The Library

[PatH]

The Library Our library  is open 24/7; the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us.

Here's our new Fall Fun Challenge from RosemaryKay:

So -  for those who would like to have a go at this, here are the book prompts for The Bibliophile's Night Out. All you have to do is think of a book to fit each category - and if you can write a line or two about why you chose it, so very much the better!



1. Pre-drinks: a prequel or novella you've read

2. The taxi to town: a book about travel

3. Trying to find a table: a book you didn't like to start with but ended up loving

4. First round of drinks: a first book in a series

5. The dance floor: a book that made you jump up and down with excitement

6. The toilets: a book you wouldn't touch with a bargepole

7. The first to bail: the last book you did not finish

8. The journey home: a book you really can't remember the plot of any more

9. The morning after: a comfort read

I really enjoyed this challenge, and I'm looking forward to reading other people's ideas.



New Categories: Our Readers Add, What's Yours?


10- Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times?

11. Great Expectations:  A book you really looked forward to reading  which was a disappointment. 

12. Gone With the Wind:   The best book you can't recall the title or author of. Describe a book by the plot and see if our readers can identify it.

13. The Fame Game: What famous book are you embarrassed you have not read?

14  Do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?

15. ? Your choice: suggest a topic?

[PatH]

#9--comfort reads.

Rereading something you liked is a good strategy, if it's got enough in it to stand up to a second time.  Jane Austen is particularly good, but of course you can't do any one book too often--they need resting time.  Agatha Christie is another.  A number of years ago I decided I had used up rereading Christie, and boxed up my copious pile of paperbacks.  Maybe it's time to take a peek and see if they're good for another round.  They were particularly good for reading myself to sleep--one of my bad habits.

Lots of science fiction is good for comfort reading too, but not the post-apocalyptic, end of the world stuff.

And, as Fran suggested, anything light, preferably with a happy ending.

[Fran]

Thanks!

Fran

[jane]

10- Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times? 

For me, this is a very long list and includes anything dealing with dysfunctional families or dystopian times.

[ I feel like I'm living that everyday for the last couple of months.]

[nlhome]

The morning after: a comfort read  Usually that means a reread, such as someone mentioned, Agatha Christie, particularly Jane Marple stories. But a book I often pull out is Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. I enjoy the pictures he creates and his land ethic.

I had written a longer post yesterday, but it disappeared into cyberspace, or so it must have because I don't see it. In any case, I was saying that our library is open for viewing new books, special book displays (a certain genre, author, subject) and DVD's. We have to knock on the door and get permission to enter, as too many people cannot be there at any one time. It's a small library. We have no meeting space now, because it's used by the city to spread out its office workers. We can make appointments to use computers or the reading room (which holds one, as I said, small library).

[nlhome]

Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times?

That's easy. Science Fiction.

[PatH]

Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times?

That's easy. Science Fiction.

OK, nlhome, Frybabe and I will do that work for you.
People tend either to love it or hate it.  I could never get my twin sister (JoanK) to like it.

[Frybabe]

Ugh! On my last post, #10 should read #11. I completely missed #10.

Also, I have to correct #9. Winter Loon, I am not sure what you would call it. It is part family secret/mystery and a coming of age type thing. so that does not belong in #9. I got it mixed up with Winter's Secret by Lyn Cote, which is a nice, clean, romance/mystery type of book. Romance is not normally something I read, but once in a while... 

Okay, so back to #10. I absolutely refuse to read anything William Faulkner. I also have no interest what-so-ever in reading the likes of Cannery Row, East of Eden, or Of Mice and Men all three by John Steinbeck. But these aren't actually something I wouldn't read now, they are books I never wanted to read. Today, I would have to include political tell-all and hatchet jobs. Well thought out and balanced history, yes, but not these self-serving political rants. 

[PatH]

Well, I reread the mystery story whose plot I had forgotten.  It's a good enough plot, though rather complicated, and for once I didn't remember it again halfway through.  So I got a nice cosy comfort read out of it.

Devil's Trumpet, by Mary Freeman

[Fran]

Jane pretty much summed it up for me, especially European World War Two events.

[PatH]

Fran and Jane, you've summed it up for most of us.  At the moment we're living in a world that's scary, uncertain, and contentious, and most of us aren't interested in making it more stressful.

So, none of the pessimistic science fiction (there's plenty), tragedies, stories of strife, current politics, etc.

I'm OK with some aspects of WWII, though; I've just finished one which I'll get around to describing soon.

