Pam......I think the optimum way to enjoy this book is listening to it because the narrators are perfection ! It's the journey, not the destination :0)

Thanks yoyo - I bought it in hardcover for bookclub. So it's too late for audio!

PAM

Pam, the voice of the one woman from Minnesota is priceless.

Have you read anything by Elizabeth Strout? I just finished Olive Kitteridge after reading a couple of reviews about it. A number of people didn't like the book because they disliked Olive's character and only wanted to read about 'nice' people. And of course, Olive is really not very lovable (and I'm glad she never taught me Maths) but, warts and all, she is SO human. I also enjoyed the small-town setting of coastal Maine.

A quick read has been Aches and Pains by Maeve Binchy. She wrote it as a money-raising venture for an arthritis charity; both amusing and wise.

I finally finished Country People by Daniel Mason. I ended up liking it. From the synopsis and hints in the book, I was expecting some big twist, like where the whole town turns out to be vampires or something. But it was just a nice story about a family from California learning to fit in in Vermont.

Now I’ve started Death of an Englishman by Magdalen Nabb.

Vee, I bought a used copy of Aches and Pains in Dublin but had to leave it along with lots of other books when I moved back to Perth. Another hard to get book I regret losing!

Annpan, I see that a few copies of Aches and Pains are available via Amazon, but probably not worth the money plus postage, as it is quite a slim volume!

Thanks, also the problem is that I have no room on my two tall overflowing bookcases. I bought a lot when we had Book Depository and I really should cull them but that is a "Round-2-it" job!

I might get around to it someday!

I'm reading Murder in Piccadilly, a 1936 book by Charles Kingston. I expected Golden Age, but so far it's not very good. I'll keep reading for a while and see where it goes.

Murder in Piccadilly turned out to be good and also turned out to be one I had read in 2020. I remembered nothing about it.

Funny, Carolyn!

I wondered where everyone went and then I remembered to look for an August thread...and here you all are. This is an OT question. I have been watching the British show 'Escape to the Country' for several years. People say what they want in a new rural location--but I have never heard anyone say 'a good public library'. That would be very important to me. Does every village or town have a library in England so it's not worth mentioning?

Good for you, Ann!

Ginny, I too enjoy 'Escape to the Country' but more for the villages/small towns that are shown rather than the interiors of the houses!

Nearly all town have a public library run by the local County/Town/City Council. A few years ago our local council (Gloucestershire) as usual strapped for cash, tried to close many of the smaller libraries and customers were asked to fill in a 'tick-box' questionnaire. The questions were so unbalanced (it was almost impossible to tick anything saying you wanted a library at all) that the Powers That Be had to keep most of the places open. A few smaller ones were taken over by volunteers, although they seem able to use the county supply of books. We also 'lost' out Mobile Library which I had always used when living in a village.

Ann, Post Offices (and Banks) are going the way of the dodo. We are told everyone uses 'On Line' services (of course NOT true) and in our part of Glos we have only ONE bank open, luckily it is in my town! And after closing the Crown Post Office they opened a small branch PO as part of a grocer's shop, so at least we can now buy a stamp (so expensive we need to take out a second mortgage) and post parcels etc.

Should add that pubs are also closing at a record rate due to rising costs of labour.

Ginny, I live in a small town (7,000 or so population) in north Florida, and we have a public library. There are also branches in two other smaller towns not far away.

I liked working in libraries and was employed in several in the UK and Australia.

Customers were mostly polite and appreciative. I can only recall three people who were not and one brought me chocolate next day as an apology for having a petty grumble!

Another mistook our clearly marked library and got annoyed I knew nothing about a conference or her accommodation until she realised we were next to the Information Office!

My worse customer presented at closing time wanting thirty books checked out and put into separate membership Browne pockets. I admit I did not look pleased but no need for her to threaten me with getting me not only sacked but never holding a library job anywhere again!

I mentioned that I was a volunteer to keep the peace. Actually I was not but it did shut her up!

Vee, Thanks for that detailed information and so glad that English towns still have libraries, tho Escape to the Country doesn't mention them. They should!

Msmeow, We are fortunate in the US to have libraries almost everywhere. In the first years of our marriage, my husband and I moved a lot for his work. I always got a library card first thing. I learned that you can tell a great deal about a town from its library, especially how much they value education. As the schools go, so goes the library, for well or ill.

Annpan, You always make me laugh. I bet librarians could write a book about the people they encounter.

Last night I stayed up late (again) finishing Mud, Muck and Dead Things by Ann Granger. She has written a ton of books, but this is the first one I've read, and I really liked it. It's not a funny book in spite of its amusing title, and I'm glad because I don't like funny murder mysteries and am looking forward to continuing to read this author's books.

