I am just starting Dream When Your Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg. A WWII tale.

Also just started listening to Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank. The narrator has the perfect southern accent for the character. The narrator either makes or breaks an audible book for me.

I loved Isle Of Palms also by DBF.

I’m reading Cross Country by James Patterson, mostly to kill time while waiting for several books I’m in line for.

Thanks for the song. I was a big Simon and Garfunle fan but I don’t remember it. Saw them at Forest Hills Stadium when they were the opening act for the Mamas and the Papas.

Ginny - Wow, the Mamas and Papas plus Simon and Garfunkle at a single concert - amazing! We certainly were lucky to ride the wave of the best music in our youth, weren't we?

We certainly were!

I keep telling myself I’m done with Louise Penny, yet I find myself well into The Black Wolf. Gamache and his two closest inspectors are once again going to save Canada from an apocalypse.

I was reading My Friends by Fredrik Backman but try as I might, the book just did not grab me and I managed to mostly avoid picking it up until the library wanted it back. I returned it, unfinished, and have no regrets. To me, it seemed that the author (or translator) could WRITE, but it didn't seem like there was much of a STORY. You guessed it - another book club book.

Finished McKee of Centre Street by Helen Reilly - a mystery set in 1930's New York with speak-easies, "broads", and the local bar was a "joint". Enjoyed it.

PAM

Meow - Louise Penny grinds my gears... especially after she cancelled the Three Pines series after one season which I personally thought was exceedingly well done.

PAM

Meow - the series was only one season long, called Three Pines, I think. And Penny put a stop to it because she didn't like the final product. Fans loved it and were very upset that it wasn't continued. People were angry at Amazon for halting production and the initial reason given was that Amazon and production companies couldn't come to an agreement but then Penny said she wouldn't consent.

There were quite a few "stretches" in the books that I read. But I still confess that I had a bit of a crush on Gamache. And honestly - I haven't picked up a Louise Penny book since.

PAM

Pam, it's my understanding it was because Prime and the production company couldn't come to an agreement. Penny herself was 'shocked and upset'.

Kath - that was the original story that I heard as well. But we will never know for sure as all of it is second/third/etc hand.

PAM

Much reading to catch up on. Perhaps I will be spurred on by the warmer weather!

A different read has been Journal of a Man Unknown by Gillian Tindall. GT was better known as a writer of non-fiction particularly about 'places' eg old buildings, streets, houses that all help to make up history.

This book, a work of fiction, is based on a distant ancestor and iron-worker living in the forests of the Kentish Weald (think the area in which Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh frolicked). She traces the journey he took to London just after the Great Fire and Plague and eventually up to the North of England before returning in old age to his place of birth.

I read it in anticipation of finding out more about the Huguenot connection to her time-line (having Huguenot ancestors myself, silver smiths, who sailed to America in the early 1700's).

Probably not too interesting for anyone just wanting a 'good read' as quite a lot of historical facts rather than story.

PAM, if you see this . . .. . Tindall wrote a book about George Gissing The Born Exile. I think it was you who had an interest in him?

kathy . . . thank you for the Simon & Garfunkel . . .

I am re-reading "Heidi" and enjoying it greatly. I visited my son and family for Easter and he was reading it to them. When I returned home, I got my childhood copy out and I'm pleased to say it is as good as I remembered it. The story is vividly told and full of drama, small and large. It is one of those books that can be enjoyed by children or adults. I'm so glad to have rediscovered it.

I am delighted to have discovered Dorothea Benton Frank's books. I really liked Isle Of Palms and am eagerly awaiting four more that I ordered on ebay......buy 3 get 4 and all around $3.50.

I'm currently enjoying Dream When You're Feeling Blue , a WWII story of three sisters living in Chicago.

I finished The Black Wolf and have just started Wreck by Catherine Newman.

Vee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU for remembering that I love George Gissing!!!

Funny story about that book. I was in a used bookshop in Lyme Regis. There were no books on the very top of the shelf, nothing visible, but for some odd reason, I stood on my tiptoes and reached up there anyhow. There was ONE book - a dusty copy of The Born Exile. ♥ I have no idea how long it had been forgotten on the top of that shelf, but of course I bought it and brought it home.

PAM

PAM, it was obviously meant to happen! I hope the book was worth reading or, at least you found the Gissing information useful. I have never read anything by him and the little I know about him is that he might not have been a good bloke. Tell me if I'm wrong.

I do remember a book shop in Lyme Regis about halfway up the steep main hill in the town. I have to be dragged away from such places almost kicking and screaming . ..

Vee, that is the very one! It was on the right hand side as you walked up the main street. And I was also dragged from the scene although not kicking and screaming because I was in a bit of a state of shock at finding the Gissing book.

He wasn't a bad guy, but he was more of what the Victorians would have called a man who kept company with the lower classes. He was kicked out of Oxford because whilst a student, he began an affair with a prostitute and when she ran through all of HIS money, he got caught stealing from classmates. Even after a punishment of expulsion, and sentenced to a short time in jail, he continued the relationship with the prostitute, Nell.

He married her but they eventually separated. He was poor, in my mind, the original "starving writer in the garret". He traveled some, to the US, to Italy, and I forget the exact chronology. He married ANOTHER prostitute, had two children. That marriage also failed. He eventually lived with a third woman, although I don't think he ever divorced the second wife.

If anyone wants to try a Gissing book, my suggestions would be to read either New Grub Street or The Odd Women.

Ah, George... I think HE is the voice of Victorian London - not Dickens.

PAM

I picked up Gone Girl which was apparently a top read some years ago. I was intrigued enough to read it quickly but felt disappointed by the ending. Not my usual murder mystery after all!

However, I have requested the DVD to see how the "He wrote/She wrote" book is handled.

I have read a few books I would have liked to see but they would be hard to make into a movie.