[PatH]

Those of you whose libraries let you in the doors, will they let you handle a book, look inside to see if you think you might like it, or do you just get to stare at the spines?  Our library quarantines returned books for 96 hours before sending them out again.  I doubt they'll let you handle them once the doors are open.

[jane]

Not here, Pat.  Apparently they let you in to ask about a book but you can't browse. 

I gave up on printed books some time ago...and that's an odd statement from a librarian, I know, but the paper, etc. seemed so cheap and unpleasant to me.  It may be my sense of smell and touch are changing in my...uh...mature...years.  I've gone strictly to ebooks.  I  can borrow those digitally from a couple libraries I belong to and from the ease of my chair here at home.  I think I'm more of a hermit than ever, these days.

[ginny]

I am really enjoying the Labor Day decorations that Jane has put  up in the top of all our pages here, thank you Jane!

I've had a TIME with this category! And I have REALLY enjoyed your list of  10- Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times? When you look at your lists, isn't it amazing how different they all are and how cool that is? I love that. We should have done this long ago.

And I about dropped what teeth I have left when I read Jane's I gave up on printed books some time ago...and that's an odd statement from a librarian, I know, but the paper, etc. seemed so cheap and unpleasant to me.  It may be my sense of smell and touch are changing in my...uh...mature...years.

Well here's an odder statement. hahahaha I realize this is not what Jane is talking about,  but   I have this THING about dirty old books. And I've had it a long time.  Books are important to me, the paper, the typeset  and bindings. And when I stopped taking my grandson to the Library when he got into primary  school, and so many journals I needed to read were online in JSTOR, etc.,  I stopped going, myself.  I have  to have a clean book to start with. That sounds like a sort of...er...Howard Hughes admission, and I would  never have made it had she not said what she did. One wonders if one is getting a little odd, but it is what it is.   Even in a Barnes and Noble I take the one in the back of a stack.  I know many people here love the library and I would hate to see the Libraries close.  I donate almost all of those clean books TO the Library who are really thrilled to see me roll up but ...I think that's the worst of my many quirks. AND I do  have a lot of very old books, very old, which were not new when I got them. But if I'm buying one to read for pleasure, I want it clean.

So now we know. I'm a nut case. hahhaa So  my choices now for #10 can be written off as such.

Rosemary I am so sorry you (1) encountered one of "those" people as a teacher, and (2) especially sorry it was in  Latin, of all subjects.. It's true some of the old Latin teachers were tartars, but yours seems to have gone beyond the pale like my own monstrous experience with  Miss Thomas. Latin is such a beautiful joyful experience, double shame on her.

10- Never on a Sunday:   A book, subject, or topic are you absolutely NOT interested in reading in today's times?

And to that let's add author to the categories. Author: I will not read anything at all by James Fenimore Cooper. His style drives me insane (and it did Mark Twain, too,  read his hysterical take on it). The man can make one sentence last two pages because it's full of this or that stream of consciousness or philosophical  thoughts, each one drifting off into another with no possible connection to the sentence.  One loses the thread.

Genre  I can't think of a genre I won't read, or haven't read once.  I don't want porn. I guess the closest I could come to the genre or topic category is books written by people about history purporting to BE  history which  are not history but rather the opinion of the writer who himself (let's say himself) has no credentials at all to write the book in the first place. I'm not talking about Historical FICTION.

I'm talking about books, videos, documentaries and podcasts and MOST PARTICULARLY  How to Learn Latin texts, videos, and presentations,  written or presented  by people who fancy themselves historians/ Latin scholars and are not. People believe them!!! I think such books, often highly publicized,  are dangerous because the presentation is charming and homey and  they are misleading and should have a warning slapped on the covers, or presentations,  or do we not care any more? "This person is a fake, read/watch at your own peril!"

I like Sci Fi. I think Ray Bradbury is a wonderful writer and I also loved 2001, and R.U.R., and stuff like that.  I have no problem with it.  I Haven't read the Manga series, but I have read comic novels....I read pretty much everything.


Topics: Independent Women Who in the End Need a Man.  Books about women alone, who struggle and make it, succeed, and are happy  but always at the end, ALWAYS they have to find a MAN to be REALLY happy and complete.  It doesn't matter what  their age. So irritating.

I guess that's my  list. I have to wonder, do you think that our present off kilter world has changed your reading habits, and if so, how?  THAT might be a good question? UP it goes!

