Hello all, Time to pop this thread back to page one since my FoL sale is this week. It starts on Saturday (with crowds waiting at the doors) and ends tomorrow. I confess that I left with far more titles than I should have but then again, I do the same thing every year. My haul: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart Geisha by Liza Dalby (this one looks "iffy" but my daughter said, "go for it, Mama", so I did.) How to Think Like Benjamin Graham and Invest Like Warren Buffet by Lawrence Cunningham (yea, well, reading about this stuff is kinda fun for me...) Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick Green, Inc by Christine MacDonald In the Beginning (the story of the King James Bible) by Alister McGrath Down the Nile by Rosemary Mahoney Swimming to Antarctica by Lynne Cox The Boy and the Samurai by Erik Christian Haugaard Changes at Fairacre by Miss Read Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym Main-Travelled Roads by Hamlin Garland Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood and The Writing Life by Annie Dillard A Moment on the Earth by Gregg Easterbrook Book Business by Jason Epstein In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu by Tony Ardizzone Life of Pi (illustrated hardcover edition) by Yann Martel Whew... now it is time for tea, popcorn, and an evening of reading! PAM

Barbara Pym is a great favorite of mine - try Excellent Women. Her books are wonderful, and the characters are beautifully drawn and live very realistic lives without being raped and murdered. A fun YA novel that I discovered here at RP (thank you, whoever it was!) is Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. There are three books in the series, if you like the first one. I can't remember the quote exactly, nor who said it (an artist, I believe) but to paraphrase - why is it only valid or artistic to evoke negative emotions or feelings? Why isn't happiness just as important? Why, as an artist, does one have to defend oneself for making people smile? I have thought of this nearly every day since I heard it. Go ahead and read happy books, draw pretty bright colored flowers, and don't be afraid of being thought shallow if you want to, at least occasionally, leave the darkness behind.

ullis - it's The Shadow of the Wind. I gave Joan Didion's book to my mom for Xmas, and was very happy to see that both my parents are reading it now. My father, who doesn't read, is 100 pages into it. He went to see King Kong in the afternoon on his birthday last week (my mom was working and in any case was not interested in that movie), and while he found it novel to be at the movies by himself, because he was reading that book he found himself wondering about life without my mom, and how he would feel, and I actually think this book is bringing them closer. They have been empty nesters for a year now, and there have been some rocky times as they are still learning to relate to each other without mediators........................................................................ I also gave my mom Oprah's 50th anniversary DVD, and there are some very moving interviews on that (with Nelson Mandela, for instance).

Thank you so much for all the recommendations. I'll be traveling a lot soon and I'm sure I'll read a lot of these. I have Aunt Dimity queued up to read, along with the first Ngaio Marsh book. I'll probably try Miss Read next and/or Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. Many of those mentioned I have read. Rhys Bown mysteries, Amelia Peabody mysteries, Georgette Heyer, Mitford books, etc. But it was helpful to have those recommendations because it was lovely to see there are others who enjoyed those books as well. And I will try the audiobook of the Amelia Peabody mysteries because I often fall asleep to an audiobook, so it's helpful to have a good recommendation. I tried A Man Called Ove and I'm sure I'll finish it, but it is unbearably sad to read it right now so I laid it down. I have a friend who has cancer and also a suspicious spot on her liver and she is the light of her husband's life. I want to escape from pain and loss right now. A murder mystery like Agatha Christie writes should be sad, I guess. It's murder, but somehow that doesn't reach out and snatch my heart out like the pain of Ove losing his wife. Another time in my life I would probably have liked A Gentleman in Moscow and A Man Called Ove. So thank you so much to all of you for taking the time to respond. It will be nice to have this thread to check when I finish the stack of books I have now.