In preparation to reading the 3rd Murderbot book, I re-read the first two. I finushed the third one Rogue Protocal and promptly requested the 4th one from the library. They are fast reads (more novella than full length book) but I have to be in the right mood to read them.

Carolyn, yes I did received your card. Our 'old house' is still not on the market (waiting for the glacial slowness of 'Planning' for a small development of 3 houses on the plot of land) so we picked up the mail just before Xmas and I did email you on the 24th . . . and had sent you a card at the end of Nov. What this says about our/your post . . . or emails . . . I don't know. But many belated thanks and please know you were in my thoughts!

Rouan (or anyone more enlightened that I), what exactly is a Murderbot book?

The Murderbot Diaries are a series of sci-fi books by Martha Wells. The main character is a genderless human/robot construct that is rented out as muscle and protection for space exploration in the distant future. The character differs from other 'bots as it has overridden its protocols and has free will -- and now must deal with the humans around it. I loved these books.

Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams and really enjoying it ! It's the second in the Schuyler Sister series.

Sheri - Thank you.

Kath - a hearty congratulations and well wishes to you! What wonderful news!

Freida, I've read Hamnet as well and was not thrilled with it. I still cannot put my finger on it in a satisfactory manner, but it just felt so contrived. I love history and there was a lot in this book that was "off" to me. I read the book for book club and felt the time was wasted. But that's just me and we all know I am cranky.

I recently finished The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi. Il Monstro (given the nickname by Spezi himself in the La Nazione newspaper who employed him as a journalist) was a serial killer in Florence during the 70s and 80s. Spezi was a journalist following the crimes and Preston was (is) an American author who was visiting Florence for a long-term stay. They became intrigued by the crimes and the book is tale of the crimes and the investigation. I never heard of this case before, although one would think it would have made major headlines in other countries such as the USA. The book is not only a tale of the crimes and investigation, but a trip through the judicial system of Italy. Fascinating.

If you are interested in a quick recap, it can be found here on the Florence webguide, "the insider's guide to Florence".

http://www.florencewebguide.com/monster-of-florence.html

PAM

I have started The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. Since reading the Jill Patton Walsh books featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, I began at the first of Dorothy L. Sayers' books and am slowly reading (or rereading) all of them. I like them better now than I did at a younger age.

Just starting the third Schuyler Sisters book in the trio by Beatriz Williams......enjoying it.

I have a copy of Hamnet somewhere in my bedroom but have been dragging my heels over reading it. Not sure why.

I am currently reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I'm not sure how he does it, but somehow he can include all sorts of technical details I don't understand without impeding the flow of the narrative one bit. What a storyteller he is! I'm pretty sure my husband will be reading this after me.

I just finished Sailing to Sarantium by the Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay. I did not hit the ground running with this one, but once I was engaged, I could not put it down. I don't much like Guy's earliest books, The Fionavar Tapestry series in particular, but his later writings are excellent. He writes historical-esque novels set in quasi-fantasy versions of our actual historic past. That sounds like something that would annoy me, but it does not, not at all. This novel is about a mosaicist from an outlying region who is sent to the capital city to decorate an important new structure. It is roughly based on Byzantium around 500 AD.

Reading now Forest Bathing Retreat, Find Wholeness in the Company of Trees by Hannah Fries, a collection of poems, quotes, and short statements about the benefits of spending time with trees. Evocative photos.

Good morning,

Just started The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch. I thought it was the first in the series, but it is actually the second. Usually that bugs me. I'll give it 50 pages to see if I need to put this one on hold and grab the first one and read it first instead. The first is entitled The Hangman's Daughter. This is a new-to-me author that I found whilst perusing a used book store yesterday.

Happy Valentine's Day!

PAM

And a Happy St Valentine's Day to you PAM. not that we 'celebrate' it in this family. I do know that my parents were married on this day back in 1942. Not for reasons of romance but because that was the only date my Father could get leave from the Army plus the complications for finding hotel beds for the few guests who could attend, to say nothing of organising a reception (known as the wedding breakfast back in those days). Apparently the guests were so excited at the sight of food they made a beeline to the laid-out buffet . .. and the Cake was largely made of carrots!

As for reading . . . I picked up a copy of Farther Afield by 'Miss Read'.

