The Library

[ginny]

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 Thirty Day Book Challenge from  Professional Book Geeks. 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!

The Thirty Day Book Challenge:

1. Favorite Book in a Series:

2. Audio Book to Listen to  on a Trip  or  Best Book of any kind  to Take  Along  When Traveling:

3. Role Models (reconstituted from the last list) What character in any book you have read is the most memorable? Why?

4. Favorite Book in a Series and Why:

5. Favorite Book not in a Series by Your Favorite Author:

6. Literary Character You Want to Have Dinner With:

7.  Favorite Book to Give as a Gift:

8. A Biography  you think everybody should read:

9. A "Popular" book you hate:

10. An audio book you listened to just because you like the narrator:
An audio book you can't listen to because you don't like the narrator:

11. A series everyone should read:

12. A book with a color in the title:

13. A quote from a book you know by heart:

14. A book you reread every year:

15. A series you think everyone should read:

16. A  book with an unreliable narrator:

[ginny]

Oh dear, just heard that Ruth Bader Ginsburg just died. A towering figure for all time.

[ginny]

 Rosemary has sent us in a wonderful new set of topics to discuss from Professional Book Geeks, and I have SO enjoyed our discussions here and topics, haven't you?  Are we up for some new ones?

Thank you, Rosemary!

Some of them may overlap somewhat so if they do I will put two, but I think what we're learning about each other and the wonderful books being discussed are well  worth it.

I just got Dance to the Music of Time, read a paragraph of it, love the writing and am SOLD. HUGE book with 3 books in it. Some of the reviews are "irony and understatement....sheer delight.....widely recognized as one of the most important works of fiction since WWII,  dry, cool, humorous, quintessentially English." Right up my street!

Ok here, somewhat out of their original order, are the first two Topics of the Day: The Thirty Day  Book  Challenge:

1. Favorite Book in a Series:

2. Audio Book to Listen to  on a Trip  or  Best Book of any kind  to Take  Along  When Traveling:

[Frybabe]

Oh, Well, this is a challenge:

1. Favorite Book in a Series:

The Iron Hand of Mars (4th in series), followed closely by Silver Pigs (1st in series), both are from the Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis. Silver Pigs is set in Britain and deals with the mining of lead and silver, and in the production of lead pipes. The Iron Hand of Mars is set in Germany, and along with a bit of a tour of Germany, it includes the production and popularity of the much sought after German Redware crockery and dinner settings.

In SciFi, it is Agent of Change by Sharon Lee and Steve MIller, which Amazon lists as #9 in their Laiden Universe series. Their newest entry into the Laiden Universe, The Wrong Lance, will be released in October. It is one of my favorite overall series as well. The other is John Scalzi's Old Man's War which is the first of his series by the same name.

There are probably others, but the above stick in my mind without thinking too hard. There are series that I think of as over all favorites, but no individual book in the series come to mind.
Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict series (space archaeology, salvage, and antique dealings), and Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series, and Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe come to mind.

[Frybabe]

2. Audio Book to Listen to  on a Trip  or  Best Book of any kind  to Take  Along  When Traveling:

Since all my audiobooks are on my tablet they all would go with me. What I would read probably depends on time available and something I don't have to concentrate too heavily on. So, that probably means a re-listen to some I already finished or something light which doesn't need a lot of concentration. Keeping that in mind I would probably choose re-listening to Circe by Madeline Miller and narrated by Perdita Weeks, the Terry Pratchett BBC Radio Drama Collection with full cast production, Poets' Corner by John Lithgow, John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation, Ben Garrod's A Grown-Up Guide to Dinosaurs, or Marty Ross's adaptation of Treasure Island with full cast. Knowing me, though, I would  probably be on the hunt for something appropriate to the trip to download, especially if it is historical in nature.

[ginny]

 Those are great selections, Frybabe! And such a varied set of books.

I like to have a book on a trip and I usually leave them behind when I  leave the hotel wherever I am. Most hotels that I travel in have bookshelves, there's one in Lyon France which has a tower of them arranged in languages, it's pretty cool.

I guess for a serial, I don't really read that many books in series, I would have to have a tie between  Relic and Reliquary. Relic has WAY too much graphic violence for me (monster in basement of the Natural Museum of History in NYC) but the guy was a curator...or something  there and knows the museum and writes about it so well. Reliquary is shorter on violence and I like somebody writing a book about people living in abandoned subways under NYC (also a rumor held for years) , but it's not quite as well written, so I'm stuck between the two. Of Mapp and Lucia, all those books, I think I like the one with Lobster a la Risholme and the flood in it, I think that IS the volume called Mapp and Lucia, the third  in the series I think. But I also like the oranges episode of the first sequel Lucia in Wartime by  Tom Holt.

For Poirot I like The Labors of Hercules, 12 short stories making one book. Very very clever.

For Miss Marple I like Miss Marple, the Complete Short Stories.

I don't think I've read that many other series. Maybe some mystery series which are almost  always the first book read, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death, Rest Ye Merry by Charlotte MacLeod, etc. Maybe in the Ripley series one of the later ones, where he's living in a Chateau in France and trying to keep his past secret while at the same time committing art fraud.


For travel I need something light that can be put down and picked back up and enjoyed.  I  used to always take one of Peter Mayle's books ( A Year in Provence) as they are light and fun and you can put them down without losing the thread.