So for the weekend let's move to #11. Great Expectations:  A book you really looked forward to reading  which was a disappointment.  And most importantly,  WHY?

And you can always come back and do any of the numbers, or suggest a new category, yourself! I am enjoying learning about everybody here. Maybe we ought to ask about quirks about books, too? I'm sure we've all got them!!!!

[Frybabe]

I am repeating my choices from earlier and adding to it a little.

#11. The last two novels of S. L. Viehl's Stardoc series would fit in that slot. I don't generally care for books where people have superpowers. The series is about a surgeon who over the course of the series falls for and weds an alien. So far so good, but in the last two books they begin to evolve into something more powerful (more godlike?), not a direction I wanted to go.
 
James S. A. Corey wrote several novellas for additional background in their Expanse series. I tried reading three or four and quit every one of them. They didn't really add to the main story sequences and were actually a bit boring.

But those are series. I think I can put the book that was written by someone who was either a history teacher or a Roman history buff, not a Latin scholar, into this category (see Ginny's comments below). It was about the late Roman Republic leading up to the civil war that brought Caesar to power. While the general history was okay, the author's modern day sensibilities and biases showed through in his interpretations of events. This book could also be put in the #12 category because I can no longer remember the title or author.

[ginny]

  I can.   And that is the one I was talking about but he's been supplanted by a host of people writing books on Latin itself with no credentials. None. I mean, really. It's the Internet Age, make yourself up.

Bias is something that's hard to get rid of in history, though. The Romans had a different idea of history writing, and Livy is a prime example. They had a focal point, a purpose, as in Livy's wanting to show the greatness of Rome and how it got that way, through nobility and self sacrifice for country, and  the pitfalls of weakness and the results,  and they stuck to it, regardless of facts.  That is where a lot of this self sacrificing Roman Republican hero stuff  came from. From the legends and mists of times emerge these super heroes who may or may not have been as portrayed. 

[Frybabe]

Ginny, I wonder how the historians are going to sort out this mess we have now. There is just so much lying, half-truths, misrepresentations, etc. flying about these days. Well, maybe it has always been that way; it just seems worse now because modern communications is faster and the audience is so much larger. Anyway, you have a point with Livy. I hadn't thought about it. It certainly makes history a slippery thing considering each "player" has his/her own biases and views as the event is happening. let alone those who come after. They have to sort through and try to get at the actual truth of the matter while trying not to add their own biases and views. Makes it sound quite daunting, if not nigh on impossible. But this guy was rather obvious. 

I just just looking at Gutenberg's new self-publishing site and found this for those interested in the actual laws in place governing quarantine both at the state and federal level.  http://self.gutenberg.org/eBooks/WPLBN0100302317-Federal-and-State-Quarantine-Law-by-Jack-D-C-.aspx? It is in .pdf form. The self-publishing site seems to have a number of what look like papers and dissertations along with policy papers and such, not just self-published books.  There are links to the individual state laws at the back. I had to open the book in pdf to get the links to work. Double-click on the pdf icon rather that read the online text to get to it. BTW, the table of contents is not linked to individual chapters, so you will find the state links beginning on page 136. If you just want to read on-line, mouse-over the cover.

[rosemarykaye]

Ginny - don't worry about my Miss Edmonds!  We had an OK teacher followed by a great one after her - the latter one, Mrs Bourne, only had 4 of us in her class (I wonder why! Most girls had given it up the very minute they could) so we could get through the work in half the allotted time and we spent the rest of the lessons enjoying gossip from the staff room.

A propos of what future historians may make of the current state of things, who knows?  But I have just completed a book chain (I'll explain in my next post) and one of the books was All The President's Men. This reminded me that, just a few weeks ago, my daughter pointed out that, compared to today's shenanigans, Watergate seems a pretty minor affair. Although i was still at school at the time, I remember it being such a big thing, even here - but I think she has a point.

Re the physical books thing - I must say I used to be prepared to buy much shabbier books from charity shops than I would now. I'd still be prepared to buy one of it was a rare copy of something I really wanted, but in general I only buy things in pretty good condition. But I do still borrow from the library - I think that habit is so ingrained that I'd find it hard to stop.

Yes, do let's think of more questions! I've thought of one: 'A book you've always thought you ought to read but have successfully managed to avoid for years'. For me that would include things like War & Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and many, many more.

Rosemary

 

[rosemarykaye]

I've just taken part, for the first time, in a thing hosted by another blogger on a monthly basis.

