I finished Susan Hill's "A Change of Circumstances." As is usual, it is well-written, but the very dark theme throughout did not appeal to me. (drugs in small English villages). Readers are left dangling at the very end regarding the future of the protagonist, Simon, S.

Poor Simon S. All the endings are dark. I really don't know why I like the series so much,

I finished Revelation and liked it a lot. I like to think we have progressed in becoming more civilized, but then we have the drug use and all the gun violence.

Finished Remarkably Bright Creatures and LOVED it !

I just finished Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner. It was just OK, IMO. Her books are always solid, but I've yet to read one that really grabs me. I did enjoy A Fall of Marigolds and The Nature of Fragile Things, but this one felt a bit flat to me. Her WWII setting and story of two sisters torn apart by the war started off solidly, but there was a lot of telling (especially in the later part of the book) vs. showing and I think this slowed the story down and made the ending far less impactful than it might have been. In the back of my mind I was also comparing her story to Kate Quinn's books set during WWII, and Meissner was definitely coming in second place. Just my personal opinion. We'll be discussing this at book group next week and I'm interested to see how the others viewed this.

Yoyobon, I've added Remarkably Bright Creatures to my library list, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm now reading Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner, set in a bookstore in Bloomsbury in 1950. The men are definitely in charge, but it's 1950, rationing has ended, and things are a-changing.

Finally finished American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. I say finally because it felt like I was reading it for a long time. It details the journey of a Mexican woman and her 8-year-old son from their home in Acapulco to a coyote-led illegal crossing into the U.S. They must do the entire journey undercover because they are running from the drug cartel who killed the rest of their family. Every page describes the harrowing, dangerous and dehumanizing details of such a journey.

I took an intermission from Moby Dick to read Grave Mistake by Ngaio Marsh. It's one of her later ones that reads more like a Golden Age mystery than some of her books written in the Golden Age. It was very good and I recommend it altho I did guess the culprit easily, something I rarely do and consider a black mark against the author. It's a country house mystery with the usual cast of Instpector Alleyn and Sargent Fox. I don't care for Agatha Troy, Alleyn's love interest, now wife, so glad she wasn't there except for one of her paintings. Some 'bad guys' did get away, sorry to say.

Updates on the books I was reading: The Lady's Mine turned out to be pretty good! It started out feeling very cliched but ended up being a very good story.

City of the Dead was very convoluted and the ending was weird. It almost seemed like Kellerman had a page requirement and when he was getting close he abruptly solved the cases.

Now I'm reading Diablo Mesa by Preston & Child. Their stories tend to be pretty far-fetched but enjoyable reads. This one involves a billionaire guy who hires a team to do an archaeological dig at the Roswell crash site.

Donna

kathy, I absolutely loved "American Dirt". I could scarcely bear to put it down, and ended up reading it twice.

Woodnymph - I agree that American Dirt was very well done. It was brave of you to read it twice. That's pretty ugly stuff they went through. I appreciated that it did not come across as a political statement, but was simply a record of what some of those poor immigrants go through.

Nobody's Child is by the respected BBC reporter Kate Adie and is a detailed examination of 'foundlings' ie babies left/dumped in the street, outside hospitals/churches etc.

Adie, herself adopted rather than 'found' traces the sometimes gruesome history of the early attempts at providing succor for these bundles of misery from the work of the church to organised Foundling Hospitals where the few babies who survived were trained as servants or farm workers. She visited many people raised by this method often sent out to join the labour forces of the old British Empire or in the US to '"Go West Young Man" to open up the interior.

This is a detailed work and although not a 'light' read interesting and very informative.

Reading The Chilbury Ladies Choir and though I usually do not like epistolary novels, this one is endurable. I chose it with caution since I did not like her latest The Kitchen Front.

It would appear that the author has a penchant for writing about village contests.

I just finished Herve Le Tellier's The Anomaly, and reluctant to move on to another book because I'm still processing its ending. It takes a little effort to get into the book, because it starts with a separate chapter on each of 8 different characters, joined only by the fact that they were all on a transatlantic flight that encountered severe turbulence, but once you find out what the 'anomaly' is, the book is hard to put down. Peppered with playful allusions and recursive references, it also includes some very funny political satire along with questions about choices in life and second chances. The Washington Post review caught my attention a couple months ago, but I didn't have to wait too long for a library copy, which surprised me since I hear it's been picked up for a film adaptation.

