I did think about saying something, Yoyobon, but we now live in a world where we don't know who is unbalanced and how they might react or who might be carrying a weapon. I never imagined I'd be typing such a sentence but alas, there it is.

Good point.

The mother of idiots is always pregnant.

I stuck with it and finished Dancing with the Virgins. It got more interesting in the second half, though I didn’t like the ending.

Dream House by Rochelle Krich is up next.

I haven’t read as much lately because I’ve been working on a new (to me) craft - diamond painting. It’s quite a misnomer as there are no diamonds involved and no painting. You follow a colored background chart to glue faceted bits of colored plastic to make a picture.

Donna

Last night I finished Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano. It was okay, though certainly not a page turner. I had trouble staying interested in it. It is about a basketball player with mental health issues whose wife's large family rallied round him and helped him through life. I have to admit, I'm not a basketball fan, and reading about it is even less interesting than watching it.

Additional thought: Some readers might say this book is about a family of four sisters, plus their parents and offspring, who remain very close over the years through a lot of troubles. They might not even mention basketball. They would be right also.

I picked up As Chimney Sweepers Go To Dust by Alan Bradley from out library free book rack and am enjoying it. It is another delightful Flavia DeLuce story.

While walking I am listening to The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockton. In my opinion, like West With Giraffes, it is one of those books best enjoyed audibly. The narration is perfectly cast for this story told by the main character.

I rejoice to report that I finally finished the almost-1,000 page biog of the Queen Mother by William Shawcross. There were some interesting sections but much of it could be skipped, tho I didn't for reasons I can't explain. Kept hoping for more than a recital of her patronages and same-every-year activities.

This is a very authorized biog. Not a critical word in it. The author tiptoes past anything controversial, such as her spending and various royal dramas. Margaret destroyed most of Diana's letters to the Queen Mum, too bad. The most interesting parts are before her husband's death--the abdication, the war years etc. There is remarkably little about her daughter, Queen Elizabeth.

Her chief asset was her smile and her ability to make everyone she met, high to low, feel as if she was totally focused on them. She was a good ambassador for Britain in all the long years of her life. Her stamina was truly remarkable. I was exhausted even reading about her daily actiivties, especially on her many foreign trips. So, interesting book in parts but not worth 1,000 pages.

I'm reading First Do No Harm in the series by S. J. Rozan. Set in NYC, Lydia Chen and Bill Smith are private investigators from very different backgrounds. She is an only daughter with four brothers ruled by a Chinese mother who tries hard to maintain parental control, and he is an educated Kentucky hillbilly. It is a long series that I've enjoyed over several years.

I am working my way through a reread of the Emma M Lion series (by Beth Brower). i’m a little more than half way through the 7th volume (out of the 8 that have been written so far, with a possibility of 20 for the whole series).

I’m also reading The Wilder Way by Eva Zu Beck. it’s a memoir of how she ended up adventuring around the world, including filming a tv series for National Geographic.

I tried to read "The Murder of Mr. Wickham" by Claudia Gray but it was terrible! I have tried a few of these Jane Austen follow ups and not got past a couple of chapters or even paragraphs!

However it got me off to sleep working out which of her heroes was the richest.

I believe it was Darcy as although Knightley has an Abbey, he does not seem to have much cash.

I really enjoyed Dream House by Rochelle Krich. Set in LA, a crime reporter named Molly Blume starts out with a story about vandalism in historic neighborhoods and ends up helping solve a disappearance and a mysterious death.

Donna

Annpan, I agree about Jane Austen follow-ups. Even PD James, such a terrific writer, didn't do so well with Death Comes to Pemberley, in my humble opinion.

I've just started Death Comes to Pemberley and have yet to come to the 'death' part. I'll see how I get on!

I remember reading that book and watching the TV series and quite liking them.

I really enjoy "A Cure for All Diseases" (British title.) by Reginald Hill which is a modern story in the Dalziel and Pascoe series and features characters based on the uncompleted "Sanditon". Very clever! More an homage than an attempt to copy the JA style.

I am really enjoying listening to The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockton .

It is one of the few books that really must be heard to be truly appreciated.

The narration in this instance is outstanding and makes the story so rich and enjoyable.

You get your money's worth with this download too since it runs for 28 hours !

I read The Little Princesses by Marion Crawford, a quick and interesting read from 1950. She was the governess/teacher of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret from childhood until Elizabeth's marriage. There is a lot of intimate detail about their family's home life and the differing personalities of the two girls. And of course the shock of the abdication and the crown being thrust upon their father who didn't want it but took it from his sense of duty.

This was the first intimate book about the private lives of the royal family. They were shocked at what they felt was a terrible betrayal and never spoke to Marion Crawford again. Tho the book has no shocking revelations, I do think the author betrayed a trust and I sympathize with the royal family.

I finished rereading the 7th Emma M Lion book and took a break to read a short but charming book Love and Saffron by Kim Fay. It’s written as a correspondence between two women, one older and the other younger, who develop a friendship through their letters.

I'm reading The Watchman from the Robert Crais series featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike. Set in Los Angeles and a bit reminiscent of Michael Connelly's Bosch books except these two are private detectives.