But I haven't "traveled" now for over a year and I'm not sure we'll be traveling this coming spring, either, any of us. I'll have to "travel" vicariously.

[rosemarykaye]

Hello all,

My favourite book from a series would probably be the first one in the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard - The Light Years. This one introduces us to the Cazalet Brothers, now mostly back from the First World War and running the family timber business, their wives, young children, their unhappy sister Rachel, and their formidable parents The Brig and The Duchy. Servants also appear.  It’s a story of upper middle class life In the south of England, but as the world changes and the children grow up, it’s also a story of how they see the world quite differently from their anachronistic grandparents (and in some cases, equally anachronistic parents.) All four books are wonderful.

I don’t much listen to audiobooks, but when my children were little we enjoyed them in the car - Roald Dahl
 (The Witches, The BFG) was a favourite. If I go anywhere I like to take a book that relates to the place - though I read my first Maeve Binchy in the Pyrenees! The last time we went on a narrowboat we were going through the Potteries area of the Midlands - I had picked up a Joanna Trollope novel from my shelves at the last minute, had no idea what it was about - and it turned out to be set in that very area, following the fortunes of a family not a million miles away from Emma Bridgewater’s (she’s a very fashionable potter in England, renovated one of the very run-down potteries in Stoke, makes very recognisable tableware with coloured spots on it).  Unfortunately the book was terrible!  I think Joanna Trollope was very good at first but has gone downhill - I loved The Choir, The Rector’s Wife and A Village Affair, but the last few have been poor. 

Rosemary

[PatH]

Audiobooks wouldn't work for me for the transportation part of a trip.  Something would distract me for a moment, and I'd miss a few words, and not be able to backtrack and reread.  Something light like a mystery is good.  Decades ago, when Dick Francis was writing mysteries, I would pick up the latest one in the airport, and it would usually last a cross country trip.  They always seemed to have one I hadn't read.  I would take several books for my destination, maybe one of them serious or demanding, and a book of puzzles.  On one of my last trips, it was an action thriller written by a Native American in which the Navaho nation is a main survivor in a post-apocalyptic world (Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse), SPQR, by Mary Beard, and a book of Super Samurai Sudoku.  A weird mix.

[PatH]

Ginny, if you actually get hooked by A Dance to the Music of Time, I'll reread along with you so we can trade comments--Not a discussion, jus a chance for an occasional conversation.

[rosemarykaye]

It’s very quiet around here - I hope everyone is OK?

I am in Edinburgh for the week and in between the hairdresser’s, the dentist’s, and my mother’s medical appointments, I have really enjoyed getting back into some of the city’s charity shops, which I have not been able to trawl for months. They have all been inundated with donations from people who spent the lockdown clearing out their cupboards and bookshelves, so there are masses of ‘new’ novels to hunt through. I have already bought at least 15 books, including a PD James, an Edmund Crispin, an Ann Cleeves and an Ian Rankin. Also a novel by Lillian Beckwith, who is better known for the books she wrote about life on the islands of Skye and then Soay, to which she moved in the 1940s - her most famous one is probably The Hills is Lonely.

I am ‘quarantining’ all of the books in my daughter’s bedroom, which gets the full sun and is like an oven sometimes (though our temperatures have really dropped now and at the moment it is 46F outside at 6pm). Needless to say I also managed to buy at least 2 books I then found I already had - I really must get down to cataloguing my shelves. But I don’t mind too much as it is all for charity and I will just give them back to another charity shop next time I pass one.

I am reading an old Virago crime book - Virago (feminist publisher, London-based) had a spate of putting these out in the 80s and early 90s, which is I think when they first published Amanda Cross/Carolyn Heilbrun’s Kate Fansler mysteries. The one I am reading is by an author new to me, Ellen Godfrey. It is called Georgia Disappeared and is about the female head of a software development team in Toronto. The team is on the brink of launching a brilliant new programme when Georgia disappears from a party.  Her friend Jane investigates - is this industrial espionage, martial strife, or something else? The plot is good and some of the characters are engaging, but unfortunately Jane herself is extremely tedious - always whinging on about her personal problems, her ex-husband, her new partner’s jealousy, and saying ‘I just don’t understand’ or ‘I just don’t understand what you are trying to tell me’ every 5 minutes. Apart from that she has no real personality at all. However, I do want to know what happened to the allegedly saintly Georgia, so I will carry on.

Last night we started watching the second series of Line of Duty. I had watched the first three episodes just before lockdown, then in the moving myself up to Deeside I completely lost track, so we started from the beginning again. Jed Mercurio (writer) is brilliant, the second series certainly isn’t a disappointment. He makes you work so hard to see what’s happening, the clues are so subtle and the plots so complicated - I love Rebus and Vera, but Mercurio makes them look quite pedestrian at times.

I’ve also been watching the TV adaptation of JK Rowling’s detective novel The Cuckoo’s Calling (she writes these under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith). It came out quite a while ago but I had not caught up with it till now, and I am enjoying it a lot - though my daughter says it is predictable and old-fashioned, so there you go!

What’s everyone else up to?

Rosemary

[PatH]

Hi, Rosemary.  I'm OK for one, just tied up and cross with the need to replace my furnace--particularly unwelcome since I'm trying to relocate to the west coast as soon as this virus will let me.  And Frybabe posted this morning in Science Fiction.  This may be one of Ginny's really busy Latin days.  So that's three of us.  Hi, everyone, are you OK?

