Carolyn.....((hug))

Oh Carolyn...I empathize. I had nine of those shots before I put my foot down and stopped them. Did they help? Yes...I think they did. They stopped the bleeding but I'm fighting a losing battle between the AMD and cataracts in my bad eye. If your Dr hasn't warned you already...be extra cautious about being out on bright days. I don't go anywhere without dark sunglasses these days. If I didn't wear them, I'm sure I'd be blind in my bad eye by now. We have snow up north here now and more on the way over the next 3 days. The glare from the sun brightened snow is almost worse than just sunlight on a balmy day.

Aside from the AMD...I'm looking forward to your review of Ink Black Heart....wondering if you'll find it as visually tedious as I did.

BTW...we share the same BD month. 😊

I just finished reading Into the West by Mercedes Lackey. It’s the second of her books about the founding of the Valdemar world. It was okay but definitely a middle book. I wouldn’t be surprised if a third one comes out within the next year or so. I finally finished Wrapt in Crystal by Sharon Shinn. I liked it once I made myself actually sit down to finish it (I had to, or return it to the library unfinished!).

About March 2022 I began reading The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, a 600+ page biography by Paula Byrne. It's divided into seven 'books' (sections) that cover all phases of Pym's life. I managed to get through three of the books, but I began to dislike Barbara Pym -- which I recognize is totally unfair of me to feel about the author of some of my favorite books ever. I think that what I reacted to was Byrne's writing, not so much Pym herself. Some writers do get carried away when trying to portray their subjects -- admiring them too much, it seems, but somehow feeling the need to be critical in a way that might sensationalize and provide interest to readers who primarily like 'dirt'. Such is Byrne's book, in my opinion, although Byrnes has a knack at times for vivid description of Pym's environment, times, and psyche.

I like this quote on the back cover of this bio, taken from Pym's own Jane and Prudence:

'Once outside the magic circle the writers become their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they know into novels.'

I have read two more of the 'books' and think I will eventually finish all seven. However, it is one of those reading situations for me when I think I was much happier reading an author whom I knew absolutely nothing about! I learned that lesson after reading too much about Daphne du Maurier, for example.

Friedag, there are a couple of things about Pym's books that irk me. There is too much made of the characters feeling that they are in love when it is more like a crush or, as the junior typists remark in Jane and Prudence "a passion" which we used to abbreviate to "pash' as school girls in the 1950s!

The other is that some characters would now be viewed as stalkers in their behaviour.

I don't think I shall read the biography.

I find the books take me back to living with my grandparents in the UK 40s and early 50s. Recognising those times of food shortages and being pleased to get good quality cast-offs to wear.

However, it is one of those reading situations for me when I think I was much happier reading an author whom I knew absolutely nothing about!

Frieda, I agree, and won't be looking for Byrne's book anytime soon. I am a Pym fan and I tend to re-read her books every few years. Whenever I'm in a reading slump Some Tame Gazelle gets me back in my reading groove (no idea why, but it works). Better for me not to know her frailties.

Sheri, I don't reread the whole of Pym's books but I enjoy dipping into some scenes.

Like the chapter about lunch at the Spinning Wheel in Jane and Prudence. Jane is worried that Mr Oliver sees they are having off the menu bacon and eggs and will be envious but he gets an even better chicken dinner with all the trimmings. So now she thinks he will be embarrassed at the favourable treatment. He doesn't appear to be!

The fuss about making tea in the office too! When I gave in my notice at my first job to go into office work, my rather horrible boss gloated that I would have to make the tea. We had a staff canteen where I was.

She was very put out when I dropped by my former work place to call for a friend to be told that we had tea ladies who came round with trolleys!

Pym describes the pettiness of some lives so well!

Annpan, she does! I enjoy the small things in her books, the worry that lunch isn't nice enough for the visiting seamstress or that a stocking needs darning and the vicar's wife has noticed -- all small, really inconsequential things, but things that speak to our daily lives so well. Her books are bittersweet, and I like that.

I finally finished slogging through Green Darkness by Anya Seton. I liked the first section but the middle set in the 1500s was very, very long. I think Mary Luke was influenced by Green Darkness when she wrote The Nonesuch Lure (published 4 years after Green), but I enjoyed The Nonesuch Lure a lot more.

I also read Hotel Nantucket by Elin Hilderbrand. What a fun ghost story! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I’m on Fox Creek by William Kent Kruger.