I went travelling for a week and left Sleeping Murder behind, to be finished when I come home, since I intend to keep the book when I'm finished reading it.

I have fallen into the habit of taking one physical book with me when travel abroad (as well as a load of ebooks and audiobooks that are always stored on my phone). I usually take a book I have bought second hand and know I will not keep once I'm finished reading it. This time, it was One Coffee With by Margaret Maron, a detective novel taking place in the art department of a fictitious university in New York. It was enjoyable, with a tidy twist ending and quirky characters. Not a keeper, but I wouldn't mind reading more books from the series. Once I finished, I left it behind on a book exchange shelf in Vienna Mitte train station and I hope it gets picked up by someone who will enjoy it.

I have been busy with rereading The Morland Dynasty by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. There are 36 books in total, and I thought I could probably read two a month, and I'm on track as I'm just finishing number 12. They are very good books, and it's enjoyable to be able to go from one to the next without having to wait for the author to finish it.

I have also been listening to some lecture series which are available through my Audible membership for no cost. I enjoyed one called The Middle Ages Around the World, as my knowledge of that time is almost exclusively about Europe, and this included the Orient, the Middle East and Africa. Another was Language Families of the World, again interesting to learn about click languages, languages with up to 20 sort of 'gender' groups, but where the included nouns are often connected by their size or shape, and other interesting facts.

Finally, I listened to A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley. I enjoyed the story (as I have with previous books of hers) but the narrator was truly awful. As well as being completely overwrought, she had some very strange pronunciations. I have never heard anyone pronounce passage as 'parsage' and passengers as 'parsengers' but the final straw (and luckily it was right near the end of the book, or I might not have finished!) was 'eyelarshes'.

Kath......I feel your pain. The narrator can either enhance or ruin listening to a book. One of the worst was listening to an author narrate one of her characters. Her voice was not a trained one and she had a snarky , sarcastic tone that was not appropriate to the text.

Needless to say it was a DNF.

Kath, there are some accents from the US midwest that add an r sound. I’ve often heard it in ”wash”, as in ”warsh the car”.

My book club read Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll a few years ago - oh, it was awful. Just painful.

I read one or two Sherlock Holmes spin-offs and they are equally painful.

I wish authors would stop trying to make a buck by "reimagining" the characters that someone else developed.

PAM

Netla, I have all the Margaret Maron books, and, Kath, I adore the Morland series. She recently wrote a new one that I didn't like as much, but that might be because I have sort of lost the theme over time.

Donna, and not just the midwest.......Pittsburgh area as well as others !

Donna, I (and Rosefolly) grew up near Pittsburgh and ”warsh” as well as ”erl (for oil) was quite commonly heard. Our neighbor had a daughter named Carol and they pronounced it ” Curl”.

For reading, I took a break from Emma M Lyon and started the 2nd Retired Assassin book but it just doesn’t hold my interest so instead, I read Ravenwood by Nathan Lowell

Regional accents are interesting, aren’t they? Lafayette county is south of us, and they pronounce it la-FAY-ette. And there is a community near us (and a road in town) spelled Houston but people say Howston. I think there’s a road in NYC also pronounced that way. And people from Miami say ”Miamuh”.

I started Cross Fire by James Patterson, and I’m 99% sure I’ve read it before, and I really hate the antagonist (he’s been in many of the Alex Cross books), so I put it aside and am now reading The Medici Manuscript by CJ Archer. It’s the second book in the Glass Library series.

Donna

RE: regional accents:

There is a county in PA known for it's tourism and Amish community. Outsiders call it

lan-CAST-er. Nope. It is pronounced LANC-aster.

My friend got me a book called, The Killer Isn't Alice. And the entire book is full of names - more than 46,000 of them if the blurb is to be believed. There are 18 clues and the reader needs to figure out who the killer is by crossing off names and following the clues. When you think you have the name of the killer, you submit it to the website link and will be sent an answer, right or wrong, on your suspect. Not something I would want to do all of the time, but it was a fun and interesting puzzle.

PAM

I pronounce it the same as you do and I'm sure an outsider up here in New York State:0)

There is a mansion/museum locally that is always pronounced one of two ways by locals. Roberson Museum.....ROWberson or RAHberson.

But that's not the worst ! There is a Beethoven Street which many locals pronounce BEET-hoven ( like the root vegetable).

You can imagine how they pronounce Goethe Street !!

Here in Massachusetts, a lot of visitors have trouble with Worcester, pronounced the same as the English city/town--no r--and my favorite, Scituate, a Native American name pronounced SIT-you-it. And so many more...Peabody pronouced here as PEE-bdy and never as the rest of the world does, pee-BODY.

PEA-body.

Had a friend from Marblehead who said " Kah-keys" for kahkis and we thought he was saying "car keys" because he'd say " kah" for car ! Confusing stuff :0)

I had a long wait in a medical office today. Now, you understand I was born and raised in rural Kentucky, and I know I speak Kentucky-ese, but the waiting room was full and I have never in my life heard such country accents. -- and this is the largest city in the state. And I was trying to read.