These stories of a village school mistress have been going strong since the 1950's and in themselves are quite inconsequential. Just the day-to-day happenings of a middle-aged spinster, her local friends and the children in her care set in the Berkshire Downs where the real 'Miss Read' had taught from the '40's. In many ways the set-up reminds me of my own small school at a similar time, with it's nature table, ink and milk monitors, prayers before school, singing lessons and making 'things' out of lumps of clay.

And what a pleasure it is to read a book that is in proper English although 'Miss Read' does have to pull the children up with their use of ''e done it' 'can I 'ave a lend of your pencil' etc.

It wouldn't be possible to read ALL the books in the series one after another but they certainly make a pleasant break from violence, sex, crime and deadly dull 'Look How Important I Am' biographies.

I just finished Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers in which (---------------- spoiler ahead ----------- ) Irene finally, finally, finally gets her comeuppance! Or at least removed from Bertie's sphere for a while in a very satisfying way. According to my library list there are 6 more books in the series (including a new one coming out this month) and I've already requested the next one.

FWIW, my book group read Hamnet several months ago and overall we liked it very much. We agreed that the writing was stunning and the focus on Anne/Agnes and the children rather than Shakespeare made it interesting. Looking back at it now, I do think it was perhaps a bit thin in spots and, as Vee said, could have been about anyone's grief, but I'd still say I liked it and it's worth a read.

I'm about to start The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles for my book group meeting next week, and I'm very eager to get started.

I am now reading The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson. It's one of those you read with a sense that something dreadful will happen soon, not the kind of mystery I enjoy.

I just finished reading All The Lonely People by Mike Gayle. (Kind of ironic on Valentine's Day, huh?) I didn't love it, but I liked it. It's one of those "elderly curmudgeon is drawn out of his loneliness by a young woman neighbor who needs his help" stories that seem to be rising in popularity. This particular elderly man is a native Jamaican black man who moved to England as a young man looking for work and a better life. I hate to tell you this, but the book is also one of those in which each chapter jumps back and forth between his current life as a lonely elderly widower and his earlier adult life, facing the struggles of an immigrant not well accepted by the society into which he placed himself. I don't think the author would appreciate this review, but honestly, I actually did like it pretty well.

At Carolyn's recommendation, I'm greatly enjoying the memoir of writer Pat Conroy's widow. I'm halfway through "Tell me a Story" by Cassandra King Conroy. Some parts are laugh out loud funny, others more poignant. I can relate to the specific Southern humor in it, as well as to certain Southern areas, myself having been born in Atlanta, and now living in the Low Country of South Carolina. I've not read any of her other books, but this one is a winner, in my estimation. Thanks, Carolyn!

Vee, I used to enjoy the Miss Read books. I found them very comforting. I think they belong in the same category as "Larkrise to Candleford" by Flora Thompson, which I had also liked, many years ago.

I am having problems with Bell's Palsy which has made my right side face droop so reading is not easy with my right eye taped up! Luckily I have an audio book of Heyer's Charity Child to listen to which my Support Worker collected from the library.

Life needs some adjustment at present but thank goodness for juice boxes with straws!

Ann, one of my aunts had that once, but it cleared up nicely fairly soon.

I've just finished A Necessary Evil by Abir Mukherjee, the second of his books featuring a policeman in Calcutta just after WWI. I'm learning some Indian history as well as being entertained.

Ann, good wishes for a speedy recovery. Where do these viruses lurk?

One of our 'new' neighbours gives me piles of very 'easy reading' paperbacks, which I try and flick through before donating them to our nearest charity shop.

Most of them have titles such as 'The Girls on the Trams' 'The Train Girls' 'Fighting Through the Tears of War' 'When Will My Sweetheart Return?' The authors use pseudonyms . . .Rosy Day, Lilli Lightfoot . . . and are probably turned out on a daily basis by a middle aged man working from his spare bedroom.

I have stuck with one The Kew Garden Girls by Posy Lovell only because well over a hundred and something years ago DH's relatives worked there.

Set in WWI with very little about gardening the author tries to cover everything from Votes for Women, cruelty of husbands, conscientious objectors, the 'language of flowers', equal pay for women all set among a group of female workers. On almost every page people squeeze hands/arms or hug each other and everyone of what ever age, sex or 'station in life' is amazingly casual with one-another and swear . . . something that would not have been true-to-life at the time and very un-English especially for females!

