Thank you, kathy_t for the compliment but I am long, long past the ages you mentioned! And I first read Moby Dick many years ago. It's not a yearly thing :) As I said before, I wondered why many think it is the great American novel and that's why I re-read it. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner but your post was in my spam folder for some reason and I didn't see it here for some other unknown reason.

Ginny, I think you should leave a note for the future writer of your obituary telling him/her to be sure to include "She even read Moby Dick twice!"

Finished reading the nonfiction book, Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer. It's an eye-opening account of the history of the Mormon Church, and the various factions that have broken off from the original church. Among the splinter groups are a few FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints) communities who practice polygamy. Some of the stories from those splinter groups are rather frightening, including the story of two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who murdered a third brother's wife and baby because God spoke directly to one of them and ordered the killings. Frightening.

I'm reading With Love from London by Sarah Jio. London and a cozy bookshop--what more could you ask?

I love Donna Tartt, because of "The Secret History" and the Goldfinch" but I found "The Little Friend" boring. Now that I know better Donna Tartt style, I want to give to "The Little Friend" another chanche.

I'm reading The Hunt by Faye Kellerman. She says at the beginning that it's the final book in the Peter Decker series. I have to say I am NOT enjoying it at all. I'll stick with it because it's the final book, but grudgingly. Pete and Rina Decker are almost secondary characters and most of the story is about Chris Donatti and his ex-wife Terry (who is soon to be his wife again). Donatti is an awful person and I have not liked him in the preceding books. It seems like she's setting up to start a series with him as the main character.

Donna

Carolyn - With Love from London sounds refreshing and charming after the heavy topics I've been reading about lately. I will put it on my TBR list.

I have started to read "Hamnet" by O'Farrell. This take on Shakespeare's life has been highly acclaimed. I'm off to a slow start. There is so much detailed description therein. Yet, it truly is beautifully written. I hope the pace picks up and that I can keep all the characters straight in my head.

Kathy, With Love from London has several negative reviews, but, aside from family, books and London are two of my dearest loves and an occasional light book is a breath of fresh air. Signed: Unintellectual mystery fan.

The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

Yoyobon, I joined up for Osman's newsletter. He has recently posted an audio chapter of book three and sends regular puzzles.

I've just finished "Hamnet" by O'Farrell. Once I got into it, I could not put it down. I recommend this for anyone remotely interested in Wm. Shakespeare and family. It made me dig out my copy of "Will in the World" by Greenblatt for a possible re-read.

Murder of a Lady, a Golden Age of Mystery by Anthony Wynne published in 1931. It is a "locked room" case.

Just now I'm listening to The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay. I read it long ago, and had a vague memory that it was based on the Saxons, Welsh, and Vikings but set in Kay's alternate world with two moons around our 800 A.D. It is. I had forgotten a lot of it and am enjoying this new experience. Most of Kay's work has only light touches of fantasy, but this one includes a remnant Fae population as a plot twist. I particularly like the passing reference to events that happened in earlier works, espeically events in Sarantium, Kay's version of Byzantium. It adds to the feeling that this is a consistent world.

I also ordered a new hardback copy of Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn, long a favorite of mine, so clever and witty. He held a book signing about an hour's drive from where I live, so I went to get my new book autographed. (I also bought a paperback copy so that I would not be taking unfair advantage of the store that hosted the signing.) I enjoy meeting authors whose works I have enjoyed, especially when they are such favorites.

I've been reading On the Marsh by Simon Barnes. Previously a sports writer for the Times, Barnes and his family bought a house with some marsh-land attached in Norfolk, East Anglia. This is Fen country, damp land formed over hundreds of years by peat cutting often drained for modern agricultural use. The book is made up of short chapters describing the wild life Barnes and his son who has Down's Syndrome discover as the seasons change and his attempts to keep this landscape 'as it is' for future generations.

Reading The Thursday Murder Club.....written by a man and for some reason his voice really comes across as a guy writing a story. The cadence is sort of like Jack Webb on Dragnet.

I'm not far into the story but am hoping to enjoy it.

I just finished Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen. I've enjoyed all her books, and this one is no exception. Like Rouan, I finished it in one sitting. While it did feel somewhat slighter than her other books, it was still full of the magic and emotion she writes so well. All the main characters had parent issues that led them to each other, and the concept of "found family" was strong. All in all, I liked it a lot.

For those who liked The Thursday Murder Club, might I recommend a book I read a couple of years ago? Before She Was Helen by Caroline B. Cooney. It is also set in a retirement community altho this one is in South Carolina. It's a very interesting mystery about a woman with a double life and a number of dramatic, yet mostly believable, experiences. She's a semi-retired Latin teacher with a past that collides with her present life that will keep you turning pages. I have read it twice, second time with my book club.

