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.

[ginny]

That really sounds good, Tome! I think I'd like to read that one, too. Thank you for bringing it here.

Barbara, that sounds exhausting, it's no wonder you slept that long.  We'll be quite excited to hear about your new digs.

 Frybabe, how does Adrian Goldsworthy's fiction seem in comparison to his historical accounts? He certainly knows the background of what he's writing about, is it good?

I'm finding i know almost nothing about a huge chunk of the world, Ukraine included.

Last night I watched a 2010 production of The Mystery of Agatha Christie which David Suchet (Poirot) filmed for PBS which was on the occasion of the discovery of her notes two years before when her house was being repaired by the National Trust. It's fascinating, it really was. The artist who did her covers, one of her biggest fans, ...really well done.

Once when I was much younger some book club made an offering of all her books, similarly bound, and I did it, monthly. They are not in leather but something black, I guess they are respectfully bound, but not show stopping, but I have them all, including the Westmacotts, which this program says are her true identity poking out. I've read them all, but don't remember them all, maybe it's time to revisit some of them.  The program also says Miss Marple is based upon her grandmother and showed her...it's really well done.  It's the simplicity with which she writes. Other than the  Bible, and Shakespeare, she is the third most read author (and I bet Julius Caesar is there somewhere too but he had a head start on her and wrote less.) 

Still reading the Palace Papers. Tina Brown is a very good author, so you enjoy it no matter what it's actually saying. I may have to read more than one of hers, too. Lots of insights on Camilla and Charles.

Just about finished with Jurassic Park; so enjoyed it, very re-readable, and today comes a huge new bit of news about why the T Rex has such small limbs in the front, AND news of a new flying dinosaur as big as a bus, which Crichton is also writing about in that very book.

 Everything old is new again. 

VERY interesting! It's very idyllic, that afternoon read. I must keep it up, somehow, during the year, very calming.

[Frybabe]

Ginny, his novels set by Hadrian's Wall were good and, yes, he incorporated the look and feel of the area very well. To get to see the videos of the excavations (estimated only 24% complete) and artifacts posted on YouTube, and Goldsworthy's own non-fiction book of the fort, made it all that more interesting.

This new set is being played out along the Danube in Dacia. I know very little about the people there or the Dacian Wars. I haven't gotten into The Fort that far yet, so I can't say anything about how well he did with incorporating the history of the area and changes to the military.

The whole area (from Ukraine to the Black Sea, north a bit I think, and south to Constantinople) was in such a turmoil of migrants, raiders, ethnicities, alliance changes, and territory shifts that it is hard to remember who is who, what and when exactly, and keep it all straight. I had the same trouble with reading about the first Bulgarian Empire which covered some of the same territory but at a later date than Dacia.

[ginny]

 Yes and then there's Parthia, a region I have never gotten straight. Dacia and Parthia, sort of worrisome blocks in the memory. It might be the emperors involved, and the various attempts to subdue them.  Supposedly Romania and Iran, or a great part of Iran, that's the problem, really, these are not just one country but a mismatch of countries, and that's one reason I can't get them straight. Not to mention Phrygia. Also not to mention there were several cities of the same name in antiquity, like Apamaea.  Anyway, if you're map challenged, like I am, you can't get a firm grip.

I finished Jurasssic Park and am making great headway with The Palace Papers, too.  I started Jaws and didn't like it much, too gory, so have put it aside for a  Simon Brett mystery from an old TBR stack  called Hanging at the Hotel which involves people staying at one of those stately manor hotels, in  which he says the guests are tourists  trying to recover a period that they've read about in Agatha Christie, etc., which no longer exists. I keep watching those  DIGI programs about the estates of the British trying to be saved by the heirs, and so it fits right in. I like Simon Brett, he's very very clever.

Instead of keeping Tome's journal, I've decided to put all the books I've read this summer on a special shelf right next to where I sit now,  so when I look at them I will remember this experience.

I did watch the House of Gucci movie,  but I'll talk about that in the Movies area.

[Frybabe]

Come to think of it, I saw a map of one of those contentious areas that had transparent overlays showing the territory changes over time. Now, I have no idea where I saw it. I thought it was pretty nifty.

My newest "couldn't pass it up" acquisition is Aethelflaed by Tim Clarkson who has a PhD in medieval history and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Once again, it will be a while till I get to reading it. I just can't quit buying books. Sigh!

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is hard to put down.

[PatH]

Frybabe and Ginny, I could sure use one of those layered maps in reading The Pursuit of Power.  Every time I blink, somebody gets, loses, or reshuffles some land.

Barb, I'm reading Evans, not McNeill.  Evans mentions McNeill in his copious prologue.  It must be irritating to have to use an already used title.

[BarbStAubrey]

That whole area of the world is still a mystery to me - not being thrilled by reading the ancients I've had little exposure and it sounds as if I'm being prejudice but simply saying the entire Muslim experience never really interested me nor the area of the world they controlled in eastern Europe or the near east but then I have a similar lack of interest in India or for the most part the continent of Africa - even ancient Egypt is a known but have never gotten into all the gods and history -

A way of looking at history that I really enjoyed was tracing the history of mostly design on cloth but also the making of cloth - except for dying the cloth most of the areas of the world that I have no interest in exploring did not do much to decorate their cloth except for the near east rug making and again, I have had more interest in wearable cloth and decorated cloth used in homes from early felting on to weaving and knitting and then, simple band decorating through stitching and cloth based lace which is different than making lace with bobbins - painting and printing designs on cloth is a very recent phenomena - looking at cloth you get into trade routes and how conflict both added and took from the making of cloth and how it was decorated. India comes into this be way of the English who sent their designs to be copied by villagers however, the designs took on a life of its own seen in the many shawls popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Packing up I only came across the books about cloth design including a book on Persian rug designs and the different areas of Iran, Iraq and nations like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. 