I'm reading Human Face, one of the Kelso series by Aline Tempelton. Set in Scotland, which I like, with a troubled detective, the norm except this one is grieving for his recently deceased wife. Good story about human trafficking.

It seems to me that most of the detectives and investigators in fiction have problems!

My current one is bi-polar. Surely someone is reasonably normal?

Did Sherlock Holmes set the style?

Just returned, unfinished, to the library Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk. I did try and enjoy it but after reading the very long Guardian review, where it was described as "...refined intelligence . . . and elaborate metaphor . . ." but what I thought of as 'way too up itself', it had to go back to a shelf. It concerns a day spent in a well-heeled suburb of a nameless city and follows a group of 'housewives' on their various activities. Taking the children to school, visiting the mall, going out to dinner . . . What comes through the book is that the women are unhappy/dissatisfied with their lot, the children are listless little creatures and the husbands are probably happier in the office; as would I be if in their shoes.

I just read Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue, my book club's assignment this month. I would never have picked it myself but was surprised to find myself totally engrossed in a real page-turner. It's the story of the intersecting lives of two couples and their children, one, immigrants to New York from Cameroon with dubious legal status, the other, a hot-shot, driven Wall Street executive and his troubled wife. The story takes place during the financial collapse in 2008 and the Wall St character works at Lehman Brothers. The author, herself an immigrant to NY from Cameroon, makes the characters multi-dimensional and not cardboard stereotypes. It raised many questions and left them unanswered.

From my book club's reaction, I suspect most either didn't read it at all or read just some of it. The topic of immigration is very controversial and our group is more interested in staying friends than having political battles as am I. But this is an absorbing human story with no easy answers which I think would be of interest whatever one's immigration views are.

I am about halfway through The Anomaly (thank you, Donnamira!) and so far it's two thumbs up. The anomaly has just been revealed and I can't wait to see how the story unfolds.

Donna

I finished The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley last night. Too many Paris books lately, so much so that I have them thoroughly confused, but this one was pretty good while dealing with a disgusting subject.

Carolyn, I didn't get very far through that one but I can't remember why. I think I found something about her style really irritating.

Donna

Now reading The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan. I just read that she died recently, which I am sorry to hear. I have liked the books I've read by her.

I finished The Anomaly this morning. It was excellent! I highly recommend it.

Donnamira, I'd be interested in your take on the ending, but don't want to put out any spoilers!

Donna

Carolyn, Dervla McTiernan is still with us - she tweeted something yesterday :)

Thanks, Kath, I'm glad to hear it. Not sure where I read (or misread) that.

Trying to read The Madness Of Crowds by Louise Penny (book 17/18) and not loving it. It deals with the pandemic aftermath and perhaps it's just too..........too. Anyone read it and like it ?

Bon, I read it and recall I didn’t like it very much. I didn’t understand why some characters were in the story and didn’t get how they would have even ended up in Three Pines.

Donna

Donna.....thanks ! I think Ms. Penny should have ended with All The Devils Are Here .

The cash cow eventually dries up. She'll write the series into oblivion at this rate.

I read the L.Penny book about the pandemic some time ago and reported here about it. It was quite disappointing and I have decided to give up on this Canadian author's work.

That was my reaction to an Elizabeth George book some time ago. I had read them all but they got worse and worse and when she got to the theme of child abuse, I said, I'm done. Scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to write about.

SPOILER...

Ginny, When there was a mention of child abuse in The Anomaly, that finished me too!

No reason for that to be one of the stories. I skipped through the rest of the book to make sure the character was all right! I know it was only fiction but I still like to find out!

From the skip-reading, I don't think the book was my type of story anyway. I thought it was going to be a mystery with a logical explanation.

Ginny...I, too, scrapped the last Elizabeth George creation. Like you...I have read everything she's written but I couldn't tolerate this one after only 68 pages. If she continues to write...I won't be in line for any of her future books.