I am reading Heartstone, fifth in the C. J. Sansom series about Matthew Shardlake who is a lawyer in the time of Henry VIII. The books are quite long and while you do get a lot of information about life and culture of the time, some of it could be eliminated without detracting from the story. This book's setting is during the time of preparation for a French invasion during Henry's last marriage to Katherine Parr (that lasted five years until his death).

Thanks Sheri, I've wondered if I'd like Other Birds because I did enjoy her other books .

So far this month I've read Jennifer Egan's The Candy House and Zuqing Li's Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden.

I did not realize that The Candy House was a sequel to Egan's Pulitzer Prize winner A Visit From the Goon Squad, but lucky for me, since I haven't read Goon Squad, Candy House stands alone. It's an odd book, there isn't really an overarching plot that connects all the chapters. There is a thread that runs through the book, what if we could download our memories and have access to "the collective" memory, but each chapter is about a different person. Overall I enjoyed it, but my old brain had difficulty realizing that a main character in one chapter had been a minor character in another chapter and vice versa. Also, not all threads are tied up, in fact a lot of threads are left hanging, and I know a lot of authors do that on purpose, as is the case here, but I find it disappointing.

Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden is non-fiction about the author's two aunts who are separated by fate while in their 20's during the Chinese communist revolution, one remaining on the mainland and one ending up in Taiwan. These are two amazingly smart and resilient women, both of whom endure hardships, but who both ultimately succeed and are bittersweetly reunited after 40 years.

A friend recently suggested The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Alison Pataki.

Has anyone read it ?

I was revisiting "Will in the World" by Greenblatt, which is excellent for the mysteries of who the Bard was. But yesterday I went to a church rummage sale and found two books by the late poet Mary Oliver, in mint condition. Oliver is my favorite post-modern poet and one of the tomes is a book of her essays.

After having read “The Song of Achille” by the same author Madeline Miller, just started “Circe” In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

Two books recently finished The Hive by Gill Hornby which took me back to the days when my children were at Junior School and certain mothers always had a little gang around them. In this story the gang-master is Beatrice (Bea) who orders her workers about, 'though doing almost nothing herself. Money raising events are organised, vasts amount of food are produced for sales, grand 'balls' are planned and so on. Bea's children are twenty times more gifted than the rest of the kids or . . .perversely . . . have more meetings with the school psychologist because they are TOO clever.

The next book was Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (the other one) The title character from early childhood is spoilt by her hardworking Mother, is mean to the children at her school and is generally an unlikable girl. Out of the blue she decides to write a novel and leaves school to concentrate on this opus. Amazingly it is picked up by a publisher, despite it being really trashy and against all the odds does well, though sniggered at by the critics. Her 'public' (mostly bored housewives and kitchen maids) clammer for more. As you might guess her character/personality never improves. Her wealth is wasted and only her cats tolerate her. It sounds depressing but is an interesting and well-written read.

I am reading The Match by Harlan Coben. I don't think I've read any of his books before. I am really enjoying this one. The story revolves around a man named Wilde, who was abandoned in the woods as a tiny child then found when he was 6-8 years old. He was then raised by a foster family, and now that he's an adult he decides he wants to know more about his past by signing up for an ancestry DNA site. It's very well-written and an interesting story!

Donna

I am hastily reading Murder before Evensong by Richard Coles, which I have been reminded is due back at the library tomorrow. I started it weeks ago but put it aside for other borrowed books.

I had to reread the opening and found that it is set for some reason in the late 1980s. I first missed the time pointers and was puzzled that the priest didn't have a mobile/ cellphone! Celine Dion winning Eurovision gave me the clue though. It seems like a good mystery but too many characters and no list, just a map of the dwellings in the village.

I flew through a really cute rom-com by Annabel Monaghan called Nora Goes Off Script. While it starts off as a standard boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl story, it's not that exactly. Nora, the main character, writes formulaic romantic movies for the Hallmark channel and even explains this formula to another character at one point in the book, so there's a wink and a nod to the standard romantic tropes. To avoid these, the author worked in a clever twist to keep the reader guessing how this romance will - or won't - turn out. It was fresh and fun and very enjoyable. A perfect end of the summer sort of book.

I'm reading another Vicar Merrily Watkins book, The Remains of an Altar, by Phil Rickman. Merrily is a Deliverance Counselor, and people are having serious wrecks from seeing a lighted orb on a dark road where the powers that be want to build another luxury housing development on a sacred site.

Thursday Murder Club....I'm really trying to enjoy it.....but.........

but? What don't you like?

Annpanagain.....Okay, I'm into the second part of the book , when Ian is murdered and they now have a real case to solve and it is moving along a bit better. Something about the cadence of the writing was putting me off a bit.

I find the first in a series is usually a bit clunky. I prefer the second usually. I have been thankful in the past to read books from later in a series when going back to read the earlier books. I might not have bothered otherwise.

Books at the beginning of a planned series are a bit like a TV pilot! Characters are recast or dropped...