It's called Six Degrees of Separation - the idea is that she chooses a book to start, and from there all participants create their own chain of six books. Each must be related to the one that precedes it, but in can be in whatever way you choose - someone even did one this month that started with the chosen book, which she said she still had stuck on her table waiting for her to read it, then continued to 'another book I have on my table is...'

You don't have to have read the starter book either. This month it was Curtis Sittafeld's Rodham, which is apparently a fictional imagining of what Hilary Clinton's life might have been like if she had not married Bill. It is very interesting to see how people proceeded from there. My own chain was:

Rodham
All the President's Men
Brighton Rock
The Fortnight in September
Madam, Will You Talk?
I Capture the Castle

You can say as much or as little about each book as you like. If anyone wants to read my post - no obligation of course, it's here:

https://sconesandchaiseslongues.blogspot.com/2020/09/six-degrees-of-separation-september-2020.html

And the explanation of how the original idea works, together with a list of previous starters, is here: https://booksaremyfavouriteandbest.com/6-degrees-of-separation-meme/

I thought it was fun. I got so tied up in it that I've been sat here for hours working out my connections - so now I had better get off my bottom and do something vaguely useful

Rosemary

[rosemarykaye]

Ginny - you have probably already mentioned this, or at least know about it, but just in case - I saw this on the daily BookBub alert post:

'Growing Up at Grossinger’s'
By Tania Grossinger

In the 20th century, Grossinger’s Catskill Resort Hotel — which inspired the setting of Dirty Dancing — was New York’s go-to summer retreat… and Tania Grossinger witnessed it all! “A delightful look at how America, especially Jewish America, enjoyed itself before the airplane took us in different directions” (Publishers Weekly).

Rosemary

[ginny]

Looks like it's safe to stick our necks out again! That wasn't so bad and we hope that will be the end of it for a while.  Our Host Server people are wonderful and very smart and responsive,  so we're glad to be back, even though we lost a couple of your wonderful posts, hopefully you will fill the rafters with them from now on in joy to be back again!

[rosemarykaye]

Hoorah!  Thanks for all your hard work Ginny.  I really missed my visits to the site, even over that short time.

I saved my last post so here it is again:



Frybabe - I am so glad to see that I am not the only one who hasn't read Anna Karenina!  Even my husband has read the wretched thing (and he reads at the pace of a snail). I haven't read the others you mentioned either, and I even bought a copy of the Pearl S Buck - well that was a waste of money, as need I tell you it has languished unloved on my shelves ever since. It just looks too worthy.

There are so many books I feel I should have read. Many people I know rave about Ivy Compton Burnett - she's another one that people compare to Barbara Pym, but having flipped through a few of her books in the library, I can't see any resemblance at all - and it all looks like endless, endless dialogue with hardly anything in between.....so I still haven't read any of her novels properly.

The Guardian at one time ran a series of 'condensed reads' (or something like that) that summarised the contents of famous books in a couple of paragraphs so that you didn't have to read them. At the end of each one there was the 'really condensed read' which distilled the entire thing down into one short - and frequently very funny - sentence.

Ginny, I can see exactly why Christie would count as comfort reading, but I must admit I haven't read any of her books for years, so I too think I will dig out my old copies. I recall the film of Death on the Nile more than the book - beautiful scenery (as they always are).

And regarding your life as a relish waitress - what on earth are relishes?  I think we would apply that term to things like mango chutney or tartare sauce, to be served with a main course, not before it.  Is an entire tray of relishes a Jewish thing, and what do these relishes consist of?

I worked as a waitress in a local cafe when I was still at school. It was miserable because you got the blame for all of the kitchen's failings. The worst was that they had tables for 6 people but the kitchen had ONE domestic size microwave - and everything was microwaved, including the so-called baked potatoes. If people ordered six plates of quiche and salad, each piece of quiche had to be separately cut and heated, and we, the two poor waitresses, were not allowed to do any of this in case we made the portions too big, so we just had to take out one meal at a time - then wait at least 5 minutes for the next one, while the people waiting just got crosser and crosser.  They also sold slices of gateaux to have with your coffee. These gateaux were supplied by a catering company and were certainly not made on the premises (nothing was) as they would have liked their patrons to believe. Only the incompetent and untrained manageress (a friend of the absent owner, some businessman) was allowed to cut the slices - in case we made them too big - so we had to wait for her to finish the cigarette she was usually smoking outside the back door. Excruciating.

