Vee, you could have had my 90+F day which did send me back to lie on the bed with the coolest blast from my air conditioner! I had gone shopping and came home looking like a boiled lobster! Yesterday we had a thunderstorm and rain so I had stayed indoors.

We have cold weather and had just a dusting of snow yesterday. It snowed across the South on Friday from Texas eastward. I was having lunch with friends and the 11 year old granddaughter of one sent her a picture from her phone that showed quite a lot of snow. She was building a snowman and was delighted to have a snow day off from school, and this was in Atlanta. Today was sunny here but still cold.

My daughter is bothered with SAD and has been from childhood, although no one knew what it was back then. Her birthday is in September, and she says she always dreaded it because people usually gave her new winter school clothes as gifts so she knew winter days were coming. She does have one of those lights and says it helps some, but she counts down until the solstice.

I finished decorating the Christmas tree this afternoon and can now go back to reading, thank goodness.

No snow in Orlando, though it did get down in the 40s. :)

I finally finished Helter Skelter and I'm now back to The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille. The main male character is very sarcastic and it's wearing on me only 1/4 through the book.

Donna

Carolyn, I also suffer from SAD. Some say that a vitamin D supplement helps them deal with the diminished daylight. I take 1000 or more units of D3 daily or every 2 days. I've been traveling with my laptop the last few days and the keys are sticking.

I'm reading (while looking up at my pretty decorated Christmas tree) The Mercy Oak by Kathryn R. Wall. This is part of her series set on Hilton Head in SC, the time is near Christmas, and the temperature is 70. Bah, Humbug!

Earlier today, I sent a message on the bookmark thread saying that I have both lost my list and deleted the email with the addresses. In case Merryworld doesn't see it, can anyone help me? Email address is cnewlen at bellsouth dot net, put together properly, of course. I claim the busy season as my excuse.

I am in coastal SC and would not complain if we had 70 degree weather. It has been bitterly cold here for this far south -- temps getting down into the 20's and 30's nights, and some days, staying only in the 40's. When I relocated here 7 years ago, I gave away all my winter boots and some warm woolen sweaters, regrettably! I find I am ready for spring, already, before winter has even begun....

woodnymph/Mary last night and this morning it was colder in the UK than in Moscow and temps here were at 26F first thing. Although much of 'our snow' has melted it was replaced by ice and on the higher ground it is still very wintry. I've just chopped another batch of kindling for the fire . . . the exercise keeps me warm!

We had a high of 35F with strong winds and an expected low of 22 tonight. Too cold, too quickly.

Winter has been late arriving here in WI but it's here now! 9F with a high of 21 for tomorrow and an expected 3-6 inches of snow. We have very little snow right now, barely enough to cover the ground and we always have a white Christmas so we're due.

We've been having some frost in Iceland lately, swinging between -1° and -8° C (30 to 17 F), and yesterday we had ice rain. Every flat surface became glazed over with black ice. Of course I just listened to the sound of rain on the roof and decided to walk to work and wore my hiking boots, which have hard soles that are not the best for walking on ice. This meant I had to do the penguin shuffle nearly all the way to work and home again in the afternoon. I've learned my lesson and wore my winter boots this morning.

Netla, fun to picture you and your penguin shuffle. We haven't had any slick roads yet.

I finished reading The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan. It's about a woman who is on trial for the part she played in an incident that occurred on the over-crowded lifeboat she shared with 30+ other survivors after their cross-Atlantic ship sank. The description of their weeks spent in the lifeboat before being rescued is pretty harrowing. I thought it might be a potential book club read, but I won't be recommending it. Not that it's bad, but neither is it wonderful.

I'm still working on The Cuban Affair by Nelson DeMille. I really dislike the narrator/main character, but the plot is interesting enough to keep me reading. It's about 400 pages and could really have been 300.

Anyone who needs a break from winter can come to FL. It's supposed to be back in the 80s by this weekend and stay that warm through Christmas. :)

Donna

Thanks, Kathy, for your review of The Lifeboat. I had it on a list of "Books to Maybe Read Someday", but now I won't.

Just read Simon Brett's Liar in the Library.

