Pam, what is holding you back from retiring? I had no choice when my husband died as my work was with him, so I was finished as I could not do the job on my own. I also moved back to Australia from the UK after a year, which time is recommended before making an important life change.

Since Covid, I incline to do things now rather than plan for a later time. The way some things suddenly got changed and plans disrupted with the shut-downs altered my thinking.

I have never regretted selling our home and going to the UK for a long working holiday then us staying there to see more because my husband never reached retirement age.

Life can alter plans for the future.

Annpan,

Thank you for sharing your story. Life is short. I think what holds me back is fear because work is all I have known for so very long. That, and since covid, I have worked from home. It is so hard to step away from The Paycheck when there is no commute, no dressing up, no lunch to pack. But the flip side is that I am sick of sitting in front of screens all day, every day. There is so much more to life.

I am sorry for your loss - I cannot imagine the difficulties you've had with his passing and thus, your forced retirement right afterward. I would also like to relocate - to another state, not hemisphere!

PAM

I understand very well the hook of a paycheck which has kept me doing work I disliked at times! Can you cut a day or two and get away from those screens? There is that trite saying that no one died wishing they had spent more time in the office!

Good luck with what you decide. We followed our inclination and I encouraged my son to break free and follow his dream. One life!

PAM, I retired sooner than I planned to. It’s been 2 years and I still miss my job. I really loved what I was doing at the time, but we built a new house in a new town, and when the house was done I needed to move.

That said, I don’t feel any desire to find a job in my new town. It’s a small town, and I don’t want to take a job that a younger person really needs. My DH is still working (planning on two more years). My sister lives with us and she and I find things to do with our days.

Donna

Oh, yes, there is plenty to do after retirement. An online friend got retired from her job by cost cuts. She found so much to do she wondered she had time to fit in another job! She met a lovely man, got married and they are always doing remodelling of their home or going on cruises!

Is it true that in the US you only get two weeks paid vacation? We met a couple from the US in Bali who were amazed we had a month of paid leave. I did not mention that I was at that time entitled to six months paid leave from my Government Department after working seven years! This was called Long Service Leave from the days when it took six weeks to get back home to the UK for family visits. Three months travel and three months actual holiday! I am not sure if that still exists. I did not stay for the full number of years so did not benefit.

I was laid off from my work in my early 50's, a semi-voluntary ending. I had already been planning to resign a year later when my youngest graduated so that Tom and I would be free to travel. Sensing that a layoff was in the air, I had quietly approached my boss and told her that if the situation arose, I would be happy if she picked me. No one else in my group was in a position to leave easily. When the time came that someone from our group had to go, I was chosen. She really was a very, very nice boss. I still remember her fondly. I have never, ever regretted the extra decade of free time this gave me.

As for books, my book club is reading The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett. She is the same author who wrote The Help a decade or two ago. I was not expecting much from a current trendy book, but to my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed it, The characters are deeply engaging, and the story really pulled me in. I listened to the audio version, and I recommend this as the various accents were excellently done. It really enhanced my experience.

Besides that I have been binge re-reading books written by Connie Willis. She is my favorite living author. She has a new book coming out next summer, and I can hardly wait. I fear this may be her final novel though I hope I am wrong. She generally spends several years writing each book, and is of an age that she may decide that enough is enough. However it works out, I am grateful for the pleasure I have had from books she has produced, starting back with the first one I ever read, Lincoln's Dreams, and Doomsday Book, still the one I liked best of all. Hmm, I ought to also mention her two-volume novel about England in WWII, Blackout/All Clear. It's around 1000 pages complete, in my opinion well worth the time investment despite the length. I have read it at least three times, plus listening to the audio book twice. I learned an awful lot about WWII from that book.

Anna....The Calamity Club is a great book to listen to on Audible. Each character's voice is perfection.......especially the little girl. It is one of my favorites.

Rosefolly, I think it is good that people write about WW2, I just do not want to be reminded of that time! I am interested in TV docos about how the German population coped then. The shortages would have affected them too. I wanted to send my bread crusts to the children who would, I was told "be happy to eat them" if I would not!