I too am buying more books even as I have been packing up - granted they are ebooks but based on your sharing frybabe and Joanne I purchased both your recommendations, Dear Edward and The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine Also Hamnet was only 2.99 so I added it along with a Tony Hillerman Hunting Badger: A Leaphorn and Chee Novel although I must say I prefer seeing the Hillerman stories in a movie format.

Ginny have you ever kept a reading diary - someone on this site years ago talked about their reading diary or maybe it was their father's and I thought what a neat idea but of course like so many ideas it never happened - keeping this summer's reads together on your shelf reminded me of how others keep track of what they read with a brief description of their experience. I remember visiting Carl Sandburg's house in Flat Rock and just about every book in his extensive library had papers poking out of them where he noted a passage in these books. Between he and his wife they seemed to live an interesting and full life - struck me was how every late afternoon they stopped for either a drink or tea while they listened to their record collection of music. Her and her sheep or was it goats and him and his reading and writing.

Ah Pat you posted while I was writing - ah so a 100 years rather than 1000 years - never thought of that time in history as defined by pursuing power by the powerful but thinking on it without even looking at the write up on the book I can see by more than nations.

[Dana]

So have to tell you all this, although I don't think we like the same books....by chance I came across Susie Steiner (read her obituary....what a lady...) and am reading "Missing Presumed" .....not to be missed.....she just gets inside a character's head and her writing is so descriptive i even enjoy when she does scenery....but she's very clever, very moving, boy she can write.

[ginny]

That looks good to me, Dana! I'll put it on my list! Goodness, bless her heart. So young to have to die.

Pat, I have heard about that!!! It looks good to me and I am interested in that period. I  hear it's very well written, are you enjoying it?

 I'm about, however, as map challenged as you can get.

Ginny have you ever kept a reading diary -  No I haven't, and I really don't know why. I guess I thought I'd remember them. Talking about India, etc., reminded me of some of the best books I've read. We read here  A House for Mr. Biswas, which I thought at the time was the best book I ever read.

At the moment am somewhat slogging through Jaws, I know I said I would not read it but it was there but  the editing that the Reader's Digest people have done has NOT done it justice. At all. But I've got two Michael Crichton's waiting, Prey,  and Sphere,  and just read about another one, Micro , so  I guess my foray into the Outer Limits  and escape may be satisfied by them, but Peter Benchley writes much better than what they've done to his  Jaws. Sorry to say.

That's made me think of some of my all time faves.

Right off the top of your heads, how about list 5  of your all time favorite books of Fiction.  ONLY 5. . And then ONE from your youth, formerly read, and remembered, not read in YEARS, you might hate it now.

 You are moving to a desert island and can have only 5 (or a tie) to take with you. It can't be the Bible, or Shakespeare which are already on the island.

I'd have to say A House for Mr. Biswas, Remains of the  Day, and a tie between  Sherlock Holmes, and Ethan Canin's short story The Palace Thief, (and last but not least and I haven't read IT in years either,   I'll leave off the yogurt in the suitcase for room,  because  I can't leave it behind):  Gentlemen and Players.

For the best book remembered from my youth, not read in years, I might well hate NOW: Arrowsmith.

Those are the ones I think of when I think of a really good read. What are yours?

Wait....I need to add Relic and Reliquary and one of the Ripley Books. Wait......

[BarbStAubrey]

Goodness gave this too much thought time - I'd have to fudge every which way from Sunday to make it 5 by having a printer combine books - at least by the same author - and then to replace the Bible with the two books that mean more to me - St. John of the Cross Ascent of Mt. Carmel including Dark Night of the Soul and the 52 sermons of Meister Eckhart

I just have to have Wind in the Willows but also the 4 additional Willow stories by Horwood that follow the original -  The Willows in Winter, The Willows and Beyond, The Willows at Christmas,Toad Triumphant - I'd just have to get a printer to put all 5 books and the illustrations into one book.

I would want his entire poetry collection including A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

I would want the entire collection of Mapp and Lucia series

Can't imagine not reading again Gone with the Wind - or Kafka on the Shore - or A Gentleman in Moscow especially needing to be bucked up handling circumstances beyond my control

And I would love to have access to Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series

And so without combining books to have these for years to re-read I am not going to this deserted Island - or course if this island has wifi or whatever the system is that connects me to the internet and to my kindle this becomes a moot issue... 

As to books read that I would be disappointed in today - probably the muckraking novels read in 7th and 8th grade like Sinclair's The Jungle... I know I would enjoy re-reading Heidi, one of my all time favorites along with Marco Polo - I never did like Black Beauty - maybe today I could stomach it but I sure couldn't as a kid and did not care for Robinson Caruso either.