Golly Pat, you were brave to go to France in 1957! But your description of the hotels sounds remarkably similar to the ones I stayed in in, perhaps, 1975!  French hotels were like that for decades - I think they hoped you'd find it charming. If you have ever read A Breath of French Air by HE Bates (written in 1959), the (Brittany, I think) hotel in that is just as bad - Ma Larkin is horrified.

Rosemary

[nlhome]

Great Expectations: I was looking for a book one day and got really excited because I came across the first Jack Reacher book, Killing Floor. My husband and I both read Lee Child, although I am not a dedicated follower, just an occasional reader. Anyway, I was excited to get the book and start it, thinking it would give me a better idea of the character. It's an eBook, and I have renewed it, re-requested it, and it's probably been in and out of my tablet 5 times so far. I just cannot get past the violence, so I have the last third to go and probably won't finish. It's also probably the end of Jack Reacher for me, as I wasn't really that impressed with the most recent book. My husband was watching a Jack Reacher movie Sunday, with Tom Cruise as Reacher, who does not fit the character as I saw him in my mind, so that didn't help. Not a great book, just one I was initially excited to read.

[PatH]

Hooray, hooray!! Kudos to Jane and Ginny and the Host Server people.I'm glad the losses were so small.

I really missed our conversations too.

Rosemary, your waitress job is pretty funny to read about, unlike what it must have been to live through.  It seems like getting a second microwave would be cost effective, since you could have faster turnover, but maybe it would have blown fuses.

The visit to France was part of something more than tourism.  Bob and I had been married for two years, and he got a chance for a postdoctorate fellowship in Zurich.  (He was a chemist, as I am.).  On the way to and from, we added some additional time to do as much sightseeing as we could in France,  and in the university holidays we went variously to Italy, Germany/Austria, and England.  Bob's stipend was small, but went farther in postwar Europe than it would have at home.

[ginny]

How FINE it is to see all of your posts this morning! I had gone back and copied the last several ones to put in but my ClipMate went down over copying an Excel sheet and I had to delete it. Nothing gold can stay! So I am so glad to see Rosemary's post reconstituted  about her waitressing, that sounds like one of those TV shows on remake this restaurant where they are using powdered sauces and microwaves. I can't believe that stayed in business long, Rosemary!

Nilhome, I wondered about those Jack Reacher books, and am glad to meet somebody who has tried one, I'm really not into a lot of violence, it's hard to get out of my head.  I don't know why I like Relic and Reliquary (the latter with less of that violence).

Pat, what wonderful memories! I have a lot of "naked light bulb" memories. hahaha When taking the kids all over the country by car, I found out the hard way once in NYC that the "savings" we were suffering through at the Howard Johnson's in NYC (yes you read that right) for something like 10 bucks a night would have resulted in a much more wonderful hotel, location, experience,  and stay.  And I  hate to say it, I really do, but since I've seen the naked bulb walk up dives in the past (many times) I think  that age can have some privileges and a nicer stay really does help the mood and the memories of travel as an ancient, too. Helps you keep going, so to speak.

Rosemary, I had written this big thing about the menu at Grossingers, it really was stupendous, endless courses and in one place she totals the tons of food up, it was amazing there, one really ate well, but it's also gone with the wind..er.. Clipmate. I think anything pickled is a "relish."  I recall her saying 16 kinds of picked fish available for breakfast there, if I recall that right. A relish tray (I was a teenager, so it's been a looong time, and the restaurant is no longer there, for some reason to double check the menu today hahaha) but anyway, I recall  lots of different kinds of olives and pickles, and stuff like Branson's pickle, and chutneys. I recall, surely I am wrong, a corn relish? Anything with that pickled sour taste? I don't recall any fish on the relish tray but  herring in sour cream, etc., was on the Appetizer menu.

I recall my first cheese and pickle sandwich in the UK, at the Upper Crust in a train station, baguette, slabs of cheese, and Branson type pickle and not much else!  I love that combination!

One dish from the past I really miss is a good chopped chicken liver. I haven't had one literally in 50 years or more. It's not mush and it's not pate. I don't think anybody knows how to make them now, or if they do, I haven't encountered one.

Well, Fall is coming here. My little rose garden is still blooming like mad and has exceeded every hope I had of it. I must  put a photo in here of the impatiens, it has spilled over every boundary, through the iron gate and in every direction. Will never be without it again. I have always envied people who grew it in such  exuberant profusion and now I see it's a question of water and the right place, and voila!