Vee, Brett, in the guise of a character, has a moan about the current state of the library system in the UK. You have mentioned the decline.

Things are certainly better in Western Australia, I am glad to say. Although I sometimes have to buy a book which I can't get or the system won't allow me to borrow as we have some restrictions on the number of inter-library loans.

However, a lovely new library has been built in Perth and also opens for a few hours on Sunday afternoons, which is a time when a few of the suburban libraries also welcome weekend members.

Just one thing niggled me (Spoiler Alert) the police are aware of the smell of carbon monoxide fumes! Really? Not from "The silent killer" as it is called.

Ann, I just saw on the stopyourekillingme.com site that the Brett book is due here in January. I always read his books, and I like that title.

Thank you! I hadn't read any of Simon Brett's books in the last few years and forgot to look for more titles. I've just added a bunch to my to read list. Mrs. Pargeter was my introduction to this entertaining author.

After finishing the fun mystery with the assassin and her two elderly partners in mayhem I moved on to Queen Victoria's Matchmaking - the royal marriages that shaped Europe, by Deborah Cadbury. It's very interesting reading and I found it quite sad too. Young princesses were guided, pushed or deceived into marriages which were sometimes disastrous. Others just ran blind, willy nilly into what they thought was a glorius love affair only to find out it was just the opposite. Victoria desperately tried to keep her granddaughters from marrying into the Russian royal family, but failed. I couldn't take any more sadness (I was in the midst of the carnage leading to the Bolshevik revolution) and decided to take a break back into mayhem.

Murder on the Sugarland Express is the 6th book in the Southern Ghost Hunter series by Angie Fox. Verity's roomate is a ghost named Frankie the German, a gangster who was killed in the 1920's. This is going to be another fun ride.

April, Simon Brett lives in and writes about the area where I grew up in the South of England. I have emailed him a few times and was pleased when he replied. I begged him to write another Mrs. Pargeter and he said he might so I was delighted when the last one came out after a long hiatus.

I enjoy the Ghost Detective genre. I started a series a while ago but forgot who the author was. I keep hoping to find the book again! It was a man who was the ghost but that is all I can recall.

I've been trying to read Bill Bryson's new book "One Year: 1927". I am finding it a bit of a drag, in that it is weighed down with detail after detail after detail. The thrust of the book concerns certain events in American history that occurred in 1927: e.g. Lindbergh's flight to Paris, the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, and other happenings. Usually I enjoy this author's work, but somehow, I cannot seem to get engrossed in this one, so back to the library it will go, unread....

Woodnymph, I picked up that book by Bryson a while ago myself and couldn't quite get into it either. I started another book today, Corpses in Enderby, by George Bellairs. It was a 99 cent offer on Book Bub for my kindle so I thought I'd give it a go. So far I like it. Lately I don't feel like doing any more than I absolutely need to, so I've been settled in my comfy chair and reading. Husband has been sick all week, proclaiming that he will never get better and it's all my fault because I insisted on running the ventilating fan all night at the hotel last week. I slept in the bed near the fan/heater and was warm every night while he slept in the bed clear across the room far from the tepid breeze. Personally I think the fact that our granddaughter was coughing during our entire visit had something to do with his sore throat and general sickness.

Has anyone read Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled? I am at p82, and it hasn’t engaged me yet, and it’s starting to be a chore to pick it up and try again. I’m wondering if it will jell if I just stick it out for another 30pp or so, or if it will be a chore all the way through. I’ve renewed it once already, but now i’m thinking it may be time to give up....

I'm currently reading Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, and loving it. It's so much fun to start a book you know nothing about and end up liking it a lot. If I finish it before the end of the year (likely), I predict that I will need to add it to my Best Books Read in 2017 list.

Borrowed an old Heyer mystery now called "A Christmas Party" which I read as "Envious Casca" many years ago. I remember who dunnit it and how but it was interesting seeing the cunning red herrings this time.

Vee, I checked the BBC and ITV programmes and don't see anything special other than A Christmas Crow. Are there none of the usual Christie treats? Or anything I need to look out for coming as a DVD?

I’m reading The Fix by David Baldacci. It’s one of the Amos Decker series. I’m enjoying it a lot.