It is fun to read about everyone's favorites - looks like Ginny you have to have some mysteries to read

[Frybabe]

Well, I can say truly that the book I read when I was young and liked then which I wouldn't like now is, believe it or not, Treasure Island. I suspect the version of my youth was a children's version. I did try to re-read it last year and gave up after a chapter or so.

The rest I am pondering. it is hard to condense down to five books, but Way Station by Clifford D. Simak is most definitely on the list. I've read it twice already and plan to read it again sometime before I croak. Just five books certainly rules out some of the series books I like so much.

Oh, my. I just found out that IMDBPro is or has made a TV series out of Hugh Howey's Beacon 23. I can just imagine how messed up that could get. The story is about a guy who appears to be suffering from PTSD. He signs on to become a beacon keeper so he can be by himself. Like the lighthouses of old, the Beacons are there to provide a warning to ships transiting in to stay away from an asteroid field. He has very little interaction with people except for the occasional courier/supply ship and brief conversations with the starliners passing by, and oh, a raiding party to deal with until the next beacon over changed station keepers. The new station keeper needed some help/advise. That started, first, series of radio conversations and then visits back and forth. The outcome resulted in bringing our guy out of his shell and begin to heal his mental anguish.  A little bit of a spoiler there. Anyway, Howey sold his house, packed up and went to South Africa where he had a catamaran build, began sailing the world's seas/oceans, all the while blogging and writing his nonfiction Wayfarer series. I am glad to see that he is back to writing novels. His latest looks like the starts of a new series called the Sand Chronicles which picks up sometime after his novel Sand. He also wrote a biography called Death and Life: A Biography. Well, now I have to play catch-up.

[Tomereader1]

Okay, Ginny, here goes (provided my memory will kick in!)
The Poisonwood Bible; The Madonnas of Leningrad (Debra Dean); The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak); Pompeii (Robert Harris); Isaac's Storm (Erik Larson)

These are just five from fairly modern fiction.  I could've added 15 or 20 more if I went back a bit, and forward a bit. Just thinking of the reading list from our f2f Book Club, OMG, I'd have to take 50 or 100 books to that desert island.

Reading as a kid, hmm.  Only thing I can think of "Where the Red Fern Grows".  You see, I didn't get to go to a library, other than the school one (blah) till I was nearly a grown-up.   My reading material was encyclopedias, Life Magazine (which Dad brought home) Also, the other big time magazine,  I can't think of the name. I did read a lot of dog stories.  Anthologies with lots of different dogs and stories!  Awhile back I bought a copy of one of those books, on line, from an individual, and gave about $25.00 or more for it.  Just had to have it, as a memory of my childhood. (BTW, my Dad would bring me about 1\2 dozen comic books every week, I think on payday!
Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Archie, Dick Tracy, et al.  Unfortunately, all those went up in smoke when we had a garage fire, and I had saved them for years!)  At collector's prices, I could probably have bought a new car. 
One day soon, when I get a chance (ha ha) I will pull my copy of my bookclub's selections and COUNT them, reporting to you wonderful readers!

[BarbStAubrey]

[Frybabe]

Oh yes, exactly right, Barb.

I've been dealing with other issues the last few days, so haven't gotten around to finishing my list. Hope to be back later today with it.

Ginny, I gave up on Goldsworthy's The Fort. It just seemed a lot more dark, gritty, dreary, etc. than the Vindolanda series. That may be my mood rebelling against such. Goldsworthy was very clear, though, that there just is way too little historical info on the time period. I have had the sense that, on reading a few historical books, that the whole area was a bit scary to the Romans who were posted there what with the thick forests, weather, and the unruly tribes they encounter there. But, didn't the Romans encounter similar circumstances in Germany and Scotland?  It seems, too, that the Eastern borders were often a dumping ground for less than stellar performing troops, near retirement legionnaires, and others that were not in favor with the administration or Emperor. Put them all on border patrol duty. I may try again later. Has anyone else read the book?

My last library read was Christopher Paolini's To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. Well written, but a bit overly lengthy. It has what I would describe as a "women turns into a (maybe god-like) superhero" type theme, but it creeps up on her, so you get to read the gradual transformation and discoveries along the way. I was a little disappointed that she didn't get to revert back to herself since there was a budding romance involved.

My newest library read is Becky Cooper's nonfiction True Crime book, We Keep the Dead Close. It is about an unsolved murder at Harvard University back in the late sixties. Very interesting.

[Frybabe]

PatH, I bit the bullet and bought the latest Laiden Universe book. It does sound good, follows Jethrie and his tradings, but it ends in a cliff-hanger according to those who already read it. Like them, I am not too happy about that, but the story sounds good.

[ginny]

Isn't it interesting what books you each would take!!!??? Some of them I've never heard of and yet you'd want THAT one. I need to bookmark those posts, I always hate to be the last one to know a good book.

Reading is SO individual, isn't it?

I totally forgot about Mapp and Lucia, need to have them, too, will smuggle them aboard, although from what I'm reading travel tips wise, I would do better to read them at home before migrating to the island.

Never saw such chaos in travel. And the packed airports with no regard for the new Covid B Omicron variants. Scary.

I once again picked up Jaws and this time put it down for good. You can't  blame  Reader's Digest for the plot which involves a policeman's wife meeting an old flame's BROTHER for Pete's sake, and then immediately taking half a day off to rendezvous with HIM? Oh please. Enough.