Here are our two categories for today: (12 may not suit anybody)

11. Great Expectations:  A book you really looked forward to reading  which was a disappointment.

12. Gone With the Wind:   The best book you can't recall the title or author of. Describe a book by the plot and see if our readers can identify it.

It IS nice to be back, isn't it?

[rosemarykaye]

Yes, it is so nice Ginny - I really do feel like you are my old friends (I do have a few others, honest!)

I often say to my daughters or husband ‘My friend in America says’ this or that - then have to qualify it by saying ‘my ONLINE friend’ - but you are all so important to me. Reminds me of Julia Child, in the Julie & Julia film, inviting her penfriend over to stay. Julia’s husband only realises when they are waiting at the station to greet her that Julia has never met her in the flesh before.

I can’t think of a book for No 12 - I think if I’ve forgotten a book I’ve probably forgotten everything about it, it just the title and author!  But we could invent a new game - guess the book from the plot description?

Thanks, Ginny, for the explanation about ‘relishes’ - I still find it odd that these were served before the meal - did people eat them as they were, or keep them for when the main course arrived?

I’ve just finished Joan Medlicott’s second Covington book - The Gardens of Covington. I know these novels are very cosy and light, but they’re well written and this one was just what I needed. I’ve had it on my shelf for years - it’s funny how the right book sometimes calls to you just at the right time.

[Frybabe]

Ugh, chicken liver.  Well, liver anything except liverwurst.

The food I miss is Yorkshire Pudding. I learned from Mom and made it for years until I switched to low fat roasts. I suppose someone has figured out how to make it without the beef fat, but it probably wouldn't be anywhere near as good.
 
My latest E-book acquisition is Lucullus: The Life and Campaigns of a Roman Conqueror by Lee Fratantuono. The author is a Professor of Classics at Ohio Wesleyan University. Aside from his more academic writings (including Virgil, Ovid, Lucian and Lucretius)  has has written several histories. His newest, due out next February is Roman Conquests: Mesopotamia and Arabia. . His is also co-editing The Sermons of Peter the Lombard: Text, Translation, and Commentary but Bloomsbury does not list a release date.

[Dana]

Lee Fratantuono.....I have his book "A Reading of Virgil's Aeneid....Madness Unchained" which I got when we started translating Virgil, but I find it quite boring so I've only read it up to where we are.....mind you I find The Aeneid quite boring too, but a major translation challenge! I think we're determined to keep going till the end tho....on bk 5 so not quite half way yet........it will be interesting to see what you think of his Lucullus.....what I know about him comes from Colleen McCullough mostly....as I recall he did a lot of the heavy lifting in the East and Pompey took most of the credit.....

[Frybabe]

I hope his history isn't as boring as his Aeneid is Dana. It was pricey for me even in E-book form. I have it downloaded but I haven't looked at it yet.

Seniors and Friend is still not working right, FYI.

[ginny]

 Rosemary, what a sweet thing to say. I am 100 percent positive your life is enriched by MANY friends, how could it not be with that attitude? I am envious of your ability to BE a friend to so many. We definitely count you as our friend here! We can now say Our Friend in Scotland! (How many people can say THAT?) hahaha

On the relishes, I still find it odd that these were served before the meal - did people eat them as they were, or keep them for when the main course arrived? That's a good question, too. I'm trying to remember. I think it was like an appetizer, really, but of course you could keep it as an accompaniment to the meal, but I seem to remember separate little plates. To be quite honest, I am doing well to remember the relish tray and the oreo cookies I kept in the pockets of my kitschy little apron costume (YES!!!) Talk about twee. We didn't get to eat any meals  so I ate oreo cookies from my pockets.

it’s funny how the right book sometimes calls to you just at the right time.


Yes it is. And back to your  mention of Rosemary and Thyme, I used to love that thing. I see it's also on Amazon but haven't looked at it because I've got all the DVD's.


Frybabe: Ugh, chicken liver.  Noooo no no no, the first time I had it I didn't know what it WAS. You would have to try it, (of course it can't be found now as it was or it can't here, but you would not believe how good it was!).  If you like liverwurst you'd love this dish but it's nothing remotely like it.  I like liverwurst and have it once a year. It's amazing how many things I only eat once a year, like a hot dog. I like a hot dog on the 4th of July and since that's about the worst thing anybody can eat EVER that's the only time I have it but BOY is it good that one time.