[PatH]

I recently read Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile, an account of Churchill's first year as prime minister.  It's not meant to be complete history or biography, it's an account of what it was like for Churchill and those surrounding him--the awful bombing, with the inside knowledge that it was going to get worse, and the responsibility for deciding how to run the defense, along with family dramas and social life.  It's sort of deluxe blitz, since many of them could get away to safer quarters on weekends, and no one had to shelter in crowded underground stations, but the magnitude of the destruction is quite clear.

I thought it might be good for a discussion, since Larsen tells a story well, and we've successfully discussed several of his books, but it's too much a big bundle of little bits to make for a coherent discussion.  It's good reading, though.

[nlhome]

I'm fine. We've had such great weather, sunny and mostly in the 70's and close to 80 since Saturday, that we've been outside as much as possible. The tomatoes are still overproducing, along with peppers, and my husband has had me go out with him to search for wild mushrooms. We've had friends over, to sit on the deck at a proper distance and have wine or tea, and have joined neighbors on their patio for coffee. Housework can wait. Reading also.

 I have been listening to an audiobook, A Cruel Deception by Charles Todd. I had some stuff done with my eyes, so had to listen rather than read for a bit. I do have a number of other books, and of course I have a list of books from the discussion here. I do like Larsen, so I will also look for that.

[ginny]

I'm fine, too, but my goodness talk about busier than a one armed paper hanger! Wednesdays all day with zoom classes, Monday and Thursday with our classes and now the grape harvest. But it's RAINING on my day off! YAY! So I have the time.

So good to hear from you, Rosemary, on your trip,  you sound busy and happy and finding great treasures! 15 new books and the Saintly  Georgia missing. hahahaa It's good to hear from you again. So are you finding everybody in Edinburgh taking precautions? I thought I read somewhere they were contemplating another shut down? It IS good to get out somewhat, isn't it? A change of scene!

Nlhome, it's been beautiful here, too, just glorious weather. I can't say how much I am truly enjoying my little garden. Really you all would laugh at me as it's so small, but there is always something blooming as I've shoved entirely too much stuff into it. As a consequence now the dahlias have started. They are at least 6 inches across! I rescued them from a half price bin at WalMart back in the spring,  and didn't expect to see anything.  The roses never stopped, I was delighted to learn, if you have a lot of different varieties, one takes over when the other rests. The hollyhocks which I bought and took such care of seem stunted and not happy while the one pitiful hollyhock  sprout I put in with the roses, etc. as there was no place for it has totally  taken OVER its little part of the garden, the leaves are as big as 12 inch plates  and it's sprawling everywhere. I love exuberance in flowers.  So I guess we can look forward to a display next year. I am quite surprised how much   pleasure I am getting from it. And of course my husband's tomatoes, growing in giant  pots on the terrace are about 8 feet tall and have now arched as they always do over the garden, a cascade of green  tomatoes here in the fall. It's been very satisfying. Now I only have 3 other beds to hope to get to in the spring in the short time we have then before it turns 90 degrees. It looks as if we'll be doing this for some time.

I haven't read A THING that's not concerned with the courses, which of course is very enriching reading, but there's no pleasure reading at all going on.

Pat, I would LOVE to do that! What a cool  suggestion. Once the grapes are over and I actually have a day to do nothing (or I will take some time to do nothing) I look forward to starting it, it seems just what the doctor ordered. It's so calming to read, and relaxing, isn't it, you just shut out all the noise and drama of the real world.

Frybabe, I have never known anybody who reads as much as you do and such varied subjects!!! I think you and Rosemary win the prize for the most prolific readers. Since you are rereading Circe, why would you recommend it to somebody else? What seems to be the main theme? What brought  you back to reading it again?

Let's try one of the new categories:

How about #6? Literary Character You Want to Have Dinner With:

I love those questions about name three people living or dead you'd like to host at a dinner party. My list keeps changing. But THIS one is  Literary Characters!

A literary character you want to have dinner with. Just the idea conjures up Shakespeare's  Richard III, shaking off the dust of his battlefield and staring around himself in wonder at 2020. But Richard III was real, so he doesn't count.

One of the characters in Brideshead? Maybe not the way they ended up. Mr. Biswas? He'd have to be on the short list. Let's make a short list first. A House for Mr. Biswas, he'd have to be up there.

Remains of the Day? Stevens?  The Butler? Also on the Short List.

Aloysius Pendergast? Of the Relic books? Also on the list. I'd like to see that pale phenom.

Miss Marple! I notice I have no women here, so she's the most memorable one I've read of in fiction lately and I'd love to meet her.

Tom Ripley, but I doubt I'd survive the meeting, in his chateau in France.

Wouldn't that make a guest list, though? Can you see them all assembling? But who gets the seat of honor, the only one who actually gets to come?

If I have to say I'd say Miss Marple!!!!!!! Joan HIckson's Miss Marple. With that flash of steel under that sweet little old lady guise.

Who is on your short list and who won the one seat at your table?

Love it!

[Frybabe]

Good morning everyone!

Yes, I've been confining my SciFi reading comments to the Science Fiction and Fantasy discussion so as not to bore you all who are not into it.

