Donnamira, I started The Wife of Bath and found it more college-level text than easily accessible non-fiction - or perhaps my heart (or more likely my brain) just wasn't in it. It went back to the library only two chapters read. I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

I've been reading super-lightweight stuff, mostly romances, trying to make a dent in my Kindle TBR. I also finished the newest Gaslight Mystery, Murder on Bedford Street by Victoria Thompson, which was a nice visit with old friends.

This afternoon I finished reading A Quiet LIfe in the Country by T E Kinsey. It's a mediocre cozy mystery in which Lady Hardcastle and her maid, Flo Armstrong, who move away from London for a quiet life in the country. On their first day there, the two of them find a dead body hanging from a tree. A second murder occurs just days later in their quiet little village. I won't spoil it by telling you who solves the murders.

Sheri, a nice visit with old friends is a perfect description of that series and other similar ones. I enjoyed it, too.

I finished The Savage Shore last night and liked it a lot more the further I got into it. I watch PBS on Sunday nights so I probably won't start another book until tomorrow, although I have the new Ruth Galloway waiting for me. Hmm, on second thought . . .

Donnamira, I am not surprised you didn't have time for reading! I found patient visiting very tiring when my late husband was ill. I hope he is on the mend at home now.

I am taking so long to read library books that I have stopped borrowing them. I even had to extend a 3 week DVD loan of Shakespeare and Hathaway Season 3!

This miserable Winter weather has me slumping in a comfy chair and watching TV reruns. I have forgotten most of the mystery plots anyway!

I wish your writer's strike would end, I miss Colbert and his monologues, those tart takes on US affairs.

Just finished On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming. She writes eloquently and at great length about the 'kidnap' of her three year old Mother from the beach of a then remote village on the bleak East coast of Lincolnshire. Apparently this 'event' was known about by everyone in the area but not by her Mother and even 70 plus years later locals were cagey about giving information to the author. Perhaps too much is made of the few grainy photos of the child with many comparisons to Renaissance art.

This is not a mystery or whodunnit but a very gentle and slowly developing 'story'.

You have a writer's strike in the US? To what end? Are they demanding more pay/shorter hours/longer holidays? How can they ever win?

Vee, they " win" because by striking they paralyze the television industry. They will eventually get what they want , as they always do. This gives them "power".

This strike is affecting Australia as well. Writers are careful not to do anything that could be constructed as crossing a picket line by working on US productions here.

A major filming undertaking has stopped, putting the large crew out of work.

There is a fear that AI scripts will be written instead of hiring talent and in the meanwhile huge amounts of profit have been lost by the stubborn studios.

Vee, there is a lot to be read online about all this. I suppose you are not affected so much in the UK to have heard about this event.

Annpan, I haven't read about this strike and had just assumed from what you wrote about a 'writer's strike' that it didn't just meant those who write for TV. I thought, unlikely as it sounds as though it meant all writers eg journalists or even people who, God forbid, write books!

Are these TV writers paid a certain salary for eg how many jokes per episode, how many lines for a documentary?

I have no idea what the pay scale would be. Many of the writers for things like sit-coms are part of a team, sometimes being the "voice" of one particular character.

I once read that they are in awe of those British writers who can script a show alone!

Most of the shows on radio that I recall were written by a partnership , Frank Muir and Dennis Norden come to my mind in particular.

Cyril Fletcher's comic monologues were written by several people. I worked with a man who proudly showed me a handwritten draft of one he was paid for.

Don't feel left out, Vee. I didn't know about it either. I don't watch much television--I just read and as long as leave books alone, not much affects me.

I found :

"On May 2, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) — an alliance of two labor unions representing over 11,000 film, television, news, radio and online writers — went on strike, demanding higher pay and a stable pay structure, as well as fairer deals and contracts and provisions about artificial intelligence, per a list of WGA proposals.

The guild, when announcing the strike, called this moment an "existential crisis" for writers. "

Check on the WGA proposals, girls........and look at those salaries !!

Yes, the poor, poor, over-worked WRITERS.

Sitting all day and collaboratively having to THINK and WRITE words for mostly insipid programs.

I'm reading Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross (1999). It is delightful !

Yoyobon, those amounts are eye-watering.

I once had a temporary fill in job at a TV station in the advertising department and as I might have been asked to write a last-minute ad, I was rated as a B Class journalist. This is about halfway between a Newsroom editor and a cadet.

This seemed quite generous as I was only required to write a short ad once.