Speaking of Yorkshire pudding, I saw by accident a Youtube thing by a chef who used to work for the Queen and he's preparing the dishes they liked. He  had a recipe that was Prince Philip's favorite and I have to say it looked really good and simple, it was salmon en croute, sort of.  He shows how to do is step by step,  shows how to wrap it and I THINK my family would eat it if I could do it right, so I might try it. I bookmarked the site and I'll look it up and put it in the Movies later today.

 Lee Fratantuono, Dand and Frybabe, a new author for me, I have never heard of him. Or Rosemary's Covington Gardens, two new authors for me today.


I see the book on Shakespeare's son Hamnet won the Women's Prize for Fiction. I haven't read it, have any of you? And is it good? I didn't want to read about  the death of a child but they say it's the details of the plague, etc., and how it went from country to country. The descriptions. Still in our pandemic am not sure I want to read that right now.

I'm here early because the Latin classes start today and I wanted to stick my oar in as Georgie says in Mapp and Lucia hahaha here first.


I think you all are right and that #12 is not something we can identify with, let's move on:

13. The Fame Game: What famous book are you embarrassed you have not read?


I can do this and I AM embarrassed to admit that I have not read any Tolkien or The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia.  I can hear the screaming from here. hahaha

[PatH]

Dana and Frybabe, has either of you read Ursula K. LeGuin's ,Lavinia?  Apparently the Aeneid ends with Aeneas about to marry Lavinia, daughter of a local king.  She never even speaks a word.  This gives her a voice to tell her story.  It's on my TBR pile, and almost anything LeGuin wrote is worth a try.  The Aeneid is on my pile too, Lombardo's translation, but I've only read bits of it.

[nlhome]

Rebecca Tope? If there were a category for "book you read to the end but shouldn't have", The Patterdale Plot sure fit it for me. I had read a couple of her Cotswold Mystery Series and decided that series was just too unbelievable to continue. But last week at the library (yes, we can go in and look at the new book collection, using hand sanitizer first, so we can pick up the books to read the inside jacket, just a brief contact compared to actually reading a book) there were 2 new books by Rebecca Tope. I grabbed one, not wanting to touch others on the shelf if I didn't have to, and brought it home to read. It's from her Lake District series. Well, the plot was weird, I didn't like the main character, there were some totally unrelated events like a car accident, the end was wrapped up too quickly without enough clues along the way and was unlikely. I had wanted a cozy mystery to relax by, but this one was annoying. I finished it to find out "whodunnit," but the ending was unsatisfactory. Am I missing something? Maybe I should have requested one of the earlier books in the series? 

[Fran]

Ginny I also downloaded Growing up at Grossingers, I’m so glad I saw


Your post about getting it for $1.99. I have a dry eye situation so am

Cutting back on my reading especially from the I-Pad. Will get back in

A little while after a short rest from my I-Pad. Nice to see every posting.

Fran

[Frybabe]

Not I, PatH. In fact, Lavinia barely rings a bell. I just refreshed my memory and see it is her last published book, and that it won a Locus Award in 2009.

I just realized this morning that I am getting behind in doing my jigsaw puzzles because my FLP book holds are starting to drop like flies into my borrow bin, finally, and of course, pretty close on each other's tails. Right now I have two and a half library borrows from FLP  to read before the next one piles on.  I am in the middle of John Scalzi's The Last Emperox which I don't find very compelling. It is the last one of the trilogy, so I do want to find out what happened. The other two are The Catch, a novella from Mick Herron's  Slough House series, and book three of Rachael Caine's Great Library series, Ash and Quill.

[rosemarykaye]

Good afternoon all,

NLHome - Yes, yes! re Rebecca Tope. I haven't tried her Lake District series (though I do have some of them) but I have now read three of her Cotswolds ones and they are TERRIBLE!  Like you, I forget how bad they are after a while (a bit like giving birth!) and try another one, then remember why I shouldn't have. Ridiculous plots, many things left unresolved, but for me the absolute worst thing is the main character, Thea. She is so depressing. never stops complaining, harps on endlessly about her deceased husband, and has a very high opinion indeed of her own (non-existent) detection skills. I am getting so fed up with miserable female characters. The only good one in these books is Hepzibah, the dog - and for someone who's supposed to be such an animal lover, Thea regularly neglects the animals in her charge (she's a house sitter) because it's too cold to walk across to the stable, or it's too much trouble to call a vet, or she would just rather mope about whining than do anything useful. And of course (this point is for you Ginny!) she 'needs a man' - in the last one I read she had split up with her policeman boyfriend and now kept banging on about how unfair it was that the local police wouldn't let her join in their investigations (for which she has no qualifications whatsoever) and if only she was still with the policeman he'd have involved her in every step (REALLY?!)

