I have been missing here for a bit as my reading was confined to the Outlander series, doing a complete re-read before the lastest volume, Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, was released. I have a Facebook friend I met via the Australian Sharon Penman fan site who does reviews for a book-related magazine here. They asked her if she was interested in the Gabaldon book, and she said no, but she knew someone who was. The upshot of this was I had a PDF of the book a week before release under strict embargo not to mention it (and in fact every second page was watermarked with my name, which I thought was rather impressive). My review was well received by the editor of the magazine, and I am now on their list of reviewers :)

I had started to read Lionheart by Penman which I had somehow missed, but have put that aside for an ARC of The Leviathan by Rosie Andrews for said magazine. I'm not far enough in to make any comments at the moment.

Meanwhile I am listening to the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, and am up to the fifth volume, The Ringed Castle, and enjoying them very much.

DH and I are on the third and final volume of The Passage trilogy, The City of Mirrors.

What a good idea, listen to the Lymond Chronicles. Several friends whose taste I respect have recommended them to me, but I struggled my way through The Game of Kings. I no longer remember anything that happened in it. But listening just might be the spoonful of sugar that makes them work for me, especially with a good reader. I think I'll take a loook and see if I can track down a recording.

Since at the moment , nothing appeal me from my TBR, I decided to rereading "Appartament in Athens" In the Nazi occupaid Athen some Greeks have to share their homes with Nazi officiers, in this novel an educate Greek family share their apartament with an educate Nazi officier and tension and some times complicity interweave. From the blurp .Apartment in Athens concerns an unusual triangular relationship. In this story about a Greek couple in Nazi-occupied Athens who must share their living quarters with a German officer, Wescott stages an intense and unsettling drama of accommodation and rejection, resistance and compulsion—an account of political oppression and spiritual struggle that is also a parable about the costs of closeted identity.

Rose, I find the narrator very good. He is Scottish, but does a great variety of other accents well too. I got the recordings from Audible.

Kath - Congratulations on your new reviewer gig. That's impressive!

I finished Silverview last night. It has a touching afterword by Le Carre's son whom he had asked to finish any work he might leave unfinished. His son said that he only had to do a bit of editing type clean-up work--and would have felt inadequate to add to the writing.

I am ready to start Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone. It only has 900 pages. I did buy a copy since I have all the rest of Gabaldon's books,

I borrowed a recommendation from the SYKM reviewer The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish and it was one of the 'can't put down' reads!

Sore eyed and way past my bedtime last night but I just had to finish it! Now I have to read it again to see what pointers I missed...

I'm reading some light romantic fiction, which I rarely do because it seems to veer from sappy sweet featuring a stupid heroine to overly heated semi-porn with a badly-behaved brat, all claiming to be "just like Geoergette Heyer" and never anywhere near to approaching her deft touch.

The author is question is Stella Riley and she sets her books - the ones I've read so far - in the Georgian period, mostly around the 1770's. Now she's no Georgette Heyer, indeed no one is; but she's a competent storyteller. There is usually one sex scene which I skip over (yawn), and the heroines are a little different from the usual run. They also seem to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. To me they feel like real people. Now we are not talking Great Literature here, but I am having a genuinely good time. If someone is looking for light, amusing stories to while away the gray of winter, I would recommend this author.

Annpan - I love a good "can't put down" book now and then. I hope you enjoyed your late night of reading. (I just added The Other Passenger to my "For Later" shelf on my library website.)

A library hold came in so I am reading it instead of the new Gabaldon. It is Carrion Comfort from a different series by Aline Templeton andfeatures a DCI in Edinburgh.

I finished Bloodless by Preston & Child the other day. What a weird story! It was like an old ”B” horror movie (like The Blob). But their writing has a good flow and they spin a good story, so in spite of some gruesome details, I did enjoy it.

Now I’m reading The Wandering Soul Murders by Gail Bowen.

Donna

Taking a break from my romance streak, I read books by a couple of new-to-me authors, each with a strong fan base. Both books were readable but neither incited in me the passion that some feel for their work. The first was Barbara Pym. I read Excellent Women. It is supposed to be very funny, but instead it made me sad. I thought the main character lived a dreary life, and she was so pleased to have it elevated by such a tiny notch that I was appalled. The second author was Terry Pratchett. He has an absolutely rabid fan base in the SF world but for some reason I have never connected. I think I actually did read something by him years ago but I no longer remember what it was so I think of him as new-to-me. This time I chose Equal Rites, which is supposed to be one of his best. It was okay. It was even clever, but it just did not do anything for me.

I'm very sure that many people who love these authors would say "eh" to writers I love. It certainly is a good thing that there are books for us all.

After reading several reviews of Sabriel by Garth Nix and watching an interview of three authors, including GN, I picked up Sabriel to read. i am only a few pages in, too soon to decide whether I like it or not yet.

Rosefolly, I recently re-read some Barbara Pym books and had a different view of them to the way I saw the characters when I first read them many many years ago. The women are sad creatures indeed with their snooping and easily "falling in love" from loneliness and desperation. It is good when a couple of her characters get their rather wimpy men!

Apparently we are seeing Pym herself in them, according to what I have read about her.