Carolyn, I was surprised to read that you do not like funny murder mysteries as I thought you did! I have read a number of the late Ann Granger's books over the years and enjoyed them.

I have been recommended the Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri and borrowed the short stories collection "Death at Sea" as an introduction to the character. It is a translation and I am finding the style rather clunky! Also too many characters. I shall persist but I am not loving it!

I enjoyed Death of an Englishman and will read more of her books. Yesterday I started another Alex Cross story.

No, Ann, I'm serious about my murders. My late husband used to claim to worry because I know so many ways to kill people.

I put Mad Mabel on my DNF list. It was absolutely awful, IMO.

Audible nicely returned the 1 credit.

Currently listening to Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen, the fifth book in her Molly Murphy series. The narrator is perfection.

Reading A Deadly Edition by Victoria Gilbert.

I am finally nearly finished with A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko. it’s a nonfiction accouht of how the author and a friend hiked the length of the Grand Canyon. Rosefolly recommended it to me a while ago. I am enjoying it, but like a lot of nonfiction books I’ve read, I have to read it in small doses as it takes more concentration to read nf (for me at least) than it does fiction. For lighter reading, I reread The Toll Gate by Georgette Heyer; Shadows by Robin McKinley, and am almost finished with a reread of One Night in Boukos by A J Demas.

Rouan, I wish I had enough money to make a movie of The Toll Gate as I have scripted it mentally. It opens with the robbery while the credits run! I would cut the engagement party though and just have our heroes family discuss introducing him to a suitable young woman.

That would save some money and the other locations are quite simple. The manor house and a toll gate accommodation. I have really thought it out and just need a backer!

It would be hard to cast the principals though as they have to be tall. Who would you suggest?

Annpan, I like your idea! Cutting the engagement party would work, I am not up on current actors so can’t picture anyone in the roles. How qbout you?

I just read The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand. I read it because she is called "the queen of the beach reads" and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. She has written about thirty of these books, all based on Nantucket which I have visited. This is not a genre I read but this one is a mystery, which I love, plus her usual romantic style, which I don't ever read.

It was about 460 pages but a fast read. There is way, way too much very boring name-dropping of stores, restaurants, labels, more stores on Nantucket, in New York etc...you get the picture. Also much emphasis on money and people who are too rich, in my opinion.

The mystery had a very flat ending which many reviews also noted. I felt cheated. I'm glad I satisfied my curiosity about this author but I wouldn't read another.

A most unusual read for me and chosen because it was in Large Print was Esther by Norah Lofts. The story is taken from the book of the Bible 'Esther' and tells in almost a fairy-tale/once upon a time way how she marries Artaxerxes King of Persia and helps save her Jewish people from a massacre by the King's rival. I must admit I had no knowledge of this part of the Old Testament but found this retelling held my attention and was very readable.

Vee, there is a good movie of Esther, too. Did you see that it and the Song of Solomon are the only books in the Bible that don't mention the name of God?

I love Norah Lofts' books and have almost all of them, bought back in my younger days when I was still purchasing books.

Rouan, I went onto Ask Anything and was given a selection of tall British actors for both main roles and villainous males as well. I do not know any of them but they look fine.

Thank you Carolyn, I am afraid my knowledge of the Bible is very scant, except for the stories of Joseph and Moses (as read at Junior School), The nuns at my secondary school where 'Doctrine' lessons took place every day didn't include either Old or New Testaments. They mostly concentrated on sin in all its many forms!

I was 'introduced' to the work of Norah Lofts while visiting friends in East Anglia as she lived nearby in Bury St Edmunds. I believe her books on a ancient house were based on her property.

Oh, what fun to have seen her house!

I started London Falling, but I'm DFN-ing it. Not my cup of tea at all.

A collection of short stories Antarctica by Clare Keegan set mostly in Ireland and the US was probably the most depressing read for some time! I think these were written in the 1990's (perhaps when she was 'starting out') and never once did any of them lighten-up; a pity because she is an excellent writer.

On quite a different theme was Diaries: Women's Westward Journeys by Lillian Schtissel. Originally sent to me many years ago by 'Sherwood'/Pat as she had lived in the CA area of the first Gold Rush. My goodness, and to think we complain about the quality of modern life! Months of travelling through unknown country with inadequate supplies and little water, the females cooking, driving horses/oxen, frequently giving birth, nursing the sick, burying the dead (often their own babies), drownings, attacks by hostile tribes. The list of terrible hardship just goes on and on. Apparently most women only undertook this journey because of the 'restlessness' of their husbands or fathers. To me it is quite amazing any of them had the time or the energy or even a piece of paper or a pencil with which to write.

I'm reading When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams and as always am enjoying it.

I think I have read every book she has written.