On the domestic front one woman gets up in the morning and makes a loaf of bread ready for breakfast . . . the same day. And a 'posh' woman doesn't even know how to get on a bus.

Ann.......sending you wishes for a speedy recovery !

Gosh, Annpan, I'm sorry to hear that. Hope things improve for you.

Thank you. We are having a very hot spell so I don't mind staying indoors!

Annpan, we in the SW have been warned to stay indoors today as severe storms sweep in across the Severn Estuary and then along the English Channel coast as far as London; 'Storm Force 11' on the Beaufort Scale. All schools are closed, buses and trains cancelled . .. but no doubt the usual jokers will be out taking 'selfies' and being surprised when a tree falls on them.

Try and stay cool!

Vee, I have the air conditioner going 24/7 keeping my place at a pleasant 24C/68F and never mind the expense! I am lucky that the Govt subsidises pensioners, which helps with the bill.

Stay safe!

I'm about to finish The Prayer of the Night Shepherd from the Merrily Watkins series by Phil Rickman.

I like that book title, Carolyn.

Vee, I have been watching the storm damage in the UK. on TV news I hope you didn't have any problems.

We flew into Darwin during a storm once and the plane stopped several places away from the correct landing. When we got out the co-pilot was making sure we were all right. My D said to him that the descent had been very interesting. He replied that we could have been at the pointy end!

Thank you Ann, we have weathered the storm, although it is still very blustery and wet, with just a few items floating around the garden.

Re flying. There has been a Youtube video from a guy who stands outside the perimeter fence at Heathrow Airport filming the planes as they land. Not to be watched by nervous flyers!

I was on a plane that hit the ground at Heathrow once and immediately went back up in the air to come around for another landing. That was interesting, too. The pilot came on and said he guessed we had noticed the double landing and said the first time they had hit an air gust.

Late last night I finished Guy Gavriel Kay's Lord of Emperors based roughly on Byzantium under Justinian I, only with different characters and with two moons in the sky. Wow. This is one for next year's favorite books post, provided I can remember that long. I'm sure I will remember that I loved it, but I may not be sure whether I read it early in 2022 or late in 2021. I like the previous Kay novel Sailing to Sarantium just as much. The two form a linked story. Add in the fact that I took a break in between the two with Andy Weir's SF novel Project Hail Mary (IMO his best effort yet), I have had a run of three excellent novels that I enjoyed without reservation. This does happen, that you read a run of books that you absolutely love, but it doesn't happen very often. When it does I count my blessings and am grateful to the universe of books.

Kay is apparently a poet as well as a novelist, and his use of language to create a mood or a thought is masterful. I am not one to stop and read over a passage, but I find myself doing this with Kay, just to let the words soak deeply into me.

An email from the library told me Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead was waiting for me to collect. I had NO memory of ordering it and when I picked it up I realised I should have arrived with a wheelbarrow as it was very heavy (almost 2 lbs) and over 600 pages long with small print.

I attempted the first couple of chapters but knew I would never finish it. I had no sympathy with whoever the first female character was nor did I enjoy the description of her having some sort of sexual 'relationship' with her father, or with the son of the family cook . . . and gave up when this woman gave birth to who I presume would be the 'heroine' of the story.

Son has just braved the latest gale to return it to the library!

A better read was The Vanderbilts by Anderson Cooper a present from my DD. I knew nothing about this family other than they were extremely wealthy and that Consuelo V had been forced into an arranged marriage with the Duke of Marlborough.

Cooper, son of Gloria V, seems to have taken some events in the lives of various family members and dedicated a chapter to each . . . the death of the Commodore, the vastly overspent party thrown by Alva, the America's Cup Race win, too much info. about the nasty Truman Capote and the money-wasting of his Mother following her sad childhood when her wealth bankrolled her own Mother and 'hangers-on'.

Altogether well-written but certainly not a family one could warm to in any way and shows the destructive power of too much wealth in the hands of greedy people.

I'm reading The Paris Apartment by Kelly Bowen, another WWII/present day, back and forth tale but a really good one that I'm just loving.