I finished reading Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. I have to say he's a good writer and the plot was really interesting. All I knew going in was that it is considered historical fiction. What I did NOT know is that the period covered occurred during my lifetime. The Vietnam War was a large part of the book, and I don't care to read about Vietnam. Having lived through that difficult era, reading about it is neither entertaining nor educational for me. While I will say this really is a very good book, it was not my cup of tea.

Kathy......I feel the same way about reading or seeing anything about the Viet Nam war.

I don't want to be reminded.

I can understand that the horror of war and suffering may be too much for people involved in conflict, but we should never forget what happened and 'brush it under the carpet' and provide up-coming generations with a hopefully unbiased understanding of past events.

I took on our holiday We All Live Here the latest book by Jojo Moyes and thoroughly enjoyed it. Also just finished Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym. An excellent read just before, or, in bed! Very little happens in Pym's books. This one follows two middle-aged spinster-sisters and their narrow but content lives. Their interests are based around the C of E clergy in the parish, especially the young curates for whom they knit socks and pullovers and worry about whether they are wearing their woollen combinations. The village 'gossip' is relayed to them via their all-purpose maid on the grape vine from all the other servants in the area.

Written in the early '50's there are many comments about the sort of meals to be prepared with much emphasis on boiled fowl and what to serve with it.

Annpan will remember back in the (English) day white sauce was a useful cover/disguise for many bland meals. Used over boiled carrots, onions, cauliflower . . . and tough chicken.

Vee, Growing up, I never had chicken and not often white sauce either. More often we had brown sauce from a bottle. We had school dinners because of not having a kitchen when we lived in rooms in an old Victorian terrace house. My father ate a midday meal in his firm's canteen and my mother at Ted's Cafe in the shopping area. During school holidays we went to stay with my maternal grandparents and there had white parsley sauce with bacon dumpling roll and other home made simple meals.

We ate what was put in front of us and cleared our plates.

I never learned to cook more than plain food and sometimes baked cakes and pies but my children survived and became good at cooking as adults.

I agree that people should write about their war experiences but I do not want to read them!

Hello all -

I cannot, CANNOT, say it sufficiently, but your thoughts and experiences re: retirment, be it voluntary or not, have been so very thought provoking. And I thank you very much for sharing with me. It's been a tough slog since covid - I work in a non-clinical healthcare role - and the corporation (i.e. health system) has learned from covid that employees can and will give 120%. Unfortunately, that has become the new "normal expectation" and I am so very weary. It is tough to give your all when that is normal. This modern world expects everyone to be available at the drop of a hat - and I refuse. I will not put work email and other work-related communication apps on my phone. I refuse to keep my laptop on and "at the ready" after hours. I have already given my job/company space in my house as a workspace. People say that they love work from home, and I never wish to go back into the office. But there used to be separation. You left the office, you did not have email/text/teams, your desk wasn't visible from your hallway nor kitchen. Anyway, rant over... seems I am making my decision right in front of all of us in a stream of consciousness kind of way.

The USA just celebrated our 250th anniversary and also the 25th anniversary of 9/11. We must remember and learn from the past. No country has a perfect history; every country can improve. But in my opinion, countries can only move forward positively if they remember not just the good, but the challenges and the bad from the past. I personally like micro-histories and first-person histories of regular folks who can share their day to day experiences.

My book club just chose Ann Pachett's Whistler for our next read. I am 8 pages in and think my brain cells are withering. Clearly, it may be too soon to pass judgement, but I am tired, so tired, of adults writing for BookTok or any readers with third grade vocabulary and read comprehension.

PAM

Annpan. living without a kitchen must have been very difficult for the family. How did you manage for breakfast/tea/supper?

Yes chicken was a rare treat for us, not because we were poor but because hens were used for egg supplies after the war. We kept about a dozen in the garden and the ancient ones became 'boilers'!

My Grandfather (who we lived with) had lived in a hotel run by his Mother and later wife and could not understand the idea of 'rationing'. Dad, a generation later, told us he was allowed to choose which 'roast', still cooked on a spit, he wanted for lunch!

annpan - you lived in an old victorian without a kitchen? That is incredible. Can you share - what were school dinners? Did you eat a late meal at school or did the school send something home with you?

The kitchen was on the ground level where the landlady and her family lived. Her sister and her family had rooms there too and shared her kitchen. We had the next level three rooms and a lavatory. The top level attic was rented by a spinster sister and had a bathroom we could use.