I'm reading The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths. I wish she hadn't had the prologue--now I have to read the whole book with dread. But I do like Ruth.

Egads!

'Humor is the most subjective of tastes' has to be one of the truest of all aphorisms, IMO. Sometimes I do recognize humor in dark situations/circumstances. Sarcasm occasionally strikes me as funny, but I've yet to truly appreciate sarcasm and satire when they're laid on with a trowel. I will fling away any book that treats child abuse and animal abuse as jokes. That's what I did with The (un)Lucky Sperm: Tales of my bizarre childhood - a hilarious memoir by Brett Preiss.

The title slightly amuses me, but that's about all.

The author grew up in the Outback of Australia in the 1960s and 1970s. He was 'different' and his family and the culture of the time gave him hell for it. Could this be funny? Well, maybe. Another writer might be able to pull it off, but this one comes across (to me) as if it's his turn to get more than a bit of revenge - in the guise of a humorous rendition of a pay-back memoir. Obviously I'm not among the writer's targeted audience of readers. However, someone recommended it especially to me. I hope this person forgets and will never ask me what I think of it!

As I get most of my reading recommendations from here I am hesitant to write what I think of their choice if I haven't enjoyed the book. If the person mentions how much they enjoyed the story should I pour cold water on it and spoil their pleasure with picking holes in the plot or finding fault with the writing?

Luckily so far no one has asked me directly.

I'm another who gave up on George. Her early books were excellent, but then it seemed, like many other successful authors, that her books were no longer edited. They were overlong and contained many errors, and the stories just weren't as interesting.

I also thought Louise Penny got lost for a while, and then picked up. I read the pandemic one and thought it was OK.

I am currently reading an ARC of Kate Atkinson's Shrines of Gaiety, and enjoying it very much. It is set in London in 1926 amid the clubs of Soho, and the main character is based on a woman who ran several of them. All the characters are interesting, and the book has both a mystery and a sort of social theme to it. If the ending is good, it will be my favourite book of the year so far I think.

The title The (un) Lucky Sperm . .. would be enough to put me off the book plus any of those 'humorous' 'side-splitting' 'laugh-a-minute' 'laughed 'til I cried' descriptions on the front cover especially when 'alcoholic violent Father' 'beaten-up Mother' 'abused child' are added to the mix.

Frieda, I have never heard of this writer and when I checked the book out on Amazon I found almost all the comments had 5 *'s. Perhaps it is a case that many people find amusement in very basic human misfortunes . . . tripping over a stone and breaking your leg/driving your car into a river/the postman being bitten by a dog . . . all very unsubtle. We see clips posted on facebook and TV shows all the time.

I think sarcasm is almost impossible to convey in/by the written word even within the context of a conversation.

Annpan, I think you must be much nicer than me! If someone recommends a book and I cannot even finish it because it was so badly written, so full of printing errors or mixed the eras of ancient Egyptians with mammoths, eating tomato sandwiches in the 1500's etc I might say I found it difficult to get through or even that it went back to the library unfinished because the date had expired.

We have a new neighbour, who, having found out I enjoy reading, every so often gives me huge piles of books (15 - 20 at a time). She is given them by a friend who must get through one a day. I always thank the neighbour and ask is it OK if I pass them on to the charity shop when I have finished them. I do 'look through' them but nine out of ten are so puerile with badly written 'tales' of poor girls in factories/shops/slums who go on to marry the man of their dreams.

The charity shop people welcome me with weak smiles as I off-load onto them.

Donna, I would like to answer your comment about what I think of the ending of The Anomaly, but I can't see how I can change the font color to hide the spoiler. Anyone know how to do it here on Houzz? (i.e. change the font color to white so it can be seen only if you highlight the blank text with your cursor)

Back on topic, I finally got around to reading 2 of the sequels to Miss Buncle's Book, and while enjoyable, they are not quite as much fun as the original. Especially the 3rd one where Barbara Buncle appears only occasionally. I've just started #4, The Four Graces, where it seems that Barbara may be even less prominent.