Having finished listening to the first set in the Elan universe created by Michael J. Sullivan, but before I go on to the next set, I am listening to a BBC Production of about seven of Terry Prachett's Discworld novels as well as continuing my slog through the Silk Roads audiobook, already mentioned. Slogging is about right. While the information is interesting, it is dense with information. I had to backtrack several chapters after discovering I don't remember listening to them (a combo of falling asleep on it and not paying particularly close attention).

I am a little over half way MIck Herron's London Rules.  There are two more books and a novella before I am caught up. I expect to continue with the series although I am getting a bit tired or bored with the inane situations the characters end up in or self-inflict on themselves. Herron's portrayal of Jackson Lamb is a bit over-the-top I think. Talk about toxic environment, he creates it in spades. Lamb really goes beyond "tough love" in managing his misfit, psychologically damaged, and struggling with various addictions, subordinates into, to my mind, mental abuse.

After that I have Ken Liu's epic fantasy, the first of The Dandelion Dynasty series, The Grace of Kings to read.

I have a translation of The Water Margin started in a podcast, so I probably should actually be reading along, but  since The Dandelion Dynasty dropped into my que, I am putting it off - again.

Ginny, Circe is a retelling of her story from her point of view. The audio book is superbly read by Perdita Weeks, who brings seductive, sultry Circe to life. It really stirred my emotions and created in me a sort of sympathy for Circe confined to her island exile.

I'll have to think about who I would like to have dinner with. There are so many interesting characters. Shared interests are likely to play a part in my decision. Some of the characters I read are book readers, others are interested in history, food and growing it, and so on.

[PatH]

In the Classics forum, Latin student Kreg is asking for help translating a very short Latin poem.

Is anyone interested?

[Frybabe]

It is a bit quiet in here the last few days.
 
I gave up quite quickly on The Grace of Kings. Well written, but it just didn't catch my attention and imagination. Maybe I will try again later.

I started two audio book borrows. The first is Medieval Europe by by Chris Wickham. The other is The Poetic Edda: Stories of the Norse Gods and Heroes. by Jackson Crawford. The latter I started last night fairly late and managed to fall asleep on it.

My dinner choice would likely be from the Liaden Universe. It would not be one character, but pairs: Val Con yos'Phellium and his lifemate, Miri Robertson. Dav Yos'Phellium (and his kind-of deceased lifemate Aelliana Caylon), or Shan yos'Galan and his lifemate, Priscilla Delacroix y Mendoza. They are all characters of some depth who are well read, up on the political and social attitudes of the times, and have varied and interesting hobbies and jobs. I don't know how I could possibly hold up my end of the conversation except where gardening is concerened and maybe, some general business practices and trends are concerned or if the characters have an interest in the paper print/publishing industry.

[rosemarykaye]

Hi All

I am just back from Edinburgh, where I had every intention of keeping up with everything, and of course singularly failed so to do.  I have got to the point where I find the city, and working while in it, impossible. Never was I so glad to come up the road to Aberdeenshire last night! 

While there I did finish Georgia Disappeared (I think I mentioned it earlier) but it did not improve. I wonder why Virago published some of those female crime writers - as you all know, I love Amanda Cross, but some of the others are distinctly poor. Maybe they just wanted to show that women could write crime (this was, after all, the 1980s) but now, of course, there are numerous excellent female crime writers, and compared to them some of these Virago ones fail miserably. I discovered, while in Edinburgh, that I have the first of Ellen Godfrey’s books (Georgia Disappeared was the second) and I have a horrible feeling I won’t be able to stop myself reading it, just to see - and then I’ll wonder why I wasted my time.

So now I am reading Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, which had been on my shelves for aeons. I imagine I expected it to be hard work, but so far it is very easy to read, short chapters and quite good fun. Has anyone else read it?

I brought back two huge bags of books (mainly ones I already owned, some new ones) and m husband s currelty shouting from downstairs ‘WHERE are these books to go?’ - the answer is on the spare bed, as we need to buy some new bookcases for this house, but this is a moot point....

We finished watching the second series of Line of Duty, which was fantastic. I thought the first series was excellent but the second was way better even than that. My daughter informs me that series 3 is even better, but I think I need a little rest in between them, it is demanding and exhausting viewing!  We spent most of the 3 hours drive last night discussing plot points and trying to work things out, which I think shows just how clever Jed Mercurio is. And the acting is superb - in fact I’d be content to let all the complicated bits wash over me and just enjoy the acting, but my husband likes to analyse it all (he’s an engineer, he can’t help it...)

There is a new updated version of All Creatures Great and Small on TV. I haven’t watched it yet and I wondered if it would be a poor version of the hugely popular original, but my mother says it is brilliant, so I will give it a try. Diana Rigg, who died very recently, plays the rich owner of the very spoilt Pekingese Tricky-Woo. It is so sad that she died, she was a brilliant actress and a strong, independent woman who argued for equal pay as long ago as the 1960s when she played Emma Peel in The Avengers. She recently said in an interview that she was sorry to see that the fight was still going on at the BBC (who have been paying many female presenters less than their male counterparts.)

Hope everyone is well,

Rosemary

The weather has changed so much since we were here 10 days ago. It’s wet and dreich today, but the trees are starting to look spectacular. I think I will go down to the river, I have missed it so much - though I don’t think I’ll be able to sit and read down there today.

