So i am not the only one having difficulties in accessing this site. They are certainly making it user un-friendly! Why doesn't RP come up in the list of forums? I don't know how to bookmark a site ,so when I get here it seems to be by accident.

I should add that I also read an older work, a classic: John Fox' "Trail of the Lonesome Pine." It is filled with non PC language, given the time it was written. Nevertheless, I found the story rather refreshing. I had lived in West Virginia years ago and could relate to the culture therein (the mountain folkways and picturesque language). Anyone who is interested in the early days of coal mining might find this vanished way of life of interest. I wondered, Carolyn, if you have read this, as you live in KY.

Kathy, thanks for the hint for reaching RP. Let's hope it sorts itself out soon!

Once do you get to RP, be sure to click "Follow" on the upper right near the heading which is no longer "Readers Paradise" but a generic "Home and Garden discussions." Then once you do get logged into Houzz in the future, it will always show up on the left as one of the forums you follow. So you can find it without needing a bookmark or searching for it. All very annoying. Houzz obviously doesn't count readers among their target audience.

I have been in a reading slump. I waited forever for Set My Heart to 5 on the library holds list, but now that it's come in, I find the style extremely tedious. Every time I pick up the book, I am soon putting it back down again. And guilt keeps me from moving on to another book. :) I think I will try one more time, and if I still can't get past the style, I'll give up and return it to the library. Meanwhile, I still haven't started our book club's choice, which is A Gentleman in Moscow, and the club meets next Saturday.

I didn't get into RP at all yesterday, but today was fine. I don't ever sign out of it, but once again I'm unable to start a topic in RP. It will post in Houzz.

Yes, Mary, I have both read The Trail of the Lonesome Pine and seen it performed in outdoor theater in Big Stone Gap, VA.

I've just gotten the new Charles Todd book, A Fatal Lie, and Charles Finch's An Extravagant Death from my e-book library hold list. Happy days. It's odd how they tell me I have weeks to wait and then two or three come through at the same time.

I've ben logging in by going to https://www.houzz.com/discussions, then clicking on RP under "Your Topics" on the lefthand side of the page.

Well "Glory Be" as the Irish nuns at my school used to say. Things seem to have gone back to 'normal' with Houzz/Garden Web, but I wont hold my breath.

Am ploughing on with Bethany and am not sure if Anita Mason is writing tongue in cheek about the group of 1970 hippies who are sharing a large house and in the true spirit of a commune leaving most of the work and financing to a couple of serious-minded individuals while the rest gaze at their navels. Weevils have to be picked out of flour and set free and old furniture must not be burnt as woodworm have as much right to life as humans.

And OT this reminds me of an item of local news heard on the TV last night. A female student has complained that the 'Animal Management' course she is taking at college requires her to spend time working on a farm. In the interview she said as she is a vegan she could never 'help' a farmer nor visit a farm. She was shown surrounded by and cuddling a small flock of hens* and claimed she had saved them from being shot (!) when they got too old to lay.

The college has now allowed her to drop out of the farming part of her course. I'm sure this young woman is sincere in her views but perhaps she should have opted for a degree in 'Animal Petting'

* Anyone who has had to put their head in a chicken coop or carry a hen for even a short time will know the pain of being bitten by red spider mites. These little blighters sit in your hair until dark and when you are tucked up in bed they make the journey down your face and neck to do a spot of blood-sucking on the more tender areas of your body. Shampoo and soap do not deter them!

I suppose it could be claimed that red spider mites have an equal right to live as we do . .. as have the ticks that spread Lyme Disease.

i am still having problems signing into this site. It seems to be accidental and varies from day to day. Something to do with "cookies", which I do not understand.

I enjoyed a wonderful book about wolves by the Dutcher couple a few months back. The couple spent months actually living with and studying a couple of wolf packs in the northwest part of the U.S. They had previously worked for National Geographic. Who knew wolves are so interesting and intelligent. They do most things cooperatively and each pack member fulfills a role. They make superb parents of their young and hunt cooperatively. They mourn their dead, as well. The book is filled with wonderful b & w photos of the various wolves. It is a shame they are hunted by humans so relentlessly in most parts of the U.S. as wolves add to the balance in the natural world.