Still reading  The Palace Papers, Tina Brown is a good writer. Whether or not her sources are accurate, however, one does wonder. Charles is not looking particularly good in the spot I'm reading in.  She's now gotten to the Harry- Markel part...Not at all sure how the Queen manages to get through all these crises. Margaret was treated in this book  sympathetically, the Queen Mother, not so much. It's all interesting, though, and certainly not a bed of roses as you'd think.

Looking through an old stack of TBR I found the Dana Two  Years Before the Mast and a book about the sinking of the Titanic I have not read. You wouldn't think there would be anything left to say, actually, about the Titanic. I'm about to find out, it's an old book.

I still think the Bligh Journal of what happened when they mutinied and put him out is (again) one of the best bonks I have read, need to sneak IT in, too, and read these two, as well. 

Vice Admiral of the Blue William Bligh, FRS, RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A historic mutiny occurred during his command of HMS Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, 3,618 nautical miles (6,701 km; 4,164 mi), after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers. Fifteen years after the Bounty mutiny, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia, with orders to clean up the corrupt rum trade of the New South Wales Corps, resulting in the so-called Rum Rebellion.

The thing seems to have many titles, I like the one where he's set adrift in a rowboat without?  a compass. It's pretty incredible.

Here's one for those of you with deep pockets:  William Bligh, Log of H.M.S. Bounty 1787-1789, Ltd to 50 Signed by Mountbatten
Free Shipping
$4,750

[Frybabe]

Okay, so here is my list of Desert Island books:

1. Way Station - Clifford D. Simak
2. Romance of the three Kingdoms, attributed to Luo Guanzhong
3. [iThe Name of the Rose[/i] - Umberto Ecco
4. Beacon 23 - Hugh Howey
5, Infinity Beach - Jack McDevitt

This is next to impossible: Alternates include, Hugh Howey's The Shell Collector, or Sand, John Scalzi's Old Man's War, or Fuzzy Nation, H. Beam PIper's Little Fuzzy (Scalzi's book is a retelling of this book with the permission from the estate), The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis (my favorite of her Falco series), Ursula K. Le Quin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Frank Herbert' Dune.

UH, Oh, Ginny! Adrian Goldsworthy is coming out with his take on Caesar's Civil Wars 49-44BC for Osprey Publishing's Essential Histories series. It will be released here on January 17, 2023. But the Amazon blurb says it is an updated version which will include 4/c maps and "40 new images". Something I missed here, was there an earlier, perhaps only published in GB, version? Kind of sounds like it.

[ginny]

Oh good news, Frybabe,  and I did not know either there was a previous book of Goldworthy's  on the Civil Wars, that will be something to look forward to: the maps alone. I wish he'd do a new one on the Gallic War MAP wise, nobody knows to this day where the final battle with Ariovistus took place, but everybody has a theory. And a different map.

 I came in here thinking what interesting books you all have picked for your sojourn on the desert island. It seems everywhere you turn there are lists, best books for summer, etc. It made me think about my own picks and why we read at all.

For instance I note that in my own selections there is nothing about Coming of Age, growing up, youthful struggles. There used to be, but no longer.  I am no longer interested in that subject and it's amazing how many books are written on it, (Marjorie Monringstar, a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Fires of Spring, etc., etc., etc., ) as well as being the young struggling housewife/couple/ mother of young children. That subject matter is no longer of interest to me.

There seem precious few books on those in their so called Golden Years and most of them are mysteries. OR the independent older woman bravely starts out alone but at the end she must find a man to be happy. Must.

 I think what I most liked about Miss Marple, the film version, only with Joan Hickson, is   the character as written is always sort of scoffed at by the police and everybody else,  but then her wisdom is appreciated and even sought out. I especially like Joan Hickson in that part as she WAS 80+ when she acted them. Loved the one where her nephew hires a lady companion for  her and the woman drives her nuts.

When I actually LOOK at my Desert Island books critically to see what it IS I THINK I would enjoy reading again and again, it's kind of striking, actually, the themes....take Remains of the Day. He's old. He wants to matter? He wants to do his job the best anybody can, no matter what.   Same for Mr. Biswas, that determination.

If you had to label your own choices as to theme, do you see any theme common that appeals to you to more than one of them?

Two big newspapers have just done their Must Summer Reading Lists and I can't find even one whose plot I would like to read.

 I AM totally shocked to see Arthur Conan Doyle's beautifully illustrated book The Lost World is about finding dinosaurs in a lost area of...I think... South America...he was first with it. When you think of dinosaurs in the modern world,  you think of Crichton, and the films on his books, don't you?

What's everybody reading?

[Frybabe]

Mystery, adventure, maybe? Way Station combines a little of both plus some philosophical musings without the guy ever leaving home. Infinity Beach is definitely adventure with a goal to seek lost knowledge in a post-apocalyptic US.  The Name of the Rose and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are squarely in the Mystery Department. Beacon 23 is a little harder to characterize. For most of the book there is only one person, the beacon-keeper. Most of my runners-up are adventure. Left Hand of Darkness and Dune are a bit more than that.

[ginny]

It's interesting, isn't it, the types of themes we want at some times, and don't, at others?