I finished "The Crooked Branch" by Jeanine Cummins. I liked the skillful way the author linked generations from the 19th century Irish landscape with modern-day New York. Albeit depressing, it had a lot of amazing Irish history in it. So many Americans, myself included, are descended from those who left an Irish homeland due to the potato blight and subsequent starvation, in the mid- 1800's.

Rouan, please let me know what you think of Sabriel. I've had it in my TBR pile for years, and it should really either be read or let go. I have liked what I've read so far by Garth Nix (most recently The Left-Handed Booksellers of London) but for some reason I haven't reached for this one.

Rosefolly, I'm a long time Barbara Pym fan, and I'll agree her female characters are pitifully easy to please. There's just something about her stories, though, that speaks to me -- I can't explain it. I haven't been able to get into Terry Pratchett, either, though I did really like Good Omens, which he wrote with Neil Gaiman. It's probably been 25 years since I read it, though, so who knows if it would hold up to a re-read.

I've just started another A-McC-S Scotland Street novel, Love Over Scotland. Let's see what Bertie can do to thwart Irene!

Atonement ny Jan McEwan

The first, set in a country house during the oppressively hot summer of 1935, is the build up to the commission of a terrible crime. The offence is the false accusation made by one of the three main characters, Briony, against another. She knows the accusation is at best doubtful, and probably false, but she persists in it, even under oath, to the point of wrecking the life chances of a man who isn’t just innocent but also did her nothing but good.

As I enjoyed The Other Passenger so much, I borrowed the Large Print of another Louise Candlish novel Our House.

I skipped through it this afternoon because I just couldn't get engaged! It started well with a woman returning to her home to find people are moving in and saying that they have bought it. This is a situation that has happened locally so I wanted to see how it was managed. Then the plot thickened to where I didn't want to go other than finding out the ending!

Luckily Wednesday evening TV programs are good so I can watch them instead.

The Tour by Jean Grainger

Back to reading the Gabaldon, so I'll be at it for a while.

Ann, I’m reading The Other Passenger because you said how much you enjoyed it, but I’m finding it just so-so. I don’t care for the jumping back and forth in time, and I don’t like any of the characters very much.

Funny how we all can have such different reactions to the same book!

Donna

I'm reading in bits and pieces "How to Catch a Mole " by Marc Hamer. Basically, this is a book of meditations on the wonders of nature, interspersed with some original poetry. The author lives in Wales, in the country and is, among other things, a professional Mole Killer/Trapper. Evidently, this is a huge problem in the UK, given all the gardens. I am finding it thoroughly enjoyable, as he writes with wit and perception, with some philosophy thrown in. Who knew that one could make a living as a professional mole trapper?

Msmeow, sorry to suggest a book you are not enjoying! I think it was slow in the beginning but I liked the twists later.

I have been reading the reviews on Goodreads of the other Candlish book Our House and a lot of readers didn't like it and even put in the dreaded DNF !

I did finish it but skimmed a lot.

Woodnymph, there seem to be a number of unusual occupations in the British country.

In Love in a Cold Climate there is a man employed to get rid of a fish species infestation.

Ann, I’ve gotten past halfway through The Other Passenger, and I am liking it better. :)

Msmeow, I am so relieved! I rarely recommend books and was disappointed you didn't like it. I found that there was a moment when I thought that I had worked out the devious plot only to be brought up short. It sounds like you have reached that point!

Sheri_z6, I must confess I read the prologue to Sabriel, put it down and then picked up another library book which I have yet to finish too. And now I have 2 more library books waiting to be read. I really must get a move on and finish something!

I need to clear my TBR books too. The pile on my bedside cabinet is getting dangerously high! The trouble is that more exciting library books have taken first place.

Did anyone here read Golden Hill set in 'old' New York of the 1740's?

I have just finished Francis Spufford's second book Light Perpetual, a complete contrast!

Set from 1944 in South London, a working class/blue collar area, where a V2 rocket (doodlebug) makes a direct hit on a branch of a Woolworth's store. Nearly 200 people are killed or injured.

Although this event really happened Spufford takes five children from the list of causalities, changes their names and gives them a 'forward' story.

We see them grow through the '50's on to the 2000's, their lives paralleling the happens of those times in the rough and ready area in which they grew up. One bright boy goes into the printing industry working for the Times, another becomes a dodgy property developer, a third a bus conductor. A girl is involved with a violent skinhead, her sister follows a pop-star boyfriend to the US.

Although the 'stories' don't make light cosy reading it is a powerful pieces of writing and Spufford gets under the skin his characters, the area in which they live and the various periods and feel of twentieth century urban history.

Vee, I read it and enjoyed it very much.

I have very much enjoyed a week-long reading on BBC radio of Small Things Like These by Irish writer Claire Keegan.

A 'Christmas' story set in the 1980's about a small town coal merchant. He is a good man doing the best he can for his wife and five daughters. While out on a delivery, he finds a distressed girl, crying for her sold baby, while locked overnight in a local Convent coal-shed.

He takes her back in to the nuns but is worried about what might be going on there.