For masgar, Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" is one of my favorites. As I own it, I've read it many times. I have not been able to get into any of her other work, however.

I finished Missing and Endangered by JA Vance yesterday. She is a new author to me, though she has written many books! I thought it was well-written with a nice flow. The main character is Sheriff Joanna Brady and it’s set in Bisbee, Arizona.

Donna

I am about halfway through A Fatal Lie by Charles Todd. This is an Inspector Rankin one in which he is driving from Shrewsbury all over eastern Wales. I liked these books, both series, but sometimes they seem more like a descriptive travelogue than a mystery.

woodnymph2 gv When I read “The Secter History” I fell in love, and I googled to find an another novel written by her, I was disappointed she had only written one. Then “The Little Friend” was released, I raced to the first library shop on order to buy a copy. Great disappointment, I couldn’t follow the story , I couldn’t understand what the story was about, I finished somehow only because I skipped a lot of pages. I sworn I’ve I would never buy any of his books again. So in 2013 “The Golden Finch “ was released I didn’t care, but last year, I kept seeing the novel on the library shop shelves. One day I pick it up and I bought it. I was enchanted by the story, but more by her writing, I found it so elegant, fluid, even if the novel (tome) has more than 900 pages I was riveting by her writing.

Another yellowing paperback about to be dumped after a final re-read is the late Victorian classic The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. We in England all know characters like office clerk, Charles Pooter, self-important, always right, horribly pompous and despite having no sense of humour teller of the most terrible jokes and puns.

I have always enjoyed this books as 'Pooter' lives in the same area of North London as did my grandmother who's family were very much of the aspiring lower middle classes and no-doubt thought themselves superior to the local tradesmen, had an aspidistra behind the lace curtains and sang around the upright piano on a Sunday evening.

Film of book by Ken Russell

Vee,

LOL at "had an aspidistra behind the lace curtains and sang around the upright piano on a Sunday evening."

I am enjoying another in the Lady Jane Grey series by Deanna Raybourn, Dark Road To Darjeeling ( #5 in the series ).

I just finished Beeswing, an autobiography by musician Richard Thompson. As a fan, it was fun to read. He knew everybody in the late 60s/early 70s British music scene, and he continues to tour in his 70s. If you have a chance to see him, I highly recommend it, he is an amazing guitarist.

I also finished Grace Burrowes' newest Regency romance, How to Catch a Duke. Her multitude of books are all quite similar, but the banter is witty (though not period appropriate), the leading men are fabulously wonderful, and all the heroines are resourceful and strong. Always a pleasant escape.

Next up will be The Rose Code by Kate Quinn -- I've heard a lot of good things about it and I'm excited to start it.

I finished a book called How to Sharpen Pencils - A Practical and Theoretic Treatise on the Artisnal Craft of Pencil Sharpening by David Rees. At first I couldn't tell if he was pulling my leg or he was just a geek. Well, he's both it seems. It really was quite funny (and factual). The other reason I bought this was that I really wanted that title in my bookcase. And it is.

A few Jenny Milchman books - suspense, no graphic violence or sex and quite good. Ruin Falls; As Night Falls; Cover of Snow; Wicked River. More suspense with Jennifer McMahon - Promise Not to Tell; The Night Sister. Also benign in the sex and violence departments.

I also finished the new Paul Doiron's Mike Bowditch (game warden) book called One Last Lie. These are set in Maine and I'm a big fan. I came across a new term for me in this one - civil twilight. It means the time after sunset (6 degrees below horizon) but there is still enough light for regular activity without the need for artificial light. I love knowing this stuff. Dork.