I'm still reading The Palace Papers, it's still good, we're in the Andrew chapter now, lots of stuff I did not know, just about fiscal arrangements alone. Also reading a history of the Ritz Hotel in NYC, The Plaza: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel by Julie Satow,  and that's interesting, too. I had no idea about its brutal construction and that  initially it was apartments, mainly, for the well to do. Have you ever been in the Ritz? I've been in it (strange lobby, hard to find, actually,  there was a reason for that) but not stayed there and also in Paris where the lobby is about as big as your closet, designed that way  for good reason, too.   Big old historic hotels really interest me, I guess from working in one the summer of my senior year in high school, the now destroyed Tennannah Lake House in the Catskills.

There we were, the staff, and the band, Skitch Henderson's band from the Tonight Show on a summer gig or something? They were an education in themselves,  ( I learned a singing career was not in the cards, but they were polite about it)..... It was on the top floor in rooms that were 10 by 10 if that, no air conditioning, and no closet, just a coat rack with a sign on the inside of the  door saying the room cost $127 per night, and this was 60 years ago and the Borsch Belt...ah, bygone days. I always said I would return someday, but as a GUEST. I would swan right in.

That never happened, and I was absolutely HOPELESS in every single job they tried to find that I could do. Remember those old switchboards, Mrs. Wiggins and all those plug in wires? That was me. OH the mistakes I made, and I remember every word of them. HOPELESS. The airplane put the end to most of those grand old hotel summer vacations  in the Catskills, where everybody knew everybody else, although Grossingers went on quite a while....The Tennannah Lake House turned into a commune, and is gone.

So old hotels have interested me from that day on, I've made a point to stay in one on each trip, even if only for a night, depending where I was, the one in Rome,  three  in London, the one in Berlin, they each have a story all their own.  Anyway, it's a pretty good book, ebook on Amazon.

Started a mystery by Anthony Horowitz, because I noticed in the credits of the Poirot mysteries with David Suchet (I love the details of those films) that Clive Exton was in charge, script credits to  Anthony Horowitz, who does the script writing  for  SO many shows, and I've heard so much about his "new" Sherlock Holmes books. This one is  called The House of Silk,  from 2011, and the " book was promoted with the claim it was the first time the Conan Doyle Estate had authorized a new novel that is not a Sherlock Holmes pastiche." So for it's good.

What's everybody reading now?

[BarbStAubrey]

zapped to the nub - couldn't read a sentence if you paid me - photos this afternoon - house is so stripped I do not recognize it

[ginny]

 I bet! That's a big job, Barbara!! But hopefully it looks brighter now and you're finished!!

Very interesting article, at least to me, in the Guardian this morning: "My kids love detective stories – and, as I read with them, I can see why."    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/my-kids-love-detective-stories-and-as-i-read-with-them-i-can-see-why

I have been wondering about my current taste in re-watching the David Suchet Poirot, having finished (again) all the Joan Hickson Miss Marples, and having read them all, I'm now re -watching the films, and re-reading the Poirot, picturing David Suchet in the part. I think he's perfect.

I've been wondering WHY? What am I getting out of them?   What do they have other books do not?  and I think the quote above is the answer. Mr. Monk, Poirot, Miss Marple:  they will make everything right, they will right wrong and restore order.  It's an escape from the chaos we live in. It's often humorous.  And possibly childish of me as well. I also  liked Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames, WAY back in the day, too.


Here's a quote from the article: "Like any escape into fiction, it is a childish comfort, willfully ignoring the nuances and messiness of the world. The bad guys always get caught, the good guys always triumph, the loot is always returned to its rightful owner. But it’s a comfort we have sought for ages, across ages, and perhaps more now than ever before."

Another quote:
“If I have any work to do,” WH Auden wrote in his 1948 Harper’s essay The Guilty Vicarage, his exposition on the genre, “I must be careful not to get hold of a detective story for, once I begin one, I cannot work or sleep till I have finished it.”


That's exactly what it is. And I have to wonder if this is a common thread in any fiction of any kind we read. What do you think? If you look at WHAT you read or watch, does ANY of this apply to any of it?

[BarbStAubrey]

OH dear Sally came and got me yesterday noonish and I'm spending a few days here with Paul and Sally in Magnolia so that Kevin can get as many who have indicated an interest in the house through without running the risk of an old lady having fallen asleep on the sofa

I thought I brought all my links and passwords and evidently the password I have will not let me into my email account - then on top I was changing channels on their TV and it said a temporary glitch forgot the words they used and now no matter what I've done cannot get back into the TV - shoot - at least their robot vacuum did it's thing for an hour this morning without my messing it up and I have not messed up either the frig or the micro wave which is a drawer would you believe and the frig has doors within doors - and this is not an extraordinary home - just a middle class home with my son and daughter-in-law in their latter middle years - can you imagine the  home of a younger couple - I bet it talks to you - However, my communications is shot - I'm hoping I can get onto Amazon and read  a book from my kindle list - mighty quiet here till they come home after 5: - I'm going to try a few more links and see if any of them let me in... 

[ginny]

Barbara, sounds like you're thrown into one of those Disney stage sets in their GE Carousel of Progress. I love the look of  those refrigerators, the more doors and drawers the better, it seems to me.  Alas, it would take a lot of carpentry to have one here, due to the age of the house, and the built in  cabinets. Don't think I haven't measured. hahaha

I came in to say I finally finished the Palace Papers, apparently just in time for Harry's forthcoming Memoir, assisted by the Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote the Agassi book, and boy was THAT one a sizzler, I will never forget it. That poor man to this day has to start the day  bandaging his feet. It was a very good book.