About a year later I received an additional cheque as there had been a retrospective pay rise which covered the time I had been employed!

Your two latest posts got sandwiched in this thread and as I noticed there had been recent responses by the increased number of posts, I hunted for them.

I posted a remark about Aoife but it has vanished. I mentioned that I knew a girl with that name and she said to say Efa softly.

Annpan, very many years ago (early 70's) a boyfriend took me to a one-man-show by Cyril Fletcher; held in what can only be described as a municipal theatre on the edge of the Thames at Greys, Essex. I think the audience numbered no more than 30, which was embarrassing, especially for Fletcher who asked everyone to change seats so we were all sitting centrally. Of course, being English, no-one moved. He did his usual monologues but everything felt rather flat. Not unlike the surrounding landscape.

Vee......"...being English, no-one moved." That strikes me as funny. I would have assumed that they would immediately move in order to be polite, cooperative and civil !

Now if that were the US.....he'd probably get booed.......or get the raspberries !

Poor Cyril Fletcher! I went to a lecture once, held in a large hall in a tiny English village.

It was put on by some Society and about six people were there. The poor speaker stood on the stage, looked at the sparce audience and suggested to us that she come down to talk. We moved the chairs into a semi-circle and formed a discussion group.

It was a better arrangement and less embarrassing for her. I was glad I had made the effort to go to this place although it was some distance away for me, to swell the throng!

Reading Mystic Tea by Rea Nolan Martin and am really enjoying it !

"A community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York. Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of the entire monastery. Led by Mike, the practical no-nonsense prioress, and Augusta, the grand ancient mystic hermit, they are joined by Gemma, a self-punishing novice, and Arielle, a firebrand jailhouse conversion who was sent there out of rehab by a “sort of angel.” The personalities, commitments, philosophies and beliefs of these and all the characters conflict and converge in ways at once perilous and enlightening. Throughout the tempestuous journey, Augusta's magical sacred teas draw the inevitable closer and closer."

I was finally able to start Elly Griffiths' The Last Remains last night and am anxious to get back to it. I like the Ruth books better than her others and am sorry to see them end, although it's probably time.

I finished The Killings at Kingfisher Hill, by Sophie Hannah. It is one of the Poirot mysteries she has been writing, but I was less than enthused. The narrator was very dull (both in his character and in the use of his little grey cells), and the mystery wasn't very exciting.

On a better note, a friend in the US recommended The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi, especially as an audiobook, and I enjoyed it very much. Set in Jaipur in the mid-1950s, it gave a lot of cultural information without pushing it, and had a good story. I have gone on to listen to the second, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, and am currently listening to the third, The Perfumist of Paris.

This month I've also finished Do Let's Have Another Drink: The Singular Wit and Double Measures of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by Gareth Russell, which I found quite disappointing. Many of the anecdotes seemed like hearsay, and not many of them were very funny.

Finally, I read The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell, a man who owns a second-hand bookshop in Wigham in Scotland. I recognised many of the types of customers he described, and parts of it were funny, but he is a pretty grumpy sort.

Kath, apparently there are certain types of book buying patrons.

I asked in a second hand shop for "A Town like Alice" for a granddaughter whose much read copy was in pieces and when the assistant found one, she said "I don't have my reading glasses on!"

I stared and said "No, haven't you?" It seemed such an odd remark. Then she laughed and said "That is what you are supposed to say!" and explained that often that is what she is told by a customer.

Fancy trying to check out a book without the proper equipment, it must drive a book seller mad!

Ann, there are certainly a lot of strange requests and comments from customers.

Mostly though it was not knowing anything about the book they wanted - no title, no author, no topic (beyond sometimes it being fiction), nothing - and expecting me to somehow work out what they meant, or being sure they knew something that was actually wrong. I remember once being asked for 'the latest book by children's author Raymond Chandler'. He wouldn't believe that Chandler was a mystery writer for adults, and had no more to tell me, so I sent him to the kids' staff and he came back with a book by Isobel Carmody!!

The other amazing one was a lady who rang up to complain about the ending of a recent romance book (the expected trilogy was now going to be four books) and after commiserating with her, she said 'you work for a big book chain, can't you get her to change the ending?'

Kath.....as the saying goes : " You can't fix stupid."

I rarely had problems with public library borrowers but one day when we were closing a woman came over with a load of children's books and about a dozen temporary pockets that we used then for holiday makers who borrowed from us in school vacations.