Donna

I started The Fortune Men: A Novel by Nadifa Mohamed yesterday, but I've had so many interruptions today that I haven't had a chance to read more than a few pages. In 2021 this book made the shortlist for the Booker Prize. Our RP friend, Martin B, reported that he favored the candidate that actually won the prize, but he thought Mohamed's effort was also win-worthy.

I can't remember the winner now because, for some reason, it didn't appeal to me. But I was instantly interested in this story based on real-life people and situations, namely of the accusation of a young Somali sailor in 1952 -- living in Tiger Bay, Cardiff, Wales -- of killing a local white female shopkeeper. Indications were that he wasn't the perpetrator, but that hardly seemed to matter -- he was just a too convenient suspect.

I read a history by John F. Wake, The Cruel Streets Revisited: A Casebook of Cardiff's Lawless Past, to gain a bit of background into what Cardiff snd Tiger Bay were like back then. I now know the real-life outcome, which for its time was predictable, but the story is more about the journey of an immigrant and how he was put in the circumstances in which he found himself. So far, I like the style of writing: clear-eyed and straightforward -- which I figure is the reason why it didn't win the Booker in spite of the subject matter.

Anyone else read this and have anything to say about it?

I am enjoying the trip as I read The Woman On The Orient Express . So far it is very good with lots of intrigue .

Do you feel transported to the scene of the story when the writer is skilled at creating atmosphere ?

The minute I open this book I am right back riding the Orient Express !

Yoyobon - I'm currently reading The Christmas Train by David Baldacci and enjoying the train ride too. I've heard others say this book isn't very good, but I am enjoying the description of the train experience. Having ridden a couple of trains in recent years, this book is bringing back pleasant memories for me.

Kathy, I can relate. My experience on the Auto Train to Florida one year was definitely Agatha Christie material ! What a strange trip that was , from start to finish, including a midnight stop at a country crossing to unload a passenger to an awaiting police car to be rushed to a local hospital !! I wondered how they got their car and luggage !?

Re: The Christmas Train...I did not read the book but did enjoy the movie on Amazon Prime recently. It's not a deep story but it was delightful in it's way , and had many famous actors to enjoy.

Due to an airline pilot's strike, I once had to take the train from Adelaide South Australia to my home in Perth Western Australia. It is a trip of 1650 miles and takes 44 hours.

I had booked a sleeping cabin and took a bag load of books because there isn't much to look at when crossing the Nullarbor Desert.

We had a late night stop at the mining town of Kalgoorlie where some people went for an arranged tourist bus ride in the 45 mins break, around the town. I had been there before so I snuggled down on the bed but got up a few minutes later to stretch my legs on the platform when the train started to move off! I hopped back on very speedily!

I must have dozed off and could have been left behind.

The train had to stop a little further down the line anyway as the bus hadn't returned in time and the train had left without those passengers! They had to rejoin at an unscheduled station or wait until the next day!

And the Amtrak ( Canadian owned and maintained, as I understand it ) train we took was smooth going down to Florida, but on the return trip we had "bad rails" and the cars lurch back and forth so that it was very upsetting to try to eat a meal. I kept one leg out a bit in the aisle so I wasn't throw away from the table. UGH.

Also....you didn't have any control over when your car unloaded. There were 324 vehicles on the train that trip and we had to sit in the station in Florida for over 2 hours waiting for our number to be called. We were the third to the last car off. We honestly thought they forgot to load it ! Today I understand there is an added fee if you want your car among the first off the train. How does that work if everyone opts for that ??? Hmmm......

Re rail journeys. This will seem puny by comparison with thousands of miles to Florida or across S and W Australia but back in the early '70's I was on a trip with my mother staying in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It was a typically grey summer and we decided to make the train journey to the Kyle of Lochalsh on the West coast. It only takes about two and a half hours but at the half-way point there is a scheduled stop at the lonely village of Achnasheen. We checked with the guard who said the wait was usually about 20 minutes, so we left the train to stretch our legs and went for a wander along the one long, quiet road; no traffic, no people.

To our surprise the train moved off and we were not near enough to run towards it. Back at the train-less station an unwilling official told us there were no more trains either way for several hours. We mentioned the 20 minute wait and he said it only applied if the train was on time and in this instance it was 10 minutes late getting in! (how that guard must have been laughing at the two stupid stranded passengers)

Luckily a 'goods' train was due in bound for Inverness and the 'official' had a word with its guard who allowed us to travel in his van. As this was/is strictly forbidden by the company we had to jump out before we reached the main station and clamber over the tracks to safety.

And this is how I never got to the West Coast or the Isle of Skye and still have never been there!

