on the news the other day, too.

Let's hope Kraft don't make another attempt.

I understand that many of Cadbury's products are now made in Poland.

We don't eat much chocolate as a family but do enjoy the occasional Leibniz biscuit, the dark choc ones, which originate from Germany, although I think they have a factory in North Carolina(?)

I am not picky about the brand as long as it's dark chocolate and I prefer those with nuts. Cadbury, Lindt, Ghirardelli, Lake Champlain, Godiva, Valhrona, Hershey's, Vosges...I'm an indiscriminate eater of dark chocolate. I also love Almond Joys and peanut butter cups. I cannot have them in the house and I try to avoid the checkout lines with candy.

I just read Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlos Rovelli. I never took Physics in HS, opting for higher level chemistry because the teacher was the best science teacher in the school, so I thought I'd pick up this little book and see what I'd missed. It's amazing what physicists are finding out about the universe and Rovelli puts seven ideas and discoveries of physics into short, poetically written essays. The whole book is 81 pages, but it's mind expanding. Here's a quote:

"Quantum Mechanics and experiments with particles have taught us that the world is a continuous, restless swarming of things, a continuous coming to light and disappearance of ephemeral entities. A set of vibrations, as in the switched on hippie world of the 1960's. A world of happenings, not of things."

Ha, Merry, I took chemistry in HS because the teacher was cute! And the quote you posted went right over my head and makes no sense to me. I definitely have a math and art brain.

Donna

Donna, after reading this book, I think physics is explaining the universe with math and an artist"s imagination. It might be the science for you! Math is always a struggle for me, I like words and stories. Fortunately for me, this book explained physics in beautiful words and not so many equations. But, real physics is all about equations.

I finished The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos by Dominic Smith. Several of my work colleagues loved it, but it didn't grab my attention fully. Not a bad book, but not one I'd call a must read.

I finished Shadow of the Silk Road yesterday, and it has left me unsatisfied. Thubron never explicitly states the reasons for his journey along one of the former trade routes that made up the Silk Road, and instead seems to have been travelling for the sake of travel, but without any of the joy one expects from such a journey. It was interesting to read about the people he met (especially the ones he wrote about in two of his previous books), and the snippets of history he skilfully inserts into the narrative are enjoyable and liable to make one want to read one book of history after another. Ultimately, however, the book is deeply melancholic when one yearns for it to be hopeful, and the travelling it describes is aimless and unsatisfactory and it just sort of peters out without a real conclusion.

This morning I finished reading The Love Child by Edith Olivier, an obscure novel written and published in the 1920s. It was finally reprinted in 2014, after being out of print since the 1980s. It's a lovely bit of dark, slightly melancholy fantasy, haunted by foreshadowing, almost fairy-tale like in the simplicity and poetic quality of the language, and an utterly satisfying read. Just what I needed after Thubron's rather depressing travelogue.

It is about a lonely spinster who brings her childhood imaginary friend so successfully to life that the girl becomes visible and solid and starts to mature and grow up, but their relationship is threatened by a young man who falls in love with the girl and wants to have her for his own.

It seems I am not the only one who has discovered the joys of this short novel - I googled it and found several reviews, all of them glowing.

Now I plan to concentrate on The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany.

Netla, I read Thubron's To a Mountain in Tibet and your review could apply to that book, too. It's no fun having a depressed travel companion.

merryworld, you beat me to it! I was just about to add that I read Thubron's In Siberia a while ago and it was SO miserable. Of course this might just be a reflection of the state of the old USSR but it certainly wasn't an uplifting experience.

I've just finished Ruth Reichl's "Comfort Me With Apples", a memoir. So well-written, it goes very fast. The author describes her early days as a restaurant food critic in California and her travels between San Francisco and Los Angeles. She was on quite familiar terms with the famous Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, and interviewed the inimitable M.F.K. Fisher. I will definitely look for her other books.

I've just finished quite a lovely read of "A Long Way Home" (or perhaps "Lion" if you have the movie-tie in version) by Saroo Brierley. Either one will mean a thoughtful and quite amazing tale of a young Indian boy who gets trapped on a train and ends up in Australia. This is how he tracks his way back to his home in India. (The film is supposed to make people cry buckets, but the book is more cheerful, I think. That, or I have no feelings!! :-) )

Either way, the book was a good read with an astonishing true story. It's an autobiography by the young man himself and goes by very quickly. Recommend it if you'd like to amazed by the human spirit.