Along The Infinite Sea by Beatriz Williams ( the last in the Schuyler Sisters trilogy).

I'm really enjoying the story but am wondering where that title came from. It sounds wishy-washy to me and if it were a stand alone novel i probably would not have picked it up based on the title alone ! Cover designs and titles are very powerful as far as having a first look.

I'm halfway through Lightning Strike by William Kent Kruger. I don't think I've read any of his books, though I know many of you have praised his writing. I am really enjoying it! Thanks for recommending him; I'll definitely read more.

Donna

I just finished The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles and loved it. A coming of age/road trip story set in 1954, it covered a lot of ground with a large cast of memorable characters. The four boys at the heart of the story were wonderful creations. Towles writing skill is such that his three books are utterly different from one another, yet each has been a wonderful read. I'd recommend all of them. My book group is meeting tonight to discuss it and I'm looking forward to it.

I also finished another AMcCS Scotland Street book, The Revolving Door of Life. Unfortunately, Irene has returned, but Bertie's grandmother Nicola is in town to help him. The inevitable show down that I'm hoping will come in the next book should be a good one.

The newest Veronica Speedwell book, The Impossible Imposter, has just arrived, and I'm eager to get to it.

Rosefolly, I will have to look for Guy Gavriel Kay, he sounds like a writer I would like. I also agree Project Hail Mary was excellent.

Chiming in here late on Hamnet ….

I was one of those less impressed, which surprised me because everything about the book is individually something that I like: beautifully-written, evocative with mystery, multiple perspectives, historical setting, and so on. But in the end, I was left with a feeling (like PAM) of contrivance. I was particularly annoyed by the artifice of never naming Shakespeare. If someone can explain a reason for it, I’d love to hear it. I agree it was more about grief than about Shakespeare (and maybe that's why S. is never named?), and it captured very well how grief for a child can drive a couple apart or bring them together.

I ordered a copy of Watercress, this year’s Caldecott winner, mostly because of the artist, Jason Chin, who had a Caldecott Honor for his book about the Grand Canyon a few years ago. Although the Watercress illustrations were lovely and added much to the book, I still think the Grand Canyon book was better, and should have won the Caldecott for its year (the winner that year, Wolf in the Snow, didn’t even come close, IMHO!)

Currently reading Bill Bryson’s The Body (my one and only book gift this past Christmas), recently finished Jason Reynolds’ Ghost, and have 3 library books waiting in the wings. Not to mention the new Nnedi Okorafor that just arrived in the mail. Mt TBR just keeps growing!

Rosefolly, I haven't read GG Kay in years - does he still reference the Fionavar Tapestry as the pattern world in his later books?

Donnamira, I don't know. Possibly.

I read the Fionavar books years ago, and don't remember them well. I found them to be pale copies of Tolkien. That is something I see in an awful lot of fantasy. I do not feel that way at all about his later work. I find him to be an author that grew into his mature talent,

His current world is a kind of alternative version of our own with similar geography and parallel historical trends, but two moons in the sky, one white and one blue, a blue moon that actually is blue.

I'm reading Manor of Dying by Kathleen Bridge. It is the fourth (the only one my library has) of a series called The Hampton Home & Garden mystery series and not particularly appealing to me. Our heroine and her good friend have gone by ferry to an old house on a New York island to help with decorating for a proposed TV show and are now snowed in, spent a night trapped in an antiquated elevator, and discovered a dead body. Yep! Another Agatha Christie wannabe. I can't remember where I got the recommendation and hope I'm not hurting anyone's feelings!

Rosefolly, I agree that the Fionavar Tapestry showed too much Tolkien influence, but I enjoyed it (at the time, anyway, when I hadn't subjected myself to quite so many Tolkien knockoffs yet), but I seem to remember that several of his other works would have a throwaway reference, never more than a sentence or 2, that all worlds were a copy of an original world, named Fionavar or Finavar, or some other variant. I distinctly remember it in Tigana, which was the first GG Kay book I read after Tapestry where it was called Finavar, and it seems that I saw it in other works too. But as I said, that was long ago!

Donnamira, I also read Tigana around the same time, too long ago to remember that detail. As I read more of his books I will keep my eyes open for it.

Meanwhile I passed Project Hail Mary along to my husband. He rarely reads science fiction, and only then when I urge him to give a specific book a try. He loved this one.