I hastily took out the book cards and put the three allowed each child into a random pocket. This was a problem for the woman as she wanted each child's book cards in their own pocket which we filed.

I had to take them out and she selected which went in each correctly although as they would be probably returned all at the same time when school resumed, it hadn't really mattered.

It took quite a while after closing time to get it done. I made a quip about it looking like the Patience card game with the pockets and cards spread out, which she was so annoyed by that she said something like "I will have you dismissed... you will never work here again!"

I felt like this was a line from a B-grade movie and almost laughed but said that I was a volunteer to defuse the situation. Untrue, but I was there then on my own time after hours!

She said sarcastically "That is very good of you!" I replied "Thanks" and she left.

She never came back while I was on duty so there were no more encounters. I think she must have been grumpy and run off her feet with a dozen holidaying children to look after!

Perhaps Churchill was on to something with his famous quote to a haughty woman who berated him at a dinner party with the remark " Sir, you are drunk "

His reply tickles me: " And tomorrow I shall be sober, but you shall still be ugly. "

yoyo, there is also a famous reply in Parliament by Churchill to Lady Astor (well-known as one of the US Langhorn sisters) She said to him "If you were my husband I would give you poison" WS replied "Madam if you were my wife I would take it."

Vee......he certainly had memorable comebacks !

Finished a re-read of Will Leitch's novel How Lucky. I already knew it was a good book, because I'm the one who suggested it for my book club. I'll be leading a discussion about it tomorrow afternoon. But after reading it a second time, I'm now ready to say it's a GREAT book. And short.

Kathy, How Lucky is definitely a great book, I really enjoyed it and I hope your book club did too.

I just finished Barbara Isn't Dying by Alina Bronsky (translated from German). From the fly-leaf plot summary: Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, “comfortable” confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But when one morning she can’t get up from bed anymore, everything changes. Described as "bittersweet and hilarious" I expected something a bit different from what I got. Definitely bittersweet, often humorous, but not, IMO, hilarious. I did think it was well-written and told a good story, but it was just a bit darker than I expected.

I also flew through Gail Carriger's newest fantasy novel, Divinity 36, which is a frothy, space-opera send up of American Idol and The Voice, with the judges being a race of interstellar beings who seek out performers across the galaxy and then make them into entertainment "gods". Plucked from obscurity, the main character, Phex, has a great deal to overcome as he strives toward "godhood". This is set in her Crudrat/Tinkered Stars universe, and I liked it enough to pre-order the sequel.

I also started a non-fiction book, Generations by Jean Twenge. The subtitle promises to reveal: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future. As a fan of William Strauss and Neil Howe's 1992 book of the same name, I'm interested to see what she has to say.

Ann, that pretty much takes the cake!

Kath, it wouldn't have done her much good to try to get me out as I was one of the group who set up that library in the first place! We started it as a Community library with the Bond Corp. development lending an empty shop and the Shire Council took over and funded it.

I worked there for a few hours a week for a year before I left the area. It was a fun project and we had a lovely view of the marina below as we sat on the balcony in breaks.

I'm reading a stand-alone by Peter Robinson, Before the Poison, and finding it really good. An Englishman who has lived in America for 30 years and recently lost his wife to cancer returns to Yorkshire and buys an old house formerly owned by a woman hanged for murdering her husband on mostly circumstantial evidence and local gossip. So far, he is searching for more information and hearing some strange noises. Not scary so far. I don't like horror.

Picked up Malice in the Cotswolds by Rebecca Tope in a charity shop and although I know the 'Cotswolds' and enjoyed the setting I was underwhelmed by this story. The 'heroine/amateur' detective is a professional house-sitter and wherever she stays death follows; not unlike Miss Marple. But this book had very little substance and many pages were devoted to the thoughts of the woman rather than crime-solving.

Don't you hate that, Vee? I also dislike an over-abundance of description of the scenery.

Yes, Carolyn, the book Malice . . . above . . . had almost no significant plot yet well over half was of the woman 'detective' mulling over the very few clues provided and at the very end one possible suspect showed some sort of ID to the police and melted from the scene of the crime. Most unsatisfactory, but possibly the writer is planning to use him in further books although I wont be reading them.

Carolyn (and everyone) I don't know if you have read any of M C Beaton's 'Angela Raisin' books, also set in the Cotswolds, Where as Rebecca Tope (above) writes knowledgeably about the area even going so far as providing road numbers etc! Beaton uses way too much artistic licence. I think I moaned before about heroine Agatha driving to central London in less than an hour and parking right outside her office . . . only in her dreams if she had a Ferrari and the police had closed ALL the roads to other traffic into the city!