I also started and am very much enjoying  Ruth Ware's new book The It Girl (but am in the early stages. The thing lives up to its hype so far , they said the pages almost turn themselves, I agree). So far so good. She wrote the Girl in Cabin 10, so I am expecting plot twists at the end.  She is a GOOD writer.

Am also still reading the  history of the Ritz Hotel in NYC, some Roman history, by Mary Beard, The Twelve Caesars,  and how the statues we see don't reflect the real person and why, and Poirot and Me, which was a book as well as a documentary by David Suchet, (I'm on a Poirot kick now), and it's wonderful. What a charming, lovely man he is. It seems that he's got  nothing bad to say about anybody. A breath of fresh air.  I loved this last mystery on Amazon, the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, you can see how much the cast enjoys each other...really enjoying the book, for once a positive look at Hollywood. And I love the costumes.

I did see him in person and actually went TO see him on Broadway years ago, in Arthur Miller's play The Price, but he wasn't the star (believe it or not). The man who played the part of John Bates in Downton Abbey (remember him, he went to prison, etc., ?) Brendan  Coyle was the main part, something about two brothers and an inheritance, and Suchet was a shyster pawn broker kind of guy, but Coyle was onstage every single minute. I can't imagine the memory he must have to do that part, very impressive.

It's something to see these film stars in person in the theater, and I've seen quite a few of them. Never once a disappointment. Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall) was the last one I saw before Covid, in 2017. He had just won an Oscar for Bridge of Spies, I think. Incredible night, it was a truly magic experience. Tiny theater, lots of interaction between cast and audience.  But in film they are preserved forever. Of course I don't live anywhere near New York City. Imagine being able to see them for the price of a ticket.

That's what passes for me and I  find I'm reading more and more kindle before sleep and paperbacks otherwise.  I wonder why?

Anybody reading anything good?

[Tomereader1]

Ah, Mark Rylance.  His dreamy, sleepy eyes just really made me fall in "love".  I think it was Wolf Hall, then he was excellent in Bridge of Spies.

[Dana]

i managed to get covid somehow so have been at home taking paxlovid and reading.  Not feeling too bad,the paxlovid worked like a miracle and now I am waiting to relapse!
That author I mentioned...Susie Steiner turned out not to be as good as she started out....too much introspection on everybodies' part......but I have been reading Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, which so far just is getting better and better.  I guess you would call it science fiction, a tale told from the perspective of an AF (artificial friend) in a brave and very plausible new world.  Which may be already almost upon us, as I read with shock just yesterday what they have been doing at the Tavistock Clinic in London.  The program (gender modification FOR MINORS!!!!) has just been closed down.  I got really put off psychiatry back in the 90s when they were diagnosing 5 year olds with bipolar disorder and the academic psychiatrists who were writing the papers were pushing valproic acid (an anticonvulsant with mood stabilizing properties).  Then it came out later that the studies on which this recommendation was based were actually funded by the drug company and the docs promoting the drugs and the diagnosis were of course getting kick backs.....psychiatry has a lot to answer for, and I would never do it again.  But The Tavistock lending it's once prestigious name to a program which on the strength of a couple of interviews (I kid you not) messed fundamentally with childrens' developing bodies is completely disgusting.  In my time there was also the false memory syndrome,built up and promoted by psychiatry.  Psychiatry is not a science in which much is understood. If it is a science at all.

I also have been enjoying Robert Galbraith aka JK Rowlings.  Really she is such an acute observer, with perhaps a bit too sharp an eye for the nastier side of human nature.  The actual crime to be solved in her stories is usually horrible (she has a fascination with the macabre I would say) but there is a parallel story line about the relationship between her detective and his assistant which is  delightful.

[Frybabe]

Still listening to the history of Ukraine. Started I started reading The Anarchy by William Dalrymple which is about "the East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire". It begins in the late 1500's. There are two others after this that cover the up to 1852. Bummer, it looks like my online library dropped this and the last book.  Fortunately, I got the first one from Kindle directly. I'll have to do the same for the third. T

A reminder for anyone using Overdrive, they will be discontinuing the "Overdrive" app in January, after which you will have to download the "Libby " app. I am happy to say that they now have a much clearer set of instructions for downloading Libby to Kindle than before. They are still trying to get Amazon approval for an app for Kindle.  I now have Libby on all my Kindle Fires as well as the direct link to Overdrive from the Kobo. I don't know if Kobo will be upgrading to Libby, but the instructions for Android Ereaders should work. However, I have not tried it since I am waiting to see if they update their programing for Libby before mucking about trying to download the android app myself.

I have not settled on the next SciFi read yet.

[Dana]

Finished Klara and the Sun and was reading some reviews .  Some thought it was about the power of love, others a description of the human condition. It was the folly of mind meddling that stuck with me.  I can see where the reviewers are coming from though.  It's a book that keeps you thinking, for sure.  I shall be interested to see what the book club people have to say about it.  Five stars from me though!

PS I read that Gaurdian article too, Ginny
 and was pleased to find another Enid Blyton fan!
I've always liked mysteries but some of the new ones can be just too nasty.  JK Rowling is borderin', as Lord Peter would say......