The attitude of the whole town is 'leave well-enough alone' 'don't get involved' the Church/Convent are too powerful. Indeed veiled threats are made to him by the Mother Superior about his own girls' education if he causes any trouble.

We are left hanging but feel this man will do what he feels is morally correct. His Mother had been single when he was born but raised in the Protestant household where she worked, rather than being thrown out to the nuns.

The circumstances are not unlike the book/film Philomena and the recent uncovering of nearly 800 babies bodies in a large drain and field in Tuam County Galway.

So pitiful. What can you do besides shake your head?

I see that 18 days ago, I reported starting The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo. I'm still slogging my way through it, on page 330 now. (I've been busy with holiday activities, but still...) My comment so far: I think an author should use the plot device of a character happening upon a family member in a compromising position (sexually speaking) not more than once in a novel. Ms. Lombardo has broken my rule. And I still have 200 more pages to read.

Kathy, I'm on page 293 of my 900-pager, Go Tell the Bees that I Am Gone. I'm not used to having so much to do that it interferes with my reading. The print is pretty small, too.

Carolyn - Come Sunday our reading lives can return to normal. Though in my experience, there is nothing normal about a 900-page book!

Over here, Kathy your explanation of a character in a 'compromising position' is legally referred to as in flagrante delicto ie caught with their trousers down . . . and if that is The Most Fun We Ever Had the author must have a very strange/unusual life.

Vee - LOL! I'm kind of beginning to wonder about this author also. She has a way with words for sure - I like her writing, but it does take an interesting turn now and then. Here's an interesting sentence I came across last night:

"He pulled out his phone to text his grandparents a warning that he was coming home early, just in case they were having old-people sex in his absence."

Admittedly, this 15-year-old character had recently walked in on his aunt in flagrante delicto, so it's understandable that the thought would cross his mind. True to character, you might say - a positive statement about the author.

So, I was right in the middle of a good book when suddenly every other set of pages had faded (gray) print. This lasted for two or three chapters. Doesn't anyone at the publishing house check their toner cartridges !!? lol.

I just finished "How to Catch a Mole" by Marc Hamer. I loved this "meditation" on life, death, aging, nature, and family life. Set in Wales, it is semi-autobiographical, full of rural philosophy, descriptions of the natural world, and includes the author's poetry. I will look for his other works.

I dug out of my bookcase my old and frayed copy of "The Bird's Christmas Carol" by Kate Douglas Wiggins. At times funny, ultimately sad, but always a "classic" to my mind. I love the charming style and old illustrations. My copy is dated 1891, but it was written in 1886.

Yoyobon, I have been annoyed by a change of print size in books as well as an occasional fading. I also had a paperback with the first part of the book repeated!

I'm taking a break from the 900 pager to read City of Shadows from the Counterfeit Lady series by Victoria Thompson, a library hold that came in for me yesterday. Light and fun.

I just finished Billy Summers by Stephen King. I really enjoyed it. Billy Summers is a Marine sniper turned hired assassin. He’s decided thIs job he’s hired for will be his last, and the journey that comes with the job is full of surprises.

Donna

I have just finished The Deadliest Sin, the last of Jeri Westerson's medieval mystery series. It was a perfect wind up for the series.

I am re-reading (or listening) to the City Between series by W R Gingell. The final novel of the series is due to be released December 31st, and I want all the past details to be fresh in my mind. How I have enjoyed this series! It takes place in a fantasy version of Hobart in Tasmania.

I was recommended the audio version of The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer. I hardly ever have listened to a book but I am enjoying this rendition by Daniel Philpott. He does multiple character voices very well.

I am stuck indoors with the high heat of 100+F and not able to shop in a mask with comfort so sitting with my feet elevated and listening in the cool room at home suits me very well.

Have any of you read any books by Lucinda Riley ?

I finally, finally, finally finished The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo. It was difficult for me to get through, so I'm not recommending it. I do think she's a good writer and has a way with words. but I just couldn't appreciate this up-close examination of a family's disfunction. It's told mostly in flashbacks that are not in chronological order. I can't detect any reason for the order, except maybe it was plotted on 3x5 cards and the author dropped them on the floor and they got all out of order.

Kathy, I don't like dysfunction either. Years ago I read We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, and I've never read another one of her books since.

I am about halfway through The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 by Martin Salisbury. Much more accessible than The Look of the Book, although not as current since it stops with covers in the 1970's. Salisbury focuses on the artists and the skills they need to design a successful cover, with the theme that dust jackets are truly 'art' despite being ephemeral commercial art intended to sell the book. After an introductory chapter, the rest of the book is a series of 2-5pp articles covering 53 individual well-regarded illustrator/artists, with a brief description of their careers and samples of their work. Most of the names I do NOT recognize, but some I do: Edward Gorey, NC Wyeth, Mervyn Peake, Tove Jansson...

Kathy ......apparently reading that book wasn't the most fun you've ever had ! I feel the same way about The Tour , which I'm currently suffering through. Must be I feel the need for end-of-the-year penance.

Yoyobon - I was waiting to hear your review of The Tour because I thought it looked promising. But, oh well, maybe I don't actually need yet another title on my digital "For Later Shelf" on my library website anyway.