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.

Today I finished reading Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid - the book I dove into knowing nothing about it. My dive produced nothing of value, except I think much of my distain for the novel is probably a result of generational prejudice. I should know better than to blindly begin a book by an author named Kiley. That name is way far out of my generation.

I finished Wreck by Catherine Newman. It was ok. Now I’m reading the newest Lucas Davenport story, Revenge Prey, by John Sandford.

Reading another Dorothea Benton Frank novel, Plantation , and enjoying it already !

I really like the way she tells a story in the first person......and with great Southern wit..

I have been book-hopping quite a bit and rereading Agatha Christie novels and short story collections. I also re-listened to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and went to see the film a couple of days later. I think the film-makers did a good job of extracting a filmable story from what is basically a speculative hard science-fiction novel. I did find that a couple of important scenes from the book were reduced so much that they almost became insignificant in the film, and I hope there will be an extended cut that makes more of these scenes.

I have several books about Rome and ancient Roman history on my reading list, in preparation for going to Italy to visit Rome and Pompeii next month. I am especially looking forward to my next read: Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World by Mary Beard. In the book, Beard looks into what it was like to be emperor of Rome, i.e. what it was like as a job.

I have been dipping into A Virago Keepsake: Twenty years of Publishing. This company took off in the early '70's (?) re-printing works by female writers. I always imagined the directors sitting round the editors table, all clad in dungarees and layers of knitwear with very short haircuts, and being terribly earnest. Many of them were what we call ball-breakers and probably didn't have much time for smiling.

The articles vary widely. Margaret Atwood wrote about being published by them. A S Byatt wrote about Willa Cather. There was stuff about S African feminists, early suffragettes, hard-line Socialists . . . and a few who concentrated on I know not what as their subjects were too obtuse for me. But at least I tried to reach the end.

kathy, I share your feeling over writers with generational names . . . although I do understand that it is nor their fault they were given these monikers by their parents.

Over here I am always ready to pounce on the Chardonnays, Merlots, Pollymays, Bekkiesues,. I am old enough to say "Back in MY day girls were called sensible names . . . Jane, Susan, Elizabeth, to say nothing of the five Jennifers in my year at school.

My GD"s doctor laughed at her choice of a baby girl's name, it was so simple and ordinary after all the fancy ones he heard! So is her younger sisters.

GD got a name that needs to be spelled out EVERY TIME!

My name is Ann without an E but I often have to explain that. I tell people my parents were too poor to add the E to the newspaper birth notice as it was charged by the letter! (Joke!)

Actually as I was born on the Coronation Day of George V1 and Queen Elizabeth the newspaper reporter phone checking the hospitals for newborns on the special day, misheard the nurse and wrote that I was an Elizabeth! That is my second name.

My mother had a lot of problems with official forms as her maiden and married names were the same. In spite of covering letters to explain this, the forms got returned for correction many times.

Vee, are there people actually named Chardonnay and Merlot? Why do parents do that?

Ann, my sister Anne has the opposite problem! She always has to say it’s Anne with an E, and when it’s in writing many people call her Annie. I guess ”Anne” is British and ”Ann” is American. My mom said she was named for Princess Anne.

I did my DNA with Ancestry some years ago and get "matches" almost every day. Most are so distant as to be hardly matches at all but I can almost always tell by the first name, if given, what generation they are. I'm much more likely to be related to a Mary, Margaret, Elizabeth, Catherine/Kathleen than...Chardonnay, to stay with that example.

I never knew a Jennifer growing up but in the 1970s in the US it was one of the most popular names, along with Kimberly. That usually dates the person to that era in my matches.

I am a British Ann and my mother said she chose it as a simple short name that everyone lengthened so I became Annpan or Panpan! One cannot win!

We were having lovely mild Autumn days until this morning when a huge thunderclap brought a heavy rain. The library sent the DVD of Gone Girl so I made myself cosy and watched in the afternoon instead of quiz shows which are mainly repeats during the school holiday. It followed the book as the author was involved, I understand. I have to grit my teeth at some of the Agatha Christie TV rewritten episodes!

Ann Frawley was my great-great grandmother and today is her wedding anniversary--in New York 1860. I have DNA matches with the Frawleys from Kilbarry, Kilbrin, north Co Cork. Ann was 13 when she emigrated. So here is to all girls named Ann, wherever they may be.