I read two by one of our local authors - Thomas Christopher Greene: The Perfect Liar and Envious Moon. Some Library holds finally came in Never Far Away by Michael Koryta and The Bitterroots by CJ Box. I like both of these very much. I believe there are some Box fans here - this book isn't a Joe Pickett novel. The protagonist is Cassie Dewell. Also read The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain which I just loved. Now onto Lee Child's The Sentinel.

https://www.weather.gov/fsd/twilight

I've finished A Fatal Lie and An Extravagant Death and will begin Not Dark Yet later tonight. This has been a wonderful reading week, and I've spent a little bit of time de-grassing the perennial bed. There's a lot left to do, though, but the next couple of days and nights are predicted to be cold and rainy.

To all lovers of Jane Austen, be advised that the director of the museum in Chawton, the house in which she lived for many years, has decided a 'historical interrogation' is necessary to consider the crimes of the era of colonialism that took place during her life-time. She has been accused of drinking tea, to which sugar was added and wearing clothes made of cotton, thereby encouraging the exploitation of the poor and at worst perpetrating the slave trade.

Is this wokery gone mad?

Welcome to the wockery club, Vee. It's gone mad here. My city had to remove the statue of a local man who fought in the Civil War as a very young man. He returned home to become an officer in the U.S. Army and worked very hard at establishing the city's public park system, including insisting the parks be open to all races. Alas, his statue, in one of those parks, had to be removed because he requested both the Union and the Confederate flags cover his coffin. There doesn't seem to be any room for one to be a person of his or her time. (I refuse to abide by the new rule of saying "a person . . . their").

I meant to add that I recently saw that the sequel to The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker will be coming out in June. It's called The Hidden Palace.

Has anyone read Donna Tartt's The Secret History ?

yoyo, I read it many years ago and found the whole thing rather 'strange' and wondering how universities are organised/run in the US. ie the group of young students and the control their tutor had over them . . . the sort of thing that today would have the police or social services knocking on the door.

Vee......according to the latest tales about the large Universities here they are hotbeds of activism and propaganda. This book might fit in quite well with the current reality !

I just finished The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner, and I enjoyed it very much. I am not an Austen fan and knew nothing of the village of Chawton before reading this book. And then I see Vee mention it in her "wokery" post above. It seems to happen with some frequency that when my reading teaches me something new, I suddenly encounter references to it shortly thereafter. Perhaps it's just because my awareness is raised? I don't know.

Yoyo, both mascar and I read Tartt's "Secret History" and discussed it threads above. I liked it a lot -- enough to re-read it. Vee, I think, if I recall correctly, that that New England University was rather unique in the way it was run. Certainly not typical, although some professors do have powers to wield powerful influences upon their students. That part seems to be universal.

I just finished The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. It's the best thing I've read so far this year. It's been ages since a book has so completely sucked me in that it takes a good half hour to refocus my brain when I set it down. Highly, highly recommended.

I'll need something non-fiction next to ease the book hangover ;)

yoyoban “The Secret History”

The story starts with the discovery of a killing already done, but it is not a thriller nor a psychological mystery.

There are a group of Grecist students under the influence of a charismatic professor, who leads them to pursue an ideal life of perfection, and there is a poor country boy student who feel himself drawn by the group and joined the group. The tension grows because the first murder brings them to conceive an other more dramatic feat.

btw they are not at the University but in a college in Vermont. It is not a quickread, the presentation of the various chatacters involved in the story lasts at least half of the novel, in the second one the novel speed up. In my opinion it is a homage to "Crime and Punishment" by Fedor Dostoevskj

Sheri, I have requested The Rose Code from the library as an e-book and am No. 103 of 22 copies.

I needed a real book to take with me to an appointment for waiting time and took an old paperback copy of Mary Stewart's Madam, Will You Talk. It's been ages since I read her books, and I barely remembered it and thoroughly enjoyed the re-read.

Carolyn, have you looked on Ebay? There are e-books of it available for $5.

Thanks, Yoyobon. I'll just wait. It isn't like I don't have anything to read.

The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan

Four children from seventeen years old youg girl to four
years old are being orphaned because
their father dies trying to cement the garden, the mother is always busy and
one day she starts feeling weak, and get weaker and weaker , one day she dies,
the sibling decide to say nothing to anyone, and bury her under a casting of cement. They are on their own
now

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cement-Garden-Ian-McEwan/dp/0099755114/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+cement+garden&qid=1619174145&s=books&sr=1-1

Masgar, I read The Cement Garden a while ago and found it an unpleasant and disconcerting story. You don't say whether or not you enjoyed it!