Housing was hard to find so my mother was pleased to rent some rooms so she could leave London which was getting V2 rockets. The seaside by then was safe from invasion.

School dinners were a hot meal which we ate at long trestle tables at noon. I think we only had one course in primary schools but when I went to High School aged 11 we had a dessert course as well. I don't remember paying at Junior school but did pay a small weekly amount at the High School. We had free milk in small bottles but that was discontinued many years later.

Vee, We did have a fireplace and an oil stove in the sitting room so we could make toast by the fire or heat cans in saucepans of water to have some hot snacks. We had cold food otherwise.

I'm reading Saving CeCe Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman and am really enjoying it.

A delightful story !

PAM, Annpan mentions 'school dinners' which was the general name given for the hot meal provided at midday; technically it was 'lunch'. They were usually very cheap and subsidised by the local council. Some deprived families were given them free. The meals were plain but wholesome/nutritious and sometimes were the only proper meal a child might get in a day (as Annpan describes). I know of city areas where kids could come into school during the holidays to be fed.

Of course, with so-called progress, school meals became much more 'fast-food' pizza, fries, almost no veggies etc. but there are now dieticians keen to improve our society of fat, even obese children . . .more the fault of the parents rather than the schools.

Annpan I remember 'school milk'. Provided by the Govt for every child in 1/3 pint bottles. I was given one with a straw, an object I was unfamiliar with. I didn't suck but chewed the end into a soggy mess. I was only 4 years old at the time but still remember it!

We had a craze for adding a boiled sweet (candy) to the milk to flavour it but they stuck to the bottom of the bottle and it could not be recycled! We were told not to do that any more.

A memory of a school dinner: the meat was odd looking and tough with an oily sheen. We heard it was whale meat and most of it got thrown out. It was never served again.

PAM (again) re 'working from home' or even 'working at all' and feeling at the beck and call of your boss/computer screen. My older son is something big in a cyber computer company. He recently was here for a w/end helping around the house with useful jobs that his aged Mother has neither the strength or brain cells to perform. During the Saturday morning he received a call from 'work' to alert him to a security leak at the US branch of the company . .. someone in Boston had pressed the wrong computer key! He spent ALL the remainder of that day and much of the evening taking calls/dealing with the problem and finally turned off his phone at about 11pm (the time difference added to the problem). Since then he never brings his work laptop or phone with him when he visits claiming the co-workers or those slightly lower down the chain are capable of sorting out their own problems . . . and if not . . .

On the other hand, our daughter worked for a big London PR firm and full of Protestant work ethic she stayed late almost every night. The men in the firm all left dead on time arguing that if the firm employed enough staff no-one should need to work late. (Of course no recognition was given to these women!

So PAM, unless you really cannot afford to retire I say make the most of the time you have while still fit and interested in 'stuff' (I'm sorry I don't mean to imply you are getting ancient and feeble) Get out there and smell the daisies . . . or even roll in them.

And I'm glad you enjoyed Greengates.

Just began Bull's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank and it looks like another enjoyable tale.

I finished Saving CeCe Honeycutt and loved it !

I just finished Fastnet, Force 10 by John Rousmaniere. It is his true account of a yacht race off southern England and southern Ireland in 1979. A sudden terrible storm came up with gale-force winds and waves. Boats capsized and some died or were badly injured. It was an engrossing, if terrifying, read.

The Fastnet race is held in alternate years and is named after the Fastnet lighthouse/island off County Cork. It's also called "Ireland's teardrop" as it was the last point of Ireland emigrants saw as they sailed away in the 19th century.

I was in a gale force wind on a ferry going from Norway to the UK. The forecast had listed the gale but the ferry still went although they closed the restaurant as so much crockery got smashed and one of our group who was dining there fell and broke her arm!

This three day trip was a birthday gift I arranged for my husband with a planned romantic dinner on the ferry coming home! The whole thing was somewhat of a disaster as the Norway and Sweden sightseeing got ruined by the weather and incorrect information.

We stayed in our cabin on bunks and ate the cheese sandwiches and drank milk the crew brought round! Thank goodness we were not sea sick.