[BarbStAubrey]

Read for a couple of hours while both son and daughter-in-law were at work on Friday - been watching a lot of baseball with them and with Sally's off days Monday and Tuesday I will probably not get back to reading again till Wednesday - found a delightful what I call chitchat book on Kindle about a women in her early 70s divorces and starts over in a small British coastal community - her son lives in Canada and is scheduled to marry and rather than show up alone while ex comes with his new young bride, she and her new friend decide to find her a good looking man who will accompany her as her partner - each month the plan is to find a possible candidate till they land on the right one - Book called... A Year of Mr. Maybes - cute, light in keeping with a pick me up story to while away some time... half finished and my hunch says she finds more than a wedding ploy traveling companion but a more permanent companion... 

Goodness Dana Covid! Hope you recover quickly - I'm hearing those infected now are not as sick as those infected 2 years ago or maybe they have perfected the meds - JK Rowling has more in her kit than childhood fantasy doesn't she - she is also outspoken and her opinions are not shared by all...I seemed to have missed stories by Enid Blyton Dana - looking at the dates when she was publishing her adventure stories I think by then I was just passed the age when they would have been enjoyable. 

[Tomereader1]

We're reading Klara and the Sun for our f2f book group.  IMO, it is simply a tech-updated version of "Never Let Me Go".  With overtones of the cute kid's movie "Wall-E". I really don't think "Never" was worthy of a Nobel.  Klara is a waste of reading time.  I was perusing some reviews on GoodReads and they certainly run the gamut.  What surprises me is that someone will give this book a 4 1/2 stars, then run it into the ground with their review.  Oh, well, something for everyone I guess.

[Dana]

Oh that's interesting Tomereader! I am so surprised that you find it a waste of reading time. I feel that often!  But not this one. I did find it a beautifully written book which kept me interested.  At the very least I admire his prose style.  Maybe that's what he got the Nobel prize for.  But I have never read any of his books apart from this one.  I also have no knowledge of the movie you mention.  I would think science fiction about AI must be pretty common though.

[Dana]

Hey Barb, thanks for your thoughts.... I feel OK right now but ....who knows....waiting for the recurrence......

Enid Blyton was my absolute top favourite author as a kid in the UK.  Now she is excoriated as sexist, racist ......and who knows what else.
JK Rowling  I admire.  Now that the Tavistock program on gender reasseignment has been closed I admire her even more. ( Not that she had anything to do with THAT, but at least she has been on the side of sanity and not afraid to say so....)

[ginny]

Enid Blyton rang a bell with me, but it was more  muffled than clear,  so I went looking for her, and I do recall some of those stories but somehow I got off on one by Mary McHugh or something like that on How Not to Turn Into a Little Old Lady on kindle, and laughed myself silly through  the pages. Have you all seen that thing? It's a  total hoot and she must know me. The best one so far was the one about when you tell somebody you're 82 (I'm not and I don't say I am  but I've gently  hinted darkly as to being ancient) and they don't look surprised....I just loved that one. Priceless. I think it would be difficult not to find oneself in that book.

I haven't read the Ishiguro one you're talking about, Dana and Tome, but I did love his Remains of the Day. I saw the other day where yet another technician has been fired in real life  for saying that the artificial robots they are working on have "feelings." Wow. Reminds me of R.U.R., an old favorite of mine. How fascinating a topic. After watching the Depp Heard trial I don't know if psychiatry is a science or not. It sure seems to have some very strange experts/ representatives.

Dana, so sorry about the Covid.  I hope you are feeling better now. I'm hoping that this new shot in September or October will take care of  the variants, quite a few people I know have had Covid post boosters.

Tomereader,  I agree on Mark Rylance. How can they make another movie about Cromwell without him?  I read that the stage play is going to star the first cast that did it, however, and they say that actor is really good,  too.

Rylance brought to the Wolf Hall Cromwell a humanity I am not sure the original possessed, and I wonder if that would keep him in any way from doing another. I hope not... I'd like to see that excellent cast reunited, so far as is possible.

Goodreads AND the Amazon reviews are something else sometimes. I  don't  read the ones who go on and on about their own personal qualifications or whatever, I could quote some here which you wouldn't believe that  are just ridiculous. It's not about you, Reviewer, it's about the book itself. But boy are they all different.

 Frybabe, all those technical terms remind me how little I know! KOBO? LIBBY? No wonder you like Sci Fi, you apparently use a very highly technical thing just to read books.

[Tomereader1]

I think KOBO is a reader that ?Barnes & Noble came out with to compete with Kindle.  Libby is the successor to Overdrive, where we get to check out books on our reading devices, whatever they may be, from our libraries.
I didn't think Cromwell had any humanity, from the things I'd read, but in that part in Wolf Hall, Ryland brought it.

I was just thinking, the other night about some beautiful movies that came out just a few years back, that we may have forgotten and one that struck me, was from a book which I had read, and the movie seemed to be, IMHO, a bit better than the book.  At least I thought so..."The Painted Veil".  Beautifully filmed and acted.

[Tomereader1]

A few more of those good movies:

Woman in Gold - Helen Mirren; A Man Called Ove; Salmon Fishing in the Yemen; Words and Pictures (Clive Owen & Juliette Binoche).