We are having some unexpected dry and sunny weather here and despite winds from the North I found a sheltered spot in the garden and read Dead Letters by Francis King. Set in Palermo Sicily, a young Australian back-packer is picked up by an elderly aristocrat who invites him to stay at his decaying palace. The boy, a mechanic by trade is able to repay his host's kindness by repairing the Bugatti languishing in the garage.

Lots of references to beautiful hands, bronzed muscled arms, disarming smiles etc which the boy (unlike the reader) seems too naive to pick-up on.

Elegantly written and I thought worth seeing if any other books are available by Francis King.

Masgar, I love most of Ian McEwan's work, especially "Saturday", and "On Chesil Beach." I think he is one of our best living writers. Some of his work can be depressing, however.

I finished Helen Dunmore's "The Siege." It's fiction but based upon actual events in WW II when the Germans held Leningrad/St. Petersburg under siege for a year. Rather depressing to read how the Russian people, rich and poor, suffered from food and fuel shortages, but so well-written that I could not put it down. Having traveled in the '60's in that part of Northern Russia, I found the descriptions of Leningrad's unique architecture spot-on. I looked up Dunmore and found she was a prolific author, dying at 62 of cancer in 2017. "The Siege" was shortlisted for a prize; written in 2001. I want to look for more of her work. (To think that I found this copy from one of out local "Little Free Libraries" just a couple of blocks from me.)

vee and woodnymph. The Cement Garden certainly is raw material. I can understand the incest theme can be unpleasant. But incestouos thoughts are present in every family (I am on Freud side throuhg and throught) only they are veiled and symbolised, but if the parents or whoever for them, are absents the wound comes to the surface, because it is a parent's task to keep certain feelings at bay. It goes without saying , not even them do it in a conscious way.

I'm reading The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn. I thoroughly enjoyed her Veronica Speedwell and Lady Jane Grey series, so I thought I'd dip into her back catalog. I was surprised to find this to be a very traditional gothic novel without the humor that permeates her later books. Her heroine is an independent bluestocking, but shows no other similarities to Veronica or Jane. I'm about three-quarters through and it's quite good as a straight up, spooky, Victorian romance / Dracula tale.

I have had a very slow reading month. Finished a couple of completely bonkers romance novels, one paranormal and one soft sci-fi - the book equivalent of calorific and nutritionless desserts - and a couple of detective novels.

I am reading Josephine Tey detective novels from my TBR stack before letting them go. I love her prose and the way she sets up the stories, and I think if she had been more prolific, she would be listed alongside Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh as one of the big golden era female detective writers. I finished her last novel, The Singing Sands, a few days ago and found it interesting, but it's not one of her best. Before that, I read Miss Pym Disposes, which is an interesting psychological study of different characters, set at a girls' college.

I am currently reading Brat Farrar, which is more of a thriller than a detective novel. It centers around fraud with hints of murder and has a very likeable criminal protagonist. I had not read it before but am enjoying it immensely.

Netla, I love Tey's books and have three, Brat Farrar, Miss Pym Disposes and To Love and Be Wise in my bookcase. Although I know the outcomes, I reread for the prose! I also have The Franchise Affair in book and DVDs of two movie versions. Such a clever mystery, although these days a good forensic team would soon sort out the situation!

I managed to get an old TV version of Brat Farrar online, if you are interested.

With regard to Donna Tartt's " The Secret History": I went back and found some notes revealing we here at RP actually had discussed this novel way back in 2003. The late Jan Kinrade had led our discussion. Also, for Vee, with regard to the college depicted in the novel, it was loosely based on Bennington College in Vermont, that had a rather free-wheeling reputation back in the day. Tartt went to Bennington and actually began the aforesaid novel while a student there. It took her 8 years to finish writing it.