Finished up "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (Hardy) and now roaming around the shelves to see what I can come up... I love this part of the reading experience!!

I saw that you guys were talking about wellington boots earlier in the month. We had a brief rain storm here -- not that much fell, but it was enough to trigger the more wealthy students to bring out their Hunter $150 wellingtons.

Heavy sigh.

I have been reading The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, a Booker prize winner back in the '90's. Unfortunately the library copy was a p/back with very small print so made reading tiring on the eyes and I was unable to finish it as I would have overrun the 'due back' date. However I found the writing wonderfully descriptive, the characters finely drawn and the 'setting' Cochin, Kerala SW India, a mixture of left-over colonial rule with the dark undercurrents of Communism. Good stuff was not just about to happen.

I'm currently
reading This is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison. I'm
finding it rather unpleasant reading with a narrator who is both sexist and
condescending. (That may be redundant, as sexist is perhaps always
condescending?) I'm hoping the narrator’s attitude does not reflect the
author's attitude, since according to the book jacket, he has a wife and two
children. I will keep reading for two reasons: it will be discussed at my next
book club meeting and it's fairly short. Okay, three reasons: Harriet is on an
Alaskan cruise, which interests me. With
any luck, I will be able to report back that the book took a turn for the
better.

Kathy, yesterday I heard an interview on NPR with an author who is very worried that fiction is being "sterilized" by having to be politically correct. He feels pressure from someone (publishers maybe? Critics?) to not have characters with flaws like being racist or sexist.

Donna

That's interesting, Donna. And I don't doubt for a minute that the author is correct, considering our current political environment. I certainly prefer to read about characters with flaws, because characters without flaws are just not very interesting.

BUT in the 'Harriet' book, it's the narrator (who I don't think of as a character) that is bothering me. This narrator speaks directly to the protagonist in second person, and here is an example that bothers me:

...You miss the sense of purpose and the vitality of downtown. You miss lunching at the Continental. Most of all, you miss having a career, some other yardstick besides household cleanliness by which to measure yourself.

In a month or so, you'll have all that. Look at you, controlling your own destiny! You've done your work: typed those letters fastidiously (eighty words per minute; you haven't lost a beat), licked those envelopes, delivered those resumes (in person, dressing the part perfectly). ...

There is no mention that Harriet wrote the letters and resume - only that she typed, licked envelopes, and delivered them while nicely dressed. I mean really, would the narrator say those words to a man who had done exactly the same thing? And the "Look at you..." sentence is just downright condescending.

BUT if the narrator is to be considered a character ... well, then he (presumably "he") is just a character I don't like.

I've read all the books I had on the shelf and am still not at the top of the library requests, so my daughter brought me all five of David Baldacchi's Camel Club series. She likes all his books and thought I would like these especially because it's a club of old men still going after the bad guys. We'll see.

Vee and Merryworld, I quite enjoyed Thubron's Among the Russians, Behind the Wall andThe Lost Heart of Asia. I don't remember them as being as depressing as Shadow of the Silk Road, and I think they're the books he will be remembered for.

By the way, Thubron mentions Robert Byron in this book, and I have to recommend his travelogue, The Road to Oxiana, especially to anyone interested in Islamic architecture.

Woodnymph, I loved the first volume of Ruth Reichl's memoirs, Tender at the Bone. It's about her childhood and how she developed her love of food.The third volume, Garlic and Sapphires, is about her career as a food critic in New York and features some mouth-watering recipes and funny tales about her job.

Sunday was a snow day in my part of the world so instead of going on a 14 km hike I had signed up for, I curled up on the sofa with Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. Several years ago I went on a spree of reading his short fantasy stories and I forgotten how beautiful his writing is. This one is going on the keeper shelves.

Carolyn, I've read the Camel Club books and I enjoyed them a lot. :)

Donna

I finished Damaged by Lisa Scottoline last night. It was a good read. The main character, Mary, is a lawyer hired to defend a 10 year old and his grandfather when the school aide who attacked the boy sues them, claiming the boy attacked him. There were lots of plot twists.

I downloaded two e-books from the library last night so I have something to read while I wait for the Stephen King novel I have on hold to be available.

Donna