So yes, they are definitely books I 'finished but shouldn't have'. Another recent one was Sara Sheridan's London Calling - another miserable/moaning/apparently brilliant at everything 'heroine' - so depressing, although at least this one (who's a private investigator) has an assistant who's a bit more fun.

Having finished my Covington book (Ginny, I hope they're not too cosy for you - don't expect fireworks of any kind!) I've just read The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which I think was Agatha Christie's first Poirot book, published in 1921 but set during the Great War. I can immediately see that Christie stands out from the so-called Golden Age writers being republished by the British Library - like them she's very keen on times and dates (I just let all of that flow past me...) but she also develops her characters, and this one is narrated by Poirot's friend Hastings, who is very entertaining as he constantly misses the two-edged blades of Poirot's slightly sarcastic remarks.

Not sure what to move on to now - I've got a towering TBR stack, even up here (most of my books still being in Edinburgh) and I always gate making a decision about the next one.

Rosemary

[rosemarykaye]

Ginny, I meant to say, that's terrible that you didn't even get snacks when you were waitressing!  I think we did get some sort of lunch, and I often got to take home leftover cake and scones, which my mother was quite pleased about.

[PatH]

I must have a high threshold for embarrassment.  Although there are plenty of important books I haven't read, I'm not coming up with one for the Fame Game.  This gives me a chance to fill in another earlier one I missed.

5. The dance floor: a book that made you jump up and down with excitement

This is a series: Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time.  It's the twelve volume story of the narrator, Nick Jenkins, roughly Powell himself,  as he observes British upper class life from about 1914 to 1971.  It has what feels like a cast of thousands, somewhat based on real people, who appear and disappear, coming back at intervals, interacting in different combinations.  The books were published over a quarter century, 1951-1975.  Bob and I became aware of them when four had already been published, and were completely hooked.  When a new volume came out we would snap it up instantly, then grumble at the wait for the next one.  And although the later ones weren't as good, we still felt sad after finishing the last one.

I don't know what it would be like reading them all at once--probably mental indigestion, but they stand rereading well.  They're full of little references you don't catch the first time.

A good TV series was made of them, with James Purefoy as Nick, though of course the story had to be cut.

[rosemarykaye]

Oh Pat - YES! I love A Dance to the Music of Time, and as I didn't read any till around ten years ago, I did indeed read them one after the other - I have them in 4 volumes, each containing four books 'Spring', 'Summer', 'Autumn' and 'Winter'.) I agree with everything you say about them, they are wonderful (and I'm sure they would indeed stand re-reading.)

I also have a DVD of the TV series, and I love that too - Simon Russell Beale as Widmerpool was outstanding, and I also very much enjoyed Miranda Richardson as Pamela Flitton and Paul Rhys as Stringham. And then there was the excellent Adrian Scarborough as Quiggin and even Alan Bennett as Sillery. Brilliant production.

Thank you for reminding me about this!

[Dana]

Funny, I have these books....A Dance to the Music of Time..... but I can't remember a thing about them, except I didn't like them.  But I don't know why....I just took them down now and had a look at them and not much came back....except I think I thought they were too snobby or something.  I think I felt sympathy for one of the characters who was portrayed as some kind of nasty guy??

So where would I put them?
Sort of #12 Gone with the Wind, except I can't remember any of the plot!  I certainly had forgotten them completely till you brought them up, Pat.
Should put them on my to be reread list, but I'm afraid that is rather long....I'm much older now (than when I read them) and I find my opinions of books do change with time. So, who knows.....?

[Dana]

Just saw there is a new John LeCarre   Agent Running in the Field.  I have all his books.  Don't even know if I like him....but I guess I am addicted to him.....obviously I can't not get this latest one.  It looks like it's maybe a good spy story.  I don't like the ones where he veers off that track....I was hoping it might be a throwback to the good old days of Smiley but of-course it's not.  I didn't like all the Smiley ones though....found The Honourable Schoolboy dragged.  He has a tendency to go into incredible detail which becomes hard to wade through if one isn't particularly interested in it...I do like his dialogue though, and I think that is what made the original Smiley TV productions so good, they mostly repeated it, and the characterisations were perfect.....Bernard Hepton as Toby Esterhase was my all time favourite....