I just finished The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner. Set in San Francisco just before and around the famous 1906 earthquake, it was a clever story of an Irish immigrant who agrees to be a mail-order bride to a man who may or may not be what he seems. She takes on the raising of his orphaned daughter, and her love for the child drives the story. It was quick read and I enjoyed it.

Sheri, that sounds like a book I would enjoy!

I‘ve been reading John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers novels in order. I just finished Shock Wave, which I liked a lot. A bomber is trying to stop the building of a PyeMart in Butternut Falls, MN. While searching for it on the library website I found Shock Wave by James O. Born. The cover says, “Funny and suspenseful,” so I thought I’d give it a try. So far it is pretty amusing and I’m enjoying it. It involves a bomber, too.

Donna

Annpan, Which of the two Franchise Affair adaptation you have would you say is the better; and the Brat Farrar TV version – is it the one that‘s on YouTube?

I have now read all of Tey‘s crime novels, and while The Daughter of Time is by many considered to be her best, I prefer Brat Farrar and To Love and Be Wise, even though I could see the twist in Brat Farrar from a mile off.

BTW, I found a Kindle bundle of all of Tey‘s novels (and one of her plays) on Amazon and now I‘m trying to decide whether to buy it or just wait for the books to enter into the public domain, which should happen in 2022 in Europe. The detective novels at least are popular enough that I expect there will be free ebook copies available soon after the copyright expires.

I can't really judge which is the better of the two versions of the Franchise Affair because the one I first saw in the 1950s was a movie so was rather short compared with the later version which was a TV series so had more to it.

I did see Brat Farrar on YouTube.

I can't advise you about getting the package but it is available and has all the novels so why wait? Is it very expensive? I can kick myself for passing on some things I really wanted because I felt that I shouldn't buy it at the time!

The Daughter of Time (who murdered the Princes in the Tower?)is certainly an excellent read especially because of the recent-ish discovery of Richard III's body under a car-park in Leicester . .. now that was a really clever piece of detective work.

Of course when Tey wrote it in the 1930's she didn't have all the information available we have today but her claims seem quite believable.

Lots about the 'Find' of the body of Richard III

Just finished The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, for our book club, and truly enjoyed it.

We were assigned to read The Daughter of Time in a college history course that I took c. 1975. I already had the book but enjoyed it again, and it made for an interesting class discussion.

Although I enjoyed To Love and be Wise, I found it hard to believe that anyone as self-centred as Marguerite Merriam would have killed herself after being dumped by Walter Whitmore. I prefer to think of it as an attempt for attention that went wrong.

I don't particularly like The Daughter of Time as a detective novel, although I did enjoy reading it as I have with all of Tey's Books. I think it's an interesting exercise in research and deduction, but I don't really understand the obsession many people seem to have with the mystery of the princes in the tower.

I am far more interested in the reasons why and the mechanisms though which some royals became or were made into villains or heroes by their successors or by the people after they were dead, or even by changing times, and The Daughter of Time gave me some insight into that. Examples include Richard III being painted blacker than he perhaps was for centuries and then little by little becoming to be seen as less bad or even great (depending on the historian), or Richard I being made into the heroic, almost saintly figure of Good King Richard Lionheart during his lifetime and remaining so for centuries after his death, and in modern times being seen as less good or even bad because of attitudes having changed.

netla, re. . .. 'the mechanisms through which some royals became or were made into villains or heroes . . .' hasn't changed much over the centuries, in fact it has probably got worse. Thinking of the contrast between the difficult childhood of Prince Philip dignified with stoic fortitude and that of a certain mewling couple in California. The press has had a field-day!

I finished the second Shock Wave (by James O. Born) and enjoyed it. The good guys managed to thwart most of the bomber's efforts in spite of themselves.

Now I've started The Daughter of Time. I'm finding it a bit slow, but I'll stick with it.

Donna

Vee, I like your description mewling and concur.

I have just read The Late Scholar, another Jill Patton Walsh book using the Dorothy Sayers characters, and found it not as much fun as the others I read. Now I've begun What the Devil Knows, new by C. S. Harris and another series I enjoy.