Beaton now has died so her last book was a collaboration. I got tired of the character both in the books and the TV series.

I loved staying in the Cotswolds. We had cheap weekend motel offers and were there with our CKC spaniel a few times. Such a picturesque area to drive around looking at all the thatched well kept cottages.

Annpan, my parents moved from Stratford-on-A a few miles South to a village near Chipping Campden in the days before the area had become 'gentrified'. i used to spend time there before I married and then for some holidays with the children. There were still genuine 'characters' living there. The usual mix of friendly, poor but honest, up-to-no-good and one or two with the odd loose-screw. It was suggested that until the bicycle was invented there was rather too much inbreeding in the area.

I only read one of the Agatha Raisin books and found it too silly, but I did read all the Hamish McBeath series. It was a little silly, too, but I enjoyed them.

I'm reading another Anna Lee Huber book, Treacherous Is the Night, from her Verity books. The setting is post WWI London where Verity's husband has turned up after being listed as dead on a battlefield and their troubles in readjusting while solving crimes together. Pretty good stories.

Last night I finished The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley. It was a pleasant novel, what I might call a beach read if I ever did any beach reading. (Any book that has an ampersand in its title says "light weight" to me, and this fit the bill.) It has a cute plot about the relationship between an elderly woman and her hired caretaker who is a young woman, but I did a lot of eye-rolling to reach the end. Please understand, I'm not saying it's bad, just not my cup of tea.

Reading The 23rd Midnight by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro and came across this: ”The office was teaming with people.” Argh!

Donna

Just finished what is probably a YA rather than a Adult book War Horse by Michael Murgurgo.

Set at the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 and rather like Black Beauty is told through the 'voice' of a farm horse. Joey is sold to the army and is sent to France, first in a brave but useless cavalry charge, then as part of a team of draught* horses used to pull guns, wounded etc to and from the Front. Reading this as a teen, or younger it might give them a good understanding of the events of that conflict, as seen from both 'sides'.

i had seen the film of this, which, although it didn't quite follow the exact story of the book was quit believable and well-made.

* spell check which is only in 'American' doesn't recognise draught and says it is spelt draft . . .

Vee, my high school mascot (Lakeland, FL, USA) is a Dreadnaught. Suffice it to say, very few people in the US know what a Dreadnaught is!

Donna

The image that comes to mind when I see that word is a war ship.......and as it turns out, that's what it is !

dreadnoughtdrĕd′nôt″

noun

1. A battleship armed with six or more guns having calibers of 12 inches or more.
2. A type of acoustic guitar with a larger body and louder sound than typical of most guitars.
3. A British battleship, completed in 1906 -- 1907, having an armament consisting of ten 12-inch guns mounted in turrets, and of twenty-four 12-pound quick-fire guns for protection against torpedo boats. This was the first battleship of the type characterized by a main armament of big guns all of the same caliber. She had a displacement of 17,900 tons at load draft, and a speed of 21 knots per hour.

That's it, Bon! In Lakeland it's spelled "naught". Who knows why! It's an odd HS mascot, for sure. My husband attended Key West HS for a year and they are the Conchs. We think it's really funny that their mascot is a giant snail!

Donna

With an A it woud be like " dread naught"......afraid of nothing ! Go Snails !!

I'm reading Looking Good Dead by Peter James. It begins with a horrible murder.

Donnamira, I loved The Vision of Stephen by Lolah Burford and I have a copy on my bookshelf. I read several of her books, most somewhat disturbing. This was the one I loved.

I added All About Me! by Mel Brooks to the game thread a while back, and thought it might be a good read. I’m on page 130 of 806(!) and finding it really rather dull. I checked out I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. It’s supposed to be a gripping murder mystery. The main character is a podcaster in LA and she returns to her New England boarding school to teach a winter mini-mester, where she and others from her class find new evidence that the wrong man is in prison for the murder of a classmate. I read about five chapters of her moaning on about being the kid who didn’t fit in and remembering her time at the school. Not very gripping in my opinion, so I returned it.

I’m also trying the first book in a series by James Patterson and Mike Lupica, but it hasn’t really grabbed my interest yet, either.

Donna

I've just finished The Last Girl by Jane Casey. This is the third of her Maeve Kerrigan detective series, and I have loved them all so far.