I also picked up a new picture book, Niki Nakayama: A Chef's Tale in 13 Bites, because my sister told me that the illustrator, Yuko Jones, is the daughter-in-law of one of her good friends. Turns out that the illustrations are a great complement to the text and add to the story, just as a picture book should. True story of a Japanese-American girl who grows up to be a Michelin-rated master chef specializing in traditional Japanese cuisine, despite being told that 'girls can't be chefs' all her life.

Vee, I laughed at the tomato sandwich comment. Was that really in a book? Even more unlikely than the sandwich clanger is that a tomato was eaten as it was believed to be poisonous for a long time.

My grandmother believed that eating a cold potato gave you worms! We ignored that because what could be nicer than a cold leftover roasted potato, sprinkled with salt?

Annpan, my Great grandmother would never eat a tomato as she thought they were poisonous. I remember reading, in a book set in the reign of Henry VIII, that the scullion was busy peeling potatoes . .. now that is a real clanger.

There is a bit in one of the 'Little House . . .' books where Laura's mother refused to eat wild-growing-watermelons in case she was poisoned.

Vee, the line I laughed at was "The charity shop people welcome me with weak smiles as I off-load onto them." My sister and now deceased sister-in-law used to exchange grocery bags of those books with each other. Sis has now graduated to those with "a bit of mystery" to them. She always was a little scaredy cat.

Kath, thanks for mentioning for the latest Kate Atkinson although it may be a while before it arrives in our library system. I felt her last one (?) about possible war-time spies in London was a little weak. At the moment I have her Big Sky the latest Jackson Brodie book. Possibly a recommendation for Annpan, although not a gentle who-dunnit series very well written and fast-moving.

Miss Dimple Disappears ....I've just begun reading it and it is very enjoyable.

I decided to send The Madness Of Crowds back to the library after several RPers agreed that Louis Penny's book wasn't worth reading. The subject was too distasteful to entertain.

I'm afraid she stayed too long at the fair.

I'm another who gave up on Elizabeth George. I put her in with several other successful authors who seem to bypass editing, and who seem to be getting paid by the page. Such a pity as her early books were excellent.

Louise Penny I thought went right downhill, then picked up a bit. I didn't mind the pandemic one but it didn't grab me.

I finished an ARC of Kate Atkinson's Slices of Gaiety, set in London in 1926 and telling of a matriarch who runs a series of nightclubs. It's based on a real person, and is an interesting mix of social history and a mystery, with an unusual ending. Highly recommended.

Donnamira, I don't know how to change font color, but you can always say SPOILER and leave a bunch of blank lines before your comments. :)

Donna

Kath....in a search for that book, the title is Shrines of Gaiety.....and won't be released in US until September 2022.

I'm reading Big Sky, the second to last Jackson Brodie book by Kate Atkinson. It has so many chapters with so many different characters that it takes half the book or more to get it sorted, but I do like Jackson.

Donna, so here's my take on the ending of The Anomaly, understanding that I'm a literal sort of person and always go for the obvious answers. :)

SPOILER FOR THE ANOMALY

SPOILER FOR THE ANOMALY

SPOILER FOR THE ANOMALY

SPOILER FOR THE ANOMALY

I concluded that the decision to shoot down the second emergence of the plane precipitated the end of the simulation. I didn't honestly take the speculation that our world is purely a simulation/test run seriously when it came up earlier in the book, and I didn't consider it an essential part of the novel, so I was shocked at the ending. (I also thought the calligram was a great artifice, and that the translator did just a great job with it.) I thought the themes of the novel were really more about responding to adversity, the unknown, and second chances. I remember my first reaction to the second emergence was pity for the pilot's wife, who would have to watch her husband die for the third time, and wondering if she would in fact stay with him or walk away to save herself. In other words, I focused on the passengers and how they handled their situations, rather than why/how the situation occurred.

Your thoughts???

Yoyo, thanks for correcting the title, it makes it hard to look up if it's wrong! The book isn't out here yet either, it was an advanced copy I got from my old workplace.

Vee, I agree with you about Atkinson's Transcription, it lacked something.

I have since finished Driving Stevie Fracasso by Barry Divola, about two brothers separated many years ago, who get together for a road trip. One is a past rock star and one a music journalist, and I thought there were way too many references to bands and songs I didn't know and didn't care about. The main character isn't at all likeable either, so not a book I would recommend you run out to look for.