Speaking of TV, I liked the UK Ghosts but the US one is better in some ways, taking a different direction and the special effects are excellent.

I've just finished Manitou Canyon, No. 15 in the Cork O'Conner series by William Kent Kreuger. There are several more to go, and I'm glad. Cork is a quiet, part American Indian, superhero who loves his family and gets involved in a lot of tricky situations.

Over the weekend, I finished Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. It was interesting - a mystery within a mystery. The main character is a book editor and while editing the manuscript of a mystery novel, she becomes involved in a mystery of her own. You get to read both mysteries. It was cleverly done, but I have to say, I would never in a million years have solved the mystery contained in the manuscript. Perhaps I had a chance at the other mystery, but I didn't solve it. I never do.

Kathy, PBS Masterpiece Theater is beginning showing Magpie Murders on October 16 in six parts. It has already been shown in Britain.

I'm reading Persons Unknown by Susie Steiner. She died recently having written only three books. Unfortunately, this is the second of what is a series, which I didn't know until I began it. She was highly recommended on another site, but so far I'm a bit ho-hum about the book which may be because I needed to have read the first one.

Carolyn - Thanks for the Magpie Murders tip!

I have only just noticed that there is a TV series of P.D.James Dalgleish starting on a Free Channel. I was so pleased until I found there were no subtitles being shown. Luckily the local library has a DVD so I have requested that in hopes of subtitles. I am not all that deaf but need to read some of the muttered speech.

If you can, try to get the old series of Dalgliesh with Roy Marsden. It is 1,000 times better than this new one which I thought was awful.

Ginny, Thanks. I think I saw that a long while ago but I can't recall much about it!

I've just picked up Anne Tyler's French Braid from the library after several months wait and will have to put a couple of books aside so I can read it before it has to be returned.

Has anyone here read it yet?

I have Simon Brett's latest book Death and the Decorator and Ann Cleeves latest Vera mystery The Rising Tide from the library, an embarrassment of riches! Which to read first? Probably Vera.

I also got a DVD of Dalgliesh I requested. Why didn't I ask the Support Worker to get some chocolate as well and really go the whole hog?

I've just finished late poet Donald Hall's memoir "String Too short to Save". It's set in rural New Hampshire mostly in the 1930's and '40's, with beautiful descriptions of New England landscapes and folkways. Here in Charleston, SC, we are all awaiting the spin-off of hurricane Ian, now hitting Florida. It won't be pretty....

I just finished Mary Jane, by Jessica Anya Blau. Set in 1974, it's a coming of age story of 14 year-old Mary Jane, a sheltered, bookish girl from a strict, conservative family who gets a summer job as a nanny for 5 year-old Izzy. While Mary Jane's status-conscious parents are pleased she will be working for a respectable doctor, what they don't know is that Izzy's father is a psychiatrist who has cleared his whole summer to counsel a famous rock star who is a recovering heroin addict - at his house. The household also includes Izzy's hippie mother and the rock star's famous movie-star wife (written as a fascinating mash-up of Marie Osmond and Cher). Described as Almost Famous meets Daisy Jones and the Six (another book I really enjoyed), this was a terrific story. And as I was 12 that year, it was fun to remember the 70s and the magic of discovering new ideas, rock music, and records.

I just finished two books. One is The Day They Shook the Plum Tree, the story of Hetty Green, her two children and what happened to her fortune. Hetty Green was known as The Witch of Wall Street and the richest woman in America, also a world-class miser and eccentric. I read this many years ago and her name came up recently so I read it again. Not academic but an interesting if unpleasant story. She inherited a fortune, partly made in the New Bedford whaling industry--I can't seem to escape whales this year--and made it into a mega-fortune.

The other book is Every Life a Story by Natalie Jacobson, a news presenter in New England. Mildly interesting if you live locally. She is very well liked and a gubernatorial candidate who was mean to her during a TV interview lost the election because of it. Her four grandparents were Serbian immigrants to Chicago and that part was very interesting.

Finished Persons Unknown and didn't love it like other people did. I like my mysteries more mysterious and not trying to amuse me.

I'm about 100 pages into Catherine Raven's memoir Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship. Descriptive language and an imaginative treatment but Raven herself seems rather a damaged personality, which sometimes leads me to just put the book down for a while. Has anyone else read it?

I read it, Donnamira, and I agree with you. Raven did survive a harsh beginning in life but I admired her methods of doing so and I became as attached to her fox as she did. I enjoyed every page of her book and I hope she writes another. It was, indeed, thought provoking and I carried it around with me...mentally...for quite some time. Being a naturalist of sorts...I found her current life style rather "comfortable"...and comparable, at times, to my own in attitude. It's definitely an adventure in prose. I hope you enjoy it to its conclusion.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman came through for me from the library, and I am just about to start it. Ah, pure pleasure.