I am not good on the water and that was the third time I have been in bad weather. The first time when I was going to Australia my bunk broke under me!

The second time when we moved interstate for work, I had a sea sick husband and a teething baby and I was pregnant!

Do not mention cruising for pleasure as my friends love to do!

Ginny I well remember that Fastnet race as we, DH and baby daughter, were staying in Shetland (nearer Norway than Scotland). Luckily our trip up and back were on fairly calm seas and the bad weather happened while we were safely on land but listening to the dire radio reports.

Annpan and Vee, scary stories!

I have a happier sea voyage story. My Army Corporal husband, me, and our two-month-old baby daughter came home from Hawaii via troop ship. Only the men with rank could have cabins with their families, so baby and I were in a cabin with three other no-rank wives. The bed for the baby was made of metal bars with tarpaulin-type fabric dropped down from them, so when the ship rocked, the bed swung. Baby slept almost the whole five-day trip to San Francisco and began to sleep all night without waking for a bottle. She still goes to sleep when her head hits a pillow.

A real rock-a-bye baby!

I was thinking about food in the 1940s as Vee asked about breakfasts etc. and I recalled that eggs were a special treat. They were often imported and some went bad. It was necessary to crack them, for a precaution, into a saucer before adding to a mix. If the egg was bad, it was put into a glass jar to be viewed and exchanged at the shop where it was purchased.

My Australian mother-in-law said they used to put dripping into a large can and include eggs to send to friends in England.

We had bread and dripping at my grandparents as they roasted beef for Sunday dinner and saved the jelly and fat to spread on bread instead of butter. It was delicious with a sprinkle of salt.

Annpan I well remember hot toast with dripping and apparently some very distant Australian relations sent my Grandfather a tin of dripping during WW11.

Re eggs, we kept our own hens so had plenty but I was 'sent away' to boarding school in 1955 and we only got one very hard-boiled egg for Sunday breakfast (none during the rest of the week) and no fresh fruit was provided; you had to supply your own or specially order it from a local greengrocer. Vegetables and salad where also almost non-existent or boiled to death. It is a wonder we didn't have Vit C deficiency. Bread (very stale) and potatoes made up the bulk of our diet. Milk, for the occasional breakfast cereal was watered down . . .two thirds milk one third water . . . I once arrived early and saw the nun in charge of meals doing this . . . thank goodness we still received our third of a pint bottle at break-time Monday to Friday!

I have finished 11 books this month, most of which do not warrant mention, but of those that do:

I read More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, the sequel to Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. It's a slice of life read, no big action, but quite poignant and centers around a bookshop in Tokyo.

I re-read Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express for the 4th or 5th time (Warning: spoiler ahead) and I now feel that, being older and having read more mysteries since last time, it isn't really a good mystery. I think it got to be seen as such because of the unconventional ending and atmospheric setting, but it now looks to me like Christie started writing the novel without knowing who the murderer was and couldn't make up her mind, although I'm sure she knew exactly what she was doing from the first.

I am currently reading A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by Emma Southon, a souvenir from my last trip to Rome. It's an entertaining take on Ancient Rome and not just a history, but a feminist-revisionist look at the purpose of women in Ancient Rome and why they were mentioned at all in the literature of the time (usually they were either good or bad examples, but I think there are going to be some from court papers later on in the book). She tells their stories and uses them to draw out some details of daily life in the Ancient Roman empire not often seen in history books, relegating the 'big' players (men, all of them) and big events to the background. The narrative style can get a bit sarcastic at times and I might find it off-putting if I hadn't already heard the author speak about the book and other subjects on one of my favourite podcasts, so the personal touches just serve to make me 'hear' her voice in my mind.

Hello all -

I am absolutely loving the tidbits you are all sharing about sea travel and WW2. Thank you for all of them - I read them more than once. My own little tidbit is that I had two spinster aunts, one a high school English teacher and one an English professor at a women's college. They saved their money and FINALLY went on a "literary tour of England" and the plan was to sail over on the Queen Mary and tour the country and visit those cultural and literary hotspots. Unfortunately, they planned this long-awaited trip for summer, 1939. They came home earlier than expected on the Aquitania after being told that Americans had 24 hours to leave Germany, and 3 days to leave England. From my understanding, they were irate that the timing of WW2 interferred with their trip for the remainder of their days.