DH and I did a three-week summer special Amtrak trip once. The deal was you could stop at any three places on the route. We left from Chicago and went west across the middle of the U.S to stop at Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Glacier National Park in Montana, coming home across the northern part of the country. It was a really great trip. We did have a sleeper car. DH made me sleep in the upper berth, saying he would be claustrophobic up there. Well, yes.

My daughter, sister, and I made a trip by train from London to York to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Penzance, Cornwall, and then back to London to come home. That was absolutely wonderful. A word to the wise, though, if you do an all-day trip in England, buy your lunch when you get on board. They had sold out by the time we got hungry. No danger of starving because we had candy and stuff and they had soft drinks, but the young woman trying to help us felt so sorry for us that she brought us a big sandwich cut into thirds which we suspected was her own lunch and wouldn't let us pay her for it.

What great train stories all of you have! There really is something special about this mode of travel.

I am very pleased to report that I have finished The Ink Black Heart, every word of it including using a magnifying glass to read all the messaging. On now to Bleeding Heart Yard by Elly Griffiths. Ink Black to Bleeding?

Carolyn.....I made my hubby sleep in the upper berth.....and it was claustrophobic.

When strapped in there he looked like a Genoa salami !

I slept on the lower bed , facing the wall where the air vent was and in the morning I awoke with what I like to refer to as 'Legionaire's disease'. I got the worst lung infection from breathing the air from those dirty vents.

I am reading Land of Lost Borders; A Journey on the Silk Road by Kate Harris about a woman and her friend who travel the silk road by bicycle. My daughter gave it to me for Christmas last year and hopefully I'll finish before Sunday.

I always like to read something Christmassy in December and am enjoying this year's selection An English Christmas by John Julius Norwich.

Here's my train adventure. As a college student many years ago I took the overnight sleeper train from Leningrad (at the time) to Moscow with a group of older British tourists. The Russian train attendants made the mistake of serving everyone a cup of morning tea from a giant samovar just as the train was about to pull into Moscow station. Then they tried to rush everyone off the train yelling, "Moscow! Moscow! Must get off train now!" But the British weren't budging until they had finished their tea.

Another train tale......back in the late 1970's my husband and I were travelling from Paris to Munich on a night train. We'd been travelling all day and were exhausted. After trying unsuccessfully to buy a "couchette" ( sleeping car) in Paris we boarded the train and were faced with the aisles packed with college kids. We discovered, quite by accident, there was an empty sleeper car and decided to lay down and sleep. Well......the instant we crossed the German border we were awakened by two officers demanding to see our ticket for the sleeper. Of course we pleaded insanity due to sleep depravation and offered to pay......nope. They confiscated our passports and left. This was a scene right out of the worst war movie you can imagine. We were terrified.......what do you do without a passport ( which you are never supposed to relinquish) ? After many hours of worry. we were given a harsh lecture and our passports were returned.

I'm reading all your stories and they have made me vow never to take a journey on a train! Altho I did commute for four summers during college on the Long Island Railroad and that was horror story enough for anyone :)

Yoyo, we had better luck with using a compartment we hadn't paid to be in.

The UK train was packed to bursting with people even tightly wedged in the corridors but the first class carriage was empty.

I told my husband to get in there and we would pay the ticket inspector the difference when he came. I was too exhausted from a long day sightseeing to stand all the way.

Luckily the inspector never came, probably not able to squeeze through.

I wasn't abashed at the unpaid-for seat balance as we had been inconvenienced by a train not turning up a few days earlier and we had to go to our destination by bus but I hadn't claimed a refund then.

Tit for tat!

Many years ago we were going on a cruise out of NYC with our friends who live in Richmond, VA. We flew to Washington DC and spent a day with my sister & her husband, then our friends came up by train from RIchmond and all four of us rode Amtrak to Penn Station, then took a cab to the cruise port. On the return we took the subway back to Penn Station. That's how long I've been in NYC! LOL Amtrak was great and let us check our large luggage all the way through to Orlando, even though we were disembarking in DC. Once we were home I drove to the train station to pick up our large suitcases. A very nice man there not only got them out of storage for me, he loaded them into my car! I asked if he would follow me home and do the laundry, too. :)

Donna

Donna, oh yes, I would have taken him home too!

I have been quite lucky in my travels with the luggage. Once being charged with the extra weight of someone else's huge case by mistake. "What!!" I shrieked.

Luckily the other passenger claimed her case before I had a fit!

I grabbed a case of mine from the carousel at Heathrow in spite of it now being covered in bubble wrap which made my husband wary of taking it. I hissed that I didn't want to ask why and get delayed. Just GO!

I never knew why this had been done. It wasn't torn.