Especial cheers to the Anns who like me had the urge to emigrate!

I think the Australian Government got their moneys worth paying most of my passage.

Populate or Perish, they said. I have ten Great-grandchildren so far!

Annpan, there must be something in Aus water!

Ginny I have a great great great grandmother Mary Farley (spellings vary) born 1793. It has not been easy finding anything out about her family but we presume she was probably Irish and there are records of other Farleys in the area so maybe they came over the Irish Sea to the English Midlands looking for work. And work for that family was nail-making. Each cottage had a brick shed at the back containing a forge where lengths of iron were beaten into nails. The small children made boot tacks/hob nails and the older ones and the women folk longer and heavier nails (in some places the women made huge chains). It appears that the men kept a pig, dug the garden, spent time in the pub, and begat too many children many of whom died in childhood.

I finished The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne, a heartbreaking, funny and ultimately hopeful book. Loved it, especially the main character's mother. Another Irish writer to put on my list of favorites.

I also finished my book group book Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo. Interesting Boston history about a crazy disaster, the failure of a storage tank that released a 30 foot tsunami of over two million gallons of molasses into the North End neighborhood of Boston. A little slow in the beginning but overall well written and a good legal drama at the end. I have walked that neighborhood many times and just cannot imagine the destruction, the horror of drowning in molasses or the enormous effort needed to clean it all up. There's a persistent Boston myth that on a hot day you can still smell the molasses.

I just finished reading The Life of a Murder, a nonfiction true-crime book written by Gary Oxenhandler, the judge who presided over the murder trial. I found it interesting because the victim was a student at my university during the same years I attended. This murder was the talk of the town at that time, as you might imagine. Although the murderer was known right away, there was not enough evidence to bring him to justice at that time. It took over 30 years before this murder trial finally took place.

Kathy.......sounds like something that happened in this area . It was on a segment of 60 Minutes years ago. Everyone believes he killed his wife but.....where is the body?

And the husband has spent his life embroiled in plots of revenge against his accusers and crazy acting out . It is his punishment is to live with what he knows and fear others will figure it out. Suspicion and paranoia dominate his entire existence.

I started Boleyn Traitor by Philippa Gregory, but have stopped for now. I’ve read lots of novels about Henry VIII and I don’t know that I want to read another book about court intrigue.

I also started Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pinchon and stopped. Not sure I will go back to it.

Now I’m reading The Picasso Heist by J Patterson and Howard Doughan. So far I think I’ll stick with this one.

Donna

I have started to read Ann Cleeves Shetland series again as someone donated a new paperback of Raven Black to the retirement village library.

I was lent that book some years ago by a country branch of the Public Library and it was very worn and grubby! I wiped it down carefully with an oiled duster before I opened it and only read the story. There were more pages after with the opening chapters of the next book but I ignored that as I wanted to return the book quickly. To my dismay, I was phoned by a librarian and told the back page was water stained! I had to go to look as I didn't do it!

It was a dried-up big brown mark and very old! So I was not going to pay for a replacement! Seeing the new book reminded me about that hassle.

I did drop a library book into the bath once but fished it out so quickly the plastic cover saved it! Last time I ever read in that location!

I enjoyed the Shetland series too and have read most of them more than once. Not sure I'll do it again tho. I can't believe the library called you about a stain in the back of a worn and grubby book. I think she, or he, must have had time on his or her hands!

I just finished a non-fiction book I had high hopes for but was disappointed. The Coffin Ship, Life and Death at Sea During the Great Irish Famine by Cian T. McMahon. The author used many upscale sources--landlords, ship owners, prosperous passengers--to prove that, while challenging, the ships weren't as bad as all that. The problem is that first-hand accounts by people in steerage are rare for a variety of reasons so the author's research was flawed from the outset. All but one of my ancestors who emigrated came from Ireland in the 1840s and 1850s so I have a great interest in this topic.

Ginny, the library who issued the book should have noted the stain. The libraries where I worked always wrote about any damage, on the front page.

After a court case we had to glue two pages together in a poetry book to hide a libelous mention of her ex-husband by the author. No one wanted to read the book until the case was made public and efforts were made by suddenly interested readers to unstick the pages, resulting in damage as we did a good job of sticking!