[PatH]

Rosemary, I read Around the World in 80 Days, but it was many decades ago.  I enjoyed it, and suspect I would enjoy rereading it.  It keeps on in the same tone--fun not work.  Are you aware that after the book came out, an American female investigative journalist, pen name Nelly Bly, tried duplicating the trick and made it in 72 days?  She was also known for writing an expose of the awful conditions in mental hospitals, having gotten her facts by getting herself admitted as a patient.

Too bad about Diana Rigg.  I agree--brilliant actress.

[PatH]

Dinner with a character from a book:

Frybabe:

I don't know how I could possibly hold up my end of the conversation....

Maybe that's why I couldn't decide on a literary dinner companion--I wouldn't be able to hold my own. I like your choices though.  It's hard to pick from those three appealing couples, but I'd love to see Miri, the tiny soldier-hero, who can strike terror in the hearts of her bodyguards and her husband, so I'd go for Val Con and Miri.

Writers are a different matter.  When we discussed The Jane Austen Book Club, the author, Karen Joy Fowler, joined in from time to time.  Then, she happened to be in DC for a book signing at that time, and suggested meeting some of us for tea near the bookstore involved. JoanP, Deems, and her daughter deems 2, and I met her.  She was delightful: humorous and outgoing, very welcoming.

Since I've already met her, I'll pick Stanley Lombardo, translator of Homer and many other classics.  He peeked in occasionally when we were discussing The Iliad with some rather interesting comments, and I'd like to hear more.  I like his translations too--an approach which respects the spirit of the original, and has a lot of guts to it.

[Frybabe]

Oh, dinner with authors!

Right off the bat I would have to say Adrian Goldsworthy, historian specializing in Roman military history. He has since branched out a little, and even began writing an historical novel series set in Roman Britain. It certainly does not hurt that he is Welsh.

Next,  John G. Hemry (aka: Jack Campbell).  He lives nearby (in Maryland). He grew up a Navy brat and followed his father into a Naval career. He brings his Naval experience into his Lost Fleet series of science fiction books of which I am a huge fan. BTW, PatH, if I haven't mentioned it, he is writing another trilogy in the Lost Fleet universe titled Outlands. The first will be released sometime in 2021. I am already on the pre-order list.

Other dinner candidates are Hugh Howey, Elizabeth Moon, and Mary Beard. If we are including deceased authors I would have to add Peter Matthiessen (naturalist, wilderness writer, novelist), Richard Henry Dana, Jr.  (writer, lawyer who specialized in Maritime law and defending fugitive slaves), and the Austen sisters  who ought to be fun.

 

[ginny]

OH boy, authors!

Julius Caesar and Mary Beard. Together.... I'd like to see if the new wave of Caesar appreciation would change her mind.

A threesome: Julius Caesar, Mary Beard and Adrian Goldsworthy, together.

Possible additions, B.L. Ullman and B.R Reece.

Additional seat at the table: Pompey. Whoops, Pompey didn't write anything!

Boy would I be outclassed but I would love it.

[rosemarykaye]

Thanks Pat, I had not heard about Nelly Bly, how interesting.

I am fascinated by Phileas Fogg's attitude to his travels - all he wants to do is get round the world and back again in the time allotted, he has absolutely no interest in seeing the countries he passes through or learning anything about their people and customs. I am ashamed to admit that I am sometimes like that. I don't often enjoy travelling and even when everything is going well I find myself counting down the days till I'm back home. I love reading about other countries though.

Many of the books I brought back up from Edinburgh are either about Scotland, set in Scotland or by Scottish authors, I wonder if it's the never-ending mess that's being created by the English government that is making me so keen to identify with this country and this country only? But no politics here, I promise!

Ginny, I found people's behaviour in Edinburgh very taxing. Social distancing is widely ignored, masks appear to be optional in shops (they are in fact a legal requirement, but there are a few exemptions and people don't have to prove that they come within one of these - I really do doubt that the number of maskless people we saw in supermarkets can all have some disability that allows them not to use one.)  My dentist said he felt it had become much worse in the past 2-3 weeks, he wasn't sure why. Although by far the highest number of cases in Scotland is in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, the Lothians (in which Edinburgh is the largest centre of population) is not doing brilliantly. Today I went to the supermarket and a hardware store here and really noticed how much more compliant the people of Aberdeenshire are being. 100% mask use, people keeping their distance even if - heaven forbid! - this meant waiting 30 seconds to look at a particular shelf. I know it is easier here because, being in a largely agricultural area, we have more space, but it's not just that. The pace of life here is slower. The old farming community is, on the whole, more respectful. And Grampian (which covers Aberdeenshire, Moray and the Mearns) has one of the lowest rates of infection in Scotland - I think only Orkney had a lower one last time I looked.

I'm not sure I'd want to have dinner with any fictional character - what would one say to them?!  But if pushed I might choose Belinda in Some Tame Gazelle (Barbara Pym), Margaret in The Village (Marghanita Laski) or Shona in Miss Blaine's Prefect and the Vampire Menace (Olga Wotjas). I'd choose Belinda and Margaret because they are both such kind, gentle souls, and Shona because she is so feisty, funny, and always up for anything.