Vee - you are right... constantly available has become the new 9-5. Teams, Zoom, and email on your personal cell phone (this I refuse to do), and a room of my home turned into a work space using my own electricity, water, internet. There are, of course, plusses and minuses. My budget for professional office wear has dropped to nil because I am in jeans and tshirt or sweatshirt, as are my fellow remote workers. I hold a position that typically required skirts, pantyhose, blazers, suits, make-up, jewelry, hair properly done on a daily basis... but no more. Now I just make sure I am clean and covered. Still, as you have all pointed out, as my 60th birthday approaches, the scales labeled "time" and "money" are moving. Hearing about your lives and how amazing it is "on the other side" has been so amazingly exciting that I find that anticipation is starting to take the place of fear.

Netla - I read Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and enjoyed the slow discovery of self through the gentle setting of the book. I am now looking forward to reading More Days! And you read SPQR, correct?

Reading:

Still reading Whistler by Ann Pachett. My book club has been together forever which is the ONLY reason I would ever read this book. It is, as my daughter would say, "so surface".

The TerraCotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri. Montalbano is growing on me.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Had it for eons, never read it. A few nights ago, I couldn't sleep and when I came downstairs, this was on top of the closest tidy stack of TBRs.

PAM

Pam, I also enjoyed Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and can see both books becoming comfort reads.

As to SPQR, I haven't read it (yet), but I have a stack of books on various aspects of ancient Roman history on my desk that I am working my way through, including another of Mary Beard's books, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World. I never thought I would want to read about bureaucracy in ancient times, but this being Beard, I know it will be good.

Yesterday I finished a good book, Paradox, by Douglas Preston and Aletheia Preston. It’s a story involving UAPs (formerly known as UFOs), murder, use of devices from the Spanish Inquisition, and a sliver of skull bone said to be from John the Baptist.

My husband and I have had two stormy cruise experiences. The first was on a tiny cruise ship calledVeracruz.By tiny, I mean less than half the size of most current cruise ships. We were sailing fast trying to get to Miami ahead of a hurricane. We got caught in the edge of it; the ship was pitching enough to send the forward portholes under water. Most of the passengers and a large part of the crew were seasick. The upside was a deck party the next day with free alcohol! Oh, and making it to port safely. 😀

The other time we got caught in a tropical storm off the coast of Maine. Lots of rolling and pitching, and we stopped to assist the Coast Guard and other ships with the rescue of men from a sinking trawler. Our ship was launching parchute flares to illuminate the scene. Quite an impressive sight!

We still love to cruise, though.

Donna

After reading Sarah Addison Allen’s Paper Ghosts, I reread The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandana, followed by The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston. It was okay, but I doubt I will ever reread it. Now I am reading Linesman by S, K. Dunstall on my kindle app and am rereading The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong.

This is a test. Sorry for the interruption everyone.

Did we pass?!!

We are having a long weekend with a Public Holiday Monday so I have stocked up with all the necessary items, books, a mystery DVD and chocolate. The weather is not good, Spring has forgotten to come!

My family is chasing the Sun by taking a working tour up North but what my son gets paid for gigs will go on fuel costs!

Computer update is making Houzz act up. I keep changing passwords etc. but not much luck. We'll see if this posts.

I dread updates that are supposed to improve the service and often make things worse! I have to reset links and in one case changed my server because I did not like the new format.

I wish they would leave things alone! I suspect a new expert joins the company and wants to do things in a better way!

Ginny I am receiving your 'messages' loud and clear.

I am most incompetent with all things electronic and have now to rely on DS to deal with everything. He recently installed a new hard-drive as the present one is possible over 10 years old (And that's considered OLD?) Unfortunately it came without sound so he is bringing new bits and pieces plus two speakers . . . All this new equipment comes at a considerable cost all thanks to the proliferation of the dreaded AI!

So far the new passwords have failed to get me 'in' to the sites I regularly use, except RP; am keeping fingers crossed.

The Academy by Elin Hiderbrand is turning out to be an engaging tale.

I like the AI I can access. I ask it all kinds of questions and get instant answers. Only once was it mistaken and I think found a fan fiction account of a book plot. It was very apologetic!