One thinks of libraries as peaceful but I could tell a few tales.

I have finished two books, All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, and Henry VIII: King and Court by Alison Weir, which was an audiobook.

Of the former, I would say 'don't bother'. The book is over 600 pages and has very short chapters of only a couple of pages, which I found very distracting. Although the plot had promise (an abducted teenage boy who escapes and looks for the girl who was confined with him, although he never saw her, and people think the trauma caused him to make her up) the execution of the book was terrible. It seemed the author was trying to make a literary masterpiece out of a mystery book by using fancy language, and several sentences didn't even make sense. Added to that, the tense often changed in the middle of the sentence, and the book was about 250 pages too long. Enough said.

The Tudor book was quite interesting, and I learnt quite a bit about what Henry spent all his money on (houses and war, mostly) and how the court functioned.

Kath - I hated All the Colors of the Dark. I thought it was an interesting foundational idea that was poorly and ridiculously executed.

Just finished Marilyn McNabb's mystery - Death of a Dutchman, set in Florence. I think her mysteries are well-written. And I enjoy the setting as Florence was a favorite city of mine many years ago.

Now reading Something to Hide by Elizabeth George. It is a continuation of the Lynley/Havers series. It is a few years old, but I just found out about it. Only a few chapters in - not sure about it yet.

PAM

Count me as another one who hated All the Colors of the Dark. I agree with Kath's review and would add there was way too much plot, it just kept going on and on in a seemling endless series of short chapters. It read like the author was told it needed to be shorter and instead of editing the book as a whole they condensed each chapter.

I just re-read Agatha Christie's The Body in the Library for the umpteenth time. I just enjoy her books so much, especially the Miss Marple titles like this, set in and near the village of St Mary Mead. As I read, I always picture Joan Hickson and the array of amazing British character actors in those films.

I'm also halfway thru The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are by Libby Copeland. She is a genetic genealogist. The book is very well done, interweaving the stories of people who had big surprises from their tests with a discussion of the entire subject of genetic genealogy. I have done my DNA, after hesitating for some time due to privacy concerns. I wasn't expecting surprises and I didn't get any, whew. It's been helpful re ethnicity and solving some brick walls re exact place of origin via DNA matches. I'm glad I did it.

I finished The Picasso Heist, and didn’t really care for it. There were way too many plot twists and reversals, and the main character was somewhat unbelievable in the things she did and the plans she concocted to trap the criminals.

I’ve started The Secrets of the Abbey by Jean Luc Bannalec. I always enjoy his books. Next up is My Husband’s Wife by Alice Feeney. I’ve been on a waiting list a long time for it.

Donna

I'm also reading The Secrets of the Abbey. It just came in for me at the library. Very good so far.

Read Joy School by Elizabeth Berg in two days and enjoyed it.

A delightful coming-of-age story told by a 13 year old girl .

My next is Same Beach Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank.

I am reading Something To Hide by Elizabeth George - It's okay... her books are akin to James Michener and the Harry Potters so page 400 is about halfway. Not my favorite by her, not by a longshot. I miss the Lynley that drove the ostentatious Rolls Royce.

Also reading Why Orwell Matters by Christopher Hichens. My book club is reading 1984 and while I've read it many times during my school years (DECADES ago), I realized that I did not know much about the author. It is the kind of book that requires ALL of my brain, but it is very interesting thus far.

PAM

Pam, I am watching old TV episodes of Inspector Lynley and was confused with the new actress playing Helen being addressed as Mrs. Lynley. Surely that should be Lady Lynley?

I have not strictly followed the character so did he give up the title?

What with a new face and that name, I wondered for a moment who she was!

Ginny, I also think that Joan Hickson was the perfect Miss Marple, and I always think of her when I think of the character. I heard once long ago that - I forget where - that Agatha Christie herself once saw Hickson on stage, possibly as a minor character in the decade-long run of The Mousetrap. She is said to have commented that Hickson would make the ideal Miss Marple.

P.S. Apparently this is true - I wasn't sure.

https://www.agathachristie.com/news/2022/miss-marple-on-stage-screen-and-radio

You are right, Rosefolly. It is true. I recently watched a YouTube interview with Joan Hickson and she told the story. She was in some other play in London and Agatha Christie had a play opening. Joan Hickson wrote AC, wishing her all the best. She said that was the old theatre custom. She then received a similar handwritten note from AC herself, wishing her, Joan Hickson, luck in the play she was performing in. AC then went on to say, " I do hope someday you will play my dear Miss Marple". The note was mislaid but turned up in a desk at Joan Hickson's house years later. It was meant to be!