When we got off an airport bus, my husband realised he had left his briefcase behind and ran to get a taxi to follow it. When he came back he said that the bus had been slowed by the Central London traffic and he had caught up with it before he found a taxi!

Those are all the Luggage Tales that I can recall. I have some Seat Stories...

Amtrak is owned, funded and maintained by the US Government.

A bit more nuanced than that :

Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U.S. passenger rail routes, Amtrak receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization. The United States federal government, through the Secretary of Transportation, owns all the company's issued and outstanding preferred stock.[

A charity-shop 'pick up' was Kingfishers Catch Fire by Rumer Godden. Set in Kashmir N India in the 1950's. In large part it is based on Godden's own life as she had lived there with her young daughters.

Beautiful descriptive passages about the mountain scenery, plants, trees and flowers but much bleaker when dealing with the population. A young mother, Sophie, and her two children leave the comfort of their former life and rent a cottage in a remote very primitive village thinking she will 'get back to nature', be welcomed by the people and become self-sufficient.

She does not understand that the villages see her as a wealthy incomer and try to cheat/overcharge her at every turn. Nor does she realise the hierarchy among both the local 'tribes' and their religions which causes suspicion and offence. Warnings from the Anglo community of ex-pats are not heeded and it is her daughter who has to take the brunt of the abuse from the village children, while Sophie is lucky to come through the ordeal alive.

I have always found Godden's writing-style unique and 'strange' (think Black Narcissus) but it was a most thought-provoking read.

Vee, your charity shop has a better literary caliber of book offerings than the ones I visit from time to time. In my neck of the woods I can say that Harlequin/Mills & Boon romances and some sort of weird sci-fi/fantasy books make up seventy-five percent of the reading material.

I agree that Rumer Godden's style is unusual -- maybe a bit off kilter. Even her small studies such as The Greengage Summer and Pippa Passes are somewhat hinky, in my opinion. I rather like her style, though, so the strangely titled Kingfishers Catch Fire sounds interesting to me.

The only Rumor Godden book I love is China Court.

The majority of charity shop books are dross and I notice multiple copies of '50 Shades of Grey' plus sequels take up too much shelf space.

I had to look up hinky! I read 'The Greengage summer when quite young and remember enjoying it and am not familiar with her 'Pippa Passes', I always associate the title with Robert Browning's long poem

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!

We used to trill it as a hymn at Junior school.

A really hinky Godden book is In This House of Brede. More slightly deranged nuns . ..

Still reading The Christmas Train (slowly, as I'm busy with other things). My characters are now on the Southwest Chief, the Amtrak train they caught in Chicago to continue their journey to Los Angeles. I was quite surprised when the stop at La Plata, Missouri was mentioned (page 163). That happens to be the closest place for people in my community to catch the Southwest Chief, usually to Chicago. I got on there a few years ago when making a trip to Albuquerque. La Plata is the smallest, most rural train station imaginable. There is a piece of furniture in the waiting room that has naugahyde cushions on a metal frame. It has slit-open tennis balls on the bottom of its legs. The parking lot is gravel, and one part is reserved for horses and buggies. This station is in the heart of Amish country. Apparently a lot of Amish folks travel by train.

Vee, I actually loved In This House of Brede. I saw a television presentation back in the 1970's when I was in college. It starred Diana Rigg. I just loved it, and went on to read several Rumer Godden books starting with this one. Brede was by far my favorite of the lot. And yes, I did read the two other of her books about nuns.

I liked In This House of Brede too.

At my request, my obliging family gave me several books for Christmas. They are mostly British Library Crime Classics. That gives me over one hundred of this series. I've only read about fifty or so.

The latest one I finished is Murder in the Basement by Anthony Berkeley. It was a pretty puzzling Golden Age style of crime, so I probably won't remember any details of it past next week. But I don't expect anything more than a little amusement which British Library always delivers to a fair degree, usually with an Introduction by Martin Edwards.

I don't like Berkeley's writing and style of storytelling as well as some of the other authors in this series of reprints. My favorites of those are E.C.R. Lorac and George Bellairs, at least so far.

My nephew has hinted that he would like to have my BCL collection someday. I'll remember him for sure since he's the only one in my family to show an interest in reading them.

I finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and it is definitely the best book I read this year. It is based on David Copperfield, but can be read in its own right with no problems. If you have read Copperfield, there are several very clever references to notice.

I have begun Desert Star, the new Renee Ballard-Harry Bosch by Michael Connelly. Just finished one of his older stand-alones, Void Moon, which was not as good as the series.