I received Family Business, latest in the Lydia Chan/Bill Smith series by S. J. Rozan, from Amazon yesterday and have started it. They are a Kentucky man and a NYC Chinese girl investigative team in New York, and the back story is as good as the mystery in them.

I've been reading The Gulag Archipelago and have managed to get through Volumes I & II. However, before I tackle Volume III, I decided to take a break to read a couple of "Golden Age Mysteries."

Ha! The book I chose first was written by an obscure-to-me author, Annie Haynes, and was first published in 1924. The Secret of Greylands thoroughly confused me! I thought I was reading a Victorian sensation novel along the lines of Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, maybe even Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Everyone was either walking or being transported around the north-country (Northumberland?) in farm wagons, dog carts, or carriages. Then out of the blue a 'motor' (motor car) appeared on a road. The King was mentioned, but the Great War was not. Women still wore long skirts and 'sunshades' (evidently some sort of bonnet, not a parasol or tinted spectacles). I worked out that the time setting must have been Edwardian or perhaps early in the reign of George V before the war.

The story was melodramatic, the characters were usually histrionic, and the plot was almost transparent. Still, I kept reading because it was entertaining in its absurdity. The male love interest spent years traipsing Australia, South Africa and Central America on big game hunts and other manly activities. Was he hunting jaguars and iguanas in C. America? It was never revealed.

This was a very creepy book, in its own way. I read the notes about the author and learned Haynes was born in 1865. She had some sort of degenerative disease that wheelchair bound her. She was an ardent feminist who lived in London but created her stories mostly from her imagination and remembrance of an earlier age. Her books are said to be a bridge between popular Victorian-Age books and ones of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. She died in 1929 and her reputation faded. Perhaps unjustly, but I really don't think she could ever have given Agatha Christie or Sayers much competition.

But if a reader is in the right mood to read a 'real' throwback, Miss Haynes did a creditable job!

What fun! I love the early murder mysteries where the detectives catch buses to crime scenes and the policeman taking notes licks his pencil first!

I was pleased to find that a favourite author, Kate Fenton has written a new book after a long pause. I had given up checking her website and only came across this while looking for any of her audio books. I am trying the library for a copy.

I am still incapacitated with Bell's Palsy and find reading books difficult with only one eye as the right one is taped up for protection against drying out.

Several tears ago Frieda suggested to me The Fields Beneath by Gillian Tindall, a detailed look at Kentish Town, once a small village on the NW outskirts of London where the Fleet River flowed through agricultural and marsh land. It is only now that I have been able to pick up a reprint (it first came out in 1977).

Not the sort of book one can read at a 'sitting' as there is so much to take in but I have found looking at the streets via google maps makes the area come alive. When Tindall wrote this the place was very 'mixed' and the local Council seemed to think nothing of pulling down whole streets for redevelopment replacing well-proportioned Georgian and Victorian terraces with modern Social Housing. I believe this book helped halt this decline and I noticed very many properties now done up fetch huge over-the-top sums of money (£1,200,000 for a 2 bed home!)

Another of her books I enjoyed was The House by the Thames . . . a property that somehow survived 'though altered from the early fifteen hundreds. It is by the site of the old Globe Theatre on the Southbank.

Annpan, hold steady there with your eye, although it must drive you mad. A young man of my acquaintance was recently found to have a lazy eye and has been 'treated' with a patch put over one of his spec' lenses. Rather cleverly it was done in black so he looked like a pirate and not made to appear an object of pity.

Vee, the taping up is the hard part as sometimes it works first time and others it doesn't and I can still see so have to keep at it.

I wrote to Kate Fenton about her tip in a book to drink through a bent straw and she has replied at once with a charming email. She mentioned that her late husband once got Bell's Palsy and wished me a speedy recovery. It might seem an obvious thing but I didn't think about that and was leaking as much as I drank, even using a lipped cup until I recollected the story.

I recently finished The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It's about a struggling author who previously had published a couple of novels that didn't sell very well. While he was teaching a writing seminar, a student told him about the sensational plot he had in mind for the book he was trying to write. When the author/teacher learned that the student subsequently died without writing his book, well, you can guess what happens. But you might not anticipate the consequences. Quick, enjoyable escapist reading.