Sorry I didn't save the link for that interview. It was very interesting.

I just finished reading The Chilbury Ladies' Choir byJennifer Ryan. It was a truly delightful book. I didn't know anything about it but had long been intrigued by the title. I found a copy at my library's semi-annual used book sale and picked it up for $1. Once again, I found myself reading a novel set during WWII in England. (I keep saying I've read enough about WWII, but alas, I found myself unintentionally doing it again - and not very long after finishing The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck, another unintentional WWII read.) The novel is about a group of women whose church choir was disbanded due to lack of male voices once most of the men in the village had gone off to war. They overrode their vicar's decision and carried on as a ladies' choir, which was unheard of at the time. They did very well as a choir and due to mutual support and increased self-confidence, became stronger, better citizens and friends.

Kathy, that book sounds really interesting, probably because I have spent many years in choirs, both traditional and women only.

I finished Secrets of the Abbeyby Jean Luc Bannalec and really enjoyed it. He has enough twists to keep you guessing, and his descriptions of the beauty of Brittany are wonderful. I always end up Googling the area to see photos. Maybe I will make it there some day.

Now I’ve started My Husband’s Wife. It’s interesting so far.

Donna

Donna - I do recommend The Chilbury Ladies Choie, not as a 'great' novel, but a very readable and interesting novel. The ladies in the choir are not all pillars of virtue like you might expect. Also, there is a pictorial map of the village of Chilbury on the inside front and back covers of the book. I love that!

AnnPan - To my knowledge thus far, Lynley does not give up his title. Not sure why they would have addressed Helen as "Mrs. Lynley" unless the character was unaware of her title? Lynley still has the title, large estate and all of the trappings - I just miss the idea of a cop like Havers riding shotgun in a Rolls.

Another vote for Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. She has "ruined" all other adaptations because no one can quite fill the shoes and hold the knitting like she does.

PAM

Pam, it was probably a script writers mistake giving that line to a policeman at a crime scene when the Lynleys are there by chance. No one picked it up on set. I notice things like that!

I wish I did not as these errors pull me out of the scene!

AnnPan - totally agree! I've been known to read books with a red pen to correct grammar - so I completely understand. It's very impressive that you caught that on a show when the dialogue can move so rapidly. In books, we can pause and re-read, but in dialogue? Wow...

PAM

I'm going slowly with Secrets of the Abbey as I keep stopping my reading so I can google places and things he mentions. Last night, it was the great auk. I didn't realize it had only become extinct in the 1800s--and a lot of other things I learned.

I read The Chilbury Ladies Choir for book club last year. I confess historical fiction is not a genre I enjoy. It makes me grind my teeth with all the inaccuracies. However, it was a quick read with a fairly interesting story.

Donna, I started My Husband's Wife late last night and only broke off at 3am as I could hardly see any more! Picked it up again after breakfast and finished before lunch with hardly a break!

Whew! What a mad ride! I am still processing it and will have to read it again as I only picked one tiny wording clue from the author.

Have you finished the book?

I read My Husband's Wife a while ago. Perhaps I was not in the mood for her "clever plot twists". When it was all over it seemed like Alice Feeney took all the possible twists this story might have and tossed them together into one whirlwind of a story. Not sure whether I liked it or not. It felt almost too contrived.

Ann, I haven’t finished it yet. I agree there are a lot of twists! I think I’m about halfway through.

I read last night until I finished The Secrets of the Abbey. It's a great addition to the series. I can't really say much here as it might spoil the book for others. I will say that I really enjoyed learning a number of new things while engrossed in the mystery--and I just bought a food item I had never heard of before it was mentioned in the book. Highly recommended.

Yoyobon, I normally read cosy mysteries but I like the cleverness of a bogus identity story occasionally. I agree there were rather too many unnecessary side stories like the sadistic foster mother but I enjoyed the book and like I said, could hardly tear myself away!

I have just borrowed The Survivor by Jane Harper. I enjoyed her book and the movie of The Dry. Again not my usual genre.