As for authors, I think that might be even harder. I imagine that liking someone's books wouldn't necessarily make them a good dinner guest - I love Barbara Pym's novels, but she was known to be very shy, a bit disdainful, and very difficult to talk to unless she knew you well. Her lifelong friend and literary executor Hazel Holt would have been more fun. I'm not mad on Val McDermid's crime novels, but I've heard her speak at several events and I am almost sure she'd be brilliant - she's very chatty, very funny, and extremely empathetic. She's also very Scottish and very pro-independence, so I think we'd get on!  I also heard Alastair McIntosh speak a few years ago - he is a Quaker and peace activist who comes originally from Lewis in the Western Isles. I was very impressed with him, and he also seemed kind and easy to talk to. He had a good sense of humour too, and some great little stories about the people he met when he undertook a walk from the tip of Lewis to the tip of Harris.

Rosemary

[Dana]

Dinner with a writer....Sigmund Freud, he wins hands down for me.

[Tomereader1]

rosemarykaye, I've seen you mention in many of your posts "Lothian" and it dawned on me that here in Texas, we have a town called Midlothian.  It is about 25 miles Southeast of Dallas, and is a hub for the production of concrete. It acquired its name in roughly 1883 when a homesick, Scottish train engineer stated that the local countryside reminded him of his homeland in Scotland.  The residents accepted that name, and so we have here a "Midlothian".
Just a bit of Texas lore!  We have so many funny and weird city/town names, i.e. Bug Tussle and Lickskillet. 
Now we can all go back to discussing "Dinner With..."

[rosemarykaye]

How fascinating Tomereader - and what an interesting story behind it. The US certainly does have some weird place names!

The Lothians is a blanket term for East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian, which are all separate local authorities. Edinburgh technically falls under Midlothian. East Lothian is the area between Edinburgh and Dunbar, the western part of it, nearest the city, is old mining towns and quite run down, though it’s getting better and there is a lot of new housing. The eastern part is very smart - places like North Berwick, Aberlady and Gullane are all on the coast and very ‘desirable’; many people retire there from Edinburgh, and it’s also very popular with ‘yummy mummies’ - young and reasonably affluent families who move there for the rather manicured countryside, the good state schools, nice cafe culture, etc.

West Lothian has some nice countryside on its periphery but the main towns are pretty grotty (Bathgate, Livingston) - the one nice one is Linlithgow, which is pretty, has the beautiful old palace and loch, and is almost as desirable as E Lothian, with good schools and good transport links into the city.

Sorry, too much geography there!  I don’t know how the Lothians originally got their name. Must find out!

Rosemary

[Frybabe]

Great addition, Ginny! For some reason I didn't think of Julius Caesar. I would have to add the Plinys, both Elder and Younger.

Audible has opened up a whole new (9,000, so they say) section for Premium members. Free podcast listens. Only not all of them are podcasts; many are books. So, this is me like the kid I used to be in a candy shop. I am currently listening to The Poetic Edda, translated and narrated by Jackson Crawford, mentioned in a previous post. The aforementioned Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham is also there. I may just add that one to my permanent collection. I also downloaded Jackson's The Saga of the Volsungs: With the Saga of Ragnar Lothbrok, The Story of the Volsungs: The Volsunga Saga by Anonymous, and Caesar's Legion: The Epic Saga of Julius Caesar's Elite Tenth Legion and the Armies of Rome.

I watched an interesting program on YouTube, originally aired on the History Channel, called The Booksellers. It concentrated mostly on rare book selling. Near the end, several of the interviewed sellers/collectors expressed their fears over the demise of and appreciation of print books.

[rosemarykaye]

Excuse my ignorance, but was it one of the Plinys who witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius?

[Frybabe]

Sorry, missed you post, Rosemarye. I was amending my post. I'm not used to anyone on this early.

Anyway, to answer your question, Pliny the Younger witnessed the eruption from across the bay. His uncle died during the eruption.

[rosemarykaye]

Thank you Frybabe!

It’s already after 2pm here & I’m about to walk along the beach. Huge waves coming in, beautiful day, taking binoculars & hoping to see a variety of birds on the Don estuary.

[ginny]

Rosemary is back! YAY!

Talking about birds, We have a real (two of them actually) red headed (that is not my photo) woodpecker!

They have been making very strange sounds, unlike our other woodpeckers and  yesterday as I talked with my oldest son distancing in the front yard, he spotted them.  I once drove to Atlanta GA to the zoo there just to see one, but theirs was this red cockaded one or something which was apparently extremely rare. Anyway, we have two solid red headed ones and boy are they busy and strange sounding.

Plant wise we're beginning to see the end, i guess, the nights are getting colder and the flowers are adjusting accordingly, but there are still some things blooming.  You might remember  my first  photo of the impatiens? Well it's getting colder now at night and it's starting to fade, but before the colors totally fade, look what it turned into at the end?

I also have dahlias blooming in my little old lady tiny garden!!! They are cascading over the brick wall, knocking over the vinca, I had no earthly idea they looked like that. I bought the tiny little desiccated tubers in a  WalMart throw out bin  and put them in the rose garden and two of them came up, and it's been a revelation, the flowers are gorgeous and huge and totally unexpected, I thought dalhias were things like zinnias, these things are gigantic and there are 12 per stem coming on, it's like an armful of bouquet to pick up one. Unfortunately they look like nothing but weeds in photos,  (and probably in real life to anybody but me). I have read you are to stake them. I truly am enjoying them. You can't see the red roses which are above them, fighting with the literal cascade of tomatoes which is over the garden like a waterfall. Good thing I like exuberance in plants. hahahaha It truly has had something blooming every day all summer, though. When one thing stops the other starts. I have SO enjoyed it.