I know about the accents with 'r' and no 'r', as the Australian accent is a no 'r' one, and I also say khakis like car keys, and aunt the same as aren't. This woman, however, was British, and I have never heard anyone with her kind of accent put an 'r' into lashes :)

Many years ago we had a discussion here about pronunciation, and I made a video. I'll include it here for a laugh.

Kath.....my Ashford loom is made in New Zealand and while watching a video on using the loom I was a bit flummoxed by her saying " pig " for the word " peg" !

So....how do they pronounce pig ??

Ah, the Kiwi accent - I love it, although Aussies do tend to give them heaps about it. So the vowels shift around and peg goes to pig, and pig would be pug to my ears. We joke about 'fish and chips' which comes out as 'fush and chups', and also a picnic cooler (called an Esky in Australia as it's a common brand) which the Kiwis call a chilly bin, but sounds like chully bun.

I still chuckle about an NPR pronunciation gaffe from years ago. The host was giving the intro to a story about the Appalachicola (appalachi CO la) National Forest, and apparently no one had coached him on the pronunication. He said, ” Appa…appa…” and finally came out with AP a la CHIC ola. I’m sure he got many calls and emails!

A young DJ on radio made a mistaken guess when announcing the title of a song he was not familiar with "Begin the Beguine". He pronounced it as written Beg-you-ine but someone must have corrected him as he said "Begeen" properly at the end sign-off of the track!

In the New Zealand-based Brokenwood TV mystery series, they pronounce "death" as "deeth". It took me awhile to figure out what they meant.

We have a lake and town named Skaneateles in upstate . It is pronounced as " SKINNY-ATLAS". While ordering from a person in the midwest she told me the nearest shop was located in SKA-NEEDLES ! I guess you have to be from this area to know how it's prounounced :0)

Yoyobon, there are some interesting town names in upstate; try pronouncing Canandaigua (I used to live there), people had a hard time with that and usually said canada or canadagua.

Rouan.....a beautiful area of NYS :0) I love the Finger Lakes . Cayuga is closest to us.

Currently reading The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout. It's about a beloved high school history teacher who married up. Interesting so far.

I finally finished The Shipping News earlier today. I did not love it, and found it dragged. Still, I did find the ending satisfying. It was one of those books I respected more than I enjoyed.

Glad to be moving on to other things.

On Chapter 19 , with about 15 hours more of listening ( Audible ) to The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockton ( she wrote The Help ) and I am really enjoying it. The narrators are wonderful and the story is very engaging. I look forward to walking each day so that I can get back to it ! I also like to listen while I sit at the loom weaving :0)

I finished The Wilder Way by Eva Zu Beck and then followed it up by finishing a book I had started months ago but set aside and never got back to until today , Automatic Noodles by Annalee Newitz.

Rouan - How did you like The Wilder Way?

Kathy-tI thought it was interesting. . I have watched a number of her vlogs and the book cleared up some questions I had from them. I wasn’t bored at all; some memoirs can be boring in sections but I didn’t feel that in this case. She has led quite an interesting life. I doubt I would have had the ”guts” to do what she has done when I was that age!

I finished Sleeping Murder and started reading The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: The WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There by Sinclair McKay. It's been a while since I read any non-fiction and I hope it turns out to be good.

Remembering my comment about Miss Marple and the mysterious gill of shrimps that's mentioned in several of the books but never explained, I came across a cross-reference to another Christie book series in Sleeping Murder. I started reading a Tommy and Tuppence book earlier (By the Pricking of My Thumbs), but put it away to read later, but not before reading about an old lady that they meet when they go to a nursing home to visit his tartar of a great-aunt. The old lady says something like "Was it your poor child?" and talks about a child hidden behind a fireplace. Gwenda seems meet the same old lady in Sleeping Murder when she and her husband visit a nursing home to make enquiries about her father, or at least I prefer to think of it that way rather than Christie re-using a theme. I think it's a fun indication that Miss Marple and Tommy and Tuppence exist in the same world, except I think T&T actually investigate the old woman's disappearance, while Gwenda simply meets her.

Netla, I consulted Ask Anything about the pickled shrimps. It was very enlightening!

I am won over by this service and have tried to find answers to a few literary questions with mostly helpful results. Amusingly a couple of the villagers lost different amounts of the shrimps but no explanation of how Miss. Marple solved the mysteries. I suspect a cat...

Just started Return To Sullivan's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank. Although I wanted to like Theo of Golden , after slogging through half of it I decided I needed an interesting, engaging story and I always enjoy a DBF novel. The repetitive arc of the Theo story was becoming boring. Perhaps at some point I will go back to it. Maybe. I find it interesting that the author also published the book. Perhaps that accounts for the lesser quality of the printing which goes from faint to dark bold for no reason other than poor quality control. Many of the bold sections look out of focus or double printed. Perhaps if Mr. Levin decides to write another novel he might look into a reliable publisher !

Yoyobon, I picked up a copy of Theo of Golden bcause someone on another site I visit said how much they had liked it. Hmmm, I will still give it a try, but if I don’t care for it, it will go onto the stack of books to be donated.