Finally finished David Baldacci's The Christmas Train. I liked it quite a bit - a nice novel to read during the holiday season. Not a "Hallmark" story, but plenty of good feelings. And I never would have guessed the ending, so that was fun.

Usually during the last week of a year I choose not to start a new (to me) book. Instead I finish books I am rereading. This year those will be The Case of Jennie Brice by Mary Roberts Rinehart and The Stormy Petrel by Mary Stewart.

Both authors are pure comfort for me. But I couldn't resist acquiring Demon Copperhead because so many readers are talking about it this year. I will hold off on reading it until at least New Year's Day. Years ago I swore off giving Barbara Kingsolver my attention after I felt she had gotten too preachy.

Ha! Now I've made myself a liar. I did that twice in 2022. A few months ago I read Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates although I once said I would never touch another of her books! I actually liked Blonde, a "fictional" biography of Marilyn Monroe. though I never have been much interested in MM before.

I did the same for Kingsolver, Frieda, but I liked DC very much. She is still dealing with social problems, but this one is not so preachy.

I'm reading another Dandy Gilver, The Burry Man, by Catriona McPherson. I'm glad I found this series by her. They are mysteries but light and entertaining, just right for me at the moment. Our whole family Christmas was postponed because of the very cold weather with ice underlying snow, and although DD fed me dinner, we didn't go to church Christmas morning and opening gifts with just her, son-in-law, and grandson was sort of pitiful when it is usually 25 people complete with squeals from the little ones.

Carolyn, I am afraid that I can't stand a crowd. I had my relatives over in small doses.

I have a single-person place and can seat no more than four at a time!

It was hot here at Xmas so we went outside anyway and my restless GS-in-law tidied up the porch, something I have been wanting to do but couldn't manage.

Oh, for the days when I could decorate a whole house I had bought. Now I can't even decorate a room for Xmas! No climbing allowed but I have a pretty miniature already decorated tree for a table decoration.

I am waiting on several requested library books. The waiting lists seem stuck when I check online!

Annpan, here in the Islands the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day is called "Limbo Week" because hardly anything gets done properly, and people seem out of sorts because of it. I'm always relieved when things settle down in the new year!

The traffic here at RP has been very thin. I imagine people haven't been reading very much with all the holiday activities taking up their time. Just a few more days until people will feel like commenting again. I hope so!

Friedag, I am having little conversation on my other chat room too, with the Aussie posters on holidays, some are off on cruises. They do send pix though.

My family have mainly gone away, my son on his tour down to the cooler South for NYE gigs and others gone have gone camping. An activity which has never appealed to me unless there was a well set up caravan involved at a well set up caravan park!

I can't imagine 25 relatives sitting in the same place. I come from a very small family. Dad an only child, mother with one brother who died as a result of WWII, one set of G parents in the USA. One US cousin who's name was the only thing we knew about her . . . and one English grandfather who, 'though a physical presence in my childhood, added little to family life.

Carolyn I'm sure a later family gathering will more than make up for the missed Christmas festivities.

Frieda, I worry that soon RP will become a ghost site and probably be knocked off the Houzz shelf . . . if they have ever noticed our existence. I sometimes 'look in' at the Kitchen Table where they have a monthly 'books read' slot, but which in no-way compares with the erudite and entertaining bunch of us here!

I’m guilty of reading and not commenting lately! Up through Christmas Eve I was very busy with musical rehearsals and performances, but I did get some reading done.

Vee, I’m with you…I cannot imagine scraping up 25 relatives! Hubby’s family is larger than mine and their gatherings of 18-20 are very stressful for me. They are all wonderful and they’ve loved me for 40 years, but I am such an introvert that being with that many

people at once is too much.

I’ve just finished The Rising Tide by Anne Cleeves. I think it’s the first I’ve read by her. I liked it a lot. Before that was The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci and Fox Creek by William Kent Kruger, and I enjoyed both of those.

Donna

Carolyn, I never knew what it was to have a large family group either!

I was delighted that my children were part of a bigger family on my husband's side as I was a lone migrant with no relatives in Australia. Of course that has changed and I am the only one left of the senior generation. The cousins have moved away from the city but at least my children can recall the big Xmas gatherings at their grandmother's home.

The last time my family got together with all my GC and GGC I was amused at how many branches had sprung from just our two children.

Carolyn, both of my mother’s parents had nine siblings each, so my Mom had what seemed like 1,000 cousins! But they were dispersed all over the country so I only remember one big family reunion when I was a child. It was at a park in Mount Dora, FL (where my mom was from).

Donna