Donna

annpan I've just checked the 'Radio Times' and besides Upstart Crow (in which Will is trying to write 'Eighth Night') there are Christmas 'specials' of Call the Midwife, Victoria (Prince Albert and the Christmas Tree?) and yet another three part production of Little Women in which they are using gen-u-ine American actors. Otherwise it 's repeats and repeats of repeats.

Do you get 'Mrs Brown' in Aus or US? Half hour episodes about a Dublin matriarch and her many adult children with Brendan O'Carroll in drag and the other parts taken by members of his 'real' family. Sometimes funny but very very rude and not as clever as Father Ted.

While trying to cull the TBR pile, I found A Paris Christmas, Immoveable Feast by John Baxter, which I began reading right away. So far, very good.

Happy Christmas! I am up early this morning, 3.30am, due to hearing Santa's sleigh or possibly a passing police car siren as they chase a stolen car! No rest for the wicked, as my grandmother used to say...

Anyway, here I am, with a hot cup of tea, checking posts from around the world.

Vee, we don't pay a TV licence and consequently the programs on Free to Air stations aren't that good. At the moment we get a lot of really old movies and re-runs. We do get the Mrs. Brown series. I have watched that but not Father Ted. We are in the long school break and get poor TV programming as people go away. I don't know what the Pay per View TV is like as I am not a subscriber.

I hope that all RP'ers have a lovely day, however you celebrate it.

Merry Christmas to you, Annpan. It's still Christmas Eve here - a bit before 2:00 PM in the US Central Time zone. People are still shopping, I imagine, but having just wrapped a final gift, I am about to enjoy a little nap before going to my brother's to join in the family celebration.

And a Happy Christmas from a very wet soggy England. Very quiet outside as folk settle down to a pre-Xmas Day evening of watching ancient movies (or in DH's case an old edition of Father Ted "That money was just resting in my Lourdes account . .. and I'm up for a Golden Cleric Award"),

The presents are wrapped, the turkey giblets are simmering, the mincepies are safe in a tin. Older son has joined us while his wife and small daughter visit her relations in Japan . . . where they don't celebrate the holiday . . . off to bed soon . . z z z

I napped in front of the "Yule Log" on TV. I think that is such a funny thing - but great background noise for napping. Off to the festivities now - food, a church service, present opening, and a family jigsaw puzzle. My best to all of you.

It's almost 6:30 pm in the U.S. Eastern Time Zone. We went to church this morning and then for lunch ate leftovers at my daughter's from my Christmas dinner for my husband's children and their families on Friday night and DD's dinner yesterday for her family including her son's fiancee and me. Tomorrow we go to my niece's for a big 9:00 am family breakfast and then process to my brother's for a 3:00 pm Christmas dinner. I've made a baked fruit dish to take to breakfast and a cranberry salad and Sticky Toffee Pudding to take to the dinner. Diet starts next Monday so I have time to polish off the candy I received for gifts (also a Barnes & Noble gift card) that is on hand and leftover dessert.

I'm reading--what little time I'm not Christmasing--Dancing with the Virgins by Stephen Booth. This one's dead body is that of a young woman found in a prehistoric stone circle in the English Peaks District.

Mmmm - Sticky Toffee Pudding. I hope your family knows how lucky they are, Carolyn! I am deliberately avoiding finding a good recipe because I'm afraid I would make it all the time. And I don't even like to bake.

Speaking of Christmas and books and food, I got three new cookbooks as Christmas gifts. They were the New York Times Cookbook, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and Around My French Table. These round out my cookbook collection nicely. It is funny that I love cookbooks so much, as I don't cook very often, maybe once a week or so. I have the good fortune to be married to a man who cooks far better than I do, and he enjoys it more as well. In the interests of fairness I do take over a meal or two a week to give him a break, and am always happy to do the dishes.

I also received Hillbilly Elegy. Has anyone else read it yet? I heard a review on NPR and was intrigued. Two more books rounded out my gifts this year, Designing with Succulents from a young relative who shares this interest with me and Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, this year's National book award winner. The topic is rather grim, so I hope it works for me. Some books are too tough to take and I have to set them aside, but I wanted to give this one a try.