I finally finished A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko. I liked it even though it took me so long to read it.

I was on hold for The First Mage on the Moon by Cameron Johnston at the library but it was taking forever to get so I found it available at B&N and went to pick it up yesterday. The blurb had sounded interesting as had the person recommending it (on a you tube video talking about favorite scifi/fantasy books)so I had no qualms about buying it. Well…I picked it up to read today and was immediately horrified by the events of the beginning prologue! If I had been warned about this beginning, I would never have bought the book, let alone put a hold on it at the library. Definitely not my kind of book. It’s getting donated to the library for some other poor sf/fantasy reader to find.

I've had that kind of experience twice. But I decided to throw the book in the trash rather than pass it on. Very out of character for me. Has anyone else done that?

One of our borrowers brought back a library book and commented that it was so disgusting she had thrown it against a wall! A few minutes later another reader came up to me and asked if she could take it out!

If I do not enjoy a book, I go to Goodreads and check the one star rating to see if others agree with me! I can have a group experience of mutual dislike then!

I will never trash a book. As a war time child reader, all books were precious.

Fnniky enough I had a similar conversation with one of my sisters earlier today. I mentioned a book I had tried to read back when we were teens and it was so awful I threw it across the room against the wall. Several months later, I thought maybe I had been a bit impulsive and gave the book another chance…and ended with the same result!

I didn't throw it across the room, but I have quietly laid aside London Falling. Not at all what I was expecting, and not for me. I hadn't realized it was a real life story.

Not long ago I picked up a very second-hand copy of The Witches of Eastwick and having heard about it/the film, started to read it. My goodness what a trashy book. I threw it out with the 'recycling'. I didn't want to besmirch a wall by throwing the book at it.

Vee, that was very considerate! Walls have ears and probably feelings as well.

The worst I have ever done to a book was drop it in the bath but to my surprise this did not get the pages wet. The plastic jacket over the cover and the speed with which I retrieved it helped.

I never read a library book in the bath again though.

In my world " throwing it at the wall " is an expression not meant to be taken literally .

To me it means giving up in disgust.

The two books I discarded in the trash weren't library books. And it wasn't just because I didn't like them. One was a biography so poorly researched that I thought I was doing the world a favor by trashing it. The other was a mystery that had some very distasteful material that I decided should go no further.

I finished Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson. I’d give it 3 stars. The story was engaging but very predictable.

Now I’ve started Hope Rises by David Baldacci. It’s the sequel to Nash Falls. I had forgotten that I wasn’t crazy about Nash Falls, and so far not crazy about this one. I thought the storyline in Nash was pretty implausible. I’ll keep going for now.

Donna

This afternoon I finished reading Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution. I really loved this book very much. It is 600 pages, not including another 100 pages of notes, etc., and I so admire the author, Amanda Vaill, for being able to spend eight years writing it. Because I have almost no patience I can't imagine being able to do that but am so glad she could!

Now I will make a switch and start on Ironwood, the second book in Michael Connelly's new Catalina series.

Vee - I read that Lillian Schlessel book many years ago and it stuck with me. I hope you enjoy it - if "enjoy" is the right word.

msmeow - Magdelen Nabb has long been a favorite even though I've read them in a complete "willy-nilly" sequence. I have felt that they all stand alone as I never really noticed much character development.

Finished The Calamity Club. After reading The Help and thinking it was fabulous, this one felt like a flop. Oh, it will be made into a movie and make her gobs of money. But as a BOOK, I wasn't impressed. NO spoilers, but to me, the last 75 pages felt like someone had called her to the dinner table and she needed to get the book wrapped up before she could eat. Complete rush job of an ending after dragging us along unendingly for the first 600 pages. Too many subplots and not enough resolution. I am cranky.

Currently reading Matt Haig's The Life Impossible. So far, so good. Also a new-to-me mystery author: Andrea Camilleri. His main character is Inspector Montalbano, the books are set in Sicily. The first one is called The Shape of Water.

Just finished When You Loved Me by Beatriz Williams and really liked it.

Now am reading the only other book written by her which I have not read :

Under The Stars.

Pam, I tried the short stories book of Andrea Camilleri and dumped Inspector Montalbano half way through! The translation was so clunky with American gangster type speech I found it unbearable. Not really my genre but it was a recommendation as being humorous.

Did you enjoy your book?

AnnPan - I am still in the middle of it. So far, I find it to be very gangster, yes. I am wondering if that is on purpose as it is Sicily and the mafia history/connection may bring that part of it to the forefront. I will keep you posted. It is different. Certainly feels clunky and as for the humor, I wonder if I will pick up on more of it as I get used to the style. Right now, the humor doesn't seem to translate well to an international audience - again, is that the book? Or is it me?

PAM