Frybabe, yes Caesar himself, why ever not? And if you get him first, invite me? hahaha I'm kind of hung up on Rex Harrison's  portrayal of him in  Cleopatra, so I think he'd be urbane, witty (both of which he was known for), and fascinating. And the Plinys, of course, good choice on  your part, too. Pat, I loved your probably not knowing what to say,  i would in real life be like that too. hahaa

Dana would have Freud. I would be totally intimidated to open my mouth to him, but maybe if I did I could exorcise some long held demons. ahahaha

I haven't read Jules Verne, but I've heard he's really good. Maybe invite HIM?

Rosemary, I think I must leave Barbara Pym off the list, after your description, but I would like to have Hazel Holt.

Or maybe Laurence of Arabia, I bet he would be interesting.

Maybe the author of Down the Nile, I bet SHE would be interesting.
Nobody has named an actor/ author?  Maybe David Niven whom I hear was as witty in person as he was in books and  film, and he did write.


Let's move to the next category: (and I have just  put more up in the heading)


7.  Favorite Book to Give as a Gift:

[rosemarykaye]

Great photos Ginny!

We had a woodpecker on the feeders just once this summer - needless to say I can't remember which type, though I did look it up at the time.

Your flowers are magnificent! Winter is very much coming on here, and since last night the rain has been non-stop. The burn at the end of the garden has turned into a raging torrent, and when I went down to the river this morning the sum total of other living things I saw were (i) an elderly man with an elderly and extremely reluctant corgi (ii) a jogger (iii) two cyclists and (iv) a group of intrepid ducks who were being swept this way and that as the Dee rushed towards the sea - by our standards it's a wide river; yesterday it looked benign but today quite the opposite. I rushed out first thing this morning and hid my pots inside the greenhouse again, where they are still taking refuge from the deluge. Many of my plants have now 'gone over', but a few pansies and geraniums are still soldiering on. It's currently 53F here.

As for an actor/author, I might ask Alec Guinness. I enjoyed his various books of autobiography, and as an actor he was superb - I loved him in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Favourite book to give as a gift? That's a tricky one as I hate pressing books onto people who might not want them, I feel it's a bit presumptuous at times. One book I have given more than once though is The Assassin's Cloak, which I know I've mentioned before. It's a collection of extracts from people's diaries and journals, arranged according to each day of the year - and indeed it's how I discovered both James Lees-Milne and Joan Wyndham. The people I have given it to do seem to have enjoyed it. And for friends whose tastes I know, I do sometimes choose the first Cazalet book (Elizabeth Jane Howard), but I do think I would need to know the recipient well. I sometimes think my tastes are well out of kilter with most people's - or at least those of most people I know!

I've just been doing Six Degrees of Separation, the monthly book challenge in which we all start with the same book title then link it to five more - each one just has to link to the next one in the chain. The starter this month was The Turn of the Screw - it's always so interesting to see where people go with these things.

Rosemary

[Frybabe]

I love seeing your posies, Ginny.

I thought about T. E. Lawrence, but then thought maybe not. Lawrence was a very private man so I doubt you could get him to talk much about himself. He would, however, likely be a good source of discussion about the Middle East, how it was in his day and how it is now. He was very much against breaking up the territory along the lines that the politicians did, thus tearing apart traditional tribal territories. I read quite a while back that we have the US to blame for much of that fiasco; the other countries involved caving in to US pressure against other plans. It might be worth revisiting. I don't know a whole lot about the political side of all that.

Oh, and that brings to mind Benjamin Disraeli. Not only did he hold office as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, but he was also a novelist. I haven't read any of his works, yet. His thoughts and actions regarding the "Eastern Question" would be quite interesting. He was a key player in the purchase of the Suez Canal, and as the Ottoman Empire began to crumble, he worked to obtain peace in the Balkans at a considerable advantage to Britain over Russia. This would be part of the political backdrop to "The Great Game" era in Eastern Europe and the Near East.

As for book giving, my favorites when I was much younger were Apples of Gold and Leaves of Silver. Both were slim volumes published by The G. R. Gibson Company (of card-maker fame). They are slim volumes of inspirational poems and sayings, none of which have author's names attached. I now only have the volume ofApple of Gold that I had given Mom which contains her markings. I used to have another, but must have given it away after adding Mom's book to my bookshelf. The last Leaves of Silver I had, I gave as a gift with a mind to replace it. Unfortunately, the gift shop where I bought them all stopped selling them. I was still a teen at the time and didn't realize that I could probably have asked the proprietor to order me another.

I rarely gave any books as gifts since, and those were tailored to the individual's interests. The two I remember buying for gifts are James Michener's Iberia, which never made it to the intended because of a falling out, and a vampire novel to my sister who, as far as I know, never got around to reading it even though she was an avid vampire story fan at the time.