Ah, Rosefolly, I have a terrific recipe for STP, and it is really easy to make, too. It was sent to me by an internet buddy from Scotland and is purported to be from the restaurant that created it, although that is disputed.

I didn't get any books for Christmas but did get two Barnes & Noble gift cards and some chocolates to munch on while reading. Also, my daughter gave me a throw to cuddle under. It is quilted with strips of fabric to look like books and brown strips for shelves. Unfolded and held up, it looks like a full bookcase. And then there were all those nice bookmarks. I'm ready for the cold weather, and it certainly is that here.

Carolyn, what an unusual throw. Is it handcrafted?

I am reading "I'll Eat When I'm Dead" by Barbara Bourland. It is showing me a very strange lifestyle and I am absorbing it slowly. Almost the Sixties revisited but with modern technology!

Ann, bookcase quilts are quite popular here in the US:

https://www.google.com/search?q=bookcase+quilts&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiV_cKFo6rYAhXI3SYKHdLZAQEQ_AUICygC&biw=1280&bih=907

Donna

Ah, yes! Plenty of choice and such a huge variety.

Thanks, Donna.

Mine is most like the fourth one in the third row below the prices; and, no, it isn't hand crafted. DD ordered it from a catalog, and, in fact, it isn't really very well made. It's cute, though, and quite warm and comfy. I fell asleep under it this afternoon trying to finish Dancing with the Virgins.

Today I finished Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. I liked it a lot. I really like the way she writes. I need to read something else by her to see if all her books are this good.

I've staggered though Commonwealth of Thieves by Thomas Keneally, about the first and second fleets to Botany Bay, not because it wasn't interesting but there is SO much of it and everything so detailed. Certainly an unbiased look at early Australian history.

Just finishing J Farjeon's Mystery in White a 1930's whodunnit set in a snowbound rural England. Rather too much 'clever' and 'clipped' conversations between the characters . . . not unlike those films made at the same time (think Kathleen Hepburn) and quite a few bodies littering the scene.

I had a look at a site with the plot of Mystery in White. Very complicated but it gave details of other "Locked Room" genre books. I find them fascinating! There was also a mention of "A Christmas Party" by Georgette Heyer which I had just read.

Ann, have you read any John Dickson Carr, aka Carter Dickson? He wrote some locked room books.

I'm happy to say I made a good progress on Dancing . . . today. Also picked up from the library the new Bryant & May, Wild Chamber. It will be awhile before I get to it, though, since I have three library books ahead of it.

Carolyn, I read a couple some years ago. I must check and see if my library has reprints.

I am reading my books slowly at present, there seems to be so many other things to do, like dropping off to sleep! My D gave me a small CD player for Xmas with handy top buttons. Just right for listening to recorded favourite books. I have been accumulating some in case of being confined to bed or having the eye operation for cataracts. I am doing a Scarlett O'Hara on that!

kathy_t, I read Ann Patchett's Run, and thought it very good, so I decided to read her Bel Canto, which I've had on my TBR pile for about five years! Wonderful book!

Phyllis - I'm glad to hear that, because I sure did like Commonwealth. I will put these other two on my TBR list.

I also have Commonwealth on my list of books to read in 2018.

I did not care for Run (don't recall why), but I loved Bel Canto. I also loved her novel The Patron Saint of Liars and Truth and Beauty, the story of a real-life friendship.

Thanks for your input, Tackykat. I have a lot of good reading to look forward to. So lovely to find a new-to-me author that I like.

I'm ending the year (literally) with The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, the continuation of Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander series by David Lagercrantz, I'm about three-quarters through and plan to finish it tonight.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I am finishing the year with two books; both re-reads, both with summery scenes as I need an escape from the bitter winter cold. We had a high temperature of 3 degrees F today. It's been so cold for so many days already and it's supposed to stay this cold for the next several days so I picked up Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart and Thale's Folly by Dorothy Gilman to help me temporarily forget the cold.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Rouan, I hope that reading has warmed you up. I did the opposite when I was in a hot home with no air conditioner once, reading books like "Ice Station Zero"!

Annpan, with a little help from a hot beverage and a warm cat on my lap, it did!