I was very impressed when it found lyrics in seconds which I had been trying to find for ages doing searches in the usual way. Also instant help with a Microwave cooking time!

I hope I don't lose this service as there is talk of cutting AI back.

I see there is a new Miss. Marple book by Lucy Foley. I hope it is better than the TV series which put her in plots she was not in, in the books. Ugh!

Still having problems here, most frustrating. I can never be sure if I can post.

Annpan, I have to say that I don't like "continuation" books, that is, when another author attempts to continue a popular series. Agatha Christie was very protective of her work. I think she would flip to see that her descendants allowed this. Even the great PD James couldn't do a great "continuation" when she wrote Death at Pemberley. It wasn't bad but it wasn't Jane Austen.

I just finished The Lover's Knot, a lightweight cozy mystery by Clare O'Donohue. Not so good, but it fulfilled its purpose of keeping me reading a little something while awaiting the arrival of a library hold. I'll be reading Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth next.

I have started Stalin's Apostles, a non-fiction account of the Cambridge Five spy ring that cost so many lives over many years. Many books have been written about these five men in Britain's highest positions but further evidence has come out--and is still coming. Some were in MI-6 but one held a job close to the queen's art collection. She never knew.

The author is Antonia Senior. I watched her talk about the subject on the UK National Archives website and bought the book. They have very interesting presentations on that site and I recommend it.

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang is a very good story about four women whose lives are brought together in San Francisco in 1906. One of them disappears and when two of the others figure out what happened to her, they realize the wealthy arts patron they are entwined with is not what he seems. They survive the earthquake and try to move on with their lives, but the knowledge that he is still out there haunts them all. I enjoyed it a lot.

Now I’m reading The Searcher by Tana French. Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago police detective who has purchased a property in rural Ireland, looking forward to enjoying a quiet and peaceful life, but a local boy, Trey, convinces Cal that Trey’s older brother is missing as opposed to run away, and Cal agrees to investigate. I’m enjoying it so far.

Donna

Finished Whistler, thank goodness.

Perhaps I am picky. I, by no means, want to hurt anyone's feelings who may have liked the book or the author.

Some books make you feel that you are in on the action, on the frontlines, and you are an important part of the story. Some books make you feel like a spectator. THIS book made me think I bought nosebleed seats up in the rafters and couldn't even get the popcorn dude's attention to sell me an over-priced snack.

PAM

Tomorrow my current book, Three Bags Full, on which the movie The Sheep Detectives is based, goes back to the library. I spent 3 weeks trying to like it, but gave up today and read ahead to find out the ending. I was just finding the book too dull, which surprised me because so many people love the movie. I looked back to all your comments about it in May, so I guess I am not alone in not finishing the book. When I describe the book, I keep thinking "I ought to like this, why don't I?" :)

On the other hand, I received my copy of Rhianna Pratchett's tribute to her father's Tiffany Aching books, Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch, and I love it! The illustrations by Paul Kidby are spot on, and the inserted commentary from other witches and of course, Rob Anybody of the NacMac Feagle, can be very funny. My only problem with the insertions is trying to read the small scripts (age is catching up to my eyes). The book acts as a nostalgic review of the five Tiffany books, as well as many others in the Discworld series, such as Wyrd Sisters. It also will serve as a guide to which of the Discworld books I'm most likely to enjoy, since I don't like all of them, and have not bothered to read many beyond the Tiffany books.

PAM.....haven't read it......it's been suggested by a book friend....but I avoid over-hyped books and movies.

We have been holidaying in France for five weeks, and are presently at an airport hotel near Charles de Gaulle Airport before our flight home early tomorrow.

I have been rereading the Morland Dynasty books since January 2025, so I finished one of those, then read Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, which was OK but felt a bit forced to me. Lots of people with relationship 'issues' who all feel better by the end.

That was the end of the books I brought with me, but I have been practising my high school French for a couple of years and came across a couple of second-hand Agatha Christie books for 2 Euros each, so I am currently reading Cinq Petits Cochons (Five Little Pigs). It is a bit past my comprehension level, but I know the story, so I just read the bits I can :)

Just started listening to A Prayer For Owen Meaney by John Irving.

Finished Bull's Island by Dorothea Benton Frank and enjoyed it !