[ginny]

Thank you  both. They really do give such pleasure. New photos, taken this morning, I PROMISE I won't put any more!  It IS hard to try to think of something to give others, isn't it? Never seems to work well with me, I have such odd taste apparently. Reading is such an individual thing, too, isn't it? Then when you get a gift book, there's the awkward thing of having to read it as it was given with love and consideration and you feel guilty if you just can't read it, don't like it, or have to slog. One book I HAVE had success with is Caesar's Invasion of Britain, it's gone over a treat with classes who are tired of slogging through another text, and can lead to a lifetime of enjoyment, so it's way up there on my list. I used to love to give The Christmas Crimes at Puzzel (spelling intended) Manor, by Simon Brett, but since the author does not answer his last puzzle, it annoys some people fiercely. And then again there are a million people out there spouting spoilers and being dismissive of the last one,  which is also irritating.  Yeah sure it's nothing to YOU, Genius. (hahaha)  Better not to go there at all, but it's such fun to read it with somebody else, perhaps somebody who has a sense of fun and  is not intimidated by  cleverness.....maybe a chapter a week and laugh over whether or not  you "got it." There's a puzzle a chapter which he solves in the next one but it's just FUN, which is the point. Other than those two I would fear to give anybody anything other than a book gift card. I must once again, at the mention of geraniums, put in this photo of an old variety of geranium which I have not seen for years, which I discovered right in the heat of the first waves of the pandemic. This particular flower form I have tried to keep alive in the house for years but it was straggling. This summer I just bit the bullet and cut up the stems and re potted the whole and I have one flower to show for  it  now on the porch after 7 months (it really was in bad shape), but a healthy plant for the future. But in looking for the hollyhocks I spotted these in a nursery in Greenville, SC, and nearly fell over. This particular form and color, their non trailing habit,  that ball like appearance (when not  in decline as these are, the flowers make a  perfect ball a good 4-5 inches in diameter, as they start to fade as these are doing, the balls flatten out and look like any other non trailing geranium) and they hold,  and the tremendous continuous  production of flowers shown here  on the porch yesterday in the sun just now: made me get out of the car, and go purchase  two of them. Then  wouldn't you know it, I had to go INSIDE the small store and stand in , dancing about anxiously, a long line,  before social distancing to pay for them, mask and all. A question of membership, did I have a membership? Er...no matter. But did you get the newsletter? Yes. Let's try another name, perhaps? Dance dance, it's a pandemic and so on.  And then there was a problem with the cash register or something.  It  truly has been YEARS since we had them in this area, they may be common everywhere else, you can see some at WalMart but not this color, shape, or prolific bloom cycles. You can't kill a geranium, but you can influence how it displays, I found out, lesson learned. PS I just saw something that looks just like them in a new Burpee's catalog and Thompson and Morgan have one called Best Red F1, so apparently they are back with a vengeance. They used to be very common. I might get some seed  just for when they disappear again.

[ginny]

 Rant removed. hahahaa Really, are we more prone to take offense due to  Covid do you think?

[ginny]

What interesting titles you've listed!   Readers are all so different, aren't they? I think one would get as much pleasure with a gift card if the person who got it would tell you later what they read as a consequence. I am willing to bet 9/10 times it would be a book, in my case, which I never heard of. And would never have chosen.

In reading back over the posts here I have seen some references to audio books and I wonder if we could skip for a minute a couple of categories and go to this one, because this type of thing really affects me , and since many of you listen to more audio books than I do, I am interested in your responses:

10. An audio book you listened to just because you like the narrator:
An audio book you can't listen to because you don't like the narrator:

I have been really surprised how much the narrator matters to me  in some audio books and I wonder if any of you feel the same?

[Frybabe]

Oh, the first part is easy, Ginny.

Tim Gerard Reynolds is the narrator that got me hooked on Michael J. Sullivan's fantasy series set in the Elan Universe. Reynolds is exceptional at using many voices and actually keeping them straight.

R. C. Bray, just about anything he narrates.

Ray Porter and Grover Gardner are also favorites, as is Derek Perkins who narrates a number of my non-fiction history listens.

As for narrators I don't care for, I couldn't point to anyone specifically. I do not generally care for women narrators for some reason. Exceptions include Kate Mulgrew and Perdita Weeks who has only done a few including Circe and two of Philippa Gregory's books. Female narrators often read books I am not interested in such as romances and a number of mystery books, so it is probably not fair to say I don't like female narrators so much as the books they read. This does not include women in ensemble casts where they are generally used to reading for radio plays and such. They all do well in that venue. 

[PatH]

The Nobel Prize in literature is supposed to be announced Thursday.  Does anyone care to speculate on who might get it?

[Frybabe]

Gosh, I have no clue, Pat. I've seen a short-list or two of possibles, but for the most part it appears to be wide open speculation. Almost none of those listed as most likely or not so likely are known to me.

I am very much surprised that Roger Penrose, now 89, has not won a Nobel Prize until now. In fact, I thought he already had in the distant past, but it must have been one of the other of his numerous prizes and awards he has received.

One of these days I am going to take a look at what the committee looks for in Nobel Prize worthy literature.

[ginny]

Took me a while to find the short list:

Jamaica Kincaid and Anne Carson have been tipped as possible winners of this week’s Nobel prize for literature, with the secretive jury expected to play it safe in the wake of three years of controversy.

The Nobel, which sees itself as the world’s pre-eminent literary award, will be awarded on Thursday afternoon. Names tipped at the bookies include Maryse Condé – the Guadeloupean novelist who won an “alternative” Nobel in 2018 – Russian novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Japanese bestseller Haruki Murakami, Canadian author Margaret Atwood and perennial contender Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan novelist, poet and playwright. Observers have also speculated that the jury could be looking closely at the work of Antiguan-American writer Kincaid and Canadian poet Carson.