And just for fun, a cute, sweet movie that I've watched again and again -  Intern with Robert DeNiro & Anne Hathaway. ( DeNiro in a role like we've never seen him. ) Watch this one first for the fun of it!

Oh, so many good movies that maybe didn't "make a splash" but so well done, enjoyable.  I probably could think of several more, but I'll leave room for your suggestions.  (should've post this in the Movie section, but more people here on a regular basis!)

[Frybabe]

KOBO is a Canadian company that is a subsidiary of the Japanese company Rakuten, https://us.kobobooks.com/ . Books can directly be downloaded from the KOBO site, or from WalmartBooks. Otherwise you need Adobe Digital Editions as an intermediary to download to a KOBO device. While most of Amazon's Kindles dominate the top 10 reviews, KOBO's Clara and Barnes and Noble's NOOK Glowlight rate in the top 10 list of e-readers. It you want an e-reader and do not want to buy from Amazon, they are a good alternative. I do like having the choice. There are a few books from other sources that are not available at Amazon or formatted in with their proprietary programming. This is especially true for some independently published books and sites like Project Gutenberg or others that books available in other formats like .eps. The KOBO also is audiobook capable; I don't know about NOOK.  So, although it sometimes doesn't appear so, there are other choices. I very much like having both the Kindle e-reader and the KOBO. Oh, one more thing, if you use Libby (replacing the Overdrive app which is being discontinued), the KOBO has a direct setting for it while Amazon has not approved the Libby app for sale at their app store (yet). Sorry, I can't comment on NOOK because I have not used it.

[ginny]

That's good to know, thank you, Frybabe, and Tome, I had never heard of any of it.

This sounds really good, Tome:  Intern with Robert DeNiro & Anne Hathaway, I'll look for it.

For some reason I find myself thinking of Penelope Fitzgerald, I sure did enjoy her writing, and I haven't read all her books. She wrote  her first book at 58, at the time I remember thinking how old that was (hahaha)

Here's a bit on her: Penelope Mary Fitzgerald (17 December 1916 – 28 April 2000) was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 The Times listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Observer in 2012 placed her final novel, The Blue Flower, among "the ten best historical novels". A.S. Byatt called her, "Jane Austen’s nearest heir for precision and invention."

And the entire Wikipedia article on her is brilliant, I did not know she went to Oxford, one of the first women students there. She's so economical with words. I wish I were!!!   One of her books fell out of the stacks last week, I think I'll take that as an omen and read it.

[Dana]

I just finished Never Let Me Go which I read as a follow up to Klara and the Sun.  Boy, it's a nightmarish book I would say.  I can't get it out of my head, just like when you have a bad dream and the feeling of it won't go away.  I really wonder why people write books like that.  I have lost my desire to read any more of his books and question his (the author's) mental state.  Is the human race quite as depraved as he makes out?  I know we are pretty awful and have killed and tortured thousands, millions, but are we really so beyond redemption that we would deliberately raise a race of clones to provide spare parts for ourselves and remove bits of them time after time, keeping them alive, and then probably keep on harversting them after they they have died ("completed") and being kept on life support.  A really awful book.

I am in need of something light and cheerful.  Everything I have read recently is horrible one way or another.  The Robert Galbraith detective stories are good but over the top nasty.  I am reading a stupid book for a book club called The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mich Ablom.  About people dying on a lifeboat and god is supposed to be one of them .  Haven't been able to finish it, I may not return to that book club....  I don't see why a book like that would get written.There's no characterization, the story is boring  But it's supposed to be a best seller!

I also had a go recently at Larry Mc Murtry  Lonesome Dove, which I did really enjoy and thought he wrote well, but each follow up book is more horrible and depressing and just plain nasty than the one before.  So I gave up on them...

Maybe I'll try Penelope Fitzgerald, Ginny....

[Frybabe]

Hi everybody! The kitchen remodel is almost done. I am waiting on one more coat of paint, finishing up the wiring (including installing the new ceiling fan/light), putting the screens back in the windows, and installing the dishwasher which is to arrive Tuesday or Wednesday. I will be glad when it is done.

Unfortunately, I lost Lucy several days ago. Besides her ongoing sinus and thyroid conditions, her kidneys were enlarged (one absolutely huge), and it turns out that she had severe spinal stenosis. The vet said he had never seen a cat with such bad spinal stenosis, dogs, but never cats. To say he was surprised is an understatement. It will take me and the "boys" a while to adjust.

I am reading an old book calledThe Grey Lady (1895) by Henry Seton Merriman (Hugh Stowell Scott). I've just been introduced to the characters gradually over several chapters. They include a rather rich, nasty, conniving lady, twin brothers (both seamen), a Majorcan gentleman residing in Barcelona, a young lady who lived on an estate on Majorca, and her uncle (also a seaman). Merriman's best-known novel The Sowers was made into a silent film in 1905, two years after his death. That book was also banned in Russia. I didn't look into why.

Also, I just started listening to The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. I have been wanting to read it again, but when I got the chance to download it to read for free, I couldn't resist. Besides, the cover on my paperback came off and I haven't clued it back on yet. I have to check see what kind of paste to use.

I expect Powers and Thrones by Dan Jones to become available from my e-library within the next week.
 

[Frybabe]

Just got news that David McCullough passed away two days ago.

https://about.simonandschuster.biz/news/david-mccullough/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=sands_social&utm_term=20220808&utm_content=7377861748